Monday, December 29, 2014

Doing New Things that Last Years

It's that time between holidays where it's kind of still the holidays but kind of not and half the humans are back at work while half are still at home partying away. I didn't expect to be back at work, honestly. I thought Wednesday was my last, however, I was graciously asked to come back for two more days. Which I don't mind, of course. The more I can cushion myself for the real world, the better :) .

So, what kinds of thoughts does one have in this limbo between Christmas and New Years? Well, if you've been with me for all of the years that I post thoughts around this time... You know that resolutions aren't really my thing... See my blog from 2011 

And though, I still hold to that belief of being made new any ol' time of the year, I'm not against taking advantage of the times and setting some goals here or there. I'm slightly inspired to do so by an instagram post I saw a few months back. One of my friends took a picture of her friend's New Year's Resolutions for the year 2014 and it was full of beautiful things like, "read the Bible daily" "love more deeply" "serve with an open heart." Those goals by themselves are beautiful! The girl who had penned them stepped into eternity and is now daily with Jesus, loving more deeply than she ever could have on earth. 

It hits my heart in a tender place to know that any ol' New Years resolutions could be the note on which you go. And to be honest, if I died this year, I'd like it best if my last months were spent striving to be closer to the Lord, striving to serve others graciously and loving well. And, of course I make these little goals in my heart throughout the year as things come up.. but I want them to be more than passing comments. 

Honestly, I couldn't even count the times I've had good iron sharpening, spiritual conversations with my friends or family members in which some topic like being more other's centered came up and we said something like, "Mmm.. that's so good. I should try harder to grow in that area," or "I wish I was better at that.." .... seriously? If someone shows you your face in the mirror and you go away and forget what you look like... that's lame. Pathetic more like. And if your discussion with your friend has made you see yourself in a new way and you know you've got to fix something... and then don't...? 

So, to be different this year... to be INTENTIONAL... I've actually written some things down. (What!?) I don't think I'll know I won't do these perfectly.. but that's where Jesus' has grace upon grace upon grace. 


 I feel like they might be a little cheesy.. but that's okay. I'm rather a sappy kind of person any how.
Obviously, this isn't a complete list. I'd rather love to grow in my honesty and integrity and maturity. I'd like to rid myself of sarcastically putting others down, no matter how funny people might find it. I want to always be a blessing to my brothers and sisters in Christ. I want to be above reproach and for my actions or reactions not to raise concerns to others. 

Basically, I don't want to be a red flag. I don't want to be a problem or a concern or a stress factor in someone else's life. And to be honest, I'd say this year takes the cake for most times my existence has been an upsetting point for others. Perhaps this year I was the most selfish. Selfishness is no good, of course. I am nothing apart from serving and loving others. 

Obviously the best way to know where to grow is by looking at where you've been. It's been quite the year for people catching my flaws and telling me about them. Repeatedly. It doesn't feel very good, of course, but Jesus obviously has a reason why things are brought to our attentions no matter how painful they might be. I don't think He quite intended that when He gave us our iron for sharpening other people's irons that we would use the irons to poke each other in the heart... but the Lord can heal the trusted wounds from our friends and teach us what we aught to have learned from it. 

I'm a slow learner. And a not learner. I'm not sure what "learn" means exactly.. but if it implies that you change your behavior after experiencing an unpleasant consequence... than I don't think I learn very well at all. I definitely experience deja vu when I find myself in a situation.. again.. but I can't say that I learned it well enough the first or second or 9th time to claim I learned not to repeat my mistakes. 

Perhaps I should goal to be more teachable and learn quicker. Mostly, I just want to have a surrendered heart to God's correction. As much as I hate the taste of humble pie or having to say, "I was wrong,"I'm rather thankful the Lord thinks I'm worth the effort. I'm too quick to give up on people and guard my heart by walling them out of my life, but Jesus is more vulnerable and forgiving than I. 

I guess ultimately, I just want to be more like Jesus. Everything in my heart wants to have the same characteristics and kindness. I want to be loving and selfless and brave against insult. I want to love those who hate me and sacrifice for those who crucify my feelings. 

I want to be a woman of wisdom, always drawing from The Word and growing the fruit of the spirit in my heart. Those are my goals. Those are my hopes and my dreams. And if this year be my last, I hope I step into to heaven and the Lord says, "well done, good and faithful servant." 

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Again and Again and Again


The LORD does interesting things to get our attention. Creativity is one of His beautiful qualities. He’s also funny. For real, no one tickles my heart quite so much as my Heavenly Father.

I cannot deny that I briefly doubted God’s plan when I was first plopped where I was plopped. Having been very involved in ministry and constantly poured into and constantly pouring out, with my faith always challenged and my straight up NEED for the Lord’s presence always being in my life, I was quite skeptical of where I landed.

Too blessed to know what to do. Which, I shouldn’t complain about, of course. I all the sudden had no more bills to pay, no rent moneys to eke out, no groceries to buy and no gas to ration. Trying to stretch 3 meals instead of two out of a 68cent can of black beans was no longer my worry. Getting enough hours of work to make rent for the month was no longer on my mind. Drinking extra coffee in the morning to curb any hunger pangs before work because I’d run out of eggs for breakfast was no longer necessary. I had my own room with my own big bed..so big I still keep to the far edge of the bed.. not really knowing what to do with the extra space.

Blessed as I was with my humans and church and freedom and independence, I’d quite forgotten the stress of making ends meet in my time of absolute provision. I can do MULTIPLE loads of laundry in one week if I need to, and not have to spread my clothes all over the floor in my bedroom to dry, just to save quarters on drying (since it wont actually get dry anyways). 

Canned corn was on sale for 39cents at the grocery store yesterday. I was reminded of my current state of blessing as my mom suggested I start working on stocking my future cupboards as my time of care-free existence is wrapping itself up for Christmas.

I do look forward to returning to the independent life. But I cannot deny that I have very much enjoyed all the many nights of sleep I have gotten over the last few months as I had no worries to keep me up.

I have been blessed to learn new skills while being out here too! After 5 months, I can drive a stick-shift, mend fence, put a halter on a cow, carry a 50lb bag of feed across the farm without stumbling, skillfully use an impact driver without destroying the screw head, administer antibiotics to sick calves, dig potatoes without halving them with the shovel, and many valuable office skills picked up from having been freely offered a part time job as secretary.

I felt so displaced, though. Because I all the sudden had SO much and not much opportunity to serve or pour out as I was used to. I was most used to relying so much on the Lord to provide that as I had everything so handed to me, I didn’t feel as challenged to seek him for help as much. Besides, I wasn’t in any Bible study or fellowship that would challenge me to get in The Word either.

Except I had friends. Friends who loved Jesus and lived far away. But they were on the other side of a social media screen and they would send verses and worship songs and share what the Lord was doing in their own lives. I would get clips of Mennonite hymn sings and comments on what one had heard in church that day.

Friends, one of the very best blessings you can EVER give to anybody is to abide in Christ. Because as you do that, you grow the fruit of the Spirit in your life and all those around you get to taste and see that the Lord is good. And my friends did just that. I was most loved to have them pouring into my heart from far away.

Funny, though, the Lord didn’t have my attention as much as He should have. As much as I appreciated my friends constantly telling me to “Look! God is still working in your life. You need let the Lord do His thing.” Yes, of course. The Lord will do His thing whether my heart is cooperative about it. So, as if I had imagined the Lord was busy doing big important things else where and keeping tabs on me from a distance, I fell into a comfortable rhythm of not reading my Bible as often…and by “not as often” I mean: rarely. I wrote in my quiet time journal even less than that and I considered His hand in my life barely present.

Besides disliking my great ability to lack patience when it came to instructing my younger siblings in being diligent and thorough in the chores I had assigned them, I didn’t much notice how my lack of pursuing the Lord might affect anyone but myself.

Selfish. I mean, I’ve probably always been selfish. The Lord has graciously given me the awareness of other humans since I have come to be in a relationship with him. But I am still naturally selfish and if I’m not abiding in Christ, its worse than ever.
Withdrawn, also. Withdrawn and selfish would be a fair assessment of my heart as of late.

I have a few humans that have made my heart to feel so valued and loved in the past months and I have quite come to a point where I only want to share my heart with those few. Which is selfish, obviously, since there have been many other humans who have shared their hearts with me. Who would like, still, to share their hearts with me.

More than that, the creator of the WHOLE UNIVERSE wants to share His heart with me and wants me to share my heart with Him. I tend to retract a little bit when I feel that it was someone’s specific fault when I’ve gotten hurt. And since it was God who directed my steps to being where I was, obviously it was His whole fault and my very best defense was to avoid Him a bit until I got over it.

Hahaha…. Perhaps I’m the funny one. I’d like to tell you I’ve tried that trick before and learnt it didn’t work and, being the clever girl that I am, know quite better than to repeat such a silly notion. Ha. Hahaha.. I’m sure the Lord is quite entertained by me. Perhaps He loves so much to be funny because He finds us funny more often than not. “You make me laugh, Dear Child. Now it is my turn. I can play your game just as well.”

“If you, Dear Child, should like so much to be selfish like you are, I shall work it out just right so some epic mess comes of nothing in particular. And it shall be worse than Hamster Huey and the Gooey Ka-Blewy”

I chuckle. Well, I didn’t at first, of course. I usually greet all stresses and conflicts with tears and panic. But that’s usually because I’m so darn selfish I fail to see that God is moving things around to keep things interesting. To re-gain my attention. To get me to surrender more of my heart. To be the hero in my life and show up and say, “Do you need me now?”  And when I step back and realize that My Love is simply fighting for my heart, AGAIN.. STILL, ALWAYS… I can only feel loved.

“Let’s try this again, My Precious. Keep your eyes on me and do not doubt. Don’t look at the waves and the winds and the storm around you. Do not panic, do not worry. The Lake doesn’t have to be frozen for you to walk on top of it.”

The Lord is such a gallant hero. He has captured my heart yet again. There is no blessing so great as a trial that causes you to fix your eyes fully on the face of the one who loves you so well that there aren’t even words to describe it.  Should we with ink the ocean fill and were the sky of parchment made. If every stone on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade. To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry and nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.

I know not any artist who can make a disaster so beautiful. I know of no human who can communicate love by allowing brokenness. I cannot even comprehend all the tiniest details that go into making conflict a gift of healing. But I am so very thankful for it and look forward to all the many beautiful disasters the Lord should like to show me. However, I hope that my adventures would come more from my eyes constantly being fixed on Him and not out of The Lord’s need to catch my attentions yet again.

I would like to say I learned my lesson, but I think if there is anything I’ve learned is that I cannot learn. The Lord somehow loves pursuing me so much that he designed my heart to learn some lessons better than others. But He shall chase after me my whole life. Sometimes we will walk hand in hand, sometimes He will carry me. Sometimes I’ll let go and He’ll stay close at hand, but always He will be there. And He’ll do all it takes to remind me where He is and how much He should like to love my heart. And I shall fall madly in love with Him again and again and again. 

Friday, December 5, 2014

This is a Nothing Blog about Nothing


I'm honestly shocked that it's December already. November went by the quickest. Since finishing my driving for Dad, it's as if time was sucked out of the window. Some friends visited me the weekend directly following my wrap up and it was SUCH a delightful time. 

I've been spending time filling in as the secretary in Dad's office since I've finished driving and I honestly love it! Answering the phones, directing people who come in with questions. Completing small office'y tasks. It's wonderful. 

I did get sick, though. Really really sick. I don't remember ever being so sick.  A rough bout of influenza had me running a temp of 102 -103F five days in a row, as well as a nasty cough that made my diaphragm so sore I thought I'd never take a full breath in my life again. That and my lungs seemed to stop working when ever I laid down to sleep.. so I stopped laying down to sleep and spent many nights sitting up wondering when dawn would get there. Turns out I basically had pneumonia. Which would explain why I was coughing up blood with everything else.. I thought I'd just managed to rip a lung from coughing so much. It was really rather awful, altogether. 

But! I survived. With strong medicines and much bed rest, I am now breathing, sleeping, and life'ing again. And to my delight, my cousin, Cara came up from Florida and I my precious breaths of air were spent laughing every day. The week of Thanksgiving was GLORIOUS. As slowly and surely, everyone came home. All ten siblings reunited and friends came out of the woodwork as well. 

It was absolutely beautiful to have be greeted by health and good times all at once. My love tank was filled up as we cuddled and life'd and laughed and interacted. To finish off such a glorious week, I was absolutely blessed to returned to the land of Kalona for one of those precious hymn sings. A sweet morsel of heaven that I have missed ever so much.  

-----

Beyond the little its and bits of my life, The Lord is doing great and wonderful things in my heart. I hate to admit of how slow I am at adapting to change and how much muscles it takes from our Heavenly Father to work and shape my heart, but it's true. My heart, though soft and sensitive, its not so easily squished into a whole new mold in one easy peasy trial. Which, I hope is good, because I don't intend to be easily influenced by the world. But the Lord has been chipping away at the hardened edges of my heart, and though painful at times, I am very incredibly blessed and thankful for all that He does. 

I've learned that, as much as I love humans, and as much as the Lord made my heart to feel loved in the presence of humans, my heart still beats and functions just fine without them. The Lord, alone, loves me to the bottom of my heart. And that makes me so very happy. 

----

I have had a lot of things on my heart lately. A lot of thoughts being processed in the deepest places of my heart. But they are not ripe now... or maybe the are. I have come to realize, that while I don't mind being transparent and honest and very open with my heart and my thoughts, I am very sensitive to how people perceive me as a result. I, for the most part, try very hard to remember my identity in Christ and not consider the discouraging words of humans to have any sway or influence on my heart. But it's something I'm still growing in and figuring out. (sorry to end my sentence with a preposition there..)

I will have some deep worth-the-time-it-takes-to-read (hopefully) thoughts for you soon. But in the meanwhile, you can rest assured that this blog has not died yet. :)