photo by: Christa Kimbal

I was sitting with my brother, a few days ago now.  Out of the blue he said something related to the conversation and it felt harsh.  My response was,  “Are you ridiculing me?”   I wasn’t sure what to feel.  His face never shifted and he said these words:  “If that’s how you’re taking it.”

I was stunned.  I had just been to a friend’s home where she told me the story of honor her husbands’ family had placed upon him as a child.  There was just one thing his father disapproved of.  He made it known every day, but every day his son chuckled and rejoiced in who he was, secure, loved.

When I heard that I thought, wow … it would have bothered me.  I would have felt rejected.  I would have felt my parents didn’t approve of me and I would have changed my ways for the sake of peace.

I told my brother this story and when it came right down to it I looked at him and said with a jaw drop, “I WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO SEEK MY PARENTS APPROVAL!”

The truth hit hard and deep.  To be honest I’m still reeling a bit.  I’ve spent my life seeking the approval of my parents and their friends, of people I respect … of PEOPLE!  It is a dangerous place to walk.

Let me tell you what it has done for me.  I have forgotten who I am.  I have desired what others want for me instead of what God has given me to do.  I have set aside the things of God for the things of man.  I have looked love in the face and felt shame.  I have been held captive by my own perceptions of how others view me.  I have been a puppet.  I have been.

And so, as he does sometimes so tactfully he look at me and shrugged.  It was his yes you’re right shrug.  And then he said this: YOU’RE ALREADY APPROVED!  A wave of joy rushed over me.  I AM approved.

Well, you say, Jesus had favor with people … yes! Favor.  There is a difference between increasing in favor and seeking approval.  One has root in relationship with God and grows naturally like a vine.  The other is manipulated and coaxed, out of order and death to the whole body.

It’s painful to be brutally honest with ourselves … to be brutally honest with God.  If we are trying to please people we are not slaves of Christ.  I want so to be in the latter category.

We ARE approved.  We are not meant to seek the approval of men.  Whose approval do you seek?

Gal. 1:10 “Am I now trying to gain the approval of people, or of God?  Or am I trying to please people?  If I were still trying to please people I would not be a servant of Christ!“

photo by: laura ruth

Our agenda was produce.  We needed some peppers (which seem to be constantly working their price point up?) … side note, I know.  We selected the perfect specimens and as we turned to leave a little girl comes up to my two year old, scoops her up in her arms, hugs her, lets her go and moves on.  There were no words exchanged, no names given, no looks passed.  One hug and one hug only.

My daughter stood there and looked at the girl with admiration.  I watched the glow cast over her face and the longing she now had to be near this beautiful creature that had loved her so well.  Probably three years her elder this little girl had treated her well and honored her, at the same time honoring her own mother who she was now diligently helping with groceries.

I was honored to see the exchange.  It affected my day.  It has affected my life.  My mind twisted around the beauty of the purity in a child.  And I have to admit I felt defeated.  As I rejoiced for my daughter, I ached for myself.  I didn’t feel childlike … wasn’t even feeling its possibility.  And yet, I believed it could be.   I knew it MUST be.

I don’t know many childlike adults.   It’s as if once you hit adulthood you become jaded, cynical, mean.   I’m not saying there aren’t plenty of wonderful, kind people in the world, but when it comes right down to it even a nice person has trouble trusting.  What happened?

In that moment I felt helpless. Ok … children are helpless, but … I don’t want to be LIKE that!!!  That’s part of the fight.   I want to be grown up.  Since the dawn of time we’ve wanted to know more than was ours to know.  In the garden Satan tempts Eve by telling her …”God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:5).”  He’s saying God doesn’t know best.  But he does.  He’s baiting Eve and she takes it.

We MUST become LIKE children.  We must learn to TRUST and RECEIVE.  Only God can teach this.  Only God can change a heart.

Matthew 18:3  I tell you the truth, unless you turn around and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven!

I’ve been waiting for that perfect time to start writing.  Truth be told … it never comes.  I write in the corners of my mind, scrawling in my memory the words I hope to put on the page, but always seem too busy to actually put down.  Carpe diem!

It’s time to start acting.  It’s time to take the moments I have wherever they are and use them.  Is there something like that in your life?  Honestly, after a full day of running after an almost two year old and managing a household I don’t always feel like doing much of anything.  But, if God has called you to something you must be willing to take the steps that others will not be willing to take.

I don’t know what it looks like for you.  My journey right now is ever changing.  God is changing my schedule to fit the call he has for me.  And, I have to admit I fought it a bit last night.  I wanted to stay up later than I should.  And, here I am, needing my energy to sustain me with the babe that gets up by 7.

He has a plan and if we surrender … what sweet harmony.

photo by: laura ruth

Running.  That’s what it feels like I’m doing so often.  I can be seated or standing or well, doing yoga, but the runner in me keeps going.  It’s about my inner man … letting go of me and accepting what I need.  The reality is that I need help.  I need someone to come and rescue me.  I need to be lifted out of my pit and cradled where I’m wounded and sore.  I need to be still.

It is God who makes wars to cease. He reminded me he can do this with me.  He can take my warring and silence it.  He can heal and he can shatter.  But, He is able to pull me from the ash heap unharmed and he longs for me to recognize Him in all my moments.

Here’s to recognizing GOD ALMIGHTY, the one who’s on our side!

“He brings an end to wars throughout the earth; he shatters the bow and breaks the spear; he burns the shields with fire.  He says, ‘Stop your striving and recognize that I am God!  I will be exalted over the nations I will be exalted over the earth!’  The Lord who commands armies is on our side! The God of Jacob is our protector!”  (Selah)  ps. 46:9-11

Photo By: Laura Ruth

“Hello.  Goodbye.  Hello. Goodbye …  Should I make brownies?”  On goes the inner dialogue.  I sit and gaze at the blank page and … no words.  Inevitably, I’m left with brownies.   I’d better get writing!

I’ve been avoiding this.  That’s the only explanation.   Writing will bring the truth home, but do I want to see it on paper?  And, oh, the baby’s up!

PAUSE.

Round 2? … It hit me some weeks ago that I’d become stale.  Like chips left open just long enough, I didn’t have any life left.  I felt like I was moving through my days, just making it.  It had become a new sort of reality I’d somehow accepted.  Why didn’t I want to pray?  Why wasn’t I seeking others who would challenge me? Why was I in a rut … an ugly one?  Had I really made it back here? Was this what it was to backslide?

O, yes.  I’ve been here before.  It seems I’m prone to wander as the song says: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it … Prone to leave the God I love.”  This time, the God I love reminded me he loved me through this stale cycle I’d chosen.  I could see him … hear him calling, but I remained silent.  Instead of responding I sat, like a stale chip, waiting for my voice to return.  It felt lost somehow and I felt broken.  I wasn’t sure how it happened exactly.  I just stopped pressing in to listen and the slow decline began.  I didn’t even notice when my stale state set in.

I was hopeful for a major life event.  That usually spices up life with the Lord.  I hadn’t been FEELING like I needed him.  I knew I needed him … knew I needed him BAD.  Some drama would bring me to my knees.  But, when I’m “doing well” … what then?

Ah, revelation creeps in.  Without him I can accomplish nothing (John 15:5).   And that’s what I was doing … accomplishing nothing.  But, this time, there was no tornado … no illness to drive me to the place I needed most.  He wanted me to cry out this time in the calm.  Life was throwing me no wrenches right now … would I still cry out?

Without the pain to prompt or the drama to encourage my heart to run after solace … I am still needy.  On my own I’m still empty and dry.  On my own, there is no “doing well.”  On my own … accomplishing NOTHING is where I live.  And that’s what I’ve felt these past days.

SIGH.

Crying out, admitting your failure … it’s not easy.   I sat down and wasn’t sure where to start.  And, this was not the blog I intended to write. Some days, things just turn out different than you plan.

Photo By: Laura Ruth

Napping … normally I like it. But, recently it’s come to mean I’m deprived.  I haven’t met a person yet who likes it when you point out their lack.  It’s a relational rule.  You just don’t do it.  If you think it, you keep your mouth shut and keep walking because you probably lack yourself.

I’ve been trudging through the week as if through mud.  I have a list of to do’s that have barely been touched and those things I have done have felt like major accomplishments in the face of how I “feel.”  If it were up to me those things would have remained on the shelf as well.  But, God is moving me forward and if I’ll just listen … perhaps those things I think are impossible for today will be realized.

I want more than exhaustion and impossible and just “feeling.” And, I have little ability to do this life’s agenda on my own. Barely and almost are good words to describe this week. Perhaps it’s enough to know in my weakness, He is strong. Even when I don’t “feel” it.

Maternity leave … I guess that’s what I’m calling the last four months of writing silence.  But, as all seasons end, so, i think, has this one.  I am looking forward to starting up again.  I miss the clarity of having thoughts, strung together so perfectly I have no right to claim them.  Here’s hoping we all get the chance to stop and take a moment to rejoice in what God has done this past year and what He will continue to do in the one to come.  Remember. Rejoice.  I’ll see you soon!

Waiting … we don’t like it.  Sometimes it’s a long drawn out process of what seems like agonizing question after question, even defeat after defeat.  But in the process God is molding us and shaping us, stripping from us the ugly and replacing it with beauty.

And we must wait for many reasons.  If we truly want to know the heart of God, we must wait.  If we’re interested in developing in character we must be willing to wait and if we want to LIVE instead of breathe we must wait.  We wait on God and for him, to speak and to act in our lives, reveal his heart and display his power.

Slow is not a bad word.  Sometimes we need time, and there are places in our lives where we just need to heal, we need to be worn, broken and raw.  And, it’s ok to live in those places where it seems so hard to breathe.  These are in fact some of God’s best tools in bestowing our lives with blessing.

I’ve been waiting for some time now … in many ways, I still am.   The loss of a child hurts.  There’s no other way to say that.  And this past 9 months, as we greeted the news of a second pregnancy, my awkwardness with people came rushing back.  The familiar question began coming more frequently … is this your first?  And I’d respond, unsure of the best reply but needing to speak truth.  After all, I do have a son and he matters to me.

So, as I had learned to love others through the process of my grief I was once again learning how to speak regarding my children.  One was on the way and one, with Jesus, had already made his mark in our lives.  For most, this won’t be understood, but I experience great pain when my son is overlooked.  Allowing this has been one of the hardest experiences of my life.

I have a son.  I will never count him out when I run the tally of the number of children God has gifted me.  He is and I love him.   I will see him again.  But when people ask, what do you say … after all, your tally will never match what they see with their eyes?

And so it is God gave me another gift in the form of four words.  As things stand now, I can’t even remember how it started.  But when people asked the inevitable question, “is this your first?”, as if we’d be granted special access to words, we started saying “first on the ground”.

Most people knew instantly what we meant.  But, instead of feeling sorry for us and apologizing for something none of us could control they suddenly had the freedom to rejoice with us and celebrate the arrival of the baby that was to come.  I began to see those words:  “on the ground” as the gift they were.  We had started to build positive, rejoicing relationships with people, while still including Eben, and Ella was on her way.

A few months into the “one on the ground” experience I realized it was exactly the truth of our situation put to words.  Eben would never set foot on the ground.  His life was spent in our arms.  How amazing to be held for the entirety of your earthly life.

Ella, on the other hand, has already experienced tears.  She has experienced pain and while she’s been held, her feet have “hit the ground.”  She’s my one on the ground.

Photo By: Laura Ruth

We’ve been planning for baby.  And in the midst of ultra sounds and diaper stock we decided to revamp our closets.  The plastic hangers were getting all tangled up with the wire ones and nothing had room to breathe.  That was the consequence, and choice we made, upon downsizing from our spacious luxury closet.

So this past weekend was our time to shop, for hangers … something I’ve NEVER done.  And it was in this process we became aware of the struggle that’s raging round us.

“I just don’t believe in a God who would … ”   (a list of requirements followed).  The person speaking had a view of God that said, “I will accept you on my terms.  I believe you exist for me and I can accept you when you fit the mold I have placed you in.”

We continued to shop and we continued to hear the conversation that refused to be shut down in front of us.  I felt like an eavesdropper, but everyone did.  It was hard not to pick up the pieces of voices floating through the air.  It was hard not to notice.  And then I heard it … “I read a book some time ago and I was finally able to accept the version of God set forth.  He is all loving, but is definitely not all powerful.”  My mouth dropped open.

Upon reading a book that someone else had written this person had formed a view of God that they could accept, one that fit their mantra … their life pursuit.  There was no relationship here, just a one-sided process of selfish indulgence and demands.

And, because God had to “fit the mold” there was no God, not really.   He’d not been given a home and a lie had been put in HIS place.  So, instead of running to Jesus this person was running to books … arguing theory and debating the goodness of God.

That was their lens.  There was the lens of the one they were arguing with, my lens … my husband’s.   We all came into the room with a different perspective, a different point of view.  Each of us carried different thoughts, gifts and emotions.  And, our experiences, whether we liked to admit it or not, colored our world.

So often these are the differences that make us struggle and argue and clash.  But they are meant to draw us together, unite and make us strong.  We aren’t meant to use our lens.  We need to see through God’s.  He can make our vision clear.  He wants us to believe HIM.  He wants to be our teacher… our counselor.

Sometimes we need to lay aside the book we think is so profound and seek HIS face.  Ask Him what that means!  He is not to be accepted on our terms and He will not change because we have a mold to fill.  Our voids can only be filled in relationship with HIM, and relationship means living in reality … accepting GOD for who he is.  We may have to get to know what that means.

What does it mean to seek HIS face?  What does it mean to believe HIM?  Is there something He’s asked of you … something He wants YOU to BELIEVE?

Relationship is a process … and, for most of us, process is just hard.  But, relationship IS worth it and we were meant for this.