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.... :-)))
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.... :-)))
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