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.... :-)))