When to say no…

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Joy

I can’t help but think of margin these days. And ministry. Work. Good work. Not so good work. Being a Christ-follower and an employee. It’s sort of unavoidable. Mostly because I understand that I profoundly did not mind the balance between those things.

And perhaps because the season of life we’re in, I can’t help but think about dreams, too. What does it mean- to dream? to really, truly listen to that arterial song that echoes in your soul?

When it all crashed down, my beloved and I- we had dreams. Fresh out of college, and we dreamed. Four kids at the time. We were contemplating missions work. We were hearing a heart beat half way across the world. Dreams for life. For work. For ministry. Then, the shackles of financial slavery slapped hard against the skin, chafing. Pinning us against a wall. That’s perhaps the worst part of financial misjudgement- we trade what we think will give us instantaneous pleasure (and it doesn’t) for a future of shackled slavery to a past that didn’t satisfy.

After the dark of nearly four years, we’re finding the light again. And the links in the chains of financial bondage are falling off, one by one, faster now. There’s space to breathe again. In a few short months (hallelujah!), it’ll be over. There’s space for dreaming once again. Space for ministry. Missions. Owning a home, eventually…it’s a tangible hope.

And yet.

That precarious balance.

I’ve been studying those whom I either know personally or admire. Watching how they walk the tightrope. How they mind their dreams, the balance, their family, their responsibilities. What good work looks like. What ministry looks like. I’m realizing that it’s an art of subtraction, not one of addition. Seems counterintuitive, that. But true. When they are focused on their dreams- for themselves, for their families- it’s a constant saying no in one area so that they can say yes in the area of their dreams. Even in the financial sense- saying no to small luxuries, so that extravagant God-sized things can happen later. Whatever it is. The sacrifice of the temporary now for a God-given dream in the future-tense. Not spending a lot of extra time at social things so that she can scribble in the margins at night, fill up her shelves with words. Subtract, subtract, subtract. The mama who wipes the nose, and reads the book- again- for the dream of a child full and well grown, in wisdom and in stature. Subtract.

And it comes to me again- we must mind the balance sheet. If it’s overloaded, stuffed to the gills, we can’t move in the Spirit. We can’t! There’s no where to wiggle. Worse- there’s no quiet place to hear.

Dream with me, friends. What is calling your heart? What will it mean for the balance sheet? what will have to be subtracted? What will you have to say no to so that you can say yes?

A prayer for Grace…

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Joy

…to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever. (Psalm 136: 16)

We read the Psalm last night- a slow history, a repetition of a True Thing: the world goes crazy, death and birth, but (and perhaps, always)- His love endures forever.

Like a heartbeat, it pulses softly- His love endures forever. Older editions read mercy: his mercy endures forever. Hebrew: Checed. Strong’s translates it as “goodness, kindness, faithfullness”.

He is here. Isn’t that it, distilled? He was here. He will be here. He is here. He is -Emmanuel- God with us. Here. Now.

I’ve thought about that a lot. Traced the days quietly. I confessed my rush last week. I’ve near drowned in the rushing river of busy to get- where? exactly? The question faces me, shards of hard truth. I’m not sure of the answer. Crawling out on the bank, away from the rushing water- it’s a bit like waking in an alien world. In some ways, I wonder how I ever functioned. It’s taken me nigh on two weeks to finally get rested- to wake without a crushing, sickening exhaustion burning behind my eyes. And even at that, I find I must curl up and sleep much sooner than I think; that my energy fails me before I am ready to end the day. It makes me wonder.

I suddenly realize how much stress my children have felt; how interconnected their behavior is to the choices I make. I am humbled. I find myself throwing myself on His mercy, every morning, sometimes every moment. And I wonder, why isn’t this posture my normal posture? Why isn’t trusting and praying in His grace my standard operating procedure, my daily to-do? I have friends that breathe this truth, live this grace. It’s palpable. You can near touch this place between you and they, where you know glory rests, where peace is true- even when they are frustrated, sad, distraught, they speak in Grace. It’s a balm to be around any of them. And me? I feel like I speak and glass-shards go ricocheting. That I tear down, not build up. I ponder that here, in the quiet. I realize it’s a heart condition. You can believe in Christ, believe in Grace, and yet, that never translates down to arterial song. You have to drink deep the Truth, and it sets the rhythm: His love endures forever. Because~ ”For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” (Luke 6:45)

I’ve been offered a second chance with this; rare is the time that I can stop and reconsider, evaluate. I’ve always rushed headlong into the next thing. I am doing my best to just stay- quiet- listening. Healing. Trying not to name the things, put them in boxes, label. Just living. And listening. Listening carefully to the pulse- His love endures forever. May I never let things get so loud again that I can’t hear that. I know I will, most likely, because I am a broken sinner- but I am trying to re-order my life so that this is the first sound I hear when I wake up, and the last when my eyes close. May my arterial song be Grace…

When desperation blinds you…

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Joy

I want to say this, before I forget…before it slips into mist and memory…

It wasn’t the job. It was me. And I would never call into question or judge a mother who pursues employment. That is not what is at issue for me here, at this way station in seasons.

Beware desperation.

I’ve whispered of it here and there, but we’ve faced a mighty battle with debt- particularly student loans. It was precipitated by two years of unemployment. All in all, our nightmare has lasted just about three and a half years. It began not four weeks after losing our fifth child to miscarriage. I have known the darkness, the inky black night, the shadowy whispers of pain that blind.

But He promised us that He was mighty to save. And He has. And He will. Yet- somewhere in the middle, I kept company with Sarai and Hagar, Abram and Ishmael. I lost confidence in my Lord’s will, and I thought I could fix things. And so, as Sarai sent Hagar to Abram, I sent ‘a promising email’ to my husband, a job, a work from home position. My beloved had reservations. Many. And I, in my desperation, shoved past the red flags of wisdom crying out for attention. This is not to say that some sort of employment was ahead for me, or that He had provisions waiting for us if we had trusted His timing…but I can tell you even then, we knew this job was not the wisest course of action for our family. I ignored it.

I would spend the next year and a half trying to find a balance that could not be found. I lost perspective, lost purpose- I would care for our family from dawn until dusk, and then would work from dusk near to dawn again, each precious hour of sleep and clarity slipping into the darkness, never to be retrieved. Chronic exhaustion takes its toll; depression soon became my constant handmaiden and companion.

I cannot emphasize this enough, dear friends. I don’t care what vocation you pursue, but if you sacrifice the rest our wise and gracious God has ordained for us, something is not as it should be. If it’s a constant, instead of an occasional, occurrence, check your heart-call. I have serious doubts that the Lord would call you to a task that includes such a thing. His yoke is easy. His burden is light. In Christ’s ministry, there was always a balance between rest and action. Always. If things are ridiculously hard, if you’re making decisions that are totally contrary to your heart, maybe the Lord is creating the friction to call you back to His purpose.

I speak from my life. I should have heard Him clearly when I fell so ill last year. It’s almost laughably obvious. I fell so ill quite simply because my body could not run on fumes—and yet—I would go on to work for the company for another year. A year. And I could not understand why I could not heal, why I could not get well. But I wouldn’t stop. For another year. I have paid the price. I will probably never be as healthy as I was before I began this job, unless the Lord sees fit to restore what the locusts have eaten. I will spend the rest of my life caring for my body because I nearly destroyed it in desperation.

Oh, that I were not so stubborn! The Lord needed a two by four to smack me across the back of the head, and so, late at night on a family outing to a local Christmas light show, I missed the (rather obvious) hitch point protruding from the back of my fifteen passenger van, tripped…and shattered my wrist. My right wrist, my dominant hand. I could no longer work in any capacity- I could not type. I could barely dress myself, comb my hair. And then—I finally heard Him. I submitted my resignation within days. I will always see my deformed wrist now, and think of Jacob and the angel of the Lord and Jacob’s thigh… I will bear the mark of stubbornness the rest of my days.

I beg you, dear friends, to trust in the Lord and lean on His understanding, and acknowledge Him in all your ways. Don’t ever get to the point of desperation that you feel that you must trade your heart and body. Debt is awful, but it is never worth that. It’s never worth running ahead of God. But- if you have found yourself right-tangled, as I have, know that He is might to save, and He will not forsake you. Confess, repent, and trust. The storm will still rage, perhaps even for a long time- but He will be with you.

Here I stack these stones, mark an Ebenezer. May the Lord in His grace lead me away from this place of sorrow.

The slow rising…

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Joy

Truth can be a slow rising, making no difference at first. But as each moment weaves itself into the next, as we believe Him in the great right now, His truth becomes a strand woven into the fabric of our minutes.

~ Emily, Chatting at the Sky, Jan. 19, 2012

I’ve been dwelling in a quiet place. My last day of work ended Friday, and with it came a wicked twenty-four-hour stomach bug. I left with a whimper, barely finishing my last tasks, instead of with a bang, but what of that? It’s over now.

The days that followed meant rest; sleep. Full eight hour, ten hour full stops. No spinning mind, no waking with a mad to-do list ricochet-pow! around my brain. Just rest. As the Sabbath dawned, I attended church, fully there. No spinning madness, tilt-a-whirl round about the liturgy–you forgot to do this, you failed at that whispering through. Just the Word. The body. The bread. The cup. I felt dizzy in the hushed.

Noon and lunch followed, children down for naps, and I wandered my house. Rediscovery. I read. I clumsily knit a few rows. (What good therapy I shall have for my wrist, no?) I scribbled poetry. I sat in the quiet. I felt dizzy in the hushed.

Three more turns of clay, light and dark, have passed, and the dizziness is passing. I greet the quiet, slip her folds about me. I feel spring. I have lived winter long enough. There is no word to name this year, but more, a feeling: an abiding. A dwelling. A healing. I wandered our backyard, and discovered I had forgotten seasons. I walk, discovering feet. My body greets the subtle pain of use with gladness. I will weave the days, re-weave the threads that have fallen while I chased mad after desperation.

On Relationship…

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Joy

I’ve struggled to write here the last few years. I’ve struggled to be creative. I’ve just plain ol’ struggled. And—I’ve felt guilty for struggling. Guilty for not being able to be an encouragement, or glory-be, or…I don’t know…that Christian blogger that’s got it all together, with a creative streak, natch. But you know what? I had a conversation with myself a few years back- to tell the story. And whether I like it or not, my struggle is the story. It is where I’ve been.

I keep coming back to relationship. It the story of Him. It’s the story of us-my family. It’s the story of us- universal. It’s where we’ve been and where we’re going, and the Home we are journeying towards. This has been making the rounds on Facebook like wildfire, but it’s worth a watch if you have a second.

I keep thinking about grace…I think we talk to ourselves intellectually that we would let Jesus in should He knock at our front door—but the thing is? Would we let our own selves in? How can we extend grace to others if we’ve never learned how to truly forgive our own failings? If we’re so busy questioning someone else’s lives, choices, salvation? Do we really, really, really believe in the scandalous grace of Christ?

I watched my husband last night, leaned over an ER bed with an extremely sick little boy- our fourth son, Josiah. Everything is all right now. But it was a scary night…a night where we paced the floors…where a daddy looked over at his not-so-baby boy with all the love written plain across his face, his lips whispering quiet prayer. And all I can think about tonight—my husband. He’s just a man, just trying to do his best, a daddy. And my God calls himself Abba. Daddy. And if my husband, broken sinner that he is- loves his son like that….maybe, just maybe…my Abba Father God is looking down at me, broken and sick sinner, and praying over me too.

What defines us…

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Joy

I’m observing the passing of the year with a properly raised Spock’s eyebrow. It just hasn’t been logical. And I want to side with the Vulcans and say it all lines up nice and tidy, but I’m only an emotional human. Life has taught me differently. Life has a logic that defines the human senses. Only He knows. Upside down, contradiction, servant not master.

This is the year that I let go and let God. I don’t mean that in the trite cliche it smacks of. It’s just that you can cling to things so tightly, knuckles white, that you don’t realize that those things have fractured and shattered, and your hands are bloody and torn, and the only way to stop the pain is to let go.

Fast away the old year passes…

Time moves differently now. It used to seem lockstep, forward march, onwards, go! to me. I was always facing backwards. Mourning a past I could not fix, gazing over the blackness. Not realizing that the reason I couldn’t see was because I was gazing at a path that no longer existed. God’s time, the kronos, kairos- they seemed other-worldy. I could never grab them, wrap my mind around it. Pain tempers that desire. Time is a river. We ease into it. Sometimes we hold on a Rock in the middle of the rapids, sometimes we float on His love. But we are always in time, never apart from it. To try to hold time in place- I think that’s the call of the dark one, to be frank. Only the Lord can hold time. He is time. Weird how claims like that no longer bother me.

Hail the new, ye lads and lasses…

I won’t ever pretend I know what it’s like to come back from physical war, the death you see, the pain you endure. But I can tell you what spiritual warfare is like, and the thing is, from all I’ve seen and read, the two aren’t much different in the end. I’ve been walking away from the battlefield a while now, and still, looking across the horizon, I can feel the thing, just over that far hill. My memories are filled with the losses. It is a scar that will always be with me.

It make me regard the new with a bit more awe. That each day, we rise again, take a breath, move and have being. It is a grace and a gift we often fail to regard. I don’t want to forget that feeling anytime soon. In fact, learning eucharisteo makes walking every foot of that battlefield worth it. I am less, and He is more. It is as it should be. It’s taken my whole life to finally begin drinking that into my soul. I begin to wonder that it will always be a new discovery, each morning. That first YHWY breath of conciousness as the sun tips the sky each day.

Sing we joyous all together…

The song on my heart as I greet the new year: wild grace. Steadfast mercy. Everlasting compassion. And faith. Faith in the Mystery. In the Things Unseen. In the God I cannot see but Whose imprint is everywhere if I have eyes to see.

I was thinking about the culture that defined me this year, the things that surrounded my thoughts. I’ve long since realized that culture is a powerful thing. For good. For ill. When I think about the culture that cried out to me this year, I think the thing that strikes me the most is that they are all a cry for the Light. I’m not one to stick with overtly Christian things simply because they are labeled such- my favorite band still remains The Dave Matthews Band. (And yes, I realize I have just shown my age.) But this year, everything I loved happened to be labeled Christian. I look more for art. Beauty. Truth. I am so thankful that the Christian community is finally stepping up with some real meaty substance for a change, not watered down. I know it goes in cycles, but I’m so thankful for the change right now. I needed the strong stuff.

The books: Refractions by Makoto Fujimura. Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessie Thompson. One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.

The music: Far and away had to be Josh Garrel’s Love & War & The Sea in Between. It is still on repeat. Close second was Gungor’s second album, Ghosts Upon the Earth. Both seem to be imbibing what Micheal Card has been saying for years- excellence matters. Art matters. Faith matters. Forget the label. Play your heart, speak to Christ the longings of your heart, and the rest of us’ll get it. Don’t make the next top 40 hit. Speak Christ.

The movies: I’m about four years behind. I’m always watching stuff after the fact. The entire Harry Potter series (both books and movies) are definitely the defining point for media for me this year. Jeffery Overstreet has made powerful contentions that all stories that point back to the Story are worthy of reading. And I tell ya, this dark series was one of the serious catalysts for pointing me back to the Light. Of course, I advise discernment. (Shouldn’t we always advise our dearests to discernment in all things, labeled Christian or no? Shouldn’t it all be weighed against the Truth, the Word made Flesh?)

And here, the miracle of another year is upon us. A chance to breathe new. Whether they will be labored breaths, or shouts of joy…

Welcome 2012.

When you come full circle…

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Joy

She circles in the center of the kitchen table in the middle of the mess. For a few days, I couldn’t even find the candles that belonged- devoid of light, but we moved her anyways. I was fingering Caleb’s beautiful handwork the other day, sitting at the kitchen table. The subtle, sweet scent of the wood. All, so smooth. Tracing the curves. Sipping my steaming coffee. I remember glancing at the coffee, and startling myself with laughter because I was drinking hot coffee. Fresh coffee. Not overwarmed, sat around to long, popped in the microwave, still lukewarm coffee.

Wise ones told me it would be like this. When I’d come out the other side, when the lights came back on, I’d sit stunned. Alive, but different. And perhaps, the strangest feeling: I am more whole now than I was then. How can that be? When so much was taken from me? When the scars and wounds, still fresh, burn? That is the truth of Christ and His Upside down Kingdom…I am less. I barely came through the battle. But in His glory, I am here. Whole. A mystery I won’t pretend to understand, because I can’t fathom it.

And then there is Mary.

I finger the donkey’s tail. Slide my finger over her head, round her belly. She seems as unattainable as the Proverbs 31 woman, so vaunted, so glorified. So trusting. She said yes.

But I wonder, how easy was that yes? I wonder if we’ve so glossed it over that we’ve forgotten what a tremendous struggle that yes must have been. From that point on, her journey would be one of loss. Losing it all, so that we could gain. She’d lose her Son to the darkest deep, so that the whole world would live. The upside down kingdom again.

I remember when it started. I remember in the dark- thinking- this is it, this is all of it, there’s nothing left. The enemy waits. And yet, there was more deep and dark to wade through. More to lose, more to let go. And somehow, the dark did not overcome. It was hard eucharisteo, praise torn from my lips with a cry of pain. I think of my dear friend, facing loss, knowing the fracture, the claws deep of the Enemy into my heart, the Dementors’ faceless, churlish torment. There are no hallmark moments. There are no easy answers. The only way through is Christ, and it is a journey of loss.

I settle Mary back into the circle, straighten out the table cloth. Walk my empty coffee cup to the sink. I understand it now. I will and have lost it all, but I have gained Christ. And through Him, the whole world. Upside down. May it be to me as you have said…

It’s just here…

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Joy

I’m listening to Black Nag, played by Vaughn Williams. The lights are low. The fire is burning for the first time this year in the next room. Come sit with me a while? Sip the peppermint tea?

During evening prayers, I was staring hard into the Advent wreath, watching the flame flicker across and back, playing off the potpourri below. Two candles in the dark.

I can tell you much about darkness. I’ve lived in shadowy places too long to not forget. But it’s the Light that I am seeing anew. Advent, despite a tumultuous childhood and a half dozen military moves, always stayed the same. I’ve come to realize why Christmas and the Advent season mean so much to me in adulthood- it was one of few real, true constants. The world could upend itself all year long, and even if my family was fractured and my father on the other side of the world- there was still Advent. Still the slow lighting of the candles. The scriptures. The prayers. The quiet songs. The Story, told again. For a family that traded friendships and fellowship almost yearly, it’s nothing short of amazing, really, that we somehow always took the time out to celebrate each night we could. A testimony to my mother.

And here is the True Thing. Life’s still fractured. The world is still upended. But there was a baby, and a mama, and a daddy, and a God that loved us so much, He couldn’t let us go into the dark and the deep. And so, in the darkest of the year, when the moon and shadows dance, and the cold speaks death, and what good could come of this? There is an Answer that whispers back- Life. Life abundant. A baby cries as the fractured world turns, and we can barely hear that our redemption draws nigh. But we light the candles, and we quiet ourselves, and in the hush, we hear. We speak it aloud, deep into our hearts, from cochlear to arterial- Truth.

Hear King David speak?

I love the LORD, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.
² Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.

³ The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave came over me;
I was overcome by distress and sorrow.
⁴ Then I called on the name of the LORD:
“LORD, save me!”

⁵ The LORD is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.
⁶ The LORD protects the unwary;
when I was brought low, he saved me.

⁷ Return to your rest, my soul,
for the LORD has been good to you.

⁸ For you, LORD, have delivered me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,
⁹ that I may walk before the LORD
in the land of the living.

{psalm 116}

David’s heart, skin, ripped off, across the page. He understood what it was to live in darkness. But he walked in the Light.

So I heed. The prophet Isaiah whispers back:

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
² See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.
³ Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

⁴ “Lift up your eyes and look about you:
All assemble and come to you;
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters are carried on the hip.

{Isaiah 60}

The world spins, fractured. But I know, as I gaze long into the flickering candlelight and into your eyes, dear friend- Love has come. And in His love and time, the fractured will turn mosaic beautiful to behold, because the Artist was at work.

It’s here. The Story is being told. Lean in and listen, and hear the wondrous works of the Lord.

One thing remains…

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Joy

If there is anything the last few years have taught me, only One remains. When it all falls down, only Christ. When the storm rages, only the Rock. All else will come and go, but the Word does not fail.

As my father-in-law struggles with grave illness, knowing that he is not long for this world, this arrangement from Josh Garrels has been much on my mind. Death has no sting. In Communion, we remember this; that He has conquered death, and that Peace is with us.

The in-between…

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Joy

In the what we are, and the what we will be, there is a space between…

The other night I was right tangled, caught upon problems beyond my control. My beloved brought the tea, and Lorelei-girl the knitting, and so, I sat and knit as the dinner time, bed time, twister turn of spilled drink dropped crumbs rocketed its way to splash a bath and tuck a bed marathon, finish well, one more book, I want a drink…and finally, (relative) quiet.

It was decidedly out of character for me to do such a thing, to sit still while the family spun by in its characteristic swirl of many kids in small space, loud and happy and well, perhaps, pushing Daddy’s buttons a bit far…I am usually here and there about the end of day routine, or (far worse) stuck working, head in a spreadsheet, trying to concentrate. (And ever bothered by the fact that they were living and I was working and I’ve never liked that feeling…of missing out…even if it was just the ragged frustration of a bedtime hour gone all froggy.)

I sat there, click, knit, click, Elliana babbling beside me, grabbing at the yarn, ever so tantalizing out of reach, listening and smiling and having many an imaginary conversation with her- “did he really say that? can you imagine? do you like the green?” Click, knit, click. Every so often, a long pause in the flow of words and clicking as I sipped long on the tea, and usually a sudden yelp, as Elliana would have just gotten close enough to grab hold the yarn while I was distracted….on our little dance went until daddy came to take her to bed.

And by the time my Beloved himself appeared, a bit bedraggled around the edges, one corner of the shirt untucked, something sticking in his hair (for whomever is putting the kids to bed, we almost always look a bit…undone…afterwards), I was more myself. The problem was still right tangled, but I no longer was. I laughed at myself a bit, that my family knew me better than I knew myself- or perhaps it was that I was not allowing myself the space, and they knew to force it upon me. And I smiled to know that I was finally learning to let go.

I find myself in a transitional space of time, and all that has gone before, all my immaturity, mocking me, challenging me to not get better, to not grow, to not change, to settle for nothing and want for everything, to revert to the ways that bring no joy and no peace…and it is an in between time…a choice to make…a path to follow…and maybe, for right now- I just need to knit. And pray. And sip long on peace.

Memoria.Arts

Category Archives: Listening