Month: October 2022

Seeing the Light

I had a wonderful weekend. What made it so wonderful was the fact that we didn’t have to go anywhere. Minimal running around. Just doing chores around the house, homework. My husband worked on chopping wood in the yard. The younger kids did chores and then went outside to help their dad. Older kids buckled down to finish book reports that are due at the end of each month. I got my shopping done and put away. Got to practice some Christmas music with my husband. Just our family hanging around peacefully together. On Sunday we had a small potluck at our house and practiced more Christmas music with a group from our church. I got a phone call from my son who is in the army now. Sunday evening we sat around the fire and I read a big stack of books to my little kids. Just an all-round wonderful weekend. 

When I was a child and a teenager when I thought about adulthood, if I did at all, I thought about adventures. Travel. Movement. Now, as an adult, I still like travel and adventure, but those are more like fancy decorations on the cake. The cake itself is the main event. And I have found that the main event for me is the everyday living. Getting up in the morning, turning on the lamp and feeling warm and cozy in my bedroom. Rubbing my little boy’s head as I wake him up for school. Listening to the sweet chatter of my kids as they get ready for the day. Sitting in a quiet clean house and reading my Bible. Talking on the phone with my oldest daughter and laughing together over silliness. Going to the grocery store and recognizing the people that work there, having a friendly conversation in the checkout line. Exchanging text messages with my husband throughout the day.

How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!

    People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. 

They feast on the abundance of your house;

    you give them drink from your river of delights.

For with you is the fountain of life;

    in your light we see light.

Psalm 36:7-9

In my younger days when I would hear things like, “The abundance of your house”, “river of delights”, “fountain of life”, I think my mind went to material things. Wealth. Abundance of stuff. Experiences that only money can buy. I never thought about it as peace in the everyday living. Contentment with the path you are walking. The ability to see beauty and wonder in the normal world around you.  I am learning that when we walk with Jesus we are given the ability to see things through a completely different filter. “In your light we see light.” 

This morning my kids were getting ready for school. My son had finished his book report project which included making a board game out of legos for the book, “Journey to the Center of the Earth”. His siblings were very impressed and he took the time to explain it to them. And I sat there and watched them and I felt overwhelmed with how wealthy and rich I am. My children are like treasure chests full of costly jewels. They are incredible! Beautiful! Wonderful! And I have the amazing wonder of getting to be their mom and spend regular Monday mornings with them, eating breakfast, getting ready for school. My life is so rich in blessing. I don’t think there are sufficient words to describe how blessed I am. 

This isn’t a brag fest. It’s encouragement to take a look at your own life. The treasures are there, surrounding you. Take some time to see them! Walk in Jesus’ light so you too can see light. 

Heaven On Earth

I am reading through C.S. Lewis’ “The Great Divorce” again. There is a section that really stood out to me. George Macdonald (as imagined by C.S. Lewis) is a citizen of Heaven, and he is speaking to the ghostly version of C.S. Lewis (not yet a citizen) (don’t read this book for doctrine, just for ideas) and he says, 

“And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, ‘We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ And both will speak truly.”

This really jumped out at me because lately I have been thinking about our time here on earth. I have been in awe of God’s artistry in nature. I feel like I am walking out into a majestic 3D painting every day and I just stop and stare and point out my favorite parts. The fall colors on that tree are amazing! Look at how the light is shining on our house! Look at that! And that! God’s handiwork, his own personal creation, surrounds us. And I am finding it a joy to see and notice and be thankful. And it does feel like heaven on earth. 

I’ve been taking pictures here and there, trying to capture the joy of the moment when you see beauty in the ordinary. 

I thought I’d share some of my pictures with you. 

My son had a leaf project for school. We had to gather some leaves and now he is making a book with an information page about each leaf. We walked through our neighborhood and he picked up any leaf he thought was pretty.

This summer I left some sweet potatoes in my kitchen for too long and they sprouted. I decided to plant them and just see what would happen. I didn’t pick the best place to plant them and my son accidentally weed-eated them once, so I wasn’t really hoping for much. When the cold weather was starting to move in this week, I went out with a shovel and dug in to see what was there. I got a tiny sweet potato harvest!! It made me happy.

Every morning I drive by a corner of the city that always hits me with how bright and cheerful and cozy it is. It makes me smile every day.

Last week I got to spend a couple days with my parents and actually got to grab a little alone time and lay in a hammock. This was my view.

So, those are a couple pictures of my heaven on earth moments. Hope you enjoyed. 

Growing Pains

Lately I have been facing down one of the weak injured areas in my life. My inability to enter into conflict, even when not saying anything means that I or someone else is being harmed. I believe in living peacefully with everyone, but in order for relationships to be healthy or situations to be healthy, you have to be willing to communicate that something is not Ok and be willing to have awkward, hard conversations so that the relationship or the situation can be healthier. This is not easy for me. And that is an understatement. I found myself in a situation this past week where I had to address several people about a situation and we had a group message going on. Every time my phone notified me of a new message I had a physical response. My adrenaline was going full blast, I felt like I needed to go for a run to shake off how shaky I felt. I was agitated, I couldn’t think straight and I just wanted to run and hide. And I was kind of asking God why on earth I was having to go through this. I could have just kept my mouth shut, let the whole messy thing slide by. But I really felt like this was something God wanted me to do. For my own sake. 

This week, for my Bible reading, I have been reading through the book of Numbers. Not my favorite book. I’ve kind of just been plowing through. Lots of questions. Lots of things I don’t understand. Not really feeling like this was a book that was going to personally touch my life. So, I was sitting at my table, early in the morning, still feeling bowed down from the ongoing conflict. And I started reading about how God had spies from the Israelite camp go into Canaan and come back and give a report. And they came back saying the new land was amazing, wonderful…but full of giants and we can never take the land and we are all going to die.. And I suddenly felt overwhelmed with remorse. I am being just like them. God is trying to lead me into a new land, a place of health and wholeness, and all I can do is complain. I don’t like this. This is too hard. I don’t want to do this. 

The Israelites were facing a big enemy and they had a big battle ahead of them. But they also had a big God who had already proved he could slay any enemy, part the red sea, provide water from the rock, bread from heaven. God had alread proved himself capable and faithful to help them with any challenge. And on the other side of the battle was their new home. The promised land. And the thing that was keeping them from moving forward was lack of faith. 

And I found myself praying for forgiveness for my lack of faith. Increase my faith Lord! I believe you have goodness waiting for me on the other side and that you will help me as I grow in this area. I am not alone in my battles. 

Now, several days later, the angsty part of the conflict is over. Everyone’s voices were heard. Grievances were aired. I don’t feel like we came to any amazing conclusion, but we are once again moving peacefully forward and some stronger boundaries have been set. And we now have a precedent to look back at when new troubles arrive and more hard conversations need to happen. Shaky steps of growth happening. And my faith feels a little bit stronger. 

Georgette Heyer, Confrontation, and Warriors

I just read a new book recently, “The Foundling” by Georgette Heyer. Regency Romance fluff. Except it wasn’t a romance. It was about a young man, a Duke, who was orphaned at birth, raised by his doting uncle and his staff and now, as a young man is finding his very protected, cosseted position rather suffocating. He wants to go out in the world and prove that he can actually take care of himself without the help of all of his faithful retinue. A coming of age type book. With a lot of humor. The main character is Gilly and he is a slight, short, gentle type, not very remarkable in his looks, but very kind. He is raised with an older cousin Gideon who is tall, handsome, muscular, in the Life Guards, fought in the war, and very fond of his little cousin. Gideon helps his cousin take off on an adventure, but later discovers the adventure got a bit too dangerous so he sets off to save the day. But when he arrives he discovers that his little cousin has already saved himself and has jumped head first into a whole new set of mishaps that he handily manages on his own. Several times Gideon is ready to jump in and help, but learns along with everyone else that his little cousin is very capable of taking care of himself and does not need the level of protection he’s used to offering. 

Ok. Sorry, long summary. There is a point. In the story Gideon was my favorite character. He was a protector. Capable. Everyone is safe when he’s around. I’ll come back to this in a second. 

Lately my foster parent life has been fraught with conflict. I have had to stand my ground in conversations with lawyers and angry persons and people who are just trying to stir up conflict because that’s the only world they know. I have had to be confrontational about wrongs done and I’ve had to deal with some really difficult topics. Y’all, that is not me. In the dictionary there is a picture of me next to the word nonconfrontational. I hate conflict of any kind. I hate people being angry. I hate awkwardness. And in one sense, this is good. I do not jump into fights, I diffuse them. I need peace at all times. And if I don’t have peace, I feel like I have done something wrong. But God has been showing me that a lot of times I avoid conflict and end up with unresolved problems that just fester under the surface and get worse. I don’t confront people, but maybe there are some things that need to be confronted. So that justice can happen, or maybe simply growth of character. I am having to learn that conflict is not my enemy. I am just at the baby steps of learning this, but it seems like God is throwing all kinds of situations my way so that I can get some practice. 

Back to Gideon. I have been wanting a Gideon to just show up in my life and slay the enemy. Run interference. Fix the problem. I am obviously too small and slight and weak to have to be handling this. 

This morning during our worship service I was still a ball of nerves from the latest confrontation and I was crying out to God for help. Protection. Why are you letting all these things come my way, why aren’t you keeping all this craziness far away from me? And while I was praying and singing I got a brief vision. It was me and I was all dressed up in shiny armor with a big shiny sword and I was battling some unseen enemy. And the thought that came to me was, you don’t need a warrior to protect you, you are the warrior and you are one protecting others. And I was looking at this person and thinking, that’s not me, I’m just a weakling, but then I could see that everything I was doing was being powered by the Holy Spirit, like a lightning bolt just resting on me, feeding me power. 

A little later I suddenly remembered this book “The Foundling”  again and I realized that I had missed the whole point of the book. The whole point was that Gilly had been trained and taught by his Uncle and all his various tutors and teachers and he was ready to go out and face the world. And when he did, he slayed all his enemies and proved himself Capable and Resourceful, ready to be his own person. He didn’t need Gideon to be his protector any more. 

I admit, I do not like the idea of myself being the warrior. Safety and protection are a big deal to me, but Ephesians 6:10-17 talks about putting on the full armor of God. Paul seems to be talking to everyone. Not just the men. Not just the strong people. Not just the pastors. Everyone. Everyone needs to put on the full armor of God and be ready to stand. 

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12

I appreciate the leadership of my husband in our home and the protection he gives to our family. I appreciate the leadership and spiritual protection that our pastors give to our local church body. But I was called to join the struggle too. Walk in that Holy Spirit power and fight. Fight with prayer. Fight with truth. Fight with confronting wrong and standing up even when it makes me uncomfortable and awkward and longing for someone else to just come in and take over for me. 

Do I Have a Servant Heart?

I read a difficult Bible passage this past week that has been stuck in my mind. 

“Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” Luke 17:7-10

In our culture, reading anything about slaves tends to put my hackles up. Slavery is wrong. All men are created equally. We should be kind and considerate to everyone! I find it rather offensive to think about someone owning a slave, making them work out in a field all day and then making them come inside and have no rest and continue to serve their master. Is Jesus saying I should be a slave? That I am unworthy? 

Other Bible verses come to mind.  

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. John 15: 15-16 

Not a servant. Friends. Chosen. 1 John 3:1 says that God loves us so much that we are called sons of God. Reading these other verses I don’t feel like my status with God is that of a lowly slave. 

As I’ve thought about the passage in Luke I’ve realized that it is a good measure of how much of a servant heart I have. How firmly embedded my pride and sense of entitlement are in my very nature. 

Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10: 43-45

Yes, we are sons of God, Friends of Jesus. Chosen. Loved. But we are called to be like Jesus, and Jesus, despite being King of Kings, God, Creator, Ruler of all, he was a servant. And we’ve been called to be like Jesus and serve others. 

The other night I came home exhausted. Right after school I had to take two of my children to a location out West, thirty minutes away, and then after being there an hour and half, had to drive to another part of town to pick up another child from sports practice. I didn’t get home till 6:30pm and I had been driving in horrible rush hour traffic for over an hour. I had expected that my other family at home would have already eaten the supper I had left prepared for them. I anticipated just grabbing a plate of food for myself and being able to relax for a couple minutes. Instead, I walked in the door and found out that everyone else was waiting for me to get home before they ate. Nothing was set out. The table was littered with homework and toys and papers. Mess. I lost it. Had a total hissy fit. Much to the horror of my poor family who were simply anticipating a family meal together whenever I got home. Later, all I could think about was the passage in Luke and how far I was from having a true servant heart. Cause I had been working hard all day, and I wanted to come home and be served. Have some rest. Get some appreciation for how hard I had been working. And yes, there is a time and a place for rest and appreciation. But sometimes, everyone in the family has been working hard, everyone is exhausted, and what the family needs is someone to come in and patiently continue to serve. 

That is the heart I want to have. And sometimes I fail miserably. But I have to realize, having a servant heart is something I need Jesus to do inside of me. It’s not something I can get on my own. I hold to the promise that says,

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6

I’m trusting that God will continue to soften my heart and teach me how to serve like Jesus.