Walking on Water

This journey I am on is wrapped up in writing, in learning to be a mother and a child at the same time, in trusting and in not fearing, in releasing myself to pain, in dropping down my walls of self-protection.

While chatting with a favorite friend of mine, I was reminded of one of my favorite books, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art by Madeleine L’Engle. I realized I have read this book each summer for the past 3 years. I started reading it again today since I hate to break tradition!

When I read this book, my holy imagination ignites; my heart burns within me. Stories spring up like tender new blades of grass in my mind, and I suddenly feel braver than usual. Each time I find things that are new to me although I’ve read them before. I am reading through the newest version of myself, the me who’s had a few more layers peeled back since the last time I read, the me who has grown a few more inches and understands differently.

This time, I am reading through the lens of a woman who has been a mother 16 years, but has only recently been convinced she never really learned to be a child. I hardly know how to play, and I have trouble resting. These are hallmarks of childhood: play and rest.

And then there is the issue of trust. Children trust. If only we had the “faith of a child.” And I am now parenting a child whose faith and trust have so been violated that he cannot trust even trustworthy people. But I am finding that I am like him in this. I have difficulty trusting. I need to learn to trust before I can teach him to do it.

I have never connected this to my creativity and my writing. I have longed to create. I love to dance, sew, draw, paint, play and sing music, knit….but most of all, write. And deeper than that, write STORIES. I have written articles, reviews, blog posts, research papers, even poems. I have filled journals, but I freeze when I come to write the stories that fill my mind.

And then, today, I read this from Madeleine:

The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort toward wholeness.

There is much that the artist must trust. He must trust himself. He must trust his work. He must open himself to revelation, and that is an act of trust. The artist must never lose the trust of the child for the parent….Jesus told us to call the Lord and Creator of us all Abba….the small child’s name for Father.

But how can we trust an Abba who has let the world come to all the grief of the past centuries? Who has given us the terrible gift of free willl with which we seem to be determined to destroy oursellves?

We trust the one we call Abba as a child does, knowing that what seems unreasonable now will be seen to have reason later. We trust as Lady Julian of Norwich trusted, knowing that despite all the pain and horror of the world, ultimately God’s loving purpose will be fulfilled and ‘all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.’

And this all-wellness underlies true art (Christian art) in all disciplines, an all-wellness that does not come to us because we are clever or virtuous, but which is a gift of grace.

It is all so ironic, so poetically just. I’ve put up walls to protect myself and those very walls are the ones keeping me from what I really want. I really want to write. I really want to stop being anxious and afraid. I really want to parent in freedom without resentment or control. I really want to walk on water.

The answer to it all: Abba.

Brennan Manning advocates a simple but life-changing solution.  He says to sit quietly and breathe in the word “Abba” and breathe out the words “I belong to you.” He says to do it for a month of mornings and see if it doesn’t change everything. I heard him say this in chapel at JBU over 20 years ago. I don’t know why I didn’t do it, except maybe it has taken me all this time to believe I really needed it.

I’m starting today.

And if you think this is something you need, too, this prayer, here’s a great little something to get us started.

Sea of Galilee…the original walking on water spot!

 

 

Surrealism, Self-Care & Cray-Cray

The longer our beautiful, diamond-in-the-rough is home with us, the more the wreckage of his soul is apparent. I shudder at it. I can’t imagine how he has endured. The torture he’s lived through is unthinkable. And I am not pointing any fingers because I know that every person that hurt him with the sins of things done or the things that went undone, were people with their own pain and their own doing-the-best-I-can stories. Or they were just children, too.

One of the hardest parts of all of this is the way that everything is so unclear, so surreal sometimes. His words say one thing; his behaviors say another. He tells us about something from his past that doesn’t fit with other things he’s told us or what we “know” of his history. He finds a way to upset the happy moments everytime we get there because chaos and drama feel safer somehow. He tells ridiculous, bold-faced lies for next to nothing. He is kind and endearing one moment, only to turn into a manipulative con-artist the next. He charms acquaintances and proudly declares he would prefer these people as his parents because he “loves” them. He loudly proclaims his entitlement to be treated as a king in our home, all the while, obviously believing he is nothing more than dirt on the floor. He provokes in order to look like the victim, yet he hates his powerlessness with a passion. I can’t say who or what he is. I know there must be a treasure of a boy in there….the one God dreamed up and created….but I have barely caught a glimpse of him and I am not even sure I have yet. What is real and what is not? So much of what he lets me see is smoke and mirrors. What I see is, sadly, mostly mental illness.

In the midst of caring for this child, I also care for one good man and three other children. I’ve never been great at caring for myself. I’ve grown in it, over the years, learning to take time to be alone, to be with friends, to do something just for myself, to say no to things not aligned with my highest priorities, to eat well, to exercise (sometimes). But this one little boy has launched me into a whole new level of self-care. Previously, I learned to step away from busy life for awhile. I learned to say “no” to some of busy life. But I had never learned the kind of self-soul-care I am going to describe next.

Many of the dysfunctional, unhealthy behavior patterns that he exhibits just piss me off. There. I said it. I struck through the words so you would know it isn’t really acceptable to me either. Do what you want with it. If you’ve never lived with narcissistic personality disorder or ODD or RAD, don’t judge! (And no, he doesn’t actually have those diagnoses, but his behaviors line up with them some of the time.) So here I am. I love Jesus. I am trying to love this little boy who is not just being a sassy kid with an attitude. It goes so far beyond that. And I know I’m supposed to be connecting first, hearing the fear behind his behaviors, just understanding where he’s been and what he’s been through. But he just pushed a big, red button. And I want to scream. And punish. And leave. Because I am scared, too.

Enter Christine Moers’ phrase, “Out crazy the crazy.” Some of my other adoptive mom friends have told me about humor and the roll it plays in their lives of living with kids from hard places. But I never gave it much weight for myself, because I am not funny. I don’t laugh a whole lot. Especially not when I am mad. Or when I am dealing with really heavy, sad, frustrating issues. Obviously.

But one day I saw Christine Moers (an adoptive mom and therapeutic parenting coach) had posted this video (when your kids are stuck) of how she “out-crazies the crazy,” which translated by me means this: when your child is engaging in surreal-dysfunctional-upside-down-crazy behavior, just be crazier. It throws them off, breaks the tension, and creates a protective coating for the soul of the person who is trying to love this child through the craziness. It’s like an inoculation so I can love on my child and not get sucked into the black hole of the craziness he is in. It is self-care at a level I have not really tried before.

So, I tried it. That very day after I  had watched the video. We were in the grocery store, and he started in on the whining, reproaching, and accusing. This time it was because I do not buy Fruit Loops. And I knew that nothing I had tried was going to work. Ignoring? Nope. Coaching? Nope. Empathy? Nope. Threats? Nope. I could feel the irritation rising so I just did it. Crazy. I began to cackle like an old witch rubbing my palms together in wretched glee, “I love to make my children eat nothing but broccoli! I am the worst mother in the world! Ahhhaaaahahhahaha (evil laugh)” And it worked. He smiled and moved on. No more about the Fruit Loops.

And since then, I’ve tried it multiple times, and IT IS GOOD. It is a marvelous self-care technique! I have lovingly dubbed him “the cray-cray kid.” It is silly, and he has no idea what I am talking about. It’s so much nicer and less morose than many of the other labels I’ve tacked onto him in my mind. It is a light-hearted way of being with him when he is difficult to be with. So sometimes when it all starts, I become the boxing announcer, “And in the blue corner, we have the one, the only, the faaaaaaantastic Cray-Cray Kiiiiiiiid! And in the other corner, wearing a big grin, is Suuuuuuper Mom, the cray-crrrrrrray champion of the world!” And I start shadow boxing and out-crazying the crazy.

Fast forward to last Thursday. I desperately wanted to go to an art exhibit at Crystal Bridges, and there were just days before it moved on. I was nervous about taking this child to an art museum; anything could happen. But the pull of Pollack and Kahlo, Matisse and Van Gogh were stronger. I knew I might feel resentful if he “ruined” our time there. But I decided that I would not let fear take this chance from me. Self-care is sometimes risky.

And so we went. And mostly, we had a wonderful time. Oh, there were a few hiccups. But there was also an audio-tour device and headphones which kept him busy and happy punching buttons. He had no idea what he was doing or listening to, but it looked and acted like an iphone, so he didn’t care. And it had a strap for his neck so I wasn’t worried about him dropping and breaking it. And he heeded my warning about losing the privilege if I saw the headphone cord in his mouth. He did not chew through the headphone wire! WIN! And my other three were mesmerized and actually studied the pieces and did not get bored. And I soaked it up and felt so rich.

Our last stop was the museum store. That’s a fun place, too. We were browsing the novelties, kids mostly following my instructions to not. touch. anything. They wanted me to snap photos of things they liked. We got tickled about some stuffed dolls made to look like famous artists. There was a Vincent and a Frieda and, of course a Salvidor Dali dolly! So while I was focusing in on the Dali dolly, Elijah stepped into the photo. A funny thought slipped into my mind…The Kings of Surrealism: Salvidor Dali Dolly and The Cray-Cray Kid! And I started laughing and couldn’t stop. And it’s so good because instead of crying, instead of getting mad that this is the life we have now, I just laughed.

As we left, I asked for one more photo, proof that we had been here and had prevailed! I said, “Okay, everybody, look at the camera!” I didn’t even ask for smiles which would be just too much. This is what I got:

And yes, the look away was intentional….we tried it multiple times with the same result…because it was my idea (looking at the camera) and not his. But did I get mad? Or let it touch my emotions at all? Heck, no! I am the Cray-Cray Queen!

Hebrew for my heart

 

I don’t speak or read Hebrew, but I do use a concordance.

yada (Strongs #3045): to know, to understand, to have intimate relationship with

yadah (Strong’s #3034): to express praise, to give thanks

My very simple understanding (and I know there may be more to it than this) of the relationship between these words is this:

To know a person or an experience or even a moment in time, should bring forth praise and thanks for that which we have known. Even the dark places have the capacity to reveal or point us toward the all-satisfying glory of God.

 

I Thessalonians 5:18…give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Silence

I need silence.

Not the silence of others, although that is often welcome in this bustling, almost-never-quiet house.

I need MY silence. I need a respite from my own voice. I need to stop my natural bent to verbally process, direct, answer, explain, vent, intervene, discuss, obsess, or fix something with speech.

In this season, I have been struggling to hear the Lord’s voice. Well, maybe that isn’t quite what I mean. He IS speaking, and I AM hearing. It’s just that I need so much more of His voice than ever before. I am starved for His words, and I need so badly to hear Him at a deeper and deeper level.

It reminds me of when I was dating my husband, and he was away for the summer break. We talked on the phone once a week for an hour (old-fashioned land line and long distance rates on a college student budget), and we wrote letters. We were in touch, communicating, but I really wanted moment-by-moment words with him. I wanted him right there in the room with me to talk every day.

It’s a little like that right now with Abba & Y’shua & the Spirit. We are talking, but I need more.

Almost 2 years ago, He spoke something to me that seems to be coming to pass now.

I saw a mental picture of Alice falling down the rabbit hole…falling and falling…wondering what was happening and thinking, “This is so very strange!” Then in my mind I heard the lyrics of a song I know although one word was tweaked just a bit, All of this is strange and untrue and I won’t last a minute without you. 

I knew a time was coming when I would need Him in a way I had not before. I would need Him to guide me with His eye, with His whisper just behind me. I knew I needed to attune my ears more carefully. But somehow, I still wasn’t prepared for this season of so many voices, this season of deep need, this season of the strange and untrue.

 

Oh, how I pray it is a season, temporary and soon to change. I pray it is not a new country that we’ve moved to. (I am only camping here; I am not unpacking my furniture, right?)

I have never been at such a loss for how to respond to person as I am with my youngest and chosen child. There are no simple interactions with him. Everything means something it doesn’t mean, and what he wants he doesn’t want. Everything we say and do is twisted in his mind to mean rejection. His interactions are crafted by his brain to recreate the familiar unhealth he’s always experienced. And the traumas we only guessed at before? Some of them we now know with certainty, and I stagger under the weight of them.

And the voices swirl like a churning sea….voices from the adoption community, and theraputic parenting models and attachment theory and all the books I’ve read, and the voices of my past parenting experiences and the voices of each child in my home and of my husband and of my own wounds and fears. And above all, there is the controlling, fearful, rejected, victimized voice of this child…..wailing at me, demanding for me to STOP THE PAIN.

And the only Voice I really can’t hear with clarity above the din is the still, small One that I know I can trust.

I can’t silence all the other voices, but I can silence my own.

If I could stop speaking, perhaps I could learn to listen from a deeper, quieter space to that Voice I know is speaking in every moment. Perhaps I could quiet my own soul’s clamour, and lean into another Sound.

For years I’ve had the idea of a fast from speech. I tried it one day about 5 years ago. It was hard. But I think I was on the right track.

Just recently a friend of mine was given the strict prescription of 100% vocal rest from her doctor because of growths on her vocal chords. Strangely, I found myself wishing (almost) that is was MY prescription. I hesitate to write it because I don’t want to diminish her agony over this or take lightly what she is doing. The self-discipline is beyond difficult and the cost to those who must help her is humbling.

And yet, I felt a spark of desire, longing. It told me something. I need silence.

And a thought occurred to me. Perhaps I could do this, too, in diluted form. And I felt hope spring up. This could be a way to recalibrate something in myself that has long been out of alignment.

One day, each week, given over to the healing of silence: could I do that?

Would one day a week be enough to plant seeds that would take root and produce a harvest?

Could a discipline of finding silence like an island in the midst of a swirling sea of voices finally bring me to the place of peace that passes understanding?

This experiment might seem silly and cumbersome. It might not work. My husband might think I am crazy (although probably not since he’s lived with me for 21 years). It might look like I’m an overly-emotional, flailing woman, trying any fanatically weird experiment to get her life under control.

Oh, well. I think I’m going to risk it.

Dancing

This is a follow up to my last entry, “Hitching Post.” You can find it here. 

I continued having this conversation with God:

“Stubborn? Really? I don’t feel stubborn. Have I really been like a horse or a mule that need a bit and bridle or they won’t come to you? (Psalm 32) I feel a bit more like a weary traveler who just wants to know what direction to go.”

This is my point exactly, dear heart. You will analyze to see if you agree. You will try to figure out what you are doing wrong to try to do it right. Don’t analyze, don’t try so hard to get it right. Don’t worry so much about the steps. Just dance. Remember that dream?

A couple of weeks ago I had a dream. There was a huge outdoor dance floor, and I was alone there with a man. I knew that we needed to dance across the floor. It wasn’t just for pleasure; it was more of an assignment. I began explaining that I really didn’t know how to dance. I don’t know the waltz or the fox trot or the cha-cha. He suggested the two-step. I answered that I had tried that once and I might remember a bit of it and be able to follow him if he knew the steps. He smiled and we began. I was terribly clumsy and kept looking at my feet and trying to remember the steps and I wasn’t following at all. I couldn’t. He just smiled and smiled but we made no progress. Then he leaned down and kissed me straight on the mouth and suddenly it was like we had wings. I was swept up and we almost flew across the floor to the other side in no time. It was the most exhilarating feeling.

When I awoke, I understood that my dancing partner was Jesus. I also knew that the problem had been my trying to remember or figure out the steps of the dance and that when he kissed me, I forgot and just got swept up. My words “I think I can follow you,” were very prominent, and I realized how much I had felt that my ability to follow him was dependent on me. But the kiss, the magic dancing kiss, meant that I should stop focusing on the steps and focus instead on the relationship. But the questions remained: How do I do it in the midst of my crazy life?

The next day, after the Hitching Post moment in the middle of the night, I was praying with our kids. I had some soaking music playing and had told them to visualize Jesus…Jewish man, black hair, beard, dark skin, big smile….standing in front of them. I told them to ask him what he wanted to say to them. I did this, too. One of the things that happened was that he took my hands and invited me to step onto his feet. He told me, “This is how to dance.” It was such a beautiful image…like a child on her father’s feet.

(Side note: While I saw myself dancing on the Father’s feet, two of my four children also had dancing with Jesus experiences!)

And then I read a blog post by another adoptive mom, a wonderful, insightful believer, Kathy Rosenow. She described taking ballroom dancing lessons. Her teacher kept telling her, “Relax! Stop trying to lead. You don’t know the dance.” I would answer that I wasn’t trying to lead; I just didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing or which way I was supposed to go. And he would always respond with, “That’s exactly why you have to let me lead. I know the dance. You don’t. Relax and let me take you through the steps.” I learned that I could do this better if I closed my eyes and just tried to feel the dance without anticipating any next steps, and the first time I was able to do this, the difference was staggering. This talented teacher made it seem like I could dance! It was fluid and smooth and exhilarating. It reminded me of when I first learned to ride a bike as a child. I still remember, almost fifty years later, what it felt like to glide along all by myself that first time. It was almost exactly the way I’d always imagined flying would feel. Dancing with this instructor who knew all of the steps and effortlessly guided me through them was very much like that, and almost immediately, I was struck by the relevance of the correlation between this experience and the spiritual walk in this very earthly life.”

As I read, I felt myself barely breathing. This so perfectly matched what I had been experiencing, even her argument of not wanting to lead but just not knowing what she was supposed to be doing…that was MY argument with the Lord. And in my dream, it was like flying when I stopped trying to anticipate steps, just as she described. I was onto something!

So, I started thinking:  My stubbornness is this commitment to figuring out what to DO, trying to find the RIGHT way to speak, behave, respond. Like the way I try to organize my day to maximize performance and accomplish the most tasks (Yep. That shoe fits). Or the way I am trying to know what to do or say to be sure my kids are emotionally, physically and spiritually healthy. Instead of dancing with Jesus through my day, always looking to him, I try to figure things out with my mind. It is a deeply ingrained brain behavior.

I’ve known for some time that this isn’t the way to live. I’ve read Brother Laurence and Leanne Payne and Lewis and Nouwen and Andrew Murray. I imagine living moment by moment in God’s presence, hearing direction from Him all the time. But fleshing it out in my own life is confusing and mostly seems impossible. I’m not a monk in a kitchen or a professor at a university or a priest living a quiet life. Honestly, I might have more in common with a soldier in a jungle, trying to make progress while engaging in guerrilla warefare! I REALLY need God to show up!

And yet, people all over the world and throughout history face more than I am facing and find a way to walk and dance closely with the Father.

So I know this can’t be about circumstance. It’s about how much I will lay down my agenda, my fears, my judgements, my knowlege and trust the Holy Spirit. It’s about learning how to close my eyes to the external and open my ears to His voice ALL THE TIME, not just in my morning quiet time. But how do I know I am hearing that voice? How do I stay in a place of awareness of His presence in the midst of all the noise? How do I keep the Unseen Real in the forefront of my heart and mind in the face of Very Visible Chaos?

There’s a voice of condemnation that says, “What? You’ve known Jesus your whole life and you still don’t know how to do this?” I know that isn’t my Father’s voice. I know I need to stop thinking so much. But I don’t know much more. So now I am praying for Abba to teach me how to look into his face and step up onto His feet even in the intensity of this life so we can dance together, flying.

Progress

Five months ago today, we drove to a small town in Bulgaria, picked up our son and drove away. Surreal.

 

We’ve had a lot of rough spots, but just the other day, I had a small and joyful epiphany. While at my parents’ house for Christmas, the boys decided it would be fun to weigh themselves on the fancy digital scale. We don’t own a scale, so it’s a novelty. They came to proudly report what they each weigh. Asa: 64lbs. Elijah: 58lbs. What?! For some reason it shocked me that E has gained at least 12lbs (maybe more since we didn’t weigh him until he’d been with us for 3 weeks, and he ate a LOT of food in those 3 weeks)!

If I hadn’t noticed that progress (yes, progress, despite the picky eating), then what else have I missed…or just not given its full weight? I decided to take an assessment:

Language

He came to us speaking virtually NO English. Now, he communicates well in English. He is able to communicate very well about concrete, daily living sorts of things. There are some abstract or more complex topics that are difficult, but some of this may not be a language issue as much as an understanding issue. He is able to appropriately identify in English his feelings of sadness, happiness, fear, anger and calm. Recently, as he Skyped with a friend from Bulgaria who was adopted to the US at about the same time, we were surprised that neither of them spoke Bulgarian to one another. They just limped along in their limited English. After talking with him, we are fairly sure he has stopped thinking in Bulgarian.

Play

When we first brought him home, he didn’t really want to play with anything that didn’t have buttons, flashing lights or built in noises. If I asked him to build something with blocks, he rolled his eyes. If we brought out a puzzle, he got downright huffy! He certainly didn’t want to do anything alone (unless it was playing a video game, and then he still wanted someone watching him if at all possible). Most of this was because of his sensory processing issues. In just the last few weeks, he has begun to build things with duplos and blocks without prompting and without help. He doesn’t complain when asked to work a puzzle. He has begun to play with quiet toys that are good for brain development. He specifically asked to keep our old stacking cups on his special toy shelf.

Sensory Processing

According to the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, early “sensory and social deprivation is associated with problems in sensory modulation capacities.” Adoptive parents know this first hand. When we picked up Elijah and took him back to our apartment in Sofia that first day, he ran through each room flipping every light switch, opening every drawer and cabinet, examining and pushing every button he could find (remotes, electric razor, window locks, stove top, dvd player, etc). And he did it all at lightning speed. One of our first FIRM boundary setting experiences was the day that he went outside to the car to get a toy he had left there. He was gone a little too long so I went to check on him. He had turned on every light in the car and was trying to eject the cd’s! He thought he was in heaven the day I gave him an old calculator to play with. These days, after lots of intentional sensory stimulation, he now ASKS if he can “push the button” (on the tv, microwave, computer, phone, remote, radio, and everything else) before he does it, and he seems to need it less and less. He also no longer feels the need to switch the lights off and on a dozen times every few minutes, thank goodness.

Books

This is my favorite one. When we picked him up, he wanted nothing to do with books. This was a tough one for an old English teacher and book lover. I brought some great children’s books to Bulgaria to begin teaching him English words, and just to look at beautiful illustrations with him. He downright refused to sit with me if I had a book in tow. Now, he has favorite books and asks for me to read to him every single day. It is so interesting that his favorite books address his deepest wounds and needs: The Very Hungry Caterpillar (food and hunger), Are You My Mother?  (finding and attaching to a mother) and I’m Growing (grieving over no longer being a baby). It is amazing to me that he is expressing and addressing his feelings, worries, fears, longings and needs through identifying with the characters in these books.

Spiritual Growth

In our first weeks home, we realized that he knew some bible stories, most from the Gospels. Bulgaria is primarily Orthodox, and we knew there had probably been some exposure to religion. However, in September, I discovered that he knew the story of the Cross. The director of his children’s home had told him all about Jesus, and he had asked Jesus to forgive his sins. As time has gone on, I believe that amidst the mess that his little soul is in, I see evidence of the Holy Spirit. He prays and asks for prayer. He worships.

Just days ago, he expressed a desire for Jesus to come to his birthday party. (Okay, rabbit trail: He is obsessed with thinking about and planning and talking about his birthday that is 3 months away. I have three other kids, and I know how kids can get excited about birthdays, but I’m talking about a whole different thing here. If you know a child on the autism spectrum who verbally obsesses, then you are getting the picture.) Back to Jesus. I explained that Jesus would be at his birthday, but that he still would not be able to see him. I asked if he knew that Jesus is coming back to earth. At first he looked at me with disbelief and said, “You joking me.” When I insisted that I was telling the truth, he got very excited. He has been talking about it ever since, asking lots of questions and imagining flying with Jesus.

There are so many things that he doesn’t understand or grasp…simple things. It worries me sometimes. But then there are moments when I see something glimmer. For instance, he knows he has a broken heart and that Jesus is going to fix it “little bit, little bit.” Recently, during Advent, I was reading a verse to all four kids about the Branch coming from the root of Jesse, and I asked them who they thought the Branch was. Elijah piped up immediately, “Jesus!” Whether it was the Holy Spirit speaking to him or just a good guess, Hallie said it best, “Well, Jesus IS always the answer!”

There’s going to be more….but it’s enough for now.

 

 

 

Hope, all day long

I feel like I am failing so much of the time. Whether by virtue of genetics, environment or both, I am one of those people who looks at life and sees what is missing. Ugh. I look at my walk with the Lord and my marriage and my mothering and my homeschooling and I see primarily…sigh…what is not there.

Seems like I’ve been trying to change that for a long time. Again, what is missing? A positive, happy outlook. Ah, just one more failure.

But it has some perks. I’m so often at the feet of Jesus, needing him. I wrote to a friend once, and when I was done, I knew I had just spoken the truth to myself:

It is good to know you are needy. It is good to know you are scared. It is good to feel that you don’t have it together. The poor in spirit get the kingdom in the end. I have never had it together. For my whole life, it has seemed, to me, like I always cry more, get angry more, fall apart more than anyone else. It feels like a curse. But I am on my face in front of Jesus a whole lot because I can’t get through the day without Him. I find that on the days I feel strong, I am much less apt to find HIM. I am learning not to do that…forsake the quiet place when I am “happy.” So, perhaps it’s a blessing that I am a hormone-deficient, seratonin-deprived, easily-wounded and slightly nutty woman if it means that I am tied to His apron strings….carpenters wear aprons, right?

I wake up anxious most days; I take an hour to pray and worship and press my soul into obedience to my spirit and the Spirit. But then the swirl starts…the needs and the agenda and the commitments. And I am back to just trying to keep my head above the water. This morning, I was there again…not knowing how to go forward. How do I parent, how do I teach, how do I love? I’m failing, Lord! What is the way to do it well, and with joy?  Psalm 25:4 is what I heard Him speak today:

Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths.

And I knew it wasn’t just a request from David thousands of years ago. Abba is telling me that it’s a promise. Pray it and you will get it. And there’s more. Verse 5 continues the message:

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my HOPE is in you all day long.

My hope…my joyful expectancy (I can have that? Right, I’m supposed to know I can have it, but, really I don’t know.)…is in YOU…not in myself or in my ability to parent well or inspire my kids to work hard at their math or get the 5 loads of laundry done or prepare all those meals or keep the schedule so E will feel safe or even in my ability to help these four lambs learn to worship You. And I can have it ALL DAY LONG not just in that few minutes every morning when I am alone in your presence. It looks impossible, but here it is in black and white…Ah, Lord God, nothing is too difficult for you!

Oh, stay, stay, my little soul, at the feet of Jesus. Ask him for his ways, his paths, his truth. Do it again and again.

Oh, Lord, keep me there!

I can hear you laughing in delight…all Three of You: she’s getting it!

Seeing Rightly

“I see a seed; You see a harvest
I see the water; You see the wine
I see the broken; You see Your body
I see my enemy; You see a footstool!”

~lyric, Jonathan & Melissa Helser

Have you ever considered that the Lord’s faithfulness, by which we mean always dependable and coming through for us and never leaving or forsaking us, comes from the place of being full of faith? The place of seeing rightly?

God possesses faith. He sees the invisible. He believes in the not yet. He knows the impossible to be possible.

And so, to be faithful, I must have eyes to see. To be steady and true, I must not look just at what others let me see of them (which may be their worst) but I must be able to look beneath and through and behind and around and see what other possibilities lie waiting to be called forth.

Abba, how I need your eyes, your perspective, your hope, your faith to be one who believes, against all odds, in the budding virtues in my children, in my husband, even in myself. As a father, you look past the visible and see the invisible, that which has not yet come to be. You call it forth in confidence for you are the God who calls that which is not as though it were. Help me to see the way you see, to see rightly.

When the Boat Rolls

Humility is beautiful…at a distance. Redemption is desirable…when you aren’t the one paying. A laid-down life is lovely…when it’s someone else’s sacrifice.

But when it is you…ah, well, before the beauty, is the beast. It feels like death, like losing your mind, like screaming in the dark and no one hearing, like wave after wave of soul-twisting anxiety, pleading for some relief. It’s being on the boat when it rolls and the waters flood in and you know you are going to drown.

And that’s what Jesus did, and that’s what he calls us to.

And at just the moment you thought all was lost, the ship rolls back up. The masts are broken and the sails are torn and hanging, and life will never be the same. But then the third day comes and the beauty starts and light begins to rise and touch each new part with it’s glowing, reaching fingers. And the old sails, the old ways, disintegrate and fall like flecks of silver. They touch the deck and the wood turns glass, the crystal sea sparkling beneath the throne of God. And praise arises from your lips and becomes white sailcloth that the Spirit blows into, and you fly on blue wings into the glory.

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces much fruit. John 12:24

And this is what it’s been like for me…adoption…it is one lesson after another in humility, in dying, in costly mercy, in paying for wreckage I didn’t create. And it is ugly-beautiful. My preconceived ideas were pretty spot-on after all my research and reading and interviewing of friends who have gone before. It isn’t hard to intellectually accept that adoption won’t be easy. It’s the real-life, real-time emotion of the thing that is difficult to navigate; it’s the living it out every minute of every day that wears me down. It’s the crazy upside-down world that is now my home that sometimes leaves me feeling like a stranger in my own life.

So I am counting on the beauty coming, the promises foretold. I know the ship is coming upright and something new is beginning. I am counting on the Captain of this ship breathing into my praises and carrying me…and all of us…home on the wings of eagles.

 

 

This is my Lent

For me, Lent is about longing.

It is about even longing to long…for redemption, deliverance, wholeness, for Messiah…for Y’shua…for his presence…communion with him…unbroken.

And every time that communion is broken, even in the slightest way…just a minute in dullness of heart, just a bit forgetfulness of need, just a sense that I’ve got to do it on my own…my spirit grieves. And I am glad.

I want the season of Lent to never end in my soul.

I want to always have my broken, needy, hungry heart rent open and bare. Because it is the truth…my need of my Savior, my Hero, my Bridegroom, my Beloved. I miss him in the very best way, and I rejoice at the remembrance of his coming and the anticipation of his return. He has touched me and he will touch me once again.

I will fast to know my need. I will fast to keep my heart awake and tender and to keep calloused apathy and complacency far from me.

This is my Lent.  

 

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