tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91687907716186556762024-03-13T14:29:39.494-04:00Sermons from StonesAleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-81890407622924332902015-07-23T13:36:00.000-04:002015-07-23T13:36:25.530-04:00Trust<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trust is a tender thing. So tender that relationships find themselves irreparable when it is broken… and everyone understands. How can you go back on a thing like that? How can you put back the broken pieces so the cracks don’t show?</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UHhE8NxwT3U/VbEkbrFCNCI/AAAAAAAASgs/X19OjtVWOOQ/s1600/cracks-656796_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UHhE8NxwT3U/VbEkbrFCNCI/AAAAAAAASgs/X19OjtVWOOQ/s320/cracks-656796_640.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trust in the Lord with all your heart,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and do not lean on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Proverbs makes it sound so simple. Like, “Trust God!” Oh, um, okay. But for some time, I felt like God broke our trust. I was hurt and hurt in a way I wasn’t sure could really be fixed. And while I never turned from the faith, while I never really even spoke that out loud, I held this small place in my heart captive. I didn’t want to walk away in pain; I knew I didn’t see clearly in the fog, in the confusion, and so I wasn’t sure I wanted to abandon ship. But I also didn’t want to let God have all of me because… well, I didn’t feel He’d earned it. I didn’t feel He kept up His end of all this. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I trusted you</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I felt myself thinking. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I trusted you and you didn’t come through</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve visited this before, but it bears repeating. Job has all the awfulness of life rain down on him unmercifully and when he cries out to God, he doesn’t get rationalizations. He doesn’t get explanations. He doesn’t get to see the “reason” for his suffering or the “good” that it will bring about in him or anything like that. He lashes out at God, finally unable to keep it all straight, and God says, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements -- surely you know!”</i></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you see this? This is the non-answer of all non-answers. What God gives Job is not an answer to His question. What God gives Job is a new question. The right question. Instead of, “What could I have done to deserve this? Where did I go wrong? Why would you let this happen?... my question, Job’s question, should be, “Who are you, Lord?” Who are you and what are you about?</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unlike with this world, unlike with people and situations here, our trust with God </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cannot</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> be broken. It isn’t possible. God Himself keeps the covenant with us. It doesn’t depend on us even a little bit. And when we feel like it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>has </i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">been broken? Our answer is in the Garden. Instead of hiding away, instead of locking pieces of ourselves aside, we cue from God and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">go looking for Him</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. God knew what His children had done and yet </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He sought them out</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. And while we may not understand what God is up to, while we may not see the full picture, while we may be squinting out there trying to make shapes out of blobs, when we run to God, when we search for Him and seek Him out, we will never fail to find Him. And when we find God? We have all we could ever look for.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We can hold back pieces of ourselves from each other so we are sure not to get hurt. We can hold back pieces of ourselves from God so we play it safe. We can hold back from taking bold steps because we want to be sure of ourselves or because we have stepped out before and fallen on our faces. But in all that protecting and hiding, we’re missing it. We’re missing it in those moments because when we stop protecting, stop hiding ourselves away, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">stop trying to save ourselves</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and instead, step out trusting God, we find that the story is not what we thought it was. We find out that it is not OUR story. We find that all along, we’ve been asking the wrong questions and searching for the wrong things. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The trick, y’all, is that we are hard-wired for wrong. We come out looking the wrong way and we have to learn, be taught, how to turn and trust. There are as many wrong questions to ask and as many wrong things to chase as there are humans who have ever walked the earth. And your hangup will not be my hangup or her hangup or his. We all get our own. (Isn’t that nice?? ;) ) But for all of us, there is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> right question and there is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> right answer and it is all of everything forever and ever, amen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Who are you, Lord?” “I AM.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>[Ed. note: I'm back... or something. I don't exactly know yet. I do know that I have missed writing and I have missed this space in particular, so I'm dipping my toe back in the water and we'll see where this goes! :) Thanks for being here.]</i></span></div>
Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-10818947686062938772014-10-20T17:00:00.000-04:002014-10-20T17:12:05.526-04:00He Is FoundI have an oddly visceral reaction to "coffee cup" Bible verses. You know the ones that <i>everybody</i> knows, even if they've never stepped in church, because people can't help themselves from knitting them on things and painting them on things and wearing them. I react to them the same way I do to Christian radio and Christian bookstores and inspirational messages on church signs. I feel vaguely nauseous and make my "stank face". These things aren't all bad; I've just been beaten by those Bibles and it was none too pleasant.<br />
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On Friday, I sat down to read the Bible for the first time in a month. I've been struggling lately, foggy, and while the issues I'm battling are drawing me into prayer, somewhere along the way, I left my Bible in the dust. Anyway, I opened up some brain space and took the opportunity to sit down and read. I've been reading in a One Year Bible, one of those handy ones that breaks the whole Bible down into daily readings for you to make it through the whole thing in a year. I told myself that if I skipped more than just one or two days that I would pick back up on the current date so I wouldn't feel defeated and not read at all. So I flipped to October 17th and started to read.<br />
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About a page in, what do I find but one of those tired, old verses, one that has been inscribed on more Hallmark cards than Jeremiah ever anticipated. <i>"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'" Jeremiah 29:11</i> Immediately, I felt my stomach turn and I rolled my eyes so far back up into my head, I could practically see my babysitter from my childhood throwing me a disapproving glance. It's just, ugh. How annoying! (Yes, I just called the Bible annoying. Bear with me. I'm laying it all out there for you.)<br />
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"I know the plans I have for you." Well, that's great, God. I'm so super glad you have a plan. If you could, I don't know, shoot a little whisper my way about WHAT ON EARTH is going on, that'd be awesome. You know, just whenever. "Plans to prosper you and not harm you." Okay, so see, this is where the train derails further. Because, really, God? There's been a WHOLE lot of harm in this past year and a half. A whole lot of pain and medication and uprooting and harm. Physical harm, mental harm, emotional harm, spiritual harm -- it's been one giant ball of harm, and I don't see how this stupid phrase could possibly be true. "Plans to give you a hope and a future." Well, God, you have a seriously funny way of showing that.<br />
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As I stewed in my sarcasm and emotional response, I thought about how I could try to give this verse a fair shot. It is certainly no coincidence that this verse pops up on the precise day I sit down with my Bible after letting it collect dust for a month. Maybe, if instead of pulling this verse out of thin air like I'm drawing my pistol for a duel, I could read it in context. It comes after some stuff and before some other stuff, and like anything written down and <i>especially</i> like in the Word of the Living God, it certainly is connected to both what comes before it and what comes after it. So, okay, so let's give it a fair shot and see.<br />
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<b>Before</b>: Okay, so this little passage is being written to exiles, people God sent out from Jerusalem to Babylon. And here's what He says to them: <i><span class="selected">"Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. </span><span class="">Take
wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give
your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters;
multiply there, and do not decrease. </span><span class="verse-num" id="v24029007-1"></span><span class="">But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and </span><span class="">pray to the </span><span class="small-caps">Lord</span></i><span class=""><i> on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." Jeremiah 29:5-7</i> Basically, God is saying, even though you are out here in this strange land and you feel separated from me, go on living your lives. Do your thing. Do your human thing, and <i>invest</i> in the place where you are because you will benefit from what benefits your place. Don't let go of yourself, don't let go of Me, just because things don't look like you expected they would.</span><br />
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<span class="">And you can do this, this is possible, BECAUSE... <i>"</i></span><i><span class="selected">I will visit you, </span><span class="">and I will fulfill to you my promise </span><span class="">and bring you back to this place. </span><span class="">For I know the plans I have for you, declares the </span><span class="small-caps">Lord</span><span class="">, plans for welfare</span><span class=""> and not for evil, </span></i><span class=""><i>to give you a future and a hope." (Jeremiah 29:10-11)</i> Okay, so this is a little less annoying here because we know that these people need encouraging because they're in exile and all this stuff. BUT. But what about when after 60 years and God's still not back or whatever and things have ALL BEEN SHOT TO HELL? What about when things look 100% totally crappy? What about when there's an absence of "welfare" and a seeming abundance of "evil" and a gaping hole in what should be the "future" and put all together, that means "hope" is about as unlikely as tap-dancing unicorns? WHAT ABOUT WHEN LIFE??</span><br />
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<span class="">And then I read after. And what came after made me cry. What came after was not at all what I expected for the after, and what came after made everything that came before make so, so, so, so, SO much more sense. Because, you see, what I realized, was that my definition of "welfare" and "future" and "hope" were totally wrong. I defined the terms totally wrong and so when I went to look for them, when I went to look for evidence of them, I couldn't find them anywhere. I couldn't <i>see</i> them because I didn't know what I was looking for. I was looking for physical health. I was looking for mental stability. I was looking for a thriving, pulsing, beating spiritual heart. And with all these things lacking, I logically concluded -- I have no welfare. I do not see God in this place "prospering" things. I see <i>evil</i> and <i>wrong</i> and <i>confusion </i>and <i>difficulty </i>and <i>pain.</i> So what comes after?</span><br />
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<span class=""><b>After:</b> </span><i>"<span class="selected">Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, </span><a class="cf" href="http://www.esvbible.org/Jr33.3%3BDn9.3/"><span class=""></span></a><span class="">and I will hear you. </span><a class="cf" href="http://www.esvbible.org/2Ch15.2%3BPs32.6%3BPs78.34%3BPr8.17%3BIs55.6%3BHs3.5%3BLv26.39-42%3BDe30.1-3/"><span class=""></span></a><span class="">You will seek me and find me, when you seek me </span><span class="">with all your heart. </span><span class="">I will be found by you, declares the </span><span class="small-caps">Lord</span><span class="">, </span><a class="cf" href="http://www.esvbible.org/Jr30.3/"><span class=""></span></a><span class="">and I will restore your fortunes and </span><span class="">gather you from all the nations and all the places </span><span class="">where I have driven you, declares the </span><span class="small-caps">Lord</span></i><span class=""><i>, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile." (Jeremiah 29:12-14)</i> And I'm crying again. I'm sorry, but <b>DID YOU READ THAT?????</b> "I will be found by you." After the exile, after being sent out and separated and broken apart, when we seek for God, <b>WE WILL FIND HIM</b>.</span><br />
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<span class="">I've been spinning around "looking" for God and waiting for Him to pop up like my genie. I've been taking all the troubling circumstances as signs that we're being "taught" something or "tested by fire" or something sadistic and terrible. I've been looking around to the physical things to see the spiritual meaning and I've been completely missing it. "You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord." This "welfare" and "future" and "hope" that God promises in His plan, He's not dangling the promise in front of our noses to get us to just keep going one more step with Him. He's not holding our futures out in front of us like some prize that we have to run the race to earn. He's not keeping us in limbo to see how we will act or react or whether we will toe the line. <b>HE IS THE PRIZE. He is the welfare. He is the future. He is the hope. HE IS THE PROMISE</b>. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord... You will seek me and find me."</span><br />
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<span class="">The "plans" God has for us are for us to find Him. To seek Him, to find Him, to be <i>restored</i> to Him. <i>"</i></span><i><span class="">I will restore your fortunes and </span><span class="">gather you from all the nations and all the places </span><span class="">where I have driven you, declares the </span><span class="small-caps">Lord</span></i><span class=""><i>, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile."</i> The plan isn't, "No bad thing will ever happen." The plan isn't, "You will always feel entirely emotionally and mentally stable." The plan isn't, "You will know exactly what is going to come tomorrow and it will be all entirely good things." The plan is... we are apart now. We are exiles. But we won't always be. And when we go seeking God, He <b>WILL</b> be found. It's a promise. We get God. That's the whole plan. Everything is all down the crapper, but who even cares, because <b>WE GET GOD.</b></span><br />
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<span class="">Y'all, the tears I have cried, you don't even know. This is not a life preserver to a drowning woman; this is a freaking rocket to the stars. I am an exile, trudging through a weary land, and while I sincerely hope the fog lifts, the panic subsides, the darkness is swiftly blown away, in the end, it doesn't really matter. Even in my fog and panic and darkness, God is with me. Even in my clarity and peace and joy, God is with me. Even while in exile, I can seek God and He promises He will be found and let me tell you my friend, He is found. He is found. Praise the Lord, the Lord is found.<b> </b></span>Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-58943799347495670972014-09-10T23:27:00.002-04:002014-09-10T23:27:33.711-04:00A Broken Offering<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well... it's back. The heart-pounding, the heavy chest, the surge of adrenaline for seemingly no reason. The weighty sense of doom and lack of oxygen. I've been waiting all through the last 14 months, anticipating the return, watching with nervous eyes. Of all the times in all the lives, this would be the time. This would be the life. But it's stayed at bay, I think possibly because my body knew I couldn't handle one more thing. And now that life has slowed, the crises have passed, the mountains have been scaled... now the panic comes. Now the anxiety returns. Now the attacks hit and wash over me rapid-fire.<br />
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Yes, I am seeing my doctor. Yes, I have told my people and they are both praying and reaching out, arms wide and welcoming, familiar, both with my struggles and with their own. You'd be amazed once you open your mouth to say, "This is where I am," how many people respond with, "Me too." Yes, I rest fully assured in the provision that God will provide for my family and how fiercely He will protect us. But the power of the mind? It isn't logical. The fears? They don't make sense. My triggers? The things that can send me into gasping fits? They don't add up. You can't talk yourself out of it. You can't reassure yourself through it. You just have to let it pass. You have to hold on, feel it, and let it move through you.<br />
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You might find this awkwardly personal, weird to share, to fling out into the ether for anyone to read. But this is my healing, my therapy, and I have neglected it lately. I talk it out and think it out and share it (albeit from the safety of my computer screen). But somehow that process heals me. It walks me through and teaches me and puts pieces back into place. So I'll tell you about where I am. And you have either been there and you will nod your head -- <i>yes, yes</i> -- or you have not and you will shake your head -- <i>wow, gosh</i>. But along the way, I hope you all see one thing shining very brightly in the distance: hope.<br />
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It feels like that moment when you realize you have made an incredible mistake. You have screwed up, and not just a little bit, but <i>majorly</i>. So majorly that you might actually lose everything. Every. Last. Thing. That sense of doom so powerful that you see no way past it, no way around it, no way to fix it. The only solution is to raise your hand and say, "Yes, I did mess every last thing up, and no, there is nothing I can do to fix it." That feeling, that sinking in the pit of your stomach -- that is what it feels like.<br />
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Or imagine you are trekking along a path in the woods, enjoying the light breezes wafting pine scent your way and the sweet songs of finches and sparrows. And you have your eyes fixed on the bend up ahead, fairly certain it is the last turn in the trail before you hit the summit. And as you come around that bend, instead of a bright open scape of mountain views, you come body-to-body with a grizzly bear. You cannot hide, and you cannot run. There he is and he has seen you. Your body smashes you with adrenaline and you know you will either fight or flee. Your heart speeds up and your stomach drops and you instantly feel sick and trapped and afraid -- that is what it feels like.<br />
<br />
Except I haven't screwed up majorly and I haven't encountered a hungry bear on a remote trail. Instead, these feelings, these thoughts hit me while I'm, say, washing some dishes at my kitchen sink. Or sitting down to eat lunch. Or getting ready to leave for an appointment. It's not even anything specific, like being afraid of large groups or traffic or rainbows. It just hits and racks. It's chemical and hormonal and in no way based on my trust (or lack thereof) in God or my faith or how powerful or good I think He is. It is my body fighting an enemy that does not exist. And in so doing, creating a new enemy for me.<br />
<br />
But it also creates a lot of cause of prayer and reflection. Appeals to God and appeals to others and I found myself in bed the other night thinking about being broken. And I thought to myself, <i>Brokenness is not a barrier to the kingdom of heaven.</i> Reassuring, I know my place before God is secure and cannot be knocked over by waves of anxiety and my inability to breathe. And I sat with that for a while. And it came to me. Brokenness is not a barrier to the kingdom of heaven. In fact, <i>it is the only requirement.</i><br />
<br />
<i>"[Jesus] said to them, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.'" (Mark 2:17) </i>The Pharisees had wondered aloud why Jesus was hanging out with "sinful" people and this was His response to them. The added layer here is this: none of us are healthy. <i>"No one is righteous, no, not one." (Romans 3:10) </i>No a one of us in all the land or who has ever been in all the land is righteous. Not a single one. The Pharisees wonder why Jesus is hanging out with the "sick" (read: unrighteous) people when He could be hanging out with them (the healthy, righteous ones). Where they miss the mark is in not realizing that they too are sick. They've got it all together. They don't "need no doctor."<br />
<br />
But Jesus said He came for the sick. He came for the "weary and heavy laden." He came to heal sores and stop bleeding and repair vision and make men walk. And every single time He performed a miracle like this, it was to draw attention to the power of God to heal the broken. The physical healing provided a platform to display the spiritual healing, the true reason for Jesus' ministry. And the only requirement to be healed by the Lord was to say, "Lord, I am sick." Several even had sick loved ones far away and asked the Lord to heal them and He did. Their faith was in His power to heal brokenness and their faith was well-placed.<br />
<br />
So I raise my hand to the Lord, and I don't say, "Just hang in there with me God. I'll get this all sorted out soon." I don't say, "I know I was weak again, but next time I'll be strong." I say, "Lord, I am broken. I am broken and I cannot fix it. Have mercy on me, Lord." And not a one of us can know how the Lord will respond, whether He will chase away the fears and anxiety or whether they will accompany me until the end of my days. But I <i>do</i> know that the Doctor is in. I <i>do </i>know that my brokenness does not bar me entrance into His presence. I <i>do </i>know that all He requires of me is faith in Him.<br />
<br />
And so here I am, frantic and panicked and scared and broken, but kneeling before the King. And the line that keeps ringing in my head is one I sang nearly weekly while in college and one that blew my little mind the first time I sang it and one that I will never, ever, not as long as I live, forget: "If you tarry til you're better, you will never come at all." If you wait until you get it all in line, until you get it figured out, until you feel like you are "fixed", you will never come. You will never approach the throne. You will never feel worthy to come before the King. "Not the righteous, not the righteous, sinners Jesus came to call."<br />
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And so I do not let my brokenness bar me. I do not let my brokenness hold me away. I do not let my brokenness come between me and the King. Instead, I hold my brokenness out in my hands like an offering, like an offering of praise, as a way of saying, "Heal me, Healer." And when I offer it to Him, when I trust Him with it, when I lay down what would be my way and instead walk His, I find life. I find peace that stands secure. I find a hold in the storm. And I don't, not for one second, let go.Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-5492998295519608592014-08-01T10:20:00.001-04:002014-08-01T10:20:54.274-04:00Build Your HouseSoloman had to build the house of God. Not "a" house of God. Not a new church building in a town with seventeen other churches. <b>THE</b> house of God. The physical, material building that would hold the spirit of the living God. With men falling to their knees at the sight of an <i>angel</i> of the Lord, imagine the weight Solomon must have felt. With men falling <i>dead</i> for daring to touch the ark, even as it was falling to the ground, imagine the terror Solomon must have felt.<br />
<br />
And so his dad encouraged him. And he says again and again, "Do not be afraid." It's hard to wrap our brains around because very little in our culture is sacred, but Solomon was being charged to provide a home for the Most Sacred of all sacred and his dad knew he needed to hear those words. So this is what David says to his son: <i>"Be strong and courageous and do it. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed, for the Lord God, even my God, is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of the Lord is finished."</i> (1 Chronicles 28:20) He didn't say, "You can do it, son! I believe in you!" He didn't say, "Everyone will help you out. No worries!" He didn't say, "I'm sure you'll figure it out somehow. You're a smart kid." He said, "Do not fear, for God is with you, and <b>He will build this house</b>."<br />
<br />
And David wasn't just throwing his confidence around, willy-nilly. He wasn't just saying happy, nice things to make his son not feel terrified at the prospect of doing one of the most important things for his people that had ever been done in the history of ever. David had a confidence in <b>who God is</b> that supported his faith in <b>what God would do</b>. <i>"Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name." (1 Chronicles 29:10-13) </i>David could say to his son, "Do not be afraid", not because he knew <i>he </i>would be around to help or because he had some glimpse of the future or because he wanted to sound encouraging. He said it because he knew God. He knew the greatness and the power and the glory. He knew that whatever God said He would do, He would do. He knew God's power and His might and His reign. His faith in God was secure and He could tell his son, honestly, truthfully, "You can trust this God."<br />
<br />
Now, God has never asked me to build a temple. He has never given me an army. He has never commanded me to war. He has never supplied me with stone tablets of His words to share with the people. But He has given me work. He has given me a husband, whom I am called to love and respect. He has given me children, whom I am called to train up in His ways. He has given me a church, a body that I am called to serve with and to serve. He has given me a community, that I am called to bless and to share the hope of Christ with.<br />
<br />
And there is more, but even just stop there and the weight of all that <i>responsibility</i> can feel crushing. At the end of any given day, I mean, really, call me around 8 pm any night, and I will be the world's nastiest. I am tired. I am peopled out. I am D-O-N-E, <b>done. </b>I have washed dishes and wiped bottoms and given kisses and told stories and listened to stories and puzzled over money and prayed over hearts and listened to dreams and tried to care for the souls in my path. It takes it all from me, every last bit. <i>It is not in me</i>. It is not in me to build this house, and I simply cannot do it.<br />
<br />
And so I wake up this morning, before the rest of my people, and I read David's words: "Do not be dismayed, for the Lord God, even my God, is with you." And I kinda start to cry. <i>Okay, David, if you can say that, maybe I can say that too. </i>And that's comforting and all, but it's really the next part. "He will not leave you or forsake you, <b>until all the work for the service of the house of the Lord is finished</b>." <span style="font-size: x-small;">(my emphasis added)</span> He will not leave you until all the work is done. You know your work. You see it piled high. <b>He will not leave you until the work is done. </b>All that God has given your hands to do, <i>He will do</i>. And David would tell you, hand cupping your cheeks, eyes honest, "Be strong and courageous and do it." And through a teary smile, you will nod, <i>Okay, yes. Yes, Lord</i>,<i> I will do it.</i><br />
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This work does not end with our hands. It doesn't end with the child-rearing and the homeless-feeding and the church-nursery-working. This work digs deep down into our hearts. Because unless <i>we</i> are transformed by God, our work will fall to shambles all around us. And again, this work is not our own, but the Lord's. <i>"As one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous."</i> (Romans 5:18-19) Our souls have cement galoshes, and they've been thrown into the lake. We're sunk, and we're stuck. We can thrash all over. We can try to scream. But we won't move an inch and not a soul will hear us.<br />
<br />
But the same God who built His temple can make you a temple. The same God who gave Solomon every last piece to build His house has every last piece to repair your heart. And it's not about all the many things you can<i> do</i> for God, just like it wasn't about Solomon raising a building with the sheer force of his will. <b>It is about trust</b>. Solomon heard David's words and he trusted God. And maybe you don't have a dad who encouraged you in the Lord, but you do have a Father who speaks His word. And at the end of the day, at the 8 pm of your night, when you are tired and self-ed out and D-O-N-E, <b>done</b>, when you think it isn't possible for you to get any lower, for your soul to be any more tarnished, for you to screw it up any more than it already is, or when you are ministering to souls who look this dim and dark and dirtied... you need to hear David: <i>"Do not be dismayed, for the Lord God, even my God, is with you."</i> And you need to hear Paul: "<i>For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous."</i><br />
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Your heart is the work of the Lord. And He will not leave you until the house is built.<i> </i>Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-3441944854444403172014-07-13T21:20:00.000-04:002014-07-13T21:20:38.896-04:00Raining Gifts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
I went a whole week without counting gifts. I made it into July, faithfully naming God's graces daily, all the way to #813. And I kinda fell off the wagon... I got busy and way distracted and some days it didn't even cross my mind.<br />
<br />
The smell of rain always reminds me, though. And today, we got a summer rainstorm. I heard the fat drops smacking our metal AC window units and ran to let the dogs in before they got soaked. My son immediately asked for his rain coat and boots because when God gives us puddles, we splash in them. I dressed him and as I opened the door, I breathed in that damp earth smell. The smell of life. Immediately, I grabbed my book, my little book of gifts, scratched out and scrawled, day-by-day.<br />
<br />
And I wrote:<br />
<ul>
<li>Rain -- J in it, puddles, the sound and smell</li>
<li>Sliding down the wet slide -- "Clean shorts?"</li>
<li>The smell of coffee and rain that reminds me of honeymooning in Scotland</li>
</ul>
The first gifts I'd written in a whole week. I could hardly believe it. We played and cleaned up and as I finished my coffee, I thought: in one single moment, God gifts us immeasurably. I picked out the gifts from one moment and they could not be contained, not even in my mind. <br />
<ul>
<li>The rain. God sends literal life-water over all the earth, growing crops, nourishing the creation. Rain is provision. It is our survival, our continuing. Today, it cooled and watered and allowed for growth.</li>
<li>My son. He sends out joy like rays of sunlight. He lives right in the moment, fully present and aware and so curious. He ushered me into motherhood which God has used as a mighty tool of sanctification in my life.</li>
<li>Our home. A summer rain is fun for us, an escape, a place to play. We come inside, dripping and muddy, and we have our shelter. The storm is not an inconvenience, not something to be hidden <i>from</i>, and it is not lost on me how very blessed we are.</li>
<li>Cleansing. No other water drenches quite like a downpour. The fat drops smack you and make even your bones feel wet. This is the closest we'll ever get to the physical feeling of redemption.</li>
<li>Play. Play requires time and freedom and space. It requires a clearing, and we have the luxury of that place. We have margin in our days and we spend it on joy.</li>
</ul>
This hardly scratches the surface. The more I think, the more I see. And I know, every moment I breathe is filled like this. Every moment my heart beats is bursting open with gifts from God.<br />
<br />
I missed a whole week of moments, a whole week of gifts. And it's not that I didn't live them; I did! I was there. I drank joy. But I didn't take the time to slow and see. I didn't open my eyes to the presence of God in those moments. Mostly, I didn't take the time to say, "Thank you, Lord." The longer I go without remembering God in my moments, the more I start to think the moments are mine, of my own making and for my own design. But they aren't. They aren't when I remember and they aren't when I forget. <i>All </i>the moments are God's moments and <i>all </i>the gifts are God's gifts and they are <i>all</i> meant to point our eyes to the Giver, to remember and give thanks. Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-86518519127885927822014-06-30T17:02:00.000-04:002014-06-30T17:20:24.354-04:00Parenting with Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A friend shared this article recently, <a href="http://familyshare.com/the-important-thing-about-yelling">The important thing about yelling</a>, and it was the next thing in a long line of conversations about yelling I've had recently. I'm not exactly sure why it keeps coming up, but I can't help but pay attention to those things that do, those issues life offers up again and again for your attention. Today gave me a little glimpse as to why.<br />
<br />
My two-year-old straight out smacked me in the face earlier today. Yes, smacked me. Yes, right in the face. And yes, if you know him, my sweet little boy. In the split second before I reacted, I saw about ten different scenarios play out in my mind, several of them involving retaliation. What would <i>your</i> reaction be if someone smacked you in the face? Yeah, that. This is not the first time it has happened, and I doubt it will be the last, and I am thankful for the many conversations about parenting I've had recently and the few minutes I spent in prayer this morning because I know they shaped my response.<br />
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I felt my blood pressure spike, and I took a deep breath. As I picked up my son, I caught my husband's eye and his wide-open mouth, his face saying exactly what I was thinking. <i>Did that just happen? And now what? </i>I carried my son upstairs to his room, and as I sat down with him in the rocking chair where I spent many a night nursing him as a baby, I almost started to cry. Why? Because this was sin. His anger, the frustration that pent up and shot out of him before he could even think, it was sin, and in that moment, I knew we were both getting a very early glimpse at the burden that he would (that all of us do) carry for life.<br />
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I could have yelled at him. I could have smacked him across the face. Instead, I explained to him what was happening in his heart. "You were mad at mommy, and instead of acting in love, you acted in anger. You hit mommy because you were angry." As I said those words, I could hear the words of my prayer from just a few hours earlier: <i>"Lord, help me, equip me to forgive those who sin against me, remembering the great debt of mine that you have already forgiven."</i> Straight out of the Lord's prayer and here I was, needing to heed it. I could have responded in turn, dumped my anger at what he did right back on him, but instead, Jesus called me to show love to my son, to turn and let him smack my other cheek.<br />
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"This is called sin, son. We all have this in our hearts. We all sin, every day." I'm crying just to write this. It is so hard. He is only two and he doesn't know. He doesn't know that he will fight this battle every day, and it really never gets easier to choose the narrow path, to choose the way of love, to hear Jesus's words ringing loud, drowning out our own shouts. "God sent Jesus to us for this very thing. He sent Jesus to us because in our sin, we are separate from God. He sent Jesus to us to become sin for us so that we could become righteous and be with God." I know he's only two and he doesn't understand, but I don't ever want him to remember a time when I didn't tell him this truth.<br />
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"God requires love. He tells us to act in love and that love is patient and kind. And son, that is so hard. It is so hard for us because we are broken. But you know what? Jesus heals us. He heals even our most wicked hearts." By this point, my son had rested his head on my chest, doing that pitiful little residual sob that kids do to make you melt. I rubbed his back and told him how much I loved him, how much God loves him, how much love hung on that cross.<br />
<br />
I don't share this to shame my child. I'm sure many of you could tell far "worse" stories, and that's not what I'm after. I don't share this to have you praise my superb parenting skills or grace under pressure. I've conveniently neglected to share all the times I've totally failed as a parent. (Or, well, I did share about my anger in <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/02/fire.html">this post</a>...). I share this for two reasons.<br />
<br />
Reason 1: Think about your goals. What is the point of your parenting? What do you <i>want</i> for your kids? Do you want them to be wickedly smart? Do you want them to obey you at the glare of an eye? Do you want them to fear you? The Word pushes us as parents to teach our children the way of the Lord. That's what the Bible says is our job. It tells kids to listen to their parents, to glean from their wisdom. The assumption behind this is that the parent is doling out wisdom, is pointing to Jesus, is clearing the path for their children to walk that narrow road. And every parenting decision you ever make requires that focus. It's not about <i>you</i>. It's not about righting some perceived wrong against you. It's not about establishing your tiny kingdom. It's about teaching your kids the love of Christ. And if we don't keep that narrow focus, if we don't keep our eyes fixed on the cross, we will parent in all sorts of crazy ways, ways that do not honor God or bless our children.<br />
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Reason 2: You can always be a better parent. Maybe every single day for the last year, you have yelled at your kid. You have yelled and screamed, not as a form of discipline (because, as my husband says, yelling isn't a punishment), but just to vent your anger or frustration or disappointment or whatever else. Maybe it's the single, solitary way you know how to communicate to your children. Well, guess what? <b>Tomorrow is a new day.</b> Tomorrow is a new day and if you place your faith in Jesus, the Word tells us that He gives us new hearts. You catch that? Maybe your old heart is an angry, yelling heart, but in Christ, you <i>already have</i> a new one. You don't have to wait for it. You don't have to ask God for it. <b>It's already there</b>. You just have to use it.<br />
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It may seem impossible, but I'll tell you, if God can fix me, He sure can fix you. If God can change my heart -- from one that would desire to retaliate or punish or "teach that kid a lesson" -- to one that truly desires to see my child come to know Christ, to one that <i>knows</i> that is the only way my child's actions will ever please God, He surely can change your heart. Maybe yelling isn't your thing. Maybe it's the silent treatment or verbal belittling or shaming. I'm sure there are any number of ways we can reduce our children to their behaviors instead of seeing their souls, but whatever they are, the love of Christ can overpower. The love of God can overflow out of you and wash your children in the water of forgiveness.<br />
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Your child, your children, they are sinners. And you should expect them to act accordingly. It shouldn't surprise you (though it will). It shouldn't shock you (though it might). Most of all, it shouldn't cause you to lose hope. Jesus is <i>"the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:2)</i> Your kid falls into the "no one is righteous, no, not one" but he falls into the "whole world" too, the "whole world" that Jesus came to save. And guess what? So do you.Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-53913158462964612602014-06-23T17:37:00.000-04:002014-06-23T17:39:18.768-04:00For Tomorrow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
To my daughter on the eve of surgery:<br />
<br />
Hey, Bitty.<br />
<br />
We're standing right on the edge here, looking down the rock face, eyes wide and wholly unsure. Nothing about this is easy, but I'm pretty sure it's right. Before we take this plunge... before we start a whole new phase of your life, of <i>our </i>lives... there are a few things I want you to know.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>1) We are not doing this to fix you, to make you whole.</b><br />
<br />
Life with hearing loss looks different for every person, every family. I truly, honestly, 100% believe there is no "right" path with this, no way to go that is "the" way. It is personal and subjective. Every individual and family should weigh the decision carefully.<br />
<br />
That said, your dad and I have weighed this. We have thought and read and prayed and sought counsel. We have examined our own hearts and plumbed our minds. We are doing the best with what we have. It feels so presumptuous of me to make this decision for you. You can communicate to me when you are tired or hungry or want to be held. But beyond that? How can I possibly know what <i>you</i> would want? What decision you would <i>ask</i> us to make? <b>I can't. </b>I'm stepping out here. We're making this call <i>for</i> you, and on some level, it feels wrong. It feels like a violation of you, a strike at you, at the way God made you.<br />
<br />
It is so clear to me that <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-gift-of-life.html">God brought us <b>you</b></a>. Just-the-way-you-are you. Congenital-CMV you. Feisty-powerful-full-of-personality you. <b>Deaf</b> <b>you</b>. And no part of me is trying to change <i>you</i>. I love you! This is not about that. This choice isn't a way for us to make you into <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/called-to-love-not-fear.html">our own image</a>. It isn't about wanting you to hear us tell you we love you. It isn't about wanting you to share our love of music. It isn't about wanting you to speak at your high school graduation. I will treasure all those things, should they be in our future, but that is not our motivation. That is not our "why".<br />
<br />
We truly believe this is the best for you. We're your parents, and for some crazy reason, God has entrusted us with this big decision. We don't make it on our behalf; we make it on yours. And no matter how this goes, whether it works or not, whether you hate me in ten years for this or not, at the very least, I want you to know that this is <b><i>for</i> </b>you. We want to equip you. We want to give you the best shot. We want to ease a small part of the burden life has put on you.<br />
<br />
Please don't ever think this is about making you someone you aren't. Please don't ever think that you aren't enough for us just the way you are. Please don't ever think that we wouldn't love you if you never once heard our voices or spoke to us. I know how life can twist you up and make you doubt things you thought you knew. This is one thing I never, ever, <b>EVER </b>want you to doubt. You are you, and God gave us <i>you</i>, and we love <b>you</b>. Just you. All your ups and all your downs, we are right here, holding your hand, smiling through tears. Our love, our relationship, has no conditions, not one. We are bound forever, and nothing can change that, not even death (and certainly not deafness).<br />
<br />
<b>2) I'm afraid.</b><br />
<br />
It's not natural to send your child into pain. And at least when offset with the benefit of saving your kid's life, choosing surgery can seem easy. Of <i>course</i> you'd allow your child to feel pain if it means they get to live. But this? Elective surgery? It scares me. We're choosing this for you when it's not something you need to live. You could live a full and happy life without this.<br />
<br />
I also don't know how it will play out. Truly that is what frightens me most. I don't know how the surgery will go. I don't know how much pain you will be in. I don't know what recovery will look like. I don't even know if the stupid thing will work. It's so much not knowing that I can't think of it all at once or I start to hurt.<br />
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<b>3) <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/03/do-you-trust-me.html">I trust the Lord.</a></b><br />
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But despite this fear, when balanced out with all the reasons in the "pro" column, with all the possible benefits, with how - if this works - it could <i>completely </i>change your life, we are taking the plunge. And when I weed through all my anxieties and fears, when I push them back and fix my eyes on the incredible world this will open you up to, a world of singing birds and your brother's infectious giggle and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MteSlpxCpo">Pentatonix </a>and the hum of a house full of friends, I get so excited and cannot wait for you, for what waits for you.<br />
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I could spend all day bouncing between my fears and my excitements, living in that horrid suspension of anticipation that makes my stomach knot. Instead, I want to picture God. <i>"The Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard." (Isaiah 52:12) </i>Instead of all the what-ifs, good or bad, I have in my mind this picture of God, stepping out before you, before us, and making the way, then circling back to come behind and ensure our safety. I see it almost like the tender watchfulness of a preschool teacher, leading her charges across the street and keeping them as they move, her arms directing them and moving with assurance, cupping around behind them to protect them, a gentle hand on the smalls of their backs as they pass.<br />
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It is <i>love </i>that fills our God, love for you whose days He has numbered and whose hairs He has counted. And whatever comes of this, I trust. I trust that He seeks our good and His glory. I trust that He wants <b>desperately </b>for us to share in the love He has for us. I trust that He continually seeks to make Himself known to us, showing His grace and mercy and love at every turn. I trust that for all the joy that fills my heart at the thought of you hearing my voice, your dad's voice, your brother, God's road for you is best, better than anything I could contrive.<br />
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Once again, your extreme circumstances have shown me a truth that is at the heart of all our days. Your life is like a magnifying glass, and the assumptions that might have just passed me by get blown up in full relief. We <i>all </i>could spend our days bouncing between fear and excitement. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow and none of us know how that tomorrow will play out, not even with the "best-laid plans."<br />
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We all enjoy the provision and protection of a God who goes before us and who comes behind us. And when we move into His story, when we seek to see Him in our lives, we don't gain some magical understanding or come to know the future. We don't cash in on some promise to have all the money we'd ever need and health for eighty years. When we move into His story, <i>we get God.</i> And instead of fear and worry and anxiety and stress, we get rest and peace and joy and goodness. And I can hold my fear out on the palm of my hand and offer it to God. I don't have to bear it. It's not mine to hold.<br />
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So tomorrow, when they wheel you back and put you to sleep, when they implant a device into your head, when they dose you and send you back home, I want you to know most of all that <b>God is with you</b>. He has gone before you, and He will come behind you. And accompanying Him will be the prayers of His people. Your family, your church, your family's churches, your church's families - you have no idea how many people will be whispering your name, bringing you before God and asking Him to care for you. Honestly, there is no place here for fear. <i>Love has taken up all the room.</i>Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-3619247138081617002014-06-02T18:07:00.001-04:002014-06-02T18:07:59.854-04:00Entropy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Occasionally, I meet a mess that takes me wholly by surprise.<br />
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We've been carrying on with life around these parts, and unbeknownst to us, the cords behind the TV were multiplying. Now there are easily two dozen, and what all do they even do? Besides make a giant tangled mess that makes me want to throw things and kick the wall.<br />
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I breathe deep and begin the slow, mind-numbing, finger-stubbing work of demystifying these wires, and my mind wanders to entropy.<br />
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<i>"Nature tends from order to disorder in isolated systems."</i><br />
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Unless acted upon, all things in this universe start out organized and spiral into chaos, spinning out.<br />
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These cords obey this law of nature, spinning themselves out and seemingly spawning. They hide behind the bookcase and I never tend to them because I can't see them, don't interact with them. They do their job, I do mine, and we all go on our merry, spinning ways.<br />
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Until something goes wrong. And the magical internet man on the other end of the line says, "Ma'am, your modem was manufactured in 2005. I'd recommend getting a new one." And so here I sit, with this new modem made in this decade, and I meet my spun out wires and it's an awful mess. I unplug each one, pull them out straight, make mental notes of which goes where.<br />
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My mind wanders to my spiritual state as I pull each thread and I think, <i>This is the </i>why<i> of daily maintenance</i>. My soul, like these wires, tends from order to disorder, spins out unless acted upon. And it's why Jesus said, <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/thanking-god.html">"Give us <b>this day</b> our <b>daily</b> bread"</a> and not, "Provide for me my bread for the week." <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/choose-joy.html">It's why each day's trouble is enough and why God's mercies come new every morning.</a><br />
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We require daily maintenance.<br />
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We cannot hide our souls behind the bookcase and expect everything to turn out fine.<br />
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We can't go about our daily doing, neverminding our hearts, and expect them to flourish as if they'd been pruned by hand, lovingly, carefully, steadily.<br />
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We abide by the law of entropy, and unless acted upon, we spin out.<br />
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I lay each wire carefully along its path, and I think how neglectful I am of my own soul, how stingy I am to feed it, how lazy I am to care for it. And the jumbled mess I started with? It is a reminder of how my heart looks when I ignore it, all confused and twisted and stuck.<br />
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I begin the task of plugging the cords back in and placing them carefully in order. They are neat and organized and simple. Ordered. They look fine... for now. But unless I act upon them, unless I tend to them, I will meet this mess again one day.<br />
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I'm not a neat freak when it comes to hidden wires, but I can't afford <i>not</i> to be a neat freak with my heart. I can't afford to leave it and let it be. I require the daily pruning of the Word. I require the daily love-shower of prayer. I require the daily still moment of God's clear presence because unless He acts upon me, I will slowly unravel, tangle, stall. I may not shrivel up or break, but I will stunt and cease to flower and fruit.<br />
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God made it this way for <b>us</b>. He knew the state of the universe, and He knows the state of our hearts. He knows we need Him and so He makes the way. He gives us the Word, and He gives us Jesus, the one who intercedes for us. And so He acts upon us, and so we flower, and so... and so we bring Him glory, daily, lovingly, carefully, steadily.Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-78383953004739761062014-05-31T14:12:00.001-04:002014-05-31T14:12:14.954-04:00Communion with God<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my eleventh and final post in a series on Ann Voskamp's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>.
Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing
God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post
will be tagged <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/05%2F2014">05/2014</a> and <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20Thousand%20Gifts">One Thousand Gifts</a>. All quotes in italics are from the book.</span></span></div>
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<i>Chapter 11: The Joy of Intimacy</i></div>
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People think it's about the rules. That it's about the <i>doing. </i>That to join the "club", you have to agree to the dress code: no alcohol, no sex, and certainly no fun. Strap your Bible to a stick and thwack people on the head with it, or consider yourself shunned.<br />
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But it's not about the rules. It's about Love. All our carts are before our horses and we are all confused. It's not about the rules; it is about loving to the uttermost. But to understand that Love, we first have to see where we went wrong.<br />
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<br />Chapter eleven is about communion with God. <br />
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<i>"Communion with God, what was broken in the Garden, this is wholly restored when I want the God-communion more than I want the world-consumption. What that first and catastrophic sin of ingratitude ruptured, what that one bite of the forbidden fruit stole from those fully alive -- </i>union --<i> can be repaired by the exact inverse of the Garden: lifestyle gratitude and a willingness to eat of the bread He gives in this moment. How badly do I want to return to perfect Paradise, walk with God in the cool of the evening, </i>be fully alive<i>?"</i></div>
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We think it is about the rules when really, the course of history plays out like a love song. It started with perfection and right relationship, and then something went wrong. The relationship was broken; union was damaged. And ever since, God has been weaving the brokenness to bring the relationship back together, to restore a right relationship between us. After the initial ingratitude of doubting God's provision, He has been seeking to show us Himself, to prove Himself to us, that we might trust Him and come back together, united, one with Him.<br />
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<i>"Is there a greater way to love the Giver than to delight wildly in His gifts?"</i></div>
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We think it is about the rules, that we must do this or that for God to love us. We must stop our wicked ways to come into His presence. But the only thing that God requires of us is trust in Him. We get it backwards thinking that we must do all the right things for Him to love us, but really it is our love for Him that compels us to act. Trust God first, love God first, and you will seek to see Him, know Him, learn <i>how</i> to love Him. Counting His gifts? Seeing all the ways He has given to you? It opens your eyes to all the awesome in your life, but better than that, it opens your eyes to everywhere God is and all the ways <i>He</i> is seeking <i>you.</i></div>
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<i>"God makes love with grace upon grace, every moment a making of His love for us. And He invites the turning over of the hand, the opening and saying the Yes with thanks... Love bestows upon the Beloved gifts, the Beloved gives thanks for those gifts and enters into the mystical love union."</i></div>
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The rules kept me from God, annoyed me, frustrated me. I didn't want to paint myself up all pretty for some judgmental Man to look down His nose at me and nod His approval while I shuffled past.<i> </i>And then God showed Himself to me in radical, sacrificial love, a love that I knew no person would be capable of on their own, a Love that flowed through them from God. And I could see.</div>
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The rules were a roadblock for me, but God was pursuing me and they were no roadblock for Him. He knew my heart and showed Himself to me and I saw that He could not begin to care what broken, dirty road I had been on. He only cared... <i>for me.</i></div>
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The parable of the prodigal son is so famous and so overused but only because it is so true. It is true of every believer who ever sat at God's feet. The son is pig-filthy and hopes for very little from his father, but his father could not begin to care how his son smelled, only that they could restore their relationship. This is you and God. And He is lavish in His coming-home celebrations.<br />
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<i>"He chose me -- us! To be His bride! True, that's the intellectual premise of the Christian life, but only as the gifts are attended, <b>not as ends but as means to gaze into the heart of God</b>, does the premise become personal, God's choosing so utterly passionate. </i>So utterly fulfilling<i>."</i></div>
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All of us deeply desire communion with God, even if we are not immediately aware of it. It is that empty spot, that itch that nothing will quite scratch. And God is ever seeking to bring us that communion. Gift upon gift, they are meant to open our eyes <i>to Him</i>. We see the gifts and through them, see the Giver. And as you begin counting and find that you will never stop because the gifts keep flowing and raining down, then you know: this Giver loves. This Giver loves lavishly. This Giver loves beyond the rules and the regulations. This Giver desires our <i>hearts</i>, desires our <i>trust</i>, desires our <i>love</i>. That is what He wants from us; everything else follows from there.<br />
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Romans tells us we can know God loves us because <i>"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)</i> That gift-beyond-all-gifts <i>shows</i> (note: present tense -- actively, right now, acts as evidence of) God's deep love for us. And this sacrifice was so monumental, why? <i>"We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received <b>reconciliation</b>." (Romans 5:11)</i> Reconciliation. Reunited. Back together.<br />
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We know God loves us because He sacrificed His son <b>to be with us.</b> He didn't sacrifice His son on the condition that we get ourselves together. He didn't sacrifice His son to back us into the corner of obedience. <b>He sacrificed His son to restore our relationship</b>, to bring us back together, to show us His love and make it possible for us to <i>see</i> that Love, to come back into the union of love with Him. It's not about the rules; it's about God's Love for us, His great Love. All He requires of us is to open our eyes to that Love and trust Him.<br />
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Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-41237283827237345262014-05-27T17:36:00.001-04:002014-05-27T17:36:13.111-04:00Receiving to Give<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my tenth post in a series on Ann Voskamp's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>.
Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing
God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post
will be tagged <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/05%2F2014">05/2014</a> and <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20Thousand%20Gifts">One Thousand Gifts</a>. All quotes in italics are from the book.</span></span></div>
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<i>Chapter 10: Empty to Fill</i></div>
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I suppose you could think of this counting gifts thing as a type of hoarding. Gathering up all the moments and scooping them in close to keep -- mine, mine, mine. But God didn't make it that way. The incredible thing about gifts from Him is that they are never <i>only</i> for you. The money He blesses you with, the joy He fills you with, the patience and gratitude and love and gentleness -- even the blessing of the sacrifice of Christ, it is <i>yours</i>, it is <i>for you</i> -- "This is my body, which is given for you" -- but it is not yours alone. Treasuring it, reflecting on it, keeping it close, it is a kind of joy hoarding, but it is also the kind of gift that fills you to overflowing. It is the kind of gift that will undo you so far that you cannot help but share. And suddenly the burden of your joy is to bring joy to others, to share the joy you know.<br />
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Chapter 10 is about giving.<br />
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<i>"</i>Eucharisteo<i> is giving thanks for grace. But in the breaking and giving of bread, in the washing of feet, Jesus makes it clear that </i>eucharisteo<i> is, yes, more: </i>it is giving grace away. Eucharisteo<i> is the hand that opens to receive grace, then, with thanks, breaks the bread; that moves out into the larger circle of life and washes the feet of the world with that grace."</i></div>
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We started off here seeing the <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/preaching-with-your-life.html">sermon of our lives</a>. Who you are, what you do, it preaches everything about you. It tells the world what you truly believe. And in this<a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-search-for-life.html"> searching for life</a>, searching to live the message we want to preach, we <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/naming-mystery.html">named the mysteries</a> and we <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/redeeming-time.html">redeemed time</a> and we learned about the <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/true-grace.html">true grace</a> that God gives in all things (yes, really, all things). We started to learn how to <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/seeking-to-see.html">see God</a> around us, to <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/focus.html">focus </a> on Him, and to learn how to <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/building-trust.html">trust </a>Him.<i> </i>We changed our positions from one of worthy demanders to one of <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/learning-from-disappointment.html">humble receivers</a>. It makes us different. We cannot be the same.</div>
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If <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/true-grace.html">all is grace</a>, then all is gift, and all we have is not ours. Our stuff, our money: God's. Our children, our loved ones: God's. Anything good in us -- love, patience, peace, joy: God's. And He has graciously given, lavishly bestowed. But these are things that cannot be <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/learning-from-disappointment.html">fist-clenched</a> into security. You cannot lock them in a closet and throw away the key, sure to have them forever and always. Every moment of your time with them is continuing grace from God. And the reason for the giving is, what? To bring glory to God. God gives to you that you might give to Him. And we give to Him through our praise, but we also give to Him by giving to others. <i>"Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:40) </i>When we feed and clothe and visit those who need us, we are serving Jesus, and it is no coincidence that this passage comes right after the Parable of the Talents, after words considering what you will do with what you have been given. </div>
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<i>"Passionately serving Christ alone makes us the loving servant to all. When the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hands always on washing the feet of Jesus alone -- the bones, they sing joy, and the work returns to its purest state: </i>eucharisteo<i>. The work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness... Spend the whole of your one wild and beautiful life investing in many lives, and God simply will not be outdone. God extravagantly pays back everything we give away and exactly in the currency that is not of this world but the one we yearn for: </i>Joy in Him.<i>"</i></div>
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When you look into the eyes of any person and say, "You are gift to me from God Himself," you cannot help but love them. <i>And that love compels you</i>.<i> </i>This person is more than a mouth to feed or a body to clothe; this person is a soul and a spirit and a flame to nurture. They are not a someone in and of themselves, but rather a vessel, an image of God. And even in the most difficult situations any one person could find themselves in, they can be blessed by God... <i>through you</i>.</div>
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How do we do this? How do we make this real and move it beyond words and thoughts and heart-tuggings? Well, good question. This living to give, this reflection of the gift-giver, will look different for all of us. My momma life forces me to confront this every day. Every day, I give my time and my love and my patience and my joy to two sweet little people. And in the tantrums and the giant messes and the frustrations, I remind myself to see through the tears and attitudes and see Jesus there. As I rock and wipe and wash and mend, I remember: all is grace, even this. All is gift, even this. And I remind myself...</div>
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<i>"Jesus Christ still lives with a towel around His waist, bent in service to His people... in service to me, as I serve, that I need never serve in my own strength."</i></div>
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I'm not alone. I'm not fighting for joy by myself. I'm not mustering up gifts to give from the pits of my heart. I am serving Christ. And as I serve, I am being served and the cycle just keeps on turning, giving and giving and giving, emptying myself to be filled again. And every time I think that I can't possibly give one more moment, one more grace, one more drop of anything, Jesus turns my water into wine and there I am again, receiving and, in turn, giving.<i> </i>And the deeper beauty of this reliance on Jesus is that then, my children, the ones I serve, do not see <i>me</i> in all my strength, but rather Christ. My very service to them points their eyes to the One I serve.</div>
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<i>"I reach out and touch the reflection in the splattered mirror over the sink and whisper into those eyes: Yes, today, </i>again<i>, yes, </i>you can bless! <i>Here you can enact </i>euchariesteo<i>; here you can become a current in a river of grace that redeems the world! ... God can enter into me, even me, and use these hands, these feet, to be His love, a love that goes on and on forever, endless cycle of grace."</i></div>
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We have to be reminded. Just as we have to be reminded of all the gifts we have been given, we have to be reminded of all the gifts we can <i>give</i>. We have to return to God daily, preaching to ourselves these truths. And God, the God who gave us life in Christ, is faithful. He is faithful to use even the hardest days to bring glory to Himself. <i>"You received without paying; give without pay." (Matthew 10:8)</i> We have been so richly given, and now we give, not from the energies of our own hearts and bodies, but from the sustenance of God through Christ.<i> </i></div>
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My own words keep ringing in my head: <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/true-grace.html">"Whatever life you lived today? It was from God."</a> And I think, <i>Really? This?</i> Sometimes it feels so small, so insignificant. No one sees half (or way more) of the things I do; how can this be from God? How can this be important enough for Him to see, to care about? Maybe all you accomplished today was not yelling at your friend. Maybe all you accomplished was finishing that one little thing at work. Maybe every last thing you did today has already been undone. (All the parents of littles are raising their hands.)</div>
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Here's the thing: The life you lived today was from God, whatever it held, however it felt, whatever you <i>did</i>. Whatever that day brings, it holds people you can bless, no matter whether the world says they are unworthy, whether the world says <i>you</i> are unworthy. Newsflash: we are <i>all</i> unworthy and yet God gives and gives and gives... and so should we.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tune back in on Thursday, 5/29, for my post on Chapter 11: The Joy of Intimacy</span></span></div>
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Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-39527395931474924852014-05-23T11:08:00.000-04:002014-05-23T11:08:00.393-04:00Learning from Disappointment<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my ninth post in a series on Ann Voskamp's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>.
Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing
God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post
will be tagged <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/05%2F2014">05/2014</a> and <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20Thousand%20Gifts">One Thousand Gifts</a>. All quotes in italics are from the book.</span></span></div>
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<i>Chapter 9: Go Lower</i><br />
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My husband and I dated for five years before we got married. You'd think that time would have allowed us a seamless entry into married life, but as it turns out, we had (have) a lot of learning still to do. Thankfully, both of us are avid learners and in the nearly-six years since our wedding day, we have done a lot of studying, growing, changing.<br />
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One of the greatest lessons I have learned through my marriage has to do with disappointment. I have learned that for the health of my marriage, it is best if I don't view my husband as a magical mind-reader, but rather, that I practice honesty, laying out my expectations clearly. This might have to do with who takes out the trash and where to put dirty socks; it might have to do with my deepest emotional needs or some way he has hurt me. I have learned that the magnitude of my disappointment is the distance between reality and my expectations. I am brought as far down as the space between what I <i>want</i> and what I have or what I got. If I expected a diamond necklace for my birthday and instead got a $0.99 Walmart greeting card, I would be sorely disappointed. If I expected a sweet note and instead got that same greeting card, I would be mildly disappointed. If I am honest about my expectations ("Honey, I'd love flowers for my birthday," which is exactly what I said to my husband a month ago), then, provided those expectations are reasonable, I suffer no disappointment. My honesty prevents strife between us.<br />
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Sometimes, my expectations <i>are</i> unreasonable. Sometimes, my expectations would require my husband to be someone other than who he is. Those times require a healthy conversation and a strong dose of compromise. If I cannot change the situation, I <i>can</i> change my expectations. If we, say, can't afford that diamond necklace, I can work on my heart to change my desires. I can accept our financial limitations and be fully satisfied with a sweet card. I can change the desires of my heart, not by willing myself into a new want, but by focusing outward, not on myself and my desires, but on my marriage, on my family, on my spouse.<br />
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Chapter 9 is about humility. <br />
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When we confront the wall of our own hearts and minds, we have these two options: make our desires possible or create new desires. Either we can attain what we want -- and we will if it is possible -- or we <i>change</i> what we want to make it something we can have. This is the only way. Otherwise, we end up stewing and hating and coveting and pining and all of it fruitlessly so. It's that worn out serenity prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Ann says it this way...<br />
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<i>"The quiet song of gratitude, </i>eucharisteo<i>, lures humility out of the shadows because to receive a gift the knees must bend humble and the hand must lie vulnerably open and the will must bow to accept whatever the Giver chooses to give."</i></div>
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This dance is all about humility. When I approach my husband and demand something that cannot be given, I have a choice: I can beat my chest in pride and force his hand. Or I can bow my head in humility and accept him. In my seeking God, I can either beat Him into the God I want Him to be... or I can bow before Him and graciously <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/naming-mystery.html">accept His gifts</a>.<br />
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<i>"Joy is a flame that glimmers only in the palm of the open and humble hand. In an open and humble palm, released and surrendered to receive, light dances, flickers happy. The moment the hand is clenched tight, fingers all pointing toward self and rights and demands, joy is snuffed out. Anger is the lid that suffocates joy until she lies limp and lifeless... <b>The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy -- nothing else.</b>"</i></div>
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This disappointment/expectation thing doesn't apply only to my marriage. It applies to my connection with God. When I lay my cards out on the table before God and show Him exactly how I want things to be, I am drawing a line in the sand. I am putting conditions on our relationship and I am asserting my will above His. The amazing thing about God is that <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/building-trust.html">He always seeks our good and His glory</a>. By <i>submitting</i> to His will, I am actually doing <i>myself</i> the most good.</div>
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<i>"Instead of filling with expectations, the joy-filled expect nothing -- and are filled!'</i></div>
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God has made promise after promise after promise to us. He has promised to love us, to care for us, to seek justice for us, to treasure us, to deliver to us the inheritance due His Son. Somehow, we have distorted this to mean that He promises us health and wealth and a pretty, perfect life. We expect these things. We expect our lives to look a certain way and when they don't, we blame God. We bring Him down with our expectations and we only find disappointment. With a heart of gratitude, we can change that. With a heart of joyful, patient waiting, we can find God instead of frustration and anger.</div>
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<i>"All these years, these angers, these hardenings, this desire to control, I had thought I had to snap the hand closed to shield joy's fragile flame from the blasts. In a storm of struggles, I had tried to control the elements, clasp the fist tight so as to protect self and happiness. But palms curled into protective fists fill with darkness. I feel that sharply, even in this... And this realization in all its full emptiness: <b>My own wild desire to </b></i><b>protect<i> my joy at all costs in the exact force that </i>kills<i> my joy.</i></b><i>"</i></div>
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It strikes me, the vast pride I display when I indulge in the demanding
of my way or a hearty bout of worrying. I can fret and worry over what I
think will happen, but how could I possibly presume to know? How could I
possibly conceive of what will be? I worry about such-and-such
happening (or not happening) when in truth, God could play it out
millions of different ways and I can stretch to think of two or three.
My pride clutches on to those and becomes sure of the destruction that
will come my way, when my reality, a fundamental part of my creation,
dictates that I <i>cannot</i> see, <i>cannot</i> dictate. I must... receive.<br />
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Because we think we know, because we think we have this thing under control, we lay out the demands and we fall hard. All this shows that we have not learned how to trust. We scramble fast for what we think will fill us, what we think will bring us joy, and we fall hard in disappointment when we are not delivered, are not given what we want to build ourselves up. We have not learned to trust the God who promises us all good things and that through those things, He will gain glory. We don't see this. We turn our eyes inward and we see everything we lack. But a life of gratitude, a life of thanksgiving, a life of open receiving: that is a life that begins to build trust and, thus, begins to build joy.<br />
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<i>"Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am </i>full<i> of His love. I can trust. I can </i>let go.<i>"</i></div>
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God brings us to places where this is so clear. Sitting by my daughter's bedside, watching her breathe because I could not hold her, I <i>knew</i> I could not fix her. I could not make it better. I could not <i>will</i> her to live. So I prayed. "God, please protect her, but in all things, Your <i>will </i>be done."<i> </i>I never would have chosen that road; it was hard and it hurts (still hurts), especially her. But I have counted His graces. I know that He is in this place. And even then, I knew that whatever way He had this go was the best way, even if it didn't feel like it.</div>
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We can never meet joy if we continue to beat on the wall of our own desires. We cannot force God's hand. We cannot make Him into our image. But we <i>can</i> change our desires. God promises us this. <i>"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." (2 Corinthians 5:17) "Now that you have been set free from <span class="search-match">sin</span> and have become <span class="search-match">slaves</span> of God, the fruit you get leads <span class="search-match">to</span> sanctification and its end, eternal life." (Romans 6:22)</i> We are new creations, set free from our desires and the bondage of sin. We can have new wants, a new perspective. We can adopt the attitude of grace and receive God's gifts in humility, all of them, even the ones our flesh tells us we do not want. We can accept rather than demand. We can embrace rather than fight. We can be reconciled rather than alienated. We can be brought into the arms of love instead of left cold and lonely.</div>
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<i>"If the heights of our joy are measured by the depths of our gratitude, and gratitude is but a way of seeing, a spiritual perspective of smallness might offer a vital way of seeing especially conducive to gratitude."</i></div>
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A spiritual perspective of smallness. A spirit that says, "Not my will but Thy will." The humble spirit of Jesus. Jesus who says those humble, those meek, <i>they</i> will inherit the earth. Not the proud and the loud and the chest-beating demanders. Not the control-freaks and the power-hungry and the big, mighty strongest. The humble. The meek. <i>They </i>will have the earth. <i>They </i>will open their hands to receive -- and <i>God</i> will give.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tune back in on Saturday, 5/24, for my post on Chapter 10: Empty to Fill</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Affiliate link used</span> </span></span> </div>
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Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-18014777626442457212014-05-19T17:15:00.002-04:002014-05-23T11:06:35.995-04:00Building Trust<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my eighth post in a series on Ann Voskamp's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>.
Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing
God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post
will be tagged <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/05%2F2014">05/2014</a> and <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20Thousand%20Gifts">One Thousand Gifts</a>. All quotes in italics are from the book.</span></span></div>
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<i>Chapter 8: How Will He Not Also?</i><br />
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Chapter 8 is about trust.<br />
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I read this chapter on a Saturday evening and the words were still ringing in my head the next morning as I drove my kids to church. Trust. Hard fought for among people and so easily lost, but I couldn't help think about all the things we trust implicitly. How we trust the world. I became keenly aware of the 3000+ pound vehicle I strapped my precious blessings into, this metal, plastic, rubber structure that I press the pedal to 70 miles an hour and there they are behind me, just sitting and smiling. And I take us in that metal box under a concrete overpass, rock hanging above us in the sky. How much trust does that require? I'm willingly, knowingly bringing my children under a weight that would break any vehicle it fell on. I'm trusting that our van drives smooth, that the doors don't fly off, that the tires don't explode, that the overpass hangs up there in the sky like it was meant to do and always has, but I'm trusting that it will keep on keeping on.</div>
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Have you ever gone to sit in a chair and thought, <i>I wonder if this thing will hold me.</i> Maybe once or twice on your grandmother's 70 year old dining room chair, but I'd hazard a guess that 99% of the time, you don't give it a second thought. It's the classic Philosophy 101 thought exercise, but I don't care; it has implications. I trust that the chair will hold me because of all the times I've ever sat in a chair, it held me. My experience tells me that chairs hold. My lifetime of chair sitting has preached to me that chairs are reliable and I don't have to think before I sit in them because they will do what they always do: hold.</div>
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<i>"Without an active, moment-by-moment trust in the good news of an all-sovereign, all-good God, how can we claim to fully believe? ... </i>Anything less than gratitude and trust is practical atheism.<i>"</i><br />
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I may trust chairs. I'd guess most of the world does (except for perhaps the two people I know who <i>have</i> broken a chair they sat in... imagine their trust issues!). I may trust chairs, but I'm far less trusting of God. And when you think about it, my implicit trust in the function of my chair should be way less automatic than my implicit trust of God. But I have fuzzy vision. <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/focus.html">I lack focus</a>.</div>
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When I tune the eyes of my heart in, I can list you <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/naming-mystery.html">thousands of ways</a> that God has protected me, some of them from <i>before</i> I ever acknowledged Him with my lips. Thousands. Maybe more, but I wouldn't have the time or memory to count. This is certainly a track record worth trusting, a lifetime of gift and provision and protection and love. Why is it so hard for me to trust God when it is so easy for me to trust a chair?</div>
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<i>"If trust must be earned, hasn't God unequivocally earned our trust with the bark on the raw wounds, the thorns pressed into the brow, your name on the cracked lips? How will He not also graciously give us all things He deems best and right? He's already given the incomprehensible."</i><br />
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It's so easy to see when you look into the face of Christ. Of <i>course</i> God will give us all things. He already gave us Jesus. Even if that was it, the only gift, the only blessing, it shatters any doubt we could ever have about how much God loves us. And if we truly do not doubt His love, we can have the greatest, most fabulous, most wonderful trust in Him. He has far and beyond <i>earned</i> our trust, but we have to <i>work </i>to build it in our own hearts.<i> </i><br />
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<i>"</i>Thanks is what builds up trust... <i>Trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with planks of thanks. Remembering frames up gratitude. Gratitude lays out the planks of trust. I can walk the planks - from known to unknown - and know: He holds."</i><br />
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We build up our trust of God when we thank Him. We extend the hand of gratitude and we learn to appreciate, to <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/seeking-to-see.html">see God</a> around us, and slowly, slowly we start to <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/preaching-with-your-life.html">believe </a>in Him. And we build a belief that we can stand on, a belief like the one I have in the chair I'm sitting in, one that is automatic and implicit. <i> </i><br />
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<i>"This is the crux of Christianity: to remember and give thanks, </i>eucharisteo<i>. Why? Why is remembering and giving thanks the core of the Christ-faith? </i>Because remembering with thanks is what causes us to trust - to really believe.<i>"</i><br />
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We look back on all the times God has cared for us, loved us, showered us with grace, and we grow our trust. We grow our trust and we strengthen our belief. This is our whole being; this is our whole life. Seeing and remembering begets gratitude. Gratitude begets trust. Trust begets belief. When we hone in our vision, see God, and thank Him, we build a relationship of trust that will stand firm.<br />
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<i>"The God whom we thank for fulfilling the promises of the past will fulfill His promises again. In Christ, the answer to the questions of every moment is always Yes."</i><br />
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I have built a relationship with chairs. I have spent a lifetime sitting in them, and they have always held for me. I don't have to wonder or think or fear that the chair will suddenly abandon me, desert me, not work for me. My answer to the chair is always Yes! I trust you.The same goes for the cars I drive and the roads I drive them on and the house I live in and the houses of friends and family that I visit and the stores I shop in and the trees and boulders I drive by. I trust that they will all hold because they've always held. They have fulfilled their functions for me time and again and by that, we have a relationship of trust. I do not fear while I drive or sleep in my house. I know. The answer is Yes.</div>
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We get hung up on God because we can't see Him and we feel like we can't know. It's confusing; is this God or is this something else? How do I know God meant this and not for something else to happen? Is this gift from God or is it from a great decision I made? Is this pain from God or from my sin? Here's the thing: <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/true-grace.html">it's <i>all</i> from God</a>. Whatever life you lived today? It was from God. And all those gifts and all that pain, they are all being made into good for you and glory for God. Always. Always. Every moment. YES! God is always good and you are always loved and <i>that means</i> that you can <i>trust</i> Him.</div>
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<i>"<b>All fear is but the notion that God's love ends.</b> Do you think I end, that My bread warehouses are limited, that I will not be enough? But I am infinite, child. What can end in Me? Can life end in Me? Can happiness? Or peace? Or anything you need? Doesn't your Father always give you what you need? I am the Bread of Life and My bread for you will never end. Fear thinks God is finite and fear believes that there is not going to be enough and hasn't counting one thousand gifts, endlessly counting gifts, exposed the lie at the heart of all fear? In Me, blessings never end because My love for you never ends. If My goodnesses toward you end, I will cease to exist, child. <b>As long as there is a God in heaven, there is grace on earth and I am the spilling God of the uncontainable, forever-overflowing-love-grace.</b>"</i></div>
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Do you hear that? That... is a song of Love. "All fear is but the notion that God's love ends." And God's love <i>can't</i> end so we <i>can't</i> fear. But our sight is fuzzy and our eyes need help; our hearts need focus. So we build the bridge, plank by plank, thanks by thanks, and yesterday carries us to tomorrow and into the forever infinite love of God, and before long, we have built a road of trust, a trust that we can count on in all things.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tune back in on Thursday, 5/22, for my post on Chapter 9: Go Lower</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Affiliate link used</span> </span></span> </div>
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Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-29903365421975820922014-05-15T16:50:00.001-04:002014-05-15T16:50:49.701-04:00Focus<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my seventh post in a series on Ann Voskamp's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>.
Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing
God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post
will be tagged <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/05%2F2014">05/2014</a> and <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20Thousand%20Gifts">One Thousand Gifts</a>. All quotes in italics are from the book.</span></span></div>
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<i>Chapter 7: Seeing Through the Glass</i><br />
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My day started with a frustrating phone call. The doctor who needs to review my daughter's scans to tell us if she is a candidate for a cochlear implant is out of town this week, won't be able to meet with us until the end of <i>next </i>week. We have a two week window from the time she is old enough for the surgery until he goes on his yearly month-long vacation across the world. Time is running out and we keep getting pushed back and pushed back.<br />
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I hung up the phone and immediately launched into a barrage of how-it-could-have-been-differents. I chided myself for not getting on their case sooner, calling and following up to push them. I lamented the ploddingly slow medical process. Then I flung myself forward and started worrying about how this will impact events to come. Will we get pushed back to after her surgeon's vacation and have to wait until <i>August</i> to get this done instead of doing it in mid-June? What will that mean if she requires two surgeries instead of just one? Will it be September, October even, before she is activated and we can finally start working on her hearing instead of July like we've been hoping? Three months could make an immense difference and what will it mean if we have to wait that long?<br />
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Suddenly, in the middle of all that mind-spinning, my thoughts stopped and to the surface of my mind came a text message from a friend who, struggling with anxiety herself, has been texting back and forth with me, each of us sharing our struggles and our hope in Christ. She said,<br />
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"Thought I'd encourage you with a friend's thoughts re: staying focused on the present. [Today <b>is</b> the best day to live in. The past always holds some kind of regret, and the future always a worry. It's not worth it. Jesus is here now. That's worth everything!]"</div>
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I marveled as I thought... that's exactly what I was doing! I was stewing in the regrets from the past, things I can learn from, sure, but things I can't possibly do anything about, have no power to change. And then I flew into the future, worrying about whatever will come. Again, this can do me no good. I can think carefully and plan, but I cannot dictate what will come. I don't hold tomorrow in my hand.</div>
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Immediately after this, a Facebook post (of all things) popped into my head. It wasn't even one I meant to read; I haven't been checking my news feed, just following the folks I love most. But in checking a message, my cursor flicked over to the little ticker in the side bar and hovered over this status, one God clearly meant for me to read:<br />
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"<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">I
must go into each day with the single expectation that You will go
*with* me. All things beyond that blessed fact are beyond the scope of
my vision. I should not seek to gaze upon the future--because, in
gazing, I often forget that You are there, too. A Godless glance into
what-ifs is the very threshold of anxiety. But eyes shut in faith,
clinging to Your Hand, heeding<span class="text_exposed_show"> to Your whisper, is the very essence of faith. I do not need to *see* what lies ahead; I only need to *know* Who leads me.<br /> <br />
"Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses &
infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may
rest (yes, may pitch a tent over & dwell) upon me!" (2 Cor. 12:9,
AMP)<br /> <br /> Pitch Your tent over me this day, Lord. Help me leave my anxieties at the Door."</span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">It doesn't take much to realize what God wants from me. He wants my eyes closed, my hand open. He wants me waiting for Him and watching for Him. He wants me peaceful in Him, not regretful or fretting in myself. This is the heartbeat of <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/naming-mystery.html">counting gifts</a>, the patient expectation of what God has for us. But how quickly I can forget; apparently, it only takes one phone call.</span></span><br />
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Chapter seven is about focus. <br />
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><i>"[Jesus] looked up to heaven, to see where this moment comes from. Always first the eyes, the focus... Contemplative simplicity isn't a matter of circumstance; it's a matter of focus."</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">My focus had been on myself, on my daughter's medical team. <i>They</i> messed it up, making it take longer. <i>I</i> didn't do everything I could have to push this forward. Together, <i>we</i> have failed my daughter, holding up something she needs. But as I thought about it, as I searched my own heart, I acknowledged God's timing. The scans coming from a different doctor? We needed that done, but it held things up. Her doctor being out of town this <i>very</i> week? It meant we had to push back the appointment. His vacation in July? He takes it every year; it's not a surprise. God is in all these "circumstances", these things I wish to change. These events are <i>His</i> movements, His doings.<i> </i></span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><i>"Why do I reduce The Greatest to the lesser instead of seeing the lesser, this mess, as reflecting The Greatest? I have to learn how to see, to look through to the Largeness behind all the smallness. </i>Isn't He here?<i>"</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">My eyes always immediately fall to my circumstances, how all this is messed up and wrong. What I fail to see is God in this place. All around me, these babies and this home and our family and everything we have been given, they are all reflections of Him. And instead of seeing how these things are broken, I need to fix my eyes on how they reveal Him. Instead of a wait for surgery, I can marvel at the miracle of bringing hearing to deaf ears, be it in June or July or August or ever. Instead of an inconvenience, I can trust in the wait, knowing that God has gone before me and is laying these stepping stones in exactly the way that brings <i>Him</i> most glory and does His <i>children </i>most good. This is a God I can trust and I know that... But I must <i>remember.</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><i>"</i>Oh, son. So hard.<i> To see all this material world as transparent, glass to God. To practice migrating one thousand <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-search-for-life.html">gifts on paper</a> to one thousand <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/seeking-to-see.html">all eyes</a> to one thousand smiles on lips. To transfigure the principle to the skin."</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">I have seen the glory of God and forgotten it. I return daily to His Word and disremember. I seek the holy and get caught in the earthly. This is our life on earth. It is why we <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/life-everlasting.html">long for heaven</a>, to the day when we will no longer get bogged down in ourselves and our things and the mess and will instead have eternal peace with God, a right relationship, all healed. The only way, while we're here, to make it through the mess without shunning God, without casting Him off, is to seek -- constantly -- for Him. To search out the holiness is all this earthliness.<i> </i></span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><i>"Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)" </i>We can only see this part-way. It's like we're looking into a mirror with the light so low we can barely make out the image. Manna-style, what is it? And <i>in light of this</i>, Paul goes on to say, <i>"So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)"</i> <b>So now...</b> Because we only know in part right now (though we will one day know in full), because we don't have the full picture, we must walk... how? In faith. With hope. In love. These abide. Not our knowledge, not even the prophecies or gifts.</span></span><br />
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><u>Faith</u> -- a belief that God will keep His promises, <i>even though we cannot see it at this moment.</i> </span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><u>Hope</u> -- an expectation of the great joy that will be ours in Christ.</span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><u>Love</u> -- the highest expression of gratitude, of thankfulness, of <i>eucharisteo</i>, that we can offer to God, to our fellow man. The highest expression of sacrifice that God showed in Christ reflected by us in our obedience to God and our seeking good for fellow man.</span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">These are the pillars that hold up our lives. Not our ability to understand it all or dictate it all, to command the future and redeem the past. But rather our eyes-closed, hand open <b>faith</b>, waiting, with all trust in that great <b>hope </b>that has been proven to us in a majestic display of <b>love </b>in Christ.</span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><i>"Like Jacob, we ask, breathless and heaving, where He is, who He is, for His name here, the only real blessing. 'Please tell me your name.' We have named the graces and there found His name, Glory, and in the face of man we have seen the face of God. Then Him, the blessing, God, joy-water in the desert.</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><i>But wells don't come without first begging to see the wells; wells don't come without first splitting open hard earth, cracking back the lids... It takes practice, wrenching practice, to break open the lids. But the secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is."</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">We first have to beg to see the wells. And everyone's life offers opportunities for this. We all have moments of dire thirst, moments in the wilderness when we desperately need relief. Those moments require of us only one thing: <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/its-okay-to-cry-out.html"><b>to cry out</b></a>, in faith, with hope, toward Love.</span></span><br />
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><i>"I'm blind to joy's well every time I really don't want it. </i>The well is always there.<i> And I </i>choose<i> not to see it... If I am rejecting the joy that is hidden somewhere deep in this moment - am I not ultimately rejecting God?"</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">We must <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/seeking-to-see.html">seek to see</a>. We must have faith that God is here, <i>even here</i>. We must walk out in hope that we will find Him. We must trust in the love that God has proven for us. God is here, even in the mess of doctor schedules and flub ups and missed opportunities. We have a choice -- we can see the well. Or we can focus on the dirt on the mirror. We can ask for God; show Yourself! Or we can point fingers and blame and worry. God <i>wants </i>for us the peace of trusting Him. He <i>wants </i>for our hearts to dwell in the moment with Him. And He<i> waits</i> for us in love, an ever-present well, deep and cool and quenching.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tune back in on Saturday, 5/17, for my post on Chapter 8: How Will He Not Also?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Affiliate link used</span> </span></span> </div>
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Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-49333908097984584472014-05-13T21:36:00.000-04:002014-05-13T21:36:42.804-04:00Seeking to See<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my sixth post in a series on Ann Voskamp's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>.
Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing
God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post
will be tagged <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/05%2F2014">05/2014</a> and <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20Thousand%20Gifts">One Thousand Gifts</a>. All quotes in italics are from the book.</span></span></div>
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<i>Chapter 6: What Do You Want? The Place of Seeing God </i></div>
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During my education courses in college, I came across a quote that got me thinking: "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." The quote is attributed to Einstein, though it seems he never actually said or wrote it. And while I don't necessarily agree with it (I, for one, am no genius), it unearthed a bunch of questions about my assumptions regarding my students and what I (and others) required of them. What standards are we holding them to and why? How can we help our fishes excel at swimming and our monkeys excel at climbing? But mostly it made me think a lot about what we're meant to be and do.<i> </i>If the idea is that a fish is meant to swim and asking it to do anything else will set it up for failure, what are we meant to do, meant to excel at, and what pursuits will simply set us up for failure?</div>
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Chapter six is about seeing God.</div>
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With these big questions, these heady theological deals, it's best to turn to the professionals. The Westminster Catechism is a favorite around our home, and while I would love to memorize it one day, I only know the first question by heart. And now that I'm thinking of it, I should make myself say it, out loud, every day, first thing in the morning. It asks: "What is the chief end of man?" Answer: "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." Well, there you go, fish. This is our swimming. Anything else is our climbing trees.</div>
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I think it would be safe to ask me now... What does this mean? Or as Ann asks:<i> "How do you open the eyes to see how to take the daily, domestic, workday vortex and invert it into the dome of an every day cathedral?" </i>We live on this very earthy earth and we do earthy earth things. We have dirt to clean up and hunger to satisfy and fatigue to remedy. How do we take our physicalness and make it spiritual? How do we meet God, see God, hear God so that we can enjoy Him and glorify Him? We need to look.</div>
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<i>"No matter how manifested, beauty is what sparks the romance and we are the Bride pursued, and the Lover pursuing, and known or unbeknownst, He woos us in the romance of all time, beyond time... Any created thing of which I am amazed, it is the glimpse of His face to which I bow down. Do I have eyes to see it's Him and not the thing?"</i></div>
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We embark on this journey to find joy and light in the darkness and we begin counting, <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-search-for-life.html">see gifts</a>, bringing them up close, <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/naming-mystery.html">naming them</a> and so <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/redeeming-time.html">stopping </a>the torrent of time to <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/true-grace.html">embrace the </a><a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/true-grace.html">gift </a>of the Giver. And she's said it before, it's not the gifts that fulfill but the holiness of the space, the God who gave them. But we have to go beyond simply seeing these great gifts, opening our hands to receive; we need to look beyond those gifts to the One who is giving. We should consider how He reveals Himself to us in these gifts and what great things about Himself He wishes to teach us. And when we see Him there, we can't help but give thanks.<i> </i></div>
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<i>"The truly saved have eyes of faith and lips of thanks. </i>Faith is in the gaze of a soul<i>... The art of deep seeing makes gratitude possible. And it is the art of gratitude that makes joy possible. Isn't joy the art of God? ... Joy that fills me under full moon is the joy that always fills God... He is not a tyrant or despot. I smile under the moon. For God is happiest of all. </i>Joy is God's life.<i>"</i></div>
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We open our eyes in faith. We see the gift. We thank God for it, and this thanking brings us joy. Joy is wonderful and all, but we don't seek joy for the sake of joy. <i>We seek joy for the sake of God</i>. God <b>is</b> joy. And us? We're meant to glorify God <i>and to en<b>joy</b> Him forever</i>. This joy that comes from the gratitude that comes from the gift... it is our function. It is our purpose. <i>It is our swimming</i>. And it is the one thing that we <b>must</b> have to exist as we are meant to exist. To thrive. To live.</div>
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<i>"Because isn't my internal circuitry wired to seek out something worthy of worship? Every moment I live, I live bowed to something. And if I don't see God, I'll bow down before something else."</i></div>
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Here's where this gets essential. This isn't a matter of joy versus sorrow. This isn't a matter of having a "happy" life or having a crappy one. This is a matter of all importance, beyond any other endeavor you could pursue. You were made for this one thing -- to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever -- and you will always seek to do that thing (just like fish will always try to swim, even on dry land). You can't <i>not</i> bring glory. You can't <i>not</i> search for joy. But you <i>can</i> bring glory to all the wrong things and you <i>can</i> seek joy in all the wrong places. Cast your eyes out your door (or not-so-deep into the internet) and you will find a million ways to bring yourself joy or bring something or someone glory... in any way other than glorifying and enjoying God. We <i>must</i> seek God, or we will serve ourselves or our jobs or our families or our desires. We will get caught up and we will lose sight and we will end up fishes climbing trees.</div>
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<i>"I am a wandering Israelite who sees the flame in the sky above, the pillar, the smoke from the mountain, the earth open up and give way, and still I forget. I am beset by chronic soul amnesia. I empty of truth and need the refilling. I need to come again every day -- bend, clutch, and remember -- for who can gather manna but once, hoarding, and store away sustenance in the mind for all of the living?</i>"</div>
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Any extra manna the Israelites tried to collect would disappear in the heat of the sun. They needed to return to God, every morning, for their sustenance, their fuel, their very existence. It's this same mystery, how we can know and see and experience God and within a day, within moments, we forget and we turn aside. So we must return, we must seek to see, we must find, or we will turn aside. We will lose our way without an aim, without an end in sight.</div>
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Can you see how this won't happen on accident? Can you see how easy it is to miss this? We wake up and get to our doings and we whoosh by in the doing and <i>we forget to swim</i>. And after a whole day of trying to climb a tree, we are tired and frustrated and unfulfilled and we seek out any temple, any pleasure to bring us back to our rightful place, to fulfill our need to glorify and find joy. The placebo effect works for a little while but after days, weeks, months of this, we start to wonder why we are here at all. <i>We have to train our eyes to see God</i>. And we can't just see Him once or twice or here or there. We must seek to see Him daily.<i> </i></div>
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<i>"Faith is not a once-in-the-past action, but faith is a way of </i>seeing<i>, a seeking for God in everything."</i></div>
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This is our walk. This is our faith, an intentional seeking and seeing of God that we might glorify Him, that we might enjoy Him. It is <i>why</i> we are and it must be <i>who</i> we are. And here's the thing: it always ends in <i>our joy</i>. It may feel like work at first, begrudgery, an obligation. But God is a God of joy and this thing he wants for us, <i>it is what we are meant to do</i>. It is the air we are meant to breathe. And it is the "secret" to our eternal fulfillment... in Him.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tune back in on Thursday, 5/15, for my post on Chapter 7: Seeing Through the Glass</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Affiliate link used</span> </span></span> </div>
Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-29364349317446420322014-05-10T19:16:00.001-04:002014-05-10T19:16:29.911-04:00True Grace<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my fifth post in a series on Ann Voskamp's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>.
Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing
God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post
will be tagged <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/05%2F2014">05/2014</a> and <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20Thousand%20Gifts">One Thousand Gifts</a>. All quotes in italics are from the book.</span></span></div>
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<i>Chapter 5: What in the World, In All This World, Is Grace?</i><br />
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Chapter five is about suffering.<i> </i></div>
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It was as though Ann was in my head. I'd been working hard, <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/naming-mystery.html">naming gifts</a>, <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/redeeming-time.html">redeeming time</a>. But I couldn't hush this nagging in the back of my mind. If I thank God for the gift of a bird's song and the sweet "Yai wuv yoo" from my son and the way my daughter always, always, always sleeps with her right arm crooked above her head or across her eyes...<br />
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<i>"What are all the other moments?"</i></div>
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What is everything else? What are the days with nagging upset tummies and attitudes a mile long and naps all broken? What are the scary doctor phone calls and the three-hour-old ambulance rides and the yet another cancer diagnosis?</div>
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<i>"Do I believe in a God who rouses Himself just now and then to spill a bit of benevolence on hemorrhaging humanity? A God who breaks through... only now and then, surprises us with a spared hand, a reprieve from sickness, a good job and a nice house in the burbs -- and then finds Himself again too important to deal with all... suffering and evil?"</i></div>
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This is real and it is weighty. This truth finds itself in the hearts of mothers cradling their sick babies. This truth finds itself in the heart of mothers who have <i>lost </i>their babies.<i> </i>This truth finds itself in orphans and widows, and shake a hand and you have met someone who has hurt. And we can name big hurts and small hurts, but they are all hurts and in the grand scheme of things, all hurts hurt. We don't need to lay down our <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/grief.html">measuring sticks</a> to compare them. They are all real and they are all pain and they are all worthy of asking: How is God mixed up in this?</div>
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Everyone's journey is their own. And there are many people who have walked through pain and their walk looks very different from mine. I will share with you what was <i>my</i> experience. A man asked me <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/gods-presence.html">if I felt abandoned by God</a> when my daughter came sick and I was able to tell him, truthfully, no, I did not feel abandoned. But I did <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/its-okay-to-cry-out.html">cry out</a>. I did ask <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/why.html">why</a>.</div>
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<i>"I won't shield God from my anguish by claiming He's not involved in the ache of this world and Satan prowls but he's a lion on a leash and the God who governs all can be shouted at when I bruise, and I can cry and I can howl and He embraces the David-hearts who pound hard on His heart with their grief and I can moan deep that He did this -- </i>and He did.<i>"</i></div>
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The Psalms are full of shouts and groans and "whys" to God, and in the midst of suffering and evil, they are absolutely appropriate. The virus that infected my growing child, that ate away at her soft tissues and left her in a silent world, I will call that what it clearly is -- evil. The depression that breaks so many souls into ending their earthly journeys -- evil. The anger and pride that swells men's hearts to put guns in the hands of children to fight their wars -- evil. The poverty that nags at bellies and leaves children dying from emptiness -- evil. It is real. It is impactful. <i>It hurts</i>. And in this symphony that God is conducting, there are minor notes. There are sore spots. <i>And it breaks God's heart</i>.</div>
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<i>"I can hear Him soothe soft, 'Are your ways My ways, child? Can you eat My manna, sustain on My mystery? Can you believe that I tenderly, tirelessly work for all the best good of the whole world -- because My flame of love for you can never, </i>ever<i> be quenched?"</i></div>
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We are not privy to the big picture. We can't see where this has come from and where it is going. But how many "overcoming adversity" stories have you seen? How many people have you heard about on those heartwarming sections of the news broadcast who have taken their broken legs or broken minds or extra chromosomes or war-torn childhoods and from them, run races and healed hearts and brought joy and created peace? I can't even number them. I can't number the hands that have held mine and told me, "I have seen what God can do with loss."<br />
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<i>"I awaken to the strange truth that all new life comes out of the dark places,<br />and hasn't it always been?</i></div>
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<i>Out of the darkness of the cross, the world transfigures into new life. </i>And there is no other way.</div>
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<i>Then... </i>yes:<i> It is dark suffering's umbilical cord that alone can untether new life.</i></div>
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<i>It is </i>suffering<i> that has the realest possibility to bear down and deliver </i>grace<i>.</i></div>
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<i>And grace that chooses to bear the cross of suffering </i>overcomes<i> that suffering."</i></div>
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We live in a world that has tumbled far and broken and we live in bodies that are trapped and wounded. And we cannot escape that, not while we are here for our little while, for our but-a-breath. But while we are here, breaking and being broken, we can know that God is redeeming.</div>
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<i>"The God of the Mount of Transfiguration cannot cease His work of transfiguring moments -- making all that is dark, evil, empty into that which is all light, grace, </i>full.<i>"</i></div>
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I have known the power of fear overcome by trust in God. I have looked into the eyes of the brave and marveled at their courage. I have <i>known</i> that fear myself and marveled at its own dissolving in the face of grace after grace after grace. God taught me more about Himself through my walk with my daughter than He ever did in anything else. She weighed as much as a small bag of flour and she was covered in bruises and her spleen was chewing up every last platelet her body could make. And I watched God transfigure her. I watched transfusion after transfusion sustain her while her liver and spleen healed. I watched those bruises fade and her sweet eyes open wide. I watched her gain ounce after ounce and round out. I watched God take dark, evil, and empty and make it into light, grace, and full. Miracles, every one.</div>
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Here's the thing: God didn't owe my daughter miracles. He didn't owe them to me or my husband or our family or anyone else who loved her. He chose healing for her, but He just as easily could not have. </div>
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<i>"When I realize that it is not God who is in my debt but I who am in His great debt, then doesn't </i>all<i> become gift? For He might not have."</i></div>
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Those ways that are greater than my ways, the plans man means for evil that God means for good (Genesis 50:20), these are not things I understand. And maybe <i>"if I had the perspective of the whole, perhaps I'd see it? ... Is it a cloud to bring rain, to bring a greater good to the </i>whole<i> of the world?"</i> And there is comfort in knowing that from evil, God can transfigure good. But the reality of our experience on earth is that we may never know that good. We may never see the grace upon grace upon grace. We may never see the miracles. <b>But it does not change the story.</b></div>
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<i>"I have hacked my life up into grace moments and curse moments. The chopping that has cut myself off from embracing the love of a God who 'does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow' (Lamentations 3:33), but labors to birth grief into greater grace. Isn't this the crux of the gospel? The good news that all those living in the land of shadow of death have been birthed into new life, that the transfiguration of a suffering world has already begun. That suffering nourishes grace, and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart -- and mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished symphony of beauty. Can I believe the gospel, that God is patiently transfiguring all the notes of my life into the song of His Son?</i><br />
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<i>What in the world, in all this world, is grace?</i><br />
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<i>I can say it certain now: </i>All is grace<i>.</i><br />
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<i>I can see through the woods of the world: God is always good and I am always loved.</i><br />
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God is always good and I am always loved.<br />
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<i>Everything is </i>eucharisteo.<i>"</i></div>
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We look around the world, even in our own little corners of it, and we see evil and we are right to name it so. This is not a land that has been healed. This is not a land where tears are no more. Right now, there is weeping and sorrow and it is real and it cuts and burns and destroys and we are right to tear our clothes and beat our chests. But never for one second believe that God is not weeping too. That God is not mourning too. He, too, waits for the day of our reunion with Him, of the peace that will reign in the place of upheaval, of the joy that will permeate in the place of sorrow. And that day is coming. We must trust in that.</div>
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In the meantime, while we wait, know this grand truth, this truth that will cut through any evil cloud lurking and any painful road waiting ahead of you or haunting behind you: <b>God is always good, and you are always loved.<i> </i></b>It is true, not because I say it is true, but because God says it is true. And our beliefs must be ones that we hold onto even when they don't feel true. And there will be many days when this does not feel true. But when it does not, stop yourself and take a deep breath. Really feel your lungs fill with air, pushing out of your chest and filling up your heart. <i>Grace</i>. You are here to breathe and live another day. <i>Grace</i>. Of all the walls and hammers that could have brought you down, God has you here, right here, right now. <i>Grace</i>. And man may mean evil against you in ways you could not have possibly imagined, but God means it for good and you can stand on that. <i>Grace.</i></div>
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In none of our moments guaranteed and in all the woods this world will grow around us, we must see through and know this truth. We <i>must</i>.<i> </i>And we must fight to preach Gospel to ourselves, to find the graces in the unlikeliest of places. Because the world will not do that for us. Our hearts will not do that for us. <i>God</i> does that for us. God opens our eyes to what we once could not see. And while we may wait for heaven to know the "why", we can trust in the "what is" -- God is always good, and you are always loved. And nothing -- no thing -- "neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:39)</div>
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Did you catch that? Nothing can separate you... from the <b>love</b> of God. How do we know this love? What is our assurance of this love, our security in this love? Jesus. The God-man come and killed, broken for our repair. If God showed love like that, how can we ever doubt? If God was willing to give up His own son for us, "how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32) It may look dark. It may feel dark. It may <i>be</i> dark. But look for the holes. <b>God is always good, and you are always loved</b>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tune back in on Monday, 5/12, for my post on Chapter 6: What Do You Want? The Place of Seeing God</span></span></div>
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Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-26598651310358537692014-05-08T17:29:00.001-04:002014-05-08T17:38:26.299-04:00Redeeming Time<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my fourth post in a series on Ann Voskamp's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>.
Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing
God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post
will be tagged <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/05%2F2014">05/2014</a> and <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20Thousand%20Gifts">One Thousand Gifts</a>. All quotes in italics are from the book.</span></span></div>
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<i>Chapter 4: A Sanctuary of Time</i></div>
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Oh, chapter four. Chapter four had me whooping and hollering. Chapter four looked me straight in the eyes and said, "This is for you. Enjoy." Chapter four opened a gate somewhere in my fence and let me out, let me run, set me free. Chapter four is about redeeming time.<br />
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Ever since I became a mom, I feel like someone has been siphoning off my time. Surely I used to have more. Where is it going? Once my daughter arrived, this only compounded. I know our experience was strange at first; not all second-time-parents spend the first two months shuttling back and forth from the hospital. But <i>still</i>. Even once she was home. Even once things evened out. I just felt swamped all the time, like I was running this crazy race only to end up still behind, someone whining or crying because I couldn't bring it all together fast enough.<br />
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I tried reading about time management and strategies to get myself together a little better. That helped some. But it didn't touch the reality that so much of my life -- so much of every parent's life -- <i>is</i> doing for the kids. If not directly (feeding, diapering, bathing, playing, loving, soothing), then indirectly (cleaning, considering, mothering myself, sleeping). I can organize my life like I'm running a ship, but I still have to contend with all the things that need to be done -- and <i>do </i>them. The other day, I read <a href="http://www.sortacrunchy.net/sortacrunchy/2014/05/10-ways-to-love-a-sahm.html">a really lovely post</a> from a blogger I enjoy in which she shared a quote from her husband's grandmother (who raised eight children): "Whether you have one child or eight, that's all you do." YES! Megan goes on to say, "My days were filled with mothering when I had only Dacey, and my days
are filled with mothering now that I have a nine year old, a six year
old, and a pair of one year olds to keep up with." This is me. This resonates so deeply with me.<br />
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Ever since these babies, I've been in a little war with time. I never have enough and I never know exactly how to spend the minutes I have. I needed to redeem time.<br />
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<i>"I don't really want </i>more<i> time; I just want </i>enough<i> time... not to feel hounded, pressed, driven, or </i>wild<i> to get it all done -- yesterday. In a world with... its 'live in the moment' buzz phrase that none of the whirl-weary seem to know how to do, who actually knows how to take time and live with soul and body and God all in sync? ... </i>I just want time to do my one life well<i>."</i></div>
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This is where I whooped. "YES!" "YES! YES! YES! Thank you!!!!" People tell you, "Your kids grow up so fast and you'll miss it if you blink, cherish every moment" and then other people respond with, "You don't remember how hard it was to raise your kids, you don't want to cherish all these moments" and it leaves me feeling... whirled, as Ann says. So yes, tell me to "live in the moment" if you wish but I have no idea how to do that without feeling like my head might explode. Anyone can experience this, not just parents with littles. The moment is here, <i>and then it passes</i>. How do I live <b>in</b> it? How do I grasp onto it when <i>it's a moving object</i>? I feel like you're telling me to jump onto a moving train.</div>
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But here it is, y'all. Here is where the light bulbs all flicked on and the switches all clicked. <b>Here is where I learned to redeem time</b>:</div>
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<i>"The real problem of life is never a lack of time.</i></div>
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<i>The real problem of life -- </i>in my life <i>-- is a lack of thanksgiving.</i></div>
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<i>Thanksgiving creates abundance; and the miracle of multiplying happens when I give thanks -- take the just one loaf, say it is enough, and give thanks -- and He miraculously makes more than enough... When I fully enter time's swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here... <b>I redeem time from neglect and apathy and inattentiveness when I swell with thanks and weigh the moment down and it's giving thanks to God for this moment that multiplies the moments, time made enough.</b>"</i></div>
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Seriously, with all truth, with all honesty, this made me cry. With a baby nearing a year old and a two-and-a-half year old who I swear grew three inches last night, I feel like my life has been slipping away from me, numbered not in moments but in baths and diaper changes and in feeding yet another mouth. I feel like the hour glass has been poured open and I'm grasping desperately to catch all the falling sand, just to hold on for another moment, to go back, to see again, to really live. I've not known <i>how </i>to live in those moments, only that I feel like I <i>should</i>, but I couldn't get it all together, couldn't get all the pieces working as one.<br />
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At the heart of this for me is a thoughtfulness. I can't live my days unengaged. I can't spend my time frivolously. It drives me bonkers. I have to know <i>what</i> I am doing with myself. And I have to know <i>why</i>. The real problem in my struggle with time is that my <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-illusion-of-control.html">control freak</a> nature did not know how to <i>receive.</i> I thought my problem was ordering, that I needed to name all my ducks and put them in their rows and suddenly I would have enough time; I would be able to live well. No. Instead, I needed to receive my time <i>from God</i>, see <i>Him</i> in my moments, <b>and thank Him for every one</b>. This is my <i>what</i>: giving thanks to God. And this is my <i>why</i>: to bring glory to Him. I thank God for the coffee my husband brewed me and I bring glory to Him. I thank God for fresh vegetables and give glory to Him. I thank God for the clover in the cracks of our sidewalk and I bring glory to Him. I know my what and my why. I have redeemed time.</div>
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<i>"It's not the gifts that fulfill, but the holiness of the space. The God in it."</i></div>
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When you stand before God, hands open, ready to receive, God gives and gives and gives and gives. And the gifts are wonderful. Coffee, sweet peppers, life growing in hard places. They are beautiful and tantalizing and heart-swelling. But ultimately, they are <i>from God</i>. And <b>that</b> gives them worth. That gives them value and weight and <i>necessity</i>. We have to spend our lives hands open and waiting because <i>"here is the only place I can love Him."</i> </div>
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<i>"Life is not an emergency. Life is </i>eucharisteo<i>... 'Wherever you are, be all there' is only possible in the posture of eucharisteo. </i>I want to slow down and taste life, give thanks, and see God.<i>"</i></div>
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I have redeemed time. And now, I have so many moments. Open-handed, I receive the gift, I <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/naming-mystery.html"><i>name</i></a> the gift, I thank God for it, and I<i> offer it back to Him. </i>It was not mine to begin with, and it is not mine to end with. But this process, this eyes- and hands-open waiting, this seeing and naming, this thanking: it redeems time from "neglect and apathy and inattentiveness" and it <i>gives me back my moments.</i> When I read back over my journal of gifts, I am transported. I am taken back to those moments and I can see them again as if I were standing there. Instead of trying to hang on to those pieces like clinging to the back of a moving train, I offer those moments back to God and the gift of my true presence there, the "reward" for my offering, is the honor of seeing God and the joy of remembering Him there.<br />
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Living "in the moment" absent of finding God there can only be fulfilling for so long. I can only swell with existence in the same place so many times. I can only appreciate the same people and trees and flowers so many times. But when each seeing and feeling and being is an opportunity to meet God in the moment -- it never gets old. We never tire of meeting God. It is our heart's deepest and most real desire. I can see my son's serious shaking head as he tells me, "No hold punder (thunder)" and I can feel my heart laughing at his sweet two-year-old mind, the creativity and the life that God has given him. "You don't have to hold the thunder, baby." I can see the clouds rolling in through the sky, heavy and dark, and remember the exact smell of the air before they opened up, and I marvel -- again and again -- at the majesty of God. I can remember <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/05/naming-mystery.html">that bunny rabbit</a> hopping through our yard as the woman on the other line delivered me strange and scary news, and I can remember thinking, "Thank you, God, for bunny rabbits and for strange and scary news," and I can feel my heart drop and soar and wait, hands-open, for what God will give next.<br />
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I get to <i>feel </i>this life. I get to <b>live </b>it! No, I don't receive every moment like this. I forget and get hurried and flustered and worried. But then I remember and I stop. And I smell my hungry toddler's clean head and I give thanks for him. The frustration in the room melts away and I feed him with a smile of true gratitude. I wipe my angry baby's tears and I thank God for her tenacity (without which she might not still be with us) and I hold her with an open heart. I apologize to my husband and I thank God for the security of our marriage covenant, knowing that he will forgive me because he promised (nearly six years ago) that he always would, and we repair the wounds that life brings between us and we see each other as gifts.<br />
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It's not that suddenly my days are all sunshine and roses without a problem or care in the world. It's that suddenly, God is in every moment of my day. And His holiness fills my life like air and I breathe Him in until I can't any more. And then I exhale with total thankfulness, and breathe Him in all over again. This is life. This is living. This is how we redeem time.<br />
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<i>"This is where God is. In the present. I AM -- His very name. I want to take shoes off. I AM, so full of the weight of the present, that time's river slows to a still... and God Himself is timeless... This is supreme gift, time, God Himself framed in moment. I hardly breathe... and time is of the essence, because time is the essence of God, I AM. This I need to consecrate: time."</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tune back in on Saturday, 5/10, for my post on Chapter 5: What in the World, In All This World, Is Grace?</span></span></div>
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Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-39694515040750102742014-05-05T17:10:00.002-04:002014-05-05T17:11:35.532-04:00Naming the Mystery<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my third post in a series on Ann Voskamp's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>.
Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing
God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post
will be tagged <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/05%2F2014">05/2014</a> and <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20Thousand%20Gifts">One Thousand Gifts</a>. All quotes in italics are from the book.</span></span></div>
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<i>"When one is thirsty one quenches one's thirst by drinking,</i></div>
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<i>not by reading books which treat of this condition."</i></div>
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<i>- Jean Pierre de Caussade</i></div>
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<i>Chapter 3: First Flight</i></div>
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<i>"I would have to </i>do<i> something... I scratch it down: Gift List. I begin the list. Not of gifts I want but of gifts I </i>already have<i>."</i></div>
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Chapter three is about the doing. Our lives preach a sermon, and to preach a sermon of God's goodness, we have to live as though God is good. There are as many ways to do this as there are people, but one, simple, practical way to live out your thanks is... to simply give thanks. And not just general thanks for your life or health or this day. Not just once a day or in the prayer before dinner. But to <i>live</i> thankfulness.</div>
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<i>"Though pastors preached it, I still came home and griped on. I had never </i>practiced<i>. Practiced until it became second nature, the first skin. Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation... I would have to learn </i>eucharisteo.<i>"</i></div>
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Ephesians tells us to give thanks for everything, and so we say, "Thank you for everything, God," and go on about our day, never giving it a second thought. But a different kind of living, a kind of seeing God around us always, requires different eyes. It goes beyond an intellectual assent to God's goodness and His gifts and looks instead to find those gifts, each and every one if it were possible. And so <i>my</i> list began...<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1. My daughter's impossibly loud laughter</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2. My son singing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">3. Fresh music (Paste playlist)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">4. Rain and clouds to help babies sleep</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">5. Warmth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">6. Pizza Hut!</span></div>
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So simple, right? And I practiced. I practiced for a few months, three things a day, doing my duty to count and see. But Ann had more in mind. And I didn't know until I read her say it...</div>
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<i>"In this counting gifts, to one thousand, more, I discover that slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for few things... Life-changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific nail at a time."</i></div>
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And so instead of summarizing my day at the end with three things I remember, I started keeping the journal open and writing down each and every little thing. And <i>this</i> is what I found:</div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">343. My son's creative play</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">344. Homebaked bread</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">345. Rainbows in the water drops of my coffee grounds (promises)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">346. Ann's words ringing in my ears</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">347. Smell of rain</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">348. My son's golashes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">349. Fighting blue jays at the top of the tree</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">350. Pockets, rocks, and running through raindrops</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">351. Motown!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">352. Bunny in the rain</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">353. My daughter, exactly the way God made her, "just the way she's supposed to be"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">354. Sun after rain</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">355. Oozing cheese on my salty, creamy egg sandwich</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">356. The way my son says crocodile: "cow-cow"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">357. Holding hands up the stairs</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">358. The moment before and after you know</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">359. Hearing the rain before feeling/seeing it</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">360. Tires on wet road</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">361. Not "what if" or "why" -- what <b>is</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">362. My son knocking on the door</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">363. Crispy stromboli</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">364. Olive oil sealing dough seams</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">365. My son saying "good morning!" when opening doors (any door, any time)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">366. Friday night guitar jam</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">367. Snuggles with my daughter</span></div>
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24 gifts. 24 gifts!!! In just one day! <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Sorry if I made you hungry. Food is an easily seen gift for me!)</span> And the best part of all... is that I needed <b>that</b> to be the day. Number 353 tells you why. That day, that morning I woke up, read this chapter, and said <u>this</u> -- this is what I need to do. I need to number all day. And so I did. While I watched that bunny in the rain, I heard a woman on the other end of the line, a nurse from my daughter's neurologist, tell me about something they called "widespread tissue loss." Not any tissue... her brain tissue. Widespread. Loss. And there goes that bunny, hopping through the rain. And I began to rain. I sat a bit stunned and confused and not really sure, until I heard her, my daughter, screeching with laughter because her brother ran by. And I smiled through my tears (like those promise rainbows in my coffee grounds) because my daughter just is -- she was before I knew and she is now and she will be... exactly who God made her to be. <i>And I needed to count the gift to see it.</i></div>
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<i>"I look at a day, a thing, an event in front of me, and it may look manna-strange: "What is it?" But when I name it, the naming of it manifests its meaning: to know it comes from God. </i>This is gift! <i>Naming is to know a thing's function in the cosmos -- to name is to </i>solve mystery<i>."</i></div>
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That day, I had been handed mystery. This news, what does it mean? And no one can say. No one <i>knows</i> (but God). We only understand a fraction of what the brain is, of what it does, of how it works. We say it is plastic and we <i>can</i> grow new cells but what do we know? I woke up that morning, hand open, ready to receive the gift, even though I did not know what it would be. And I gathered those gifts and named them, one by one. And as I named them, I solved their mysteries.</div>
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<i>"The gift list </i>is<i> thinking upon His goodness -- and this, </i>this <i>pleases Him most! </i>And<i> most profits my own soul... If clinging to His goodness is the highest form of prayer, then this seeing His goodness with a pen... these really are the most sacred acts conceivable. The ones anyone can conceive, anywhere, in the midst of anything. </i>Eucharisteo<i> takes us into His love."</i></div>
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"<i>Eucharisteo</i> takes us into His love." Without a name, without a solved mystery, that phone call could have cut me apart from God. He knit my daughter in the womb and when she came to us, she came sick, and this phone call? It was just another thing on that list, on that list of brokens. Without a name, without solved mystery, I would have raised my fists to the air and demanded to know, "What is this, God? What is <b>this</b>?!"</div>
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But I already know. I solve the mystery. I name the gift.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">353. My daughter, exactly the way God made her, 'just the way she's supposed to be'" (as a lady in Once Upon a Child told me just days earlier)...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">354. Sun after rain...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">358. The moment before and after you know...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">361. Not "what if" or "why" -- what <b>is</b></span></div>
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This is me learning through gifts, me seeing God in the mystery and knowing it is Him. Knowing He wants me to love and embrace my gifts as He gives them (gift #353), that He has promised goodness in all things (even when it looks like rain, gift #354), that our knowing is only to point our eyes toward Him (because He already knew, gift #358), that we don't need to search for the other ways it could have been or ask why things are the way they are but rather we need to <b>see</b> what is and name it -- <i>gift </i>(gift #361).</div>
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<i>"Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue suffering. The converse does. <b>The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.</b> When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, </i>life<i> grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks."</i></div>
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I do my daughter no good to beat the ground and cry, to curse at God and hurl my hate at Him. It changes nothing and it does no one good, not her soul, not my soul, not the world. Instead, to stand in the face of fear and uncertainty and trouble, and say, "God is in this place. This is gift" -- that changes lives. To look in my daughter's eyes and tell her, "You are not trouble. You are not accident. You are <i>gift." --</i> Those are the words every last one of us is waiting to hear. Those are the words every last one of us <i>needs</i> to hear. You are gift because you are of God. You are gift because I see you and I name you and I <i>solve</i> your mystery. Thanks be... for <b><i>you</i></b>.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tune back in on Thursday, 5/8, for my post on Chapter 4: A Sanctuary of Time</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Affiliate link used</span> </span></span> </div>
Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-5690009829769687942014-05-03T19:41:00.000-04:002014-05-05T17:11:51.047-04:00The Search for Life<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my second post in a series on Ann Voskamp's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>.
Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing
God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post
will be tagged <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/05%2F2014">05/2014</a> and <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20Thousand%20Gifts">One Thousand Gifts</a>. All quotes in italics are from the book.</span></span></div>
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<i>Chapter 2: A Word to Live... and Die By</i><br />
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Chapter two is about the search for life.<br />
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<i>"It's the life in between, the days of walking lifeless, the years calloused and simply going through the hollow motions, the self-protecting by self-distracting, the body never waking, that's lost all capacity to fully feel -- this is the life in between that makes us the wild walking dead."</i></div>
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If we are what we <i>do</i>, many of us are wastes of time. We are unfinished products and boring desk jobs and staring off into space. Me? If I am what I do, I am an applesauce distributor, couch surfer, and Plants v. Zombies 2 champion. Is that it? Is that what I want from my life?<br />
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The idea that our lives preach... it struck me. What was my sermon? How far was my living from my <i>believing</i>? As it turns out, very far. I was living as the walking dead, going through the motions, hanging on as I tried to mother and mother well to two babies, two years old and younger. This is no small task, and I try not to be hard on myself, but mostly, I needed new life <i>for</i> myself. I spent my days trying to self-distract so that I didn't have to tune in to the hard stuff, so that I could self-protect. But I could not persist as a cook-cleaner-day care worker. I had to be more; <i>life</i>... had to be more. But how? I can't shed my skin and fly off to the Caribbean. These children, at least for the short while they are in my care, they <i>are</i> my life in many respects. My soul does not revolve around them, but much of my physical, waking (and sometimes sleeping) life does. It's just where we are. So how to find life in my right now, my right here?</div>
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<i>"Isn't it here? The wonder? Why do I spend so much of my living hours struggling to see it? ... Who has time or eyes to notice? All my eyes can seem to fixate on are the splatters of disappointment across here and me... I don't need more time to breathe so that I may experience more locales, possess more, accomplish more. Because wonder really could be here -- for the seeing eyes. So -- more time for </i>what<i>?"</i></div>
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<i> </i>I guess the better question than how to find more life is what should life look like? What <i>is</i> a life well-lived, a life fulfilled? This is sort of the human question, isn't it? And there are billions of human answers, grasping straws, flailing arms<i>. We've got to figure this out.</i> Ann (wisely) turns to Jesus:<br />
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<i>"With an expiration of less than twelve hours, what does Jesus count as all most important? 'And he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them...' (Luke 22:19 NIV)."</i></div>
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Jesus did life with these men. He gathered them together and taught and healed and walked and walked. They walked everywhere together, much like my children and me, walking and talking and eating together. And when He had just a touch more time with his partners in life, they sat to eat <i>and He gave thanks</i>. This word -- "he gave thanks" -- becomes the foundation. The word is <i>eucharisteo</i>. And it means everything. Literally it means "grace": "The root word of <i>eucharisteo</i> is <i>charis</i>, meaning 'grace'... It also holds its derivative, the Greek word <i>chara</i>, meaning 'joy.'... Grace, thanksgiving, joy. <i>Eucharisteo</i>."</div>
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This, on the darkest night. Jesus gives thanks. He sees the grace of God, He thanks God, and He has joy. This is our model. This is our <i>how</i> and it is also our <i>why</i>. And it is the reverse of our very nature.</div>
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<i>"Non-</i>eucharisteo<i>, ingratitude, was the fall -- humanity's discontent with all that God freely gives. That is what has scraped me raw: ungratefulness. Then to find Eden, the abundance of Paradise, I'd need to forsake my non-</i>eucharisteo<i>, my bruised and bloodied ungrateful life, and grab hold to </i>eucharisteo<i>, a lifestyle of thanksgiving."</i></div>
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The waking dead life is one that searches for something that can't be found. It is a life that searches for something that simply isn't. Often, we really don't even know <i>what</i> we want, only that whatever it is isn't <i>this</i>. "This isn't what I signed up for." I can't even tell you how many times I have thought that thought. While holding a baby, back arching, screeching because she doesn't want to eat. "I didn't sign up for this." While wiping up the stomach ooze from her leaking G-tube. "I didn't sign up for this." While holding her stiff as the nurse sticks her <i>for the third time</i> for her blood, her panicked eyes red and tearing into me, trying to figure out why I was letting this happen to her. "I didn't sign up for this." I'm not strong enough. I didn't ask for it. I'm not made for this. This wasn't my plan. No one ever in the history of ever would sign up for this, would ask for this. <i>Yet here I am</i>.</div>
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And instead of searching for that other, for that alternate universe that will never be, I have to change my lifestyle. Instead of living the ungratefulness of wanting other, I need to grab hold to a lifestyle of thanksgiving. A <i>lifestyle</i>. Not a once-a-year celebration, not a every-now-and-then "oh yeah!", not a "Wow, this was a really good day" of passing thought. A way of living.</div>
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I <i>believe</i> that God is good. I <i>believe </i>that God loves me and that He gives His children good gifts. I <i>believe </i>that God authors our lives and numbers our days and cares for us. I <i>believe </i>that He wants the best for us.<i> </i>If my life is a sermon and this is what I believe, I want <i>this</i> to be what I preach.</div>
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The thing about a belief is for it to really be what you believe, it must transcend your experiences. It must be true, and you must believe it to be true, despite how you <i>feel</i> or what you go through. Sometimes life requires that we change our beliefs, but we should change them only because they were not true to begin with, not simply because they do not <i>feel</i> true any more. And these beliefs I had about God, have about God? They are true. And they don't change just because life is hard. <i>So what does that mean?</i></div>
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If God gives good gifts and He gave me my daughter, my daughter is a good gift. If God cares for me and wants the best for me, then the gifts He has given me in my children -- even when they are hard -- are caring and loving gifts, the best gifts. It means that when I am trying for the hundredth time to explain to my toddler why he cannot play with the scissors and he is crying and crying (yet again) and I can't get through to Him -- that this is a gift of God. It means that when I get frightening phone calls from doctors and I can't make sense of what they're saying, what this could mean for my family -- this is a gift from God. It means that when I tell my daughter I love her and she hears silence -- this is a gift from God. It has to be because I believe it is, because the Word says it is.</div>
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So how do I <b>live</b> as though this is what I <b>believe</b>?</div>
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<i>"Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever He gives.<br />Thanksgiving is the manifestation of our </i>Yes!<i> to His grace."</i></div>
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<i> </i>I give thanks. I live <i>eucharisteo</i>. And instead of the voice of ungratefulness saying, "I didn't sign up for this," I live the voice of thanksgiving saying, "I receive this from you, Lord, with joy." Instead of the bitter confusion of loss, I live the open-armed life of grace. Instead of the worry of what will be, I live the peace of welcoming God. If I truly believe that God gives all things in love, then for my life to preach that sermon, <i>I must receive all things with thanks</i>. This transcends circumstance and occupation and emotion. And beyond just lifting us up to the joy -- remember: grace, thanksgiving, joy -- it is essential to our salvation.</div>
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<i>"The act of sacrificing thank offerings to God -- even for the bread and cup of cost, for cancer and crucifixion -- </i>this<i> prepares the way for God to show us His </i>fullest<i> salvation from bitter, angry, resentful lives and from all sin that estranges us from Him... Thanksgiving -- giving thanks in everything -- is what prepares the way for salvation's whole restoration... I would never experience the fullness of salvation until I expressed the fullness of my thanks every day, and </i>eucharisteo<i> is elemental to living the saved life." </i></div>
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If we want to live redeemed lives, if we want to walk the walk (as they say), we must give thanks. We must offer up our thanks as a sacrifice. The blood of the Lamb has been shed and we must say, "Thank you, Lord."<i></i></div>
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We are saved, not by saying thank you, but by the grace of God. Ann is sure to point this out. <b>But</b> -- we <i>live</i> our salvation in response to that. And what should our response be? Thanks. God showers with grace, we thank Him for it, and our joy is complete. This is the redeemed life. This is the life taken from the pit of anxiety and depression and anger and loss and ungratefulness. This is a life of grace, so flowing with the waters of mercy that our hearts cannot contain our gratitude. It overflows and runs down and waters the ground of our lives and we grow and grow into joy.</div>
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"But, Aleah, are you blind? How can all <i>this</i> be grace?" Preach, sister. Preach. I hear you. It is a wild, ugly world out there. "And we have to say thank you for it?" I get you. I am with you. Sometimes it doesn't <i>feel </i>like grace. Sometimes it doesn't <i>look </i>like grace. <i>But that doesn't mean it isn't</i>. We must learn to have eyes to see.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tune back in on Monday, 5/5, for my post on Chapter 3: First Flight</span></span></div>
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Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-6721379873731032712014-05-01T20:39:00.001-04:002014-05-01T20:39:17.975-04:00Preaching with Your Life<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my first post in a series on Ann Voskamp's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>. Each post will cover one of the eleven chapters of this book on seeing God and learning how to live fully... right where you are. Each post will be tagged <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/05%2F2014">05/2014</a> and <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20Thousand%20Gifts">One Thousand Gifts</a>. All quotes in italics are from the book.</span></span></div>
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<i>Chapter 1: An Emptier, Fuller Life </i></div>
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Your life is a sermon. I know some pastors who can bring the Word. I mean, really bring it. Take it out, read it real, break it down, make connections, put those pieces together, and make stars come to your eyes. "Wow! I never knew it that way. What power! What truth!" But I've never known a pastor who could preach the way a life preaches. The way patterns of days unfold and the way a person goes -- it says far more than any twenty, thirty, sixty minutes of starry connections. The way you talk to your children, the way you start your day, the way you end your day, the way you go about your way for every minute in between... it says far more about what you believe (and what you believe about God) than you could ever put into words. And string those days along by weeks and months and years and you have a raging, roaring sermon of a life that proclaims: "This is my truth!"</div>
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What is your truth?</div>
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<i>"Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren't satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other."</i></div>
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Some days, I wake up and I know it will be good. My heart and eyes are wide open and I'm so full of love and excited. I hug my kids and tickle them and play silly games and everyone is fed and happy and glory be! Some days... not so much. My back hurts and my eyes sting with tired and I just. don't. <b>feel</b> like it. And I grump and mope and gripe and it rains inside our house.</div>
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<i>"Where hides this joy of the Lord, this God who fills the earth with good things, and how do I fully live when life is full of hurt? How do I wake up to joy and grace and beauty and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses and crushed dreams and all that empties me out?"</i></div>
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Some days, it's just too painful to be happy, joyful, to be up. "But haven't you seen the news?" Tornadoes and babies dying and millions of souls in slums sorting trash (actual, literal trash) for their food. Closer to home, moms miscarry and husbands lose jobs and kids need surgery and never enough sleep. The days grind by through dishes and laundry and I lose some hold on what I ever did with myself.<i> </i></div>
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<i>"When we find ourselves groping along, famished for more, we can choose. When we are despairing, we can choose to live as Israelites gathering manna... They find soul-filling in the inexplicable. They eat the mystery."</i></div>
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Some days, the sermon my life preaches about God is that He is stingy and rude and doesn't care very much. He's all up there going about His glory-seeking business and I'm all down here up to my elbows in dirty diapers. If I squint my eyes hard and squeeze the last drop of joy out of my heart, I hear myself mumble, "Thank you, Lord. Thank you for this day. I don't even really know what I am thankful <i>for</i> about this day, but it was a day, so it was a gift, so thank you." And I feel my heart open up just the littlest bit.</div>
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<i>"That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave."</i></div>
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Those days that seem to grind the hardest, the ones with puking babies and cranky, defiant toddlers, the ones with terrible news from doctors and impossible decisions to make... I must admit, those are the days I find myself talking most to God. "Lord, please this... Lord, that. Lord, hear me, please. Do you see this? Help this." And we break down and break through and God hears. I know, because I'm still here.<i> </i></div>
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<i>"Since we took a bite out of the fruit and tore into our own souls, that drain hole where joy seeps away, God's had this wild secretive plan. </i>He means to fill us with glory again.<i> With glory and grace."</i></div>
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The search, the fight of every day, is always to find the light in the darkness. The pinhole spot, the tear in the cavern wall that screams, "This is the way!" And the days can be dark. This dark is no joke. The darkness of cancer that eats and viruses that burn and depression that presses and anxiety that spins and loneliness that aches. Consuming darknesses that feel they are impenetrable. But there is always light. Even at the bedside of your only daughter, bruised and swollen and hungry for air. There is light in the hope of life and a caring nurse. Even in the diagnosis that will take you from this world. There is light in the hope of life beyond and your partner all these years. Even in the depression and loneliness that bores you down like a stripped screw. There is light in the hope of a friendly ear and a new day.</div>
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Joy matters because our lives matter. The sermons they preach are going out. People are watching and listening and learning. From us. And they want to know. They want to know where to find God in the darkness. They want to know how bad things can happen to good people if He cares. They want to know how to carry on through life's drudgeries and disappointments. They want to know the point of it all.</div>
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And we can preach a God who is powerless and careless by our frightened, anxious, fretting hearts. We can preach a God who is unkind and impatient with our harsh words and our hasty hands. We can preach a God who never wanted us to have a good thing by never opening our eyes to see a good thing.</div>
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Or...</div>
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We can preach a God whose power reaches beyond our lives to the whole world by our praise of His name in the storm. We can preach a God who is loving and patient far beyond what we can imagine by our over-and-over again forgiving and loving and caring touch. We can preach a God who gives and gives and gives us all good things, forever raining down, giving even to His death... by opening our eyes to what is already around us. The simple things, the profound things, the daily things, the life-altering, universe-tilting things. We can preach this God. We can shout sermons in our days that preach, <i>"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!" (Isaiah 6:3)</i> </div>
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<b>The whole earth is full of His glory</b>. In flowering blooms and laughing children and powerful peace. In raging storms and warring factions and dried-up streams. The whole earth... the <i>whole</i> earth... is full of His glory. And we must fight to see.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tune back in on Saturday, 5/3, for my post on Chapter 2: A Word to Live... and Die By</span></span></div>
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Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-72685815918293184472014-04-24T14:15:00.001-04:002014-04-24T14:15:51.953-04:00One Thousand Gifts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have finally started <a href="http://www.aholyexperience.com/one-thousand-gifts-book/">the book</a> that inspired the <a href="http://www.aholyexperience.com/joy-dares/">Joy Dare</a> I have been doing this year. The "dare" is to count up 1000 gifts though the course of the year, three gifts every day, intentionally stopping to see God where He meets us each day and to honor Him with our praise of thanksgiving. I've shared some of my <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/Joy%20Dare">Joy Dares</a>, though I haven't been as consistent with it as I would like. BUT! I am starting a new project for May. I am going to blog through <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a>. The book is part memoir, part spiritual thoughts. Only three chapters in, I am already finding the thoughts and stories permeating my mind and reminding me of the great gift of life and all the smaller gifts God takes great pleasure in giving us. I will write about the parts of the book that stand out most to me and speak to me. I loved <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/search/label/11%2F2013">my first project</a> when I started this blog back in November, and I'm excited to do another one. I'm not sure if I'll write every day or a set number of times a week, but once I figure it out, I'll let you know!<br />
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I have created an Instagram account to go along with this project (and my blog in general). Find me at username <a href="http://instagram.com/sermonsfromstones">sermonsfromstones</a>! I'll be sharing Bible verses, pictures of my Joy Dare gifts, and quotes from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310321913/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0310321913&linkCode=as2&tag=sermonsfromstones-20"><i>One Thousand Gifts</i></a> as I blog through it. Feel free to follow me and regram and share the hope and joy and peace that comes from the only Truth.<br />
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Stay tuned for May's project and get geared up for some serious joy! Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-18670574421019695012014-04-23T13:54:00.002-04:002014-04-23T13:54:38.009-04:00Goliath<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>"God will help you slay the Goliaths in your life."</i></div>
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It takes all my self-control not to scream out and start hitting the steering wheel as we pass the church. <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/02/over-our-heads.html">Another sign</a>, but this time, one with a message so toxic, it makes me shake with anger. <i>You have <b>got</b> to be kidding me,</i> is all I can think, over and over. It takes me until I pull into my driveway three minutes later to realize why this makes me so mad. And it has everything to do with pain.</div>
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This view of God, this idea of Him, turns Him into a genie. The scene cuts to the pretty little girl skipping through a flower-filled field, not a care in the word, until a mean kid shows up and pushes her down. Her face twists more with humiliation than pain until a beam of light shines down from heaven and the bully's hard face slacks with awe and he slowly backs away. Just in the minute when she needed Him, God intervened and rescued the little girl from the mean kid. We rub our lamps hard enough or squint our eyes tight enough in prayer and God will swoop down, fix the problem, and whoosh back up to heaven.</div>
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Why does this make me so mad? What is so wrong with this kind of God, one who obviously loves His creatures enough to rescue them? It makes me mad because I don't see this kind of justice, the one in that wronged little girl's life. You know what I see? I see shuddering shoulders of countless women I know whose children never tasted breath before they died, women who wait to meet these precious blessings in heaven, the only place they will ever know them. I see the shock of betrayal so deep it can never be mended, not really, so deep that every time I think of it, it steals my breath. I see every headline my cursor hovers over, unable to click. War wrecking this place, the gaping maw of poverty in that place, children standing with guns in victory over the men they feel proud to have killed. I see friends who have watched their parents empty from the inside out and become shells from cancer. I see a friend sitting across from me at our dining room table, wide emptiness in his eyes, trying to make sense of senseless death. And I imagine me saying to him, "God will help you slay the Goliaths in your life." And I imagine him flipping our dining room table off its legs, plates and cups and silverware sailing through the air on their way to crashing to the ground. I imagine him walking out of our home because what kind of truth is that? What kind of help is that? How can that possibly be?</div>
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Our answer to struggle and difficulty is "God will fix that"? Well, what about when He doesn't? What about all those times when death wins and we lose? What about all those wounds we carry around that will never heal right, that cut too deep? Did that not count as a Goliath? Was it not big enough for God to step in? Tell that to every mom I ever saw stooped over their child's hospital bed. So was God just not there? Or maybe worse, was He there, but He didn't care enough to help? To stop it from happening in the first place or to fix it once it did? How can God love me and still be good if He just stood idly by? That's where this idea of God ultimately ends. It might feel good to think we have a magic bullet in our pocket, ready to be used in times of deep distress. But we will be disappointed. We will be disappointed in our times of deep distress when we whip that bullet out and it turns to air.</div>
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So what is the truth? If this is wrong, what is true of God? What can you say to someone in the midst of great loss or grief or struggle? (Hint: It's not "<a href="http://natepyle.com/confronting-the-lie-god-wont-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle/">God won't give you more than you can handle.</a>" But that's a whole other post...) I'm not a trained counselor or an authority on the subject. All I can share is the road I have walked and walked with others. And all things have their time and their place, so please don't see this as me giving you your golden ticket to get out of an uncomfortable moment. Don't rush to this like it's a bandaid. But learn this. Because when pain comes for you or for someone you hold so dear that you feel the knife slash you too, you need to know this. And you need to believe this. And this needs to be the air you breathe.</div>
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The Bible's poster child for suffering (outside of Jesus himself) is sweet old Job. And he gets here too, to the "Why, God?" place. He loses his family, all his money, his home, his health. He continues to honor God through it all, through more than 30 chapters of story and dialogue and pain upon more pain and people telling him to curse God. And finally he cries out, "Why?" And you're like, "Yes! Thank you! I need to know the answer to this."<br />
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And God says, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?"</div>
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What?<br />
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<b>"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?"</b></div>
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The first time I read that part, I honestly flipped back the page to see if I had missed something. Seriously, God? That's your answer? And He doesn't stop there. He goes on for pages and pages about all the incredible, amazingly powerful things He has done and the message for Job in them all is, "Where were you? Can you do this? Can you even comprehend this?"</div>
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At the end of all of Job's pain and suffering, all of yours and mine and the whole world's, is God. He isn't absent, floating on a cloud somewhere unaware. He isn't a genie to be called down to grant us our wishes. He is the author of time. He is the God who, before He formed the universe, first created nothingness in which to bring the universe. He is the God who knit you in the womb and holds the Colorado River as it forms the Grand Canyon. Job asks, "Why, God?" And God says, "Who are you?" And what this gives us is not a compress to stop the bleeding or a few stitches to make the scar look right. What this gives us is a right perspective and a right view of God. This gives us a God who is conducting a vast orchestra and whom we should trust. This gives us a God who <i>is</i> here, who <i>does</i> see, and who loves. And we can look to our left and our right and not see Him for the dust life has kicked up around us. But we know He <i>is </i>there... <i>because He says He is.</i> And our picture is so small; what we see is so tiny. We get the slightest glimpse of this vast earth and <i>we don't have a clue</i>. We walk out with our right view of God and we get a new perspective. <b>It's not about me</b>. It's not. It's not about me and it's not about you and I can't always tell you what it <i>is</i> about, except that God is holding the reigns. And I trust Him.</div>
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I trust Him through death and the threat of death. I trust Him through violence and emptiness and strange, twisted roads. God will give you more than you can handle... <i>so you will lean on Him</i>. God will not slay all your Goliaths... <i>so you will cry out to Him</i>. And when you do? He will tell you, just as He told Job, "I am God and you are not. Fix your eyes on me and watch."</div>
Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-60540010195823286382014-04-15T17:46:00.002-04:002014-04-15T17:46:21.145-04:00Her SongIt was a week before I could sing to her. Her song, the one I had picked for her while she was still growing inside me. "Be Thou My Vision" is my son's. I walked down the aisle to my husband to that song and I wanted it to be his anthem. Jesus, my child, keep your eyes fixed right -- there -- on -- Him. For her? I rolled a few others around in my mind, unable to settle on one (not unlike our search for her name). And one morning at church, we sang it and I knew.<i> </i><br />
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I could picture myself, singing this truth to her while I rocked her to sleep in the dark of night. <i>"Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow." (Isaiah 1:18) </i>There is hope, sweet child, that while this life laid out before you will be hard and twisted and though your heart will betray you, Jesus paid it all, every last debt. You owe everything to Him and what freedom awaits you!<br />
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It was a week before I could sing to her because I didn't know. When I picked her song, I didn't know that really, God had picked her song. I didn't know how hard the words would be to tell her. I didn't know how much pain she would carry and how great -- weighty -- the promises would be for her. I didn't know how those words would feel like falling boulders instead of freeing wings in the midst of pain and struggle. I couldn't even sing it... I couldn't make it past the first verse...<br />
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<i>I hear the Savior say,</i><br />
<i>"Thy strength indeed is small,</i><br />
<i>Child of weakness, watch and pray</i><br />
<i>Find in Me thine all in all."</i><br />
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I thought the song would be for her. And it was; it is. Jesus, I could hear him saying it, "You are so sweet, baby girl. Your strength is so small." I watched her breathing while she slept and tubes all everywhere and I couldn't even hold her and yes, I knew, her strength was so small. But really? My strength was so small. And I wanted to fall into a million pieces and instead, Jesus said, "Watch." Don't fall into a million pieces. Watch. Pray. <i>Look at Me. </i>Look at me -- and find.<br />
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Are you sure, Jesus?<br />
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<i>For nothing good have I</i><br />
<i>Whereby thy grace to claim</i><br />
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Are you sure?<br />
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<i>I'll wash my garments white</i><br />
<i>In the blood of Calv'ry's Lamb</i><br />
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It was a week before I could sing to her and even then, I barely made it through the second verse. We watched and we prayed and we waited on Jesus. We surrendered the strength we thought we had to Him and He gave us His strength and we watched and we prayed and we waited. We rode the roller coaster of hospital life and we kept going back, washing our garments white. And we drew from His power...<br />
<i> </i><br />
<i>Lord, now indeed I find</i><br />
<i>Thy power and Thine alone</i><br />
<i>Can change the leper's spots</i><br />
<i>And melt the heart of stone.</i><br />
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The power that we saw was a healing power. Slowly, her body put itself back together and she could get rid of this tube and that warming lamp and those medicines and that doctor. The healing power of Christ was working in her... And it was working in me. The heart that I wanted to <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/called-to-love-not-fear.html">wall in and protect </a>blossomed open, bowed down before the One who healed. Who healed her... and healed me. And even death lost its power in the face of that.<br />
<i> </i><br />
<i>When from my dying bed,</i><br />
<i>My ransomed soul shall rise,</i><br />
<i>"Jesus died my soul to save</i><br />
<i>Shall rend the vaulted skies."</i><br />
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I would escape her sterile room for the fresh air across the street and under the bridge and the birds would sing to me. And I would look up to the sky and pray, and every time, I saw the skies split open at the name of Jesus. I could not save my daughter, and I could not save myself, but the power of the Lord would save us both.<br />
<i> </i><br />
<i> Jesus paid it all,</i><br />
<i>All to Him I owe.</i><br />
<i>Sin had left a crimson stain.</i><br />
<i>He washed it white as snow.</i><br />
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It was a week before I could sing to her, a month before I could make it past the first two verses, and I still can't make it through the last one. We know now that she is going to be okay (whatever that means for any of us). She is healthy and happy and smiles and sits. We have jumped so many hurdles and high-fived so many <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/celebrate-every-victory.html">victories </a>and struggled through so many <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-illusion-of-control.html">defeats </a>and decisions and long nights. And we are "out of the woods" and onto the clear, open path.<br />
<br />
Except for her hearing.<i> </i>We will get her cochlear implants (Lord willing) and she will hear with her bionic ears. But she will be deaf. She will live a life filled with the challenges that come with disability and you bet your bottom dollar <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/01/champion.html">I'll be walking right there with her</a>, but it will not be easy and it will be a fight. We aren't scared; we have the power of God. But I still can't sing that last verse...<br />
<br />
<i>And when before the throne</i><br />
<i><b>I stand in Him complete</b></i><br />
<i>"Jesus died my soul to save,"<br />My lips shall still repeat.</i><br />
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Complete. Whole. I can't sing it. I can't sing it because I can't bear the weight of that. She will live her life knowing very acutely what it is to be incomplete. Most of us don't have that privilege. We at least get to cling to the delusion that we are "fine". But she? She will know. Every last day. Every time she has to ask someone to repeat what they said. Every time she gets stopped in the store about those weird things on her head. Every time she has to have therapy. Every time she takes off her implant and the world goes quiet. She will know that she is missing something.<br />
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I can't sing that last verse because I did not know what God really wanted me to know. He wanted me to know it too. He wanted me to remember that when I look at my daughter and see what's missing, I should immediately look to my heart and see what's missing. I can't sing that last verse because I can't imagine that moment, when all the blood red crimson is gone and I stand before the God of the universe and I am whole. Not fallen or trapped or stuck. Complete.<br />
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And in that moment, I will not say, "Look how great I did." "Look how awesome my life was." "Look at all the amazing things I did for you, God." Just like my daughter will not say, "Look how strong I was." "Look at all that power I had." "Look at everything I learned to hear and say." My lips... they will spill forth with the only truth that ever was and ever will be: <b><i>"Jesus died... my soul to save."</i></b> It will be all I can say. It will be all she can say. It will be what makes us complete.Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-40153759507861656622014-03-31T15:24:00.000-04:002014-03-31T15:25:45.015-04:00Do You Trust Me?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It started on Tuesday with this verse: <i>"Then they shall be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their boast." (Isaiah 20:5)</i> My mind immediately shot to this verse: <i>"F<span class="selected">ar be it from me to boast </span></i><span class=""><i>except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Galatians 6:14)</i> And the light bulb flicked on: God is asking, "Whom do you trust?"</span><br />
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<span class="">And apparently I wasn't the only one thinking about it. That same day, Ann wrote an <a href="http://www.aholyexperience.com/2014/03/letters-to-daughters-the-secret-you-have-to-know-about-you-that-thing-youre-going-through/">open letter to her daughter</a>, asking her to trust her, trust that her momma was looking out for her Future Self even when it made her Right-Now Self upset. "Trust me," she asks and you can hear God echoing back, "Trust me."</span><br />
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<span class="">I kept chewing on this, and Sunday rolled around and baby girl was sick, throwing up, awful. In lieu of church, I made my way back to a sermon series from John Piper about <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/sermons/by-series/battling-unbelief">battling unbelief</a>. I had listened to the one on anxiety and I knew I needed this series, so I started from the beginning. And I hear him say, "All sin stems from unbelief." And I hear him say, "The greatest honor you can give someone is to tell them, 'I trust you.'" That "trusting God's promises is the most fundamental way that you can consciously glorify God." There it is again: God is asking, "Whom do you trust?"</span><br />
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<span class="">If you asked me, "Aleah, do you put your trust in God or in man?" I would say, "Duh, God." But not fifteen minutes later, my stomach will be knotted up with anxiety about my children's health or our family's future or where that money's going to come from. Not an hour later, I will be angry with one crying child or another because why can't they just be reasonable? Not two hours later I will be miffed at my husband for some entirely unintended slight and catch him trying to catch my gaze, confusion on his face. I will make an intellectual assent to trust in God, but live a practical existence of trust in myself. To keep our family healthy (as if I can fight off hoards of tiny microbes single-handedly). To muster up some kind of patience or kindness within myself (as if I can just push a button and suddenly I'm Mary Poppins). To be an honest, open, loving peacemaker (as if I hold the key to my own emotions if only I would put it in the lock). I heap up the responsibilities on my shoulders (and likewise expect others to shoulder their own) because <i>I trust <b>myself</b></i>. I trust myself to get it all together and keep it all in line and make it all work.</span><br />
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<span class="">I know I'm not alone. We trust ourselves (or others) to pile up the money or cultivate inner peace or feed hungry mouths or build relationships or be successful or fight for justice or keep us healthy. We either think we can carry the torch and win the race, or we think we are utterly incapable of anything good and find a way to escape the ugliness. We have, Piper would say, a love of money. <i>"Love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Timothy 6:10)</i> What a weird verse, right? How does a love of money make me impatient with my toddler? Piper explains. "Money" as a concept is a symbol. If you "love money", you aren't overly infatuated with dollar bills or numbers in an account; you are infatuated with <i>what they can get you. </i>They are your means to products or services. From whom? From man. This "love of money" is a love of what man can get you. This "love of money" is the "root of all evil" because it says to man, "I trust you," and to God, "I don't need you. I have another way." But there is no other way. And when we try to force it? We find ourselves lying or scheming or stealing or fretting. Man will let us down <i>every last time</i>.</span><br />
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<span class="">God reveals Cush (their hope) and Egypt (their boast) to be the shaky, human empires they were. He breaks them down and brings dismay and shame to His people because their boast was in man... and not in Him. And sometimes the only way to show someone their need is to make them very needy. God shows them who they <i>can't</i> trust in order to show them Who they <i>can</i> trust. To show them that their only boast should be in the cross of Christ (or in their case, the promise of the cross). To show them that all their victories, big and small, come from His hand.</span><br />
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<span class="">Over and over, God has asked me, "Aleah, do you trust me?" Do you trust this doctor or do you trust me? Do you trust time or do you trust me? Do you trust your own wisdom or do you trust me? Do you trust money or do you trust me? And over and over, He has shown me His hand. When there were tubes and toxic medications, He showed me life and healing. When there was slow weight gain and confusion, He showed me chubby rolls and answers. When there was the over and over of seeming futility, He showed me progress and growth. And so yesterday, as I held my heaving little girl, aching from head to toe for her, God asked me, "Do you trust me?" Do you trust that I am here, right now, with you and with her, as you both ache and cry and hurt? Do you trust that <i>I've still got this</i>? That I've still got <b>you</b>?</span><br />
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<span class="">And I said yes. I didn't have a vision of an angel standing over us or a glimpse of heaven come or a miraculous healing. I had a long line of moments to look back over, times when all seemed lost but when God was found. Times when I never thought things would be right again but when I was proven so, so wrong. Ultimately, I had (have) the scene of God-made-man, stooping to greet children and heal women and weep for His friends. And I had the scene of that Perfection, broken and bleeding. And I had the scene of that Hope, alive again and seated at the right hand of the Father, <i>interceding for me</i>. Turning to God and saying, "Please help this little girl to stop throwing up." My one little girl out of the <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2014/02/over-our-heads.html">seven billion beating hearts</a> and Jesus said, "Her, God. Her momma is begging you to help her." And because He has shown me His hand so many times before, because He showed His hand so blindingly bright in Jesus on the cross, I knew that whether she was healed in a moment or not at all, He was with me. With us. And He was worthy, is worthy, of my trust.</span>Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-46272409456157320042014-03-22T16:17:00.001-04:002014-03-22T16:18:10.975-04:00Take the Joy Dare 8&9<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I missed last week. We were in the midst of doctoral exams and the stress level was audible. This weekend, as you'll read, we are free! These joys are varied. Some of them are very simple -- food, a book. Some of them are very exciting -- completed tests and exams. Some of them are hard -- finding God, receiving truth. I think it's very much a picture of true life: simple, exciting, hard. From the past two weeks...<b> </b><br />
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<b>1) Audiologist = qualify for cochlear</b><br />
<br />
Baby girl had her hearing aid evaluation. We sat in a sound proof box while her audiologist talked through a microphone and sent noises our way. With her hearing aids in, my daughter responded (or didn't) to the sounds. Her audiologist kept note of what she seemed to hear and what she didn't. Based on the evaluation, she receives some benefit from her aids, but not enough to achieve spoken language. This is precisely the result we expected! It also means that from an audiological standpoint, she qualifies for cochlear implants. This is a big step, and we are so thankful for this result!<br />
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<b>2) Pot pies cooked</b><br />
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I've tried freezer cooking a few times, and usually, I either don't like the recipe or I forget I have the stuff in there and it goes past its prime. One recipe that defies this trend? Chicken pot pies! I whipped up three and tucked them away in our freezer for future dinners. Nothing like only having to pull something out of the freezer and dinner is done. You could probably use any ol' pot pie recipe; just wrap them up and freeze after cooking the insides but before baking the crust. I first tried them while prepping these recipes (<a href="http://melissafallistestkitchen.blogspot.com/2012/02/freezer-cooking-2.html">The Test Kitchen of Melissa Fallis</a>) and it's the pot pie recipe I continue to use. All the moms are cheering with me when I say, dinner's ready!<br />
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<b>3) Looking for God</b><br />
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As I drove my daughter to her appointment two hours away, I got pretty bored. I noticed a group of vultures riding on the wind ahead of me on the road and I thought, I wonder if I ever would have thought to make birds if I were God. That led me to consider which of His qualities He meant for those birds to display. Their seeming weightlessness and freedom. Their otherworldliness. The intricacy of their feathers and the power of flight they allow for. Then I started to think of other elements of God's creation -- trees, mountains, rivers -- anything I passed. All of these creations speak of Him. I was so uplifted to think of all the ways God reveals Himself to us and what volumes they speak about Him. It's now my new favorite past time, finding God in His world. It pulls me out of myself and says, "Look! He is all around you."<br />
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<b>4) Biography of Bonhoeffer</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I have been reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bonhoeffer-Pastor-Martyr-Prophet-Spy/dp/1595552464/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395516163&sr=8-1&keywords=bonhoeffer+pastor.+martyr.+prophet.+spy">Eric Metaxas' biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer</a>. It's pretty much right up my alley: theologian, WWII, moral dilemmas. He was a pastor who took part in a plot to assassinate Hitler. It tells the story of his upbringing, schooling, theology, and outworking of his faith. It has been so encouraging and interesting! I think about the things that fill my life (my husband's schooling, taking care of the kids and our home, our church life), and I can't imagine our world being totally upended like Bonhoeffer's was in Germany under Hitler's rule. He responds with such faith and consistency that it is truly inspiring. Highly recommend!<br />
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<b>5) Exams done! </b><br />
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My husband is pursuing his PhD in English literature. He has finished with his classes and this year, he spent his time prepping for his doctoral exams. For the English PhD student, the exams are the highest hurdle. Asking an English major to write a dissertation is like asking a toddler to write on the wall with crayons. Bring it on! But asking him to read vast wealths of literature and criticism and then sit in a room and answer two or three out of a possible four or five questions on those broad eras with no books or research of any kind to reference? That's a recipe for much stress. But, praise God, he finished his exams this week! I am so thankful to have my joyful, stress-free husband back.<br />
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<b>6) Honesty. A hard truth.</b><br />
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An old friend dosed me with a bit of truth this week that hurt. It hurt because it was honest and true and ugly. A lot of truths are. Ugly. And up until probably six months ago, maybe a year, I would have been horrified at what this person said. But these last few months have unearthed a lot of truth, ugly ones, and I'm not so easily scandalized. This honesty... it was refreshing.<br />
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I peel back layers of myself on here, examine myself publicly (though from the safe distance of my computer screen and with time to edit my words carefully... for this slow-to-process mind and unbridled-in-real-time tongue, things tend to go better this way). I didn't start writing for that purpose, but rather to display the glories of God through our trials. What I found, though, is that so many of those glories came through struggle and so many of the struggles were with <i>me</i>. I'm not beating up on myself; all of us struggle. But by putting mine out there, I get to point to Jesus. By revealing my struggles and broken bits and dark parts, you can see that we are not so far apart. You are as broken as I am and you need Jesus as desperately as I do. We likely have different broken places; this is part of what caused the pain between my friend and me. I was broken in a way that this friend is very much not, and in some ways, my very personality caused this person pain. But the story doesn't end in brokenness because there is sweet humility and sweet apology and sweet forgiveness. (Thankfully, at least, in our case. Though the sting of a broken relationship still stands.) So many of those parts of me that caused pain I have laid at the feet of Jesus and spent time washing my mind in the water of His word. Changing, growing, more Christ-liking. And my hope, my prayer, is that by tracing my steps from the depths to the Cross, that you will have hope and join me in the journey.<br />
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This friend's honesty, ugly and painful as it was, marked a point of reflection for me, a moment for me to stop and look around. I can't change the past. I can't unsay or undo. I have already walked the path behind me and it is done. But I do have control over what comes next. I can apologize. <a href="http://sermonsfromstones.blogspot.com/2013/11/people-do-change.html">I can change.</a> And by the grace of God, I will do just that.Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9168790771618655676.post-64417347536239160842014-03-18T13:25:00.002-04:002014-03-18T15:29:07.820-04:00Holding My Breath<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I live my life in waiting. For a long time, I thought it was a "life phase" thing, something young people do because so much waits up ahead. Everyone waits to turn 16 and get a driver's license, graduate from high school, graduate from college, get their first job, get married. These are big life moments, trophy-worthy. We hold our breath and wait for them, exhaling when we get there. "I have arrived!" And then we hold our breath again and wait for the next one. In between is a lot of hard work and a lot of waiting. But we know the time will come, so we keep on keepin' on, as they say.<br />
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If you look at the Instagram picture of my life today, you would likely say that I have <i>really</i> arrived. I hit all those milestones. I am a part of the proverbial husband and wife with our two kids and two dogs. Despite the husband-still-in-school part, we're kind of... <i>there</i>. You know, where everyone ends up. We have arrived.<br />
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I stared at my ceiling two nights ago, trying to fall asleep the night before my husband's first doctoral exam and I heard myself think, "Once we get her cochlear and she can hear..." I was thinking about my daughter. And I realized -- I'm still waiting. I've been holding my breath, waiting for someone to fix her. It makes my chest tight to type that... but it's true. I've been waiting... for <i>her</i>.<br />
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If you've never been pregnant, it is the ultimate exercise in waiting. I waited for her for nine months and then she came, but she was sick. So we sent her to the hospital and we waited. "A week to two weeks" turned into 52 days, but we waited and the day arrived and she came home. But she was still not totally healthy, so we waited to fix her GI issues. And we waited to fix her sleep issues. And we waited to fix her development issues. We ticked off the days and tapped our toes and learned to be patient. Soon she would be all better and we could relax and enjoy her.<br />
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And the GI issues resolved (praise God!). And she started to sleep at night and eventually <i>through</i> the night (praise God!). And she met those developmental milestones and calmed down and cheered up (praise God!). We waited and we arrived and we waited and we arrived. What I didn't realize until last night is that I'm still waiting. In my head, she's still not fixed and we still have another hurdle to clear: her hearing. The surgery looms up ahead in my mind and I catch myself looking toward it, fearful but excited, afraid to put her through that but excited for her to hear. And I realized that deeper down there, what I'm really excited about... is to finally have my daughter. Whole. Complete. Fixed.<br />
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If you judge me for this, you should. It makes me feel nauseous to think that I would even feel that way. But I do. I like to think of myself as that mom who loves her kids "no matter what". And while that <i>is</i> true, when I really think about it, or if someone were to ask me, of course that's how I feel. Of course I love my daughter no matter what. But in the back of my mind, there's still a problem. And I realize that underneath the parts of ourselves we know very well sits a well of sin and darkness that is very, <b>very </b>deep. That we think we have a tight, secure lid on, but that honestly, blackens us. When we uncover it, we can repent, shine the light on the darkness, bathe it in the forgiveness of Jesus. But until we know those sins, they boil and bubble under the surface.<br />
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I stared at the ceiling two nights ago and thought about my daughter, my daughter who is deaf and who has the absolute cutest scrunchy-nosed smile in all the world. <i><b>And I resolved to stop waiting. </b></i>She is here, today, right now, just as she is. She is my daughter in the womb and my very sick daughter in the hospital and my daughter with a G-tube and my daughter who won't sleep at night and my daughter who hates to be touched and my daughter who finally held her head up and my daughter who laughs and my daughter who won't sit up and my daughter who will sit up and my daughter who can't hear. And in four to five months, she will be my daughter who <i>can </i>hear (Lord willing, with the help of her electronic ears). But on that day, she will be no more my daughter than she is today, than she was six months ago, twelve months ago. It will be scary and exciting, but it will not define us today.<br />
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The more I thought, the more I stared, the more thankful I became for the love of Jesus. To His children, Jesus says, "I love you." I love you today and yesterday and tomorrow and forever. I love you broken. I love you whole. I love you a prostitute and a liar and a thief and a murderer. I love you prideful and anxious and lazy and mean. I love you faithful to your husband and honest and giving and loving. I love you humble and peaceful and hard-working and kind. Jesus' love does not wait on us. His love does not wait on us to "get fixed". His love does not depend on our condition. He loves us because we are His children. And <i>"<span class="">God shows his love for us in that </span><a class="cf" href="http://www.esvbible.org/Rm5.6%3BRm5.10/"><span class=""></span></a><span class="">while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)</span></i><span class=""> God shows His love to His children in that while we were still broken, sick, dying, He wrapped His arms tight around us and loved us to His death. Does He promise healing? Growth? Holiness? Yes. Does His love for us depend on that? Wait on that? Need that? No. Above all, I want my daughter to know <i>that </i>love, the love of a God who knitted her, knows her, loves her. And I want to model that love. I want to love my daughter like God loves her, not waiting or holding my breath... but open-armed, honest, true.</span>Aleahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17375376597713708295noreply@blogger.com1