His Strength, My Weakness

There were baptisms at church today. When they were finished, we all sang "Amazing Grace." My eye caught the top of a leafy green tree, in relief against a clear sky. I was so hurt. I cried. I don't understand why I'm suffering some of the things I am suffering. Relationships have always been more important to me that anything else, including achievement and material possessions. I feel I have done things to preserve and protect the ones closest to me and, yet, some that are very important to me are strained and distant. I'm a little bereft.

I guess the tree caught my attention because it is living. A couple of my relationships, once so alive and full of promise, feel distant and sad. Empty. Lined with rejection. I went home and crawled into bed. I lay there off and on a couple of times. I talked to the Lord about how hard it is to go on some days. I know He heard me and He will sustain me. It was just one of those days where it was hard to put on a happy face and do the laundry and dishes. It was hard to imagine getting up tomorrow and doing all of my daily-ness all over again. But I will.

I mentioned yesterday that I'm battling some addictions (food, internet, social media, etc.). When I back away from them I feel the rush of emotions that they were distracting me from. I guess I need the same pep talk I've given countless times to a loved one who is addicted to drugs. I keep telling them that life is hard and we have to power through in God's strength, because our own will never, ever, ever cut it!

God's strength and sense of purpose is always there, no matter how fierce the storm. No matter how the winds howl and the rain snatches your dreams from your hands, whirling them into the gutter, slanting sideways to beat the smile from your face. He is always there. We live for him, not merely in the light of his presence. We live to know him and to be known by him. Those of us who are in Christ have a treasure that cannot be wrenched from our hands. There is no rain that can drown our purpose in Christ. I suppose today was a day for me to be honest with the Lord (and I was) and to make a plan to renew my joy in Him for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a better day. It usually is.

A Full Life

I realized the other day that I struggle with boredom, and this gives rise to addictive behavior (food, internet, social media). This makes absolutely no sense for a child of God. Should never be the case. What I think the boredom translates to is not seeking God. There is absolutely no facet of his being that is dull. It is all riveting. Not exciting, but RIVETING.

Sure, we all have boring tasks to complete every single day. But they are not the whole of our existence. Even those tasks can be brought under the umbrella of fulfillment if they are done to the glory of God and with the certainty that there is something unique and challenging just up ahead. 

So here I sit, at nearly fifty, like an old lady at a bus station. I see myself in my sensible shoes, drab overcoat, set hair. Time to change that dynamic. Yuck! No wonder I am slathering the bread with two inches of jelly and enough peanut butter to choke a draft horse. Who wouldn't? Who honestly wouldn't??? I am going to shake up my lens. See an adventure through the tube of daily ordinariness!

It occurred to me that when I feel bored and unfulfilled, it's because I am not pushing myself to my potential spiritually or personally (the two are inextricably linked). When I get off my behind and seek God's face and his unique will for MY life though prayer, hard work and creativity, the hours fly. The days race by. I can look back and see a beautiful quilt of a week! 

Harvard-educated commentator Charles Krauthammer recently said that, in light of the fact that his doctors have given him only weeks to live, he has no regrets. He has lived life the way he wanted to. This set my over-thinking psyche into overdrive. Oh the regrets I have! Again, pure nonsense for the child of God. Just this morning the Lord reminded me that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Get up and get going! Eternity is a very long time. I believe we'll be serving God and enjoying him in fascinating ways for the whole of it. No boredom, just adventure and joy! How great it is that I can start now!

My prayer today is that I seek to become all that God created me to be, holding nothing back. I want to submit my whole self to Christ for eternity, worshiping Him and emptying myself out before Him all day, every day. Just plain old full submission. I'm so blessed that what I receive in return is his loving care, guidance and fellowship. He is my father. So glad.

Settling the Matter

"'Come now, let us settle the matter,' says the Lord. 'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.'" Isaiah 1:18 (Holy Bible, New International Version)

For so many years, I've been walking in the half-light of partial forgiveness. It's fairly easy for me to forgive most people, but I usually cannot forgive myself. At least not fully. Let me describe some of the fruits of this lack of forgiveness of myself.

Depression. This is far and away the largest load I drag. I can't even carry it on my back, so heavy and unwieldy is this package. I have ropes attached to my arms and I'm always going uphill, depression in an oxcart just behind. I'm the ox. Always either plodding painfully slowly or drowning the pain of the burden in shopping or eating. I'm always reaching for coffee because depression is patently exhausting.

Another fruit of my failure to forgive myself is stunted potential. I just don't believe I deserve for anything good to happen to me, so I leap ahead and sabotage myself. I back away from good ideas and interesting people because I do not believe I deserve a second of happiness, let alone fulfillment.

I have suffered from a total lack of peace a large percentage of the time because, after all, who knows what terrible things will happen to a person who is guilty of so much! My guilt is like a heavy coat of armor, only it does not protect, it suffocates.

I used to say that I never want to be one of those faithless, "hang-on-'til-heaven" Christians. At nearly the half-century mark, that's exactly what I have become. I want to reverse this. I know I cannot. But God can.

I was walking in my yard and realized a powerful truth many months ago. There is no reason for me to fear coming under the full grace of God. This means that I can cop to any and all of my sins and egregious failures without falling apart because all are covered by the blood of Jesus. He has not only paid for them all, but He is able to restore to my life and others anything those sins have stolen. He can heal the relationships they have damaged and bind up my heart and the hearts of any I have hurt along the way. He can make me absolutely pure again.

I cannot imagine anything more desirable.

"If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord." Romans 14:8 (Holy Bible, New International Version)

Of the Rest of My Life

How many times have you read or heard the sentence "This is the first day of the rest of your life"? Every single time I hear it, I hold my chin a bit higher. I make an attempt at a better day than I might have had, productivity-wise. I try harder! There is something so deeply moving and wonderfully motivating about a fresh start! to think that I get one each and every day is a gift beyond imagining and completely worth savoring. Another saying I read recently opined that you cannot go back and change the beginning but you can, in fact, make a choice about the ending. Love that. Another beautiful breeze beneath my wings on this old, careworn, sin-sick and spiritual warfare-filled earth.

Sometimes we find ourselves suddenly staring at a situation that came about through no fault of our own, much like a hiker facing a bear on a lonely mountain ledge. In a case like that, we need the same fortitude called for when we have decided to make a fresh start regarding our own habits and behaviors. The essential thing to remember is to not let the situation defeat you, but instead turn it over to God so that His power will reign in you and in the circumstances and His Spirit will lead you through the narrows. Ephesians 6:18 says "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." (Holy Bible, New International Version)

When you face a challenge, especially one that you had no preparation for, it's super easy to buckle. Depending upon your innate personality, this may happen without your even registering the response. I'm an emotionally complex person (I think we are all wonderfully complex, but MY emotions tend to behave like a pack of wild horses after a gun has sounded), and my reactions to life's curveballs are as varied as the product lines at a flea market. There's no predicting them! My emotions are the strongest current in my life, except the river of the Holy Spirit. If I'm not careful, they drown my purpose. Every now and then I am able to pluck it from the gushing flow and give it a little CPR on the bank. Unfortunately, it's not long before the rapids of my feelings eddy and swirl violently, tossing my purpose again. My current goal is to keep on top of that current. I'd like to stay dry in a lovely canoe. It will all be God's doing, of course. I'd like to hold onto Him so tightly that the current beneath me becomes that of His Spirit! He'll never toss me from the canoe. He'll only sustain me gently within it. The scenery will be magnificent! What an adventure!

I've found a few practical ways to stay on the river of the Holy Spirit versus being tossed down sloughs of despair, terror and wasted time. The first one is, of course, more time spent renewing my mind through prayer and the word of God (the Bible). The second involves not re-polluting my mind after it has been cleansed by the above. When I limit my internet and social media time, my world is instantly transformed. It is infinitely more peaceful and pure. How many times have you read salacious news stories or scrolled your FB feed only to feel as if your spirit has been buried in swamp mud? The third practical way I stay in the Spirit is to be intentional about my life and my gifts. To ask God what to do and then accept his help in doing it. I've got a long way to go, light years, actually, before I can say I've got those three down pat, but I'm headed in the right direction and it feels amazing. My circumstances had to become horrific before I felt an urgency about these matters.( I'm such a procrastinator, I believe I would put off my own funeral if I could, but that's a blog post for another day.)

It's near the end of the day here in North America. Hey, it's the first evening of the rest of my life! I think I'll just be happy tonight!

Into the World

I was once determined to become a famous journalist. With that aim in mind, I sashayed off to college and then graduate school, landing an exciting internship at the Miami, Florida NBC owned-and-operated station. I then started my first professional job at a tiny ABC affiliate in my hometown. Insert colossal u-turn. I got married, started a family and abandoned my career for an extended period of time, choosing love, security and care for others over my initial ambitions. The need for affirmation on a larger stage never really left me, though, its influence streaking through my blood like an invisible disease. I still harbored dreams of writing a bestseller. Of making a mark. Of showing up on the world's radar.

As a television reporter in my hometown for just over a year, I got a taste of universal acceptance. Many people treated me with a degree of deference simply because my image appeared on their television screens for a few minutes each week. It was intoxicating. I love people, all kinds of people, and it was so wonderful to be "loved" back. I, of course, now realize that their "love" was wholly superficial. It was as substantial as a broken reed in a hurricane. I was content, however, with being in their lives, no matter how I got there! People are wonderful, interesting and precious to me. I truly enjoy them.

Two decades of utter obscurity later, I've got something new in my blood. It's the unmistakable yearning for significance. I want my life to count for Christ. I realize that I have no way of making that happen under my own steam, so I'm working on submitting to Him to work whatever good He will from whatever I have to give. I have viewed this blog as one of those "whatevers." If I have a spark of light, let me fling it into the dark corners of this world. Now, instead of seeking my own reknown, I want to fling my gifts backward without a glance, tossing them into the night stillness of need, letting them land where the Spirit guides them. I don't want to care who sees, who applauds, who knows. It's utterly freeing and outrageously gratifying. It feels right because it IS right. 

The Not-Knowing Me

That's me in the picture. I'm in Iowa, where I lived from first through third grades. I didn't have electronics to plug my brain into for the purpose of smashing the pain of life into a remote corner of my consciousness, the way I've seen one of my sons do. So I used my imagination. I have no idea what I was pretending to do here, but I do remember this day. I remember that I was pretending.

That photo's on my refrigerator. I have no idea why. I guess a part of me wants to stay connected to innocence. To the idea that there was a me before there was the mind-numbing trauma of the last several years. If I had been told in advance, I would have laughed at the ridiculous suggestion that any of it would happen. I would have cursed the devil for lying to me. I'm walking through deep waters and, just when I think the current will hold me under long enough to kill my physical body, I get enough air to keep living.

Several times I've thought of that young girl, that me-before-real-life. I think about how I did not know what was coming for me, what was going to happen that would take all that's beautiful in life and turn it inside out, exposing all that is ugly. I think about how we just don't know what will happen to us. How happy we are in that not-knowing state.

Somehow, in all of this, God has managed to say something very profound to me. His Word tells me that He's an unending mystery that at the very same time can be known. He's recently changed the way I see that little girl in the photo. She didn't know the horror that lay ahead. Couldn't. There's something else she didn't know. There are riches that can't be described, even by a wordy know-it-all like me, in the knowledge of God. The discovery of Him. The Bible says he takes the upright into his confidence. God himself is a never-ending, constantly unfolding stream of beauty and majesty, all wrapped up in the most amazing love a human can touch. And He'll not only touch us, but enfold us. For the Christian who truly seeks with all of his or her heart, He is like a magnificent jewel that captures new light and shows new facets with each turn of the hand. Life has revealed hideous lessons of shame, degradation, fear, torture and terror. God will reveal glory, beauty, and intensely personal love that will drown all of that, rendering it all powerless over me.

Create

I love to make stuff. This passion is juxtaposed with a lack of prowess in the hand-eye coordination department and a general lack of innate crafting talent, unless you count the arrangement of elements on an old-fashioned scrapbook page. I can follow simple directions, and generally stay with projects that a child could do. I enjoy cross stitching because making X's with thread is relatively straightforward. I was looking at diamond art pictures with joy in my heart recently. Why not just buy a picture? Well, there is something supremely satisfying to me about having made something. It's tough for me to explain. Even if the craft employs no skill, like the many, many latch hook rugs I have made, I get a huge bang out of having made the picture myself. It would not be in the world were it not for my effort.

I included a picture of my embroidery scissors (see above). I  had used them for cross stitch, but dulled them cutting needlepoint yarn recently. I wanted to learn that needlecraft, and, after watching a youtube video, set about making my first couple of stitches on a small piece. I discovered that I should have stretched the needlepoint canvas and abandoned my effort because I didn't have the right tools for doing that. The scissors were a casualty. I have found, however, that I can still use them for the easy cross stitch kit I am currently working on; a 10 count (holes can be seen from outer space, a three-year-old could do it) picture of a mother and baby panda using thicker wool thread. The scissors symbolize my drive to learn something new in the New Year. I'll get at least two needlepoint pictures done. They made my 2018 goal list, and neither flood, famine, earthquake or pestilence will keep me from them.

I asked my husband recently why I seem to really want to do something that I am terrible at (needlework). I told him that my box of cross stitch kits yet to be done depressed me. "I am horribly slow! I have all of those beautiful projects in that box...I'll never get them done," I lamented. "Are you on a timeline," he asked. No, no I am not. I simply want to spin the gorgeous pictures out one directly after the other and, in the process, I'm not really much enjoying the journey. Remember the fable about the race between the tortoise and the hare? I am the tortoise, only the finish line yields only a handful of small completed projects every year. Sigh. My husband seemed to think the key lies in not buying any more kits. At all. Ok. I guess I can TRY to do that (I bought one this morning).

There is no profoundly inspirational punchline today. I'm just reflecting on my motives and shining a flashlight on an area of my life that gets a lot of my time. I'm tweaking it aloud, as it were. I've always admired people who attempted things beyond their skill level, but I don't give myself that same grace. For whatever reason, writing has always come fairly easy to me, so I'll make that the pursuit that gobbles up the majority of my time. But I cannot, I will not, give up crafting! Perhaps the key lies, as with most elements of life, in the elusive concept of balance. Stop buying and hoarding. Start doing. Stay with projects to the finish line. Do the crafts you enjoy. This is not your job, this is a way to unplug from the stresses of life! If no one latch hooks anymore, SO WHAT! So. What. You do, Laurie! (Pardon the pep talk with myself.) Accept your limitations. They are as much a part of your individuality as your talents are, and help in lighting the correct path for your days!

All of you ladies who excel at needlework: do not take your gifts for granted. They are truly gifts! All of you who love childish crafts (like me), exult! Rejoice! Make your Quilt-Magic creations and enjoy your adult coloring books! You'll spend less on shrinks and counselors! You'll invest more of your time in the specific work you were individually called by God to do. It's all good. It's all good.

Purpose

There are people (who I greatly admire) who seem to get maximum bang for their buck out of their time on earth. They are getting it done and in very grand style. Some are sold out for Christ, doing ministry work with genuine fervor, excelling in productivity and for absolutely all of the right reasons. Others are maximizing their career potential and, in so doing, fulfilling their God-given destinies as equally as those in full-time ministry. Their talents are not falling by the wayside. Nothing is wasted.

Then there are wanderers and meanderers like me. I am the proverbial donkey that left the ranch. I did not mean to, I NEVER mean to, but, inevitably the Holy Spirit has to increase pressure on my heart until I scream for depth and meaning and wheel my cart back for the ranch of purpose. Oh, I enjoy my diet of wild dandelions and races with tumbleweeds for a time. But I always circle back. He knows how to corral me. Sometimes it is my own empty spot that sends me packing for the water trough of God. I need Him. I cannot experience Him outside of my destiny. I feel I have missed large, voluminous aspects of that perfect plan. However, I have so much hope. Call me crazy, but I don't think our work ends when we die. I think we will have purpose and industry in heaven. It is and will continue to be a blessing. It's fun to be an individual. I don't believe that will ever die. God made each of us unique, and He enjoys our uniqueness!

I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. I think God, while certainly setting us on paths of purpose that should be kept with diligence (read the book of Proverbs), actually gets a large kick out of us just, well, being us. This means that when we have fun doing things that we enjoy, He enjoys the scene. Just a thought. The next time you realize that you have either a) chosen a job that uses NONE of your strengths and kills your creativity or b) have made work an idol and do not express yourself as a human being through hobbies or recreational activities, try to remember the joy you had when your children were small and you watched them enjoy themselves. God feels that, too! If it's either too late or wholly impractical (watch this, because the Holy Spirit's direction can sometimes feel impractical to our finite human understanding) to get a new job or embark on a new, more fulfilling career, there are many, many other ways to fill your cup of fulfillment and purpose. Ask God to reveal them to you, and be prepared for him to answer you. He will!

Reflection

It's not the big moments in life that define us. Nope. Not the moment we say "I do," the second our first child is born. It's the millions of experiences that splice in and out of every day that shape and mold us into the people we are. Not only are each person's experiences radically different in sequence and scope, but every individual's lens of perception is unique.  DNA assures us of this. Something else moves our lens about, wobbles the shape. That something is the very thing we are viewing through it...the experiences themselves. Every human being is on a unique trajectory. Some of what happens to us is our own doing, some is the result of living in a very fallen world. And the glorious best is what happens because we are, for the few seconds that we are, in perfect sync with our Creator and His best plan for our lives.

I might be getting stronger. Might be. (Disclaimer: any strength I currently have is the result of God living in and breathing through me. My ability to stand is rooted in His strength, and the fact that He refuses to let me fall.) A better way to say this is that I am learning to lean on God more consistently.

I will strive to let what I have experienced help me to help others. I have been smashed...utterly crushed to powder by circumstances and my own silly way of dealing with them, then pieced back together by a loving heavenly Father who remains immeasurably patient with me as I navigate the channels and backwaters of a life I never planned to live. Not at the beginning, at least. Not as a hopeful, young college student. I am beginning to see that, in the brackish sludge of a slough my little canoe was forced down, there is a reflection on the water. That reflection is hope. That reflection is peace. That reflection is joy. It tells of many things to come.Good things. It whispers of a life that will be all the richer for the fight. All the better for the struggle. All the deeper for the pursuit of God in the midst of the storm.