breath

My eyes open and I worry that I'm already behind.  She screamed so long and hard it feels like I just fell asleep.  The glowing numbers of the clock come into focus and I breathe out a thank you God that I'm a morning person.  I uncurl, stretch, and make my way to the bathroom.  As I get dressed I'm reciting the things that need to happen before 8:35.  I got this.  Probably. 

Too early, One comes up for a cuddle, anxious as always on a Monday morning.  With an eye out the window for the neighbour kids who need us for five more mornings, I fill cereal bowls and smile as I remember our family win of a skating outing yesterday.  These months have been hard.  Hella hard at times.  Inviting little ones and their accompanying brokenness into our home, into our family, into our hearts.  It is heavy.  It pervades and permeates and doesn't ask permission to hang its darkness over our days.  But, is it just me, or is He deepening my perception of His beauty in this mess?  I smile at the kooky picture of the seven of us, Five's helmet-ed head peaking out from behind me, as we skate on the river. 

My smile falls as I hear the tell-tale sound of One bouncing a ball against the wall in his room.  Sure enough, he woke Two.  I stop him before they all wake like dominos.  Neighbours arrive and the morning is off and I wonder what I will behold today. 

In pockets of peace I remember to breathe.  This Almighty-breath gives life, slows the fickle worried heart so it can truly see.  This circus that makes me crazy?  I love it.  I love them.  I struggle with how much more He might ask of me.  Inside my family or outside.  It's scary to dwell on and I wonder why.  Many days I feel I have nothing selfish left in me, but oh Lord I am so wrong.  I have given, twice.  Poured out in big-enough ways, I tell myself.  Months and months in I am finally seeing how He is working, weaving, winning at the important things in me, in my littles, in those who find themselves inside our spheres.  Dare I say, He is glorying in letting me behold glimpses of the fullness of His radiance.  Where I swear it wasn't before.  Where I wouldn't have thought it could ever be.  Beholding His beauty, pressing on to acknowledge His Emmanuel presence - not only inspite of the painful brokenness, but also right smack dab in those tear-stained, unlikely-to-be-glorious, caught-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place, down-on-my-knees-wondering-where-this-is-going messes.   He is not afraid of messy and His breath gives me life.

Heart Transplant

Every moment of anguish vacuums the joy out of the corners of my heart. Tears come or worse, they don't.  Pain gets deeper, breaths get shallower and I wish I had the words.  Any words, dammit.  

It feels empty.  But it isn't, is it?  My grief is not the absence of joy, it is the overwhelming loss of it.  The greater the joy was at the one end of the spectrum, the more encompassing the sorrow is at this end.  I want to wish away the pain, but I fear it would take with it the memories.  Maybe I can't live without either.  Because what-was was wonderful and what-is has to be.  

Truth be told, this isn't the first time I have wondered at His goodness.  Not the first time I have doubted His ways.  I didn't like it last time either or the time before, but oh my soul, did it tangle me up in my Father's love.  

Driven to my knees, sure that this time it was too much.  This time I might not see His glory again, His grace again.  How I long to be proven wrong by His faithfulness, because this time the only thing worse than being wrong is being right.  

It is hard.  Too hard, in fact.  But it is not over.  I refuse to believe this is the one situation He cannot redeem, that this is the one where He washes His hands of me and says 'you're on your own.'  

Most days I beg Him to take this burden from me.  To give me His yoke that is easy and His burden that is light.  Yet I know, in my heart of hearts, that He lets nothing go to waste in the shaping and perfecting of my faith.  I know because of the whispers.  Somedays I barely catch them as they float by on the rhythms of Your glory.  Somedays they arrest me in Your presence and I am known.  

The whispers find the cracks.  Lord, they pour and trickle and puddle in all the right corners of my heart.  And I know that this sorrow today, this is yet another fissure into which You spill Your whispers.  I know it even as I see that my words have morphed into whispers back to You.  

I don't want a heart transplant, I want to see what You do with this one You're cupping in Your hands.  

Incongruent

Papa, the glory of the trees seems incongruent with the grief of my days.  And yet you are the God of both and my head knows that you are good in all of it.  Grant me the grace today, to be sure of what I hope for and certain of what I do not see.  And may I find my glory not in the finite plans I make, nor the fickle reality that is right now, but in the knowing of my infinite, glorious, unfathomable God.

Beauty for Ashes

Peace snuck up on me as She snuggled in for her bottle and The Three lounged around us on the couch in various stages of planes/rockets/landing pads construction.  You said, "See?  See how full your heart can be?  This is of me."  And from the seed of peace was born a fragile sprout of joy.

My heart wavers, but my feet stand solidly upon this confession: You bestow a crown of beauty for these ashes, joy for this mourning, and praise for this despair.  You are Redeemer and this grief is not the one grief you cannot redeem.

I will not be shaken.  May my heart join me up here on this Rock so that we may sing for joy.

Joy

Choosing joy because You are big enough to bring it forth from these ashes.  Choosing joy because it is only I who cannot see the ending You hold confidently in Your hands.  Choosing joy because she deserves a momma who delights in her.  Choosing joy because I will not colour her world with my grief.  Choosing joy because it is the weapon of the overcomer.  Choosing joy because You rejoice over me with singing.  In the very choosing of joy, I recognize the ever-present grief that this life embodies, but I refuse to give it the power.  This day I will live joyfully.

You know (Psalm 139:1)

You have searched me and you know me, O Lord.
You know my exhaustion and my exasperation.
You know my tired eyes and tired sighs.
You know my doubts and dread, my full and weary head.
You know my facade and you know where it is flawed.
You know that I bellow, holler, and yell.
You know that I don't want to build another fort
and you know that my fuse is oh-so-short.
You know my wit's end and the time I spend in this hell-ish trend.
You know what is only mine to know.
But you know.

And oh, how you love me so.

Lord, when I am so helpless and weak, sing Your song of delight over my soul so that I too could know.  That I could know the depths of Your unconditional love in the depths of my desperate soul.  That the glorious riches of Your greater grace could be the melody of Your song that is with me when I awake.

Seasoned

I hate how weak I am when it comes to grace and patience - particularly inside these walls.  Particularly with these four I love most.  I don't want to bark at them or snap at him.  I really don't.  But I am so weak and so tired of the endless cycle I am stuck in.  I'm so weak and I'm so sorry.  Sorry that it's going to happen again in an hour or two or maybe less.  What could He make of me if I believe that my glaring and embarrassing weakness is truly His strength?  What if I just stop?  Just slow down and let His praise wash over my lips?  What if every conversation is deliberately seasoned with grace because it is slow and careful and gives me time to behold Him?

My Morning (Psalm 30:5 & Psalm 34:5)

The rhythm of the rain outside my window is my alarm clock this morning.  In my stupor it sounds like clapping and I am oddly relieved.  The gray skies are clapping their sarcastic applause.  Perfect, I agree.  A miserable soggy day is in order for me, a failure.

It's the morning after the night that ended with silence, my mess uglier than I want to put into words.  Uglier than I want to put into words in front of him.  And he knows it.  He prods gently with such care but I shut him out.  It's too much and I'm too tired, I tell myself.  I'm fine, really, I tell him.  But how many times in ten years have I avoided his eyes?

And that night came on the heels of another, where I collapsed in a heap knowing I had just barely made it through another day.  A day of hearing my floundering in the sounds of every whining, complaining heap of child on the floor.  Of watching my defeat in hitting hands and kicking feet.  Of seeing my not-enough in the sounds of shutting down, shutting out, and shutting doors.   It's all I can do not to shut my eyes and shut my heart.

It's the morning after and the morning after the morning after.  And sometimes it doesn't look any better than the night before.  Or the night before.  Or the one before.

He says joy comes in the morning.  He whispers it this time.  Whispers it to my morning that is begging for a reason to rebel.  My morning that balks at Him, daring Him to defy Himself.

Except that it isn't.

At least not entirely.

Underneath its disheveled hair and disheartened spirits, my morning longs to taste and see that He is good and true and loving and here.  My morning, my afternoon, my evening, and my night.  All of me wants to know all of Him.

All of me wants to know this God who hears me when I cry.  Who is near when I am broken-hearted.  Who redeems me when I am desolate.  Who made my heart such that He can strengthen it.  Who makes me radiant when I am ashamed.

This God who is teaching me day by day and hour by hour that I am weak, fallible, and inadequate on purpose.  By His very design I am made to be whole only in Him.  By His very design I am made to experience fullness in my dependence on Him.

If my weakness is not only my weakness but also His strength, is it even my weakness at all?  How great is my God!

Upheld (Psalm 71:6)

By You I have been upheld from birth and I don't even know any other way.  My heritage of faith led me up and over and through before I even knew there was another way.  David and Moses and Paul and Jesus are so engrained I couldn't take off these lenses if I tried.  Prayers spoken and prayers answered are what I know.  Doubts relinquished and burdens unloaded are how I get by.  Thanks spied and praises sung are how I thrive.  Blessings accepted and gifts regifted is my simple offering.  Knees bent and arms high is how I want to live.  By You I have been upheld from birth.  My praise shall be continually of You.  

Greater Joy (Psalm 4:7)

I have it so good.  My husband is amazing and caring and we enjoy each other so much.  My kids are healthy and brilliant and hilarious and handsome and fun.  Our house feels just right for us and is allowing us to do so much for us and for others.  The friends I have right now know the real me and love me as I am.  I have time and energy to recognize my passions and opportunities to live them out.  My circumstances have their challenges here and there but, for the most part, I am living an easy and easy-to-say-blessed life.

And yet God declares that He fills my heart with greater joy than the most wonderful of circumstances.  My heart's joy is fickle.  I want it to be His Greater Joy, but I fear it isn't.  At all.  I know and rely on His love in the easy.  Because it is easy.  Or at least I did yesterday.  It is so easy to forget.

Lord, give me roots in Your Greater Joy for the long haul.  To know and rely on Your love in the hard.  Because it will be hard.  All around me is hard.  I barely finish typing the word 'hard' and another email arrives bearing someone else's bad news.  That's five in the last two weeks.  Four little souls gone way before their time and one more hanging in the balance.  Five enormous spheres of influence pierced with the hardest of hards.

It could be me.

I want to believe that I would still believe.

But all I can do for now is behold the beauty of the Lord.  Day in and day out.  Breath in and breath out.  I will seek Him, that I may dwell in His house and behold His beauty.  Adoring him each moment, I am becoming what I behold.

Exalt Devo 2

God pulls me in and the words in my ear make me fall for Him all over again.  His voice booms as it whispers and I hear Him utter entwined messages of worth, healing, and confidence as only the Divine can.

Deep and inexplicably selfless love rejoices over me in glorious melodies that flow from His lips as He convinces me of my significance in His eyes.  This is the message I have known since childhood, but its words now take root in my heart and take shape in my life in ways altogether new and mesmerizing.

For alongside the majestic singing of my God are the emboldened murmurs of my own heart as it begins to bubble.  And what else could it do but respond?  That is exactly what it should do.  We love because He first loved us.  I love because He first loved me.

What is stirring in your heart?  If He loves you, and He does, what happens next?  Perhaps you want to take more opportunities to stop and bask in that love.  Perhaps you want to practice living in the awareness of that love throughout your day.  Perhaps you want to tell Him that you love Him too.  Perhaps His love has awakened the desire to rekindle your relationship.  Perhaps His love makes you want to do something tangible for a neighbour or a friend.  Perhaps His love is calling you to step up, open up, give up, make up, sign up, speak up, or listen up.

During this time of prayer, respond to God's love in some way.  It might be in an attitude of the heart, and that is great.  But if you have felt a concrete stirring in response to God's love at work in you tonight, pay attention to what He is saying to you.  Pray about it now and while you are talking to Him about it, pull out your phone and write down your response to His love.  Make a reminder to yourself and don't let yourself off the hook.  This isn't just another to-do, this is a response to God's love for you.  Let's pray.

...

Each of us has a unique relationship with You, Lord.  As we encounter your unfailing love for us, we will each respond in our own way.  Give us the ears to hear and the eyes to see Your greater-than-we-can-grasp love for us.  Give us the courage to respond to it wholeheartedly, faithfully, and recklessly.  Amen.

Exalt Devo 1

The days I choose to dwell on His love for me are never fruitless.  I cradle my Bible in my hands like a morning cup of coffee, inhaling the aroma of His word.

A few minutes later my reflection looks back at me, toothbrush dangling between its lips and hair untamed, and I claim the tenderness of His love in His words that I have trouble believing:
You are altogether beautiful, my darling, there is no flaw in you.  You have stolen my heart, my treasure, my bride.  You have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes.

The warmth of His adoring love follows me as my day goes on until the next momentary breath of quiet and with a mountain of tasks ahead of me my body slogs through the mundane letting my mind engage with more of His words: He rescued me because He delighted in me.  The Lord takes pleasure in His people.  He will take great delight in you.  He will rejoice over you with singing.  As I let the words circle around and around they spiral their way deeper into my heart.  He takes great delight in me?  He looks at me and breaks into song?  Already my day is changing in light of this jubilant and uncontainable love I am not sure I will ever understand.

A few hours later, in a place of regret and shame for the careless words I have spoken, never mind godless attitudes I have entertained, my thoughts turn to the One who knows the most intimate details of my outside and my inside.  The One who knit me together, formed me in darkness, and knows every hidden crevice of my soul, has precious thoughts about me.  My Creator has more precious thoughts about me than I could count.  Again I am floored by His intimate and forgiving love, in awe that it is directed at me.

The pace of the day picks up, needs around me and demands upon me.  This time hours pass before my heart is stirred again into looking up.  The thoughts of His love that have been percolating all day seem to be culminating as they rest upon the stunning realization that there is no greater love than that of my God for me.  That the way and the amount in which He loves me - even enough to give up His Son on my behalf - cannot be matched.  That no amount of time, space. joy, pain, doubt. shame, sickness, need, excess, circumstances, or messiness will ever be able to separate me from that unearned but oh-so-deserved-because-He-said-so love of God.

Let's use this time to deliberately engage with God's love for each of us.  Let's let it sink in to touch a deeper place inside of us.  I encourage you to consciously choose a posture for this time of prayer.  Do you want to stand in proclamation, raise your hands in praise, kneel in reverence, lay down humility, look up in intimate confidence, or leap for joy?  Choose something that reflects your understanding of God's love this evening and meditate on a verse, song, or truth that is resonating with you.  Let's pray.

....


God, we bask in Your love tonight.  You love us.  You know us and delight in us.  We can't make You love us more or make You love us less.  We can't understand why you love us or how much You love us.  We are just so thankful that You do.  Amen.

He Fills

The day I started loving Him on the inside, everything started spiralling out of control.  He started showing me His heart for those around me and I had to put down my pack of self-righteousness so I could partner with Him in shouldering His burden for the world.  Sometimes it breaks my heart and I just want to find a way to end all the suffering around me.  But most times it fills my home with extra mouths to feed and souls to love.  It fills my time with cards and emails and phone calls of encouragement.  It fills my mind with dreams and questions of what is to come.  And it fills my heart with hope, empathy, purpose, and joy.  

Lord, I want to see greater things than these.  

Being Afraid, Being Hopeful, and Not Being Careful (Psalm 118:6)

The word 'fear' itself doesn't enter my prayers, worries, or even consciousness on a regular basis.  I've loved rollercoasters and the feeling of falling for as long as I can remember.  I've been cliff-jumping, sky-diving and bungee-jumping.  Public speaking isn't my favourite, but it doesn't paralyze me either.  I have a decent enough amount of confidence to fake confidence in most situations.  I'm terrified of snakes, mind you, but that's not an issue that rears its proverbial head much in my day-to-day.  I wouldn't generally describe myself as afraid, so I almost skipped today's verse.

But I didn't leave it out and now it won't leave me either.  I might not have the kind of fear that makes my heart race and my knees knock, but I have a nagging, subtle, beneath-the-surface fear that drowns the stirrings in my heart before they have a chance to become dreams.

I keep having these glimpses into what could be, but the fear I haven't wanted to label as fear makes me glance past them.  I don't dare dwell on them, imagine what they could be, let them grow in my dreams, or hope for them.  The fear I never acknowledged is stealing the hope I never put into words.

I want to hope.  I want to dream the mother of all dreams.  The one He put in my heart.  I want to abandon myself to a radical, foolish, careless, enormous, ridiculous hope.  Even as I type the words, I recognize the fear in that vulnerability.

"When I choose hope, when I choose to engage in that awkward intimacy of believing that He might say no while asking expectantly that He say yes, my heart opens in a way it never does when I’m careful. I’m forced to search Him out, to wrestle with Him. And in so doing He gets the most beautiful part of me." 
- Sara Hagerty

The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.
What would I hope, if I wasn't being careful?
What would I hope, if I had no fear?

Juxtaposition

You pull me in and the words in my ear make me fall for You all over again.  Your voice booms as it whispers and I hear You utter entwined messages as only the Divine can.

Deep and inexplicably selfless love rejoices over me in glorious melodies that flow from Your lips as you convince me of my worth in Your eyes.  This is the message I have known since childhood, but its words now take root in my heart and take shape in my life in ways altogether new and mesmerizing.  

Alongside the majestic singing are the murmurs that speak to my freshest wounds.  As You reveal Your love and Your self to me, my failings of word and thought and deed become painful for me to look at.  The closer I get to You, the more I see just how broken I am, how sinful and unworthy.  So You softly breathe the assurance that You forgive.  You see, You know, and You cover with Your Son.  

You belt out Your greater-than-I-can-grasp love for me

while you whisper Your greater-than-I-can-imagine grace for me

Here I walk in this juxtaposition, both worthy and unworthy

and I will repeat it to myself until I know and rely 

with every fiber of my being

and every step of my day

greater

greater

greater

How He Came

Exalt Devo 1

You know those days when you mess up?  Not the ones where the photo radar catches you or you discover you've been mispronouncing a word all your life or you swear in front of your Oma.  The ones where you hurt someone you love.  The ones where you say things you regret the second they are out of your mouth.  The ones where your reactions are ungodly, your attitudes impure, your motives selfish.  The ones where, even while you are still kicking yourself for the last blunder, you can't help but fall again.

We are so flawed.  We are so weak and powerless.  So human.  So sinful.  A thousand times we've failed.

I know a lot about days like this because I live with many small children.  Sometimes I can't even tell when these days are starting, as they begin fairly benign.  Maybe one kid will get out of bed and immediately go to claim the favourite cereal bowl for himself - this month's favourite is yellow.  Not necessarily malicious, just centered very much on the interests of self.  But it doesn't take long to devolve into shoving matches over who gets to hand out the vitamins, hollered accusations about who is being too loud, and words like 'poopy-head' being spat in each other's general direction.  Sometimes, but not always, we manage to avoid teeth marks on flesh.

Maybe it's easier to think of on toddlers.  Maybe it's easier to think of as just happening the odd time - to delude ourselves into believing that that's not the real us.  But those days are more reflective of our hearts than we would like to admit.  We might not push, yell, name-call, or bite, but if we are honest, that sinful ugliness is right there inside of us and it comes out in one form or another day in and day out.

So what happens with my kids, in the middle of those days when I want to hide in the shower, eat their whole stash of Halloween chocolate, or take up drinking?  Eventually, after they are separated, the tears are wiped away, and the drama has quieted, my four-year-old asks to pray.  He asks to pray because he already know that he can't just decide to change his behaviour.  He knows that resolving to do better is not going to fix things long-term.  And he knows that spending time sitting with Jesus is what his heart needs.  In simple words, he shares his struggles with Jesus, confesses that he is weak, and asks for more love in his heart.  Oh-so-innocently, he trusts that Jesus has the power to change him on the side.  Those few minutes fill him up and he marvels at the power of Jesus inside of him.

The trouble with being a grown-up is that we are more practiced at hiding our sin.  And we are better at appearing more competent at doing things by our own power for longer periods of time between major down-on-our-knees-before-the-Lord melt-downs.  Let me tell you, daily surrendering on the inside, is so much better than fighting to do things ourselves, somehow trying to prove that we can.  We are so flawed.  We are so weak and powerless.  So human.  So sinful.  A thousand times we've failed.

But God?  He is everlasting and His light will shine when all else fades.  He is never-ending and His glory goes beyond all fame.  Would you do what my four-year-old knows we need to do?  Would you go to Jesus now?  A thousand times we've failed, still His mercy remains.  Should we stumble again, still we're caught in His grace.  In our heart, and our souls, let us give Him control.  Let Him consume us from the inside out.  Take a few minutes right now, in your own heart,  and tell Jesus where you are at, confess what you need to confess, and then praise Him for His grace and for who He is to you today.

...

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades.  Never-ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame.  And the cry of our hearts is to bring You praise, from the inside out, Lord, our souls cry out.  Amen.

Full of Grace

Colossians 4:6
Let your conversation be always full of grace

Why is this so much easier with anyone outside of my household than with those inside?

Listening with grace comes easily, when I am with the friend who is struggling with her demons, wondering if God has given up on her and if she should give up on God.  Extending grace is second nature when it comes to a family member, whose particular pains and struggles I know about.  Offering grace to a neighbour is natural, when I know that I am one of few examples of Christ he has in his life.

But with my children?
But with my husband?
Those are the conversations I wish were full of grace.  Brimming with grace and empty of frustration, exhaustion, insensitivity, anger, mocking and eye-rolling, passive aggressive comments, and selfishness.

'Lord, let my conversations be always full of grace' is almost too big a prayer to pray.
But let grace fill every crevice of my sad and weary heart.  So that it would overflow into thoughts and into words and into conversations.  For today I pray, 'Lord let there be a portion of grace amidst my conversations and grow me to a place where I might step be drowning in the very fullness of grace.'

All of Me

The phrases in my head and the sparks in my heart are all saying the same thing.  Abandon everything to Jesus.  Let Him reign in your life.  Give it all to Him.  Trust completely.  Withhold nothing.  Don't be lukewarm.  Hand over control.  Follow wholeheartedly.  Be all in.

Every which way I look, every book I read, and every song I sing keeps coming back to the drastic.  Die to myself and live only for Him.  The corners of my soul have their concerns, but I can feel the centre growing.  I can feel embers being stirred and the flames beginning to lick at the edges of revival.  

My logical self wants to know what it will look like.  What specific arenas of my life am I withholding?  What would it look like to give Him control in those places?  Really, concretely, what would need to change?

But the part of me that just loves Jesus for who He is, that part just wants to grow the love.  It doesn't want to worry about the consequences or the difficult things it may be asked to do.  It doesn't care about the details and it not fixated on the steps of growing or glorifying.  It just enjoys the moments, the whispers, the intimacy and wants to let the trickles of His glory turn to a deluge.  Just by loving, by listening, by breathing His goodness in and out.

Like a Weaned Child

I am calmed and quieted, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother's milk.  Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.  Psalm 131:2

When Niko was in the newborn stage, he was so so good at snuggling in and sleeping on anybody.  He liked to be upright on a chest and would just burrow himself in there (I think Karen will have a memory of him doing this to her once during church).  He was so cozy and cuddle-able and content - especially on Bernie's chest.  But pass him to me, and a slow but steady transformation would occur.  He'd start shifting and wriggling.  He'd begin to turn his head from side to side and grunt.  Before you know it he was completely awake a desperate for milk.  Where peaceful sleep had been totally blissful only minutes ago, now only hunger remained.  

So I imagine being calmed and quieted as the place where Jesus is really all my heart wants and needs.  I don't find myself distracted at the faintest hint of a milky fragrance, because I have learned that my whims don't ever take me to that place of complete rest.  That peace is only found snuggled tight, cozily dozing on Jesus' chest.

That said, my weaned children certainly don't cuddle the way they did when they were still breastfeeding, so maybe I missed the message of this verse.

That said, David never breastfed anyone.