Complainer

"Meaningless, Meaningless...Everything is meaningless!" Ecclesiastes 1:2

Isn't that an optimistic statement with which to start your day? Not! It was what I started my day with today, though. And then it really got me thinking about complaining. "Am I a complainer?" I asked a dear friend. "I don't want to be a complainer," I whined. Oh...I realized quickly that then I was complaining about being a complainer. Ugh!

I think what I've come up with is this. This life brings complaints. It is what we do with them that makes all the difference. Do we take them to every person in our path, or do we lay them one by one before the Lord. Sometimes I think it is good and right to share struggles with trusted ones. I know God has brought me much encouragement through that. I guess we just have to be careful that we're not causing someone else's gaze to be stooped down here, rather than fixed up there.

It also got me thinking...what truly brings meaning?

We are born homesick. We long for an existence, a quality of life or a settledness and satisfaction which we've never directly experienced, but which we know exists, or at least ought to. We live in something like a life-long culture shock. Our response to this fact sets the course of our lives. ~James C. Wilhoit

Being a nurse, a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend...all of these roles have brought some kind of great meaning to my life. But none of them truly satisfy. I'm realizing that though there is blessing to be found in everything, true satisfaction can only come from the Lord. If I am looking to anything else to fill me at a given moment, to make me "feel good," then I am ultimately worshiping an idol. Ouch!

Father God, you are my filling, my meaning. You are my true home. Forgive me for complaining. Help me to walk through this world with open hands...seeing what you have for me here, following your tender lead, but not grasping for anything to truly hold onto except for YOU.

Living Fully

There have been many gifts to count this past month or so. Some I've been privileged to see and some that have probably been left unseen as yet. That is one prayer I've been trying to pray daily...that I would have eyes to see. Eyes to see the Lord's beauty, his gifts, even in the most unlikely of settings. They are always there. He is motivated by love for you and me. Every day. He truly is.

Here is a glimpse of some of the 'multitude' from our life...

319. the littlest feeds himself!
325. just me & the boys
327. the accountability of my 3 year-old
330. a puppet show
334. Costco fruit
336. a constant filling~when it seems I should be empty
338. a beautiful day of spring
342. seeing her bow low before her Father
347. holding a little one close as a fever spikes
350. the way they love their stuffed animals
351. my mom lives just down the street :)
357. a friend who desires to bless
361. forgiveness~again
363. the way He guides His word to enter our lives
370. learning to lay it down
374. little puffs of clouds in the sky
375. fresh brown eggs
379. little chicks

380. baby bunnies

388. seeing an attitude improve with correction, discipline...and cuddling
389. celebrating birthday with Grams

394. the way he says "nose"
398. comfort food
401. knowing He holds the outcome
412. boys singing "Tis so sweet"
413. discussion of muscles at dinner

415. uncontrollable giggles
416. little chubby fingers counting to 10
418. this cutest new little nephew's life :)

421. sissies on the maternity ward

422. holding baby Gav's little bum in my hand

424. peaceful afternoon

429. opportunity to help a friend

430. his lunch ministry came home today

434. a beautiful little girl

436. prayers she'll find a song
439. these little flowers


440. a boy proud of himself as he kicked the ball
442. one who gave his "grapes with stems" to his crying brother
445. Doodle's jumps
446. Nana's reading
447. sharing life with a friend
450. hugs for Daddy

Suffering, Honesty, and Sovereignty

My journey through the Old Testament has landed me in Job this week. Whoa! It's been a tough week of study. I've been in Job before, but this time for some reason God just wanted to take me deeper. I honestly have wrestled with many themes in this book, and have not come up with comprehension or answers to all my questions. But maybe that's the point.

A few things I have learned and want to remember this week are:

• God doesn't ask us to figure things out. He simply asks us to trust Him. In this world of knowledge overload, it is so tempting for me to want answers to everything. Want to figure it all out. From relationships to medical mysteries to just reasons for the way things are... He gives us guidelines (in His Word), but also freedom (gray areas). He guides by his Spirit, but leaves some things for us to learn about in Heaven. I think we can only truly be content in this mess of life when we are just simply trusting and not scrambling for all the answers.
• Be honest in our pain. If there's anything Job did a lot of, it was lament! He was brutally honest with the Lord. He did not like his circumstances, and he was clear about that. He even blamed God at times. I was reminded of something through a song by Amy Grant this week:  "The honest cries of a breaking heart...are better than a Hallelujah sometimes."
• We can think we are going about on the right path, but our eyes are actually half-blinded to the ultimate holiness of our God. This kind of relates to what I just said. So often we think we know it all. Even about God. We know who he is, and based on what he's done in our lives already, we can predict what he might do next or might do in our friends' life. Oh, how I pray my eyes would just be opened! I don't want to pretend I know it all. My little life does not define who God is and what He can do.
• Just love people...and be with them in their suffering. Job's friends had it right in the beginning. They came to him in his time of need. They sat with him--in silence--for 7 days. I thought that was profound. There were no words (at first). Just silence. And probably tears. Suffering is unexplainable. But God is sovereign. So often when someone is suffering we want to do whatever is humanly possible to step in and help that person, or talk it out with them. There certainly may be times for that, but maybe the best thing is to watch and pray with them, to cry with them. When Job's friends did step in and talk, it quickly became a run around of accusations and misrepresentation of the Lord...it just got messy. So maybe it's best (again) not to try to figure it all out, but to acknowledge God is bigger and He is on his throne--no matter what the suffering on this earth may be; nothing changes that.

I just want to live in humility. Who am I? Who am I to try to understand God? To understand his ways--how he gives, how he takes away? What is wisdom?

"...the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to turn from evil is understanding." ~Job 28:28

Thank you, Lord, for teaching little me about these things. I am ever aware that I will be learning more about you all my life. I will never have it all figured out. I pray I will not claim any wisdom that you have not given me...in marriage, in friendships, in parenting these boys, in life in general. May I just be real before you & teach my kids to do the same. I don't know how exactly you want us to pray. But I know you want our hearts. You know me better than I know myself. And everything...everything is under your control!

"I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." ~Job 42:2

Clarifying purpose

I am back! I have been so blessed by this short time of clarification of my purpose in this virtual world. God revealed plainly to me what he wanted me to do...and not do, I believe. I spend much less time on here, and the lid to the laptop stays closed most of the day. For me, that's the way it needs to be. My main purpose and calling is this family, my husband and these children. I must be faithful to that. He has been so faithful to equip me for this.

What I want to do on here is just leave a legacy. Share the thoughts the Lord has impressed upon my soul. Bless another, perhaps, and bless my children one day. Remind myself in days ahead just where I've come from and what God has taught me along the way.

From my time in Nehemiah this week, I have been so blessed. From my time actually in the past few books of the Old Testament, God has really honed in on this subject of restoration and rebuilding. He is reminding me how he's constantly restoring these holy temples (the physical being of a believer) and constantly equipping us to rebuild things in our lives, for His kingdom's glory. There is so much hurt. So much heavy "stuff" in this world. It's almost overwhelming just getting through a day sometimes, hearing about the hurt and pain in lives around me. But...GOD. When it all comes down to it, that's what matters. He cares. He is always working.

Nehemiah was a spiritual giant, a prayer warrior to lead all warriors! One really cool thing I've learned from Nehemiah is that when I pray I really can (and should) just lay it down, and then walk on in faith. He did that time and time again. A situation arose, he prayed to the God of heaven, laid it at His feet, and then went on doing what he had been called to do. He did not mull over it for days, he did not worry about what everyone else thought of him, he did not try to "fix" everything in his own strength. He left it at God's feet. He didn't pick it back up. He was bold yet humble in his prayers; he did not hold back. He believed God to be true to his word. He desires to bless his children. He desires them to walk in freedom.

This day is sacred to the Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. ~Neh. 8:10 

So, my head up now, I feel a new sense of purpose to walk forward in this thing I have been called to. I am raising little men, loving their daddy, and serving those around me in ways I am called to serve, only by His strength, in His power. May I do what is possible, and leave the impossible to the LORD.

Love...and a confession

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is LOVE: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ~I John 4:9-10

Happy Valentine's Day! Who doesn't love to celebrate love? It's what we were made for...to love and be loved. God is love. I used to get all into the cliche things about this holiday, and I couldn't wait to see who would send me a card or perhaps flowers or some chocolate. I do still like the "feelings" of Valentine's Day. It's just fun! But now it's really become another day to live out what I want to emphasize in our family every day. To know that God loves us and to in turn LOVE one another well! It's nice to have this one day each year to focus on it, though I think my kids are pretty much zoned out due to candy and chocolate overload already!

I wanted to take this opportunity in this post to also confess something. As I said, I desperately want to teach my kids what love means, and how much our God loves them. But I think I am in a season in my life where I need to learn it too. I have the head knowledge of God's love for me of course. I know where to find all the "love verses" in the Bible. But some things in my life recently have led me to believe that I need to take a break and truly bathe in and focus on that love and gain wisdom from all that it means. The confession I'm getting at is my tendency towards addiction...being "sucked in"...to the internet. I felt the Lord has been laying something big on my heart about this for a while now. I know that this is not everyone's struggle, but I am one who has a very hard time concentrating as it is (perhaps an undiagnosed ADD, or maybe it is diagnosed...by my husband). And so when I get on the internet, I am just dead to the world around me. I get in this virtual world, and I ignore these precious little ones that have been given to my care. They call "Mommy, Mommy" and I say "Just a minute," over and over and over. It breaks my heart, even as it is happening. I start reading blogs or facebook and then those lead to other blogs or websites and before I know it I am deeply entrenched in these people's lives and their theologies...and then insecurities creep in about how I'm living my life and what I think of as truth...and all the while I'm neglecting to seek the One who has all the answers for me. My audience of One. It is me before God, it is you before God. I don't want to assume someone else's faith. I want to seek my Lord with an undivided heart.

So, anyway, for a time I'm going to lay low in this technological world. I don't know the exact details of what it is supposed to look like yet. God's still revealing that. And I'm not at all saying that the internet is evil. Please don't hear that & feel any sort of condemnation. The internet is an amazing tool that can be used for so much good in God's kingdom. I have been so encouraged and so blessed. But like anything good, it can also be twisted just enough to be used by the enemy to drive us out of the face-to-face realities we were called to be in, called to LOVE in. Everyone's struggles are different. This just happens to be one of mine.

I'll still be doing my thankful list. I write them all in a journal anyway, just in case the internet crashes and the blog is destroyed and I can never remember what I've been thankful for (no, not really). God is blessing abundantly, even as I write this. I heard recently there is healing in writing. I think that's true. So, thanks for listening to me rant on here a bit. I'm thankful for you, that person who takes a moment of their life to read about my heart. I'll be back :)

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293-318

293. a date with my husband
294. driving the wrong way...and then finding the right way
295. a nature walk in the cold
296. a scarf to warm his hands
297. it's okay to cry, you are still brave
298. peanut butter
299. restoration--constant restoration--of this holy temple
300. peace that prayer brings
301. the folding sheets game
302. 6 am wake up call
303. a good "just us" day
304. baby kisses
305. solid naps
306. a little boy coming out just to say he's not scared of anything
307. I Corinthians 13...said by boys brushing their teeth :)
308. car talks with God
309. chalk smears
310. bouncing a ball to hear his laughter
311. a night with very few calls
312. a day to play outside
313. doing something instead of just thinking it
314. Trust
315. a valentine drawing of "Daddy loves Mommy"

316. heart pancake smiles
317. confirmation of something God is nudging me to do (in this post)
318. a refreshing face-to-face interaction with a stranger

Theology of a three-year-old

This morning at the breakfast table, Luke decides to tell me: "Mommy, when I get to heaven, I'm going to eat lots and lots of muffins." Now, we were not sitting there pondering theological issues, and I hadn't even told him he couldn't have another muffin. To tell you the truth we were all just simply and quietly...eating. And I, with my hands wrapped snuggly around my beloved coffee cup, was completely surprised by this comment, said with a huge grin on his little face. "Well, Luke," I replied, "I think we probably will get to do a lot of things we really like to do in heaven. It's a wonderful place."

The conversation then spiraled on to a couple more comments about heaven and Jesus, and then his brother Jack chimed in and said, "Well, we're not going to heaven for a very long time." And then they all got down and went on their way to running and jumping and chasing and building...all those little boy things they like to do.

Why share this? I guess I have been suprised by the theology of our 3 year-old lately. He has been coming up with the most interesting questions, and totally out of the blue. He is such a fun-loving little guy. He loves a thrill. Most days when it's warm enough, you'll find him riding his bike full speed down the hill of our driveway and running smack into our metal fence at the end...on purpose! And then getting back up to do it again. One day when he was doing what I just described he asked me if I thought God was as mighty as his "super-fast" bike. I felt pretty sure (no, very sure) I could say "yes" to that one!

This morning's "discussion" spurred me to think of heaven, and the many other mysteries of God. It seems that a 3 year-old may understand them and accept them easier than a 30 year-old. Some days I just long for heaven or for Jesus to come back...for all to be made right, for no sickness or disease, no divorce or hurting relationships...to walk by sight, to see His face, to feel his arms. That longing, though, is too easily walled off and put on the back burner as I have to come back to earth, and a basket full of laundry, and move on. I guess part of me might find it hard to believe sometimes. In this world of so much hurting, what must heaven truly be like? It's so hard to imagine. Or if I try to compare it to the most amazing thing I can think of on this earth...can it really be better than that?

The mysteries of God. The faith of a child. I want to believe like that. Accept the mysteries. Walk without doubts. Some days I think I do. But then I'm reminded of something that's really hard. Someone walking through a situation that doesn't seem to be covered with grace, to my human eyes. And yet, His promises remain. That longing deep inside all of us remains. That God-shaped hole. That can only be filled by the One...always faithful...always raining down grace..always drawing us to Himself. May we have eyes to see, and accept, and be thankful for...the mystery.

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#258-290

258. God knows me
259. raw emotion
260. God isn't suprised by anything
261. our days are numbered
262. his care for me in the night
263. stepping out
264. trusting God with what He lays on my heart
265. His mighty hand of protection
266. a day of rest (and a husband who happened to be home that day)
267. that most days my body feels good
268. healing
269. a glorious morning
270. an amazing group of women
271. praises
272. encouragement for our family
273. solid teachers for our son
274. being a nurse has prepared me to not be too surprised by really gross stuff I encounter as a mom
275. he could laugh while getting an unexpected 2pm bath
276. these little ones who keep me grounded
277. freshly baked muffins
278. eggs for dinner
279. hands around a warm coffee mug
280. a playdate
281. his personality
282. yogurt & probiotics (can you tell we were dealing with some GI stuff?!)
283. a date with my little boy :)
284. the Sound of Music
285. a cast of students who truly give glory to God for their amazing gifts and talents
286. that he didn't throw up in the school bathroom
287. a little girl who let us thru
288. an attitude changed
289. small victories that make a huge difference
290. an afternoon of sweet fellowship
291. a quick trip to Target by myself (a rarity!)
292. his little toothy one-year-old smile

A season

I started having thoughts last week of sharing about this season of joy that I feel our family is experiencing right now. My heart is just overflowing with gratitude with all the good gifts that the Lord is bestowing on us each and every day. It's amazing. Then, wouldn't you know, I happened to have a very challenging morning with the boys. Thank you, Lord, for humbling me...and for naptime!

The thing is, we all have ups and downs, good days & bad ones. They all sort of swirl together, though, to make up seasons of our lives. And they fly by! The season of being single, of being a newlywed, the season of having our first baby, the season of preschoolers, the season of breaking free, the season of a marriage renewed, the season of hardships, the season of drought, the season of harvest...and on and on. Through every season, though, His mercy remains. And His blessings are abundant. The multitude.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above...from the Father...who does not change like shifting shadows." ~James 1:17 (emphasis mine)

This counting up of blessings has been life-changing for me. Everyone knows it's good to be thankful. It's a popular thing in many religions today. But this time of gratitude for me has been huge in that my eyes have truly been open to seeing God's undoubtable, tangible work in my life. Day in and day out. He is good. He is always good! And He is always at work.

I am no different than anyone else, with struggles and strongholds to overcome. I struggle sometimes to even accept the goodness of God. As if when I am in a season of abundance, I might be standing on the edge of something really hard, of what "might happen next." But thankfully that's not how our God works. He is true to his Word, and he does not change...no matter what season we are in. I want to stand on this edge and say "I trust you, Lord. With an open hand I hold onto these blessings in my life. I lay before you those that I love the most. I trust you."

All our days are numbered. We are here on this earth for but a season. For a time and a purpose. So, for now, I will live in this abundance, in this multitude of life. I will love. I will laugh. I will smile. I will feel peace in my soul. I will give thanks to my Father in heaven. I will follow where He leads. From one season to the next.

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#239-257

239. I'm thankful I still have teeth! (straight from the middle son)
240. an afternoon of uninterrupted sister talk
241. a friend's "crazy" idea that is oh so powerful
242. feeling my nephew's little foot poking out of his mommy's belly
243. celebrating the day of his birth

244. his mother who birthed him
245. lots of little boy artwork to display
246. knee hugs from a one yr. old
247. wonderful mommy friends to hang out with
248. a fun morning at the museum
249. not having to clean up
250. a gracious day of good listening, cooperating and getting along :)
251. a little ring made just for me by a certain 4 yr. old boy
252. he's home!
253. stories of God's faithfulness
254. walls coming down
255. boys loving their daddy
256. laughing together
257. blessing them