Spring

I am absolutely enamored by spring. Each season has its own special beauty, but to me, spring holds the most magical wonder of them all. From the deep cold earth, long covered by snow, the daffodils bravely push upwards their bladed leaves cutting through dirt that gives way to glory. The temperatures slowly warm as the sunlight increases. The warmth kisses my face and I smile. Day by day, little by little, the green appears -- barely, and then, almost all at once. There it is!

Spring is full of hope. Maybe I love spring so much because of its contrast. From winter so dark, cold and dormant to a season filled with new life - the transformation is so evident! When the weather outside starts to warm, I find my spirit mirroring the longing for new life. The changing seasons show us that things don’t always have to stay the way they have been. Something new is happening here. Don’t miss it.

In the spring, the gardener sees the fruit of planting bulbs in the fall. After sitting cold and dormant, they come bursting forth as the herald of newness. In life there are so often periods of waiting that we must endure before any visible signs of something new (James 5:7). We must not give up on those prayers we prayed and the ways in which we have tried to follow God. But during the spring, the gardener gets dirty again down on her hands and knees, pulling weeds, clearing the dead debris, planting new seeds, watering and watching. This is our work, too.

In his book Spiritual Rhythms, Mark Buchanan describes the activities of a spiritual “spring.” (Although he clearly states that spiritual seasons don’t necessarily coincide with physical ones, I can’t help but find myself in a place of spiritual, emotional, and physical renewal when the world around is blossoming with so much hope!)  

First we wake up to what God is doing in and around us.

“Awake, awake, clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion...Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem; loose yourself from the chains around your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.”  Isaiah 52:1-2 (NASB)

For me recently, this has taken the form of a gratitude list as well as reading back through old journals. For a while I had felt out of sync with God, disconnected somehow. Through the simple act of trying to notice and write down the “little things,” I have grown more awake to where God is working in my life. I also revisited my coffee-stained journals from last year that had sat for too long on the dusty shelf. As I reread my prayers and thoughts from only a few months ago, I felt my spirit reawakening to things God had planted in my heart long before now.

Then we plow.  

“Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes and showers His righteousness on you.” Hosea 10:12 (NIV)

Plowing comes in the form of renewing our spiritual disciplines - prayer and Scripture. We lean in and listen in order to obey the One who calls us. Buchanan calls it the “discipline of deeper attentiveness”. Return to those things that connect you to God. Perhaps it is daily Bible reading or even memorizing a passage of Scripture. Maybe it is daily intentional prayer or even another spiritual discipline like fasting.

During spring we also plant new things and allow God to plant new things in us.

“Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.”  Isaiah 43:19 (NASB)

We may be launching into a new phase of ministry or responding in some other way to something new God is asking us to step into. Buchanan warns against planting haphazardly, though. We must also protect and nurture the new thing like a gardener tends to the new plants carefully so that they grow to be strong and beautiful.  I’ve recently stepped into some new leadership opportunities and I’ve had to be very intentional about carving out time for them. I am eagerly expectant to see what God is going to do in this uncharted territory.

Lastly, we clean.

“But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.” Ephesians 5:13 (NASB)

Soul “spring cleaning” occurs when we reflect on our days and clean out what needs to be removed. We open up the doors and windows and brush away the cobwebs. We don’t want debris and dead things taking up space in our hearts and lives. In order for God to continue to grow new things in us, we must continually declutter. I sat down recently to do a little life inventory. I like using a simple little tool I’ve learned where I sift through things in my life and categorize where I am feeling failure, frustration, battle, and breakthrough.  It’s not necessarily pretty, but definitely needed. After bringing things to light, it always feels easier to move forward.

I don’t know if you are in a spiritual “spring” or perhaps just desire to be there like I so often do. While the world around us is waking to life, may we too awaken to what God is doing and then do the work to prepare our hearts for the new things He may have for us in a new season. He is the one who ultimately causes the flower to push forth. The gardener can only prepare the ground, plant the seed, tend to it, and watch what comes.

Let’s prepare the way for God to work in our hearts and lives and be amazed at how beautifully and miraculously He works.

~Meredith M.

Better Pray Late Than Never

An emptied sleepless soul, I blink bleary-eyed into the blackness and stare at the dimmed numbers: 2:10 AM. I wonder when sleep will sooth the cinching in my back and soften the eyelids to rest finally. Coughs echo down from the upper floor and up from the lower floor. I lie on the couch sandwiched between 2 floors of coughing and long for solace to still my stirred-up, stressed-out mind.

I think about the white notecard on which I scrawled my stresses black ink. That was hours before the insomnia when peace and music seemed to fill me up full in the church service. I diagrammed my troubles in bubbles and lines like a giant spider web.

The clock blinks 3:26 AM. I want to go back to bed. The coughs are still coming from the family. A window creaks. I kick a blanket off and readjust the pillow.

The speaker said the stress map could turn into a prayer map. What an idea. I can't shake it, so  I try it for a while. All I can focus on is the words I saw on the whiteboard in the service. I imagine the worst of everything for everyone on the whiteboard and the spider web on my card. I don't trust an empty mind in the middle of the night. Now the map seems to press on me even more than the hot weight of the blankets on this living room couch.

I see myself as I stood stiffly when I felt I should have walked up to the front and asked for prayer. I felt the muscle twinge in my back as I looked to the people lining up. I wanted to pray too. Pride and unworthiness spoke louder in my head than the Holy Spirit. I crumbled inward and stayed stuck in the moment.

So I think of solutions at 3:40 AM, hopeful ones. Hopeful ones for myself and my screwed up back. I google symptoms, remedies, clinics. I find a great one in Maine that does phone consultations for $300 an hour. Awesome. I shut off the phone.

More hacking coughs, but tapering, like popcorn in the microwave after two or three minutes. Maybe I should eat a snack. I drink a glass of water instead at the dark sink. I don't see the moon but it's reflection on the snow satiates me better than the drink. All blue and still.

I creep across the floor, careful not to squeak the floorboards under my socks. I lie down again. What if each thought and sound keeping me up, waking me here were not a barrier but a call to prayer? The twinge of back pain was a beacon of sorts, to call out to the One who is the ultimate resting place. So I do. I call out. Softly under my breath. One word after another. Peace. Rest. Names. Tasks. Days. Projects. Deep things. Small things. Big things.

I may have missed a chance to be prayed for, but I am awake now and I can pray for myself and others.

I can beat myself up for not listening to God's voice but a spinning mind only halts when we stop the spokes and listen.

Then one last hacking cough reverberates from below me. Silence. Minutes later, the house creaks into a good night settling.

I sneak back up to bed. I put my head on the pillow and listen to the One who whispers kindness and comfort and cares no matter the hour I turn my heart toward Him.

Every black-inked word turns requests and mortal reaching into a place of release and rest.

Let go the gripping, the cringing, the stressing because sleep comes, after the coughs settle, and it's sweeter, so much sweeter because I hear His voice instead of mine.

- Christina H.

Have You Seen My Keys?

I’m easily distracted.  If you know me well, don’t laugh…you're laughing. I've been told I look calm on the outside, but on the inside my thoughts are a pinball machine on it's third bonus ball. 

So much so that I’ve read articles on adult ADD just to make sure I wasn’t overlooking a clinical problem (thank you, WebMD). I forget things, important things sometimes, and miss the details of life like parent-teacher conferences for example.  Smart friends have shown me their e-calendars and organization apps. Lovely. I’ve been given awesome planners with suggestions on how to actually use them. Great idea. Last year I was challenged by a friend to take inventory of how I spend my days in 30-minute increments, but I found tracking it was difficult because I wasn’t spending that long on any one task. It was a little here and a little there.  I start one thing and get distracted by another: laundry, text, carpool, phone call, email, dishes, bills, pray for a friend, back to the laundry I left sitting on the couch…and on, and on. Is this all sounding a bit familiar? 

I know I don’t need a diagnosis. I’m 99.7% (leaving room for error) certain I don’t have a serious condition. I’m suffering from this thing we call Life. Most likely it’s not my circumstances that need to change it’s my perspective. I need to know my mission and focus. I’m a Jesus loving, warrior chic who gets antsy without clarity of her orders. Then there are times when I do get clear directives but Life distracts me to the point of ineffectiveness.

It’s one thing to forget peanut butter at the store or my wallet when I leave the house (thanks for the loans [you know who you are] and to my daughter’s elementary school for still letting me enter without my I.D.) but it’s another thing to forget my purpose in living. How quickly I live like my life is about tasks and to-dos, just getting from one day to the next. I need to stop and remember:

1.     I am a daughter of God

2.     I represent His Kingdom here on Earth each moment, every day

3.     I am Josh’s wife

4.     I am Mom to three wonderful girls

It really is that simple. Everything I do and how I spend “my” time and energy is best sifted from the top of that list down. My mission is to have God-directed influence in every relationship and responsibility I encounter beginning with those top priorities. Sometimes that means I teach and write, other times that means I’m at home baking cookies or enjoying a slow cup of coffee with my husband. The point is we are to actually live what Jesus says in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

We have our mission and we can step into it with focused boldness. The craziest part is, that when we feel like God is asking a lot of us He’s actually giving us what we need most. Himself. Anything we do in this world is an overflow of our relationship with Him (Romans 15:13). When we get distracted and lose sight of our purpose we can, with courage and confidence, turn to our Father and ask Him to remind us who we are and why we’re here. 

"Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:16

p.s. have you seen my computer cord? I know I left it around here somewhere...

Jena M.

A Psalm of Joy

Lord you alone know me.

You see my strengths and my weaknesses...you gave them to me.

You know how deeply I want to hear your voice.  How much I want to be your servant in my life, my marriage, my mothering, my leading, my praying...but I feel overwhelmed and spread so thin.  I feel off-balance, not JOYFUL.

I SAY I TRUST YOU, BUT DO I?

God you have been so faithful, an ever-present comforter, teacher, and provider.  I have seen first-hand your perfect will and perfect timing.  I have received your grace and been released from my striving.  You have surprised me and been a God that I have under-estimated.

Thank you for living in me. 

Forgive me when I under-estimate you and question your power.

Why do I get so frustrated, tired, and overwhelmed?  Why can't I just be JOYFUL?

I can choose JOY, LOVE, GRACE, FORGIVENESS, AND PEACE.

I will be cause You are for me!

My faith is strong - I can trust you to provide and equip me.

I have never-ever been failed by you.

With you God, I have never-ending love, complete provision over my time and gifts, and incredible power!

You tell us we are one body...

I believe I have a specific unapologetic role here Lord.

A purpose and a calling from you.

God, you alone can spiritually connect me, use and inspire my relationships, provide opportunities, and facilitate my prayers.

You are my source of true, lasting JOY!

- Tasha C.