Take the Joy Dare

Occasionally in my reading life, I find a voice that resonates with me. Someone whose words mine my own thoughts, sometimes thoughts I never knew I had, and express them in ways I never could. It's a rewarding experience, one that makes me feel connected and like I have a friend out there in the world, someone who really gets me. Margaret Atwood, for instance. I simply adore her books. She  speaks my language. I have this feeling that were we ever to meet in "real" life, we would be instant best friends and never spend another day apart. (Marge, if you're reading this, give me a call!)

Ann Voskamp is another of those voices. She has inspired me to do two things: 1) Take the Joy Dare. 2) Share it with you. Every Saturday, she posts something called "Only the Good Stuff" (link is to today's). Uplifting, encouraging, good stuff from the internet. I love this. I need this! And I learn about so many incredible stories and people and new songs. This week's really hit home for me in the story about a disabled girl and her older brother. If you read/watch only one thing in her post, watch that one!

Inspired by her "Only the Good Stuff", I am going to post each Saturday (ideally) and share four or five of my "joys" from the week. Ann's Joy Dare charges her readers to count their gifts, three each day. By the end of the year, that adds up to over a thousand gifts! (1,095 to be exact.) The idea is that if we continually ponder the blessings in our lives, we put them before our eyes and see God's goodness in every day, especially the days that seem less than good. Her templates have prompts for those days when I'm not feeling so joyful. I consider "Three gifts blue" and suddenly I find blessings I hadn't seen yet. I know God has taught me that having joy in life is a choice, that even when our circumstances seem perfect, we can choose sorrow, that even when our circumstances seem dire, we can choose joy. That, in fact, joy is the center of our purpose and worth fighting for.

I'm not sharing *all* of my gifts because some of them are silly and some require explanation and I'm just not committed to listing them all out. But I want to share some of them because I want to put God's blessings in my life before your eyes, so you can see God's goodness in every week and be inspired to find it in your own little corner of the world.

So, from this past week, five gifts in my life:

1) The ring around my son's eyes. My eyes are brown. Just simple, not exciting brown. I have never minded this, but I love meeting someone with exciting eyes. An interesting color or pattern or ones that change depending on what they're wearing. Mine aren't any of these things, but they have a ring around them. A dark ring that changes sizes depending on how big my pupils are. My son has this, and as much as he looks like his daddy, I love looking into his eyes and seeing a piece of me.

2) A late-night snow. It had been a crazy-busy week and I found myself waiting desperately for my husband to come home from his closing shift at the coffee shop. He walked in the door and I exhaled loudly with relief (ever find yourself holding your breath without realizing it? that was me...) and he said, "It's snowing. Like, really snowing!" Immediately I grabbed my two-year-old son and a big blanket and we ran outside to catch snow flakes on our tongues. My son looked at me with such surprise and excitedly said, "Dart ow. Nooooo!!!!!" ("Dark out. Snow!!!!!") I loved how he was surprised that we would go out when it was dark (we rarely do) and I love that the way he said "snow" sounded like he was excitedly shouting "no". It was a precious moment with my boys.

3) A new covenant, not the law. My reading in Hebrews left me pondering the comparison between the Old Testament covenant and the new covenant with Jesus. The new covenant, the one we are a part of, throws off the trappings of the law and puts it all on Christ. What a blessed freedom! It stirred up such a thankfulness in my heart for a High Priest we can truly lean on, trust in, and live through.

4) Getting all the laundry done in one day. This is a victory, a big one! Four people (even two of them tiny) produce a lot of laundry. Getting it all washed, dried, folded, and put away in one day is practically unheard of in my life! We celebrate every victory around here, even the *little* ones :)

5) Winnie the Pooh. I know this might seem crazy, but that silly ol' bear really saved us the last couple weeks! My son had a pretty bad cold and just wanted to sit on the couch and not move. Very unusual for a little boy who barely sits down most days! Pooh bear kept us company and made us laugh. I'm thankful for this simple thing that both of us can enjoy. Its innocence and imagination inspire me and my kiddo.

There you have it! Joys from my week. Consider taking Ann's Joy Dare. It has become one of my favorite parts of the day, to list out the unique ways God has blessed me each day. If nothing else, when the skies look grey and bleary (as they currently do at our house -- more snow coming?), turn your mind to the sun. It's always shining, even when you can't see it!

Partners in Life

I'm not sure words can really do this one justice, but I'll do my best.

God knows you far better than anyone ever will -- including you. He knows your heart, the places that ache, the places that soar. He knows your mind, your motivations, your dreams, dreams you never even knew you had. He knows all the places that feel like gold and all the pieces you are missing. And he knows exactly who to put you with to make you whole. Not everyone gets married, but God had that plan for my life. And this is a tribute to my partner in life.

If you had given me profiles of a hundred men and asked me to pick which one would be my husband, I never would have picked the man God had for me. Stubborn introvert with an obsession for books and no innate sense of time. Okay, so maybe the book part would have intrigued me, but I would never have guessed my husband would be so different from me. They say opposites attract, you wouldn't want to marry yourself, blah blah blah, but when you think you are pretty much right all the time about everything, what would compel you to end up with someone who thought differently than you? Who reacted to things and lived life so differently than you ever would?

God used my husband to reveal Himself to me, to draw me to Jesus. God used my husband to motivate me through college, remind me of why I was there and how much I wanted that. God used my husband to support me as I taught, to hear me out when I complained about the public school system yet simultaneously encourage me to keep at it, that what I was doing was important. God used my husband to usher me into motherhood ever so gently, never judging me or schooling me, instead coming beside me to figure the whole thing out -- together. And together is exactly what we needed when life turned difficult.

They say tragedy/struggle/illness/difficulty, it will either build your marriage up or break it down. My husband and I had been together for ten years, married for five to the day before our daughter arrived. We had spent a long time learning each other, giving grace, butting heads, apologizing, changing. I thank God for all the tiny speed bumps along the way because without them, we never could have endured the crash. Instead of flying out and spinning away from each other, we turned in and wove even closer together.

My husband stood beside my hospital bed and caught my tears when they wheeled my daughter away. He drove after her ambulance and waited for hours in the middle of the night to be with her. He came home to be with our son while I chased after her the next day. And for fifty-one days following, he coordinated schedules, shuttled our toddler, entertained visitors at the hospital so that my time with our daughter could be just us, made phone call after phone call (this man who is practically allergic to the phone), listened to me ramble and talk through everything, prayed with me, helped me figure out how to be a parent to two kids who couldn't be in the same place at the same time. He held us together when I couldn't, when most people would fall apart.

God knew to make him my partner. God knew that I couldn't remain stable without his calm, logical hand to steady me. God knew that I couldn't handle all the people who would invade our previously quiet life. God knew that I needed my husband's faith to rely on and lean deep into. God knew that I would get so sucked into everything with our daughter that I would forget the rest of the world, and He gave me a husband who reminded me that there was a place outside her hospital room. God knew all the ways that I would need rescuing, and He gave me my rescuer.

In so many ways, I am not strong. I am frantic and frazzled and overwhelmed. In so many ways, my husband is not strong either. He is disorganized and forgetful and lackadaisical. But in so many ways, I am strong. I am motivated and organized and determined. And in so many ways, my husband is strong too. He is intelligent and logical and passionate about what he loves. Where we are weak, we lean on one another. Where we are strong, we hold each other up. God knows us both so intimately, in depths we will never know one another, and He gave us to each other for this very purpose.

Our disaster months gave us a chance to show each other truly how much we love each other. We died to ourselves and sacrificed every. single. day. We struggled, of course -- communicating our needs, working them out. But we stood together, and we never gave up. We kept working. We kept working because our marriage is important -- to us, to our kids, to our family. We kept working because we have faith in the Great Almighty God who would glorify Himself through us, even when it hurt. We kept working because without each other, we would break. Without each other, we could not stand through this storm.

God taught me two very distinct lessons about my marriage through this time. First, He taught me not to take my spouse for granted. He is not the right-hand-man in the play about my life. He is his own person with his own needs, and just like I never take myself for granted (everything is important when it's about "me", right?), I should never take my spouse for granted. While we were both stressed and hurting, we became so sensitive to each others' needs. I need to be that way all the time, as interested in him as I am in myself -- and more so. Secondly, I am called to open up my heart to trust big and strong. We endured a lot together and I had a lot of ooey, gooey feelings that came along with our struggles. My husband doesn't like ooey, gooey feelings but I just let them rip and shared every last one of them with him. We became vulnerable to each other, admitting our terrible-awfuls and giving one another grace as we did. This kind of vulnerability sets you up for a very big fall, but in the beautiful covenant of marriage, it is necessary. All our cards on the table. Real, real life.

The splendor of the marriage covenant is that it is a picture of something so, so much bigger. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:31-32)." The mystery of marriage is a picture of the relationship between Jesus and His people. He left Heaven to be with them, He spent His life teaching them how to live, He gave His life for them, and now He sits at the place of honor beside the Father and petitions on their behalf. "'For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name... with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,' says the Lord, your Redeemer. (Isaiah 54:5, 8) The love that my husband has for me, powerful and true and wonderful, is but a glimmer, a reflection in a mirror of the love the Father has for His children. This love will carry you through anything you could ever imagine and will never die. This love will lift you up, fill in all the cracks and broken places, and make you soar. This love, this love that will never die, is exactly, precisely the one thing you will always need, the one thing to make you whole.

God has different plans and paths for all of us. For me, He planned a husband who would love me unconditionally and fight for our marriage and our family. He blessed me with a man who is in it for the long haul, not for himself, but for me and our children, and ultimately, for God. This picture, knowing what we have endured, how weak we are yet how strong we have become, points my eyes straight to the glories of Heaven and of a loving Protector who will love and fight and endure, faithful, until the very end.

**I had this post percolating in my mind and was inspired to share these thoughts today after reading this post by Ann Voskamp, The Real Truth about ‘Boring’ Men — and the Women who Live with Them: Redefining Boring -- highly recommend!**

God's Presence

**If you just started reading, go here to read about why I'm writing.**

About two weeks before my daughter came home, the hospital chaplain paid me a visit. I was snuggled up with baby girl in the comfy chair I had a nurse steal for me and we were watching our usual mindless HGTV show. The chaplain said he had been meaning to come by and just wanted to chat for a minute so I welcomed him in. He asked me how she was doing and I filled him in. He asked me how I was doing, kind of pressed me on it, and I told him -- that all things considered, I was doing pretty well, in large part thanks to the amazing community I had supporting me. I told him about some of the incredible ways God had shown Himself to us through our whole ordeal and he was almost surprised to hear that as my response. He asked me an interesting question that I will never forget. "You say that you feel God with you right now, but has there been a point throughout all this when you felt that God wasn't there?" The question took me off guard because truthfully, I hadn't really considered it. I took a moment to think and truthfully answered, "No, I never felt like God wasn't there." He nodded and smiled and said he was very encouraged by our story and went on his way.

I thought more about that question after he left. I answered him then, but I really wanted to examine my heart, think about what he was asking. We had been through a lot, most of it not good. We were facing questions without answers and some terrible possibilities for the future. At times, we weren't sure our daughter would survive everything she had to overcome. We certainly celebrated many "mountain top" moments when we could point and say, "Look! See! God is here!" But what about the valleys? What about the terrible-awfuls and the frightening parts? Was God present in those moments? Or was He just there for the victories?

As I pondered this, I thought back to a sermon preached by our church's former associate pastor. I don't remember the context of the illustration (sorry, Drew), but I will never forget what he said. He recounted his own experience with a sick child, his son born months premature and fighting for his life in the NICU. He was talking about God's presence in those times and he said, "If someone were to tell me that God wasn't with my son, that He wasn't a part of all this, I would want to punch that person in the face." The congregation chuckled at the thought of this very quiet, mild-mannered man hitting someone. But he said, "If God wasn't there, if God wasn't with my son when he was at his worst, what hope did we have? What hope is there if God isn't with us?"

The real emotion behind his words made my heart do flip flops. Knowing what they had been through and how scary it was, having visited his son when he was still in the hospital living in a plastic rectangle -- I knew that his charge to see God in the midst of pain and struggle came from a place of experience. He had been there, immersed in the pain, seeking to understand how these terrible things could happen and God could still be good. I had never really thought about it before. I had never thought about it in a way that was personal and real to me, in a way that I could truly see, and it scared me. What if I couldn't reconcile this? What if this was so big that it would shake the very foundation I stood on? How would I know if God was there when I encountered suffering in my own life?

The Word of God promises over and over again that God will be with his people always. Moses says this to Joshua as he hands over leadership to him: "It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. (Deuteronomy 31:8)" Jesus promises his presence to his disciples before He ascended into heaven: "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)" God promises this in Isaiah: "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you,I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)" In Micah, the Word speaks to God's presence in trial: "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. (Micah 7:8)" Even when things look dim, God is still present, a light in the darkness.

My heart flip-flopped to think of seeking God in the midst of pain because I know myself. I know that when the going gets tough, I suck into my turtle shell and wait to beat off the intruders with a stick. I talk a good game, but I am not strong; I'm scared and small and weak. I give God my character, imagine He would do as I would, and suddenly the outcome doesn't look so good. Instead of victories, I see defeat after defeat after defeat and when the stakes are high -- say, my daughter's life -- I cannot compute; I don't want to go there; I don't want to have to think about God in the midst of that.

But God isn't me (thank God!). God is a God who keeps His promises and who is there. And thankfully, none of it relies on me. One of my favorite stories from Genesis illustrates this. "The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: 'Fear not, Abram, for I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.' (Genesis 15:1)" Abram didn't understand; he had no children but God was promising him great things and offspring beyond number. Abram "believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness." To cement this covenant that God had made with Abram, as a physical manifestation of the promise, God has Abram bring him sacrifices, animals that he was to cut in half and lay in the grass. When the time came to seal the covenant, Abram fell into a deep sleep. God repeated His promises to Abram, and "when the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces." Abram didn't move between the pieces of the sacrifice. Abram didn't uphold his part of the covenant. God sealed the covenant for both parties, for himself and for Abram. God made the covenant with Abram, and God would keep the covenant for both himself and Abram.

All of those promises in the Word, promises to prosper and protect and secure and deliver, all those promises were made by the same God who sealed this covenant with Abram. They were made by a God who upholds His end of the deal and proves Himself over and over. When I look around and see my circumstances, see the pain or suffering around me, I could be tempted to think that God is not present or protecting or delivering. I could be tempted to think that God has abandoned me in that moment and that I am alone in my shell with my stick. But God does not depend on my circumstances. God does not depend on what I see or how I feel. And God is not shaped by my response to the world around me. I don't have to understand or know why. I don't have to be able to explain it or defend it. God's promises are true, despite my feelings or assessment of the situation. His promises are true regardless of how I think things look, and so I can say with confidence at all times that God is "my rock and my redeemer", that when I pass through the waters, God "will be with me" because, as He says, "I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior" and if He says it, it is true. Always. Forever. In all things.