Posted in Living this Life

A Thrill of Hope

Posted on by Sara

I set the book down slowly, trembling a little inside.

Here, on this first Sunday of Advent. Advent … that word that is all about anticipation, waiting … something I am so bad at.

Especially when the waiting hurts.

I remember those days so well. When my friend sat in that restaurant with me the other night and poured out her heart about the darkness that had invaded one of the most special places in her life, I remembered those days. When she told me about the ensuing fear that kept her from wanting to be back in that place, I remembered the fear that had wrapped itself around me as well in those days.

Sometimes we don’t want to remember.

But then I read his words in this book about Christmas. In speaking of Advent, that sacred season of waiting, he encouraged the reader to “meditate on some long journey in your life, when the promise of deliverance seemed far away. Reflect on the mercies of God that were with you in the midst of your “expectant waiting”. Well, this reader didn’t necessarily want to meditate on that long, dark journey… but God has already been stirring it up in my heart, and once again it came flooding back. I could almost taste that dizzying anxiety and fear that threatened to encompass my life in those days. It didn’t really feel like “expectant waiting” in those days… more like reluctant floundering.

Sometimes people ask how to hear the voice of God in their lives. While at times it can be hard to discern, there are other moments that the sacred echo of His hearthrob cuts through all the fog in a crescendo that is impossible to ignore. This is one of those times. Walk with me through the last couple of weeks.

It began that night in the restaurant with my friend. My mind and my heart racing back to that consecrated darkness when God was so silent and seemed so far away, but had quietly wrapped Himself all around me in the middle of my battle.

A week later, on a quiet and unassuming morning, my eyes stumbled across this selection of verses and I knew that my God had providentially set them there for me to find on that cool November morning. “Whoever listens to Me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil… He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty… Your life is hidden with Christ in God… God is our refuge and strength… Therefore we will not fear… I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (Prov 1:33, Ps 91:1, Col 3:3, Ps 46:1-2, 2 Tim 1:12) Sometimes, His promises reach beyond the moment and apply to our rememberings as well.

And still, as my mind continued to spin around these happenings, my resolute God continued to speak. Linus showed up, alone and small in the middle of that stage. We’ve all seen the special that has been airing consistently for the last 58 years. Charlie Brown has been bullied and belittled for too long and he finally cries out, “will someone tell me what Christmas is all about?!”

Unflinching, Linus steps forward with his iconic blue security blanket and offers the simple Story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem.

And then it happens. Blink, and you’ll miss it. Linus says the words the angels declared to the shepherds outside Bethlehem, “Fear not”… and as those words leave his lips, that blanket which has served as his source of security through his entire life falls to the ground.

It’s a heartbeat of a moment that shouts a bold truth to the world – when you open your heart to the boldness of the “fear not”, you can release all those false securities that so often hold you hostage.

Do you hear it? The repeated reminder, laced with all of God’s quiet strength? I can’t miss it and I certainly can’t ignore it any longer … the reminder that nothing can rob me of His promises. It was a promise for my past, my present and my future, reaching down to me as I sat there wrapped in my blanket, wrapped in all the wonder of His safety.

Do you feel it? That longing for a safe place in this chaotic world? A refuge from fear? A strong tower as the barrage of news headlines and a confused (and confusing) culture spins all around you? Do you find yourself wanting to cling to false promises of security that crumble all to quickly? Remind yourself of the promises of God that are not shaken by the memories of your past, the concerns of your present, or the fears of your future.

As this Christmas comes rushing at us, with all the moments that beckon busyness, I invite you to pause with me and Linus, and remember. We often move too fast in these modern times to let the wonder of the waiting sink in – and that is why I say it out loud here today. In the quiet of this moment, right here, I remember the long wait for God to break through and rescue me from my long battle with darkness. And as I remember this more recent past, I think of the much longer wait all of mankind had as they held their breath and longed for a Messiah. I remember the apparent silence of God as I waged my own battle, and I think of 400 years between the words from Malachi’s mouth and the cry of a Baby in Bethlehem. I remember the power of when He rescued me in the fullness of time, and I think of how powerfully He has been rescuing hearts since the beginning of time. Oh, let us not rush through these moments of remembrance!

“Wait for the LORD; Be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD” – Psalm 27:14

Maybe it’s not a memory – it may be all of your present. A long dark tunnel and all you can hope for is a glimmer of light. A diagnosis, a relationship, an impossible situation, an impulse in you that you just can’t control … In this moment, let the waiting be our sustenance. Let Advent do it’s holy work in us and may the wonder of anticipation work it’s transformation in our hearts. We all need Jesus’ arrival in so many dusty corners of our hearts and lives. As we wait, let us hold our breaths with wonder. For He is here.

Immanuel.

God with us.

Posted in Living this Life

Tune my heart to sing His praise

Posted on by Sara

“Lean into it” I hear Him whisper.

And by nature, I rebel.

This time of year, nature adorns itself in a parable so loud it is impossible to ignore.

And yet, still my heart fights within me.

So I sit here, hoping my words can somehow summon in me the willpower to become the person I want to be. But I know my spirit is often weak.

The meteorologist says it will dip to 36 degrees on Friday night. All of my family rejoices, but part of me wants to die inside. I realize I’m being a bit dramatic. These are the days so many are waiting for. The days when the muggy summer days are replaced with crisp air and beautiful red leaves. When pumpkins adorn our steps and our coffees, when flannels and blankets wrap around our bodies, and it seems everything beckons coziness and quiddity.

Yet, I rebel. Because these are also the days that threaten winter. The beautiful green descends to dismal brown, the flowerbeds lose their brilliant colors and are covered in a blanket of dead leaves. There is a chronic illness in me that gets stirred up by cold, and so I subconsciously dread that lovely chill because it usually means physical pain and retreating indoors.

“Lean into it?” How do you lean into something that stirs pain? This is what I am thinking about today.

I’m suddenly remembering a day many years ago when I gripped tightly to my friend as he wove his motorcycle through those San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, CA. Curve after curve flew at us, that motorcycle leaning one way and then the other. I somehow thought I could “help” by counterleaning … you already know what I’m going to say, don’t you? “Lean into it” he yelled as the wind whipped his words past my ears.

Lean into it? When my natural instinct is to counter-balance and push against gravity?

I read this morning about the physics behind this – I read words like “torque”, “centrifugal force”, and “center of gravity” … And basically, it looks like this: When your body is in line with the bike, gravity works to increase the friction of your tire with the road. When you lean away from that, you decrease that connection between your tire and the road, which makes all the difference.

They call it getting “crossed up”. I’m beginning to think that’s how I’ve been living in some areas of life. Pushing against what God has brought to me because it’s hard to see how it is going to help. Maybe it just plain hurts. Let’s be honest – it’s hard to release control and lean into whatever it is that He is doing.

So I spend my days getting crossed up. I’m missing the glory and the beauty in what is surrounding me because I’m only looking at what comes next. Missing the joy in the moment because fear or anxiety consume and distract. Missing what is because of might be. How can I learn to lean into it all and what might I discover in the process?

I’m not talking about bending in the waves of culture wars or committing our beliefs to the tides that come and go. There are places we can (and must) keep our feet firmly planted and stand strong and unwavering. But I wonder if we weaken our ability to do that well because we’re so busy fighting the things we can’t control? When our bodies give out and we can no longer function at the physical level we expect of ourselves? When loss leaves you suddenly feel so helpless? When our finances collapse upexpectedly or our children make choices that break our hearts? When the diagnosis comes in and everything changes in an instant? When life just feels dark and you feel like you can’t find your way through…

This is becoming bigger than me being grumpy about weather. This is about the posture of our lives. Will we stubbornly push against the storms of life and try bend them to suit our expectations, growing angry and resentful in the process? Or will we receive what comes our way, lean into it to hear what the Holy Spirit is whispering in our ear, so that where the rubber meets the road, it will hold? The curves will come, the unexpected will take us by storm – what will our posture be in that moment?

I drove through the storm this morning that is bringing the cold weather our way, and I sit here in my sweatshirt thinking that maybe it’s time to lean in and let the beauty wrap itself around me with whispers of His glory. Maybe this is what quiddity is all about: “Jenkins seemed to be able to enjoy everything, even ugliness. I learned from him that we should attempt a total surrender to whatever atmosphere was offering itself at the moment; in a squalid town, seek out those very places where its squalor rose to grimness and almost grandeur, on a dismal day to find the most dismal and dripping wood, on a windy day to seek the windiest ridge. There was not Betjemannic irony about it; only a serious, yet gleeful, determination to rub one’s nose in the very quiddity of each thing, to rejoice in its being (so magnificently) what it was” – C. S. Lewis

Did the sun set in your town last night? Did you notice? Sometimes it dips below the horizon in a wild display of splendor and social media lights up with celebrations of brilliant orange and pink brushes of glory. And many times, it happens while you’re making dinner or just busy with life and you don’t even notice. One night, late in August, my family climbed some sand dunes to fly kites overlooking the beaches of North Carolina. We’d been there before, but that night, we climbed higher and sat with a vast assortment of other people to watch the sun march towards to the sea.

Then a strange thing happened – something I have never experienced before. As the sun dipped below the sea and we were all gripped in a shared moment of wonder, the entire mass of humanity on that sand dune began to applaud.

And yes, we may have giggled a little bit at the silliness of it all – I mean, doesn’t the sun set every night? Why are we suddenly applauding somethinghappens without us noticing every other night of the year? Maybe it’s not so silly after all… in that moment our hearts responded in unison and we were actually seeing as if for the first time what God has been declaring since the beginning of time.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat” Ps 19:6

In that moment, we all cumulatively lived the truth of Romans 1, regardless of each one’s personal belief.

“ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…” Romans 1:20

Oh how I want to see it all and taste the splendor of God as He declares His glory all around us! To let myself soak in the changing landscape that brings us each season for all God means it to be. To lean into the message He is declaring all around us rather than getting crossed up in all I want it to be.

As I talked about in my previous post, the last few years feel like a blur of head, heart, and body busy-ness. This is my last year with my daughter, my first born, at home. Oh how my heart calls me to slow and savor. But part of me has forgotten how. Jonathan Edwards may have had 70 resulutions, but today I have only one. I sit here and I resolve, out loud to make it real, to lean into it. To let the rainy days drip and the cold days creep in with delight. To feel the fog and rejoice in the colors and truly smell the glory of fall. To have picnics on rainy days and feel the wrapping of my scarf and covering of a blanket as I lean in to really listen.

“Don’t you like a rather foggy day in a wood in autumn? You’ll find we shall be perfectly warm sitting in the car.”  Jane said she’d never heard of anyone liking fogs before but she didn’t mind trying. All three got in.

“That’s why Camilla and I got married,” said Denniston as they drove off. “We both like Weather. Not this or that kind of weather, but just Weather. It’s a useful taste if one lives in England.”

“How ever did you learn to do that, Mr. Denniston?” said Jane. “I don’t think I should ever learn to like rain and snow.”

“It’s the other way round,” said Denniston. “Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it as you grow up. Noticed it on a snowy day? The grown-ups are all going about with long faces, but look at the children – and the dogs? They know what snow’s made for.”

“I’m sure I hated wet days as a child,” said Jane.

“That’s because the grown-ups kept you in,” said Camilla. “Any child loves rain if it’s allowed to go out and paddle about in it” (Lewis, That Hideous Strength)

Now, I am not naive enough to think that stopping and smelling the roses will magically erase the tragedies and trauma in our lives. And I am not proposing that a splash in a mud puddle will be enough to distract us when life is crashing in around us. But a vulnerable little bird this past spring taught me that every day we are surrounded with messages from God and about God – and by adjusting my posture now, tuning my heart to sing His praise, I can see Him and hear Him more clearly in both the good and the bad days. To align our hearts, our minds, and even our physical senses with the moments Jesus brings to each day rather than my vain attempts at control and my unrealistic expectations … And that happens in all the small moments. New life can spring forth even in autumn! And that is the adventure I am on right now.

So grab a cup of coffee and join the experiment with me?

Posted in Living this Life

Some ramblings about spring on the first day of fall

Posted on by Sara

He lay there all naked and helpless – not even able to make a peep. And yet he preached a sermon so loud it still echoes in my ears many months later. I’m thinking about him again today as I sit outside on this unseasonably warm September day.

He doesn’t know it, but his story begins many years ago.

Back when the kids were small and homeschooling was filled with the loud chaos of chatter as all 3 often had things to talk about (much of which was not related to “school” at all). Back in those days, God sent us Eastern Bluebirds to distract them from their books and teach them about real and tangible things.

Each year they would come through, and make a nest in the birdhouse my father built with my daughter. Each year we would name them and watch the saga unfold. One year the large bellied third wheel of the family hung out at the window and pecked neurotically(and incessantly) for attention. Many nests were built, eggs were laid, and sometimes they would hatch and grow. Sometimes there was tragedy and the eggs would be destoryed by a yard villain … but every year the birds returned and their presence marked the end of winter and the beginning of spring.

Then – 2020. That year, we had a late freeze. It was the kind of cold that elicits strong warnings from the meteorolgist and everyone hunkers down indoors for a few days. As I walked past their nest in the following days, I saw a glint of blue feather. So I opened it and looked in, only to find the entire family of 6 crowded in there in a vain attempt to escape the wintery blast. Those were the days Covid was a new word and everything felt a bit insecure in the world … and so my heart grieved this loss a little more than normal.

We rode through that year with all the drama, loss, confusion and challenges that marked each of us in different ways. And then spring came back – and we watched for our Eastern bluebirds to return and weave their story of hope and fresh life around us again. But their nest remained empty that year. We saw lots of cardinals and ravens and assorted backyard visitors, but not a single bluebird. The nest remained empty for the next two years.

Much happened in our lives over the next couple years. There was a lot of change. Covid changed all of us in different ways – but it wasn’t just that. We took on a huge project in our ministry. Life was simultaneously exhilerating and overwhelming and suddenly we were thrust into the middle of numerous decisions that we weren’t prepared for. Our kids didn’t see us as much during those days, due to unending meetings with architects and construction workers and ministry team partners. I’m grateful for all God did in that season, but honestly? When I look back it all feels like a bit of a blur. The blur lives on in me, as I struggle with what life should look like these days. How do you find a new rhythm when all you have known for so long is a litany of hurry? How do you slow the body, much less the mind, when the relentless decisions have entangled themselves into your subconscious. It is one thing to know that hurry cauterizes the senses – it is another thing to learn how to live again.

And then one morning this spring, as I sat in my backyard, I saw them. 2 Eastern Bluebirds, faithfully building a nest in the old abandoned birdhouse.

I held my breath as I watched them day after day. Then there was an egg, and I started to hope.

And on a typical Wednesday morning in April, I saw this – and God reached in to that aching place in my soul.

And every day that ugly little bird grew – and with it, hope. He grew feathers and chirped insistently for food. And then as suddenly as he came, he was gone. But his message echoes on…

He whispered promises of new life, in the midst of my fatigue. He helped me see that life needed to be fully lived, embraced, experienced, rather than just doing the next thing. He whispered, through a helpless naked little bird – “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19

It’s hard to undo old habits. It’s easy to wake up in a flurry and rush through the to do list of the day. The tyranny of urgent waits on no one. Yet buried in my soul is this promise – and as I sit here today on the first day of fall, I am asking God to breathe the freshness of spring into my life. I think of old Scrooge who exclaims at the end of his crazy night with 3 ghosts, “I will honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all year”, and I find myself saying the same about my spring encounter with a baby bird.