quiet...again

I find it more than a little humorous that as I log on to this precious place for me on the interwebs that the last time I wrote here was to share about quiet moments.  I laugh to myself and to my sometimes comical Creator because this morning, for the first time in way too long a time, I had a quiet moment and, for the first time in way too long a time, pages of my prayer journal were filled with thoughts and prayers for myself which is a Friday morning tradition.  I can only assume it's a gentle/not so gentle reminder that usually that is indeed from where my struggles arise, from the lack of those crucial quiet moments.  Nevertheless, I will share my pages and pages that contain a most familiar topic to show myself that it most often takes more than one try to learn something and to hopefully encourage you when the same struggle pops up in your life again and again...

It's quiet.  It's the first Friday of school and it's the first day in two months that I've sat alone in a quiet home purposely focused on the most important task at hand, quieting myself in front of my Savior and my God.

Times of study have happened but "quiet times" they were not.  Throwing some convoluted thoughts on paper after reading the daily SRT while Wild Kratts plays ten feet away and there are constant interruptions, cute interruptions but interruptions nonetheless, asking for milky and another flat egg or poptart doesn't fill the soul.

Maybe it should.  Maybe I should be able to have full and meaningful times with God in the midst of all that.  Maybe you are able to and if so I am honestly so happy for you that you can meet with him in the midst of it all because I know for a fact that He IS there in the midst of the chaos, I have found Him and felt Him there numerous times.  But I'm also tired of shoulding myself in regards to this. Maybe one day I'll reach that place that can vividly hear God's call no matter what sounds are all around me, or maybe, just maybe, God designed me to need the quiet.  Maybe He created my soul to grow as I sit and be still without the distractions around me.  Maybe He created some of you like that as well and we're trying so hard to prove we can meet Him in the chaos that we're missing His command to step away.

My favorite things to do should tell me that this is true.  When you spend your college days at bonfires and dinner parties instead of clubs and frat houses it points to the loud and crazy not being your thing.  When your favorite part of visiting NYC is walking around old neighborhoods and shopping flea markets but cringe in the middle Times Square, confirmation is at hand.

I'm a concentrator, a ponderer, a viewer, a listener, a quiet encourager.  Yelling exists, don't get me wrong.  I am not a meek and mild church mouse who acts like the epitome a of perfect, humble Christian.  Anger erupts way too quickly.  Snark comments are constantly being cut off at the tip of my tongue lest too many escape.  Truths that I KNOW that I know go too quickly to the wayside most days as I struggle to abide instead of give in to the desire to just go and get it done myself.  But I also know that when I'm closest with my family, my friends, myself and most importantly the Spirit within me it has happened in the purposeful getting away, the act of seperating myself so that nothing else can grab my focus.

Summer with my boys was wonderful.  The Spirit tugged at my heart and helped my focus not be on the thousands of thigns that could grace the to do list of a self proclaimed decorator and homebody who has been waiting 6 years to get a home.  Instead, I wanted the focus to be on time together, having fun, making memories and showing them love means showing up.  Tasks were done obviously because I'm still me and laundry is always there but it was very refreshing not to worry about the doing, or at least not as much as usual.

However, there was a very important task that slipped almost completely as well.  Remember that not so quiet time I mentioned?  For this girl that is something I can't afford to let go and I'm learning it all to well as I've been trying to pinpoint why recent events that appear very small have sent me spiraling.  Props to my husband who in one short sentence responded to my complaints with "well is it because you haven't gotten away to write?"  Even though my immediate response was denial, which it way too often is, a light dawned/shined direction into my eyes to wake me and and said "well DUH!"

It never happens quickly, that slide backward, because it would be too easily noticed.  No, when Satan wants to screw with you He does it slowly.  So slowly that you don't know what's changing and by the end you know something is different but have no firm proof to back it up.  With the right heart it could be called patience but with the wrong one it's just calculated assault.

My soul needs quiet.  It needs concentration.  It needs purposeful time.  It needs less PBS as background music.  It needs to be still.  What does yours need?

Quiet moments

Thinking requires quiet moments therefore writing requires quiet moments because writing without thought can turn a beautiful idea into a dangerous weapon with words that harm instead of heal and words that confuse instead of encourage.  Oh how I desire to share words that perform the deeds of that latter.

In a house of three young boys, two major fundraisers, preparing for not one not two but three houses for a move,  and just living inside my brain, quiet moments have been more nonexistent than even few and far between.  All my so called 'downtime' has been spent sleeping and many nights that has been fleeting as all thoughts jumble in my head until none can make their way out and I'm too tired and honestly too intimidated to try and sort through.

Until now...

As I lay awake at 4:40 in the morning praying for no rain so my precious babies ballgames don't get canceled again my heart is drifting to all those whose prayers I want to lift up.   Those close to me who are living with fear and rejection and unknowns, those who I haven't spent time praying for because I haven't spent time with my God.

He gently reminds me how I have turned him into a brief pit stop instead of a place of refuge.  How I've let my time before Him get lost with everything else jumbled together into a giant list I want to block out.

He gently reminds me how quickly it can happen.  Just days after continued vibrant times together turns into days upon days of quick thoughts and glances at best and complete avoidance at worst. 
He gently teaches me that exhaustion is one of Satan's favorite ways to separate us.  That whether the physical or spiritual tiredness comes first it will lead into the other and that my very first inclination is to let go of it all instead of clinging fiercely to the Hope I have.

He lovingly reminds me that when I let go,  which I often do,  He never has.  He still and always will hold on to me.  His love is that strong.   His patience is that strong.   His faithfulness is that strong. 

While in my personal picture of perfection a quiet moment is one where all the things and people are at peace and there are no distractions anywhere to be found I am again gently reminded that peace and quiet of the heart come from one source and one source alone.

Quiet moments can be found and my heart can be renewed in the wee hours of the morning yes but even in the chaos,  especially in the chaos, of the day to days of this fallen world we live in, quiet moments can and will happen in the midst of the worst.   We need only be still.

joy

It is often difficult to hold on to joy, to find it everyday in the everyday.  In the world we think of joy as meaning happiness that comes from success or good fortune.  In our Christian lives, we know joy can be found in the deepest sorrow, because joy doesn't depend on the situations you are in.  Joy comes from one source, Christ. 

 That is why Paul and Silas could sing praises from the prison.  That is why hearts of parents mourning the loss of their child can give glory to God.  In the midst of our pain caused by the fallen world we live in we can have joy because we have a Savior who has given us everything.  He is the joy lighting our soul and we trust Him with our all.

We're choosing celebration
Breaking into freedom
You're the song
You're the song
Of our hearts

We cast aside our shadows
Trust You with our sorrows
You're the song
You're the song
Of our hearts

We're dancing to the rhythm of Your heart
We're rising from the ashes to the stars

You're the joy joy joy lighting my soul
The joy joy joy making me whole
Though I'm broken, I am running
Into Your arms of love

The pain will not define us
Joy will reignite us
You're the song
You're the song
Of our hearts

The dark is just a canvas
For Your grace and brightness
You're the song
You're the song
Of our hearts

We're dancing to the rhythm of Your heart
We're rising from the ashes to the stars

You're the joy joy joy lighting my soul
The joy joy joy making me whole
Though I'm broken, I am running
Into Your arms of love

You're the joy
The song in my heart
The hope of my soul

In the shadows
In the sorrows
In the desert
When the pain hits
You are constant
Ever-present
You're the song of my heart

You're the joy joy joy lighting my soul
The joy joy joy making me whole
Though I'm broken, I am running
Into Your arms of love
Into Your arms

Read more: Rend Collective - Joy Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

too much

My heart hurts.  Physically aches.  I know you've felt it before.  I know you know that feeling in your chest where the weight of something is pressing in so hard that you can't breathe.  It's a feeling that can sneak up on you, show up in the blink of an eye or make itself known well in advance and slowly progress while you watch and wait.  It's a feeling that can come through your own experiences, because of the actions of another or felt from the sidelines as you have to be a spectator in someone's story.  

Today this feeling that engulfs me and many others in my community of believers comes from seeing another hurting.  It comes from watching and waiting and praying for a miracle for a precious unborn life.  It comes when everything has reached the point of too much and the only ability you have is to sit and feel everything around you.  It comes from that place that lacks all understanding and has nowhere to turn except upward with a great distressing why.

I want to cry and I want to hide and I want to scream at the top of my lungs that it's just not fair and I just don't get it.  And often I do.  Then I am reminded that it should always feel like too much.  On this earth, the hurt we see, the hurt we feel and the hurt we cause is too much.  It's too much because God's perfect design was tainted when sin entered the world.  In a place where there was supposed to be none, any, is too much.  

You can look next to you at any point of your day and see someone who has a story, a need, an idol, a sin and a struggle because of it.  If you go about your day with your eyes wide open to the world around you, your heart will have the potential to always ache and always mourn for every single person you pass.  

Truly, the dangerous thing is for the ache to never come.  The dangerous thing is to never feel the hurt for yourself and those around you.  The dangerous thing is for your heart to become so hard and callous that no hurt can get in.  The hurt is what takes you to Jesus.  The hurt is what makes you remember that it is all too much and you need to take it to someone, the only One, who can handle it all.  

Many times we get to see the causes and effects of life play out.  We see the natural path that is being taken due to choices.  Those obvious consequences for actions, whether difficult or not, are at least easy to understand.  So many others times we are left in bewilderment.  We are left to wonder and wait, or just wonder and trust.  The Christian life doesn't give us a crystal ball into each of our lives and the experiences that are coming.  We don't automatically know it all and automatically get to understand and handle everything in the perfect "christianlike" manner.  What we get is a Savior who loves us and comforts us. We get a spirit that guides us down even the rockiest of roads.  We get a sovereign creator who is ever faithful and even if we never see the whys we see Him.

And even this moment as I question this current why, I know that even if I never understand, I have a Savior who does.  He hurt far more than I ever could, He loved far more than I ever can.  Whether it is with tears streaming down my cheeks, jaw clenched, or peace that passes all understanding,  I will hold fast to my confession of faith and draw near to the throne of grace to ask and receive mercy and grace in this time of need for myself and my dear friends because I have a high priest who understands whether I ever will or not. (Hebrews 4:15)

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgotWhat sorrow is carried by the hearts that he boughtSo when the questions dissolve into the silence of GodThe aching may remain but the breaking does not
~Andrew Peterson

sunday song

Jesus, I my cross have taken, 

All to leave and follow Thee; 

Destitute, despised, forsaken, 

Thou from hence my all shalt be: 

Perish every fond ambition, 

All I’ve sought or hoped or known; 

Yet how rich is my condition, 

God and heav’n are still my own!

Let the world despise and leave me, 

They have left my Savior, too.

Human hearts and looks deceive me;

Though art not, like them, untrue.

O while Thou dost smile upon me,

God of wisdom, love and might,

Foes may hate and friends disown me, 

Show Thy face and all is bright

Man may trouble and distress me, 

‘Twill but drive me to Thy breast; 

Life with trials hard may press me, 

Heav’n will bring me sweeter rest. 

O ‘tis not in grief to harm me, 

While Thy love is left to me; 

O ‘twere not in joy to charm me, 

Were that joy unmixed with Thee. 

Hasten on from grace to glory, 

Armed by faith and winged by prayer; 

Heav’n’s eternal days before me, 

God’s own hand shall guide me there. 

Soon shall close my earthly mission, 

Swift shall pass my pilgrim days, 

Hope shall change to glad fruition, 

Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

Words by Henry F. Lyte, Music by Jeff Bourque

known

It's Tuesday!  As I share this weekly identity verse that tells me whose I am and reminds me of what I am because of it, I pray that it not only helps me on my journey but encourages you on whatever path God is sending you down.  

As much as I like to think I like new and adventurous things, it doesn't take more than five minutes before my insides are twisting, my heart is racing and my mind is screaming for the comfortable places I know.  More often than not I leave on a trip looking forward to the time it is over and I can be safe again in my own place.  No matter how much I really do want to go on vacation, or serve others on a foreign mission trip, or just have a night out downtown with friends, there creeping in the back of my mind is the vision of holing up in my comfy abode surrounded by the people and things that make me feel safe.

This concept follows me to the new people category as well.  There are set times in your growing up where having to meet new people is a given even if you grew up in the exact same place your whole life.  The move from elementary to middle school, from middle school to high school and from high school to college are milestones for meeting new people.  Then still, you experience this after you move away from everything you've ever known to a new state, a new job, a new marital status, a new home, and a new church, and the only familiar things you see is the clothes you packed in your suitcase. And even those aren't too familiar because you just bought them a couple months ago so you'd look cute on your honeymoon.  

I have very vivid memories of the pains of those times, when the familiarity of my surroundings kept growing into a bigger and bigger pond with more fish to get to know (or hide from).  There are some who relish those experiences, and think that life can only get better and be more fun the bigger the place and the more the people.  I envy that mindset.  There are others, like me for instance, that might have possibly quaked inside more than a little at the task of not just getting to know others, but of being known yourself.  To tell the truth, it was never really the first half of that that bothered me. It was most definitely the second.

Inside of me, of us, is this desire to be known.  For someone to see and know and understand you, and in the end not only love but want to.  Whether that want is a romantic one, where you find the one whom your soul loves,  or a friendly one where you see that bosom friend in the heart of another, or a casual one that is only there for a kind smile and word at your sons ballgame. That desire is present in all of us.  There are two problems that can arise, however, and I share this with years traveled on the problematic paths!  The first is the doubt and fear that keeps you from letting others truly know you. The second is giving other people the power to make you feel known, instead of placing that power in the hands of the only One in whom it should rest.

It sounds pretty common sense to say that you can never know someone, and they can never know you if you don't share all there is to share, but I'm here to tell you that you CAN NEVER attempt to truly know and be known by another human being unless you share what there is to share.  I'm talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Giving others the polished and condensed version of myself might be thought of as more proper and socially acceptable, but that will never result in a true and honest relationship.  Now, before you jump up and start spilling all your deepest darkest secrets to anyone who will listen, that isn't exactly what I mean.  I am not meant to be close to every person who walks by me, and I am not meant to spread my pearls before swine, BUT I am meant to be a light and walk in the Spirit and follow His leading and be transparent when the opportunity comes up. From there, He will take those relationships to where they are supposed to go, because as amazing as it is to feel as if you are known and wanted by friends and family, that is just a glimpse of a relationship that is already present.  I am KNOWN and have been my whole life.  

To let anyone else fill my desire to be known is just the same as filling up a bucket with a hole in it (and all the other cliche metaphors that fit this situation).  Giving anyone the job of something my Creator is supposed to do will only result in failure. Maybe not right away, but eventually it will happen.  I say this from 30 years of seeking out the approval of others, and seeking my cup to be filled by my relationship with others.  This is the very reason my list of identity verses started, and the very reason I now every (ish) Tuesday have made it a goal to share one of those verses, and why it is so desperately important to know who you are. Because Christ is in you.  To paraphrase the most comforting words to fulfill this desire...

You have searched me Lord and you KNOW me.  You know when I sit and when I get up.  You know my thoughts before I even voice them.  Before I can even tell you what I need to say you not only know what it will be but you understand my meaning behind it.  For that void within me that needs to be known this is too wonderful to even think about.  Not only can I not go anywhere you have created without feeling you with me, there was never a time, even before I entered the world, that you didn't not know exactly who I was and what I would be.  Even when I struggle with frustration and hate, you know my heart and test me and point me towards your way.  Psalm 139

Whether you are a current or recovering quaking in your boots club member with me, or love the adventure of sharing your everything, remember that all you desire is already done, and you are KNOWN and loved by the Creator of the universe. And the only thing left to do is to let Him use you to help others know Him.

In need

It's Tuesday!  As I share this weekly identity verse that tells me whose I am and reminds me of what I am because of it, I pray that it not only helps me on my journey but encourages you on whatever path God is sending you down.  

For three days last week my youngest baby boy had a fever and a stomach bug.  He pitifully laid on the couch watching How To Train Your Dragon 2 over and over (as if he doesn't already try to do that on a daily basis) and dutifully ran to the bathroom every time he needed to "frow up".  It was a sad sight for sure but not a completely unwelcomed one since his usual mode is tornado style turnt up all the way effecting everything in his path.   It was almost relaxing since he's nonexistant napping became a daily occurrence for four days running and all the things I got done stayed done because no tornado sent them flying.  

Then Sunday came and the germs made their way to my oldest two baby boys.  By Sunday night there was weeping and gnashing of teeth and a bed that needed to be changed twice and buckets to empty and mouths to wipe and tears to console and sleep to miss out on.  Lots of sleep to miss out on.   Didn't I mention the lack of sleep?

I have spent the last two days washing every ounce of bedding on all the beds in our house.  Do you know how long it takes for bedding to wash and then dry.  A LONG time.   Then the cleaning up and nurse maiding and snack fetching and the taking care of the tornado who is now feeling extremely chipper and ready to roll.  I love being a mom and I love my sweet boys but when you catch yourself at 3 o'clock in the afternoon still in your glasses, pajamas, and unbrushed hair (and teeth) being physically pulled in three different directions and mentally pulled in 10x that many something in you starts to give.  If I'm being completely honest something in you starts to snap. 

 Yes there are worse problems people are facing and yes I am one of the people who has faced difficulties much worse than this one but this week this is where I am and I know you've felt it before and I know at least one other person understands that weird mix of anger, guilt, hopelessness and depression fueling around ready to send you over the edge or at least to a locked closet with a couple hours supply of chocolate.

Thankfully before I could retreat too far into the exhausted haze and frustrated feelings the Spirit adjusted the well worn path I was about to start down and reminded me to stop and look up.  Searching instead for the words hidden in my heart, the words that are there for the singular reason to point me back to Christ.  To look there instead of the mess around me. 

 To be still, and know that He is God 

Psalms 46:10

If you've ever heard the hymn "I Need Thee Every Hour" you might also know that it was written by a lady named Annie Hawks in 1872 as she was caring for her three young children.  She was so overwhelmed with the need of God that she wrote these words.  I have no idea what was going on in her home that June morning but motherhood hasn't changed so much that I think they were all playing so nicely and cleanly together while she sat and drank tea while having her quiet time,   One can only imagine that she was also up to her elbows in everyday life and knew that the only way to get through any of it is being still and KNOWING that He is God.  Realizing our need is such a humbling beautiful moment, even if that realization has to happen again and again and again.  

When you see how much in need you are, you can see how much and who God has given us to fill it and being His child we are assured that He will continue to fill us to overflowing.  

I am just so very thankful I am His.

More at Inspire Me Monday