A Celebration of Mothers, Reflecting on Yesterday

I left work today saying to the Lord, "It's hard being a mother!"  I had just observed a mom trying to corall her son, who was running away from her throwing a fit.  It's tempting to think something like, "that woman needs to get a hold of her child," but I know better.  I know how easily "that woman" could be, has been, and probably will be again, me.  Oh Lord, it can be so hard some times.  I remember the fits my own mother had to endure.  She tells me of the time when we were in the grocery line and my three year old self was begging for something she told me I couldn't have.  After being firmly admonished that it wasn't going to happen, I piped up oh so clearly, "Are you going to beat me again?!"  Please know I've never been beaten a day in my life.  It's amazing any of us ever survive these tender and tenancious days of parenting and being parented.  One of my favorite people is a dear woman that I see often at church.  She has successfully raised three boys to adulthood.  I look at her and feel encouraged.  I think, "if she can do it, I can too."  Those boys run circles around me.  But my favorite circles are the ones like this morning, when all three wrap their arms around me  and give me a big hug at the same time.  So nice.

What I thank God for today is mothers:  Mothers who raised us, who praised us, who prayed us through.  Mothers who washed us, wept for us, wept with us.  Mothers who kept us fed, and sometimes kept us fed up!  Mothers who cooked and cleaned, then who made us learn how to clean and cook.  Mothers who spoke life into us and scared the life right out of us.  Mothers who disciplined us, ultimately giving us the gift of self-discipline.  Mothers who laughed, sometimes at us, often with us, and always at themselves.  Mothers who clothed us, often with whatever creative means necessary, so that we could walk confidently into our days, whenter we wore name brands or not.  Mothers who taught us the value of separating colors and whites while doing the wash, and gave us the gift of not redoing what we failed to do, so we could learn that lesson well.  Mothers who gave us Mother wisdom every day, feeding our brains with the well-worn words we would someday repeat to ourselves.  Mothers whose voices are as familiar as our own, the sound of which calms us, carries us, yet also carries the challenge that spurs us on.  Mothers who can see through our shenanigans, yet see the real us too.  Mothers who see us as God created us and see the potential God placed within us.  Mothers who hear us, not just the words that we say but everything simmering beneath.  Mothers who understand without us even having to say a word.  Mothers who open wide their arms and hearts, allowing us to take up residence there, feeling deeply the pain of loving with abandon, and rejoicing exuberantly when that love is returned.  Mothers who so carefully bring the ministrations of the God who tenderly leads and cares for the sheep that we are. 

All of us have mothers.  I thank God for them.  Without them we wouldn't be here.  Even if we had the worst mother ever, she still was the vessel that poured out our gift of life.  And I am thankful for those brave souls who carry within them that fierce Mother Love, who have opened their hearts to new life, yet carried the anguish of loss in their arms instead.  You are such fabulous mothers too.  Because you dared to open your soul and give yourself fully to another.  That's the most any mother can do. 

So Lord bless all the mothers.  We need Your blessing.  We need Your Strength, and Help, and Hope, and everything else that is You.  Because it's hard being a mother, and only You can help us see it through.

Affirmations of Life

I find myself once again needing a solid place to rest my faith.  I am in a season of transition, called to move to a new place in heart, mind, and especially practice.  But this new territory is strange and unfamiliar.  It is so completely unlike any place I have been before.  I realize I cannot get there on my own.  To find my way I need a new head space and heart space to lead from. 

How does one do this?

It's actually quite simple.  For those of us who grew up in the church, we are already know what to do (even if we don't realize it). 

Let me be honest. When I was a kid I thought church was boring. I hated it. The only perk was that I got to dress up, which was kind of fun. (Until Jr. High when I was completely self-conscious about the clothes I wore, worrying about whether I had enough or if they were pretty enough.) 

My family always attended the local Methodist church.   Since those were the days before contemporary worship, every service in every local Methodist congregation generally looked the same. In an effort to help it go faster, I would follow the bulletin looking for each part I could check off: The Call to Worship, The Lord's Prayer, The Offertory, The Apostle's Creed, The Gloria Patri, The Doxology, The Benediction. I knew them all by heart.

What I failed to realize was that each Sunday was another opportunity to reinforce of the faith I would need later on. That simple reiteration of the basics each and every week helped build a stable foundation I could build upon.

And this is where one must start when moving to a new head space and heart space.  It's all about the Affirmations of Faith that we speak into our lives.

Truly we do this already.  An affirmation is "the declaration that something exists or is true." Everything we speak to ourselves is an affirmation of one kind or another.  How familar are these phrases:  I wish I could ____________.  I'll never be able to ___________.  Why can't I _________?   Every word or phrase we say to ourselves is creating a truth we live into.  The Bible says faith comes by hearing.  How different would life be if we heard ourselves saying things that affirmed the life right into us?

That's what I'm most hungry for right now.  I want to affirm the Life right into me with everything I've got.  Because I know I cannot manufacture it on my own.  I know I have to reach toward Grace, to listen closely to the Still Small Voice, and HEAR what it says about me.  Then I have to speak it into my heart, mind, and soul until I believe it.  Until I can stand upon it.  Until I can act as if it is the truth of who I am. 

So here is how I began.

Step 1.  Listen for the Spirit's Call.  What exactly is it that God is leading you toward?  What truth is God inviting you to live into?

Step 2.  Open the Word.  What passages reflect, define, build upon, explain, flesh out this new territory you are being led into?

Step 3.  Write it Out Loud.  Copy the passages in your own messy handwriting.  There is power in writing truth with your own hand.  Change the language into a first-person belief statement.  Include the book, chapter, and verse.

Step 4.  Tape it Somewhere conspicuous.  By the toilet.  In the fridge.  Over your bed.  On the dashboard.  Wherever you will see it every day, several times a day. 

Step 5.  Read it OUT LOUD.  Every time you see it, read it to yourself.  Make it your bed-time story or your morning kick-in-the-butt.  Even more powerful than writing it, seeing truth written in your own hand, is saying the words yourself, and hearing the words spoken in your own voice.

That's it.  That's what I'm doing.  I'm considering it a kind of "Holy Experiement."  I just know I need to be convinced that God has something more for me, that I have not lived the best days of my life, that the more that is to come is truly Something More than anything I've already lived.  And so these are the Affirmations I am learning to live by.

If you're happy and you know it, then . . .

This was one of those splendid moments when the intricacies of little boy movement and camera phone timing timing alligned, and I was graced with a picture worth a thousand words.  The caption is obvious:  "If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it!"  I love that my little guy is so happy so often.  His happiness is contagious.  It is the seed of so much joy in my life.  My daily goal is to allow that joy to take root and produce something beautiful in me. 

I think finding joy in the moment, not tied to any outcome or product or circumstance, is a powerful spiritual discipline.  I really, really try to practice it.  Some times it is easier than others.  It would seem that joy and self-discipline should be mutually exclusive concepts.  Joy is so in-the-moment.  Discipline is so, well . . .  disciplined.  You know: thought out, premeditated, planned.  How can joy be all those things? 

Hmm.  Thoughtful joy.  Premeditated joy.  Intended joy.

I've been pondering the concept of intention alot lately.  I believe it holds the key to marrying spontanious joy with one's daily rhythm.  It's all about what we choose to attend to, what we allow ourselves to be preoccupied with, where we are willing to develop receptivity.  In other words, we make up our minds ahead of time to pay attention to the things that spark gladness within us.  It's that simple.  And when we find something that ignites a spark we attune our senses to it, noticing it more and more,  so that it grows bigger.  We cultivate a joyful life in the same way one cultivates a garden, a talent, a hobby.

But there is that thing within me that wants to save my spontaneously beautiful, joyful moments for that time in my life when all is well and there are no loose ends.  It's almost like I want to be able to anticipate correctly the stuff coming at me.  I don't want to waste these productive, preparatory moments on joy when I could be worrying.  I mean, doesn't worrying about the future make it better?  Give me an edge on conquering it?

Sounds silly when I write it out loud.  Yet it's there, like the itchy place in the middle of my back that I cannot reach no matter how I contort my arms.  I think worrying gives me the pretension of control, whereas joy is such an out-of-control place to be.  To be truly joyful means to be truly surrendered.  It is to give oneself over to full attention on something besides oneself. 

It takes faith to be joyful.  Joy-full.  Because you have to trust that Someone bigger than yourself is leading you into the present moment, and that same Someone is holding all the moments to come.  It is a total relinquishment of heart and mind space.  Instead trying to arrange one's life into a neat and tidy and palatable package, you have to abandon that focus altogether, choosing instead to be present in the here and now.  Choosing to be glad.  It is impossible to be glad and to worry; to be glad is to be holy.  Because the Holy has gotten our attention, and we've gone with it instead leaning upon our own understanding.

Slaying the Jabberwocky

I remember my last fall retreat as the campus minister at the WKU Wesley Foundation.  We decided upon the theme "The Gospel According to Disney."  I scoured the video store looking for rentals that could provide meat for discussion.  One movie in particular stands out to me from that weekend.  It was the new "Alice in Wonderland" starring Johnny Depp.  It tells the story of what happens in Wonderland when Alice returns.  Of course Alice is no longer a child.  In growing up she has succumbed to expectations that have robbed her of the vitality she once had.  When she finds her way back, many of her former Wonderland acquaintances simply cannot believe it is her.  In commenting on the change the Mad Hatter explains, "You're not the same as you were before. You were much more...'muchier'. You've lost your 'muchness'."
That quote has stuck with me.  I know with certainty that I was there.  Running the campus ministry while trying to keep up with and please the demands of the leadership of the greater church seemed to be draining the life out of me.  I had lost my muchness. 

As painful as it was, when the Bishop ended my appointment at the Wesley Foundation, it was like the captives being set free.  The worst had finally happened.  In exercising his authority to move me, ironically he moved me right out of his arena of power, putting me in a place where I never have to worry about what he thinks again.  Some gifts are hidden in the strangest wrapping.

I've spent the past year remembering.  In its truest sense re-member-ing, putting myself back together again, allowing the disintegrated parts of my heart, mind, soul, and body to reweave themselves into a coherent unity, feeling deeply my own depletion so that I could celebrate the sweet infilling of Grace.  At last I feel whole, once again.  I feel like I belong to myself again.  I feel like I have something to offer. 

But at the same time I feel restless. 

My husband and I have been wondering what is next.  I thought for sure I was supposed to return to the university and teach college freshmen.  I prayerfully, ardently, carefully applied for a full-time teaching position.  I felt in my deepest heart that I was being led, that my efforts were my faithful response to God's promptings, that God was going to open a new door for me, for my family's provision, in answer to the door that the Bishop had closed.  I received a phone interview.  After weeks of wondering . . .  I also received a face to face interview.  It went so well; it felt so good.  I could not have done any better, and still been me.  I had such a sense of God's blessing, God's smile, God's consolation.  I felt so sure.  Never in my life had I allowed myself to feel sure of anything.  I know well the price of disappointment.  It's just that the Hand of Destiny seemed to be so prominently arranging my life in Mysterious and Wonder-full ways.  I emptied myself into trust,  trusting that He would move, that He would open, that the year of drought would be over.

As I look back it seems appropriate that the rejection letter came on Friday the 13th.  Come to think of it, perhaps the mail carrier was wearing a hockey mask. 

Oh well. 

I still feel restless.

When I received the news, I was perplexed.  It wasn't as big a deal that I didn't get the job.  The bigger deal was that God was speaking so consistently into my life about opening a door, birthing something new and glorious, lavishing my steps with love and hope.  And I wasn't the only one sensing something new, a glorious shift coming.  Trusted intercessors, dear friends, felt it too.  I have been praying for God to redeem His word, to show me how its Truth is still true.  In my praying and perplexion a blanket of sadness and defeat settled over my heart.  Now what?

My interview for the teaching position was just days before the ladies retreat that I participated in.  Our ladies retreat was so amazing.  Oh my it was amazing.  I could feel the Holy Spirit coursing through me as I spoke like the torrents of a River, ebbing and flowing, surging and gushing, speaking a Word to hearts that needed healing.  In the speaking my own heart was healed too. 

I have to confess that coming home from that weekend I told the Lord that if I had to choose between teaching University Experience full-time and leading retreats, speaking passionately about Jesus, giving voice with wild abandon to the hope that is within me, that it's no contest.  I would choose wild abandon every time.  Even in the face of my deep love for college students, my passion to see them safely through the turbulent waters of transition, I would choose to tell boldly the story of God's grace breaking through our human experience and into our wobbly hearts.  When I do this, every part of me lights up. 

For years now I have sensed God has given me a deeper, truer vocation . . .  to write.  And also for years numerous fellow pilgrims have encouraged me.  But I've always been to chicken to heed the call.  Yet I cannot get away from the fact that it is in writing and speaking the Truth that holds me that I am most alive, most myself, most available to God.  Having been rejected so many times it's hard for me to believe that I could ever be more than I already am.  But the call never goes away.  I kind of believe that God isn't interested in whether I BECOME a published writer or not, just whether I give myself to heeding His call, even if it means I must TRY to become a published writer.  Oh messy obedience.  I hate trying without assurances.  I hate giving myself to life experiments without the foreknowlege of success. 

Is this experiment risky?  Oh yes.  It scares me to try.  It's not just my future that is on the line here.  People I love so deeply will be affected if I fail.  But then I guess they will also be affected if I never try.  They will have to live with a woman who never really said "yes" to God, who always stayed in the shadows of Grace, but never stepped into the Light.  How can I teach, ask, expect my own children to chase the Light if I refuse to do it myself?

Here is what Henry David Thoreau, says about messy obedience in his book Walden:

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings."

It seems to me that the whole point is to pass the invisible boundary, to live a life larger than the capacity which we now hold.  God never lets up in wanting to enlarge us.  I hate it about Him and love it all at the same time.

At the end of the movie Alice discovers her destiny in Wonderland.  She must slay the Jabberwocky.  She alone can do it, and Wonderland's existence hangs upon her agreement to be it's champion.  As the white queen says, no one can make the choice for her.  It must truly be her own, because facing the Jabberwocky will demand everything from her.  What Alice discovers is that in fighting the Jabberwocky she secures not only the survival of Wonderland but she receives back her "muchier" self, enough so that she can return to the real world and face down all those who would put her in the box of prim and proper. 

I have a Jabberwocky to slay, as I suspect we all do.  It's not so much about whether we succeed or fail, but whether we are willing to give ourselves to the fight.  Ultimately we are fighting for the person God made us to be, that glorious, beautiful, exquisite self that only we can be.  Without that person, the world is a darker place.  And like the citizens of wonderland, I suspect someone out there needs to see our light, or rather His Light shining through us.

Answered Prayers

It finally happened.  Something I have been praying for for years was answered.  The answer came quietly, not with the fanfare, the earth-shaking I expected.  One day I woke up and this prayer was answered.  I still brushed my teeth.  I still got dressed for the day.  I still went to work.  I didn't feel different, but some really big things had changed. 

In the spirit of full disclosure the day our answered prayer found us was a bit different.  It was last Tuesday night, and we were at the funeral home in Scottsville, KY, there for Ma's visitation.  Tim's grandmother had passed away the weekend before; family and friends gathered together to remember and celebrate a life well lived.   That afternoon Tim had been offered the job as an assistant principal at an elementary school in a town not too far from where we live.  That evening he accepted it.  The juxtaposition of it all does not escape me:  As we were saying goodbye to one life, a new life for us was just beginning.  The sentimental side of me wants to believe that Ma had something to do with God's timing, that she talked Him into a parting gift, letting her sweet grandson know that as she passed through Heaven's open doors God was opening a few on earth as well.

I've been praying for God to do something wonderful for my husband for a long time.   We have both sensed that there was more for him for a while.  That he was made for more than the life he was living, that God had given him gifts, insights, abilities that were not being used.  That he had passion and excellence within him that needed to be given expression.  Tim is a natural born leader.  We've been asking relentlessly for years for God to give him a place to lead.  And now that door has opened.

Have you ever noticed that God's answers to long held prayers feel as if they've been answered all along?  Certainly in putting the question to Him, we wonder if He hears, if we've asked the right way, did we hold our mouth right.  But I've noticed the feeling that comes after the answer arrives is so closely akin to recognition.  It's as if the answer has always existed as such and just our noticing it has changed.  Like walking into a familiar room and saying, "Did someone put that lamp there?"  Then you realize it had been there all along.

A part of me feels that way.  That this is such a natural step for Tim, that he was made for this experience and that it has been waiting for him, with his name on it for a long time.  From the first time I prayed a heartfelt prayer on his behalf, asking, begging, beseeching God to do something wonderful for him, God knew this position was his.  And for all those tenuous moments when discouragement and disappointment threatened to eat away at our hearts, God was preparing him for this moment.  In those painful times, God was power-packing my husband with everything he would need for such a time . . .  as this. 

I love seeing Tim walk into this answered prayer with confidence.  I wonder if he would have been able to if God had answered us immediately, if He had not withheld the disclosure of the plan until now.  Because the truth is that the confidence came with the waiting.  Ironic isn't it?  The waiting is the very thing that made him the man he is today.  One would think that waiting, being told "no" time after time would dry up one's confidence, make one want to give up and give in, to go home and quit dreaming, quit trying.  Instead the very opposite happened.  I know now that without Tim's waiting there would have been no strength of heart, no depth of understanding, no clarifying of purpose, no purifying of passion, no honing of instinct.  It's kind of like cooking.  It is the rendering down, the waiting, that intensifies the flavors. 

When our third son was born, I named him Jeremiah Allen:  Jeremiah, for the verse I had been holding onto for Tim for so long--"For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future with hope" (Jeremiah 29:11); Allen, after Tim whose middle name is the same.  I wanted Tim to be able to look at our son and know that God had not forgotten him.  That God did indeed have good plans for his life.  The thing that has always amazed me about this Bible passage is that God's good plans for us are born while we are in exile, away from the home our hearts are longing for.  And it is that very separation that gives us everything we need to walk into the hope God has for us. 

I'm so glad, so thankful, that part of our long wait is over.  Thank You sweet Lord, for answers that have been there all along.  And thank You for revealing them.  It helps me hope that my own heart longings will also be answered.  It helps me remember that You have plans for me too.

Transitions

This was the sunset we saw coming home.  It took my breath away.  In the car with three boys, Noah saying, "Mama you need to take a picture!"  And that's what I did.  I believe it was worth turning around for.  How many things in life are like that?

Many, actually.  But rarely do we take the time to see, much less turn around to get a better, clearer, closer look.  The last couple of days have been like that for me.  My family has drawn close to Ma as she gets closer to death.  Tim's Grandmother is such a sweet, funny lady who welcomes everyone like they are family.  And now she will soon be welcomed Home. 

I sat by her bed tonight, watching her breathe, waiting with her for just a while.  The moments seemed to slow, kind of like her breathing, and I thought of the nearness of new life, brimming and brewing as this life prepares to give itself over.  "Oh we are so close!"  I thought.  So close to the Eternal.  Here is this person I love, soft skin blanketing bones, waiting for the moment of eternity to come to her.  Just being near her makes me feel close to that glorious, eternal life too. 

Oh I long for it.  Not my own death, mind you, but life that is touched by the Hand of God.  I long to see God's Glory revealed.  I long to be ushered into the Next Thing.  I feel in my spirit that I am waiting, have been waiting, that the waiting is full, pregnant, ripe, ready to bust open, and yet I could not even begin to tell you what exactly I'm waiting for.  I just know I'll recognize it when I see it.  It's hard to tell if the waiting is devouring me or expanding me.  Faith says it is growing me in ways I cannot imagine.  My weak flesh says it is the foolishness of unsubstantiated hope.  Today I'm going with the faith side of me.  Ma is not the only one in transition. 

I am thankful for those sweet moments with Ma, watching her breathe, touching my lips gently to her cheek, lifting my youngest son to brush his sweet lips against her cool skin too.  It was a Holy time filled with beauty and God's goodness.

So on the way home we saw this amazing sunset.  It was like God showing off for us, whispering gently, "Glory is closer than you think."

Good Morning Easter

Good morning, Easter.  The house is quiet.  Tim is running.  The boys are asleep.  And here I am with you.  I feel a kinship with the ladies of Easter.  They came to greet you in the early morning, not even knowing you waited for them, not even knowing you were their destination.  They came with  heavy hearts, the burden of grief and loss obscuring their sight, robbing them of vision.  I sense I am like that too.  There is so much on my mind.  It makes me grumpy.  Blind.  I long for much.  I live in the tension of what I long for and what is.  And because my mind is elsewhere I miss seeing you, the wonder of God's Hope and Love, right before me.

What I love about you Easter, is that you do not stop to wait for blurry eyes to recognize you.  You arrive in our midst and set to work, righting wrongs, resurrecting dreams, relieving sorrow with joy.  You are new life springing forth, bringing your gifts before we are aware of them, certainly before we are worthy of them.  How so very much like our Savior you are.  Gentle.  Persistent.  Insistent.  Unstoppable.  Unstaunchable.  Very much alive.  Even today you are very much alive.  Often arriving while we are still asleep, to groggy and incoherent to say our own names. 

So I love it when you call us by name.  The Savior's voice drifts across your morning dew.  In that simple act of love we hear our names spoken where we have no reason to expect it.  Hearing that one familiar word, spoken in such familiar intimacy, by our beloved Lord, at the same time familar and unrecognizable, changes everything.  Hearing our name infused with the promise of new life changes us.  Here we are, blindly longing for something that we don't even need, to complete the rituals of death.  And then you, Easter, step in and change everything, beyond all our imagining. 

I'm so glad it is Easter.  I need Easter in my life.  I need to hear my name spoken in hope, the sound waves penetrating the veil of my tears and unbelief.  I need to be called to newness I have not even imagined.  I need you.  So I welcome you this quiet morning as the rest of the world wakens. 

My sweet husband is back from his run.  Soon sleepy boys will emerge, ready for poptarts and cartoons.  It is time for my own morning run.  To begin setting out Sunday clothes.  To start our journey toward worship so that we may greet you formally.  But I am so grateful for this quiet moment to say good morning and . . . thank you.

New Life

I love Spring.  I love how it brings with it the promise of new life.  Just a few weeks ago these beautiful buttercups announced Spring's arrival in our own front yard.  In our most barren corner.  I love that.  And I love how their hardy tenacity survives from year to year, weathering storms, winter, and little boys who like to dig.  Every time I see them bloom I am reminded of God's unrelenting grace, God's determination to bring beauty to the barren landscapes of our lives.

These blossoms particularly hold a special place in my heart.  They were planted several years ago by our neighbor Mr. Lonny.  It's been a little over two years since he passed away, unexpectedly, long before anyone was ready for him to.  By simply coming forth each year, our yellow flowers remind me death never has the last word.  Life continues, showing up when we least expect it.

I've struggled in the past week to remember that new life is always breaking open our normalcy.  Sometimes I get discouraged.  I forget that seasons are just as much a part of our personal existence as they are of nature.  When my heart is in the thick of winter, dormancy, and quiet slumber, it seems the world will continue in just that state forever.  In such a season, waiting is less about watching for the new thing and more like the eternity of being suspended mid-air, never knowing when gravity will actually start working again.  Actually this moment will seem like a split-second from the perspective of eternity.  But living in it feels endless. 

And so I have pondered the beauty of buttercups, even while my heart struggles with a season of undetermined boundaries.  I don't know how long I will have to wait for the new thing.  But my yellow companions remind me that new things are still HIS thing. 

These ponderings have been especially poignant the last couple of weeks.  Just a little over a week ago I "celebrated" the year anniversary of discovering the Bishop was ending my appointment at the Wesley Foundation.  I've spent the past year learning to let go, grieving the loss of a ministry family I loved dearly, and allowing my dreams to be reimagined.  Through it all God's mercy and grace have sustained me.  My spirit has found rest.  I have relished the time spent with my family.  God has been a Good Shepherd to me.  He has restored my soul, in ways that are beautiful.

On the anniversary of the announcement of my move, I was the co-leader of our church's ladies retreat.  The theme selected by our women's ministry team was "Time Out for Restoration."  It was wonderful to spend those two days engaged in the kind of ministry I love.  For those two days I felt like John Wesley when he said, "I set myself on fire, and people come to watch me burn."  It was an amazing weekend.  Honestly, it was not an opportunity I sought out.  It came seeking me.  Only God could have arranged it the way it all played out.  It was an amazing experience. 

In some ways its wonder scares me senseless.  There's nothing else on the horizon.  I left that weekend with words echoing along the walls of my heart, "Oh God, I've still got so much ministry left in me!"  A plea.  A prayer.  A heartfelt cry.  Oh Jesus, please don't let this be it.  

Yet I remember buttercups, the promise of new life springing forth when we least expect it.  The truth is that the Bishop ushered me into God's promise.  Since I was released from my appointment at the Wesley Foundation, I not only have a new life, I experience new life.  Let me explain.  On my fridgerator hangs a wooden cross.  On one side is written:  "I die to control fear worry uncertainty anxiety".  On the other are these words:  "So that I may live to hope peace joy love".   I wrote those words during a devotional I led for a Board of Directors meeting at the Wesley Foundation just a couple of months before I learned I was leaving.  Even though I was in a place of "security" (i.e. I had a full time job, benefits, etc.) I was a walking mess.  Control, fear, worry, uncertainty, and anxiety weighed on me every waking moment.  Yet in the year since then, even in learning to live with less, I have so much more hope, peace, joy, and love.  Even now in my aingst about the unknowns of our future, my heart is at rest.  I know God is good.  I know God will go with us wherever we go.

So I welcome Spring.  I welcome the new life God's goodness brings.  I welcome the possibility of being surprised when I least expect it.  I welcome new things.

The Word Became Bread, and We Ate

I have a new love.  It's pretty amazing really.  It snuck up on me, took me by surprise.  I guess it started as all new loves do:  slowly, growing stronger over time, beginning as a mere acquaintance, deepening into friendship, leaning into longing, finally erupting into a full-blown love.  It's true.  I love . . . .

Cooking!

There.  I said it.  Those who know me well know how astounding this is.  I didn't exactly grow up wanting to be domestic.  I have a little girl in my pre-school class who is absolutely darling.  Each time I ask her what she wants to be when she grows up she says, "a mommy."  This was not me.  I wanted to be a carreer woman, wearing power suits and power hose.  I wanted to be important, to look important, to do important things.  I wanted a Ph.D. and all the accolades that came with it.  And I absolutely hated to cook. 

My how things change. 

Last night I received one of the most wonderful compliments my family could give me.  At the dinner table one of my boys accidently called me Nanny.  They enjoyed dinner so much they thought their grandmother had made it.  My husband's mother has been a great cook longer than I've been alive.  She is one of the best cooks around.  And I promise my chicken tenders were no where close to hers.  But it sure did make me feel good to have my culinary skills included with hers by the men in my life who mean the most to me.  Those are some pretty amazing accolades in my book. 

I'm not ever going to pretend that I'm a great cook, but I have learned to love cooking.  Preparing the evening meal for my family feels like prayer to me.  I love the simplicity of bringing a meal together from beginning to end.  I love the mystery of turning the words-on-paper recipe into something I can actually taste, savor, enjoy.  I even love the simple rythm of chopping vegetables and preparing ingredients for the actual act of cooking.  It builds anticipation within me, a sense of belonging to something bigger than myself, of contributing something real and needed to those I love.  And the end product just always tastes so darn good!  (Well, except for that upside down shepherd's pie with the dill and parsley in it.  GROSS!)

Here's the deeper truth.  When I am in the kitchen I remember that God is also all about rendering simple ingredients into something singular, exquisite, beautiful.  God makes us all so different, and then sprinkles us all around until the world bursts with flavor.  I love how He does that.  I love how God arranges us throughout life with purpose and forethought.  Sometimes our purpose is to add spice.  Sometimes we are to contrast nicely with the dominant flavor.  Sometimes we are placed as a compliment to others.  Sometimes we are to be the main course, providing simple sustainance.  But never are we wasted.  Our lives are meant to make others hungry and thirsty for more of Him, to give a taste of His goodness, His fullness, His grace, His abundance, His bounty.


Cooking has become a place of worship for me.  Each day I am reminded of the incarnation, Word becoming flesh, as the words on the back of the box actually turn into something I can digest.  I am reminded that God's Word sent forth into my life is just as real.  The Jesus I read about each night as I tuck my boys into bed is the same Lord and Savior that sends His Holy Spirit to guide me through each day.  And the place where I prepare the nourishment for my family has become Holy Ground for me.  My new favorite quiet space is at the kitchen table, complete with Bible, journal and hot tea in hand.  In my gut it feels completely natural that the place I feed my physical body is also the place I feed the spiritual one.

I guess I keep coming back to the realization that the most Holy moments of life are actually the most ordinary ones.  In this particular season, my life is so full of ordinary.  That's not a bad thing.  It's really a restful, restorative, beautiful, kind of ordinary.  The kind of ordinary I am completely thankful for.  And I am so grateful that God's Word still accomplishes His purposes even through the most humble and ordinary "bread for the eater" kinds of ways.



For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do no return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.  Isaiah 55:10-11

Confession

I hear confession is good for the soul.  Well, I have something to confess.  I have not been writing.  That's pretty obvious.  It's been a good three months since I visited my own blog.  But I have something else to confess.  The reason is fear.  I've been afraid.  I've been afraid of what others might think.  Not others as in people I know.  But others who work at the place where I've applied for a new job.  I was afraid that my writing could keep me from getting a position that I wanted and my family needed.  But that's not the worst of it.  I've not been writing because I was afraid that my writing didn't matter anymore.  I've not been writing because I was afraid that I didn't matter anymore.  That the place from which I write is no longer valid because it comes from a place of ministry in me, and it sure looks like ministry is over in my life.  And it is so hard to believe that God can open up doors for me to live out of that sacred place that He put in me, in just the way I need to live out of it.  Oh Lord Jesus!  Why did you make me sucn and odd person?  Why am I the way I am?  Why can't I just go pastor some church and be done with it?  Why couldn't you have made me a wonderfully round peg that matches all the round ministry holes?

But there is a bigger fear.  It's the fear that if I don't write that sacred place within me will die.  I don't know if I can live with myself if I allow that to happen.  And so I'm stuck in this hard, hard place.  I so want to connect to the deeply passionate, spiritual, and pastoral places within.  But to do that I have to also live in the frustration of not knowing if there will ever be a place of ministry that I can fill. 

Not everything has been out of the book of mid-life crisis 101.  In many ways I have a deep and profound joy.  I feel like I've found myself.  I love being home.  I love being more present and available to my family.  I love being a mommy and not having to choose between my own children and the needs of a flock in my pastoral care. I love being a wife and blessing my husband.  I love being home.  I love it.  It is where I feel most alive and most at peace.  I believe I have found there my most important work, my most important legacy.  When I die I will be so thankful for this time, this opportunity, this availability, this vocation.  In many ways this time is the ministry that means the most to me, even though it is so very costly.

So this is the day I face my fears.  I don't know what the future holds.  I just know that I not done yet.  I still have words left in me that I need to express.  Mostly so I can find my way through this hard time.  I need to know that the minister within is still alive.  I need her.  And I believe my children and husband need her too.  And maybe, just maybe, someday she will be needed in the Body of Christ again too.