Come To Me

He began pursuing me quietly last spring.

Some family members sat across from me in the living room while my Little Love happily played on the floor between us.  They asked me what I was doing to find rest.  I responded about how I had begun reading for fun on Sundays during naptime.*  That was something, right?  I moved on.

A week or two later, during the first week of the spring session of the mother’s group at Crossroads the question we were to discuss was “How do you seek rest?”  The women around me spoke up and I sat quietly fumbling for anything to say.  I muttered something about the new planner I had purchased and trying to have a plan each day.  It is true that this was helping me to accomplish more, but truly I was treading water and I didn’t even know it.  I moved on.

As summer arrived, life changed as Jason began traveling regularly for the first time in over a year.  Life seemed to be moving along, but as it did exhaustion was beginning to surface alongside two companions, anger and impatience.  These were directed inwardly and toward my poor husband who deserved none of it.  At one point I found myself reading a bunch of Kevin Leman books, one about stress.  It was like he knew what was going on, but I was still in a place of thinking I could handle everything on my plate.  Of course I could.  I moved on.

The schedule on my calendar in August was relentless.   Jason traveling.  Commitments in the evenings.  Home projects.  Food to make for more than just our family.  No breaks.  But something had to break.  It turned out it was me.

I found myself crying in the arms of my husband’s arms, him asking what was wrong.  After weathering the first two weeks, I looked at the rest of the month unable to figure out how I would survive the rest.  He asked what he could do.  I wasn’t sure.

I was reading my Bible trying to hold on.  I was spending time with our family on the weekends, with my girlie at other times.  I wasn’t spending much time with just my husband.  I really didn’t have any time for me, except in the shower at the end of the day.   It was all too much.  Jason listened telling me that he had been trying to tell me this for months.  I know he had.  Finally, I knew.  I couldn’t keep going like this. 

The crazy thing is that some place in me I felt like I should be able to do this without a break.  The truth is the only one who is supposed to be able to do everything is God.  I am not God…though sometimes I try to be in my desire to control the circumstances around me (mostly without realizing it).  The crazy thing is that while I was trying to read God’s Word and connect with Him I seemed to be unaware of the way He was speaking to me in the midst of my circumstances all along.  While I felt like time spent in His word was dry; He was trying to breathe life into my life if I just had eyes to see and would be courageous enough to trust him and give him control.

He was calling out:

"Come to me, [you] are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." -Matthew 11:28-30

I needed space to rest.   I needed to find a way to be me again.

So it began.  Jason stayed with our Little Love while I ran some errands.  Although I had no pressing commitments, I was rushing the whole time.  I discovered how inwardly rushed I had become.  It turns out it is a lot easier to get into a rut than to find the way out.  I have embarked on the journey though.  I am working on asking for help from family.  I am also working on finding people to trust my Little Love with when family is not free.  I am doing all this very imperfectly, but as I have been taking small steps forward I have found that I have a bit more energy to do what I knew that I could. 

That seems so very backwards, yet it is true.  When we rest we have the energy to work, to create, to respond.

I am learning to rest again.  I am learning to follow those little nudges of the Holy Spirit again that lead to peace and life and love and rest so that I can rise to whatever the calendar brings and then some.   As I do better, I hope you will find me typing away and sharing the beautiful journey of becoming with you.**

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we pursue Jesus’ promise that when we come to Him we will find rest.  May His rest reach into the deepest parts of who we are and breathe His life into us spilling forth His radiant love.

Jessica :)

*I read often, nursing has been great for that, but it had been months since I had read any fiction for fun.   I tend to devour it and nonfiction is much easier to put down for chores.

**While I hope this means I will be able to post more regularly, I plan to rest as needed.  So if you find yourself enjoying this space on A Becoming Life and not knowing when to expect a post, perhaps you might consider joining the email list to get the next post in your email whether it is one week or a month or a few months!

To Comfort All Who Mourn

It was about this time last year when I found myself trying to control the tears that just kept coming.  I had just been lost by my husband, somewhere around the bath cabinets & sinks room, at IKEA.  He must have darted down one of the many short cuts.  I was walking a bit slower and missed seeing which way he went to pursue the cabinet we had come to purchase for our new apartment. 

At that moment, something in me snapped.  The emotions began to force their way out and all I could do was duck down a row near the drying racks and hope no one saw me.  The tears came out in ugly heaving sobs and I just kept cycling a few words in my head, trying to calm myself.  Breathe.  Just breathe.  

I intentionally took breaths through my mouth, long and slow.  However, it still took me a few minutes to get myself somewhat composed.  When I felt like I could make my way to the warehouse space, full of flat boxes and palettes, without bursting into another round of tears,  I stepped out from behind the drying racks to head on my way.

Immediately, a young couple, who must have seen my emotional collapse asked, “Are you okay?”

I responded, my voice wavering, “I will be fine.”  It was as though I was willing it to be so.

Their kindness warmed my heart, but almost set the tears flowing again.  I was not fine, but hopefully I would be, maybe after I had a chance to process what had just happened.  I had never burst into tears before in public, at least not since I was a child. 

I rushed on, repeating in my head, breathe.  Just breathe.

I made my way through lighting and textiles.  As I found my way to the outdoors area, I found Jason walking back to find me.  I was agitated and I’m afraid I was not very kind to him. 

He was kind, though.  He tried to help me process what had just happened.  I couldn’t figure it out.

It wasn’t until a short time later, when I was a weepy mess over the grocery list and our menu for the week that something began to be clear. 

This was really that.

The pressures of each of these moments were doorways to the inward grief I was feeling.  The tears were outlets for the grief I was feeling about our move away from our home and life as we knew it in Utah.  The tears were for the changes I was experiencing since our move back to Ohio too.  I did not know where I fit in life anymore.

It is not unusual to grieve when change comes, whether a big change or a small one.  In fact, it is a good thing. 

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4 NIV).

I was experiencing a big change; and in the midst of it, I was mourning.

Trustworthy were His words.  Comfort came.  It didn’t come all at once, but slowly, over time. 

I began to see that Jesus knew the truth of these words because He would bring the comfort.  He is as Paul says, the “God of all comfort” and “our comfort abounds in Christ.” 

It was as I was reading Jesus' words to His disciples that I began to understand this again.    

It was almost like He was speaking to me:  “Jessica, do not let your heart be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.  My Father’s house has many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you I am going there to prepare a place for you, Jessica?”

In that moment, I began to take comfort in Him.  He knew I was troubled.  I did not know where I fit, but He did.  If I would trust Him, He would show me.  I could grieve.  I could wonder.  I could wrestle.  I could cry.  He would provide comfort. 

As I recognized this, I began to settle into my new home.  I began to embrace my role as homemaker and focus on the relationships and opportunities before me.  New patterns of life for a new place emerged.  

I discovered comfort was found in a person, just as Scripture said it would be, Jesus Christ.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me […] to comfort all who mourn” (Isaiah 61:1-2).

This year, I look toward the smaller changes the fall is bringing with it. 

Mostly, I am looking forward to the changes--excited; though, I know a bit of mourning will happen along the way. 

Yet, I’m not alone.  My mourning will be met with comfort, because the God of comfort goes with me, every step of the way.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we mourn.  May we discover for the first time or the hundredth that Jesus meets our mourning with comfort when we turn toward Him.  May we find peace in moving where He leads.

Jessica :)

P.S.  Thank you to my husband who let me use his photo from Orchard Beach State Park in Michigan.

A Human Family Reunion

William Ury sits perched on the edge of his seat.

As he talks with one of the Summit facilitators, I listen closely to what he has to say.  I can’t help it.  His energy and passion for conflict resolution is so engaging.  He calls the point we are at in history “the moment of the human family reunion” and describes how we must learn to live with one another. 

Ury talks about his role in major negotiations for peace around the world; and I can tell he loves his work.  He tells a story about how he chose not to react to a frustrated Hugo Chavez who was yelling in his face for thirty minutes, in the midst of negotiations with his opponents, just prior to Christmas in 2002.  There was only so long Chavez could carry on his rant; and once he reached the end of it, he was quiet and then asked Ury what he should do.  I am rather impressed at the calm he describes. 

He offers the idea that the biggest obstacle in conflict is me.  I think about it.  Isn’t it when I am being stubborn or focusing on my own injured feelings or just plain angry that I can’t begin to think about having an adult conversation in the midst of conflict?  Ury invites us to “go to the balcony”— to get some perspective and separate from the problem.  Yes.  I’ve practiced this a few times and it always goes better than those times I just can’t seem to choose it. 

As Ury talks, I file away these nuggets to remember the next time my feelings are injured or my husband comes to me with a problem we need to work out. 

We near the end of his allotted speaking time when the facilitator asks about Israel and Palestine.  He wonders if there can ever be peace between these peoples, asking Ury for some perspective.  He says something profound that I have been pondering ever since:

“Some conflicts are so difficult they can only be healed by a story.”

Could it be as simple a solution as that? 

The part of me that knows the way my own faith has deepened because of training in God’s story relaxes into this idea.  This makes perfect sense to me. 

When we believe a story we live it.

I know what it is to train in a story, to believe something more fully—to go from head knowledge to practiced knowledge of the heart. 

As I trained in God’s story this spring, I came to a better understanding that God wants us to trust Him.  A healthy relationship is built on trust; and choice is the laboratory for trust.  When a choice is made, trust is either kept or broken.  In the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil was the vehicle around which trust would develop.  Adam and Eve were invited by their Creator to trust him and choose loving obedience and relationship by not eating from it.  When man chose not to trust we were separated from God; and our relationship with Him was broken.

Yet, it is through a shared story with man, God redeems us and restores our relationship to Him. 

Sandra L. Richter describes the story succinctly,

“In Eden all humanity was welcomed into relationship with God, with the Fall, that relationship was broken.  With Noah, one man and his immediate family reenter God’s plan.  With Abraham, an extended family that eventually becomes a tribal confederacy is welcomed home.  With Moses, an entire nation experiences the grace of God.  Finally with Jesus, as in Eden, every son of Adam and daughter of Eve is offered the opportunity for relationship with their Creator” (Epic of Eden, p.133).

 

For me, understanding this idea of trust led to practical applications in one of my family relationships.  I realized that in order for there to be a real relationship with this person, they would need the opportunity to choose it.  This meant having some conversations about boundaries with others in my family to allow for the possibility.  It also meant doing something that was hard to do, for the possibility of something better. 

Believing God’s story changed me.  It continues to change me.  Because of this, I suppose, I shouldn’t be surprised that story might change others too.

Ury describes the tradition of hospitality and kindness to one another that is rooted in a common ancestor for Israelis and Palestinians—Abraham.  He talks of a need to build a new story that is rooted in an old one.

It makes me wonder. 

Is it possible to begin weaving our lives together from a common place—like a shared ancestor, Abraham—and find reconciliation by creating something new together that honors both the Israelis and Palestinians?

Could it be possible that it is through being shaped by God’s story, which we all share, that we will find reconciliation? 

Paul wrote a letter to the Galatians saying, “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:26-29

Is it possible that by finding our identity as God’s children we will care about the well being of our brothers and sisters and seek peace with them? 

Is that the kind of story powerful enough to bring people together?

I think so.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we experience the reconciliation that comes through God’s story.  As we train in His story may we be changed by it in ways that leave us ever speaking of His goodness.  May we be the kind of people who allow God to work in us to pursue reconciliation in our own broken relationships.  May we share of the availability of His reconciliation for all.

Jessica :)

New Life Bursting Forth

On Thursdays I have been sharing a little bit about what I have been learning as I read through 1 John.

1 John is a letter written to the believers in Asia Minor.  John has been giving examples of what a believer who walks with God looks like.  He has been contrasting these believers with those who say that they walk with God, but whose actions and beliefs do not support their claims.  He calls these people liars and says they walk in darkness.  John wants the believers to be able to recognize the difference between that which is true and that which is false.  He pauses in this endeavor to encourage the believers he is writing to by reminding them of the joy, the power, and the faithfulness they have received from Christ.

Up to this point in 1 John I have been writing about a paragraph at a time.  For the next three weeks, rather than one really long post, I am going to explore one verse at a time.  I put all three here so that you can read the verse in context. 

“Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If you love the world, love for the Father is not in you.  For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful people, the lust of their eyes and their boasting about what they have and do—comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”  1 John 2:15-17 TNIV

 

In this section, John resumes his use of contrasting language.

“Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If you love the world, love for the Father is not in you.”

When I read verse 15, I pause, because it seems like the language is rather strong.

Love the world or anything in the world?  What is so wrong with that?

I love the beauty of the created world.  Something about mountains and lakes and canyons and wildflowers just fills me with such joy and awe.  I love it.  I love sitting beside friends and laughing with them.  I love hearing them tell a good story.  I love watching the way they grow and change.  I love them.  I love curling up with a good book.  I love getting caught up in a story or following the fresh ideas that inspire me to think or change.  I love these things and consider them gifts from a good God.  Am I wrong for loving them?

I admit there are also things in the world that I definitely do not love.  I do not love the political stand-offs that it seems like I hear about all the time on the radio.  I do not love watching the ways we pillage the earth in seemingly unsustainable ways.  I do not love the physical and spiritual poverty that I see all over the world.  I do not love the brokenness of this place.

So what is John trying to say?  Is he trying to say all of these things are bad?  Or is there something I am missing?

These questions lead me to explore the Greek words.

It is not a surprise to find the word for love here is agapaō (verb) in the first instance, agapē (noun) in the second.  This is the word that is used in the New Testament "to describe the attitude of God towards his Son, the human race, and those who believe in Christ."  This love is the kind that seeks the welfare of all.  It works no ill to any and seeks opportunity to do good (VINES Expository Dictionary).

The word that is really helpful is the word for world.  It is kosmos.  There are a number of different definitions for the word.  The one that makes the most sense for the context here is “the present condition of human affairs in alienation and opposition to God” (VINES Expository Dictionary).

It seems to me this definition captures the contrasting language that John has been using throughout the letter.  It is also helpful for understanding what John is trying to say.

It isn’t wrong to care for the beautiful gifts from God in this world.  It is the fallen condition of the world that I should not love.  It is the things that draw me away from love for God that I should not love.  It is the things that stand opposed to Him that I should not care for.  It is when I love these things that love for the Father is not in me.

I think The Message translates this idea well: “Love of the world squeezes out love for God.”

I don’t ever want to become numb to the brokenness of the world.  I don’t want to love the brokenness.  I don’t want to seek opportunity for its good. 

When I first read this verse I really think I don’t love the world.  I don’t love the brokenness.  I think it is an honest thought at the moment.  On some level, I believe this is true.  Yet, the more I reflect, I realize that this is not always true of me.  At least some of my actions suggest that I do love the world.  I hear of things like the wildfires in the west and the shooting in Aurora, CO and I find that I’m not as upset as I should be.  I read the headlines on the gossip magazines as I wait in line at the store, too often, and find myself greedily eating up the tragedy in the lives of the famous on the covers.  Too often, I choose to catch up on the television show I enjoy over spending time reading and talking, for just a few minutes in God’s Word, with my husband.  These sorts of things are not true all the time, nor even most of the time, but enough to make me see it is easy for the love of the world to squeeze out love for God.  And this is not even an exhaustive list! 

Truly, love for both the world and God cannot coexist.  We love one at a time—either God or the world.

What I really want is to let my love for the Father to give me the proper lens to understand and respond to the brokenness.  I want to respond to Him.  I want to love like Him in the midst of a broken place.  I want to bring His grace and peace into places that really need them. 

Instead of the love of the world that squeezes out the love for God, I want the love of God which fills up and pours out on the brokenness of the world.  Because truly that is what a broken world needs.  It needs the water that pours out over the cracked cement and causes new life to burst forth in the midst of brokenness, bearing hope. 

He can do that in me.  He can do that in us.

Let’s leave behind the love of the world.  Let’s respond to the love of God. 

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we choose to love God, leaving love for the world behind.  May we discover that in God’s love we better serve a broken world than we do by loving the brokenness in it.  May we live joyously allowing God to fill us up and pour out of us causing new life to burst forth from brokenness.

Jessica :)

P.S.  A link to VINE's Expository Dictionary online is here if you would like to look up the words for yourself.