For the First Time

At the end of 2012 my life came to a screeching halt. 
Everything I thought I knew was pulled out from under my feet.
Everything I thought I had, became frantically and painfully unclear. 
Everything I thought I was was reduced to smoke and dust. 

My husband and I had come to a crossroad in our marriage. 
The following months would prove to be the hardest time of our lives. 
During the following couple of years, I would spend most of my efforts balancing a devastating self-death and a new life awakening, each like I'd never known possible. I clung to God and my family with all I could muster. And when I had nothing, God heald me afloat.  

Fast forward to six years later and we have an entirely different life than the one we built during our first 12 years of marriage. 

We have since learned a new way. God has restored our marriage and strengthened our bond. 
We have become a different family. 
Our son quickly learned a better way of being - A healthier way, in which his parents are equals, and he is safe to grow and explore in our love, guidance and care.  

We also lost and let go of a lot. Including most of the people we had and loved. Our schedules, goals, circles, groups, and traditions. I abandoned almost all of the things I enjoyed doing - photography, writing, painting, home decorating, horseback riding...  

Two years ago we moved to a different house. We got rid of everything we owned except clothes, a bedroom set, and a dining room table. We gutted our new home, created our dream of a beautiful, simple, low maintenance life. We bought all new furniture and kitchenware, towels, rugs, drapes, pillows, mattresses, lawn and garden equipment. Everything. 
We made new friends with the many wonderful neighbors we have been so blessed with. 

God led us to a church after three years of drawing us to Him outside of the modern western construct. My husband serves on the creative team, producing the sound stream for the online campus. I facilitate a program that teaches women how to heal from past and present trauma in their lives. 

We started serving in our community homeschool organization, leading their Tween Group. 

My son and I fell in love with trick skateboarding at a local indoor skate park. 

But with all of these changes, most of which have been positive, there have been things yet unfinished. Some lingering, difficult, painful shards in the aftermath of our turning point. 

For me, I would have said the main problem is that "I used to be someone". 

But I have recently discovered some important, revealing facts about this "someone" I claim and have longed to restore to varying degrees over the past several years. 

These facts:
1. My old self was not founded in my identity in Christ. 
2. My old self was hurting me and the people around me.
3. My old self was just as worthy of God's plan as my current self - just not as available to receive it.   
Over the past six years I have discovered all these feelings of unworthiness, insignificance, negative self talk, melancholy, loneliness, hopelessness, depression, anger, guilt, shame... 

For years I have believed these feelings originated at the point of my marital trauma. But the truth is, it was only then, when I let down my defenses, let go of my false security, and relinquished my control, that I was able to uncover what was really beneath the surface all the years before that.

I have always been insecure and uncertain of my value. I just used a facade to hide those feelings from myself and everyone else. 

Here I was, so afraid all these years that I was losing myself. That I wouldn't be able to "be someone" ever again. That right along with all we lost and let go of, I too was gone.
I had reduced myself to permanently damaged goods. 

But for the first time in my life I am finally free to learn and embrace who I actually am. 
For the first time I can see that God brought me right here as a blessing to fulfill His promises and restore in me what was broken. 
For the first time I am looking down the unknown road of my future and I can see Light and Life

even The Planet Keeper finds Rest

She said she could see it coming, "Three days. Three days of rest followed by something...  big". And I haven't stopped thinking of it since. Asking, wondering, dwelling on the meaning of rest.

God's Own brand of Rest. 

Zeek and I have been talking about it during school. The seven days of creation. One of them a full day of Rest declared Holy by The Maker of the universe. 

And we've talked about setting aside one of our seven days.

But where does a human find Rest?

How do we stop the train? 

Isn't it to honor Him that we dig, scrub, press, kneed, organize, feed, plan and keep? And shouldn't we stop, kneel, and offer all of this. Declare it all Holy? 

But where do three days come from the hands of a full time wife, mom, teacher, pet keeper, driver, chef, homemaker? 

Oh, but Who does Make my home? 

And Who Brings the Peace that we settle into?

And didn't He Create the entire planet? The Planet Keeper Himself.

If He can find Rest at the end of such Work... if He can find a moment to call it complete; to declare it all Holy, then why couldn't I?

He told the Israelites to collect enough manna only for the needs of their family each day. And those who tried to collect more were greeted with maggots in their surplus. But God allowed them to collect double on the sixth day in preparation of the Sabbath; the day of rest. 

So, the Israelites, who were in the desert and had a very real constant need for God's provisions, not only found His favor and miracles left and right, but even they were miraculously prepared for Rest. Plan ahead, gather double, and make way for the Sabbath. 

Aren't I in charge of what I do with my schedule? Couldn't I plan ahead each week? And if the task really is as insurmountable as it feels, then couldn't I allowed myself to completely rely on Him to part the waters and make His Way?  

God Speaks... and sometimes what He says hurts

As many mistakes as I've made as a parent, I've always felt good knowing that since the moment our son was born I have been right here. Not just physically, but in every single awestruck way. 

For some reason it has been my passion that I would not miss one bit of this time I have with Ezekiel.  

I've always felt that I will get back my days of freedom to run around, fulfill other dreams, travel, and career for myself... 

but this is my one little guy. 

This is my once in a lifetime chance with him. 

As flawed as I can be at the many facets of parenting, I can say surely that have given Motherhood everything I've got.

That's what makes this next part so hard.

This weekend, my son and I set out intentionally to take his photograph for the first time in over six months.  

Yesterday morning, Mothers' Day, I downloaded the photos off my camera. 

As I went through each picture I learned a lot about my son, myself, how I've been approaching our relationship and even how I've been spending my time lately. 

The lesson stung.

The last time I took Zeek's photos, just six months ago, I knew him through and through. In each photo I recognized his every look, smirk, twinkle, gaze... nothing was unfamiliar or new to me. 

So when I looked at the photographs I took this weekend and I didn't fully recognize the little boy in those pictures, my heart ached. 

It hurt that I was seeing him, who is right in front of me everyday, a little better through his still frames.

It hurt most of all to be enlightened through some of the looks on his face, the revealing in his eyes, to some of the ways I've been letting him down lately.

I reflected back on our session, recalling some of my harsh words toward him;

"you can squat down like a big boy or you can sit like a baby, whatever you're more comfortable with... This is an empty farm yard, Zeek. No one lives here. There are no animals left to worry about!...I don't know why you can't just stand behind that door and peek out? COME ON. put your arms down, that looks silly... you're face looks like this right now, do you really think that's going to make a good photograph?..."

Yes, I am crying and humiliated to be writing this. 

Yes, I hate myself for putting stupid things before my son, like photographs, and what I want, and how I want it. 

I'm so grateful to God for using these pictures and the early Mothers' Day morning hours to shed light on the direction my Motherhood and relationship with my son was headed.

I'm saddened but grateful to have seen this weekend:

that as independent, smart, and sure as he's becoming, 

he's still very young and has a lot of growing up to do,

that as scared and unsure as I am about my abilities to parent such a child, 

I'm still his one and only Mom,

that although I experience and respond to his million questions,

 he is deep and full with another set of secret questions,

questions that aren't being asked out loud.

These hidden questions are about himself.

Like, is he worthy?

Is he strong?

Is he good enough?

Can he measure up?

Is he okay?

And I realized that I have not been answering these special questions very well -with my high expectations, sarcasm and the manipulation of my reverse psychology.

I assumed he KNEW how incredible he is. He acts like he knows. 

I'd worn out of better ideas and thrown in the towel, and I didn't even know it. 

I'd decided that a boy who could have this kind of attitude, this lip, this kind of ungrateful gumption needed a heavy parent. 

I started sternly laying down the law, saying yes or no, period. 

I stopped listening to his debates and arguments, and reverted to "because I said so" and "that is that."

I was acting out of fear that I would otherwise be failing him to let him stomp about, an only child, making all the decisions for himself, fighting tooth and nail for every right he has and doesn't have. 

I thought he would never grow up to be a good man if someone didn't push him away from his toggling between bully and princess (please hold the hate mail- I know that's ignorant -I'm just being honest)

On Mother's Day Sunday, when I realized I didn't know my fast growing son in my latest photographs of him, I knew God was giving me a heads-up. It knew that it was time to make some changes. 

So, I put down the armor, hard parenting, tough love, and pushing, and I showed up for the day just being his loving Mom, again. Period. 

The gifts that followed filled my Mothers Day with light, life, tears of joy, gentleness, kindness, peace... starting to sound familiar?

As I spent time with him, really looking into him and tending to him, I watched the little glimpses of awesome treasure in my son's character slowly peek out as he began to trust me with himself more and more.

I would have never thought that I could put on a superficial parent-front with him, during which time I daily remembered my gratitude for him but began to completely miss the boat on the moment to moment becoming of the boy, himself. 

With God's Grace, my son's resilience, and this new lesson in my pocket, I am moving forward to rebuild this relationship between he and I. To take back the perspective that there is a little person happening here right before my eyes. I pray that I will further understand that just watching and pushing isn't going to be enough. 

I need to love, look and see. 

This is the only time we will be together this way.

God, please do not let me lose sight!

Can All This Life Be Sacred?

I've been recently guilty of unsuccessfully trying to pull my husband into a pigeon hole with me. I egged him to pray for a plan: how together we could meet with God the way I had been doing; planning, scheduling, carving out intentional time to spend in the Presence. 

It sounds funny, now... trying to plan God.

But I was wrapped in an old lie that was dry rotting and damming the free flow of God's Kingdom on earth in my life.

I believed that being born into skin/sin temporarily kept me from God in certain ways. 

I felt that any pleasing thing I could offer him on earth was only garbage compared to what I could do in sprit, alone. 

I thought that it was necessary for me have a ritual of setting aside my flesh -like an offering- in order to approach God.

Of course, I knew in my head from scripture that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, that my body is a member of Christ Himself, that I am united with the Lord therefore one with Him in Spirit... that I was bought and paid for in full (1Corinthians 6:15-20)

But mind-knowledge is trumped again by heart-filled, as God introduces the bodied life saturated in Truth.

I've been devouring the book, The Pursuit of God, by Aiden Tozer. 

In the same day a friend of mine walked me to the awakening of my subconscious separation between regular daily life and my set aside time for God, I read these words of Aiden's: 

"Let us think of a Christian believer in whose life the twin wonders of repentance and new birth have been wrought...

Of such a one it may be said that every act of his life is or can be as truly sacred as prayer, or baptism, or the Lord's Supper. 

To say this... is to bring every act up into a living kingdom and turn the whole life into a sacrament." 

In that moment I willingly considered such a thing for the first time ever. No longer just working toward making choices that would be pleasing to the Lord through my life, but considering every act of my life to be sacred. 

In place of my disciplined scheduled times of offerings bowed low?

Was I worthy?

Could faith in "my body is a temple" carry me so far as this? 

In the same breath through the same book I read on, and God continued to teach. 

This time He brilliantly drew me to compare myself with the colt that Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Establishing in my heart that I am more valuable to Him than any animal (Matt 6:26), He then shows me that this creature was appointed, accepted, and accounted useful as Jesus' means for arrival. 

Then Tozer references the end of the relevant scripture; Luke 19:31, after which Jesus has sent two of his disciples to the village to bring the colt for Him, 

He tells the disciples, "If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

I stopped dead in my tracks.

The Lord needs it???

I was undone,

and with another long time lie staring me in the face strangling, "God doesn't need you!"

But... He needs the colt?

I had to look in the Bible myself, it was so hard to believe it from where I was standing. 

And sure enough, 

"the Lord hath need of him" 

Did I read that right? I scan back up to take the whole passage in perspective. 
It is said by Jesus Himself,

"THE LORD HATH NEED OF HIM."

And my whole world turned a little on it's axis.

This Truth was all warmed and ready in a bowl with a spoon for me when Tozer went on assuring,

"We need no more be ashamed of our body -the fleshly servant that carries us through life- than Jesus was of the humble beast upon which He rode into Jerusalem...

If Christ dwells in us we may bear about the Lord of glory as the little beast did of old and give occasion to the multitudes to cry, 'Hosanna in the highest'."

Delicious relief! 

Thank You, God.

Click here for a free internet provided PDF of Tozer's: The Pursuit of God

Also a free upload  on ibooks for ipad and ipod users.

Gratitude Transformations

I've been meditating and really trying to dig in on the practice of living in gratitude. I've been curious to see just how far the blessing and joy of it might reach.

The stages have been like that of peeling away at an onion, going deeper - getting richer as it nears the core.

In the beginning it was one thing to count the obvious things I could be thankful for - the gifts and blessings abounding all around;

1. my God
2. my husband
3. my child
4. our home
5. health
6. love
7. faith...

After awhile that began to feel a little trite and even a bit smug. And I prayed for God's guidance - that I might grow further along in this exercise. 

I was quickly exposed to another layer beneath the surface that brought focus to a level of things I should have been grateful for but rarely considered in a day;

• lights
• water
• heat
• clothes
• hearing
• seeing
• walking
• breathing...

These things made me conscious of a broken hurting world living without the luxuries I was taking for granted everyday. And it brought burning edges brimming with remorse and tears.  

Then Ann's new book arrived, and One Thousand Gifts brought on questions about my intentions and purpose for jotting down thanks in this brown spiral-bound book each day.

Reading Ann's experiences caused my heart to widen and my vision to focus on seeking and finding the beauty of Him in the otherwise perceived mundane of which I'd previously passed by in oblivion;

• steady floating snow freckles closing space between sky and earth  
• cold wind sounding against the walls of my morning tucked in a marriage bed warm
• the steady ticking minute hand in early stillness
• feet and soul that obey Him
• streams of sunlight straight through eyes
• warmth on still young hands
• bright like His love
  

Then, last week Monday, I stumbled across Jenny, at A Minute Captured.

She didn't just write the things that she was grateful for. She wrote in between, in a tone of repentance, the things she complained about or begrudged during the week.

Her honest, humble, raw reflection made a connect in me. This is what I was doing "between the lines", only in my mind and never on paper. But to share it... this perspective didn't just make an account of His gifts, but could put a woman in check of her heart and attitude along the way.

And so Jenny brought me to consider giving thanks in the storms and even for the storms, as a means to an end for the in between flesh indulgences that the enemy feasts upon;

• the deserved cold snap of winter in my face and the reality of my choices
• a feeling heart to ache
• his healthy lungs blowing into his recorder at 6:45am
• his strong legs to stomp him up to his room for a time
• that they found my mom's heart problem
• repentant agony over hurting a sister
• God's faithfulness to me even in my ignorance
• that the trouble I'm in right now is not beyond God's will or power

I don't expect these layers to stop peeling away or for these transforming lessons to end soon. I want to take them all with me as I continue to give thanks in each of these different and valuable ways.  

Though I don't share in posts from my Gratitude Journal much anymore these Mondays, I slip in to quietly encourage and spur on the Thankfulness Journey, and to thank Ann for encouraging this movement. There is more to be discovered where ever He leads.

Following together,

Blessings.