Category: faith & serving

Snapshot {dignity.}  0

For a week in mid-September (2014) I was in Haiti.  I’ve been digesting my experience bit by bit here on my blog.  You can find the whole series of Snapshots here.

 

There’s a story in Luke 13 of a woman who had been bent over double for eighteen years.  Eighteen.  It says she couldn’t even straighten up at all.  Jesus sets her free, healing her on the Sabbath, which puts the people all up in arms.  As they’re arguing and telling Him what He did was wrong, the woman, now standing straight, is praising God.
 I’ve tried to imagine myself in her place many times.  Only being able to look at the ground.  Seeing other people’s feet instead of meeting their eyes.  Unable to help with even menial tasks.  A burden to society, with no end in sight. Washed up.  Unwanted.
Often in a country as poor as Haiti, the older people are uncared for.  Their families simply cannot support them…. or won’t support them. They are bent over double, so to speak.  They have nothing left to offer their families.  They’ve lived incredibly hard lives, harder than we can ever imagine.  They’ve gone hungry more times than they can remember.  They’ve held their babies as hurricane waters sweep through their homes, standing to keep little bodies above the water.  They’ve sent their children to gather water while they sweep their front stoop over and over, taking pride in their home and their country. They’ve worked when they can, doing whatever it takes to keep their families alive and their children educated.

There aren’t many older people in Haiti.  In a country with so many diseases and so much hardship, life expectancy simply isn’t that high.  So when we were able to visit the Grand Moun house, I knew I was seeing something I’d never forget.  These precious people were being cared for and they did not take it for granted.  They spend their days in rocking chairs, looking out at the mountains, singing and building a community. Their beds are thin mattresses on cement blocks, their possessions in small sacks piled at the foot of the bed.
And yet, at an age where most are turned away, they have been given dignity.  Jesus has lifted them up and they are no longer bent over double.
(The Gran Moun House is part of the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission)

 

Snapshot {enough.}  1

For a week in mid-September (2014) I was in Haiti.  I’ve been digesting my experience bit by bit here on my blog.  You can find the whole series of Snapshots here.

 

One month ago, I boarded a plane and found myself in Haiti for eight days.  And still, all these days later, I am having a hard time finding just the right words to explain what I saw, what I felt in my heart, how it twisted me up down deep.  If you were to ask me to return, I’d go get my suitcase in a heartbeat.  It was an amazing trip.

I feel like I’m holding something new in my heart, like I have all this new information that is so precious and life giving and mind blowing… and it’s completely overwhelming to me that Jesus trusts me with it.

I finally realized that one of the reasons I haven’t been writing is because I don’t have any neatly packaged stories.  I have no cute anecdotes or sweet endings.  There is so much heartbreak in the world and it’s haunting to me.  More than ever, though, I see how God is so tender to the underdog, to those who are overlooked by the world.

So here you go.  The first snapshot of Port de Paix.

*************

Each morning we would walk.  We would give a little wave and say “Bonjou” to as many people as we could.  “Watch them bloom,” our missionary friend, Larry said. “So many of them are so discouraged and they can’t imagine why someone like you would want to come to visit their country.  Smile at them and watch them transform from discouraged to joyful.”  And so we did just that.  It was fun to watch the demeanor of their whole being change.  We would walk through town, up the mountain a bit and then rest.  As we made our way back, we would stop for a banana. These simple walks taught me so much.

One day, a man came up to me and started speaking.  He had his wife and small baby with him.  His eyes were desperate and as he went on, I kept trying to tell him I couldn’t understand him.  Finally, I got him to talk to Larry.

Their baby was sick.  We don’t know for sure what he said, but it seemed to be something wrong with her heart and they needed help.  I watched Larry listen and then give them money.  Before they left,  Neile prayed for them. She prayed that the money Larry gave would be enough.

We didn’t see them again. Each day I kept my eyes open for that sweet baby and her parents, but they never reappeared.

Almost daily I think of them.  And I wonder, was it enough?  Was she taken care of or was it too late?  Are they grieving a baby in the grave right now or are they rejoicing that their walk that day resulted in a divine appointment to get the treatment they needed?

What exactly is enough anyway?

How would I live my life differently if I was forced to walk the streets, praying for a miracle to help my child?  And how do I reconcile the massive difference between the “American enough” and the “Third World enough”?

A Little Adventure.  1

“We cannot think our way into a new kind of living.  
We must live our way into a new kind of thinking.”– Richard Rohr
Exactly two years ago, Peter and I were in Ecuador with Compassion International, spending time with Jefferson, the boy we had sponsored for many years.  I wrote about our trip a handful of times.  It continues to shape me still.  It had been a lot of years since I had let the reality of poverty seep into my thoughts.  I realized that I can do all the reading and watching and talking that I’d like, but nothing compares to being in the thick of it.  When poverty has a name and a face, it wrecks you.  At least that’s what it did to me.
When I think about my life here, it’s pretty comfortable.  And honestly, that’s not what I want. At least it’s what I fight against wanting.  In the mornings, when I think about the one life that God has given to me– this finite number of days that I have here on this earth– I just don’t want to waste it.  I am determined to make the most of my minutes.  And then I get out of bed.  My feet hit the floor and my eyes open to the piles … and before I know it, I’m overwhelmed by laundry and requests for more snacks and obscene amounts of grass on the kitchen floor.  Before I know it, I seem to only have time for the tasks that concern me and my little family.
I know, I know that those things are important.  The dailyness of a Mom’s life is invaluable.  But I worry when those tasks become more valuable to me than my relationship with Christ, my concern for the poor, the orphans, my community.  And that, my friends, is definitely not what I desire to be modeling to my kids.
I’ve noticed lately that when I’d sing, “Break my heart for what breaks Yours…” It wasn’t hitting me deep down.  I’d become hardened.
And so, when my friend Neile wrote to me about joining her in Haiti, I hesitated for a bit, but I knew it was an opportunity I couldn’t let slip through my fingers.
On September 12, I’ll leave Peter and the kids (along with my awesome in-laws who will come to help in my absence) and I’ll pretend to be brave.  I’ll travel to Port-de-Paix, Haiti and spend the week with Waves of Mercy.  We’ll spend time with children who have been orphaned, have a birthday party for young Mamas and their babies, and love these people who have so little and are still so devastated by the earthquake four years ago. Something tells me it will split my heart right open, and honestly, I’m more than a bit terrified.
But I long for a new kind of thinking.  I believe that the Holy Spirit is working among His people in a huge way and I want to experience it for myself.  I’ll never get there if I only think about it.  So for me, right now, that means spending a week with those who have been through so much tragedy and are still able to live with hope.  I cannot wait to see what they will teach me.  And I pray that in some small way, I will be an encouragement to them.
Will you pray for me?
P.S. I feel so blessed to be at this point in my life that I can leave my kids in capable hands, knowing that they’ll be well taken care of.  For many of you, putting a stamp in your passport is just not an option right now.  But it doesn’t always take a plane ride or extra money to live a new kind of life and have a new way of thinking.  I really like the way Kristen Welch thinks and writes and her post on “100 Ways for Your Family to Make a Difference” is dynamite.  I am always trying to find new ways that we can teach our kids to look for the needs of others before themselves, to live against the culture that so smoothly convinces them that they deserve it all.  Some days are easier than others, but I keep telling myself that one day they will get this. In this world of entitlement, it is such a huge battle.  If you’re in the thick of it, keep fighting.  It is worth it.  Don’t believe the lie that you have an excuse not to serve beyond yourself.

Planting Seeds  2

I often struggle to be a parent to Annie.  I know that may seem like a strange statement, since she is my baby in Jesus’ arms.  Nevertheless, I find myself yearning to do things for her.  There are so many things that I can’t do for her– cut up her food at dinner time, buckle her in her seatbelt, teach her the alphabet, snuggle her in bed and take her to the dentist.
When Annie’s birthday rolls along in March,  my sadness comes swift and catches in my throat. So each year, we pray as a family about how we can help others with the money we would spend on a party and gifts and cake. Because you see, fighting the urge to pull the covers over our heads and instead using what little we have to bless and serve others is like a healing salve to our souls.  It’s upside down, it makes no sense … but it works.
This year, we found Mercy House, a Maternity Home in Kenya for young pregnant girls living on the streets.  They help them by providing education, nutrition, housing, prenatal care, Bible study, counseling and job skills for sustainable living.
We were able to buy a package of bracelets from their website and sat down one afternoon together.  We made a list of people we are praying for right now, people who have carried us through our grief over the last years, then painstakingly whittled it down to 25 people (It is so humbling and amazing to make a list like this.  We are so blessed).
And then we made bracelets.
This?  This is what we do.  This is how I can be a Mama to Annie– by taking her too-short life and breathing new life into those who have been given so little.  It brings me to tears and it brings me to my knees.  Who am I to have this privilege of bringing beauty out of ashes?
Immediately after we made bracelets, I got out some seed packets that I’d been waiting to plant with the kids.  And as I watched Eliza’s sweaty little hands trying to get the seeds to fall from her palm into the dirt, I heard Jesus gently whisper to me words I so desperately needed to hear… words of hope and affirmation.
In our broken, jumbled grief, He allows us to be used.  And I am reminded how God is a redeemer, graciously bringing beauty into our brokenness.
When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs, where pools of blessing collect after the rains!– Psalm 84:6

On the Mystery of Prayer.  1

I’m sitting at my kitchen table, listening to the banging of sledge hammers destroying our bathroom.  There’s a whole lot of cement in a 60 year old bathroom.  It’s pretty incredible, really.

I’m thinking about prayer today and how hard it is for me to feel confident when I pray– to get past the guilt that I don’t do it enough, to actually believe the words that come out of my mouth, to not put up the false image that I have it all together.

I kind of want to take a sledge hammer to my own brain sometimes.

I sit with a group of 12 other ladies on Wednesday nights and we talk.  This time we’re studying Margaret Feinburg’s Wonderstruck.  It’s been good.  Last night it was my turn to teach and I was glad/terrified when I realized I’d be leading on prayer.  Glad because I knew that the truths would go a little deeper since I had to know the material in order to teach.  Terrified because I have a hard time grasping prayer.  It’s just such a  . . . mystery to me.  I don’t know how else to describe it.

Margaret asked for three reasons we get tempted to give up praying.  Without hesitating, I wrote (1)  No answer (2) No change and (3) Gets worse.  But in her next paragraph, she wrote,

“Persistence in prayer isn’t only about making the same request to God repeatedly, but about continuing to grow in our prayer lives– even when God doesn’t answer in the way we expect.  As we pray, we can walk in the confidence that God will give us mercy, grace, and strength we need to endure whatever we must face.
I find comfort that Jesus knew we’d sometimes be tempted to give up on praying.  He knew we’d look at our world and the countless injustices, the overwhelming brokenness, the hardness of human hearts, and consider throwing up our hands and walking away.  Yet Jesus challenges us to pray and keep on praying.  Prayer isn’t merely an expression of faith, but through prayer, faith expands in our hearts and lives.” (Wonderstruck, p. 104)

 

For the last few weeks, we’ve let the kids watch a few minutes of the morning news to catch up on the Olympic highlights.  Of course, we saw other news headlines, too, namely the unrest in Kiev, Ukraine.  William was especially taken by it and prayed for it out loud.  The next morning, when we again turned on the TV, the news was that Peace Pact had been signed and things at that moment were better than they had been the day before.  “God heard your prayer,” I told him. “Your prayers matter, even if they’re for something big like that way across the world.”  His eyes got big as he pondered it  …. while I was wondering if I truly believed the words that came out of my mouth.  There are so many people, so many layers of anger and unrest, so much still going on.  He’s just a kid who prayed a one-liner.

God is gently teaching me more and more about Him and when I think I have it figured out, He reminds me that I haven’t even scratched the surface.  My friend posted this on our facebook group:

I so appreciate our study last night. I am a person who has few words and have always felt if I could pray longer with the right words then they would be heard… I have found it easier to pray today with my few words.

And slowly, I feel the walls of my heart crumbling.  God gently destroys my inadequate feelings and the pressure I place on myself to Pray Better! Pray Longer! Believe More!  Instead, I want prayers that are marked with increasing faith, humility, in agreement with the will of God . . . and, most of all, full of thanksgiving for Jesus, who promises He’ll hear me when I pray.

 

 

Our Favorite Christmas Tradition {the jesse tree}  0

One of our favorite traditions in our house is our Jesse Tree, which we started the Christmas after Annie died.  We filled one journal and we’ve started another.  The kids love to look back to see what they wrote in years past.

My favorite journal entry is the day that Kate asked Jesus into her heart.  Every year when we get to that day, tears come to my eyes.  Our original intent of the Jesse Tree was to use Annie’s life to point others toward Christ.  We began it as a way to fill her stocking during Christmas– an empty stocking is so horrible. So when Kate responded to one of our devotions by saying she wanted to pray, it was like God was whispering to our broken hearts, “See, I can bring good out of your sorrow.  Watch it unfold before your eyes!”

Every year, I have friends tell me they’d like to start a Jesse Tree of their own.  So here is some info to get you started:

Here’s the original post I wrote about it (with some links of the devotionals we use)

Here’s a post that I read this week and the way her family does the Jesse Tree.  She has a lot of great details and explains it much better than I do.

My advice?  Give yourself grace.  Each year, we get busy and there are many nights that time slips away from us.  Usually it’s Easter before we get done.  And that’s ok.  I want this to be a special time with our kids, not a hurry-up-we-have-to-finish-before-December-25.  So we take our time and we refuse to feel guilty about having a Christmas tree up in February.

Also, for now, we read our stories out of the Jesus Storybook Bible or one of the kids’ Bibles so it makes it easy for them to understand.  They are much more engaged that way.  And while we read, we let them draw a picture in their journals.  They each have their own journals, after two years of fighting over who got to draw first (!) and it works out great.

For us, this has been a great way to celebrate the coming of Jesus.  It’s amazing to see the progression of the Bible and the expectation of a Savior  . . . and to teach that to our kids.

I’d love to hear if you start a Jesse Tree of your own, if you have other resources you use, or if you have any other great traditions that your family does to celebrate the birth of Christ!

Set Right  4

The muffled sobs coming from the other room break my heart.

And yet I know that they must occur in order to heal.

As I listen, I suddenly realize that this is what my parents meant when they said, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.”

I saw it coming: the words, the disobedience, the defiance.  I prayed in my heart that it wouldn’t escalate, but my gut knew the path we were on.

I wish I knew how to handle the emotion.  I wish this were a “how-to” post, so I could proclaim to the world that I have this discipline thing nailed.

P.S.  I don’t have it nailed.  Not even close.

I have learned that shouting matches rarely accomplish anything, even though they make me feel better.   So, when my patience is strong, I sit and I wait with her.  I stay silent, I do not make eye contact.  Those things will come.

And in the calm after the storm, there is sometimes a glimpse of a rainbow.  Emphasis on sometimes.

About a year ago, after the battle had raged, I asked Kate about her feelings and what happens when she feels the anger boil up in her.  It’s something I am striving to understand– I was not strong willed like she is; I also didn’t have a sister die.  This combo proves toxic.  I want to know how to help her, how to steer her in the right path, how to protect that strong will and bend it in the right direction.

Kate looked at me with her big, brown eyes, and very stoically told me, “Mom, when I feel angry, I ask Jesus out of my heart.  When I’m feeling better, I just ask Him back in.”

Come again?

I didn’t know what to do with that statement.  Honestly, the thought had never occurred to me.  I sat there, totally speechless, part of me wanting to laugh at the creativity of my daughter, another part of me genuinely concerned about her developing theology.
I’ve heard sanctification described as a dimmer switch.  When we ask Jesus into our hearts, He begins to show us areas in our lives that need a little work (or a lot of work!).  And slowly, as we process more and more, He turns up the light a little more and a little more.
All of a sudden, we see something over in the corner that we hadn’t realized was there.  We notice an issue we thought we had pushed so far back in our mind that it wouldn’t reappear again.  We take a deep breath and face it head on.  And all the while, God is there with us.  He doesn’t expect us to clean up the mess while He watches us with the eagle eye in the far corner. He promises to be right there, helping us, guiding us, loving us. 
This renewing our minds?  It doesn’t happen in an instant.  Transformation in our actions, interests, and attitudes is a process and it’s often painful.  As I get older, I realize that the transformation is deeper, as I begin to explore my motives and I ask questions of why I do what I do.  My sins become less about what I’ve done (lying, cheating) and more about the attitude of my heart (selfishness, envy, gossip).  Not only does sin become more painful to confess, it’s also easier to keep secret.
Kate’s statement on that day was probably a very age-appropriate response to her understanding of God.  In her mind, she knew she was doing something wrong and she didn’t want to disappoint God in her actions.  So she took Him out of the equation.
Kate’s conversation that day has replayed many times and is helping me to pinpoint times in my life that I ask God to politely step aside and let my own humanness take over.  I see how I let myself take over, assuming that when the moment passes, I’ll ask Him back in, expecting Him to forgive me in the process.  And how this must grieve Him!
I’ve been reading Romans 4 several times a week for the past few weeks.  It’s changing me and changing the way I think and act.  
“What we read in Scripture is, ‘Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point.  He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.'” 
Romans 4:3, The Message
I so desperately want to get it right on my own– to prove to God that I’m good enough for Him to love.  I want Him to see the shining moments in my life where I do the right thing, and I don’t want Him to be invited when things aren’t so great.  But I’ll never get anywhere with that kind of theology.  
I want to live in a way that believes God is setting me right– not because of any good thing I’ve done, but because of His sacrifice for me.  I want to dare to trust God to use me to do something huge, not because of some talent or random opportunity, but because God has called me to be somebody when I was a nobody.  
“That’s why it is said, ‘Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.’  But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless.  The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.”  
Romans 4:22-25, The Message
What I want to tell Kate– what I want to tell you and me– is that we don’t have to hide our ugly tantrums from Him.  We don’t have to worry that He’ll be embarrassed of our behavior or anger.  And even if we ask Him to leave, He won’t.  He wants us all, He loves us just that much.  And if we could just see what trusting Him could do, our lives would be changed.  Only He can take the horrible mess we’ve made of our lives and set us right.
Believe who God says you are.  Trust Him to do what only God can do.
(Kate’s story has been shared with her permission. Oh my, I do love her heart.) 🙂

Widening the Circle  0

I sit on the lawn, waiting for the Kate and Will to get off the bus, squinting in the sunshine.  The girl waiting with me, she’s working things out.  I hear in her words how she just wants to do the right thing.  It’s easier said than done.   I’m glad she’s talking, but I sure don’t have the answers.  So I listen.

There always seems to be an incoming text on my phone.  Some days it’s during the school day, sometimes it’s in the middle of the night (but hardly ever in the early morning).  I keep my volume up just so I don’t miss it.  I want to be available.

There are a few teenage girls who make their way to my house a few times a week.  I prayed for them for a long time and then they just started coming.

I love it.  Love it.

I pick them up from school an hour before my kids come home and we just get to hang out.  Sometimes we talk about deep things– hurts and hopes and pressures they face.  Most of the time we just talk.  It’s good for me and I hope it’s good for them.

I realize it’s way more fun and way less pressure to be their friend instead of their parent.  Because don’t we all remember how one day we decided that there were other people we listened to and tried to emulate? I had a great relationship with my parents during my teen years, but that didn’t mean that I wanted to be with them all of the time.  It was a few years later that I realized oh yeah, my parents may actually know what they’re talking about.  

As I pray for these girls, I pray for my own kids.  That one day, when my voice fades into the distance, they will seek out counsel from others who are godly and wise.  Someone who will invest in them and be willing to ask the hard questions.  Someone who my kids will trust to ask the questions that they’re wrestling over.  I want to be sure that those people share my beliefs and love for Christ and are trustworthy.  Not to replace who I am– I will always be The Mom– but to come alongside me and be a trusted voice during the most tumultuous years.

It pains me a little to write that.  I like to be on the side of the equation where other girls think I’m the cool one.  I’d rather not be the Mom watching my kids seek out others.  But I also know that it’s important for them to not just be a cookie cutter of me– they need to widen their circle to explore who they are going to be.   And truthfully, Peter and I can’t parent alone.  We need others in our kids’ lives.  It happens now, and it will happen more as they grow older.

If you could choose five people in your circle to be an influence your kids, who would it be?

 It’s a question I’m praying over for my own kids, as I pray over these girls who make their way to my table each week.

P.S.  When I need parenting advice, one of my favorite blogs is Orangeparents.org

How Grace just Keeps Giving  2

I am MARCHING through March (see why here).

Even though we usually march looking forward, I’m inclined to look back a lot.  I think it’s essential to see how things fit together, how the pieces slowly fall and I can nod my head a bit, understanding a little more than I did yesterday.

I’ve been struggling to name the good bits of Annie’s death.  You know, the things that have happened as a result of our gut wrenching pain.  I don’t always know how to categorize those things very well.  When I hear of someone who is changed as a result of Annie, I find myself caught in a mental list of pros and cons.  I wonder, will the pros ever outweigh the one con: Our empty arms? And then my Pollyanna tendencies take over and I pep talk my way into counting blessings, because it really is quite amazing to watch God work in the midst of our sorrow.  Back and forth I go, around and around in my head.

Which is why I loved stumbling on this article this week: The Sightless, Wordless, Helpless Theologian by Marshall Shelley.

It’s not that he stopped the ping ponging in my head, but God used him to bring the ping ponging under control.

When Peter and I were in Ecuador with Compassion International, one of the first places they took us was to a church with the Child Survival Program, filled with Mamas (very young mamas!) and their babies.  As we pulled up and started to unload, I was filled with emotion.  Our guides told us that it was important for us to love these people– to hug them and hold their babies and show them that we valued them.  And I responded with quick tears in my eyes.  I didn’t understand my reaction, it was surprising to me, but nonetheless, I walked through the line of these Moms and I hugged them and kissed the babies and I couldn’t help it . . . I saw Annie in each little face.  By the end of the line I was sobbing.  I could not hold it together.  I had a firm conviction that God was putting some pieces of the puzzle together, but it was a mystery.

I have to tell you that God has been working on my heart and I have been doing a lot of pondering on the word Grace.  What is it?  What does it mean?  What is the scope of it?

John Wesley did a lot of writing on grace and he had a term he called “prevenient grace”, or “the grace that goes before”.  Specifically, he was talking about the way that God is leading a person as they draw closer to a relationship with Him.  The work that Christ does before the salvation experience, if you will.

But I’ve been thinking about that phrase, “the grace that goes before” and I shake my head when I think of all the ways Christ works in my life when I had no idea.  I see such a small slice of my own life, and sometimes I forget that He works in the bigger story.

How else do you explain my reaction of tears on that day four months ago when I walked through that line of young mothers and babies?  I was overcome with grief.  All day I was a mess.  And I couldn’t really explain it.

That is, until a few weeks ago when Peter got this email from the leader on our trip.  We had asked him to do a bit of detective work for us.  When Annie died, we set up a memorial fund through Compassion, but we didn’t know specifically where the money had gone.  It wasn’t until the trip that we realized we could probably find out.

Sorry to fill up your inbox.. but I was able to track down the information you requested. Your First Giving webpage is actually still live. To date Annie has raised $4320.00 for the Child Survival Program. Her legacy lives on in the lives of moms and their babies and one day we will all rejoice to see all the lives that her life touched.
You, Sarah and family are loved and admired!
Sean

Just reading that again causes tears to stream down my face.  Because I flash back to those Moms and I see the hope in their faces, a hope because of Jesus.  I see them having a purpose in their life and joy.  I see those children and I feel their sticky little skin.  And I know that there are moms and babies who are  alive today because of gifts others gave in honor of my girl.  I cannot believe that we get to be part of their story.

I have no doubt that on that day my tears were a gift.  Grace that went before my knowledge of the whole picture.  How is it that I have been so blessed to see so much of this?

We like to package up life in neat little boxes, tied with bows.  We love a good, happy ending.  Yet we all know life isn’t like that at all.  So I’ve hesitated to share this story, fearing that it could become the quintessential story we all long for . . . because the truth is that I will always long for my baby and wish that I had her in my arms.  And yet it doesn’t negate the redemption to this story.

Marshall Shelley says in his article,

“We had no easy answers [regarding the death of my daughter], but for all these questions, the only answers that came close to making any sense at all were spiritual: God’s unexplainable but eternal purposes, a new understanding of what’s truly significant, the hope of the resurrection, and the strength that comes from God’s people.We began to see the power of the powerless.“

The power of the powerless?  Annie.  As a six month old, she was all that the world sees as powerless. And yet, I have a front row seat to see the ways that Christ can use her.  My own Wordless, Helpless Theologian.  That, my friends, is the grace of the bigger story that God has allowed me to live.  
And because of that I MARCH. 

All is Grace  1

I’m thick into Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts, this time in the form of her Bible study.  This morning as I read Chapter 7, I found myself really thinking.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about being hemmed in by grace.  Certainly those things that are so amazing, so wonderful– that’s grace.  But is that it?  Is grace God’s favor, only when things are good and I am happy and the kids are hugging and dinner is ready on time?

Today rain falls.  Yesterday it was snow, then ice, followed by rain.  There are puddles everywhere, people grabbing their shop vacs, trying to race the water that’s pouring into their basements.  The back roads are a mess and it’s dreary.

And I see it.  This, too, is grace. The dirty, messy, confusing parts of life are also grace.  My brave husband stood in front of a church full of people on Sunday and told them, “Your personal circumstances are not a reflection of God feels about you.”  Do you think he’s learned that from books? No, he’s learned it by living it.

Grace like rain falls down on us.  It redeems the stains of life, but it doesn’t negate them.  And it certainly doesn’t mean there won’t be more.  But grace teaches us to take each moment, to thank God for it, and to believe that in spite of it all, He loves us more than we comprehend.

“You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are.  You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies– though that never occurs to you.  Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet [God’s] beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is.” ( One Thousand Gifts, p. 125, originally quoted by Jean-Pierre de Caussade)