Truth.



 

Want some truth?  Life is fleeting.

 

Some more truth?  This life will end.  We don't know if it's 60 years from now, 30 years from now, five years from now, or tomorrow.  Or tonight.  But it will end one of these days.  It's the universal truth all of us instinctively know, yet try to ignore. 

 

Life here on earth, well, it's temporary.

 

And yet faced with this undeniable truth we are still tempted to live self-focused lives.  Lives full (bursting at the seams) of things that will not matter. 

 

Things that won't matter in three years from now, let alone 3 million years from now when eternity is before us and behind us and all surrounding us.  

 

What kind of house we lived in, what car we drove, what clothes we wore, what hair we had, whether we kept up with the latest fad,  what color we painted the kitchen, what style of shelf we bought, who had the funkiest Pinterest board, who won America's Got Talent, who won which sports game or which cup or whatever they call it in Hockey- won't matter, won't matter, won't matter.

 

And yet, so often, we fill our days with these temporal, limited, earthly things.  Why do we do this?

 

Truth waits, knocking, whispering open the door... 

  

 

 

Open the door to the fullest life, child.  To the life bursting with things eternal.  A simple, yet unbelievably wild life of faith.  Real faith - the kind where we walk on the edge for a God who says He'll catch us if we fall.  I don't know the full extent of that life yet, but I'm pushing hard into it, friends.  

 

I want to run crazy toward a God who is all-powerful, all-mighty, Alpha-Omega.  The Creator, Yahweh.  Friend.  Father.  He is the Everlasting, yet He calls me child.  It's wild alright, mind-boggling.

 

Even more mind boggling - faced with this truth that Christ Himself wants me - I still choose the trite.  I mean, the God of the Universe beckons me to come, sit with Him, and follow Him to the ends of the earth, and yet, I shrug.  Don't we all? 

 

We choose to Tweet instead of falling at the feet of our eternal Savior.  We choose to go shopping instead of seeking the truth of why we hoard treasures.  We choose to stress over the trivial instead of offering all things to Him in endless prayer.

 

Forgive me, Lord.  Because if I call myself a disciple of Christ, I have to believe that Christ is to live and all else is filler.

 

His creation beckons us to taste and see -

 

He is God and He is good.  And He is enough.

And He is Truth.

And the Truth is there for easy grasping.  Die to self, truly live.  Right there, plain as day.  Simple, but never easy.  But always the choice leading to the depth of joy and peace like a blanket of gold.

Reach down this weekend.  Way down deep.  Open up His word and seek the Truth waiting to be found.  Hold tight to the eternal and let the earthly pile up in the corner.  Swoop babies up in bundles of kisses, walk in endless leaves, love a lonely soul.  Repair that broken bond.

Crouch low and find Him there - the God of Truth.  He's there - in the humble, the small, the mind-boggling beautiful.

Written for Five Minute Friday with the prompt, "Truth".

Enslaved (to technology) or Free?

It's a rainy Friday evening but inside it's warm and the atmosphere is alive with excitement.

I'm blessed to be selling Ugandan jewelry at an African celebration.  Drums beat in a next door room, people in breath-taking, colorful clothing are everywhere.  I'm like a little white nut in a sea of beautiful dark chocolate.  A sweet man makes me tea and brings it to my table.  I smile wide and clutch the little Styrofoam cup close.

"Thank you, it smells amazing..."

"Oh, yes.  I put spices from East Africa in it.  So, let me know how you like it."

I almost tear up.  I long to feel the Ugandan sun on my face.  To sit knee to knee with those I love.  Thank you, Jesus - for tea that reminds me of where I may some day go.  But tonight?  I have tea, and I'm happy.

I ask him about his family.  He's got two children, a three year old and one brand new baby.  He and his wife - they're new to Canada, like so many Africans there that night.  He leans in and we talk of Western culture.  The busy, distracted lifestyle.  Yes, he's noticed.

He immediately speaks of the media.

He whispers it:  "My daughter doesn't watch television."

I nod and smile.  I can feel the laugh lines in the corner of my eyes.  He speaks wisely of preserving her imagination, her innocence.  He says he wants a different life for his girls.  I don't talk.  I just listen.

"My brothers - they're young.  Teenagers.  Twins.  They're obsessed with technology.  They've got to have it all."  He talks about how their faces are always in their phones and they're always wanting more - the next best phone, the next better screen.  I see the pain in his expressions.

I scrunch up my nose trying to think of the right words.  He pauses and looks me straight in the eyes.

"You know - my people - we all came to this country to be free.  But now, we are enslaved instead to technology."

I swallow hard.  His words rip right through me.  It's as if the room dims around us.  He's just spoken profound truth but he doesn't realize how powerful it is.  He is still talking, but I'm not hearing him.  My mind is stuck on this:

We are enslaved to technology.

Long after we part and the tables are packed up, I still can't get the thought out of my head.  People plagued by oppression and poverty come to our beautiful country to be free, yet we offer a new form of enslavement.  Yes, a new type of poverty that can leave the soul starved.  The distraction and emptiness of a life swallowed by screens is just another form of poverty.  A spiritual poverty.

 

It shakes me up.

 

I breaks me.  I cry on the drive home.

 

Because this sweet African man is completely right. 

 

Our culture is suffering from a different kind of poor.  We are desperately poor and yet, we think we're rich.  We think we're free and yet, we are slaves.  So many people are living a life enslaved to screen upon screen.  The dings and beeps rule the days.  The TV programs, the movies, the celebrities, the lust for more and more and more entertainment and more and more stuff.

 

You see, because when we are enslaved, it means some form of freedom has been robbed from us.

 

What has been taken?

 

We have millions of Western kids (and adults) who are obese, unhealthy, addicted to video games and television.  We have teens who are killing themselves because their peers are bullying them on Facebook and through text messages.

We have families who no longer eat together or speak to one another.

We have (on average) children spending 4-6 hours DAILY attached to at least one screen (sometimes 3 or 4 at once).

 

We have a generation growing up in a way we've never grown up before.  They spend more time sitting in front of screens than they do outdoors.  If they spend time outdoors at all.

 

Parents, our children are the guinea pigs.  In all of history, we've never functioned this way - enslaved to technology, obedient to the screens.  This is new.  And it isn't normal.

 

I know young 20-somethings who live in their basements, with seven screens as their only friends. They are miserable, depressed, angry, and only half-alive.  There are countless people like this all over our continent.  What would people of other cultures think if they looked in on us?

 

I drive through neighborhoods in the dim evening and all I see is an creepy greenish-blue glow coming from all the living room windows.  We are all staring into our screen gods.  And we think we have no false gods in our culture?

 

Someone asks if you're on Facebook and it's as if you'd be disconnected from all society if you weren't.  This is all very recent, friends.  Like, in the past five years.  Suddenly, I feel very trapped.  It's a slow suffocation.

 

Children are being raised to depend upon screen-based entertainment to fill their days.  And that's how they'll continue to live.  And one day we'll all blink and realize that none of us are actually living.  We're virtual creatures who no longer know how to engage with each other, with nature, and most of all - with our Creator.

 

Distraction is a kind of enslavement.  The freedom we lose is the freedom to really live.  To live alive and awake and intentionally.

 

We have to choose freedom.

We have to choose the unplug.

We have to pull the reigns in.

Life is far too short to CHOOSE to put ourselves in a media jail cell.  To be so distracted we can't connect with the people around us.  We need to limit the time and trust in the truth of God's word.  We have to dare to be radically different in a culture that jeers, 'Aw, come on, it's not that big of a deal...'.

 

It IS a big deal.  People who were enslaved and oppressed in their home country come here and call us slaves.  They see it clearly - the screens have control.  The people here are enslaved to technology.

 

We need to wake up.  The time is now.  Our culture and our children are in major danger of growing up numb to real life.  Numb to purpose.  Numb to real relationships.  Numb to God. 

 

It should shake us to action.  To intense passion to protect and preserve our souls for higher purposes.  For something culturally bizarre.  To actually choose to turn off the screens and break those chains.

 

It is a choice. 

 

If you're a regular reader of this blog, thank you.  (hug)  I know many of my posts lately have reflected this heart of 'unplugging'.  I'm not stuck on repeat, I promise.  This is the work God is doing in my heart right now and I'm sharing my honest, open reflections.  I'm a work in progress too... and unplugging for the purpose of seeking God and seeking relationship needs to be deliberate.  I pray you will be inspired to do the same and see how God moves in your heart and in your life.

 

Let's cling to the King who is ruler over all and yet calls us His own.  Let's live enslaved only to the gospel... because this is where we find true freedom.  It's life's great and most amazing upside-down truth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Secrets and Grace.

They call them 'secrets'.

The little spaces where piled rocks leave spaces for water to flow through.  That space is where the secrets await to be discovered.  The kids lean low and whisper to each other, searching, digging, moving the small pebble and the jagged boulder.  Making room for more water to flow, uncovering more secrets.  As they scoop with chilled hands, water unexpectedly dips deep and rushes fast below, dashing back and forth and dumping into a water hole.

Yes, the one we swam in last Summer.

The waterfall cascades behind us, glowing in the late afternoon sun.  I crouch low on a slippery rock and snap photos of my world.  Autumn leaves spatter the flowing crystal waters.  Old Oaks tower above us and ancient plateaus of boulders surround on every side, bright green with moss.  This is my world?  I almost tear up at the thought of the grace overflowing this place.

 

 

 

Secrets.  Yes, the whole world is full of God's massive and minute secrets.  All of them holy and all of them miraculous and all of them here by the hand of God the Creator.  And above all and over all flows His grace.  The grace that finds us in the empty places.  The spaces in between.  The dark, hidden places we all have - just waiting to be washed clean by the Everlasting Water, Christ Jesus.

The secret places.

I look on in awe as the kids remove pebbles and rocks and watch the water flow freely where it once was all stopped up. They sure do have a system to this.  Scout out the most beautiful, yet plugged up place.  Figure out where the water might flow through, if it could.  Start digging.  Burst out in joy when the rocks are finally removed and the flow increases to a full-out roar.

They could do this for hours.  I smile, pensive.

Isn't this just like God's grace? 

It blasts forth with mighty power, always flowing, always ready to cover the whole wide world.  Just like that cascading waterfall we hear in the distance, He is mighty and awesome and always ready to pour and fill.

But there are rocks and pebbles and muck and dirt and leaves and all things both beautiful and filthy that seem to stop up the flow.  Sometimes it seems life itself stops it, sometimes it seems other people stop it, sometimes we seem to stop it with our very hands.

Yes, we pile all kinds of 'stuff' around ourselves, so thick, so deep - there just isn't any time for God.  No time for prayer, for reflection.  No time to bow low, to embrace His creation.  To find secrets by the foot of a waterfall.

Never mind embracing His grace, who has time to pause and think on such things?

And then we wonder why we can't figure out our emptiness.  We wonder what has clogged joy.  One day, it seems it just got tapped out.  We got tapped out.

But friends - God's grace never stops flowing.

His abundant joy is always within reach.  We can pile up possessions and distractions and idols and expectations and disappointments and all kinds of junk - but guess what?  His grace and love still flows living water right on though.  Even when we don't see it or feel it or acknowledge it - still, it is there.

 

 

Alex, in all his five-year-old cuteness whispers to me, "SECRETS!  Mama!  Secrets."

He's digging faster now, trying with all his might to pull a large rock out of a rut.  A sister joins to help.  The rock wiggles and gurgles as they finally pluck it right out.  Cool water is sucked downward and spirals toward a leaf-littered flow.  Children beam, in wide-eyed in wonder.

Secrets.

Grace finds us in here. 

Right when we think the flow has stopped, there is still a way through, a secret place where Christ finds us.  He is always with us, always begging us with gentle whispers to find Him right where we are.  But do we respond?

Can we remove the distractions, the idols, the rocks of life?  Can we actually make room for Him and feel the full impact of His flow of grace?  The free gift of God's favor - undeserved, completely impossible to earn, but still - ours if we want it.

It's up to us to get on our knees and seek Him.  To dig out those distractions.  Those things that are stopping up the flow of joy in our lives.  The places where we are saying a stubborn no to God's grace.  Where we are choosing to be ungrateful instead of being bent in thanksgiving.

I mean, here we are - grace laden and surrounded by His majesty, safe in His arms.  Every moment and every breath, a gift.  Grace is life and life is, well, grace.

I pick up a fire red leaf from the river and gaze at its beauty.  Here in my hand is the secret - finding that grace in every sweet, sacred moment.  We clear the clutter and open our eyes and even a leaf becomes a reason to look up and let tears fall.  The world is full of God's breath-taking glory and overflowing with His amazing grace.

Live with hands and hearts wide open this weekend, friends.  Take time to breathe, bow low, and reach out to the one who gives every breath.

Written for Five Minute Friday with the prompt, "Grace".

Time.

Red apples hang from twisted branches, sun kissed and delicate.  A bird calls out in the distance as we breathe in the fragrance of dew speckled grass and sweet fruit.  The early Autumn bees buzz out the last of their energy.

We fill bags and marvel at how a tiny seed grows a tree and a tree, fruit and the fruit - seed again.  The Creator is close when you walk with His majesty - with His masterpieces.  And they're everywhere when we're out here.  This is His might canvas.

When foot meets cobbled path or wooded green - hearts meet God.

The whole earth is filled with His glory. 

Taking time to breathe from Facebook, Pinterest, media, and screens in general - it's an eye opening experience, friends.  You quickly realize what you've been missing.  Every moment I'm not engaged with these precious ones by my side - every moment I'm not living Mom-hood to the fullest, I'm wasting time.  Blowing time into that crisp Autumn breeze.  And it flies away, like the golden leaves.

All we really have is time.  It is our greatest commodity and it isn't even our own.  It is a gift.  All time belongs to God and all of us belong to God.  He holds it all.  Apple trees, children, orchards, moments, days, decades - they are His.  He decides how many days I have.  I get to decide how to use them.

But how will I use what He freely gives?

 

The Creator God decides how many moments He will give and every moment is grace over-flowing.

People often ask me 'why' I do this. 

You know, this whole home education thing. 

Among the many reasons is this one - time is greatest gift I can give my children. 

Time with God.  Time with me.  Time together.  Time invested in their hearts and souls.  Time in God's breath-taking creation.  Time to be still and grow quietly and peacefully.  Time to learn how to be a respecter of Time itself.

If we want to embrace every moment as Holy, we have to first embrace life itself.  And life happens in moments.  If we can't fully enter into the moments, how will we ever fully live our lives?

People also ask why we don't have a television and why we limit our kids' screen time to 15 minutes a day, if at all.   

Because we desperately want to hold time as precious and Holy.  How can time in front of the television ever by fully embraced?  Video games?  iPods?   And for myself - Facebook?  Twitter?  Internet?  Chatter and more chatter and hours adding up to days of screen time.  It is empty.  Empty time which leads to soul emptiness, friends.

So much screen time -  it is wasted time.  Forgive me if this offends, but it is truth.

And that truth has been blistering inside of me - this calling to really embrace God's gift of time here on earth.  It is limited.  So very, very limited.  And how much of it I have is unknown.  But my purpose of a follower of Christ is clear:

Love God.
Love others.
Make disciples by sharing the Good News of Christ Jesus.

All else, is all for not.

Time is the greatest sacrifice I can give to my Savior. 

He asks us for our whole life, and that means our every moment.  Our time.  And yeah, it means shutting off the computer and actually tuning in to His voice.  To tune into other people.  To pray.  To embrace long and hard those we love and leave a legacy of connection and wide awake living.

I mean, if we really, truly believe the Word of God to be true, we have to believe that all else is a waste of time.  It really comes down to this - do we take the scriptures literally?  Do we actually believe what we say we do?  Because if we're true disciples, we should look radically different from the world.

The way we spend our time should be radically different.  The question of 'am I producing fruit?' should be constantly on our hearts and minds.  The question of how we are honoring these moments God has graciously given us should be burning within us.  We are deserving of nothing, and yet - here we are.  Holders of time.

 

Ann Voskamp called it a Sanctuary of Time: 

"I speak it to God- I don't really want more time; I just want enough time.  Time to breathe deep and time to see real and time to laugh long, time to give You glory and rest deep and sing joy and just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven, or wild to get it all done - yesterday... in the beep and blink of the twenty-first century with its 'live in the moment' buss phrase that none of the whirl-weary seem to know how to do, who actually knows how to take time and live with soul and body and God all in sync?  To have time to grab the jacket off the hook and time to go out to all air and sky and green and time to wonder at all of them in all this light...

I just want time to do my one life well.

 

...this is where God is.  In the present.   I AM - His very name.  I want to take shoes off.  I AM - so full of the weight of the present, that time's river slows still... and God Himself is timeless....

 

When I fully enter time's swift current, enter into the moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here.  I can slow the torrent by being all here.  I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment..."  (One Thousand Gifts, A. Voskamp)

Back in the orchard, I gaze at our children counting their bountiful collection of God's fruits.  The sun is a patchwork of His glory all around them and I'm tearing up again.  His beauty - these moments, they are found right here.  When hands meet earth and hearts meet each other and God greets us when we slow down.

Slow down long enough to turn off screens, open hearts, and get out into open air.  Snuggle up close on the couch and read Squirrel Nutkin again and again and again.  To run crazy in the backyard, pretending to be an Ostrich with the kids.  To laugh deeply and roll in red leaves.  To make Tupperware castles with a five year old.  To open up His Word and sit long with a tea and breathe in what has survived the centuries.  To write love notes to the God of the universe who reads them with tenderness.  To call a friend.  To make a pie.  To stare out at the starry sky in the silence of the evening hours.

To pile apples high and bow low and thank God for His gifts.  The gift of crunchy fruit, the gift of grace, the gift of spiritual fruit, and yes, the gift of time.

May we all truly be awakened to the 'sanctuary' of time before us and embrace our days and our moments with wisdom.

Lean into the One who is the Giver of all time, and pray.  Still the world and enter into His awesome presence.  Turn off the distractions long enough to listen.  Long enough to realize how distracted we really are.  God Almighty, He cares.  He sees.  He will draw near to us when we draw near to Him. 

He will gently direct our days, our moments, our souls.

 

 

 

I love sharing my heart in this space, but I also want to walk in reverence of the time God has given me.  Please forgive me if I don't respond quickly or post often.  I'm still here, but I'm here more in spirit than I am physically. 

Facebook is still up - but I'll post only every once in a while.

God willing, here's the plan:

November - A weekly study on Prayer.

December - We're reading through the book of Matthew.

Big hugs. 

Praying we will embrace our time and live it well... on the journey with you, friends.

(hug)



Ann Voskamp quoted from One Thousand Gifts, "A Sanctuary of Time"

 

Related reading:  Time for God.

 

 

 

 

Time for God.

I've come to this place where I've realized I'm truly not in control.  It's only taken thirty years, but I'm finally starting to get it.  I mean, the whole of this life is not in my hands at all. And lately, it's as if I can honestly hear God's tender voice beckoning me to Him.  That still, small, but majestic whisper of, "come".

I'm chatting with my Dad, it's a normal conversation on a Tuesday morning.  We're discussing a book I'm reading when all of a sudden I hear:

"Oh my... I gotta go."
"What, Dad?"
"Gotta go, they've got Grandpa on a stretcher, he's going in the ambulance.  Call you back."

And the line goes dead.  And everything stops.  We drop everything, the kids and I, and we pray.  We pray hard.  And we get another reminder of what really matters - people, God, eternity.

Oh, how we can pray when the need is dire - when someone you love is out flat on a hospital bed - you PRAY.  But, what if we prayed like that every day?  I mean, if the urgency for saving souls and saving lives was in the every step?  If the urgency of praying for our children and our neighbors and our family was the first thing on our mile-long to-do list.  Not the last thing we try to mutter out as we fall asleep at midnight. (Guilty.)

I desperately need to press the stop button to the craziness of life.  Literally, every day press that button.  Stop the click, click, click of the keyboard.  Stop the constant chatter of the newsfeed.  Stop the music, stop the cooking, stop the reading - just stop.  Stop, and enter into another place.  The place where I quietly meet with my deepest companion and the one I call Lord of my life.

 

The Holy God of the universe beckons me to sit with Him -

but do I have the time?

It's like Ann Voskamp said,  He is the creator of all time, but who among us has time for God?

I whine that things aren't turning out.  I worry hard.  I'm getting those frown lines my Dad warned me about.  I cry there's no money for NACHU, and the partnerships are falling through, and Grandpa's in the hospital and Grandma's not well.  And the house is falling apart and the children are arguing and Monday's to-dos are still not to-done and I stamp my feet like a child on the inside.  My poor husband.  Oh, I talk about things and I whine about them until I'm dry in the mouth but for what?  I'm convicted deep in my soul tonight - what I really need to do is bow and talk to the One who knows all and sees all and is all and has already conquered all.

We have time for Facebook, time for Twitter, time for YouTube, time for Pinterest, but who has time for Almighty God?  Who has time to read His word or seek His face?  YHWH, the Creator has invited us in and yet, we sell-out for mindless entertainment, clutter, and endless photos of re-worked mason jars.

Friends, I'm struggling.

My heart is aching.

I'm missing Him.

I'm hearing His gentle call to unplug.  To dial in to what He has for this child of His.  To plug IN to what I can do for those around me.  To actually seek the way Christ beckons us to seek.  To do that whole 'pray without ceasing' deal.  Yeah, for once, to try that on for size.  To see what God might do if I actually bend low and spend more time with Him than I do surfing the web.  Radical, I know.

Yesterday I read the words of Oswald Chambers, and my mouth dropped.  These words met me right where I am and sat deep in my spirit.  It's so simple, yet, perhaps the most revealing truth about the present-day Western Christian church.  (And me.)

 "Prayer does not equip us for greater works - prayer is the greater work.  Yet we think of prayer as some commonsense exercise of our higher powers that simply prepares us for God's work.  In the teachings of Jesus Christ, prayer is the working of the miracle of redemption in me, which produces the miracle of redemption in others, through the power of God.  The way fruit remains firm is through prayer...

Prayer is the battle, and it makes no difference where you are.  However god may engineer your circumstances, your duty is to pray.  Never allow yourself this thought, 'I am of no use where I am,' because you certainly cannot be used where you have not yet been placed.  Wherever God has placed you and whatever your circumstances, you should pray, continually offering up prayers to Him.  And He promises, 'Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do...'.  Yet we refuse to pray unless it thrills or excites us, which is the most intense form of spiritual selfishness. 

We must learn to work according to God's direction, and He says to pray.  'Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest...' (Matt. 9:38).  There is nothing thrilling about a laboring person's work, but it is the laboring person who makes the ideas of the genius possible.  And it is the laboring saint who makes the ideas of His Master possible.  When you labor at prayer, from God's perspective there are always results.  What an astonishment in will be to see, once the veil is finally listed, all the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you have need in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ."

(Oct 17th of My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers)

I want to start a new journey.  A journey where Facebook and Pinterest and every other form of distraction is laid down for the sake of prayer.  For the sake of getting on my face and laboring at the foot of His cross.

So, for the next several weeks, I'm humbly going to try a new series on prayer called simply, "Time for God".  I am really not sure what this series will consist of - I'm waiting to see what I read in God's word and what He whispers to me, by His grace.

I also have no idea how often I will post or when I'll pop on to Facebook, etc.  I pray through this series, you will journey with me and be called to Christ as well.

Let's dare to clear out the distractions, get honest about what holds us back, and press in to a lifestyle of intentional prayer and obedience.

(hugs)

Coming soon... 

Learning to 'let them be'

I often feel like I’ve stumbled through the past 8 years of parenting.  There have been so many ups and down and boy, have I had a LOT of lessons to learn. I’m still learning them daily.  But there’s a few that stick out as ‘life changers’ in my mind, and this is one of them-
 

I’ve learned, when they are engaged in something positive, children need to be left alone.

 

As a homeschooling Mom, I live this philosophy every single day.  To be clear, I’m not talking about leaving them to do ‘nothing’ for hours on end.  This is about spending lots of time engaging with the children and learning along side them but then, being in tune with when they are happily engaged with play, work, learning and exploration on their own.  And in that awareness,  choosing to let them be as they are.  If they are engaged, enlightened, naturally content and learning independently, I 'let them be'...

To read more, join me at The Better Mom.

 

 

 

 

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Ordinary.

I'm sipping steaming Vanilla Rooibos tea and flipping through images of the day. Ordinary, everyday moments from an Ordinary, everyday life. The kitchen is a mess, there's a cupboard open, bowls are stacked askew, dishes piled by the sink, books everywhere. (Where do all the books comes from?)

I'm munching a piece of dry cereal when tears sting my eyes.  These faces.  Our children. I love them so deeply it physically hurts sometimes. The little five-year-old boy staring at me from behind a copy of “Philosophy of Education” - as if he's fully engaged in a good read. He whispers: it's actually a comic and Sonic is fighting the bad guy and its a 'really good one Mama'.   Simon, Audrey, and I laugh out loud and I refrain from mentioning, Mrs. Charlotte Mason wouldn't likely approve of Sonic as quality literature.

 

My heart burns inside of me - he's so sweet and so innocent and suddenly, somehow, in this photo, he looks older. Those eyes – I pray I will see them age creased with deep, deep laugh lines. But please, Alex – stay five forever.

People ask why I take so many photos. Because each photo captures a moment of my life. Every time I click the camera, I'm reminding myself how blessed I am. That I live a life worth capturing. It's a soul act – the physical click is like an alarm to myself to wake up and take it in. Because it's here today but it could be gone tomorrow. And it will be gone on one coming tomorrow – although, hopefully a distant one. Scripture says our lives are momentary.  Just a wave in the ocean, a vapor in the wind. 

I snap Audrey doing her Math in the early morning sunshine.

And our big bowl of apples as we bake Apple Pie together.

Alex – coloring on the floor and telling me all his Christmas wishes from the Playmobil catalog (yes, already).

Our glorious daily walk in the woods.

Making leaf collages.

 

Alex stealing a taste of crust.

Every snapshot is a heart reminder to wake up and open my heart to right now.

 

 Not every moment is an easy moment. Our life is crazy and busy and I can't even pee in peace most days. (A side-note: Just yesterday, I tried to sneak to the bathroom at Walmart. I begged the kids to come with me, but they wanted to 'wait outside'. So, they sat a millimeter from the bathroom door - I could hear them talking - I was so close. Mid-pee, I hear screaming. Alex has pinched his finger in between the buggy and the bench and the sales lady is tapping her foot with a concerned look on her face as I blaze out of the loo to hug my poor child. Yep. Negligent homeschooler with her kids at Walmart at 2pm...and everyone stares.)

I get it, Mamas – life isn't always strolling through Autumn leaves. I know, it can be hard. I've cried myself to sleep from exhaustion. I know that pain, friend.

But this life?

Yes, the one that surrounds you right now. Right at this moment – look around you and see.
Wide-eyed look – the mess, the toys, the books, the people, the home, everything... they are gifts. Here today but not forever. And yes, your life may feel very, very Ordinary, but you are called to be in it fully and completely.

 

Right now is your calling.

Oswald Chambers whispered to me in book-form last night:

“The true test of a person's spiritual life and character is not what her does in the extraordinary moments of life, but what he does during the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting happening... Spiritual truth is learned through the atmosphere that surrounds us, not through intellectual reasoning...It is God's Spirit that changes the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and then things begin to be possible which before were impossible...”

 

Yes. The impossible becoming possible in Christ. Because some days – homeschooling, and cooking and cleaning and trying to do age 9+ K'nex with no luck, and running after children through grocery stores, and going to a meeting at night, and trying my hardest to help where I feel so helpless, and coming home to prepare the next day's food, lessons, and readings until 1am – yes, that life?   Even though it's ordinary, it definitely feels impossible sometimes.

But with Him - ah, everything changes.  Because Christ comes in and His grace reigns supreme in a home and suddenly every day gushes with love and a peace that surpasses all understanding and the hard things become doable and the simple things become incredibly sacred.  And it is in this process of the simple becoming sacred that we wake up.   Suddenly, an ordinary moment brings us to our knees in joy and thanksgiving and we're so happy.  So overcome with joy and love - yes, that fullness of joy we are promised, it IS within reach.   And those moments of awe?  They'll get you through the tough ones.  Oh, yes they will.

 

And sometimes, us we all need to hear it just one more time:

There is no call more meaningful or life altering than embracing where you are right now.

 

Chambers is right – it is during those Ordinary times when mighty transformation is taking place.  As we draw closer to Jesus, we open our eyes wider and embrace what is right here around us.  We sit in reverence and thanksgiving in the plain days.  And the plain days become crazy gifts.

 

Yes, the Ordinary.

 

The Normal.

 

The Seemingly Invisible.

 

The Sometimes Mundane.

It's all Holy work and we are at the center. 

So, the Ordinary is never really Ordinary because through God lenses, the everyday is sacred and eternally valuable. 

In a crazy, fast-paced world, we don't take near enough time to truly, honestly notice the gifts around us every single day. To notice the depth of what we have.  A simple smile.  Feeling soft hands on mine as we roll out dough for a pie.  Sharp pencil crayons in a row.  Sweet girls mothering a stuffed animal lamb. Brothers shooting Nerf guns while pots bubble on the stove.  All these seconds, snapshots of grace and love.


A prayer for this weekend:

"Father God, thank you for the every moment you have given me.  Each and every breath and every day I walk this beautiful earth.  Open my eyes to the ones around me.  Show me your path, Lord. Help me see the radiance and beauty in the ordinary.  Open my heart to your truth and the wonder of your ways.  Make me more like You - full of grace, bursting with love.  Help me not be distracted - too distracted to really see.   Shake me, wake me up to eternity and the souls surrounding me.   Help me to fully engage with all my being and see the ones you've entrusted me with.  See my calling.  See my purpose.  See You, Father.  Hold me close, God - some days are so hard.  Show me how to walk in truth and light though all seasons and every single one of my moments.  Thank you for Your grace, so rich and so free.  In Jesus mighty name..."


(hugs)