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:

in the meantime

i'm sure i'm not the first person to think of it. how befitting is the phrase, in the meantime. i laugh.
i also tremble.

in the meantime? it's what we do when we are waiting. hoping. looking forward to something else. something more. sometimes it is something longed for, for such a long time. or other times, it is an answer we may not want to come, an event that we fear. this stretch, this span, these moments for us become mean when we feel them as cruel, miserly, unmerited. mean time.

we are a stubborn, persistent, demanding humanity who forgets this world is not ours. not forever. we forget Whom it is Who made time and lives wholly (holy) outside of time. we are a people who forget the promise:

"I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for." (Jeremiah 29:11)

in actuality, it is only our capacity to wait that is mean - poor, limited, low - while Scripture teaches unapologetically that all of this life is a waiting. Read all of Romans 8!  Here's just a portion.

"All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good." 

will we allow the waiting to make us mean?
and by that i mean humble enough to receive our future.

where to find rest

since last fall, my journey's gone increasingly deeper into the realm of rest.  seems this season of physical stillness (bed rest) merely perfects the process!  i have wanted to speak specifically to certain graces given me, but sometimes you have no words of your own to tell of the fathomless truths you've found.  this is a song that has helped me lift up praise to the One whose showers are drenching my soul with Light and Love.

In You
 
I sing for joy
In my remorse
A well within prosperity’s curse
That drowns the mighty oak of pride
But feeds the root of God inside.

In You
I find my rest
In You
I find my death
In You
I find my all and my emptiness
Somehow it all makes sense

In You I’m rich
When I’ve been made poor
Comfort found when I mourn
The prideful one You see from afar
Drawing near to low, broken hearts.

In You
I find my rest
In You
I find my death
In You
I find my all and my emptiness
But it all makes sense

"This is what the Sovereign Lord, The Holy One of Israel, says:

In repentance and rest is your salvation,

in quietness and trust is your strength..."

Isaiah 30:15 

-----------------------

"In You" by Shane and Shane.  Released on Waiting Room Records 2007.

day five

 

piety's strain

trying

to sift out

disappointments

You waited till i found

letdown wasn't put out

and put down striving
till i found You waiting

this day was one peppered with frustration over my bed rest orders, despite the fact that i had the privilege of being so "confined" in a beach town at a lovely b&b. with the frustration came guilt, then the foolishness of trying to right myself for the (hidden) fear that God was shaking his head at me and my whining. he is not so, mortal with ploys. the truth about him looks more like this (Isaiah 30:18):

     the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
          he rises to show you compassion.
     for the LORD is a God of justice.
          blessed are all who wait for him!

* * *

poem written by c. l. atkinson

the golden rule

our stroller went missing recently. it was in pretty poor condition, but it was a double-seater for jogging and we used it a lot. our oldest noticed it was gone one day while a few kids from around the corner were out back. he said he'd seen a couple of them with it, so i told them all to go retrieve it. pretty brazen, i thought, to let themselves into our backyard and then take something. they barely know us.

after a couple of minutes and no sign of the kids, i decided to see what happened. i rounded the corner to find them looking a bit bewildered. no stroller. as i crossed the street asking where it was, they all began their tales. I wasn't outside, SHE was . . . NO! I was in the bathtub . . . NO, I WAS in the tub. . . well actually, I WAS the only one inside . . . then i realized the stroller wasn't taken that hour nor that day but the night before. they had removed it from our yard, left it somewhere on the sidewalk, and now it was gone.

let's just say, i was not pleased.

rewind to the night before. these same kids were racing back and forth with streams of tape pulled from a video they'd broken. our son was riding his scooter as they played and it seems at some point they started chasing him with the tape. he probably thought it was fun, until one boy wrapped the tape around his neck and wouldn't let go. our son hit him in the side to get the boy to release him. then he came home, clearly shaken.

after getting the story, kenn took our oldest back outside and made him apologize. kenn also gave a good talk to the crew of them about playing nicely. i saw from the window that it took some repeating and added sternness for the other kids to even give an ear. then, on his own, the boy who had hurt ours decided to apologize, too. breakthrough! his sister (a second-grader, mind you) actually got mad at kenn, thinking he'd forced her brother to say sorry. kenn calmly set her straight.

back to the day of the stroller. knowing it was taken in the night and i could do nothing about its whereabouts, i took a breath. what do i do now? i almost went to the kids' house to report their crime. i asked who was watching them and one said it was their mom. she was sleeping. sleeping!? i thought. her kids are running the streets and she sleeps? then something happened in me. i know now it was the Spirit within showing me what i almost missed. three precious children.

with my anger dissolving, i told them it didn't matter who took it and addressed the behavior instead. the older ones stared blankly when i asked them how they'd feel if i walked into their house and took something of theirs. so i posed the same to the youngest, who can't be more than 5. with a lisp he said, "sad!" and my heart broke a little more. then i laid down the rule. from now on, if they'd like to go in the backyard or use something of ours, they just need permission. immediately, they asked to use our basketball hoop - the one they'd already pulled from the yard moments before i had them searching for the stroller.

what else could i do? i said okay, and they skipped across the street with me in tow. i let them in our yard. i let them use the toys. and i felt really free.

that night at dinner, kenn read these upside-down commands of Jesus from Luke 6:

but i tell you who hear me: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. if someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. if someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. do to others as you would have them do to you.

it's okay: a work in progress

i think i'm learning a little bit more about ambiguity and unanswered questions, about striving and settling.

like this weekend. i was six hours away from home and my babies, and my sweet 3-year-old ended up in the hospital. it was likely he'd be just fine, but i really did fear i might lose him. now i look back on it and think, was there more to take away from that experience? should my reaction to his healing have been as intense as my fear of his failing? did i miss something?

yes, i'm learning.
it's okay to not know how to respond.
it's okay to wonder what's going on and not come up with an answer.
it's okay to revel in the glimpse of something without jumping to seize the whole picture.
it's okay to speak what i sense is utterly true, even when it's depths i cannot grasp nor wholly express.
it's okay to stay put when divergence enters the room.
it's okay to feel less than inspired after a conversation.
it's okay to start something i may not finish today.
it's okay to try something, not knowing where it'll take me.

it's more than okay.

i am learning a little bit more about my compulsion to get everything just right. mind, matter, me, you.

i'll probably pursue more insight into the crazy weekend, but i think i'll be okay if i don't.