Starting to Count Again

When I'm overwhelmed.

When I want to hide.

Can't I be the ostrich with its head in the sand?

When I struggle to pray.

When I struggle to do.  Anything.

When the loudest voices shout:

"What are you whining about? You have an easy life! What's wrong with you? You're just lazy. You have no excuse. You're worthless at everything you're doing."

I KNOW I need to fight...but I have no fight in me.

I KNOW I'm not alone...but I FEEL alone.

I KNOW the truth...but the lies are louder.

I can't pray. I can't fight.

But I can count.

1-rain

2-sunlight

3-two pump cafe mochas

4-colored pens and paper

5-...

Genesis 1 Around Me

By grace (because there is no other explanation) I opened my eyes this year.  The ever present iphone, Instagram, and photo a day challenges prodded me to document life around me (or take an obnoxious number of pictures depending on how you look at it.)  While sort, deleting, and filing the year’s photos it dawned on me that in 2013 I walked through the goodness of Genesis 1 in unbelievable ways. I’m awestruck by all that God allowed me to witness.  I am grateful, humbled and overwhelmed all at the same time. I feel like I literally experienced “the heavens declaring the glory of God” in a way I never have before.

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 

 

I soaked in the sound of ocean waves.  I waded every chance I got.  My eyes ached at beauty I could hardly believe I was seeing.

Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

 

Even on my most oblivious days or when I’m buried in technology, I’ll notice mountains or the ocean.  I often overlook the little things. The astonishing assortment that sprouts, grows and blooms on the earth illustrates the limitless creativity of our God.

And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 

I saw sunrises and sunsets (well, mostly sunsets) in the desert, the mountains, the city, the hill country and on the beach.  Some of the most spectacular were from a parking lot when I simply stopped and looked up.

Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

Occasionally, I took my Bible and journal outside only to be distracted by the variety of bird songs.  What a different impact than the distraction brought by the chime on my cell phone!  Other unbelievable moments: seeing crabs scamper out of rocks and almost tripping over a monk seal, both highly unusual for this Texas girl. Even ordinary chickens are amusing when wandering through my front yard or down a sidewalk.

Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.”  And God saw that it was good. 

Man, created in the image of God, also creates. This year I delighted in my personal favorites of God’s human creations and the skill, creativity, ingenuity of mankind.  Evidently, I’m especially fascinated by bridges.  Who knew!

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind…And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image … So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 

 It was a good, good year.  I'm so incredibly grateful.

Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.

Give thanks in all circumstances.

“Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  I Thess. 5:16-18

In college I learned (or thought I learned) the lesson of giving thanks for all things.  Not just good things, not just things I like, not just blessings, not just pleasant things, but ALL things.  Catherine Marshall's book, Something More, was essential to my ‘education’ as was Corrie Ten Boom, especially her story of being thankful even for the fleas in the barracks that made their lives miserable.

College was 25 years ago, yet I sit today struggling with being thankful for children picking on each other, family Bible lessons imploding and ending with a child in tears, days gone haywire, lessons forgotten or misplaced.  If I can’t manage being thankful for irritations or inconveniences, what in the world would I do with true trials and tribulations?

I am tempted when giving thanks for hard things to qualify.  “Thank you, Lord, for my 6 weeks of itching because it has caused me to cry out to you in a new way.”  That may be true and that may be part of the blessing, but giving thanks in that manner is limiting because I cannot always see the blessing at the time.  I cannot always see God’s goodness in the moment, yet I am called to give thanks anyway.

In America, we highlight and promote giving thanks in the month of November.  We remind each other to look for the blessings around us, the blessings we tend to take for granted.  I’m going to try to stretch myself and express thanks to God for the things I normally would beg and plead for Him to fix.  I will still ask for help, healing and hope.  But I will thank Him first.

Thank you, Lord, that my husband is working in San Antonio and we are living in Dallas. 

Thank you, Lord, for marital miscommunication that makes me cry.

Thank you, Lord, for the failure and heartache in my children’s lives that I can’t fix.

Thank you, Lord, for unexplained itching, thyroid dysfunction and panic attacks.

If God is good, He is good all the time.  If I really believe,  I will give thanks for ALL things, ALL the time.

PS  Throughout this year I have been challenged and encouraged on the subject of gratitude by

Ann Voskamp, author of One Thousand Gifts  Sometimes the most simple things are the most profound.

Wrestling

It had been a long day, starting at 7 am moving my oldest son to college. By 11pm, after a trip to the airport, scouts with the kids and a good cry, I was wiped out. Then the panic attack hit.
Intellectually, I knew that I was exhausted, over-caffeinated and just generally stressed out. I needed to sleep, but as always my overwhelming feeling was "I need someone here. I can't do this alone."
But that's exactly what the Lord asked of me – to do it alone, depending only on Jesus. The day before, I prayed that being alone would be an opportunity to "yield Him my all, and to find all in Him." How differently that looks at midnight, by myself, fighting panic symptoms.
I felt like Jacob wrestling with the angel and scrambled through Genesis to find the reference. "Oh Lord, please don't require me to wrestle until daybreak!! I don't think I can!" I plead with God. I breathe. I finally kneel on my bathroom floor singing with a cappella hymns playing on the CD player. Crying while defiantly singing hymns of praise – defying how I feel at the moment to proclaim truth. Pleading with "Love that will not let me go" and "Breathe on me breath of God." Begging that God would draw nearer to me, that I could feel His presence.
Graciously, the Lord does not require a battle until dawn. Somewhere near 1 a.m. I lie in my bed listening to strains of "I surrender all." Lord, I surrender all! Even whatever I don't know I have left to surrender, I surrender! And I sleep.
Morning finds me weary, worn, grateful. I hate and dread the battles. But I will admit that every battle leaves me a little stronger, a little less intimated by this embarrassing issue of anxiety. And maybe a little more confident that when the Lord said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you," He really meant it.