At the beginning of the month, I had the lovely privilege of teaching at my church’s monthly women’s gathering. I hemmed and hawed (in my own brain) for awhile before accepting this invitation…and then I hemmed and hawed before the Lord because I was absolutely sure there was no way He had anything fresh FOR me, let alone for me to share.

Whatever, self.

Of course, I was wrong. He let me experience a fresh brush of His presence and might in the place I least expected and was least likely to look for Him: on the couch, in the middle of the night, when a stomach bug had ravaged our home.

Before you react to my verb choice here, ‘ravage’ is entirely appropriate for how I feel about the stomach bug. As a bit of an anxious person, I have a mental list of Things I Am Scared May Happen (And How To Handle Them). On my TIASMH list, quite near the top, is “my entire family getting sick and having to take care of each other while puking”. I have an inordinate amount of anxiety about the stomach bug. And so several weeks earlier, around 2am as I woke feeling queasy, I thought to myself, WHO HATH WROUGHT THIS THING UPON ME? I hardly go out in public during flu season. I wash my hands. I wipe down every cart with wipes PLUS bring my own sanitizer with me. We diffuse essential oils. I’d been taking vitamins and zinc and oily things for a week. HOW. I thought to myself, How do I now find myself pulling my hair up in a messy bun and getting a cool rag because I just know it is coming.

My husband quarantined me and brought me ice chips. The children stayed out. I stayed in. During one episode, my husband actually shouted under the door, “I am so sorry! You are my hero! I hope you are taking the fall for all of us!” (And I thought What?! What sort of love is this?! He hopes I’m absorbing this for everyone?! Except. Wait. Oh. YES. OH DEAR GOD, PLEASE let me be absorbing this for everyone so the house does not get sick!)

By later that afternoon we knew it would be a family affair.

Weak, but the worst of it seeming to be over, I crept from the bed to help the mister set up our 5 year old on the couch with all the supplies. I tried to keep the baby out of everyone’s face (FUTILITY) and administered cool rags and a bucket and sympathy alternately to my daughter and, within a few hours, also my husband.

It was the pits, you guys.

At about 10pm, as my husband tried to sleep and my daughter slept fitfully on the couch, I texted several friends to pray and I myself began to pray silently:
Dear Father – if you have ever listened to a prayer, could you please, please grant me this – don’t let the baby get sick! Let him sleep through the night peacefully and wake cheerily. I cannot – CANNOT – go back and forth between two kids who are sick. I will just not be able.

And my brain whispered slyly this response: “Don’t get your hopes up, because God doesn’t usually say ‘yes’ to these sorts of requests – he’s not all that interested in your daily experience, now is he?”

I sat briefly in that thought, frustrated and suspicious.

And as I sat in that silence, facing my own lie, the voice of the spirit of God filled me from within as He said quietly but firmly:
YOU HAVE A VERY SMALL VIEW OF WHAT MY LIFE IN YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH.

A beat went by and suddenly, I saw so many whispered prayers that had left my mouth over the years: prayers largely for my comfort, for my preferences to be satisfied, for my hurts to go away, for my way to be made EASY…prayers that God do things my way, according to my earnest expectations and hope that I be exempt from pain.

Had I been any more surprised (or not quite so weak), I would have literally fallen to my knees to repent.
As it was, I sat on the couch in the dim light, next to a sleeping sick girl, and whispered, “Oh GOD. Forgive me. I repent. I REPENT. Help my unbelief! If Your life IN me can meet the needs of this sick family, then I know I will be able to do it.”

I admit I did not want God to put my confession to the test, but in the wee small hours when my baby son did, in fact, get sick, I saw that Christ’s life in me was truly enough to meet the needs of my family.

In this comparatively very small thing of a stomach bug, God began to show me again the very BIG thing of His life in me.

I’m not sure I’d ever heard Him impress on me the truth of His presence in those exact words, but I know this is not the first time God has used my circumstances to reorient me to a greater reality. A reality greater than my circumstances. A SPIRIT reality.  It made me think of Paul, writing to the Colossians to remind them that “YOU. HAVE. DIED. and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (3:3, emphasis mine).

These days of small kids and sickness and midnight wakings and 3am scary dreams and homeschooling and ministering and wrestling with my own thoughts…I am beginning to understand that when I take such a small view of God, I am limiting my living. When I forget that I have died, I begin to believe that my bootstraps are all I’ve got — well, bootstraps and diffusing peppermint and wild orange in the mornings to perk me up. When I forget I have died and that “the life I now life in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me”, I lose the strength and energy available to me to walk by faith and not by sight.

I am forfeiting so much life, when I forget that it is Christ’s life in me, to will and to work according to His good pleasure. And so in these days I am practicing the daily confession, “Not I, but Christ.”

When the kids are really loud before my coffee is ready, “not I, but Christ” can attend to their needs.
When the husband needs help solving a problem that just really seems inconveniently timed, “not I, but Christ” can offer help.
When my own thoughts are in opposition to what I have come to believe is true of God, “not I, but Christ” meets me in that moment and reorients me to His words of hope and peace.

It is of course a discipline. And the confession doesn’t always make me feel better in the moment. But I am learning that to take a larger view of the life of Christ in me also means that I release the demand that my sensory experience validate the holy truths of Scripture and the words of the Holy Spirit to me.

It is hard.

But, you know what? It is right.

I.

For over two years now I have been listening to Andrew Peterson’s “The Burning Edge of Dawn” album. To me it is the sound of autumn and longing and hope. When it released in 2015, I was filled with unease and unrest about so much. We sensed that change was ahead, but had no vision or clarity and we were sitting in anxious waiting for…? For what, we didn’t know. I seized this album and clung to the songs and words like a gasp for air. I believed they were ushering me into deliverance. Answered prayer. Wholeness. Peace.

Instead, I discovered Peterson’s songs were walking me into the darkness.

It’ll shake a man’s timbers when he loses his heart,
When he has to remember what broke him apart.
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God      [1]

Later I would describe it as a feeling of abandonment, though I know that idea conflicts with the nature of God. [2] For nearly a year, I’d continued in the spiritual disciplines that I’d learned brought me into intimate communion with my Abba Father. Practices I’d fought for through anxiety and fear and unanswered prayer and longing. Disciplines I clung to, that refreshed my heart and saved me from my own self-absorption. At some point that year, and for the two that would follow, it was as if God simply stopped showing up.

Imagine a standing coffee date with one you love – it’s always on the calendar, time hard won and cherished. You come to trust and expect your loved one’s attentive presence at these times, you share together in victories and woes, you laugh and cry together; you are strengthened by the mutual relationship. Now imagine your friend arrives later and later, saying less and less. Confident in your friend’s love, you continue to meet, even though it appears she is not listening or responding. Then one day, you show up and you wait…and you wait and you wait and you wait. She doesn’t arrive. Well, maybe there was an emergency. Grace for all things, you show up again the next time. Alone. And the time after that and the time after that – your friend is not coming.

I told my husband that although I didn’t want to place my trust in my brilliant intellectual assessment (ha) of the situation, I didn’t know what to make of the fact that suddenly God seemed to have simply disappeared. I knew that wasn’t a plausible reality, God being Who He is. But I had no other explanation or way to grasp the silence I felt. The mister and I would pray together, we would enter into confession and repentance. We explored the biblical components of the ebb and flow of a life lived in Christ. Short of asking, “Did I just tick Him off?!”, we exhausted our options.

And though I decided to make a choice for faith, acting as though God’s presence was near even though I had no earthly affirmation of such, I felt completely in the dark. No, more like falling. It felt perilous and disorienting. I felt unanchored to truths I’d held to since I was a little girl, revelations I’d come into as a young adult, convictions I’d grown as a woman.

I called it a wilderness of sorts. A dark night of the soul. And I just knew (hoped?) that soon God would break through. He’d issue that revelation or divine word or person of peace to burst into the dissonance I was experiencing and make everything right again.

Except that is not what happened.

II.

Instead, enter my very own Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. [3]

A biblical scholar I respect once summed up the friends of Job this way: Eliphaz appealed to Job on the basis of experience with God, Bildad founded his exhortation in tradition, Zophar was unable to consider the nuance of the whole thing and was completely dogmatic…(and I failed to mention Elihu – I have a notation in the margin of my Bible that refers to him as a “young jackass”, though I’m not sure I should say that here).

It’s not a perfect metaphor, except to say that at a time when I felt the aching silence of God, I experienced what I can only describe as increased confusion at the voices of people who intended help. The bottom line for each of these friends was that yes, they were motivated by love, but they were each “poor theologians, attempting to box God into their experiences and traditions”. I suppose we all do this to a degree. But in the dark night of the soul I’ve been walking in, the voices added their own confusion and brokenness to the mire and questions I’d been so certain of became impossible to grasp and believe: God’s existence. His care for me, personally. His loving attentiveness to His children. His involvement at all with His creation. All muddy, foggy, uncertain.

I was tempted to quote Job himself, “I have heard many such things [as what you say]; sorry comforters are you all. Is there no limit to windy words? Or what plagues you that you answer?” [This last phrase is so good – perhaps should make it a normal part of conversation when unnecessary responses persist? What plagues you that you answer?] I agonized over these relationships, labored over the confusion wrought in my thoughts over well-intentioned but cold comfort.

My daughter and I put the seeds in the dirt
And every day now we’ve been watching the earth
For a sign that this death will give way to a birth
And the rain keeps falling

Down on the soil where the sorrow is laid
And the secret of life is igniting the grave
And I’m dying to live but I’m learning to wait
And the rain is falling

Peace, be still
Peace, be still                                       [4]

So I’m waiting for the King
to come galloping out of the clouds while the angel armies sing. 
He’s gonna gather His people in the shadow of His wings
And I’m gonna raise my voice with the song of the redeemed
‘Cause all this darkness is a small and passing thing.      [5]

Perhaps, perhaps, I am entering into peace. I am not sure. But the darkness is a small and passing thing.

III.

A little over a year ago, our son arrived. Six weeks ahead of schedule, on the day we were only planning to meet his birthparents. I remember the unreal-ness of the drive, two hours away, and breathing anxiety-ease oils the whole way. I remember the sense of apprehension walking into the attorney’s office first, for a quick meeting. I remember the uncertainty and dare-not-hope I felt when the attorney said, “Well. Birthmom thinks her water broke this morning.” I remember how I felt walking out of there to meet the birthparents at a sonogram appointment…and sitting across a table with them later, eating barbecue and talking about baby names. The whole thing surreal and unbelievable. We took a picture together. We agreed to text.

We decided to stay at a family member’s house in town, on the off-chance it were true, and she really was in labor. Later that night, we got the text from birthdad: “Hey – doctor says her water broke and she’s 5cm dilated and baby’s coming tonight. We’ll keep y’all posted.”

It was a whirlwind of NICU nurses and paperwork signing and finally, finally getting to tell our daughter that she was going to really truly be a big sister. And then it was the real life of midnight feedings and baby reflux and social worker visits. It was the big sister sitting on the couch and admiring her baby brother, only to be followed by, “Don’t you remember I asked for a baby GIRL?” It was parenting two kids who are nearly 5yrs apart through preschool graduation and part-time work and packing up our apartment to move again. It was an answer to my heart’s longing, but that did not make it easy. And it did not fix my heartsickness.

I remember telling a friend through tears, I think this year is just going to be WORK. The work of adjusting to a new baby, the work of another upheaval and change, the work of the spirit – though I don’t know what that will yield. I sometimes I can’t help my “why bother” that slips out, whenever I pray or attempt to meet with God. I’m not ungrateful – I love this baby more than I thought possible. But heartsickness I guess just isn’t fixed with a ‘yes’ to my prayer. I know there’s just WORK to be done.

The idea of work took root in that moment and took on flesh last summer. As I skimmed through the story of Job again (note: not comparing my circumstances to him duh should any of us ever), I recalled the way Job and his friends went through cycles of conversation and exhortation. I read Job’s responses and his friends’ attempts to help him wrap his brain around GOD ALMIGHTY. As if it can be done! As if God’s purposes, His ways, His means of moving through time and circumstance can be neatly tacked up under golden words like “sovereignty” or packaged nicely into categorical explanations.

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you and you will instruct Me! Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

[5]

I know now, as perhaps I knew in part when the disciplines yielded an emotional connection to the Father, that this is work. That my heart will not simply wake up one morning and be magically restored to wholeness. That I cannot throw Christianisms at my mind and I cannot garner good feelings simply by clocking in with Jesus and hoping He punches my timecard.

But I believe He is able.
Even in my chronic uncertainty, even in my help my unbelief, even in my daily confessions of not I, but Christ.
He is able.

I had a dream that I was waking at the burning edge of dawn,
I could see the fields of glory, I could hear the Sower’s song.
I had dream that I was waking at the burning edge of dawn,
all that rain had washed me clean, all the sorrow was gone.
I had a dream that I was waking at the burning edge of dawn
And I could finally believe the King had loved me all along.
I had a dream that I was waking at the burning edge of dawn
and I saw the Sower in the silver mist — and he was calling me home.   [6]

My words have been so weighty lately – maybe the winter, maybe the sickness that never ends, maybe the time to ruminate. It’s very much needed, given that writing helps me to work out my salvation (“through fear and trembling” sometimes!) and hear God more clearly. But the days are slowly, slowly getting longer and the shadows in my backyard are shifting a little bit. A cool front may have blown through this weekend, but my sights are set on spring. Our trees are fuller, dead grass is brightening into green, I can smell orange blossoms from almost anywhere in town. Allergies aside, I love this part of living in rural Central Florida — the orange blossoms, the jasmine…it smells like the south ought to and I LOVE it.

Though I’ve been glad to unload some of my heavier thoughts and feelings throughout this winter, I’ve also got some metaphorical spring cleaning to do. I want to open up the shutters of my never-ending thinking so I can clean out the unnecessary clutter. I imagine the figurative dusting off of crowded corners and the March breeze curiously whistling through the wintery curtains of thought. Perhaps I can truly lay down some of the self-imposted burden of solving it all and open up my hands more freely.

I have never walked a tightrope and I’ve stumbled off the slack line my cousin ties up between the trees at family gatherings. But I know this much: you can’t walk that rope successfully with arms tight and tense and stuck to your side. To have any leverage at all, to stand a chance of balancing on that tense line, your body literally must open up. Arms wide, head up, core strong. It’s not an easy task and the fearful misappropriate their strength and utterly fall.

I know living is crammed with tension. But “earth’s crammed with heaven”, as the poet said, “and every common bush afire with God. But only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.” [1]

I’m terribly afraid I might end up just plucking blackberries and staring inward until my self-aborption blinds me to the fire of God.

Spring cleaning and spirit rest and eyes outward. (SO tempted to be all “clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose”. Coach Taylor, anyone?)

So I’m starting small.
A coral candle I picked up on sale this week, a cold-pressed green juice instead of coffee, pushing the actual desk clutter to the side.
My spring retreat is coming up and I’m jotting down ideas of rest for those days. (I try to take a personal retreat 2-3x a year; it’s SO helpful and restful for my heart. I wrote an open letter about it here.).
I’m drinking more water and diffusing peppermint in the kitchen.
I’m remembering that it’s okay to love writing and reading and what’s good for mama is good for the family.

This spring I hope to take more walks, to listen more closely to my daughter, to surprise my husband with time away (babe, if you’re reading, forget I said that), and to watch my son take more steps. I will photograph my kids more frequently. I hope to secure a more peaceful day with less phone time and more book time. Going analog, and all that.

My hopes for spring aren’t massive or even all that ground-breaking. But small steps towards what I hope will be lighter living in the unavoidable tension, attentive parenting in the noise of imaginative littles, crafting more fun in my marriage, clearing out space in my mind so that I can live from a deeper place than all the fuss of feelings and thoughts…

So I kneel
At the bright edge of the garden
At the golden edge of dawn
At the glowing edge of spring
When the winter’s edge is gone
And I can see the color green
I can hear the sower’s song

Abide in me
Let these branches bear You fruit
Abide in me, Lord
Let Your word take root
Remove in me
The branch that bears no fruit
And move in me, Lord
As I abide in You

The Sower’s Song, by Andrew Peterson [2]

I homeschool our kindergartner. This has been a learning year for us both — sometimes we feel as though we are thriving and learning, sometimes it is an effort just to mark ONE thing off the list. We are committed to yearly evaluating prayerfully what is the right fit for our family in terms of education, so while we may or may not homeschool forever, I still want to approach the planning and preparing with attentiveness and care. This is my magical little pixie of a daughter, after all! Because I struggle in my quest to find the “right” way to do things, I’ve found it important to pray and confess as I prepare for school. This may not apply to all readers, therefore, but I hope the principle can be an encouragement anyway.

God, who is the maker of all and the possessor of all knowledge, be present at my desk today.

As I make lists and go through curriculum and plan activities, remind me that I am not the end-all, be-all for my child. Because you made her and fashioned her in the secret place before I even knew her, You know her heart and needs intimately. You know her enthusiasm and her energy, You know her unique rhythms because you crafted them. She is made in Your image! And so I pause even now, to thank You for the gift of this precious daughter. Thank You for giving her to us and allowing us the unspeakable privilege of nurturing her heart and cultivating her mind and teaching her about rocks and snails and numbers and the sounds /g/ can make. I praise You for she is fearfully and wonderfully made and I honor You for the creativity and imagination and strength You placed in my daughter. Cause me to remember that she is Yours first.

Go before me as I choose stories and activities to engage her. Make a smooth path through phonics and math, that we would find together there is joy in learning and in learning how to learn. I confess my fear that I will miss important things or her education will be lax or lacking when I fail in patience or persistence. Remind me that this work of loving and teaching is unto You.

You are the God of language and science and poetry, who spoke the world into existence with a word. Thank You for the gift of sound and sight. Teach me to keep learning, that I would demonstrate for my daughter a love of learning and the humble spirit necessary to be a lifelong student.

Thank You for being present when we check everything off our list and for being present when we are essentially doing last week’s lesson plans because we couldn’t pull it together.

Thank You for being present when she enjoys watercolors and oil pastels, and when she grumbles through handwriting practice.

Thank you for being present when I feel rushed and ill-prepared, and for being present when I think I have it all together.
(Remind me that I probably am somewhere in the middle.)

Protect us from contention and strife when we disagree and work in me the patient guidance that would most allow my daughter to thrive.

O God who gave wisdom to Solomon and sufficient grace to Paul and vision to John, provide now the wisdom and grace and vision I need to walk faithfully into our school days.

This morning I needed a do-over with my big kid. We are so different and where she is go-go-go, I am wait-wait-wait. I’m learning how to meet her where she is so that I can (hopefully) train and equip her for her own journey with God and with others. As I finished blow drying my hair this morning (a rare occurrence) and she danced and pranced and made “plans” for everything we would do next, I found irritation itching up my neck. I’d made a request and she’d attempted a creative disobedience tactic — which I MISSED initially, because my “slight, momentary affliction” from her eagerness distracted me. When I realized she was actually cleverly disobeying, I shouted at her. Not just the volume of my instruction was hurtful, but my tone was designed to shame her. And I instantly knew it. She left for her room crying, I got the baby out of the cupboards and put him in the playpen, and I stood in the kitchen. I took a deep breath and whispered a prayer before knocking on her door.

I sat on the floor and said, “I think we need a do-over.”
“YEAH we do, Mama. I’m sorry I disobeyed you.” [do I imagine her enjoyment of repentance, a la Anne Shirley?!]
“I’m sorry I shouted at you so meanly – I should have handled that differently.”
“I forgive you.” she said cheerily.
“Thank you. I forgive you, too. Do you think we can find ways to help each other in the mornings?”

And so we talked for a few minutes about obedience and about our differences and how we can show love and respect. We came up with a list of ideas together for ways to do mornings differently. I don’t know if they’ll stick, but I know we’re working on it.

So today’s prayer is from the mom who was reading ‘Liturgy for a Moment of Frustration with a Child’ before 8:30am.

You have made me, oh Lord Christ, to know you and to parent my kids from a place of knowing you as Father. Rarely do I see my own need so clearly as when my children put to the test my pride and theories and follow-through. Rarely am I so aware of my own impatience, self-defensiveness, and lack of compassion as I am when one my kids “tries me”. Your Word makes plain the parent/child relational metaphor in such a way that I cannot wonder at Your intent to reveal and repair things in my heart as I mother the two You’ve given me.

I repent of my irritation, my distraction, my mindlessness when the needs of my kids seem an inconvenience to me.
I repent of my frustrated sighs and eye rolls and though I’m not entirely convinced my body won’t act that way again, I know I need the patience of Christ.
I confess my exhaustion and weariness of answering the same questions, issuing the same instructions, performing the repetitious tasks of parenting.

When I stand before the mirror and sigh with frustration and defeat, help me call to mind the enduring lovingkindness of Your life.

When I turn to find every single pot and pan on the kitchen floor, help me remember that I am not powerless to place boundaries (door locks!) around my children.

When I wonder if the snarky responses are a direct impersonation of what they see in me and their dad, help me to remember that I can set a guard over my mouth and teach them to as well.

When I am faced with a question or conversation for which I feel unprepared, allow me to see my need for Your sufficiency and to rely on You for the words and grace required to face the moment.

Your new morning mercies are mine, that I may shepherd the hearts of the littles in my house in a way that nurtures confidence and a love of God. I confess I don’t access those mercies with the frequency and verbal assent that I could.

When the noise is significantly louder than my whispered prayers, when the needs arise before my coffee brews, when I think that ANYthing other than You is going to be enough to parent well, give me eyes to truly see. Let me see in my morning the enough-ness of God the Father, experience the compassionate encouragement of God the Son, and know the strength in my bones supplied by God the Spirit.

Help me to say what You say about the mundane-joyful task of parenting.
Help me to see what You see in the repetition and monotony, that I would look for the precious and tender moments.
Help me to embrace the opportunities to listen for Your voice in my times of need.
Help me to speak LIFE to my children, to empower them to walk fearlessly into who they are going to be.
Teach me to teach them with lovingkindness and consistency, that they would know the never-stopping, never-giving up, forever kind of love of God the Father in some small part because of the love and care they receive from me and their daddy.

May the work to be done in the growing and caring for these kids make me a kinder, more attentive, more compassionate, and more loving person.

May I humbly embrace this season of life, knowing that You are present and believing You will make Yourself known.

SaveSave

It’s Saturday and there are egg hunts and breezes and groaning creation is covered
by a haze of clouds and the glory
of the Lord seems far off.
We live between the cracked earth and torn curtain of a dark Friday
and the silent stillness of an uninhabited tomb on Sunday.

Do you feel the shadows deepen?

And here in that space between Friday and Sunday, we stand
or sit or crawl and wail and beat our fists against our chest and we wonder
if the hope we root for will ever be more than just a seed taking root.

Do you wish that we could see it all made new?

We wish and hope and plead for the morning, standing here in
a relentless night, praying for the dawn.
We live together in the strange and tense mix of faith and hope and
unmet expectations and no-answers and wonder and belief and ache.

Is the glory of the Lord to be the light within our midst?
                                                                                               It is.

Unlike the Saturday of long ago, we don’t walk in these spaces alone or
without hope. The light is not extinguished and the presence
of the sweet Spirit of the Living God whispers resurrection hope to our hearts.

So here in the not yet, we take the bread and the cup and we say,

“We remember and we say Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
We will walk together, sharing in the ache and the longing and
the hope against all hope that the real and true risen Savior will make all things new.”

Does our God intend to dwell again with us?
                                                                  He does.

When our children crack open plastic eggs and squeal over chocolates,
When they bicker and squabble over toast and pastel finery,
When we can’t get past our coffee pots without wrestling fiery thoughts,
When tears accompany us to sleep at night and we can’t speak for the grief choking out words,
When the hearts around us are slowing their rhythms and the old broken earth seems
to be having the final say,
We call to mind that hope takes root in the Saturday in between, when all seems lost,
and Sunday can’t come soon enough.

We remember and proclaim.

We wait together in the not yet.

We share the bread and the wine and when you can’t hope,
I will hope for you in your stead, for the promised return and for the new creation
and for the coming joy of the King.

Thoughts in response to the musical liturgy ‘Is He Worthy?‘, by Andrew Peterson.

I was probably in elementary school and I distinctly remember my mom stopping the music in the minivan to explain to me and my brother what moved her about the song. I didn’t get it as a kid because, well, you know how kids can be. I wanted to keep listening to the music and also my mom being a real person and having real emotions was foreign to my 11 year old mind. She was my MOM. Didn’t she just…live to mother?

Of course as a grown-up and now a mom myself, I’m learning the importance of being my own person and teaching my kids that I am a person first – a child of the Living God made in His image…then I am a wife and then a mother. I see my mom’s reasoning for sharing her heart in that moment far more clearly as an adult. And I see the whole cycle repeating itself as I cried over a song this morning and tried to explain to my not-quite-six year old why I was crying. I watched her sort of freeze with a polite semi-smile on her face and PHYSICALLY BACK AWAY FROM ME and ask if she could keep watching her show. She told me I could go cry in my room if I wanted to finish crying.

I told her I would cry anywhere I FELT like it, thankyouverymuch.

I’ve not always been a reliable crier. Things that make me want to cry sometimes can’t actually get me crying, so I wander around, moody, with a half-ache in my chest. Or maybe I don’t feel like it’s a convenient time to cry, so I tuck the tears away. Both of these have lead to hysteria and hyperventilating (not hyperbole) when I finally do cry. So I’m trying to get better. To teach myself how to have the tears and keep moving.

In her book Bread and Wine, Shauna Niequist says, “I have also long held the belief that one’s tears are a guide, that when something makes you cry, it means something. If we pay attention to our tears, they’ll show us something about ourselves”.

A few years ago, I started trying to do this. For example, I discovered I usually cry when children sing — it could be terrible or wonderful, but I will still cry. Tiny little voices in a musical collective is too precious.

But here is something else I’ve noticed: I cry when people perform boldly and confidently in the way they are gifted, when creative expression is involved. It doesn’t have to be spiritual. Excellently done displays of creativity make me bawl, and I don’t even know all the reasons why. Today, when I stopped my daughter’s show to share with her a group of people performing a musical number at a conference, the tears spilled over and I found myself trying to explain to her that something about this is image-of-God just bursting out.

It’s a celebration and God the Creator who made this person’s voice like a ballad and that person’s dance like a symphony is illustrating His glory across a person who carries His image. And they are so clearly enjoying what they were made to do and I am just done in. It’s the image of God. Imago Dei. The heavens declare and the stars proclaim and actual doves coo outside my window right now…and we souls wearing our skin and bones and doing the things that make us come alive — it’s God.

* * *

I don’t find the Christian life to be particularly easy. And as an adult, who’s crossed a lot of spiritual territory and darkness and light over the past 30ish years of knowing of Jesus, I find that I am not after a life of meaning and faith for its ease.

I am stumbling singing
stomping dragging my feet
shout-writing and wander-following Jesus
not because it is easy.
I am after this life of faith
because of its veracity.

And so I cry when children sing and I cry when music crescendos and creators are creative. I once cried at a really well-written sentence and I cry over the way clouds look during a springtime sunset. I usually cry if I read the Word of God in before a crowd. I cry over my own children. And I don’t cry over much else yet, because I’m still learning how to.

But I am paying attention now to the things that make me want to cry — and I hold them up and consider how the image-of-God-ness has a role in those things. The limited expression of the Creator, in the glory and diversity of His creation. And I consider the precious imago Dei residing in me and even when it is a dim and silent way, I walk with Jesus.

* * *

Reeet! Reeet! Roo-reet!reet!reet!

Wee-oot! Wee-oot! Weeoot!

OooEH ooh! ooh! ooh!

Twitter!*

I don’t often get up before my children, the way all the bloggers tell me I should for optimal self care.

Last night as I crawled into bed, however, I felt my scalp go from unwashed hair day 7 to burning dry fire, so I knew I’d need to get up to wash my hair before my husband left early for prayer. When my 15mo old son squawked his good morning at 5:30am, I popped a paci back in his mouth, snuggled his lovies up next to him, and hit go on the coffee pot before jumping into the shower.

With hair washed and coffee brewing, I shoved the sliding door open to see what the morning world was like. The moon was casting shadows still and I have been looking for light in these days, so I was thrilled. I stared bleary-eyed up at the full moon, not really able to discern if it was foggy outside or just my eyes. And then my attention shifted to the absolute ruckus in my oak tree.

Morning birds!

They were all just twittering away in the tree and to my untrained ear, there were at least three different species discussing the morn.

Reeet! Roo-reeeet! Roo-reeeet!

I have never paid much attention to birds because…youth? General inattentiveness? I don’t know. But our trees seem to attract them and just this week I’ve encountered cardinals, doves, a woodpecker in the tall palm next door, two quail darting across a road, and feathery scrub jays popping around the yard. A brief bit of research on the google suggests that the cardinals were loudest this morning. I want to get out my Audobon bird book and my kid’s binoculars and see what else I can learn.

I’m not so much a morning person and I’ve labored under major guilt that I can’t seem to rise before my children (one of whom joined me at this table 37 minutes ago [6:24am] and in fact suggested *twitter as one of my bird sounds). But in our house, that’s not the rhythm. Our kids go to bed super early so that a) everyone gets their best sleep — healthy sleep habits, happy family! and b) Daddy and Mama can have awake/alert time together alone. This just works best for our family and what we value.

But times like this, where the moonshine and birdsong make an early morning so appealing, I’m grateful.

So I lit my candle and I prayed actual prayers and I sipped coffee with frothy coconut milk and I waited for the sun to rise on the day.

I can only hold the morning flurry off a few more minutes. The Big Tiny is listening to Ramona Quimby, Age 8 as she plays in her room and the Little Tiny will soon tire of the wooden train and board books I put in his crib. These are the mornings I fantasize about, which every good blogger would laud, but they are not my norm.

I am blowing out my candle now, with hopes that I’ll remember to pray the whole day long and additional hopes of only having to reheat my coffee once or twice. And I’ll throw on some clothes and go collect the tinies and we’ll feast on toast and fruit and and we’ll decide what the day holds.

Good morning, sweet loves.
Good morning.

Oh Lord, who created with a word and set into motion the rhythms of seas and stars and sun and seasons,
meet me now, in this in-between, in the tension of change.
I thought because it was familiar territory, I would be better-practiced. But change unsteadies me anyway.

You are the God whose character is unchanging and whose Word is timeless, yet you subjected yourself to the changing seasons of life and earth when you sent your Son. Surely you have walked in the ways of tension and waiting, as I do now.

Show me your constancy as I count down calendar days.
Show me your compassion as I anxiously list my needs (wants?) before you.
Show me the hope of rest in you, as I listen for your voice.
Be the steady voice of peace to me.

My tendency to settle into created comfort instead of Christ is evident in these days. My grasping at lesser things to fill the empty parts is a billboard for my insecurity. I confess the ways even now that I look to guard my laziness, defend my greed. Keep showing me Yourself, God, that I would see my sin for what it is and let your kindness lead me to repentance.

And when we settle and rest again, let it be in Your presence, with Your purposes before our eyes, Your energy in our bodies, Your Spirit leading us in the ways of hope and health and rest and life.

* * * * * * * * *

We’re making a local move as first-time homebuyers! So grateful for God’s provision and learning to trust Him in this change as well. Packing with littles is…sanctifying…

I have no words right now. They are brewing, of course. They are notes in my phone, scratches in the margins of my calendar, bullet point lists in the various notebooks I have. So recently I asked my friend Chelsea if she had words. We hadn’t talked about writing lately, but I was curious if she had any words about trusting Jesus in the midst of uncertainty or longing or pain. And lo and behold! Stirring already in her heart and on the page, she sent me exactly what I’d been hoping for, for my own heart and for this space. I’m so thankful to have this writer and friend in my world and I’m delighted to share her thoughts with you this week.

***

As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.

Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!”

Mark 4:35-41

Jesus was in the boat. It just didn’t feel like it.

It didn’t look like He was paying attention. He was asleep! Anyone could argue from the looks of it that He wasn’t really concerned.

Yet even in His slumber, there wasn’t a wave that crashed over the bow that He didn’t form. No gust of wind took Him by surprise. Not one drop of rain bounced off the splintered wood without Him knowing. He was in the boat, anticipating the calm, on the very sea he spoke into existence.

And just a little reminder to you Christians who aren’t feeling Him right now: He’s in your boat, too. That circumstance that seems unbearable? He’s there, and nothing is happening that He isn’t aware of.

Sometimes the reality of that stings (I’ve felt it), knowing that He’s powerful enough to fix it but He’s just. not. doing it—at least not when we want or how we want. Oh, the faith it takes to trust Him when the circumstances tell you otherwise! But isn’t that the essence of faith- hoping against hope?

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

Let me assure you: He feels the rock of the waves, the salty air hitting His face as it hits yours, the rain pouring from the heavens, because He’s not a God who’s far off (Acts 17:27). He’s in it with us. He doesn’t send us across oceans without the promise of His presence. He doesn’t allow trials that He won’t walk through with us. He’s in the boat. And you know what that means?

It doesn’t matter what comes. Sure, it might not be convenient or comfortable. It might not bring my heart an ounce of happiness, but He’s in it with me. He’s in it for me. I have to trust that He is working it all for good, because God is in control, even when it feels like He’s taking a nap.

GOD is in control.

God is IN CONTROL.

He said to his disciples [and to you and to me], “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

When my circumstances start distracting me, I have to look back and remember. I have to remember who He was to me, and who He promises to be to me. What have you seen Him do so far? Have you not seen Him part your Red Seas, defeat your Goliaths, bring you out of slavery, move your mountains, rescue you from lions? Did He not raise you from the dead? And you still have no faith?

I don’t think Jesus asked that question in a condescending way. It’s Jesus, after all. His heart is always one of compassion and mercy, but don’t get me wrong—He’s a straight shooter. He gets right to the heart of it, because He wants to provide ultimate deliverance and healing.

For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.

Hebrews 4:12

Sometimes we are looking for a short-term solution, but He’s not in it for short-term results. He’s in it for the long haul. He will literally stir up storms to get us trusting Him more and more. He will ask the hard questions, not because He’s after information, but our formation. He already knows the answers, but He shapes us by pressing in places we’d rather protect. He lights up the darkness; He exposes the lies we’re believing. He speaks truth with love—truth that sometimes hurts, but always heals.

So, settle down. Sink in. Let Jesus press into you, as He’s pressing into me.

He’s in it with us.
He’s in it for us.

***

Today might be a good day to reflect on these questions in your own life:

Why are you so afraid?
Do you still have no faith?
Do you not know who I [God] am?

Yes, Lord, I know who You are. You are the Creator of the wind and the waves. You are the author of my story. In you all things hold together, and when it seems like nothing is holding together, help me hold onto you still. You’re in the boat. You haven’t left me. You haven’t given up on me. You’re still on your throne. Rid me of my fear. Give me eyes of faith that see above circumstances—to You. I know that with You, I can scale any wall. With you, no storm will overcome. Thank you for being in my boat, for being in the middle of my mess, for quieting all the circumstances that seem so loud. As the wind roars and the waves crash, I praise You. Not because everything is perfect, but because you are worthy of it. And because You are the One who will not be moved—my Anchor. You are good.

***

You can read more from Chelsea at her blog, Just Sayin’!

Ask anyone who knows me: I am a wordsmith. Word nerd. Wielder of words. I love learning new words, carefully choosing the right word for the moment, using words with intentionality and purpose. Language is finite, which just kills me, but I will try my darndest (not a word) to use language and words to communicate my heart and intent and convictions and hopes.

I. love. words.

When my husband and I were in our premarital counseling, we covered the obligatory “love language” section of the study. You probably know the list: words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, physical touch, acts of service. Most acts of love can be generally characterized into these five categories. While I do enjoy quality time and I am grateful for acts of service (physical touch and gifts almost don’t even rank for me), it is words that most deeply and effectively and profoundly make me feel love. My husband could clean the whole house top to bottom and I would be so thankful for the rest. He could spend big bucks on an amazing getaway for us and I’d relish the quality time with him. But when he takes time to thoughtfully and carefully pen his love to me, his faith in God’s hand over our family, his heart for our marriage…my little love bucket begins to fill in really big ways.

I’m noticing in my other relationships how much this matters as well. When my friends or ministry partners make time for thoughtfully sharing their hearts with grace and honesty, I feel loved, respected, valued. I enjoy a good hangout as much as the next person (Okay, less. Less than the next person. Introvert here!) and I could care less if you want to buy me all the prizes and presents in the world (not that I won’t enjoy them!). But when a friend applies her heart and vocabulary to sharing life in meaningful ways, I am buoyed. Strengthened. Brought to hope. Renewed in faith.

Words have a particular power.
I read words, I read the Word, I search for the right words.

Words matter deeply to me.

And I have realized of late the futility of using finite language to speak of and engage with an infinite God.

Infinite.

He seems far off when I use that word. Is there a better one? One that describes His never-ending existence without limiting Him to a western vocabulary? A word that captures His timeless, abiding love (without minimizing the vast and sovereign holiness of it)?

Oh, He is near. Nearer than my very breath is the Author of the greatest story ever told, using language in ways we cannot fathom.
Speaking things into existence with a Word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Jesus… The Word made flesh, dwelling among us –the linguistically limited– speaking words on mountainsides and writing in the mud and reading words at the synagogue. He spoke in parables and metaphors, His head-scratching disciples nodding along.

Jesus the storyteller. Jesus the teacher. Jesus the prophet. Jesus the King, the logos, uttering words and phrases the people found familiar and then turning them completely upside down.

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”

Did He ever feel frustrated by that?
Divine thoughts in a human brain, eternal words with a human vocabulary.

Jesus is the word and He made words and He used words to reveal Himself to us and He gives us words to share in love, to forge peace, to embolden the fearful, to exhort the weary. Jesus made words.

It’s not all He made. Of course. But these days I am all up in the words in so many ways.

So for one wordsmith, pecking away at a keyboard in between naps and grocery runs and reading storybooks and sharing popsicles with tinies, knowing that I hold in my head and heart and hands the gift of holy words is…well… I don’t know that I have the word for it. But I’m searching and I’m listening, waiting for just the right one, at just the right time, from the One who holds all the words.