Choosing to Step Out of Default

What will I choose?


Will I choose to be content when

• the daytime temperature hovers between 28 and 33 degrees Celsius and the only summer skirt I own gets caught in the door and tears and I don't know where to buy sewing supplies?
• my bedroom is also a storage space?
• the things we use daily don't have 'homes' and make a visual clutter that is oh, so distracting to the mind?
• I can't find the kinds of things I'm used to cooking with - like tomato sauce and sour cream?
• the dogs in the neighbourhood bark so incessantly that I can't sleep during the night?
• my efforts at learning Spanish are making such slow progress?

None of these things are big. None of them are life-threatening. But each do threaten to destroy my contentment and peace.  I know that none of them compare even closely to the apostle Paul's challenges when he writes in Philippians:  "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances."  (Philippians 4:11)

So I have a choice to make:  Get bogged down by inconveniences or

• be glad that I have a sister who could mail me a patch for my skirt
• thank God for all the good things we have in our home and the way He arranged for us to be in it
• be thankful for the living that happens in our home every day
• appreciate the adventure of new foods and flavours
• use awake-at-night moments (or hours) as time to talk to my Father
• remember how far my ability to communicate has come and for the fact that my mistakes are at least getting more sophisticated

Each day is filled with these choices. And they are decisions that have to be made consciously or they won't be made at all, and, sadly, the default mode is 'discontentment'.

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(I think it's time for me to get back to regular posting of the Thousand Gifts list. It's too easy to let the habit/discipline of thankfulness slide, to forget to look through the eyes of thanks.  So, regardless of how many gifts I've listed privately in my own writing in the past months, I'm going to pick up my list on PeaceLedge carrying on from the last number recorded here.)

While living in the North I enjoyed the blessing of close friends who participated in a regular Bible study and prayer time with me.  Our weekly meetings were filled with deep conversation, vulnerability, laughter, and tears, always drawing me back to the Word, deeper into the Breather of the Word.

At times we would be more sporadic in our meeting times, five women juggling families, vocations, ministry. But always we would come back together, realizing the life-giving quality of spiritual fellowship.

Maybe I relied on them too much and not enough on the Giver of Life.

Here, in this new Southern home, I don't have that same community, that tight-knit tapestry of interwoven lives. So who do I go to when I'm in need of encouragement, a listening ear, an embrace, accountability?

I cried those questions to the One Who Answers, and His gentle, loving voice replied: "Who indeed? Am I not enough?  Am I not All-in-All?"

He is.

And so I learn to lean on Him, and not on the people-gifts He gives me. It's better this way.

*Just a couple of photos from around where we live - I've been amazed at the clouds here and wanted to share them.*

Listen Earlier

I ask a question of my Lord and wait for His answer.  

Nothing.  Silence.

But I continue, pressing on with the guidance of others who are more experienced listeners. 

And then the sky opens over me as I realize that while the question is still in my mind and the words are still on my tongue, the answer is being given!

The blessing of His answer is ready for me even before I speak the question!  I don't need to listen more closely.  I don't need to listen longer.

I need to listen earlier.

I have a God who wants to speak to me, is longing to hear my heart, and to pour His words into my heart!

He waits for me to be ready to listen, but He knows the question before it is formed and His answer comes.  His answer comes.

"Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear."  Isaiah 65:24

Law and Love

... this fear of consequences should not be a fear of losing love.  Your child needs to know you are constantly and consistently connected and emotionally there with her, no matter what the infraction.  She only needs to be concerned about the loss of freedom and the possibility of pain.  the message is, "I love you, but you have chosen something difficult for yourself."

...Remember that the law restrains our out-of-control selves enough so that we can slow down and listen to the message of love.

Boundaries with Kids by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

Chapter 8: Life Beyond "Because I'm the Mommy" - The Law of Motivation, page 126, 127

How hard it can be sometimes to maintain emotional connection with my children when I'm 'being their boundaries'.  Finding that balance of softness and firmness - like a spine, maybe - is hard.  I lean one way or the other and the balance is lost.


But if I can keep my balance I know my children will be able to see the real consequence as their problem, and not 'mean Mommy'.

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Isn't this really the same way that God works with me?  The law shows me my sin, and without it I wouldn't know I needed Him.  But it is there to point me to my need for Him, not to focus me on my sin.  To paraphrase Drs. Cloud and Townsend, "...the law restrains my out-of-control self enough so that I can slow down and listen to God's message of love."


Spriritual disciplines function in much the same way.  The disciplines are not faith.  They are not salvation.  But prayer, fasting, worship, simplicity...they slow me down and put me in a position where I am more attuned to hearing the voice of God.

A small voice calls from my bed.  There should be silence upstairs, but there's not.  No big surprise, this, but the reason for the call is unusual.  It's not the usual stalling.  No.  This is a thoughtful question from Brown-Eyed Boy who is enjoying the deep moments before sleep when Jesus speaks.

"How do you hug Jesus?"

As I stumble mentally for a simple yet meaningful response, another voice calls from the next bedroom:

"Just take a deep breath in."

A much better answer than mine would have been.

Growing Family

Another child added to the Family of Christ.

Most definitely a Gift of Unmeasurable Worth!

Blessed Words

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.

Luke 6:38

The Way It Was. The Way It Is. (Part 3)

A Parable of Grace

This is the third in a series of posts on my walk through clinical depression.  You can find part one here, and part two here.  If you have not read them yet, I'd be pleased if you would start with them.

For the kingdom of heaven is like a marriage...

A certain young man took to himself a wife and they loved each other and lived together several years and had a child together.

One day the wife was no longer able to look after the things that had always been her responsibility.  She could barely get out of bed in the morning to look after their precious little girl, although she did.  She couldn't prepare meals, she didn't do laundry, and she certainly wasn't vacuuming, dusting, or cleaning toilets.  She couldn't converse about her husband's work with him when he came home after a long day and a long commute.  There was no physical intimacy.  He was doing all the tasks at home that weren't being done during the day, and he was getting worn down.

A short time before, the wife had watched another couple's marriage collapse as they went through a similar time.  And the wife of our story began to fear.  She said to herself, "What is my husband getting from our marriage?  I'm not filling any of his needs; I offer him nothing except free child care, and it's possible that he'd be better off having someone else look after My Girl."  And the hole she was living in grew deeper, the clouds surrounding her grew darker and heavier, and the veil in front of her eyes that kept her from seeing colour and light grew thicker.

So the woman said to her husband, "Why do you stay?  Why don't you go somewhere where you can go on with life without this additional burden."

And he said to her, "Because, even though this is terrible for me, too, years ago I promised to be your husband until we were parted in death.  I didn't know what would come, but I made that promise knowing that there could be things that neither of us expected.  I don't love you because of what you do for me, nor because you love me.  I love you and I stay because I promised before God, and there is no way that I will ever walk away from you or that promise."

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I have since come to learn that, in a small way, that is a picture of the Lord's love for me, for all of us.  We really have nothing to offer Him.  Even the things that we think we can do are so imperfect that it's shameful to think that we offer them to God Of The Universe.  But He loves us.  Not because of what we do.  Not because of how we look, or act.  And not even because of our deep spirituality.  He loves us because we are His and He made a promise to us to be faithful to us, even when we have nothing at all to offer Him.

And so my life has been, and still is, and always will be, a parable.

One Thousand Gifts

266. The Still Small Voice that speaks Truth.

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267. Children leaning on me, showing me my prickliness.

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268. Hunger that humbles. (Deut. 8:3)

To see my complete list of gifts, click here.

Do You Love Me?

A loose paraphrase from John 21:15-25

. . . Jesus said to Peter . . . 'Do you love me?' He said to Him, 'Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.' Jesus said to him, 'Tend my sheep.'

Jesus commissions Peter to a great task. And the only qualification is love for Jesus.

No question of "How long have you known Me?" or "What evidence is there of your spiritual maturity?" or even "Why do you think you'd be good for this role?" No. Simply "Do you love Me?"

It has been described to me in so many sermons and Bible classes that Peter's love was imperfect, inadequate, not at all what Jesus was looking for.

Well, how much less adequate is my love for Jesus? But still, that's the only question He asks to determine whether I'm with Him or not. And my love, inadequate as it is, is enough.

I have nothing to prove to Jesus.

Come and Have Breakfast

After appearing to the disciples on the beach and performing the miracle of the 153 fish in the net, Jesus spoke to the disciples. But He didn't say, "Now, what have you just learned about Me/My power/our relationship/trust..."

No.

"Jesus said to them, 'Come and have breakfast.'" (John 21:12 NIV) He nourished their bodies, took care of their physical needs, didn't focus their attention on Himself in any way. He was simply with them, caring for them.

I love this about Jesus. I believe He says things like that to me, too, if I would listen: "Come and take a walk with Me. Come and rest for a while. Come and be filled at the table. Come sit with Me."

A Gospel Primer - Received!

I heard Amy recite the Gospel Narrative at the end of January and was so moved by the personal nature of this confession of faith. Hearing the words "My God is immense beyond imagination" to "but this is my salvation, and herein I stand. Thank You, Jesus" spoken so simply and sincerely was beautiful. I think the personal pronouns were what impacted me the most. This was a personal testimony about a personal God, His work for me, His undeserved love for me. I felt like Amy was telling me her own story as the recited, but that her story was my story, too. It was beautiful.

Then I learned that the publishers of A Gospel Primer had given Amy some copies of A Gospel Primer and the pocket version which she was using as a give away on her blog. So I entered. And I was one of the ones chosen to receive the pocket version!

Yesterday I received it in the mail, and I'm so excited. It is as beautiful to read as it is to listen to! I've even had an opportunity to show it to a friend, and she also thinks it's something she'd like to have nearby!

Thank you Amy, for this lovely gift. It will soon become worn!

Following a Pattern

Months ago I saw a pattern I liked for an afghan. I looked around for yarn to use for it, but was uninspired, so the pattern sat unused for some time.

After a while, the company that the pattern came from was having a 'free shipping' promotion on online purchases, so I went ahead and bought the yarn that way. When it arrived in the mail, I began to crochet.

That's when things got complicated.

The afghan is made up of 30 units (called 'blocks', which are actually rectangles), using 3 different patterns. That sounds easy enough, and I thought that doing 30 small pieces would be a lot more manageable than doing one huge one.

But I was wrong.

You see, when you do 10 pieces of the same pattern, they should all be the same size. And mine aren't. Some are quite close, others (2 or 3) are almost perfect. But there's a fair bit of variation over the 10 pieces.

AND...

...when you have 3 different patterns to follow, the resulting blocks should be the same size as well. But I've had to do so much fiddling to get my single crochet blocks to be the same as the double crochet blocks, first by making my stitches looser or tighter, then by increasing or decreasing the number of stitches in each row... And still they aren't the same.

It makes me very nervous to try the third pattern which is more complicated, because changing the number of stitches in a row will change the pattern and it'll require a fair bit of figuring to determine what will work. And because I also know that, no matter how perfectly my adjustments work out on paper, when I actually crochet them, they'll be no more consistent than my first two styles have been.

Sigh.

But I'm still trying. I'm crocheting piece after piece. I'm pulling out rows, sometimes too many to count, sometimes a whole block's worth (I'm sure I've actually crocheted enough blocks to make the afghan, even though I only have 12 pieces sitting in front of me now).

These blocks have taken on a life of their own for me. I want each of them to be perfect, to match the others in size and shape and texture, but they all come out differently. Some are nice, others are filled with flaws. Some I have to pull out and start over.

In the end, though, once each block is pieced together with all the others, the result will have its own beauty, will look like no one else's, and will be completely mine.

Sounds a bit like the days my Lord has given me.

I may not have words, but I have pictures. I'll try to get words out to go with them.

Sheltered. Hiding while her mate provides for the family...That's me, too, sweet bird.

Photo from the Spring, when the cardinals returned to nest in the cedar next door.

On Praise

"Praise is cheap today. Everything is praised. Soap, beer, toothpaste, clothing, mouthwash, movie stars, all the latest gadgets which are supposed to make life more comfortable - everything is constantly being "praised". Praise is now so overdone that everybody is sick of it, and since everything is "praised" with the official hollow enthusiasm of the radio announcer, it turns out in the end that nothing is praised. Praise has become empty. Nobody really wants to use it.

"Are there any superlatives left for God? they have all been wasted on foods and quack medicines. There is no word left to express our adoration of Him who alone is Holy, who alone is Lord.

"So we go to Him to ask help and to get out of being punished, and to mumble that we need a better job, more money, more of the things that are praised by the advertisements. And we wonder why our prayer is so often dead - gaining its only life, borrowing its only urgency from the fact that we need these things so badly.

"But we do not really think we need God. Lease of all do we think we need to praise Him.

"It is quite possible that our lack of interest in the Psalms conceals a secret lack of interest in God. For if we have no real interest in praising Him, it shows that we have never realized who He is. For when one becomes conscious of who God really is, and when one realizes that He who is Almighty, and infinitely Holy, has "done great things to us," the only possible reaction is the cry of half-articulated exultation that bursts from the depths of our being in amazement at the tremendous, inexplicable goodness of God to men.... "

Thomas Merton, Praying the Psalms

Have all the good words been used on unworthy subjects? Is there anything left for the Father?

This week my Spiritual Formation Group is focusing on Praise, so naturally that's where my thoughts are today.

I've been paying more attention to my own words the past couple of days: What do I praise? Who do I praise? How do I do it? And I've begun to realize that I think of praising God as something I do to Him, not something I express to others. Praising Him to others in my everyday conversations is unusual, although it is getting more common to do it in my SFG. But to spread it beyond? I praise my children - to themselves and to others; my husband, my family...But my God? To others? Can I praise Him today? Out loud? To others? Today?

Miscellaneous Thoughts While I Have a Few Moments

My vision has been filled with nature for the past number of weeks as our family has explored the world of monarchs, dipped into the 100 species challenge, and simply tried to make nature study a greater focus in our home school. But that has left me with very little time to think and write about many of the other things that press on my heart. Here's a bit of what I've been pondering, and, while I hope to revisit these ideas in future posts, I know that it's just as likely that this is the only mention they will receive...for a time at least.

What is trust? And how is trust demonstrated? With a person I trust I make myself vulnerable, I accept his advice, I draw close. Do I do that with my Papa God?

Insecurity and feelings of inadequacy are rampant around me (and in me, too). Comparisons thrive. Measuring sticks for competence abound: schedules, meal plans, frugal living, home education methods, number of children, body size and shape... But what really matters in the life we are giving our children, our families, ourselves? These are the measuring sticks that I'd really like to see used in my life: Do I listen when those around me speak? Am I growing (not perfect) in my love for my Father? Do people take priority over plans? Is my home inviting (not immaculate) and my spirit welcoming? But even as I write these I know how far I am from them.

Reality home schooling. Choose the things that are really important to me for the school year and make them the priority. For this year those things are loving the Word, history, and nature study. If those are the only things on our schedule that get done on a given day, I will be satisfied (won't I?). They are the things that will get our focus, our best times, and, when a day goes haywire, our only time.

There's more, but my "few moments" are gone.

A Congregational Lament

Why, Lord, must any child of yours be hurt?

Does all our pain and sorrow somehow please you?

You are a God so jealous for our praises -

hear this lament as prayer that fills the earth.

We plead: Repair the brokenness we share.

Chastise no more lest it destroy your creatures.

Hear this lament as intercessory prayer,

and speak your powerful word to make us hopeful.

Calvin Seerveld, 1986

To Live is To Pray

Thoughts following Girl's Night Out:

...and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

- 2 Corinthians 10:5b

To live every moment of every day as though it were a prayer. If we
were to do this, it would leave little room for...

- Sheila Wray Gregoire

Whether I am aware of it or not, everything I say and do is done within the Presence of the Lord. What would it look like if I lived my life in the knowledge that every moment of every day was a prayer, a conversation with My Lord? One of the reasons for my practice of the spiritual disciplines is to make me aware of this Holy Place in which I abide, to put me into a place where I am alert to the Presence; but so many other things intrude on the conversation. I want to embrace the intrusions because in reality they aren't that: the children who need my attention are not getting in the way of my communication with my Lord, but are offering me another way in which I can commune with Him - service, or maybe love, or listening to them and through them hearing Him. How many times have I dismissed His Voice because it has been 'disguised' as the voice of one of The Ones I Love? That question gives me pause.

All I do is part of the prayer, not taking me away from it. My heart is the prayer. My attitude is the prayer. My choice of response is the prayer. Christ in me is the prayer.

Oh, Father, how often I give away the opportunity to live prayer in Your Presence! You are with me, in me, behind and before me. There is nowhere I can go without You, so there is really no life without prayer, is there?

To live is to be in the Presence of God.

To live is to pray.

God Crutch

Who among us is not broken? Who among us can stand on our own? Is it ever too late to reach out for the Crutch?

I encourage you to read this post on Anne Voskamp's blog. It is a note she received as a comment from Kim Kautzer of Write Shop on one of Anne's earlier posts.

Blessings to you today.

Jennifer

Words of Life

I dread the light being poured on my soul, fear what will be revealed. But what can come to view that God Himself has not already seen? already loved me through? Denial doesn't hide anything. It only allows the pain and darkness to pool and stagnate, leaving something that will over-react to other stimuli. I know this. Why do I fear?

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)

Pour light and love over me, Father. Drive out the fear and lies. Only in You can I do this thing which brings fear. Only by Your love.

Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." (John 6:68)