Big Rocks and an Altered Landscape

No matter where we lived,
     no matter the climate,
              or how short the growing season,
      no matter how many rocks,
                                 big or small,
my grandmother worked the soil
              and created beauty in its place.

She shouldn't have done it,
     such a vast amount of energy expended
     at her advanced age.
She shouldn't have been able to do it,
     struggling with rheumatoid arthritis
     for forty-five years.
She did not walk;
                  she hobbled.
When we even insinuated
           for her to sit down,
she would give us a look that
       would cause an army to surrender.

This pioneer-strong woman did not wake up
      a-moaning and a-groaning every morning
      with arthritic knees and stiff hands,
   saying, "O my LORD,
        how am I going to face today?"     
But she welcomed each dawn
     with a prayer and an attitude,
"Ok, LORD,
what do we conquer today?"
She followed Him
                     into His day for her.

She didn't see big rocks blocking her way,
   or even the need to maneuver around them,
         or pretend they weren't there,
but she embraced her difficulties as they came
                               and let Him redeem them.
They weren't a hazard to her,
           nor a hardship,
    nor a "Woe is me!"
        but instead,
                 "Wow, what can I do with that?"

She knew that her strength was too limited
               and challenges too overwhelming
      to carry along a burden of anxious thoughts,
                                or the chains of despair,
         those things that siphon one's strength
               and stifle the very breath out of creativity.
She saw the big rocks of life with different eyes,
          because she knew what God can do.

She also knew as she hobbled along
          that everyone struggles with something,
     hers just a little more obvious than others.
The difference is
        what you let God do with it.

Create beauty.
Let God redeem the hard stuff.

Ah Lord GOD!
It is You
    who made the heavens and the earth
by Your great power
and by Your outstretched arm!
Nothing is too hard for You...

                        Jeremiah 32.17 

(This poem was originally posted  on NightlyTea on February 13, 2014)

What am I supposed to be doing?

Some time ago,  I had HUGE misgivings and second thoughts about a major decision, finding myself uneasy and looking for an exit sign.  What am I doing HERE?  Did I not listen closely enough?  Did I get my signals crossed?

Show me what to do, O LORD. Give me Your peace, or give me Your direction.   

I sat silently before Him.  But I still held tightly to the self-made dilemma in my lap.  Waiting and listening for Him, my death-grip began to loosen.   My excuses began to melt in His Presence, my justifications crumbled, and my cobbled-together escape plans evaporated into thin air. 

I moved from asking “why and how and where” to asking what God would have me to do in this.  I don’t even have to know His purposes or His reasons why.  Just to follow Him into it.  The true sense of the word “obey” in both Hebrew and Greek means “to hearken and to heed.”  Bags packed and shoes tied. To listen expectantly for and be ready to respond. In God’s eyes, responding to Him is not an impersonal doing, but the most intimate form of being.

Being in the center of God’s will

     does not mean

that I am always right,

or I am never wrong,

                   but that God redeems.

No crumbs left over.

Nothing random at all.

“God has you where you are for a reason.  He has given you success this week for a reason.  He has sent hardship into your life this week for a reason.  In everything, the invisible hand of providence is lovingly directing your life – behind the scenes – down to the smallest detail,” says Kevin DeYoung in his awesome book Just Do Something.

I am aware that I am to seek God in this, not just an answer.   The decision will not suddenly arrive with a thud on the front porch like a package from Federal Express. 

God’s desire is for relationship in all and above all.

God reassures me that He can work even in this.  Even if I made a mistake, He can redeem, if I seek Him in it.   He rises above my wrongdoings, my sin, my blunders, my likes and dislikes, my desire to avoid risk, my need to be right, even above my discomfort.  He is never restrained by time.  He has all the time in the world, because He created it.

I want to rewind and start again.  God wants to redeem and use it for His glory.

And maybe that decision was not a mistake at all, but God purposed it to bring me into a new understanding in my relationship with Him.  Whatever brings me closer to God is fully and completely within His will.  Even in mystery.  Even in this.

This week as I was re-reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom for the billionth time, it appeared that a short passage was written in BOLD, enlarged and capitalized with my name on it, jumping off the page and into my heart.  Standing in line in the Ravensbruck concentration camp, Corrie was full of fear, fully aware that she was carrying a small Bible in a pouch hanging around her neck.  Prison guards were inspecting each and every inmate.  What was she to do?

“And all the while I had the incredible feeling that it didn’t matter, that this was not my business, but God’s.  That all I had to do was walk straight ahead.” (The Hiding Place, page 193.)

And that is what Corrie did.  Each and every prisoner was inspected head to toe – in front of her and behind her.  When it came to her turn, the guard just screamed at her to move along and not hold up the line.

And so, God impressed in my heart that this mystery may not be mine to know His purposes.  I have only to be faithful to Him and walk straight ahead.  He’s got this.

What am I supposed to be doing?

        Trust Me.

But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases,

His mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

       great is Your faithfulness.

                          Lamentations 3: 21-23

And oh, the familiar

There are many mornings, particularly at the beginning of the week, when I am up well before dawn for appointments and meetings.  The house is dark as if huge black sheets are draped over the windows.

I silently inch my way across the bedroom floor and into the kitchen like a blind person who does not see but knows, who is sensitive to stumbling blocks beyond my sight, those things that have the potential to trip me up.  The obstacles are invisible to my eyes, but I know they are there, the chairs, the table, the countertop.  I am not seeking an exit, a way out from this darkness, but a way through to the light switch.  I can find it in the dark, because I know where it is, and how to get there.  I have been here many times before. 

That which is familiar is visible even in the deepest darkness.
I remember this.
I have seen it before.
I know what lies before me,
      like a map already memorized.
I still have a strength and vision
          that is not mine.

I often encourage young people to keep a chronicle of God's faithfulness to them.  You know, those divine appointments, doors already opened, the mountain pass through impossible places, glimpses of His grace, the awe of God's fingerprints, the intricate layers of His provision, the "I can't wait to tell Mom about this!" kind of encounters. Verses claimed.  Prayers that have changed the trajectory of my life. You know, those supernatural things that I boast, "I'll never forget!" 

But unless they are written down, they fade from our memory.  And they do not remain to encourage those who come behind us.  Of all the things passed on to the next generation, I would have loved to know specific ways God was working in my grandparents and great grand parents, even those family members I will not even meet until the other side of life.

By keeping the faithfulness of God engraved in my heart, by walking daily with Him, when the crises emerge, when the storms overwhelm, when I am weak, when I am in a very very dark place, I remember not just the stories, but I recall that which God has trained in me: 
          What did I do before? 
          How did I trust God through it?

Those stories equip me for the next time life is tough... and for when life is harder still.

Do not be afraid of sudden panic,
or of the storms of the wicked,
                    when it comes;
for the LORD will be your confidence
        and will keep your foot
                from being caught.

                                Proverbs 3. 25

The lights in our basement, when we lived in Cincinnati, were controlled by a main switch at the top of the stairs.  Inevitably in the course of the day, one of the girls would be doing something in the basement, and someone upstairs would innocently switch off the lights, plunging the lower level in total darkness.  Instead of being paralyzed by it, I told the girls, "Wait just a second for your eyes to adjust.  And then, if you walk towards any available light, you will find your way out."  Light comes through the cracks in the exit door.  But only if you are seeking it.

Darkness can send me into a panic...
or I can use that trigger to remember:
             how to trust God through this.
He may not pluck me out of this wilderness,
             but deliver me through.
God provides and delivers in unexpected ways
            and always in multiple layers,
   touching more lives than I can know.
He never works in singular outcomes.

You've been here before,
        keep walking with Me.

Fear not, for I am with you;
be not afraid,
               for I am your God.;
I will strengthen you,
I will help you,
I will uphold you with
         My victorious right hand.

                            Isaiah 41. 10