When the Darkness Tries to Overwhelm

We did something crazy this week and launched a website.

Right in the middle of the frenzy of December we did it.

It was scary and dangerous and risky to pour ourselves for months into a little dream and not know what would come. But when we opened wide the doors on Monday there was dancing and there were squeals as person after person responded with such kindness and encouragement.

I am not being metaphorical about the squeals. Or the dancing.

And we chitter chattered and bubbled both at home and online and it was so bright and shiny everywhere.

Then yesterday morning all fell heavy.

The darkness fell as I read about tiny people, beloved by family and God, ripped from this world.

I couldn't do anything but fall silent and fall on my knees. To feel the fingers of ice, the specter of hopelessness.

I stilled my online words. I grabbed the faces here with all their messy hair, and kissed cheeks. I looked into bright eyes and found my own eyes bright with tears.

Then in the afternoon we went to the zoo. The zoo, of all places.

It was a birthday party that took us there, in the gray December fog, with drizzle threatening. A tiny zoo in the middle of the Texas nowhere, filled with rescued and endangered animals. Our host, the birthday boy, had wanted to see the lions.

We were expected, our small party of homeschoolers, and had the zoo to ourselves. The owner had held off feeding the big cats so we could watch.

The time came, and the lion was ready. Past ready. Meal time is usually in the morning.

The low growl of a lion waiting for food send chills up your arms. You want to step far back from the double fence, to grab your babies and cower.

The zoo owner stepped between the fences with a bucket of raw chicken and made the lion show off by raising the chicken above his head so it had to stand on two back paws. While the lion feverishly crunched through bones, the zookeeper educated us.

He told us how male lions have the hardest life of all animals. How fights are to the death. How they eat people.

The lion was slinking again, low growl saying "more, more."  The keeper raised another chicken leg to the fence and it was snatched in a flash.

The zookeeper continued, telling grisly tales that did not seem birthday party fare. Then more growling, more chicken.

And as I listened to the mingle of growls and crunching and horror stories, I heard quiet but strong in my heart:

Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  - 1 Peter 5:8

Like a roaring lion.

We can not be blamed for looking at lions and feeling fear. Nor can we mamas avoid the sharp knife of terror for our own babies that is mingled with the devastating grief we feel to our core for the mamas who have lost little ones.

We have an enemy.

To dismiss this is to live a delusion.

It is right to recognize danger.

But we who belong to God must also know this truth: Perfect love casts out fear.

As a tornado of death and lions and bright beginnings and Christmas swirls through my mind, simple words take over.

Love

Light

I remember what Jesus said...

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. - John 16:33

And wouldn't the lion that prowls and brings trouble want us to cower, to hide? Wouldn't he want to chase us into dark corners, to hold close what is dear, to squeeze eyes and not look?

God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. - 1 John 1:5 

That which is evil must have light shone upon it. We must shine that light.

You are the light of the world... Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. - Matthew 5:14, 16

The slinking lion darkness and evil is all about, yet we can choose to look to the light. To not cower, to not squeeze eyes. To set our faces firm toward God and be lights in this world.

We are only lights because of Him. All we do is reflect. But we must choose to be open to reflecting. To be alert, to stand firm, to shine back His glory.

Little eyes are watching how we choose. If we speak despairing words little ears hear. If we make fearful choices little hearts wonder.

I am determined to choose love.

I have this one living hope...

Shine, mamas, shine His light in you. Be alert. Stand firm. And shine.

  
candle photo copyright

Family Culture - It is Better to Light a Candle Than to Curse the Darkness

I'm sitting in a cafe. The table is piled with my children's school books.  I had been working on school lessons, but my heart's steady beat of write-write-write won't be ignored.

I plop my little ipad, its attached keyboard making it look like a miniature laptop, on top of my son's open planner.

The song of the cafe is loud. I sit and stare at the screen, ready to burst. Nothing comes.

My ears are so full they ache.

Still the cafe-song pulses. Medical terms sing out from the nurses-in-training studying at a nearby, book laden table. The blender whirs its tune of frozen caffeine and sugar.  The speakers blare pop music, jarring, much of the tunes and lyrics meaningless. Some of it despairing.

With a deep breath I plug in my headphones.

Higher and higher I press the volume button, until I am alone in a song of hope. I close my eyes as peace washes over me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's not just the cafe. Distractions swirl around me all the time. Everywhere I go they are fighting for my attention.

How desperately I want the laser-like focus that is required to walk the narrow path in our loud culture. 

I think about how like a magpie I am all day, every day.  So many things on the to-do list, so many shiny electronic distractions. I scurry around from task to task as if speed will keep me from forgetting anything. Then inevitably I wear down and sit to stare at a screen for a minute. I use it almost like a pacifier, a retreat.  Is this where I really want to find rest?

I think about the example this sets for my children.

I can't escape the culture. None of us can. 

The culture-at-large is not a culture of peace. Our culture is not singing a song of hope. Our culture's theme song is "Me, Myself and I in Our Virtual Life."

Moving to the country does not protect you from this culture, in case you were wondering.

And you know, I don't want to be protected from the culture, frankly. It is our world, our mission field. Filled with hurting and hungry souls desperate for the love that does not disappoint.

But the din, oh so loud. So distracting.

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Sally Clarkson encourages parents to develop a family culture. In a way that reminds me of Charlotte Mason's idea that education is an environment, the Clarkson parents strove to surround their children with beauty and great thinkers, with a family culture of unconditional love and acceptance.

My desire for our family is to create a home culture of peace and quiet of soul. A safe place, a nest to which we can return from the clamor of our culture. A place where beauty and truth prevail. Where we are nourished in heart, and soul-fed to return to the sweaty work of loving in this dark world.

We must be in our culture but not of it. And oh how hard to draw the line.

We can not isolate ourselves and walk in the footsteps of Jesus. He who came to this ugly hard world and spent his days amongst the most dirty in body and soul, who loved the unlovable, who served without hesitation.

It is only fear that would keep the door closed. 

Love opens the door.

There is no rule book for this, no manual for how children serve in an unlovely world. For my husband and me, it is a matter of prayer and the individual child. What can they handle? But if we are to live in this world, and walk out the command to love... and if we believe that love is action and serving... we must must walk out into it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sally Clarkson sometimes quotes the old Chinese proverb, "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." I feel that truth in my bones.

...each of us in our own little alcove, shining bright, pushing back the darkness...

Jesus lit a candle. He lit one in you and one in me when we became His.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." - Jesus (Matthew 5:14-16)

We get to do this. Shine light into the darkness. Hope. Meet real needs. Even in our own weakness and neediness. Because we do it in Him, for Him.

Imagine. Worn out mamas like you and me, we are lights.

I want to let my light shine into the darkness around me instead of complaining about it. I want to nurture a family culture of peace and love so that when we feel overwhelmed by the culture-at-large, we have a safe haven.

A place of protection from the winds that want so badly to blow out our little flames.

And then I want to go back out and shine.

joining the Write It, Girl and Thought Provoking Thursdays communities this week

cafe photo by naggobot
candle/alcove photo by Dave W Clark
Mighty to Save sung by Laura Story

Lessons from the Knitting Chair ~ Love is More Powerful Than Perfection

When I was hugely pregnant with The Princess (and I mean hugely), a sweet friend sat next to my massive form on the couch one afternoon, handed me two wooden needles and a ball of yarn, and taught me how to knit.

Being slow to warm up to projects of a creative nature (ahem), I immediately decided to knit a blanket. I wish I could blame it on pregnancy hormones, but this is a handicap that afflicts me regularly... if I can do it in miniature I get the wild idea that I can do it on a grand scale.

So I waddled off to the local craft shop, bought the only 100% cotton I could find, along with some hideous aluminum needles, and set to work. Naturally I picked a lace project.

If you don't know anything about knitting, let's just say that starting with lace is kind of like starting school by going to Harvard.  Who cares about kindergarten when you can go straight to college!

I did not finish that lace blanket in time for the baby's birth. It sat in my closet while I nursed and rocked, and homeschooled our oldest. Then my husband started traveling for his job. Then we moved. To a farm. And had another baby. And on and on like this... for six years we did things that required my hands and that made me hesitate to pull out the blanket. Note that perfectionism had nothing to do with my hesitation. Nothing at all.

But one day, I felt that blanket calling to me, and I decided that by sheer force of will I was going to finish it. Not only finish it, but finish it with a simplified pattern and with all the mistakes left unfixed.

This was huge.

Leaving mistakes is not natural for me. I do not like mistakes. I accept that they are going to happen, but I try to remedy them, not leave them intact.

My new goal had become to finish, not to perfect.

So on a March evening in 2008, I finally finished the blanket for my six year old baby.

I was utterly shocked when she swooned over it. I mean swooned. She gushed and oohed and aahed and made me feel like the best mama on the planet.

And when we evacuated because of the fire last September, it was one of the things she wanted to have with her.

Apparently my daughter understood that while I was knitting holes where they didn't belong and dropping stitches with that cotton yarn, I was also carrying a strand of love with each dip and twist of the needles.

If I hadn't embraced the mistakes and forged ahead, there would still be a pile of unfinished yarn in my closet.

If I hadn't just gone forward without regret, my Princess wouldn't have her treasured blanket.

Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8

All of messy muddled up me was in those loops of yarn and that was enough for my girl. Holes and all.

Sometimes the Gift that is Needed Most is the Hardest Gift to Give

Thank you for walking through the Give Back Giveaway with me.

It has brought me much joy to highlight these ministries for your support, to see the hope and healing being brought into lives around the world, and to give away lovely and delicious gifts to you from these ministries. I do hope you will seriously consider supporting them as you give this Christmas.

But I will confess that reading and writing about the brokenness and need in the many precious lives served through these programs has grieved me. The hiddenness and magnitude of the problems threaten to overwhelm this tender heart.

Can we be honest?

There is never enough that we can do. Because the hurt is so huge.

But we must do something. Our love for Jesus, because of His love for us, simply must overflow and embrace those who hurt.

In the end, we truly are never enough. But He is enough. He is enough for us, He is enough for all who suffer. He is the only hope we have.

We can be His hands and feet, His eyes and ears, pouring ourselves out in love and service right here and right now.

This may sound funny, given that I have spent a month sharing various ministries with you, but I believe this firmly...

If you have a choice to send money somewhere, or to reach out and touch a hurting person right near you, turn to that hurting person.

Yes, money matters, it does make a difference and people and ministries REALLY need it. So many are struggling financially.

But you have neighbors who don't have a group ministering to them. So you be the ministry, you minister to their needs. You are equipped for this in Him!

I look around me now, here in the middle of a burned out forest, and I see an incredible amount of real and present need. When 1600+ homes and businesses are completely destroyed in a rural community, the list of needs is overwhelming.

Sometimes the way to meet a need does require money. But creative lovers of Christ can serve, no matter the circumstance.

The balm for all wounds, ultimately, is love, and love doesn't require money.

If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that love may be the more costly of the two, as it requires giving of our very selves.

This is what is required of us, I believe. And I fail abysmally most of the time. But I long to live love and pour out my life as an offering.

Will you try with me?

Open your heart to the need right next door, and give yourself away this Christmas.



photo by JoyLove7

Compassion, Not a Report Card

I didn’t think I was a legalist.

I just thought I was disorganized, selfish and overcommitted.   I was trying really hard to be a good girl, to be a good Christian, and if I could just get organized... read my bible harder... pray more...

Until the day, not too long ago, when I was sharing some struggles with my prayer partner and she reflected, “What strikes me is your observation that you feel like you have a long report card and you are failing in every area.  That is not how God looks at you...

I'm guest posting at SomeGirl's Website today.  To read the rest of Compassion, Not a Report Card, please click on over and join us there!

Please, don't wait to reach out

 

Wednesday afternoon.  That time of day when my energy is low, and I need to be getting in the kitchen to start dinner.  Just a little down time first, I think, just a minute, and log in to facebook.

Skimming over the news feed, my eye trips on the first line of an old friend's status...

Lost a dear friend today but rejoicing that he is with our Lord.

My heart stops, then a thump of panic.  No, not... but I read on, and my worry turns to sorrow.

I read the words over and over.

was so kind
I will miss him
lost a dear friend today
with our Lord

I stare at the screen.  My throat is squeezing tighter and my heart is flopping like a fish on land.  Because it happened.  What I have feared for three years happened.

I have lost a dear friend.  Who was so kind.  And I will miss him.

But I didn't tell him.  I didn't even know he was sick.

My disconnect from this kind Texan gentleman, who took two wide-eyed young Yankees under his wing long ago, was bitter fruit of a painful parting from my beloved church home three years ago.

Shall I bore you with a theological treatise on the problems of church schism?  Shall I unload the grief of that parting here?  Like an old scar, that scab has fallen off now, the wound part of the shaping of this child more into the image of her Holy Daddy.

Behold, he makes all things new.  What the enemy intended for evil God has worked for good.  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.*

I did not wish it to be as it was, but the circumstances were beyond my wishes.  I did not wish it to impact relationships, but life has a way of making one choice ripple out like water and cause even small things to bob.  And some to float away.

My dear friend whose post brought me sad news is one of those we left, but she, and many others from that time in our life, comfortably navigate social media, and we have reconnected through facebook.

Our departed friend was 78.  His was the world of face-to-face.  But we lived an hour away from each other.  I wasn't going to run into him in the grocery store.

Why didn't I call him?  I can't answer that question.  I hadn't forgotten him.  I thought of calling many times.

If I drill down deep in my heart, I find there something worrisome.  It is a fear.  I think it might be named Rejection.  I turn that idea over in my mind and wonder how that could be.  Never once did he do anything even hinting at it.  Yet time and pain have a way of wrapping things together that I don't quite understand.

And in the center of that fear are lies...

not good enough

and

forgettable

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Saturday morning.  I am driving alone in my van to the city.  As the minutes tick by, I find myself feeling a growing sense of dread.  Soon I will be at the memorial service.  Will I be able to hold myself together?  Will I be able to hold myself up?

As I turn into the parking lot I catch a glimpse of the back of a not-seen-for-three-years head and my hands begin to shake.  I draw a breath and it comes jagged, catching in a constricting throat.  Why is this happening?  Why can't I just be calm?

I park and pray and try to reason with myself.  Be sensible.  Be calm.

It doesn't work.  I pick up the phone and dial my prayer partner, my spiritual EMT.  With gentle yet strong words she settles the oxygen mask of prayer on me and I begin to breathe normally again.

I take up my bible, clutched between crossed arms like an old teddy bear, and walk to the front door.  I begin to see familiar faces.  I exchange quiet hugs.  And then I see his beloved.

I walk over to her, inexplicably nervous.  I put my hand on her arm and she turns.

Patti!  she says, a smile brightening her tired face.  And I know that I am welcome.  We exchange brief words, I lean in to hug her, and she whispers I never forgot you.

I am shaking now.  My hands trembling, my eyes overflowing.  Through a blur I race to the bathroom where my whole body shudders with sobs.  I am a muddle of emotion...

grief... joy... pain... love...

I pray, and amazingly, there is where I leave my tears.  A gift of grace allows me to walk back, with my red nose and eyes, and sit calmly through the service.  It is a time of remembering.  Remembering our friend, and remembering what God's word says about his forever life.  Singing "Amazing Grace"...

When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we'd first begun.

After the service, there is a reception.  Friends and family members gathering to reminisce and to catch up.   A swirl of people.  Repeated questions:  How ARE you?  Still way out there on the farm?  How are the kids?

It is love.  So much love.

I sit with older friends and talk and listen.  I hear about frustrations, being stuck at home, not being able to drive, missing grandchildren.

And I realize they are afraid of being forgettable too.

I grab that thought with both hands.  My heart cries "I will not forget them!" I ask if we can come visit.  I make sure that the whirling blur that is my young family will not overwhelm.  I confirm phone numbers, emails, addresses.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Later, at home, I worry that the rushing current of life will distract me from doing what I feel an urgent need to do.  So I look at the calendar, pick dates, write emails, make plans.

The current never stops.  It just gets faster.

Hear my story, friends.  Let its truth sink into your heart.  Time is passing.  Your love is needed.

Please, don't wait.

Don't forget.  The days are short.


*Revelation 21:5, Genesis 50:20, Romans 8:28
photo credit bjwebbiz

The power of love

"Being loved makes me feel lovable.  And it makes me feel more loving."
~ The Princess, age 8.5