When Life Gouges Deep: He Fills Us

A couple weeks ago I sat on our family room couch staring at our dented-up coffee table trying to decide if I wanted to sand it down and stain it again or just donate it.

But how could I give away the table I learned to walk around, that my kids learned to walk around, that we all scarred with teeth marks and toys?

I stared down at the table-top—varnish paper-thin, naked wood poking through gouges so deep there was no sanding them out this time.

As I ran my fingers over the scarred surface, I remembered the time I danced a jig on it in a purple tutu when I was eight. I remembered the silver “Our Daily Bread” platter mom placed in the middle on a white doily. I remembered our oldest, Micah, giggling as he launched match-box cars over the rounded edges.  I remembered the Christmas my world fell a part and I sat on the table weeping as my boys huddled at my feet.

Every scar— a story.

And I’ve been reading so many stories—a new widow fighting for the life of her baby girl. A woman, married just a year, losing her husband on December 7. My friend, Christa, coming home from Sunday dinner with friends and finding her home burned to grey ash. And my friend Valerie aching over the days-old loss of her grandpa.

Life gouges deep.

We try—I’ve tried!—all sorts of fillers—food, work, exercise, busyness.

We paint on thin veneers of righteous living, worldly success.

But the fillers never fill, the veneers eventually crack, and our real selves—scarred selves—poke through.

Then—raw, naked, vulnerable—we’re ready to be filled with the only One who truly fills.  

When life gouges deep, Jesus fills us with the fullness of Himself. 

And we who are redeemed are not defined by the scars of this life but by the Fullness of God.

So we do not lose heart!

For when Jesus fills us up, he opens our eyes to

Hope in Him,   

Eternal inheritance In Him,

Power In Him!

For, in Him, our inner self is being renewed day by day, and the scars of life are preparing us for glory beyond all comparison, in Him!

So we look not to the scars that are seen, but

To Jesus,

who is able “to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think, according to the power at work within us.”

To Him be the glory, forever and ever.

Amen. 

*2 Corinthians 4, Ephesians 1, 3 paraphrased.

The Sanctifying of Mama She-Hulk

The van wouldn’t start this afternoon. I turned the silver key in the ignition, white lights flashed on the dash, orange dials spun in half-arcs, and something under the hood said “click-click-click-click” and I smelled smoke, or thought I did, and Micah yelled from the back seat, “I’m getting out before we explode!”

“Wait!” I yelped, trying to prevent the super-hero leaps of three scared boys into the middle of the street.

I opened the driver’s side door, walked round our Dodge Caravan to see what I could see, and noticed the back right tire was flat too. Lovely! Tomorrow’s Friday and we’ve got a conference to go to this weekend!

I sighed, kicked the flat tire for good measure, then called Jon and left a message—“the van’s dead and the back tire is flat.” Stuffing my phone in my back pocket, I reached over and yanked hard on the passenger side door, the one that’s supposed to open automatically, and announced to the three wide-eyed boys huddled on the back seat, “Well, the van’s broken so we’ll just have to go inside and wait till Dad can get it to Mickey’s.”

The three boys took the disappointment pretty well, given they’d been hoping for an afternoon shooting hoops at the gym. We traipsed inside in silence and hung up coats. I sighed again saying, “Man! This is disappointing. I doubt we can get the van fixed before tomorrow, but that’s life. I’m sure God has a reason for it.”

Micah plopped onto the living room floor, pulled off his Reeboks, and said, “Wow, mom, what’s wrong with you?”

“What do you mean what’s wrong with me?”

“Well, usually when something doesn’t work, you know, like your computer, you act like the Hulk.”

“How do I act like the Hulk?”

“You say ‘AHHHHHHH.”’

I had no words. I wasn’t sure if I should feel insulted that my son just compared me to a green monster or humbled that he’d noticed my less-than-holy attitudes when faced with less-than-ideal circumstances.

“Well, I’ve been praying a lot, Micah, that I would remember that God is with me all the time, even when things don’t go right.”

“That’s good, Mom!” he said as he threw his shoes into the closet and turned to shove Josiah and Isaiah to the carpet in a wrestling maneuver.

As grunts and giggles swirled around me, I marveled at the reality of God with me, sanctifying this Mama She-Hulk, helping me trust that a broken van was part of the plan.

Emmanuel. God with me, changing my heart, helping me see Him at work in and around me.

And this—the seeing—is Amazing Grace.

When You're not Mama Enough, Woman Enough: He is Enough

Esther Sophia,

You are six months old, slobbering trails across the carpet as you pull your slim baby legs towards the pile of red and blue Legos scattered just beyond your slender fingers. You look back at me, your mama, and smile till the dimples on either side of your mouth press in and those brown eyes light up my world.

Esther, there’s nothing more beautiful and terrifying than being your Mama.

I dream of years ahead—of tea parties and picnics on green grass, of dressing you in white lace and pink tulle, of mother-daughter giggles in the dark after bedtime stories. These are things my Mama never did with me and I wished she did.

My Mama hid in her sewing room, hid behind baking bread, teaching Bible studies, and grading papers.

My Mama hid her soul from me.

When I was nine, I sent my Mama notes scrawled in red crayon across pink construction paper saying “I love you,” craving for the words, “I love you too.”

To love and be loved,

To know and be known,

This was my soul-cry.

Esther, being your mama scares me to death because the same fear that kept my Mama from knowing and loving me threatens to keep me from knowing and loving you.

I’m afraid I’m not woman enough for this world, mama enough for you.

Just like my Mama, I’ve hidden behind to-do lists, Bible talk, and pretty clothes, desperately trying to prove I am enough!

But I’ve finally learned: hiding from the truth never works out very well.

Eventually you run into another woman who’s stronger, prettier, more organized, more talented, and in order to prove you are still enough, you tear down the feminine soul in front of you—the mama next door, the gal in the pew in front of you, the daughter crawling under your feet.

Esther, my fearful-feminine heart is tempted to cage you in a tiny box—as my mother caged me—and this caging, it's the cruelest form of tearing down.

Caging squelches the soul--the passion and personality that is you so I don’t have to face the truth about me—I am not enough.

But God—

Oh how I love the pregnant grace of these words—But God!

Rich in mercy,

Full of love,

He is enough.

This cage-breaking truth—that God is enough—brings me to my knees again and again.

It’s only when I’m on my knees that I’m woman enough, mother enough because HE is enough.

So, Esther Sophia, my daughter,

As we begin this mother-daughter journey together,

My soul believes God is enough,

And because God is enough,

I am mama enough for you,

You are daughter enough for me,

And together we will play, laugh, cry and fight our way

To know and be known.

To love and be loved.

To the Glory of the God who is Enough.

Love,

Your Mama

 "But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

(2 Corinthians 12:9)

When You Can't Stand Anymore: Sit in Surrender

“Isaiah! You did not put your legos away when I told you. Go sit on your bed. Now!”

Four-year-old Isaiah stood at the bottom of our narrow staircase, hands on hips, eyes slivers of granite, blond hair curling over forehead. He glared up at his Daddy’s six foot, one inch frame, stomped like a young bull preparing to charge, and snorted:

“I’m not gonna sit. I’m gonna stand!”

Daddy-Jon leaned down and squeezed Isaiah’s shoulders up to his chin, lifting his body till his bare feet arched above the carpet. Jon said slow: “No. You will march upstairs and sit!”

Hanging from Jon’s grip, toes now grazing the carpet, Isaiah growled: “I’m gonna stand!”

From my front-row seat on the living room couch, I watched my four year old dangle from his Daddy’s grip, helpless, like a mouse caught in a cat’s paw, and suppressed the urge to laugh. Jon stared into Isaiah’s bullish face as he swung his taut little body up the stairs: “Oh, son. You will sit!’

Moments later, Isaiah sat on his bed wailing: “Fine! I’m sitting!” and Jon walked back into the living room saying: “What makes a four year old think he can defy me and win? I mean, seriously, I’m four times his size!”

Why does a dependant child defy a loving Daddy who desires to do him good, not harm, all the days of his life?

In Isaiah’s words: “I want to stand!”  He thinks he knows better than Daddy.

And adults—we’re not much different. We grow out of foot-stomping defiance and into stubborn refusal to submit to Father-God’s plans for our lives.

Rather than surrender to Him, we say “I’m gonna do it my way!” Like Eve in the Garden, we deceive ourselves into thinking God is withholding good things—delightful fruit. So we give God the middle finger while attempting to satiate our soul-bellies. We buy into the delusion that we can control life, that we’re good at playing God.

But after weeks, days, years of trying to control the uncontrollable, our souls bloat with emptiness. Then, like our mother Eve, we finally take a good look at ourselves and see who we really are—naked, weak, human.  

“The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven't yet come to the end of themselves. We're still trying to give orders, and interfering with God's work within us. ” (A.W. Tozer)

It’s time to stop playing God.

To cease covering our naked humanity with mere Bible talk and outward acts of piety.

It’s time to lay our very lives at the foot of the cross,

Giving our Husbands,

Our Sons and Daughters,

Our Mother’s and Father’s, to Him.

Yielding our bodies, jobs, friends, money, to Him.

Offering our painful past, our present, our uncertain future, as a living sacrifice,

Allowing Him to satiate our thirsty souls, calm our fears.  

It’s time to sit in surrender, saying with four-year-old Isaiah:  

“Fine! I’m sitting! Your will be done!”

Not with fist-clenching resignation,

But open-handed, seeking the face of our good Father, 

Trusting Him to pen our story of grief and celebration

Into a Beautiful testimony of joyful submission.

Because it’s only when you sit in surrender that you truly live.

Submit yourselves, then, to God.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸

Come near to God and he will come near to you.

Humble yourselves before the Lord,

 and he will lift you up.

(James 4: 7-8, 10).

When You Can't Stand Anymore: Sit in Surrender

“Isaiah! You did not put your legos away when I told you. Go sit on your bed. Now!”

Four-year-old Isaiah stood at the bottom of our narrow staircase, hands on hips, eyes slivers of granite, blond hair curling over forehead. He glared up at his Daddy’s six foot, one inch frame, stomped like a young bull preparing to charge, and snorted:

“I’m not gonna sit. I’m gonna stand!”

Daddy-Jon leaned down and squeezed Isaiah’s shoulders up to his chin, lifting his body till his bare feet arched above the carpet. Jon said slow: “No. You will march upstairs and sit!”

Hanging from Jon’s grip, toes now grazing the carpet, Isaiah growled: “I’m gonna stand!”

From my front-row seat on the living room couch, I watched my four year old dangle from his Daddy’s grip, helpless, like a mouse caught in a cat’s paw, and suppressed the urge to laugh. Jon stared into Isaiah’s bullish face as he swung his taut little body up the stairs: “Oh, son. You will sit!’

Moments later, Isaiah sat on his bed wailing: “Fine! I’m sitting!” and Jon walked back into the living room saying: “What makes a four year old think he can defy me and win? I mean, seriously, I’m four times his size!”

Why does a dependant child defy a loving Daddy who desires to do him good, not harm, all the days of his life?

In Isaiah’s words: “I want to stand!”  He thinks he knows better than Daddy.

And adults—we’re not much different. We grow out of foot-stomping defiance and into stubborn refusal to submit to Father-God’s plans for our lives.

Rather than surrender to Him, we say “I’m gonna do it my way!” Like Eve in the Garden, we deceive ourselves into thinking God is withholding good things—delightful fruit. So we give God the middle finger while attempting to satiate our soul-bellies. We buy into the delusion that we can control life, that we’re good at playing God.

But after weeks, days, years of trying to control the uncontrollable, our souls bloat with emptiness. Then, like our mother Eve, we finally take a good look at ourselves and see who we really are—naked, weak, human.  

“The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven't yet come to the end of themselves. We're still trying to give orders, and interfering with God's work within us. ” (A.W. Tozer)

It’s time to stop playing God.

To cease covering our naked humanity with mere Bible talk and outward acts of piety.

It’s time to lay our very lives at the foot of the cross,

Giving our Husbands,

Our Sons and Daughters,

Our Mother’s and Father’s, to Him.

Yielding our bodies, jobs, friends, money, to Him.

Offering our painful past, our present, our uncertain future, as a living sacrifice,

Allowing Him to satiate our thirsty souls, calm our fears.  

It’s time to sit in surrender, saying with four-year-old Isaiah:  

“Fine! I’m sitting! Your will be done!”

Not with fist-clenching resignation,

But open-handed, seeking the face of our good Father, 

Trusting Him to pen our story of grief and celebration

Into a Beautiful testimony of joyful submission.

Because it’s only when you sit in surrender that you truly live.

Submit yourselves, then, to God.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸

Come near to God and he will come near to you.

Humble yourselves before the Lord,

 and he will lift you up.

(James 4: 7-8, 10).

When You Can't Stand Anymore: Sit in Surrender

“Isaiah! You did not put your legos away when I told you. Go sit on your bed. Now!”

Four-year-old Isaiah stood at the bottom of our narrow staircase, hands on hips, eyes slivers of granite, blond hair curling over forehead. He glared up at his Daddy’s six foot, one inch frame, stomped like a young bull preparing to charge, and snorted:

“I’m not gonna sit. I’m gonna stand!”

Daddy-Jon leaned down and squeezed Isaiah’s shoulders up to his chin, lifting his body till his bare feet arched above the carpet. Jon said slow: “No. You will march upstairs and sit!”

Hanging from Jon’s grip, toes now grazing the carpet, Isaiah growled: “I’m gonna stand!”

From my front-row seat on the living room couch, I watched my four year old dangle from his Daddy’s grip, helpless, like a mouse caught in a cat’s paw, and suppressed the urge to laugh. Jon stared into Isaiah’s bullish face as he swung his taut little body up the stairs: “Oh, son. You will sit!’

Moments later, Isaiah sat on his bed wailing: “Fine! I’m sitting!” and Jon walked back into the living room saying: “What makes a four year old think he can defy me and win? I mean, seriously, I’m four times his size!”

Why does a dependant child defy a loving Daddy who desires to do him good, not harm, all the days of his life?

In Isaiah’s words: “I want to stand!”  He thinks he knows better than Daddy.

And adults—we’re not much different. We grow out of foot-stomping defiance and into stubborn refusal to submit to Father-God’s plans for our lives.

Rather than surrender to Him, we say “I’m gonna do it my way!” Like Eve in the Garden, we deceive ourselves into thinking God is withholding good things—delightful fruit. So we give God the middle finger while attempting to satiate our soul-bellies. We buy into the delusion that we can control life, that we’re good at playing God.

But after weeks, days, years of trying to control the uncontrollable, our souls bloat with emptiness. Then, like our mother Eve, we finally take a good look at ourselves and see who we really are—naked, weak, human.  

“The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven't yet come to the end of themselves. We're still trying to give orders, and interfering with God's work within us. ” (A.W. Tozer)

It’s time to stop playing God.

To cease covering our naked humanity with mere Bible talk and outward acts of piety.

It’s time to lay our very lives at the foot of the cross,

Giving our Husbands,

Our Sons and Daughters,

Our Mother’s and Father’s, to Him.

Yielding our bodies, jobs, friends, money, to Him.

Offering our painful past, our present, our uncertain future, as a living sacrifice,

Allowing Him to satiate our thirsty souls, calm our fears.  

It’s time to sit in surrender, saying with four-year-old Isaiah:  

“Fine! I’m sitting! Your will be done!”

Not with fist-clenching resignation,

But open-handed, seeking the face of our good Father, 

Trusting Him to pen our story of grief and celebration

Into a Beautiful testimony of joyful submission.

Because it’s only when you sit in surrender that you truly live.

Submit yourselves, then, to God.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸

Come near to God and he will come near to you.

Humble yourselves before the Lord,

 and he will lift you up.

(James 4: 7-8, 10).

Marriage: Like Oil and Water



By Tetine view original here.

“Like oil and water, that’s what we are,” laughs Jon, my hubby of twelve years, whenever I do something that drives him nuts, like let soap suds dry in washed cups, giving that next cup of coffee a ring of sour foam, or leave keys dangling in the front door (“Are you trying to leave an announcement for all the burglars in the area?!”) or sit in his Herman Miller in damp gym clothes, leaving a sweat spot on the seat, just for him.

Oil and water—that’s what we are, me the oldest born, him the youngest. Me the realist, him the idealist. Me thinking eating is about living and him thinking living is eating. Me out the front door ten minutes early, him putting on socks in the car. Me drinking coffee straight up, him drinking a little coffee with his Cold Stone creamer. Me focused on the task at hand, him pausing to ponder life.

But it’s our similarities, like our love for competition and all things athletic, that keep us loving life together. When we were college sophomores playing Speed in the Student Center, he beat me ten times in a row, and I threw the deck of cards in his face, and he laughed saying, “well, how bout another round of ten, make it twenty losses for you?” When he schooled me in basketball, I gave him a little roundhouse kick to the backside, and he just laughed until I started laughing. He stopped laughing when I beat him in a 5k by half a mile (secretly he’s proudJ), so this year we’re signing up for a mud run so we finish together.

We’re minimalists wearing thrift store steals, carrying flip phones, and driving rusty vehicles with missing door handles. We’re readers with ten books on hold at the library and a fetish for Amazon and Half Price Books. We’re talkers planning date nights with witty repartee over a glass of Moscato. We’re dreamers and cynics railing against the mundane, fighting for the beautiful.

We’re sinners needing oceans of grace.

Jon’s favorite verse—Galatians 2:20—has become our marriage verse, keeping us learning and loving through oil-and-water moments, the joys and pains of life. Our first year of marriage, teaching AP Lit. to seniors, buried under Hamlet essays and grading grammar tests, I wanted to make Jon something special for Christmas, so I decided to cross-stitch Galatians 2:20  in Greek—the whole verse—even though needles, thread and crafty things don’t come naturally to this wife.

But on Christmas Eve, with half the verse stitched on cloth cut too short to stretch, I drove to the custom framing shop down the street and begged the guy behind the white counter to help me figure out what to do with my half-verse stitched on too-small cloth. He helped me pick out a frame, directed me to some sticky-board for the cloth, and offered to cut a mat out of discounted remnants. I watched as he cut the rose-colored mat on the white counter with an exacto knife, watched as his fingers slipped and blood oozed.

As co-workers scrambled for the first aid kit, I stared at red blood oozing on white counter and thought of my half-verse: “I have been crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

It’s only after dying that you really live, that Christ lives in you.

Dying to Self, living to Christ, blends husband and wife together.

Christ living in me, living in Jon, breathes joy into our marriage, giving Grace for every-day oil-and-water moments and Hope for years to come.

Related Posts: Boy Meets Girl, Husband Love, Making He/She, We

How to Face the Uncertainty of a New Year

When I woke up this morning at 5am, I lay in the semi-dark listening to the cackle of the baby monitor beside me and the hum of the industrial fan in the next room. Esther’s sore gums woke her every hour in the night, so this sleep-deprived mama wished I could fall asleep for another hour rather than brave the sub-zero morning for my usual date with the gym treadmill. But after fifteen minutes of snuggling under new flannel sheets, force of habit won the hour and I slipped out of bed and into the seventh day of 2014.

As I drove to the gym in our 1996 Geo, vents breathing cold air on mittened fingers, I thought about Caleb, a nineteen year old boy from our church, lying in a hospital in a month-old coma, his new year dawning in a way he never imagined.

I pondered the words Caleb’s Dad, Bruce, typed on an ipad in a hospital room as he sat beside his bed-ridden son in the first week of the new year--“‘Delight yourself also in The Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way also to Him and He will bring it to pass.’ The starting place, my friend, is 'delighting in the Lord.’”

The starting place for 2014—delight in the Lord—no matter the circumstances.

As I pulled into the gym parking lot and grabbed my backpack and water bottle, my thoughts wandered to the night Jon and I sat at our kitchen table listening to our friend Kris tell the story of his childhood, how he grew up in a church full of Bible but absent of Jesus, how he wanted to meet Jesus, so he opened his Bible and read the gospels, “looking for Jesus.” Stopping at the words “Jesus wept,” Kris said, “Now that, that, is Jesus, and I want to know this Jesus.”

The starting place for 2014—seeing the real Jesus—the one who weeps with the hurting.

Front-desk-Pat asked for my gym pass, bringing me back to the present. Pass scanned in, I trudged upstairs hoping to find an open treadmill. As I pulled off my green jacket and clipped the blue ipod on my tank top, the words of Ann Voskamp’s new year’s post echoed loud:

“The most important skill 2014 needs is this: Just be with Jesus. Listen to Jesus. Rest in Jesus. Wait for Jesus. Be Loved by Jesus. Wonder over Jesus. Live through Jesus. When who Jesus is overwhelms you — nothing that happens can overcome you. Steep your soul in Jesus and nothing is too steep to overcome.” (http://www.aholyexperience.com/)

The starting place for 2014—steep the soul in Jesus—for with Jesus, nothing is too difficult to overcome.

As I scanned the sea of new-year’s resolutioner’s sweating on treadmills, ellipticals, and bikes, I saw 85-year-old Dick wave me over to his treadmill. As I climbed onto the treadmill Dick saved for me, I remembered the New Year’s of my childhood:

Each new year began with Dad handing out yet another Read-Through-The-Bible schedule. The only thing that changed from year to year was the method—chronologically from Genesis to Revelation? According to date written, which meant starting in Job? Or a mixture of Psalms/Proverbs as you plowed into the gospels at the same time? . . .  

Over the years I read, memorized, and studied A LOT of Bible. I read and studied a lot of systematic theology (Grudem anyone?), dissected worldviews against the backdrop of the Bible, and listened to political debates dripping with Bible. But in the midst of all that Bible, I missed the most important thing:

I missed Jesus.

After I grew up and left home, God sent me I-can’t-handle-this-on-my-own kinds of trials, and in the midst of trial I learned I could read the Bible all day long and still not have Jesus.

I learned Jesus is not found in spiritual disciplines or church service or righteous living.

 

I learned when the MEANS become the END, we live moralistic lives filled with BIBLE but empty of JESUS.

Which is why on the cusp of this new year my hubby pulled out his Bible and read these words: “So then it (salvation) depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” (Romans 9:16).

No amount of human exertion gives you Jesus.

Jesus is God’s merciful gift to us, and the Bible, as our friend Kris said, is a MEANS to seeing Jesus.

So for our family, the starting place for 2014 is this—praying for God’s mercy—because only through His mercy can we truly know Jesus, live Jesus.  

And our  2014 New Year’s Resolution is this: delight in Jesus, see Jesus, live Jesus.

For if the desire of our heart is Jesus, we can look at the uncertainty of a new year and say with Bruce, who sits in a hospital room with his beloved son:

The starting place, my friend, is 'delighting in the Lord.’

In “pastures green”? Not always; sometimes He

Who knowest best, in kindness leadeth me

In weary ways where heavy shadows be.

So whether on hilltops high and fair

I dwell, or in the sunless valleys, where

The shadows lie, what matter?

He is there.

(Streams in the Desert, 17)