The Wait and The Works

"Yet I am confident I will see the Lord's goodness while I am here in the land of the living.  Wait patiently for the Lord.  Be brave and courageous.  Yes, wait patiently for the Lord."

Psalm 27:13-14

THE WAIT.

It's been two Thanksgivings, very soon will be two Christmases, and one missed birthday since first seeing her face.  Since hearing her story and picturing her as ours.  A different kind of waiting than the kind that comes after a first ultrasound glimpse of the one your heart will embrace long before they'll ever reach your arms.  But you still embrace.  As you lay your head on the pillow at night, just a staircase away from where you hope she'll one day sleep, you wonder where she lays her head now and what dreams join her there.  Does she dream of a family as we dream of her joining ours?  There is no guarantee in this wait...at least not the kind that means we can count on bringing her home to that bedroom just up the stairs.  The phone call yesterday was a reminder of that.  There are decisions being made this week, entirely out of our control, that will determine whether our arms will ever hold the one our hearts already do.

So what is with the waiting?

With Christmas around the corner, and the Advent season upon us, I've been reminded of another kind of waiting.  The definition of advent is "the coming or arrival of something or someone that is important or worthy of note."  Those who celebrate or recognize this season of Advent do so because it is a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of Christ's birth.  While we can predict the end of our "waiting" by looking for December 25th on our calendar, such was not the case for those who anxiously awaited the promised one who would "release the captives, cause the blind to see and set the oppressed free." (Isaiah 61:1)

400 years is a long time to wait...a long time to wonder whether God has forgotten...

400 years of silence passed between the Old Testament promises & phophecies and the birth of Christ.  Centuries during which God's people waited, longing for their rescue, for what was promised. They lived in the land of promise, but lived a life of slavery as a result of time and again turning their backs on God and refusing to recognize Him as their provider and deliverer. Faltering when they demanded what they wanted, when they wanted it, in the time they deemed best-rather than the right time.  A pattern that began not long after they started their journey as freed slaves from Egypt.

"But the people grew impatient with the long journey, and they began to speak against God and Moses.  'Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in this wilderness?'  they complained.  'There is nothing to eat here and nothing to drink.  And we hate this horrible manna!'"

Numbers 21:4-5

They despised and ignored what had been provided for them as gifts from His hands...to sustain them in the waiting.  The seemingly endless waiting was not something they had counted on or envisioned, so they doubted whether God Himself could be counted on.  Longing for what was not yet fully in view, they made new plans and settled many times for something far less.

"But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to become angry, and rich in unfailing love.  You did not abandon them...in your great mercy you did not abandon them to die in the wilderness.  The pillar of cloud still led them forward by day, and the pillar of fire showed them the way through the night.  You sent your good Spirit to instruct them, and you did not stop giving them manna from heaven or water for their thirst.  For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing.  Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell!"

Nehemiah 9:17, 19-21

The rest of this chapter in Nehemiah narrates the back and forth of a people who became comfortable and arrogant in the blessings provided them by a loving God. Who turned their backs on Him when the living was easy in the land He'd led them to, only to cry out in desperation for His rescue again in their time of trouble that always came after their rebellion.

"But in your great mercy, you did not destroy them completely or abandon them forever.  What a gracious and merciful God you are!"  Nehemiah 9:31

The angels start their whispering

About the One they're welcoming

No one knows what's soon to be

Angels start their whispering

They sing glory

In the highest

Come now our King

We've been

Waiting

Come now our King."

(Come Now Our King~Chris August)

"But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.  God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children."  Galatians 4:4-5

Christmas is a reminder that God makes good on His promises.  God will fulfill His long appointed plans for us.  He is always working for His glory and our good. Even in the silence of waiting. Nothing is wasted in the waiting.

"God's way is perfect.  All the Lord's promises prove true.  He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.  For who is God except the Lord?  Who but our God is a solid rock?  God arms me with strength, and he makes my way perfect."  Psalm 18:30-32

So how do we wait?

THE WORKS.

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  Ephesians 2:10

I may not fully understand in this moment of waiting what it is that God has prepared in advance for our family to do.  I may not know what the working out of the desires He's placed in our hearts will ultimately look like.  Though it's my hope, it may not involve being able to run up a stairway to calm the fears that may come in the night to a girl we long to bring home.

So what do I do with that?  How do I wait well in the silence?

I will choose to place my faith in His promises during the wait.  His promises can be trusted even if what we envisioned doesn't come to pass.

"Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart's desires.  Commit everything you do to the Lord.  Trust him, and he will help you.  He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun.  Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act."  Psalm 37:4-7

I can trust the desires of my heart when they line up with His own.

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you."  James 1:27

What I can't trust is how my humanness attempts to come up with what those desires should look like in the here and now and in the timing I'd prefer.

"In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps."  Proverbs 16:9

I trust His promise that there are things He's prepared in advance for me to do...even when they are not fully in view.  I trust that He cares for me.  I trust that He cares for the one that I long to be a mom to. 

Please, God.  Let me be her mom?

The truth is, apart from Him, I could never be what she needs.  There is nothing in my own resources, strength or abilities that could ever meet her needs like that of her Heavenly Father.

"...in you alone do the orphans find mercy."  Hosea 14:3

I can't share her name here, but I can share the meaning of her name that has become so special to me in this period of waiting.  The name her birth mom gave her means "holy oil".  In Scripture, oil is recognized as a symbol of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has annointed me to bring Good News to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord's favor has come."  Luke 4:18

This very verse is the New Testament fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy in Isaiah 61:1 that those who had rebelled themselves into a life of slavery clung to as they returned to the Lord and waited for hundreds of years through His silence for Him to make good on His promise.  I trust that He has a plan for her future...even if that plan doesn't include her being here with us.  The reality is, we are already a part of that plan, even if she never knows who we are.  Her face, her name and her story have inserted themselves deep into our hearts and though she may never know it, we and others have been praying for her by name for quite some time now.  Though we wait in the silence, our requests on her behalf are being heard.

"There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off."  Proverbs 23:18

"Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we afirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise."  Hebrews 10:23

"This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.  It leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary."  Hebrews 6:19

"...in quietness and trust is your strength...the Lord longs to be gracious to you, he will rise up to show you compassion.  For the Lord is a God of justice.  Blessed are all who wait for him!"

Isaiah 30:15, 18

I am most deceived when I interpret the waiting to mean that God is not good. It is in fact His goodness that sometimes brings us to periods of waiting.  In our waiting we learn that He is all that matters.  That His silence does not mean He is not near and at work.  If 400 years of silence culminated in the birth of Christ and His eventual death and resurrection, our only means of redemption and adoption as his children, can I not wait for one hour...one day...one year...one decade...watching for that same Savior to show up in a miraculous way as we walk this journey of adoption today?  To shatter my perceptioms of what "should be" and open my eyes to what is?  My biggest fear is not that what I want will not come to be.  It is that I might get distracted by what I want and miss what He's already prepared in advance.  I do not want to merely exist in the land of promise, enslaved by my selfish desires, and miss out on the blessing of His provision and presence.

If He chooses to close this door, I will watch in hope for the Lord to shine a light on the path He's already laid.

"But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me...though I have fallen, I will rise.  Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light."  Micah 7:7-8

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.  Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take."  Proverbs 3:5-6

"You light a lamp for me.  The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness."  Psalm 18:19

"The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength."  Isaiah 58:11

"It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."  Lamentations 3:26

So long, Safe!

"Safe?  said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you?  Who said anything about safe?  'Course he isn't safe.  But he's good.  He's the King I tell you."

~C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

~

"For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting, and His faithfulness to all generations."

Psalm 100:5

Most of us could say we are creatures of comfort by nature.  If it contributes to our physical ease and well-being, we are the first in line.  We find safety in what can be carefully thought out and planned, when risks can be managed and collateral damage can be minimized or not exist all together... Maybe I'm fooling myself when I refer to "most of us" as being this way.  Quite honestly, if you took a look at my nuclear family, I am what my spunky grandmother probably would have referred to as a "fuddy-duddy".  I'm not sure what that means or even if it's a real word, but I'm pretty sure I am one.  On the other hand, my husband, Matt actually told me once while careening down a ski slope that if there's no potential of fatality or dismemberment, what you're doing can't really be classified as having fun.  (My descent was more of a cart-wheeling than careening after being talked into the black diamond...in Colorado, people.)  My daughter, Hannah would like to go skydiving for her 18th birthday because I can no longer legally forbid it at that point, and my son, Sam thinks it's "safe" to dive headfirst into a pool as long as there's an adult present to dial 911 if he doesn't resurface.  This is what I have to compete with, folks. 

Below is the story of how God taught me that "safe" is not always "good", and that comfort is not what He calls me to. 

I'll never forget that text.  I remember where I was and what I was doing.  Something about it made me pause and take the time to grasp that it wasn't just a friend making a request, it was God asking our family to step outside our comfort zone and to be open to changing our lives forever.

A week later we met the girl who would move into our home within a month and into our hearts forever.  Our biggest mistake was thinking we were doing this for her.  God did this for her.  He did this for us.  And in the midst of it all, He grew our family in ways we might never have known we needed.  I hope one day Tatyana will share her story here.  For now, I'll share mine...

The last two years have been a lesson in letting go of comfort and predictability and instead embracing the uncomfortable, the at times awkward, even painful, and DEFINITELY the unpredictable.  Of greater importance though, these years have been a divine invitation to step outside what was safe, for what was good.

"When did we start believing God wants to send us to safe places to do easy things?  That playing it safe is safe?  That radical is anything but normal?  Jesus didn't die to keep us safe.  He died to make us dangerous.  Faithfulness is not holding the fort.  It's storming the gates of hell.  The will of God is not an insurance plan.  It's a daring plan.  And the complete surrender of your life to the cause of Christ isn't radical.  It's normal.  It's time to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death."  ~Mark Batterson, All In

I am ALL ABOUT the comfort.  All.  About.  It.  The stillness of the house as I sit alone in my favorite chair with my coffee and watch the world wake up outside my window could probably be classified as one of my favorite moments of each day.  Also of note: I am a FAN of preparedness, quite possibly it's most faithful supporter.  I will not even proceed to the speaker at a drive-thru before all orders for those in the car are received and meticulously cataloged into my brain so I can reiterate them seamlessly to the faceless voice coming through the box.  (You're welcome.)  If my level of preparedness for going through the drive-thru at a fast food restaurant has such lofty standards, just imagine the amount of control and preparation I prefer to employ in situations of even greater consequence!  My comfort level in most situations (Okay, ALL situations.)  is directly proportional to the amount of control I can exert over my surroundings and circumstances.

For anyone who's ever had a house guest, especially one who walks through your door as a relative stranger, you know that comfort may not be the first word that describes your family's actions and interactions in those initial moments and days.  The perfect marriage, the perfect children, the perfect dog, the perfect meals--can all exist for a time, propped up as a facade against the real life backdrop of imperfections, disagreements, frustrations and meals from the frozen aisle at Walmart.  (Because it's soccer season and who has time to be Betty Crocker??  Am I right?!)  In order to maintain our sanity and to not slip into some robotic conformist, Stepford version of ourselves, and because we knew God was calling us all to something deeper, we knew Tatyana could not just be our long-term guest, she had to be part of our family.  If you asked, our kids would probably tell you that there are some benefits to being part of our family, but they'd also tell you there are plenty of boundaries.

So here's the thing about parenting a daughter who comes to you at 16...  I had no idea how to respond to someone who would tell me, in no uncertain terms, that she did what she wanted, when she wanted.  Up till this point, I'd somehow been able to fool myself into believing that I had some modicum of control over the children I'd raised from birth.  The idea that they "belonged" to me simply because we were legally bound together by a piece of paper and a set of genes gave me the false notion that I was somehow in control.  How was I to be a mom to someone who could walk out the door at any point she decided she'd had enough of us?  And still be safe.  That sounded like a dangerous kind of love.  A risky kind of love.  Would God really ask me to give my whole self to her as a mom, even if she never responded as a daughter?  Never recognized or valued the love behind the boundaries and structure?  He would.

So here's the thing about parenting...  No child who enters our sphere of influence ever truly belongs to us.  Nor do the relationships we form with them exist merely for our fulfillment.  Each is a gift, for a blink-of-an-eye moment in time, that God has entrusted to our care.  There are no givens.  There are no guarantees.  Just the directive to love them and lead them in such a way as to point them to a Heavenly Father.  Who just happened to give His whole self to them in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ.  Offering up His life even to those who may never respond as a son or a daughter.  When we choose to step outside of what's comfortable, what's safe--to value the relationships we're given as God honoring opportunities to give up the blindness called self in order to truly see another--we reflect (though imperfectly!) God's own redemptive love for us.

Who could honestly raise their hand and excitedly shout, "Oooh!  Pick me!  Pick me!", when asked to leave their comfort zone?  You certainly wouldn't find me bouncing out of my chair.  It's so much easier to depend on myself, to control the controllable and to avoid the things that require something outside myself.  The things that could wreck me.  If an unrefined metal had a physical being to feel pain, or a soul to ache at a loss, it would not easily choose the refining fire that would burn away the impurities, leaving behind the precious metal of true worth.  It's the same with me.  I can't envision the perfection God is drawing me to.  I just see what I know, what I can predict.  But when I only surround myself with what's comfortable, I forfeit the heights to which God longs to bring me.  No growth happens where I'm comfortable.  Comfort doesn't provide the friction necessary to smooth the rough edges most prone to trip me up.  Comfort allows the growth of pride that so often tempts me to think that somehow I'm doing all right on my own.  The past two years have taught me to be brave enough to at least slip my hand up in hesitant surrender to the One who gave His all for me.  

Here's the best part.  When I've given up control.  When I've made myself available.  When I've said "yes" to His ask.  I'm no longer responsible for the outcome.  It doesn't depend on me.  It depends on Him.  The only thing He really asked of me was my obedience and the willingness to trust that He is good, even when the things He calls us to aren't safe.  The hardest parts of the past two years have come when I mistakenly thought it was up to me.  If I said the right thing, did the right thing, read the right thing...  Only God is in the business of changing hearts.  We are to be about the business of loving in the midst of the muck, the mess and the madness.  To empty ourselves in the loving, knowing He is faithful to fill.  "Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."  1 Corinthians 13:7

"Humbly let go.  Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears.  Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy's fire.  Leave the hand open and be.  Be at peace.  Bend the knee and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks.  This is the fuel for joy's flame.  Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will.  And I can empty.  I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me.  I can empty because I am full of His love.  I can trust." ~Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

Counting His Graces

1.  I've been reminded of what a great partner my husband is.  He is everything that I am not in all the good ways.  Without him I am only half the equation.  I consider our relationship a place of refuge and refueling when we've spent ourselves on the things that matter to God.  I more highly value the "just us" times having been given a deeper understanding of how it makes for a better "them".

2.  I've gotten to watch as Hannah & Sam have given themselves completely to loving Tatyana as a sister.  Never once reserving a part of themselves.  Never once complaining of getting "less" of us.  Not simply enduring, but enjoying her as part of our family.  They've learned that a house is just a house, but a HOME is what we share with others because it's true value comes in it's sharing.

3.  Trials.  Yep.  Trials.  I love Ann Voskamp's quote above and how she refers to trials as the "oxygen for joy's fire".  There have been tears-the kind that wrack your body with sobs you can't control.  There have been late nights, sleepless nights, looong nights.  There have been loud arguments, there has been silence-the kind you tiptoe around because something might break if you don't.  We've been stretched.  She's been stretched.  She ran away.  I ran away.  BUT.  That was all the set-up for the joy to come.  And not just any old run-of-the-mill joy.  The fire of joy.  It's all consuming, it brings tears to your eyes, spilling over because you just can't contain it when you see the goodness of the Lord.  And speaking of...

4.  God allowed me the opportunity to have a front row seat in order to witness the softening of what was once hardened.  From the day we met her, Tatyana has always been this larger than life, center of the action, inquisitive, spirited and dynamic girl.  Those are things easily evident to anyone who's spent even a few minutes with her.  Beyond all that there was a wealth of beauty we'd sometimes catch glimpses of, just waiting to be let loose from deep within a heart that had over the years built a fortress around itself in order to survive.  Only God could have breached those walls.  And when He did, it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.  There is a beauty that goes way beyond skin deep that shines in her eyes now.

"I prayed to the Lord, and He answered me; He freed me from all my fears.  Those who look to Him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces."  Psalm 34:4-5

5.  My faith has been strengthened as I've watched His faithfulness to another as a result of obedience.  He did not call me to something I could do.  He called me to something He could do.

6.  Our family has expanded to include another.  Something we'd have never experienced were it not for God weaving our lives together in a way only He could do.  Our lives are richer today because we can share each other's joys and burdens.

7.  We are more prepared today than we were two years ago for whatever is next.  I know this, I trust this because God does not waste a single opportunity.  Those things that pass through His hand to touch our lives are sent by a loving Father who sees what we do not, who understands what we cannot and who knows what we need before we may even recognize our neediness.  We may not know what's next.  We may not know what it requires.  But we do know that when God is in the growing business, He's not growing us and stretching us to plop us back in our comfy chair. 

So long, Safe!

Holiness, not safety is the end of our calling." ~Lilias Trotter

Happy Birthday, America! Well, sort of anyway...

I guess it all depends on whether you consider the birth of our nation to have occurred in 1765 upon the start of the American Revolution, when the American colonists rejected the authority of the British Parliament to tax them... Or in 1775 at the start of the American Revolutionary War... Orrrr in 1783 at the war's end with the signing of the peace treaty confirming the new nation's complete separation from the British Empire.

July 4, 1776 is actually a date tucked amidst all that upheaval and unrest on which the Declaration of Independence was signed by the Continental Congress declaring that the colonies were free and independent states.  So, I guess the argument could be, were we born as a nation when we declared we were?  Or when we actually were?  I digress...I may be losing some of you here.

Since when do you write a blog about history, Johanna?  Let's leave that to the professionals.

Anyway, that's not really the point I'm getting at here.  For the sake of argument (or non-argument?), let's just say today is our nation's birthday.  The birth of our freedom as a people from what once ruled over us.  The commencement of our staking a claim on our unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  I was pondering on this today...In the Declaration of Independence these Rights are stated to have been endowed to us by our Creator.  This begs the assumption that we just possess these things by nature of them being given.  Yet, so much of what consumes our nation's attentions and efforts in recent weeks, months and years reflects more of a grasping for what's fleeting, what's just out of reach.

Life...I mean, that's fairly simple.  We have it.  Well, until we don't.  Liberty...mostly simple.  We have freedom...but in most cases, only so far as that freedom doesn't encroach upon another's freedom.  Now.  The pursuit of Happiness.  That sounds nice.  But fleeting, so temporary.  The idea of having to pursue it, to chase after it, to possibly never catch it.  To not just have been "endowed" with Happiness, only the pursuit of it, lends one to suppose that the Happiness referred to cannot simply be endowed.

One has to find it?..  Make it?..  Take it?.. 

Or maybe those who drafted this Declaration knew it's fatal flaw.  Life for one could be the death of another.  One man's freedom could be another's chains.  One woman's oppression could be another's security.  Ultimately, what brings happiness to one could cast a shadow of sorrow on another.  So they settled on the Right to pursue it, not the promise of attaining it.  I'm no historian.  Just a thinker of thoughts.

Don't misread my intent, I love my Country tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty.  But I am flawed. Our forefathers were flawed.  Their Declaration was flawed.  Our systems are flawed.  We are flawed.  So we pursue, but don't procure.  We grasp, but never gain.  All we can mirror here is but a mere, muddied reflection of what our citizenship elsewhere could be.

"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."  John 8:36

When He declares us free, we are actually free.

"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."  Galatians 5:1

Which leads me here: One Man's chains actually meant my freedom.  Not just a freedom in which mine only reaches as far as yours begins.  But true freedom, one that endows me with eternal Life, Liberates me from being enslaved by my sinful desires, and sets in me a deep, abiding Joy that defies situation and circumstance and makes the pursuit of Happiness pale in comparison.  It's in the security of this freedom that I can choose, if necessary, to lay aside my unalienable Rights as a citizen of this world in order to experience a freedom this nation can only declare, never deliver.

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.  No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.  1 Corinthians 10:23

"But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."  2 Corinthians 3:16-18

May I be more concerned with my response to the One who purchased my ultimate freedom than grasping for the rights and freedoms of this age that I'd gladly lay down in exchange for what was bought with a price no one else could ever pay.

"Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.  For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one."  Romans 12:1-3

Uncomfortable Grace

The last straw probably had to have been the lightning that struck the imposing giant of metal scaffolding that had obscured the front of our house, casting a dark shadow into our torn up dining room for 6 long weeks... 

Check out that curbside appeal! ;)

It had been 3 years, almost to the day, since moving into our beautiful, new home.  While we had built a house before and understood the unforeseen issues that can arise after moving in, nothing had prepared us for the ensuing months and years following our move into our house in Virginia.  What began as seemingly just a small leak, stretched on into the span of 3 full years of our house being in a constant state of repair and construction.  If you know me, you immediately also know that this presents a major problem for me.  When it comes to keeping my house in order and free of clutter, I jokingly refer to myself as having CDO tendencies.  Generally, the same as having OCD when it comes to needing a certain sense of order in my surroundings, but I just prefer to have the letters in alphabetical order.

I might have survived, unscathed, the first flooding of our fully finished basement had it not been for the second flooding of our basement.  And I might have survived, maintaining a certain modicum of grace, one rebuilding of the entire front wall of our house had it not been for the 2nd...and 3rd thru 8th rebuilding of the same wall.  In hindsight, both issues pointed to a relatively simple fix involving proper drainage from our gutters and adequate flashing for a small section of our roof where it met the wall.  However, without the proper attention from someone who understands these kinds of things, relatively simple things can turn into major issues.  Let's just say that when we moved in, our builder moved on.  (Maybe I do still maintain a certain modicum of grace.) ;)

Talk about open air living...this was the night we spent w/ nothing but a sheet of plastic between us & the coyotes, snakes & whatever/whoever else.  I told myself we were camping.

The drama that unfolded around us as our house seemed to rue the day we ever moved in, was only eclipsed by the drama that unfolded from my own heart.  Please, all of you who read my words, offer my husband your deepest sympathies for experiencing the latter of his "for better or worse" promise for most of our 3-year house saga.

My need for order comes from an unhealthy tendency to think that if I can control the inanimate things around me, it will help bring order and control to that which I cannot control, whether it be situations or people.  When my perceived ability to control my surroundings by keeping order in my home was taken away, there were some ugly tendencies revealed in my character.  Worse, it became apparent that I was foolishly placing my trust in and gaining security, albeit a false sense of security, from a source that would never prove trustworthy.

It was late at night on a long drive that it became abundantly clear to me that my focus was all wrong.  A song entitled "Blessings" by Laura Story, that I'd probably heard a few dozen times, was playing on the radio and I was caught off guard by the immediate perspective the simple lyrics gave me:

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

 

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

 'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

I had been asking God to send someone to fix our house, just PLEASE!  Once and for all, fix our house!  Complaining to Him, and anyone else who would listen, about all the things we were having to deal with as a result of the carelessness and lack of concern of someone else.  All the while ignoring His gentle whisper of, "It's YOU I want to fix."  When all was said and done, the house was the easy fix.  The ugliness of the areas needing refining in me had been proving more difficult.

Each time it rained I would run to the areas of the house we were having trouble with, desperate to see exactly where the problem was originating from and hoping to alleviate any further damage that would undoubtedly come from the rain.  I found myself in the most precarious of positions, perched atop the "do not stand or sit" rung of a ladder that was never tall enough to see what I needed to see.  Balanced on the tippy-toes of one foot while the rest of my body clung to our roof line, one arm outstretched with my phone trying to get pictures and video of exactly what was happening...all during a wind and rain storm.  The scaffolding that sat outside our house for weeks on end at a time became my jungle gym as I would carelessly scale up and down it, trying to understand what I couldn't see.  Rain woke me up at night and I couldn't sleep until it stopped.  If I was away from our house and a substantial rain storm came through, I needed to rush home to make sure nothing was leaking.  I hated the rain.  I cursed the rain.  I certainly wasn't thankful for it. 

Who needs a water-tight wall when a towel will suffice?!

Who wouldn't pay for these views!

It's funny what a simple change in perspective can do for our sanity.  God knew I was allowing myself to trust in a false sense of security that would never bring me to a place of complete peace despite my circumstance.  Having my house in order was of least importance when it came to making it a home for my family and a place of refuge or warmth for anyone else who might enter.  God was trying to loosen my grip on what was of least importance in order to allow me to cling to what was of greatest importance.  He needed to get my attention in the area of where I was finding my security.  He knew my security in "things" and having them in order would never help me weather the storms in life that would undoubtedly arise.

The spirit of grumbling that had become a dark cloud over my life dissipated as an attitude of gratefulness took it's place.  It had been tempting for me to view our difficulties as a possible lack of faithfulness on God's part, rather than a sign of His love for me.  I don't know what the future holds for our family.  God does.  He also knows that placing my security in anything other than Himself will not serve me well in any situation.  He loves me enough to address my foolishness amidst times of little consequence, like a leaky house, in order to prepare me to better weather times of greater consequence when they come.  These moments of difficulty were exactly where God wanted me to be.  Not because He was toying with me or had any ill-intent...but quite the opposite.  Only He knows the extent to which I can be focused on what I think is important rather than the big picture of what truly is important.  In His love for me, He allows me to go through difficulty in order to fully develop the character in me that He knows I'll need to fulfill any calling He places on my life.

On the same late-night trip that I finally allowed the meaning in the words of the Laura Story song to take root, I also heard a sermon on the radio given by pastor, author and speaker, Paul David Tripp. His timely words gave me a glimpse of what God had been giving me all along.  "Between the already and the not yet, God will take you where you haven't intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own.  It's called uncomfortable grace."

Given the choice, I would rather ask for the kind of grace that will magically pluck me out of any difficulty and somehow manage to mold me into the woman God intends for me to be, than this sort of "uncomfortable" grace that demands personal refinement.  How short-sighted of me to think that this sort of refining could come without difficulty.  When precious metals are refined, they are done so through fire.  It is the fire itself that removes the impurities that if left alone would devalue the precious metal.  So it is with us.  If we allow God to use our difficulties for His purpose, He can produce in us such a thing of value and beauty that we could never achieve on our own while trying to stick to things that we embrace as familiar, comfortable and safe.  He loves us too much to allow us to settle for a lesser version of our God-designed intended selves.

"So be truly glad.  There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while.  These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.  You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.  The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls."  1 Peter 1:6-8

 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4

If I am going to experience trials, troubles and heartaches as a fact of this fallen life, why not allow the Creator of the universe, the One who sees the end from the beginning, to lovingly assign purpose and worth to those things in order to better equip me for what may come tomorrow?  Not all of the tough and sometimes heart-wrenching things that come my way are directly from His hand, some are a result of my own or others choices. But when those difficult things are placed IN His hands, not a single one is wasted or without a redeeming purpose.

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

When life gives you lemons...let the kids pretend it's a playground. (Kids, don't try this at home.) ;)

Too quickly I forget that God's priority is not to change my circumstances so that I can be happy.  Instead, He desires to change me through my circumstances so that I can be holy.  Becoming more like Him produces in me not just happiness that can come and go depending on what's happening, but an unspeakable joy that is unshaken by mere circumstance.  I want what's easy.  God wants what's best.  

In his book, "Broken-Down House", (ironic?...maybe, ha!) Paul David Tripp states, “The fact that you live in a broken-down house in the midst of restoration makes everything more difficult. It removes the ease and simplicity of life. It requires you to be more thoughtful, more careful. It requires you to listen and see well. It requires you to look out for difficulty and to be aware of danger. It requires you to contemplate and plan. It requires you to do what you don't really want to do and to accept what you find difficult to accept. You want to simply coast, but you can't. Things are broken and they need to be fixed. There is work to do.”  

More important than the restoration happening in the house around me, was the restoration that needed to happen inside of me.  I was allowing my circumstances to produce in me something that was ugly, rather than something of beauty.  I am broken.  I will always be broken until the day Christ returns and restores to wholeness all that was broken when we chose to leave the path of what was truly best, for what seemed best in our own eyes at the time.  Because I am broken, my tendency will always be to want what is easier over what is best.  My prayer though is that when difficulty comes, as it surely will, that I will quickly recognize it as an opportunity for growth and refinement, accepting the grace that my Heavenly Father so lovingly extends, uncomfortable as it may feel in the moment.  

May my "broken-down house" always be progressing toward a thing of beauty that more closely reflects the wealth of grace I've been given.  

Look closely for the house plant placed atop the scaffolding in a moment of obvious insanity.  My attempt at sprucing up the place. :)

The scaffolding became a makeshift aviary of sorts on which birds of a feather would flock together, dive-bombing our windows and making (more of) a mess of our front entryway.  You can see how well my attempt at scaring them away with a rubber snake worked...

"It is beautiful when the Master chisels.  God doesn't allow the unglued moments of our lives to happen so we'll label ourselves and stay stuck.  He allows the unglued moments to make us aware of the chiseling that needs to be done.  So instead of condemning myself with statements like, 'I'm such a mess', I could say, 'Let God chisel.  Let Him work on my hard places so I can leave the dark places of being stuck and come into the light of who he designed me to be.'  God is calling us out-out of darkness, out from those places we thought would never get better, out of being stuck...He knows best how to prepare in us the character we need to fulfill our calling."   

(from Ch. 3 of "Unglued" by Lysa Terkeurst)

“It is a sweet thing that we serve a dissatisfied God who has destinations in mind for us that we would never choose for ourselves. It really is a good thing that he will not be satisfied until he has gotten us exactly where he created us and re-created us to be. Most of us would have been satisfied to stay at home, and many of us would have quit the journey long before it was completed. But our heavenly Father won't give up until each one of his children has completed the journey.” 

(from "A Quest For More: Living For Something Bigger Than You" by Paul David Tripp)

We're all runners...

"Do you not know that in a race all runners run, but only one gets the prize?  Run in such a way as to get the prize."  ~1 Corinthians 9:24

Like any community which knits itself together with the thread of common bonds and shared interests, the running community is no different.  I guess, in part, this is why the news of the bombings at the Boston Marathon tied a stone to my heart that made it sink to my gut.  

 

In a race you can be shoulder to shoulder with a stranger and still feel you're with a friend.  There's an unspoken understanding among you that badges of honor here come in the form of blisters, callouses and missing toenails.  A shared sense that we all run because we need to.  We want to.  We get to.  A mutual foreboding that the coming miles will be painful and horrible, yet instantly and gloriously forgotten the moment your mind and heart drags your body across the finish line.  

I'm angry.  But I don't hate you because you took something I love and tried to smash the simplicity and joy of it to pieces.  I grieve for your soul because it's so dark and twisted with evil.  Unable to strive for something out of love or dedication, you instead seek to destroy the very heart of those who are braver than you.  Stronger than you.  You think your acts of terror make you strong and free.  You think you weaken us and shackle our feet with your fear.  You are wrong.  It is you who are bound by your heart of stone and your caged soul.  

You know nothing of runners.  Though our body may be broken, we run on.  Though logic says "you'll never make it, sit down and quit", we run on.  We've learned the lesson that our body will always reach the point of exhaustion, so we've trained our minds to press on toward our goal.  We run these streets.  You do not.

We are all runners here.  We live life shoulder to shoulder, with those we sometimes share nothing in common with but our desire to endure and to finish well the race set before us.  So let's run!  Run for the freedoms that are despised by those who think terror will cause us to stumble and forget why we run.  Run for the finish that far outweighs the struggles of the moment.  Run because you need to.  You want to.  You get to.

"Do you see what this means-all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on?  It means we'd better get on with it.  Strip down, start running-and never quit!  No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins.  Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in.  Study how he did it.  Because he never lost sight of where he was headed-that exhilarating finish in and with God-he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever.  And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.  When you find yourself flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through.  That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!" 

~Hebrews 12:1-3 (The Message)

"Why do you say, 'My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God'?  Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.  He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." 

~Isaiah 40:27-31

Good Gifts

"Only You are my Lord!  Every good thing I have is a gift from You."  

Psalm 16:2

It was the winter of 2010.  Only about a month before, we had firmly decided that come summer we would make the move to Virginia.  We didn't normally get much snow where we were living at the time in Maryland, but that winter we had a couple big storms, one which brought about 3 feet of snow with it.  With all the inconveniences one could imagine with that amount of snowfall, it was instead the blessing of life slowing down and coming to a halt that stood out for us as a family.

  

(our dog, Butterball, may have considered all the snow more of an inconvenience than we did.)

At the time, we were living in a neighborhood that these days you don't always find.  In the warmer weather, you'd find a bunch of the kids playing a rowdy game of kick-the-can at the end of the court.  Or an impromptu bonfire with whoever happened to be around on a long, lazy summer evening.  Some of our best friends lived just a few houses down from ours and our children spent hours upon hours together between our two houses.  That particular winter, having so much snow and being unable to leave the neighborhood for days, became just another reason to connect with neighbors and enjoy an unhurried pace that usually eluded our day to day busy lives.

The kids played together, sledding down hills and building snow forts.  We had hot chocolate parties in the middle of the day and spent hours playing games together instead of catching up on laundry, running the vacuum or various other mundane tasks that usually eat up so much of the day leaving little room for much else.  No school.  No work.  Just room for relationship.  We couldn't leave to buy food so we would bring what we had and meet in someone's home for dinner.  It was one of these "potlucks" that brought my Mayberry musings to a screeching halt.

Somewhere amidst the laughter around the table, a niggling thought began taking root in my mind.  "Enjoy this now.  This doesn't happen everyday.  This is a once-in-a-lifetime-neighborhood kind of experience...you'll never find this again."  Up till that point, while the idea of a move naturally caused me some anxiety, I had for the most part been able to focus on what we would gain from the new place and not what we would lose leaving the old.  In that moment I resolved to hold close those memories being made, assuming that no matter what good things came our way, we would quite possibly never have the blessing again of what our neighbors had become to us.  While I believed God had and would again richly bless us in friendship, I didn't even think to ask for friends that were just a doorway or two away.  That would just be too much to ask...

Wouldn't it?

(One of my most favorite pictures of our son and his neighborhood friend that captures the precious treasure our families felt we had in each other)

After our move I determined to not cling to the expectation that God would meet my need for friends in the ways He had before.  I wanted to let go and trust my Creator to be...well, creative. :) (If home is where the heart is...when will my heart realize my body has already moved?)  I began to look for opportunities to make myself available to the ways in which He might work.  Feeling like I had lost part of my identity in the move,  (Knickers and Knowing Who I Am)  I began to pursue things that I wouldn't mind being defined by here, in the new place.

I've always run.  I've just never been known as "The Runner".  In fact, back in high school, once my younger (and faster) sister was old enough to run on the same cross-country team that I ran on, and began beating me...soundly, I gave up cross-country for soccer.  "If you can't beat 'em, leave 'em."...Isn't that how the saying goes? ;)  Anyway, about 7 or 8 months after moving to Virginia and feeling like we had settled into most things as far as routine and daily life go, I decided "The Runner" was something I should add to my meager list of remaining identifying characteristics.  Not usually one to do something half-way once committed, I signed up and began training for a half-marathon and a 10 mile race.

  

On a whim, and at the suggestion of my dentist (Go figure...but hey, at that point my dentist was probably one of the few people who knew me "well" in our new town.  Ha!),  I signed up for a second half-marathon that is run each year locally just minutes from our house.  Rather than plugging my ears and blocking out the world as usual with my headphones, I decided to run with only the soundtrack of my feet on the pavement and the runners around me.  Somewhere around mile marker 4, God gave me a friend. :)  As we chatted about the mundane and found some things in common, 6 miles vanished under my feet.  Before I knew it, we were at mile 10 with only 3.1 miles to go and my body had no recollection of the miles I'd just run, only the conversation I'd enjoyed.  Thankful for the distraction, we both finished the race and exchanged last names so we could find each other on Facebook and maybe get together to run every now and then.

Last month marked a year since that race.  Amanda and I have run together most weekends since, with only a few weeks break as we both recovered from stress fractures...one of the natural consequences of being "The Runner". :)  We've never chatted over a cup of coffee or met for a day of shopping, but the hundreds of miles we've run together over the last year have knit us together all the same.  With each mile, as the distance grew behind us, a friendship grew between us.  I hadn't thought to ask for a friend to run with, but God provided one just the same while showing me that His provision doesn't always come in the ways we expect or are used to.  My desires and perceived needs can change daily depending on how my life is going at any given moment and my surrounding circumstances.  I'm thankful for a Gift Giver who is always aware of my true need.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17

(when we least expect it, God shows up, filling an empty place we may never have even thought to ask Him to fill)

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Writing this blog as a journal of sorts, to chronicle my family's transition to a new place, started out as a way to be able to look back.  I had a sense that the coming months and years would provide many an opportunity for God to show Himself faithful to our family.  I didn't want the years to slip by while growing comfortable in a new place, not taking the time to acknowledge God's hand in the day to day moments that spoke of His constant grace and provision in our lives.

"Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness."  Psalm 115:1

As it would turn out, God used the recounting of His faithfulness to us in order to give our family the very thing we never expected to experience twice...

Our kids had just completed their first year at the new school.  We were a little over a month away from the one year anniversary of our move.  I found myself in that sort of awkward and unscripted transition between feeling welcomed to a new place, and feeling like you belonged.  That period of time where you stop looking to others to welcome you and start looking for someone to welcome.  I'm sure the length of time it takes to make this transition varies for everyone.  I don't suppose there's any particular magic formula, other than just getting to a point where you remember well what it's like to be the "new girl" and desire to be a friendly face to someone else who finds herself in that place.  To be frank, I think I was in the process of relearning to focus on others instead of myself.

"...in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." Philippians 2:3-4

I was checking my email one evening and came across a message from an address I didn't recognize with the subject line, "Your Blog".  Curious, I opened the email and began reading.  "...I thought I would write to say hello and let you know that I stumbled upon your blog..."  As I continued to read I learned that the writer had just moved to Lynchburg with her family 2 weeks before... "I know with blogging, sometimes you wonder if anything you say is being heard or if you're just typing your thoughts into cyber space.  I wanted to let you know that at least for one Friday evening, a year after you typed it, your feelings of first moving here encouraged a new soul to the Lynchburg community."  Beyond just being encouraged myself by her kind words, I had no idea the Good Gift that would come as a result of that email from a complete stranger.

Fifteen months later, Christina is a dear friend...and my NEIGHBOR!!!  Long story short, after exchanging a few emails, our families got together for dinner.  It was then that we learned they had actually been considering buying a house that was just starting to be built in our neighborhood, unaware previously that we in fact lived there as well.  I began a nightly campaign that included sending them pictures of the beautiful sunsets behind the mountains, including messages like, "this could be your view every evening...". :)

I think that out of all Gods abundant provision for us surrounding this move so far, that His gift to us of the Moores has been an example to me of how God desires to bless us beyond what we could ever hope or imagine with Good Gifts tailored not just to meet our specific need for a particular moment, but even our wants at times.

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen."  Ephesians 3:20-21

The Moores have been such a treasured blessing to us.  I've felt spoiled many a time this past summer as I watched their kids and ours running back and forth between our houses, enjoying each others company from the moment they woke up till they were forced back home to their own beds at night.  I'm thankful for the shared burden of a million trips back and forth to school each week. :) Impromptu dinners in the middle of a full week, or the friendly, family rivalry of a quick volleyball game in the backyard as the sun is setting and another day comes to a close, give us an excuse and a reminder to not get so wrapped up in the busyness that surrounds every family these days.  God didn't have to give us dear friends, with the added convenience of having them also be our neighbors, as He had done before.  He certainly had proven up to that point that He was more than capable of providing dear friends everywhere we went, in all manner of ways.  But He chose to.  He is a giver of Good Gifts.  And sometimes I feel as if He simply blesses us for no other reason than to remind us of His tremendous love for us.

"If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!" Matthew 7:11

When I stop to consider this, I am overwhelmed by my Savior who left heaven in order to come close to His children, extending the Good Gift of salvation to all who would accept it, so that we could be His "neighbors" one day.  May this serve as a reminder to me, when I think I know what I need, or selfishly beg for what I want, that it is my Father in heaven that sees the end from the beginning and has treasures in store that I am often too short sighted to see.

"Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His benefits-...who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."  Psalm 103:2,5

"For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless.  Lord Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in You." Psalm 84:11-12
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