Be at Peace With Others...

Relationships are hard, really hard!  Dealing with other sinners just like me just doesn't always produce very good fruit or friendships for that matter...whether it be in the difficulties of home life with your spouse or other family members and in friendships; maintaining healthy communication, not getting our feelings hurt, not assuming we know another's motives without asking them or just dealing with all of our idiosyncrasies, sometimes it would be so much easier to just live as a hermit...or it is just me who has hermit tendencies?

I have a friend who has been going through a hard time in her life and has for quite some time...I think she is upset with me.  Now, she has not said that she was upset, but is acting like she is upset and as a result, I feel irritated and manipulated by her...so, we have not talked in a couple weeks, which is not typical.  I thought if I just ignored it she would get over it and everything would be fine.
I am not sure what to do now...

One of the Scriptures I have been memorizing is 1 John 2:9 which says, "Anyone who claims to be in the light and hates his brother, remains in the darkness".  Yikes!  There are so many Scriptures that admonish us to love our brothers and sisters and remind us that that is a mark of a believer, that we love one another...for we have the "ministry of reconciliation"!

God knows how hard it is for us to get over ourselves, our attitudes, our entitlements, our selfishness, our desire to be right, our weaknesses...and yet He calls us up to deal with all of these things, to make no provision for the flesh as Paul says.  We are to do whatever it takes to bring about mutual edification..."As far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men".

Guess I know what I need to do...

Make that call...

For mercy triumphs over judgment...

Praying for the victims of ISIS

Yesterday I was exercising and listening to worship music, as I usually do.  I do not remember what song was on; but I began to pray...to pray for Christians a world away who are dealing with very real physical persecution...from the hands of ISIS.  I had read that morning that there was a young woman, 28-years-old, whose parents had received a confirmed word that their daughter was dead...I cannot imagine getting news like that...it is beyond understanding; obviously evil to its core...

The ISIS (they used to be Al Quada in Iraq and then they were defeated, but not destroyed) have been torturing and beheading Christians and other Americans in Iraq and Syria...

I began praying and literally crying on behalf of these people who are enduring such horrendous atrocities...I was reminded of  Pastor Saeed Abedini who has been a prisoner in Iraq for at least two years.

The blood of the persecuted cries out...even so Lord, come!

On whom does it depend?

We had an interesting discussion tonight at home group....spurring lots of thoughts.  We talked of seasons in our lives...the imperceptible changes that take place deep within one's soul during these times.  The wintry, dry seasons that can bring us to despair or feeling as though something is just not clicking and we feel shame.  We talked of the season of grief....both through death and also through emotional loss.  It is okay to just be, to take the time necessary to feel the feelings, to ask the questions, to reminisce, to cry, to pray (or not).  Seasons where the wind blows over our dusty soul.  Seasons where the green vibrant leaves turn to orange and red colors and fall to the ground quietly and become part of the landscape, a catalyst for change, one where we notice that something is changing.

God is not worried about what I do.  He is not upset when I do not have a quiet time for days or weeks at a time...(we are the ones that lose out on peace that could've been ours for the day, hope in a difficult situation or wisdom for whatever we may face).  He does not need me, He just wants me to be with him.  We think we will meet with him and be blessed (and we will), but not necessarily like we thought...God can work and is working in us and around us in spite of us..."He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it" Philippians 4:13

We talked of where weeds can grow up and distract....so many things pull us from what is truly important and sometimes we cannot see it until it is too late.  All is meaningless as the writer of Ecclesiastes, Solomon, realizes time after time.

God loves us no matter what, no matter what season we may find ourselves in..."I will never leave  you nor forsake you", Hebrews 13:5 has always been one of my most favorite promises from Scripture.  I think of Psalm 139 as well where David talks of whether we are in the deepest hell or the highest mountain, God is still with us...  So, we cannot do anything or not do anything that will drive our Heavenly Father away from us.  God is not watching to see if we spend time with Him today reading His Word and then giving us a star on our scorecard for good behavior.  He is not concerned with anything really except for "hanging out with us", because He loves us and He knows what we need to be at peace, to thrive in the difficulties of life.

I brought up the fact that with gardening there are things that you need to do to be able to reap a harvest...first, plant the seed; the lettuce is not going to arrive in the spring unless I cultivate the soil and plant the seed, fertilize or compost it, water it and weed it.  Does that mean I need to "cultivate" my relationship with God somehow or is it all about God drawing and wooing me alone?  It seems that the Bible often has a cause and effect or condition and promise system mentioned in both Old Testament and New Testament...

Which came first, the chicken or the egg scenario pops in my mind at this point...we love because He first loved us or do we love because we are trying to gain His love?  Why are we doing what we are doing; reading our Bible, memorizing Scripture, serving the poor or having our morning quiet time ritual?  Is it because we want to connect with our Father or is it because we are afraid of His judgment or trying to gain His approval?  It seems to me that it is really a motivation thing more than any "thing".  

I was thinking of relationships...do I intentionally seek out moments to connect with my husband for example or does it happen without me even trying sometimes?  Sometimes I have noticed that the times I am trying "too hard"  blow up in my face and at other times it just happens naturally without me working at it at all....Is it a combination of both?  

How about long-distance family?  Do I need to purposefully cultivate relationships or is there a familiarity that stands the test of time with a security in the relationship that is already established so that no matter what I do or don't do as far as connecting is concerned, that bond remains close?  If it is close, don't I feel "closer" per se when I spend time talking with them and visiting them?  

It seems that it is neither and both all at the same time...it depends on the quality of the relationship for one and we know that God is perfect, all-loving and a very present help in our time of need (even when we do not know that we need).  So, at least one-half of this friendship will not fail.  So, the question for me at this point is do we have any responsibility in the quality of our relationship with God?  One verse says, "It does not depend on man's desire or effort..."  

It seems the more I ponder this thought, the more of a quandary I am in.  James tells us that "Faith without works is dead".  Or to put it in my own words..."your faith without actions means nothing". Again, it is about motivation...what is driving the actions?  You already have God's approval; you are his child!  I think of my relationship with my son, whether he does good or bad, excels at piano or fails to listen in music lessons; he is my son and I love him!  His poor choices break my heart and his good choices encourage me, but either way I love him still.  I am committed to him and will never abandon him no matter what!

I am loved by my Abba Daddy no matter what, but His heart grieves when I make bad decisions...and as a result I may face the natural consequences of my poor decisions.  I am thinking of the judgment of Israel, being led to captivity in Babylon...they sought other gods, they filled the void they had with idols...and we are no different though our "gods" may look different...but God loved them and His compassions do not fail and He eventually delivered them out the hands of their captors...

Today, I will seek  my God at all times, His praise will continually be on my lips!  I will remind myself that I am loved, no matter what and will rest in a love so complete and so pure that there is no need for me to run anywhere else....

Our Adoption Journey

I haven't written in a long time regarding our adoption journey.  We started our second adoption process in January 2011 with lots of paperwork and were "Ready and waiting" in August of that same year.

Now it is  February 2014!  My husband is fifty-one on the nineteenth of this month and I am forty-nine this coming November; we are no spring chickens.  Our first son, Josiah, is now going to be five-years-old on April 10.  We have waited and waited for a long time.  We have contemplated when it is time to stop waiting even if we do not have a baby...our fos-adopt licence is in effect until August of this year and we have talked about stopping the process then if we still do not have a baby placed with us.  We certainly do not come to this decision lightly.  We really felt God was leading us in that direction.  We really wanted a brother or sister for Josiah...But, who can know the mind of God?  We have invested so much into this adoption; time, money, resources, prayer...you name it!  It is scary to come to the point of saying no when it could have been any day or month and we have gotten "THE" call...but how long are we to hold on?

Speaking of calls....we received a call from Katherine a couple of weeks ago.  She was asking us if we were open to adopting an eight-month-old healthy baby boy as the birthmother had felt that she had not bonded with this baby and was ready to place him (she had gone to the adoption agency when she had found out she was pregnant and decided to parent the child).  The excitement of it all.  "Is this the baby you have for us Lord?"  Excited and yet, full of trepidation...an eight-month-old?  Now, I wold love to have an infant past the initial stages of infancy, but isn't separation anxiety at its height in a baby of this age?  What would happen if the baby who is used to the smell, sound and routines of his birthmother sees that she is not there?  Inconsolable crying?  How could I handle this little guy who cannot understand where his mother has gone and rejects me as his mother?  I was imagining my husband at work and me trying to handle a heartbroken little boy crying his eyes out hour after hour, day after day and maybe even week after week...

Who knows how the little boy would have done and how I would have handled it; we did not get chosen after all...part of me was relieved and part of me was disappointed too...when would we get the call?  Will it ever happen?  So many dichotomies in life that are irreconcilable...it is not for us to understand, it is only for us to trust that our times are in God's hands and He alone understands our hearts and He alone is able to make all grace abound to us as we continue this journey that we do not know how it will end.  I am always encouraged by the story of Hagar...when she was in the desert, thrown out of her master's house, nearly dying of thirst with her boy, Ishmael; "God knows, God sees, God hears".  I am so comforted by that today as I think about our journey in the desert of not knowing or understanding all the whys.

And so, in our "not-knowing", we trudge on...though our waiting is nearly over (one way or the other), I am certain our days of waiting will never end.  It seems we all are waiting for something at many points of our life...it is our job, my job, not just to wait, but to wait well...only by the grace of God!

Do I Fit In?

Everyone has insecurities, I know.  This is part of the human condition I guess.  Ever since I was a girl I have felt like I didn't truly fit in and I find myself struggling with this all these years later; nearly fifty-years-old.  There are reasons I suppose why I have struggled with this feeling all my life....

I was born the second of my family though raised as the firstborn due to my sister dieing in a tragic car accident; I was four when this happened.  I have two younger brothers.  We moved around nearly every year as I was growing up (this is a different story) and was always the new kid on the block...our family scraped by, lived on food stamps intermittently and so I did not fit in with the fashions of the day.  I loved school when it came to learning, but socially I felt like a misfit.  

I remember myself being a "late-bloomer".  I preferred to hang out with kids younger than me because they were doing crafts and learning new things while my peers were sitting around talking about boys, which I didn't care about at all.

When I got out of school it felt like things went better overall...

But, I began working at a nursing home with the elderly (whom I loved dearly), but there were few that were my age; I was nineteen when I started as a nurses' aide.  

As I progressed into my twenties, those who were my age were beginning to date and marry.  Still, I was not really wanting to date much unless I knew that they were a believer and kind of felt like a reject in the man department.  This "condition" persisted for nearly two decades.  

Fast forward to when I was thirty-eight, I met my husband and married after a two-year on/off long-distance dating relationship.  Now, I thought I had finally "arrived" to official adulthood and found I was in the same place (maybe only in my mind), but now we were older newlyweds.  Later we became older parents and we still do not fit with anyone...most of those who are our age, their kids are teens or have left the nest.   Those with younger children are one to two decades our junior.  The age vortex.

So, now I am nearly fifty and going to MOPS with my first child who is four.  How do I relate to those around me?  Maybe I am putting too much stock in this age thing.  I was never one to worry about this, but now I find myself skirting the whole age question and even feeling a bit embarrassed...

Then we go to a group with all empty-nesters and many of my friends are older...though I enjoy them all immensely and appreciate all their wisdom and experience that they pass on to us, there is a part of me that feels like I will never fit in there either...

Where do I belong?  

Misfit status once again, the story of my life.  We are betwixt the two generations in many ways and this just adds to my misfit status and so I tend to be a loner...I have never really seemed to relate well with those that are my own age...

Why does this bother me so much, to the point where I am writing a blog entry about this?  Not sure exactly, guess I should be used to this by now (as my mom would say), but feeling like you don't fit never quite fits well...

A Time for Thankfulness....

November 27, the last Thursday of the month, a day set aside for thanksgiving....a day that should really be the mark of all our days; gratitude...thank-FULL-ness!  I have not counted all the times in the Bible where we are exhorted, encouraged and entreated to be thankful.  To rejoice.  To remember the faithfulness of our God!  It would take some time to count, I am sure!  As I was getting ready this morning, this hymn came to my mind and I sang it with all my heart in the echo chamber of our shower.   I was reminded how many years prior I was attending one of my brother's weddings and as they had the pianist play and sing "Great is Your Faithfulness"  I was having an internal dialogue that went something like, "Lord, I don't really see your faithfulness to me....here I am still alone...estranged from my family with no signs of a husband on the horizon, you may be faithful to them (my brother and his soon-to-be-wife), but I fail to see your faithfulness to me.

For one thing, I know that God is big and He can handle my honest questions, my vulnerable heart's complaints and my downright entitled attitude sometimes.  I think that it is a healthy thing to talk to God with a bare, hurting soul before Him, He sees me anyway so there is no where that I can hide from His all-knowing, all-seeing nature.  I believe that my Heavenly Father was listening and feeling some of my pain as He knew that my vision was skewed, my heart was lonely and tired of waiting and my mind just did not understand all the whys of the wait.  He "gets" me now and He "got" me then too.

And secondly, He knew the journey that I was on and have been on until today.  He is calling me to all that He has for me and although He knows the whys of what is going on in my soul, the hurts or losses that I have been through; He still has plans for me to push through, to trust Him more fully in every area of life and so, He asks me to find something to be thankful for.  Why?  Because it changes me!  He know what is best for me! 

Have you ever noticed how hard it can be to be thankful?  I have noticed that even in the midst of our greatest blessings there are some of our deepest struggles and despairs that can overwhelm us to a place of total oblivion and numbness (if we are lucky...sometimes the pain is so great all we want is relief).  Life is hard even in the midst of miracles.  We have got to look for those blessings when we are surrounded by the day-to-day muck and mire of work, the repetitiveness of vacuuming and mopping that dirty floor one more time.  Do you need to eat again?  I have no idea what to make tonight!  Those things may seem petty, but they are real and they can drain the life right out me...they can zap that ounce of creativity I had left.  

Being thankful is a discipline and if you know how hard it is to push yourself off the sofa and onto your exercise machine then you know all about how discipline can be difficult to muster!  But, just like we need to work to keep our bodies healthy, so we must work to call our souls up and look, sometimes search, I mean sometimes comb our lives to find that minute thing to be thankful for and trust me, there is something no matter what you are going through!  Will you naturally do this when you are down and dealing with duties and difficulties, not likely; that's especially why we need to be intentional about it!

Another thing I thought of regarding cultivating the attitude of thankfulness is living in the moment!  Why not revel in this one quiet moment when the house is still; rather than worrying about all I have to do tomorrow?  Worry will kill joy quicker than anything!  Taking that moment with my son; he is changing so fast already.  Enjoying that long embrace with my husband; he may be gone tomorrow, who knows what tomorrow will bring?  Spending that time with a friend, be all there with her!

So, at least once a year we are reminded to be full of thanks!  To give thanks!  To essentially realign our hearts once again with the one who gives so many blessings for us to enjoy.  So, what am I thankful for?  Though we wait for another baby to love, I am grateful for the one God (and his birthmother) gifted us with over four years ago.  Though I am saddened at the apparent decades long rift in our family, I am grateful for a family that invited us in to have a birds' eye view of the love they have for one another.  Though married life is so much harder than I ever knew, God has given me the opportunity to learn how to love unselfishly and a husband that loves me beyond what I deserve.  Though I struggle with life on so many levels; my perfect Father loves me and says that "I will never leave you or forsake you"

And, for all these things and more; I will FOREVER be gratefu!  "Thanks be to God for His indescribeable gifts"  Not just today, but everyday I will seek to live in gratitude, to find as to search for hidden treasure, the little miracles in each day!

Struggling...

My husband brought up moving to me last night, again....He brings it up every month or two. Just when I think I he is"okay" with his job, with living here in these beautiful mountains...

I have lived in Montana since 1992; a big move from living in the Green Mountain State.  I first came out here to be a part of Youth With A Mission.  I started with a Discipleship  Training School and took a mission trip to Australia.  After my stint there I started working for an area nursing home and saved money to go back to YWAM where I then did a School of Worship and did a missions trip along the west coast of the United States praying and doing conferences of sorts about worship.  

Fast forward to October 2005 when Kent and I married after a year of long-distance dating in Florida and then he moved here...it's kind of a long story.  Anyway, there are a lot of things drawing him back to Florida.  His aging parents still live in Florida along with his two sisters.  The funny thing is they are from South Dakota where they farmed ever since he was a boy.  He has always regretted that his dad had to sell the farm, but that is another story...

The crazy thing is I never remember thinking that I might end up in Florida...guess that is what love does...

So, here we are on the precipice of making a huge decision...a decision that at this point seems elusive.  Kent complains that one day I am okay with it and saying I will support him and then the next time I am upset and angry that we have to move.  It is true!  I am having a hard time buying into this decision wholeheartedly.  I am not convinced that all of the issues that he faces here will somehow miraculously be eliminated simply by moving there.  

How do I get my heart to agree with him and move in that direction happily?  I know I need to give him a wholehearted "Yes", in order for him to feel honored and supported.  I need to give him a chance.  My thoughts start racing and my fears start rising and his face turns crestfallen.  

I know that God is the one who holds my future in His hands.  It is hard trusting an imperfect man with your life, but ultimately it is God who I am railing against.  It is God that I am choosing not to trust with my future.  I am struggling...I don't want to live in a big city with big highways and lots of traffic and crime.  The lifestyle there is completely different.  Why can't he just make it work here?!  

If we are to move there, I will move.  That is my role as a wife.  Whether he is happy in his jobs plays a huge role in whether we are happy as a family.   With God's help I can scale a wall.  This could be an adventure if I choose to see it that way.  I need to give God my frustrations, my fears and my friendships...He is able to do much more than I could ever ask or think!  Will I lay down the struggle to hold on to His hand?  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  Lord give me the strength!