joy in God's strength and God's plans

This morning I woke again to feeling overwhelmed and anxious with all that is facing me. The terror of wondering how I will cope with each detail and face each challenge rolled over me, filling my body with tension and my mind with dis-ease. I decided to get up and have a cup of tea and do some routine little things, like writing this blog and reading the devotional one I write for once a week - www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. Not to mention having my own "quiet time". Being committed to write something every day, and being part of that team that writes the other one is an increasingly wonderful and helpful thing in my life. It forces me to put my thoughts into perspective enough to write something that is honest and real, but true to my relationship with Christ, and with those I know who read my blog, and those who write for the team blog. Hey you out there - you are an important part of the body of Christ for me, and I feel accountable to you, as well as appreciated by you. I knew before I sat down to read and write that God's strength would be with me in all my challenges today and this weekend and next week, next month, next year, etc., but reading the post for today on the team blog brought things most fully into perspective. God is not so concerned with my happiness as my holiness. I know that, have always known that, but I guess being worried means that I am afraid to be unhappy, or afraid to be more unhappy than I already am about some things. I am trying to look at fear these days...or I guess I could say that I need to look more at fear, and understand where it comes from, what to do about it, and what it does to me. As if I don't know. But it is His strength that will get me through, it is His plans that will work out, and it will all be for my holiness, and wholeness will come in that, and some version of happiness, at least something that will lead me more and more into His peace and His joy, which is of course what I truly want. May this day for each of us be a continuing realization of our dependence upon Him, of His faithfulness to us, of His desire to make us all that He is calling us to be, and His capacity to give us all that we need for each moment, hour, day, week, month and year...for all our lives, His grace is sufficient for us.

joy in God's choreography, moving from shame to celebration

This is an interesting week, the last week of my summer “holidays”. I am spun between moving up and down between basement, main and upper floor, preparing for a garage sale, arranging rooms and resources, sorting throwaway from usable, participating in functional resume workshops, and enjoying a bit of peace and quiet with my sister at Mum’s old cottage. I have also begun to write the story of my life, focusing in part on the debilitating effect of my mother’s attitude upon my self image for more than half a century. What is thrilling to me is the change in my attitude to myself during these days. Through God’s grace and His choreography of workshops, conversations, personal reflection and prayer, I am so much further along the road of recovery from crippling self doubt and insecurity to confidence and self-understanding. Like my physical work of sorting in the basement, I am building on a solid foundation not only in Christ, but in my understanding and appreciation of my experience. Furthermore, the affirmation that what I share on my blog has hit the mark with various people to the point that they have communicated it back to me consistently has enhanced this recovery immensely. God seems determined to rebuild and restore me in every way. As I have been sharing, He keeps using my struggles and pain, and doesn’t shrink from pruning me or letting bottoms drop out, but He also gives me these moments of seeing the bigger picture. It feels like I have been spending a lot of time looking at the messy back of a needlework project, seeing only the ends of the threads, the knots, the bits and pieces. Now He is flipping the project over from time to time, giving me a hint of the coming finished product. He just shows me enough to convince me that His work is worth the pain and the trouble, that the end result will be beautiful, that His choreography and coordination, via Romans 8:28, is trustworthy. It is not that this has not been happening before in my life, but recently there has been so much more uncertainty and turmoil, and years of insecurity have accumulated, and so I have needed to do so much more work on myself, and receive so much more from Him. I have been faithful, and so Has he, of course. What joy in these moments of seeing the fruit of His handiwork and mine, and what joy there is to come.

joy in long distance praying and teaching

My daughters called at 3 a.m. our time from the bus station in Kabale, Uganda. They had got off the bus in fear, trying to decide if it was their own fear or a warning. They were waiting for the next bus back to Mbarara. It was their second time doing a three hour journey on public transport, interesting but usually more dangerous than going in the vehicles of missionaries and other foreign workers. My husband and I called them back on Skype, and shared from the psalms about God's protection, power and sovereignty. Then we each prayed. I prayed for them to distinguish God's voice of warning from their own fears. My husband spoke and prayed even more forcefully to this, carrying deep within himself the memory of a time when he had been warned not to do something dangerous with his sailing crew of young boys. His sense had been that it would be more dangerous not to do it, and went ahead in the face of great clamour and condemnation from a number of those present. His judgment proved to be correct, and all was well in the end. In that case, he saw the warning as being Satan's counterfeit of God's voice. He didn't share all that with the girls on the long distance phone. I of course just prayed hard and was immensely relieved to get a call when they arrived safely a few hours later, especially since I had known that their second choice of transport turned out to be a smaller matatu rather than a big bus!! Since the big buses are called flying coffins I guess it didn't really matter that we might consider the smaller ones more dangerous!!!You can imagine how glad I will be to have them back here in two weeks!!! But there was great joy that I could share their moments of fear and trial, could encourage them with wise words, could share it with my husband, was not away at the cottage when they called, which I had planned to be, could share it by email with an early rising friend who prayed faithfully, and that they could feel supported and connected.

joy in a lesson from the chiropractic bench

Today is Wednesday and I have posted my blog post on the team devotional blog, http://www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com/. Here it is:

Object lesson from a chiropractic bench

My chiropractor gets me to cooperate. I take a deep breath, fold my arms across my chest, or drop one of them down the side of the bench. She presses in and the tricky adjustment is made. I feel relief, albeit with pain at times. She often says “Stellar movement today!! “ I tell her she must have Irish blood, knowing how far I have to go to be truly flexible, as we both work on the legacy in my body of years of emotional tension.

But there are other times when my cooperation and her strength are not enough. She then has to rely on the special features of her expensive bench. She warns me that she is about to let the bench do the work of moving my body down so that the necessary adjustment can be made. For those of you who know, it’s a little like the bottom falling out, even if it’s only at one spot. I wait, prepare myself for the noise, the drop, the plop, and then relief comes. I am grateful, but almost embarrassed that she had to do things that way.

I have found myself musing upon this experience as an object lesson. I can be cooperating well with God in the adjustments I understand Him to be making in my life. We make progress slowly, and usually I can feel part of the process and rhythm of His movements. But once in a while, it feels like, no matter how well we communicate, He has to let the bottom drop out in a situation or relationship. I get a jolt, even if I sense it coming. It feels noisy inside, and I have almost a sense of shame that He had to do things that way, that He had to use circumstances around me to force a better reaction within me.

When I feel the relief and see the fruit of the change, I am grateful, but it can still feel traumatic and awkward. Then I step back from my feelings and see what He has done. He has been telling me to make level paths for my feet, to build the foundation of everything in my life on Him. I have been doing my best. But it has been shaky and tense in some situations and relationships. Then the bottom drops out for a while, and I am on a new level. I am more grounded, and more flexible.

I couldn’t allow my chiropractor to do what she does if I didn’t have absolute faith in her ability and judgment. The same of course goes with God. But it still shakes me up (and down) when the bottom drops out. I am discombobulated until I feel that new sense of stability and rightness, that better foundation for my being.

As I drive around I often play the song, “Jesus, you’re my sure foundation, I know I can stand secure.” It has a strong beat, an uplifting tune, and it strengthens my spirit as I listen and sing along. And often I am reminded that in order for God to build that sure foundation, He has to drop the bottom out for a time, to take me to a deeper level. May we be ready to embrace His work, not panic when He needs to shake us up (or down) so that we will be more stable and sure, and stand secure, on level ground.

joy in learning to "jump" for joy, when we are "shut up to faith"

On Sunday evening I was the only worship leader, as the one I usually work with was on holiday, so I had the freedom to make a change. The speaker had been switched between the time of my choosing the songs and the service, and so had the topic. He spoke on Joy, joy in the midst of struggle and pain and disappointment and confusion. How appropriate, you say!! My response was to change our final song to “The Joy of the Lord is my Strength.” Everyone responded well and clapped, shouted and jumped at the appropriate times, as we celebrated our affirmation that we need to press in to experience God’s joy, and that can mean a kind of jumping, can’t it? I recognized that even in my making that choice I had jumped for joy.

Sometimes we jump and leap for joy because we are so thrilled, amazed at what has happened in our lives. That to me seems the most wonderful joy. Somehow that is the very simplest human joy, the most natural. I can hear C.S. Lewis whispering in my ear, but am not sure the exact words he would say. But I imagine they would be that even though this is indeed the height of human joy, and incredibly wonderful, yet the choice to find joy, to jump for joy, to make joy happen, may please God’s heart so much more, because it is a choice that comes out of pain and struggle. (I will check that out and see what Lewis really does say). It is a choice of obedience and faith, because it goes against our grain, against our gloom, and it relies on God’s supernatural alliance with us. Like an expression of His power being made perfect in weakness. Like choosing to be happy for others when we are sad ourselves. Most of all it seems to be about experiencing joy by giving joy, and dwelling somehow in that deeper joy that is God himself, who is the source of all joy. And it seems also to be born out of faith and trust that God has more joy in store for us, when we do not know much human joy.

Streams in the Desert, through C.H.P., whoever that was, speaks in a relevant way to this, in my mind and heart:

“God still shuts us up to faith. Our natures, our circumstances, trials, disappointments, all serve to shut us up and keep us inward till we see that the only way out is God’s way of faith. ….Dear reader, are you in some great trouble? Have you had some great disappointment, have you met some sorrow, some unspeakable loss? Are you in a hard place? Cheer up! You are shut up to faith. Take your trouble the right way. Commit it to God. Praise Him that He maketh ‘all things work together for good’, and that “God worketh for him that waiteth for him.” There will be blessings, help, and revelations of God that will come to you that never could otherwise have come; and many besides yourself will receive great light and blessing because you were shut up to faith.”

joy in bearing fruit in gloom and solitude

Streams in the Desert has yielded another jewel: “the realm of gloom became the home of revelation” (Dr. Jowett). I puzzle that I have entered this realm of gloom so much these days. It feels right, but it feels strange, as well as familiar. Somehow I am exploring some depths I have been afraid to look at fully before. I have known they were there, and talked much of them in some ways, but now I am spending time looking at them. Perhaps the strangeness is that I feel them even more keenly, yet I am also more detached. And with me is my dear Lord, watching and exploring with me. I remember as I write that He promised to answer all my whys. I need to remember that as I continue on, in peace, and look for the golden threads shining in the gloom. And as I do, I sing this promise from yesterday morning’s hymn at church:

Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed!
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply:
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

3 verses from How Firm a Foundation by John Rippon

I affirm that it is a call from God to go through deep waters, and that in that process He is consuming my dross, and refining my gold. And so I will do what Dr. Jowett says others do who go through such “seasons of gloom and solitude”. I will “put on strength and hopefulness like a robe.” And I know I could not do the latter without the former, and trust for the continuing fruit of my pain, and the joy it gives me to know that yield.

joy in belonging to God, and His family, in my own loneliness

This Sunday morning I am preparing to go to church, but I lingered longer than usual in bed, struggling of course with a heaviness about myself and my life, and looking deep within myself for sources of joy in who I am today. For someone who has lived as long as I have it is perhaps easier to think badly of myself and what I have not accomplished with my life, etc. etc. and yet I know that the secret, humanly speaking, is to be okay with being me, and the secret, spiritually speaking, is to find joy in belonging to God, and, of course to His family.

So I settled that within myself before I came down for breakfast, and then found two lovely surprises on email. One was a set of photos of my daughters in Uganda with an older friend whom we invited to work with us there over ten years ago, who helped me with home-schooling the girls, and who then went on to develop her own work with orphan boys. She has always been a wonderful photographer, so here she was sending photos of her visit with the girls. It was as if God was adding on to my bottom line joy.

The next surprise was a reply to a comment I put on a delightful blog I discovered in my search for the author of the book I quoted in my last post. I had reached out to see if the author of that blog, a much younger single woman, would be interested in connecting, because I found a similar honesty and frankness about her struggles as a Christian on her blog. In bed this morning I had been berating myself, saying she likely thought it was a silly comment, and why would she want to write to me. Then here was a note expressing her delight in hearing from me, and in reading my post and how it echoed so much with her own experience.

So God has topped up my joy as I head off to join His family at our local church. I am already so much more aware of His love for me, and feel so connected with my own family, and His family, however far away, through email, and now go to celebrate Him and His family in church today. These special joys are all the more sweet because of my struggles as the day began. They are more golden threads, and they sparkle more because they shine amidst the plain weave of my frail humanity and the existential reality of my fundamental loneliness.