Tag: faith

Posted in Living this Life

Dust bunnies and Christmas trees

Posted on by Sara

It finally all caught up with me.

I mean, you can only hide the dust that is threatening to engulf your home for so long before it rears its ugly head and exposes you for who you really are.

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Because even though we all may prance around like Lucy from a Charlie Brown episode, pretending to have our stuff together, if we’re honest with ourselves, sometimes we feel a little bit more like the dust-embattled “Pig Pen” of the series. Literally.

Let me explain. Some people use Thanksgiving as their gauge for the appropriate time to break out the Christmas decorations. In my little world, it comes the day after Halloween. After a month of dealing with ghosts and ghouls haunting the aisles of every store I walk into, I can’t wait to throw up the tree and string the lights! (Thanksgiving looks extra good in the reflection of Christmas lights … we don’t skip Thanksgiving in these parts, we just “accessorize” it!”)

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So this year I jumped right in. Only, to my horror, I suddenly realized that this wasn’t going to be as much fun as I thought. It has been an exceptionally busy few months, and though I have maintained the “mandatory” cleaning of laundry, dishes, and the necessary loathsome toilets, I had blithely ignored the dust gathering in all the corners and surfaces of my home.

Until the lights came out and suddenly I could see it all. Everything ugly shone forth in shocking brilliance. And my dreams of glorious decorations stopped short in the depressing realization that I needed to put on my big girl pants and clean.

Truth is, I’ve been struggling with the thought of Christmas this year. I want all the joy, I want all the celebration, but sometimes it just feels like a lot of work, and I’m tired. It’s like I’m bursting at the seams (literally and emotionally) and then we take all these lights and decorations and songs and expectations and pile them on top of all this other stuff going on. And it starts to feel heavy and busy and cluttered.

Kind of like my house with decorations obscured by dust.

Sometimes it’s hard to see the beauty through the chaos, isn’t it?

Don’t blame Christmas. It’s holding out it’s arms with the promise of wonder and beauty … the opportunity to pause and remember. To put up impractical decorations just because they shine and make us smile and to give unnecessary gifts just because we love someone. To remember those important things that we build our lives on, but allow to get squeezed out in the business of life. The problem with Christmas lies in our capacity to receive it. We don’t know how to make space for it, so it just starts to feel like more work, more stuff, more than we have space for. We’re putting the beauty on top of the mess of our lives and it all dulls into incoherent clutter.

So I pulled out my dust rag, and I started to wipe. And as my home started to sparkle a little more, I felt the space around me work a surprising miracle. It was like the literal act of wiping away dust was starting to clear out the dusty corners of my heart. As the spaces around me cleared, I looked at my boxes of decorations and suddenly felt excitement grow over filling these spaces with lights and beauty.

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Are you feeling this with me? Is your soul feeling a bit cluttered these days? Do you have those spaces too – the ones that have been ignored too long and when you let your gaze linger, all you see are those stinking dust bunnies staring back at you? Has the calendar pressed in on you so that you no longer see the moments around you and only hear the ticking of the clock? Has the hurt that’s been done to you hardened your heart so all you hear when you call to God is your own voice echoing back? Are the necessary bills piling so high that every responsibility is just something else you can’t afford? There’s that diagnosis, that relationship, the drama that swirls around us and sucks the joy right out of our hearts… What do we do with all of that? Especially when Christmas comes along and tells us to put up the lights and rejoice and how do you do that when you can’t really find yourself in the middle of all the crazy?

It’s just easier to ignore it all and go on with the daily necessary requirements of life, isn’t it?

But then you hear the echo of that song and it feels a little different …

“Let every heart prepare Him room”… but if I’m honest, there really isn’t room most days.

Maybe what we need this Christmas is a different perspective. Maybe instead of trying to lay baby Jesus in His manger on top of all the other things in our lives, we could try inviting Him into that messy place? Maybe we could hold open our hands and simply ask Him to hear the cry of our hearts.

We all want to move a little slower so we can take it all in, but until we can, let’s “prepare Him room”. Maybe we can dust out the corners of the heart, release some resentment, soften some anger, forgive a hurt – and let Jesus in. Recently I found myself needing to utter a simple, “I’m sorry” to the God of the Universe who I had unwittingly shut out of my heart. Hurts in various form had caused me to want to protect myself and those I love and so I let myself grow hard – and God can’t be heard when the walls of our heart turn to rock.

Maybe this Christmas season, we can string the lights and remember the Light who scatters our darkness. (John 1:5)

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To hear His precious promises – and truly believe them!

“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair. – Isaiah 61

Maybe with each twinkling light we see, we can take a deep breath and see the face of Christ – “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6

Oh how my soul needs to hear that truth! Pig Pen and I have some work to do around here! But we’ll have the Christmas music blasting while we do it…

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Posted in Living this Life

Friend of Silence

Posted on by Sara

I stood there stunned as I looked at my 8 year old with tears streaming down his face. We thought this would be fun – a fun reward for the many days they had spent on the road with us doing work stuff.

We had a couple hours free in the middle of a whirlwind trip recently, so we asked the kids what they wanted to do. The consensus was to find an arcade somewhere and have some fun.

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And we did. We found the biggest, best arcade we could find. Not only was this arcade bigger and better than many we had been to, it was much, much louder. Like walking into a physical wall of noise. We had a lot of fun, yelled over the chaos as the kids engaged in a Rampage battle and my ‘80’s loving husband impressed us all with his Galaga skills. I leaned over and asked Joshua what he wanted to do next – well, I yelled at him “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO NEXT?” And he responded by slapping his hands over his ears and bursting into tears.

We quickly found a quiet place to talk. He said “everyone keeps yelling and it’s so loud it hurts!”

I feel your pain, little man. Have you watched the news lately? Or tapped into any form of social media? It seems like everyone has something to say and no-one is listening anymore. So we all just seem to move faster and yell louder…

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Joshua said to me through his tears that day, “can’t you just talk quieter?” So I decided to try. As we went back into the arcade, in the middle of the ear-splitting din, I leaned in and whispered to him. I found that if I whispered right into his ear, he could hear me despite the noise, and I wouldn’t have to yell anymore.

And as a result, I discovered some beautiful things. He could hear me – and it didn’t hurt. My spirit quieted as I whispered through the chaos. And we had to draw close to each other to communicate.

How do you handle the noise? There are definitely days I want to slap my hands over my ears and find a quiet corner to cry in. But by that time, I usually have to make dinner or take a kid to some sports practice, so I kind of shove the feelings in and keep moving.

But what if we just stop? Stop yelling, and try whispering? Draw close to each other so we can hear the whispers from the hearts of those around us? Maybe even hear the whisper of our own hearts? We look for big, mighty things from God, and often get swept away in the wind, earthquake and fire that come before the still small voice of Jehovah. We shout over the wind, try to be the earth shakers, and pray for fire to burn up the evil, but God is not in those things.

“The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 1 Kings 19:11-13

Did you hear that? Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle at the still, small voice of Almighty God. In this world of sound bytes and Instagram likes, might the truest power lie in truth spoken gently from the Maker of our souls?

“I think there is nothing so startling in all the graces of God as His quietness. When men have raged untruths in His Name, when they have used the assumed authority of the Son of God to put to death His real children, when they have with calloused heart twisted the Scriptures into fables and lies… when they, using powers He grants them, claim universal autonomy and independence, He, this great silent God, says nothing! His tolerance and love for His creatures is such that, having spoken in Christ, in conscience, in code of law, He waits for men to leave off their bawling and turn for a moment to listen to His still, small voice of the Spirit.” – Jim Elliot

What a beautiful wonder those words awaken in my heart! What common sense goodness.

Do you find your heart reeling from the din of voices clamoring to be heard? Do you find your soul growing numb from the chaos that swirls around you?

Maybe rather than pushing away or trying to yell louder, we could try whispering back. Draw near, listen closely – not only to the words, but to the hearts, of those around us. Especially those we disagree with. Hear the fear that makes voices rise to a screech. Listen to the pain that causes those we share this planet with to build walls around their hearts. Draw close, and whisper gentle truth. You will find your own heart softening in the process. You may not agree, but you might understand. When you understand, you will learn to love the heart of the person, and maybe in that quiet place, Jesus will be heard.

Maybe we all just need to whisper a little more?

“We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence … we need silence to be able to touch souls” -Mother Teresa

 

 

Posted in Living this Life

What if?

Posted on by Sara

There was a time in my life when I could barely see past the darkness.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart…”

Every beautiful thing was covered in a shroud of fear of loss, living in the shadow of “what if?”

“…Test me and know my anxious thoughts…”

It’s sucked the joy, the peace, the life from my bones and left me hollow and trapped in a tomb of fear.

“…See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” Ps 139:23-24

I will never forget the moment my Jesus shone a bright light on it. So many times He comes in with ideas we may already know, but need to hear in a new way. It all started when my amazing husband bought me a devotional one Christmas.

That January, I picked up this little life changing book by Elisabeth Eliot and God started the work of unraveling the web the enemy of our souls had trapped me in. It was a many layered process and is a much longer story than this simple post can contain, but all good stories must start somewhere. This is my “somewhere”.

I recently stumbled across this book, dusty on a bookshelf. As I cracked open the pages and saw the exclamation I had written in the margins, the Lord brought me back to this moment – to so many of the moments He gently walked with me and showed me the way out – step by step.

I don’t know what Goliath you might be facing, my friend. What news has shaken your soul or what unknown lies beyond what you may see, but I find such peace in reminding my own spirit of a great God who is already there and has prepared a way.

So here are the words I read that day. I will leave them here without much commentary. The concept is simple, even obvious… but the truth was transformative for me. I pray it helps release your soul to peace as well.

“We are meddling with God’s business when we let all manner of imaginings loose, predicting disaster, contemplating possibilities instead of following, one day at a time, God’s plain and simple pathway. When we try to meet difficulties prematurely we have neither the light nor the strength for them yet. “As thy days so shall thy strength be” was Moses’ blessing for Asher – in other words, your strength will equal your days. God knows how to apportion each one’s strength according to that day’s need, however great or small. The psalmist understood this when he wrote, “Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure” (Ps. 16:5).

“What tomorrow’s cross I never seek to find. My Father says, ‘Leave that to Me, and keep a quiet mind’. (Anonymous)