Tag: Jesus

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

Broken Ground

Posted on by Sara

They dug deep into the dirt that day.

That beautiful pasture with the green grass that runs down into the “holler”.  The field that seems to go on forever now holds a deep red scar of dirt and mud. As I looked at the fresh dirt torn out of the beautiful green field, my eyes filled with tears.

Please don’t be sad for me. These were tears of joy. And that’s the great paradox of it all.

You see, I have waited 15 long years for this day. This day of breaking. The promise was there, the vision never faded. But in the sovereignty of God, the time was not right – until now. But now – oh rejoice with me! Now they are breaking through, turning over dirt, preparing the field.

I’ve seen the plans. I have held the blueprints for what will come. And the building that will rise on that freshly disturbed soil is beautiful. Not just in it’s physical design, but in purpose. And when I think of all that God can do in that place, my heart skips a beat.

I have never been happier to see green grass replaced by rocky piles of red dirt. And I just can’t stop thinking about it.

That morning when they dug into the dirt and my eyes saw visions of a beautiful building? That same morning, my eyes caught sight of a simple verse lying on a page – “You are God’s building” (1 Co 3:9). I caught my breath in wonder, because the meaning is unavoidable. The timing was divine. You don’t need me to spell it out for you – it’s as clear as the sun coming up over the horizon.

I saw before me the green pastures I have carefully manicured in my own life. The plans I had crafted and all the places I have desperately tried to control. I thought of all the times God has dug deep and turned over that soil. Destroying that beautiful green grass and replaced it with a rough scar of red dirt. Some of those scars continue to be fresh and I often wonder why? One can survey a field of unexplained destruction in their life and wonder how a good God can let such things happen.

“What’s that on the ground?” He sings in the background. “It’s what’s left of my heart. Somebody named Jesus broke it to pieces and planted the shards” (Andrew Peterson)

“Even when I call out or cry for help, He shuts out my prayer. He has barred my way with blocks of stone; He has made my paths crooked…” cries the prophet Jeremiah. “So I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.” (Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:8-9;18)

Are you sitting in a ruined field surrounded by destruction today? Does your life look so different from the one you had envisioned? Does your carefully manicured field, those dreams you once held so valuable now lie in ruin around you? My friend, lift up your eyes! There is hope beyond this mess – our shortsighted eyes may not be able to see it yet – but that doesn’t mean the blueprint doesn’t exist. Beyond that broken red scar of turned up soil lies a promise.

The vision for what will be springs up beautiful and bold in my heart, and thus the destruction becomes a sign of hope.

In the middle of these December days, when the darkness comes early and the air brings a chill, what is God turning over in your life? Right here in the middle of Advent, does your heart beat faster at the sound of Hope? Can we find Him in the middle of our mess and start to anticipate the beauty that will rise on the other side rather than just weep for the destruction of our carefully manicured, controlled spaces?

I think about that verse God started my day with – “You are God’s building” What if I just let it all go? Stopped asking why about all the messy places and started just trusting Him in the middle of the mess? What if I allow the Great Architect to dig up all those places in my life that I have clung to so He can build what He designed so many years ago – since the beginning of time? What if?

I remember Jeremiah and his anguish over the loss in his life. In the midst of his darkest days, how does Jeremiah respond? “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,  for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” (Lamentations 3:21-24)

And Andrew Peterson sings on in the background ….

“And they’re coming up green,
And they’re coming in bloom
I can hardly believe this is all coming true.

Just as I am and just as I was
Just as I will be He loves me, He does
He showed me the day that
He shed His own blood.

He loves me, oh He loves me, He does