My First Ever Lent Entry

This entry may seem late but it's not.  I've been praying about how to journal about my decision to participate in Lent.  I wanted to be sure I waited until I was journaling about what God was teaching me through fasting rather than just the fact that I decided to fast. Truthfully, this is only the second year I've ever done a fast for Lent and so far, I've made it farther than I did last year. In even more truth: I can't remember what I fasted from last year. So, with this as my background, I wanted to fully participate, in spirit and action, and make this Lent season one that I would remember by not only fasting from something but adding consistent prayer in its place.

I put a lot of pressure on myself and prayed very seriously about what God wanted to use to speak to my heart during this season. I wanted my focus to be drawn to Him, not to my self, not to what I was missing. It took me until the night before Lent started to make the decision of what to forgo.  This may sound silly to some but what I have given up is... using my dishwasher.

The first day was terrific! I prayed my little heart out while I did the dishes and Micah slept and I really felt blessed by the whole experience.  I mean, we use a lot of dishes (apparently) and that equaled LOTS of praying time!

By day two and three I felt my mind start to wander and it became very difficult to focus and pray (there's so much to look at and think about when your sink faces the neighborhood)! The idea came to me to make a Prayer List that hangs by the sink so I could see the list and focus my prayer to those areas. I had an extra frame and some cute scrapbook paper that I threw together and made a list using dry erase marker. This made a huge difference in helping me to dedicate the time to prayer!

I was reenergized and my dishwashing/prayer time was looked forward to...for a day or so. Then LIFE once again "got in the way" and another round of teething started, napping took a turn for the worse and I began to loath not using the dishwasher. I remained faithful in action but certainly not in attitude or stature of the heart.  I was hitting an all time low, with dishes piling up higher and higher. I would get half way through and get distracted by something "more pressing". The whole time at the sink I was thinking about what a difficult task it was, how little time I had to do it, maybe I'll just forget it and go back to using the dishwasher. It's not that big of a deal, right? In my heart I knew it was more important than I was trying to make it seem. This was time that was valued by God. He loves when I pray and build my relationship with Him. 

By day ten, Sunday, I was avoiding the kitchen so that I wouldn't be reminded of what I wasn't doing (ha!).  I guess my husband could tell that I was getting tired of the task because he encouragingly reminded me that Sundays were a day of REST and that for one day a week it would be okay to use the dishwasher. Praise God! I seriously was overwhelmed and overjoyed with the realization that even in the minutest speck of a "trial" God doesn't give us more than we can handle! 

As I loaded that dishwasher on Sunday I began praying with a lightened heart, thanking God for providing a break, for understanding the weakness of his created being (me), for helping me stay faithful thus far, even if it was just in action for a few days, and for all that he has taught me in just this simple everyday task. I may not take every Sunday off from washing dishes (I don't want to use it as a loophole), but I was so glad to be reminded of God's grace to me this past week!

I started the week fresh, remembering the purpose of fasting is to draw closer to God. I have truly been surprised at what a struggle it has been to stay focused on prayer with a right attitude over these past 12 days. After my day of rest, I am now glad for the upcoming 30 days and look forward to what God will show me now that my attitude has been adjusted.

Untitled Reflections

The year started with so much joy and happy expectation. In January we became parents! In that sense 2011 was such a beautiful year! A year of getting to know our son and experience life with him. I enjoyed the immense blessing of being able to work part-time from home. Being home with our son, watching him continue grow and develop is a gift that I will always cherish - even during teething days.  In the beginning, I would often get the question, "So, how do you like being a mom?" I always stumbled with an answer - how do you put words to such a profound gift and blessing? It is hard to explain that when I became a mom I finally felt like "myself." During years of longing, waiting, praying, I had started to wonder if God had a different plan for my life. Maybe I wasn't supposed to be a mom like I'd always thought.  At the end of 2010 and in the beginning of 2011, God gave us the most beautiful gift of our son, through the sacrifice of his biological mom, and he confirmed the desires of my heart. As we are at the end of 2011 and my little baby boy is nearing his first birthday, I stand in awe of just how sovereign my God is and how richly he chose to bless us this year.

2011 was also a tragic year. In another sense, it is ending so much differently than I imagined. So much daily happiness found in parenting our son and yet so much sadness and pain in losing babies I loved before I knew them. I believe life begins at conception; this year our family has lost 5 little lives I was not able to meet outside their mothers' wombs. My nephew, William, and his twin among those lost. In the midst of this grieving there have been broken and intensely wounded hearts, sickness and physical pain attack those I hold dear in my hearts.

I remember at the end of 2010 I thought that I had enough of the sadness and disappointment contained in that year, I was looking forward to the fresh start of 2011. The anticipated joy of meeting our child and experiencing our life as a family of three instead of two - it was enough excitement to fool me into forgetting that this world is full of trouble. I was reminded of this truth not long into the year and since then I have been struggling to answer the question of how I can feel so happy and so incredibly sad at the exact same time.

Many times throughout the days/weeks/months I find myself thinking, "Life shouldn't be like this. There shouldn't be this much sorrow and death." I'm not blaming God, it just feels like an inward tug on my heart. As I prayed through these thoughts one day, the phrase I've emphasized in Ecclesiastes 3:11 came to mind:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (ESV)

I was so struck with the notion of having eternity in my heart. My heart knows that sin has ruined a perfect creation and it knows that there is somewhere far better and more perfect than I could ever imagine. My heart groans, knowing that indeed life shouldn't be like this, but in fact with sin, life is full of sorrow, sickness and pain. In the midst of these troubles there is hope. Some days it feels as though it is buried very far down and others it is overflowing the surface.

This hope, as my Pastor Stan Gale says, is not a "hope so" type of hope. It is firmly rooted in Jesus Christ and a saving relationship with him. It is through this relationship that I am able to face the heartache I am bound to face every year until Jesus returns. It is because of my knowledge that nothing good comes from my own work, I am able to rejoice knowing that "every good and every perfect gift is from above" (James 1:17 ESV).

It is tempting to approach 2012 with an attitude that surely, it must be better than 2011. I think it is natural for me to look ahead at this new year and hope that the ups will out number the downs. However, I've become so aware that each and every year holds beautiful blessings along side deep sorrow. A new year may be a new start, one that I am looking forward to, but this year I can't help but feeling like there will be more of the same. There will be trials and troubles, and there will be joy and blessings, all of which will be gifts from above.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. (James 1:2-4 MSG)

It is important for me to remember that the year 2012 does not hold the answer to the frustration I feel in 2011. Hoping in the new start will leave me disappointed in the end. Having my hope firmly rooted in Jesus Christ gives me Joy that nothing can take away and the strength to look forward to all that God has planned for my life, year after year.

Version Upgrade

I have a couple times of my day that are more conducive to just letting my mind wander and mull things over. Sometimes it's while Micah is napping, sometimes while I'm showering. Today, that time was after Micah fell back to sleep at 6:45 a.m. and I had a chance to prepare some pears for him to eat. For me, there's something so soothing about pealing and chopping food, it just frees me up to let my thoughts run free.

This morning my mind started wandering back to high school and that version of myself. Immediately, the embarrassment, self-consciousness and fears all flooded back into my mind and heart. Am I the only one that has such a hard time letting go of a particular version of myself? I doubt it, but it sure feels like it sometimes. This morning I found that I was able to sort of take a step back and consider things on a deeper level.  These days, when I think back to my high school self, the embarrassment I feel is more about the state of my heart and how easy it was to act like everything was fine. I realized that I had such a judgmental attitude. I was a painfully shy person in HS but looking back, I have come to a realization that my heart contained the sin of judging others and jumping to wrong conclusions from my vantage point on the outside of things.

One of the things I've learned over the years both through painful personal experiences and through watching others experiences - judging hurts and it is not our job. Jumping to conclusions when we are not privy to the inner workings of another's heart kills relationships! I get so sad when I think about relationships that I've ruined or not even given the chance to develop because I was so quick to judge based on a conclusion that I'd come up with all by myself. The sadness becomes more keen when I consider the times that another has judged or jumped to the wrong conclusion about my good intentions. I feel like God lets me go through those hard times so that I am more aware of my own sin and the hurt I cause others. Sadly though, it is still a sin with which I continue to struggle.

And so, when I'm taken back to my high school version, I feel embarrassed by the sin in my heart.  This morning's musings took a turn that was so helpful and healing for my heart. I was reminded that the grace and mercy, forgiveness and love God has shown me covers all versions of myself. It is this knowledge that helped me snap out of my normally painful memories and speak the truth to myself again and again. It was so wonderful to remember that I'm forgiven for my high school version, my college version, my newly married version, and the current version I'm on. I know that when I look back in 5, 10, 15 years, I'll be keenly aware of all the mistakes I've made now.

I was also encouraged to keep the same thing in mind when relating to others in my life. God has grace, mercy, forgiveness and love for their prior versions - why wouldn't I? He also has the same grace, mercy, forgiveness and love for their current version - why wouldn't I? We live in a world that is full of sin, even Christians are not immune. We commonly refer to ourselves as "Sinners saved by Grace." It is easy to apply this name to myself and so hard to remember that it applies to others as well.

Thanks be to God that He is continually teaching me and helping me grow into a better versions of myself. A version that I can only pray would resemble Him more and me less.

"Here's a word you can take to heart and depend on: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I'm proof-Public Sinner Number One - of someone who could never have made it apart from sheer mercy. And now he shows me off-evidence of his endless patience-to those who are right on the edge of trusting him forever."

1 Timothy 1:15-16 MSG