For many years, I have rattled off "Jesus wept" as the shortest verse in the bible (John 11:35), mostly as an irrelevant bible factoid to wow people with my biblical knowledge. Me: "Hey, did you know that 'Jesus wept' is the shortest verse in the bible?" Them: "Wow." Something like that.
I have often thought of that verse with comfort. I found it especially comforting since I entered a season of grief two years ago when my dad passed away, a season that I believe will continually change and get easier to bear though it never really ends (I think we can never stop missing one we love so dearly). It comforts me that even Jesus, who understood God's plan better than anyone, still wept at the death of a friend. It tells me that my grief is right and good, even in light of God's receptive promise of eternity.
A short while ago, in reading the book of 1 Thessalonians, I came across another "shortest verse in the bible: "Rejoice always" (5:16). This one at first glance caught my attention because I had believed that "Jesus wept" stood alone as the shortest verse in the bible. Clearly I was wrong. But what kept my attention beyond that first realization was the contrast between both two-word verses: Jesus wept, Rejoice always. They seem to contradict one another.
Like so many things in the bible, these two verses could give fodder to those who seek to discredit the bible based on seeming contradiction. Or for someone like me, ready to believe all the bible teaches, they can at least confuse. How can we rejoice always when clearly grief is so real and so painful that even the Son of God grieved? This is a concept I have been struggling through the past two years and I believe I am beginning to understand. Grief and Rejoicing.
The first piece of it is that grief is right and good. It is not a lack of faith in God's promise. It is a response of love for the one we have lost. It is even a command: "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15). Again, weeping and rejoicing smashed together in God's word.
The struggle for me at this point in my life has more been on the rejoicing end of the spectrum. There are so many things that are easy to rejoice in: the beauty in nature, the laughter of children, the love of a good man, conversation with like-minded friends, delicious food. But what about those days that are swamped with hard things, with wave after wave of brokenness and bad news? There are those days too and what do I do with the other shortest verse in the bible: "Rejoice always"?
I believe God gave me a glimpse of this right after my dad's death when I read Joshua chapter 1. God gives a command to Joshua to be strong and courageous as he enters the battles of the Promised Land. I have heard verse nine quoted many times: "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." People find comfort in God's promise to be with His people. But what struck me the most was what God told Joshua in verse three: "Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses." "I have given to you." Joshua hasn't even entered the land yet, but God claims to have already given it to Him, and He asks Joshua to proceed as if the gift has already been received.
This is how God works. He speaks a promise and asks us to rejoice as if we've already received it because, Believers, we have. Though grief and brokenness surrounds us, our God has promised victory and healing and joy that will cover it all. He commands us in faith to rejoice always, even in suffering because by faith His word is as good as true although we have not yet received it. We can rejoice in our grief because we have faith in His promise.
This Sunday, the message challenged us in the midst of a broken world to "live into the promise," and that is exactly what "Rejoice always" means in light of "Jesus wept." When I am overwhelmed with troubles and grief, I can lift my eyes above it to the promise of everything restored, everything made right, and rejoice in the God who loves us so much that He can turn our weeping into rejoicing.
Showing posts with label Personal Reflection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal Reflection. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Friday, October 2, 2015
The Waiting Place
2015 has been a waiting place for me. I don't know about you, but I don't like waiting places. After Matthew moved back to his birth mom in January, we decided to wait until Adel started his second semester of his Master's courses before we tried to find a new possible foster match for us. Then, right about the time we would have been open to foster kids again, we followed God's undeniable call on us to move and downsize.
That move has been a huge blessing and we love our new home and our new neighborhood. Contrary to what I thought before we moved, I feel that our new home is actually better equipped for our future kids than our old home was. After feverishly getting settled from our move, we waited until Abby felt settled and happy in her new school. Now we are waiting until our family (grandparents, my mom, and my sister's family) goes on the cruise we have booked for Thanksgiving week (yay!).
I had not realized how much I was just going through the motions of my walk with God until a few weeks ago, and until more of the pieces dropped together this morning. A few weeks ago, I noticed my relationships with others were out of whack. Greater still, I noticed a great longing in me that I can only describe as the awareness of a disconnect with God. Not that He had left me, but that I had strayed, ever so subtly from intimacy with Him. I began to slow, to not just rush through the morning reading of His word, but to seek, longingly for His message to my heart.
I have walked on both sides of that narrow path so often, between the mindless legalism of spiritual routine and the passionate communing with a personal God, that now it is much easier for me to see and feel the difference, at least once I'm back in line with Him. As I began to truly, prayerfully seek Him, He drew near to me again and has been slowly opening my eyes to the way He sees my circumstances and my heart.
His message to me started with a Sunday message about work and just going through the motions rather than working for the Lord. Yep, doing that. The Sunday following that one, I felt like I did when I was newly hired to run the children's ministry: humble and aware that it was much bigger than I could ever manage, ready to simply let His love flow through me to the parents, volunteers, and kids who crossed my path.
Then He gave me a clue in my morning devotional time. I am in the not-so-interesting part of the book of Joshua, where the land is being divided up between the tribes (yawn). As unlikely as a personal message could be found there, God spoke. Joshua 17:14-18. The children of Joseph are whining to Joshua about their puny inheritance since they were "a great people" (Their words. In other translations it is "numerous" people, but "great" is so much more fun to make fun of). Joshua tells them If they are a "great people," and if the mountains they inherit are not enough for them, they can have any land they can win from the Canaanites in the valley. With his use of if, I feel a little eye-rolling in his reply.
The children of Joseph then tell Joshua that the Canaanites of the valley have chariots of IRON. Maybe it's because I have kids, but this sounds so whiny to me! I hear them in a whiny voice: "But Joshuaaaaaa, they have chariots of IRON!" In their defense, as foot soldiers, I can see that chariots of iron would be pretty scary. Joseph's response to them is that they can have more land for their numerous tribe: "but the hill country shall be yours, for though it is a forest, you shall clear it and possess it to its farthest borders. For you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.” (Joshua 17:18). In his response, which simply repeats his first command to them (as any good parent of whiny kids would do), Joshua tells them to get down into the valley and face the chariots of iron.
As I read this, I noticed the exchange as unique among all the land-distributing that was going on. This was exceptional because Joshua was requiring the children of Joseph to fight for their own land against a formidable foe. As much as they sound a bit like whiney-behiney's I felt that they had a decent claim to whine. Why was everyone else handed land already conquered and this tribe had to fight on foot against iron chariots to claim their promise? That's where I left it, just a mental note in my morning reading, until my devotional reading today brought it all home.
This morning I was reading My Utmost for His Highest, a daily devotional by Oswald Chambers. Today was one where God used Chambers' words to reach out and squeeze my soul.
What first caught my attention with this devotional was that it describes the difference between the soaring mountaintop experiences with Christ, and the daily drudge through the valley of humiliation.
The second thing that caught my eye was that it was about a passage God had used to speak to be a year ago (see Christ's Mission, which is kind of hilarious...or humiliating...because it's pretty much the same message as I received today). But what really grabbed my soul was when it asked, "what about the thing that is a humiliation to you right now?" I thought about it for a moment and then, wham, I realized my humiliation was my waiting place.
When you make a big mountaintop announcement like, "we're going to adopt" and then you don't...for a year...and the foster workers are wondering if you're really in it, and friends you know who started after you are getting placed with children before you, and there's so much uncertainty and doubt about the calling and the future of this crazy plan, I'd say that's humiliation. I don't mean, and I don't think Chambers means, humiliation as in embarrassment. Rather I mean it in the sense of knock-you-to-your-knees humbling. The waiting place is humbling.
But the waiting place is what it's all about. As Chambers says, "The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God." Yes! And how that helps my heart while in the waiting place and the drudgery days. This is the living out of the calling, the waiting and the working and the struggling toward the mountaintop vision.
That's when God brought me back to the passage in Joshua 17. The children of Joseph are me! Given the vision and carried only so far as the border of their inheritance, they have to work to gain the promise while others are given their promise before them. Like them, I have been grumbling about the work of trudging through the valley, of packing and unpacking during a move, of Master's classes and ministry challenges and foster training classes, of waiting for the right time to claim the vision God had given me. And, ugh, how much have I thought myself "great" that I should expect God to deliver the right children to our family at the time of my choosing?
As if to knock it all home, while I was even writing these words, God struck me through the words of a song that's playing on the radio (Abide by Jenny and Tyler): "The labor of God is to trust in the Son." I have been wanting so much to get to the labor that God has set before me of adopting children that I have forgotten and forsaken the true labor of God, simply trusting in the Son.
What a beautiful and empowering reminder to trust in the Son in the valley of waiting. Do I trust Him with the vision, with the timing, with my family, my hopes and dreams? Do I trust that He has me right where He wants me at this moment? Will I follow Him through the valley? When you put it like that, the answer is of course yes, and thus only by trusting in Him, my strength returns to do so. I am in awe of God's great love for me that He would encourage me when my heart can be so very far from His. He is so good. He is worthy of trust in the waiting place.
That move has been a huge blessing and we love our new home and our new neighborhood. Contrary to what I thought before we moved, I feel that our new home is actually better equipped for our future kids than our old home was. After feverishly getting settled from our move, we waited until Abby felt settled and happy in her new school. Now we are waiting until our family (grandparents, my mom, and my sister's family) goes on the cruise we have booked for Thanksgiving week (yay!).
I had not realized how much I was just going through the motions of my walk with God until a few weeks ago, and until more of the pieces dropped together this morning. A few weeks ago, I noticed my relationships with others were out of whack. Greater still, I noticed a great longing in me that I can only describe as the awareness of a disconnect with God. Not that He had left me, but that I had strayed, ever so subtly from intimacy with Him. I began to slow, to not just rush through the morning reading of His word, but to seek, longingly for His message to my heart.
I have walked on both sides of that narrow path so often, between the mindless legalism of spiritual routine and the passionate communing with a personal God, that now it is much easier for me to see and feel the difference, at least once I'm back in line with Him. As I began to truly, prayerfully seek Him, He drew near to me again and has been slowly opening my eyes to the way He sees my circumstances and my heart.
His message to me started with a Sunday message about work and just going through the motions rather than working for the Lord. Yep, doing that. The Sunday following that one, I felt like I did when I was newly hired to run the children's ministry: humble and aware that it was much bigger than I could ever manage, ready to simply let His love flow through me to the parents, volunteers, and kids who crossed my path.
Then He gave me a clue in my morning devotional time. I am in the not-so-interesting part of the book of Joshua, where the land is being divided up between the tribes (yawn). As unlikely as a personal message could be found there, God spoke. Joshua 17:14-18. The children of Joseph are whining to Joshua about their puny inheritance since they were "a great people" (Their words. In other translations it is "numerous" people, but "great" is so much more fun to make fun of). Joshua tells them If they are a "great people," and if the mountains they inherit are not enough for them, they can have any land they can win from the Canaanites in the valley. With his use of if, I feel a little eye-rolling in his reply.
The children of Joseph then tell Joshua that the Canaanites of the valley have chariots of IRON. Maybe it's because I have kids, but this sounds so whiny to me! I hear them in a whiny voice: "But Joshuaaaaaa, they have chariots of IRON!" In their defense, as foot soldiers, I can see that chariots of iron would be pretty scary. Joseph's response to them is that they can have more land for their numerous tribe: "but the hill country shall be yours, for though it is a forest, you shall clear it and possess it to its farthest borders. For you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.” (Joshua 17:18). In his response, which simply repeats his first command to them (as any good parent of whiny kids would do), Joshua tells them to get down into the valley and face the chariots of iron.
As I read this, I noticed the exchange as unique among all the land-distributing that was going on. This was exceptional because Joshua was requiring the children of Joseph to fight for their own land against a formidable foe. As much as they sound a bit like whiney-behiney's I felt that they had a decent claim to whine. Why was everyone else handed land already conquered and this tribe had to fight on foot against iron chariots to claim their promise? That's where I left it, just a mental note in my morning reading, until my devotional reading today brought it all home.
This morning I was reading My Utmost for His Highest, a daily devotional by Oswald Chambers. Today was one where God used Chambers' words to reach out and squeeze my soul.
What first caught my attention with this devotional was that it describes the difference between the soaring mountaintop experiences with Christ, and the daily drudge through the valley of humiliation.
The second thing that caught my eye was that it was about a passage God had used to speak to be a year ago (see Christ's Mission, which is kind of hilarious...or humiliating...because it's pretty much the same message as I received today). But what really grabbed my soul was when it asked, "what about the thing that is a humiliation to you right now?" I thought about it for a moment and then, wham, I realized my humiliation was my waiting place.
When you make a big mountaintop announcement like, "we're going to adopt" and then you don't...for a year...and the foster workers are wondering if you're really in it, and friends you know who started after you are getting placed with children before you, and there's so much uncertainty and doubt about the calling and the future of this crazy plan, I'd say that's humiliation. I don't mean, and I don't think Chambers means, humiliation as in embarrassment. Rather I mean it in the sense of knock-you-to-your-knees humbling. The waiting place is humbling.
But the waiting place is what it's all about. As Chambers says, "The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God." Yes! And how that helps my heart while in the waiting place and the drudgery days. This is the living out of the calling, the waiting and the working and the struggling toward the mountaintop vision.
That's when God brought me back to the passage in Joshua 17. The children of Joseph are me! Given the vision and carried only so far as the border of their inheritance, they have to work to gain the promise while others are given their promise before them. Like them, I have been grumbling about the work of trudging through the valley, of packing and unpacking during a move, of Master's classes and ministry challenges and foster training classes, of waiting for the right time to claim the vision God had given me. And, ugh, how much have I thought myself "great" that I should expect God to deliver the right children to our family at the time of my choosing?
As if to knock it all home, while I was even writing these words, God struck me through the words of a song that's playing on the radio (Abide by Jenny and Tyler): "The labor of God is to trust in the Son." I have been wanting so much to get to the labor that God has set before me of adopting children that I have forgotten and forsaken the true labor of God, simply trusting in the Son.
What a beautiful and empowering reminder to trust in the Son in the valley of waiting. Do I trust Him with the vision, with the timing, with my family, my hopes and dreams? Do I trust that He has me right where He wants me at this moment? Will I follow Him through the valley? When you put it like that, the answer is of course yes, and thus only by trusting in Him, my strength returns to do so. I am in awe of God's great love for me that He would encourage me when my heart can be so very far from His. He is so good. He is worthy of trust in the waiting place.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Focus on the Family
Yes, I totally ripped off that title. But, after everything our family has been through in the past year, I have been feeling that God wants me to rest in Him and be His child, not just His hands and feet (which, if you know me, I am very eager to do most often!). Beyond that, my greatest calling right now is that of wife and mom, as our family is slowly healing and adjusting to life now six months past losing my dad.
Last week, He brought to mind Psalm 23, which of course is so familiar that I often overlook its beauty (the underlined verses are particularly ones that spoke to me this time around) -
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.3 He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
He leads me beside still waters.3 He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
I will fear no evil,for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
I feel like right now, God wants me to let Him be this to me. Also this:
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit
and uphold me with a willing spirit
(Psalm 51:12)
So, I am taking time to enjoy the many blessings I have right now, especially my family.
Just a beautiful girl with a pretty rose.
Family time strawberry picking.
And, yummy.
Cousins and swimming.
Isaac's school project
This timeline has him entering college in 2023, graduating in 2027 and becoming a geologist in 2033.
Abby's field trip to the Rainforest Pyramid at Moody Gardens.
Isaac's field trip to the Museum of Natural History.
Snuggle time with a sick girl.
Found an old note from Kindergarten Abby.
Some beautification projects.
Snuggle kids.
Abby with a chickie at school.
Fun with neighbors.
First time in the neighborhood pool this year.
Perfect weather!
It's hard sometimes to sit and rest, but I feel like God is knitting my heart back together, something which seemed impossible a few months ago. In and out of the valley of the shadow of death, He has been faithful and good. And I'm looking forward to the next few months of focusing on that, and on my family.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Labor of Love
Well, a few days later and I'm still obsessing about Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God album. And my favorite song is still Labor of Love. As I was singing along this morning, I was thinking about the phrase, "It was a labor of pain." I love the realism. In my own sadness, I can relate to Mary's painful experience. Of course, I can recall my own painful labor moments. But then, labor is a painful experience that ends in a beautiful, new miracle. Because of the end result, it's a pain worth going through.
And then I think, there are other painful experiences that don't feel worth going through: grief and loss, for example. They are painful to no purpose, no miraculous ending. Just pain.
But then, almost instantly, God brings a passage to mind from Romans 8:
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
What this tells me is that even this pain of grief and loss is like the pains of childbirth. The whole creation groans with it. But at the end of the pain, instead of the new life being a child as in the case of childbirth, in this case, the new life is the redemption of a promise, the renewal of the whole of creation, the renewal of our broken bodies, the adoption into a perfect family, the setting free from bondage, the attaining glory and freedom. The comparison to our pain here in this life to childbirth is a promise of hope in our grief. There IS something beautiful that will come from this pain. There is a miracle, a rebirth, a better life.
But now, we wait for it with patience. We endure the pain in hope and joy because we know that there is a miracle waiting on the other side of it.
*********************************************
The second thing that strikes me every time I hear this song: my husband is so very much like the description of Joseph. He works ceaselessly both at work and at home. He has no idea what it is to feel the way I feel because he is just not made that way. I feel. He accomplishes. He has no idea what I'm going through, in the same way that Joseph, or any man, could know what labor is like. But he has truly been the noble man by my side, helping me get done what needs to get done. He walks in ready to lay down his own agenda to meet the whim of my mood, whatever it may be. I know this can't be easy, but it has been noble.
*********************************************
Lastly, I get so emotional that I can't sing the words every time I get to this phrase:
Lyrics to Labor Of Love :
And then I think, there are other painful experiences that don't feel worth going through: grief and loss, for example. They are painful to no purpose, no miraculous ending. Just pain.
But then, almost instantly, God brings a passage to mind from Romans 8:
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
What this tells me is that even this pain of grief and loss is like the pains of childbirth. The whole creation groans with it. But at the end of the pain, instead of the new life being a child as in the case of childbirth, in this case, the new life is the redemption of a promise, the renewal of the whole of creation, the renewal of our broken bodies, the adoption into a perfect family, the setting free from bondage, the attaining glory and freedom. The comparison to our pain here in this life to childbirth is a promise of hope in our grief. There IS something beautiful that will come from this pain. There is a miracle, a rebirth, a better life.
But now, we wait for it with patience. We endure the pain in hope and joy because we know that there is a miracle waiting on the other side of it.
*********************************************
The second thing that strikes me every time I hear this song: my husband is so very much like the description of Joseph. He works ceaselessly both at work and at home. He has no idea what it is to feel the way I feel because he is just not made that way. I feel. He accomplishes. He has no idea what I'm going through, in the same way that Joseph, or any man, could know what labor is like. But he has truly been the noble man by my side, helping me get done what needs to get done. He walks in ready to lay down his own agenda to meet the whim of my mood, whatever it may be. I know this can't be easy, but it has been noble.
*********************************************
Lastly, I get so emotional that I can't sing the words every time I get to this phrase:
But the baby in her womb, He was the Maker of the moon, He was the Author of the faith that could make the mountains move.THAT baby is the baby that changes everything. He is the baby that makes it possible for my pain to be mixed with joy and peace. And He makes that possible by coming to give up His life to forgive the sin of His people and to bring them into a new kingdom where there will be no more death or grief or pain. He is the Maker of the moon, who came to defeat sin and death, but He came as a baby, born to two poor kids, in a stable.
Lyrics to Labor Of Love :
It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David's town
And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold
It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
Noble Joseph at her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
In the streets of David's town
In the middle of the night
So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move
It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
For little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David's town
And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold
It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
Noble Joseph at her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
In the streets of David's town
In the middle of the night
So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move
It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
For little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Advent: Joy in Sorrow
Our family is celebrating the Advent tradition this year, following the guide provided by our church: CCCC Advent 20113. We're also teaching the same lessons in Creek Kids. I am loving it, but also struggling with it, since this season of my life is also a season of grief.
The first week of advent was Hope. That was easy to grab onto in my grief, considering this feeling of grief and sadness is so overwhelming, that my Hope in the Savior is what keeps me afloat: Truth to Cling to When Life Gets Crappy.
The second week of advent was Love. That was easy to grab onto, especially when I read this quote from Chip Ingram in The Genius of Generosity:
“Jesus gave His own life, but God gave His own precious Son. Any good parent understands that it’s easier to sacrifice your own life than the life of one of our kids. God had nothing more precious that He could offer than Jesus, His only Son.”
And let us not forget that God the Son also gave up, although temporarily, that perfect relationship with God the Father, when He allowed the Father's wrath to be poured out on Him. Oh how He loves us. The love I can grasp.
This third week of advent is the week of Joy. This I am struggling with. I am so sad. Since Thanksgiving, when the relief of my dad's not suffering was finally surpassed by the grief that he is gone, I have been just so sad. I have been forced to face that my world is broken. Sure, the world around me has always been broken, but my world has always been safe. Until now. My world is broken and my heart is broken, and Joy is a strange word in these circumstances.
I have been struggling with this. Christmas is a source of Joy. My faith is a source of Joy. But how does one access such Joy in times of sorrow?
Last night I attended Andrew Peterson's Behold The Lamb concert. This morning I downloaded the album. The one thing that strikes me over and over in his songs, is the tone of melancholy. Even with the words singing of peace, hope, love, and Joy, the tone is melancholy. My heart is eating this up.
The song that speaks to me the most this season is Labor of Love. It tells a kind of different story of the Silent Night, Holy Night. A story depicting the sorrow, pain, and sacrifice of Mary and Joseph to bring into the world this baby who promised hope, peace, and Joy. As I listened to it over and over again this morning, contemplating sorrow and Joy all mixed into one, I realized two things:
- The Joy is more beautiful for the sorrow. They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the one enhances the other. Jesus himself, who knows how this story ends, was known as a man of sorrows. This life, this broken life, in this broken world, is sad, hard, full of sorrows. And there is Joy. The Joy we wait for is made more complete by the presence of this sorrow now. This sorrow makes us hunger for the Joy, and when we receive it at world's end, our hearts will be the happier for having known the taste of sorrow and yet knowing we never have to taste it again. At the same time, we are able to have a taste of that Joy right now. I have always believed that true Joy, like true peace, is Joy in spite of circumstances. Which leads me to the second realization:
- The five gifts of Advent (Hope, Love, Joy, Peace, Christ) cannot be separated one from another. How can I have Joy in the midst of my circumstances, in the midst of my sorrow? Only by holding fiercely onto my Hope in the Love of God, who gave His Son, the Christ, so that I might have Peace and Joy in the midst of my sorrow. To single out Joy, to try to capture or fabricate Joy apart from the Hope and Love of Christ, is not possible.
Somehow this helps me embrace my sorrow and embrace my Joy all at the same time. And maybe that's why the candles of advent are all connected in a wreath, an infinite circle connecting Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace, all circling around the answer to each one: Christ.
Have an Advent filled with hope, love, Joy, and peace, my friends.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Peace and Comfort
Last night, my dad went to be with the Lord.
Before this moment, I had thought that I could only write those words with great despair. But there is no despair. The fear and the dread are gone. Now there is sadness, there is relief, there is peace, there is comfort.
Sadness
The sadness is easy to understand. My dad is gone. There are so many times I will miss him, so many things that will remind me of him. Sadness makes sense.
Relief
The relief you will understand if you have ever had to witness someone you love truly suffer. He fought long and hard. He tried every possible treatment until there were no more to try. At that point, as his pain continued to grow, the only relief was to let go of this body that he could not save. So, there is relief that my dad is no longer suffering.
Peace
Then there is peace. I did not expect to feel this way on the day after I said goodbye to my dad.
And there is so much to this peace that I will linger here for a while.
The first thing that brings peace is the knowing that my dad is right now with Jesus. He was sad to leave his family, but his faith never wavered. Lindsay had a beautiful moment with him on his last night in the hospital, before he returned home to hospice care. She said he looked sad, and she asked him if he felt sad. He said he did. She said, "I'm sad too. But your body is broken. You are going from the land of the dying to the land of the living." Dad replied, "Yes, the land of the living. I'm going first. I'll wait for you. I love you." And then he kept repeating those words, "I'm going first. I'll wait for you. I love you." until he fell asleep.
I also have peace because Dad left this earth so peacefully and so beautifully. I have been so blessed with wise, experienced counsel in these past few days. A friend who has quickly grown dear to me because of her compassionate wisdom in the area of hospice, and the hospice nurse who stayed up with me and Dad on Thursday night, both gave me similar advice. Between the two of them, I was fairly certain his time was short, as the progression they described was happening so quickly. One of the things they both said was that his loved ones needed to give him permission to let go. He needed us to tell him it was okay so that he could stop fighting and go in peace.
This is astoundingly hard to do, the letting go. We had been forced to let go by degrees as his illness progressed. And each time we had to let go of more of him, we grieved. But this was the final letting go. The "I-love-you-and-am-so-thankful-for-the-beautiful-time-we-had-together" letting go. The "I-have-faith-that-we-will-be-together-agian" letting go. The "we-will-be-sad-but-we-will-be-okay-because-God-will-take-care-of-us-and-we-will-take-care-of-each-other" letting go. The "you-have-fought-so-hard-and-we-don't-want-you-to-suffer-any-more" letting go. The "it's-time-to-let-go-and-see-the-Father" letting go.
We all knew this kind of letting go was coming and the grief that comes with that knowledge is so raw. You just don't want to go there and everything in your soul cries out, "This is not right! I don't want to do this!" But then God gives you strength for a moment and in that moment you say the words you know you need to say to the one who needs to hear them. Then you walk out of the room and weep where he can't hear you.
The last one to do this was Mom. It was so hard for her but she spoke beautiful truths to him, assured him that she would be okay, and told him it was okay to stop fighting. At that point, he couldn't open his eyes but a tear collected there, so I know he heard her. He couldn't reach out his hand to her, but he felt her hand on his, and my hand and Lindsay's hand on his other. And with other family also gathered around, we prayed for him to feel peace as he expressed the final act of faith in releasing his spirit to Jesus.
Two hours later, as the household was crawling into bed that night, he did let go. Lindsay and I and Andy and Adel were there. His labored breathing stopped and there was silence. His body was completely at peace, there was no pain or anxiety on his brow, he just peacefully let go. As he did, we whispered love and prayers over him. It was beautiful and peaceful.
To know he left the earth in this kind of peace gives me great peace too. He didn't want to go, but he trusted God to lead him even in this. And now, I truly do have peace that God will also lead us through each moment, each day, each family gathering where we miss Dad so much. It hurts, but I have peace.
Comfort
The last thing I want to remember about all this is how God comforted me during this time. There were too many "coincidences" to be coincidences.
On the night before Dad went to the hospital, when I was in emotional agony over his pain, I had several friends contact me and tell me that they just had a feeling they needed to pray for me and for my family. I believe it was those urgent prayers that got Dad through the night without another painful episode.
Yesterday, another old friend from college wrote me that she got a Google+ message that she might want to check out my new blog, which was Brad's Battle Blog. I had been thinking about reaching out to her and just hadn't gotten around to it, but God arranged for it to be done for me. Her prayers were added to others that were lifting me up when I could not stand alone.
On the night before dad passed away, the hospice nurse told me I needed to go look outside. The mood was full and crystal clear and there was a ring around it. It was very beautiful and comforting.
Then there's the timing of the government shutdown. As a NASA contractor, Adel has been forced to take paid vacation for the past two and a half weeks. They just happened to be the two and a half weeks of my life when I needed him most. I'm not claiming that God shut down the government just for me, but we know that all things work together for good to those who are called according to His purpose. And, oh how good it was to have my best friend with me on this one.
There is also the amazing timing with my work at our church. Every week it is my job to make sure things are ready for the coming Sunday. This week, the week when I most need to be with family, my church is not having children's services. I have nothing pressing that I must do before Sunday. What a comfort that is.
My Aunt Cindy has arranged a temporary work-transfer from her home to Houston, so she can be with my mom. On her first day of work here, she told her new boss about what our family was going through. Her boss said he would pray for her. It turns out that her boss is the same person who leads Andy and Lindsay's small group. He found out he was praying twice for the same family.
There's a little thing, but still worth mentioning. Several months ago I wrote up some catchphrases for the fall curriculum at church. As I was sitting in the room with Dad yesterday, struggling with the situation, I read the email of the plan for the week. This week's catchphrase, written several months prior was, "Jesus Is Our Hope." And it was sent to me in an email on the day my father passed away, the only answer to the most painful experience of my life.
Jesus is our hope.
Before this moment, I had thought that I could only write those words with great despair. But there is no despair. The fear and the dread are gone. Now there is sadness, there is relief, there is peace, there is comfort.
Sadness
The sadness is easy to understand. My dad is gone. There are so many times I will miss him, so many things that will remind me of him. Sadness makes sense.
Relief
The relief you will understand if you have ever had to witness someone you love truly suffer. He fought long and hard. He tried every possible treatment until there were no more to try. At that point, as his pain continued to grow, the only relief was to let go of this body that he could not save. So, there is relief that my dad is no longer suffering.
Peace
Then there is peace. I did not expect to feel this way on the day after I said goodbye to my dad.
And there is so much to this peace that I will linger here for a while.
The first thing that brings peace is the knowing that my dad is right now with Jesus. He was sad to leave his family, but his faith never wavered. Lindsay had a beautiful moment with him on his last night in the hospital, before he returned home to hospice care. She said he looked sad, and she asked him if he felt sad. He said he did. She said, "I'm sad too. But your body is broken. You are going from the land of the dying to the land of the living." Dad replied, "Yes, the land of the living. I'm going first. I'll wait for you. I love you." And then he kept repeating those words, "I'm going first. I'll wait for you. I love you." until he fell asleep.
I also have peace because Dad left this earth so peacefully and so beautifully. I have been so blessed with wise, experienced counsel in these past few days. A friend who has quickly grown dear to me because of her compassionate wisdom in the area of hospice, and the hospice nurse who stayed up with me and Dad on Thursday night, both gave me similar advice. Between the two of them, I was fairly certain his time was short, as the progression they described was happening so quickly. One of the things they both said was that his loved ones needed to give him permission to let go. He needed us to tell him it was okay so that he could stop fighting and go in peace.
This is astoundingly hard to do, the letting go. We had been forced to let go by degrees as his illness progressed. And each time we had to let go of more of him, we grieved. But this was the final letting go. The "I-love-you-and-am-so-thankful-for-the-beautiful-time-we-had-together" letting go. The "I-have-faith-that-we-will-be-together-agian" letting go. The "we-will-be-sad-but-we-will-be-okay-because-God-will-take-care-of-us-and-we-will-take-care-of-each-other" letting go. The "you-have-fought-so-hard-and-we-don't-want-you-to-suffer-any-more" letting go. The "it's-time-to-let-go-and-see-the-Father" letting go.
We all knew this kind of letting go was coming and the grief that comes with that knowledge is so raw. You just don't want to go there and everything in your soul cries out, "This is not right! I don't want to do this!" But then God gives you strength for a moment and in that moment you say the words you know you need to say to the one who needs to hear them. Then you walk out of the room and weep where he can't hear you.
The last one to do this was Mom. It was so hard for her but she spoke beautiful truths to him, assured him that she would be okay, and told him it was okay to stop fighting. At that point, he couldn't open his eyes but a tear collected there, so I know he heard her. He couldn't reach out his hand to her, but he felt her hand on his, and my hand and Lindsay's hand on his other. And with other family also gathered around, we prayed for him to feel peace as he expressed the final act of faith in releasing his spirit to Jesus.
Two hours later, as the household was crawling into bed that night, he did let go. Lindsay and I and Andy and Adel were there. His labored breathing stopped and there was silence. His body was completely at peace, there was no pain or anxiety on his brow, he just peacefully let go. As he did, we whispered love and prayers over him. It was beautiful and peaceful.
To know he left the earth in this kind of peace gives me great peace too. He didn't want to go, but he trusted God to lead him even in this. And now, I truly do have peace that God will also lead us through each moment, each day, each family gathering where we miss Dad so much. It hurts, but I have peace.
Comfort
The last thing I want to remember about all this is how God comforted me during this time. There were too many "coincidences" to be coincidences.
On the night before Dad went to the hospital, when I was in emotional agony over his pain, I had several friends contact me and tell me that they just had a feeling they needed to pray for me and for my family. I believe it was those urgent prayers that got Dad through the night without another painful episode.
Yesterday, another old friend from college wrote me that she got a Google+ message that she might want to check out my new blog, which was Brad's Battle Blog. I had been thinking about reaching out to her and just hadn't gotten around to it, but God arranged for it to be done for me. Her prayers were added to others that were lifting me up when I could not stand alone.
On the night before dad passed away, the hospice nurse told me I needed to go look outside. The mood was full and crystal clear and there was a ring around it. It was very beautiful and comforting.
This is my picture, as you can see, I couldn't capture it with my ipad.
Here's one I found online. It looked just like this.
Then there's the timing of the government shutdown. As a NASA contractor, Adel has been forced to take paid vacation for the past two and a half weeks. They just happened to be the two and a half weeks of my life when I needed him most. I'm not claiming that God shut down the government just for me, but we know that all things work together for good to those who are called according to His purpose. And, oh how good it was to have my best friend with me on this one.
There is also the amazing timing with my work at our church. Every week it is my job to make sure things are ready for the coming Sunday. This week, the week when I most need to be with family, my church is not having children's services. I have nothing pressing that I must do before Sunday. What a comfort that is.
My Aunt Cindy has arranged a temporary work-transfer from her home to Houston, so she can be with my mom. On her first day of work here, she told her new boss about what our family was going through. Her boss said he would pray for her. It turns out that her boss is the same person who leads Andy and Lindsay's small group. He found out he was praying twice for the same family.
There's a little thing, but still worth mentioning. Several months ago I wrote up some catchphrases for the fall curriculum at church. As I was sitting in the room with Dad yesterday, struggling with the situation, I read the email of the plan for the week. This week's catchphrase, written several months prior was, "Jesus Is Our Hope." And it was sent to me in an email on the day my father passed away, the only answer to the most painful experience of my life.
Jesus is our hope.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Trust Walk
One step forward. Then another.
I can't even begin to describe how different last fall was from this one. Last fall, I had just touched down on surviving the baby and preschool years with both my kids. The youngest had just started full-time school and I had finally made it. That first semester was so very peaceful.
I spent my days reading, writing, listening to music, walking and jogging, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone with my thoughts. Every moment was beautiful, every word a prayer, music and nature a communion with God. It was healing, after the baby and preschool years. It was growth, as God used the reading, the writing, the solitude, the conversations, to speak to my heart about the ways I needed to be refined in order to better know and follow Him. I felt like He was preparing me, like He always had been preparing me, for something much bigger than me.
Then, before I felt ready, He called me out of peace, and into chaos. Through my new job, He gave me a ministry to learn and to lead, new people to learn and to love. Through the adoption process, He gave me a calling to follow, a challenge to face. Through my dad's cancer, He gave me a burden to bear.
One step forward. Then another.
This is how I have been proceeding. For a while, I thought the chaos would end. If only I can make it to summer, my schedule won't be so demanding and I won't feel so overwhelmed. Welcome to my first summer as a working-mom. Chaos. If only I can make it to the start of school and get my kids back in the routine, my schedule won't be so demanding and I won't feel so overwhelmed. Chaos still.
Every moment is an overwhelming choice of what person or area in my life has the greatest need for attention. The funny thing is, much of this is an answer to prayer. I have spent the past eight years praying about adoption for our family and for God to grow me into ministry. I have spent the past eleven years praying that my husband would grow into the kind of Christ-loving man who would lead bible study against his own inhibitions, who would say yes to the chaos of adoption, who would support the challenges of having a wife in ministry. I have even spent the past sixteen years since I came to faith, praying that I would grow into the kind of Christ-follower who would be strong enough to stand in faith in the midst of hard times. I expected that God would answer my prayers, but I did not expect them to be answered all at the same time, like one big cosmic practical joke, a fire hose bursting with answered prayer, too much to handle at any one moment.
And with our adoption license about to be finalized, and my dad not doing well at all lately, there truly is no end in sight to the chaos. I want to stop, and go back to the quiet days. The days when it was just me and God and the quiet of my home. I want to give up on these dreams of ministry and adoption and faith, and just crumple. Ministry, and adoption, and faith in hard times, are God-ordained and God-inspired, but they are hard and I am tired.
I have been crying. A lot. I have been calling out to God for help, asking if this is really the path to which He has called me, even though I know it is. I have been merely surviving all that has passed and dreading all that is coming. I have been hanging on, one step forward, and then another, to the path He has placed at my feet.
Now, that is trust, but it is trust without much confidence, like when you're being blindfolded and led on a trust walk by a friend, and you trust enough to go slowly, but your arms are out and your feet are shuffling, just in case the friend leads you wrong. That is how I have been walking...bracing for impact at every moment.
This morning, God rocked my trust walk strategy. I have been looking for a book to read in my quiet times that fits where I'm struggling. At the beginning of the month, and a few times since then, God has brought to mind My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. I just hadn't actually grabbed it until today. It is a daily devotional book that was given to me by my mentor-friend Karen, when I first came to real faith at the age of nineteen.
As I finally grabbed the book this morning, I was thinking over all these thoughts I had written above. I opened it to the blank inside cover and found the inscription Karen had written sixteen years ago:
I can't even begin to describe how different last fall was from this one. Last fall, I had just touched down on surviving the baby and preschool years with both my kids. The youngest had just started full-time school and I had finally made it. That first semester was so very peaceful.
I spent my days reading, writing, listening to music, walking and jogging, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone with my thoughts. Every moment was beautiful, every word a prayer, music and nature a communion with God. It was healing, after the baby and preschool years. It was growth, as God used the reading, the writing, the solitude, the conversations, to speak to my heart about the ways I needed to be refined in order to better know and follow Him. I felt like He was preparing me, like He always had been preparing me, for something much bigger than me.
Then, before I felt ready, He called me out of peace, and into chaos. Through my new job, He gave me a ministry to learn and to lead, new people to learn and to love. Through the adoption process, He gave me a calling to follow, a challenge to face. Through my dad's cancer, He gave me a burden to bear.
One step forward. Then another.
This is how I have been proceeding. For a while, I thought the chaos would end. If only I can make it to summer, my schedule won't be so demanding and I won't feel so overwhelmed. Welcome to my first summer as a working-mom. Chaos. If only I can make it to the start of school and get my kids back in the routine, my schedule won't be so demanding and I won't feel so overwhelmed. Chaos still.
Every moment is an overwhelming choice of what person or area in my life has the greatest need for attention. The funny thing is, much of this is an answer to prayer. I have spent the past eight years praying about adoption for our family and for God to grow me into ministry. I have spent the past eleven years praying that my husband would grow into the kind of Christ-loving man who would lead bible study against his own inhibitions, who would say yes to the chaos of adoption, who would support the challenges of having a wife in ministry. I have even spent the past sixteen years since I came to faith, praying that I would grow into the kind of Christ-follower who would be strong enough to stand in faith in the midst of hard times. I expected that God would answer my prayers, but I did not expect them to be answered all at the same time, like one big cosmic practical joke, a fire hose bursting with answered prayer, too much to handle at any one moment.
And with our adoption license about to be finalized, and my dad not doing well at all lately, there truly is no end in sight to the chaos. I want to stop, and go back to the quiet days. The days when it was just me and God and the quiet of my home. I want to give up on these dreams of ministry and adoption and faith, and just crumple. Ministry, and adoption, and faith in hard times, are God-ordained and God-inspired, but they are hard and I am tired.
I have been crying. A lot. I have been calling out to God for help, asking if this is really the path to which He has called me, even though I know it is. I have been merely surviving all that has passed and dreading all that is coming. I have been hanging on, one step forward, and then another, to the path He has placed at my feet.
Now, that is trust, but it is trust without much confidence, like when you're being blindfolded and led on a trust walk by a friend, and you trust enough to go slowly, but your arms are out and your feet are shuffling, just in case the friend leads you wrong. That is how I have been walking...bracing for impact at every moment.
This morning, God rocked my trust walk strategy. I have been looking for a book to read in my quiet times that fits where I'm struggling. At the beginning of the month, and a few times since then, God has brought to mind My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. I just hadn't actually grabbed it until today. It is a daily devotional book that was given to me by my mentor-friend Karen, when I first came to real faith at the age of nineteen.
As I finally grabbed the book this morning, I was thinking over all these thoughts I had written above. I opened it to the blank inside cover and found the inscription Karen had written sixteen years ago:
September 18, 1997
I am so glad that we have gotten
to know each other this year!
I pray that this book may be a source
of delight and strength for you.
"It is the Lord who goes before you.
He will be with you; he will not
fail you or forsake you. Do not
fear or be dismayed."
Deuteronomy 31:8
Joyfully in Christ,
Karen
As soon as I read those words, my heart was rocked by God's amazing ways, that He would use a friend's note from sixteen years ago to speak to me exactly what I needed to hear to follow Him today. Delight and strength are so very much what I am lacking right now, and I feel like her prayer from sixteen years ago speaks healing to my soul when I need it most.
And then the scripture she chose! It seems such a random choice, but wow did it speak to me now, as I talk about the path He has placed before me, and how I dread and shuffle to go there. "It is the Lord who goes before you." Don't you love how God encourages His people, not with pithy quips about their own strength or valor ("I won't give you more than you can handle!" or "You are strong enough to face this giant!"). No! He encourages His people with rock-solid truth of His own strength and valor: "It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."
I am not strong enough for this. But I don't have to be. God is giving me more than I can handle. But I do not have to handle it alone. He is going before me. He has already gone before me in this same walk. He has experienced the heart-breaking loss of One He loves. He has faced the challenges of adopting into His family those who reject Him and cause Him grief. He has ministered to countless millions of needy people. He sees my heart, my grief, my fear, my wavering faith, and He knows, because He has gone before me. He is with me. He will not fail me or forsake me.
I can't even begin to explain how this crushes my heart and heals it, all at the same time. The God I serve is a mighty God. He is big enough for me to trust with blind abandon. And so I shall proceed. One step forward. Then another.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Faith in the Big Picture
This past year has been hard and overwhelming on so many levels. Adjusting to a new job, starting the adoption process, and my parents' cancer always looming. Emotionally, through all the daily challenges, I have circulated through excitement, fear, grief, guilt, insecurity, comfort, peace, thankfulness, loss, inadequacy, stress, humbleness, confidence, over-confidence, love, hope, joy...it just keeps going. I have been so caught up on myself and the daily struggle to choose right, seek God first, and live well in spite of hard times, that I have quite simply forgotten the big picture. My sweet aunt and sister each sent me a reminder last week that there is so much more going on than just my small world.
First, Lindsay sent me an email newsletter from her pastor, who had partnered with eight other pastors from the Houston area to visit The Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. This is just a little piece of his excitement for how well their meeting went:
First, Lindsay sent me an email newsletter from her pastor, who had partnered with eight other pastors from the Houston area to visit The Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. This is just a little piece of his excitement for how well their meeting went:
The CEO of The Jewish Agency told another Jewish friend: "I have no words. I was totally changed. I was blown away. No matter what happens this mission was huge. It is time to partner with these Christians." Also, after our first meeting, the meeting with Natan Sharansky, they decided to change their whole attitude toward working with Christians.
God is at work all around the world and my struggles and triumphs, though important to Him as my Creator-Father, are only a small part of His great plan for His world. He is moving in the World and bringing His Big Picture plan into completion.
Then my aunt sent me these pictures:
This is a scale model of Earth and the smaller planets. I'm just a tiny speck on the earth, and yet my life and my struggles feel so consuming. Even with a global perspective, realizing that I'm not the only person in whom God is at work, that my problems are relatively small in comparison to what others struggle through, I still visualize Earth in this way...big and important.
The Earth in proper perspective with the rest of our solar system:
Our Sun is tiny compared to other stars in our galaxy (Earth isn't even visible in this scale).
In this scale, the sun is a tiny dot and Antares, the 15th brightest star, is more than 1000 light years away.
And this is a Hubble telescope picture of countless ENTIRE GALAXIES billions of lightyears away.
And all of it, ALL OF IT, was made by a Creator God who loves me and cares for my tiny problems. He is big enough for me and big enough for this world. He has a plan, not only for my life in all its joy and struggle, but for the whole Earth, in all its joy and struggle. He is at work in me. He is at work in all the Earth, in His Big Picture, so big that I can't even imagine it.
My life, joys, and struggles are only a tiny part of it. Rather than making me feel small and insignificant, this gives me courage to press on. I want to be a tiny part of His Big Picture, my story part of His story, my struggles part of His redemption, my joys part of His victory. He is Big and He wins it all.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Focus Shift
The retreat this weekend started off as wonderful as I had hoped, with time in community and worship, as well as blissfully solitary time in prayer and God's word. Then a flip switched and my old enemy insecurity took over. I know what caused it, but that really doesn't matter. It's like when you have a fight with your spouse and months later you remember the fight, but not what started it, because, in the end, what started it doesn't really matter. It's not what caused my insecurity that matters. What matters is my heart condition that could lead me to feeling insecure.
Part of my heart condition is due to what I wrote about in my last post, about having cheated my quality time with God in the last six months. I am certain that is what left me vulnerable to attack, even as I began (or maybe even because I began) to reestablish time with God this weekend. It makes sense that my identity in Him would be weak when I haven't spent much time in His word.
As a believer who struggles with insecurity, my goal is always to refuse to let my insecurity govern my decisions. If I feel insecure in a certain situation into which I feel called, I always aim to walk with God's grace into the situation, rather than avoiding it. That in itself is not easy, but I believe it is walking in faith. For example, last fall I made a rather large error in judgement that several people knew about. That very same night I had a meeting attended by some of those people who knew about my mistake and who were affected by it. I really didn't want to go. I felt extremely insecure and exposed walking in and having to face and apologize to those who had seen me fail. But I made myself do it because I believe that to do otherwise would be to deny my identity and unconditional acceptance in Christ. If I truly believe that I am fully loved and fully accepted by the God of the universe, then my mistakes do not have to paralyze me.
So, upon this line of thinking, I refused to let my insecurity keep me from engaging in the activities and interactions of the retreat. I also went to God's word and reminded myself of some passages that help me root my identity in Him alone. I prayed, asking God to remove the feeling of insecurity and to help me be renewed in His love and grace. But the feeling did not go away. close to the end of the day, a friend asked me how I was doing. Sometimes that is a dangerous thing to do! So, of course, being very incapable of hiding my emotions, I unloaded upon her my tearful confession of the insecurity I was feeling. She gave me words of grace and the act of confession itself helped lift my burden quite a bit. But even as I came home from the retreat, I could feel the insecurity creeping back.
As it did, and as I stewed again on the cause and the feelings, I began to think these thoughts: Oh, how I despise that feeling of insecurity. I am shamed by it. I feel that as a follower of Christ, one privileged to serve the God of glory, I should not feel that way. I feel weak and lame. I begin to doubt that I am even worthy of serving God in any capacity, much less for such an amazing church and among such an amazing staff as I do. How can I serve and teach tomorrow if I am still feeling this way? I want to feel confident and full of God's amazing love. I want to have His peace that will never leave me. I want to feel and be so many things. I want. I want. I. I. I. I....
I spoke those thoughts in my mind all the way home in the car. Until I sat down to write at my computer, thinking maybe writing about it would help bring me to clarity, as it so often does. And sure enough, it did again tonight. It was the "I. I. I. I." in my thinking that did it. As I pulled up the pages of scripture I have compiled to help me through various areas of personal weakness, I was drawn to the one entitled "Praises." Here is what I wrote at the top of the page:
"When my mind is filled with unhelpful thoughts of others (their opinion of me or how they are failing me) and of myself (my insecurities, my shortcomings, and my mistakes), these verses help me shift my focus to the One who truly deserves it."
And whabam, I am faced with the realization that giving in to insecure thought patterns, even in the form of crying out to God in prayer, is really the same as denying my identity in Him. Even worse, it is really the same as idol worship. And with the I. I. I. I. in my thought pattern, it's not too hard to see who is the object of my idolatry. Good ole me, robbing God of His glory again by obsessing over myself! Funny how even my insecurity is a form of self absorption and pride (and helps to explain how I can be at once over-confident and insecure...they are so related because they are both so full of SELF).
Thus, this is where I humble myself before the Lord my God and confess my self-absorption. I confess that I have been more concerned with how I feel than in serving God and glorifying Him. And I remind myself of Moses: not awesome, glow-faced, ten-commandments Moses, but wimpy, insecure burning-bush Moses. In Exodus chapters three and four, God tells Moses to go lead His people out of Egypt, and Moses comes up with five I-centered, self-absorbed excuses why He shouldn't be the one (3:11, 3:13, 4:1, 4:10, 4:13). After the fifth excuse, "please send by the hand of whomever else You may send," (excuse translated: anyone else would be better than me!), God finally just gets flat-out angry at Moses. It's as if God is saying, "Moses/Megan stop being so self-absorbed and just obey and glorify Me." Once you realize that, the only faithful response can be, "Yes Lord!"
So before I go another minute, or serve another day in teaching and ministering to the needs of others, I will spend my focus on the only One who truly deserves it. Here are the passages of scripture I have compiled to help me focus on the worthiness of God to be glorified by my thoughts as well as my actions:
Part of my heart condition is due to what I wrote about in my last post, about having cheated my quality time with God in the last six months. I am certain that is what left me vulnerable to attack, even as I began (or maybe even because I began) to reestablish time with God this weekend. It makes sense that my identity in Him would be weak when I haven't spent much time in His word.
As a believer who struggles with insecurity, my goal is always to refuse to let my insecurity govern my decisions. If I feel insecure in a certain situation into which I feel called, I always aim to walk with God's grace into the situation, rather than avoiding it. That in itself is not easy, but I believe it is walking in faith. For example, last fall I made a rather large error in judgement that several people knew about. That very same night I had a meeting attended by some of those people who knew about my mistake and who were affected by it. I really didn't want to go. I felt extremely insecure and exposed walking in and having to face and apologize to those who had seen me fail. But I made myself do it because I believe that to do otherwise would be to deny my identity and unconditional acceptance in Christ. If I truly believe that I am fully loved and fully accepted by the God of the universe, then my mistakes do not have to paralyze me.
So, upon this line of thinking, I refused to let my insecurity keep me from engaging in the activities and interactions of the retreat. I also went to God's word and reminded myself of some passages that help me root my identity in Him alone. I prayed, asking God to remove the feeling of insecurity and to help me be renewed in His love and grace. But the feeling did not go away. close to the end of the day, a friend asked me how I was doing. Sometimes that is a dangerous thing to do! So, of course, being very incapable of hiding my emotions, I unloaded upon her my tearful confession of the insecurity I was feeling. She gave me words of grace and the act of confession itself helped lift my burden quite a bit. But even as I came home from the retreat, I could feel the insecurity creeping back.
As it did, and as I stewed again on the cause and the feelings, I began to think these thoughts: Oh, how I despise that feeling of insecurity. I am shamed by it. I feel that as a follower of Christ, one privileged to serve the God of glory, I should not feel that way. I feel weak and lame. I begin to doubt that I am even worthy of serving God in any capacity, much less for such an amazing church and among such an amazing staff as I do. How can I serve and teach tomorrow if I am still feeling this way? I want to feel confident and full of God's amazing love. I want to have His peace that will never leave me. I want to feel and be so many things. I want. I want. I. I. I. I....
I spoke those thoughts in my mind all the way home in the car. Until I sat down to write at my computer, thinking maybe writing about it would help bring me to clarity, as it so often does. And sure enough, it did again tonight. It was the "I. I. I. I." in my thinking that did it. As I pulled up the pages of scripture I have compiled to help me through various areas of personal weakness, I was drawn to the one entitled "Praises." Here is what I wrote at the top of the page:
"When my mind is filled with unhelpful thoughts of others (their opinion of me or how they are failing me) and of myself (my insecurities, my shortcomings, and my mistakes), these verses help me shift my focus to the One who truly deserves it."
And whabam, I am faced with the realization that giving in to insecure thought patterns, even in the form of crying out to God in prayer, is really the same as denying my identity in Him. Even worse, it is really the same as idol worship. And with the I. I. I. I. in my thought pattern, it's not too hard to see who is the object of my idolatry. Good ole me, robbing God of His glory again by obsessing over myself! Funny how even my insecurity is a form of self absorption and pride (and helps to explain how I can be at once over-confident and insecure...they are so related because they are both so full of SELF).
Thus, this is where I humble myself before the Lord my God and confess my self-absorption. I confess that I have been more concerned with how I feel than in serving God and glorifying Him. And I remind myself of Moses: not awesome, glow-faced, ten-commandments Moses, but wimpy, insecure burning-bush Moses. In Exodus chapters three and four, God tells Moses to go lead His people out of Egypt, and Moses comes up with five I-centered, self-absorbed excuses why He shouldn't be the one (3:11, 3:13, 4:1, 4:10, 4:13). After the fifth excuse, "please send by the hand of whomever else You may send," (excuse translated: anyone else would be better than me!), God finally just gets flat-out angry at Moses. It's as if God is saying, "Moses/Megan stop being so self-absorbed and just obey and glorify Me." Once you realize that, the only faithful response can be, "Yes Lord!"
So before I go another minute, or serve another day in teaching and ministering to the needs of others, I will spend my focus on the only One who truly deserves it. Here are the passages of scripture I have compiled to help me focus on the worthiness of God to be glorified by my thoughts as well as my actions:
- Praise for God's plan and how He loves us: Psalm 8
- Praise for God's goodness: Psalm 103
- Praise for God's wonder: Psalm 145
- Praise for God's wisdom: Daniel 2:20-23
- Praise for God's power: Ephesians 3:20-21
- Praise for Christ's final victory: Hebrews 7:26-27
- Praise for God's good gifts and constancy: James 1:17
- Praise for God's glory: Revelation 4:8-11
- Praise for Christ's glory: Revelation 22: 16-17
And even as I simply begin the journey of re-focusing my eyes on the God who is so worthy of my praise, my insecurity melts away. It is not about me. I am about Him. He is so worthy.
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