Category Archives: Spiritual Growth

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Fifteen Minutes and Eternity

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You never quite know when you wake up in the morning what is going to happen to you that day. But one thing is important to remember:

God is our refuge and strength,
    a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
    though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
    though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah – Psalm 46:1-3

 It’s in the small choices and small decisions that we face every day where we have a choice – a choice to be fearful based on circumstances or to be full of trust and faith in the reliability and faithfulness of a Person – Jesus Christ, our dearest friend. It’s the small choices to trust God that help us when the storms of life come in strong.

Daily I flounder and fail and yet He remains strong and steadfast. And even when the earth is removed, He stands firm and constant, caring about me. Loving me. Protecting me. Never leaving my side.

This has been my testimony today and I am bursting to sing it on the rooftops (or write it on my blog) of this one thing that stays true: God is pure goodness.

At 7:30 pm two nights ago, we left the Cheverly Pool due to a rumble of thunder. Looked like there might be one of our frequent summer storms brewing, so we headed home. No sooner had we returned home and put the kids in the tub, when out of nowhere, a Microburst swept into our little community…something we just weren’t expecting. I was on the phone with KitchenAid, seeking to secure a replacement food processor since mine had just broken. Joel was bathing the kids. I stepped out onto the sunporch thinking that I could get a little quiet to have the phone conversation. I looked out the windows and immediately knew that was the last place I should be. The wind blew hard and sideways, the sky looked green, hail was coming down, and branches began to break up and smack against the windows. In a split second, Joel yelled “this looks like a tornado! get in the basement!” We pulled two very wet and very naked children out of the tub and hauled ourselves into the southwest corner of our basement (which, by the way, is the place to be, in a tornado).

Let me share with you something in a moment of pure honesty and transparency – when you are holding two wet, terrified babes in your arms with another growing in your belly, huddled in the corner of the basement, listening to what sounds like rocks beating against your house in pure darkness, what is important and unimportant is totally evident and unmistakable.

The babes were important. The house was not. Nor the car. Or the lovely garden. Or even the fun swing in the back (which, i will say, did survive).

So as Grace and I sat there in the darkness, I lead her in a prayer – for what was important. For our neighbors safety, for people who might have been caught outside during the storm, for our home to not collapse on us (because it felt that it likely might) – but most importantly, we cried out for the protection, deliverance, and mercy of our God and for his angels to surround our home.

When we emerged, we found what you see pictured above – our large, 80-100 year old oak tree in the front yard, cut in two and lying in the middle of the road. We were told by our Mayor that our tree was the largest that fell in our neighborhood. Miraculously, no one was injured. No home was damaged. One car was completely totaled and another damaged (Grace’s new word for the day was ‘damaged’). Our own new car stood untouched in our driveway, mere inches from the base of the tree’s now de-captitated trunk.

Along with the neighbors on our street who began to surround us and help us sort through the mess, we marveled at the fact that if the tree had fallen in any other direction, it would have most certainly landed on one of the houses. We could have been killed. We were spared.

In a moment, in a matter of 15 minutes time, we were both impacted and spared, sobered and satisfied, shaken yet whole. We stood in awe at the mercy of God. We gave thanks repeatedly for His protection of us and our neighbors. And I remembered as I looked at our tree that life is indeed a vapor and that I am not promised tomorrow.

But God wanted me to have tomorrow for now. And for this, I am soaking in the rays of today’s sunshine with fresh gratitude.

And so, as the sun went down, I lit the candles out of necessity to see and realized what I was actually doing and what day it was.

It was sundown on the Sabbath. And to Grace and to God I whispered with awe, “Shabbat Shalom” – Sabbath Peace rest upon our home. And indeed it did.

 

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The Glory of the Overlook

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“Good sense makes one slow to anger and it is his glory is to overlook an offense.” – Proverbs 19:11

I have been reading a book called The Respect Dare, which is a 40 day devotional/workbook on growing to improve your relationship with God and your husband through understanding the language of respect. I read “Dare 9” yesterday, which was “Project Overlook.”

When we seek to grow into the image of our Heavenly Father, we learn that He is “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6)

Our God, who knows all things, including the justness of any wrath He may feel, chooses to be calm and to wait in exacting that wrath and punishment. Why? He is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. He is merciful and gracious. His mercy causes him not to pretend my sin does not exist, but to deal kindly and gently with me in it, bearing long when I find myself stepping into the same pit again and again, eager to hold my hand and help me out.

His mercy shows me that the last thing God would do to me as His child is say, “Well, you deserve that pit. and I knew you were going to fall into that pit. So just stay there awhile and soak in the shame and embarrassment of it all – it will be good for you.” No, He wants to lift me up and out as soon as possible, to lift up my face towards Him and Heaven once again so that I see Him and all He offers as so much more desirable than that pit.

For me, often, that pit is having to be right. Can anyone relate to this?

I have learned that I like to be right – sometimes I spiritualize it by saying that rightness equals justice (which it does in some circumstances, of course) but when it comes to relating to my husband, kids, and the guy who cut me off in traffic or the woman who came up to me in the store to instruct me in my parenting, I justify my wrath. I am also much nicer and only inwardly fume when strangers wrong me (like the driver or the woman in the store), smiling curtly and moving along my way, but when it comes to those I’m closest to – I often let my thoughts be known when I should simply pause, wait a spell, relax a minute, and see how things sort themselves out.

Another Proverbs I read yesterday backed this up: “A food gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.” – Proverbs 19:11

It is my job to correct, discipline, and instruct my children in the ways of wisdom. It is also my job to make sure that when instruction or correction is needed, it is not done in a harsh way, with a harsh tone, in a condescending fashion which lets them know that “if they just would have listened to me in the first place, they would have never gotten into that mess – again.” God doesn’t deal this way with me!

It is my job to communicate with my husband when I have been hurt or need to talk something through. But before I vent all my frustrations to him, I ought to take a moment to examine the situation. “Is it worth creating conflict?” “Will it blow over on its own?” “Is this an isolated incident where it would serve me well to believe the best that nothing negative or wrong towards me was intended?” The large majority of the time, my major offense actually shows itself to be small and insignificant with the reality of time and a steadfast relationship to wash over the rocks of my offense.

What happens when we overlook a wrong that someone has done to us?

Firstly, and most important, we please God by obeying His Word and following His example.

Secondly, we don’t engage or embroil ourselves in unnecessary conflict but instead choose the way of peace.

Thirdly, we learn to hold our tongues and our feelings (in a good way) before the Lord, watching and observing how things will pan out with a heart full of hope in a positive outcome.

Lastly, when I thought about what it means to “overlook” offenses and wrongs, I thought of a view I have seen almost every year of my entire life on the way to our family cabin in Cashiers, North Carolina. After a long car ride through winding hills and up a mountainside, we stop to stretch our legs and take in the view. And it is glorious (as you can see from the picture above).

So it is with our Christian walks. When we place our feet upon the mountains of our offenses and anger and choose to look up and out at the glorious view of our lives, framed by gratefulness, we stand in awe of God’s majesty and handiwork.

Praying for you today, friend, as you choose to overlook offense and into greatness.

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Hallowing our Moments

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This picture reminds me of one thing – a thing I think about often: Life is Brief and Incredible. And each moment is sacred – a chance to write on eternity’s walls with the gift that is before us called the Present. Robert Brault said, “Life is short. God’s way of encouraging a bit of focus.” There is an odd tension that often comes when we allow ourselves to focus, especially in Western Culture. To focus on one thing means to stop multi-tasking (which I, as a Mom, know all about) and start paying attention its proper dues.

What are its proper dues?

To slow down – when our calendar is so full that all the little time blocks are full, something needs to change. We need to be okay with sitting for a spell, as Grandma would say, and watch the hummingbirds suck sugar water from the red bird feeder on that Cabin front porch, observing how their wings flutter a thousand times a minute, without break, appearing as a blur. To waste a morning on coffee and conversation (or rather, to invest it well). When we slow down physically and emotionally and mentally, we actually give ourselves room and space to meditate, which brings me to “Proper dues number two.”

To meditate – when I got married, I will never forget it. The room, the music, the people, the dresses (they were all wearing a dress from a different nation, some barefoot, some with exotic colors from distant lands, all of it reflecting my heart’s love for the World. And someone, some wise person, told me to not let anything that happened that day (because issues crop up in every event, of course, like people’s tables at the reception being confused, a candle not lighting during the ceremony, a problem with a bouquet, etc) spoil my joy or keep me from just soaking it all in – because it would never happen again. I would stand at the back of the church, no one aware and all seated, and begin my walk down the aisle and into a whole new future with the man I had chosen. When we allow ourselves to enjoy a moment and soak in its purpose and gift to us, we hallow that moment.

To invite God in – Scripture tells us very few things about a man named Enoch, but his life haunts me and drives me on with its mystery and intrigue. It simply says, “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” Genesis 5:24. The only other thing we read about him is in the “Faith Hall of Fame” where it said that he had the testimony that he pleased God. God was so pleased with this man I can imagine him saying, “I just can’t stand it anymore. You must be here with me!” …and took him. He must have walked on that fine line between heaven and earth – an eye always on heaven, with his feet planted firmly on earth. You and I, when we slow down, when we meditate on the purpose and gift of that moment, we actually have time to invite God in with us. I may be sweeping my kitchen floor, but God is just as interested in communion and fellowship at that moment than when I am in the throes of worship on a Sunday morning – thankfully, He is that interested in intimacy with His children.

To invest in people – I sat down with a new friend this week after dinner for tea. And we lamented how, in our city, it is almost impossible not to have to say “let me check my calendar” when someone asks to get together, which may take up to a month or more. She told me a friend of hers wished for the days and places where friends could knock on the door unannounced – spontaneous fellowship. When our face is stuck in our smart phone (this is why I don’t have one) at the pool or park or metro or coffee shop, we simply can’t see the people walking by who may want to talk. When are doors are closed and locked to our homes all day every day except to leave in the morning and return again that evening, our neighbors have no room to stop in for a visit. I want to live so that I see people – really see them for who they are, and listen wholeheartedly, not with my mouth saying, “Yeah, oh really?, um-hmmm” but my mind thinking “What is it I have to be doing this afternoon again?”

To let it be what it is – some moments are tranquil and peaceful, some are crazy and uncontrollable – but all are important and all are worth our focus and attention. When both my kids are screaming because one of them downed half the ketchup bottle and the other one needs help wiping, if I slow down and invite God to help me and be with us, I might not blow a fuse. Which gets me to a final thought for today –

Focusing on and in the moment encourages obedience towards God and love towards others. How can I obey the Lord where I have been called to “be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” if I am hurried, frantic, and reactive to everything that comes my way? It is simply impossible. If I refuse to rush through life, I allow my children (who are with me all day long) to slow down as well and don’t teach them that rushing equals redemption of time. Rather, I want to teach them that they are worth the time it takes for me to take a breath, say a prayer, and respond to them with loving yet firm correction when they eat the gum out of the trash can after I have told them not to – again. When I anticipate my husband’s arrival from work I can prepare to greet him with a kiss and a hug and a “how was your day?” before I react with a  “take the kids NOW. I am tired.”

What about you? How can you hallow your moments and thus invest them well in eternity? One day, one hour, one moment at a time – because life is a gift – and this moment is all that we have. Selah.

 

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