A Letter to My Friend...

I thought of you today, friend. I think of you often.

I wonder at where you are and how life has treated you.

And I regret, my friend. I regret those words I didn't say.

When people ask, "what is your biggest regret in life?" your face pops in my mind and I ache.

And I remember.

I remember how we lived in that small, farming town in the middle of nowhere.

I remember how I was young--we both were. Just young girls in the middle of our high school years.

And I remember how we weren't alike and we didn't talk much. How we passed in the halls at church and we sat in the same Sunday school. But we were different--too different--I thought.

And we were polite and we said hello, and even called each other a 'church friend'--but I stayed within my circle and you in yours.

I remember hearing your story from others--the struggles you were enduring and the fear and anger you were feeling, and the choices you were making.

And I felt that tugging--the one that told me to stand with you and share in your pain. The one from the Holy Spirit that asked me to encourage you and show you His love.

But I didn't. Instead, in my weakness, I turned away, citing our differences and staying in the comfort and safety of my own world.

They say opportunity seldom knocks twice, but when it comes to the ways of the Father, it often does.

I remember feeling that tugging again during that youth conference.

Remember all of us girls, sitting in that hotel room, up long past bedtime, talking of our hopes and dreams? I remember talking of what God was teaching me and I remember you quietly listening.

And then you bared your heart and said you wished you could be good and how you wanted to know God like I did.

And that tug on my heart grew stronger, but I again gave into my weakness, and said you could and quoted a verse but quickly turned to talk to another friend. Scared to invest. Scared to get involved with someone so different than I.

That tugging never went away but I got better at pushing it down. Reasoning that you wouldn't listen to me, that you weren't the kind of influence I wanted to be around, that you might be too far gone.

I ache to think of my selfishness.

And God was patient with me. Giving me opportunity time and time again to go deeper with you. To lift you up. To show you His heart.

And I came close. Do you remember when you came to my house those few hours after church while your parents were gone? I had almost worked up the courage to go beyond the superficial chatter and bare His love for you and share how He had laid you upon my heart.

But I didn't.

I could have. The Lord was working in me. Was opening my eyes to the spiritual realm. Was showing me the Glorious. I was stronger in Him than I had ever been before.

But I still hesitated. Still couldn't quite open myself up enough to let Him use me as He was asking.

And then--maybe because of my stubbornness-- God closed that door. I never saw you again.

I heard, years ago, that you had suffered great loss, were living a hard life, had moved away and no one knew where you had gone.

I pray for you often, my friend. I pray that God is using someone better than I to reach out to you. Someone who is faithfully listening to His tugging and is showing you His never-ending, unfailing, unstoppable love.

And I pray that I am stronger now. I pray that I will unwaveringly heed His voice and reach out, no matter what, to those He is asking me to.

I'm sorry, my friend. I'm sorry for the words I did not say.

I pray that I may see you again, this side of Heaven. And if not, by His grace, may I see you there.

When you've been treading water...

The clean laundry is still in the basket. Still sitting in the hall. Still unfolded. Has been for a week now.

Dinner was bacon and a cookie because, really, who wants to cook for one? And a grocery run is long overdue.

The refrigerator has needed a good scrub down for a month now and there are some olives in the back that expired a year ago.

The list of to-do's never gets shorter and it's overwhelming. This daily life is wearing.

And it's hard.

Hard to watch that husband of mine, kiss our sleeping baby girl goodbye, and leave long before the sun rises.

It's hard to watch him stumble back home 48 hours later, not having eaten or slept in that same amount of time, all the while performing lifesaving operations on the brain, spinal cord, and nervous systems of countless patients who need him.

Hard to watch him fall asleep on the floor while playing with our daughter, knowing that she has only seen him for 15 minutes in the past three days. Hard to know that he'll wake up long before he's rested and do it all again tomorrow.

It's hard dealing with the teething baby who has decided that she now only needs one nap during the day. Hard to feel rested at all when she's up crying each night from the reflux that hurts her little belly.

Hard to look at the stack of bills that need to be paid-- harder to look at the dwindling bank account balance with which to pay them.

Hard to handle the loved one's illness, the spiritual attack on the family member, the friend's broken relationship.

Hard to keep all the commitments, the appointments, the deadlines.

Hard to balance the spiritual, the physical, the relational. The everyday.

It's. Just. Hard.

And each day can feel like such a struggle to stay afloat, to keep the head above water.

The weight of the stress of this world can bear down, until you feel like it would be so much easier to sink to the bottom and let the waters consume. And those waves keep pounding and pounding, wearing you down, and sapping your strength until you can tread no more.

But I am learning that place of helplessness where the soul cries, "I can't do it anymore," is a place of peace.

When utter exhaustion takes hold and my own strength has failed, that is when I find peace.

I have fought the waves and tread hard against the waters, never realizing that the waves are rising to praise, not to destroy.

The seas have lifted up, LORD,

the seas have lifted up their voice;

the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.

Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,

mightier than the breakers of the sea--

the LORD on high is mighty.

Psalm 93:3-4

When I hush my hurried heart, I can clearly see that the daily stress, the life stuff, is all worship. And the waves I fought so hard against are not meant to wear me down, but to press me further into Him.

It is in those times, where my flesh cries to tread--to keep myself afloat in my own strength--that I must relax into the ebb and flow of the waters.

I must rest in the knowledge that my Father, Whose Voice controls the waters, is lifted up in me finding the glorious in the daily trials and praise in the stress.

 

I have learned to kiss the wave that slams me into the Rock of Ages.

-Charles Spurgeon

The Road to Where We Are Now...

She comes from a long line of sinners and saints, that daughter of ours, the one with dimples like her father.

Comes from a long line of teachers, preachers, farmers, soldiers. With roots from all over the globe--Germany, Philippines, England, and more.

Men and women of great character and honor, and some less honorable.

She carries in her veins the bloodline of thinkers, revolutionaries, and pioneers and of those who struggled, labored, and lost.

Her great grandfathers many times over, fought for revolution, for country's independence and for equality for all men.

Her grandmothers of the past labored faithfully alongside their husbands, shoulder to the plough and hands tender towards their children.

Her parent's parents telling others of God's goodness and love.

Her own father bringing healing to the sick and life to the dying.

She comes from good stock...and from bad.

From liars, from the faithless, from cheats and the addicted. From men and women who harbored hate, lust, and selfishness toward their fellow man.

From those who would put self before others and anger before love. From those who would turn on their sons and daughters and walk a selfish road.

And I see her childlike innocence, and I pray--how I pray!--that she will not follow in the tragedies of her ancestors, but will follow in the path of the faithful.

Though I would rather hide the mistakes of the past and bury them under the success of the good--I will tell her the stories of her forefathers and I will pass down the truth of the generations. I will tell her the stories of triumph and of failures.

 I will be honest and she will know where she comes from and who she comes from. And she will see that the past--both good and bad--brings us to where we are now.

And I pray that one day, she will pass down to my grandchildren the regrets and the joys of my life that they might learn from it and see His grace in it all. Then they might know that they can trust what they know of God because they will have seen His goodness to one as frail as I.

 But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught.

You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you.

You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 3:14-15

 

She comes from a long line of sinners and saints--as we all do.

 

And she will know the stories of her people so that she will remember the faithfulness of her Father.



Starstuff

He asked me to come stargaze with him.

That husband of mine, with the glimmer in his eye, tugged on my hand and begged me to watch the skies.

It would only last one more night, he said. Only one more chance for a clear view of heaven releasing the stars to fall where they may.

Stargazing sounds romantic enough in books, but I will admit to being a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to anything that might wake the baby after I've fought tooth-and-nail to get her to sleep.

Begrudgingly, I wrapped my babe in a blanket and slipped my feet into sandals to watch the stars with my space obsessed husband.

With the blanket in the grass behind our apartment building, my head on his strong shoulder, and sleeping child on my chest, we waited for our eyes to adjust to the dark.



The irony that the eye must adjust to the dark to better see the light.


Many of those stars, he told me, are dead and gone, but because it takes so long for light to reach our eyes from space, we can still see their light from the past.

Perseid Meteor Shower

One star shoots across the sky, then disappears as quickly as it appeared.

The baby wakes up. 

He continues to point out constellations and speaks of the galaxies, black holes, and other wonders of the universe--and we are amazed.

I remember that quote from the Cosmos documentary. The beautiful, romantic sentiment, that we are made of starstuff. And it may ring true if you believe that we came from a cosmic explosion.

But we, we cannot fathom how anyone could see the vastness of the universe, the intricacies of the laws of nature, the beauty of the stars and not see the fingerprint of the Creator.

We ponder, under the stars, how the Infinite, in all of His glory, loves us, the finite.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of Him, the son of man that you care for him?

Psalm 8:3-4

I am reminded that we are not made of stardust, but of earth dust. Man-- made of the earth and formed by the very hand of God.

Man, so loved by the Father, that He would bow low to hear the whispered cry, catch the falling tear, and hold the broken hearts of mortals.

And so we stargaze. And I feel small. And I feel loved--for how could I not?-- when the Maker of the skies, the One who rides across heaven with thunder in His hand, writes His love for us in the very existence of the stars.

The Maker who finds joy in creating beauty for our enjoyment, who takes pleasure in our discovery and knowledge of His wonders, and who's love for us, His crowning glory, is so vast that he would descend into our nature.

And one day soon-- with my husband and babe-- I will stargaze again and sing to the heavens:
What glory is this!

When Your Boundries Fall in Pleasant Places...

They say parents of strong willed children usually pray that those same children will grow up to have strong willed children of their own. A pay-back of sorts. A see-what-you-put-us-through opportunity. 

If this is true, God answered my parent's prayers abundantly when our sweet Ellie-girl was born.

I look at her and see the same blue-gray eyes that stare back at me in the mirror each morning; see the same dark brown hair that is forever mistaken as black; the same dramatic flare that I've always been accused of having; the klutzy, uncoordinated movements that I have never seemed to outgrow.



But what terrifies me, as a parent, is seeing the same stubborn, strong-willed attitude. That determination to push the boundaries. The I-can-do-it-myself look in the eye.

Because, Dear Girl, you can't. You simply cannot do it yourself. I have learned...am still learning that--daily.

Yes, I saw you peek back to see if I was watching you reach for the book after I've told you "no" for the thousandth time today. 

Yes, I know you want to grab the kitty's tail even though you have the scratch on your hand to remind you that it's not a good idea.

Yes, I hear you crying at the gate that blocks your entrance to the kitchen and all of its mysterious cupboards.

But I also know something, Little One, that your beautiful, nine-month-old imagination cannot understand yet. Something that life is teaching me.

Those tears that fall? Those cries that well up in your lungs, the uplifted arms to be held when your plan--that determined plan to do it on your own--fails? 

It won't be the last time. It will happen again... and again. 

And that stubborn streak--the one we share?-- will get you into trouble time after time. You will fall. And you will fail. And, oh how my mother's heart aches to think of it, but you will be bruised and it will hurt and you will cry countless tears.

Though it will happen over and over, it may take you awhile to learn. You will hear "no" more times than you can count. You will be scratched and bruised over and over. And if it is not this gate you cry at, it will be another one down the road. 

And then one day, you will realize that those boundary lines and gates aren't all that bad. That there was a reason they exist. And giving up your strong-will for obedience isn't as bad as you thought. 

And so, Child, I will continue to say "no", and put up gates, and set those boundaries, until we both learn that those boundaries fall in pleasant places for us. 

And we will be reminded that we serve a loving Father who hems us in behind and before. A Father who loves us enough to allow us to be bruised and disappointed in our own stubbornness, so that He can brush our tears from our cheeks, cradle us lovingly in His arms and show us the beautiful and perfect plan He has for us.

My Avodah

Avodah.

Avodah is the transliteration of the Hebrew words worship and work. Is there a connection? Is worship work? Can work be worship?

In some verses of Scripture, avodah means work, as in to work in the field or to do common labor:

• Exodus 34:21-- "Moses renewing the covenant with God says, "Six days you shall work (avodah)"
• Psalm 104:23--"Then man goes out to his work (avodah), to his labor until evening."

In other verses, Avodah means worship, as in to worship God:

• Joshua 24:15--"but as for me and my house, we will serve (avodah) the Lord."
• Exodus 8:1-- "This is what the LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship (avodah) me."

"What a powerful image to think that the word for working in the fields is the same that was used for worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The Israelites understood that work could be a way to honor God and neighbor, to serve God and neighbor, and yes, to worship God and serve neighbor. Avodah."

--The Avodah Institute

Taken together, Avodah suggests that our work can be a form or worship where we honor our God and serve our neighbors.

God has given me a passion to write. In my former job as a Worship and Youth Director,  I had plenty of opportunities to put pen to paper and pour my heart out -- it became a sacred time for me.

In the last year since my sweet baby was born, my job title has switched to Mommy, and I haven't had an outlet for these stirrings within me, and frankly, I've missed it.

That is what I hope this blog to be. An sweet offering unto the Lord. A place where my work and worship can be interchangeable.

A place to find the Glorious in the Mundane.

Welcome to my avodah.