The Courage to See It Through

The degree that hangs in Tim's new "Assistant Principal" office.

Sometimes it would be so great to be able to see into the future.  To be able to glance into our crystal ball to discern what is coming our way so we could plan accordingly.  Alas, we don't have that ability.  But our God is, and was, and will be.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.  And while tomorrow remains a mystery to us, the Almighty has already been there and done that.  Nothing is going to happen to us that will surprise Him.  And whatever comes our way tomorrow, God is already putting help in place today to help us face it.   He has a plan, and He is working it.  I love that about Him.

Beth Moore speaks brilliantly about this concept when she delves into the book of Jeremiah.  She mentions that God has thought it through, every detail of our lives, God has thought about it and is working in it to bring us to a place of hope.  How familiar are the words to Jeremiah 29:11:

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. (NRSV)
 

But I love the way the King James Version translates this passage, because it illuminates the very thing Beth Moore is getting at, the thing that the original language is saying:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.  (KJV)
 

God has already accounted for all the mishaps, mistakes, and mis-steps.  He has already figured out how to guide us to a good and peaceful destination.  No matter how we start out, God has worked out a way to bring our hearts Home.

Yet while God has already thought it through, how often do we have the courage to see it through?  You know what "it" is.  It's that thing that has broken our heart, broken our dreams, broken our spirit.  That thing that laughs at us while we rummage around in what is left of our lives wondering what to do next.

I've had some time now to process Tim getting a new job.  He had been unsatisfied, feeling that he was meant for more challenge, for more purpose and meaning than he was experiencing where he was.  After a principalship certification,  two years of waiting and countless interviews, he finally was offered a position as an assistant principal at an elementary school.  We have settled into this new life, this answered prayer.

Tim saw it through.  He never gave up, he never gave in.  It hurt like hell, wondering if God had forgotten him, struggling with the awful paradox of having a burning passion inside with no opportunity to let it ignite.  Faith told us the fire inside was a God thing.  But it was blind faith because each interview that didn't land a job seemed to be another message saying this was the wrong road.  Only our insides told us it was right.  We hung on to that tender thread.  Then one day God answered our prayers. 

God knew all along.

God had already been preparing a place for Tim.  A perfect place where his gifts and heart and passion would be met by challenge needing his strength.  A place where others would recognize the good stuff in him and send forth gratitude at his presence.  Tim no longer has to wonder what difference he makes.  He just has to look at the six hundred elementary school students in his care.

Tim saw it through. 

Oh he inspires me.  His story encourages me.  When I think of the open-ended-ness of my own story I love thinking of his.  Because it's then that I am able to translate this bit of Good News to my own life.  God has already thought through my own scenario.  And I want to also show the same courage my sweet husband has shown as I live into the Divine Conclusion God has already prepared.  God has expectations for my future I haven't even imagined. 

Goodness me, that rattles my cage!  So much talk of expectations:  mine, yours, the world's, the church's.  But whoever considers God's?  God has expectations for my future!  That thought washes over me like sweet Grace.  Oh sweet Jesus!  Whatever do You expect to come from Your tender work in my life?  In my heart?  In my head?

It is worth it hold out.

To give "it" time.

To allow this story some breathing room.

Courage is a small price to pay for the expected ending God has in Mind.

 

Life Wide Open

We are transitioning from the laziness of summer to the hustle and bustle of a new school year.  I always look forward to settling into a routine, but that settling part can sometimes get hairy.  I've been thinking recently of the beauty of a regularity.  I love the bones of a schedule that gives structure to my days, allowing me to hang my creativity in the most advantageous minutes of my day.  This free spirit self that I am needs the order.  It helps me enjoy every moment without guilt:  "oh yes, this is the time given to quiet contemplation; I can be present in this moment because the need to attend to the details of our lives can be attended to in that moment there."

When I taught University Experience (a freshman seminar class designed to help first year college students adjust to college life) I always had my students complete a time chart first thing.  It was a simple gragh with days of the week across the top and twenty four hours down the side.  I encouraged them to color blocks of time according to their various activities.  They were to include communiting time, class time, study time, family time, and yes, party time.  Then they had to reflect on what they learned from the experience.  And every year I also completed one too.

I always learned something.

You would think that year after year, there would be no new insights.  But there were.  As I completed my own time chart I could see how my stated priorities often differed from the way I spent my time.  Actually coloring my time as I committed my schedule to paper created a simple accountability that helped me see more clearly, helped me answer the question, "Is this how I really want to be spending my time?"

I have the need to get the crayons out again.

Somehow it helps me to see my life colored in--the sections of responsibility dancing with the passions and simple pleasures of my "mommified" life.  And to know that rest always comes.  At the close of each day, rest is there waiting for me.

What do you think?  Want to try it?

I know it doesn't seem to be a deeply spiritual exercise.  But I tend to differ.  I think it is significant in the most important way.  It gives us the chance to live deliberately.  Because we can color in our lives as they are.  Or we can consciously choose to color them the way we truly want them to be.  First on paper, then in real time.

As Tim & I were waiting in Walmart with the boys today, an older woman sitting by the door began a conversation with me.  Jeremiah was pulling on me, tugging, running back and forth in front of the doors, and oh my goodness I must fetch him!  She said I had such wonderful boys.  She said they were blessings.  I agreed of course.  And then she told me of her own children, how they loved each other so as children.  She told me that everyday she told them, "You have to be good to each other, because we are not promised tomorrow."  She told me that although they would have their moments, they were best friends.  Then she told me her daughter had died.  She still had her son and his children, but her daughter was gone.  She explained how her son was so mad at God for taking his sister away.  A year passed, and then he came to her one day and said, "This is that tomorrow you were talking about isn't it."  She said it took him a year to realize it, but he finally did.  As we parted, we blessed each other.  Literally the words were coming out of our mouths at the same time:  "God bless you." 

And we are so blessed.

And that is why mapping my time is deeply spiritual for me.  I don't want to waste a moment.  I don't want to wake up one day and think, "Oh God! I wish I had spent my time doing---loving---helping---holding---hoping---being!!!!"  I want to think now.  I want to wake up now, before the time is past, while I still have the power to change the way I spend my day.

I want to live my life with eyes wide open and arms wide open and heart stretched wide open.

Oh sweet LORD I do want to take it all in--

New Beginnings

Food is at the heart of our celebrations.  It's how we mark the significant events in our lives:  We eat!  And we eat the kind of things that leave an impression.  Unfortunately, not only on our tongues, but also our waistlines.  Thank goodness significant events don't happen everyday. 

Take for instance when we discovered Tim had landed a school administration job:

And then to celebrate Isaiah's entry into Kindergarten:



How cool is it that our summer has been bookended by doughnuts and ice-cream?  But between all that sugar, there have been some uncertain moments not nearly as sweet.  I am incredibly thankful to be settled, still trusting, but at complete peace about stepping out in faith on a new path.

Thinking fondly of my sweet Isaiah boy.  Today he began a new path of his own.  Today he donned the traditional orange vest to join the ranks of kindergardeners all over our city.  He wore it proudly, and totally without fear:

All of these things, from special meals, to special vests, to special backpacks have the power of ritual, the tangible representing the intangible reality; something significant has changed. 

When our children are young, we are careful to mark milestones.  We take extra care to make sure they know they have stepped across a threshhold, and that it is a big deal.  I wonder if we fail to change as much as we age because we fail to mark our own milestones, our own intangible realities that may not be noticeable on the outside but have deep significance on the inside?

Or--

I wonder if we fail to make progress in our own transformation because we fail to marry intention with tangible, touchable expressions that keep our new trajectory constantly before us?  Sometimes it is the simple reminder that makes all the difference.

I've made my own kind of marker.  It's not much.  But I see it everyday, and it holds me accountable to the Holy Nudge to start moving in a new direction.  No one else can provide the momentum this Holy Nudge demands but me.  I know that if I don't keep intentionally choosing to move, the Nudge, and the Dream it represents, will dissipate.

Disappear.

I'm too chicken to wear my own orange vest.  Something obvious to everyone.  A bright sign post pointing to a new goal.  I'm too chicken to held accountable in such a public way, where everyone can ask--Have you done it yet?  How far along are you?  How is it coming?

In case my own resolve melts, I don't want to be caught in a gaping hole of obvious, having to not only stare down my own disappointment, but everyone esle's too.

So it's enough for me to tape my Nudges to the bathroom mirror, and each day ask myself how I will step out in faith.

I believe this is the stuff new beginnings are made of.

Living Well--Wesley Foundation E-letter

Dear Friends,

 

This Thursday (dinner at 7pm, program at 8pm) we are continuing our journey with Hem & Haw, Sniff & Scurry as we discover how to deal with change in our lives.  All of us have it at one time or another, in one way or another.  During the last few weeks of school we are learning how to let God use it for good in our lives.  Also, this coming Sunday during worship (8pm) we will begin a time of looking at Radical Discipleship and what it means for our lives.  Look forward to seeing you there. 

 

Now for Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

I want to say this beautiful, warm and sunny April afternoon, “It is time to live well.”  So many times I heard the phrase, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”  Never knew what it meant until I realized that the purpose of cake is to eat it.  If we hold on to it, we can’t eat it.  If we eat it, there is nothing to hold in our hands.  But holding on to cake when it was made to be eaten destroys its enjoyment value.  To be truly experienced and enjoyed, cake must be eaten.  Life is like that.  It must be lived.  Life is such a fleeting gift; it’s very substance is spent in the living of it.  We only get one life; we only get to be in this moment, this time, this place, once.  And I want to say, live it well; determine now to really live it so that it does not slip by. 

 

Walden or Thurough (one of those dead white guys) said that most men lead lives of quiet desperation.  What a sad statement, yet how true. There are those of us who are figuratively standing around holding our cake, never tasting it, simply comparing it to everyone else’s, complaining about its size, wishing we had more, etc.  I want to be one of those strong and brave souls who eats and enjoys the cake of life, savoring its flavor and entering into the celebration it represents.

 

Not sure what this means for you.  Sometimes I’m not sure what it means for me, except that I want to enjoy what I’ve been given: relationships, family, meaningful work, possibilities, even my own self, even the opportunity to learn from my mistakes.  At the end of the day at the end of my life I want to be able to say that I knew how good life-cake tasted.

 

Psalms 118:34 says “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”  Amazing how the simple enjoyment of the life we are given is even a command from God.  This is for all you folks (okay, me too) out there who feel guilty anytime you enjoy anything.  Here we have a Divine directive to enjoy each and every day--in fact, to find gladness in it.

 

I want to close with a simple appreciation of a young life well-lived.  Allison Carter, a Western sophomore, died Sunday night on her way back to her dorm from worship at the Catholic Newman Center.  From those I have talked with who knew Allison, she was living her life well. 

 

Think about your own life today.  Entering into the joy of it is the hugest witness we can offer the world.  It is the best gift we can give our Life-Giver.  It is the one thing that will save us from desperately existing and never really living at all.  Trust God that the life-cake He’s given you really does taste good after all.

 

Blessings,

 

Sami