Grace

“Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.” Eph 4:26,27

Strong, but true words.

Josiah and I had a bit of a heated run in before bed time tonight.  We also had a beautiful time of reconciliation and these verses were flooding my mind.  I’m always amazed how the words of Scripture I am marinating on find ways of coming to life and incarnating themselves in my story.

Anger gives a foothold to the devil.  Wow, I’m sure tons has been written somewhere on this topic.  Think of what happens when you are angry.  For me, I start to create all sorts of false, over-exaggerated conclusions and judgments.  “He NEVER listens, We suck as parents, she is such a ****, I can’t stand him…” and so on and so on.  These thoughts may not last long, but they come and they whisper into our hearts and our minds.  Tell me those judgements and thoughts don’t give the devil a foothold to rob and divide.

Or what about our action in our anger.  “In your anger, do not sin”. What about the methods of control I try to use when I am angry, the manipulation or the unkind words.  Not only does that injure someone, giving the devil a foothold in their life for him to fester lies from the pain in their hearts,  but it also gives him a foothold in my life as I experience guilt and tell myself lies about my own personhood.

As Josiah and I sinned in our anger tonight we gave the devil an oppotunity to bring damage to our relationship and our souls.  I am thankful however, for the opportunity we had to reconcile, to forgive and to give our anger away before we shut our eyes on the day.  As we lay snuggling we each confessed our angry sins to one another and forgave each other.  I loved praying with my little boy for forgiveness and freedom from our sins.  I loved how sincere he was and how quickly and easily he wanted to re-connect with me.  What a picture of how quickly I should turn to God – desiring our connection to not be lost, and trusting his certain love for me.

I also love in these verses how it gives us something else to do with our mouths instead of sin in our anger.  Just as Tammy mentioned that these verses tell us instead of stealing, we should use our hands to make and give – they give an alternative to angry mouth sin as well.  “Don’t use foul or abusive language.  Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them…Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words and slander, as well as all types of evil behaviour.  Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

I just love how God doesn’t just say “Don’t” but how he also gives a replacement “Do“.

good. helpful. encouragment. kind. tenderhearted. forgiving.

It sucks to have heated moments with the loved ones in our lives, but it feels so good to love and be loved deeply enough to forgive one another, just as in fact we have been forgiven by God.

———————————-

Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don’t make a fist
Take this mouth
So quick to criticize
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss

 

Haiti Hope

 

We gathered to pray for a nation devastated by natural disaster.

We gathered to be reminded that God is a good. We worshipped our loving Lord, despite the ugly images in our mind.

We gathered to offer help, to give funds, to join with the moans and groans for Haiti.

Haiti is devastated. It is a nation that has been under political and perhaps spiritual oppression for years. Now, if you couldn’t tell from it’s physical state before, it lays in ruins.

Hope.

Isaiah 61:2-4 (New International Version)

 ² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
       and the day of vengeance of our God,
       to comfort all who mourn,

 ³ and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
       to bestow on them a crown of beauty
       instead of ashes,
       the oil of gladness
       instead of mourning,
       and a garment of praise
       instead of a spirit of despair.
       They will be called oaks of righteousness,
       a planting of the LORD
       for the display of his splendor.

 ⁴ They will rebuild the ancient ruins
       and restore the places long devastated;
       they will renew the ruined cities
       that have been devastated for generations.

 In Haiti there was already mourning, ashes, despair, and now devastation. Lord, renew Haiti. May LOVE shine through on this nation and bring glimpses of the complete restoration we will all one day rejoice in. Today Haiti has no choice but to receive graces from God and fellow humankind. God has brought me to this point many times. The grace becomes so real. God’s grace will abound.

 

Pride

This is a hard post for me to write.  But growing is sometimes hard and I am wanting to share about God working so here goes…

I am a pretty prideful person.  I have always prided myself on being responsible, being self-sufficient, being a high achiever, being a ‘strong’ person.  From stuff like being a good employee, to having a clean house and always shoveling the driveway right after it snows, to being financially responsible, organized and efficient.

So fast forward to now.  I am pregnant and I have been quite sick this time.  (See I am even having a hard time writing this because I do not want to seem like I am fishing for pity and I know so many people have ordeals that they would LOVE to trade for this small bump now that will be so joyful later.)  Not that the first trimester with my other two kids were a walk in the park but this is something altogether different.  For about a month I was basically useless.  I was feeling so miserable and just wanting to be done with this already.  I was talking to a friend who has had it way worse than me as far as pregnancy sickness goes and she mentioned that the last pregnancy she prayed that she be refined by the sickness – that God somehow use it to change her.

At first I thought – This is such crap.  (I know how embarrassingly unhumble.) Why the heck would I have to go through this to grow somehow.  What good change in me could God be wanting to bring about from this??  This is only making me and my family miserable – I couldn’t see any reason for how this could be how God wanted to bring about any refinement in me.  (And again I know it is small potatoes compared to what others go through that must be feeling the same way only magnified.)  I am not taking proper care of my other kids, or being a partner to my husband who was basically having to do everything – work during the day, cook and clean when he got home, put the kids to bed.  Any other commitments I had were just let go.  I was just feeling a big heaping dose of self-pity for what I wasn’t able to be doing (and for not being able to keep holding up my idol of pride in myself).

So anyway my mother in law lovingly cooked a whole bunch meals for us and dropped them off to my husband.  A few friends also made us food.  Friends and family offered to help with the kids and help clean the house.  Friends I volunteer with had to pick up what I wasn’t doing and did so happily.  I had help (that I did not accept easily or gracefully but basically had lovingly forced on me) from so many people.  Yes, I had to (or in reality was so sick I didn’t put up a stink) swallow my pride.  My pride that I wasn’t cooking food for my family.  My pride that my house was messy and I couldn’t clean it.  My pride that my children were watching obscene amounts of television.  So yes, I started seeing refinement.  Started seeing that my pride can get in the way of accepting God’s care and love of me via other people.  I swallowed my pride more (this time with urging from the spirit but still not easily) and asked my small group for prayer – which was really hard when I know that people have so much more important prayer needs than this and because it was letting even more people know that I needed help.  Not all strong after all…

That’s when it became so clear.  This was not just a small deal about me swallowing my pride in myself a tiny bit or making a god of living such a responsible life.  Because being responsible, strong and self-sufficient are to some extent good things.  But not to any extent that they remove me from being totally dependant on God.  God wants me to rely on Him – living as if I only need to rely on myself in any area is SUCH a lie.  This is where my pride was being so harmful – it was separating me from God, His grace, His forgiveness, His comfort and His love.  It was stopping me from even seeing that I needed to repent of this.  Friends I am literally crying typing this.  Has it been hard – yes – and not just the sickness part, more the growing part - hard but so good in the end. As drawing closer to my Saviour always is.  Thank you God.

 

Wrapped in a Story

 

It’s the morning after a busy weekend. Needless to say she’s still a little tired from the nights rest and thus a little emotional. Her pouty face tells all. Her words are short. Her feet are heavy, she’s upset. Those aren’t my favourite moments. It takes patience to work through these moments with a two year old. But I understand because I too have moments like this.

She comes to my side, she asks for a story.  Wrapped in my arms, with a great story enfolding on our laps, my tender voice whispers sweet words of love, adventure, and new possibilities. We both soak in the moment.  We are both calmed as the emotions of the morning slip away. Grace, love, peace, rest remain.

May you find some time this summer to sit at your father’s side, with His story, Your story, on your lap. Take in the whispers of God. Enjoy. And know you are loved.

Those of you who are with us for  Memory Monday we want to let you know that we are taking a break for the rest of July and into August. We’ve worked on some wonderful passages and maybe you’d like to revisit those or find some on your own. May God’s words surround you in love this summer.

You could also check out Holy Experience, on Wednesdays, Ann is featuring a Walk with Him post. I’ve found her writings edifying, maybe you will too.

 

Faithful

Come let us return to the Lord.

He has torn us to pieces;

now he will heal us.

He has injured us;

now he will bandage our wounds.

In just a short time he will restore us,

so that we may live in his presence.

Oh, that we might know the Lord!

Let us press on to know him.

He will respond to us as surely as the

arrival of dawn

or the coming of rains in early spring.

hosea 6:1-3

I am so glad we have a God who is so faithful, he will respond to us as faithfully as the dawn.

On days like this, when I see hurt around me that I don’t understand, this is good news.

Thanks God.

 

What Defines You?

I don’t like paperwork at the best of times, and now there’s this pesky little question about ‘occupation’ that seems to make me pause. For some reason lately I find this awkward, and don’t really know what to put. Before kids I knew my occupation, much of my time, and energy went into that role each and everyday. But as of last year I no longer have that role or title. It’s been an adjustment. I love my role as mom, but don’t consider it an ‘occupation’. What defines us as people? Is it what we do? Is it what we have? Is it who we know? For the past few years, when meeting people, I don’t ask that standard question “what do you do?” Only later or if it comes up do I ask. I just feel it’s not relevant. I want people to know I am interested in them and not what they do. However, sometimes when it gets awkward that little question seems to pop out.

Last weekend I rented a total chick flick as hubby was working a night shift. It was called ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’. I rented it without really thinking what it was about, it met 2 of my criteria for a sappy movie, must be one of the top 10 rentals, and be a chick flick with the words ‘romantic comedy’ or the like on the box. It wasn’t until I came home and realized I probably rented a movie all about shopping…consumerism..that I had to laugh at myself. It’s hard enough trying not to be a consumer, then I go and rent a movie about chronic shopping! But it actually had a pretty good message.  One touching part in particular really got me thinking. I don’t want to give anything away…but…in this scene the father is offering to give up an expensive item to help  his daughter. She replies back that he couldn’t do that, that the item ‘defined’ him. Which the dad responded that no item defines him, rather his relationship with his daughter and mother defines him.

It’s not my occupation which defines me, which is what the general consensus is in our culture. It’s not what I ‘do’, such as how I parent, how I express my faith, how I respond to people, places or things. It’s my relationships which define me: Child of God, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend. It’s ‘being’ which defines me. In that I can feel secure. I will always be those things. No one can take those roles away from me.

Now I can be proud to write ‘none’ in occupation, being glad that the fact I can do that allows for more time with what really defines me.

¹How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

1 John 3:1

 

Seperation

It’s evening and I pull up to the house and see the lights on upstairs.  I am coming home from yoga, a brief retreat from the wonderful demands of stay at home motherhood.  I am feeling renewed and relaxed, having indulged an hour and a half to my body, mind and spirit.

Surprised, I see the garage door open and my husband standing there with our daughter, now 16 months.  I come up to the stairs and see the remains of tears cried in my absence on her cheeks.  I take her in my arms, kiss her soft cheek with great love.  She cried while you were gone he relays.  I tried everything, even feeding her ice cream but she just wouldn’t cheer up.  You didn’t take your cell phone, so I couldn’t call you.  (Yes that blasted cell phone we got solely for the purpose of me being gone from the kids and I left the house without it, thinking it unnecessary, as she loves being with her daddy so.)  My heart is breaking that she missed me and I wasn’t there, she is relieved to accept the comfort of my presence.  As a parent I try so hard to avoid this type of situation, preferring to let my kids grow into separation as they are ready, yet here I am, holding a baby girl who clearly felt forsaken by her mother.  I am thinking about verses read in this weeks bible study…

Isiah 49:14-15

¹⁴ But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me,
       the Lord has forgotten me.” 

 ¹⁵ “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
       and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
       Though she may forget,
       I will not forget you!

As a mother, I feel such great love for my children, it is hard to imagine a more protective, nuturing love.  To think about forgetting my nursing baby and having no compassion for the children I have born at first seems incredulous.  Yet, upon reflection, I do so, in small and large ways all the time.  Such are my failings as a human.  The only way I can even begin to muster up enough compassion for my children is by being filled with the spirit.  As a parent, I need all the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control I can get.  Thankfully, even when we fail those who love us and those we love fail us, we have a God who grants us forgiveness.  We have a God who just IS these things all the time and that despite our failings, we have a heavenly father, who always loves us and promises never to leave us!

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.” – Father God

“I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Jesus

 

Love Is…

the smell of a newborn baby…

the touches and kisses of a big brother…

the care of the family of Jesus, cooking, cleaning, caring for us and making ways for us to bond as a family…

the wonder of a creator who imagined up the beautiful idea of people and the way they come into this world joining those who have been longing for them…

2 weeks ago today we witnessed the birth of our beautiful baby girl.  Her name Eden, means delight.  Truly, she is our delight.

I hope whatever your delights are, you can take a moment today to celebrate them.

 

love must be sincere

Brad Jersak writes in his book, “Kissing the Lepers”

“I found out that God is very interested in our love for others, not just his own love.  God the Father spoke to my heart saying, ‘When I love someone, I don’t merely want you to be a passive witness of my love.  I want a piece of your heart.  I want you to love with my love, because some things can only be healed with love.  And, more importantly, I want your heart to be like mine.  Stop trying to avoid falling in love.  Love everyone.  Fall in love with everything…Go ahead, love your wife and children; fall in love waith all the baristas at the coffee shop and with the vanilla lattes they serve; with all the customers that come in and with their haircuts, their tattoos, their unique fashions.  Fall in love with the grass and the rain outside, with mountain flowers and glaciers!  Your problem has NEVER been that you love too much.  That is NEVER why you struggle or stumble.  Go ahead and love…I want to give you a heart big enough to encompass the world.  I want to give you MY heart.

Surprisingly, within days of hearing these words, I read the following passage from Fyodor Dostoyevsky cited in Ricahrd Rohr’s Everything Belongs:

Love people even in their sin, for that is the semblance of Divine love and is the highest love on earth.  Love all of God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand of it.  Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light.  Love the animals, love the plants, love everything.  If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.  Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day.  And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.”

Beautiful.

Right now I am wrestling with love.  In particular, loving where there has been a tear in a friendship.  God is helping me when I feel another thread coming apart, to pray for her.  It stings a little at first,  but it helps me.

“Love must be sincere…be devoted to one another in brotherly love.  Honor one another above yourselves”

…but, God,

“Honor one another above yourselves…”

sigh.

“some things can only be healed by love…Your problem has NEVER been that you love too much…I want to give you MY heart…and you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love”

okay God, I want you to give me YOUR heart…help me to pray, help me to love, help me to love not just the beautiful things, the unique things, the easy things, help my love to be sincere.

.

 

Prayer

At the beginning of lent I signed up to participate in my church’s ’40 Days of Prayer’, the idea being that instead of giving something ‘up’ for lent to give something ‘more’ for lent.  I was terrified of the idea of praying for an hour straight for forty days in a row…so I knew I had to do it.  This is a story of one of the things I have experienced from this commitment.

 

 God has been moving in me, making me curious.  ‘God what is your will for my life.’  For months as I am sporadically asking, I hear nothing, silence, a vast abyss that fails to answer my need.  Time, I think.  With time God will answer.  So I keep praying, sporadically, in bursts and spurts and still silence.  Not the silence of being in the woods on a spring day with birds chirping and leaves rustling, but the silence of wearing earplugs, only my own thoughts echoing around inside my mind.  Still I know I am not alone, God is there, I know it, I sense His mighty presence somewhere behind a synapse, I just don’t hear Him.

Months pass and now the approaching is not sporadic.  Daily I am kneeling before God’s throne, seeking His forgiveness, His love, His filling, His answers.  One question of many that always, always, always, gets asked ‘Father God, what is your will for my life.’  A few days, nothing, still only echos.  Yet I persist.  A few weeks, and I ask again ‘God what is your will for my life’.  I am ready to move on before I even ask, expecting that more time is needed.  Instead He answers.  “Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbour as yourself.’  Instead of falling over in awe and praise that God can be heard, approached and answers, I think a small thank you God, jot it down in my prayer journal and wait, with longing for more.  Somehow I want more.  These beautiful true, simple words of Jesus are not filling the void.  I yearn for details, specifics, a five year action plan from the almighty.

Still I persist. God, what is your will for my life. God:  To love me with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbour as yourself.  Broken child:  God, what is your will for my life. God:  To love me with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbour as yourself.  This story repeats over and over and still, in my brokenness I want more.  I don’t think about how to obey and answer, I just keep wanting.

The conversation turns to this as I finally let my emptiness spill out to the one who already knows how painfully empty I am.  I am before God once again.  God what is your will for my life. God:  Love me with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbour as yourself.

Me:  God, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but that is just so vague…I am type A God, you made me this way, can you please just give me something specific…

God:  Leah, why are you making this so complicated…why don’t you just start with the loving your neighbour part.  Leah just go and love your neighbour.  Yes Leah, literally.  Yes Leah, someone who lives on your street.  You know your neighbour…

This still seems too simple, too small, too insignificant.  It is mixed with guilt over where I live and what I have.  I don’t listen. For I have sinned and all too often fall short of the glory of God.  (Romans 3:23)

On Thursday I’m in the kitchen with the kids.  We are all dressed and fed, but as far as hair combed and faces washed…not so much.  The house is a disaster, it’s cleaning day and I would be embarrassed to let someone see it.  I have a long to do list in my mind and haven’t started yet as my son wanted to make banana cookies and I also mixed up some bread dough, resulting in even more mess.

Ding dong.  I go to the door.  Of course it’s not a surprise  to you, but it was to me…my neighbour.  (Not someone I know well, really just a casual hello over grass mowing once in a while, I am closer in age to her children, than to her.)  And, yes, someone who lives on my street.  A literal neighbour. 

Me:  (Internal) Oh I guess this is your idea of a joke.

God:  Not a joke exactly, we can discuss later, but time is a ticking, are you going to leave her out in the cold with a quick hello or listen…

So I finally listened and invited my neighbour in.  (And I am almost too ashamed to say that a big part of me hoped she couldn’t.)  My kids and I fed her a fresh banana cookie with a cup of tea.  I hoped nothing from the floor was sticking to her socks and she wouldn’t be too grossed out by the state of my kitchen to eat the cookie.  I listened while she talked, gave her some empathy for some difficult things she is going through right now, regarding aging parents who live far away, and feeling lonely after moving across the country.  I hope she left feeling not my initial hesitancy, but a small sliver of God’s perfect love.

Night came and I once again I venture before God.  ‘Father, God, Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for the blessing of sending my neighbour over and thank you that I put aside my own selfish ‘to do’s’ and pride about my belongings enough to obey you.  God you are good.’  And I hear silence, not the vast echoing kind, but the lovely spring kind, like I am walking though the woods with my maker.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  (James 1:17)

Flowers from God, via my neighbour