Wildflowers in the Kingdom

As I was driving today, I was struck by a beautiful array of wildflowers painting the ditch.  There was one particular stretch that overflowed with the most lively bunch of flowers of just about every color.

It made me think about the name we give these scenic wonders...wildflowers.  I guess they are wild.  They are growing in a place where they were not planted or tended by man.  They often grow in harsh conditions without supervision or control.  They sprout up boldly and are taken care of by the father above to bless us during a mundane drive.

How often do we try to tame wildflowers?  How often do we cut them down, trim them or try to move them and end up killing them?  They may be someone we love.  The wildflower could be a part of us that we keep from emerging from an unlikely place.  A true wildflower seems dangerous to us, but magnificent to God.  He has it under control.  He doesn't want us living lives of fear where we never express who we are.  No, he wants us to live a life abandoned.  He will show the world that it's not crazy to let something grow where "it's not supposed to".  We aren't supposed to try to be just like everyone else.  If we were, what would be the point of making more than one human? 

So, when people say you're crazy for whatever it is that you just know in your heart is what God wants and is pleasing to him, just keep focused and press through that hard ground.  Soon, you'll be the wildflower that makes them smile.

To have the Faith of Juma

At what point does concern grow into worry?  Can we pinpoint the moment when our concern grows into an obsession that has no solution?

I think what matters is what we decide to do with what may be a very valid concern.  We can determine if there is a way to fix it or not.  Then, if there is no way to fix it, we can either leave it up to God and faithfully wait for his answer to the concern or decide to keep thinking and ruminating over it.

I am one that tends to worry.  I want to know the answer now.  I don't want to wait for the solution.  I don't want to watch without any control over something I think I can answer. No, I want to make everything fit nicely into a box that I can carry around and place where I want it.  The unknown does not fit into my box.  So, I try to force it there.

I think we worry a lot about things that are ridiculous to worry about.  In the grand scheme of things, in light of an eternity with the most beautiful eternal being, we decide to worry about how much money we have, our jobs, and our kids instead of living a life full and blessed as God intended.  You might think it is fine and normal to worry about our kids, but I don't think it is.  I think it is absolutely normal to be concerned for them, but not pleasing to God to replay their issues in our minds over and over again.  I don't think it is healthy to push our ideas of what we think will make them happy onto them, either.  That is birthed from worry.  Worry will ultimately push our children, families and everyone away from us.  Worry is anxiety, and anxiety demonstrates a lack of faith.

I am saying these things knowing full well how anxious I can become, but I also know that God is gracious and patient.  He places us in various situations and circumstances to help us grow our faith.  He gives us opportunities to learn to rely on him.  We don't become people of faith without listening to him, waiting with him and relying on him to carry us through the unknown, scary places.  How many of us can say we are truly content?  I don't think many people in this country feel that way.

I will never forget meeting a young African boy when I went to Kenya many years ago.  This 12 year old boy made me so happy, because he was happy.  He had lived on the streets most of his life and found his way to a boys' home after living a life of hardship abandoned by everyone that was supposed to love him.  All he had was Jesus, and it was evident by the contagious smile on his face and the peace that seemed to gush from within like a fountain of gold.  He didn't have everything figured out.  He just knew God would provide.  This young man had the wisdom of an 80 year old and the heart of an angel.  I will never forget Juma.  I left Africa wanting to live a life like that.

I still think about him and joy floods within.  I barely knew him, but the blessing of knowing someone with that kind of faith continues to change me. 

Common Sense

It's a good thing.  Right?  To use common sense when making daily decisions.  But, when is the point when common sense trumps divine insanity?  Can't we become so sure of our common sense and logic that the impossible that God is all about just seems like a fairy tale?

I believe that God wants us to use reason.  He is a reasonable God.  I do not believe he wants that reason to make us so confident in our own perceptions that we become full with presumptuousness.  We become full of ego and don't consult God at all.  No matter what the issue is, he should be consulted.  We should blister our knees to do and be his will, no matter how crazy that may be.

Have you ever prayed for something for such a long time, that your logic becomes your defense mechanism.  We always want our prayer to be answered in a God-like way, but as the days pass we seem to revert back to our logic.  We try not to hope too much just in case that miracle doesn't happen.  Satan sees his chance to throw some doubt in the mix and does so making things even more confusing.  When all the while, we just need to keep keeping on.  We need to keep praying that impossible prayer and keep believing.  No matter how long it's been, no matter how dismal the prognosis or dreary the road ahead looks, God can make all of that vanish in the blink of an eye.

I am praising God that he is so patient with me as I go back and forth in my mind about concerns he has perfectly planned out how to solve.  Having faith as tiny as a mustard seed moves mountains.  It moves the obstacles we see that just won't move.  I'm ready to plant that seed and watch God's plan grow.

Decisions, Decisions...

I think some of the most rewarding times in my life were the ones wrought out of an agonizing decision.  When I finally got to the place of unwavering decisiveness, knowing that this decision was of God, the soothing, cool waters of the Holy Spirit tamed the fire that raged in my soul over that situation.  A peace flooded me that is indescribable.  I just knew I had done what was right.  He didn't need to, but God gave me that calm assurance that the pain of listening to his whispers would fade into a new, wide world of things I could not imagine. 

More than once in my life, I let go of something that I desperately wanted to hold onto, only to find that after I did, just around the corner, was a breath-taking view.  I may have been in pain afterwards, because any type of loss hurts, but I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do.  Situations still arise in which I have to realize that I do not need to keep trying to fix everything...or everybody.  A tall order for someone that likes order and control.

I think of all of the little decisions we make every day, too.  All of those little decisions move us just a little further one way or another.  No matter how minuscule they seem, each little decision builds up to a larger one.  Every one of them matters no matter how unimportant they seem.

Singing in the Dark

Last night, as I stumbled back into bed at 2 a.m. after getting up to use the bathroom, I heard something unusual.  As I lay there with my eyes closed, a pretty little melody made it's way into the bedroom from just outside.  I wondered why a bird was singing in the dark at 2 o'clock in the morning.  I quickly drifted off to sleep thinking how I should write a blog about it.

That little bird was singing for reasons I don't know.  She was singing in the middle of the night without any moonlight as a back drop.  She was singing all by herself.  I wonder how often I am able to do that.  I think of all of the times that I have refused to sing when darkness surrounded me.  I think of times when I have forced myself to sing when no one else was there to sing with me.  I also think of the joy that singing brings when that song is written from the depths of my soul. 

I think it's easy to sing, because we are happy, but can we sing even when we aren't?  Can we have the faith we need to sing when we have no support, no light to guide us, nothing but silence?  I pray that I will be able to do that as I have failed miserably in the past.  I want to sing, because I know without a shadow of a doubt that my God is Lord of Lord and King of Kings no matter the situation or pressures of this world.  I want my therapy to be the soul-wrenching song that only God can write.  I want my healing to come from a faith I cannot see...from the hand that made me.  When I can do nothing else, I want to sing...because no matter what, I am free.  I am praying I can be that person that sings without sight.

Why?

2010 was a year that I asked this question a lot.  I asked a dozen times a day some days.  Why began specific questions primarily about why God decided our child was better off with him than with us right now. 

What I have learned from that year and each day that passes, is that I have to be okay with not really knowing why.  The more I accept the fact that there are reasons I could never fathom, reasons that are heaven-made and not only a product of the sin of this world...the more my soul can rest and hope.  I could either look at it as God taking our child away from us, or God protecting her from what I will never know this side of heaven.  I think of the verse that talks about how we can see dimly down here, but in heaven it will all be crystal clear.  I believe that day will be here sooner than I can imagine.

I think about all of the prayers I pray, and how naive I can be about them.  I know they are good things to pray, but don't necessarily have the foresight or wisdom to recognize how God will answer.  For example, I pray that he would be number one in my life, that I would always follow the course he has set out for me, that he would show me his plan, that he would teach me to love and have faith, that I would be genuine...I believe his decision that it was the baby's time to be with him was a partial answer to prayers like those.  Although his perfect plan was never that death, pain and sin be part of our equation, he always seems to turn lemons into lemonade.

Whatever the situations we face that just blow our minds, I think of how God is not surprised.  I think of how we forget that, and busy ourselves with the work of figuring things out.  But how futile is that?  If you don't have all of the puzzle pieces, you will never finish the puzzle and see what the big picture truly is.  I think God gives us more of those pieces along the way to help us, but we have to ask him through our faith. We have to remember that our hearts are not necessarily where God wants them to be.  He wants our hearts to be like his and the more we pray for that, the more he will bend, mold and mend us to be as He is.  And that is probably going to hurt sometimes.  Our natural tendency will be to resist, but when we bear the pain with him, the result is something beautiful we see in ourselves that wasn't there before.

I say all of this to get to answer the queston of "Why?"  I think the answer is..."You'll see.  Trust me." 

Oh, Happy Day!

Time and reflection often bring peace and hope.  They don't necessarily bring understanding, though.  I am still adjusting to the feeling of having the floor fall through.  I am still trying to figure out how to live here. 

My heart aches as I recall when the floor was beginning to crumble.  As I did everything I could to keep it from caving in.  As I prayed and cried, and cried and prayed every day for God to save our baby's life.  That little life that was growing inside.

Now, I realize he did save her life.  I realize we will see her again, but oh the ache of a mother's heart that is apart from her child!  It is more than I can bear at times.  When I can't breathe, I fall to my knees and pray God would give me what I do not have.  The strength to believe.  The strength to be blessed.  The strength to have faith.  Because I still don't know why.  I still feel in the dark.  I am still so very human.

I long for the day when all eternity waits as I feel that sweet little being's embrace.  Through her, God has taught me what love, hope, and faith really are.  And though it seems like forever right now, he knows the brevity of the wait when mother, daughter and father meet.  Oh, what a happy day that will be!

The Journey with God

I was thinking recently about the uncertainty of life.  And, I was kind of feeling in the dark.  It seems there are times in life when you step on a land mine.  It's out of nowhere.  It's shocking on so many levels.  And it changes your life.

I feel that way at times.  I feel that I am just walking along my merry way, when BOOM!  I am paralyzed from head to toe as I lay face down, stunned and bewildered by what has just happened.  Have you ever been there?  When you have no idea what is happening, but you know you sure aren't in Kansas anymore.

I know that the path was paved long ago.  The dangers installed there were cleverly placed by satan.  If we realize that Jesus is always beside of us, that may help.  Then, we wonder why he didn't tell us what is ahead...now that can just be infuriating, until, we see that it's not about those ticking time bombs.
It's not about the pain inflicted by them.  It's about the journey.  It's about the calm, serene peace he gives during those times.  It's about forming callouses where you've been hit, so that next time, you aren't as debilitated

My husband is a hunter.  I have to admit, I get a little bit sad when he tells me "he got one".  But on the other hand, I love eating deer meat.  My husband began hunting in an area this past year, where the deer are plenty and the hunters are few.  He had a lot more "success", because these deer are oblivious to the warning signs that a hunter is on the prowl.  They did not know the smell of the hunters.  They are taking their time, moseying along, when out of nowhere, they're hit.


It's the same with us.   You cannot assume the road will be paved smoothly and no dangers will be there just because you are protected.  God never said that we would not experience hard times and pain.  He never said we would understand everything.  He said trust him.  He said he will always be there with us to teach us how to deal with our enemy.  God protects us by educating us on how to handle these attacks, so that we can fight better in the future...for ourselves, for others, and for him.

A deer's best defense: identifying the smell of danger and fleeing.  A Christian's best defense: detecting satan's snares and praying.  Thank God he hears every word.  Thank God for those heavenly embraces.