Temporary Blog Hiatus . . .

Due to a couple of projects I will not be posting for a while. But I'm looking forward to getting back in the swing of blogging soon.

Grocery Lists

Thankfulness. . .

The Word says that we enter God's presence with thanksgiving in our hearts. He's been impressing this on my heart over and over lately.

I remember when I used to sit down for my quiet time with the stress and burden of my troubles cloaking me. My mind a fog of frustration or trying to spin out solutions.

I'd have to intentionally clear out a space in my brain and get to my thankfulness. Thanking Him for our house, our car, our health, our kids—okay sometimes they were strictly on the prayer request list . . .

While thanking him for all those things is vital, I'm learning that entering His presence with thanksgiving doesn't necessarily mean pulling out a grocery list of thank you "to do"s while a huge pile of hurt and stress sits on our shoulders.

My time with Him becomes more real and intimate when I can say, "Thank you for being with me in this stress and hurt. Thank you that you have a path already laid out to navigate this situation I'm facing. Thank you that You have everything I need. Thank You that you provide the energy to be what I need to be for my family during this time. Thank You for the answers I know You have for these problems. Thank You that You never leave me alone to handle it by myself."

My thanksgiving can be for who He is to me in my mess.

There is such power and comfort and freedom in speaking truth about who He is and what He wants to do in the midst of my challenges and struggles, that I come away from those times renewed, throwing off the fear and discouragement.

When we give Him our burdens, He gives us joy and hope.

When Life Gets Rough

I first noticed my emotions flat lining in February.

But it wasn't until I got a concerned note from my son's six grade teacher about a nose dive in missing assignments that I figured out what was going on.

We were nearing the six month anniversary of my father-in-law's death. According to grief experts it's a difficult milestone.

My reservoir was swinging toward empty but life's challenges didn't slow down to keep pace. They kept coming at full fury.

I wanted to pull over into an emotional rest stop. When I signed up to me a wife and mom, I forgot to ask about the vacation benefits (found out there's no sick pay either).

While the benefits of being a wife and mom far outweigh the challenges, those low spots can be pretty low and pretty lonely.

Quiet times can feel desolate.

It's easy to get caught up in emotional negativity. If I don't "feel" God near me, I could assume that I hadn't lived up to heavenly standards and he withdrew some of His love for me.

I know, if I hadn't been floundering in pain and defeat I'd have realized that is counter to everything Jesus said about our Father's heart.

But I'm learning a principle that I heard Graham Cooke speak about once: God is always present to our faith and occasionally we feel Him.

I love that. When life gets overwhelming, stand on what you know to be true.

God will never leave us nor forsake us. Amen!

Short Ponderings

The kindness of God leads to repentance.

So when my kids disobey, my kindness toward them leads to their repentance.

Punishment (not talking about discipline), even when deserved and just, does not bring an inward change.

Love covers a multitude of sins and opens the doors to restoration and reconciliation.

The NOW Syndrome

My husband is endlessly patient. He's kind of like God that way.

I'm not. Apparently I was taking a bathroom break when that gift was handed out.

So rather than patience, I have a syndrome. The NOW syndrome. I want an answer to my email NOW. I want to know what God is going to do in this situation NOW. I want your room cleaned NOW.

Life does not cater to my syndrome. People have their own lives to function in that, unfortunately, do not revolve around me. God . . . he just laughs at me, TDH is convinced of this. And my children certainly do not fall at my feet begging to know what I need them to accomplish right NOW.

Okay, there is someone slavishly devoted to my happiness, but I don't know if it counts since he is only twelve inches tall and covered in brown and white fur.

I can't stand waiting. And I'm talking about the important stuff—relational conflict, the teenage years, pregnancy . . . these things do not resolve themselves overnight.

I'm surprised I wasn't one of those kids who unwrapped her Christmas packages in the dead of night and then repackaged them and pretended surprise two weeks later. Okay, there was the baton I found one year under my mom's bed and practiced with daily behind locked door until she wrapped it.

What I've learned is that God wants to work things out in us in the waiting. To help us gain a deeper understanding of who Jesus is to us in that situation, so we can become more like Him to others. (I know, I've argued with him about it too, but He's not budging).

So the more we fight a situation or beg and plead to be delivered from it, the more we waste an opportunity to learn.

To learn about ourselves and to learn what God wants to be to us. He always makes provision for us, we just have to discover what it looks like and then hold on tight.

My default mode will probably always be impatience. But I'm learning to take a deep breath and look at things from a new angle, from God's angle.

Living in a Bubble

I think people fear being alone.

Not alone as in the-house-is-blissfully-empty-and-I-can-curl-up-in-front-of-the-fire-with-a-good-book alone.

I'm talking isolation from human connection.

I used to have anxiety attacks as a young child. Looking back I see them as moments of mind jarring terror when I felt disconnected from love, from humanity.

Lost on my own island of isolation it didn't matter that I bumped elbows, shared couch space and co-existed with human beings on a daily basis. I felt a galaxy of unbridgeable, frighteningly empty space separated us.

Space in which my emotions felt too big for me and too heavy to share.

And sadly, I don't think I was alone in feeling this way. I think many people feel disconnected on some level.

I think this is why people create movements of thought (or religions) that are based on the belief that people are a part of the whole (the New Age movement is a big proponent of this). Everything and everybody is interconnected.

When someone feels truly alone, they are at risk for unhealthy relationships. They crave interconnectedness no matter how damaging. Better to be with someone who blame-shifts or abuses than to not belong to anyone.

To be isolated without God is to feel despair and search for connection to something.

And yet sometimes, even with God, we struggle with living in an isolated bubble of knowledge. Knowing God loves us, knowing people love us, knowing we have "value," and yet it might as well be a million miles from us, so unreachable from the glass we look through that it feels untrue.

Believing that no one can penetrate the isolation, the concept of unconditional love is so risky, so unbelievable to actually chance.

Sometimes we have to push beyond what our emotions feel and live instead by what we know is true.

Emotions can be unstable, unreliable measures of truth, leading us to peaks of euphoria and canyons of despair, tethered to nothing but the whims of circumstance.

But if you make the choice to live by what you know to be true (sometimes you have to take that step on blind, teeth-chattering, faith)—God loves you, others love you—your feet will stay grounded in reality.

And we can choose to reach beyond the bubble and learn that we really can live outside the fear that separates us from others.

Our Rock

My oldest son's class earned a trip to the mountains for a day of skiing and snowboarding.

As we pulled snow pants and gloves out of the closet, I realized that I'm a rather fearful mom at times (yeah, like I didn't know that already). Worried that someone or something terrible lurks around the corner ready to rip my life to shreds.

I've had to face this in myself now that my kids are at the age where they can start experiencing some breathing room and freedom (without their mother following them with binoculars and walkie talkies).

The night before the snow outing I lay in bed in near hyper-ventilating panic, my writerly mind racing through every horrible scenario I've ever read about or imagined happening (if you're not a fearful mom, count your blessings).

In that moment, God showed me two ways of living my thought life—in fearful chaos or in trusting peace. The choice was mine.

I could pull and pull on the threads of "what-if" and watch my life unravel through fear-drenched imaginations, or take those thoughts captive and live in truth.

And peace.

Sure, those things could happen. But the odds are against them. And truly, how does worry help us? It doesn't prevent a darn thing and it certainly doesn't soften the blow if it does happen.

Fear warps life and prevents freedom, is what it truly does. Its purpose is to bind us into a way of thinking we were not designed for.

So why live there?

We were designed to trust in our Creator. That doesn't mean that bad things won't happen, but it does mean that He's sifted our lives through His fingers and He'll be our Rock through all situations.

Hairy Legs

I've always wanted to be a part of one of those couples who reads quietly in bed.

I even bought the bedside tables (with drawers for our enlightenment material) and cute little lamps.

I envisioned peaceful evenings where one of us would pause, finger marking the spot, and share insightful nuggets that would precipitate growth and emotional intimacy.

Reality is far different.

Exhausted from herding the short people through after school practices, homework, dinner, chores (need a cattle prod to get them through those) and general cleanup, I fall onto the couch next to my bleary-eyed hunk and stare at the scenes flashing across the TV.

We stay up too late because we're too tired to go to bed.

So rather than sharing insightful truths, we are treading sleep-deprived waters, frantically trying to make it to shore before we hit the teenage rapids around the bend.

The only growth I'm getting is the hair on my legs.

What I am learning is to roll with the punches. Life on the edge of insanity is only a season (a very long eighteen year season).

And one day we'll look at each other and wonder what all the fuss was about.

Goal Oriented

I'm an ultra goal-oriented girl with a case of envy.

I envy those relaxed moms who can chuckle at life while playing a leisurely game of Shoots and Ladders with the short people while the bills are crying to be paid, the stuffed laundry hamper is starting to smell, and the ring around the tub is hosting a bacterial hula party.

Uusally by 5:00 pm when life is kicking me in the hind end—dinner has yet to be determined and I have to take one of the children to practice—my youngest son will pick that moment to give me a play-by-play of his hour long basketball scrimmage with his older brother.

I manage sporadic eye contact and impatient, "Mmm hmm, mmhmms," before I finally stop him and say, "Honey, I'm in a hurry, can you tell me in the car?" and then harangue the kids all the way to practice for not being ready when I needed to leave—completely forgetting my son's story.

I can get so focused on the goal (get there on time, clean the house, empty out those drawers, get the pictures in the scrapbook . . . ) that the kids float somewhere along the periphery.

The other day after noticing how harried my life gets and how impatient I can become, I pleaded with the Lord to help me to slow down and really listen to my kids. I want them to know they are the most important beings in my universe and not just a detail I'll get to when everything else is accomplished.

And it hit me. Make them the goal. Why not flip things around and make their well-being the goal of every interaction I have with them? And that goal trumps every other one on my list.

Pastor Wayne Cordeiro once shared this thought in a sermon. "Imagine that children have a sign around their necks that reads, 'Help me feel good about myself today.'"

We have such an impact on how our children view themselves. And I want that view to be a good one.

Lovely Not Ugly

I've been reading an amazing book, Finding Peace for Your Heart by Stormie O'Martian. Stormie points out how critical it is to our emotional health to confess and repent of sin.

Because I know that when we receive salvation all our sins (past, present and future) have been forgiven, I don't spend a lot of time on the confessing part. I toss up my share of, "Sorry, Lord, there I go agains," but don't really focus on the confessing of it. Sometimes I even skate around my sinfulness because of the shame I feel for my behavior.

Then Stormie shared (and I agree) that though we are forgiven and our citizenship in heaven is certain and secure, unconfessed sin becomes a weight we drag around.

A little further along, she said that when we are victimized by others, our response to it can be sinful and needs to be confessed. I was still nodding until my gaze skidded to a stop on the sin of criticism.

I felt my defensive heels dig in. But Lord, I'm not trying to be critical, it's just when they . . . and I saw myself trying to justify why I had a right to criticize and judge.

Oh, yes, my rights. I wear them like armor. You see, on some level (yeah, that would be the fleshly one) I believe I have a right to be critical if I have been wronged by them (all those thems out there that spoke rudely to me, that cut me off in traffic, even the short ones who talked back to me after I told them to put their breakfast bowls in the dishwasher instead of the sink).

Stormie made it abundantly clear—quoting Bible verses no less—that I have no rights when it comes to this.

So I reluctantly started confessing and repenting. She hammered that one home too. No point in confessing (apologizing) if we have no intention of repenting (turning away from the sin and behavior).

So after pondering all this, I wandered to the kitchen to make myself a cup of late night cocoa (I was craving and it was the only chocolate in the house). I told the Lord that I realize I often avoid him because I don't want him to see the criticalness and judgment I have in me.

He pretty much said that was silly since he already knew it was there. So feeling like a kid digging her toes in the dirt, I asked, "So what do you think of me when I'm like that?"

I truly felt like he said, "I think you're lovely."

I blurted out. "But I'm so ugly in my sin." And I heard. "Don't call ugly what I call lovely."

He reminded me that all my sin has been paid for and his anger satisfied when Jesus took it upon himself, so what is left, is my loveliness.

Isn't that amazing? And it is for each one of us.