Restlessness

I love love LOVE music that lifts the soul.  I can't feel dejected and alone when listening to music that presses truth to my soul.  It is truly a special gift from God-music that soothes and heals and exhorts.  I can easily lose my sense of mature womanhood when a song that is echoing the current needs of my soul is playing.  I twirl and sway and dance with my children.  But the joy I feel makes the loss of dignity totally worth every moment.  Tonight, as I wait for my husband to return from an evening Bible Study, I am musing on the lyrics of "Restless" by Audrey Assad.  No matter how many years I have lived life pressing closer to my Father, I still have restless moments.  I still need the still quiet voice to penetrate my fears and my insecurities.  I still stray and wander after glittering pyrite mistaken for real treasure.  But He is gracious to tenderly re-teach me the truth that my heart will always be restless until it rests in my God. There is no peace without knowing God.  And there is security in knowing that I can ask Him to reveal Himself yet again.  He will calm me.  He will draw me close. In His protection my restless spirit stills.

O speak now for my soul is listening

Say that You have saved me

Whisper in the dark

'Cause I know You're more than my salvation

Without You I am hopeless

Tell me who You are

You are the keeper of my heart

And I'm restless

I'm restless

Til I rest in You

written by Audrey Assad and Matt Maher

The weather.

My little preschooler is working on a project about the weather.  We talked about what makes the weather (God, obviously, she informed me.) and how each season has its own unique weather.  We don't see snow in July, do we? I questioned.  Of course not! She giggled.  We are writing what the weather each day has been on a little chart each night before bed.  Her father writes the date, and she gets to draw the appropriate symbol to show the day's weather.  Sunny, cloudy, big swirls to show wind.  Yesterday was her first day of record-keeping.  Her excitement about keeping track of what she sees outside the window is contagious.  So contagious, that she didn't lose it during the night.  She bounded out of bed this morning and bounced straight to her desk.  She grabbed her pencil and the chart she had only started yesterday, took a quick look out the window, and announced, "I'm going to write this down right now!"  I protested that she didn't really know what kind of weather the day would hold, so we should wait and observe until this evening.  My clear-headed logic hit a wall, as fluffy snow fell outside her window.  She wanted to record snow so badly it was unbearable to think she should wait a whole day to fill in Tuesday's box of weather.

I think there is truth here: the beginning is not necessarily indicative of what the end will be.  I can begin my day frustrated and irritable, and one silently breathed prayer can right my attitude.  By the time I am tucking the young ones into bed at night, the day has ended nicely.  An invite for God to intervene and the beginning is radically different that the conclusion.


 A son is enticed from the family home, taking his inheritance with him as he leaves.  A man refuses to abandon communication with his God and  is thrown into a pit of lions.  A woman loses both her husband and brother-in-law, and with them her hope for a son dies, too.  A man who claimed to be humanity's salvation died on a bloody cross.  Until...the son returns to his father, drawn home by boundless love.  The lions refuse to eat their bait, and he is promoted to second-in-command over the kingdom.  A charitable landowner marries the widow and she bears a son who will in turn father one of the greatest kings in history. The man who claimed to be salvation walks out of his tomb three days after his death, saving all mankind from the punishment of a just God.

When God enters the story, the plot is dramatically altered.  The ending is full of joy when the beginning held no such promise.  We, who know the One who writes all stories, are living in the beginning.  What joy awaits us eternally.  What peace is in store for us each day as we continually let Him write our daily endings.

I Don't Understand Your Ways

When this song closed our church service this morning, tears filled my eyes.  God was speaking to ME directly; He knew that this song was meant for me today, and its truth resonated so strongly in my spirit that I felt my raw soul rest.

We are church-going people.  Not that you might have guessed, but we are definitely faithful attendees.  I never dread getting up early on Sunday mornings or getting the kids dressed and fed and out the door so quickly.  I really love hearing from my Lord on Sundays.  Even though I live my days asking for His presence to fill each of my moments, there is always something special about the way He shows up on Sunday mornings.  He speaks straight to me from the sermon my pastor has prepared.  I know it sounds silly and unreal, but it is true in my life.  This week has been one long slog through a haze of disappointments and frustrations.  The static of uncertainty muffled God's daily voice in my life, and I was truly limping into our weekly church attendance.  There had been financial woes, daily irritations, pain of death, hopes deferred, all this week.  I felt so beaten that I didn't realize my bruises masked my urgent need to hear God's voice.  Like any daughter who is distant from her loving father, I needed to hear my Father tell me Truth.  "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.  Are they not in your book?" -Psalm 56:8  

Sometimes, we don't need theological teaching or reminders of the intricate details of our faith, we just need God to speak his tenderness.  I have tossed and turned and whined and complained; sobbed over heartaches and balled my fists in silent anger over worldly battles.  I don't understand.  I don't understand where God is.  He is silent, and I don't understand how my loving father can be distant in the dry part of my journey.  But He wasn't.  He isn't.  This morning He reminded me that all of these tears will pale when I reach the end of my race.  When I see His face, everything else will be so strangely dim.  This morning, my Father, who holds my earthly Father close in His bosom, reminded me that this struggle will one day be worth it all.

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us." -Romans 8:18

Tugging

Recently I have felt more and more as though I am on a treadmill, never going anywhere and never accomplishing anything.  Maybe not on a treadmill, more like one of those wheels in hamster cages.  Running, running, running, but never having anything to hold up and say, "look, this is the great progress I have made."  I do many daily duties: change diaper, kiss hurts, cook meals, read stories, dust and vacuum.  But why do I feel as though nothing is ever really being done?  Why am I constantly struggling with the same life burdens, never quite able to vanquish doubts or laugh in the face of my fears.  Never fully capable of permanently shoving away the guilt or the insecurity. I went to the grocery store this morning, and when I got home, the bags littered our small kitchen floor.  My youngest likes to think he is helping, so he started tugging and pulling on the bags, trying to drag them over to the refrigerator to empty them.  The bags were heavy though, and he gave up.  I identify with him.  That seems to be my life: tugging, pulling, trying to bear something far too heavy for me.  It only moves a little bit, but barely anything measurable, and then the day is over.  I give up just to go to sleep, but unlike the little man, I start exactly in the same place the next morning, pulling, tugging, hoping to make some type of progress on the loads in my life.  There are several burdens I am currently trying to move, but each day it seems as if there is so much energy required to simply pull on them, in hopes this will be the day that I make progress.

My baby tried to move those heavy bags all by himself and anyone would have been able to see that the burdens he was trying to drag were way too much for him.  I am trying to shoulder my own loads.  I admit it, shamefully, and I need to be reminded: "Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you." --Peter 5:7  I don't want to try to shoulder these life cares on my own anymore.  And I definitely don't want to give up.  I will give them to the One who cares about me, instead.

Crumbs

Today it was crumbs that pointed me to God. Really. Crumbs. I have been sweeping crumbs from the floor and from the table and wiping them from children's hands all day. The thought actually flitted across my mind while I applied the vacuum cleaner to the newest pile in the dining room rug: I wonder if my vacuum is working right? Maybe it is actually blowing all the crumbs that I am sucking up right back out onto the floor. I checked the filter, bag, etc. It is working fine and sucking things in, not blowing them out. But, just as I was about to allow myself to fume at the impossible nature of my task today, trying to keep our house relatively crumb (and stickiness) free, God quietly entered the picture. Aren't you trying to uphold a New Year's resolution? Something about intentional praise even when you feel angry or sulky and deeply sad? His small reminder stopped my irritation. I started verbalizing praise in my mind. Thank you Lord for these crumbs. It sounded sarcastic even in my own mind. I tried again, a little harder. Thank you Lord for the crumbs, and...and what they tell me about this morning. I felt myself picking up steam, almost really meaning it. Thank you, because all of these crumbs tell me that my children are well fed and satisfied. Another day and You have kept your promise to provide for us. Not just the bare minimum, but enough that we have leftovers, and enough to share, and yes, enough for crumbs. Thank you Father. I really meant it now. Thank you that you have given me this daily task to remind me that You are my Provider, and the Giver of joy in my life. I feel almost thrilled that God would show up to remind me of His presence in the midst of my daily housecleaning. But that is the way I am learning He works. He uses everything, even crumbs to point me back to Him. Today it is crumbs He will use. Tomorrow what will it be?