Jan 16, 2012 | The Good Word
Hey guys and dolls. Now that the survey’s in, I know that I can pretty much start most of my posts by just saying “Hey gals.” Or, ladies, muchachas…whatever the word of the day is, at any rate, the key finding is that you’re pretty much all female. Basically, if you’re reading this, you’re either female, or you’re related to me.
Or, of course, both.
Now don’t worry. That doesn’t mean I’m going to start talking about all those womanly issues related to our collective ability to conceive and bear children, but I think I’m now much more comfortable talking about the fact that sometimes I fuss at my kids and then think my hormones are probably to blame.
It is what it is.
I’ve been aiming to cater to a more gender-neutral readership, but I think I can safely stop bothering. Dudes, if you’re out there, ya better speak now or forever hold your peace.
Speaking of hormones, I will say I rather had a struggle this week with my own humanness, and that difficult fragility I wrestle which is directly related to mood swings which are directly related to that collective ability to conceive and bear children, aforementioned.
And…heavens, you gals are going to think all my revelations come in the shower… I was praying in the shower and struggling with my own soul’s inconsistency. Just frustrated with the fact that I would rather be more similar to a robot than a human when it comes to my moods.
I want to put on my makeup and my happy face and I want them both to last all day.
All, day, d’ya hear me?!?! All day!
Like this:
But they don’t. And I am disappointed with me when I’ve already fallen short of the happy standard and here it is just after breakfast — I’m just getting in the shower and the day has just started!
Somebody find the happy wagon, I need to get back on!
There in the shower words of wisdom met me and I understood them even a little more:
And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” {2 Cor. 12:9a, NKJV}
I stood, freshly aware of my weakness — absolutely part of the way I was created. Absolutely related to the fall. And it was new to me, somehow, this news flash:
Self-sufficiency will get you frustrated. God-sufficiency will give you life. In Him we have everything we need for life and godliness…
Those words Paul wrote to the Corinthians continue:
“Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” {2 Cor. 12:9b}
That omnipotent Creator of ours knew all this from the start. Planned it in advance.
I am settling for a forced effort at happy, missing the unforced rhythms of thankfulness and grace, and the joy that naturally flows from their music.
The thing I like the least is my own inconsistency. My inability to get it just right. My shifting sand, heart up and down ways, which can laugh at the drop of a hat, cry over spilled milk, raise my voice with nary a second thought.
But this inconsistency, this too, becomes glorious because it brings me to Him. Had I had it all together in the shower Tuesday morning, I probably would’ve been making a mental to-do list for the day or thinking about what was clean and ready in the closet.
But my fluctuating and frustrated heart brought me to His — showed me again my need for God, my need for forgiveness, my daily debt to grace. Graciously paid for by God’s own Son.
Come here, child, I have what you need…
Isn’t that beautiful — the redemption, even of the things I don’t like about me? My non-robot ways — my wishy washy human nature, even this is good.
How would I see my need for Him, without it?
Things have been quiet for a few days here — I’ve gone another round with high impact aims, working in our home. I’ve gone an extra few minutes, sleeping in the morning, for the baby who’s doing better, but still struggling a bit at night. And I’m going a little closer to the throne — hoping to catch a glimpse of the vision He has for this wishy-washy-non-robot gal in this new place, new season.
But as always, more is on the way here.
Thank you — to all of you wonderful gals who’ve taken the survey so far. (It has — quite literally — been all gals.) The results have been priceless and encouraging.
I may be moving in more directions, making some changes around here in the days ahead, but clearly, you are here because you like, among other things, faith-based encouragement and I’m happy because that’s what I like to write about most.
Please know that my metaphorical door is always open for your comments and suggestions and feedback — whether you’d rather leave them in a comment at the bottom of a post, shoot me an email or even snail mail a letter my way.
I might wet my pants if that happened.
And I think you’ll all be glad to know at least one Aussie took the survey — and she said my site was deadly, which is apparently a good thing. {Thanks, friend!}
This non-robot woman is happy to say I’ll be keeping at it — thankful as ever for the sponsor that makes it all possible, grace.
xCC
P.S. There’s still time to take the Coming Out of the Closet survey and I sure would be glad if ya did. It’s fourteen happy questions, skip the ones you don’t like…and it’s really for you, after all.
P.P.S. My friend Tiffany wrote a great post about how aiming at excellent Mommy-ness might distract our hearts from the real goal. Worth clicking over to read it!
Jan 10, 2012 | The Good Word
I‘ve pondered for a while that night in the boat, when the disciples were so afraid of the wind and the waves and Jesus was asleep on a cushion. That was the time they woke Him up, shouting,
“TEACHERRRRR! AHHHHH! DON’T YOU CARE THAT WE’RE GONNA DROWN?!?! ARGHHHH!”
Least it went something like that. Maybe if they were Pirates.
{I imagine that if the disciples were teenagers it would’ve been more like:
“Uh, Rabbi… DUDE! OMG! We are NOT ROTFL back here. OMG! Don’t you, like, care? OMG! HELLLLLP! K THANKS.”
And if Jesus was a present-day teenager He might’ve replied:
“OM-Me. Whatever dudes. Why are you such pansies? Do you have, like, no faith? Fo rizzle. I’ve got this under control. A’ight, waves, chillax. K thanks. Wind, TTFN. See, dudes? Sweet n breezay. “}
Swiftly getting back to the real version…
Jesus’ response to the disciples always seemed a little harsh to me:
“Why are you sissies afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
Okay maybe He skipped the sissies part.
But I’m guessing there were some serious waves, and there was some serious wind, to scare the pants off a group that included some seasoned fishermen.
{By the way this story is in Mark 4, in case you don’t like my version.}
Those brothers were scared. Fo rizzle.
This crazy little thing called life has presented me with some scary possibilities. And, even recently, I’ve just plain been afraid.
Weak-willed and worried — and maybe even losing sleep but I think the baby is mostly to blame for that.
But when I remember the God who hasn’t let me down yet — the One who has always been there, always demonstrated His love — I realize why fear is an amateur response to the scary stuff.
The disciples were right in bringing their concern to Jesus — there is never anything we shouldn’t bring to Him.
But where they were off beat was in questioning Jesus’ care and concern for them because they were experiencing hardship.
We’ve all been promised trials and tribulations. But we’ve also been promised the peace that will carry us through — the walking-through-that-shadowy-valley-with-my-head-held-high, fearless kind of peace that surpasses all understanding.
But when it’s hard, it’s hard not to ask: Don’t you care, God?
That seems like a familiar response in my own heart when the storms are raging with high seas and my little soul-boat feels tossed about.
But His Word reminds me what Paul and Barnabas told the believers in the early church:
“We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:22, NKJV)
And I remember His sovereignty over all:
Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it? (Amos 3:6b, NLT)
The Lord of Heaven’s Armies have sworn this oath: “It will all happen as I have planned. It will all be as I decided.” (Isaiah 14:24)
So how do we rightly respond, when the waves are high, when the ship is tossed, when we are afraid and have no idea how it is all-gonna-be-otay?
Job said, “The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:20, NLT)
Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” (Luke 1:38)
The Key Word that ties it all together? Trust.
Right now, I am remembering these words, holding onto them, savoring them like a quality slice of key lime pie:
“The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble they will never fall, for the LORD holds them by the hand.” {Psalm 37: 23 & 24, NLT}
{Doesn’t that taste good?}
Even when the wind is blowing a hoolie and the waves are crashing over your soul-boat’s bow, the Lord, the Lord — He is faithful, and absolutely worthy of trust.
I am preaching these words to me today — just thought I’d share them with you, too.
xCC
P.S. Have you had a chance to Come Outta the Closet yet? Please won’t you click over to my last post and answer a few brief questions for me? Preez with brown sugar and bacon on top?
Jan 9, 2012 | Uncategorized
Hi there, Blokes and Sheilas. Now seriously. I was just looking at my Google Analytics — the behind the scenes numbers that tell me how many people are visiting this site, how many new visitors, how many returning, native languages, countries of origin, blood type, you know, that sort of thing. And when I looked at the listings for which city I get the most visitors from, I was expecting one of the following:
1) My hometown because I think my Dad reads this website more than anybody else
2) Maybe Edinburgh (Scotland), because it’s a bigger city and I used to live there/have a lot of friends there or…
3) Cape Town — same reason as number 2.
{This was the first time I noticed that you could see top viewers by city on Google Analytics so I was kind of excited to have a look.}
And who, pray tell, topped the list this past month?
I’ll give ya seventeen guesses, and I don’t think you’ll get it.
But go ahead and try.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope that’s not it either.
There was a wee hint at the beginning of the post…
Give up?
Sydney. Mmmhmm, the one down under. Good old Sydney, Australia. The Wonder Pets have been there, but I haven’t yet, sadly. I have… maybe two friends total on the Australian continent at present.
This is perpuzzling to me.
I suppose I assumed a good number of the people who read here do so because they know me personally.
Guess not?
Anyway, thanks to this surprising find, I decided to ask you a wee favor.
Based on the reader to comment ratio, I am pretty certain that a number of you who chillax around here generally don’t pop up and say so much. (Like by leaving a comment, for example.) Which is okay.
But I wondered, if just this once, you’d take a moment to come outta the closet.
I ask with the prettiest of pleases and a cherry on top and criss cross applesauce and anything else you might want to add in. Touch blue make it true.
With hopes that you’ll say yes to that little question above, I created a little survey. With Google’s help.
And hopefully it’s going to show up really nicely below this post. With fourteen glorious questions. Which should be embedded below, so you don’t even have to go anywhere. (Except if you’re reading in a Reader you might need to click over. Preez?)
And just by taking this survey you’ll have a good laugh, feel smarter and drop two dress sizes in six weeks. Okay maybe you’ll just have a good laugh.
I hope.
Seriously, you guys are what it’s about. It would bless me to have a better idea of who you are, and how I can be a blessing to you. So thanks for taking a moment to drop the iron curtain of anonymity.
I promise — you’ll have the curtain back on in seven minutes or less. Unless you’re really wordy. But that’s not my fault. 😉
xCC
Jan 6, 2012 | The Good Word, The Parenthood
I‘m reading wise words about thankfulness
. That 5 x 7 I’ve thought long and hard about, the one that can frame all of life in the best of ways. And in whispers that speak life to my soul, I’m reminded we we enter His courts with Thanksgiving, we walk through those gates with Praise.
How I continually try another route!
My grumpalicious attitude toward all of life told me when the boys were napping I needed to sit still. I picked up One Thousand Gifts , and the words of the third chapter wrapped around my heart, ringing out dirt and disappointment like a soiled sponge, squeezed and rinsed to make room for soaking in goodness and light.
The baby hasn’t been sleeping well. Night after night we take turns shushing and rocking, hoping a little pain medicine will help while a stubborn tooth that borders breaking through. I could set my watch in the day, by his wake-up from each nap, precisely forty-five minutes after I’ve laid him down.
{I’ve heard there’s a sleep transition at the 45 minute mark from a REM cycle to deep sleep or something of that sort…our little Tiger seems to prefer to keep it light.}
He is happier when he gets twice that forty-five amount, so I go in and try my best to settle him for a second round. Sometimes finding success, sometimes sighing and giving up.
In the middle of the moment — me finding peace in a book and the reminder that God is indeed so, so good — he wakes. With a sigh of disappointment I scurry in, hoping to catch him quickly enough with a shush and a return of the pacifier.
He doesn’t resettle, I scoop him up and begin the task of rocking him back and forth in the air, shushing every so often.
I stare out the window because I think if I look him in the eyes it’ll keep him awake.
Suddenly something I wrote weeks ago but haven’t had a chance to type out and post — about being thankful for these moments with this baby as a baby — comes to mind. And all those signs pointing to thankful from that book I’m reading — there, too, I hear the urging, the sweet little angel on my shoulder.
Look again!
As Sherlock Holmes once told Dr. Watson, You see, but you do not observe.
I look down and see the picture, re-framed with thankfulness. Look at those tufts of soft baby hair … he still has hardly any hair! And the way those eyelashes curl! That precious little button nose! And bless his heart, those ears! He is in my arms — peacefully asleep.
After two attempts to put him down which both resulted in his stirring awake, I decided to rethink the matter all together. Is anything in life so pressing that it can’t wait forty-five minutes? And how much longer will he be so small and take a nap in my arms?
I slowly sauntered back into the living room, where I’d been sitting before. Precious bundle, ten-months-along, snoozing happily with his head in the crook of my arm, me returning to my book, just as before.
These were but a few of the powerful words waiting for me:
On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgement and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.*
But how can this be? Isn’t my dirty kitchen floor the sign that I’m an amateur? The scratch on my baby’s nose because I’m not staying on top of keeping his nails trimmed? The Christmas tree still decorated and sitting proudly in the window … these are the things that scream amateur to the world, right?
I read on and the words are familiar because I’ve lived them: The hurry makes us hurt. Hurry always empties a soul. And Ann and I are kindred spirits because more than anything I say yes to this:
I just want time to do my one life well.
And Lord help me to see what that looks like.
Another forty-five minutes go by, slow and peaceful. The baby sleeps in my arms, I quietly turn pages, gently stretch for my pen to underline or make a star in a margin.
He wakes again, complaining because he has gotten so warm, snuggled into my sleeve, but the complaints quickly give way to joy.
The lyrics of an old Green Day song, one popular during my senior year of high school come to mind:
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
And I remember conversations with my best friend about those lyrics — thinking they didn’t just mean ‘I hope you had a great time’ but “I hope you had the time of your life.” Did you have the time? Did you live the time you had?
Ann had said just then, Thanksgiving makes time. And until I saw it in a moment lived well, I still wasn’t sure I believed her.
xCC
{Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts is available on Amazon. I’m only on chapter four and it’s changing my life. It. is. so. good. If you want to fully live this year, I highly recommend getting this book. Practicing His Presence — and finding real joy — is simpler than you think.}
*Evelyn Underhill, quoted in Martin H. Manser, ed., The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations (Louiseville: Westminster, 2001), 270. {via Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, p. 66}
My links to Amazon are affiliate links. But I’m telling the truth. Just so you know.
Jan 3, 2012 | The Good Word
Laugh if you want. I think I was in college when I first realized “elbow grease” wasn’t something you could purchase in the cleaning aisle at your local supermarket. It was one of those expressions that must’ve gone in one ear and out the other for a while.
The only job I ever held in high school was working as a lifeguard at a nearby swimming pool in the summer. Working on my tan, twirling my whistle around my fingers, and keeping an eye on the kids jumping off the diving board didn’t take a whole lot out of me. If I’m honest, when it came time to do the work of scrubbing the toilets or tidying the picnic area, I was lazy.
My elbow grease quotient was really low.
The jobs that followed, working in Media Relations at my university, waitressing at a Chinese Restaurant, sandwiching at a sandwich spot, assisting in the Honors Office as a graduate student, didn’t do much to teach me about elbow grease either. Of course there were occasional moments where more than the minimum was required of me, and I rose to the challenge, but for the most part I was, as they say, pretty good at {barely} gettin’ by.
Perhaps it wasn’t until my studies were {temporarily} finished and I landed a job at a Pawn Shop just off the belt line in North Carolina’s capital that I finally learned a bit about elbow grease and a hard day’s work. Mopping the floor of the storage area where aisles and aisles of things people had pawned were being held and scrubbing the grub off chain saws and old TVs was exactly what I needed to understand the meaning of hard work.
We returned to North Carolina about four months ago, and we’ve been blessed with a lot of gifts since then. Some of those gifts, like my wonderful new crock pot, have been fresh-out-the-box and ready to use. Other gifts have required more of that good ol’ elbow grease.
I mentioned here before that we’ve been blessed with a place to stay on this homecoming. While we save up and look for a place to live closer to the Hubs’ workplace, we’re in my aunt’s house in my hometown. It’s a wonderful home and we are very thankful.
However, this gift does come with a little work. No one lived here for close to four years before we moved in. And I’ve been helping my cousins go through some of their mother’s things, and it turns out she was a bit of a collector. The collections have collected dust. The floors have collected muck. The drawers need un-packing in order to be re-packed and the closets need cleaning out and wiping down before anything can be put back in. We are waging war against bugs.
This is an absolutely wonderful gift to us — and, it is a gift that requires some elbow grease.
I scrubbed the kitchen floor this morning and pondered the gifts God has given me lately, how many of them are fresh-out-the-box, while others have required some work.
And I stopped to consider how much of life this Truth applies to:
A person with the gift of a beautiful voice still spends hours learning and practicing in order to use their gift. A person with the gift of writing still reads and works and practices to hone their craft.
Whether you’re a gifted clothing designer, a jewelry maker or a bread-baker, receiving your gift will rightly mean elbow grease. Practice. Diligence and hard work.
And wait — couldn’t that be so for our salvation?
The gift of God — the finished work of Jesus on the cross, which was set before Him even when He was swaddled and lying in that manger — our bought and paid in full salvation: it is completely a gift we can only but receive with open hands.
And yet, somehow this gift of Grace Amazing also requires elbow grease in its receiving. The call to follow Jesus is a call to come and die, a call to take up the cross.
There is no disciple without discipline.
We could choose to move into this home and leave everything as is — never pack or unpack a box, never clean or sweep or scrub or rearrange — but we wouldn’t really be receiving and enjoying the gift we’ve been given. We wouldn’t truly be living in our gift, we would just be biding our time.
There was this beautiful beach a few miles from our home in Gordon’s Bay. It required a bit of a hike along a steep path to get down to it. It wasn’t an exceptional amount of effort, but we visited once or twice while I was pregnant with Blake and I found it a bit of a strain.
When we arrived at the bottom, overlooking the rocks, the gorgeous craggy cliffs, the raging surf and sparkling sand, I was always thankful I made the effort.
How sad would it be to wait in the car? Sure I’d hear the ocean — but I wouldn’t feel the grains of sand between my toes, the sun warm on my skin, the spray of the surf tickling my face.
Fully entering into the goodness of our gifts requires more from us than waiting in the car.
The Elbow Grease of discipline — the discipline of keeping one’s heart thankful, one’s mind on the matters of the kingdom, one’s feet walking in the ways of Jesus — will ensure that we don’t just see the beach from a distance.
For humble and mustard-seed efforts there are mountain-top rewards. And there is much fruit in the discipline of abiding.
Have you been waiting in the car? Are you receiving the gift of Grace — or any other gift — without exercising the elbow grease necessary for truly receiving it?
Somehow in God’s infinite wisdom, He has given us a gift that costs us nothing and everything.
The choice is ours to unwrap it.
xCC
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