tests

The Gift of Need

/ amylynw / 1 Comment

I’m not sure how many people know, but Nadine & I are planning on going to Haiti in February for a short mission’s trip.  We have seen God providing for us through many incredible ways.  We were able to send away for our passports two weeks ago, and are eagerly waiting for them to arrive.  As I pray for God to prepare my heart, I am finding that He’s not doing it in ways I was expecting.

The past few months have been an incredible ride of faith.  By incredible, I don’t mean that it’s been smooth-sailing, bump-free, or fear-less.  It’s been more like a wild stomach-losing ride that’s left me breathless and wondering how I’ll make the next turn, or the next day.  It’s been a constant leaning on the Man in the boat.  I have, at many times, panicked instead of trusted.  I’ve cried out, We’re perishing!  When in reality we are just being rocked a bit.

As part of my preparation, I’ve been feeling very needy.  Not exactly what I had in mind, God, I think.  Especially three weeks before Christmas.  Yet He’s been telling me this: needy is a good place to be.  It allows room for God to meet us and others to bless. Yet it’s hard to admit need, isn’t it?  Hard to let God take me where I feel uncomfortably dependent on Him alone.  Hard to be in a spot where I’m accepting other’s help instead of offering my own.  A lot of times, people have no idea they’re even doing it.  I can’t express it enough: we need to listen to the Holy Spirit’s promptings.  They might just be the echo of someone’s prayer in need.  Twenty dollars tucked in an envelope… no one knew the gas tank was empty and there were places to go.  A gift card for some coffee… no one knew how badly this mama needed that break.  A meal… no one knew the fridge was empty.  A letter, a comment, an encouraging word… no one knew how many doubts have risen up to try to break down this heart with discouragement.  Generosity trumps need.

We each have our own poverty.  It is a difficult thing to embrace.  Yet I think it is something which brings us closer to the power of God.  When we have an empty, impoverished part of our life or soul, God is able to fill it.  If we have need of nothing, then we have no need of God.  This must be why Paul said that he would glory in his weakness.  We often think of poverty as the obvious famine-ravished country in Africa.  Yet there is more to poverty than just a hungry belly.  Sometimes it is financial: five dollars left in the bank, with bills still arriving in the mail.  Sometimes it may be more hidden: a relationship which is torn, a loneliness that is insatiable.  Sometimes it is a poverty of the spirit and soul, a feeling like there is nothing left to give, nothing to offer. God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for Him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.  (Matt. 5:3)  We are blessed.  No longer self-sufficient.  God’s blessings are more meaningful because He is able, in our poverty, to meet our need.   When we experience poverty, that is when we experience God’s power to provide.  And when we’ve experienced that power, it is impossible not to give back to God and touch others in need along the way.DSC_7094

The Quality of Endurance

/ amylynw / 4 Comments

Twenty-three minutes later, I’m drenched in sweat.  My second cross-fit workout is in the books.  My new coach, long-time friend, and husband of ten years, is planning out daily workouts for me to do.  I was terrified of the burpees, but did all 45 of them, in addition to the other things on my list.  I was afraid of what people would think when they saw a crazed mother in a bright orange shirt, running around the block yet again.  But I did it anyway, and it feels good… now.

That wasn’t the only tough thing to swallow today.  This morning Matthew went to his ENT doctor to see what’s going on inside his ears and nose.  He’s been having a wicked ear infection, related to the other issues in his sinuses, brought about by Wegener’s disease.  The news wasn’t exactly good.  For a few years he’s had a hole in his septum, which has stayed the same, never getting worse.  Today, however, the doc said it is considerably bigger, and Matthew will be needing reconstructive surgery within the year to repair the damage.  What this looks like, exactly, we don’t know yet.  He said they will probably use a part of his rib!  It is all a lot of new stuff to take in and think about.  We have had our tears.  Not necessarily tears of discouragement, as much as feeling worn out with it all.  It’s like a race that you know isn’t over, but this particular loop is just super tiring.  More medicine.  More surgery.  No improvement.  It’s a vicious cycle.  It’s amazing how such a tiny part of his body can literally be eating away at itself, even though the rest of his body is in excellent physical shape.

When troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  These muscles in my body don’t have a chance at growing unless they are put under some serious pain and suffering.  I will never endure more than a walk around the block unless I subject myself to two blocks, and then more.  In the same way, when our faith is tested, our endurance to hold on, grows.  Our Heavenly Father is not just concerned with the end result.  He’s very in tune with the process of getting there.  A process which doesn’t always make sense to us.  But we trust Him and do another set of burpees, so to speak.  Because we want to be like Jesus.  He set the example very high, of what true endurance through trial is like.  He trusted His Father, and so must we.  As we relax into His strong arms, there is little room for anger.

As Matthew prayed today, “We are not children of a poor man.”  No, our God is very rich.  Tonight we choose to believe His promises, and we choose to sing:

…Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

Bless the Lord oh my soul
Oh my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
Oh my soul
I worship Your holy name

You’re rich in love and You’re slow to anger
Your name is great and Your heart is kind
For all Your goodness I will keep on singing
10,000 reasons for my heart to find

Bless the Lord oh my soul
Oh my soul
Worship his holy name
Sing like never before
Oh my soul
I worship your holy name

(-Matt Redman, 10,000 Reasons)

 

222,222

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Two-hundred-twenty-two-thousand-two-hundred-and-twenty-two.  Wow.  Our incredible van recently pulled out the cool mileage of 222,222 on the odometer.  It’s been an “Ebenezer” to us, reminding us that, thus far the Lord has helped us. (1 Samuel 7:12)  We’ve never named it before, but maybe it’s time.  It failed inspection yesterday, which I find both reassuring and faith-building.  Count it pure joy, we’re told.  It’s reassuring that God is still in control and that He hasn’t changed.  Our faith grows when we’re faced with trials of different kinds.  This particular trial comes on the heels of some recent study and thoughts I’ve had on God’s love.

So often we think of God’s love as a tidy package in perfect wrapping, tied with a bow.  I just finished reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  My heart feathers have been ruffled in a good way.  I’ve been thinking a lot about God’s crazy love.  In Ephesians, Paul prayed that we would know that love now.  How can we know this love that surpasses knowledge?  I think one of the first ways is to stop putting our own definitions and expectations on God’s love.  Stop equating God’s love with blessing, ease, and provision.  God promises to always love us, but He didn’t promise that we would be free from pain, sickness, heartache, trials, and even death.  No, He rather promises that these things won’t separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Romans 8:38-39)  There is no aspect of God’s love that promises you peace, safety, and posperity.  When we’re faced with trials of every kind, these things should test our faith and in turn increase our knowledge of God’s love.  We are such emotional creatures.  If God allows us to suffer, we think He has stopped loving us.  Our mindset in this culture is to eliminate all difficulty, pain and discomfort.  I’m not saying we should all switch our water-heaters off or start walking everywhere.  I’m not actually saying anything, except that we need to examine ourselves to see if we’ve placed such a high priority on safety and comfort at the expense of reliance and trust in God.

Complacency and ease are often the very things which wedge our hearts farther from a true knowledge of Him and His love.  When we face really hard things, they either break us or make us.  I hope and pray that my faith in an unchageable God will grow stronger through fire.

Ebenzer.  Thus far the Lord has helped us.  I am persuaded.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Expecting Big Changes!

/ amylynw / 2 Comments

So today is pretty significant on our list of “big days”.  Matthew is finishing up his last day of carpentry employment and then we turn the page and look at a huge blank sheet of paper.  Let me back up a bit.  For many years we’ve known that carpentry was just a means to an end, or at least a paycheck.  It has been a blessing, but we’ve recently felt the whispers of the Holy Spirit telling us to step out of the boat.  Leap off the cliff.  Cross that bridge that we can’t see but know is there.  You get the picture.  It’s not an easy task, but God never told us we wouldn’t feel afraid, He just said to be strong and courageous.  He said that He will never leave us.  He said that He’s completely trustworthy and knows the days of our book before any pages were even written.  He is a mighty refuge and a strong tower; we run to Him and are safe.  When all of those things are true (and they are!) we have nothing to fear, though I’ve already felt twinges of it creeping into my heart and mind when I don’t let the peace of God stand guard against it.

After today, what is our plan?  We can tell you roughly, but in reality our steps are ordered by God, so our lives are really like blank slates waiting for Him to fill in the details.  Matthew will be pursuing His life-long dream of teaching the Bible and doing pastoral work.  He will be hanging out with the fabulous pastors at our own local church, studying on his own, and teaching in the future.  He also wants to pursue becoming a personal trainer, so he will be studying intensely for the next couple of weeks to take a test to become certified.  His two passions of sports and people were perfectly meshed together on Sunday.  He came home from “checking out” a soccer game in town with a huge smile on his face and a soccer uniform in his hand.  For the next couple of months he will be playing for Mexico and polishing his Spanish skills alongside his soccer skills!

So, as far as the how and when our future will “fall into place”, we wait on the Lord to direct our steps to the right people, the right circumstances, and the perfect things he has in store for us to do and experience.  We live in the now.  I love the lyrics to this Michael Card song:

There is a joy in the journey
There’s a light we can love on the way
There is a wonder and wildness to life
And freedom for those who obey.

A Host of Ordinary

/ amylynw / 4 Comments

“If we were never depressed, we would not be alive.  If we were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation.”  I think depression is one of those things that is both never talked of, or spoken of too much.  It is debilitating, but it is also used as a crutch and a homey little corner to hang out in while the world keeps marching past.  I’ve been in both places.  It is comforting to know that depression is in fact confirming that I’m alive.  I am not something material, I am someone with a soul.  I have been silent on the topic for the most part, thinking that if I admit that I’ve been depressed then that equates having lost my faith in God.  Not true!  I have also used depression as a crutch.  Not peeling out of my pajamas, not showering, not eating correctly, basically nursing this depression in my heart in order to feel something.  If I feel like a failure, then at least I feel like something.  Those are depressing words, and they’re words I’ve believed.

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah had just come off a very enormous high.  God showed Himself so powerful.  Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal, prayed until it rained, and then the power of God came upon him so that he ran 17 miles from Mt Carmel to Jezreel, arriving ahead of Ahab’s chariot.  After all these incredible happenings, he became afraid of a threat from Queen Jezebel and ran for his life, about 90 miles away.  Then he left his servant and ran one more day into the wilderness alone, before collapsing into a bitter state of depression.  Elijah?  The same guy who “prayed earnestly that it would not rain for 3 years and it did not rain”?  The same guy who again “prayed earnestly that it would rain and it rained”?  The Bible says he was a man just like us.  He was alive.  He felt highs, he felt lows.  That week he pretty much went from the highest high, to the lowest low.  He wanted to die.

What did God tell him to do then?  “Here, do something great for me and you’ll snap out of it.”  Nope.  God told him to get up and eat.  Simple, right?  Well, if you’re anything like me, those simple instructions from the Lord are the ones that are often the hardest to do.  I’d rather do something that looks good on the outside, or maybe even go to a Bible study to make myself feel better.  The antidote for depression is obeying what God is telling us to do.  “Get up,” might be the first step.  “Get dressed,” might be step two.  “Splash some water on your face,” might be step three.  It’s one step in front of the other.  It is ordinary, non-spectacular acts of obedience that meet depression where it rears its ugly head.

Every day God inspires us to do the ordinary.  I see and hear it all. day. long.  SURELY there is more to motherhood than another poopy diaper, or dirty bowl, or broken plate, or teary naptime, or sleepless night, or messy room.  Surely there is more to my life than the host of ordinary things that pepper my life each day.  But God is in them.  He inspires them to happen each day.  He is the God of the ordinary and spectacular.  Every once in awhile we might have a Mt. Carmel experience, but generally speaking, our life is more like a drought or a run through a desert.  How awesome it is when out of the depression comes a gentle voice encouraging us to “get up and eat.”  He always provides what we need.  He didn’t tell Elijah to eat without first putting the food right there beside him.

There is no excuse for me not to get dressed… I have clothes.  There is no excuse for me not to shower… I have running water.  There is no excuse for me not to exercise… I have all my faculties.  There is no excuse for me not to eat… I have food.  There is no excuse for me to eat too much… I have self-control.  There is no excuse for me not to do every single one of the things depression tells me are impossible to do.  When we do what God’s Spirit simply tells us to do, depression is gone.  However, because we’re still alive, it will always come lurking.  May you be encouraged to fight this horrible beast with the most ordinary, God-inspired tasks that He puts in your life each day.

Seventy-Three

/ amylynw / 3 Comments

If I waited until things got perfect around here to write, this blog would end right here and now.  Lately I’ve been on the edge of a huge deep ravine into which I  felt a bit like I’m slipping.  Then the Wonderful Counselor brought this Psalm to my mind.  It reminds me that I’m not the first one in history to think these thoughts.  He also offers a solution to these downward spiraling emotions.  My feet had almost slipped.  I had nearly lost my foothold.

It’s so easy to wish for more.   For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

The latest bloodwork and CT scan shows that Matthew’s sinuses are still being a pain and he will have to have another infusion in the near future.  At times I feel like They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong.  They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills. 

But then I remember that  They say, “How would God know?  Does the Most High know anything?”  And I am blessed to know that He DOES.

But I’m still doubtful and compare myself to others.  People who seem like they have it all together with their laundry piles, bank accounts, child-raising, meal-planning, body type and choice of vehicle.  When I stay in this place, though, it’s a scary, slippery place to be.  I have to get out of here.

When I tried to understand all this,  it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God;

That sanctuary often becomes the place where I stop and stand on the outskirts.  All of a sudden I notice the muddy shoes, the messy hair, the worn out clothes on my not-perfect body.  So many times I walk away when I’m just one step away from entering His presence.  I let doubt overtake the truth.  I’m not good enough, I believe.  What I’m really saying is that Jesus isn’t enough.

When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.  When I realize my error and take in a little bit more of the depth of Christ’s love that has clothed me in perfection… I step inside His sanctuary.  The surroundings are always different.  I used to imagine that the ideal place to meet with God was on a sunny window seat with fluffed pillows and the perfect cup of tea in hand.  If I wait for that, though, I will forever stand on the outskirts of God’s presence.  Right now it’s in the middle of our house with car noises in the background and the smell of baking banana bread wafting through the air.  There is noise, so often noise, in the sanctuary.  That is when I excuse myself because I can’t possibly be in the presence of the God of Heaven.  He can only be where perfect peace and quiet exist… not clutter and mess and unbelieveably loud decibles.  When I think that way, I never live in His presence.  I slip into behaving like He’s not around, and I hurt my kids and disgust myself.  The heart of the sanctuary can be quiet, when everything around me is loud.  I’m learning.

Yet I am always with you;  you hold me by my right hand.  Hold it tighter, please.  Don’t let me forget.  Keep me from slipping over that edge.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.  Not the best thing earth can offer compares with the peace that passes understanding.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  

Those who are far from you will perish;  you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.  But as for me, it is good to be near God.

I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;  I will tell of all your deeds.  I will not pretend that my life is perfectly put together.  But I can confidently say that when I live in His presence, it is a safe place to be.  Safe from discontent, despair, and doubt.  I WILL tell you about the great things He’s done for me.  I will keep on telling His deeds until I have no more breath to speak.

>Tests

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>

Tests.  Life is full of them!  I don’t have time to write them all down in one sitting, but here is part I.
Sunday morning my stomach was doing flip-flops in anticipation of the Broad Street Run in Philadelphia.  It was a hot day, the complete opposite of the previous year’s record low temperatures.  We spent the night at Matt’s parents’ house so we could leave the kids there and head out to the race.  It was a jam-packed day with almost 30,000 runners signed up and ready to go!  The porta-potty lines were 45-minutes long if you picked a slow one.  Broad Street was packed with runners and on-lookers jammed the sides of the street.  When the starting horn went off for the first wave, my heart beat faster!  The sun peeked out just as we edged near the starting line.  Matthew stayed with me to cross the start, gave me a high-five and off he went.  We agreed beforehand that we would run separately this year so he could run as fast as he could.  

It was strange, being alone in a crowd of thousands.  It was much harder in some ways.  The heat was strong and the water-stations were welcome!  Fire-hydrants were opened up all down the Street every half mile or so, water spraying hot runners and cooling us down for a temporary thirty seconds or so. 
The test to endure was really difficult!  I had to keep thinking of things to keep my mind off the pounding in my chest that never seemed to calm down.  One of my last long runs I did during training was so unbelievably fun for me that I fell in love with running for the first time.  I run because it’s healthy and I have goals to accomplish, but not necessarily because I love it.  Well, that time I loved it.  Yesterday was not a run where I felt like I loved it.  I enjoyed it, but I also really had to endure it.  Songs from my training runs went through my ears and head that seemed to match my thoughts exactly.  “Lord, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I’m not scared cuz You’re holding my breath…” and “It’s a beautiful day!”  and  “I get carried away like I’m the only one who’s ever felt the way that I do, but I can hear you say, you’re not the only one, cuz everybody hopes to get through…” “And the pride of my heart makes me forget it’s not me but You who makes the heart beat, I‘m lost without You and dying from me.  So tell me what is our ending?  Will it be beautiful?” “We never give up even though times get hard to understand, it’s never enough for us to sit back and hope He has a plan, we gotta stand up and face the cold with boldness that is focused on the fact we got the keys, so just believe there’s nothing closed.”
So I never gave up.   At mile 9 I passed people who had collapsed on the pavement, throwing up and unable to finish.  I slowed my pace a tad when I started feeling a bit sick myself.  Then as we crossed through the Navy Yard gate I knew we were ¼ of a mile from the finish and I gave it everything I had left (which wasn’t much).  The test was complete and I passed.


It was so awesome finding Matthew in the crowd and exchanging stories.  We also met up with Matt’s brother and his wife, Rebecca.  She told us that it was the longest run she had done pregnant.  We all screamed and hopped up and down in excitement.  I thought, “Wow, if she can do it, anyone can!” Ten weeks pregnant, running 10 miles.  I’m so proud of that girl! 
No excuses.  Was it a hard test?  You bet.  But that is the only way to improve, to grow, and to inspire others.  Tests show us what is true, what is real.  I’m excited for the results of our tests to show in our lives.