When hopelessness and discouragement are loud

I went to the home school book fair yesterday.  It's an annual event for me - 2 days with encouraging speakers and tons of vendors with amazing products.  I've been going for 10+ years, or so my name tag says.  All this means is that I am a veteran book fair go-er.

This year is different in that I didn't attend any of the speakers and only walked the vendor floor for the afternoon.  I bought very little (in comparison with previous years), and I have little-to-no clear plan for our upcoming school year.  Heck, I'm just trying to finish this current one up well and graduate my first student.

Success.

Except yesterday as I perused books and manipulatives (subconsciously looking for that magical item that will make next year amazing, thrill my kids, and entice them to love, love, love learning), I was feeling anything BUT success and a sense of accomplishment.

I felt like a failure.

All of my mistakes and mishaps and insecurities loomed larger than life, and discouragement and hopelessness walked close behind.  I know better than to partner with them, but I will say that the battle was fierce.

It only increased when I got home.  Children left in the care of my oldest had been sent to their rooms twice because of fighting in my absence, and that intensified into a major meltdown by one of them as I imperfectly addressed the situation.  Escalating with each passing minute, it was everything I could do to not pull out the old tools of anger and intimidation to manage the chaos in my heart and mind and circumstances.

I went to bed exhausted and discouraged and woke up feeling the weight of past mistakes, the most recent ones of the night before stretching way back into the past.

As I was processing all of this with the Lord this morning, He spoke this to my heart:

You are imagining an outcome void of My Presence and My redeeming power.  You are seeing your perceived mistakes and failures as being bigger than Me at work in and through you. That "weight of past mistakes" is a false burden.  Did I not die to take your place? Does that weight ever rest on your shoulders? Do these cares and worries not belong to Me?

And as these words are washing over my heart and soul and  mind, His peace enters in.  Those vain imaginations [1] were taken captive and the truth of His Presence ever present with me throughout, of His power at work within me [2], of His promise to never leave me [3] and to be my children's Teacher [4] settled back into place and set my heart at rest in His Presence once again.

Hope was restored to its rightful place.

My hope does not rest in an outcome or temporary event (although, obviously, sometimes it does get misplaced there).  It rests in God who is the Author and Perfector of my faith...and of my children's lives.

He's got this.  He takes it all and makes it for my good and His glory.

I can rest secure in His unfailing love.  It never gives up.

1) 2  Corinthians 10:5 "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;"

2) Ephesians 3:20 "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us"
3) Joshua 1:5 "I will never leave you nor forsake you"

4) Isaiah 54:13 "All your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace."

Lines of Girls

It was the day we had to go to Ethiopian immigration for my nieces passport appointment that we saw them: hundreds of people, mostly young girls, waiting in lines.  Because we were foreigners and because we had a baby, we were sent to the front of every line.

And so we walked passed these young girls who, my sister had explained earlier, were waiting for the necessary paperwork to allow them to go to some Middle Eastern country for work.  A very few of those girls will actually be employed in a legitimate job.

The vast majority of them will be trafficked.

My nephew's biological aunt was one of those girls that was given a legitimate job with an American family living in the Middle East.  She worked for them for three years.  The girl who worked for the family next door was not so fortunate.  Auntie could hear the girl's screams and so devised a plan to rescue her.  And she did.

But those lines of girls?  What could we do with all of those hopeful girls thinking that somehow this would be their ticket to success?  We argued that surely the stories had gotten back, the stories of girls disappearing or not disappearing but wishing that the ground would swallow them because somehow their hope had turned to horror... Surely at least some of these girls knew the risks, had heard the stories, so maybe they were escaping an already horrific story to something that may be tolerably better.  Or at least get paid.

My heart hurts still when I think of the lines of girls in colorful scarves, young faces waiting patiently as we walked by.

We prayed.  Prayed for delays in processing paperwork and Divine intervention and protection and Aunties who hear and are brave and rescue...

The airport was more of the same except these girls, they have their paperwork and are walking away from home to the unknown and how my heart ached and aches still when I think of them standing there waiting, hoping, going...

Only prayers, which in that moment seemed insignificant and not enough, could be said.  But that's a lie, that prayer is not powerful or effective.  I choose to believe that because three sister joined in prayer for these girls in lines, their stories have now changed TO stories of hope and redemption.  Somewhere along their journey, these girls will be rescued and in turn will rescue or will be like Auntie and be safe but save a sister from bondage.

Pray for these girls... and find a reputable organization you can partner with to help bring an end to human trafficking.

Elsa

Elsa lives at Kidane Mehret, an orphanage run by two Maltese nuns who have been working in Ethiopia for over 40 years.  They have had her since birth, and she is now nine years old.

What makes Elsa's story extraordinary is that she has hydrocyphilas and was not expected to live very long.  But here she is, a living, breathing example of the power of selfless love being poured out day after day after day without fail.

There have been families who have wanted to adopt her, but because of her condition, she would not survive a plane ride, and so the sisters continue to care for her.

They tell me that Elsa is blind, but she can hear.  An Italian family donated a small cd player that sits in her bed w/ the radio on so that she can listen to music (or talking or static...whatever happens to be playing at the moment).  They are careful to move her around, giving her floor time on a pad or to the tv room for cartoons or outside for some sunshine and fresh air.

She stays in the baby room with the other 20+ babies, some with disabilities and some with none.

But, oh, how these children are loved!  The sister explained to me that they have tried to perform surgery on Elsa 3 times to place a stint so that they can relieve some of the fluid build up in her skull.  And each time has failed.  And still Elsa lives.

Her bed is close to the door of the baby room.  Any visitor who walks in will have opportunity to meet her.  It's not easy.  She forces you to come face to face with a hard reality.  And yet, I think she stays there loved and cared for so that visitors like me can come face to face with love lived out in such an incredible way.

It's hard to visit an orphanage.  I image, though, that this orphanage is easier than others.  The love there was so tangible, so present in the way the sisters greeted us when we arrived with Tizita, the way they showed us around the compound, the way the children ran to us and greeted us and loved on Tizita, the concern in their voices when they told us about the newborn that had to be transported to the hospital last night.

These sisters live out love in a way that rocks my world.  I didn't come away from there with a hopeless feeling because of the need (and it is great) and the broken stories (and there are many).  I didn't come away discouraged because the atmosphere was full of the hope of Jesus and His power to save, redeem, and rescue.

What a privilege it is to be a part of this story and to be changed forever by these women and all of their helpers who spend their lives caring for the least of these. 

I am so challenged.

"El que invita paga."

A couple of weeks ago, Roger Cunningham, missionary to Chile, spoke at my church and challenged us to "cross the chicken line," to take risks, to go on adventures with God, and to remember that "El que invite paga" or "He who invites pays."

And don't you know that's true.  When God invites you to go on an adventure, He pays.  He takes care of every detail and gives me the job of listening and trusting and walking in faith.

Little did I know I would have a chance to trust Him in such a big way so quickly.

Last Thursday, I received a text from my sister who is in Ethiopia going through the adoption process for her little girl.  In a miraculous turn of events, she is able to bring her daughter home much more quickly than expected and has decided to stay on and wait for the paperwork to go through.  Meanwhile her husband and son must return home.

She asked me (and my little sister) to go to Ethiopia to help her.

We said yes and that began a crazy ride of a God story where plane ticket money and itineraries and unplanned breakfast with our dear German sister and standing in lines to get our visa and walking through customs and immigration into the airport where our sister stood waiting with our new niece.

We said yes because my sister said yes and here we are sitting in the guesthouse listening to street noises and cats meowing and children and families.  We've dropped into this international community of Danish and Italian and Dutch and American families who are choosing to be forever families to these children needing love.

I am amazed.  I am in awe.  I am so humbled by the generosity of HE who invited me to come on this journey to Africa and into the lives of the Ethiopian people.

And, oh, it is so true...El que invita paga.

Falling forward

When I read this blog post, I grabbed on to this idea of "falling forward."

So much time spent falling back, looking back, stuck back there in the past which keeps me from being present in this moment with this life I have right now.

I still struggle with inability to tackle smallest of piles without largest of overwhelming feelings washing over me and I am so ready to be done with that.  I have a choice in the midst where I can go with the overwhelming feeling of failure to accomplish what I want and need to or I can stand and declare that I'm falling forward into His grace and mercy that says: "I work all things together for good."

And what do I have to truly complain about?  Nothing, really.  Just so, so, so much to be thankful for.

This year I will keep focusing on falling forward into gratitude and thanksgiving and a life lived in the moment however messy that moment presents itself to be.

Devotional Classics, you've forever impacted my life.

For the Essentials in Spiritual Formation Certificate Studies with Dan Wilt

It's hard to believe nigh on four years ago I started this journey into the depths of riches and community found at worshiptraining.com.  What a life-changing experience this has been and continues to be as I complete the final assignment for my Certificate in Worship Leadership Studies.  Thanks, Dan, for dreaming and birthing such an incredible learning community.  I am forever grateful.

Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups, the revised and expanded edition edited by Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith, is a compilation of devotional readings selected from the writings of the saints across the ages.  These writings "aim at the transformation of the human personality.  They seek to touch the heart, to address the will, to mold the mind.  They call for radical character formation.  They instill holy habits" [1].

These classic writings are divided into seven sections. Each section lays out a feast of the richest of foods for the soul, gleaned from men and women whose writings give us "perspective and balance" [2] and reveal the need and desire to be formed in our own lives by the love and goodness of God as manifested through the lives of the authors.  

In Preparing for the Spiritual Life, I am challenged to create space for intentional spiritual formation in my life.  While costly, it is far more prudent than the alternative. C.S. Lewis wakens me to awareness that demands are always being made on me and I must choose from where those demands will be met.  He teaches me how to come out of the wind, so to speak, and into the peace where I can be directed by the Voice of the One.  This quote from Dallas Willard I’ve written on a note card I carry with me to commit to memory:

Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10) [3].

The Prayer-Filled Life uncovers a gold-mine of thoughts on how to live a life of prayer.  I struggle to find moments of solitude and silence, but when I read Henri J. M. Nouwen’s piece on “Bringing Solitude into Our Lives,” I found a nugget of wisdom that had yet to occur to me: “But we do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him.  We may have to write it in black and white in our daily calendar so that nobody else can take away this period of time [emphasis mine]” [4].  I realized that whatever appointment I wrote in my calendar I tended to keep, so I tried it out, penciling in at 6:00 a.m.  “Solitude and Silence,” and wouldn’t you know, I kept that appointment fairly consistently from then on!  And while I’m no longer regularly waking at 6:00 a.m. (different season requiring different schedule), the discipline wore a groove in me to rise, light a candle, and spend time in prayer and meditation as a way to center my day on the One from whom all life flows.

The Virtuous Life encourages me to develop holy habits that keep me in a lifestyle of dying to self and becoming increasingly alive in Christ.  These habits include obedience, perseverance in the race, goodness, love and know God, denial of self, sobriety, resisting and learning from temptation, devotion to God, temperance, communion with the Trinity, etc.  Richard Rolle’s “The Spiritual Flame” inspired the poem here, and I am quickened to develop these holy habits by this quote from Thomas a Kempis: “The beginning of all evil temptations is an unstable mind and a small trust in God” [5].

The Spirit-Empowered Life creates desire to connect more deeply with the Spirit of God who is alive and active in me so that, in the words of Thomas Kelly, I might conduct my “inward life so that [I am] perpetually bowed in worship while [I am] also very busy in the world of daily affairs” [6].  This discipline calls me to an inward life that is in perpetual peace being centered on the Spirit rather than on the tumult without. “For God himself works in our souls, in their deepest depths, taking increasing control as we are progressively willing to be prepared for his wonder” [7].

The Compassionate Life calls me to commit to a life of being the hands and feet of Jesus to those around me, not by imposing my thoughts and beliefs on others; rather, I do it through understanding and compassion and doing the good I can.  John Woolman puts it like this: “…where people are sincerely devoted to follow Christ and dwell under the influence of his Holy Spirit, their stability and firmness through a divine blessing is at times like dew on the tender plants around them, and the weightiness of their spirits secretly works on the minds of others [8]. Hannah Whithall Smith cautions against the constant burden of a life of compassion when it is lived out of obligation rather than love.  The solution to this is the complete giving over of self to Him in complete trust so that He can “work in you to will as to bring your whole wishes and affections into conformity with His own sweet, and lovable, and most lovely will” [9].

In The Word-Centered Life emphasis is placed on the Scriptures and the sharing of the Gospel. I love how E. Stanley Jones brings it down to three habits that Jesus demonstrated: read the Word, pray, and teach.  He also encourages me to “Enlarge the area of [my] conversion, taking in fresh territory every day” [10], challenging me to make sure I am intentional about adding to my basic faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love.  Madame Guyon takes the ordinary reading of the Bible and teaches me to slow down and take each word one-by-one and allow the truth and the meaning to sink into the very fibers of my being.

The authors of the Sacramental Life section remind me that all of life is sacred; there is no such division of secular life.  Chesterton introduces me to the joy found in monotony.  Repetition is worked into the fabric of creation by the Creator Himself who delights in the “do it again” of the sun rising and setting bringing purpose to the everyday tasks and guards against them becoming mundane. Staying mindful of the One for whom these tasks are being done keeps me in an attitude of worship instead of drudgery (thanks, Brother Lawrence!). I love how Annie Dillard describes her experience of truly seeing past the “mind’s muddy river, this ceaseless flow of trivia and trash” [11] to the beauty of the Presence:

So I blurred my eyes and gazed towards the brim of my hat and saw a new world.  I saw the pale white circles roll up, roll up, like the world’s turning, mute and perfect, and I saw the linear flashes, gleaming silver, like stars being born at random down a rolling scroll of time.  Something broke and something opened.  I filled up like a new wineskin.  I breathed an air like light;  I saw a light like water.  I was the lip of a fountain the creek filled forever; I was ether, the leaf in the zephyr; I was flesh-flake, feather, bone [12].

Oh the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God these wonderful saints of God reflect!  I am richer.  I am wiser.  I am more in love with the God of the universe having read the writings of these fellow travelers into the heart of God.  And I have only merely scratched, no brushed, the surface of all that is contained within this book.  So while the assignment is to write a summary of Devotional Classics (a task I find impossible to do), it is more like a small drop of the nectar that Richard Foster and James Smith saw fit to include within.

I am so thankful to have read and re-read and will read again.

1 Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups, revised and expanded, edited by Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith (New York: HarperCollins Publisher, 2005), 1

2 ibid, 1

3 ibid, 16

4 ibid, 82

5 ibid, 151

6 ibid, 174

7 ibid, 177

8 ibid, 231

9 ibid, 240

10 ibid, 285

11 ibid, 347

12 ibid, 346

Water

Blue Hole, so named for its deep, spring-fed waters, takes my breath away as I leap from burning rock of summer heat and plunge into its chilly depths.  Popping up above the surface, an invigorating contrast in temperatures creates a tug-of-war within my body that longs to repeat the adventure while at the same time insisting on avoiding it.

Dripping wet, I emerge from the river to do it again.

Why?

Because something happens to enliven this heart as I crawl up the rocky slope to "towering" cliff.  Something breaks when I step across the chicken line and with a "1-2-3" jump off and hold my nose.  

In the repetition of the day-to-day lived life of wake and sleep, eat and clean, wash and dry, teach and correct and repeat, the adventure my heart needs and somewhere longs for gets muffled, even numbed, as the layers of assumed responsibility pile on and the urgent takes a permanent shot-gun seat, nearly silencing the important voice that whispers to me of healing and beauty and simplicity and nurturing and dreaming and living.

Honestly, I prefer warm-to-hot water to bathe or swim in.  There is no shock to my system or need to "get used to" it or blue lips or chattering teeth or shivering limbs. But water comes in all temperatures and sometimes what I want is not necessarily what I most need.

And that is why I jump into Blue Hole every summer.  I need that invigorating wake up in my system that reminds me there is more to life out there than what has become comfortable because sometimes the comfortable is really not functioning very well and needs the uncomfortable to come and shake things up a bit to get me to what's best.

I don't swim it alone.  Families together swim and jump.  My children make the climb with me and in delighted peals and shouts and screams we splash into the Frio River.  Many others go before us.  Still more go after in a perpetual loop of jumps and screams and "do it agains."

There is the intentional connection of togetherness created in this moment that reminds me I am not in the adventure alone.  We prod and encourage each other, reminders that the plunge is indeed worth the shock and the heart-leaping-into-throat.  Community gives me perspective and helps refresh my memory on the important things in life and brings wholeness where I didn't know or remember I needed it.

And so I jump into Blue Hole again, listening to the cheers and laughter of those around me, joining in the calls and shouts to others in need of encouragement to take the plunge yet one more time.

For the Essentials in Spiritual Formation Certificate Studies with Dan Wilt