Feb 21, 2011 | Prayers in Poetry & Prose, Stories, The Good Word
It is another peaceful day in Gordon’s Bay. Wind blowing gentle, sometimes strong. Feeling weak and tired after a little Bear sprang up early like an over-eager alarm clock, I spent much of the morning moving slowly, doing little. High hormones or low blood sugar getting the better of me, at 10:30 I was teary-eyed and promptly sent back to bed by Hero Hubs.
A nap and a read and a lovingly prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwich — the stuff that beautiful days are made of.
A little taste of Pepsi in bed with a Chocolate Chip Cookie Bar, baked by that same wonderful Hubs when I mentioned cookies this morning — love that I can hold in my hands and savour on my tongue.
I am up and the Bear is down for a nap. Ropes clang against masts in the harbour, blinds occasionally clatter with windows in the wind. The wagtails outside remember us sharing crumbs with them weeks ago. One has returned to ask for more and is singing his request in the patio shade. He considers venturing into the dining room through open doors: with seven or eight hops he could be savouring a lonely cheerio a little Bear must’ve dropped from his bowl.
Ann Voskamp’s words find their way across the ocean, to South Africa, to Gordon’s Bay, to my screen, to my heart:
Doesn’t urgency over everything imply that God’s in control of nothing?
My soul continues to learn to rest. To be still and know. To look for the glorious Creator in the bush aflame. In the bird with a song.
Postponement for the best to become possible.
My joy is to smile and to wait.
xCC
Feb 21, 2011 | Stories, The Good Word
{Still no baby action! Perhaps the food and comfort are just too good on the inside!}
See this HH-classic photo right here? It speaks to me.
Not because I feel like I’m standing on one leg balancing a lot of weight, but because I think I sometimes make extra efforts to look at who I am the wrong way, in light of who I think I should be for everybody else’s sake.
Do you remember the scene in Runaway Bride where Julia Roberts’ character {Maggie Carpenter} finally figures out what kind of eggs she likes? In each of her past relationships, she chose to like whichever eggs her boyfriend liked, to become who the person on the other side of the relationship might want her to be. Whether it involved temporary tattoos or sports fanaticism, she was a chameleon in her own right — anybody’s perfect girl, except her own.
After she broke things off with Ike Graham {Richard Gere}, she spent some time figuring herself out and realised she only liked Eggs Benedict. She hated any other kind of eggs. She realised that she hated big weddings with everyone staring, and that when she rode off into the sunset on her wedding day, she wanted her own horse. She took a moment to look at herself, and it changed her perspectively completely.
I think a lot of us, especially us gals, but menfolk as well, can be Maggie Carpenters. We try to be someone we’re not for the sake of everyone else, and at the expense of being who we were created to be. We may not like this or that, but we’ll learn for the sake of relationship. We’ll press through things we honestly can’t stand — without being honest that we can’t stand them — to make others happy.
I’m not speaking about recognising the parts of yourself that are the result of sin and the fall. It is good to let go of wrong patterns and selfish behaviour. But there are other parts of who you were created to be that don’t really need changing. It’s okay if you don’t like eggs. It’s okay if you snort when you laugh. It’s not okay to flip the bird at strangers in traffic. Do you get the idea?
I think we sometimes don’t take the time to think about the things we enjoy — to make those things which bring us life a priority in our lives. To do this might involve taking the time to make a list of likes and dislikes, as Donald Miller explains it well. It could involve a little soul-searching and a long walk or two. It will probably involve shutting off the external voices telling you what to do or read or watch or be for a bit, for you to get to the bottom of you, and begin asking questions about who you are and who you were created to be, and what living that story out may or may not look like.
Should we compromise for the sake of relationship — going on a dreaded camping trip or sitting through a movie we’re not really interested in seeing? Definitely, sometimes. But should we pretend we love doing things we actually hate, instead of speaking up and looking for healthy compromises that will involve each party in the relationship enjoying life? I think not.
Healthy introspection will lead to recognition of the important things that matter to us. Some of the things that matter are people, and we should be willing to work to keep our relationships with others on a good track. Other things that matter to us matter because they are a part of who we were created to be — the story we were created to live out. If we don’t give attention to living our lives as who we were created to be (instead of who we think others might like for us to be) no one will be happy at the end of the day.
So look past freckles and wrinkles and hair styles and quirks the next time you look in the mirror. The you you were created to be is well below the surface…but deserves the chance to shine.
xCC
Feb 20, 2011 | Stories, The Good Word
Timing is a funny thing, and one I’ve been pondering a lot lately for obvious reasons. (You know I’m now two days past my due date, right?) In an interesting turn of the clock, a domestic dispute had us up around 2 am this morning. Some neighbours we’d never seen or heard anything of before were arguing in the hallway, and things were not exactly moving in a pleasant direction, to say the least.
Hero Hubs, being the hero that he is, offered for the lady who was being threatened, and had already obviously been hurt, to come into our place to be safe until the police arrived. Unfortunately, she declined the invitation. The complex security guards were on site to attempt to keep matters peaceful, and HH, having done what he could, eventually came back inside. It was a very unusual interruption to a normal Saturday night’s slumber around here.
This morning, between the increasing discomfort of being heavily pregnant and the lack of a good night’s sleep, for reasons previously mentioned, we were tired, and very thankful when the Bear came to join us in our bed and let us sleep another forty-five minutes. Nothing short of miraculous.
By the time we sat down to breakfast we would’ve only had thirty or forty minutes to get ourselves sorted for church, and with the cramping and discomfort I’ve been experiencing slowing me down, thirty minutes is rather a stretch for getting oneself and one’s Bear sorted for anything. So we decided to have church here at home instead.
After listening to a worship music CD and singing and praising God together, we set the Bear up to watch Veggie Tales so that we could listen to a sermon around the dinner table. Although he has been away from Cornerstone Church for some time now, HH “just happened” to look at the Cornerstone website and saw that Pastor Francis Chan had been back to visit and delivered a message last month. When he was regularly preaching at Cornerstone, his messages were a great source of encouragement and challenge to our faith, so we were excited to have another to listen to.
Timing is a funny thing.
I was challenged in such a good, good, good way by the message this morning. I have allowed the difficulties and discouragements of life at present to cause me to divert from the path of wholeheartedly following Jesus. I haven’t been out clubbing (enjoy that funny mental picture) or fallen off the wagon, but in my heart, sometimes Christ has been seated on the throne, and sometimes my own preferences and desires have been taking priority.
This morning’s message reminded me of God’s incredibly glorious goodness, and challenged me to think about making sure that my life makes sense in light of what I believe about the gospel of Jesus Christ. By the time I sat still to further process the words of the Lord through this message, I found myself praising and thanking God for this late baby, because I am so glad this moment of encouragement took place. God is good — and I am glad to be reminded to live like it!
If you would like to listen to Francis’ message, you can find it here, posted on 1/23/11, and entitled Making Sense of Your Life. It was a powerful and encouraging challenge to me, and I think it will be to you, too.
In the meantime, I hope you’ll also be encouraged that God is indeed a God of perfect timing. You may think He is waiting for things to line up in a way that will work something out just right for someone else also involved in a situation that affects you. I am convinced that He is able to work things out for the benefit of others, most definitely, but He also has your very best in mind, too. It would almost seem that sometimes we think we’re waiting on the Lord, but He is actually waiting on us.
And, with time as it stands for me in this moment, that’s quite a thought.
xCC
Feb 19, 2011 | Stories
{Still no baby action, in case you’re wondering! I had contractions in the middle of the night last night and was sure things were getting started…but I was wrong! I’ll keep you posted!}
Sometimes the wisdom that comes through in writing is really about what you haven’t said, just as much as it’s about what you have. For your sakes and for mine, I’ve been paying slightly more attention to what ought to be left out, with the help of that little word count thingy that I can click that will tell me how I’m doing and whether or not I’m talking your ears off. Or writing your eyes off. So to speak.
But there is also the matter of the words, the entire posts, that don’t belong here, or anywhere. And the wisdom of knowing what is worth saying and what is not, well that’s something I’d like to sign up for an extra helping of. Even a fool seems wise when he doesn’t open his mouth.
If I was painting canvases instead of writing words on pages, you might wonder why I didn’t use red or green. And if I was writing music instead of blog posts and devotional pieces, you might ask where the bridge or the hook was, something to lead you safely into a chorus that will repeat the same refrain over again twice, so that by the end of my song you’ll know all the words to the chorus even though you’ve only heard it once.
The other day I wrote a post filled with the Top Ten things you shouldn’t say to a pregnant lady. (It didn’t get published.) It was more of a personal complaint session which probably would’ve stepped on toes, rather than build anybody up or encourage anyone to be more thoughtful with their words. And it wouldn’t have encouraged me to take the time to think about having more grace for the people around me — remembering we’re all on a journey in this thing called life — and none of us are there yet.
Though word count makes me think I need to think of more to say in order for this post to be complete, I think I’d like to end right here. Perhaps with a question.
Who or what do you think has the biggest influence on what you choose to say, and equally importantly, what you leave unsaid?
I sure would like to know.
xCC
Feb 17, 2011 | An Expat, Prayers in Poetry & Prose, Stories
We take the same route to church and to the the doctor’s office for my prenatal checkups. Depending on whether it’s a weekend or a weekday, the sights might be slightly different, but it always seems like there’s something to tug at my heartstrings.
Turning out of our neighbourhood, we’re on a fairly busy stretch of highway. Mr. Potato Head grumbles in the direction of the nearby Steenbras mountains, and then we turn and start heading in the direction of the Hottentots Holland mountains, further in the distance. We cross over the busy N2, up a hill and in a moment we’re whisked into Sir Lowry’s Pass village.
Until you come face to face with the reality of poverty, it is still just images on a TV screen or website, or in a brochure you received in the mail. But the reality is so much bigger — more complex, more colourful, more hopeful, more distressing.
We grumbled along for a prenatal appointment a couple weeks ago, and my heart rode the up and down roller coaster it usually rides on the journey. We pass the big dumpster where three or four goats are usually grazing on a pile of trash, and we come to the one little roundabout with a small food store on one corner, shacks on another, a freestanding house opposite the store. The rundown wall behind the goats closes out the circle. It’s a school day and the streets are full of life.
Children in uniforms are dispersing in every direction, and one little girl is giggling and scurrying away from an older sibling, or perhaps her mother. They are both laughing and seem so joyful I wish we could stop to ask what’s so funny.
A tall gentleman with a checkered shirt, a baseball cap and nice shoes struts across the street on the other side of the roundabout. A smaller guy with long dreadlocks and a red t-shirt hops up the curb on a little trick bike.
Outside a shack built entirely of what looks like found or recycled pieces of wood, a dog and a cat stand beside one another, staring in, as if something important is happening and they’re waiting to get inside. Children, some with shoes and some barefoot, are walking or sitting in the shade of the occasional, small trees that line the road. They’re eating their lunch and enjoying treats they’ve just gotten at the food store.
Life seems to be joyful for a moment.
A little further along we pass a little boy, gray-sweatered and green-trousered, still in his school uniform. Like children often do, he has taken off his school shoes to preserve them, and is walking barefoot and alone, a backpack on his back and his big black shoes in his arms. He steps normally with his right leg, but with each step he has to drag his left leg around in a circle, as if the leg cannot be bent at the knee. Watching him struggle under the weight of disability and the load he is carrying, my face is flush and I begin forcing back tears.
My mind begins to marvel that my heart hasn’t grown cold. I thought after a year or so these scenes would become familiar…that I’d struggle to find emotion…that I’d eventually begin to feel sorry that I didn’t feel sorry.
We pass a woman who is pregnant, but not as far along as I am. The difference in opportunity for the life growing inside her and the one in me…I almost want to shuck the thought away instead of letting it sink in. Who’s to know, really?
Sometimes Africa feels like a deep ravine set in a distant jungle. People come from miles around to find it, because everyone’s goal is to fill it. We throw in resources. Money. Food. Clothing. Bicycles. Shoes. Then we lean over to look in, and still can’t see the bottom. It’s a struggle to see progress. Hand-ups and Hand-outs start to look similar.
But I’ve seen change. I’ve seen generosity make a difference. And I’ve seen the numbers. And I’ve shared some of them with you here. We could be the generation that makes poverty history. If we grow weary in well-doing, we probably won’t. But if we continue the fight, our chances of success improve considerably.
The car grumbles on to the doctor’s office, my head and my heart like soft serve ice cream, thick with heavy thoughts. Staring down into the ravine, the hope is for something unseen. And who knows how it’s all going to come together.
I hope my part in this journey will end with a “Well done.” Sometimes I’m not sure what else to hope for.
xCC
Feb 16, 2011 | Stories, The Good Word
There’s a beautiful moment in a beautiful book called Hind’s Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard (don’t you love all those h’s?) where the main character is told that instead of continuing to climb the mountain she’s hoping to climb, she is going to have to first go down into a valley, through a desert. The path seems to be taking her away from the High Places she is hoping to reach. She calls to the Shepherd.
“Oh no,” she cried, “You can’t mean it. You said if I would trust You, You would bring me to the High Places, and that path leads right away from them. It contradicts all that You promised.”
“No,” said the Shepherd. “It is not a contradiction, only postponement for the best to become possible.”
Tough to hear, sometimes.
There are lots of moments in our lives when we are waiting. Sometimes for something we’ve been excited about for a while. Sometimes for something we’ve been dreading. It seems postponed for one reason or another. We’re waiting to find that special someone. We are waiting to become pregnant. We are waiting for our favourite team to come out on top at the College World Series. We are waiting for the diagnosis or the test results.
Life seems to be full of postponements.
These days you all know that we’re passing the time however we can waiting for the arrival of a little bundle of joy. We’re excited to meet this little one on the outside, and kind of thought he’d be here by now. So things feel a little postponed.
My Uncle was scheduled to have triple bypass surgery last Wednesday, but the surgery was postponed because he had a heavy cold and they didn’t want to operate while he was sick. After dreading the surgery for quite some time, I think waiting another week was discouraging. {Unless there is another postponement, he is scheduled to have surgery today, so please say a prayer for him.}
In my uncle’s case, as in my own, I am hoping and trusting that things that feel like unpleasant delay are actually postponement for the best to become possible. Corrie ten Boom encouraged us never to be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.
Jesus put it like this:
“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” {Matthew 6:34, the Message}
If our trust is in the God who can cause everything to work out for the good of those who love Him, then indeed, we need not worry, or even allow a perceived postponement to discourage us. We will miss out on now if we can’t take our eyes off tomorrow.
I’m sure each of us can recall a time in our lives when a check in the mail, a well-timed phone call, some moment that seemed postponed or delayed, actually turned out to be postponement for the best to become possible.
So hang in there when it feels like all you can see is a big “Postponed” sign on the door of what you’re dreaming of, or dreading. The Creator of the Universe has it all under control, and if you trust Him, He can weave things together so well, you’ll be left speechless and thankful for His perfect timing.
xCC
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