New Word--Old Word

She seemed to be smiling all the time . . .

By the time I knew my Great Grandma Roth, she had lived a lifetime already. I heard all the stories from my Mom: how she felt that she was the Grandma who used to love pretty things, the Grandma who used to play the piano, until a conversion to a stricter way of life changed her. I heard about the hurtful memories of money not shared for a desperately needed surgery.  

But by the time I knew her, all of those things were part of a distant past.  What I remember is a Grandma who never had a harsh word to say to anyone. I can see in my mind's eye the Grandma whose eyes would light up when we walked into the room of her nursing home, and the largest smile you could imagine would cover her wrinkly, sweet face.

And I am sorry to say that I remember the inside joking that would happen between my siblings and myself when we had to sit at the table before and after every meal for the Mennonite way of silent prayers.  My mind, that was used to loud Pentecostal praying, somehow could not comprehend her old-fashion way of praying silently.

Until this past year, when God spoke an old-fashion word over me for my #Oneword last year:

 "He says, 'Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.'”

Psalm 46:10 NIV 

If you have been following me this past year, then you might remember some of the lessons that God walked me through,

here, or here,

on this journey of learning to be still. At the beginning of the year I felt a sense of being crushed, when I thought about being still.  You see, I was continuing to grieve my past life, Pre-RA, of being strong, and busy, and full of movement.

But God's convictions always come with such a sweet

intimacy when we will stop and listen.

He has had beautiful times in mind for me in the days of forced stillness.

And He has had beautiful love-notes to speak to me

only heard when I would slow and wait on Him.

And, so while I was reluctant to begin this past year of stillness, now I have found myself reluctant to move onto a different word.

Am I the only one who faces change in that way?

Do you ever find yourself in a similar situation?

But as I have heard the whispers of the Lord moving me ahead into the new #Oneword for this year, I have only begun to realize that the stillness of last year has prepared the way for the fullness of this year's word to be possible. Unless I had allowed Him to teach me the blessing in the still place, I would not have been ready to learn now that my own self-sufficiency had gotten me nowhere during all of those "strong" years.  It has always been only 

Christ-sufficiency

that has given my life any true value.

And so, I pray that my heart 

will be opened

to see

to hear

to learn

a deeper beauty 

than I've known before:

My Jesus is sufficient for all I need.

#Oneword 365~~2018

 

Is God calling you to journey forward

with Him this year?

Will you join me in prayer

for a willing heart to walk with Him?

Dear Lord Jesus,

Thank you that your shed blood

is sufficient

for everything we need.

Thank You that you gave 

everything

so that we could live.

May we open our hearts to receive

from You what we cannot

earn or strive on our own

to complete.

May we swing wide the gates

and allow Your Spirit

full access

to the deepest caverns

inside our souls.

You are all that we need.

In Your Sweet Name we pray,

Amen.

I think that my Grandma Roth must have learned

the secret of finding Christ's Sufficiency

as she shone with such a deep and inner 

sparkle of love.

Join me back here each week this month for a series on 

The Legacy of Faith that I can see when I look back. Thank you to Jaime Wiebel for her inspiration last month as she shared her own story, and then asked us to think about our own history.

And perhaps Jesus will show us more about what it means to find Him as all-sufficient as we travel together.

Are you hearing a #Oneword for this new year? I would love to hear your comments below! 

I am linking with:

#Glimpses

#Teaandwordtuesday

#Sittingamongfriends 

 

 

  

 

Breath of God

My breath is taken away by the beauty of my Lord's earth. The way the sun can swiftly break through on a foggy, gray day. Or the way the ice crackles and shifts after a January thawing. And my heart, that felt so hard only moments ago, is just as swiftly thawed into a tenderness of honoring the Creator of all these things.

It is week 4 for the Book Discussion group over at Michele Morin's site, Living Our Days, where Michele is leading a wonderful study on  C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces.  I have so enjoyed the great questions that she poses for us to consider, and all of the incredible responses offered by those who are joining in the study. It is serving to stir my heart to new depths of searching into the ways that God writes His Story into our lives.

This week, Orual has faced an awful, bottomless pit of despair, and has begun the process of living again. Her way of coping, however, was to harden her heart in order to numb the pain and confusion at life that could not be answered by anyone near to her.  

Don't we all choose that numbing at some point in our lives?

When she is offered to be taught a new, deeply physical skill, her response shows the level of coping that she had chosen when she tells us, 

"He kept me at it for a full half-hour. It was the hardest work I'd ever done, and, while it lasted, one could think of nothing else. I said not long before that that work and weakness (or sleep) are comforters. But sweat is the kindest creature of the three--far better than philosophy, as a cure for ill thoughts."  

And I pitied her, but nodded my head in agreement, as I recognized my own self in her statements.  Working up a sweat out in the garden, or a long arduous hike, were the best ways of coping that I chose for many long years when the events of my days were more than I could bear. 

But what happens, when all of your own coping methods 

are stripped away?

Is there a way to find true comfort?

Or will the heart become harder still

and find new ways to push 

through the pain?

Orual eventually finds herself on a journey to recover at least a small portion of her own and her family's honor. She and the Chief Guard for the King's Army, Bardia, set off to climb the Grey Mountain, and reclaim her sister Psyche's bones for burial,  and thus to bring a closure to her broken heart.

But on the journey, she and Bardia cross beyond any previously known exploration of the mountain, and enter a scene of indescribable beauty. C.S. Lewis shines at his description of nature for us. And almost, Orual's heart begins to soften. As she is overwhelmed by the beauty, she hears a question stirring within her: 

"Why should your heart not dance?"

But once again, Orual reveals the true hardness that lurks within her, when she fights against that urge:

"I was not a fool . . . The gods never send us this invitation to delight so readily or so strongly as when they are preparing some new agony. We are their bubbles; they blow us big before they prick us . . .  I ruled myself. Did they think I was nothing but a pipe to be played on as their moment's fancy chose?"

My heart was saddened by her choice.  I wished that she could have known the true God of Compassion whose heart for His children is all filled with Love.

But haven't I betrayed that very Heart, myself,

when I have mistrusted

the work

that my Lord is doing

within me? 


Throughout this first month of the year, with my #OneWord of Stillness coloring my days, there is a benefit to Stillness that cannot be received through any kinds of numbing or coping methods. If my heart truly wants to see God's Compassion, and His longing for intimacy with me, a pause and a softening towards stillness is what is required. His voice cannot be acknowledged in a heart that has hardened itself with its own way of speaking.

So, open my ears,

to hear the pulse of your hearbeat

my Lord.

And still my hearbeat

to match the rythmn

of your very own.

Where my bones have felt

dry and dead,

breathe your life into the damaged ones.

And soften those rigid slopes

where my mind has

resisted your working.

Breathe on me, O breath of God,

and call that Faith to life.

  I came across an old song this week, that I must have listened to again and again when I was a young wife. I had no memory of it, even, until the music started, and then I knew each word before he sang it. Has music ever stirred your heart that way? Brought an openness that you weren't even aware that you needed?

"This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life."

Ezekiel 37:5 NIV 

Is there a place of hardness in your heart,

my friend?

My prayer for you is to feel that breath of God

and choose to ask Him

for that wind to blow across those

hardened bones,

and find HIS New Life again.

If you are interested in reading all of the posts pertaining to the book study on C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, you can find an index by clicking here.

I am linking today over at 
#LiveFreeThursday, Suzie Eller 

 

 

Stillness

I sat on the bridge

still as a stone

And watched the fish

darting and dashing

under the rocks

and into the shadows. 

And my heart 

felt as one 

knew the quiver

that a stirring in the water

could bring. 

Two and a half years ago, when my man and I walked to that bridge, I did not realize that I had already begun this Journey with Chronic Illness. Even though my joints had started their swelling, the first jolting-awake-with-fire-flare-pain was still several days away.  But in my heart there was a tiredness running so deep, and a sensitivity so acute that I felt I must be slipping into a Spiritual Fog of some sort. 

My life had been running on empty-full-empty-again for so long that I feared what might happen if the full failed to appear once again.

And just like that,

                     the empty overtook me,

                                And my spinning life found a new

                                                                rhythm by which to dance. 

"Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”

Psalm 46:10 NIV 

I spent the next year just trying to keep my darting and dashing emotions on some sort of even plane, as the medications were set before me, one after another. There were rashes and nausea and headaches and side effects more shameful than I care to recount.

But I never walked alone.

Have you felt that quivering in the water?

Have you known that stirring when Jesus sets down beside you,

and enters into the ocean of your troubles?

As my body finally accepted the proper medication, I spent the next year reeling from one diagnosis after another, and more tests than I care to recount. I watched my man dealing with his own health struggles. 

And I felt the quivering yet again,

telling me I would never be alone.

I heard the whispers to 

come away and rest awhile.

So, as this year of 2017 approached, I prayed for a #OneWord365, a Word that might set the course for this new year. Not unlike the other times I heard Him speak for #OneWordLent, and #OneWordAdvent, and even the theme for #Write31Days, I counted on God to speak what He wanted to give me.  

I just hadn't counted that it might feel like

more of the same.

Because the Word He gave was 

stillness.

Where can we hide when the shadows are flitting  

and our hearts are still darting?

There is a place of stillness

that centers in Jesus' heart.

There is a place of knowing God

that finds its rest in loving Him.

So, while my rhythm may still move to slow,

and my feet may not dance as I would want them to,

My Lord calls me in

and my heart runs to Him.  

Thank you so much to all who prayed for my husband's hand surgeries! God is restoring him to health, and helping him as he returns to work this week!


I am linking this week with 
Jennifer Dukes Lee, #TellHisStory  

and 
Bonnie Gray, #OneWordCoffee