Tag: quiddity

Posted in Living this Life

Lightning

Posted on by Sara

How do you capture lightning in a bottle? And yet here I am trying to do that with something more fragile – elusive words that seem to hold little of the substance filling my soul right now.

Sometimes life is like that … bringing you moments that weigh so much, and as soon as you try to grab ahold of it, you find the moment has passed and you’re left grasping for words.

But in essence, it never slips away. The impacts linger and the ripple effects can go through generations.

Lightning in a bottle.

The story starts 30 years ago. As a sophomore at Wheaton College – with my major sorted out and my plans in place – I spent a summer in Amsterdam, and encountered God in a whole new way.

I knew I would never be the same … I had seen and tasted a life spent communicating the beauty of walking with Jesus to those who were seeking… and I knew this was what God had created me for. I couldn’t go back to the person I had been just a month before, and somehow my major and plans didn’t make much sense anymore… when I returned to campus that fall, I felt a bit lost in it all.

“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed” Deuteronomy 31:8

Do you believe the promises in Scripture, my friend? Do you believe that they hold the power of life or death? Sometimes a moment in time shows you how undeniably real these promises are…

But I get ahead of myself.

That year … returning to school and feeling a bit lost … I wandered into a class on C.S. Lewis. I thought it might be an interesting way to earn a few credits. That was the year I walked into Dr. Jerry Root’s classroom – and this part of my story begins.

  • I learned about the “F” ring of Saturn – and that it happens to be braided! I have never lost the wonder of that fact … and I have never stopped wanting to learn more about my God who scatters the stars in the universe, braids the rings around planets, and calls me by name.
  • I heard stories – stories of vulnerable intersections of humanity. Stories of relentlessly holding the Hope of Jesus out to all – boldly and selflessly. And the moments that may have felt like failures are the ones I carried with me all these years, because I learned that there is no “perfect” or “right” formula –  that I’m just one beggar showing another where to find Bread. I needed these stories … and I still do.
  • I learned to love the world  captured inside of a book. Not just to read it for information, but to enter into the wonder of what that particular book held for me. And to read it again and again simply to live in that world for another minute of time. My imagination was validated and enriched – and it has widened the borders of my world ever since.
  • I learned to wander through life with a sense of wonder, seeking God’s grandeur in the simple and to “look along” the beams of His glory to find His fingerprints in the world all around me.1

How do you capture with words the sum of a new perspective on life? You can only try.

How do you capture lightning in a bottle? You can’t.

But you can stand by with awe as you watch it strike again. Awe – and maybe a few tears.

Last week, after 30 years, Jerry Root walked into my life, again. “But as for God, His way is perfect” (Ps 18:30) We may know that, say it as if we believe it, but sometimes we need lightning to strike the same spot again. And that is what happened last week.

Sometimes life crowds out the wonder. Sometimes we forget to hear the bird singing its worship in the morning and we rush past all the glory blossoming in brilliant red and yellow and purple around us. Sometimes doing things for God stands in the way of us seeing God. Sometimes our hearts grow weary and our spirits grow heavy and the weight of glory becomes more than we can carry well.

So lightning strikes again … and reminds us.

I keep asking myself why my eyes grow wet whenever I think of that week. Jerry Root is a great man – a man who doesn’t brag about being one of the world’s leading experts on C.S. Lewis, rather he simply speaks as a man who walks with God, with conviction and humility. But this is not why my eyes grow misty whenever I look at these pictures.

30 years ago, I walked into a classroom, not knowing my life would be changed.

Last week, he walked into my classroom – the classroom of young Native leaders who I get to spend my time with – and helped me remember. And once again left me changed. Re-stoking longings to see God in clarity and wonder. To listen to His promptings and immerse myself in His story. To pick up those books that I keep putting off. In the beautiful symmetry of time, I got to see other’s hearts awaken to the wonders that impacted me 30 years ago, to see my own children grow excited about learning, to have my 15 year old ask me to take him to the used bookstore in town … When lightning strikes again, we pay attention.

And God has my attention.

I wonder – how is He getting your attention? Where is the lightning striking in your life right now? Pay attention, my friend. Sometimes He speaks in a still, small voice, and sometimes He speaks through the thunder and lightning. (Ex. 19)

Pause for a minute. Lean in and really listen. How is He speaking to you right now? In the silence, in the chaos, in the symmetry, in the lightning – do you hear Him? “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known” (Jeremiah 33:3)

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him…” – (Revelation 3:20)

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1“All of God’s creation becomes a beam to be “looked along” or a sound to be “heard along” or a fragrance to be “smelled along” or a flavor to be “tasted along” or a touch to be “felt along”.  All our senses become partners with the eyes of the heart in perceiving the glory of God through the physical world”  – John Piper

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

River of Delights

Posted on by Sara

Well, I didn’t expect that this morning.

Sitting out on my back porch, writing another boring journal entry of what I am missing, places I am not going … a bit numb of heart and mind, if I’m being honest.

I don’t know if you’re anything like me, but what word would you use to describe your heart during these trying times? Anxious? Confused? Maybe angry or frustrated. Often bored, sometimes detached. Emotional? Definitely. These are usually the richest days of my year. The days we get the live what we were made for – individually and as a family. And here I sit on my back porch, trying to find something to write to capture another week/month filled with laundry, [more] organizing and random home projects, and more meals cooked than ever in my life. Feeling bored and a bit useless. It’s hard not to grieve.

But my Jesus. He finds a way. Here’s how it went.

My journal entry from a few days ago contains these words, “I continue to feel a bit numb these days. I’m spending time with Jesus, meeting with Him each morning, and He sustains me, meets me, gives me precious promises. But I long for life! For that spark that makes me excited for this day…” With nothing to really look forward to, our days can become a monotonous repetition of the day before and we’re all feeling it.

Then these words came along, swung me sideways, and left me on my knees before Almighty God. “He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness” Psalm 107:9

Longing and hungry soul – I can relate to that.
Satisfied? Filled? Not so much.

So what stands in that gap? No one but me. And thus I sank to my knees.

I must confess, when I first read these words, I thought about what He would give me to satisfy my longing – where will You take me? What will You provide to fill this aching?

And the naked truth is – He already has. Read on – “My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” (Ps 84:2). And this – “They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house and You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures… My people shall be satisfied with MY goodness, says the Lord” (Ps 36:8; Jer. 31:14)

Maybe my biggest problem isn’t everything the news cycle screams at me. Maybe my biggest problem is me – where I am looking for satisfaction. Some days we may be doing the right thing, making a difference in the world, being busy for God – but is this where my joy lies? Because when it is all stripped away and I feel so naked, the truth about me is revealed. In this quiet, in this “lack of purpose”, my God is the same. And the river of pleasures He provides hasn’t shifted one little bit.

Spend a few minutes here with me … There was a time in the nation of Israel when they lost everything “normal”. They were taken to the foreign land of Babylon and suddenly their world was upside down. Feels a bit like 2020 right now – only instead of us being taken away to Babylon, it feels like Babylon has moved in and claimed our world. It suddenly seems like we’re living in a foreign land and it’s hard to find your place in it at times.

So those Israelites? They spent their days longing for what they had lost. Pining for the day they would return. In the middle of all this restlessness, God sends them this message: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29:4-7)

foreign land 2foreign land

Do you feel like you’re in exile some days? Like you step out of your house and see a foreign land around you? Come into this place with me – camp here a while and let these truths soak deep into your bones. Right here, in the place – find the beauty.

God has not forgotten us. And He invites us into the beauty with Him. These words from Andrew Peterson have shone a light on the path I walk these days – “Uncertainty is no reason to stop adding to the beauty of the world. We don’t know what’s coming. Write songs anyway. Make pies. Plant gardens. Why? First of all, you might be in Babylon for longer than you think. Second of all, gardens are beautiful. And beauty is one of the best ways to fight the darkness… because the love that lives in beauty lasts forever. It is unshakeable. So step out into the … world and plant whatever garden God has called you to plant. Pull the weeds of injustice and evil. Plant so much beauty that it chokes out the poison.”

Plant so much beauty that it chokes out the poison.

Do you feel like the world is burning down around you? Like you don’t recognize your “normal”anymore? Come, plant a garden with me. I don’t know how yours will look – it may not involve dirt and seeds, but I know it starts with Jesus. Letting Him be enough. Just Jesus.

jesus rescue

It’s the only real soil to plant a garden in. That satisfaction that we get from whatever we find as our identity? The fun and laughter we found in places we used to go? The grieving, the restlessness, the desire for more that we are prone to feel in the absence of the familiar? It’s all starting to feel a bit like what Paul described as a “man beating the air” (1 Co. 9:26)

Can we stop chasing the wind and just let Jesus be enough?

To “place yourself in the way of His allurement” as Jonathan Edwards beautifully describes. To let your breath catch in wonder as you watch the flower slowly open. To find some documentary on creatures on the bottom of the ocean (try The Riot and the Dance: water) and try to wrap your mind around the God who put them there, and then splashed them with color and humor that can hardly be described. To simply think that He created all the wonders of the galaxies, calls each star by name, knows every sparrow in the sky, and yet engraves our names on the palm of His hand. (Is 49:16)

“May we chase your mercies over ragged hills, pursue your song through the sparse and layered lyric of sculpted deserts, marvel at your mystery fixed in the wheeling designs of stars overhead. May we hear it in the coos and calls of owls and small creatures that fidget in the night, trace it in the leaping dance of campfire flames, and sense it in the sweet incense of pine and leafmeal” (Doug McKelvey)

All this quiddity has a purpose beyond pure exultation.  For “all of God’s creation becomes a beam to be “looked along” or a sound to be “heard along” or a fragrance to be “smelled along” or a flavor to be “tasted along” or a touch to be “felt along”.  All our senses become partners with the eyes of the heart in perceiving the glory of God through the physical world” (Piper)

To taste and see that the Lord is good! (Ps 34:18). To let that soak deep into who you are until you are changed “now that you have tasted that the Lord is good!” (1 Peter 2:3) To be strengthened in the safety of this – “Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure… I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. (Ps 16:5; 8)

Oh, be refreshed by this, my friend! Let the dew of His goodness soften all those hard places! “I will be like the dew to Israel…” (Ps 133:3)

“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him” (Ps 62:5)

Or if you prefer Mary Poppins’ theology – “We’re on the brink of an adventure children! Don’t spoil it with too many questions!”

I’m already starting to feel more alive. Just writing these words feels like a jumpstart for my heart. I know it doesn’t solve all the injustices that swirl around us, the screaming headlines that can challenge our peace, the questions that rage. But it’s a place to stand. A place to be. A gift of joy in the midst of the chaos. Stability that can’t be shaken.

Just Jesus.

He is enough.

the path