a troubled peace

I texted a friend this morning about my laundry and my grocery list and my longing for peace.  She responded with a phone call, and we wondered together about peace, and what that's supposed to look like in the thick of it, out from between the covers of the Bible, so to speak.

We knew all the Christian-ese.

Trusting in the Lord, regardless of our circumstances.
Finding peace in Christ, resting in his promises.
Leaning not on our own understanding, but acknowledging Him in all our ways.

And so on.

Not that these things aren't true.  They are, and we believe them!  It's just - how does that LOOK, lived out?  How DO you have peace when the children bicker and hurt each other's feelings, sometimes on purpose?!  When things are wearing out right and left, and not just clothing and appliances, but relationships, too?  When you turn to the Bible for renewed life, but it all feels stale and familiar and lifeless?

What is this peace like, that can come in the midst of the storm that is life?

          ...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...

I always thought that peace is serenely trusting God without ceasing, brow unwrinkled, heart beating slow and even and certain, sound sleep a given.

But I'm wondering . . .

. . . what if peace is feeling the shallow breathing and the quickened heartbeat, and choosing to trust God's goodness through it?  Despite it.

What if it's seeing destruction and animosity in every direction and somehow hoping for a future held by God, anyway?  Even when you almost can't believe it could be good.


What if peace is not the complete absence of fear and anxious thoughts, but a way through them?

separated? never!

[this is a post from over a year and a half ago, but the day Lil' Snip had yesterday was so similar - and the truths I learned about God are just as timely - that I thought a re-post was in order]


It had been one of those days:  Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice at each other's throats like wild dogs, bickering and blaming and outright brawling, and under and around and through it all, Lil' Snip's grating whine - when did he become a whiner?! - insisting that someone hold him, that someone read to him, read to him, read to him, again!, that someone play with him - nooooo, this way!!

I was ready to die.  [sorry, I know it's dramatic, but that's the way it was.]  Actually - by God's grace alone - I had died, over and over, to my self that day.  And as naptime mercifully approached, and I tucked the loudly protesting toddler under my arm and carried him, struggling violently, up to his cage, I mean crib, God shone His light on my heart, and taught me something beautiful about His.

I still loved that Lil' Snip.  He had been purely intolerable that morning, and somehow I had not only tolerated him, but I still loved that inharmonious, recalcitrant bundle of muscled will.  All his discordant belligerence, his complete lack of courtesy and grace had done nothing - nothing - to separate him from my love for him.  I was happy to be separated from him for a few hours, it's true, but at my core, my heart still beat love, love, love, love toward him.

And that's God's heart toward me, toward you:  nothing, nothing, can separate us from His love.  Sin keeps us from intimacy from Him, but even sin does not change His love for us.

When Lil' Snip awoke, cheerful and compliant (actually, his snit lasted a few days, but let's compress that for the sake of brevity), ready again to receive my love, I forgave* him his obstinance and accepted him gladly back into my arms.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 

Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine

or nakedness or danger or sword?

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, 

neither angels nor demons,

neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, 

will be able to separate us from the love of God 

that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Romans 8:35, 38-39

-------------------------------------------------

* a difference here is that my toddler does not confess his sin; when we, however, "confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:8-10).  Needless to say, another difference is that I, unlike God, am powerless to cleanse Lil' Snip from his unrighteousness, much as I would like to be able to!

fresh starts

I've been spending a good bit of time indoors lately, sitting in my cozy overstuffed chair, reading, working on the blog transfer and my "correspondence" (a.k.a. emails and facebook messages to friends).  It's been good weather for snuggling into a comfy chair:  cool enough for jeans and slippers, but not quite cold enough for my Farmer to want to fire up the pellet stove too often.  Thus, the warm and cozy chair.

The wind's been blowing, though, and with it came milder temperatures, so this morning I ventured out, determined to snip off the unsightly dying flowers of my once-gorgeous new chrysanthemums.  I was feeling disappointed in how long (or short) they'd lasted.  I'd only bought them a couple of weeks ago, and was hoping their jewel tones would enliven my straggly flowerbeds a little longer.

But, c'est la vie, at least we'd had their color this long.  So out I went, insouciance and flower snips in hand.

If you're more of a gardener than I am (which wouldn't take much), then you probably know what I found about an inch below the dead flowers I was clipping off, but to me it was like finding another ice cream sandwich when I was sure I'd eaten the last one in the box:


                                                     New buds!!

This means more flowers (I hope, I hope - please, veteran gardeners, don't burst my bubble if I'm wrong; I'll find out soon enough).  Just as I was mourning the sure and certain end of beauty, it turns out there was more to come, hidden.  Before the death of the old was complete, before I'd even noticed its inexorable approach, probably, the new was being formed.

So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?"  Genesis 18:12

I know - it seems wildly out of context.  Sarah is delighted - and astonished, and probably not entirely believing - at the thought of bearing a child after decades of being barren, and I'm just talking about a second flush of flowers.  Doesn't it show, though, a God who loves to do the unlikely?  Who makes wine out of water, sends a lame man leaping for joy, gives first sight to the born-blind, grants children to the barren, forms saints out of sinners?

Who gives hope to the hopeless?

I've spun dozens of pots on the wheel.  The raw creation of it never gets old.  (I mean, who walks along a creek and envisions dinnerware in its banks?!)  A lump of clay - mud, really - pulled into a graceful vessel.

Mud -> bowl.
Mud ->  vase.
Mud ->  goblet.
Mud ->  teapot.
Mud ->  piggybank.

Unlikely.

But unlikely's nothing to God.  He took mud . . . . and made a living man!

Oh yeah.  My God?  Is a second-flush-of-flowers kind of God.

the desert years

Last week when I went for groceries and the cashier asked me how I was, I was too fresh from my hard in-the-car cry to say "fine" convincingly, so I went with "all right" and as much smile as I had.  She didn't buy it, and raised an eyebrow at me.  I copped out with "it's just one of those days."

Well, today - another grocery run day for me - was pretty much a repeat.

This time, though, I smiled at everyone in the store who would meet my eyes, determined to make my own good cheer.  I chatted with the cashier and bagger, and smiled my way back to my car (where I repacked all my groceries to fit into the cooler.  Mental note:  next time ask them to put the cold items into the blue and the orange reusable bags; together, they fit).

I smiled through the library and the dry-goods store and the BK drive-thru, and then I parked my car in a shaded space at the park, and gazed at flowering hostas and neatly-kept paths and studied the light while I munched my burger.

Amazing, how the light brings things to life.  Grass in the shade is just grass, almost invisible, certainly not noteworthy.  Grass in the sunshine, though, is bursting with vitality - you almost expect it to break into song!  And leaves!  Well, leaves in the sunshine - especially if there is a bit of a breeze - are downright celebratory.  All that dancing and frolicking with light pouring through the chlorophyll in their cells and turning them into living jewels - !  I've tried taking pictures to try to capture it, but am never satisfied with the results.

I want to be like those leaves in the sun - full of life, filled with Life, and instead I so often feel heavy with cares.

Now, level with me, Christians.  Is it just me, or is life hard - even sometimes during seemingly pleasant circumstances?  Even with God?  

The fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control - do you often feel full of that?

I know some bubbly Christians.  Not intimately.  I don't know if I've ever known anyone well who was truly and consistently bubbly.  But there are some I don't know well who bubble quite a lot.

I'd like to be bubbly.  (By now, though, I rather suspect that bubbling is not to be my primary lot in life).

I know that bubbliness is not listed in Paul's letter to the Galatians, but I really want to know:  what should an earnest Christian expect her inner life to look like?  Do anxiety, depression, and heaviness betray a neglect of spiritual disciplines?  Does a lack of vitality resolve with sufficient efforts toward God?

Some people hint that if you're really Spirit-filled, you'll be sort of "on" all the time (or at least most of the time).  Do you actually know anyone like that?  Are you like that?

Is it personality?  Some get to be Tigger, some are slated to be Eeyore?  Is it because we live in a fallen world - nothing will be as it should be until heaven?



For forty years I've gone to church nearly every week.  My family has been Christian for generations.  As a new teenager, I raised my hand to accept Christ as my personal Savior (an experience I was tempted to repeat on numerous occasions, just to make sure I was truly sincere about it).  At the other end of my teens, I was prayed over to receive the Holy Spirit, to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.  I have prayed in tongues. I have seen God answer the prayers of my children, and have received prophecy over my life that has moved me to tears.

Why this dry spell, now??  Why so long, and so wide, and so deep?  I cannot fathom how God gets glory from my tears, from the barrenness of my spirit.



Later on the porch, resting after I'd vented my frustrations a bit with mulch and a shovel, it hit me:  I want to choose the fruit that the Spirit is working in me, and if I had my druthers, I'd choose joy every time.  JOY!  A great big old dose, splashing over onto everyone around me, spreading laughter and hope everywhere I go.

But just maybe, I've overlooked faithfulness, there towards the end of the list.  Good old undervalued Faithfulness - not much of a star in today's culture - plodding along there not unlike Patience, another attribute non-native to my temperament ...



And if it takes a desert to form faithfulness in me, what can I say except "Not my will, but Yours be done, Father"?


So be it.  Even Jesus, after all, spent time in a desert . . .

rest & my raison d'être

Epiphany this morning:  all that stuff I've read about adrenal fatigue and what to do for it, what supplements to take, what tests to have done?  Possibly all I need to do is Learn. To. Rest.

As in, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."

And, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled and about many things, but only one thing [sitting at his feet and listening to Him] is needed."

I used to get annoyed when I worked at a doctors' office and people would call in to make an appointment for their child who was sick, wanting medication so the sick child could still play in their basketball game that night.  I would rage in my head (while politely making their appointment for them) that they should LET THAT SICK KID REST, ALREADY!!!

Now who's caught the busy-sickness?!

Another morning epiphany (see, my Monday has been "productive" already!!):  my reason for being is to observe, and then help others see.  God didn't make me to be primarily a doer.  He gave me eyes to see what not everyone can see, and a desire and ability to communicate what I see.

And [surprised and humbled] - my observations bless people!  Show them God.  Give them hope.

I guess the two insights had to hit at the same time.  I've had people affirm me in my communication ability before, but I've always felt lazy not being a Doer, since observing feels like inactivity.  But this morning I felt like I just needed to take some time before my day's work swallowed me up, to just sit outside with my coffee.  No book, not even the Bible, and just take it all in.  Sunshine, birds singing, children squabbling.... ;)

And while I was doing just that, I remembered a book that I greatly enjoyed - Hal Borland's "Hill Country Harvest" - which is basically one man's observations of the natural world around him.  It's an enormous pleasure to read, and (to pacify the practical side of me) highly instructive as well.  His observations are purely secular (or are they? this is God's handiwork he's admiring, after all ...), but it gives a legitimate pleasure nonetheless - helps me to slow down a bit, to SEE my world better.

That's what I think God put me on this earth to do.  I have no idea how (or when) my observations of life will be shared (I suppose this blog could be a start) - and maybe they'll never reach more than just a handful of people.

It doesn't really matter.  I feel settled now, somehow.  I know what I'm here for!

Then, epiphanies in hand, I went out and weeded.  :)

And then I got sweaty, and my allergy rash got worse, and I started sneezing and came inside.  :)

"... a time to rest ...."

making lemonade

Something is occurring to me:  I'm stuck with me.

Seeing that, you might feel the urge to exhort me that I'm not just "stuck", I'm fearfully and wonderfully made!!!  Or you might want to remind me that others are a lot worse off than me, and I should be grateful for what I have.  You might even want to warn me that I'm sinning in my audacious lack of acceptance for how my Creator designed me.

Maybe you'd be right.

All I know is, since not much has changed in the last 38 years with regard to my basic temperament and aptitude (despite my best efforts to the contrary), I am probably pretty much stuck with being myself, so I might as well make the best of it.  (Not to worry:  I'm not talking about accepting sin in my life, or giving up on God's power to transform me.)  

I'm talking about looking myself square in the face and admitting that although I wasn't given some of the talents that others have, God did give me my own portion of strengths, and I might as well admit it.  That way I can get on with the business of developing them and using them for good, instead of grovelling at the feet of the people I think I should be.

As long as I want to be (or think I should be) someone else [someone organized, say, or someone whose house is always immaculate, someone who plans ahead and actually carries it out, or someone who is always prepared at any moment for anything, someone who is confident and energetic and virtuous], the person God made me to be goes to waste.

So.  There.  It feels like a breakthrough, so I wanted to tell you, but you probably won't be surprised to hear that I have no idea what comes next.

And I think that just might be the point, actually.

I read recently on a friend's facebook page:  

God is radically changing the way we depend on him.  God has been saying, "Stay behind me." I protested, "But God, don't you always tell your friends what you are doing?"  He said, "Yes, and I am telling you that you will not be able to know what I'm doing.  You know nothing about trusting me.  Stay behind me.  And don't peek!" 

We must be convinced in the deepest places that we can trust him.  We will depend on him fully only when we come to the end of ourselves.  [God] won't let any person or any thing on earth meet my needs but him, so that I won't trust in them.

"Stay behind me - and don't peek!"  He says.  

Huh.  

Looks like it might be time to learn to like surprises.

Pollyanna fail

[a resurrected post from the archives of my sugar freedom days]

I could have called this sugar freedom:  day 33 in the style of the previous pro-sugar-free posts, but frankly I'm getting as tired of the titles as I am of the hype.

Don't get me wrong, I am still convinced that going without sugar is good for me.  But.  It.  Is.  H.A.R.D.

There's no magic to it, like I kind of hoped.  No "happily ever after" like I expected.  I like a neat plot, a good story, and so far I haven't ridden off into the sunset, away from the chocolate, with my one true love and a potato.

It's true that my allergy symptoms went away almost immediately.  It's true that I no longer feel that crashing fatigue mid-morning and again early-afternoon.  It's true that my mind is clearer and my emotions have leveled out (somewhat - we are talking about me, after all).  It's even true that I know of at least two people who have been inspired by my experience to begin to cut out sugar themselves.

But the Pollyanna in me is wearing thin (hmmm ... maybe the lack of sugar is starving her!!).  I am still choosing to see the daily miracles, no matter how minute.  But, somehow ...

Doggone it.  I've done it again.

Instead of leaning on the Everlasting Arms, I've gone and pressed hard into something else again.  Something fallible, something weak, something human.  In a word, me.  I've been depending on myself again.  Counting on my resolve to solve all my problems, instead of casting my cares on Him who cares for me.

When will I learn?

"May God Himself [not me, not Kathleen DesMaisons], the God of Peace [not of striving], sanctify me through and through.  May my whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The One who calls me is faithful, and He [not I] will do it."   

I Thessalonians 5:23-24

"Bring on the sanctification, and make it snappy" has been my approach.  Not working, can you tell?  God will refine when He is ready to refine.  My job is to wait on Him, trust Him, praise Him anyway.

"Be still, and know that I am God."  Psalm 46:10

"Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."  Isaiah 40:30,31

separated? never!

It had been one of those days:  Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice at each other's throats like wild dogs, bickering and blaming and outright brawling, and under and around and through it all, Lil' Snip's grating whine - when did he become a whiner?! - insisting that someone hold him, that someone read to him, read to him, read to him, again!, that someone play with him - nooooo, this way!!

I was ready to die.  [sorry, I know it's dramatic, but that's the way it was.]  Actually - by God's grace alone - I had died, over and over, to my self that day.  And as naptime mercifully approached, and I tucked the loudly protesting toddler under my arm and carried him, struggling violently, up to his cage, I mean crib, God shone His light on my heart, and taught me something beautiful about His own.

I still loved that Lil' Snip.  He had been purely intolerable that morning, and somehow I had not only tolerated him, but I still loved that inharmonious, recalcitrant bundle of muscled will.  All his discordant belligerence, his complete lack of courtesy and grace had done nothing - nothing - to separate him from my love for him.  I was happy to be separated from him for a few hours, it's true, but at my core, my heart still beat love, love, love, love toward him.

And that's God's heart toward me, toward you:  nothing, nothing, can separate us from His love.  Sin keeps us from intimacy from Him, but even sin does not change His love for us.

When Lil' Snip awoke, cheerful and compliant (actually, his snit lasted a few days, but let's compress that for the sake of brevity), ready again to receive my love, I forgave* him his obstinance and accepted him gladly back into my arms.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 

Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine

or nakedness or danger or sword?

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, 

neither angels nor demons,

neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, 

will be able to separate us from the love of God 

that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Romans 8:35, 38-39

-------------------------------------------------

* a difference here is that my toddler does not confess his sin; when we, however, "confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:8-10).  Needless to say, another difference is that I, unlike God, am powerless to cleanse Lil' Snip from his unrighteousness, much as I would like to be able to!

night vision

[yet another eye-opener from my Lil' Snip:]

Up the morning steps I go, toward the sound of energetic, tuneless singing, punctuated by enthusiastic commentary in the little yellow room.  I round the corner, unlatch his door, and swing it open - always an excitingly unpredictable moment, followed by anything from a happy "Mommy!!!" to a suddenly, inexplicably furious squeal.

This morning, he's standing in the far corner of his crib, pointing hard at his changing table.

"There's a fox!!!" he exclaims.

A what?  I open the blinds and let light in.  Yesterday's jeans and shirt lie crumpled in a pile.  He looks.

It doesn't take long for him to regroup with a revised exclamation:  "When it was dark, it was a fox!!"

Ahhh.....!  Not "oops, it was only my clothes," not "it was dark; I couldn't see," not "I was wrong," but "when it was dark, it was a fox."

He's just a toddler.  He couldn't know that what I heard was myself, insisting on the truth of a lie freshly-exposed by the light, unwilling to release an old familiar hurt to embrace instead an opportunity for life.

Open my eyes, O Father of the heavenly lights, to see what's truly there, instead of pictures painted in shadows.  Open my heart to receive your good gifts.

Every good and perfect gift is from above,

coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,

who does not change like shifting shadows.

He chose to give us birth through the word of truth

James 1:17, 18

refuge

Earlier this morning as my children and I performed our various obligations, Lil' Snip came running to me, tears streaming, wailing with toddler offense.  He flung himself at me, and with his sturdy little self came a flash of insight:  I am his refuge.

This is what refuge is - it's what you run to, when you're in trouble or afraid.  It's what you fling yourself on, when you need comfort, or help, or defending.

Even (sometimes) when the one who is your refuge is the one who you're angry with.

Cast all your cares on him, for he takes care of you.

I Peter 5:7

What do I run to for comfort?  facebook?  chocolate?  friends?  books?

Where do you turn?  shopping? exercise? work?

Not bad things, those, just not a true refuge, not a fortress, not powerful to save.

Let's run to the One who made us, who has loved us since before we were born.  The One who truly cares about us. The One who truly can and does take care of us.

He alone can comfort, help, defend and protect.  He alone is a Refuge.

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,

though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains quake with its turmoil.

Psalm 46:1-3

blinded, mostly

God is up to something.


Of course He is - He always is.  But -

- sometimes He peels back the curtain a bit and invites us to look in.  It takes my breath away, every time.  Even before I understand what I'm looking at.

It makes me realize that He's always up to something, and it's always more than I could comprehend in my wildest dreams, and it's always good.


Just sayin.'

Stay alert.  Watch, and pray.  Your prayers matter, more than you think.  You are part of the plan, and when He's ready, He will reveal the little bit that you can handle in this lifetime, and if you look closely ....


.... maybe you'll see the twinkle in His eye.

glimmers of hope

Sometimes, when you're too weak to stand, when you're too weak even to ask for help, friends will come and put your arms around their shoulders and lift you up.


Those are God's shoulders.


Sometimes, when you're too tired to keep back the tears, and they fall to your shame, friends will see, and wipe them for you, with their own hands.


Those are God's hands.


Sometimes, when your own heart is too weary to know the way, friends will beg God on your behalf, pouring their hearts into their prayers.


That is God's heart.

"For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them.  As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.  

"I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy.  I will shepherd the flock with justice.  I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests in safety.  

"I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing.  I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing."  (from Ezekiel 34)

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

(Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice)

For [God] says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,  and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”  It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.               (Romans 9:15-16)

[words from an old hymn I remember my mother singing in church]

There shall be showers of blessing:  

This is the promise of love.

There shall be seasons refreshing,

Sent from the Savior above.

There shall be showers of blessing;

Send them upon us, O Lord.

Grant to us now a refreshing;

Come and now honor Your Word.

There shall be showers of blessing; 

O that today they might fall,

Now as to God we're confessing,

Now as on Jesus we call!

Showers of blessing,

Showers of blessing we need.

Mercydrops round us are falling,

But for the showers we plead.

(Daniel W. Whittle)

"Mercydrops 'round us are falling, but for the showers we plead ..."

foggy day

I drove to moms' group this morning through fog.  I love fog.  It's exciting to me:  feels like adventure around the corner, mysteries about to be unveiled, impossibilities becoming possible (all good, of course).  "Grownup" that I am, I almost expect to find fairyland come to life when I'm in the fog.

I know some people hate fog; they preach its danger for drivers and dub it fearful.  I do slow down, use low beams, everything my father taught me.  But I still like fog.

I remember one of those so-called psychological tests popular in high school (and beyond, for some of us) where you ask questions and take note of answers and then reveal the key to the test-taker's inner truth in the symbolism of the questions.  This one asked what you feel in the fog.

I said "anticipation".

In the answers, fog symbolized the afterlife.

If that "test" is as bogus as all good pseudo-psychology is, then I probably like the fog because one of my favorite childhood books was about a city that only existed in the fog.

But if there's any truth to the symbolism, my answer would still be the same.  When I think of life after death, I feel delighted anticipation.  As much as I enjoy life and find it unthinkably awful to leave my family brokenhearted behind me, I confess that I am eager to run into the arms of my Savior (Luke 15:20), to have him present me "without fault and with great joy" to the Father (Jude 24), to have finished, finally, the race set before me and to receive that which was unattainable to me here on earth:  a crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4:6-8).

To know fully my Maker, as I am fully known (I Corinthians 13:12), to worship unfettered by fears and distractions, to receive a new name (Isaiah 62:2-5; Revelation 2:17), to be done with weariness, to have every tear wiped away, to no longer know pain or crying (Revelation 21:4), to drink from the crystal river and to live in the Light of the Lamb ... surely this is worthy of anticipation.

So I'll drive carefully in the fog.  But I'll always be looking around the corner, too, for Life Eternal.

cozy

I'm sitting here by the fire this evening, and I keep feeling all these delicious new empty spaces in my house now.  The peace is such an untold secret .... but good secrets like that are for sharing.  It all started two months ago, I think, when I started doing coursework online that changed my focus from fitness to feasting.

I had hoped to lose a few pounds, but as I filled up my soul with truth, I began to shed excess everywhere.

What was first?  . . .  Books, I think.  I went through my shelves of fiction and "self-improvement" and gave away diaper boxes full.

It was like shouting in the Alps in avalanche season:  suddenly everywhere I looked, I saw deposits of unnecessary accumulation.  Out the door it went!

CDs and the CD tower.

More books.

Toys (the children, believe or not, helped with enthusiasm!).

Seldom-used bowls from the backs of cupboards.

Clothing (mine, and baby clothing languishing in the attic, "just in case").

Still more books.

Technological detritus.

Puzzles and games.

Papers that once seemed important.

[The funny thing is, it's actually difficult to think of what all I've gotten rid of - and some of this was stuff that we had to ponder over whether or not we'd miss it.  Needless to say, we don't.]

And as the stuff left, it seemed to release something in us that we didn't even know had been bound.

I painted a door.  He built a shelf.  I started sewing curtains planned a year ago.  He cleaned out the garage.  I painted another door.  He started building me a pottery wheel.  I moved all my pottery from littering my windowsills into a display case in my pottery room.  He attacked that ominous stack of papers.  I fixed a crooked curtain rod and hung a shade.


It's almost like . . . 
                             . . . the stuff we own . . . .
                                                                       . . . . owns us. 


And releasing our stuff, releases us.


Try it:  look around; can you find something to give away?  Something else?  Can you give until there are empty places?  Until you find yourself smiling a little more?  Until you see how restful blank walls and empty corners can be?

I don't know if it ever stops, honestly, if there's ever a time when there's nothing left to give away.  That's okay.  I don't think it's meant to be a task to be completed.  I think the giving's the thing.

And the spaces that are left - the wide open peaceful spaces - are the first reward.

There's also this strange security:  I didn't need all that stuff.  I'm okay without it.  I'm enough.

It's quite cozy.  I think you'll like it.

laying it down...

... again.

And again.

... and yet again.

This Jesus guy, he means business.  I guess I should have figured that out when Peter, all pious intentions, asked how often one ought to forgive, and offered seven times, magnanimously, he thought.  This Jesus corrected him:  "not seven times, but seven times seven."

So when he says "whoever wants to follow me must deny himself", he means that, and he means it all the way.  Not just once and done, but daily.  (He knows we need the practice, I guess)  If you tell him that you will, that you want to follow him and you're willing to deny yourself in order to do so, your incomplete comprehension is no impediment to him.  He just sets about teaching you.  Right away, if not sooner.

I got me a teaching this morning.

A few days ago I finally bought an armload of material for making curtains for our bedroom, five windows-worth.  The idea had been conceived over a year ago, so now that I have the fabric, I was eager to get the project underway.

Just a little bill-paying this morning, and then while Isaiah had his "rest" (euphemism for "we all need a little break from you and 60 minutes would almost do the trick") I would lay out the first two curtains and get cutting.

But....

"... lay it down ..."

God's plans for my morning did not include making curtains.

He had in mind, instead, correcting pride in one daughter, and rebellion in another.  Scripture was called for in one situation, extra chores in the other.  Tears were involved in both.  Faithfully, pulling the Lion's share of the load on his side of the yoke, he led me true.  Spirits were softened, not broken.  Hearts were gently polished of imperfection until they shone.

It worked, and it was beautiful.  I was grateful, but still I cried.

It was "just" giving up my plans, my desires, my hopes for "my" time.... again.  Just another laying down.  Sometimes it seems that motherhood is knit almost entirely of this difficult, knotted, slippery yarn.

I am hoping it gets easier with time.  Or, at least, that I get more willing.

drilling deep

We were getting dressed for bed in that cold north bedroom of ours, the heater doing what it could.  I don't remember the events of the day, except that it had been restless.

I had been restless.

And it showed.

We were talking, voices low, guarding the sleep of the children with sharp ears.  I said something about joy, I think - or about joylessness, more probably.  And that's when he looked at me and said:

"God loves you.  I love you.  The children love you.  What more do you want?"

I didn't answer.  I still haven't answered.  I don't know the answer.  I don't even understand the question, I guess.

But it points to somewhere that I want to know.

: : :

And now today.  Monday.

The "baby" (who's really a toddler, I know) cries into my tired ears about cutting molars and not wanting to sit in his highchair and no one understanding what it is that he is trying so hard to do.  And the laundry whirls and the daughters bicker and the stack of papers tap-taps at my brain and the baby cries.

And I'm fasting today.  I want to focus on God and so many things tear me away, over and over.

And the baby cries.

And suddenly I see that even this chaos, this cacophony of neediness, is enough to sustain me.  The tears well again to think of it, but it is:  enough.  Their love for me and God at my side in the midst of the laundry and the baby, is enough to nourish me in this moment.

 ... and the restlessness dissipates in the music of the mundane.

: : :

Every tune composed is made up of notes.  The same notes, available to every songwriter.  It's how they're put together - and the spaces in between - that make music sublime, or not.

Lord, let me string these notes you've given me today into praise ...

: : :

# 780 - 789
            Spice's compassion for the homeless
            prayer:  light in fear's darkness
            my very present Help in trouble
            grace to obey
            that a Bible can be pretty, too
            luxury (responsibility?) of choice
            piercing question, drilling deep:  "God loves you.  I love you.  The children love you.  What more do you want?"
            tears
            abundance from His hand
            my fearless Farmer, who sees possibilities instead of problems

fuel up

Ever feel kind of empty this time of year?

I don't mean your stomach - if your house is like most, there are plenty of cookies around to take care of that.

I mean your soul.

It's Christmas:   "Joy to the world, peace on earth, goodwill toward men" and all that.  But if reading that leaves you feeling more hungry than happy, if it brings a bitter retort to your lips about
               family feuds
                        and low checkbook balances
                                 and ungrateful children
                                           and harried servicepeople
                                                    and other impediments to peace, joy, and love ....

.....then lay down your credit card and your grievances and hear this:


"Come,  all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;
                and you who have no money,
                                              come, buy and eat!
                       Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.


"Why spend money on what is not bread,
                             and your labor on what does not satisfy?


"Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
                             and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
                                 Give ear and come to me;
                                      hear me, that your soul may live. ..."

Isaiah 55:1-3, 6

"whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst."  

John 4:14

"Come to me, 

all you who are weary and burdened, 

and I will give you rest.  

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, 

for I am gentle and humble in heart, 

and you will find rest for your souls.  

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."  

Matthew 11:28-30

git 'er done

I did it - that terribly little thing - and now I'm free!

                                                               [and so, perhaps, is a child]

fleshing out faith

I've always been a pragmatist.  An optimistic realist, I'd say.  Love the lofty, absolutely, but if it doesn't work, out it goes.

I would say I believed in prayer, believed in a healing God, a God who hears and loves to answer.  When I prayed and got an immediate answer, I was thrilled.  My faith, I thought, was bolstered and increased.

When I prayed and nothing happened, I'd chalk it up to some mistake I'd made in praying or in hearing God, and forget about it.

Rarely did I persevere in prayer.  Somehow I figured that if God wanted to grant my request, he'd do it right then. ...  I wonder how many answers I've missed seeing because I'd lost sight of the prayer I prayed?



Then the other day I got a shock.

I read in Hebrews chapter 11 about people who believed God and clung to faith even though they never saw fulfillment of the promises they were given.  I've read it before, of course, but it never really struck me:  they died, believing without seeing.  A whole lifetime of faith, passed down to children:  "What our God has said, He will surely do."

Nothing happened, but "nothing" didn't shake them.


They believed anyway.


Suddenly my faith looks tiny.  Microscopic.  Nonexistent?

I rejoice in stories of God's faithful provision for others, but when he asks me  to step out in faith and do something that makes me vulnerable and completely dependent on him .... I hesitate.  "Did I really hear you, God?  But that doesn't make sense.  What if ....?"

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path.  Proverbs 3:5-6

 I want to pray for boldness, courage, an increase of faith ... but I hear him ask me to trust him with what I have, now.  Trust him through my fear - obey without comprehension.

It's no more than what I ask of my own children.  And I, the far-from-perfect parent, frustrate myself with wondering why they disobey, why they hesitate, why they don't trust.

Oh, humanity!  Oh, the patient mercy of our God!

He is perfect.  He is loving.  He is trustworthy.  His plans for me are not to harm me, but to prosper me, to give me a future and a hope  (Jeremiah 29:11).

If I can't trust God, who can I trust?  

And if I trust no one but myself .... my record does not recommend itself, frankly.  Do I really want to forge my own way?  Depend on my own frailty for sustenance?  And if I don't trust him, why should he uphold me?

I am at an impasse.  Will I listen to fear?  


Or to love?


[and oh, if you only knew the tiny thing he asks of me ... !]

refining

Does silver hurt, do you think, when its shape melts away in the crucible, and dross mars the mirror, twisted and black and ugly?

Does the caterpillar hurt as it hangs in a "J" and waits for the change coming under its skin, shrugged off to unveil chrysalis?

When it changes again, tight in shiny green, inexplicably growing wings, does it wonder and chafe at the change?  

When the chrysalis clears... 

...and the wings fall out new, does the butterfly, confounded, long for the old, the familiar worm?  I wonder.

Do autumn trees, losing glory a drop at a time, mourn for lost lushness of summer? 

Do they stumble on starkness and cold?  Do they sense any glimpse of the spring?

I wish I knew.

I wish I knew how silver endures the furnace it's in:  heat, and more heat, till purity reflects the face of the refiner himself.

"For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality."  I Corinthians 15:53

"to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds;

and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."  Ephesians 4:22-24

"be transformed by the renewing of your mind."  Romans 12:2

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."  Galatians 6:9

"You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. 

O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever."  Psalm 30:11-12

"Be still and know that I am God."