encouragement

You Better Be Prepared

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I was reminded today by a friend about how wild our God is.  He is beyond ordinary.  Although it might sound like a paradox, I’ve been expectantly waiting for His unexpected.  As Matthew and I approach a month without work, God keeps confirming that this is good, this is His plan, this is all under His control.  It’s not always easy to get uncomfortable on purpose.  Quitting his job so he can pursue what he loves and what we know God wants us to do has not been a walk in the park.  It’s been more like a walk through a very dry desert.  But, as the sun beats down on us, He provides shade and water and everything we need.  Everything we need.  Wild, unexpected places.  Almost always God uses people to bless us with money, who could really use it themselves.  It never ceases to amaze me.  A hundred-dollar bill tucked under our dinner plates.  Really?  Money in our pillow cases.  Really?  Food our family eats by the pound, provided through people who love to give.  Don’t ever underestimate what good things our Heavenly Father will do when you trust Him to work out the details.  Sometimes we are the ones who are surprised.  Sometimes God is prodding us to do the surprising.  Whatever it is, you better be prepared to be surprised.

Now I Can Enjoy Life

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There was a moment today when I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to pull myself together and go into public again.  These days happen.  Gut-wrenching, slobbery-faced tears that soak a handkerchief in a minute.  Disappointment, anger, delayed hopes, all melded together to form a huge pot of emotion that bubbled over onto my poor unsuspecting husband.

The Lord takes care of those who are as helpless as children. When I was in great need, he saved me. 

There really is nothing to be said for the comfort that God provides.  He binds up our wounds.  He wraps us in His love.

I said to myself, “Be calm.  The Lord has been good to me.”

Sometimes I get so consumed by the here and now, the disappointments or drudgery of the moment and I forget all He has done for me.

 Lord, you have saved me from death. You have dried the tears from my eyes.  You have kept me from tripping and falling.  So now I can enjoy life here with you while I’m still living. 

While I’m still living.  I’m alive and I can enjoy life here, not just despite my circumstances or surroundings, but because of them.

Some sweet Betty time today.  Verses in italics from Psalm 116.

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.

God of The Unexpected

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God doesn’t often use the expected means to get His purposes accomplished.  When Jesus fed the 5,000, He didn’t send His diciples to the grocery store or discount outlet to buy enough food for everyone.  He used what was available: 2 loaves and 5 fish from a willing boy’s lunch, and He multiplied it five-thousand-fold.  Unexpected.

When the Israelites left Egypt and came to the Red Sea, God didn’t stop everyone and put the exodus on hold just because a huge body of water was blocking their exit.  He didn’t call a meeting with builders and architects to conceive a plan on how to quickly  build a bridge or a boat which could accomodate thousands of people safely across the water.  No, He simply split the water in half and had the people walk across dry ground.  Unexpected.

When there were thousands of lives at stake during an unstable time in history, God used the wisdom and courage of a woman named Esther, to save an entire nation.  Why not an army?  Unexpected.

This week I have been reading in Ezra.  Israel returned to Jerusalem from captivity and started to rebuild the temple.  They were tricked and discouraged by their enemies, and the rebuilding halted for about fifteen years.  God used Haggai and Zechariah to encourage the people to start rebuilding again.  Then a guy named Tattenai tried to stop the work by sending a message to King Darius, telling him to search the records about whether or not they should indeed be rebuilding the temple.  He was trying to intimidate them into stopping the work again.  The response of the King is so astounding!  Not only does he foil Tattenai’s plan, but he tells him to use the king’s own money to fund the project!  He tells him that he is to give them day by day whatever they need.  Unexpected.

God can use anything and anyone to accomplish what He wants.  He has good plans for us.  He is not limited by our money, our status, our connections, or lack of any means.  God will take our lack and use it.  He will smile, because day by day He likes to surprise us with the unexpected.

Monday Meditation

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What confidence is this in which you trust? I read that yesterday in 2 Kings 18:19 and mulled  it over all day.  I’ve been wondering if my life reflects confidence in God.

We’ve all been asked to do hard things. Things that don’t make sense. I’m learning more and more that life isn’t about doing what is comfortable. Life is about doing what has been written beforehand for us to do. My life doesn’t always have to make sense. In fact, it shouldn’t make sense to the majority of the world. This earth is not my home. Thirty-two years ago I was given my first breath of oxygen, and God hasn’t ever once given me permission to get comfy on this earth and do what’s easy. Eternity gets dimmed when I get into the rut of being comfortable. I want to long for heaven, and the only way to long for something is to want everything else less.

What confidence is this in which you trust? When great and troubling things are all around us. When difficult decisions stand like a fork in the road and we wonder which path to take. When death threatens to sting us. When loneliness seems to overwhelm us. If I didn’t know that all of my days were written before any of them came to be, then I wouldn’t have the confidence to wake up tomorrow. If I didn’t know that I’ve been promised to never be left alone, I would be afraid to go one more day.

What confidence is this in which you trust? My answer comes in Isaiah 25:9.

Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This the LORD; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. This is my confidence in which I trust.  For You have been a strength to the poor. A strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat.

This Cape Is Broken

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Some say a mom is a superwoman.  I don’t agree.  Didn’t superman do things that were humanly impossible?  As a wife and a mom, my every day tasks are not only human, but they are possible.  Difficult at times, yes, but possible.  If we were called to be superwomen then we were called to be failures.  God never calls us to do anything He has not created and fitted us to do.  I’m often comparing myself to other women whom I find quite beyond the natural realm of reality.  Is it really possible to… ?  Fill in the blank.  While watching my boys catapult off trampolines might not be super difficult for me, making my bed requires great strength.  Perhaps keeping your countertops spotless might come with ease and almost delight for you, yet it is more challenging than childbirth for me.  We are crafted so uniquely and beautifully different from eachother.  I would like to say I admire your ability to color-coordinate all your childrens’ clothes, rather than say I wish I was like you.  I want to be inspired when I visit your clean and organized home and not be jealous towards you.  This notion of doing something well as being synonomous with being superwoman is just nonsense.

Every day is a perfect example of how superwoman has flown the coop here.  One such occurrence out of many today, came when I saw not one but two snakes about to go into our basement from the outside doors.  I screamed so loud for Elijah and Jack to rescue me.  Chicken that I am, I ran inside and watched them through the laundry room window, as they tried to coax one of  the snakes onto the dustpan.  Yep.  Definitely void of any super-human powers in the slithering department.  Unlike my brave mother who hacked a poisonous snake to death to save her babies from possible death.  That is indeed super-human and I know God gave her the strength to do that fearful task.

We each have a power beyond our own, readily available to us.  It is not our “inner self” or anything of ourselves at all.  It is the all-powerful God who created us.  Nothing is too hard for Him.  The moment we think we’re super, we fall flat on our face.  For it is God who is producing in you both the desire and the ability to do what pleases Him.


Superwoman, hand over your cape.  Oh, and here’s a band-aid..

A Growth-full Week

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It’s been the inevitable low after the high.  A great weekend, followed by some real-life hard times.  What better way to break up the monotony than taking a field trip to a local farm/veterinary clinic?  So, yesterday we headed out to some friends’ farm for some animal fun.

Nadine was in her glory, feeding the baby goats and petting the horses.  Betty wasn’t as sure about the goats at first, but soon warmed up to them.  She also got licked many time by one of the dogs until she giggled.  It was so adorable.

 

 

Jack was super brave to ride the horse bare-back in his crocs.  He’s brave in other ways too.  The other day I was watching him from the bathroom window.  He was outside, tying a karate belt to a tree branch.  Next, he climbed the tree and tied the other end to a higher branch.  Then he jumped down and grabbed hold of the loop he just made.  After a quick tug to make sure it was tight, he confidently hoisted himself about four off the ground and started to pull himself up by the rope.  All of a sudden, one end came untied and he fell flat on his back with a thud.  I expected tears, but he lay there for a second before brushing himself off and standing up.  I came outside to make sure he was okay, and before I could ask him, he said, “Mom!  Guess what?  I just made a trap and it works!”  Pause.  “I tested it.”  Oh, my.

I know the Lord has great plans for that boy.  When he’s not being tough, he is super sweet.  He’s been diligently working on his letters and numbers.  I found that counting to a hundred while pulling out a measuring tape is right up his alley.

Betty has been changing so much this month!  She still gives us “the look” with wrinkled nose, furrowed eyebrows and a loud squawking sound to accompany it.  We are working on our manners and today she learned how to give high fives.  Her favorite thing outside is to collect rocks, put them into something and give a high five after each rock.  She’s sporting seven teeth, with more popping through very soon.  She loves to talk with her hands and tell stories with much inflection.  Perhaps a linguist?

There is something satisfying about watching boys whack things with sticks.  Their language isn’t with words, but rather with loud noises and a mutual understanding of sounds and war-like cries.

They are very different than girls.


Girls are pretty and sweet.  Even with a drooly mouth, this one still looks beautiful.

So, even though I’ve been challenged to my core this week on wife-hood and mother-hood, I’m so thankful for the rewards each day.  Hugs, forgiveness, love, smiles, and little glimpses of growth in hearts and minds.

Alternators and Roses

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Everyday joys in my life include sunny days in February and water-gun fights.  Water-gun fights that lead to washing the van with buckets of water.  My oldest daughter wearing my rain boots and they fit.

 

Little helpers and sweet by-standers.

Big brother who knows just how to make little sister smile.

This week, it was time for Betty to try her sweet self out in the cozy coupe car.  Even though her little feet didn’t quite reach the pedals, I mean, ground, she still had a blast.  Elsie is a good play mate and loved pushing her up and down the sidewalk.

 
I am reminded, however, that we all have a breaking point.  A time when life gets crazy and our hair stands on end and we just want to say, “Aaaaaah!”

I’ve had some of those hair-standing-on-end kind of days this week.  Matt’s truck broke down again and after a state trooper pushed it from the Schuylkill Expressway (Sure Kill Distressway, for those of you locals) to the King of Prussia Mall, he was rescued by my brother-in-law.  The next day we spent a couple hours in the parking lot with the wind blowing furiously at us.  He successfully changed the alternator and now it’s purring, or at least working again.  I can still hear him coming home from about a block away, but it’s a comforting sound.  Sometimes hard days produce lovely endings, like when Matthew comes home from work with a handful of these beauties.


There are many many busy hours in my day.  I love sitting down in the evening with my herbal tea and flipping through pictures in my head or on the computer.  It’s quiet.  The noise is somehow frozen into silence in those pictures, but I can still hear their voices and squeals and chatter.  Last night we baked two cakes.  The boys decorated one and the girls decorated the other.  We enjoyed the special treat and made a mess.  Jack’s mouth turned blue and my fingers are somehow pink.  It was so much fun!

 Life is beautiful, especially when it involves a snazzy blue cake and pink deco cupcakes loaded with red-hots.  My life is full of ordinary days sprinkled with extraordinary joys.

A Host of Ordinary

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“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.

Snap-O

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Today, after a wonderful morning with my kids, unexpectedly meeting delightful friends in a parking lot, and filling our fridge with much-needed food… something went snap.  Was it the thirtieth time of stepping over that puzzle on the dining room floor?  Maybe the crunch under my feet of the seventh goldfish meeting it’s demise.  Perhaps it was the picking of the the lock in the front door with a jack knife.  No, I bet it was that last time someone said they were hungry, even though they just ate eleven minutes ago.  Whatever the case, this mama went “SNAP-O!”  Snap-O.  Sounds like a fun game!  It’s not.  It’s dreadful, really.  It’s when your mouth opens and things rather loudly come out that aren’t nice.  It often leads to tears.  It must be followed up by apologies, or snap-o becomes contagious.

A wonderful admonition came when I was talking on the phone to Matthew and he reminded me (again) that they are children.  I thought maybe I got that by now.  Sometimes I forget, though.  Sometimes I expect so much out of them or myself and before I know it, “SNAP-O” comes flying at me like a deck of cards being released and I stand there blinking and confused.  I get tired of picking up the cards again, but thankfully forgiveness deals me another turn.  God is so gracious.

Then there was rollerblading through the kitchen,  a crying baby who wanted to be held, and multiple requests for food.  Relief came when Matthew walked in the door and offered to take the kids to the park so I could finish making supper.  I didn’t realize how much I needed that break until it came.  Peace reigned supreme as he called from the front door, “I have all of them!”  Even Betty?  Even Betty.  Twenty minutes later they came back with rosy cheeks and Betty was all smiles.  She knows she’s hot stuff doing big girl things like playing at the park with her brothers and sisters.  Her grin couldn’t be erased.

This weekend was fun and relaxing at the Weldon’s.  We enjoyed a walk, good food, and being together.Outside, the sidewalk chalk scrawled out just one request: snow, please.
The snowman lights echoed the request.

Cozy warmth beckoned me back inside, where the sound of Adele filled the kitchen and the sight of busy little chefs were hard at work.Elsewhere, the boys found things which their hearts enjoy.


Family is so incredibly special to me.  I have to focus in on these amazing moments of love…especially when I feel the Snap about to fly.