Tag: peace

Posted in Living this Life

what’s hiding in the back of your cupboards?

Posted on by Sara

When I was in college, I worked at a thrift store in the afternoons for a little bit of spending money – and I never knew what I was going to bring home with me most days. This little sandwich griller found it’s way into my apartment 25 years ago from that thrift store … and my college roommates and I still laugh at all the “creations” I would make for us with this.

It followed me to Mn, AZ, and now continues to live in the back of my kitchen cupboard in Arkansas. I often forget about it, and only use it about twice a year because let’s be real, I can’t handle the stress of wondering when it’s going to blow up on me any more often than that. Today my son asked for a sandwich on it – and as I remembered using this all those years ago in my little college apartment, I thought of all the friendships and laughter that have been a part of my life – along with this this ancient little griller.

Sometimes we need to lift our eyes beyond today and the swirling anxiety that can fog our vision and trace the faithful hand of God in all the little places… those “insignificant” days that lay out in a long strand of pearls – a gift from our Creator.

“Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He; I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:3-4

Posted in Living this Life

The God who thought up noses…

Posted on by Sara

I don’t know if it’s happened to you, but sometimes something as simple as a word can come to you and turn your whole life upside down.

Or maybe it makes everything somehow more “right”.

It’s the moment you discover that the strange ache you’ve carried with you all your life has a word, and that word somehow gives it context, and allows you to breathe in a fresh way.

It was 1996, I believe. I was sitting in Jerry Root’s class at Wheaton College and he said the word. It was used often by Lewis and oozes through his writings – and it describes something I had innately sensed my whole life, but never had a way to describe it. This started a life long fascination with how to fold this perspective into my daily life.

I know – I’m taking forever to get to it. I feel a little vulnerable here – kind of like that kid on the baseball field who is chasing a butterfly when a fly ball is coming her way.

Quiddity.

Try wrapping your tongue around that one. It’s kinda delicious, dontcha think? Makes a great scrabble word – although I have yet to find an opportunity to use it. And don’t try to google it … there’s not a whole lot out there besides a sterile and boring dictionary definition about the essence of a thing. I’m going to lean on Lewis to explain this a bit better:

…”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.” (Surprised by Joy)

This comes alive every time you stop to admire the beautiful intricacy of a spiderweb – before removing it from the corner of the living room… again. Or tilt your face up as you walk to the car during an unexpected rain storm – letting yourself feel the cool wetness running down your cheeks. When the option is hide your face while you get wet or throw out your arms and glory in it, what will you do?

Every time a firefly makes you catch your breath with wonder. (I mean, it’s a bug… with a toosh… that glows! Come on!!) This would also be an good time to take a little rabbit trail and listen to the song “Fireflies” by Owl City. https://youtu.be/psuRGfAaju4

Piper puts it like this: “Lewis gave me an intense sense of the “realness” of things. The preciousness of this is hard to communicate. To wake up in the morning and be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the sheer being of things (“quiddity” as he calls it). He helped me become alive to life. He helped me see what is there in the world—things that, if we didn’t have, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. He made me more alive to beauty. He put my soul on notice that there are daily wonders that will waken worship if I open my eyes. (Don’t Waste Your Life)

I don’t know what your personal world looks like right now. But I’m guessing it looks different. Some of you are stuck home, getting bored and restless. Some of you are on the front lines, working those long shifts at the hospital, stocking grocery shelves, or trouble- shooting for your employees who need to keep getting paid, perhaps. I know there’s a lot of different feelings. And I know I can’t fix it – and that’s the hardest part of it all. That helpless feeling.

So we do all we can … but when the room gets quiet and the anxiety tries to creep in – the fears about what next week or next month might look like. What the bank account will look like. That haunting loneliness that sets in – the racing thoughts that hit when it’s too quiet around you. What do we do then?

We live this moment fully. That’s really all we have, isn’t it? That cup of coffee – the warm blanket. The sound of your kids laughing – or the sound of your kids fighting. It’s the sound of your kids – let the smile flicker across your face. The rain that won’t stop – watch the way it trickles down the window – wonder at the beauty reflected in that fleeting moment. See if you can find the many layers of grey that pile up in the sky on the gloomiest day of the week. The pile of laundry to fold – again… let the warm smell of clean clothes envelop you. Just for a moment.

Let the adventure wrap itself around you – even if it stays mainly in your living room. Find the fingerprints of God all around you – He’s showing Himself in all the little places, and it’s breathtaking. Let’s curl our toes in the warm mud of this different place we’re all in and find out what God’s up to.

“”We must smell and, as Chesterton said, marvel at the God who thought up noses. Feel the texture-filled world and let sun, wind, and rain wash our faces.”  – Jon Bloom

“Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of Your wings. They feast on the abundance of Your house; You give them to drink from Your river of delights. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light, we see light” Psalm 35:7-10

 

 

Additional reading:

Every Moment Holy – Doug McKelvey

Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life – Tish Harrison Warren

Posted in Living this Life

Rest for the soul

Posted on by Sara

I haven’t written in a while.

Thing is – I’ve been chewing on something for a long time. This is, in fact, my New Year’s post – delivered to you about 3 months late. Because on January 1, 2019, I sat in the quiet of my room, taking stock of my 2018 and peering into a new year.

window

I was worn and bruised. And I needed more Jesus. But His answer wasn’t really what I was expecting.

And here I sit, 3 months later, still trying to digest it and work it into my system. To believe something is one thing – to make it a part of you, something different altogether. So I have been a bit silent.

There’s no way to sugar coat it – I ended last year a bit out of tune. A summer adventuring across this country, seeing God’s glory in a thousand places and watching Him work miracles. Meanwhile, I felt like this mama’s heart couldn’t really absorb it. My boy was in a world of pain – with migraines that we couldn’t seem to stop and all number of challenges stemming from that.

I came home longing for peace. Longing to be restored. And life picked me up and swirled away with me into a sort of busy-ness that withers my soul and leaves me shallow of spirit.

I sought Jesus in brief quiet moments. I found Him in breathtaking beauty – and wonder would beckon. I would ask Him to fill all my moments with His peace. With His glory. But too often I would rush around trying to “fix” it all by myself.

That’s where I found myself as I sat in the quiet of my room that New Year’s Day, I asked Jesus once again to fill my life with peace. To flood my home with wonder. To fix this crazy I had inhabited.

And in the quiet of that place, I felt Him speak to my soul – “what if I don’t?”

What kind of question is that? You are the King of Peace, for crying out loud!

That’s when it hit me. I had been asking for more of Jesus all these months, but looking right past Him at what He offered. I wanted His peace. I wanted Him to “fix” my crazy. But would I be content in all this crazy with just Him?

staring

Is Jesus, just Jesus, truly enough for me?

I know Jesus promises great things to those who trust Him. And I know it is a good thing to rejoice in the healing He brings and the blessings He pours out on us. But what about when life is a mess? And you don’t feel that peace. The loneliness invades your soul until you feel like you can’t breathe. And there don’t seem to be any answers to the hurt you see all around you?

I opened up my Bible last week to these words: “He Himself is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14). Oh how my soul needed that reminder! Because how quickly I forget and fall back into old habits.  Looking for the effects of His peace rather than for Jesus alone to be my peace.

I can identify with Moses, sometimes – Moses, the man who had a tendency to argue with God. Especially on the day that Moses found that instead of an argument on his tongue, all he was left with was a desperate plea. He reminded God of His promises, he asked to understand the ways of His God – and then he simply said “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.” And God’s gentle answer?  “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.” (Exodus 33:15-17)

And I have no more words. Isn’t this what it all boils down to? Knowing God and being known by Him?

girl prayingworship

longroad sitting

Is this the secret that kept Joseph true when he was trapped in a hole in the ground – and later in prison for a crime he didn’t commit?

The promise that kept Abraham faithful when God asked the impossible?

The reality that kept Esther grounded when facing the annihilation of her people?

The key to Noah’s obedience when it seemed ridiculous?

The truth that made the disciples bold and unflinching in the face of death?

Maybe God sees peace differently than we do. When it is embodied in the face of Jesus and not in our circumstances, it takes a very different hold of us. And empowers us in ways we cannot quite comprehend.

come to me drawing

I don’t think Jesus means the kind of rest that comes from our circumstances, but the kind of rest that invades your spirit with His presence.

“He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only.”            ― C.S. Lewis

I was going to end here – but then this truth! The blazing honesty of Spurgeon plunged into my soul. So here – some meat to chew on, for those who want to dive deeper. Let this truth change you and help bring rest to your soul!

“Remember, therefore, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee—it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee—it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that be the instrument—it is Christ’s blood and merits; therefore, look not so much to thy hand with which thou art grasping Christ, as to Christ; look not to thy hope, but to Jesus, the source of thy hope; look not to thy faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of thy faith. We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by “looking unto Jesus.” Keep thine eye simply on Him; let His death, His sufferings, His merits, His glories, His intercession, be fresh upon thy mind; when thou wakest in the morning look to Him; when thou liest down at night look to Him. Oh! let not thy hopes or fears come between thee and Jesus; follow hard after Him, and He will never fail thee” – Charles Spurgeon