Tag: devotions for women

In My Alarm I Cried for Help

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My daughter announced that she hates ‘drills.’

All kinds of drills, she says.

Fire drills, tornado drills, lock-down drills, bus evacuation drills.

 

My oldest daughter chimes in about ‘lock-down drills,’ and how her teacher last year was so funny but the one thing she is super serious about is anyone who dares to giggle, laugh or even squeak out a hint of noise during a lock-down drill.

“She’ll send you to the principal,” my daughter lowers her voice for added drama.

These older girls of mine try to reassure the youngest sister that drills are essential and meant to help and not really a big deal.

But the baby girl is testing out fear here.  I can see it on her face and I hear it in the way she keeps bringing these drills up.  When she gets home from school.  Over dinner.  In the minivan.  As she climbs into my lap for bedtime prayers.

“The drills…the drills….the drills…”

She’s been talking about these drills all week.

Clearly, they are on her mind.  And we older and wiser ones keep jumping in with confidence that everything is fine so she needn’t be afraid, but she’s just not convinced.

The fear is kind of leaking out of her heart and into our conversations.

Oh, I don’t blame the drills, of course.   I let her tell me about them all over again and then I look right into her two blue eyes and I even brush away her wild bangs so she can’t miss this reassurance:

Those drills are there to keep you safe.  So that if anything ever happens, you’re not too scared to do the right thing.  We drill now so we don’t have to be afraid later.

She nods knowingly, but I’m her mom and I know we’ll probably have this conversation again in a month when the alarm goes off at school and all the kids file outside for yet another fire drill. So we pray about it, every time it comes up, I pray peace for her.

It’d be nice, it’d be great, it’d be heaven really if we didn’t need drills, if we didn’t have to practice for fire or intruders or tornadoes or a world of harm and hurt.

But we live here, on a broken earth with sin and natural disasters and trouble.

And how we react in the crisis makes a difference.

I know this because haven’t I been alarmed and sent into a dizzying whirlpool of fear at the slightest provocation?

A phone call.

An email.

A Facebook post, for goodness’ sake.

Maybe you, too?  The doctor’s report, the bill in the mail, the late night call, the hurtful remark, the broken car (again), the sobbing friend?

Trouble storms into our lives and how we react in the crisis matters.

We’re tempted to freak out and run around like a wild woman with her hands flailing hysterically in the air.

We’re in crisis mode.  Making phone calls.  Feeling hopeless.  Crying desperately.  Feeling helpless.  Rallying the troops and sending out an SOS signal and doing anything possible to keep from drowning.

I’ll be honest, sometimes it doesn’t even take a crisis, it just takes one tiny bump into my plans for the day for me to settle into a funk of frantic activity and aggravated grumpiness.

The Psalmist said it just right:

In my alarm I said,
    “I am cut off from your sight!”
Yet you heard my cry for mercy
    when I called to you for help (Psalm 31:22 NIV).

In our alarm, when the bad news comes and we haven’t had time for faith to kick in, we snap to the judgment that God has abandoned us.

He can’t see us.

We’re cut off from Him, alone, dependent on our own strength to get us out of this mess.

Our natural reaction to an alarm is haste and hysteria, foolishness and fear.

It’s unnatural to choose peace under pressure.

but THE HOLY SPIRIT OFFERS US JUST SUCH UNNATURAL, SUPERNATURAL PEACE.

When everything settled and the crisis passed, the Psalmist recognized the truth: “Yet you heard my cry….”

In the haste of the moment, he had rushed into fear.  But then he saw what was true, God had indeed heard His cry for help.

What about us?

Over time, after alarm and alarm and alarm have passed and the dust settles and we see Jesus right there with us, surely we’d know by now what to do in case of crisis:

Cry to God for help.

Trust Him to hear your call.

Rest in the assurance of His presence.

CHOOSE PEACE.

Not flaky peace, vague peace, warm-and-fuzzy-feeling peace, or the peace of blindness to our circumstances.

The peace that is the confident assurance of Christ’s presence right where we are.

Originally published 9/30/2015

Seeing the world from God’s shoulders

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After having three girls, when I found out I was having a son, other moms chimed in with tons of wisdom.

They told me to be quick with the diaper changes or I’m bound to get peed on.  (I did.  At least twice.)

They told me to prepare for climbing, running, growling, and dirt (lots of it).

They told me no one would love me like a son, not ever.   “It’s different than with a girl,” they said.

One mom told me how her son would cradle her face in his tiny palms and say, “You’re bootiful, Mommy.”

And another mom told me her son announced he was going to marry Mommy when he grew up.   When she explained that Daddy had already married her, the little boy scowled and said “Dad is lucky.”

Mom after mom told me that no one treasured her as unconditionally or completely as her son had when he was little.

And then.

Then older moms started warning me.  They still occasionally offer forebodings of doom.

“When you have a daughter, you have a friend for life,” they say, “but a son ditches you as soon as he finds a wife.”

I get it.  “Leave and cleave.” I don’t want my son to be a stunted mama’s boy.  I don’t want to break up his marriage by pitting myself against his wife or refusing to let go.

But I wouldn’t mind if he chooses a wife I could get along with or if he calls me once in a while.  I wouldn’t mind a visit here and there and I’d hate it if he only hung out with ‘her’ family instead of sitting around our holiday table sometimes, too.

I’ve been enjoying this season with my son, loving and loving it.

I love train shirts and train toys and train books and conversations about trains.

I love airplanes and bulldozers and how we have to point out the fire trucks every time we walk past the fire station on Main Street.

I love making faces at him in the mirror and growling out funny voices.

I love toting along a few trucks everywhere we go.

I love superheroes.

This is my great joy.

But when other moms tell me to enjoy it now because I might as well kiss my son goodbye in a few years, I get more than a little sentimental and emotional.

 

Fearful even.

And then I read Jacob’s blessing for his son, Benjamin:

‘Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in Him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between His shoulders.”  Deut. 33:12 NIV

I don’t know what may have your heart turning somersaults of fear instead of clinging to hope this week, but worries over my kids’ future surely does that to me.

But this verse offers me security and peace.

This isn’t the season for me of farewells or parenting adult children and worrying over their not-so-adult decisions at times.

This is my season of early morning snuggles on the sofa before everyone else awakes and making pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse.

It’s my season of listening to all of their news about their day at school, laughing at funny lunch escapades and wiping away tears when another girl gets mean.

It’s my season of bedtime hugs and bedtime stories.

And it’s my season of lifting children up….up into my arms, snuggled into my chest….up onto my shoulders, high so they can see, high so they can be carried and so they can rest.

That’s what God does for His beloved.

He lifts us right up out of the mess and the weariness and sets us between His shoulders and tells us to ‘rest.’

Don’t strive.  Don’t fight.  Don’t wear yourself out trying to keep moving forward on your own.

Let Him carry you.

High up there on the shoulders of our God, our perspective shifts.

STOP FRETTING ABOUT THE FUTURE.

LIFE DOESN’T DEPEND ON US TO FIX IT AND MAKE IT HAPPEN; OUR FUTURE DEPENDS ONLY ON HIM AND HE IS SO DEPENDABLE.

When we’re on God’s shoulders, we are safe from danger.

We can cease striving.

We see the big picture.  All that trouble we were in below looks so small when He is lifting us up high.

So I choose to rest here with the Lord, enjoying safety, enjoying this season, enjoying His presence, enjoying being His beloved–handing over fear and holding on to hope.

Originally published October 28, 2015

The Legend of the Missing Pizza Slice

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It was a few summers ago when the legend of the missing pizza slice began.

On one of those summer nights when we arrived home late from an all-day activity, my husband stopped for pizza and brought it home for us.

But when he opened up the pizza box, he gasped in mock-horror and surprise.

“Hey,” he said, “there’s a missing slice!”

My girls jumped right in with theories and finally settled on this:  Someone at the Papa John’s had eaten a slice of our pizza.

We played along.  My husband said maybe they were just testing it to see how it tasted or maybe we should get our pizza elsewhere.

The girls all nodded as we happily ate the remaining pizza slices.

So then, we just kept up the tradition and the joke.  Every time my husband brought pizza home that summer, he ate one slice in the car before he brought it to us for  dinner.

And the girls marveled that every single time there was this missing  piece.

What was wrong with the people making our pizzas?

After a year or so of this, my husband really pushed the limits.  Instead of Papa John’s, we got Pizza Hut…..and he ate a slice before bringing it home to see what our kids would say.

One of my kids announced that maybe the Papa John’s worker had quit and gone over to Pizza Hut and was now sampling our pizzas there, too!!!

It’s my youngest daughter who eyed her dad suspiciously and then started interrogating him to see if maybe, just maybe, he was the culprit.

Really, I think she knows the truth.  She knows that her dad has been secretly eating one slice out of each of our pizzas before bringing them home for at least two years now.

But she doesn’t want to let the joke go.  Or maybe she doesn’t want to accuse her dad of pizza slice-sneaking.  So she pushes right up to the point where she almost announces the truth and then backs off and lets everyone keep the mystery going.

She dismisses what’s true because she’s distracted by the noise around her.

And that can be me. That can be us.

 

I’ve been feeling this longing lately, this deep desire to believe, really and truly believe God and His love for me, to grip hard onto this truth.

But then I get distracted.  I get worn down.  I get forgetful.  I get weary.   Life is noisy, after all.

And then I let go, slipping right down into the waters of unbelief and nigh-on drowning in all the stress I carry around when I don’t trust God to care for me instead of doing everything on my own.

I don’t  want to wrestle with my puny faith or trample down my nagging worries all the time.

When Jesus says, “I Am,” I want to rest in that.

When He says, “I Will,” I want to trust Him.

Instead, even though He’s always been faithful, I foolishly fret that  maybe this one time, maybe in this one situation, maybe in this one seemingly impossible instance, He’ll fail me.

Maybe He provides for others, but not for me.

Maybe He came through in the past, but not this time.

So I’ve been praying the same thing as the father in Mark 9:24

Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

The moment that worry creeps in, the moment I hear that first nagging cynicism, the moment I start running through possible scenarios in my mind and I feel the crushing weight of “what if,” I go back to Jesus.

Help me believe.

This week, I once again read in Romans what it says about Abraham:

No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised (Romans 4:20-21 ESV).

No unbelief?  No wavering?  He was fully convinced that God was able.

Not only that he grew strong in his faith.

Waiting wears me down.  I grow doubtful over time.  But Abraham grew stronger instead.

So, what’s the secret?

Maybe it’s that he was giving glory to God (verse 20).  Maybe if I just keep  returning to praise, I’ll become less forgetful, less prone to wander, question, and doubt.

This is where the faith-building happens, with our hands raised in worship, with our mouths singing His praise, giving Him glory for who He is and all that He’s done, tuning our hearts to trust Him with our future and believe He is able to care for us through it all.

You can click here to listen to Audrey Assad sing, “Help My Unbelief.”  This is a song I’ve been singing often lately.

I am for you and not against you

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“I am for you.”

That’s what I tell my 12-year-old daughter after a long day and after we’ve flopped down onto the overstuffed blue couches to pray and to  chat  before bed.

It’s probably what I’ll be saying often for the next few years as she steps into the teen years.

Maybe it seems like some days I’m against her.

I tell her what she can’t have or what she can’t do.  She carries home yet another flyer advertising yet another activity and I remind her that her calendar is already dripping with ink from her doing so much.

She talks about movies, books, songs, apps, and sometimes she’s the one left out.  She doesn’t know that band.  She hasn’t read that book.  Maybe we won’t let her see that movie.

This is hard.  This is her coming to grips with what it means not to fit in, what it means to miss out, what it means to let things go even when others around her indulge like it’s no big deal.

Of course, she’s a good girl.  She’s not asking to attend wild parties or drink or do drugs or even watch a PG-13 movie.  That’s not her.

Still I explain it that night to her as we relax on the sofa in a moment of quiet, and I hope what I say sinks deeply down to the needy parts of her heart:

I am not against you.  Even when it feels like I’m against you because I’m not giving you what you want or what even feels reasonable or what other people get.  I’m never your enemy and I’m never out to hurt you or deprive you of what is good. 

No.  I am for you.  Always.  Because I love you.  And it’s because I want the very best for you that sometimes I have to keep you from the second-best, or even what seems “good,” or perhaps what we both know isn’t right or true.

She nods her head in understanding for  now.

I hope the understanding lasts.  It probably won’t, not all the time.  I’m sure I’ll be echoing these words again and again, if not to her, then to her siblings.

It makes me marvel at God really, because He knows how I feel.  He knows what it’s like to be the parent having the hard conversations, building the unpopular boundaries, saying the “no” that a child doesn’t want to hear.

In Romans it says:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  (Romans 8:31 ESV)

And the Psalmist wrote:

Then my enemies will turn back
    in the day when I call.
    This I know, that God is for me (Psalm 56:9 ESV).

God isn’t for me because He gives me everything I want.

 

To says God is for me means  His heart, His passion, His desire is for my ultimate blessing and my ultimate good.  He wants the best for me, even if it feels uncomfortable at the time because it’s not what I wanted or what seemed easy or appealing.

He knows what’s truly good and what I truly need, and that’s what He’s going to be doing in my life, directing, guiding, pausing, saying “no,” and saying “yes.”

So, as my daughter shuffles off to her room for bed, I sit for a moment with God. It’s as if He nudges me with His elbow to say, “See?  See what I’ve been trying to tell you?”

God isn’t against me when I don’t like His timing.

God isn’t against me when I long for the blessing He doesn’t choose to give (or when He gives it to someone else and not to me).  Even if we feel sometimes like everyone else His favorite because He so readily gives to them the things He withholds from us (and what’s that all about, anyway?).

God isn’t against me when my plans go awry or His plans don’t seem to make sense.

God isn’t against me when I experience injustice or hurtfulness.

God is for me.

He is for you.

It’s a matter of trusting His love for us, trusting Him enough to love us well and love us completely and to believe it when we read, “no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly”  (Psalm 84:11 ESV).

Spring Cleaning is what I need in my heart

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Declutter my heart, Lord.

That’s what I pray as I sort through papers and throw out broken toys and rummage through the board games in the closet to find the ones we no longer play.

There’s so much stuff.  So much build-up over time.

We can start to feel bogged down.

Worried.  Tired.  Weary.  Disappointed.   Uncertain.  Lacking direction.

Lacking perspective.

Every single day we can get up and go through all the motions but not have purpose or passion for any of it.

After I finish decluttering inside the house, I clean out the garage and haul all the trash away and I marvel at how the finished product looks with all the muck cleared out.

This is what I want.

Clear out the cobwebs and the mold and the trash in the corners and the piles of junk, Lord.

We’ve been working on projects all over our home.  Besides the organizing and cleaning, we’ve powerwashed the deck and the house.

This little machine is  like  a magic wand, wave it over a surface and it changes colors.  Our gray deck turns a honey golden brown wood again and our house shines white instead of being splotched with the green of pollen build-up from nearby trees.

I love the instant feedback of this, shoot the water in the direction of the dirt and it comes clean.  It’s washed away in an instant and shines like new.

Make me new, Lord.

Here’s the build-up again, how dirt collects over time and I don’t even realize it.  Slowly, slowly, slowly it covers over the surface.

Until one day, it’s grimy and dull and it needs a water jet to show the difference.

Yesterday, I was on my hands and knees painting the newly washed deck with a stain to help protect it from water and dirt.

And this is also what I need:  to clear away the dirt first before painting on any fancy finish or coating of shiny color.

I can try all I want to shine myself up on the outside, to look perfect and put-together.

But what I need is a deep cleansing.  A de-cluttering and a washing down that only Christ can do…..and then I can put on the new person God plans for me to be.

I need a spring cleaning in my life and in my heart.

Declutter my heart.  Clear out the distractions.  Make me new.

Paul described this to the Ephesians:

 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24 ESV).

He used the same idea in Colossians:

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you…12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. .  Colossians 3:5, 12-14 ESV).

Put off.

And then put on.

Maybe sometimes we forget the process,.  We layer on new coats of varnish hoping we’ll look cleaner, brighter, shinier, and new, but it never works.

 

Before we can put on the new self…

Before we can put on compassion and kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness and love….

We need to put off the old self.  We need to put to death all the earthly muck that builds up over time.

The Holy Spirit can do this work, but it takes us yielding.

We can ask Him to throw open the windows and let the fresh breeze blow through.  Sweep out our corners.  Throw out the broken and unnecessary.  Use lemon-scented cleaners that mingle with the breeze and let us start fresh.

Give us a fresh perspective.

Reveal to us a fresh vision.

May we have a fresh start.

Re-fresh us with your Holy Spirit, Lord

Slow to Criticize and Quick to Pray

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Years ago, my friend was crying and telling me she felt like a total flake.  Life had been crazy, filled with mistakes and missed appointments, misplaced papers, forgotten promises, everything lost and mixed up and wrong.

I love my friend and I got it. Truly, I did.  I nodded my head and encouraged her while other shoppers pushed their carts past us in the grocery story.

But inside, in the secret places of my mind and heart, that compassion wasn’t complete.  It was a hollow, pat-her-on-the-back kind of friendship that feels bad, but doesn’t really offer the full covering of grace.

The truth was, deep down, I was judging her as much as she judged herself.  And it was ugly.

Forgetting, missing, losing, making mistakes? It sounded like a too-busy schedule and an absent organizational system.  Maybe a few files and a day planner could save the day.

Two weeks later, I was sobbing at my kitchen table.  It had been a week of misplaced papers and missing items—not little insignificant things—BIG things, like legal documents and DMV paperwork.

For someone generally in control and on top of things, the week had been devastatingly humbling.

Then, I felt the deeper challenge.

God never lets me get away with passing silent judgment or criticism on another.  Never.

Nor should He.

The very moment I start internally critiquing another mom or putting another friend in a labeled box based on her mistakes and weaknesses, I know God will be at work in my life, bringing me to my knees to ask for forgiveness.

Because I need a Savior.

Because I’m a mess, too!

I’M NOT PERFECT AND MY LIFE ISN’T PERFECT AND THE THING WE ALL NEED AS MOMS AND AS WOMEN AND AS FLAW-FILLED HUMANS IS HEAPING LOADS OF GRACE AND COMPASSION, NOT QUIET JUDGMENT OR SILENT CRITICISM.

We stumble into the judge’s seat so easily, thinking we know the people around us:

The frazzled-looking momma with the crying baby in Wal-Mart.
The parents whose teenager disappeared from church.
The couple who met with the divorce lawyers last week.
The husband and wife holding the bankruptcy paperwork.
The family with the nice new car and large house.
Those who homeschool (or don’t).
Those who have large families (or small).
The mom who commutes every day to work (and the one who doesn’t.)

As long as we’re quiet about it, after all, there seems little harm.

Maybe it spills over occasionally into snarky remarks and private jibes with like-minded friends, but mostly we control the collateral damage.

Yet, isn’t that the picture of the pharisees in Luke 5?

Scripture tells us: “One day Jesus was teaching and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there” (Luke 5:17).

They had front row seats, a privileged view of the hurting crowd.

They watched four friends carrying a man on a mat and lowering him down through the ceiling.  They watched as Jesus healed him, saying, “Friend, your sins are forgiven” (Luke 5:20).

While the man and his friends rejoiced and the crowd marveled, others remained unmoved:

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Luke 5:21).

They were just “thinking to themselves.”  They weren’t gossiping or heckling Jesus.  They didn’t hop up then and there to condemn Him.

It was just an internal dialogue, a private moment of judgment and condemnation.

But, “Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, ‘Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?‘” (Luke 5:22).

Even our most secretive judgments of others have an audience—Jesus Himself.  

Would He also be disappointed about what I’m thinking in my heart?

After all, judgment that doesn’t appear on protest signs or Facebook posts or Twitter feeds is still judgment and it still hurts.

INSTEAD OF CRITICIZING OR LABELING OTHERS WHEN I SEE THEM STRUGGLING OR HURTING, I SHOULD BE DRAWN TO INTENSE AND CONSISTENT INTERCESSION, PRAYING FOR THEM RATHER THAN PICKING AT THEM.

As Oswald Chambers wrote:

‘God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.’

I SHOULD BE SLOW TO CONDEMN AND QUICK TO PRAY FOR OTHERS.

The truth is I’m desperately in need of the grace Christ has poured out on me, and if I need that kind of grace, then I need to show that kind of grace: unhindered, unqualified, unmarred by an undercurrent of criticism and condescension.

Just grace.

Beautiful, pure, deep down honest grace.

(Author’s note: Of course, this doesn’t mean we can’t discern or judge right from wrong, sin from not-sin, etc.)

Originally published 3/9/2016

Bible Verses and a Prayer about Courage

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verses-on-courage

  •  Deuteronomy 31:6 NIV
    Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
  • Joshua 1:9 NIV
     Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
  • 1 Chronicles 28:20 NIV
     David also said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work.Do not be afraid or discouraged, for theLord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished.
  • 2 Chronicles 32:7 NASB
    “Be strong and courageous, do not fear or be dismayed because of the king of Assyria nor because of all the horde that is with him; for the one with us is greater than the one with him.
  • Psalm 16:8 NASB
    I have set the Lord continually before me;
    Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
  • Psalm 27:1 NIV
    The Lord is my light and my salvation—
        whom shall I fear?
    The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
        of whom shall I be afraid?
  • Psalm 27:14 NASB
    Wait for the Lord;
    Be strong and let your heart take courage;
    Yes, wait for the Lord.
  • Psalm 31:24 NASB
    Be strong and let your heart take courage,
    All you who hope in the Lord.
  • Psalm 56:3-4 NIV
    When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
         In God, whose word I praise—
    in God I trust and am not afraid.
        What can mere mortals do to me?
  • Isaiah 41:10 NIV
    So do not fear, for I am with you;
        do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
    I will strengthen you and help you;
        I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
  • Isaiah 41:13 NIV; psalm31-24For I am the Lord your God
        who takes hold of your right hand
    and says to you, Do not fear;
        I will help you.
  • 1 Corinthians 16:13 NIV
     Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith;be courageous; be strong.
  • 2 Timothy 1:7 NIV
     For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
  • Hebrews 13:5-6 NIV
     Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
    “Never will I leave you;
        never will I forsake you.”
    6 So we say with confidence,
    “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid
       What can mere mortals do to me?”
  • 1 Peter 3:13-14
    Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.”

prayer-for-courage

Thanks for taking care of me

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psalm-103-2

Last week, my daughter collided with a wall during a game in our church gym.  According to her, a marshmallow was to blame.

The people around her said they heard the impact, and they ran for two things:  her parents and some ice.

By the time I saw her, she’d already been well cared for and sat with a bag of ice pressed against her forehead.

Her dad did a quick Internet search on signs of a concussion and gently quizzed her.   “Do you feel nauseous?  Dizzy?  Sleepy?”

That’s when she started crying again, more out of fear than pain.  A “concussion” sounded serious and scary and just really bad.

She needed some reassurance, that’s all . Everything was okay.  Her lump might turn a few different colors over the next few days, but really, everything was just fine.

Still, she kept the ice on her forehead for the whole drive home and even during our family prayer time, where we all took  turns asking God to hep her feel better.

Then, we let her cuddle on the couch a little bit longer than usual before sending her off to  sleep.

 

It was about four a.m. when she showed up next to my bed in the darkness and told me she’d had a bad dream and could she turn on the radio?

That’s not what she really wanted, though.  What she really wanted was for me to walk with her back through the dark house, turn on the radio for her and watch her climb back into  bed to be sure she was safe.  I prayed for her once again before she went back to sleep and that’s when she said it, the words on her heart in the middle  of the night at the end of a scary day:

“Thanks for taking care of me, Mom.”

Others had actually done far more significant things to take care of her.

Her church leaders got her dad right away and fixed up her bag of ice.  Her dad made sure she didn’t have a concussion and didn’t  need to  go to the emergency room.

My primary job had been one of reassurance.  I’m even the one who made her go to school the next day.

But I  love how she thanked me for little things that meant a whole lot  to her.

And I’m feeling challenged to be so thankful.

Sometimes my focus is just on the big needs or crises or worries, the stresses that are significant enough to warrant a spot in my prayer journal.

In all that obsession with what I need, I can forget to notice or even say thanks for everyday grace and for God’s acts of kindness toward me.

What if we took a break from the “big” and the “significant” and noticed God at work in our lives in the small today?

What if we told Him, “Thanks for taking care of me, God”?

After all, Jesus was the Lord, able to heal leprosy, blindness, deafness, and even able to raise the dead.

But He was also the Lord, who turned water into wine at a party and multiplied a meal for a hungry crowd on a hillside.

He cared about the details and loved people enough to bless them with acts of abundance.

Maybe on our happy days when our lives are loaded down with blessings, that’s just the time to offer God thanks even for the small so that His goodness isn’t overlooked or overshadowed.

And maybe it’s on our hard days, when we’re feeling empty, denied, betrayed, alone and afraid, maybe right then is the precise moment to tell Him, “Thanks for taking care of me in all these little ways, God.”

I’m hurt.

I’m scared.

I’m worried.

I’m overwhelmed.

But thank you, Lord, for taking care of me today.  And I know you’ll care for me again tomorrow, in everything I face.

It changes our focus and our heart.  It calms our fears and broadens our focus so that we can see God at work and so that we can choose to trust Him with our need.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and all that is within me,
    bless his holy name!
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits,
3 who forgives all your iniquity,
    who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit,
    who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.  Psalm 103:5

 

I Don’t Even Have the Words

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psalm-38

Ow!  My neck is killing me!”

I stopped in the mad-rush to put away all the laundry and turned to my three-year-old son who had flopped down on the big blue sofa.

“I’m sorry,” I said to him.  “What did you say?”

“My neck is killing me!”

I giggled a bit at this 3-year-old-turned-senior-citizen as he rubbed his neck.

Where in the world did he learn that phrase?

Then later, as we climbed into our seats around the dinner table, he gave it a twist: “My head is killing me!”

Apparently, this little old man is just falling apart.

Later in the week, as all the family gathered after the school day, he settled into his seat and sighed out, “It’s been a long day!”

Exactly when did the ninety-year-old move into our house?

My preschooler seems to be an ancient soul trapped in a tiny body complete with aches, pains, and weariness.

But I love listening to him talk.  He’s discovering all the ins and outs of language, how words stretch to convey ideas and take on new meaning in different contexts.

Sometimes, when he doesn’t know the right word that will fit the big idea, he just starts describing with every linguistic tool he’s got.

Other times, he’s tossing  around slang and colloquialisms like he’s been alive a few decades with a neck that is “killing him” at the end of “a long day.”

I’ve been marveling this week especially because I’ve been feeling the restraints myself, how words aren’t always enough to capture what I want to say when I pray.

We do sometimes make prayer into an oversized beast that we’re far too  small to overcome.  We make it so complicated, far too complicated, and then so many of us just give up.

Normally what works for me is the simplicity of the prayerful conversation.   Just talking to God is the best place to start, and I’m rarely at a loss for words—not in regular conversation and not in prayer.

But we have these seasons where just talking with God is actually difficult.

We don’t always know the “right” words for what we’re going through.  Maybe we stumble around a bit.

Maybe telling God how we feel  is hard because we don’t even know how we feel!

We’re empty, and that emptiness comes with a certain amount of cold disconnect from emotions or deep thoughts about anything.

Recently, my own prayers for myself have been inarticulate and uncertain.

I can pray for others; that’s the easy part.  But what to say to God about me?

I long to tell Him what I want, but also that I trust Him.

And do I even know what I really want anyway?

I pray for His will to be done, but I’m reminded to pray specifically and how specific is too specific?

He tells me I can ask, and yet I don’t want to sound like a whiny, entitled, discontent spoiled brat.

I want to be thankful, but I’m still in need.

How do we balance it all?   How do we fit all that we’re feeling and all that we know about God and about prayer and about our circumstances into the sometimes-rigid restrictions of words?

I read what the Psalmist said:

O Lord, all my longing is before you;
    my sighing is not hidden from you (Psalm 38:9 ESV).

This is the reminder I need—the permission I need—that it’s okay sometimes to be silent before the Lord.

God sees the longing.  He hears the sighing.  He knows better than we even do ourselves what’s buried in our hearts or tumbled together in one huge messy pile in our minds.

David also said:

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.  Psalm 139:2-4 ESV

When words come easy, we use words.  We tell God everything.  How we love Him so and how worthy He is of praise.  How we need forgiveness and how we’re hurting or desperate for rescue.

Prayer draws us to the throne of God.  We’re invited in.  This is beautiful and good and right and true.

But maybe there are moments when just being in the presence of the Lord, bringing our silence before Him, is more honest and more intimate because we just  don’t even know what to say.

So we trust Him to know instead.

We linger in this quiet companionship, not pulling away, not hiding away, not covering up  any part of our soul.

Just letting Him search us and know us and yes, even love us through this season until we can start to piece it all into words again.

So you want to hide away?

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psalm-139-1

My daughter tried a stealth move.

I set my cup down on the floor next to the sofa where I was sitting.

She crawled over and paused.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her glance my way without fully turning her head, just flitting her eyes up to see if I was watching.

The she made her move.  She swooped down, sucked on the straw and gulped down my drink.

And….

She grimaced.  Her whole body bounced back as she crawled to the other side of the room with a combination look of utter confusion and a little disgust.

She didn’t know I’ve been drinking green tea instead of Cherry Coke recently.

“Didn’t expect that, did ya?” I teased her and she laughs because she knows she deserved that little shock to her palate.

Since then, she’s been asking me, “Mom is that water in your cup or is it the other stuff?”

She was surprised by what she found in my tumbler that day, and she doesn’t want it to happen again.

Her little encounter with my green tea has me thinking:

Others might be surprised by what’s within us sometimes.

We might be surprised by what’s within us sometimes, too.

We think we’ll find fresh water, and it’s something gross instead.

We think it’ll be a delight, and instead it’s disgust.

Not God, though.  God is never surprised by what He finds within our hearts and lives.

He knows.

Psalm 139:1 says:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!  (ESV).

Some part of me wants to hide from that.

God, please don’t see the worst in me. 

I don’t want Him to see the mixed motives or the idolatry, the way I fight with perfectionism and feeling not-enough.

I don’t want Him to see me lose my temper or get annoyed or feel like giving up.

I want to bury that jealousy or coveting and hope he doesn’t notice the bump in my backyard.

I want to cover over the mistakes and mess-ups or fatigue or worry, the bad moments and the bad days.

If God sees my worst, surely He’ll give up on me.  He’ll use someone better, call someone purer, bless someone holier, because I’m such a broken vessel.

Then I think of Nathanael.

When Jesus called out to Peter, James, John and Andrew, they were hauling nets along the sea, just another day of work.  He said, “Follow me,” and they dropped the fishing gear and stepped into discipleship.

Jesus called Matthew and immediately the tax collector hopped up from his papers and pencils and followed.

It’s such a beautiful calling.  It’s the calling of the willing and the obedient, the receptive and ready.

Then there’s Nathanael.

When Philip saw Nathanael that day, he told his friend all about how they had found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.

Nathaniel mocked the thought.  It was a joke, surely.  He asked:

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” John 1:46 ESV

It wasn’t a beautiful moment of faith or instant belief.  He didn’t seem receptive or ready.  He was doubtful and disdainful.

Then Jesus came along, saw Nathanael and said:

“Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:47-49 ESV).

How do you know me?

That’s what Nathanael asked.

Then, realizing that Jesus did in fact see into his very heart, Nathanael confessed faith.  He worshiped.

He followed Christ and became one of the 12 disciples of Jesus.

Even now, the Armenian church claims Nathanael as their founder.  Church tradition says he preached as far as India and was martyred there.

He became sold out for Jesus.

But here’s what I love.

Jesus knew everything about him right from the beginning, the skeptical side, his mocking jest with Philip, and still called him and commissioned him.

There are days when I’m surprised myself at the sin still clogging up my heart.

But not Jesus.

And then that shame ensnares me.  I think I need to clean myself up and fix myself and get to work on my sin problem before God could bless any offering I bring.

But that’s not what God says.

That’s not what Jesus does.

JESUS BIDS US COME AND FOLLOW HERE AND NOW, JUST AS WE ARE, NOT AS WE OUGHT TO BE.

He loves me now, the imperfect me, the me that wants to be like Jesus but isn’t there yet.

Jesus doesn’t know you and reject you or set you aside.

HE KNOWS YOU.

AND HE LOVES YOU.

HE KNOWS YOU.

AND HE CALLS YOU.

Originally posted February 24, 2016