For a while, my question for God has essentially been, “Why won’t you give me what I want?” It sounds incredibly selfish and entitled. It is. But I have justified that question a million times by saying, But I am asking for good things – it’s not like I am trying to justify sin or selfishly get something that doesn’t actually matter. Mostly, I have felt that my deepest desires seem in line with what He calls us to do and be in this life, so why is the answer still no?
I had a bit of a breakthrough with this recently. I was reading in Hebrews 12, where the writer talks about God treating us like His children:
“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. If you are not disciplined…then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.” (Hebrews 12:7-8)
Like an unwanted houseguest, it keeps showing up. In small and large ways, I’m so aware of what I wish was different, or where I feel lacking. Discouragement bubbles up like heartburn, threatening to steal my joy. Each day I glance upon the sticky note I wrote myself, practically taunting me with its reprimand: “Disappointments […]
It’s been over a year since I have posted anything on this blog. It hasn’t been a year since I have written; there are probably 5-10 unfinished potential posts laying around on my laptop or in a journal or a note on my phone. I have lots of incomplete thoughts or wonderings, without a whole lot of resolution, which resonates with this season of life in a way. In that year I have birthed a baby and watched him conquer a whole year of life. It should leave a person feeling pretty accomplished, and sometimes it does, but it also leaves me with lots of things not quite complete.
And here we are in a new year, with new hopes and bright outlooks. I try and make things perfect before I share them, and maybe that isn’t the right way to go about it. Sometimes you just have to start, just have to put it out there, in all the raw and imperfectness, to move towards something you’ll be proud of. “Nothing to it but to do it,” as my husband would say.
So here’s to 2024 – a year that I have definite, specific hopes for, but will surely surprise me along the way. I have chosen “yet” as my word for the year. I used it in regular conversation and was struck by it, like inspiration landing right on my shoulder.
At almost nine months pregnant, a lot of things look different in my life. I was processing this with my counselor, and I shared that one of the most interesting things is how slow I have to walk. I cannot keep the pace that everyone else is going at, which feels like an accurate picture of life in general. It is fascinating to experience how challenging it is for people to slow down to my pace, or the many times they don’t even realize they’ve left me behind. Often when people do let me set the speed, observers will comment on how slowly we are walking. “Why do you guys walk so slow?” I respond, “Me. I’m the reason,” and watch their faces turn red immediately.
But this struck me as a metaphor for the reality we are living in – why do we feel like we have to move so quickly? One of my favorite things about walks with my husband is that it is never rushed. We are never power walking, we are enjoying time together at a leisurely pace. But culturally we view life as some kind of race, always moving at lightning speed from thing to thing, juggling way more than we are actually capable of carrying.
I have been thinking a lot recently about overthinking (I know). I caught myself multiple times one morning saying to myself, “…but I’m probably reading into it.” I realized I was giving a lot of mental energy and brain space to how I imagined people were feeling about me or perceiving me, without a whole lot of proof of what was actually true.
I read some inspiring Pinterest quote later on that said something to the effect of: Unless someone tells me there is a problem, I’m going to assume things are fine. I shouldn’t be wasting time creating problems that might not even be there. My counselor tells me I have a tendency towards “catastrophic thinking” which surely doesn’t help me in this area, but we are working on it.
Because here is the thing. No matter how perceptive or intuitive I am, I might be wrong. I might think someone is upset with me because their text was shorter than it usually is, or imagine that someone isn’t happy about something because they didn’t talk to me about it, but I could be making it all up. What a waste!
And no matter if I am right or wrong, I don’t have the capacity to be carrying all of that if someone isn’t going to bring it to me themselves. It gets us nowhere, and it’s heavy. I’m not strong enough to carry all of that around all the time.
If this upcoming season of parenthood is teaching me one thing, it is that I have limits and they are beautiful.
A coworker this week brought us back to Mark 4, where the disciples are on the boat in the storm with Jesus while He is taking a nap. I felt myself so easily fall into this story, identifying with the disciples shaking Jesus awake, fear in their eyes, asking Him to just do something. The dialogue in this story felt so relevant to where I am now; the disciples wake Jesus and say, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (ESV) I have said a lot of things like that to Jesus in the past year or so. My main attitude towards Him could maybe be summed up by “do you not care…” followed by many specific or general areas in which He is, by my standards, failing me.
But then Jesus responds to them (and to me), in classic Jesus fashion, by handling the storm and then by saying to them: “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”
We come before you, Lord, standing at the edge of a big decision. It feels daunting, not knowing where we will land. There are so many ways the road could part; we can feel the paralysis of making a wrong choice. We pause to ask for clarity and direction. We lay down our hurry, and […]
I’m not sure where you’re at, but for me this season has felt unending and lacking movement. I find myself asking not just, “What are you doing, Lord?” but also, “Why aren’t you doing anything?” A good friend has articulated recently feeling like God is about to do some big things, but nothing is yet clear and He still seems hidden.
Cue the Christmas story. We imagine it all beginning with Mary with the animals, giving birth to her baby on an itchy pile of hay. But it really begins so much earlier than this, and we learn for ourselves how to pay attention to what God might be doing by looking back at the years leading up to Jesus in the manger.
When we look at Scripture, we flip just one page to transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament, while in reality there are 400 years of silence and space in between the two. 400 years of seemingly nothing from God. No words, no direction, no clarity. And then, suddenly, a baby. This is not the plan that anyone would have imagined. This is not the way we would have pictured God coming out of 400 years of silence. Surely You are preparing something…epic? I’m beginning to realize that I’m believing that God is doing nothing in my life because I have a very specific idea and area of my life where I want and expect Him to be working.
this life's blessings 