Mercy made me whole...

It’s an unlikely sanctuary.

My three-year old is reenacting the scene from Toy Story where Buzz fails in his attempt to fly to “infinity and beyond” and breaks his arm; my naked one year old is pulling every toy out he can find; Phillips, Craig and Dean are singing about stars burning down and eternity and I have my head in the toilet (cleaning, not sick!)

And I smile and swish blue water and let out a dramatic, “OH NO!” as my son lays on the floor and says all forced sad and pathetic, “My arm is broken!  Just like Buzz!”  And I think, “This is perfect.” and I feel it is holy in its simple, mundane, every-day-way.

It’s the day after Mother’s Day and it’s back to reality.  The husband leaves for a three-day business trip, the very week we’re preparing to go on vacation.  Which means the house-readying, the puppy-tending, the children-maintaining, the packing, the shopping, the stocking up of juice boxes and apples and chips and not forgetting the binder of children-friendly DVD’s is all up to me.  

I’m interrupted.  “Where did the white tractor go?!”  I go with him to the front windows to look and lift him up so he can see.  “He’s right there,” I say as we peer through the slats in the blinds.  “He has to go all the way back there and then he’ll come all the way back.  Farming is hard work!”

And I think... oh, man, it certainly is.

The endless rows (or nights).  The plains (the days) that stretch on, seemingly forever.  The back and forth (the monotony of laundry and another meal).  The tilling, the readying, the wondering if it’s ever going to be done.  Ever be ready for planting.  And then?  Then all those seeds.  All that fertilizing.  All that care.  And will it even grow?  

It’s a hard job.  But without the diligence of that farmer, where would our food come from?  Where would his livelihood sprout from?  How would he support his family?  If he didn’t do the hard, dirty work, day in, day out, year after year... How would he survive, provide, fall into bed grateful and tired, weary and ready all at the same time?  Is the coffee warmer and better because of the worn-weary and the work-ready of every mundane, done-it-all-before day? 

And is God not closer for the seeking?  For the persistent tugging?

Today I read in my newly purchased, Jesus Today devotional to “Learn to live from a place of resting in Me.” and that by re-centering we can deal with the waves that come.  I’m in a little bit of a tizzy right now and there are four lists, open-faced and needy on my counter.  The calendar is sketched and slotted and I’m wondering how to fit in more with what I have been given without losing my ever-loving mind... or worse, spending the days shouting and shoving aside as I try to just pack and bring order and make sure we don’t forget something necessary (Like diapers.  Or my Kindle.)  

And I think of it all, with the coupons ready to go for tomorrow and the gratitude journal open and beckoning and the little candle flickering.  It’s just the small things.  It’s the boys in the next room playing and imagining.  All morning Joel has jumped from one thing to another... I’m Buzz Lightyear!  Now I’m a cowboy!  Now I’m making snowballs - and I have them in my pocket!  And he bounds effortlessly, his imaginings endless and possible.  Nothing too big.  Just embrace and go.

It all comes rushing in and I’m trying to do laundry and keep the baby from eating the shoes and the puppy is begging to be let out and I start to feel the unraveling.  The peace I started the day with is rapidly under fire and I’m wondering just how many trips up and down the corn rows I’m going to have to make today before it’s bedtime and it’s considered done.  

And I stop.  Right then.  Hands on the counter, gratitude journal in my face and I just have to.  I have to re-center.  It’s been all of a few hours, and sometimes just within the span of a few minutes, and I’m back at the altar.  A kitchen counter as an altar?  It seems an unlikely space.  An unanticipated sanctuary.  But it’s there and I need it and God meets me where I find Him.

It’ll be a long day in the field.  By the time the sun goes down I’m going to want a warm meal and a hot shower and I’ll probably be finding dirt under my fingernails all night long.  I’m going to make trips up and down those rows (or up and down the stairs).  More diapers, more dishes, more lectures on the virtue of sharing, more clapping to get the baby’s attention and using his first and middle name to tell him for the 100th time to not touch the TV cabinet.  

I think every farmer loves what he does.  Maybe that’s the Norman Rockwell pictured ideal I have.  I’d imagine, though, to do that kind of work - you’d have to love it.  It’d have to be in your blood.  Many famers are generational farmers.  It’s what his Daddy did and his Daddy’s Daddy.  It’s family land.  There’s history in that dirt.  He’s proud to till it and proud to cultivate and water and plant and harvest.  It’s long days and nights and grueling and dusty.  

But it’s a calling.  It’s a deep love.  It’s a field of history... of dreams and stories untold.  And the persistence will pay off.  And the peace will keep coming in.  You just have to keep going back to the kitchen counter, back to the tractor, back to the laundry and back to filling the silo.  Day by day.  Year by year.  You can think about farming - about mothering - or you can actually do it.

The day after Mother’s Day may be the best.  It’s the work and the love in action and all the doing with the baby hanging on our leg that makes it real.  That makes it worth it.  It’s a challenge and it’s labor, but hey, it always is.  It always was.  It was always meant to be that way.  You don’t just work hard and put in the hours one day and call it good.  Year after year the calling comes and you keep digging in, readying the plow and setting out.  

On the days when the rain comes, when the winds are hard, when the sun seems as though it’s going to stay hidden for years... That’s where we are reminded to stay persistent.  Keep seeking and finding and knocking until our knuckles are bleeding, keep listing the thankful.  We hope and we endure and God whispers close.

That good farmland can’t go to seed.  To waste.  We can’t let it.  We have everything we need for the days and work ahead.  We have all we really need to work the day away.  It can be exhausting and wearing, but it can also be life-giving, abundant, sun beaming down on your head.  

A barn - a home - bursting at the seams...

“For everyone who asks and keeps 

on asking receives; and he who seeks 

and  keeps on seeking finds; and to him 

who knocks and keeps on knocking, 

the door shall be opened.” 

~ Luke 11:10 AMP

I am your tabernacle, I am your jubilee...

Cried most of the way home this past week from choir practice at church.

It was our last session of the season, but that's not why I was crying.  The sky was darkened, but still sunny... night falling and rain threatening; gorgeous.  But that's not why I was crying.

After we all ate the food and sang our song for Sunday and then visited the new, soon-to-be-reality sanctuary... we all stood on that stage, that holy ground because of two or three or thirty standing there and God standing with us.  We raised simple voices to a simple hymn of grace so amazing and then prayed.  Prayed with thanks, prayed with hope, prayed for the untold stories to come.  And I felt a tear slide away.

I don't think I can adequately express how much I love the people who make up my, finally, forever church home.  After I joined the choir, a close friend of the family told my mother in-law, "I'm so glad she's able to be part of the choir.  They are like a family."  

A family.

And even though I have parents and siblings and nieces and nephews.  And even though I have amazing in-laws and extended family.  And even though I have a wonderful husband and handsome boys of my own... even then... even then the blessing of a body of believers, a church family... it is a gift.

I got home, all teary and touched and sat next to Aaron on the couch and spilled my heart.  I told him why I was crying all the way home and why I was so thankful and how I'm so grateful we moved here nearly a year ago.  It hasn't been an easy transition.  We moved when Travis was only four weeks old and I was overwhelmed and lost and knew very few people.  I was disconnected and lonely and stressed out.  I had a new house and a new baby and a new world to learn and I was newly exhausted by a newborn.  And trying so hard to be all and make all and perfect all.  It hurt to breathe most days.  I fought hard to keep my head from going under.

And some days I just didn't have it in me to fight and not just go ahead and sink.

When I stumbled through practice and shakily wobbled my first solo a couple weeks ago, it was so huge for so many reasons.  Not only because I was willing and ready for whatever God called me to.  Not only because I was ready to dream big and follow-through.  Not only because I was ready to stop thinking and start doing.  It was all of that and more.  And when I was embarrassed and bright-faced and I hung my head in defeat... those people?  That choir?  That new family?

They didn't judge, they didn't condemn, they didn't replace me with a more secure, bold soloist.

They just prayed.

They didn't care about my performance.  They cared about my heart.  They were more into what God was doing and would do through me and less concerned with what I could or couldn't accomplish that night with nerves so stretched and the fear and the taunting voices so loud.

I wish we were all more family that way.

We all really should be.

And last Wednesday the prayer was offered up for all of the untold stories yet to come.  All the hearts to come in those doors... it broke me down.  Because I was once brand spanking new and I was once overwhelmed and sitting in those same purple chairs.  And that first Sunday God met me there.  And I know He meets more there all the time.  Has plans to meet us all.

In our weekly welcome video, where we boldly display our convictions and values, towards the end the message rolls, "Today you've chosen to sit yourself in a very safe place..." and every Sunday that makes me smile and every week that reminds me of my very first Sunday, back in 2007 when I watched that video for the very first time.  And I cried right then and there because I knew it was a very safe place.  I knew that was the truth and I had been in that sanctuary for all of ten minutes.

And now that this is home and now that it is "my" church and now that I'm part of the choir and check books out for my kids from the children's library... now that it's home?  It continues to be that safe place.  Just as God's family should always, always be.

There should - and are not to be - any orphans in God's house.  Ever.

"I will not leave you as 

orphans;

I will come to you."

~  J o h n   1 4 : 1 8

In the light of Your glory...

Sunday morning!  I wake eight minutes before my alarm.  I immediately start dry-heaving.

I slide air in and out and notice how my stuffed nose has eased.  The night before I had gone to bed so miserable that I could barely talk or breathe or think, let alone sing.  I took meds and went to bed early and prayed for a miracle.  And it's morning, and it's the day.  The week has evaporated and I'm stunned and voice scratchy.  How can I sing in three hours?

It feels amazing.  It feels horrifying.  And it is.

I drink coffee and sing along to the same songs I've been singing all week, preparing my heart.  Singing about who do I really have to fear?  And how God finds me right where I am.  And how my heart may be racing and pounding and shaking loose of its cage, but God rights it, steadies the beats.  I sing soft, don't wake the rest of the house.  I sing soft, can't believe I am going through with this.  I sing soft, can't believe I get this chance.

On impulse before heading out the door, I grab a Sharpie and curve letters onto my wrist:  Awake.

Inspired by the passage in Ezekiel that speak of the valley of dry bones and the beautiful, life-giving, breath of God, I whisper air in and out.  The strains of Chris Tomlin's beautifully powerful song, "Awake, My Soul" rattle through my memory.  I've sang it a million times.  I swear my heart was singing it before I even knew it.

Even though I don't rap, my heart pounds out Lecrae's recitation of the age-old scripture, "Come from the four winds, oh breath, and breathe!"  Every time I hear that portion of the song, I imagine God saying, "Charge it to three hundred!" and shocking us to life.  To action.  Breathe!

Breath!  Darn you, don't you dare give up!  Don't go out like this!

I looked at my wrist over and over, each time before I got on stage, reminding myself that God was awakening my soul.  That this was right.  Breathe!  In.  And out.  That's all I had to do.

Prayers ran fast on the short drive to church.  I prayed for peace.  I prayed to not have a heart attack.  I prayed for control over my emotions, because I was brimming.  I prayed for grace, because I knew very well that I was human and faulty and there is no perfection in me.  And perfection is a lie.  I tried to sing, to warm up, and I just really couldn't.  All I could do was breathe.  And literally two seconds before I wheeled my husband's truck into the parking lot, two geese fly overhead; over me, over the church.  I grinned, mad.

I wasn't flying solo. 

The message was loud and clear.  This wasn't something I was doing.  This was something I was getting to do with God... but it wasn't just me up there doing my thing.  This was God doing something in and through and with me.  It was something to take part in.  Not something to own. I felt the nerves fade and I jumped from the truck with joy and courage and God on my side.

And all I kept thinking is how I read once that the devil flees at the sound of a hymn.  That was my comfort every time as I opened my mouth to sing (my church currently has four services).  I knew that when I was singing about God's great name, His glory, His love, His ability to silence our fears and the voices raging for attention in our heads... that there was absolutely no room, and it was no place, for Satan.  There would be no way for him to be heard or to not be driven out at the name of Jesus.  I had nothing to fear.  No shame would come.

It was the most free I think I have ever felt in my life.

And now?  Now there's absolutely no going back.

And I'm so glad.

"I'm gonna move this mountain,

then I'm gonna move you in.

You were on My shoulders, 

now you're standing on the edge.

You've been looking 

for a sign all this time.

If you seek, you'll find Me every time.

This is your new song."

~ Brandon Heath, Comfortable

________________________________________________

I heard this song for the first time last night on the way 

home from yet another choir practice.  Amazing.

I'll sing out and remind my soul...

Last Tuesday I went to bed in a panic, throat burning, honey and tea not doing a darn thing.

I woke up to an increased sore throat that ran into my ears when I swallowed.  Aaron left for work and before he did, I told him how frustrated I was, how just plain scared, "I'm supposed to sing for everyone tonight!"  He understood my heart-pain, how diligent I had been to sit in the minivan after the kids were in bed so I could practice.  And my heart and dreams were reflected in his eyes.  "You've practiced so hard..."  I swallowed hard over pain, nodded, the tears overflowing.

Maybe I should just go ahead and give up.  Just email my worship leader and tell him I was sick, that it wasn't going to happen.  But as bad as I felt, as hard as it was to drag myself through the day, I couldn't give it up.  I felt it would be worse if I did, rather than just going through it.  And I felt if I folded, he would win.  Again.  And I'd start believing the lies again and my desire to live free and open would be swallowed up whole.  I took allergy meds and tunneled through and tried to rest.

I faltered (to put it kindly) through practice and was so broken up about it that they had an intercessory prayer time right there on the stage, with me sitting on the edge all sniffing and sobbing.  I wiped it off, received some hugs and lost myself in private worship with God in that sanctuary at my old stomping ground: the piano.  I tried to sing, but I just couldn't sing anymore.  I felt the weight of failure heavy.  I finally just sagged my shoulders and left.

And on the way home, a light came down to shine on a truth I was missing.

My sore throat?  It was gone.  GONE.

"Resist the devil and he will flee you..."

~ J a m e s   4 : 7 

I laughed in amazement and felt the courage bubble up.  And I was reminded of how last Sunday when we all stood and sang and shouted that the cross was enough and we once again surrendered our rebel hearts to God (Chris Tomlin, White Flag) and I sang as free as ever and was soul-deep anticipating next Sunday when I would have to swallow down pride and brave fear and sing on my own.  And I felt the bubble of laughter then, too.  

Just after we had moved, just after I'd had Travis, now almost a year ago... we were here in this new home sweet home and it was another Sunday and Aaron was getting baptized.  And I had been in turmoil about the kids and the excessive heat and to top it off, we had been without power.  I was overwhelmed and exhausted, newly a mother of two, not just one anymore, and it was silly and it was real and I imploded.  And then, too, we sang that same song and waved real white flags, my two year old wild and free nearly taking off his grandmother's glasses with each swing.  And I folded myself over the baby in the carrier at my feet and I cried.

"Okay, God.  I'll give it up."

And here we are again, nearly a year later, singing the same song, proclaiming the same truths, again trying to get over the war within ourselves.  And it's a constant barrage and you don't just win victory once.  You win it over and over again... against yourself.  Because we know that true victory is in Jesus and that battle is over and done and we never, ever have to fear.  

But there is more to it than simply resisting the devil.  Did you know there's a pretty important sentence before?

"Submit yourselves therefore to God."

~ J a m e s   4 : 7 

That's the first part.  Sometimes, most of the time, we get so caught up in the fight.  In the do and the more and the busy and the keep shoving forward.  We keep trying to feel better and to make it okay and the sutures pull and tug and we keep on stitching wild.  Needle in, needle out.  Pull.  Knot.  Again.  And we get all exhausted and stressed and caught up in the resistance and we begin to think all we'll ever do is fight off that wily serpent.  And we forget he's been ground face-first to death in the dust.

And we forget our first line of defense isn't swinging a sword as big as we are at an invisible force.

Our first line of defense is to submit.  To God.  To all He is and all He has and to trust that He is beginning and end and in-between.  It seems easier to just set your jaw and get all stubborn and shove on.  But the real war has been fought and won.  And though we daily fight temptations and our own humanity and our negative tracks in our heads and all the things that make us scared when there is a bump in the night, that just shows that our daily struggle isn't always the devil on our shoulder as we imagine.  He is not all-powerful or all-knowing or ever-present.  He's not that mighty.

That annoying battle that is so constant?  It's between us and us.  It's getting over yourself, your own glory, your pride, your goals... and leaving palms up to a wild and holy and crazy imaginative God.  The Apostle Paul recognized (Romans 7:15-19) the inner struggle, saying so perfectly that he knew the good he should do, but he couldn't do it - and the bad?  He knew to stay away, but instead he often ran head first.  And we all do.

If anything I have found, through life, through this experience... it is the truth.  It is the truth of God Himself.  Of His word, of His love, of everything He has ever said is real of Him and of us.  But the first step, inwardly and outwardly, is always submission to God.  That's the only place to start.  Before you fight, before you make a plan, before you start jumping to check things off a list... first things first.

Submit low.  Then you can stand.

And then?

Then you can fight and dream big... and who knows?  Maybe even sing.

"I have said these things to you,

that in me you may have peace.

In the world you will have

tribulation.  But take heart;

I have overcome the world."

~  J o h n   1 6 : 3 3 

_______________________________________

Note: Been listening to a lot of Kari Jobe lately, 

"Love Came Down" was my background for this post.  

Wanted to share!  Listen to it below:

Glory, glory, hallelujah...

I remember it clearly.  Sitting in my room, barely a teenager, my green NIV Bible before me.  And praying and crying and just plain begging.

"If You give me a voice, I will use it!"  

I wanted to sing so bad.

My fingers moved passionately over piano keys.  Easily.  They always have.  With piano lessons beginning by four years old because Mom knew truly I had the heart of a pianist and artist; music became me.  My voice, slower to develop, slow to be brave, felt like it was never arriving.  I would sing, but quietly.  I would sing passionately when alone, locking the doors and standing in just the right spot to get the most echo and I'd belt out the National Anthem.  I knew I could do it.  Knew I had it in me.  But I couldn't get it from my lungs, up my heart, through my throat, past my lips if someone was listening.

And I felt like I might die if I didn't let it out.  And I felt like I might die if I did.

A few times I braved the waters and mostly stayed behind the security blanket of my piano when I did. I was always encouraged, always well-received.  It seemed others believed in me more than I did.  And then there was that one time when I was so excited, so ready to sing the song I had been wanting to sing - and a few thoughtless words and a poorly timed sore throat stopped me in my tracks, just hours before show time.  I couldn't go on.  And I didn't try to go on ever again.

The disappointment burned hot.  The hiss of giving up hounded me.

A promise unkept?  I felt the bitter, broken pieces.  But helpless to do anything more.  How could I?  Open my mouth and risk ridicule?  Judgement?  Harsh observations that I was too shy, too quiet, too insecure to be a vocalist?  I didn't have "the big" voice, so never mind that I had a voice at all?  I shut myself down, fast and furious, buried the key and tried to forget that what I had was an answer to prayer and what I had was a gift and what I was doing was fear.

Fast forward to now.  I've joined the church choir and it has been life-giving to me.  I had forgotten how much the breath of life flowed through a song and how intoxicating it is to praise, loud, fierce, soft, real.  I've teared up during practice and as we've viewed new music for Sunday morning.  I've had chills.  I've felt the conviction.  I've felt God in that place.  And I've gone home with music and I practice and pretend I would audition and imagined I could be courageous and follow-through... and I then couldn't speak up.

One night God and I were having a conversation on the way to practice and He asked me, clearly, no doubt in my heart about it, "Why do you want to sing?"  I weighed it carefully... was I only doing this for me?  To settle some hole in my heart?  Or was it something more?  Immediately and sincerely the answer came, "It makes me come alive."  I couldn't not sing.  Not singing would be a little death to my soul.  And brazenly I declared if He brought me to it, I'd say yes.  I'd have to say yes.

I walked in that night, sang along with everyone and a new friend nudged me, "You should try out for this!"  What?  Me?  Now, Lord?  No.  No, I... no.  I took the music home, practiced, learned it, loved it... and chickened out.  Hide away some more.  Just a little longer.  Shovel the dirt higher.  The truth, the desire, deeper.

And then a new song and I listened and I chilled and the tears tugged at my heart, the words, the voice I don't use, it all cried out.  I had to sing.  I had to try.  Again, once more, the music comes home, my fingers play, my voice tries, and I learn it and I love it and I believe it.  The days dwindle and I realize tonight is probably the night for auditions.  Now or never.  And the throat closes and I think, "Maybe just never."

I get up to leave and our worship minister and I cross paths.  We say, "Hey." I try to move fast, to leave quick.  Just go home.  And then he stops my flight, "Did you need something?" My heart falls up into my throat and I choke on it, raw, and pretend he doesn't know what I think he must know.  "Huh?  What?  No..."  He must be Spirit-led.  I know he is.  I sense his smile and sense his knowing.

"Are you sure?"  Now.  Or never.

Now.

"Well... did you say auditions for that song were tonight or next week?" (Please God, next week!)

"Tonight.  Stay."

Hands tied.  No choice.  God brought me to it and threw me to it.  I nod dumbly.

And I sing, shy and off-key and terrified and verse one barely in the air and he turns, hands me the book, "Good.  Do it."  And just like that I have a solo and just like that I'm handed the second, third and fiftieth chance.  And I want to throw up all over myself.  I even tell him I'll probably puke on the Sunday we perform.  He says he doesn't have a problem with that.  I want to die.  Feel like I am a puddle of heat and embarrassment and, honestly, "Oh, crap, what have I done?!"  

I come home and in a rush of tears and relief and hope I spill it all to my husband.  He's proud of me... and scared for me.  He knows my penchant for anxiety and my stage-fright and my introverted nature.  He knows I'm happy being a background support and that being front and center makes me queasy.  But what he didn't fully understand was that this was part of that teeny, tiny, dreamy, strong-hold in my heart.  I might as well be that fourteen year old in her pink room with her open Bible praying for a voice.  For something to give back.  To come alive and have it be glory for Him who gives all.

How can I be all His if I don't use all He has given?

Weeks ago I thought to myself, "I'll be vulnerable if it makes my face fall off."  I was putting clean sheets on the bed and have no idea why I thought that.  But it was sure and straight and I believe it true.  I will be real and I will be messy and I will, I pray, show God in that.  I am not perfect, I am not airbrushed, I am not politically correct.  I'm not out to win and I'm not out to matter.  But it's easy to say you're willing when you have nothing to be willing and available for.  Easy to say you'll stand the test as long as you're never really tested.  Easy to be brave when you never have to be courageous.

And Wednesday practice before Sunday morning comes long before I'm ready and long before I feel I can own my voice, even though I claim the truths of the song I've been given.  And my hands shake so badly I have to use both of them to hold the mic.  And when I open my mouth, the words tremble so impossibly that I can't find or keep my pitch and I'm all new-colt legs and I nearly collapse.  I apologize and feel the hiss curl, "This is why you shouldn't do this."  

And I shake my head and try again and I don't believe a word of it.  Because I believe I have nothing to fear.  I believe I sing because I'm happy and sing because I'm free.  I believe my heart is awake and alive and that God uses that.  I believe that if I'm willing and I bring the offering, that He will use it - in some way.  And I pray my nerves will fade and that eyes will see past and ears will get over my lost notes and that the truth remains.  The truth that God is King and God is the lover of our souls and that He is everything, everything.

Sunday will come fast.  I fight anxiety and nerves.  They are never ending.  But even if my voice shakes, even if my hands sweat, even if I can't pull off a performance... I know, I know I can handle an offering.  I know I can stand and give the sacrifice of myself and all I am and allow Him to handle the rest.  I gladly do that.  I can do that much.

Loud or quiet, shy or brave, perfect notes or slightly off... It's all for Him.  It always has been.

"In the end, worship can never

be a performance; something

you're pretending or putting on.

It's got to be an overflow 

of your heart... 

worship is about getting personal

with God; drawing close to God."

~  M a t t   R e d m a n