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.

 

Wednesdays…

Tammy drew my attention to Holy Experience (which I only sometimes read) and to the Wednesdays where she is focusing on reading the word.

She asks…how do you read the word? She invites comments.

What about us, here…how do you read the word? What are some of your ideas? What works for you? Where has your well been dry lately? What do you need to be encouraged? Please, if you are willing to…share your ideas and thoughts in our comments.

For me…it is so often about relationships or community. Matt and I try to follow a reading plan (and I do say TRY) that we purchased at Breakforth. He likes to do his reading in the morning and I like to do mine at night…but when we’ve read the same thing in the day, it brings forth natural conversation about what God was brewing in us through it.

Tonight I started a journal for the times I do, do readings and I am partly thinking of giving it to Eden when she is older. This is inspiring me to read and reflect on God’s word, hoping that one day she will treasure my thoughts on what God is stirring in my life.

Sometimes I am overwhelmed with a hard day with two kids or a fight with Matt or just pure lack of desire to read. Sometimes I have a lot of things to do around the house and just can’t don’t find the time to dig into God’s words.

Sometimes I feel sucky at this, other times I feel so entranced by the lover of my soul that I can’t wait to sit down and hear his voice.  Other times I just do it because I should do it and hope something good comes out of it.

What about you?

Tonight I read this and felt encouraged… “Be strong and courageous! Don’t be afraid or discouraged because of the King of Assyria or his mighty army, for there is a power far greater on our side! He may have a great army, but they are merely men. We have the Lord our God to help us fight our battles for us! Hezekiah’s words greatly encouraged the people.” 2 Chron 32:7-8

I am encouraged to press on to pray, to read, to move forward… for there is a power far greater on our side.

 

Weighted Words

I wince at the adjectives I would use to describe much of my prayer journey. Discouraging, guilty, lop-sided, awkward… and the continual commitments of mine to ‘do better’. His voice has seemed a colossal enigma. God gave me the gracious gift this past Lent of participating in a 40 day prayer vigil with a community of believers. During this time God taught me about listening to Him, what His voice sounds like, and how to simply… enjoy Him.

It is becoming easier, less halting, to ask Him questions, to hear Him. He is showing me that His voice is gently weighted; it sinks down to the calling depths. Softly weaving, substratum-seeking. His voice cannot surface float. It cannot be controlled or contained, only experienced and enjoyed.  ‘He sends his word and melts them; he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow.’ Psalm 147:18  It flows where He wills, immersing completely. His weighted words settle. Deeper and deeper. 

The children and I are stepping outside to bathe in God’s beauty. As we invite Him to join us, I will be listening for His answering voice…

God, show me what you are like.

Do you have a gift for me today?

Who can I encourage today?

What in me brings you joy?

What dreams do you want to awaken in me?

What’s on your heart God?

Would this whole community join us? How did God speak to you today?

 

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