Farewell....for now.

As I look back over the past year--and all the pain and heartache, interwoven with joy and numerous blessings, that came with it--I cannot pretend to understand this story God has been weaving in my life. There are so many things that don't make sense to me...and yet I know that God continues to reap blossoms of growth and new life from my bleeding heart.

After all this past year has held, I would be lying if I said I am free of apprehension as I look toward 2012. However, I know that nothing--neither life nor death, sickness nor the best of health, neither friendship nor relationships lost, poverty nor a bounty of blessings--NOTHING can move me from the hand of God. It is in this confidence that I move into 2012.

I have been asking God what He has for me this next year, and although He has not given me the road map of 2012 {I'd rather Him keep it anyway}, I have heard His still, small voice stirring in the deep places of my heart:

Be still and know that I am God.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I ask, "God, what do you want from me in the next 12 months?"

He says, I want you to listen.

This world needs more people who are willing to listen to the heart of God. And although I am no master of this discipline (I am rather quite the novice), I want so desperately to hear. It is for this reason I am taking a year off from blogging. No, this is not a New Year's resolution...this is the result of much prayer and will be a daily choice to spend in different ways the time God so graciously gives me.

I don't know that I ever would choose to leave this writing place for any lesser task or calling, and I do sincerely believe that I will be back...for surely it was God who gave me this love of writing! I will most certainly miss this empty screen filling with my heart, although I want you to know that I will look forward to keeping up, periodically, with the writing and lives of those of you whose words have touched my life.

Please take the time today to reflect upon all that God has done for you in the past year...and how He might lead you in 2012.

Much love, friends, and Happy New Year!

People-Pleasing 101

First, take inventory of all the people in your life that you want to please.

Then spend hours and hours trying to figure out how you can make them like you better.

Above all else, make sure you NEVER make a mistake...and if you do, do not, I said do NOT let anyone else know that you messed up.

If someone criticizes you or points out a fault, wallow in self-pity for days and days and let that criticism inform your view of yourself.

Spend time with people who like you and avoid people who are less drawn to your people-pleasing tactics.

Remember, who you are is what others say you are.

If you follow these principles, you will be well on your way to pleasing all the people in your life.

Yikes. All that may sound crazy, but I'm sure I have done each of those things at least once in my life. For so many years my opinion of myself was directly related to what others thought of me or how I perceived others to think of me. I am still prone to this type of thinking at times, but I do pray that God continues to strip me of my people-pleasing tendencies. I heard a quote on the radio today that made me stop in my tracks: "It is wrong to give anyone the power to make us through their affirmation or break us through their rejection."

I don't know how many times I have allowed myself to be broken through the rejection or criticism of others, even if it was administered with all the love in the world. Rather than taking the comments before God and asking Him how He wants to change me, I simply turn in on myself in self-pity. I want to be so confident in my identity as a beloved child of God that no human being has the power to make me through their affirmation or break me through their rejection.

I must say, though, this people-pleasing girl is most definitely a work in progress.

I'm in the desert...

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...and it's hot here. Vast. Expansive. And waterless.

I'm thirsty, and I have a water bottle sitting right next to me...full. But I can't open it. I'm too tired; my brain is too fuzzy to understand how to twist, twist, twist the cap until it slides off.

So I just sit, waiting for the desert to go away.
******
Do you ever feel that way? Like you are in a spiritual desert, like the water you need so desperately is sitting right at your fingertips, but you physically and emotionally CANNOT bring it to your lips? I do.

I've learned that the desert is a season {often a long one}, and that God will sometimes lead us there Himself. Because it's only when I'm thirsty, tired, delirious, and at the end of myself that I will start crying. I'll hand Him the water bottle and let Him open it. After resisting for so long, I'll finally let Him scoop me up and cradle me in His arms. And for once, I will be His little girl, not the I've-got-this-thank-you Queen.

We don't like to admit when we are out of water.

But I am.

I'm weary from a long season of pain and heartache that I am just beginning to crawl out of. With the change of color on the trees all around me, and with the gloriously healing changes going on right now in my life, I am reminded on a daily basis that my God makes all things new. Tonight, as I fall limp into His arms, as I guzzle down the crisp water He offers, I will choose rest.

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt" (Hosea 2:14-15).

Believing relentlessly

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After sharing with you what God has laid on my heart regarding foster care, I also have to share with you that my first instinct as I start to look down that road is to start making lists of everything I need to read and research, everything I need to DO. If only it were that easy. And while all that is not necessarily bad, God is revealing to me that it should never be first.

I have been reading through the book Relentless Hope, by Beth Guckenberger, and last night I had a chance to finish it over a cup of coffee. I had such a sweet time of prayer and reflection, and I really felt like God taught me a lot in the hour that I spent sitting outside in the dark with Him.

God has begun to give me a vision for the ministry He has laid on my heart, speaking to me through His Word and some of Beth's writing. Beth writes the following in Relentless Hope:
"Relentless hope has a fierceness about it, but it shouldn't be mistaken for ruthlessness or inconsiderateness. The fierceness represents the seriousness with which we face our opposition in this world. It's a fierce way of praying, a fierce way we stare down the lion circling the prey, or a fierce entrance into a fiery furnace. A kind of standing-your-ground that refreshingly isn't dependent on the latest polls, the opinions of others, or even a track record. It is instead a fierce hope in the One who has already accomplished all that is needed to bring peace and grace into a chaotic world and a confidence we are on the right team."

Friends, I am not a parent. I have certainly watched a lot of parents raise their children. I have cared for a lot of children. But I myself have never parented. It is easy to become overwhelmed with the thought of jumping into the parenting journey with children from "hard places," but God began to whisper to my heart last night that I need to grow in my confidence that I am on the right team...His team. And more important than any "correct parenting style", I need to be willing to fight for these precious kids with a relentless hope...to believe against all odds that they can find healing and peace in the midst of their chaotic worlds through Christ Jesus alone.

Beth interviewed a man facing considerable grief over many different losses, and he shared the following with her, recounted in her book: "The most helpful people to me are those who are willing to count the cost of stepping into the experience of someone in deep pain and who allow themselves to offer what truly matters in that moment--a heart willing to share the pain." God brought this question to my heart: Am I willing to the count the cost, to step down into the muddy pit of pain that so many of these kids face? Am I willing to offer them my heart, to share in their pain? I can learn thousands of parenting techniques, but Jesus is the only one who can capture and transform broken hearts. Am I willing to carry these kids to Him? No matter how broken their little hearts are? Am I willing to stick with them through the valleys and the mountains, to hold onto relentless hope for them and with them?

As I have already begun to pray for these kids, God has given me the vision, the calling, to be a part of "extracting the precious from the worthless" in the lives of these kids. The following Scripture passage (from Jeremiah 15) has become my plea, my prayer, and my mission:

¹⁸ Why has my pain been perpetual
And my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?
Will You indeed be to me like a deceptive stream with water that is unreliable?
¹⁹ Therefore, thus says the LORD,
“If you return, then I will restore you—
Before Me you will stand;
And if you extract the precious from the worthless, You will become My spokesman...
²⁰ “Then I will make you to this people
A fortified wall of bronze...
For I am with you to save you
And deliver you,” declares the LORD.

I am praying that God empowers me to extract the precious from the worthless...to see the beautiful things that God wants to plant in the mud, to believe in His redemption for these kids and to cling to it with relentless hope.

I will still read parenting books, I'm sure. I will still make lists and I will still research. But through it all, I will pray. I will whisper these words over and over again:
"Show me the right path, Oh Lord. Point out the road for me to follow" (Psalm 25:4).

And more than anything, I will believe that He makes beautiful things...no matter the mess we give Him to work with.

Facing the Lion of Fear

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When I was little, I was afraid of everything. If you knew me back then, you would know I am not kidding. Not kidding. I would lay in bed at night, staring out the window at the moon and wondering...What if someone climbed in the window? What if the house burned down and I couldn't get out in time? What if I got sick or had a heart attack? I lived my young life scared. Even when I overcame a particular fear--out of necessity, not out of choice--I didn't revel in victory. I lived in the oppressive state of fear...of distrust in a God I doubted to be good.

As I have grown in relationship with Jesus, I have come to know Him as the good God He proclaims to be. He has comforted me in the shadow of His wings, even while placing me face-to-face with the vicious lions of fear attacking my heart. I haven't always liked it...actually, scratch that. I've never liked facing the lions. But every single time He has directed me to face a lion, He has never failed to amaze me with His power over each and every fear that seeks to turn my heart away from Him in distrust.

"Fear keeps life small. The music dies and the joy drains. I've lived the strangle. What if I opened the clenched hands wide to receive all that is? A life that receives all of God in this moment?" (from One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp). I have lived a small life. I, too, have lived the strangle. I have cried tears of apprehension when faced with the diving board, all the while missing the exhilarating experience of slapping into the cool water and being enveloped by the joy of tasting the moment. I have moaned for hours on end, pleading with God to spare my life, all the while missing the life He has given me. Thankfully, God has opened my clenched hands. He has put me in front of the lions, requiring me to square off with the foe He knows will never defeat me. But, there are always new lions to face. And because God knows that our faith blooms as we find Him present in the struggle again and again, the lions often seem to get bigger and bigger...and yet, as we defeat them, they become smaller and smaller.

The past couple of weeks, I have given in to the strangle. My "lion" may sound silly--but aren't all lions ridiculous figments of our imagination? Aren't all fears irrational? Well, I have been scared--truly anxious--about my clinical experience next quarter. I've listened to the rumble {and wavered like Peter}. My assigned instructor was said to be a scary person, a scary person who supposedly makes the clinical experience a heart-death-inducer. I listened, and I wavered. I--momentarily--forgot to remember, to recount His faithfulness {like, what He did for me HERE}. I became Israel...stubborn in her forgetfulness.

Thankfully, God lifted me out of the water and whispered in my ear, "You of little faith...why did you doubt?!" Oh, friends. I am here to say..."Truly He is the Son of God." Today, after wrestling with God for days about this...after facing the lion and being reminded that God is for me {and if God is for me, who can be against me?!}...I found out that I will no longer be having said assigned instructor.

I don't always expect God to remove the source of my fear. In fact, I'm not sure He has ever done so in my life before....and I'm thankful He hasn't, because my faith in Him has grown as He has asked me to spear the lion {even while I quiver in my boots}. My clenched hands have been opened wide to receive all that is, to receive every gift of His...even the hard days and moments when I must remind myself over and over again of His forever faithfulness.

I am here to testify..."Fear keeps life small." Please don't live the small life, cowering from lions that are hardly a nuisance to the God who holds you in the very palm of His hand. Please don't follow my example and listen to the rumble, allowing the pressures of this life or those around you to turn your gaze from His face. Instead, join me in opening wide the clenched hands, in receiving the gift of this moment--every moment, whether it be good or seemingly bad--from the God who delights in you.

Joy in Brokenness

If you haven't picked up on the hints from some of my previous posts, the last few months have been hard for me. Healing hard, but hard nonetheless. It's not that I haven't been graced with a thousand joys, because I have. But there is brokenness between and all around and even in the joy. There are new friends, but also friends lost and friendships changed and loneliness in lost relationship. There is laughter, but also gut-deep sorrow over battles lost in a war I know has already been won, but who remembers the war won in the midst of lost battles anyway? There are beautiful memories, but also haunting ones laced throughout of gasped breaths and paling skin and sobs screamed...memories I often wish had died with the one who died. There is happiness, yes, but also grumpy days and plans thwarted and hours of cramming for cruel tests and questions about tomorrow and who can find joy in all of that mess?

I remember. I remember that easy joy is no sacrifice at all. Joy in the laughter, joy in child-like giggles and days gone well and gifts never-ending...that kind of joy cannot be contained. It is the joy in long nights with screaming babes and broken dreams and tests failed and fears crouching that is difficult to find and even more difficult to cling to. It is that kind of joy that promises healing, if I can withstand the breaking and cracking and honing that allows the joy to seep through to bring wholeness. Anything easy to find is not worth much at all. It is the hard to find that earns great worth, and I think, so it is with joy. Easy joy...well, easy joy is cheap. It's not hard to scrounge up when things are going well. But hard joy...joy that sings in brokenness...that kind of joy is of great worth.

I sit by open window streaming sunlight, and I ponder the familiar Jesus-story. He says to his friends, "Let's go to the other side of the lake." They climb in the boat eager, I'm sure, to move on to the next adventure. They hadn't prepared for the storm, though, the storm that shakes the boat and their souls and everything they thought they knew about their Messiah-friend. He's sleeping! Resting in the storm. Can it be? They wonder, does he know the storm is threatening to pull us under the angry waves? They shake Him, and He shakes them: "Why are you afraid?" [Uh, maybe because we're about to DROWN!] "Do you still have no faith?" [Silence. Souls shaken.]

I wonder, as sun streams in and feet move overhead and birds sing of spring coming...What did Jesus want them to do? If they had HAD great faith, what would they have done in response to the storm? Would Jesus still have calmed the storm? Or would it have raged on, them unmoved by fear because of great faith?

I hear Him whisper, ever gentle in response, I wanted them to rest.
Is it possible? Is it possible to lie the soul-head down in the middle of the storm and rest? Then I remember that He promised them...He said, "Let's go to the other side." He promised to get them there. He promises to bring me to the other side, to carry me through the storm. He just wants me to lay down my heavy soul-head and rest, to live in a deep trust in who He is and who He promises to be.

How do I rest in the brokenness, in the angry words and shattered promises and dead hopes? How do I rest when I must search for joy in the difficult mundane, like a gold-digger decades too late, digging deep into the empty dirt for treasures stolen? How? Again, the gentle whisper: "You remember."

And so I do. I remember His promise {"Let's go to the other side."} and I remember His grace-gifts {the easy and the harder-to-sprout} and I remember His presence. He's here. He's here, in the grumpy and the smiles and the gut-wrenching cries. He's here. Sometimes I just have to dig deeper, to find the treasure of greater worth in hard joy. The whole time, I hum this line from song once sung: "The valley of descent has made me whole."

And so it will be. The hard joy has--WILL--make me whole.

When Tomorrow Becomes Today

"Every time we finally reach the future, it vanishes into the present. This perplexing tendency of the future to keep eluding us does not, of course, teach us to be more present, but rather to accelerate faster. We redouble our straining toward the future, never stopping to see where we are, never pausing to taste the fruits of our labor. [We tell ourselves that] our true nourishment will come when we are successful, when we are rich, when we are saved, when it is our turn" (Wayne Muller).

It vanishes into the present... Do you ever get caught up in Tomorrow? Find yourself saying, "Tomorrow I'll go on that diet. Tomorrow I'll read that book. Tomorrow I'll volunteer at that one place...." Tomorrow. Always Tomorrow. And meanwhile, today becomes Tomorrow. Tomorrow vanishes into the present, and all our great plans become the new Tomorrow's plans.

We live in a culture that teaches us to think in terms of Tomorrow. We ask our children, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" We live by our calendars and our scheduling devices, making grand plans that help bring Tomorrow here faster so we don't have to revel in the drabness of today. The drug of busyness becomes an intoxicating way to numb ourselves from the monotony of today that never seems to disappear.

I, myself, am a victim of Tomorrow. In high school it was always, "When I get to college I am going to..." Now the mantra is, "When I finish nursing school, I'll..." I dream in shades of Future, often forgetting that today is the old Tomorrow. I've always thought, I'll do something grand for God when... When. When I am trained. When I am older. When I am married. When, when, when. What happens when the when becomes the now? When doing something grand for God becomes a piece of everyday life? When SERVING GOD IN AFRICA becomes wiping mud and grime from tiny, African hands? When ADOPTING AN ORPHAN becomes changing poopy diapers and laundering dirty socks? When VOLUNTEERING AT A CRISIS PREGNANCY CENTER becomes answering prank phone calls and making thousands of copies? What does happen when the when becomes now? Do we move on to something even more "grand"?

It seems it often takes a tragedy for us to be confronted with a truth we continually seem to be running from: None of us is promised Tomorrow. No one can truly say with confidence, "Tomorrow will be the day!" We live in denial, presuming that we are invincible, that WE will be the ones to last forever. Why enjoy today when there is always Tomorrow? Why use our resources to serve someone today when there will always be that beach retirement we have to save for? Why have a family dinner today when there are soccer practices and dance lessons to attend as we earn our small children a nice college scholarship? Denial. We are not promised Tomorrow. We're not promised a summer vacation, much less a retirement. We are not promised the chance to attend college or see our children attend college. We are not promised another breath.

We do have the gift of this breath, though. Are you too focused on Tomorrow to take in the abundance of blessing in today? To allow "the peace of God that transcends all understanding" to wash over your heart today? To be all there, totally present in the place God has you NOW? Are you investing in TODAY, serving God with the attitude of your heart in the monotony of TODAY?

I am learning why a daily walk with Jesus is so crucial to our existence on this planet. It is all too easy to turn to Him when we want answers about Tomorrow, when we want to know where we should turn next. Maybe the answers about WHERE NEXT have been in the HERE all along. Maybe the question should not be, "God, what do you want me to do NEXT?" but "God, what do you want me to do NOW?"

I cannot grow complacent in the deceiving rumble of Tomorrow. God, give me ears to hear your whisper in TODAY.

Gettin'-Stuck Miracles

The day had arrived. I was to be taking a test that would determine my eligibility to remain in school for the next step of the program in which I am enrolled. A big deal...and I was sick. I woke up with a pounding sinus headache and a fever. Knowing I could not miss the test for anything, even what I perceived to be a *terrible* illness, I rolled out of bed and into my car, heading toward the test center.

As I fell into my uncomfortable (no surprise there) chair, facing the grimacing computer before me, I was reminded of everything God and I had conquered in the past year. Lots of scary firsts. Lots of do-it-perfectly-or-get-kicked-out skills tests. Lots of studying until facts and figures oozed out of my ears. Lots of wiping people's you-know-whats. Lots of me falling on my face (figuratively and sometimes literally) before God, inadequate and weak. Lots of Him pulling through for me, giving me the strength to do what I could not do on my own.

This big test day would be no different.

As the proctor droned on with instructions repeated three, four, even five times, my mind raced to that quiet place I share with Jesus. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Jesus, I'm sick. I don't know why you let this happen at a time like this, but it is what it is. So if you want me to be a nurse, you better do something.
Jesus: ASH, I have already won this battle for you. I have gone before you and prepared a straight path for you. All you have to do today is STAND and let me lead you down the path I have prepared. Got it?
Me: If you say so...

That was two weeks ago, and I am still in awe. I have learned something as I have journeyed with Jesus on this nursing school adventure: If God calls you to be something or to go somewhere or to do something, He doesn't leave you high and dry and expect you to get there on your own. No, He'll pick you up and take you there. He'll part the Red Sea. He'll open doors and hearts and wallets. And when He doesn't, He'll give you the wisdom and strength and ability to do what you need to do to get where He has called you to be.

Have I worked hard? Yeah. Could I have passed that test on my own? No way. That's why I came out of that testing center saying, "God, you must really want me to be a nurse!"

I am learning that the absolute BEST place to be is in a bind. You heard me...in a sticky, no-way-out-on-my-own bind. Why? Because ordinary (and not-so-ordinary) miracles start happening as God works on your behalf. Have YOU ever allowed yourself to get stuck as you step out in faith to do something beyond your capability for God?

1+1-1=1

2 steps forward and 1 step...back. Do you ever feel like you're walking backwards?

I do.

Mostly because I try to walk on my own. One step forward.

God holds my hand while I stumble again. One step forward.

"Nohelpthankyou!" I scream. So God lets me fall and scrape my knees. One step backward.

I am a stubborn toddler, an adulterous wife, a thickheaded ninnymuggins (Elf, anyone?).

And yet, somehow I make it another step forward. Because two steps forward and one step back actually equals one step forward, right?

It's all Him.