She Must and Shall Go Free

August 2012

We were sitting in trailer in Denmark, at a seminar called "How to Avoid Burnout". We were on our way to our first term. My 1 month old gurgle echoing of the flimsy walls. The woman up front had my complete focus. she was talking about her experience with burnout a year or so earlier. she was a mother of 4 kids serving in the TUNISIA. She had pushed herself too far and was giving us all tips about how NOT to do that. 

I was all ears. I wrote everything down. I made lots of charts. this Burnout thing was not going to happen to me. This soldier was NOT going to get shell shocked. Then she opened it up for questions. Someone asked her "Have you recovered from your burnout?" 

She looked down and in a very sweet and serious voice said "No". 

well that's awkward. Not healed after over a year???? What illness takes years to heal? Don't we work for God? Isn't our spiritual health insurance supposed to be, well supernatural? 

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 August 2013 

I don't know if I am officially burned out, but the word meltdown certainly comes to mind... Read here. 

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August 2014 

I read these words, they seem so blunt, the worlds of a woman barley surviving, the words almost feverish. A lot has happened since this post a year ago. 

HEALING is SLOW but she is also RELENTLESS, because she is birthed from Christ provision. She Must and Shall Go Free. We are still recovering.

It started by moving houses. It was a hard decision at the time, it symbolized me letting God put to death many of the expectations I had of myself. so I cried for like 2 days. 

2 months after we moved in we realized this land was the property we had driven by 5 months before...It was a sunny day in June, we saw the Vineyards and the rolling fields with terracotta roofs, we were getting a little stir crazy in our apartment block and I looked at Jesse and said, "wouldn't that be a beautiful place to live?" Then I had a deep sense of peace and said, "God will give us what we need, exactly when we need it". 

 That was before things got really bad, and can you believe it, 5 months later we are in this house, here next to that same vineyard, we didn't even realize it in the craziness of the move. 

Death, then a hidden blessing, 

Death to self, then God's provision of promises that seemed forsaken pour out into our lives. 

I'm not going to say it got all better after that. Our bodies were worn down, immune systems shot, but we began to take rest, like God commands Isaiah, Resting it is an intense move in the spiritual realm. We slowly started over. We slowly redefined what defined us... 

Not being Missionaries, but Being Forgiven. 

Not being saviors, but being apart of God's church, delinquent bride that she is.  

God seemed to restore tenfold what was lost. I settled into my role as a homemaker, 4 months later I was making tortillas, pies, and pizza from scratch, loving on the babies, supporting Jesse as he began to process the hurts, sharing my story with others. Life slowly began to seep back into my veins. 

Then it was time to head back to America to have baby Logan.

I struggled so badly with Anemia in the third trimester, the last 2 weeks before we left, i rested just to make sure I could make the plane trip, America was a whirlwind of debrief, labor, newborn, and tons of support meeting with our now three kids three and under. God again showing Hos relentless provision. 

We are back for our second term. I truly seems so different this time. Our first term, it felt like the enemy had his way with me stabbing me repeatedly where my armor was weak, my identity in Christ. 

Now when he strikes, it is still very real, but I parry the blow with God's truth. 

I am enough because Christ is enough. 

I sing the song of 'It's Enough' to myself multiple times a day...

I spend 2 hours getting the mold out of a toy the baby looses interest in the next day, 'It's Enough'

Jesse spent 2 full days just trying to pay our power bill. 'It's enough'

When I sweep the floor again. 'I'm enough'

Why? Not because it's quantitative, not because there will be a big payoff later (like hundreds accepting Christ because we were patient enough to pay our power bill)

 but because...

Christ is Enough. 

He pours out his abundant righteousness on our lives.

We NEVER mature PAST the Gospel

We must sing it over ourselves every day. 

We must, because honestly, we are still recovering from that first year. 

the Alter

Coming back to America after 18 months in Montenegro. You may recall the state of my heart at that point as fighting for hope. Fighting to believe God's power and goodness is enough to not only transform Montenegro, but to win the battle of my own heart's grief and disappointment 

Upon returning for our second term, God has given me eyes to see His goodness. The purpose behind the fight.

My disappointment with God was born out of Pride. The Pain was directly from the rod of a loving father. 

God was not enough, I wanted MORE than His portion. I wanted results, movement, victory in the seen things.

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I have shared before Chronicles 28 was a specific word from the Lord about the direction of my ministry in Montenegro. It was about making a home a sanctuary, making sacred out of the mundane of washing little feet and doing dishes. Trusting God that the gospel would shine out from our home like a City on a Hill in a dark land, and that that would be ENOUGH. 

I spent the first term completely rejecting this word, his calling, these notions of rest, grace and abundance, and instead opted for the striving and struggle of the self righteous seen things. I wanted something that felt good, that looked amazing to the seeing eyes.

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When we got back to the states, exhausted from my efforts, repentant and in pain, wondering what it was all for. GOD was pulling me deeper into studying the first book of Chronicles to show me His Story.  

David did the same thing. BEFORE he built this HOME for the Sanctuary, He was gravely humbled... In Chapter 21 He decides to number his armies. He decides to bask in the Glory of Seen Strengths. He Numbers HIS OWN resources. 

This act is so putrid to God, The Lord decides to destroy the entire nation of Israel. 

GOD WILL KILL ANYTHING BUILT ON PRIDE.

HE WILL DESTROY ANY FALSE HOPE.

For our good. 

"that rod of correction which drives out the foolishness that is bound up in the heart, the foolishness of pride" (Henry James on Chronicles 21) The Pain of God's correction is so real, it is often difficult to walk in faith that it is for our good. To bless the name of the one who slays us.

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But the story doesn't end on death and correction...He is working for us an eternal weight of Glory, the forever story of promise and redemption. 

David Repents. He builds an alter of Humility. God decides to build his sanctuary on the place of the alter, on the place of HUMILITY and REPENTANCE. 

God was working the first term for my good, for His Kingdom.

Sacrifice is never build on our seen things. Our Bible degrees, our Ministry Goals, Our Visions statements, Our Armies, Our resources. 

Sacrifice is Built from Humility. 

Grace flows from Repentance. 

My first term was the foundation of humility and brokenness that God desires to build his Sanctuary.

Chronicles 21 was our first term, Chronicles 28 is the promise of the future. Henry James says this about David's heart change from Chapter 21 to 28...

"There is a great deal of difference between the frame of David’s spirit in the beginning of the former chapter and in the beginning of this. There, in the pride of his heart, he was numbering the people; here, in his humility, preparing for the service of God. Before there was corruption, but the well of living water in the soul, though it may be muddied, will work itself clear again, grace here has the victory."

God destroy my armies, Build Your temple. 

Scarcity

We are driving to McDonalds on a Thursday morning, our 4th get-together meeting in 24 hours. We went on an overnight road trip to our college town to connect with people before we go back to Eastern Europe in seven short weeks. We have our 3 year old, 1 1/2 year old and a 3 week old strapped down in the back seat.

Operating on three kids under three in 1 hotel room kind of sleep, I quickly run the numbers in my mind: "45 minutes till Soren needs a distracting fun activity, 75 minuets till our next meeting, 3 hours till everyone gets hungry, baby needs to nurse in 6 minutes, naptime meltdown in about 4 1/2 hours"

I say to Jesse : "I hate that we are 10 minutes late again."

What I meant: I hate that you misplaced the baby wipes and dishonored my pristine packing job and we are now late again!

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I sometimes wake up striving. I wake up believing there just isn't enough...

Not enough energy.

Not enough money.

Not enough time. 

this is called Scarcity

Scarcity: the fundamental economic problem of having seemingly unlimited human wants in a world of limited resources.

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I recently read Brene Brown's Gifts of Imperfection. It was pretty epic, I learned a ton. But one thing REALLY stuck with me. 

She talks about scarcity being the enemy of gratitude. 

Scarcity is the fear of not enough.

She quotes Lynne Twist...

“For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is "I didnt get enough sleep." The next one is "I don't have enough time." Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don't have enough of... Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn't get, or didn't get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack... This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life”

sound familiar?

Dwelling on scarcity makes  me crazy. it makes me controlling. It  makes me a stressed out mom and a snippy mean wife. What is Scarcity? This idol I sacrifice my joy and gratitude for? 

IT'S A LIE.

There is enough...

3His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 2 Peter 1

EVERYTHING WE NEED for a Godly life. Everything.  
If we don't have it...
then it's not what we need to live a godly life. 
There is always enough! 

"addressing scarcity does not mean looking for abundance, it means choosing a mindset of sufficiency...It isn't an amount at all, It's an experience, a context we generate, a declaration knowing there is enough, and that we are enough".

Could you imagine how differently I would approach life if I let this truth take hold in my heart. Could you imagine how my marriage would look if I wasn't trying to control my husband 'for the greater good'. I can, I have tried it. Choosing to believe and meditate on God's sufficiency is like Joy fairy dust. 

The baby starts screaming, and Xander wants more water, Jesse is asking where some random baby item is, Soren Pushes Xander, and I am sure we are late for something.  I can feel my heart start to beat faster...

 I stop. There is enough. 
God's grace is enough.
 I have joy. 
I have all the time and energy I need to lead a godly life.

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Choose Grace, Think Sufficiency, Spill Gratitude, Radiate Joy.

Right Brain

I recently saw a TED Talk about a woman who had a 'stroke of insight" watch it here. She was a brain scientist who studied how brains functioned in connection to reality. Then, she had a stroke. Experiencing this through the perspective of a scientist, she is able to describe physiologically what happened and how it had a profound impact on her spiritual awareness.

She speaks about the right side of the brain being COMPLETLY present. It is what connects our energy to reality of the created matter around us in ONLY the present moment, this is where creativity, emotions, and many other things come from. The left brain however is a huge storehouse of information about the past and synthesizes data for the future. It is compliantly logical and linier. It is what reminds you that you need to pick up eggs on the way home.

As she was having her stoke, her left brain would completely shut down for minuets at a time, she was in a euphoric state of energy, where she could not feel where her body ended and the world began, she thought only on the immediate present and the beauty around her. Intermittently he left brain would reload and she would realize she was having a stroke, feel out of sequence and know she needed help. She did get help, and eventually recovered with a huge spiritual respect for her right brain.( I do not believe she was a Christian, and I think her conclusion of almost deifying the right brain is ultimately the wrong spiritual and scientific conclusion, but part of her journey in 'left brain' dominated field of science to hopefully her finding the truth).

I was awed at how complex and beautiful our bodies are, how God made or minds. In my own spiritual journey right now God is teaching me a lot about what it means to truly live in the present. I have been reading older Church fathers and saints to balance out my very young and sheltered evangelical bents. Who knew the church didn't begin at the second great awakening? I have been very blessed by delving back into old school theologians and saints active closer to the time of the early church.

Specifically, I have really soaked up the truths and figures of the contemplative and incarnation traditions. The Contemplative tradition focuses on the inner life of our mind and soul in our Christian journey through prayer, meditation and worship. The Sacramental or Incarnation tradition remind us that every moment is sacred, miraculous and way to connect to God. That the baker of bread is as holy as the pastor. That acts become holy by our the intention of our hearts towards worship. Both of these disciplines were sorely lacking in my life until this season.

 I have also seen this theme in two books I have reread recently Brother Lawrence's Practicing the Presence of God, as well as Ann Voskamp's 1000 Gifts. Both these books and traditions are begging us to activate out right brain for the Glory of God. I am not suggesting that one side of the brain is more spiritual than the other, but that God gave us them both to reflect his glory.  
 

“That we need only to recognize GOD intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment, that we may beg His assistance for knowing His will in things doubtful, and for rightly performing those which we plainly see He requires of us, offering them to Him before we do them, and giving Him thanks when we have done.”
― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

 

“I want to see beauty. In the ugly, in the sink, in the suffering, in the daily, in all the days before I die, the moments before I sleep.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

  “Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant—a seed—this plants the giant miracle.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

 

I, personly, tend to hang out in my left brain. Always planning, synthesizing, judging, and thinking about the NEXT moment. I Find that my self-righteousness, legalism, and judgmental thoughts are often activate my left brain tendencies. I struggle with disciplines of meditation, quiet contemplation, and worship throughout the seemingly mundane moments of my very sacred life. When I stop thinking, planning, and plodding, When I soak up the moment of the now, of God's grace, of natures beauty, of the grass outside my kitchen window, the curl of my baby's hair, I realize...

 that moment is always there, Gods presence is always consuming, His beauty always ever-present, colors are always that vibrant, it only requires a unity of myself with the now. 

 

                                                                                  'right brain' Dre 2014

I was thinking how much God was trying to bless and teach me this season through art, music, and contemplation and living in the moment. I was thinking we as western Christians need to slow down and give God our whole minds, even when it is uncomfortable. Even when contemplation, rest and painting a picture for him SEEMS less urgent. I have found many a sacred moments while scrubbing pots lately. This should have been the loneliest, bland, and difficult seasons of my life so far, but here has been immense joy in the seemingly mundane.

Worship is in the NOW, gratitude is in the HERE. Glory is in this PLACE. Let us Renew our whole minds to Him.