COVID Confessions

This is a strange season in which we are living. I process things through writing and, as a method of self care during this season, wanted a place to write. God is teaching me so much through this moment of stillness and I don't want to miss out. Camden has been watching "Trolls World Tour" and is obsessed with the soundtrack. Part of one of the medleys says, "these are the good times." As so much about life has changed in the past 6 weeks, I've been doing a lot of reflecting. I've felt a lot of things recently-fear, worry, anxiety, doubt, sadness. I've been thinking back on other times in my life when I knew I felt that way-- and realizing that, in fact, so many good and fun things were going on that I missed. I missed them because I was internally focused- worrying about my health or the kids' health or something else crazy, instead of focused on what was going on around me. I didn't fully enjoy our first vacation to San Diego as a family of 4. I worried about Caris' newfound mobility instead of enjoying it. These times are trying, there's no way to sugar coat that. There is so much uncertainty in regards to our health and our economy, but there are so many sweet times, too. I want to remember savoring walks to the creek with Camden blazing on his scooter and Caris toddling next to me and holding my hand. I want to embrace pretending to be a tiger family with Camden every day and the opportunity to teach him and watch him learn his letters, sounds and to read. I want to enjoy watching Caris' language develop in real time, something I missed since I worked full time when Camden was in this stage. I want to remember laying in bed and having slow mornings with Jacob, as opposed to one of us having to rush off in the mornings. Mostly, I want to grow in my perspective of seeing God's blessings as an expression of His character, not a consequence (positive or negative) of my actions. I want to fully enjoy the blessings He's given me and to find my satisfaction in Him. I want to be focused on what He's given us, not on what we don't have. I want to enjoy this season, strange as it is, because I know it is fleeting. I don't want to look back and think "those were the days," I want to think as I'm living "these ARE the days." Praying for full presence with the Lord and with this place in which He has me now.

God is Love

Love is like oxygen. Love is a many splendid thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love. Love is all around us. No one, regardless of your spiritual beliefs, would argue that love is one of the most important things that a person needs. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” -1 John 4:7-8 God created love. God is love. It is an undeniable part of His character. Since He is love and the creator of love, I find it interesting how much our culture has polluted such a beautiful thing. Culture tells that love is to benefit us, to complete us, to make us feel right and good and whole. Culture acts as if love is something that lacks commitment, that comes and goes as it pleases and that we can’t control it…we can’t control who or why we love. God, however, paints a different picture in His word. "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 True love, love from God is selfless. No one shows this more so than Christ, who laid down His love for each of us. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Luke 6:32-36 God loves us unconditionally, regardless of our love back for Him, regardless of our sins and mistakes. God calls our love to be out of covenant with Him, and not to be dependent on the actions or reciprocity of those He calls us to love. "In grace our Savior God appeared, to make his love for mankind clear.” Titus 3:4 True love also involves grace and forgiveness. We are all fallen, all sinners and all in need of grace and forgiveness. God’s grace is one of the most tangible ways He shows His love for us. “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister”. 1 John 4:15-21 God is love. It is who He is in the most pure form. And without Him living in us, we cannot love in the way that He created and intends. Although 1 John 4 is describing our brothers and sisters in Christ and the Church, I have seen and learned more about love through my family. In my family, I have seen that love is about commitment as opposed to about feelings. I have seen servanthood, grace and commitment in love lived out. In my family, everyone makes mistakes and sins against each other, but I believe that Christ helps and allows us to forgive each other. Through family and His blessings, God allows us to experience an earthly glimpse of His love- constant, forgiving, unmoved by circumstances or mistakes, and covered in grace. How much greater, then, is God’s love for us, perfect in every way? Through God’s blessings on earth, I hope and am confident that God is love, and He longs for each of us to know His love. True love.

Never Leaving. Never Forsaking.

Abandon. Forsake. Desert. Cast off. As a self proclaimed “people pleaser,” we have summed up one of my biggest fears in a mere 5 words. Our society has accepted these concepts of leaving as a norm. Self-absorbed and thinking only about what is best for me, we are encouraged to ostracize anything that isn’t helping us, is holding us back, isn’t making us into the best we can be. It’s disheartening to watch the news and see everything from abandoned homes to abandoned babies and families to abandoned projects and jobs. Culture teaches us this is okay, as long as we can better ourselves. Deuteronomy 31:6 proclaims, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” What a mighty God! Not only is He always with us, he promises to never leave us. He gives us the ultimate, countercultural example of how to abide, bear with, remain. I’ve heard this promise preached upon in several sermons. That we are to take heart during our troubling times and remember that The Lord will never leave nor forsake us. It’s a powerful promise. When I typically picture this promise playing out in my life, I picture God with me, encouraging me, near me when I am “on my best behavior.” When I am being obedient, when I am seeking to follow Him. I picture Him following after me, prompting me on toward His perfection, comforting me when I am not questioning Him and His provision during difficult times. I think, however, that the mind blowing part of this promise is that God doesn’t put those stipulations on His promise. There is NO if…then statement attached. No If you are obedient, then I will protect and not forsake you. During college, I went through a rebellious phase. I made choices that I knew were disobedient to all kinds of people and rules, including God. I put myself in sketchy situations where I could have and should have been in way over my head. These times are where God truly showed me that He never leaves or forsakes us, because during that season of blatant disobedience, God continued to abide with me, never leaving nor forsaking me, continuing to protect me from my waywardness and the imminent punishment that should have come with it. Looking back on this time, I learned more about God’s grace, more about His presence and protection, than I did in any other time in my life. John 16:4-6 promises, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” As God is faithful in ways we cannot be, remaining near to us even when we sin, His best for us is to also abide in Him, remain close to Him so that we can bear fruit, live the lives that He has planned for us (which are far greater than anything we could dream up on our own) and bring glory to Him by becoming more like Him. In our sinful humanity, we cannot do this. Luckily, we have a God who leads us by example, never leaving nor forsaking us.

Pondering Promises: A Return to Blogging

Hello blog friends! It has been a while...not quite the 3 years that this blog suggests (I blogged in 2012 at another address), but still longer than it should have been. It's been a season where it's been hard to muster up the inspiration to write. I've felt convicted, as if I'm not using all that I've been given, but also uninspired. As I presented that excuse to The Lord today, He answered by mightier inspiration than I've felt in a while. I'm choosing to update this blog instead of my other as I feel that my best work has been posted here. I hope that continues through His Holy inspiration that I've seen today. 

A.W. Tozer once said "What we think about when we think about God is the most important thing about us." Our perceptions about God vary based on a many different factors...what we have read in His word. been taught at church and by our families, how we were raised, how we feel God has responded (or not) in our circumstances, both past and present.   Each of these creates a layer in our faith, determining how we view not only God but all things in our walk with him. Like an onion, each layer flavors our faith, either with sweetness or bitterness, and determines what we think about God, also determining everything else about us. 

While many of these things are good, Satan uses others to keep us from growing in depth and intimacy with The Lord. Curves life throws at us, our timing being different from God's, God not answering our prayers in the way we think can all impact what we think about God, as well as our walks with Him.

How could focusing on His promises help that? If I truly meditated on His revelation of Himself to us through scripture, how would that impact my walk with Him? How would I grow with him? How could He transform my view of situations? How would it impact what I thought of Him, and therefore everything else in my life? 

So here is my Summer Experiment… taking one promise each week, meditating on it, chewing on it, thinking and praying through it, focusing on it and the quality God reveals through it each week and seeing what He teaches me about Himself and how he transforms us to be more like His Son. As my view of Him is more correct, what else would that impact? So….here goes pondering promises! 

Picture of Purpose

I love art. Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Picasso...even modern art, such as Pollock, has a soft spot in my heart. My mother instilled this love in me at an early age. When I was in elementary school, my mom would take me on a mother/daughter date to whatever was on exhibit at the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth. I listened with excitement and anticipation as the docent discussed minute details, imperfections and hidings of paintings both old and new. I soaked up symbolism and color like a sponge. We also were fortunate enough to have art docents at our school. One of my favorite works, and one that was most fascinating to me, was "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges-Pierre Seurat. Seurat employs a technique called pointillism, where he painted millions upon billions of tiny dots of very distinct and contrasted colors. The human eye miraculously blends these hundreds of colors together to form a single hue of distinctive color. Each dot was meticulously placed, each color carefully chosen  for a purpose: to blend and manufacture a masterpiece.

Purpose is an interesting concept. To me, it answers the question "why?" it is the reason you're running down the road of life that you've chosen or been placed on. The dictionary defines purpose as "1. the reason for which something exists or is done/made 2. An intended or desired result or aim 3. determination; resoluteness." The bible has many things to say about purpose. I love the way Paul describes it in Ephesians 1:3-10:

Spiritual Blessings in Christ
³  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴  even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love ⁵  he predestined us^[a] for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, ⁶  to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. ⁷  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,⁸ which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight ⁹  making known^[b] to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

God's ultimate purpose is salvation, as Christ came to save us all. (Romans 3:23 ESV, Romans 11:32 ESV)

Specifically, too, Christ has given each believer unique gifts to "be His hands and His feet." As Paul writes in Romans 12:4-8:

⁴ For as in one body we have many members,^[a] and the members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individuallymembers one of another. ⁶  Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; ⁷ if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; ⁸ the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads,^[b] with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Verses 5b-6 have really been on my heart recently. The Holy Spirit has been relentlessly revealing to me the importance of us using what's been gifted to us, as the "body" both literally and spiritually speaking, cannot functions properly without each part doing what it's been created to do.

I've been focusing on ways to wrap my human mind around a God-sized purpose. The best way God has shown me is by thinking of life as "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." We are each one dot. One minuscule yet undeniably and incredibly important part of this enormous painting was can't yet fully see (1 Corinthians 13:12). Sure, we see those dots around us- we know their colors, if they're changing, what they're doing, but only the Master, the Designer, the omniscient Artist can see, and create, the masterpiece. Each of us dots has a purpose- to be the color He painted us, the color He created us to be. Whether it's red, yellow, green, magenta, cerulean, a color similar or different to those around us, in being this color, we fulfill our place, our purpose, in the Master's Masterpiece. Sure, sometimes we tint ourselves another color, we see others and turn into their color, a color we were never intended to be, but our Master painter is faithful and good to repaint us back to the color we intended. He is the Perfect Painter, which we also were never intended to be. We must surrender our control to Him, as He is flawless and faithful to paint us in the way we were intended. We must continue to have faith when it becomes difficult to not change color, trusting that He can see the whole picture and that, one day, we will see it, too.

I'm thankful to be part of the masterpiece. I pray that I fulfill my purpose in His masterpiece instead of trying to fit Him into my own.

Tangible Time

My last semester in grad school, I was able to do an independent study with two of my good friends and a lady who we referred to as “the goddess of Autism.” She was an expert, to put it plainly, and knew more than we could wrap our minuscule minds around. She had researched, published, done therapy with, and invested in thousands upon thousands of children with Autism, and is now writing curriculum on how to start a preschool classroom to foster their language development. There is a lot of time and analysis that goes into this, because since children with Autism struggle to learn language and use it to communicate, you must make sure that the words that you introduce to them are both functional to use and simple to learn. My friends and I, therefore, spent weeks analyzing her words. I’m sure you’re yawning at the thought of this, but we were completely captivated. We loved counting, categorizing, and graphing the word types and numbers. It was gripping, and we were hooked. One day, while talking with Dr. Rollins about our analysis, we got to talking about words to begin and end an activity, which we noted as “time words.” Dr. Rollins told us that the time words were difficult to explain because time is arbitrary, as are words, and those words are our attempt to make time into something tangible, to place restrictions on it so that we could understand, explain and use it.

It’s literally taken me months to wrap my brain around this concept. This concept of time that so governs my life isn’t even something that I could put my index finger on, yet I feel the need to create boundaries to it. We live and die by planners, schedules, bedtimes and alarms to wake us up. We do everything in our power to know where it goes, and make sure it is going to the right things, places, people and events. I’ve been known to think of my day like a pie graph and try to a lot every hour to something. At the end of every month (it is February 26, technically 27 because it is the middle of the night), I think to myself, “Goodness gracious, where as the month gone? How is it almost over.” We seek to hold on as it slips away, yet wish for it to pass more swiftly. We want to control it. I yearn to control it.

I have learned that God and time have a fascinating relationship. They are similar in that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they both exist. I cannot see either of them, but I can see results of them both. I witness miracles, glory and the restoration of God; I witness time’s effect on people. I cannot control God, and I cannot control time. But luckily, He can control time and my life. Things run more smoothly when He controls them. He was intended to control both. And He does.

Throughout the past 6 months, but more specifically in 2011, God has continued to build my faith and reveal his sovereignty and flawless timing to me. I have felt like a Stretch Armstrong action figure at times, as he has no doubt stretched me, making me wonder (being completely transparent in this confession) if He did, in fact, know what He was doing. But he has arranged events, like a composer orchestrates the parts of each and every instrument of a symphony, into something breathtakingly beautiful. To remind me He was, and is, there and in control, He placed various events and people into my life, like a lovely flute trill or trombone fall in an orchestra, to remind me of his presence and care. During my most difficult and trying hours, His presence was so evident that it left me in awe, listening and wanting more. He lead me to realize that my attempts to make time, and more importantly His time, neat and packaged into a box, took away from it’s beauty, it’s perfection, and it’s inherent characteristics. And ultimately took away from His purpose and glory, which is really the point of it all.

He has taught me that His timing is perfect and control is unwavering. Even though I can’t always see it through the haze, that he is continually working (which is a subject for another blog). I find peace in that. Basking in His peace, anxiously awaiting His next move, His next stretch of my faith, and His next revelation of His divinity to me.

Celebrate Me Home

Confession: Kenny Loggins will always have a special place in my heart. Odd, I know. "Footloose" has never failed to make me smile, and hearing "Danger Zone" brings back fond memories of watching "Top Gun" with my fourth grade best friends and discussing how cute Tom Cruise was, even though it was made before we were born and Tom could practically have been our dad. The real reason Kenny tugs at my heart came a little later in my life. It was the scorching summer of 2005, and my life was on the brink of change. Major change. I had graduated from high school, and was about to embark on a wonderful journey to Waco to begin college. I was stuck in that odd in between place that most high school graduates find themselves in between graduation and moving away from home… realizing that you are fitting in less and less with high school friends, but not knowing who else my age to spend time with.

That summer I spent most evenings with my mom. We had been (and still are) very close, but grew even closer that summer. Many nights, we sat at starbucks sipping on grande java chip frappacino lights double blended and contemplating the change I was about to go through. While cleaning out her car one afternoon, mom discovered "Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow," Kenny Loggins' greatest hits CD, and quite a fitting title for the time in my life. We put it in the CD player in June and didn't take it out. Every song reminded us of something. I remember listening to "Forever" and silently sobbing one evening, wondering if life would ever feel normal again.

My all-time favorite Kenny Loggins song would have to be "Celebrate Me Home." Something about it comforts me, like home. Throughout college, I would coincidentally hear it as I crossed the bridge between I-35 to I-20, which always signified to me that I was home. This Thanksgiving, I had just said my good-byes to my family, packed my last bag into my car, and slammed the door shut on the Liberty, when the song came on the radio. Overcome with emotion due to the fact that I was leaving, I teared up and immediately called my mom. I shared the ironic event I'd just experienced, and hurried back to Plano. But a strange thing happened…as I frantically sped down Midway, not a mile from my apartment, the exact song that had so reminded me of Arlington not an hour before came on again. Chills crept up my spine, and I realized that this felt like more than a coincidence.

Arlington will always hold a special place in my heart. I grew up there. I learned some of my greatest life lessons there. I even discovered Kenny Loggins there. But it's not where feels like home in the present. Now, Plano feels like home. It feels comfortable, but still as if it is evolving to encourage grown. It feels as if it is right where I ought to be.

I was once told that "Home is being in the center of God's will." If that's true, I know I am home. And I'm glad.