rest

A spiritual blessing in the trees

I went for a walk yesterday and paid attention to the birds. The fairy-like flutter and zoom of six hummingbirds captivated me. I noticed the stately and intimidating silhouette of a Red-tailed hawk perched atop a dead Cottonwood tree. I realized innumerable Grackles and doves populate the gray sky, fences, wire lines and tree branches. And I saw a mockingbird sitting alone on the tip of an enormous Organ Pipe Cactus.

Because I set this week apart as a sort of sabbath, taking the entire week off work to intentionally rest my soul in God, I took a nap and awoke refreshed. I walked outside and felt the sun warm my skin in the chilled air. I watched a silky, black male Grackle sing in response to the song of another bird on a tree down the way. I sat outside with my goats for a while and noticed our rooster showing our young hens the nesting boxes, as though to say, “This is where you lay your eggs.”

Monday night in my church community group we talked about Ephesians 1 and how so many of us feel the verbiage of “spiritual blessings in heavenly places” is unattainable, ethereal, churchy. We confessed our lack of thankfulness and awareness that leads to wonder. We ascend with our minds to the truth of Jesus being a blessing beyond our imaginations, like trying to capture a cup of water by standing under the Niagara Falls. But though we have a decreased capacity, we long to experience the reality of this truth in the here and now.

Today after my walk the thought occurred to me, maybe those spiritual blessings in heavenly places aren’t so unreachable. Maybe we’re surrounded by them.

Jesus said God showers his goodness on the just and the unjust.

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have?
– Matthew 5:44-46 CSB

As I think about my insatiable appetite for faithfulness; my desire to live and love faithfully, I wonder if one of the spiritual blessings in heavenly places is noticing what the Psalmist calls, “the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

I am certain that I will see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living.
Psalm 27:13 CSB

The goodness of the birds, in all their variety, color, shape and song. The goodness of the warm sun, and cool rain. The goodness of hens laying eggs and afternoon naps. The goodness of breath. All of these and more have become like white noise to us. We don’t notice. But they are tangible spiritual blessings of God’s goodness and faithful love.

Every morning when the sun bursts into the night with gold, red and purple light, God shines his faithfulness on everything and everyone he has made, whether we respond to his love or not.

God is extravagant in his love for us, always giving us good. The spiritual blessing of his goodness and faithful love is in the heavenly places, yes. But if we’ll notice, it’s also singing in the trees and in everything he’s made.

The Lord is gracious and compassionate, 
slow to anger and great in faithful love.
The Lord is good to everyone; 
his compassion rests on all he has made.
All you have made will thank you, Lord; 
the faithful will bless you. -Psalm 145:8-10

Bidding moms of young children to rest in the power of Christ

My sons are now sixteen and eighteen, but the days of bending over to care for their needs seems like it was just yesterday.

The years I spent investing my life in theirs felt like a mix of chaos, cherished moments and sheer exhaustion at the time. My mothering isn’t over, it’s just entered another stage, but those early years I needed to hear the messages Liz tenderly delivers in her first book, The End of Me: Finding Resurrection Life in the Daily Sacrifices of Motherhood.

When my oldest was a toddler and I was carrying around his newborn little brother a woman whose children were grown saw me looking tired one day at church. She pulled me aside and told me to go take a nap. I felt like a failure. I had plans for what I would do with my toddler. I’d teach him to identify colors, read him stories and sing Jesus Loves Me with him. But instead I was exhausted from the screams of my newborn and the tantrum throwing of my toddler. This woman I looked up to didn’t give me a do-better speech, she took my kids and told me to rest.

Liz’s book calls moms who feel like they’re failing because they’re tired and don’t have the ideal circumstances they imagined, to let their pride, ideals and expectations die. And instead receive the rest and life that comes from trusting in the resurrected Christ to be enough for our mothering.

Like the older woman who took me aside when my kids were little and bid me to die for an hour in a room with a pillow, Liz calls moms of young children to learn from Jesus and embrace the rest we find in him.

Young moms need this message. We need each other in the church to help us raise our kids and to help us see our need for Jesus. Liz’s book serves young mothers of the Church well in giving a primer on what dependence upon the power of Christ, not ourselves, looks like in motherhood.

Liz’s writing is clear and full of scripture. The End of Me is easy to read, and gives young moms who may have very little down time to read a book, a helpful and encouraging message in short chapters with room to reflect at the end of each chapter.

As a leader in my church’s ministry to children and parents, I plan to give this book to new moms. If you are a mom to young children, or you know a mom of young children, get this book. The End of Me is a welcome word of truth and hope to weary young moms.

Learn to rest

There comes a time in every mom‘s life when her kids don’t need her to tend to their physical needs anymore. They don’t need her the same way they did when she held them in her lap.

A time comes when circumstances are such that you don’t have control.

You’re not the planner.
You’re not the maker.
You’re not the organizer.
Or the one doing the serving
or the leading.

There comes a time when you just have to rest. You have to take a walk and trust that God, who you cannot see, is working the circumstance- leading, doing.

You have to sabbath. Rest. Cease working. Cease striving. Cease planning. Cease trying to make things better.

Motherhood is teaching me about sabbath.
Covid-19 is teaching me about sabbath.
Saturday in Holy Week is teaching me about sabbath.

Resting is not what I want to do. Especially when fearful and hard circumstances come.

When the choices are not yours to make anymore.
When your son lies behind a stone and the church doors are closed.
When you can’t hold the one you love and or tend to his needs.

Your weary body and mind finally collapse, and you rest.

There you realize, God has been trying to lay you down in this green pasture so you can watch him rise like the sun over the stone cold earth.

“The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid.
Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.
On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.”
‭‭Luke‬ ‭23:55-56‬

woman sleeping — Photo by Ivan Obolensky on Pexels.com

Time for bed
time to take my weary head
and lay it down
upon a sham
and close my lids
tuck and press
until i find
that perfect rest.

I’ll die in a sense
no defense
no pretense
no justification
no preparation.

If burglar comes
i won’t be ready
if news breaks
i won’t be savvy.

Helpless here I lay
Can’t deny
I’m vulnerable.

If death comes
while I lie
I won’t be wiser
to try.

Unless another
keeps my watch
I’ll be a sitting duck
every noc.

Why so proud?
Why so driven?
Why act like
life is yours for the living?
You die every day.
You cannot stand by
the thought that
you’ll be here
another eventide.

You don’t know what comes
while you wake
much less what comes
when you’re prostrate.

Now I lie me down to sleep
I pray
because I know I’m weak
I die every day before
I wake
I pray, O Lord,
my soul give rest.

Beauty in the messy business of loving people

people taking a photo — Photo by Cori Rodriguez on Pexels.com

We’ve been home from our wilderness retreat for over a week. While we were there I soaked up the beauty in the nature all around me. The tall green Pines and Spruce and the shimmering Aspen made me feel like I was tasting a bit of heaven. I intentionally observed the creation around me and enjoyed every second of it. But I noticed my level of irritation with my husband and kids didn’t decrease as a result of my holiday, it increased. I’ve been mulling this over. Depression has her crooked fingerprints all over my attitude of late, but there’s something else too. A reality that true beauty, real heaven, lasting peace and refreshment come not through escaping conflict and people, but through the cross.

What I mean is, the glory my soul seeks from God is not found in escaping the hard things of loving people. Nature is a good place for temporary refreshment. But people- messy, broken, sinful people- are where God’s kingdom dwells.

Jesus didn’t teach us to become one with nature. He taught us to lay down our lives for others. It’s not the path of escape that leads to God’s glory. It’s the path to the cross.

Creation’s beauty is here to speak to us of God’s manifold beauty. I should enjoy it and praise God for it, and let my observations of it roll up into worship and affection for Christ. But my soul won’t find it’s healing there.

Jesus calls us to walk through the dark valley of this life, enduring suffering, bearing our cross and following him in loving people and loving God. He calls us to believe that like him we will experience resurrection life where the fulfillment of all our longings will be satisfied in our unrestricted union with him.

I’m an introvert, but I love people. I also get tired of them. In nature I find an escape. But this vacation reminded me that God has an ultimate rest for me in Christ. And in taking up my cross, loving people and loving God- following Jesus- I’ll experience the peace a vacation and nature can never give.

Nature is beautiful, but the earth is full of people who bear the image of God. In the messy business of loving them there is a greater beauty.

‘”This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. ‘

John 15:11-12

a plea for the Spirit when I’m tired

This is not going to be well edited. It’s late. And I’m tired.

Some days I’m just tired of bearing with the sins of others.

I know it’s ridiculously hypocritical because others are having to bear with my sins. And I know God is faithful and doesn’t grow tired and does not give up when I do. I know all this, but I need to write it out. How should I deal with this? There’s always just going to bed, which at this point is not a bad idea.

Getting tired of the sins of others happens with those you spend the most time with. I get tired of my husband and kids more than anyone else because I see them, day in day out, warts and all. It’s no coincidence that the relationships between husband and wife, parent and child are the first to be specifically mentioned when the apostle Paul teaches the church about being filled with the Holy Spirit.

‘And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. ‘

Ephesians 5:17-21

Only the Spirit of God does not grow weary in doing good with people who aren’t good. But as one of those not-good people, I grow tired. And nights like tonight, when I want to throw in the towel (whatever that means), what I’m really saying is I need the rest that relying on God brings.

I don’t know how to pray, but the Spirit does.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Romans 8:26 ESV

Every minute of every day it’s the Spirit I’m relying on to produce the endurance to love like Jesus.

Holy Spirit, I’m tired. Restore to me the joy of my salvation, and renew a right spirit within me, then I’ll be able to lead sinners in your ways and love like you love. Revive me again Lord. I’m going to sleep trusting you. Hoping in you. Depending on you.