Long overdue

Back when this whole journey began, there was a sense that this might not be a quick process.  That's easy to think when everything is still new and shiny.  But it gets a little harder as the days months years march on.  What I have noticed, though, is that very often just when I start to slip into complacency and thinking that maybe the plan has changed, her name will come up.  Sometimes one of you sends a message to let me know that you are praying.  Sometimes one of my children will ask about her.  Other times I will find her name or one of the meaningful verses from those early days in an unexpected place.

These past couple weeks for one of my seminary classes we have been reading about the patriarchs.  The story of Abraham and Sarah always is a reminder to me that God's timing doesn't always fit with the way we expect God to work.  Abram is 75 when God first makes the promise of offspring and blessing the nations through him.  Some time later, after living in Egypt to escape the famine, God again reiterates the promise of offspring and land.  In Genesis 15, we read of Abram asking God how this promise is to be fulfilled, since he still has no children.  Given the events that have happened, this is likely years after the initial promise.  Genesis 16 describes how after ten years of living in Canaan, still with no child of his own, Abram agrees to Sarai's suggestion to sleep with her servant Hagar and have a child in that way.  The years had marched on, and they decided to help God out, possibly even thinking that they were doing what they needed to do to fulfill the promise.

When I start to wonder if there is more that I should be doing, this story often comes to mind.  Has God given any indication that we are to step forward in any specific direction?  No.  Are we open to doing so when that time comes?  Yes.  Are we striving to remain close to God while we wait?  Yes - key word there is striving.  Some days are better than others, but we try to pull each other back on track if we begin slipping.  So until word comes that it is time to step forward, we wait.  In faith, we wait.
Joyfully awaiting Abigail.

New directions (how the shift is playing out, part 2)

Just over three months ago, this sabbatical time between homeschooling and starting my graduate program began.  In one short week, I found that I had more free time than I'd had in the previous 7 1/2 years   maybe ever?  To be honest, it scared me a little bit.  Would I come to the end of it in a better place than where I began?  Would I squander vast portions of the day on things that really didn't matter?  The temptation to start writing HUGE lists of all the things that I thought that I *should* do was very strong.

But somehow, I found myself choosing a different path, prompted in part by a book that I was reading, Learning a New Routine: Reading the Sermon on the Mount by Jon Swanson.  He wrote:

Here's the new routine:  Ask God what part of His kingdom He wants you to seek right now.  And seek it.  And ask.  And seek.  And ask.  And seek.

That became my daily prayer as I made a sort of "spine" list for my day that included only the absolute necessities, and I would give space for God to show me how He would choose to use me in those spaces.

At first, much of the time was spent in my own transition of grieving the stage that was past, intense prayer for all of us, reading intently, working through many things in conversation with God.  As time went on, He began to use me in reaching out to others.  Through the wonderful promptings of His Spirit, there would be a nudge to send a card, to share a quote, or to give a quick call to ask how someone was doing.  There was time to begin a prayer ministry that I had wanted to begin for a long time, praying for people on Facebook.  He had me lead a women's study at our church, Unglued by Lysa Terkeurst, that has helped give us tools to make imperfect progress with our emotional reactions.  In these experiences, God's timing has been confirmed over and over, deepening my trust in Him and His plan. 

Then it felt like God led me into school (completely separate from the one class that I was taking).  In a matter of weeks, I found myself being dropped into several different group experiences - one for women leading women by that involved leadership coaching, another for fitness, and one for business.  None of them were sought out specifically, but God engineered ways to place me where I needed to be.  Each one seemed to fit so neatly with the others in taking me through a process of moving beyond the inner critic to find the skills, strengths, and calling that God is using me for in this season.

As the sabbatical draws to a close, I'm finding myself ready to be embarking on this new stage of the journey.  I'll be training to become a life coach and spiritual director, working from a Christian perspective, potentially with a focus on working with those who are dealing with grief.  The more I learn about these related yet distinctly different paths, the more it feels like this is what I have been created to do.  The random experiences and personality quirks that didn't make much sense before combine in an amazing way when looking at what is needed for this new part of the journey.  God's hand has been incredibly evident as I go throughout this learning time, and I'm prayerfully excited to see what He has in store in this not-yet-time-for-Abigail-to-be-joining-us time!

He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see what He has done and be amazed.  They will put their trust in the LORD.  Psalm 40:3 NLT

How the shift is playing out, part 1

(Note to my currently homeschooling friends:  Please take this post for what it is -some thoughts of how the shift out of homeschooling has played out in our family.  I don't write any of this to try to sway you from what you're doing - as long as God is still calling you to teach your kids at home, I'll be a praying for you as you follow His lead!  Homeschooling has some awesome parts . . . and some hard parts, just like any schooling choice.  Our kids have good days and bad days, whether teacher is mom or Mrs. X.   You can still air your frustrations about the bad days without me giving you the "if only you'd put them in school you wouldn't have to deal with it" eye.  I remember those days (and they still show up in smaller amounts over homework ;)  )  You can still share that awesome day when God brought everything together in this perfect unit study that you couldn't have planned - I remember those days, and will be rejoicing with you and encouraging you to hang onto them when times get rough!)

Ten years ago when we first thought about having children, I never dreamed that I would end up staying at home with them.  God's plan turned out to be a little different.  Ten years ago when we were began to start a family, I thought we would be in control of the number and timing of children we'd have.  God's plan turned out to be different.  As I opened baby shower gifts from my class of middle schoolers, I assumed my baby would be in preschool in a few years and then step on the bus the first day of kindergarten.  God's plan turned out to be different.  Once we began homeschooling, I had visions of teaching them all the way through.   His plan for us, at least for right now in this season, with these kids, has turned out to be a little different.

I'm now 2 1/2 months into this sabbatical time.   In many ways, it has been just what it needed to be so far- a transition from one time of life to the next, a cocoon for the metamorphosis to take place.  For the kids, as they adapted to school routines and schedules, to the ups and downs of classroom dynamics and being around lots of other kids all day long.  For me, as I struggled to follow God's leading to have them there while still hearing the inner critic whispering the accumulated arguments picked up from various books and blogs that by signing them up, I'd signed over their souls to the enemy.  For our family dynamic, as we adjust to the shift of no longer running separate tracks, but being brought together on the same one.

That part sounds really strange, I know, especially since homeschooling is often described as bringing the family together.  The reality of how it played out with our specific situation, though, is that while it kept the kids and I together, my husband often felt left out.  His job required him to leave the house before 6 each morning, long before the kids (and too often, I as well), were up, and his long commute meant that he'd arrive home at night just in time for dinner and bedtime stories.  A change in locations at the beginning of this school year had shortened the commute, but we still led fairly separate lives.  In the past few months, that has changed.  We're all getting up early now, and our day starts together as a family.  We include Bible time and prayer to prepare us for the day, and then my husband and kids head off for school.  Some days they leave together - since he teaches at a different building, he can take them with him and they take a shuttle bus over to their building.  Some days they come home together, reversing the process.  Homework can be a great equalizer for parents.  At the same time their dad is becoming more involved in their learning, I am learning to become mom over teacher.  In some ways I had let the role of teacher overtake that of mom, and always was on the alert for education happening.  Those moments still happen - but there's a sense of relief that I don't have to track them all.  We can take the moments of watching a bird building its nest outside the window just for the joy of it.  When we are all back home together in the evenings, there's a different sense of togetherness now.   There are good days where it comes together, and there are the days when someone is cranky and we forget to pray and I'm snappy and life is too busy - but overall, we're more on the same track than we've been before.

There's a big shift in how I gear my mind for the day. 3:30 in the afternoon used to be "send the kids up for some quite time and take a deep breath myself time".  Now, 3:15 is "put my mom hat back on because the kids are coming through the door and they need me to be fully present".  And the daytimes . . . well that has turned out to be the time when it seems I'm going through God's personal school of change and preparation as He gets me ready for new directions and graduate school.  But that's part 2.

Abraham

Friends, you are so appreciated.  I'm smiling this morning to see how God spurred three of you over the past couple weeks, completely unaware of the others, to send me a note.  Each one said basically the same thing:  I was reading the story of Abraham, and I noticed how long it was between the promise of a son and its fulfillment.

For Abraham, the promise is confirmed multiple times, but over a broad span of years.  At first it is somewhat unclear how he will have a son, and Sarah decides to speed up the process by offering her servant to Abraham.  As one of the notes pointed out, it was then 14 long years between Ishmael's birth and that of Isaac.  In our instant access world of today, it's hard to wait 14 minutes at times, and even 14 days seems nearly unthinkable.  14 years? 

This story, each time I read it, reminds me how important it is to draw close to God so that I can trust in His timing.  Because on my own, I am far too impatient.  I would jump ahead into situations that weren't God's plan because *I* felt it was time. 

So thank you, friends, for your prayers, and for sending along those little notes.  The way the Holy Spirit prompts you to reach out at the times that you do is perfectly God timing, and sends such a big message.

100 posts later . . .

Today marks 2 years.  Two years since life was given a whole new perspective, Abigail-colored glasses, so to speak.  Two years ago I found myself starting a blog.

A year ago, a year felt like an incredibly long time in some respects.  A year ago, I was blessed to discover little Abigail reminders waiting for me first thing in the morning.  A year ago, I found myself looking back. 

And today I see that this is the 100th post on this blog. One hundred posts that have led me bit by bit, step by step to who I am today.  Two years closer to seeing what God has in store for Abigail.  Life is beginning to look a little different, but still so much the same. 

Long term faith is a tricky thing.  It's so easy to try to fit God's plan into our timing and then get frustrated and disappointed and doubt when it doesn't happen.  It's tempting to try to take things into our own hands and act on what we think the plan might be.  It's a short step to judging things solely from what we can see and decide that nothing is happening or that we heard God wrong or that He has changed His mind.  It's not a long slide into making the fulfillment of the promise an idol that surpasses the importance of the Giver of the promise.

I go back frequently to the question ~ what if I misunderstood?  Would my journey over these past years be all for nothing?  So far, I can say that it would still be worth it.  I wouldn't want to trade the changes that I have seen God make in me, and in my husband.  God has opened the doors to new aspects of our callings.  It is no longer just about Abigail, but about God's bigger plan to use our family.  He has knit together my life with those of many others through this journey, and our friendships have moved to a deeper level that is centered on what God is doing in our lives.  He has opened our eyes to the way He is working outside of our little family or church. 

I have to be honest .  . . there is a part of me that would just love some confirmation on this 2nd "Abi-versary".  A special verse, or sign of some sort, to reassure me that I didn't misunderstand.  And as I go through my day, I've got an eye and ear tuned to notice if there is.  But if there isn't .  . . it's ok.  God doesn't change just because I can't see things from His perspective.  Even when I can't understand why things are or aren't happening in a certain way, He is still on His throne and working all things for good.

Keep tuned .  . . when the timing is right, our next Abigail steps will be shown.  And until then, we keep putting pieces into place.  Sometimes they feel like they may be from a different puzzle, but in the end, I have a feeling they will have been part of her picture the whole time. 

And maybe one day we'll find ourselves saying, "Abby girl, God knew you before you were born, and He told us about you.  You grew in our hearts long before you began to grow inside the womb.  He has a plan for you, such a big plan that it needed more than just our family to be praying for you. He loves you so very much, Abigail, and so do we."

Sabbatical

A friend referred to these days I am in as a sabbatical, and I immediately latched on to the term.  In the academic world, it is a year to be spend renewing and refreshing through travel, study, and rest, taken roughly every seven years.  In the trenches of motherhood, it is an unknown concept.  In the busy-ness of our American culture, even a weekly Sabbath rest is hard to carve out.

We sometimes picture God brushing the dust off his hands in the Genesis account of creation, then settling back in a recliner for a well earned rest, his work done.  Then we compare that to our own lives and bolster our decision to work straight through every day of every week of every month with a  "I'd love to rest, but there's just too much work to do.  Maybe someday when it's done."  A line in Wonderstruck has stayed with me this week:  "Sometimes it's easy to read the story of creation and think that on the seventh day God's work was done, but really God's work had only just begun.  Yet God chose to rest anyway."

This is a challenge for the side of me that loves to check things off lists, and that always has a much bigger list in my head than I could ever complete in several lifetimes.  Choosing to rest anyway.  The overachiever in the back of my mind is raising her hand, ready to denounce the laziness. 

I read further, and ponder along with the author that the two longest commandments are worshiping only God and not idols, and observing the Sabbath.  Even the overachiever is forced to put her hand down when confronted by this thought:

Apart from developing a healthy rhythm of rest, we succumb to idols and their constant demands.  The Sabbath provides the space we need to recognize the false gods that slip into our lives when we are distracted.  This holy day gives us the opportunity to remove them and recalibrate our lives to God.

Gulp.  My idols.  In this sabbatical time, God is revealing them for what they are, and they sometimes show up in unlikely places.  They have snuck in to my life, with their promises that by following them, everything else will be good.  By carefully adhering to each item on their lists, I'll have nothing to worry about.  And worst of all, I realize that many of them crept in by disguising themselves as God's will.  At first a well-intentioned way of following God, they had shifted and grown so much that trust began to be placed on them instead.  News reports have a way of revealing them lately.  I'll hear something and begin to think, "Oh, but I don't have to worry about that, because we . . . .  oh wait, we don't.  Aggghhhh!  What will we do, we're not safe anymore?!?"  And just like that, an idol is revealed for what it had started to become, something sneaking in place of God.

This sabbatical time is reminding me that our true safety and rest only come from the One whom we follow, not on our actions or those of others.  And that in the end, God is bigger than even the worst nightmare that we can imagine, and is capable of redeeming it into something beautiful, for His glory.  So if you catch me with my feet up for a bit, pull up a chair and join me?  The lists will still be there, the laundry isn't going to run off, and as long as the kids are in a secure location, they can entertain themselves for a few minutes.  We'll take a few minutes to rest and seek God, and remember that the world really won't stop turning if we pause.

January recap

A month gone by, the first of this new stage of life for us.   My goals for January were simple ~ make it through, and get used to new schedules and routines.  And in that respect, it was a rousing success.  We're all starting to - dare I say it? - embrace the new normal.

The kids have gotten used to getting up early and are making friends.  They're adjusting to school routines and teachers that are different from the ones we'd had here.  A corner of the dining room has become homework and backpack central.  And in the midst of the moments of "AGGGGHHHH!  What are we DOING?", God has sent little moments that assure us that we are following His plan.  A comment that "My class talks about church a lot!", an image of the Lord standing right beside the eldest, the way the other kids at the bus stop have seem so eager for adult interaction each morning . . . little things timed so perfectly.  We've found that getting up a little earlier makes not only for smoother mornings, but allows us to time to do a quick Bible reading and prayer before school.

For me, this is sacred time.  There are three months until my studies begin in full force, so I have this window of time to  . . . be.  It's been tempting to make huge lists.  But for January, I allowed myself grace and space to make the transition.  To grieve the end of the era of having the kids with me all day, and to start to put on a not-only-mom-and-teacher identity.  To rewrite my mental to-do list with our new routines.  It's a rare season where I can let God use me each day to spend time praying for others and immersing myself in His word.  I'm not taking it lightly ~ these times don't come often.

There's been reading, though not as much as I expected.  There's been cleaning, also not as much I would have liked.  There's been exercise, and a few lunches with friend.  At times it feels like I'm cheating ~ surely it's not permissible to have time for me during the day!  There's been good time talking and reading and snuggling with the kids in the evenings and after school.  

For February, it's time to tackle the used-to-be school room.  For last month it sat just as we left it before Christmas, shades drawn.  But it's time.  God has called us to this new path, and that means stepping onto it fully, trusting that He goes before us. 

A prayer marked by faith is never about what happens on our terms or time lines, but God's.  Faith-stained prayer brings us to a place of trust and hope. - Margaret Feinberg in Wonderstruck

The past six weeks have reinforced for me that once we turn ourselves over to God, we shouldn't be surprised when life doesn't happen on our terms or time lines.  It will seldom look just like the life we've so admired in a friend, and will often take us places that we never expected to go (whether that be across the world or from one room to the next).  But God is good, and He sees so far beyond what I can see.  Often the things that seem the best from my vantage point would pale in comparison to what He has in store.

PS:  For the book-inclined, here's the list of books that were finished in January.  Many of them were started earlier:

• Red letter verses of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
• Reinventing Rachel, Alison Strobel (fiction)
• Learning a New Routine: Reading the Sermon on the Mount, Jon Swanson
• When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions, Sue Monk Kidd
• A Guide for Listening and Inner Healing Prayer, Rusty Rustenbach
• Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor, Jana Riess
• Beyond the Storm, Carolyn Zane (fiction)
• Michael: A Novel, Jill Eileen Smith
• Bathsheba: A Novel, Jill Eileen Smith

Have faith

Just have  faith, and it'll be alright.  

How often do we see or hear some version of this thought?  I've thought it before, and chances are you have too.  Well meaning friends and relatives have probably tried to encourage us to not give up, to have faith.  In the Bible, we read stories of miraculous healings and people brought back from the dead, and faith (Matthew 9:20 & Mark 10:52, for example).

When the threat of the worst comes, we desperately cling to this.  If I can just have enough faith, everything will be alright.  I won't miscarry this baby, my child will survive this disease, my mother's tumor will shrink, we will be protected . . . God won't let bad things happen to us because we have enough faith.

Read that last part again.  Have you thought it before?  That if you can just pray enough, get enough others praying, focus on the protection or the healing without any doubt, that God won't let the worst happen?  Sometimes the worst doesn't happen.  The tornado goes south, the surgery works, the bleeding stops.  We praise God for his blessings and the belief that "faith = good things" is cemented a little deeper.

But what about the times when  the worst does happen?  That even with day and night prayers and fasting, with prayer chains worldwide, with never having doubted or worried that God would heal or protect . . . the miscarriage happened, the baby died, the tumor grew, the abuse wasn't stopped, the hurricane wiped out everything.  What then?  How could God let the bad things happen?

I wonder if we sometimes confuse faith in God with faith in his actions.  We read the Bible stories of faith with a narrow focus on the healing and begin to think that we need to believe in the healing and protection, in the possibility of the impossible act itself.  We read  "For nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37), and we focus in on the word nothing, substituting in our circumstance.  

Too many times I have done just that,  having faith that the situation would be resolved  in a way that I wanted - instead of fixing my faith on God himself.  And that knowledge is brought to light when the worst happens, when the impossible thing remained impossible even though I had faith.  At those moments it feels like my world is collapsing, like God has turned away or maybe isn't even there, because He didn't do what I believed he could do.

In the book of Daniel, three young men refused to worship the king despite threat of death by fiery furnace. 

But if you don’t worship it, you will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire—and who is the god who can rescue you from my power?”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, “Nebuchadnezzar, we don’t need to give you an answer to this question.  If the God we serve exists, then He can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and He can rescue us from the power of you, the king.  But even if He does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.” (Daniel 3:15b-18)

I read those words, "But even if He does not rescue us" and realize that I was putting my belief in the rescue instead of the One who can rescue.  Having faith in God, instead of the action, changes everything.  Because when our faith is in God himself, it isn't bound by the limits we've put on it.  When my faith is in the act of healing or rescue or protection,  then the only way that I can see that faith answered is if that specific act happens.  But when my faith is placed in God himself, as it was for these three young men, then that faith is answered by God himself regardless of the way that situation plays out.  Even if the worst does end up happening, my faith can be answered because God is there as Rock, Comforter, and Redeemer.  Instead of feeling like He has turned his back, I can seek refuge in His arms, knowing that  He is bigger than any situation.  That even when the bad things do happen, He not only can be my comfort, but can over time redeem the bad and use it for good.

Where are you putting your faith today, in that situation in your life?  I gently urge you to make sure it is focused on God himself instead of the hoped for outcome, and pray that you will do the same for me.  And dear friend, if you are struggling today because the worst did happen, know that God is still there, He is still good, and His love hasn't changed.  Seek refuge in His everlasting arms ~ they're big enough to hold any emotion you are feeling.  Take your anger, your fear, your disappointment, your sadness to Him.

 

Transitions and cocoons

I used to travel a lot in my mid-20s. In those pre-tech gadget days, travel was truly a time and space apart.  Once you boarded the plane, climbed onto the train, or hit the road with map in hand, you entered what always felt to be a somewhat sacred space.  No longer where you had come from, and not yet where you were going, it was a time unlike any other.  At the beginning of the trip, your mind would be filled with wrapping up details of the world you were leaving.  By the time you neared your destination, there was space for details of the world you were entering and your mind would gear up for it.  In the middle . . . depending on the length of the trip, there was that space that was just you.  Neither here nor there, just being.

These weeks of January have been marked by transition.  The adjustment for the kids is going as well as could be expected, and they are getting used to new schedules, new teachers, new friends, and new routines.  But at the same time, there is at times a retreat into the familiar, the safe, the expected.  Back in December we had been reading Farmer Boy, but had set it aside for a time as interest waned.  But during this transition phase, whenever a spare moment arises I find the book being pressed into my hand with a plea, "Read Farmer Boy to us?"  The familiar posture of sitting side-by-side and reading brings comfort in an uncertain time.

I have found myself spinning my own cocoons in this transition month.  Those moments right after the kids get on the bus, when the house seems so dark and empty . . . immersing myself in God's word.  He's been faithful to this point, surely He will continue to do so.  I cocoon in my Christmas sweatshirt with the name of my new school written across the front.  It's big and roomy and warm and I can lose myself inside of it . . . and at the same time, begin to take on the new skin of student once more.  At night after the kids are in bed and work is done, I find myself curling up next to my husband to join the Doctor and his companion on another adventure, safe in the knowledge that no matter what evil befalls the universe, by the end of that episode (or the next), the world will be saved (at last temporarily).  My cocoons.

Part of me has wanted to struggle against them and knock them out of the way with vast to-do lists and plans that would make me feel that I was bringing every bit of this new found time under my control.  But I've been experimenting with grace instead.  My lists are small, with just the essentials as mandatory must-do's.  I'm letting myself grieve the stage that is past so that I'll be able to embrace what lies ahead.  We're trying out different routines to see what works.  Learning which elements from homeschooling still work for us now, and which ones can be released. In all of this, I realize how deeply I become my roles.  Letting go of it feels like a rewriting of my whole identity at times. 

But as time goes by, we are making the transition.  No longer where we were, and not yet where we will soon be.  And I'm discovering that grace is good to extend to myself, and it inspires me to move beyond this temporary cocoon.

Learning a new song

One forged ahead boldly with a single focus, nary a look back. As she passed by on her way to new destinations, she waved from the front of the line where she was introducing herself to her new teacher.  No surprise ~ her coat and backpack had been on the moment she finished breakfast, long before the rest of us were ready. 

The other had to warm up to the idea.  Upon waking, he'd declared, "Couldn't we start next week?  I'm not prepared!  I'm scared!"  Even when we joined his class awaiting the teacher's arrival in the lunchroom, he hung back just a bit ~ this was new and unknown, and by default in his young mind, new and unknown = scary.  Seeing a friend across the way brought a smile to his face.  And we laughed when we found out that not only does he share a first name with two other boys in his class, but that their last names begin with L, M, and N.  O is in the class across the hall.

Watching these two approach this new venture with such different styles made me think of the war within my own mind and heart when God calls me to a new & unknown path.  My first instinct is often to back away with a list of reasons why I'm not ready, or must surely not be the one.  I don't have to look far in the Bible to find others who struggled the same way.  But there's a part of me that wants to respond the way my daughter did this morning, the way the disciples did when Jesus called them off their boats ~ to set off with a single focus and embrace the new.

I realize that in this time of learning a new song, I too will need to choose how I respond.  Will I let the worrying side hold me back with my cries of  "But I'm not prepared?  I'm not ready!"   Or will I jump in fully to this new path, trusting that the same Lord who told his disciples,

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear . . .  So do not worry . . . But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."  (selections from Matthew 6:25,31,33)

meant for those words to apply to me in my life today?  That keeping my focus fixed on Him will allow the rest to fall into place?