This is the fourth year in a row that, together as a family, we've taken time out in November to list things that we're thankful for. I'm so glad that we've started this tradition and a couple months ago, I realized that it meant something special to Zachari as well. She started asking if we were going to decorate the mantle with "our thankful things" again. This girl remembers everrrrrything, but this particular memory she had brought me joy. Maybe it'll be something we all cherish for years to come and who knows, maybe my children will pass it down to their children one day?
We often talked about what we were thankful for while we were eating a meal which is why several of Jonathan's have a food "theme". This list doesn't even touch the tip of the iceberg as far as the millions of things this family can give thanks for. It is, however, a good reflection of where our hearts are right now in this season and for that - well - I'm thankful!
Matt:
Kelli's cooking
small group
coffee in the mornings
Zachari Jane
my best friend Kelli
a good job
Saturday morning with the kiddos
Wednesday AM coffee with the guys
spell check
our church
Zachari:
dates with Mama or Papa
going to the pumpkin patch with my family
letters and packages in the mail!
my family and friends
Papa
COSI
Jonah
pumpkins
pesto pasta on Sunday nights!
Jonathan getting to have swim lessons with Mama
shows and movies
play dates with Maggie and Marion
friends at my school
snowy, sunny days
Halloween
my room
food
my dolls
Corry helping me swim
dinners
LOTS of fruits!
my best friends Marion, Annabelle, Matilda and Haley
brats!
peanut butter and jelly
my preschool teachers
Jonathan:
Mama
trucks
pumpkins
Zachari
Papa
grapes
blueberries
books
pasta
bowls
bubbles
paper
sweet potatoes
markers
pool
sausage
eyes
breakfast
Kelli:
spiritual direction from Deb and Mandy
Central Vineyard
small group
Zachari Jane
Jonathan Francis
the gift of song
the Reids
sex :)
MVNU friends
swimming lessons and our great instructors
Matty Boy!
Monica teaching me how to sew
Kelsie and Kyle Meyers
Sara Kear
Jake
Myca
morning coffee dates with friends
warm, sunny days in November
Zachari and Jonathan's creativity and love for books
Deb Woods and Mandy Shumaker
my Lactation Counselor certification
early, quiet mornings - seeing the sun rise
S-M-E-L-L!
days when the kids listen and play well on their own
Papa working so hard so that I can stay home with J and Z
Showing posts with label God stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God stuff. Show all posts
Monday, December 1, 2014
Monday, September 29, 2014
On turning 33
Another year older. Another year wiser.
Isn't that what they say? Whoever the proverbial they is anyway. Hmph.
When I turned 30 it wasn't a big deal to me like it has been for some of my friends. I wasn't sad to say goodbye to my 20s, I wasn't depressed to be entering my 30s, it was just another day, really. I was thankful for a new decade and as I've continued to settle into this new age, I like it more and more. I like who I am better now than when I was in my 20s, I like who I think I am gonna become.
But this year, August 12th came with some melancholy attached. I realized that by turning 33 I was older than my own mother when she gave birth to me. I was two years older than Palmer when he died and a whopping eight years older than Jenn at the time of her death. I realized that it was at the age of 33 (or so we think) that Jesus Christ have His life for mine. I'm not this much closer to my mid-30s. It all just felt heavy to me and so I started the day in a very pensive, quiet mood.
It was a good day though, for sure. Matty was off (all week, actually!) and together as a family we enjoyed a lovely summer day. Kim babysat for us so we could have an afternoon date, something The Boy had planned. We tried Basil, a super-delicious restaurant in Short North that I fell in love with. The decor/architecture was as wonderful as the cuisine and the company wasn't too shabby either!
The weather was perfect and so we enjoyed walking around to shops before and after lunch for a bit. We stumbled upon this fabulousness outside of a salon and spa, randomly. Being part of Hannah Estabrook's Self Esteem Summer Camp the last several weeks, this sign felt especially poignant to me... and on my birthday no less!
Back at home that night, the fam made me a tasty, summertime meal of barbecue ribs and roasted potatoes, onions and mushrooms all made on the grill. The beautiful salad came from our yard with some store bought extras and it was all so deliciously satisfying!
The day ended at the Upper Arlington Graeter's where everyone had a sweet treat but me. I didn't really care for one, but thought it would be fun to go there anyway! I love my sweet lil fam and I love that I am now 33. Here's to a new year!
Isn't that what they say? Whoever the proverbial they is anyway. Hmph.
When I turned 30 it wasn't a big deal to me like it has been for some of my friends. I wasn't sad to say goodbye to my 20s, I wasn't depressed to be entering my 30s, it was just another day, really. I was thankful for a new decade and as I've continued to settle into this new age, I like it more and more. I like who I am better now than when I was in my 20s, I like who I think I am gonna become.
But this year, August 12th came with some melancholy attached. I realized that by turning 33 I was older than my own mother when she gave birth to me. I was two years older than Palmer when he died and a whopping eight years older than Jenn at the time of her death. I realized that it was at the age of 33 (or so we think) that Jesus Christ have His life for mine. I'm not this much closer to my mid-30s. It all just felt heavy to me and so I started the day in a very pensive, quiet mood.
It was a good day though, for sure. Matty was off (all week, actually!) and together as a family we enjoyed a lovely summer day. Kim babysat for us so we could have an afternoon date, something The Boy had planned. We tried Basil, a super-delicious restaurant in Short North that I fell in love with. The decor/architecture was as wonderful as the cuisine and the company wasn't too shabby either!
The weather was perfect and so we enjoyed walking around to shops before and after lunch for a bit. We stumbled upon this fabulousness outside of a salon and spa, randomly. Being part of Hannah Estabrook's Self Esteem Summer Camp the last several weeks, this sign felt especially poignant to me... and on my birthday no less!
The Boy had quite the surprise up his sleeve for me... A helicopter ride! And what might've been the bigger surprise, is though I am so afraid of heights and never really had a desire to go up in a helicopter and the freaking floor was glass and I could see straight down all the hundreds of miles, I did really well up there! I sat in the front next to the pilot and took in the lovely sights of Fairfield County. I mean, the day couldn't have been more picture perfect for such an excursion. Thank you, Lord!
 |
| I think we look pretty cute as "co-pilots"! |
The day ended at the Upper Arlington Graeter's where everyone had a sweet treat but me. I didn't really care for one, but thought it would be fun to go there anyway! I love my sweet lil fam and I love that I am now 33. Here's to a new year!
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Bittersweet
Oh, Shauna. You are so good to me. Bittersweet is yet another heaping dose of your eloquent, honest, life-giving prose and I love it. Here are some parts that stood out to me and of course there are LOTS. (Emphasis on certain parts is my own doing, not how the text is printed.)
p. 11: Bittersweet is the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul. Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the callouses on our hands. Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity. Bittersweet is courageous, gutsy, earthy.
p. 12: When you haven't yet had your heart really broken, the gospel isn't about death and rebirth. Its about life and more life. Its about hope and possibility and a brighter future. And it is, certainly, about those things... When you life is easy, a lot of the really crucial parts of Christian doctrine and life are nice theories, but you don't really need them. When, however, death of any kind is staring you in the face, all of a sudden rebirth and new life are very, very important to you.
p. 13: ...when life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow.
p. 15: If you try to stand and face the wave, it will smash you into bits, but if you trust the water and let it carry you, there's nothing sweeter.
pp. 17-19: Looking back now I can see that it was more than anything a failure to believe in the story of who God is and what he is doing in this world. Instead of living that story - one of sacrifice and purpose and character - I began to live a much smaller story, and that story was only about me. I wanted an answer, a timeline, and a map... If I'm honest, I prayed the way you order breakfast from a short-order cook: this is what I want. Period. This what I want. Aren't you getting this? I didn't pray for God's will to be done in my life, or, at any rate, I didn't mean it. I prayed to be rescued, not redeemed. I prayed for it to get easier, not that I would be shaped in significant ways. I prayed for the waiting to be over, instead of trying to learn something about patience or anything else for that matter... More awareness of God's presence and action and ability, and less stranglehold on my fear and anxiety. More floating, and less getting tumbled.
p. 36: Feeding people is a way of loving them, in the same way that feeding ourselves is a way of honoring our own createdness and fragility.
When we stop everything else to gather around the table and eat a meal made by someone's hands, we honor our bodies and the God who created them. We honor the world he made and the beauty of creation. And in that moment we acknowledge that even though life is fast and frantic, we're not machines and we do require nourishment, physically and otherwise.
pp. 65-66: Share your life with the people you love, even if it means saving up for a ticket and going without a few things for a while to make it work. There are enough long lonely days of the same old thing, and if you let enough years pass, and if you let the routine steamroll your life, you'll wake up one day, isolated and weary, and wonder what happened to all those old friends. You'll wonder why all you share is Christmas cards, and why life feels lonely and bone-dry. We were made to live connected and close...
So walk across the street, or drive across town, or fly across the country, but don't let really intimate loving friendships become the last item on a long to-do list. Good friendships are life breakfast. You think you're too busy to eat breakfast, but then you find yourself exhausted and cranky halfway through the day, and discover that your attempt to save time totally backfired. In the same way, you can try to go it alone because you don't have time or because your house is too messy to have people over, or because making new friends is like the very worst parts of dating. But halfway through a hard day or a hard week, you'll realize in a flash that you're breathtakingly lonely, and that the Christmas cards aren't much company. Get up, make a phone call, buy a cheap ticket, open your front door.
Because there really is nothing life good friends, life the sounds of their laughter and the tones of their voices and the things they teach us in the quietest, smallest moments.
p. 69: Aaron and I are finding that marriage, and maybe all relationships, are built on the past. That's a good thing, when the past involves honeymoons and great dates and moments of sweetness and partnership. But what we are left with when, increasingly, the past also contains the moments when we hurt each other, the times we stopped listening, the needs we saw and didn't meet, the conversations we walked away from?
p. 79: Sometimes we get so tangled up in our own perceptions of ourselves, what we think we're good at and what we're not, that we lose perspective, seeing only our failures and bad habits. I can give you a top ten list of why its hard to work with me or crazy-making to live with me, and especially in difficult seasons, its almost impossible to remember that feeling of being great at something, or the feeling of being proud of yourself.
pp. 81-83: Part of why I'm seeing it [grace] everywhere now is because I'm just coming around to the realization that I don't really want to need grace. And all of a sudden now I can see that I never have been very comfortable with the idea. I don't really trust that people will show me grace. I don't show it to myself well, and when I'm doing very poorly, I don't show it to anyone else well, either.
--She writes about how a friend of hers keeps asking for prayer for the same situation over and over, but doesn't actually make changes in her life to do something about it. She is frustrated over her terrible decisions and "having" to pray about it. --
...Uh-oh! So in my economy, we earn the right to be prayed for by making all the right decisions? Practically speaking, if we all made the right decisions, we wouldn't generally need prayer, would we? But more than that, who am I? Is it my job to decide who does and who doesn't deserve to be prayed for, based on the tokens they've put into the good-decision-meter? My friend and I are bound together by our common love for Christ and common acceptance of his grace.
It gets even worse, actually. The thing is, she asked for my advice, many years ago, and went against it. This situation wouldn't exist had she taken my advice. So now my small, ugly self doesn't want to pray for her. Something about making one's bed and lying in it. I have her what comes easily to me: advice. She didn't take it, and now she wants something that's harder for me to give: prayer.
That's a grace-less way to live, where everything is an opportunity to achieve or fail. Its exhausting to live like that, where everything's a performance, and you can't trust the people in your life to give you a break or to give you a second chance or to give you what you really are longing for, which is grace.
I don't like the idea that someone can judge me and that I have to depend on their grace. I want to take that power out of their hands. I hate to think about the fact that the people who love me show me the grace for all my faults. I prefer to believe instead that the math works: that there are good things about me and hard things about me, but that they've checked the math and because I'm funny enough, they can let go of how terrible I look most days, or that if I'm interesting enough, the fact that my house is dirty isn't such a big deal. But that kind of math is specifically anti-grace. Grace isn't about netting out on the right side of things.
If arithmetic is numbers, and if algebra is numbers and letters, then grace is numbers, letters, sounds, and tears, feelings and dreams. Grace is smashing the calculator, and using all the broken buttons and pieces to make a mosaic.
Grace isn't about having a second chance; grace is about having so many chances that you could use them through all eternity and never come up empty. Its when you finally realize that the other shoe isn't going to drop, ever. Its the moment you feel as precious and handmade as every star, when you feel, finally, at home for the very first time.
Grace is when you finally stop keeping score and when you realize that God never was, that his game is a different one entirely. Grace is when the silence is so complete that you can hear your own heartbeat, and right within your ribs, God's beating heart too.
I used to think that the ability to turn back time would be the greatest possible gift, so that I could undo all the things I wish I hadn't done. But grace is an ever better gift, because it allows me to do more than just erase; it allows me to become more than I was when I did those things. Its forgiveness without forgetting, which is much sweeter than amnesia.
pp. 114, 116: We slip into believing that it's better to strive for perfection that to accept and offer one another grace. Back once again to grace, the spiritual theme of my year. What I need as a mother is grace. God's grace, that allows me to fail and try again, that allows me to ask for help when I don't have the wisdom or patience I need, that reminds me we're not alone in this, and that God loves my son even more than I do. And grace from other mothers. I need grace and truth-telling and camaraderie from other moms. I need us to tell the truth about how hard it is, and I need us to help each other, instead of hiding behind the pretense and pressure of perfection.
...Let's give each other a break and a little help and some soft places to land.
If you're a mom, what you do is nurture and protect and give grace. You do it all the time, and it's very important, because it reminds is, in daily, tangible ways how God nurtures and protects and gives grace. And maybe today the one who really needs that nurturing and protection and grace is you.
p. 127, 129: I know that most of us are longing for something. I know that longing is part of the deal, part of living in the not-yet-heaven. I know people who are longing to marry, who are longing to be healed from disease, longing for their children to come home, longing for the financial pressure to release. I get that longing is part of how we live...
I'll celebrate with my friends. I'll hold babies, buy baby gifts, ask them what it's like for them and really listen to the answer. I'll do it because it's the right thing to do, and because I can't ask them to mourn with me unless I'm willing to celebrate with them, as deeply painful as it is on some days. And my friends have done it for me, certainly; they stood in my wedding when they wanted to be brides, bought shower gifts when they wanted to be mothers. No one is exempt from the longing, and now, it seems, it's my turn.
...I'll choose to believe that the happiest ending isn't the one you keep longing for, but something you absolutely cannot see from where you are.
p. 150: In my most blind moments, I think that women without children live luxurious, carefree lives, filled with nothing but cosmopolitans, bikinis and well-maintained highlights. I find that the phrase "She's let herself go" fills me with terror and guilt and panic as I look down at my jagged dirty fingernails and overly soft tummy. I am she, certainly. And then I realize that as much as I want my friend Jenny's abs, she wants a baby, and we're all yearning for something.
p. 155-157: Keep in mind that there are a million ways to do a wedding, and that for whatever reason, people feel extraordinarily free to comment on anything they feel is out of the ordinary. Consider this great training if you should one day decide to have children. Advice on cakes and seeing each other before the ceremony is a great warm-up for unsolicited lectures on the ills of epidurals, the importance of delayed vaccinations, and many varied ways you will probably damage and scar your precious new life.
Part of being a married couple means that you create a new identity together, woven from your experiences and histories and lives, and while the whole world is replete with opinions and recommendations, work hard to become your own family, with your own values and traditions, things you always do, things you never do, things that bring you back to why you fell in love in the first place. Dance to your song in the backyard, wear your wedding shoes every anniversary. Carve out your own history together, little by little, month by month, year by year. Because there will be seasons that are as dry as deserts, and the history of your love for one another will be the water you need to bring new life and growth, turning that season from dust to garden once again.
...You will be a bride for one day, but you will, with God's grace and your own very hard work, be a wife to this man every day for the rest of your life. Being a bride is super-fun, but it pales in comparison to the thrill and beauty of being a part [a] truly great partnership... Make your love story one worth telling. Make it one worth living, every day, as long as you both shall live.
p. 11: Bittersweet is the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul. Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the callouses on our hands. Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity. Bittersweet is courageous, gutsy, earthy.
p. 12: When you haven't yet had your heart really broken, the gospel isn't about death and rebirth. Its about life and more life. Its about hope and possibility and a brighter future. And it is, certainly, about those things... When you life is easy, a lot of the really crucial parts of Christian doctrine and life are nice theories, but you don't really need them. When, however, death of any kind is staring you in the face, all of a sudden rebirth and new life are very, very important to you.
p. 13: ...when life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow.
p. 15: If you try to stand and face the wave, it will smash you into bits, but if you trust the water and let it carry you, there's nothing sweeter.
pp. 17-19: Looking back now I can see that it was more than anything a failure to believe in the story of who God is and what he is doing in this world. Instead of living that story - one of sacrifice and purpose and character - I began to live a much smaller story, and that story was only about me. I wanted an answer, a timeline, and a map... If I'm honest, I prayed the way you order breakfast from a short-order cook: this is what I want. Period. This what I want. Aren't you getting this? I didn't pray for God's will to be done in my life, or, at any rate, I didn't mean it. I prayed to be rescued, not redeemed. I prayed for it to get easier, not that I would be shaped in significant ways. I prayed for the waiting to be over, instead of trying to learn something about patience or anything else for that matter... More awareness of God's presence and action and ability, and less stranglehold on my fear and anxiety. More floating, and less getting tumbled.
p. 36: Feeding people is a way of loving them, in the same way that feeding ourselves is a way of honoring our own createdness and fragility.
When we stop everything else to gather around the table and eat a meal made by someone's hands, we honor our bodies and the God who created them. We honor the world he made and the beauty of creation. And in that moment we acknowledge that even though life is fast and frantic, we're not machines and we do require nourishment, physically and otherwise.
pp. 65-66: Share your life with the people you love, even if it means saving up for a ticket and going without a few things for a while to make it work. There are enough long lonely days of the same old thing, and if you let enough years pass, and if you let the routine steamroll your life, you'll wake up one day, isolated and weary, and wonder what happened to all those old friends. You'll wonder why all you share is Christmas cards, and why life feels lonely and bone-dry. We were made to live connected and close...
So walk across the street, or drive across town, or fly across the country, but don't let really intimate loving friendships become the last item on a long to-do list. Good friendships are life breakfast. You think you're too busy to eat breakfast, but then you find yourself exhausted and cranky halfway through the day, and discover that your attempt to save time totally backfired. In the same way, you can try to go it alone because you don't have time or because your house is too messy to have people over, or because making new friends is like the very worst parts of dating. But halfway through a hard day or a hard week, you'll realize in a flash that you're breathtakingly lonely, and that the Christmas cards aren't much company. Get up, make a phone call, buy a cheap ticket, open your front door.
Because there really is nothing life good friends, life the sounds of their laughter and the tones of their voices and the things they teach us in the quietest, smallest moments.
p. 69: Aaron and I are finding that marriage, and maybe all relationships, are built on the past. That's a good thing, when the past involves honeymoons and great dates and moments of sweetness and partnership. But what we are left with when, increasingly, the past also contains the moments when we hurt each other, the times we stopped listening, the needs we saw and didn't meet, the conversations we walked away from?
p. 79: Sometimes we get so tangled up in our own perceptions of ourselves, what we think we're good at and what we're not, that we lose perspective, seeing only our failures and bad habits. I can give you a top ten list of why its hard to work with me or crazy-making to live with me, and especially in difficult seasons, its almost impossible to remember that feeling of being great at something, or the feeling of being proud of yourself.
pp. 81-83: Part of why I'm seeing it [grace] everywhere now is because I'm just coming around to the realization that I don't really want to need grace. And all of a sudden now I can see that I never have been very comfortable with the idea. I don't really trust that people will show me grace. I don't show it to myself well, and when I'm doing very poorly, I don't show it to anyone else well, either.
--She writes about how a friend of hers keeps asking for prayer for the same situation over and over, but doesn't actually make changes in her life to do something about it. She is frustrated over her terrible decisions and "having" to pray about it. --
...Uh-oh! So in my economy, we earn the right to be prayed for by making all the right decisions? Practically speaking, if we all made the right decisions, we wouldn't generally need prayer, would we? But more than that, who am I? Is it my job to decide who does and who doesn't deserve to be prayed for, based on the tokens they've put into the good-decision-meter? My friend and I are bound together by our common love for Christ and common acceptance of his grace.
It gets even worse, actually. The thing is, she asked for my advice, many years ago, and went against it. This situation wouldn't exist had she taken my advice. So now my small, ugly self doesn't want to pray for her. Something about making one's bed and lying in it. I have her what comes easily to me: advice. She didn't take it, and now she wants something that's harder for me to give: prayer.
That's a grace-less way to live, where everything is an opportunity to achieve or fail. Its exhausting to live like that, where everything's a performance, and you can't trust the people in your life to give you a break or to give you a second chance or to give you what you really are longing for, which is grace.
I don't like the idea that someone can judge me and that I have to depend on their grace. I want to take that power out of their hands. I hate to think about the fact that the people who love me show me the grace for all my faults. I prefer to believe instead that the math works: that there are good things about me and hard things about me, but that they've checked the math and because I'm funny enough, they can let go of how terrible I look most days, or that if I'm interesting enough, the fact that my house is dirty isn't such a big deal. But that kind of math is specifically anti-grace. Grace isn't about netting out on the right side of things.
If arithmetic is numbers, and if algebra is numbers and letters, then grace is numbers, letters, sounds, and tears, feelings and dreams. Grace is smashing the calculator, and using all the broken buttons and pieces to make a mosaic.
Grace isn't about having a second chance; grace is about having so many chances that you could use them through all eternity and never come up empty. Its when you finally realize that the other shoe isn't going to drop, ever. Its the moment you feel as precious and handmade as every star, when you feel, finally, at home for the very first time.
Grace is when you finally stop keeping score and when you realize that God never was, that his game is a different one entirely. Grace is when the silence is so complete that you can hear your own heartbeat, and right within your ribs, God's beating heart too.
I used to think that the ability to turn back time would be the greatest possible gift, so that I could undo all the things I wish I hadn't done. But grace is an ever better gift, because it allows me to do more than just erase; it allows me to become more than I was when I did those things. Its forgiveness without forgetting, which is much sweeter than amnesia.
pp. 114, 116: We slip into believing that it's better to strive for perfection that to accept and offer one another grace. Back once again to grace, the spiritual theme of my year. What I need as a mother is grace. God's grace, that allows me to fail and try again, that allows me to ask for help when I don't have the wisdom or patience I need, that reminds me we're not alone in this, and that God loves my son even more than I do. And grace from other mothers. I need grace and truth-telling and camaraderie from other moms. I need us to tell the truth about how hard it is, and I need us to help each other, instead of hiding behind the pretense and pressure of perfection.
...Let's give each other a break and a little help and some soft places to land.
If you're a mom, what you do is nurture and protect and give grace. You do it all the time, and it's very important, because it reminds is, in daily, tangible ways how God nurtures and protects and gives grace. And maybe today the one who really needs that nurturing and protection and grace is you.
p. 127, 129: I know that most of us are longing for something. I know that longing is part of the deal, part of living in the not-yet-heaven. I know people who are longing to marry, who are longing to be healed from disease, longing for their children to come home, longing for the financial pressure to release. I get that longing is part of how we live...
I'll celebrate with my friends. I'll hold babies, buy baby gifts, ask them what it's like for them and really listen to the answer. I'll do it because it's the right thing to do, and because I can't ask them to mourn with me unless I'm willing to celebrate with them, as deeply painful as it is on some days. And my friends have done it for me, certainly; they stood in my wedding when they wanted to be brides, bought shower gifts when they wanted to be mothers. No one is exempt from the longing, and now, it seems, it's my turn.
...I'll choose to believe that the happiest ending isn't the one you keep longing for, but something you absolutely cannot see from where you are.
p. 150: In my most blind moments, I think that women without children live luxurious, carefree lives, filled with nothing but cosmopolitans, bikinis and well-maintained highlights. I find that the phrase "She's let herself go" fills me with terror and guilt and panic as I look down at my jagged dirty fingernails and overly soft tummy. I am she, certainly. And then I realize that as much as I want my friend Jenny's abs, she wants a baby, and we're all yearning for something.
p. 155-157: Keep in mind that there are a million ways to do a wedding, and that for whatever reason, people feel extraordinarily free to comment on anything they feel is out of the ordinary. Consider this great training if you should one day decide to have children. Advice on cakes and seeing each other before the ceremony is a great warm-up for unsolicited lectures on the ills of epidurals, the importance of delayed vaccinations, and many varied ways you will probably damage and scar your precious new life.
Part of being a married couple means that you create a new identity together, woven from your experiences and histories and lives, and while the whole world is replete with opinions and recommendations, work hard to become your own family, with your own values and traditions, things you always do, things you never do, things that bring you back to why you fell in love in the first place. Dance to your song in the backyard, wear your wedding shoes every anniversary. Carve out your own history together, little by little, month by month, year by year. Because there will be seasons that are as dry as deserts, and the history of your love for one another will be the water you need to bring new life and growth, turning that season from dust to garden once again.
...You will be a bride for one day, but you will, with God's grace and your own very hard work, be a wife to this man every day for the rest of your life. Being a bride is super-fun, but it pales in comparison to the thrill and beauty of being a part [a] truly great partnership... Make your love story one worth telling. Make it one worth living, every day, as long as you both shall live.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Bread & Wine
I feel like Shauna Niequist is my friend.
In the last couple of months I've read through two of her (three) books and they've been so easy, enjoyable, so sitting-in-a-friend's-living-room-sharing-a-bottle-of-wine kinds of books. I'm thankful.
LOTS of good stuff in her most recent book, Bread and Wine and again, its one I should probably just buy. For now though, the library copy is doing me well and typing out her nuggets of goodness helps the thoughts stick in my brain a little bit better.
So, without further ado, a bunch of quotes (with my own emphasis added) from my good friend Shauna.
pages 106, 107 & 109: What people are craving isn't perfection. People aren't longing to be impressed; they're longing to feel like they're home. If you create a space full of love and character and creativity and soul, they'll take off their shoes and curl up with gratitude and rest, no matter how small, no matter how undone, no matter how odd... it isn't about perfection and it isn't about performance. You'll miss the richest moments in life - the sacred moments when we feel God's grace and presence through the actual faces and hands of the people we love - if you're too scared or too ashamed to open the door. I know its scary, but throw open the door anyway...
page 176-177: The heart of hospitality is creating space...protecting the fragile bubble of vulnerability and truth and love. Its all too rare that we tell the people we love exactly why we love them - what they bring to our lives, why our lives are richer because they're in it. We do it best, I think, with our nuclear family - most of us tell our children and spouses how much we love them easily and often. But that night... we risked the awkwardness of saying tender, meaningful things out loud in front of everyone, in front of our friends, trusting that those words would travel down to a very deep part of someone we cared about...
Sometimes food is the end and sometimes its a means to an end, and sometimes you don't know which it is until it happens... The food and the table and the laughter helped to create sacred space, a place to give someone the gift of words. That's what the night was about - sacred space and words of love.
page 181: Kids aren't vanity projects and they're not extensions of our own images... He's a person, not a paper doll. And we're his parents, not his marketing team.
page 250: The sacraments are tangible ways to represent intangible ideas: new life becomes something we can feel and smell and see when we baptize in water. The idea of a Savior, of a sacrifice, of body and blood so many centuries ago, fills our senses and invades our present when our fingers break bread and our mouths fill with wine.
We don't experience this connection, this remembering, this intimate memory and celebration of Christ, only at the altar. We experience it, or at least we could, every time we are fed. During that last meal, that last gathering of dear friends and disciples, Jesus was inviting us to gather around a table and remember, in church buildings and outside of them, during the sacrament of Communion and outside of it.
When you offer peace instead of division, when you offer faith instead of fear, when you offer someone a place at your table instead of keeping them out because they're different or messy or wrong somehow, you represent the heart of Christ.
page 251: ...the genius of Communion, of bread and wine, is that bread is the food of the poor and wine the drink of the privileged, and that every time we see those two together, we are reminded of what we share instead of what divides us.
page 252: I believe the bread and wine is for all of us, for every person, an invitation to believe, a hand extended from divine to human. I believe its to be torn and handled, gulped. I believe that we can practice the sacrament of Communion anywhere at all, that a forest clearing can become a church and any one of us a priest as we bless the bread and the wine.
And I believe that Jesus asked for us to remember him during the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine every time, every meal, every day - no matter where we are, who we are, what we've done.
If we only practice remembrance every time we take Communion at church, we miss three opportunities a day to remember. What a travesty! Eugene Peterson says that "to eyes that see, every bush is a burning bush." Yes, that, exactly. To those of us who believe that all of life is sacred, every crumb of bread and sip of wine is a Eucharist, a remembrance, a call to awareness of holiness right where we are.
I want all the holiness of the Eucharist to spill out beyond the church walls, out of the hands of priests and into the regular streets and sidewalks, into the hands of regular, grubby people like you and me, onto our tables, in our kitchens and dining rooms and backyards.
Holiness abounds, should we choose to look for it. The whisper and drumbeat of God's Spirit are all around us, should we choose to listen for them. The building blocks of the most common meal - the bread and the wine - are reminders to us: He's here! God is here, and he's good. Every time we eat, every time we gather, every time the table is filled: He's here. He's here, and he is good.
page 257: I want you to stop running from thing to thing, and to sit down at the table, to offer the people you love something humble and nourishing, like soup and bread, like a story, like a hand holding another hand while you pray. We live in a world that values us for how fast we go, for how much we accomplish, for how much life we can pack into one day. But I'm coming to believe that its in the in-between spaces that our lives change, and that the real beauty lies there.
In the last couple of months I've read through two of her (three) books and they've been so easy, enjoyable, so sitting-in-a-friend's-living-room-sharing-a-bottle-of-wine kinds of books. I'm thankful.
LOTS of good stuff in her most recent book, Bread and Wine and again, its one I should probably just buy. For now though, the library copy is doing me well and typing out her nuggets of goodness helps the thoughts stick in my brain a little bit better.
So, without further ado, a bunch of quotes (with my own emphasis added) from my good friend Shauna.
pages 106, 107 & 109: What people are craving isn't perfection. People aren't longing to be impressed; they're longing to feel like they're home. If you create a space full of love and character and creativity and soul, they'll take off their shoes and curl up with gratitude and rest, no matter how small, no matter how undone, no matter how odd... it isn't about perfection and it isn't about performance. You'll miss the richest moments in life - the sacred moments when we feel God's grace and presence through the actual faces and hands of the people we love - if you're too scared or too ashamed to open the door. I know its scary, but throw open the door anyway...
page 176-177: The heart of hospitality is creating space...protecting the fragile bubble of vulnerability and truth and love. Its all too rare that we tell the people we love exactly why we love them - what they bring to our lives, why our lives are richer because they're in it. We do it best, I think, with our nuclear family - most of us tell our children and spouses how much we love them easily and often. But that night... we risked the awkwardness of saying tender, meaningful things out loud in front of everyone, in front of our friends, trusting that those words would travel down to a very deep part of someone we cared about...
Sometimes food is the end and sometimes its a means to an end, and sometimes you don't know which it is until it happens... The food and the table and the laughter helped to create sacred space, a place to give someone the gift of words. That's what the night was about - sacred space and words of love.
page 181: Kids aren't vanity projects and they're not extensions of our own images... He's a person, not a paper doll. And we're his parents, not his marketing team.
page 250: The sacraments are tangible ways to represent intangible ideas: new life becomes something we can feel and smell and see when we baptize in water. The idea of a Savior, of a sacrifice, of body and blood so many centuries ago, fills our senses and invades our present when our fingers break bread and our mouths fill with wine.
We don't experience this connection, this remembering, this intimate memory and celebration of Christ, only at the altar. We experience it, or at least we could, every time we are fed. During that last meal, that last gathering of dear friends and disciples, Jesus was inviting us to gather around a table and remember, in church buildings and outside of them, during the sacrament of Communion and outside of it.
When you offer peace instead of division, when you offer faith instead of fear, when you offer someone a place at your table instead of keeping them out because they're different or messy or wrong somehow, you represent the heart of Christ.
page 251: ...the genius of Communion, of bread and wine, is that bread is the food of the poor and wine the drink of the privileged, and that every time we see those two together, we are reminded of what we share instead of what divides us.
page 252: I believe the bread and wine is for all of us, for every person, an invitation to believe, a hand extended from divine to human. I believe its to be torn and handled, gulped. I believe that we can practice the sacrament of Communion anywhere at all, that a forest clearing can become a church and any one of us a priest as we bless the bread and the wine.
And I believe that Jesus asked for us to remember him during the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine every time, every meal, every day - no matter where we are, who we are, what we've done.
If we only practice remembrance every time we take Communion at church, we miss three opportunities a day to remember. What a travesty! Eugene Peterson says that "to eyes that see, every bush is a burning bush." Yes, that, exactly. To those of us who believe that all of life is sacred, every crumb of bread and sip of wine is a Eucharist, a remembrance, a call to awareness of holiness right where we are.
I want all the holiness of the Eucharist to spill out beyond the church walls, out of the hands of priests and into the regular streets and sidewalks, into the hands of regular, grubby people like you and me, onto our tables, in our kitchens and dining rooms and backyards.
Holiness abounds, should we choose to look for it. The whisper and drumbeat of God's Spirit are all around us, should we choose to listen for them. The building blocks of the most common meal - the bread and the wine - are reminders to us: He's here! God is here, and he's good. Every time we eat, every time we gather, every time the table is filled: He's here. He's here, and he is good.
page 257: I want you to stop running from thing to thing, and to sit down at the table, to offer the people you love something humble and nourishing, like soup and bread, like a story, like a hand holding another hand while you pray. We live in a world that values us for how fast we go, for how much we accomplish, for how much life we can pack into one day. But I'm coming to believe that its in the in-between spaces that our lives change, and that the real beauty lies there.
Monday, March 17, 2014
More from Cold Tangerines
Cold Tangerines. Its so good. I should've just bought it, but I'm cheap. So I took a pencil to the pages and marked the parts I wanted to remember and now I'm typing them out so I'll remember them even better (in theory, at least). How old school of me!
Pg. 148: I imagine a huge choir, hundreds of voices, and
they’re singing something unquestionably, remarkably beautiful, and if you look
at each person, you can see their intensity, their attention to detail and
precision, their extreme focus on sounds and phrases. And you can see their
love for music and their passion to sing. You could never pick out an
individual voice, out of those several hundred, but that’s not the point. They
are not singing to be heard individually. They are singing for the act itself,
for the love of music and tone and melody. That’s one of the reasons I pray,
for the act itself.
158-160: Shalom is about God, and about the voice and spirit
of God blowing through and permeating all the dark corners that we’ve chopped
off, locked down. Its about believing, and letting belief move you to forgive.
Its about grace, and letting grace propel you into action. Its about the whole
of our lives becoming woven through with the sacred spirit of God, through
friendship and confession, through rest and motion, through marriage and
silence.
Shalom is the act of life lifting up and becoming an act of
worship and celebration, a sacrament, an offering. Its about living in a world
of movie theaters and shoes and highways and websites, and finding those things
to be shot through with the same spirit and divinity and possibility that we
see in ourselves. Its living with purpose and sacrifice and intention, willing
to be held to the highest, narrowest possible standard of goodness, and in the
same breath, finding goodness where most people see nothing but dirt.
I have been surprised to find that I am given more life,
more hope, more moments of buoyancy and redemption, the more I give up. The
more I let go, do without, reduce, the more I feel rich. The more I let people
be who they are, instead of cramming them into what I need from them, the more
surprised I am b their beauty and depth.
Shalom is happening all around us, but it never happens on
its own. The best things never do happen on their own, and shalom is the very
best thing. In the same way that forgiveness never feels natural until after
its done, and hope always feels impossible before we commit to it, in the same
way that taking is easier than giving, and giving is easier than getting up, in
that same way, shalom never happens on its own.
It happens when we do the hardest work, the most secret
struggle, the most demanding truth telling. In those moments of ferocity and
fight, peace is born. Shalom arrives, and everything is new. And when you’ve
tasted it, smelled it, fought for it, labored it into life, you’ll give your
soul to get a little more, and it is always worth it.
Shalom.
178-9: …when you realize that the story of your life could
be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it over and over as a
tragedy, but you choose to call it an epic, that’s when you start to learn what
celebration is. When what you see in front of you is so far outside of what you
dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it
beautiful instead of calling it wrong, that’s celebration.
When you can invest yourself deeply and unremittingly in the
life that surrounds you instead of declaring yourself out of the game once and
for all, because what’s happened to you is too bad, too deep, too ugly for
anyone to expect you to move on from, that’s the good, rich place. That’s the
place where the things that looked for all intents and purposes like curses
start to stand up and shimmer and dance, and you realize with a gasp that they
may have been blessings all along. Or maybe not. Maybe they were curses, in
fact, but the force of your belief and your hope and your desperate love for
life as it is actually unfolding, has brought a blessing from a curse, like
water from a stone, like life from a tomb, like the actual story of God over
and over.
Nothing good comes easily, you have to lose things you thought you loved, give up things you thought you needed. You have to get over yourself, beyond your past, out from under the weight of your future. The good stuff never comes when things are easy. It comes when things are all heavily weighted down like moving trucks. It comes just when you think it never will, like a shimmering Las Vegas rising up out of the dry desert, sparkling and humming with energy, a blessing that rose up out of a bone-dry, dusty curse.
194: "...My life is much quieter now. When you work on a team and you have a boss and projects and deadlines, when you get to the end of something, someone says, "Good job." Or, "Thank you." Or, "Wow, that was smart and helpful." But Henry never looks up at me when I'm changing his diaper and says, "Good move with the wipes, Mom. Very thorough." He doesn't look up at me when I'm trying to get him to go back to sleep in the night and whisper, "Fabulous techniques with the shushing and rocking. You're a genius."
It doesn't matter to Henry one little bit that I can speak French or explicate sentences or cook really good roasted salmon. What matters is that I can be there with him as long as he needs me. What matters to him is that I can play with Froggie, his favorite toy, one more time, one more time, one more time.
All my life I've been multitasking. I'm good at it. I don't want to be braggy, but I'm kind of a champion multitasker, really. And all of a sudden, what's valuable is not the multitasking, but the single task - being with him, only him, doing nothing else.
206-207: ...As we talked about it, I commented that this season, while they're selling their house and getting ready to move, must feel like an interim season. And she stopped for a second and looked at me pointedly. "You know, Shauna," she said, "everything is interim. Every season that I thought was stable and would be just how it was for along time ended up being a preparation or a path to the next thing. When you decide to be on this journey with God, everything is interim." When I got back home, I wrote that phrase on a Post-it and keep it near my computer.
We can dig in, make plans, write in stone, pretend we're not listening, but the voice of God has a way of being heard. It seeps in like smoke or vapor even when we're barred the door against any last-minute changes, and it moves us to different ways of living. It keeps us moving and dancing and watching, and never lets us drop down into a life set on cruise control or a life ruled by remote control. Life with God is a daring dream, full of flashes and last-minute exits and generally all the things we've said we'll never do. And with the surprises comes great hope.
When it comes right down to it, of course, it's always been in the interim. We've always been in the middle space, the not-yet-heaven middle space, the yearning and groaning. We construct elaborate castles of business cards and Pottery Barn catalogs, and craft armor out of skinny jeans and insurance policies and text messages, beating back the sense that we are not enough, that life is not offering us enough, but we are not and it isn't.
All of life is in the interim, and if we're honest and tender with ourselves, if the armor is off and the castle has crumpled, we feel the ache of the meantime. Our permanent records are a mess of marks and offenses, and we are laid bare to the ache of what's coming.
208 - on control: ... I'm learning to just keep moving, keep walking, keep taking teeny tiny steps. And it's in those teeny tiny steps and moments that I become. And actually, who I am. We won't arrive. But we can become. And that's the most hopeful thing I can think of.
218: (Talking about how symbolic it is to be able to make a good, homemade stock from bones. Something dead, bringing forth new life in a sense, a resurrection, redemption. I like her perspective on it and it makes me really want to get into making my own stocks one day!) I like the idea of everything being alive, healthy, brimming with spirit and hope. I wish my life was like that. There are moments of life and beauty, but there are also a lot of bones, skeletons from lives already lived, regrets, broken hearts and promises and relationships. Now on my best days, I take a look at each pile of bones and imagine what it would take to make some soup, to repair and redeem, to make something dead into something full of life and flavor.
Sometimes it takes a phone call, or an apology. Sometimes it takes a new promise, even though I've broken so many in the past. Sometimes telling the truth, sometimes giving up something important, sometimes leaving something long dead. And what you get from that pile of bones is soup - warm, rich, full of life and soul and spirit. You get something beautiful out of the trash, which is the whole point.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Maybe this is what Heaven will be like
I can't get this tune out of my head.
I'm thinking this is what heaven will be like and right now, I'm pretty darn excited about that.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
I've been sitting down for about five minutes. Today has been full and thankfully, its been full of good things and great people, but I'm spent. Blinn is working late, I had to tackle bed time with two kids on my own, the dishes were piled in the sink, there are two loads of laundry waiting on the landing that need to be hauled upstairs, the second floor of this house is every kind of atrocious, but I need to sit. Sara Groves' Jesus, You're Beautiful is playing and its my soft-spoken prayer on this chilly, rainy night.
As I was nursing J this morning and Z was finishing up her meal at the table, this song came on and blessed me immensely. I had never heard it before, but since then, I think I've listend to it five times. Its a lovely, innocent, sweet little tune that I hope to memorize and sing to my Jesus for years to come.
The parts that are italicized are my emphasis - lines that struck me and remind me of what a merciful, loving, compassionate Jesus I have the privilege to know.
Jesus, bright as the morning star
Jesus, how can I tell you
How beautiful you are to me
Jesus, song that the angels sing
Jesus, dearer to my heart
Than anything
Sweeter than springtime
Purer than sunshine
Ever my song will be
Jesus, You're beautiful to me
Jesus, bright as the morning star
Jesus, how can I tell you
How beautiful you are to me
My Jesus, song that the angels sing
Jesus, dearer to my heart
Than anything
Sweeter than spring time
Purer than sunshine
Ever my song will be
Jesus, You're beautiful to me...
Sweeter than springtime
Purer than sunshine
Ever my song will be
Jesus, You're beautiful to me
As I was nursing J this morning and Z was finishing up her meal at the table, this song came on and blessed me immensely. I had never heard it before, but since then, I think I've listend to it five times. Its a lovely, innocent, sweet little tune that I hope to memorize and sing to my Jesus for years to come.
The parts that are italicized are my emphasis - lines that struck me and remind me of what a merciful, loving, compassionate Jesus I have the privilege to know.
Jesus, bright as the morning star
Jesus, how can I tell you
How beautiful you are to me
Jesus, song that the angels sing
Jesus, dearer to my heart
Than anything
Sweeter than springtime
Purer than sunshine
Ever my song will be
Jesus, You're beautiful to me
Jesus, bright as the morning star
Jesus, how can I tell you
How beautiful you are to me
My Jesus, song that the angels sing
Jesus, dearer to my heart
Than anything
Sweeter than spring time
Purer than sunshine
Ever my song will be
Jesus, You're beautiful to me...
Sweeter than springtime
Purer than sunshine
Ever my song will be
Jesus, You're beautiful to me
Sunday, March 17, 2013
I am humbled
James 4:7-10
New Living Translation
"Humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor."
The emphasis was added by me - the part that hit me the most. Its profound: If I am truly remorseful for the way I have treated God or someone else, I should weep. I should feel a sense of loss and grief. Sadness instead of smiles, gloom instead of happiness. This doesn't mean I'll walk around with my head hung low over every mistake I make, but I should truly feel bad about it - especially the ways I act towards God - and repent.
What a swift kick in the pants on this St. Patrick's Day. Thank you God for Your Word.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
The seven week turnaround
Breathe in, breathe out.
Things are better. Much better.
Many people have told me - when Z was a newborn and then again with J - that the first six weeks are often the worst. You can be head over heels in love with your newborn one minute and the next minute, you're wondering WHY you had children in the first place and sort of wishing they were still inside of you.
I get it now.
Maybe I experienced this too with Zachari, but everything seems much more intense now. Perhaps its because I'm now the mama to two and perhaps I'm more sleep deprived this time around. Maybe I'm just older and can't bounce back as quickly. Maybe its because pretty much since Jonathan was a few days old Zachari Jane has been having awwwwwful nights. She throws tantrums at bedtime, in the middle of night, when she wakes up in the morning, at quiet time. She's voicing her opinions left and right these days and friend, it. is. maddening. She hasn't once taken out her issues on Baby Boy and for that I am very thankful. Matt and I though? We're gettin it all! I realize its normal because we've added a new person to her world and she's just three years old, but good Lord!
In the last few days, however, things have turned around. I don't know what it is, maybe we've just gotten through the first rough patch of many? I'm thankful that things are slightly less hairy and a lot more peaceful. Here's to another seven week turnaround and then another and another, all good ones, of course!
Things are better. Much better.
Many people have told me - when Z was a newborn and then again with J - that the first six weeks are often the worst. You can be head over heels in love with your newborn one minute and the next minute, you're wondering WHY you had children in the first place and sort of wishing they were still inside of you.
I get it now.
Maybe I experienced this too with Zachari, but everything seems much more intense now. Perhaps its because I'm now the mama to two and perhaps I'm more sleep deprived this time around. Maybe I'm just older and can't bounce back as quickly. Maybe its because pretty much since Jonathan was a few days old Zachari Jane has been having awwwwwful nights. She throws tantrums at bedtime, in the middle of night, when she wakes up in the morning, at quiet time. She's voicing her opinions left and right these days and friend, it. is. maddening. She hasn't once taken out her issues on Baby Boy and for that I am very thankful. Matt and I though? We're gettin it all! I realize its normal because we've added a new person to her world and she's just three years old, but good Lord!
In the last few days, however, things have turned around. I don't know what it is, maybe we've just gotten through the first rough patch of many? I'm thankful that things are slightly less hairy and a lot more peaceful. Here's to another seven week turnaround and then another and another, all good ones, of course!
Thursday, January 3, 2013
A prayer
God,
You are good.
I am blessed beyond measure.
I am taken care of.
I am full.
Tonight I come to You as the mother of a third child. My sweet baby boy sleeps here on my lap, belly full of my milk, all of his needs have been met. So have mine.
Thank You for the gift of life. I am humbled by all the ways You lavish Your Love upon us. You are good and Your love endures.
You are good.
I am blessed beyond measure.
I am taken care of.
I am full.
Tonight I come to You as the mother of a third child. My sweet baby boy sleeps here on my lap, belly full of my milk, all of his needs have been met. So have mine.
Thank You for the gift of life. I am humbled by all the ways You lavish Your Love upon us. You are good and Your love endures.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Advent message
The message I wrote in most of the cards we sent out this month read something like this:
In this season of Advent may you be filled with excitement, anticipation and joy! As we eagerly await Little One's arrival, we have a renewed sense of hope for the new and beautiful things to come. That same hope to you, friend, and may it take root in your heart and consume you. Blessings for a most happy new year and a Christmas that is merry. With love, The Blinns.
Its simple, yet profound to me. I am again pregnant in the blessed season of Advent and this year more than any other, I'm touched by the significance of how my story is similar to that of Mary's. I'm not carrying the savior of the world, I'm not going to give birth amidst livestock, but I am full of excitement and anticipation for the beautiful gift of life that flutters inside of me. I don't at all think its a coincidence that we've conceived our children when we have and I've been pregnant during the Advent/Christmas season. I'm a little hard-headed at times and perhaps its this third time that's the charm because it makes sense.
In this season of Advent may you be filled with excitement, anticipation and joy! As we eagerly await Little One's arrival, we have a renewed sense of hope for the new and beautiful things to come. That same hope to you, friend, and may it take root in your heart and consume you. Blessings for a most happy new year and a Christmas that is merry. With love, The Blinns.
Its simple, yet profound to me. I am again pregnant in the blessed season of Advent and this year more than any other, I'm touched by the significance of how my story is similar to that of Mary's. I'm not carrying the savior of the world, I'm not going to give birth amidst livestock, but I am full of excitement and anticipation for the beautiful gift of life that flutters inside of me. I don't at all think its a coincidence that we've conceived our children when we have and I've been pregnant during the Advent/Christmas season. I'm a little hard-headed at times and perhaps its this third time that's the charm because it makes sense.
On two different occasions today I heard the story of Mary who traveled the hillside to visit with her cousin Elizabeth who was also pregnant (with John the Baptist). Apparently, when Elizabeth saw Mary approaching her, the baby in her womb leapt with joy because he already know that the baby Mary carried was in fact the Christ King. Elizabeth was first to call Mary the Mother of God and in her characteristic humility and grace Mary says:
 |
| The Visitation |
"My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
Because he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaid;
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
Because he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name;
And his mercy is from generation to generation
on those who fear him.
He has shown might with his arm,
He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has given help to Israel, his servant, mindful of his mercy
Even as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever."
-The Magnificat
Thank you God for Your Word. It's speaking volumes to me this season.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Chill out & love em!
"2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all. 11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love."
Ephesians 4:2-6, 11-16
We discussed this in Bible study tonight and man, is this some heavy and challenging stuff. I was encouraged as I read and at the same time, I felt the swift kick in the pants we all need from time to time. What a mighty, gracious and humbling god I serve. He is good to me - all the time - and loves me without fail. How exciting it'll be to meet him in Heaven and to know fully His plan.
Ephesians 4:2-6, 11-16
We discussed this in Bible study tonight and man, is this some heavy and challenging stuff. I was encouraged as I read and at the same time, I felt the swift kick in the pants we all need from time to time. What a mighty, gracious and humbling god I serve. He is good to me - all the time - and loves me without fail. How exciting it'll be to meet him in Heaven and to know fully His plan.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Do not be anxious for anything
Today we met with the specialist again and for the most part, the visit went wonderfully! As the date of our visit approached, I grew more curious about how LIttle One was progressing and if Dr. Amburgey would suggest weekly or twice-weekly NSTs as she'd originally thought would be necessary at the beginning of the pregnancy. Of course I was leaning towards a whopping NO in response to those inquiries, but only time would tell. And this morning... time did tell.
The thing I need to be mindful of is that Little One is alive, well, growing and looking beautiful. I'm healthy, the pregnancy is moving along well and I continue to be offered the most precious gift of all: to carry a new life to fruition and experience one of God's miracles first hand every single day.
However, there was a little bit of concern in today's scan. Baby is growing well over all, but her or his abdomen area is about eight days behind the rest of the body, for some reason. I don't fully understand how something like this can be, but apparently, it is. Because of this, the docs in the office suggest twice-weekly NSTs and in addition to the every other week biophysical scans, they'll add in another less detailed scan of the babe. Lovely. Exactly what I was hoping we could avoid, but it will be okay. I don't need to worry or stress or break down... but what's sad is I already have today.
I'm surprised (and disappointed) by how easily my faith in the Father has been shaken today. In almost an instant, the confidence and joy that I walked into the sonogram room with flew out the window at the tiniest hiccup in what I thought was the perfect plan. For months now I've been praying that Jesus would bring this child in His timing and not at the timing of doctors or Pitocin or anything else artificial. I've prayed that Little One would arrive in January and when I first began those prayers they were more like pleas. Lately though, they've felt more like speaking Truth over the child in my womb and speaking with confidence from God. So what happened today? Why did I let a doctor's change of plan sway me so easily? Why did my mind automatically shift to negative mode? Perhaps its my history of carrying babies. Perhaps its my human nature. Perhaps I'm weak. I don't know. I don't like it though and so I will continue to pray fervently throughout this day especially and seek first the Kingdom of God, not focusing on the ways of man.
Once I was home from the appointment I sent a text to Holly, Mandy and Kristina with a very brief update and a request for prayers because I was feeling so uneasy. I got encouragement and love right away which was wonderful. But it was Kristina's series of texts quoting Scripture and sharing from her heart that struck a chord and brought on the tears. Messy sobbing. For five whole minutes. And what a release! It was as though I needed to let out the tears so I could receive God's Word and His peace. I'm thankful for it.
Babe had the hiccups during the scan and we got to see him/her swallowing and sticking out their little tongue. Absolutely amazing! Hopefully the two videos below will work.
"Do not be anxious for anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, by thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds by Christ Jesus... Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent ore praiseworthy - think about such things." Philippians 4:6-8
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Hannah's prayer
Today I got to be with our small group, the first time in over a month. It was great. The group was smaller than usual (Blinn wasn't even there), but sometimes I like it that way. We read through the first chapter of first Samuel and while I've heard of it a few times, I don't remember ever reading it through myself. Hannah's prayer has stuck with me and has inspired me. I have a llllllllong way to go before I feel like I could ever pray something like what she did, but maybe some day. I want my children to be servants before the Lord and to do good for and through Him. I want to have a loose grip on them, always remembering that they are first His and mine second, but its so hard. Everything in me LOVES Zachari Jane. Everything in me wants to protect her, get and be the best for her, do all I can for her so that she can have a good, happy and healthy life. But what does all of that get her in the long run? Maybe a healthier picture of family and love? Sure. Maybe I'm setting the foundation for her when she's a wife and mother so that she knows how she'd like to be? Sure. But will I ever be like Hannah, so faithful to God that I am willing to sacrifice my children for the Lord? I fear not, for I am human, but who knows. Whatever the case, I'm thankful to have read through this chapter with our group today and to be able to chew on it as I carry this child throughout the next few months. I was reminded that this child is a gift from the Father. This child did not come to be because my husband and I created him or her, but because God created him or her years and years ago and because He has a purpose for this baby. Hannah named her son Samuel because it meant "Because I asked the Lord for him" (I think). I've liked the name Samuel for a while and its even in the running for Little One, but could I say that I honestly asked the Lord for this child? I took for granted that I've been able to get pregnant easily and I don't think I once asked for this child. I desired another child and I hoped that we'd be able to create another person out of our love, but prayer didn't factor into all of this much. Hmm.
These thoughts are more like ramblings. Oh well. I want to put the passage here so I'll remember. So to close, as we say at CV each week: "Thank you God for Your Word."
These thoughts are more like ramblings. Oh well. I want to put the passage here so I'll remember. So to close, as we say at CV each week: "Thank you God for Your Word."
1 Samuel 1 (NIV)
1 There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite[a] from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. 2 He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none.
3 Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the Lord Almighty at Shiloh,where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord. 4 Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters. 5 But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the Lord had closed her womb. 6 Because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her.7 This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. 8 Her husband Elkanah would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”
9 Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s house. 10 In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. 11 And she made a vow, saying, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”
12 As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. 13 Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk 14 and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”
15 “Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. 16 Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”
17 Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”
18 She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.
19 Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. 20 So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel,[b] saying, “Because I asked the Lord for him.”
Hannah Dedicates Samuel
21 When her husband Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, 22 Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord, and he will live there always.”[c]
23 “Do what seems best to you,” her husband Elkanah told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the Lord make good his[d] word.” So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.
24 After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull,[e]an ephah[f] of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. 25 When the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, 26 and she said to him, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. 27 I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. 28 So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.
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