Capturing the stories....

Weather report - Sunny, high around 40, slight breeze

As I look outside at the sun and browning fields, it reminds me that just last year at this time we had about 3 inches of snow on the ground and how thankful I am that the snow has held off for just a few more days.

I stopped blogging for a while... well, I should say I stopped finishing blog posts for a while as life has picked up and frankly didn't really feel I had that much to say in the daily life but then it hit me again..... my entire purpose of this blog was to capture the everyday of our life here in rural North Dakota. To write about the people and experiences and moments God reveals to this city girl now living in the country. I felt for a while that every time I put words to a screen it had to be an in depth devotion or story, yet isn't life captured in the everyday? Isn't there beauty in the day to day life of loving, sharing, laughing and sometimes crying? Practicing "presence" as I steal from Brother Lawrence :-) So I decided to write again... to capture.... to remember....to not hide the not-so-good things....to drink in the very good days. Life is found in it all.

So yesterday and today Cole and Corinne and I prepared for the informal winter children's clothing drive we begun after realizing that some kids around us may need a little extra to make these infamous winters a little more comfortable. I had been feeling sad for the past few days and maybe I'm just tired but either way, I wanted to do.... something. Something that would move me out of the house and into the world around me. So Cole and Corinne and I drove around posting our notices and placing boxes at drop off places and who knows..... we may receive nothing to pass on or we may be surprised and get to bless the school with things they can distribute as they find need.

I have fallen in love more and more with my kids these past few months, watching them adapt and grow and share. In the quiet and stillness of this place, we have been given the gift of one another again. Time to listen and be together. Cole tears up when he sees me sad which always surprises me as he is SO boy :-). But he's ready to make us all laugh in the next minute.

The days are getting shorter and shorter and the cold is coming each day and God is still good and still God. And that is enough. :-)

And yet He feeds even them.....

This post was originally started one especially cold morning..... :-)

This has been a long and cold winter. It's been a long time since I've been 24/7 in sleet, wind chills and snow. It's not over yet but for the most part, we have been doing just fine. However, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that cabin fever has sunk in many times as I've longed to go outside without having to darn myself with layers of outerwear.

 

In the times of the quiet amidst the blue skies and blinding white snow, I've developed a joy of the wildlife around us. Funny to say, most days the finches, pheasant, deer, and blue jays are the only ones moving around outside besides the older postman in his even older blue Chevy pickup. The wildlife are easy to spot and fun to watch. The kids and I bought a bright red schoolhouse bird feeder and we put it out on a large branch on a tree in the middle of our backyard. After we filled it with seed, we waited a couple of days to see who would literally take a bite. After the second day, it began to fill with tiny dark finches as they floated and fell and fed at the bird feeder or on the ground. Occasionally a bully squirrel or alpha blue jay would chase the finches away but they seemed to make their way back and gather for lunch at the base of the tree.

 

 

Watching these tiny pieces of creation, I was reminded of the promise of God through the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount.

 

"For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life as to what you shall eat or what you shall drink nor for your body, as to what you shall put on.
Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing?

 

Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, not gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?"

 

These winters can be pretty intimidating. We just moved from a place where we lived the record high of 117 degrees one July 4th. Our seasons in Vegas would go from pleasant to cooler to back to pleasant to skin scorning heat. Here in our new community of North Dakota, literal seasons can be scary and true anxiety instigators. The sound of wind so strong carrying snow and cold, your only prayer is for the roof to stay intact. Fear and discouragement are often fanned in the flame of long winter seasons. The same can be said for the figurative winter seasons of our lives. Seasons of unemployment, disease, and loss. Seasons where fear and discouragement can settle in for a long winter's nap and we wonder if we will see the hope of spring and light and warmth again. Seasons by their nature are temporary, yet while living through them they can seem anything but. I have found myself here in this season of transition, loneliness, and doubt as well.

 

And yet as I remember Jesus' words from His most famous sermon, He meets me in my soul before my words are ever spoken aloud. Before the prayer request is mentioned. Before the prayer is ever written in my journal. As I stand looking out the window at the winter finches, He speaks.....

 

"Do not worry....

Look!....

Are you not worth much more than they?...."

 

God promises to provide. To feed us, both literally and figuratively. His Name is Jehovah Jireh, literally meaning, "the Lord provides." He who knows us. Made us. Fashioned us uniquely and distinctly, PROMISES to provide that which we need. When we need it. And by means we do not always anticipate or expect. I'm in that season of parenthood when I am very careful not to use the word "promise" too loosely or extensively. Promises we will go to Justice for an unnecessary but much wanted new top sometimes are broken because of life's funny (or not so funny) interruptions. My kids have memories comparative to any high tech recording device and they are able to remind me instantly and often when I "break my promises". So promise is a precious word given out very carefully in my home. But God is not me. Not us. Scripture reminds us that "God is not man." and that is a good thing! His Word is true and we can count on it. Believe in it and rest our lives and eternities on it. Promise to God is a promise. And in His very name, Jehovah Jireh, is the assurance of His promise.
 

 

As my mind was filled with all those circular thoughts this morning, as I was feeling the emotional hunger pains of these past couple of years and could feel the literal winter cold through my bedroom window, I looked around at our tiny farmhouse.... the tiny house that reunited Matt and I and the kids after almost 2 years of sporadic time together. Here. Now. Finally under the same roof in a place I would not have chosen myself  but am overwhelmingly grateful for. Then I looked out at the little red schoolhouse feeder my daughter Corinne and I hung. I thought about how every couple of days we take a scoop of the wild seed we bought and we fill the house and sprinkle it on the white snow. I wondered if we get to be used to help fill that promise of feeding. If God had given us a heart of concern for the birds and we did a small thing to help provide their sustenance. Pretty cool thing. And it led me to these new understandings....

 

As God is faithful, I thought about how God provides for us, "who are worth much more than they", in all ways, and a new appreciation of how He uses you and me and everyone to fulfill those promises of provision. How a thought or concern for another crept into my mind and heart and it lead me to move on behalf of someone. And I thought about all those times when I was anxious or fearful or in need and someone felt a concern for me or my hubby or my kids and acted. Responded. Lead both knowingly and maybe unknowingly by the very Spirit of God and was a tangible part of God's provision to me. Someone who without me making my need overtly known asked me how was my day. Prayed for and with me. Wrote a letter. Made a phone call. Wrote a check. Gave an invitation to lunch or dinner.

 

My mind flooded with how good God has been to me through my life and most recently this past year. How God has fulfilled the promise of Matthew 6 through specific people in specific ways through....

Banana bread at my door...

Handmade knitted socks...

Informal church gathering when we showed up our first day and service had been cancelled...

Halloween party invitation on my son's first day of school to help him feel he belonged...

Package of natural mood boosters to get me through the winter and a worship CD for added measure from a lifetime friend who knows me way too well...

Cards and letters and gift cards for the kids...

Snow tires from my hubby.... (I know, doesn't sound romantic, but it was :-)

Saturday night card party invitations...

Directions for long country roads...

Local serviceman who left his shop and pulled me out of the snowbank I got stuck in...

Lasagna dinner invitation where we never left the table but shared life for hours...

A sister who drove the entire 14 hours through the snow and blizzard warnings for a much needed (from me) visit over spring break (I use those words loosely) when our transmission went out and I couldn't meet her half way...

Emails and Facebook postings of love and encouragement that may have only taken a few seconds to write but were savored and received and filled this heart of mine...


And I can go on and on and on.... about the ways God has kept His promises to me through His people to meet my needs. If we are still enough. If we are honest enough in the times of felt need and pain, we probably could recall His faithfulness to us in unexpected ways. If we pause for a moment, we will recall His fulfilled promises and provision. Admitting His provision may not have come as we would have expected or wanted, but it came. That now reminds me of His ultimate fulfilled promise in sending Jesus. The unexpected Messiah. Oh, for centuries they were expecting and waiting for Him, but He came as a vulnerable baby to a young virgin mother in a blue collar family. Not in overt power and prestige. He came with love and compassion for those who were far from God and to those whom the religious right rejected and looked down on. He came to give us what we needed. Not as was expected, but He came to give us what we most needed.... Himself.

Today it made me think that He has been so very good to me. As I look at my new town of 90 people in my old farmhouse with my kids and hubby, He made good on His promise. As I prayed and asked others to pray for us in those years of Matt being gone and not sure of our next steps, rural North Dakota was not what I asked for or expected, but it worked. Right now, it works.

It also made me think how I want to be a part of His promise keeping for someone else. I need to respond when I get a thought or concern for another. I may not think much of it at the time, but it may very well be God keeping His promise to someone through me.... and really all of us.
 





Canola Fields and Birthdays....

Weather report - Sunny, highs around 82; chance of afternoon thunderstorms...

The farm fields around us are green and yellow. As you drive around here for miles and miles, it's amazing that just a few months ago they were covered in white. They are so robust with the fruit of the ground. I've heard, since being a "newbie" here, that the fields are later this year because of the late cold spring and subsequent rainfalls. But they are full and growing and alive now.

Intermittent between fields of green, (which I need to learn more about the crops that grow here), are rows and acres of bright yellow that I was told was canola. All I know is that it's beautiful and serene. Driving for miles you have the opportunity to just look and see and admire.

Yesterday, I turned 47. I truly know it's only a number but it's strange seeing that number on a page or saying it out loud. I don't feel 47, although I'm not sure what 47 is supposed to feel like :-). But 47 and the previous few birthdays have made me more reflective than I normally am. Maybe it's all the transitions this past year. Maybe it's the midlife stuff people talk about. Maybe it's the slowness and quietness of this place that gives opportunity for contemplation. Maybe it's just...me. Any which way, here I am, reflecting on this past year but really trying something new. To not over think and just relax....or really just trust.

 

I stopped writing for a while. On many days, the transitions of our family and my own heart felt so fast I couldn't slow them down enough to give pause to it all. In all honesty, many days I failed to do what I really needed to do. I needed to grab a moment and sit in the newness and let it all soak in. But what I did was fail to discipline those days and I just started responding to the needs around me. Responded to my kids. Responded to the new community we were in. Responded to the demand of organizing a home we had no history in.. Responded to the intensity of the winter. And maybe that's part of moving, but in all those urgent respondings, I often failed to move from a place of centeredness. A place of peace. A place of trust. Trust in God. The One who has faithfully held us through this entire past couple of years. From that place comes gratefulness and joy and perspective. So although it wasn't everyday, but many days especially when the days got colder and lonelier and darker, I failed to live fully. Oh, people probably wouldn't know any better, but I did. In times when the house was quiet and kids were at school and Matt at work, instead of drinking in and centering in, I usually escaped those moments in naps and reruns. Facebook postings and Candy Crush :-).

 

Amazingly enough, and it truly is amazing, the Spirit continued to call. Continued to press in on my heart and invite me to listen and pray. When I gave into those moments, I often found a struggle in the quietness. God is the perfection of love and holiness. I am drawn to Him because of His love and His undeniable faithfulness in my life, but I also fear Him  and His holiness and anticipate disappointment with my shortcomings. I know that's not theologically or biblically accurate but it's my reality. Even after years and years and years of sitting under tremendous teachings about this incomprehensible love of God for us; even after reading volumes from gifted authors about our Abba Father; even with being blessed with the most amazing friends and family who tangibly love me and show me the love of the Father, if am honest, I run from God initially until I allow His love to hunt me down and tell me the truth that my Father's first thought of me is not disappointment but... LOVE. All wrapped up in Jesus. LOVE.

This past spring, I anxiously waited for Amy Grant's new album release and her song, "Don't Try So Hard." was a voice of freedom for me. As the snow FINALLY began to melt and the hope of spring was no longer just an idea in my head, I listened to that song over and over and over again. In the quietness of my car after driving the kids 12 miles one way to school, I heard the gentle faithful whisper of God....

"Don't try so hard. Quit trying and trust again. Trust Me."

You see, one of the ways I made sense of this strange transition to this new place was I believed with everything that He had a purpose for us here. Something He wanted us to do or contribute. How I dealt in my heart with the struggles of my kids moving to a new place so different from that they knew was I believed He wanted us here for a reason. And I STILL believe that He does. But where I got it wrong was that it's not for ME to figure that purpose out. And it may not be something I think.  I've been spending my thought life trying to give reason to this move and where we are instead of just trusting in His movement in our lives. Trusting that the steps of faith have purpose. His purpose. Faith isn't faith if we can hold it all and make sense of it all in our finite minds. But I was looking for understanding in those cold frigid days as I would read about our friends in Vegas posting about 65 degree weather :-) , feeling like it was my faith duty to keep joyful when it got hard and lonely. I was looking for them instead of allowing God to REVEAL them from the seat of trust. The seat of LOVE. Or maybe not reveal purpose to me but more of Him.....

When Amy Grant's song came out, it was like a message to me. (Thank you Amy!) And in all truthfulness, IF I had continued being still and pushing through my thoughts and feelings and quit trying so hard, it may not have taken a song to remind me, but I'm thankful anyway :-)

I'm currently reading, "In the Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day". I read it during the thousands of miles we drove traveling this summer already. (Yes, I said thousands!). The crux of the book is that all the great stories of the Bible, when God took a person and did a miraculous thing through him or her, it began with an ordinary person, often not one you or I would choose, and He would lead them into an impossible or unwanted situation and all He asked from them was....... trust. Don't believe me? Think about Noah, Abraham, Daniel, David, Job, Esther, Joseph, Moses, Mary, Elizabeth, Paul..... (not in chronological order :-).Those are the stories we learned or now teach in Sunday school and to our kids. And I can think of people I know personally whom could be added to that list. Trust is the only response to our Loving God. And even now, maybe trust in God isn't just about letting Him do the impossible through us, but it's just about trust. Trust in the big and little things. Trust in the adventures and the mundane of our lives. Letting Him write our stories solidly grounded in the two words I grabbed onto this past year, trust and love.

I hope to recapture stories from this past few months and write them down. But for today, on the day after my birthday, I can say I am loved by my Father. If I spend the rest of my years on earth doing nothing more than growing in the reality of that truth and living with unabashed trust, it will be enough. If I give my life to WHATEVER He wants to do with it from that place, than I can say, it is enough.

Those are some of the things a cold white winter began to do in this heart of mine.... :-)))


 

BBQ or Baguettes: My Review of Newly Released Bread & Wine by Shauna Niequist

This past month I had the privilege of reading an advanced copy of Shauna Niequist's third book, enriching and creatively written, Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life around the Table with Recipes.

 

As I have followed Shauna on her blog after savoring her first book, Cold Tangerines, I enjoyed journeying with her on the process of this book's completion. I loved reading her passion of food and entertaining and her true foodie status :-). Shauna's expertise of cuisine is far more extensive than mine and I looked forward to being challenged to expand my culinary abilities with recipes of risotto, goat cheese, or prosciutto. But what I love most about Shauna is her ability to tell a story. Stories that matter. I resonate with Shauna that stories of life, love and faith matter. They matter to you and to me and to all who hear them. Honest and transparent stories draw us into community unlike anything else, for we see ourselves in one another. As we do that, and especially around the table as Shauna invites us to, we more often than not find hope, encouragement, love and connection - the very things our God has created us for. Shauna boldly and challenges us through the stories of life written in Bread & Wine to take a risk and open our lives one more time to others. To use the setting of the tables in our homes to be a place where relationships flourish.

As I read through Bread & Wine, I was immediately reminded of my first place at a table, my family's. Memories of the seven of us growing up at a round table in a kitchen with avocado colored flowers on the wall and spaghetti or meatloaf to eat.

I was then lead to remember times around the little laminate table in a tiny apartment I shared with my college roommate of 4 years. I remember sitting there with Laura in between classes, or instead of them, talking for hours about dreams and young love and God, as we dined on chicken sandwiches and soup in the Illinois cornfields of NIU.

Then I found myself immersed in family memories around tables of incredible Cuban food, the food of my childhood in a little mama y papa restaurante in Melrose Park that we dined at frequently. I don't believe I ever fully understood in those moments how much those times grounded me with my understanding of love and family.

And on and on and on to my table today that I serve and set nightly for those I love the most.

 

Shauna leads us to this primary familial place and shines a huge floodlight on it and asks us to bring it out of the mundane and into a place of great importance. To intentionally use our homes, big or small, messy or immaculate, to fundamentally love those God has given to us. And she doesn't stop there :-) Bread & Wine equips us with recipes and menus and great discussion questions to remove the excuses why we can't.

My life has been transplanted to rural North Dakota this year so my table is filled with more BBQ than baguettes and sweet tea more than wine but Shauna reminds us that that is not the point. The point not to be missed is...

 

 

"That's what this is all about. This isn't about recipes. This is about a family, a tribe, a little band of people who walk through it all together, up close and in the mess, real time and unvarnished. And it all started around a table...."

Bread & Wine, pg. 31

 

 

 

I have been hesitant to open my doors in our new home because we are in the middle of a remodel and the years of being a 1917 farmhouse reveals itself in cracking plaster and brown paneling. I have always lived in places filled with many people, family, friends and children, yet these past several months I have robbed myself of what happens around the table. One of our new friends reminded us of it as she boldly told me just the other day, "I'm there to see you guys, not your carpet." I've always known this and can give that grace to others who apologize for the condition of their home, but it's different when you choose to open your home and life and mess. Shauna, through her stories, lovingly forces us to ignore those concerns and reach for the best part, the wonder of love around the table. And you'll discover some new tastes you'll want to try to encourage you to enjoy your meals even more.

 

As you dive into Bread & Wine, drink in the stories of Emily and Home Depot safety glasses. Of kiddie pools filled with beer and soda. You will imagine the taste of breakfast cookies and see little Henry in cowboy boots and a Chicago Bears sweatshirt with his toddler belly hanging out. You will be touched to remember your stories, but also make even more as you avail your life and home and heart to others.

 

Lastly, through the wonderful writing, you'll be reminded, or discover for the first time, that God, who nourishes our body and soul, is here and He is good.

 

Give yourself a gift this spring and read Bread & Wine.

 

Released  today, April 9th.



Cosette and other random farmhouse thoughts......

For the past several weeks, I stopped writing about our life here in North Dakota. It is a wonderful thing to look at my blog again today. It is April 8th, 2013 and it is accumulating snow and freezing rain is falling. I cannot believe it. We were blessed with a few days last week of 40 weather which began the slow melt of the layers of white that had become a permanent part of our landscape since October. This morning, the sky has opened up again to remind us that Old Man Winter is not yet having his fun :-).

As I opened this page today, it felt like coming home to my thoughts, prayers and presence. I didn't realize how much just journeying through words was actually leading me through this season. I didn't realize how much this practical exercise of my heart and soul was my place of stillness and wisdom building. With all transparency, when I should have been writing more, I stopped because I was overcome with the feelings and entropy that a long cold winter can do, plus a dramatic move to a new place.

God meets me here.

Many people say when they are in nature and the beauty of creation, they never feel closer to Him. Others it's when they are serving another or in community with fellow followers of Christ, which I can relate with as well. But I've found in this season when the quietness is easily found and distractions are few, times of putting myself open raw and real before God and then on "paper", I grow and connect with the Divine and thus my own soul.

At the time when these moments at my kitchen table would have helped me maneuver through this season, I stopped coming to the table.

So today, Digging Dakota, it is good to see you again :-))))

The blog below is one I began but did not finish a few weeks ago.


(Originally written February 22, 2013, in the wee hours of a dark and cold morning outside)

We are almost 4 months into our new adventure here in rural North Dakota and I think I am just now catching my breath. We have squeezed into our tiny home and learned to bundle ourselves up in the sub zero cold. We have gotten accustomed to long car drives and shopping for weeks at a time. And the weather reports take on new meaning from the uneventful news of Las Vegas weather. :-)

 

This past week, Cole and I got hit hard with the stomach flu, along with 4 other kids from his class. While Cole seemed to bounce back quickly after getting some rest and ridding himself of everything inside of him, I however didn't fare as well. After a night of feeling horrible and truly losing my breakfast, lunch and dinner, I couldn't move and I was taken in to the emergency room to get rehydrated. Matt took over in his usual "come to my rescue" kind of way and got the kids ready for school. As I was severly dehydrated, I don't remember much about the first responders bringing me out to the ambulance except one faded image I'll always remember. I could see dimly Cosette in the hallway in tears asking, "Mom, are you ok?" "Is mom going to be OK?....." I reached for her hand and told her everything was fine and mommy just needs some help to get better. Oh, my heart.

Cosette has been created and imprinted with this tenderness that is so rare these days. She loves her dolls, animals and plenty of time alone in her imagination. So often in her little life I have felt like I was always holding a china doll. Afraid she will break if tugged at too much. Yet, she has this strong and dare I say stubborn part of herself that let's you know there is so much more beneath the surface. Cosette walks through this life at her own pace and you cannot push her, although so many times I've wanted to. I've wanted to push her to move a little quicker, get ready a little faster. Break through her fears with a little more courage. But just when I feel like I'm going to worry about her forever, which I probably will, she comes to the surface with this unexplicable boldness and strength.

We were having another painfully slow homework session not because of her inability to do the work but because she frankly wanted to do something, anything else. :-) This week she was supposed to write what her teacher called a "fractured fairytale". She was supposed to take a traditional fairy tale and put her own twist on it. Make it modern. Change the characters up a bit. Make it her own. As I was misreading her slowness in getting started as a lack of idea of how to get started, she was then actually processing through an idea. All her own. Not knowing this, I mistakenly began giving her some ideas to put down on paper and as she waiting for me to finish and in her strength told me to listen, she told me about "Little Red Writing Reporter". It was a fractured fairy tale about a modern day Little Red who was a reporter and goes to New York to see her great aunt and also to write about something great that happens to her. When she finished and turned it in, her story was one of the top three stories in the class.

I love how this girl of mine surprises me at every turn. God has me at a place of watching and waiting with her. To take a seat in the front row as one of her greatest fans and let the revealing of her wonderful self come to light. My daughter, Cosette whose name was given to her with great intentionality from my favorite story of all time, is a girl to be loved, a life to be celebrated and a story to unfold.

This day, I am so thankful she is mine.

Headlamps, Night lights and Jesus

We've been acutely aware of light, and the absence of it lately. In this new country we've found ourselves as a family, it can be and stay pretty dark. We are just about 60 miles south of the Canadian border and with that brings a later sunrise after the winter solstice, around 8:30 a.m. It also brings a much earlier sunset somewhere around 4:15 p.m.. We live in farmland, North Dakota with only a few street lights lit up around us after nightfall. We experience darkness in new ways here.

When we first arrived, the kids' rooms had nightlights in them leftover from the previous owner. I was glad because it made those rooms a little easier to settle into for the kids. Something about the glow of that little oval shaped light bulb made it easier to rest and go to sleep in peace. Each night after prayers and the endless tucking in of blankets, I am again asked to leave the hall light on.

This past Christmas, each of my kids were given headlamps to use and play with from my in laws. I'm pretty sure they were my father in law's idea as he is always finding those fun gifts I would not have thought of.  I cannot tell you what a big hit they were! Overnight, we had found ourselves with three new miners in the house :-).

There's just something about light.

Today in the beginning of the new year, I picked up my Bible after the kids took off for school. I have been off a regular reading plan of my own for a while now. I have journaled and read and been in study and sat under teaching, but my personal, one on one reading had been lacking. That's another reason why we love New Years as it recalibrates our habits that have gotten off. I didn't have a real decisive place to begin but I am always drawn to the Gospels to look at Jesus again. He tells us that if we have seen the Son, we have seen the Father. I admit in my faith life I have often gotten God so wrong. I have often seen Him smaller, grumpier, more judgemental, angrier and more disappointed in me than Scripture ever reveals. It has been a struggle of mine and so often I am resistant to open the word in case I will find that judging God. But in my lack of personal study I have also been deprived of the true God. And I have desperately needed that. More on that later :-)

I opened to the Gospel of John because I love John. It was the first book of the Bible I ever read as a youth on my own. I also love how John refers to himself as the "disciple that Jesus loved". I think that takes incredible security and confidence to boldly acknowledge and  the truth and proclaim, I am the one Jesus loves. And it made me think God would greatly delight in that confidence in us today that we would wear in our hearts and minds that proclamation. I am the one Jesus loves.

But back to the book of John. I began reading and my first feeling was guilt for not having been reading more lately and many times I would have shut the book because of that, yet something or Someone, I believe urged me on. Stay Mary. You are new. Yesterday is past. I love you. I do not love you so that you would feel guilty. Stay here with Me....

 

So I read the familiar words....

 

"In the beginning...."

"The Word was God"

"In Him was life and this life was the light of men."

 

And here's where I stopped. 

 

Side note: Often we try and tackle Bible reading like a novel. We want to get through the story but Scripture isn't like that. It itself reminds us that the word of God is "active and living, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing as far as division of sword and spirit...." What that means to me is when I read, I am not reading a book of the past. A passive group of words. The Bible is alive and able to penetrate my heart and life today. Right where I am and give me the word for today from the very Heart of God. It doesn't matter how many times I read those same words, it will always mean and speak to me in a new way. So when I read and I come to a place where I am spoken to, I stop and stay there on that verse. I do not go any further because I believe God has spoken to me that word for this day. And that's all I need. Even if it's only one verse. Even if it takes me a year to read through one book. My desire cannot just be the accomplishment of finishing a book. It must be to hear and know my God.

 

So here's where I stopped.

 

 "And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it".

 

 I've always read that to mean that the darkness, the world, the things that are not of God just don't comprehend Him.  Don't understand Him. Aren't drawn to the things of God. The darkness is not drawn to Him or to light. Before I've interpreted that in my life to explain why people often don't understand my belief in God or my love for Him. But this morning on closer look, that's not what the verse means.

 

My eyes scanned over to the footnote marking of the literal translation of the word "comprehend". In the original language, it meant "overcome".

 

"And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it."

 

And I stopped. Darkness not overcoming the Light.

 

In this new place we have found ourselves, in all the adventures and stories; In the newness and the excitement, darkness still has found it's way here to my heart. In this new year, I have found myself flooded in tears that are unexplainable. Moments when it is difficult to intrinsically derive joy or enthusiasm the day. I can explain away all the reasons why, but the reality is the darkness is here and I am overcome by it.

 

It is in these times when I long for something Greater than daily habits to raise my spirits. More than a to do list to help me feel better. I need more to keep me getting up and pursuing my day and daily responsibilities. So when I re-read that verse I saw the truth that penetrated to my very soul. "And the Light shines IN the darkness and the darkness did not OVERCOME it." When the very parts of my soul ache and is lonely and discouraged and without joy, Jesus shines in THAT darkness. MY darkness. And He will not be overcome by it, which means as I am His, I will not be overcome by it, though at times can feel like I have been. Maybe I have been, but Jesus hasn't. It is in that moment I am again reminded how my life is in Him and when the world seems the emptiest, He is there. Overcoming the darkness that I cannot. I think we all have a place of darkness we want Jesus to overcome. Even on that darkest of afternoons on Calvary, the dark did not overcome the Light. He knows darkness. So He can enter into mine with me. And it has NOT overcome Him. For this reason I cling and I have hope.

 

As I write about our  journey to this new place, I have found many things that I have loved and embraced. But also another part of this journey that I have just found is that God is doing a new thing in me. Things I have not anticipated. Things that I did not expect. I am learning to find HIM enough and new. I am thankful for the grace to do that today.