New again

Last year was a big marker year for our family, and entering the new in 2014 brought such joy.  It was in the major transitions of 2013 that I got to feeling dizzy with LOTS of frustration and at least some fear mixed in.  We weren't just entering a new chapter, it felt like starting all over again.  This, despite the evidence that the changes were actually leading to a wonderful culmination of the last ten years.

I confess I still have days, every week it seems, where I just cannot see that evidence!

But back to the story... I was spilling to my Hub this struggle with all the newness, when he acknowledged so simply,

"It's hard to be in a new place."  

That's all I needed: the permission to say it is hard.  It is normal/acceptable/human/forgivable to struggle to believe and stay in the moment.  I wrote down my circling thoughts as a poem, including the fantastical things that happen in my head when the Now becomes uncomfortable.  Months later, I reformed it into the villanelle below.  It reads very specific to me.  I hope some of you can relate enough to find permission, and then be freed to face the disbelief.

New again is still the place
where I smile for the hope
but then run a moment later

to where it’s long been cold.
For I’d rather be there, then.
Not new again, displaced.

What if today is just mistake 
I let our yesterdays take me
running only moments later

to where I'm dizzy, unrequited,
mistaken over you, wishing
new then was still my place.

Then back again, though not far
off, I still find hope is hard and
cannot run in moment’s laughter.

I do mistake what is today
to mean our dreams are now erased,
that being new in another place
bodes us run alone hereafter.

i have always liked roller coasters

we held a third day of prayer at our community college last month.  like the previous spring and fall, we set up a tent in the middle of campus and invited anyone who desired to join in the 12 hours of nonstop prayer.  to see our communities turned upside down by the love of Jesus, we know it'll start with our praying.  so we gather people to seek the Father's heart.

this journey in prayer has been surprising, like our fourth child coming.  at first it seemed the sound rhythm of bed rest had continued after his arrival, especially since my recovery took longer than expected.  however, the demands of a newborn (in an already full house) drained away any sense of rest.  most days i felt over-stretched, incapable.  i had hoped for a steady, straightforward climb toward wholeness and "normalcy" but a roller coaster ride describes it better.  he's four months old now and it's still up, down, and all around.

like me and prayer.

weeks back, God showed me how i forget prayer in the times when desperation nags and haunts and leeches.  somehow i forget why i pray and to Whom i call.  when i reach helpless or hopeless, i have quit prayer because there's a crooked belief that if i'm not "enough" my petitions won't be received.  i think i should be stronger.  i'm ashamed when i get ugly.  i compare myself to other moms or the mom i was before.  i believe i must first brush myself off, correct my attitude or remember the bright side, and i miss my Father's heart.  i believe my composure will grant me acceptance in his presence and he just might answer, even rescue.  

then i read Spurgeon's words, depicting a different posture and making me remember:

"oftentimes a poor broken-hearted one bends his knee, but can only utter his wailing in the language of sighs and tears; yet that groan has made all the harps of heaven thrill with music; that tear has been caught by God and treasured... think not that your prayer, however weak or trembling, will be unregarded."

that day, the day i read how "God not only hears prayer but also loves to hear it," i began again to practice this kind.  a fever came on me, for no known reason.  for several hours in the evening i was home alone with all four kids and physically feeble.  emotionally so frail, i simply said, "i cannot do it." and he carried me through.  climbing into bed later on, i dreaded facing the overnight.  i only asked, "heal me," and before dawn my fever broke.

yet i have forgotten again.  i've struggled a lot before and through the holidays and i am back to dismissing this simple prayer.  another lesson i have failed to learn.  i recall sitting in our first prayer tent a year ago.  distracted and disappointed, my hopes for a stretch of quiet had been dashed.  not as i planned, i had my toddler with me and she needed my attention and had her own plans.  i remember tasting the irony.  even then, God was showing me my ignorance, how i limit prayer and limit him and me.  he had started me on a new journey of rest.  it's one that i'm still on, a ride that hasn't halted, where he's teaching me to just and always be with him and to know how much he longs for me.

i don't know whether yours is like a roller coaster, but this is one ride i pray won't stop.  even if it's up, down, or all around.  i want to let him gather me toward his heart and my prayers are where it starts.  would you ask with me, that i'd begin again and not forget so quickly?

will Grace suffice?

Hazaiah Kenneth

arrived on Thursday evening

August 18, 2011

weighing a surprising nine pounds and an ounce

measuring twenty-one inches long

God decided.  our family would grow this year.  God decided.  my pregnancy would bring new challenges, new blessings.  God decided.  i would carry this baby full term and he'd be healthy, the biggest yet.

God decided...

ultimately, Only God decides.  and that's the meaning of Hazaiah's name:  the Lord has seen and he decides.  also this: seeing the Lord and believing his decisions.  Hazaiah means to see what Sovereign God has done, to see what he is doing, and to trust it all.  the Good of it all.

this is what God keeps teaching and deeper and deeper goes our trust.  it's not because we're becoming greater and greater, only that he's decided to take us deeper.  into his Grace.  and by his Grace alone we are learning.  with every year we live, every child we're given, every endeavor he leads us into, we find there's more and more we've got to learn.  that's where Grace deepens, as deeper goes the awareness of our need for it.

grace, in fact, is not the first word i'd use to describe our recent days.  more of the waiting combines with postpartum challenges.  recovery is taking longer and the house is getting messier.  even though i can do little homemaking, school's in and kenn is working more outside our home.  too often, sleep deprivation means short tempers and exaggerated emotions.  most often, i am wishing i could get up and get to work: clean the dirt, implement order, corral the kids (and us adults) back to peaceful...

but God decides i am still here 

still needing to say no

  still needing to let go

  still needing Strength 

that from me will never come

  and still needing Grace 

to pardon

i like to read C. H. Spurgeon's Morning and Evening.  today's reflection is taken from Leviticus 13:13, where the law states that a man is declared clean only when his body is found entirely covered with leprosy, head to toe.  here's part of Spurgeon's thoughts on the verse:

"we, too, are lepers, and may read the law of leper as applicable to ourselves.  when a man sees himself to be altogether lost and ruined, covered all over with the defilement of sin, and no part free from pollution, when he disclaims all righteousness of his own, and pleads guilty before the Lord, then he is clean through the blood of Jesus, and the grace of God." 

i needed Jesus to save my life and now i need him in order to live it.  you may have read in previous blogs about God calling me to rest long before my time on bed rest.  it's been close to a year that this particular season of slow has been upon me.  and i've been questioning the Good.  defeat overcomes in this time of feeling hands are tied and of crying, "how long?". but it's the feeling of defeat that ties my hands and it's admitting i really am helpless that sets me free. it frees me to trust in God's decisions and to trust the Good in it all.  only then am i free to act, even when (perhaps especially when) such acting feels like inaction.

"...he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."  (2 Corinthians 12:9,10)

so be it.

i confess

 

i am not a morning person. my mom says she learned it was best to just leave me alone when i'd wake. my kids might reveal how often i shush and glower at them if the hour is early.  my husband knows to hesitate, for he'll get the brunt of my grumpiness on any given a.m.

i have tried waking at dawn to slowly breathe in the day, soak in the quiet in order to quiet what's within.  then when the creatures begin to stir, i am prepared for any squawks, spats, tramping and door-slamming, even their whistling and silly amusements.

the plan has failed.  there are still days when i get annoyed.  a child wakes extra early.  two bicker over a specific spoon.  someone complains about the breakfast options.  kenn and i miscommunicate over the day's schedule.  i quickly go to frustrated, edgy, defeated.  like yesterday, when i woke at 6.  i'd had a better night's sleep and actually felt rested.  no one else had risen.  and by 7?  once more i was put out by the clamor beginning to swell through the house.

i'm not a morning person, and i'm a slow learner.  it's taken a long time to admit to myself: the problem is really my own expectation, my demand. i want quiet, so... BE QUIET!

my firstborn was born loud.  it may be hereditary, for there are other family members (whom i won't mention) who've got an equal disregard for the still of the morning.  or maybe it's personality.  he's an entertainer, brimming with energy.  yet i've nearly tried to enforce another persona on him, simply because i like quiet at certain times.

God's funny, right? how he lets certain things into our lives that exacerbate our weaknesses? what's not funny is how he gives us good things that we somehow turn bad.

          Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? 

yesterday, i started to voice my vexation and my husband answered in gentleness, "you can't have absolute quiet when you have kids."  Grace came to me through the love of my partner.  i couldn't argue and my own unreasonableness slapped me in the face.  i dreamed of kids.  i love kids.  i chose kids.  i have kids.  so what is this ridiculous insistence?

         Love is patient, love is kind... not self-seeking... always perseveres.

i need to relinquish this petty wish.  i want to welcome the presence of my family, not just on good days, in good moments.  can i receive the tensions like i receive the joys?  i want to stay here with this struggle and figure out how to really love. here.

           Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation 

and leaves no regret.

i confess. i'm not a morning person.
but i actually love the morning.
now to let my Maker make me more lovely, loving.
even in the morning.

* * * * *

though i'm posting on a thursday, this was written on wednesday
for the community now celebrating the Practice of Love:

like snow in summer...

"like snow in summer 
or rain in harvest, 
honor is not fitting for a fool."

snowing yet again! you won't hear a complaint from me. i asked for it. i even thought it was funny today when i read that first verse from proverbs 26. it wasn't so amusing to realize shortly after: i'd been a fool. a fool a bit like haman, that is. he's the man from the biblical story of esther who enjoyed vast wealth and high position and grand favor but had one complaint: all this gives me no satisfaction as long as i see that jew mordecai sitting at the king's gate.

no, i don't know anyone named mordecai and i enjoy very little money and power. but a bit like haman's, my own dreams have come true. the picture of life that i'd hoped for just a few years back is now a reality. how many people can say that? still, i had chosen haman's response when not long ago i'd said, God, i am just not satisfied with that!

you see, there was a situation i found myself in (to no blame of my own) from which God had released me. instead of accepting freedom, i chose to hold onto it like the stubborn child i am learning i am. there was just one outcome of which i wanted more control. i built my own gallows.

at the end of chapter five in esther, haman shares this one gripe with his wife and friends. i wonder if  they weren't drunk or at least half-joking, but they tell him to have a gallows built and get the king to hang mordecai. then it'll all be great, they imply. it actually sounds like a plan to haman.

do you know what happens the next day?! it's what alarmed me when i realized how i'd been clutching just one thing, one grievance, dissastisfied. that one complaint could have been my own death! and my dreams would have died with me. like haman.

thank my Redeemer, he rescued me. as he always does and promises he will, he saved me by showing me how i'd been the fool. yes, just like that fool i only read about in proverbs. he said it was not fitting for me, his redeemed.

and that's where i'm not like haman.

a story about hospitality

it was dark, it must have been late, dinner had not yet been served. in fact, i was busy trying to prepare it when i heard a quiet tapping on the back door. our backyard is enclosed with a fence which  the neighborhood kids know to enter only after they've asked permission. it's a general rule when we aren't in the yard.

earlier, the knocking at the front door had begun to get out of hand - kids being kids and being silly but wearing on us hungry and tired adults. so when the knock at the back door was heard, i was irked. i left my cooking to peer out a window, to catch a little pest in action. sure enough, someone was standing on my fence. the darkness hid who it was, so i just banged on the window and motioned a command to get down. whoever it was tried to gesture their explanation to me, which i assumed was unwarranted. i turned to the back door to get down to the bottom of this interruption.

let me not forget, the tap i'd heard had turned to two or three knocks and then a call of my name - Miss Cheri?! - but i still refused to answer. my task of making dinner i had determined to complete.

to my surprise and near horror when i opened the door, sweet d. was standing there cowering with tears in his eyes, explaining how some kids were threatening him.

oh my God, what have i done? i love this dear boy, small of stature yet so tall of heart. he has come to my door to find refuge. literally. and i've refused him. to offer a place for any one to be at home and find what they need for the journey was the hope-filled intention of my heart, and it had been realized. in an instant, i locked that door.

thank God for his mercy and justice. over us all. d.'s tears broke me and i offered my deep regret in apology. he came inside and wiped away his tears with a bit of shame. not long after, his cousins and siblings came to walk him home and a piece of myself walked away with him. i think it won't return.

i am so broken. jesus still comes to my house. let me not miss him again.