
We’ve been up at Willow Creek for the evening. Sarah Bessey was there, and so I had to go. And then I had to stay and then I hugged her and didn’t tell her well enough how her words have … Continue reading
We’ve been up at Willow Creek for the evening. Sarah Bessey was there, and so I had to go. And then I had to stay and then I hugged her and didn’t tell her well enough how her words have … Continue reading
Ash Wednesday is coming up on March 1, which is just a week away!
“Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth: Grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is only by … Continue reading
“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently before him…
The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,
and his tongue speaks justice.
The law of his God is in his heart,
his steps do not slip.”
Today, Lord, make me still before you.
In a world that rushes to do violence and to repay violence, may my heart hush still before you, eager for your wisdom.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently before him.
When my heart is tempted to worry and to preoccupation with the ache of our world, steady it with your wisdom.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently before him.
When all my heart can muster is fretful longing, fill it with the delight of the Lord.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently before him.
When the world creaks with sin’s ugly brokenness, remind me that sin is always first an offense against a Holy God.
Be still before the Lord.
When I come upon injustice in the world, in my home, in my community, be my voice.
Wait patiently before him.
When I choose complacency and convenience over justice and mercy, lead me in the way of righteousness.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently before him.
When this world’s brokenness and wickedness and injustice tempts me to close up, help me to open up the very same way your son did.
Mark my life by the generosity of the cross.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently before him.
Whatever interruption shakes the world, my country, my community, my family today, may I be found stubbornly trusting in your Lordship.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently before him.
Though all I have fall aside, though wickedness prospers, You, Lord, uphold my life. You are the keeper of my soul.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently before him.
As you daily teach this truth to my heart, may it move me to a place of fearless righteousness and resolute mercy.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently before him.
It’s a quiet September morning. It has taken all my energy and stamina, but I have loaded up a toddler and my very pregnant self into a car and driven a half hour to a church building full of women I have never met before, praying that my very obvious pregnant stomach will act as a buffer for my awkwardness around people I don’t know.
I have braced myself for sympathetic smiles and circles from which I am excluded and less-than-enthusiastic welcome for my daughter, who has never been away from me before and doesn’t actually fit into the appropriate age category.
After all, I am new here and this is a church.
I am met by something much different from my expectations. I am welcomed. My child is welcomed. And over the next 9 months, that welcome continues to grow to include my new baby for whom there technically is no class, but somehow always is someone willing to hold her.
It has been a year, I now bundle up my two toddlers, load them and my (very non-pregnant) self into the van and drive the ever-so-worth-it 30 minute drive to my Bible Study. Our Bible Study. The anticipation grows, and I am greeted and greet others by name, gather in that familiar circle, and our leader smiles warmly and begins to pray. Her words strike me deep in the heart, between deep breaths and the smell of fresh coffee.
“May we be generous…”
Generous? At first I assume she is referencing the offering envelopes we pass around the circle each week. And then I listen again, and I hear what she is saying. I hear what the Lord is saying.
“May we be generous as we share with one another.”
Her prayer is that we will share generously the truth that has been generously shared with us, that the grace extended to us we will freely extend to one another.
I wipe a tear from my eye and lift my head, eager to share with these women who have become such a welcoming place for me. Eager to receive all the Lord has for us this morning. Eager to be generous.
For me this is a place where it is easy to be generous. Where I walk in feeling like I’m brimming with insight and joy and expectation, and leave just as full as ever I walked in, full of new insight and joy and anticipation.
Another day, I sit in a different circle, and my heart breathes that prayer quiet, Lord make me generous. Here it is not so easy. Here I do not always leave feeling affirmed and encouraged. Here I often feel misunderstood and marginalized. It is not easy to be generous.
Weeks later, I sit in my living room alone and feel that familiar pang. The sting of being misunderstood and alone. That homesick longing for “my people” rises in my heart and I’m tempted to wish those if onlys. And the Lord reminds me again that he can make me generous.
He, the very same God who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things?
Jesus. Very God of Very God. The God who became a man and gave himself for us and for our salvation.
Generously.
Though he was misunderstood and marginalized.
Accused and brutally murdered.
Generously. Gave Himself.
And while the pang is still fresh in my heart, while my eyes still feel the sting of tears as I think of familiar people and comfortable places, I feel his hand gentle around mine, carefully prying clenched fingers open. The generous king making me generous.
Send out your light and your truth, let them lead me.
Lord, as I take my steps today, make me a channel of your grace.
Send out your light and your truth, let them lead me.
As I move through the rhythms of my day, make my ears quick to hear your voice and my feet ready to obey.
Send out your light and your truth, let them lead me.
As I speak to my children, husband, friends, co-workers, family members, strangers may my words be filled with your truth and rich in love.
Send out your light and your truth, let them lead me.
As I walk in the way set before me today, may I be attentive to the presence of your Holy Spirit.
Send out your light and your truth, let them lead me.
When I stumble, Lord correct me.
Send out your light and your truth, let them lead me.
Lord, by your grace, grant that i may live today as artwork and offering to the glory of your name and the coming of your kingdom.
Send out your light and your truth, let them lead me.
Amen.
I would like to introduce you to my sweet friend (and former roommate), Ashley. The more I get to know Ashely, the more amazed I am. I deeply admire her tender heart towards others, her brave openness, and her deep devotion … Continue reading
I’ve tried it every night so far. After the house picking up, the teeth brushing, and the baby checking. While I nurse my sweet almost-six-month-old (!), I whisper the words as many times as it takes. “Be still and know that I … Continue reading
I recently read this book that changed my life. Seriously. I’ve had those moments where I read a book and I thought “I want this to change my life.” This was not like that. I read this book quick. It was like water to my thirsty soul. And even though I didn’t read it slowly, I felt it make me slower.
And it was a few days after I read it, while I was sitting on the floor looking at my husband over our wobbly coffee table that I said, “I think this book changed my life.” And I felt an excited grin creep across my face. I love the way Jesus is always making us new.
I don’t think it was this book alone. I think this book was the last read in a long line of reads that actually started to make changes in my actual diaper-changing, laundry-folding, pastor-wifing life. And at the same time, I think it’s the first read in a long line of new reads that will change my heart and my life in other ways. I love the way Jesus is always making us new.
There have been so many times in the last two weeks where I’ve found myself sitting and thinking and I realize that my mind isn’t working like it used to. And it’s shocking and unfamiliar, but my friends, I’ve been rejoicing about it the way that I rejoice when morning sickness reminds me I am pregnant. When the hard and the unfamiliar and the difficult remind me that new life is coming. I love the way Jesus is always making us new.
Friends, can I tell you something? I started seeing Him. All over the place. Jesus giving himself to me. Over and over again. When I’m tired and I’m feeling empty and I can’t fight for words anymore and he turns what I have into prayer. When that bell chime sounds on my phone and there’s an email that stops me right there in my tracks because someone understands. When my daughter spills so much milk that it starts dripping down the table onto the floor, making a noise so loud that she says “it’s starting to raaaain.” When that same toddler presses her cheek to my chest so I inhale the scent of roses (ROSES? I haven’t washed her hair in 3 days!) and wraps her arms around me and pats my back, just when I’m feeling like no one sees me.
Over and over again. Jesus is there. In my living room. On my creaky porch. Giving himself to me. Inviting me. Making me new.
And in that book. In one little chapter, one little sentence, she mentions this prayer that monks pray twice in their day to help them see God in it. To help them see God a little better tomorrow. To help them choose to put themselves in the way of God’s grace. It’s called The Daily Examen. And it has five parts. And this week I’m going to try praying it every night before I go to bed. Not because I think I have to, or because I think it will make me a better Christian. Not because I want a new experience or am looking for another thing to add to my to-do list. I’m doing this because I’m hungry to see more of Jesus, and I think it will help me learn how. Because I’ve said before how I don’t want to miss out on the fullness of my life because of the business of my life.
I love the way Jesus is always making us new.
How do you prepare your heart for a move? When echoes bounce off bare walls and brown boxes take the place of table and chairs, when the packing tape roll runs thin and the long-settled dust gets caught up in the air like dandelion seeds on a summer afternoon.
How do you secure your heart against the rising doubts while you secure the four corners of each brown box? How do you roll off a length of tape and gently smooth your hand over it, not knowing where or when you will remove it?
What are you supposed to feel when you tuck that box of chamomile, 3 months from expiring, between the grinder and the coffee canister and breathe a prayer that it doesn’t go to waste? Not for the tea’s sake, but for yours.
How do you walk out those glass doors that once opened, now slowly closing on people and a place that you love? How do you remain faithful when your place is so changeable? How do you anticipate when your way is so darkened? How do you hope when disappointment has marked your heart the way you marked each brown box?
What do you do when the to do list seems so long and the laundry has piled, when every day the phone doesn’t ring is another day waiting? What do you believe when you can’t believe that everything will always be alright? How do you hope when you cannot see your way? How do you get excited when you know that you might be on the verge of the hardest thing you have ever done?
When the move is exciting, we can hope in the destination. When the destination is unknown, where do we hope? And how do we hope? When the searing memories from the last time still burn deep? When we know that he is always faithful, but sometimes life is still very painful?
I sit down and lean my head back slow. And the peace washes over me like the slow morning waves would. Be still. And know. And there in the quiet, those familiar words come join the questions swirling in my head. Not loudly but quiet. It is a whisper I hear as I sit.
Lord, you have always marked the road for the coming day; and though it may be hidden, today I believe. Lord, you have always spoken when the time was ripe; and though you be silent now, today I believe.
And I breathe in and I breathe out. I close my eyes on boxes and tape and dust bunnies playing there on the floor. And I hope, not in the destination or in a promise of future happiness. Not in an occupation or in a new place to unload our belongings, paint walls, and hang curtains. I hope in the one who has always marked and has always spoken. And my mouth forms the words that my heart is still learning, “today I believe.”