Tag Archives: joy

April 12, 2013 · 9:27 am

I’m So Glad I’m Here – Embracing the Present Tense

here

I’ve texted the single word here just after I put the car in park and wait.

It’s the most succinct way to say: I’m in the car outside the school waiting for you so. Here suffices nicely.

It is the opposite of there but it means so much more: together, let’s go, hurry up. Here and there will forever be separated by a chasm of geography. But, is it more than that?

I’m so glad I’m here – I choke out these words through emotions and yes, often tears. Because here is where I want to be, and I almost wasn’t. And that near miss of the adventure of this life with my husband, with my kids, with the people I love gilds the time I do have with them. And while it makes the opportunities to share life together more golden, I also feel this pressure building in my chest, in my soul to make it count, enjoy it more, express my truth, love intentionally.

A few weeks after our accident, I was able to ride to my youngest son’s cross county meet. At seven, Nikko ran with the goal in mind. No pacing, no strategizing the course. He ran with an all-out fervor to win, to be fast.

IMG_1693

And I sat in our van, the one replaced by insurance because our first one sat as a crushed can in the police evidence lot, and cried alone, unable to navigate the grassy entrance to the field where hundreds of little runners chanted their grade-school names and breathed into the fall air

I’m so glad I’m here.

IMG_1703

The next cross country season, I walked onto the field, unaided by walker or cane, still with a limp and the constant ache, and hugged him and said in his ear:

I’m so glad I’m here.

And I’ve said those words hundreds of times in the past months. That is a lasting pink scar from the night I nearly died, a part I hope never fully heals: a desperation to feel the pang of the possibility of missing out on the good gift of living so I don’t miss it entirely.

I wish I could convey the urgency of being here, to give it to anyone I touch and speak to. Because in learning how to be here, I’ve learned it isn’t about geography on a map, the opposite of there. I’ve learned it’s about the geography of the heart.

The distant isle of there is a matter of choice. We speed to there on wings of self-service, we build a path away from here by complaining; discontentment is a vessel that removes the heart of joy that can be found in the present place of here and now and exiles it to there. When we check out from being part of of own present tense we miss the immeasurable possibility of what lies within seams and under the folds of our here.

Because here may be a place of unpaid bills, of replayed fights that always end the same and never accomplish any good, it may be the boring routine, the body that’s sick, the hurt that won’t heal, the past that won’t mend, the carpet that’s stained and the jeans that don’t fit and all you want to do is get out of here.

I get that, I do. But I know a trick, a tiny key that turns the lock and opens the lid to a mystery: you are not alone in your here and now.

“I AM with you, even to the end of the age,” Jesus promised. (Matthew 28:20) He sends text messages to the hearts of the lonely and the abused and the angry – here.

Whatever your here is, He IS. It isn’t about geography, it’s not about where you are, but who is with you.

10 Comments

Filed under Faith, life, Parenting, relationships, Spiritual Encouragement, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 20, 2013 · 7:00 am

Hello Beautiful {A Story Shared at Soli Deo Gloria}

IMG_0206

I’m not sure when it happened, or how exactly, but I can look in the mirror and see me and I’m okay with what I see.

I haven’t achieved my ideal weight, my nose is still too big, my complexion uneven, my figure squatty, but I see myself and I remember what they said:

“You look beautiful!”

“I can’t believe how pretty you looked—even in ICU.”

“You sort of glowed, even as you lay there with tubes down your throat and your arms in restraints – you were pretty.”

My soul began to believe them.

Though I am a wear-makeup-every-day girl I had had dozens of visitors over the past several days and I hadn’t looked in a mirror.

They were happy to see me – alive – and that was enough to make me feel gorgeous.

We had been in a serious car accident. Miraculously, my children sustained only minor injuries and my husband had a broken ankle. I, on the other hand, left the accident by helicopter suffering multiple fractures in my left leg and a slew of internal injuries that filled my chest cavity with blood. My stomach had ended up where my left lung should have been. My lung sat up near my shoulder like a crumpled wad of Kleenex.

Won’t you click on over to Jen’s Community, Soli Deo Gloria Sisterhood and read the remainder of the story?

She’s been discussing the aspects of real beauty, our desire to feel beautiful and asking these questions: What if we become astounded by ourselves, not with a sense of selfish pride, but with heartbeats of gratitude?  What if we let God’s Word lavish our souls with wonder and amazement?  What if we believe Him when He tells us that we are beautiful and that we are His?finding heaven today

2 Comments

Filed under Faith, life, Spiritual Encouragement, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

May 7, 2012 · 11:39 am

May{Be} I’m Tired…

'Furrows and my fav oak' photo (c) 2009, Doug Symington - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

She was a doer, a server, a yes-girl.

She had many talents and a Holy Spirit-softened heart for the lost and searching.

Her intentions were good: she loved Jesus and wanted to be useful in leading others to him.

But she wore the fretting and anxiety when she was with me.

I was her “Safe Person” who always leant help and flew to her aid when the details of her commitments to church piled upon her like storm clouds.

I witnessed the exhaustion registering in her eyes, the fear of failing those who expected her to “come through” just one more time. It was a newsletter or costumes, decorations for the sanctuary or puppets for the Sunday School program…. Just one more thing to do.

I watched her cry and wonder if she was doing it right, doing enough, doing.

And the well of love for Jesus ran dry–she scraped bottom finding only dust.

Because something shadowy moved in between her and her Jesus. Something that looked a lot like Jesus but lacked his grace: the approval of others.

This approval was represented by a pastor, a leader who micro-managed instead of shepherded, who made aloof smiles of disapproval while asking for more, who himself had traded the adventure and acceptance of serving Christ for the graded system of religion.

She got lost down there in the dry depths of the well, until one-day, she had nothing left to offer and pastor turned his back on her.

And the words of Jesus could finally echo across the bare walls of her dry prison:

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? (the message, matthew 11:28)

In other versions of this passage, the invitational word is placed like a crystal in gold at the onset of his offering:

Come.

Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Come to Jesus, worn-out ones.

Come to his rest, all who are shaking with fatigue.

Come cry out your tears of exhaustion and listen to his heartbeat and find the rhythm of grace you’ve been designed for.

***

Perhaps you’ve been in a dry, worn-thin place. Perhaps you feel like wheels are spinning beneath you but you aren’t going anywhere.

Jesus designed a productive, engaging life for you. Your place in the functioning body called the church is vital, but doing without being will only lead to a breakdown.

The idea in the invitation to rest in this passage is something like pressing the pause button, remaining and waiting while suspended in calm. It is learning to be quiet and still, to rest until the time is right to push “play”.

The idea is about trusting Jesus more than needing approval of others. It’s about waiting for his timing even when that doesn’t fit with the agenda others (or you) are placing on your shoulders. Its about being with Jesus.

***

In John 15:9-11, Jesus explained the dynamic connection that we have with God through knowing him:

“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Live within my love. When you obey me you are living in my love, just as I obey my Father and live in his love. I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your cup will overflow!” (TLB)

When we live within his love, we are choosing to be involved in this supernatural current of grace and abundant love and joy! It isn’t up to you or I to complete the circuit–our job is simply to plug in.

Live within my love.

What an invitation! What a gift to come out from whatever religious system we’re operating under: approval, works, self-loathing, compliance…

And find a cup overflowing.

And find we are overflowing.

So May{be} I’m tired.

I’m happy to admit it, because I know that Jesus is true to his word — there is a rhythm of rest and a joy overflowing when I live and allow myself to be in Jesus’ love.

3 Comments

Filed under Faith, life, relationships, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 17, 2012 · 12:15 am

Desolation to Delight

She sat in the courtyard in the brilliant African sunshine.
 
Her dark skin failed to conceal the desolation in her eyes.
Her arms, weak from holding the child, now lay still and empty. Her hands rested on the cotton skirt that covered her thighs, her fingers played at the creases.
 
Her child, the boy, naked and brown with shining eyes and a perfect mouth, was in the arms of another, hungrily working at wrapping those flower-blossom lips around the bottle nipple.
 
His blanket was but a dirty square of fabric, ripped from something larger, to be made small enough to enfold the baby.
 
Swaddling clothes.
 
 
 
And I listened to the lilting voices speaking words that sounded like the tinkling of bells and falling water. I didn’t understand the language.
 
But the story was clear.
 
The baby was healthy, declared the staff nurse.
 
But malnourished.
 
The girl with the desolate eyes explained: no milk had come. He had slurped water from her cupped hand, lapped at the creases of her palm instead of the colostrum of her breast. She was, indeed, desolate.
 
Three days he’d been here, born on a day in November to a land called Africa. And such a world to great him. 
 
No father. A mother with no means at all to care for him.
 
Not a stitch of clothing, nor a diaper.
 
He was such a baby that anyone would be proud to call him son. Ten fingers, ten toes, alert eyes, strong neck. But in this suspended moment, he was no one, and every one of us, wrapped in the filth of earth thirsty for life and love and a chance.
 
We sat around the low, orphanage tables under the shade of some foreign tree and I watched the intake process. I listened to every syllable of the story, translated by a social worker.
 
She was only a girl, fifteen, raped in a bathroom she had been cleaning. And now, here she sat, empty with a single friend beside her.
 
Her friend explained she would keep the child if she could, but she had taken in a foundling, a little girl not yet two-years old. She couldn’t take any more; she herself had little income, poor by even Ethiopian standards. So, she brought the girl and the baby here, to the one place where there was hope.
 
Fatigue overcame desolation and she swooned on her stool.
 
“Had she yet seen a doctor?”, the question came.
No.
“Was she bleeding still?”
Yes.
 
We left the orphanage gates, perfect boy in the arms of competent nanny, and swept the young mother into the Land Cruiser to the hospital.
 
I sat beside her with a soul full of things to say and no words to say them. The Atlantic Ocean may have ridden those bumpy streets between us the gulf was so large.
 
Both of us mothers. Her the same age as my daughter, penniless and sick. Me, a daughter of luxury from the land of plenty. But I wanted more than anything to tell her: you will no longer be called Desolate. Your name is not Forsaken. Jesus came for you, and me, and that precious baby. You are his bride. He delights over you.
 
I squeezed her hand.
I prayed.
I begged God’s love and peace to flood her soul.
 
I noticed the smallest smile in her eyes as she said thank you. She turned and I watched her small frame pass through the hospital doors.
 
 
And later, when I held that child, and chose his first little, blue outfit, and when I fed him and changed his tiny diaper, I prayed salvation over him. I was only a visitor, but I’d seen a vision. And it altered my soul.
 
When I think of her I wonder, did she get to say goodbye?
 
###
 
Friend, we live in a broken world. We live with the distortion of sin inside us, around us, because of us.
 
But, we are not abandoned! Salvation and goodness can be found in every dire situation.
 
If you feel like your name is Desolate or Forsaken, you are not beyond redemption.
 
You are not beyond redemption.
 
The Lord sees. You.
 
He will claim you. And heal you. 
 
 
Isaiah 62:4
Never again will you be called “The Forsaken City” or “The Desolate Land.” 
Your new name will be “The City of God’s Delight” and “The Bride of God,” 
for the LORD delights in you
and will claim you as his bride.
 
 
I’ve linked up again with the amazing community that meets on Fridays at Lisa Jo’s. I usually go over the five-minute rule, but I do follow the rule of writing stories for the love of it!
 
 

17 Comments

Filed under Faith, life, Parenting, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

November 14, 2011 · 10:42 am

{Play} Not About Me November

'kinderdome' photo (c) 2008, pawpaw67 - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Colors flashed brilliant across the gray sky as they tossed leaves in the air. Flung against a cloud backdrop, they showered on the school yard grass still showing summer’s green.

Laughter danced in the air.

Shouts as crisp as apples clapped in applause–in praise–of every school kids favorite subject: recess.

Here, play is paramount.

Inhibitions are left behind, stuffed in desks and cubbies in the classroom.

Library whispers and quiet reading give way to sing-song chants.

Recess is all running and tag, chasing, laughing, tetherball and swings.

What if we all took recess?

What if we all watched the hands of the wall clock travel so slowly around that bald face, tick, tick, slow, slow, until the magic second when pencils dropped, books shut and feet shuffled in urgency?

What is we sprung to life at the chance to play?

What if this play had no goal, no purpose other than to run and shout and pretend?

Might we be healthier?

Might we be happier?

What if we never worked through lunch hour, refused to run errands or schedule meetings during recess?

Would we be more free?

Would we have better boundaries?

What if we skipped and hopped and laughed until we collapsed in a heap with our best friends all around?

Would we be more fit?

Would we be better friends?

What if we sought out joy, pursued happiness alongside each other, breathed fresh air and left our issues on the blacktop?

Could we return to life more balanced, more filled, open-handed and clear-headed for the work ahead?

But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy.

Spread your protection over them,

that those who love your name may rejoice in you. {Psalm 5:11}

Are you burdened with plans, responsibilities or hard work that awaits you?

Have you played lately?

You may find your plans and responsibilities and hard work wait still, but your step is lighter, your mood refreshed, your joy-tank filled and ready for the journey when you play in God’s creation, when you praise him with song and when you pray for his protection. 

When you do this, you can calmly take the hand of Christ and be glad!

Are you glad today?

Do you want to be?

   

Then go outside and play!



Beholding Glory

Leave a Comment

Filed under Faith, Parenting

Tagged as , , , , , ,