faith

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.

Expecting Big Changes!

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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.

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.

Slimy Breakfast

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This morning I ate something I’ve never tried before, but read much about.  Odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid… well, they actually expand in liquid.  Poured into some mango juice, they were completely palatable.  Chia seeds.  Yum.  Really, not that bad.  I’ll let you know if I notice increased or at least sustained energy!  We have been walking down quite a unique road for the past three weeks.  White flour is being replaced by the different colors, shapes and sizes of seeds and grains.  Matt has been eating gluten-free, raw, whole foods with an occassional vegan cooked meal thrown in there.  I’m slower to get on the band wagon.  Old haunts call my name from the cupboards that are slowly being emptied of food that has become normal to me.  A new normal is taking their place.  I’m excited but nervous.  Why I should be nervous to embrace a lifestyle that guarantees more health benefits?  I guess because change brings out this hidden fear inside most of us.  There is also a huge learning curve as I sprout and dehydrate different concoctions to make bread that he can eat.  The reasoning behind all this change is really just a culmination of seven years of being plagued by Wegener’s Disease.  Seven years of unsuccessful and expensive medicine, surgeries, and relapses.  We’re determined to give God a chance to heal Matthew by using the things He has already created.  He is able!

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.

The Open Book Test

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“If I give you all the answers, then you’ll never learn!”  I said in a more exasperated voice than I meant to towards my daughter.  The statement turned around, looked me in the face and seemed to echo back to my ears: say what?

I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  Sometimes things pop out of my mouth, then backfire in a way that make me a little uncomfortable.  I feel a bit silly.  Those oh-so-wise-sounding words are like boomerangs sailing from my mouth back to my heart.  Trust me.  Be nice.  Be patient.  Oh, and stop yelling, for crying out loud!  Oops.


Artwork by Jack.  Sometimes I feel like the one on the left.  Or the right.

Honestly, I’m going through a ton of learning right now.  No answers are  being shelled out to me.  Real life questions, like how & why, are prevalent in my every day.  They are like English lesson 53 is to my daughter.  She cries out for answers, yet to give in to her  pleads would be to rob her of really mastering that bit of education put before her.  In the same way,  I cry out for the answers.  His voice answers in a very familiar way, telling me that I’ll never learn if He just tells me all the answers.  Trust is imperative to obedience.  The how’s, why’s and when’s will work themselves out as we trust in the Lord with all of our hearts.

I was reading in James last week, and on Sunday heard a sermon on James chapter 1.  The similarities to what I have been thinking about and going through were so striking.  The tests God gives us are to see if we have learned anything.  He knows us so deeply, and He deems us ready to take the very test we are experiencing.  Sometimes He tests us because He wants to hear from us.  I know that is something I need to improve upon: my communication with Him.

There is a ton of learning yet to be done.  I hope that I can guide my children towards the truth without giving them all the answers.  I pray that they will use God’s word to seek out all of the answers to life’s questions.  It’s an Open-Book test every single day.  How thankful I am that He gently leads those with young… because I have five young, and I need leading.

Seventy-Three

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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.