Category Archives: motherhood

The Thick Fog of Suffering & The Sight of the Savior

Leave a reply

Our youngest son is already dreading the days when his beloved older brothers fly the coop for college. Last summer, in an attempt to create a hopeful experience of life with just the three of us, we took a trip to San Fransisco while the bigs were at camp. I came terribly unprepared. My sundresses and Birkenstocks were a terrible mismatch for the cold and the fog.

Apparently, the fog in SF even goes by the name Carl. Carl taught me a few things on that trip: when going to SF, always bring a hoodie, Birks are incompatible with hills, and fog is a powerful reality.

Just as Carl had the ability to completely hide a massive, fire-engine red bridge from sight, suffering obscures sight. I love Elisabeth Eliot’s simple, yet profound definition of suffering: wanting what you don’t have or having what you don’t want. God cares about all human suffering, even the kind we bring upon ourselves.

A few weekends back, I spoke at a retreat on suffering. The preparation, the delivery, and the stories I heard over the weekend were a heavy reminder of the reality of suffering and how quickly suffering obscures our view of our Savior. I’ve been bent over by brokenness, which is why the following verses and quotes have been balm to my soul this week.

God Lives with & Lifts the Lowly

Through the prophet of Isaiah, who served as the mouthpiece for a fair amount of hard realities, God offers precious words of hope and comfort to his sin-laden, brokenness-bound people. He reminds them (and us) his essence and character even and especially as we walk through brokenness.

“I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be andy, for the spirit would grow faint before me, and the breath of life that I made.” (Isaiah 57:15–16).

The Lord loves to live with the lowly. The Hebrew word daka translates as “broken, crushed, beaten, small, and trodden down.” Though our God is high and holy, he does not stand aloof from the hurting; rather, he stoops to offer succor. David captures the same sentiment when he writes, “The Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).

It’s not just that the Lord loves to live with the lowly and dwell with the devastated, he loves to restore and comfort. A few verses later, Isaiah continues, saying, “I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips” (Isaiah 57:18).

He dwells with the lowly, but he also delights to lift them, not based on their perfect or even mediocre response to suffering, but based on his character. Despite seeing (Hebrew raah) the backsliding, closed-eared way of his people, he still chose to heal them (rapha). He sees and knows us completely, sin and all, but he still chooses to mend us by sewing us together. Just a few chapters earlier, the prophet Isaiah had hinted at the way this would happen: One would come who would be crushed (same root word daka) to mend the crushed (Isaiah 53:5).

Not Seeing, but Still Trusting

Isaiah looked ahead to a coming Suffering Savior; we look back upon him. Yet even for those who know him well, suffering acts like a thick fog that obscures the eyes of our hearts. When we suffer, we struggle to see, something the Apostle Peter understood well.

When seeking to comfort a terribly hurting people, he wrote, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8–9).

It was true in a double sense that the beleaguered believers had not seen Chris. They were one generation removed from actually having laid physical eyes upon Jesus. They were also struggling to even see him through the eyes of faith due to the thick fogs of suffering.

In his sermon entitled “The Eloi,” George MacDonald writes the following powerful words regarding striving to believe when we are straining to see:

“Troubled soul, thou art not bound to feel, but thou art bound to arise. God loves thee whether thou feelest or not….For he sees through all the gloom through which thou canst not see him.”

When my son and I had trekked miles (in the aforementioned Birkenstocks) to the bay to get a picture of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, we were deeply disappointed by the fog. Carl was ruining our plans, so we decided to sit until we could see. We sat stubbornly for an hour to catch grayed glimpses of the bridge. Finally, the sun began to break through, allowing us to see glimpses of the beauty for which we came and of which we had heard.

My lowly, brokenness-bent, suffering friends, the fog will lift and your eyes will behold your Savior. In the meanwhile, he sees you as you strain to see him. He longs to lift you and delights to comfort you.

Shifting from Security in Place to Security in Presence

Leave a reply

God’s incredible interactions with Abram have long been precious Scripture passages for me. I’ve studied them so many times that I honestly thought I’d mined out most of the gold there. Silly me.

Having begun a new series on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at church, I’ve found my soul camped out with Abram once again. As I sat studying passages deeply familiar to my soul, I found myself crying at the freshness of the words to me today.

Abram, having recently returned from the risky rescue of his nephew Lot and even more recently rejected the riches offered him by the world, finds himself in the grips of fear (Genesis 14). Perhaps Abram fears the marauders coming after him in vengeance for his rescue of Lot; if this is the case, it makes sense why he mentions to God his lack of a proper heir. Perhaps it wasn’t even death itself that he feared, but, rather, dying without the heir that would have been necessary to seed the lineage of nations that God had promised to him. After all, years have elapsed since God’s first initiation toward him which prompted his leaving of country and kindred to follow the self-revealing God (Genesis 12: 1–4); however, the promised child was nowhere in sight.

Either way, God comes to him and speaks rich blessing over fearful Abram:

“Fear not, Abram, I am your shied; your reward shall be very great” (Genesis 15:1).

Security of Presence

The Scriptures are replete with imagery of God as refuge to his people. When I think refuge, I tend to think place (fortresses and cleft in the rock kind of refuges). When our boys were younger, I spend most of my time and energy doing my best to create a home that was a place of security, stability, order, refuge, and safety for them (and for my own sanity). in those early years, they needed the security of place.

But God had previously and distinctly called Abram away from the safety of place. He bid him leave the places and positions that were comfortable to him to trade them for a life of following him (Genesis 12: 1–4). In light of this call to leave the security of place, God’s promise of security through presence stands out.

The Hebrew word God used for shield implies a buckler, a small shield that is used as covering or protection. This is an offer of as-you-go-protection and security for Abram and Sarai. This is an offer of security through presence.

My heart was strengthened to remember that God does not simply promise to provide a shield (though that would be generous in and of itself). No, God goes far beyond provision of a shield: he promises to be Abram’s shield.

I didn’t know how much my soul needed this reminder of the security of God’s presence until my eyes welled up with tears. As my boys grow (physically, spiritually, emotionally, and relationally), they need as-you-go-security of God’s presence, his promises of protection and nearness, more than than they need the security of place that is our home. Though they still need a safe place to land and regroup, their worlds are getting larger and larger and the leash between them and myself is getting longer and longer. The as-you-go security of the indwelling Spirit of God settles my heart as they spread their wings. He is with him. He has attached himself to them. He is their security through all the changing scenes that are sure to come.

And the same promise applies to me as the seasons of motherhood (which has become a place of security for me) change. My security is not in the presence of my children or having them all under one roof or in one car; my security is the sure, steady presence of Christ in me.

Security of Presence that Leads us Towards the Security of Place

It’s a good thing God had not promised Abram the security of place, because his life remained one of much changing and moving. As Abram waited upon the fulfillment of the flourish of promises God made to him, he learned what we, too, must learn: his security would not be found in any earthly city or any temporary season of stasis, but in the city that was to come, whose builder and architect was God (Hebrews 11: 10). Through the security of presence, Abram, by faith, moved towards the security of place that is the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Abraham and Sarah, along with all the saints who have gone before us, let the security of God’s presence lead them toward the security of God’s place (wherein we will also experience the fullness of his presence).

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13–14).

We join a long train of sanctified sinners acknowledging that no place on this earth or season of life will ever fully offer us security. He alone is our shield and our very great reward.

The God who Sees & Hears: Atonement & Attunement

Leave a reply

One look from my most loved ones can level me. A look of fear from my son on the pitching mound makes me ready to climb the fence and rescue him. A silly look of affection from one of my teenaged sons covers a thousand little irritations and miscommunications. The upturned, attentive face of my husband when I am hurting says more than a million missives.

Those who live together in close quarters know that there is a language without words. An upturned chin, a sharp glance, a tender gaze– these speak volumes in closely-attuned relationships. In fact, just this past Sunday at church, a dear friend caught on to our inter-family communication (which happened, at that moment, to be the frustrated-mom signal). He then proceeded to make crack us all up with his very fine-tuned impression of my silent signal to one of my sons. Maybe we need less-easily-intercepted signals. But I digress.

This Easter Monday, a stanza from George Herbert’s “Prayer (III)” reminded me of the accessibility of our incredibly-attuned God:

“Of what an easy access,
My blessed Lord, art thou! how suddenly
May our requests thine ear invade!
To show that state dislikes not easyness,
If I but lift mine eyes, my suit is made:
Thou canst no more not hear, than thou canst die.”

Though I’ve read this poem before, the last two lines struck me anew, perhaps because we had celebrated Christ’s inability to stay dead the day before. Christ can’t die, and he can’t not hear his children. In fact, he died so that God could, without separation or hindrance, hear directly from his children. He offered himself in atonement so we might know the Father’s attunement.

I’ve been musing on those two little lines for a few days now, alternating between awe and disbelief. That the God of the universe notices my needy gaze is hard for me to believe, but I long to believe it and become completely persuaded of this precious reality. My mind knows it, but I long for my emotions and body to join my brain in believing this kind of security.

Unlike me when reading my children’s various gazes, God has not only depth of care but also complete control. I can’t help my son pitch or heal a hurting heart or secure peace, but the God of the universe most assuredly can.

He hears sighs as loud, clear cries (Romans 8: 26–27). He reads looks like letters. He knows what we need before we do. Before a word is formed in our mouths, his mind knew it (Psalm 139:4–6). In the book of Exodus, God reassured the captive Israelites that he was the God who saw and heart his people: “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel– and God knew” (Exodus 2:24).

Though it is only one verse, there is enough fodder here for the fires of our faith: God heard. God remembered. God saw. God knew.

In his short but powerful book With Christ in the School of Prayer, Andrew Murray wrote that all true prayer begins when we are able to say and mean: “My father sees. My father hears. My father knows.”

I don’t know how to translate sighs, and I can’t see your looks of pleading desperation. But there is One who does. I pray that you would know the astonishing attunement of his love today.

How Teenagers Have Changed My Prayer Life

Leave a reply

Before parenting teenagers, I would have given myself a passing grade at prayer. I felt, at least, moderately faithful and fervent in prayer. I have Scripture cards in my purse for praying in carlines and at halftimes. I journal prayers for my boys weekly during my Sabbath time. All in all, I thought I was doing pretty well. However, recently, I have discovered that as my teen’s worlds are expanding, God is doing a similarly expansive work in my prayer life.

Shifting from Prosperity to Presence

My limited knowledge of the future and my extensive knowledge of our budget has had me praying about college funding for my boys for the past few years. As the distance between my sons and graduation diminishes, academics and athletics have, for better or worse, become pressurized. I am embarrassed to admit it, but my prayers for one of our boys, who happens to be very fast, have been inching toward prayers that sound like, “Keep him fast, Lord.” Thankfully, the Holy Spirit, who does his convicting work both excellently and gently, has been shifting me from the fearful prayer, “Keep him fast,” to the hopeful prayer, “Keep him near to you.”

One of the prayers I have been praying over my boys for years comes from Psalm 104.

“These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground” (Psalm 104:27–30).

I memorized this particular psalm precisely because it emphasized our ultimate dependence upon God for every breath, every success, and every blessing. After all, every good thing given comes down from above from his opened hands (James 1:17). However, even while praying the Scriptures, I find ways to try to twist God’s will toward mine rather than bending mine toward his. I cannot tell you how many times I have asked God to open his hands for my children (in provision, in protection, in blessing).

Recently, however, I have found that I am praying for God to open his hands, not first so he can bless them, but first so that he can hold their hands.

Of course, I want good things for them, and I know from whence all good things come. But I am increasingly, ever-so-slowly realizing (for myself and for them) that his nearness is our good (Psalm 73: 28). Yes, I want my children to have prosperous lives; I long for their provision. However, I most long for God’s presence and nearness in their lives. Keep them near, Lord. Open your hands, so they can hold them..

Shifting from Safety to Security in Christ

We have always prayed in the morning on the way to school and before trips for God’s protection and safety. I have prayed prayers for safety so often that they ought be tattooed on my palms by now. As my teenager’s worlds get bigger, the dangers they face grow proportionally. Yet, I have found myself surprised by the Spirit’s help in beginning to shift those prayers for safety to prayers for a more robust security in Christ. Just when I thought i would be a puddle of desperate prayers for safe driving and street smarts in a fragile world, I find myself begging for my boys to know sturdy security in Christ (Colossians 3: 1–4).

My prayers have shifted from a bubble of protection to a boldness of faith, a resilience of spirit, and a cemented confidence in Christ. By God’s grace, I am learning to let them risk and beginning to believe that experience really is a trustworthy teacher. I find hope and courage in the father from the parable who, rather than bolting the doors and battening down the hatches, entrusted his son to the Lord and let him wander off (believing he would wander back home transformed).

The Scriptural truths upon which these boys have been raised stand up under suffering and storms. The Spirit of the living God dwells within them and goes where I cannot and ought not go (1 Corinthians 1: 10–13; 3: 16). They are secure even when, from my vantage point, things feel less safe, predictable, and controlled. I am learning to pray with Moses, “There is none like God, O Jeshrun, who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty. The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33: 27–28).

Shifting from Solutions to Questions

Finally, I find that my prayer for my teenagers consists much more of honest questions than sincerely offered solutions. I still think that I have some insight into my boys and their lives, but I am less likely to storm into the throne room like its a war room roundtable with my plans and potential solutions. I am much more like a tired parent/child longing to rest in the presence of one immeasurably more responsible, wise, and good than myself (Hebrews 4:16). .

The Spirit is helping me replace, “Lord, please do x, y, and z” with “Lord, what are you trying to teach son x, y, or z?” The following are some of the question/ requests I frequently bring to the presence of God for my teens:

  • Lord, in this situation, what is mine to do? Theirs? Yours?
  • Lord, how have you wired them? What wisdom might you have for me in this situation?
  • Lord, what are you trying to do and how can I come alongside you?
  • Spirit, bring to mind specific Scriptures I can pray for them, offer to them, and./or discuss with them.
  • Lord, to what are you calling them? Give them that which will help prepare them for just that.

I love that we will never reach the end of growth in prayer this side of glory. I love that I am growing spiritually alongside these boys of mine.

Scarcity & Abundance (lessons learned from the Cereal Police)

Leave a reply

My older sons fight for a very strange office in our household: the cereal police.

The cereal police plays the important role of making sure that no one person is hogging too much of whatever cereal is the most coveted brand of the month. This self-appointed officer can seemingly measure exact portions and can tell, with only a slight glance at a bowl, if someone has crossed the line. If said person has used too much cereal or had too many bowls of said cereal at one sitting or even used a few too many splashes of milk, the officer will most assuredly step in wielding his authority.

Usually, a slight altercation occurs upon accusation and the real authorities are awoken to mitigate the damage. Shaken from my semi-slumbering state,  but aware enough to predict exactly what is happening, I immediately respond with something to the tune of the following statement:

“There is plenty of cereal. We live in abundance, not scarcity. We do not have to be afraid. If the cereal runs out, I will buy more,  as I always do. Your parents knows what you need and like and you can trust them to provide.”

nyana-stoica-EV6C1LjH1Lk-unsplash

Scarcity and Abundance

As silly as this sounds, the continual appearance of cereal police role is a source of spiritual conviction in my own life. You see, I have to remind myself all the time that our God is a God of abundance, not scarcity.

I fear that there is not enough blessing to go around; not enough space in the infinite heart of our God to make room for all of His children. Even worse than questioning the depth of His pantry, I begin to question His heart and intentions. Inevitably, I am tempted to believe the same insidious lies that hooked our forefather and foremother in the garden: God is withholding from me; I need to get my own; I cannot trust His heart and intentions toward me.

Just as I attempt to point our scarcity-fearing hearts towards God’s abundant provision and love, Moses wrestled with leading a people who continually believed the lie of scarcity.

In his last address to God’s people, he was quick to remind God’s people of His ample provision for them, even in a land of real scarcity of resources and water.

And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. and he humbled you, causing you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years (Deuteronomy 3:2-4).  

But he also went beyond the physical provision to point out the nature and intentions of Yahweh, the abundant God.

Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by  walking in his ways and fearing him. For the lord your God is leading you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing (Deuteronomy 3:5-9). 

When Abundance Experienced Scarcity

The Israelite’s clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell, even in the long wilderness wandering that they had brought upon themselves in their own disobedience. But there was one who always obeyed,  who always trusted the good intentions of the Father, who always lived not by bread alone but by the very words that came from God’s mouth.

His clothes were torn in jest by mocking soldiers. His feet swelled with fluids and blood as they nailed to the cross of our shame. Because Christ, the Son of Abundance experienced scarcity at the Place of the Skulls, we can trust God’s heart toward us.

Our God is a plenty-dropping ploughman.

The Plenty-Dropping Ploughman

His plenty-dropping hand
Must first plough the ground,
Before He can rightly scatter
The seeds that will abound. 

Lord, my heart is all disturbed;
What once was neat now is not.
These fields are lying fallow,
All with muddiness is besot.

Good ploughman, teach me,
To trust your proven ways,
To believe you’ll bring harvest
More rich through long delays. 

Death before life; Cross before crown,
This is the pattern our Christ set down. 

The Inner Circle: Parenting Teenagers (and the Teenager in Me)

Leave a reply

I never intended to be hanging out with high schoolers outside of my own. I still feel the ringing sense of relief that I am through those daunting, delightful years. However, one of the best pieces of advice I received in the early years of parenting was to love your children’s friends. This piece of advice has settled into my soul and become a habit in my home. Thus, I find myself doing a version of high school ministry: picking up a crew of unaccompanied teenagers for church every Sunday, cutting their friends’ hair, and trying to keep up with the lingo and the emojis. (Hint: no periods. They imply anger and frustration; no ellipses: they imply the same).

As I hang out with these teenagers, I see and sense the hunger in them to belong, if not to the inner circle, at least to an inner circle. The shifting loyalties and rezoning of friend lines make me tired as a listener. I cannot imagine them as one living through them again. And yet, I find the same deep desire still within me, aching for a place to belong solidly and securely. In an essay in The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis called this the desire to be in “the Inner Ring.”

The Power of the Inner Ring

Lewis’s description of the inner ring rings true for teenagers (and those who parent them).

“You are never formally and explicitly admitted by anyone. You discover gradually, in almost indefinable ways, that it exists and that you are outside it, and then later, perhaps, that you are inside it. There are what correspond to passwords, but they too are spontaneous and informal. A particular slang, the use of particular nicknames, an allusive manner of conversation are the marks. But it is not constant. It is not easy, even at a given moment, to say who is inside and who is outside. Some people are obviously in and some are obviously out, but there are always several on the border line.”

Even as I type our Lewis’s words,, I feel the exhilaration and the exhaustion of wanting to be in the inner ring both for myself and for my children. I feel it on the sidelines of soccer games, before dances, and even at church. I see the insecurity when the lines are shaken up and the pain when they find themselves on the outs. I feel it deeply because I still experience the same things as an adult. 

Lewis wisely advises his young audience to know and respect the power of wanting to be in the inner ring. He tells them (and me), “The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it.”

Outsiders Brought In

I have found that the only way to break this desire is to see it fulfilled completely through the gospel. The Scriptures tell me that I was created to be an “insider with God,” welcomed into the overflowing love of the Trinity. I chose to be an outsider by usurping God on the throne in my heart. Yet, at great cost to himself, he purchased me back so he might welcome me in fully and forever.

The story of Jesus’s interaction with Zacchaeus shows my soul the hospitable love of God, the invitation to the outsiders to be brought in (Luke 19: 1–10). The fact that Jesus saw him, hidden as he was in a tree and by his own shame, named him, and invited him into intimate fellowship brings me to tears as I parent teenagers (and reparent the teenager in me). This unexpected, undeserved welcome changed Zacchaeus instantly. Such is the power of belonging and secure love.

I long for my children what I long for myself: a deeply-seated awareness that Christ has invited us into the Inner Ring from which our desire for belonging to inner rings comes. There is no shifting in the nature of our God. There is nothing that can separate God’s children from his love (Romans 8: 31-39). Such a secure inner ring enables us to weather the constantly-shifting lines of human relationships until we are with our Triune God and see him as he is (1 Corinthians 13: 12; 1 John 3: 2).

Inscape in an Escapist World

Leave a reply

Our newsfeeds, both the ones in our minds and the real ones that capture our attention, constantly bid us to escape from our realities. They invite us to wish we were on a secluded, tropical island or exploring the French Riviera. They tell us that if we could only get a new set of mid-century modern furniture and some macrame hanging plants, our lives would be richer, simpler, and more beautiful.

Our escapist culture allures us, whether explicitly or implicitly, to run away to external things for renewal and refreshment. On the backdrop of such an escapist world, inscape, a concept termed by the Jesuit poet Gerard Manly Hopkins, resonates deeply.

The Dearest Freshness Deep Down Things

Hopkins used inscape to describe the unified and complex characteristics that give each thing its uniqueness, and he captures this concept poetically in his famous poem God’s Grandeur where he wrote, “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”

While the world bids us look out, Hopkins invites us to look deeper into the things, places, and people all around us. When I find myself imagining that a trip to Hawaii would satisfy me, Hopkins would invite me to fight to see the beauty of the Hibiscus flower growing in a pot in my own backyard. When I find myself buying the lie that what I need is a new set of circumstances, Hopkins gently invites me to ask God for new eyes to see the same things more deeply and differently. With the help of the Holy Spirit and an attuned focus, the mundane drives to soccer and baseball practices with my sons become opportunities to see who God has made them with fresh eyes.

When the world lures me to run away, Hopkins bids me grab a spiritual shovel to begin digging for a dearer freshness deep down the things and people in my present life. Hopkins can say this because he knew that those who dig deep enough would eventually find God, the Creator, at the bottom. For freshness can only come from the abundance of the life-giver and source of all refreshment: the Triune God.

The Dearest Freshness Deep Within Us

Scripturally, we see a similar invitation in the Word of God. Although Christianity is the farthest thing from navel-gazing and looking for life in things and people themselves, Christ gives his children new eyes to see God in all things. The Scriptures are replete with terms like “inner man,” “within,” and “the secret place” which reminds us that God sees us all the way through. While the world looks upon the outward appearance, God looks upon the heart or in the inscape, to borrow Hopkins’ term (1 Samuel 16:7).

Our God desires truth plastered not only on our newsfeeds and walls but more significantly within our deepest parts: “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart” (Psalm 51:6). The psalmists found hope and stability knowing that even if the earth gave way and the mountains slipped into the sea, God is in the midst of his people therefore, they would not be moved (Psalm 46:2-5). Similarly. the Apostle Paul prayed that the church in Ephesus would be “strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:16-17).

Freshness without our sin-flawed hearts only happens by grace through faith in Christ. For Christ alone had truth in his inmost part and wisdom in his inmost place. He alone constantly drew strength and life from the source of life. He always saw as God sees, looking past appearances to the reality. Yet, he took within him the foulness of our sin, drinking to the very dregs the wrath of God we deserved. After rising and ascending to the Father, he sent us the Spirit who would dwell within us, making his home in us and inviting us to make our home within the Triune God.

The Holy Spirit within us gives us the dearest freshness deep down at the soul level. Even if outwardly we are wasting away and the world around us is fading, yet inwardly, we are being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). By the power of the Holy Spirit, we are invited to begin to see as God sees and to think with the very mind of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:16; 1 Corinthians 2:16). As such, we don’t need to escape our circumstances, but we need to run and hide in the arms of the One who lovingly ordered our circumstances (Psalm 16:5-6). We get to ask him to show us more of himself deep down in the places and people of our everyday lives.

Dealing with Disappointments

2 Replies

This one is for those who feel a little behind on dreaming and goal-planning for a new year. This one is for those who are sitting paralyzed in an attic of boxed-up disappointments, feeling the clutter of the crowded past year.

I am very slowly learning that the best gift I can offer my husband and children is the plodding progress of my own soul. As I am learning to healthily deal with my own disappointments, I am modeling for my family an honest way forward into the presence of the Lord. As I identify and speak openly about the two ditches I can fall into when dealing with disappointments or hopes deferred, I offer my children a map towards their own maturity.

Two Ditches when Dealing with Disappointment

Every year is full of its own delights and disappointments. As a culture, we have a place-holder for the joyful moments, the celebrations, the goals achieved, the awards received. We smile for insta-gram and post about them. We brag on them in our Christmas letters. But what about the dead ends, the disappointments, and the setbacks?

When we deny that they happened or ditch them too quickly, we end up carrying them much longer in the transmuted form of distance from God. After all, he knows our hearts and our desires, so pretending or preemptively trying to move on serves neither him nor us. 

On the other hand, we may be tempted to drag them along with us everywhere When we hold on to the negative emotions that comes with disappointment too long, they have a way of warping our view of reality and our approach towards God.

I’ve tried both over the years and am very slowing learning a better way through the mire of disappointment: to dry them out in the warmth of his presence and the light of his truth.

This is terribly uncomfortable at first, as it requires admitting our own fears and perceived failures. It requires a level of intimacy and vulnerability with God that feels risky. Yet, I am learning though experience that his delight begins to disarm all my false coping mechanisms. 

In the security of the trinitarian love, I can let out the unruly emotions and speak the irrational lies. He receives them and swallows them up in truth and grace, with all the calmness of one who has long ago settled all my accounts. 

It takes awhile for the old disappointments to dry up, as I imagine it would take fresh fruit to fully dehydrate in the sun naturally.  But, at the end of this process, he has seeds to plant in my life and I have space to dream again with Him.

Sun-dried Disappointments

Lay out your losses before me. 
We can count them one by one. 
Don’t hide or grasp them tightly;
Bring them out to dry in the sun. 

Disappointments left in darkness 
Tend to fester or mold or grow. 
Naming them in my presence 
Invites me into all I fully know. 

You need not be brave with me.
I don’t want your stiff upper lip. 
I want your honest, alloyed tears;
I want you clinging to my hip. 

My purposes may elude you, 
But you must trust I am good. 
For I am God outside of time;
I don’t do things as you would. 

Your sun-dried disappointments
You may safely entrust to me. 
I’ll plant these seeds of sorrow 
To grow gardens you don’t see. 

So, open up your clenched soul;
Let me linger with you a spell. 
For even amidst your sadness,
I continue to do all things well. 

If you find yourself holding a clammy handful of past disappointments, perhaps it is time to bring them into the presence of a God who already knows them and who has good plans for them. His radiance, purity, and delight have the power to dehydrate those disappointments, making space for new dreams.

Pattern over Perfection

Leave a reply

It’s January 2. Some of you parents are already feeling beat up and discouraged as your perfect plans for family worship and devotion have already been shot through.

Don’t let the ghosts of (Bible-reading) plans past rob you from the present power of the Word of God for you and yours.

You’ve likely heard the adage “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” As a recovering perfectionist raising at least one, maybe more, of my own, I have another to add, specifically when it comes to family devotions: “Perfection is the enemy of pattern.”

Pattern vs. Perfection

When Paul wrote his last and poignant letter to Timothy, his spiritual son and gospel ministry partner, he reminds him twice of the power of pattern: first in the beginning of his letter in reference to their relationship and again at the end in reference to his relationship with his mother and grandmother.

“Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit I entrusted to you” (2 Timothy 1: 13–14).

Here, Paul draws Timothy’s attention to the pattern of sound words he observed, both in season and out of season (to borrow a phrase from later in the letter) as he lived and worked alongside Paul. The Greek word hupotupósis literally means ”an outline” or “a form.” Paul essentially says, the trends of my life and my time followed a certain form that was bent towards and around God and his Word; when I am gone, fight to keep tracing that pattern in your own life. Pass it on.”

Later in the letter, Paul reminds Timothy of the power resulting from patterns set by Lois and Eunice in his younger, formative years:

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you have learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3: 14).

We don’t know the exact delivery system by which Lois and Eunice surrounded Timothy with God’s living words, but we do know that there was a habit and a pattern which led to his early acquaintance with the Scriptures.

The Source of the Soundness

The soundness is in the God-breathed, unchanging, inimitable Word of God, not in our shaky systems of devotion or our own structure. In both aforementioned verses, the power clearly belongs to the Word and to the Spirit, not to ourselves or our systems and plans.

Systems and plans (and constant reboots of said systems and plans) are necessary, but they are not the main event: the pattern of sound Words which point us to Jesus is the central reality. If we can wrap our minds around this reality, we will be freed from the two ditches we will most likely fall into: excessive structure that leads to rigidity or excessive freedom which leads to chaos. Loosely structured systems with ample room for repentance and with adaptive power for different learning styles and dispositions help us build the pattern of sound words in our homes and hearts.

We have one son who errs on the side of rigidity, another who errs on the side of chaos, and one who prefers to draw his devotion to the Lord rather than journal it. We have tried many different systems, and we just began a new one a few days ago. The plan is not iron-clad, and we will not perfectly follow it; however, the plan shows our prioritization of Christ and his Word and the plan offers a chance to model repentance and returning with and before our children.

Hopefully and prayerfully, our boys will be able to look back on our imperfect plans for family devotion and trace the pattern of sound teaching that are able to make them wise for salvation.

Happy January 2nd to you. Get back on that imperfect plan that points to a perfect Savior. He is more sound than all your shaky devotion.

What Mary Knew: Lessons in Mothering

3 Replies

If your family is anything like mine, Pentatonix has been crowding your home with the rhetorical question “Mary, did you know?” for at least a fortnight. As I was walking this morning, I found myself thinking about all the things Mary probably did know far ahead of me as a mother.

I am so thankful that Christ sanctified every stage of human life from infancy to childhood, to young adulthood. I am also thankful to know that Mary walked through the various stages of mothering — and made it through all of them (even the un-welcomed stage of losing a child that no parent should have to experience). I am so grateful that the Spirit saw fit to prod Luke to share, “But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2: 19). There is a world within those few words, and I find solace and space within it.

I’ve mentioned before that, during the early years of motherhood, my task and territory as a mother felt as large as the Sahara Dessert. The challenge in that season was to be stretched beyond my imagined capacity and far beyond my felt strength, to come alongside God in shaping the souls of my sons. Now that I am parenting teenagers, I feel an equal but opposite challenge: my role seems to be shrinking to the size of a small sandbox. The Lord is teaching me how to rightly shrink to come alongside Him in the shaping of souls. That’s a lot of stretching and shrinking for a human heart and a sentient soul.

It helped me on my walk this morning to know that other mothers, not least the mother of our Mighty God, have walked this path before me, holding space for both wonder and loss, brokenness and beauty.

What Mary Knew

Mary, I think you intuitively knew
Making space in a stable was just the start
To the quietly intrusive process 
Wherein a mother makes space in her heart.

Mary, I think you instinctively knew 
A mother’s heart is ever under construction—
Annexing area, warehousing wonder—
While preparing for future reduction.

Mary, I think you innately knew 
The womb merely mirrors the soul—
Stretching, straining, then shrinking
So another may become whole.

Mary, I don’t think you could ever know
The model you offer this mother.
You gave a glimpse of His sacrifice,
In laying desires down for another. 

Mary, I know that one day I’ll know
The joy of a difficult job well done.
I’ll stand side by side with my sons,
Complete in the presence of your Son.

Momma, whether you find yourself overwhelmed by the expanse of Saharan-sized needs or grieving the tight confines of a sand box, I pray that you would know the Savior who stands beside you, the empowerment of the Spirit who dwells within you, and the pleasure of the Father who beams over you and your children.