Out of the mouth's of babes....

After a long 4 months, I lie down weary, tired, broken. I've worked all day to get to nap time, strategically planning every move. Breakfast from Chick-fil-A for the birthday girl, piano, chores, laundry, activity to wear out the little ones, and finally, nap time arrives. But for my little Benjiboy, eyes wide, no rest is needed. Why? Why on the perfectly planned days, the days when my eyelids droop so heavy, I try so hard, does this little one not rest? I scratch his back, I sing him songs. He pokes my eyes, tries to open my mouth, sticks his little foot on my face. Sigh. A long heavy sigh. Prayer. Please Lord, please make him sleepy. I spank to no avail. He's not going to settle. I pull him close, whisper words of love. I tell him God has great plans for him. He closes his eyes, shakes his little head knowingly, forms his lips to agree. I recite Jeremiah 29:11, saying each word slowly, intentionally. His eyes open and grow large. He says, "Um, I'm not gonna do that plan. I have a different plan. I gonna do that plan on Thursday." I hold back laughter bursting from the seams. "Oh, ok," I say, "Well, God still loves you very much." But the truth runs from the mouth of babes. God offers me His plan, one of love and promise, mercy and grace, suffering and peace, eternal promise, and I turn away. I have plans. My own plans. My own schedule to follow. How often, I rush into the day, a day He has given, I rush right past HIS plans, HIS schedule, to check my own. But oh, how He loves me. How He graciously guides me back into His will, gently reminding me how good it feels, how peaceful it feels to follow His plan.

Random Thoughts

Abby's birthday pool party is tonight. 60 guests anticipated. What in the world?

We've been living here one week and 4 days. Again, who throws a huge birthday party with 60 guests after one week and 4 days? Crazy people. And yes, I am admitting, I have some serious mental health issues.

My body is breaking down completely. Surprised? Didn't think so. I need to go stay a week in a medical spa. In the past 4 days, I have had one massage, one chiropractic adjustment, 5 emergen-C packets, 4 gummy vitamins, 2 multi-vitamin packs, 5 aleve, 8 ibuprofen, 2 sleeping pills, 2 Midol, and 1 muscle relaxer. If the pain pills didn't make me so nauseous, I would have taken one. Yes, this is what I've been reduced to. Along with frequently laying on the bare floor with an ice pack to my head. Oh yes, and traveling with the ice pack to Bible study, talking to myself about how people this sick should just be in bed. But the Word of God, oh, how I needed the Word.

The in-laws are here. They showed up yesterday afternoon with my house full of people helping to support me in my insane idea of unpacking and remodeling my house in one week and 4 days. So thankful for those people. And my sweet OCD friend, who in record time helped me turn my school room into bliss. Oh how I love her. And what a true friend she is to give up her Friday to help her haggard looking friend that was alternating between helping and laying on the floor with an ice pack, praying out loud not to throw up. Yep, that's a good friend. She just kept working like this was nothing unusual. I love her.

Thankful for my other awesome friend, willing to come flat iron my hair at 9pm. She's great at sensing desperation. And talking with her always energizes me. She is such a giving and thoughtful friend.

I am blessed to be in this house. And after this weekend, after the party and the Anita Renfroe concert Sunday night, I am declaring Monday a no work day. No school, no work, no cooking, no laundry, no unpacking..... NO WORK!

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

For in my weakness, He is strong!

A new home and an old home

I've officially lived in our new home for one week and one day.

And I'm exhausted. I've taken no pictures. But my precious parents and many, many friends have helped us to move and I am so grateful. My house would not be in the wonderful condition it is without the help of so many. We have been blessed with many wonderful meals, phone calls, hands to work and hands to paint and hands to babysit. God is so good and faithful. We prayed so much for our move and he answered all our prayers and blessed us beyond belief with His great provision. Right down to a break in the heat and perfect weather for moving all our belongings.

I am now down to working on smaller areas that our big jobs. Like the school room. But oh how I love the feeling of knowing I am settled. That I have no need to move unless God moves me. Our family is loving our new house. The space, the storage, the pool, the feel of it. All of it, every inch of this home a huge blessing to our family.

The long hot baths I love so much are still wonderful and relaxing here. I have found a new sacred place to think, pray and relax.

I am tired. I am weary.

But God is strong and oh so good to me.

One Thousand Gifts

I love this author. I've read her book three times. It's all marked up and it never leaves it's special place. I loved this recent post she had. You can read her posts daily here.

Thinking about words I wrote in One Thousand Gifts: What in the world, in a world of certain loss, is grace? And the more of the blessings I name, this theological problem deepens… If I am numbering gift moments to one thousand and now beyond—what moments in my life count as blessings? If I name this moment as gift, grace, what is the next moment? Curse? How do you know how to sift through a day, a life, and rightly read the graces, rightly ascertain the curses? What is good? What counts as grace? What is the heart of God? Do I believe in a God who rouses Himself just now and then to spill a bit of benevolence on hemorrhaging humanity? A God who breaks through the carapace of this orb only now and then, surprises us with a spared hand, a reprieve from sickness, a good job and a nice house in the burbs—and then finds Himself again too impotent to deal with all I see as suffering and evil? A God of sporadic, random, splattering goodness—that now and then splatters across a gratitude journal? Somebody tell me: What are all the other moments? …. To read His message in moments, I’ll need to read His passion on the page; wear the lens of the Word, to read His writing in the world. Only the Word is the answer to rightly reading the world, because The Word has nail-scarred hands that cup our face close, wipe away the tears running down, has eyes to look deep into our brimming ache, and whisper, “I know. I know.” The passion on the page is a Person, and the lens I wear of the Word is not abstract idea but the eyes of the God-Man who came and knows the pain. … I stand in our bedroom by the window and hold a cue card to the light I’ve had for years, carried around with me. I can hardly now make out the water-splat words of Isaiah 14:24, “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand” (NASB). As God plans … so it stands. I read the faded ink below, and I remember what I felt the day I copied those words, “Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it?” (Amos 3:6). And I feel it again today and I breathe: A good God plans everything. Everything. So a good God can only … make plans for good? He only gives good gifts? A thing of evil cannot be created by a good God? … Without God’s Word as a lens, the world warps. … I awaken to the strange truth — that all new life comes out of the dark places, and hasn’t it always been? Out of darkness, God spoke forth the teeming life. That wheat round and ripe across all these fields, they swelled as hope embryos in womb of the black earth. Out of the dark, tender life unfurled. Out of my own inner pitch, six human beings emerged, new life, wet and fresh. All new life labors out of the very bowels of darkness. That fullest life itself dawns from nothing but Calvary darkness and tomb-cave black into the radiance of Easter morning. Out of the darkness of the cross, the world transfigures into new life. And there is no other way. Then … yes: It is dark suffering’s umbilical cord that alone can untether new life. It is suffering that has the realest possibility to bear down and deliver grace. And grace that chooses to bear the cross of suffering overcomes that suffering…. My pain, my dark—all the world’s pain, all the world’s dark—it might actually taste sweet to the tongue, be the genesis of new life? Yes. And emptiness itself can birth the fullness of grace because in the emptiness we have the opportunity to turn to God, the only begetter of grace, and there find all the fullness of joy. So God transfigures all the world… I have hacked my life up into grace moments and curse moments. The chopping that has cut myself off from the embracing love of a God who “does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow” (Lamentations 3:33), but labors to birth grief into greater grace. Isn’t this the crux of the gospel? The good news that all those living in the land of shadow of death have been birthed into new life, that the transfiguration of a suffering world has already begun. That suffering nourishes grace, and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart—and mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished symphony of beauty. Can I believe the gospel, that God is patiently transfiguring all the notes of my life into the song of His Son? What in the world, in all this world, is grace? I can say it certain now: All is grace. I see through the woods of the world: God is always good and I am always loved. God is always good and I am always loved. … And all is grace — only because all can transfigure. Shaun will sing it this morning here — All’s grace…And we’ll be sharing a few clips of him singing here out here in the farm fields, us talking about how God has changed how we see. God’s got a message in Shaun’s music that’s grabbed hold of me and won’t let me go. And I’ll listen to the songs and I will believe again that God is transfiguring all that hurts into the hope of His glory and I will think of this powerful story, this clip here below. A video I’ve watched how many times? The powerful, heart-rendering story of a couple that can look into the face of their own deep suffering and say it too, because they know the love of their Father: This is grace. This was grace – short film from Andrew Laparra on Vimeo. (RSS readers can click here to watch this never-forget-it video within the post) :: :: :: 08.22.11