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The bad habit I want broken for me and every mom

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For I am confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will continue to perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.  
Philippians 1: 6

In my early years as a mom, just as truly as my lips seemed to be magnetically drawn to the pudgy cheeks of my little ones…  Just as truly as my heart could have burst with zeal to capture all the best that life could offer them…  Right alongside the beautiful stuff of motherhood, the honest ugly truth is that there were several long years when nearly every time my children wore a tie-dye shirt with flower pants, or chewed with their mouths wide open, or tripped someone with the mini shopping cart at the grocery store, or just seemed to take up too much space in a room, I squirmed almost out of my skin.

With disapproval.

With insecurity.

With fear.

Not because I actually thought they should be better.  Not because I wanted them to be perfect for me.  But because I wanted them to avoid every pain I had faced, every joke that had been cracked at my expense, that left a crack right down the middle of my selfhood, every pointy edge of the world’s cruelty that might make them want to shrink back.

I wanted to rescue my children from all of life’s hurts and rejections and exclusions.  

Fear concluded that the rest of world would be hard on them.  So, in my limited, fleshy mind of worry, I unknowingly resigned to do everything in my power to present them perfectly inside-the-box and charming in every way.  Truly, whatever people-pleasing insecurity was tucked inside of my 8 or 10 or 12 year old heart came leaking out of my 30-something skin, and made a bit of a stink in my home.

I had developed this bad habit of trying to fix my children up into perfect little people.  It held a thin hope of protecting them from getting bruised, and a shoddy sense of control to comfort my uncertain heart.  

Several years ago, I woke to a hurt relationship with my eldest daughter, and a rugged hunger for a new way.  As I timidly let the light shine in the deep, dark quarters of my heart where this critical spirit was born, I realized that the backdrop to my constant corrections and tightening grip around my enterprising, torch-bearing, wildly free-spirited girl was a steady stream of criticism of myself, as her mom.

As my own spirit was being crushed beneath the barrage of judgment, the same judgment seemed to be all that could spill out of my mouth.  

Unpleasantly clear to me now is that, as I fought to save my daughter from the harshness of the world, my own harshness was crushing her in advance.  Not with terrible words, but with constant critiques.  Not with outright denunciation, but with a subtle spirit of Not Quite Good Enough.  The same spirit with which I was judging myself.

Since that moment, God has been ushering me into the new identity that has been mine to wear all along — the identity of chosen, redeemed, adopted daughter of the King of Heaven.  One purchased by the blood of Christ, pure and righteous in the eyes of God.  A daughter upon whom God looks and says “You are mine and I take great delight in you.”  A woman leaning and living into a perfect holiness that has already been given me as a gift, in Christ.  Born into freedom.  With an inheritance in joy.

As I lifted my gaze, I found the eyes of God looking on me with tender delight, gentle affection.  

Friends, even sweeter are the curves of your face to the perfectly clear eyes of the God of Heaven, than the face of your own sleeping babe to your eyes.  

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Me, a beloved child.  This is who I am to Our God.  This is who you are.  And here is the place from which we can be changed and sanctified into the people God already knows we were made to be.

And here, from this loved place, we have a a true and steady love to give.  

As I journey into the truth of my identity as God’s beloved, I fight to believe the same truth for my children.  Parental love often comes in the form of consistent and firm boundaries, as a path to real freedom and abundance.

But in all our boundary-setting, correction and discipline, we can start from a place of victory and hope, rather than a place of fear and defeat.

The thing is, if we try to fix our children up with criticism, they might just take on an identity of rejection from the start.

At any age, unconditional love and acceptance, as we bump and crash into lovingly set boundaries, is what allows us walk out our potential.

I want my children to know what I’m learning the hard way, that we learn who we are, not be looking around but by looking up into the heart of our Maker.  

So that means we can start every correction with radical acceptance and bold fearlessness.

I’m through with trying to fix my children up into the perfect little people, and I’m trying to remember and share Christ’s invitation to simply be covered by Him.  Because of the promises extended to us in Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can find rest for our souls right in the messy middle of our sanctification journey.  And, in turn, we can lead and teach and train our children with peace, with grace, with hope.

As we get our fear and discomfort with our kids’ mess out of the way and trust God with their hearts, and our own, we become more trustworthy parents.

Sisters, as for me and my house, we’ve determined this habit of trying to fix our children has got to go.

God works on our hearts with full confidence in the end product.  He knows who we are becoming, and his patience is enduring.  His grace empowers and encourages me towards a life of abundance – it lifts me to my feet when I fall.

May we all believe with confidence in the beauty and potential and God-given purpose tucked inside each of our precious babes, and may this hope and grace be a solid ground on which to stand, as we shepherd their hearts.

The beautiful thing about an upside down life

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Do you have those moments in motherhood when you feel equally and simultaneously blessed beyond measure and like you’re going to crawl out of your skin?

Yeah, me too.

The endless needs to meet, the dishes and laundry, the noise and the arguments, the chauffeuring and the schedules, the changes and transitions and disruptions and sleepless nights…it’s just a lot.

Beautiful, messy, amazing, demanding, miraculous, exhausting life.

There is a heavy side to this parenting job, shepherding and guiding through life’s pains, and feeling the weight of directing our child(ren)’s future.  But much of the stuff of my day isn’t really difficult.  Many of the tasks of motherhood are simple and straightforward.  So in the daily grind, I sometimes find myself wondering why I’m struggling.  I think I could change diapers and correct children and fold clothes and answer questions and do dishes at your house with a smile on my face and a skip in my step.

Sometimes, the hard part is not necessarily what I have to do, but the state of my heart.

As I pay closer attention to what goes on in my heart and mind when a child’s need arises, or 47 of them at the same time, it’s not actually the work that’s hard.

When it’s one more diaper or one more water cup to fill when I just sat down, I think the more difficult part is the battle that rages inside for my rights and my dignity.  Something bubbles up in me that says “Dang it, I deserve to sit down and eat a meal!”  There’s something ugly that thunders with thoughts that say “I woke up at 5:30am so I could get time BY MYSELF.  You’re not invited!”  Or the feeling that it must be an attack on my basic human rights to have someone bust through the door every time I try to use the bathroom.

Though these thoughts may not make it out of my mouth, they eat away at my insides and make this motherhood thing so much heavier, harder, a constant battle.

But that way of thinking has everything to do with identity and greatness as the world sees it.  It’s about who you know and what you do and who you impress and how much money you make and how much you produced and how satisfied it made you feel.  It’s about demanding respect and fighting for your rights.

But friends, there’s something beautiful in motherhood, and so many times in life, that we could miss in the million ways we are stretched and pressed and bruised by meeting everyone else’s needs.

There’s a gift inside of the work, a mystery tucked inside of the demands, an invitation beneath the invisibility.

God invites us to flip it all all upside down…

To celebrate the times when our needs can’t be met, because it draws us close to God’s heart of abundant and fresh daily mercy.*

To boast in our weakness because it pulls us into the strength of Christ.*

To be poured out, giving our life all away, because it’s the secret to finding the life we’re grasping for.*

We could be burdened by our work being invisible to the rest of the world.  Or we could let the work of our hands be a song of worship before the delighting eyes of our King.*

We could scramble and claw to be left alone, or we could offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God…and discover the secrets of Christ, who came and served and endured unto JOY.*

We could spend our energy fighting for our rights to sleep and peeing alone, or we could find our life as we go ahead and give it away.  We can offer generosity of spirit and time and energy and words, trusting that it will all be given back to us.*

I itch for my children to know what I’m learning the hard way, about how real life, real joy, real greatness is found when we give it all away.

And isn’t this what we want our children to know?  How to put another person’s needs before their own?  How to have genuine compassion and a drive to serve and protect those weaker than themselves?

How in the world do we teach this upside-down, inside-out concept of serving one another, of washing the feet of another, of taking the lowliest position for the sake of Christ, with the promise that the last will be first in the Kingdom of God?

I think this is one of those lessons that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense until we see it live and breathe.

Their daddy and I can prattle on about how they should just hurry up and stop fighting for the biggest brownie and to be first into the car.  We can tell them how Jesus says the “last will be first” only to watch their squabbles shift to shoving each other into the car so they can be last.

In a world full of “likes” and “follows” and always looking beautifully put-together, how do we set aside the drive to always be best and liked and recognized and elevated and admired?

These things we can spend so much time chasing always turn up empty.  When I try to stand on them, the shifty sandy ground beneath my feet washes away with the waves.  In this realm, when people stop admiring, and someone else is better, and seasons change and no one sees me, I’m left with nothing.

The world doesn’t have much solid ground to offer us, or our children, not in money or fame or success or titles.

And I want the kind of riches for my family that last into eternity.

So, in a world that’s all about getting ahead, I want to be mama who teaches her children about getting low.

The beautiful thing about living upside down is that we have nothing to fear.  No one and no thing can take away the brimming life that results from dying to ourselves.

We have freedom.  The pressure is off to meet other’s expectations and keep up with the mom next door when we are living for God’s eyes alone.

If the way to be great is to be the least, than, mamas, cleaning poop off the walls or being told off by a toddler or spending three hours a day driving your people places are right there in the sweet spot of God’s heart for us.

The gift is that we only need eyes of One to experience the greatness we all long for.

The beautiful thing is that joyful and abundant life doesn’t require a title or applause or a corner office or ten thousand Instagram followers.  It’s accessible to us from our kitchen sinks, from our child’s bedside, from the driver’s seat of our cars.

We can take the Hand of Love to be led forth in grace, when we let our lives be hidden in Christ.  And as our families see us serve in joy, they have a window to see where true life is found…in giving it away.

 

*Bible references:
Lamentations 3: 22-23 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” – Matthew 16: 24-25
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. – Romans 12: 1-2
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  -Hebrews 12: 1-2
“Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” – Luke 6: 38
Jesus was rich, yet for our sake he became poor, so that through his poverty we would become rich. -2 Cor. 8:9
For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. – Colossians 3: 3

 

 

My kids saw me cry right there in the middle of the kitchen

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Oh Lord, would you put fresh mercy in this hand today…

I felt the stick of dried milk on my elbow, and I had bite marks on my shoulder from my curious and teething toddler’s last embrace.

The words being thrown around my kitchen table bit down even deeper than those new little teeth.

My ears were stinging with it – not just with the noise, though it had gotten quite loud, but with the dissonance of sharp arguments and overly enthusiastic tattling and defiant disrespect.  My disgust with it all was apparent on my furrowed brow, and it only made my little ones agog to load me up to the brim and see what spilled out.

It was one of our last days of summer, right before starting back to school last week — I was eager to love it.  Anxious to soak it up.  Desperate for slow.  Staunchly committed to having fun together.

But my children have this innocently prodigious way of stripping me right down to the bare bones of myself, where I can only hope some grace and Jesus spills out of my weakness, instead of the repugnance I feel on my skin.

Perhaps you can relate, friend?

Someone was mad at me and wouldn’t tell me why.  Another one didn’t like any of the ideas, and didn’t want to go anywhere.  Another had packed the bags and lined the shoes and was waiting at the door for some grand adventure.  Oh, and everyone was hungry, of course, though breakfast had yet to be cleared.  And an overwhelmed and very upset child screamed at me one too many times about how I just don’t get it and I don’t even care, and finally all I could muster in response was a handful of tears.

These are the broken moments of which I am sometimes so very afraid.  It’s funny how I don’t want to show them my weakness – I hold it back like some secret Kryptonite, as if my children are the enemy, and to reveal it would surely be the death of me.

But there’s this beauty in the broken place.  I didn’t mean to go there, and I won’t hurry back, but when we break, there’s a beautiful thing that can happen…

 

When we break through to the raw place, instead of covering it up with anger or bitterness, we see the true longings of our heart.  When we break, there is a thing ready to be healed.  When we break, walls come down and we bust open to mercy.  When we break, we become soft.  And though a soft heart is more easily wounded, it is also more ready to love and receive love, forgive and receive forgiveness, delight and be delighted in.

 

And knowing our need allows us the receive the healing touch of Christ, who said ”It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…”

 

This broken moment last week gave my children the opportunity to see that their words affect me and were fracturing our relationship — it invited them to look around and see who else was affected.  They wanted to stop and reevaluate how the words they were using with their most important people.  We had a chance to recognize that we need help to love one another better, and it left them looking for the Source of Love.

 

I stooped low.  We huddled up.  We prayed for a fresh start.  We gave and received grace.  God met us.  And it was sweet.

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34: 18). None of us want heartbreak, disappointment, overwhelm.  None of us go looking for something to crush our spirit.  And yet, time and again these are the places where God meets me.

 

This crushing moment led us to the throne of grace.  

 

I’m not saying that you should cry in front of your children, as a method of showing them their need for Jesus.  No.  We have a responsibility to remain steady and consistent, and mostly predictable, to provide peace and stability for our children.

And yet, in our weakness, Christ is strong.  So let’s also not be afraid of being in over our heads.  Let’s not be afraid to admit to the Lord and to each other, mamas, when our day has nearly flattened us.

 

Let’s lean our pain, our struggle, our weariness into the chest of God, that He might wrap us in a healing embrace.  And when we fail… let’s trust God with the hearts of our children, too.  I was afraid that my accidental tears may have burdened them, but as we gave God our broken morning, He exchanged it for joy.

We don’t have to feign strength when we know the Source.  We are free to draw close and honest to the heart of God, with our children… to pray gently for them when they are struggling to use kind words, to shepherd them when they have failed to disobey, to apologize to them when we’ve been wrong, and we can usher in to watch God’s healing work.

When our heart fails within us, may we gather up the presence of God as our portion, our strength. (Psalm 73: 26)

When we are weary, may we climb into the lap of our Father God, trusting that he can give strength to our hearts, and renewal to our bodies. (Isaiah 40: 29, Matthew 11: 28)

When we are hopeless, and fear that nothing we are doing will amount to anything, may we place our hope in the Lord.  May we soar on wings like eagles, tireless and full of life. (Isaiah 40: 31)

When we long to just be better, stronger, more whole…may we hear God say to our hearts “My grace is sufficient.”  May we boast in our weakness, that Christ’s power may be great in us. (2 Corinthians 12: 9)

Sometimes I put too much weight on keeping it “together” with my kids.  Steadiness, consistency is a big deal in parenting.  I’m a believer in it, and I fight for it daily.  But it’s not THE thing.   I’m tempted to become robotic when I’m trying to muster up patience, and avoid yelling.

But today, I’m proclaiming out loud that the thing I want most is to be on my knees before Christ himself.  I’d rather be soft than cold.  I’d rather be accessible then impenetrable.  I’d rather exhibit heartbreak than calculated control.

Openness requires faith because it leaves us vulnerable.  It requires faith that God’s grace is enough when we let our hearts be hurt.

But openness can lead us to genuine need and true dependence on the Lord.  It can leads us to authentic heart connection with our God and with our children.  We have an opportunity to draw close.  We have an opportunity to pray.  And our children have an opportunity to feel our veracious and loving investment in their hearts and our relationship with them.

Today, I’m choosing to be unafraid of my weakness.  Today, I’m choosing to trust that God’s mercy can cover my failure, my disappointment, my inadequacy.

 

I’m choosing to believe that I can let my walls of fear and self-protection come down, and take up the shield of faith, as the only defense I need. (Ephesians 6: 16)

 

Psalm 73: 26  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  

Habbakuk 3: 19  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights. 

2 Corinthians 12: 10  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  

 

When you dread the question: “What did you do today?” (Part 2)

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“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” 

1 Corinthians 15: 58

I have always loved being productive and efficient.  I have spent a lot of my life living for results.  I love checking things off of a To Do list. I love Excel sheets and organized desks and the feeling of accomplishment at the end of a productive day.  I love taking steps that feel linear and progressive. I love large gatherings, the sounds of laughter filling my home.  I love making friends and building connection, deep conversation, and the feeling that I might have made a difference in someone’s life.  Whatever the form, I love visible, tangible, see it, taste it, touch it results.

I think we all do, to some extent.

We are built to create beauty and innovation, in the image of the One who made us.  This beautiful drive is set in us to partner with God in something bigger than ourselves.

What I never knew is what would happen to me when all of the visible was stripped away. I never knew what it would feel like to work all day and have a list longer than when I started, and to fail to explain how the minutes and hours evaporated.

I never knew what it would feel like to work tirelessly and never see the bottoms of my hampers.  I didn’t know the feeling of picking up the toys only to find them dumped in the next room.  I hadn’t felt the sting of giving everything away, to be told I’m the worst mom ever or that I just don’t care at all (this was just today).  I never knew about sweeping and mopping endlessly, only to find sticky and littered floors when my husband walks in the door.  Walking around all day not knowing I had spit up on my shoulder, and feeling so unbelievably insignificant.  I never knew about struggling through a trip to the grocery store only to encounter eye rolls and annoyed glances from passersby.

 

Getting to the end of the day without having accomplished anything I can name, and having no idea what kept me so busy – it can make me feel so small.

 

I never knew how much of me could be spent in completely invisible spaces, bandaging the boo-boo, holding and praying over the child with the nightmare, making all the lunches in those special ways, rocking the baby, changing the wet sheets, folding the clothes, going to appointments, loading the dishwasher, wiping the bottoms, breaking up the arguments, teaching and training and guiding in the ways of relationship and reconciliation, buckling and unbuckling and rebuckling the seatbelts, cleaning the kitchen over and over and over and over, and shepherding the hearts in all of the in-between spaces that will add up to a childhood.

 

I never knew how incredibly uncomfortable I would feel in my skin without tangible successes and accomplishments to show for my days.

 

Several years ago, this experience turned me inside out.

 

My husband, Mike, and I had just left our home in Kansas City, with thriving lives and work and ministry and friendship, pregnant with our third child, to move to Durham, North Carolina for Mike to attend business school.  My calendar, which had been bubbling over with color-coded activity from 5am until 10pm most days, with a personal training business and a high school ministry, children’s activities and social gatherings… transformed overnight to completely, entirely, alarmingly blank.

 

I stared over my bulging tummy into the adorable faces of a three- and a one-year-old child and thought my life was all but over.  I was wild about these little people of mine, blessed beyond words to be their mom.  And I had no idea how to “just” be their mama.  I felt that I had lost myself, and suddenly I was forced to believe that I mattered even when no one over three feet tall could see me.

 

I wanted to defend myself over the mess I had tried to clean, the chaos I had tried to pacify, the child I had tried to discipline…despite the appearance that I had sat on my behind all day.  I wanted to be understood, to vindicate myself and scream to the world that there was more to me than diapers.  I wanted my children to behave and speak kindly so that the world could see what I’ve taught them.  I simultaneously wanted to prove that I had a brain and questioned that it still worked.  I wanted to change the world and just wanted a shower.  I adored my children, and never took a day for granted that I got to stay home with them, but I suddenly had no idea who I was or what I was doing.

And I abruptly forgot how to make friends because the first question out of everyone’s mouth is “What do you do?”

 

Despite feeling like my dreams were coming true…

Despite the desire and gratitude for the ability to stay home…

Despite knowing that so many other moms would love to be in my shoes…

Despite feeling abundant and undeserved blessing…

 

Despite all of that, I found myself squirming and wincing at the words “I stay at home with my kids.”  Suddenly, all the lines were blurred, and who I am felt mixed up with what I do and the busyness of my schedule and my perceived relevance to the rest of the world.

 

In that season, I faced this ugly underbelly of my heart where I was silently desperate to be important and known and respected and appreciated and needed.

 

I cried out to God, begging him to give me purpose and identity and clarity about it all…begging him to show me where to invest, to let me use my gifts.

And in this one simple desperate prayer, he gently offered me this…

Sweet one, be faithful with what you have been given.  Be poured out here.  Whatever gifts you are longing to use, give them all away right here, where only I can see.  Whatever you feel you are capable of doing, do it here with the ones I’ve entrusted to you.  Trust me with the offering.

Painfully simply, God told me in the quiet of my heart that as I love the least of these within my four walls, I was loving Him.  Be faithful as I am faithful.

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Matthew 25: 40

He gradually and gracefully extended my reach beyond my home, but my eyes for what I’m doing with my children are new.

I come back to this truth over and over that in God’s upside down Kingdom, my children are completely and totally deserving of the the very best of me.

The parts I used to use to impress a boss.  The parts of me I used to make money or to try to create something beautiful.  When my children are the ones in front of my face, I can pour it all out to them, knowing that the eyes of the Father are on me.

And in that moment, my offering could be better spent no where in the world.
Maybe someday, I will have the opportunity to do a great thing, by the standards of the world.  Or maybe not.  But for today, I will heed the words of the lovely Mother Teresa…

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

Give it all away right where you are, Mama.  Your toil is not in vain.

 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

Romans 12: 1

If you missed Part 1 of this post, you can check it out here.  

Moms…is your heart aching for something to show for all of your work? (Part 1 of 2)

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Sweet messes made while I mopped the kitchen…

 

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.  Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3: 3-6

 

Do you ever feel like you get to the end of a breakneck day and look around to find that your house is messier, your connection with your children a bit more disheveled, and your insides tied in a few extra knots?

Me too.

Bedraggled at the end of a day, I sometimes wonder why I worked so hard, when no one seems to notice or care.  Down in my belly, I hope and trust and struggle to keep believing that raising the next generation is deeply meaningful work.  I know it is.  But I fail to be the mom I imagined a hundred times a day, and some days I can’t help but wonder if someone else would do a better job.  I make resolutions for better, more present, more intentional days only to find interruptions, discouragement, unexpected crises, and a dollop of uncooperativeness from my sweet little ones who didn’t get the memo on my new expectations.

 

This parenting thing requires faith that something is cultivating under the surface, that God is at work and multiplies the faithfulness of our hands.  

 

Whether you are a stay-at-home mom just dying for something, anything to show for your day, or you’re a working mama wondering how in the world to juggle it all, I think so many of us have these same questions badgering us about how we measure up and all the things the other moms seem to be doing better, the child’s needs we can’t meet, which sports or musical instruments or languages we should be learning, how exactly our life was reduced to folding clothes, packing lunches and driving to sports practices, and if anyone in the world has a clue how hard we’re working to manage it all.

 

This thing requires faith that we are seen by God when we are seen by no one else.  

 

Do you ever wonder if anything you are saying is getting through to your children?  If any of the work you’re doing in your home makes any difference?  If you will invest and serve and give it your all only for them to look back and say you were too hard on them or too easy on them or that you favored their sister or that you were too distracted with housework and emails to spend time with them?  Do you wonder if they’ve noticed your effort?

 

This thing requires faith that God will sift out the words and the lessons and the moments with grace, that he sees our children and knows their heart’s cries…that He hems them in, even through the ups and down of their well-meaning parents.  

 

These secret, sacred things of parenting – terribly and wonderfully invisible to the rest of the world – are the weightiest things I’ve carried, with the least amount of training, input, or feedback.  These up-all-night, argue-all-day, hang on for dear life, just make sure to say “I love you” and try to mean it kind of days…these are the ones that make up the most formative years of our children’s lives, the ones they talk about in the counseling sessions later.

 

These are the years that shape us…that make us brave or make us afraid.  It makes me want to give them my best.

 

And yet, if you stop by my house at 5pm any day of the week, you’d never know I’ve tried to teach them anything.  You’d never know I worked to create a home of peace and belonging.  You’d never know there were 87 moments of reconciliation and 743 corrective words exchanged today.  You’d never know by the look of things, with hair-pulling and clean-up refusing and their mama muttering something about will they just wash their hands for dinner, for the love of all things good and holy.

 

My motivation for this work at home cannot rest in seeing immediate results.


This thing requires faith that seeds are being planted and God — our Faithful Gardener — will bring a harvest in their lives and mine, in time and with great care.  

 

I’m discovering that I surely cannot rely on my children’s words or behavior to tell me how I’m doing at being a mama.  My hope must rest in faith alone.

My hope rests in faith that God’s mercies are new every morning, and so I don’t need to sit in guilt over imperfect days.  My hope rests in faith that God will fill in the gaps their daddy and I leave with precious friends and family, and the power of His Word and Spirit.

 

My hope rests in faith that God is writing my children’s stories, and He doesn’t need perfect threads to make a beautiful tapestry. 

 

If only I could have a guarantee that my work is going to make a difference, that all these moments of showing up and investing and shepherding and trying to be consistent will add up to more than heavy bones and sticky eyelids…that these moments will add up to the kind of childhood that shapes a person of character.  If only I could know for sure how this story ends.

But we do!  This story ends with a God who is making all things new.  This story ends with the victory of Christ on the cross that covers all of our frailty and all of our flubs.  This story ends with a God who never lost sight of us, and never lost sight of our children through every one of these sloppy, bedraggled days.

 

But this thing requires faith.  And I think that’s the point.  God is after our hearts and calls us into sweet communion with him when we’re dying to know who we are, why we’re here, and what kind of legacy we’re leaving.

Look for Part 2 next week…

 

And this is real life at my house right now…

 

 

If summer days have you feeling beaten down and defeated…a powerful solution

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A little smile from above.

The sun seemed to smile at my weary soul on that morning last week, as it crept around a nearby office building.  With only the sounds of a bird’s first-of-the-morning song and my sneakers striking the pavement, the sunrise brought me a dose of peace and courage for the day.

 

That niggling feeling that I should be soaking up every beautiful moment of summer freedom, right there with the drum of constant arguments and complaints of boredom on my aching ears…it all had me needing a little encouragement.

So the beauty of that morning’s sunrise sat far deeper than shades of pink and orange, with the promise of a fresh start, extending a gentle invitation to new possibility, new hope, new mercy.  A smile to say “Today is a new day”… “You are going to be ok”… “You can do this.”  A soft and simple smile.

And isn’t this the longing of every heart – to be smiled upon?

The beginning of the ministry of Jesus, God in flesh, was with a smile from above.  Father God looked down at him and said “This is my son, whom I love.  With him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3: 17)

How much more do we need to hear God say “You are mine, and I take great delight in you”?

There are so many other voices that would tell us we’re not enough, to work harder, that other moms – other humans – are doing it better, and we’ll surely never get it right.  In the noise of my mind I sometimes try to scare or guilt myself into being a better mom, a better wife, a better friend…but we all know that doesn’t work.  We end up being critical of others the same way we’re being critical of ourselves.

When we’re not receiving grace, we end up with none to offer.  

This day that started with the peeking sun smile, I was reminded that I could do all of this a different way.  I can start my day with simply being smiled upon…just getting quiet long enough to let God’s delight rest on me, without an ounce of striving.

And it makes me feel brave.   Like, this kind of brave…

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…where you know you’re loved and can run free and take on whatever the day would bring.

I forget all the time, but I’m trying to just take a breath at the start of each day and in the midst of every discouraged moment to let my heart receive God’s smile.

To be delighted in makes us sure-footed and unafraid.  We walk with more confident steps when we’re resting under the loving gaze of our Heavenly Father.

And, funny enough, the more I’m smiled upon, the more I smile upon my children.  The more I gain this courage of knowing Whose I am, the more I want to give a dose of courage to my kids – and everyone I meet, for that matter.

The Delighted In can’t help but love free.  The Smiled Upon can’t help but to smile upon others.  Those who live Claimed and Belonging can’t help but draw others in close.

Live loved today, mama.

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Grateful for my people, who make a morning at the zoo look like this. 

 

The Grace In Not Getting What You Want

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Not an act…grabbed a snapshot of my people wanting something they couldn’t have. 🙂
“But I WANT it!”  Eyes of disbelief, and a bit of a screech in the tone…this is the response from my charming little people – at least a handful of times a day – after I’ve delivered the crushing “No.”

You too, mama?

Mystifying as it is for our little ones, this necessary loss of innocence occurs as the reality sets in that the world and others actually do not bend to their whims.

Those of us who have circled the sun a few times know that sometimes the answer is “No.”  Sometimes we can’t have what we want.  Sometimes things don’t go our way.  Sometimes we have to wait.

But who likes it?

Every loving parent will gently teach that wanting does not necessitate receiving, even as our own mama hearts tremor with their secret unfulfilled longings and the “No’s” of life that ache down deep.

And how in the world do we teach them that the things we want aren’t always the things we need.  How do we teach ourselves?  How impossible when my own soul claws for the things that I just want – the night’s sleep, to be left alone in the bathroom, to just have a night out without someone spiking a fever on our way out the door. How often I hear from my own heart the same plea before a patient Father…”But I want it, Lord!”

But the magic of it is that the things I think I want, and can’t have, are the very things that are changing me from the inside out.

I think I just want a break, but what my heart needs is to know God’s daily mercies and to gather his grace like manna.  I think I want to just do it all right, but what I need is to know Christ’s power in my weakness.  I think I want to just be left alone for a moment of peace, but the constant interruptions are giving me new eyes to see every opportunity for silence with my King as pure gift.  God’s gentle voice speaks to me in my need…in the long breaths before responding to a child’s poor behavior, in the hugs offered when I wanted to roll my eyes, in the moments when my need to be forgiven gives me the humility to offer grace to my children.

So often, I find that the things I’m whining for are the things I need to lay down to find deep, rich, alive intimacy with God.

I’m realizing I may be a tad more refined, but not all that different from my children…and it makes my heart swell with compassion for them.

We can come alongside of our children as they slosh their way through tantrums and time outs, in the same way that Christ comes alongside of us in ours.  We can believe that the things they want and can’t have are shaping them.  And we can believe the same for ourselves.  

How to let your children be the beautiful miracles God made them to be (And a free gift!)

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“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

“As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” 

Philippians 1:20-21

 

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Typical driveway decor. :). They said it’s the name of their “band.”

Left to their own, my thoughts dart around, raising my blood pressure and making me reach for another cup of coffee.  Pinballing from child to child, to overdue items on my To Do list, to unmet needs and forgotten homework, to sports and tutors and appointments and ideas I heard and meant to incorporate, to conversations I meant to have, and friends I want to see — my mind swirls with passions and dreams wriggled up with the needs of the day and the weariness of my bones.

The honest way I navigate these blessed and beautiful and broken days – the way I grow and straighten out a bit of my twisted up places – it happens drowned in grace and one day and a time and almost never linearly.  I experience breakthrough and setback, I remember truth and then I forget.  I’m soaring with passion and then crushed with discouragement.  And as I stumble through, I am ever in need of our unchanging, faithful God.

I wonder where you sit as you read these words, sweet mama.  I’m imagining all the ways that you laid your life down in service to your family today, and what might be swirling in your mind and heart.  I wonder if you are relishing in giggles or if you sit with a heaviness about your failures or disappointments.

If you hid in the bathroom for a moment of respite during the dinner hour, or if you had to check to see if the windows were open for that moment when everyone yelled things they didn’t mean…Sister, I am so with you.

I wonder if you are desperate to love this motherhood thing, but you haven’t slept in months, or you long for a nice dinner conversation, or defiance has you worn to the depths, or your child’s hardships have you tied in knots.  I wonder if you have a tangled mix of excitement and dread for the summer ahead.

Maybe your mama’s heart beats deep today for a child grappling through school, a newly discovered learning disability, a troubling change in behavior, or a diagnosis that feels like a shattered dream.  Maybe you haven’t felt connected, you don’t understand what makes them tick.

I wonder if you’ve had expectations, like I have — about ease in sleep or growth or health or school or friendships,  that your children might love the things you love, or naturally connect with you the way you connect with others, that they would claim faith as their own at a young age, or behave in the way you’ve taught.

I wonder if you’ve found yourself- like I have – sometimes needing a bit too much from them, expecting to have a bit more control than reality allows.

In my last post, I shared about how my wrong expectations of myself and motherhood have sometimes chained up my joy.  You can read more about how I’m finding that as I begin to release my expectations, and trust in God’s sovereignty, I discover a road of beautiful adventure and freedom with God.

But even more…the thing that makes my eyes blur and my soul quake… the thing that really makes me want to fight for truth is the way my unrealistic expectations can chain up my children, hurt our relationship and keep them from living in the joy and freedom they were made for.

Several years ago, it hit me like a ton of bricks that there was a fabric being woven by a million tiny interactions that I didn’t mean to have, weaving together a pattern and life and relationship designed by unfair expectations and too little grace.  I was overwhelmed by my life and the house that needed cleaning and the baby that needed feeding and all the things I felt like I should be doing, and so I’m plopped my needs right down on the tiny shoulders of my children.
I found creeping into the corners of my heart this silent need for my children to fit in the metaphorical box I had made for them, taking up the exact amount of space that I had to give, which was sometimes infinitesimal…

The evidence was in my subtle disapproval over clothing choices because I didn’t want them to be teased the way I was, my quiet repulsion over table manners that I didn’t have the fortitude to endure with grace, forgetting to offer tenderness and back scratches when I felt like I was running on empty, too many words of correction and instruction and too few words of encouragement and blessing, unintentionally guiding my children to the activities with which I was comfortable, talking too much and listening too little, expecting my elder children to mature in accordance with my need.

As my capacity shrunk with each child we added to the mix, or each time daddy’s work schedule ramped up, I was shrinking the space for needs and moods and unpredictability that my children were allowed to have in our home.

I tried to fit my children’s needs into my life in predictable and methodical ways.  I wanted their growth to be linear.  I wanted their behavior to be ever-improving, their independence to be ever-increasing, their knowledge and understanding to be visibly multiplying.  I wanted to know how much of me mothering was going to take today.  I wanted the chores to be done because I had a plan, and I implemented it, and I needed it to work.

You and I both know, it doesn’t go that way.

We get them sleeping and then they stop.  We get that behavior worked out, and then there’s a new one.  They get over their separation anxiety and then it springs up tenfold.  Friendships are working for them, and then they suddenly aren’t.  We had big plans for the day and then a fever.  They usually bounce out the door for school, but today they don’t want to go. You dreamed of football and he wants to dance.  You imagined dresses and hair bows and she wants sneakers and t-shirts.  Today he’s not sure about all this God stuff.  Yesterday that joke was funny, but today it hurt.  Family time feels impossible because someone is always punching someone.   Reading just hasn’t clicked.  It’s hard for him to make friends.  Or maybe you’re a mama who just longs for the “normal” struggles because you can’t take a single day or milestone for granted with your child’s health or special needs.

Our children and their circumstances and their days are beautifully tragically humanly predictably unpredictable.

But with painful clarity, I began to see that my wrong perspective left no space for my children’s development to be messy and erratic and rarely linear, like mine.

High standards for our children can be a blessing that calls them into the fullness of their potential.  But needing them to meet those standards for our sense of well-being is a dangerous game. 

As I began to look beneath my constant barrage of corrections and frustration, what I saw in myself was fear:  lack of trust that my children’s stories were the Lord’s, fear that there would not be enough of me to go around, fear that their behavior and performance reflected my failure, fear that they were not going to live up to their full potential, and it would be my fault.  I think the struggle to extend grace seems to coincide with the place where our fear and shame rests — where we can’t let go.

I’m finding that at the core of most of the “needs” I have of my children, there is a lack of faith.

Though many parents share it, the need to control our children isn’t just a quirky part of motherhood to expect – at the heart, it’s a sickness of unbelief.  Our earthly expectations become our comfort.  When we try to stand on them, we aren’t believing God can walk our children through their own hardship and unknowns.

Our assumptions are not solid ground on which to stand, but there is a kind of expectation that is secure…

We can surely expect that God will never leave or forsake us (or our children). 

We should expect that God gives us (and our children) ultimate victory. 

We should hope with absolutely certainty that God is making all things new, in our lives and the lives of our children.

We should expect that any momentary affliction is preparing for us (and for our children) an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

We can expect that God has good plans for us, and for our children — that he works all things for our good.

Though everything else is uncertain, our expectations and our hope rest securely in Christ.   His promises are for our children, too.   God sees them directly— not just through our eyes, but through His own Adoring Father’s eyes.

In this light, we are free to guide them warmly through change and failure.  We are free to trust God’s handiwork on them, and believe He can handle their trials.  We are free to shed our expectations, and begin to explore and discover them.  We can stop striving, and we can look up into God’s heart, the One who knit them together and knows every hair on their heads, and apprehend His delight in them.  We can step into the beautiful adventure of mothering one or a few of God’s people.

I have a renewed sense, the way I did when each of my children were newborn strangers that I long to study them, see God’s creative originality on them.  I want to be introduced to the parts of them that scare me, to break them out of the comfortable box I put them in, and trek into the uncharted territory of their unique spirits and characters.

I’m still at the very beginning of this parenting journey — bigger failures, tougher decisions, higher stakes are ahead.  But as I stand today, I am trying to loosen my grip on my plan, and let the far more creative and ravishing story God is writing for my children begin to unfold.

Trust in God’s covering is fortifying me, allowing me to be a more stable mom —to become a rock for my children to bounce off of through all of their volatile stages.  I can be less emotional about the failures and surprises, and simply take the hand of my child and one step at a time, as God’s Word and Spirit lights our path.

If you need some ideas for breaking free from unfair expectations of your children, here are a few.  These are some habits that are helping me loosen my grip on control, helping me walk in freedom to allow my children to be the mysterious and unique and beautiful unknown miracles they were made to be.

Here’s your gift! Click to download your free printable.

Revelation 21: 5, 1 Corinthians 15:54-58, Philippians 1:20-21, Jeremiah 29:11, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

 

 

The one word you need to get through your day

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yield

I have a bad habit of pushing myself to the absolute max.  For most of my life, my default answer has been “Yes” and my default custom has been to stay up too late, wake up too early, do too much, and rest too little.  I know I’m not alone and books are being written and we’re all talking about how we need to slow down, and you are right there with me with days too full, nights too short, eyelids too heavy, and schedules bursting at the seams with too much of everything.

 

I push hard knowing that coffee and eye liner will be there for me in the morning.  I push hard because I feel like I’m supposed to for my children, for God, for community.  There is a time to push.  We need each other — and let’s be honest — if we never pushed, we wouldn’t see each other much.  And yet, I also know the truth that we were made for rest…pure and simple and free of agenda.  I know that our bodies were made for sleep, and we were made to believe that the world keeps spinning if we stop for moments in the day, and seven or eight hours at night.  As much as I resist, somewhere deep down, I believe that our need for rest and sleep is a God-given daily source of humility, a life-line to remind us that He’s God and we’re not.

 

I’m sometimes inclined to think that my opposition to sleep is a result of being a grown-up with responsibilities, but than I see even the tiniest people resist it.  Every mama knows the maddening vexation of watching an exhausted child scream or wiggle with “I’m not tired!”.  How many times have we seen another question, another book, another kiss, another blanket, another song, another back scratch, another drink, another trip to the potty, another anything to restrain from being overtaken by relaxation?  One of mine will hold an arm in the air or bounce a leg off the side of the bed for minutes on end, unyielding to the calm.  Another child of mine often says she just “can’t” close her eyes – doesn’t know how.

How many times have all the moms said “Just go to sleep!”?

There was the boy on the road trip the other week, who said sleep was impossible, leaving me simultaneously frustrated by his noncompliance and struck with the truth of what he said…  because he was absolutely right.  There is no amount of obedience or work or doing that could render sleep.  It cannot be forced or rushed or demanded.

 

It is pure, unbridled surrender.  It does not come unless we let go. 

Sleep can’t go on your To Do list, because you can’t do it.  You have to let it undo you.

 

Perhaps that’s why it is sometimes so hard for my little man of passion and action and concrete solutions, and why I can’t seem to get myself into bed on time, either.

How curious that sleep never seems like a good idea until it’s too late and we’re left with our heavy bones and sticky eyelids.  And how curious that the same is true of all the things that require our surrender.

Because it’s hard to be told what to do, but it’s even harder to know that there is nothing we can do but “let go.”  I think surrender and letting ourselves be undone might just be the hardest thing.  Waving the white flag feels like defeat in the most miserable of ways.  I think we will always avoid surrender unless we believe there is a greater victory on the other side.

We say “No” to one more thing for the greater “yes” of being refreshed and having new life breathed into our bones. We say “No” to doing all in our own strength for the greater “Yes” to Christ through whom we can do all things.

I’m so painfully aware that all the things I might be inclined to do, to say, to write…that they will be empty unless I simply abide.  Jesus says that apart from him, we can do nothing.  We, the branches, can bear no fruit apart from the vine.  All the things with which I could worry myself to no end… All the things that keep me up at night…  All the things I tell my sweet ones I need to finish before I’m ready to play or snuggle or read or get the snack… there is no lasting fruit apart from Christ.

But abiding in Christ, remaining in him, waiting on him…it requires the deepest and fullest surrender.  As sleep requires our physical surrender, so abiding requires our soul surrender.  We surrender our swarming thoughts, our burgeoning need for productivity and efficiency and impact.  We surrender our agenda, our pride, our worry, our control.

As sleep refreshes our bodies, so stepping into quiet submission to the King of Heaven has the power to refresh and recharge our souls and spirits, the power to change our perspective on our day.  God has the power to change the lens through which we see the circumstances of our day.

If you’ve had to stop reading this post a couple times to wipe spit up off your shoulder, take someone potty, break up an argument, or race to chauffeur your people to the next thing, I am so with you.  If you have to rally three or four people to do your job as mama in order to get away for a couple hours or days, I am so with you.  If you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders, and it feels like your home and everyone in it would crumble if you let yourself breathe, I am so with you.  If you have an incessant list of things running through your head about the medicine you need to remember to give, the food you need to remember to pack, the babysitters you need to remember to find, the ride for your child you need to request, the diaper rash that needs a better cream, the meal plan you haven’t made, the errand you are procrastinating because you remember the chaos of last time, the behavior or ailment that you wonder if you should be concerned about, the sport or class you worry you should be signing your child up for…I am so with you.

But when I sat on a plane with my daughter yesterday afternoon, after a weekend away with sweet friends, and the stewardess reminded me to put my oxygen mask on first, my spirit said “Yes, ma’am and amen.”  I have nothing to give without a source.  I must believe that yielding to the Spirit of God in the middle of the unyielding pace of my day is the only way for my life to yield enduring fruit.

 

Yield… this is the word that has me tied up in knots and spreading my wings.  This is the word I think might just be the answer to everything our souls need and our spirits cry out for today.  

Yield   | yēld | verb
1. to produce, provide, deliver
2. to relinquish, surrender, relent

 

How tremendously lovely and rich and mysterious that the same word means both surrender and productivity, both to admit defeat and to deliver results, both achievement and relinquishing control.  How beautifully ironic and perfect.

As we lose our lives, we find them.  As we yield ourselves, we yield beauty in our lives.

Whether or not you can get a good night’s sleep tonight, you can choose to yield to the Spirit of God in the midst of your crazy day.  You can yield to the belief that drawing away with God is the one decision that yields the most fruit.

Today, I’m not going to resist the moments of my day that make me feel small.  I’m surrendering my pride and laying my life down a million times over, in faith that God will give me His.

Today, even as I work, on laundry and food prep and shepherding and emails, I’m choosing to relinquish my hyper efficiency and drive for productivity, in faith that the Spirit of God will enter into my openness and deliver moments of beauty and grace.  I am letting go of the unrelenting push, and choosing to be interruptible. ”For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8: 35)

Living in a Friday World with a Sunday Hope

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handmade wooden cross
And “I knew it raw, that my hands hammered the nails and my name was in the mind of Christ as he hung upon the cross.”
 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. 
Philippians 3: 10-11

It was one of those warm and drizzly April mornings.  I still feel a bit damp from the vernal kind of rain from heaven that spits right in your eye.  And I’m still marveling at the mystery of a God of Heaven who let his mockers spit right in his.

 

I still have this fresh and cavernous knowing about where I would have been on that messy, ugly, beautiful, good Friday 2000 years ago because I know where I was a few days ago, on this most recent Good Friday of remembrance.

On Friday, I was a mess of broken.  On Friday, I was overwhelmed by a hurting world, and a hurting home, and hurting kids who didn’t know why they shouldn’t have their way, and a hurting mama who didn’t know why she shouldn’t have hers.  On Friday, I was mocked and disrespected by my own…not in the same as our Lord, but in a way that points to how he might have felt.  And on Friday, I spewed harsh words, and came face-to-face with my own depravity that hung Jesus on that tree.

 

I’m still carrying some heart wounds from the ugly moment my big-hearted boy and I had, and I’m still mending some heart wounds that I caused.  On Friday, I felt it – the lost and broken and despairing “Not yet” of the world we live in and the fragmented hearts we live with.  On Friday, I felt the longing for Sunday, for all things to be made new, for all things to be set right, and to escape this broken and shattered soul of mine.

 

On Friday, during the short recess between the altercation and reconciliation with my son, I went to the garage and nailed together a small wooden cross.  I held the hammer and the dark metal nails and the splintered wood, and I pounded it together with my own hands.  I had this holy encounter with the Spirit of God as I engaged the strength of my body in the act.  As I ruminated on the fact that I was right there chanting and accusing, and Christ was right there loving me and forgiving me…I knew it raw, that my hands hammered the nails and my name was in the mind of Christ as he hung upon the cross.

 

And I wonder how we live with the hope of Sunday morning, remembering that Jesus conquered sin and death lost it’s sting, when we still live in a world that hurts with hearts that malfunction.  I wonder how we keep taking the next step when loved ones die, and diagnoses are given, and marriages wrench and break, and there’s division and hatred and terrorism and an underworld of slavery.

 

Christ is risen, but I think the earth still thinks it’s Friday.  There is still a broken mess of ash being made new slowly, in the power of the resurrection.  There’s still a kingdom of God coming to earth, that has not yet fully come.  There’s still a Christ who will return and reign, but is not yet here.  There’s still an enemy who is defeated but has not yet been thrown down.  Promises are left not yet fulfilled.  We still suffer and ache and sin and get sick and feel the death and heartache of Friday.

But Sunday is coming.

 

Almost immediately after my son and I reconciled, he joyfully spilled out a prolific pile of art with crosses and rays of light and empty tombs and hearts.  He made a request for our family to take communion together when daddy got home, “to remember what Jesus did for us.”  He named it and said he was nailing his ugly moment to the cross.  And I said I was nailing mine too.

 

Once again, our brokenness led us right to the cross.  The more I walk in weakness, the more I’m open to Christ’s strength.  The more I walk in death to myself, the more I’m open to the power of the resurrection.  The more I surrender, the more I’m sustained.

 

On Sunday morning — Easter, divine and triumphant — our children woke to fun surprises, and we all got dressed in our Sunday best, the kids in their matching outfits and their matching hairstyles and their matching smiles.  But by the time we pulled out of the driveway, their mom and dad felt a bit like frauds, having wrestled mind, body, and soul through the messes and arguments, the pressure for perfection that distracts from the meaning of the morning, the little attitudes that we try to force into a “joyful gratitude” box rather than gently shepherding, the ugliness that bubbles up in our own hearts as we see things going differently than our expectations.  On Sunday morning, we hurt each other’s feelings, and I walked a teary baby through a sermon I longed to soak in.  On Sunday morning, I wiped the remnants of chocolate eggs and a bit of spit up from my Easter dress.  And it was all sweet surrender.  On Sunday morning, I needed to lay down my comforts and expectations, control and pride, and let joy in.  It’s the death of mess and brokenness that open me up to encounter the Risen Christ.

 

Monday’s gray sky today feels like a stark contrast to yesterday’s bright, hot sun, and the messiness of my weekend stood in stark contrast to the joy of the resurrection.  But there is no short cut to Sunday morning.  There is no Sunday without Friday.  There is no resurrection without death.  The light and joy of the morning must stand in contrast to the night.

 

So, how do we live in a Friday world with a Sunday hope?  I’m right here in the muck with you, but here’s some truth to which my messy weekend and my gracious God are leading me.

Get low…  If we want to know Christ, we will share fellowship not only in his resurrection, but also in his death.  As we lay our lives down with his, we are raised with him.  As we share in his cross-carrying suffering, we then share in the joy and fully-alive life of his resurrection (Philippians 3:10) .  If we want to bear fruit, we must die to ourselves, as the grain of wheat dies to produce a harvest (John 12: 24).  We have to get out of our own way, and out of the way of a God who loves to fill us when we are emptied out.  We get out of the way of a God who loves to offer us his grace and mercy and provision as we stop trusting ourselves or our resources and start trusting him.  As we decrease and make peace with our emptiness and weakness, Christ increases in us.

Throw an anchor… On Sunday, we swam in a beautiful ocean of posts and texts and proclamations that said: “He is risen!”  My lips and spirit echoed the ravishing truth.  But the rest of what’s true is that it takes an intentional move of mind and heart for those words to make it from my ears or my lips into the mess of my real life and my real quaking heart.  I need to acknowledge the pain of promises not yet fulfilled, pain not yet healed, habits of sin not yet fully broken, and I need to proclaim this truth as a hope that anchors me in the midst of a world that still feels a whole lot like Friday.  To keep walking in these days that hurt, we need to have an anchor of hope to keep our feet secure.  Our anchor of hope is that God has promised to never leave or forsake us.  Our anchor of hope is that God has promised us forgiveness through Christ for our shortcomings past, present and future.  Our anchor of hope is that God has promised us a glorious inheritance.  When the curtain tore after Jesus’s death, God promised us access to deep intimacy with him, that we can approach his throne with confidence.  Our anchor of hope is in God’s promise that we will not always ache, that he is making all things new, that he will bring beauty from ashes, that he will wipe every tear.  Our anchor of hope is in Sunday morning’s risen Christ.

Open your mouth… The Sunday proclamations are still ringing in my ears, and I believe they are a key to unlocking joy.  We have to go ahead and say it:  “He is risen!”  Hallelujah!  It’s the greatest news, the core of our faith, the source of our hope.  We rejoice in what God has done for us, what we believe He is doing, and what we believe He will ultimately do.  Regardless of our circumstances, we have a charge to “Rejoice in the Lord, always.” (Philippians 4: 4).

And when we rejoice that the immovable stone was rolled away, we are given immovable joy. 

So today, let’s get low, throw down an anchor of hope, and open our mouths in praise.

Easter egg hunt
Pure joy.
easter
My little loves.
communion
The sweetest of meals.
real life easter mom mess
On real life Easter, you have to spot clean the outfits between events.
handmade wooden cross
And “I knew it raw, that my hands hammered the nails and my name was in the mind of Christ as he hung upon the cross.”
 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” ~Galatians 2: 20
“More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ…” ~Philippians 3:8 
“And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” ~Luke 9:23 
 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” ~John 12:24
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” ~Romans 12:1-2
“Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” ~Galatians 5:24
“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him…” ~Romans 6:8
“He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.'” ~Revelation 21: 5 
“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” ~Hebrews 6: 19-20 
“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” ~Hebrews 4: 16