Like sparks from the fire
Hello dear friends, it’s good to be in this special, sacred space again! I’m Caila, an old college pal of Kari’s: partner in shenanigans, fellow blond, and another mom who loves to chat about the Sacred Mundane. You can visit my blog, CailaMade, to learn more about me and my adventures in sewing and other creative pursuits. I’ll be here at SM all week while Kari is traveling. We are going to have fun!
Now, where to start? I could tell about the time I first heard Kari mention the words, “Sacred Mundane” (I was a senior in college), or the time we got stuck on the East Cost after 9-11 and had to sleep on airport floors and share packs of underwear from Walmart because our luggage was locked in the plane. Or, I could tell about college women’s retreats where we would study the Bible but not shower for days on end. Kinda gross, eh? It was fun!
Years have passed since those college days and the troubles we faced when we were young and inexperienced. Those troubles seem so small in retrospect, but they were significant then. My shopping addiction (embarrassing, but true), Kari’s unrequited love for Jeff Patterson that turned out not to be so unrequited after all. Huge worries that kept us up all night, and kept us on our knees, as we begged God to make our paths straight and clear.
Now that I’m a mother of three, a wife, and a homemaker in our a small, blue bungalow in Southern California, I can’t help but look back at little college Caila and shake my head fondly. She didn’t understand what great troubles and great joys were coming her way. In a thousand answered prayers I’ve seen a thousand ways I need to grow in strength and perseverance to honor God with this life he has given me.
As my life grows and expands, I’ve noticed that joy and trouble seem to come hand in hand. More children = more joy = more trouble. Becoming new home owners = more joy = more trouble. Bringing home a new Golden Retriever puppy (her name is Athena) = more joy = more trouble.
Yeah, it’s true. With every new and good thing, comes more responsibility. It’s a heavy load to bear sometimes.
But that’s life, isn’t it? The good and the bad. The beauty and the trouble. It reminds me of this great moment from the Princess Bride between Westley (when he’s disguised as the Dread Pirate Roberts )and Buttercup:
Buttercup: You mock my pain!
Westley: Life IS pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
It’s true. As much as I wish it wasn’t, trouble and pain are just part of the deal. Whenever I feel depressed because things are harder than I expected I remember this verse from the book of Job, chapter 5 verse 7:
“But man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.”
As the sparks fly upward. In other words, trouble is to mankind like physics is to nature. It’s a law that life must follow. Trouble is as natural as joy.
Maybe wishing things were easier is part of the problem.
Perhaps, my daily struggles as a mom are compounded by expecting things to be so much easier. Maybe some things are just hard, and with time I will get strong enough to carry them more easily, but in the mean time there is nothing wrong with hard. Hard prepares you for what’s ahead. Hard means you’ll be stronger for the next load.
I’ve spent too much of my life waiting for easier. Easier ain’t coming. Easier doesn’t exist. She’s like that model on the cover of a magazine, airbrushed to perfection. She’s not the real deal. Easy has no place in my home, because “easy” doesn’t grow trust, or love, of faithful perseverance. Easy grows laziness, and believe me, there’s no room for lazy in my life.
So I guess what I’m trying to say, mommas, is this: Don’t be too discouraged when it’s hard. I know how it feels when the baby wakes up for the millionth time at night and you don’t think you can take another wakeful moment. You can. You are strong enough.
I know how it feels when your husband has to work another late night and he’s bringing home the paycheck but it feels like everything else is on you all the time. You can handle it. You are strong enough.
And do you know why you are enough? Not because you and I are perfect or extra-special. Not because we posses the secrets of the universe. No. We are strong enough because God, who is rich in mercy, has been making us strong enough since we were born.
You have been prepared for this. I have been prepared for this. And if it feels hard, that’s because it. is. hard. But it’s beautiful-hard. And beautiful-hard is better than everything that comes with easy, which is usually very little.
Be encouraged today. Keep pushing on, keep doing well, beautiful mommas. It will get better. And then maybe something else will come along to try your strength. In this life, always expect trouble with the joy. But remember that JOY will win in the end.
Bless you today!
You’re in for a treat! Special guest, Caila Murphy
Behind my every blog post, every conference & retreat, every book-venture, there kneels a group of sixteen beautiful women who faithfully pray. They are the behind-the-scenes warriors of faith who put up with my rambling emails, my “Help!” texts, my high highs and low lows. They are the Sacred Mundane prayer team and they are precious. If any content is coherent or any event is powerful it is because these faithful women have prayed. They are spread over several states, and some don’t even know each other, but they all pray.
Last summer I had a special treat: Introducing my team to Caila. She came up from California and blessed us with a weekend visit. Of course, everyone instantly loved her. She’s impossible NOT to love. She lights up a room, can make anyone laugh, and makes you feel instantly accepted in her presence.
I met Caila 16 years ago, her freshman year of college, as I stumbled through my sophomore year of college leading a Bible study. She was so quiet back then we didn’t really connect much. But when my co-leader graduated she urged me, “Seek out Caila. Keep meeting with her. God has His hand on her life in a special way.” So I did. We met up regularly and, despite my utter cluelessness at effective discipleship, she blossomed into an incredible woman of faith, strength, trust, joy. We traveled to Brazil together, led drama teams together, did ministry together. She’s taught me innumerable things, a constant example of faith, joy, humility, service, and excellence.
She also happens to be a brilliant writer.
So, at the moment I am almost 4,000 miles from home, and will be without internet access for 8 days. Ok, the truth is I could pay to have internet access but honestly … I think a week unplugged is just what this Mama needs.
So, it’s my greatest joy to introduce you to Caila: She will be our special guest all next week. She’ll be sharing her heart here in this space, and I know you will be blessed beyond words. In the meantime, you can get a peek at her life over at Cailamade.com.
I pray you all have a blessed week next week, and thank you so much for your faithful readership here. I apologize that the comments haven’t been working for months now, this poor site has been hacked so many times it’s barely limping along, with many malfunctioning parts. Another dear friend is revamping the entire site right now, so, Lord willing, we’ll have a fresh new space all redone for us very soon … with fully functioning comments!
Have a blessed week, and please make Caila welcome here. Happy weekend and thanks for reading!
Love,
Kari
Click click click {The next tipping point}
I know this feeling: About to tip … somewhere. Not sure where.
It was 4.5 years ago when God brought a sort of revival to our hearts and lives. Now we can see it for what it was, Him leading us into a new place of trusting Him, knowing Him, loving Him.
But at the time it just felt tumultuous. Confusing. Scary. Some people didn’t agree with our conclusions. It felt like a strange combination of being “obedient” and “naughty” all at once. We felt like we were being obedient to God, but also felt some disapproval from a few we truly loved and respected, so then … maybe we weren’t being obedient? Maybe we were just rogue crazy-folks who took God’s Word too literally. Now looking back I can see were were following God’s leading, but at the time it was so confusing! 
I’ve rambled about it at length in the Filling In My Blank series, but the short of it was that in Fall of 2010, God began opening our eyes to a whole world we hadn’t really seen before. Through the book of James, Matthew 25, Isaiah 58,1 John, The Hole In Our Gospel, Medical Teams International Real Life exhibit, Food Inc. and many other interactions, conversations, scriptures, and time in prayer, God began revealing His heart for the poor, challenging us to change the trajectory of our lives.
He changed our dreams. Instead of a dream home or dream life, a dream of accumulating and achieving, He gave us a dream of giving away, pouring out, laying down.
The tipping point was in October 2010. This was when we were fully convinced of God’s heart in this matter and fully convinced of this new conviction and direction.
This included some specific steps of obedience. Selling our house, living on less, moving toward giving away half our income, trusting Him for practical provision, moving to another city in a different demographic, planting a church, opening up our home to live in community … it wasn’t just a new feeling or a new way of seeing things.
This tipping point brought a whole new life.
Just this morning I told Jeff with a bit of trepidation: I feel that tipping point again.
I know this feeling. Like the click click click of a roller coaster as it slowly chugs steeply toward the very top. You lean back and all you see is sky ahead because you know it drops off sharply just ahead and you’re about to take the ride of your life but you have no idea what it looks like.
Yeah that. That feeling.
The cool thing, though, is that this time around, I’m confident that God completes the work He begins. Of course I knew that in my head before, but now I know it by experience. God did complete His work He began in Oct. 2010. That doesn’t mean we “arrived” and the work isn’t finished (it won’t be complete until Jesus returns) but just this month He brought that new “dream” to fruition, and almost immediately, to my surprise, something new began jumping off the page in His Word. I had to smile as I read His Word and said to myself, just as I said 4.5 years ago about justice/poor/giving issues:
“Has that always been there? Why have I never seen this?!!!”
Now, I can look back and remember His good work and stand confident that God will complete this work as well. It feels tumultuous, confusing. Scary. Some people, I’m sure, wouldn’t agree with our conclusions. It feels like I’m being both “obedient” and “naughty.” I want to follow God into this new territory and obey Him, but it feels like being a rogue crazy-girl who takes God’s Word too literally.
*sigh* See what I mean?
But, we’ve been here before!
Now, I know that He is faithful to complete the good work He begins in us (Phil 1:6). This not only applies large-scale, to our entire life-work of sanctification, but also the “little works” He does in us, the revivals, the new revelations, the new territory of surrender. I don’t have to have it all figured out right now, I just need to trust Him each baby-step of the way. He will be faithful to complete His work.
I don’t mean to be cryptic or vague. I’ll share more specifics about this journey later. For now I want to be vague, because it doesn’t matter as much what our new journey is as it does that we’re all on some sort of faith-venture journey.
We’re all approaching a new tipping point, if we’ll let God have His way and take us there.
Trust Him. When you hear the click click click and you’re approaching the top of this roller coaster ride, get yourself firmly positioned in the safety-belt of God’s Holy Scriptures (that’ll keep you from falling off the side!), and hang on tight!
It’s time to ride.
{Oh friends I pray we let God do this uncomfortable work in our hearts! Wherever He is taking you, go there! Trust Him for this wild ride, firmly rooted in His Word. Thanks so much for reading.}
I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6)
Burn the IOU
“What is it, Lord?”
There’s been this battle, you know, off and on over the years. Sometimes it seems gone, then it wells up, wild again, snagging my stability and dragging me down into the mire to wallow … then drown in my own self-pity. It’s ugly.
You think I’m exaggerating? That’s how it feels, right? When something slide-tackles us we go from sure-footed faith to–whoops-a-daisy!–flat on our backs in one fell swoop.
It was this that I was hashing out with the Lord, asking Him to reveal His perspective, my sin, what the root was–you know, all that ugly heart stuff that has to be worked out. His answer:
Burn the IOU.
Oh … that.
Just the day before I had read Matthew 18. Here Jesus tells the story of the master who forgives his servant a MASSIVE debt, equal in today’s wages to about EIGHT MILLION dollars. Um, yeah. That’s a big debt. So after this debtor has been forgiven this insane amount, he goes and finds someone who owes him a pittance (relative to the other debt it’d be equivalent to about thirteen-thousand dollars) and …
… seizing him, he began to choke him saying, “Pay what you owe.” (Matthew 18:28)
This picture is etched in my mind whenever I think about forgiveness. Whenever we hold a grudge against someone, it’s like we are seizing them and choking them, saying with our hearts and attitudes, “PAY WHAT YOU OWE!”
Whenever we hold on to unforgiveness, we are that man, seizing and choking those around us because we can’t just let it go.
Forgiveness burns the IOU.
Whatever it is that someone owes you, forgiveness takes their IOU and sets it on fire. Burns it. Destroys it. Lets the person go free.
But here’s the thing, sometimes we’re the ones who wrote the IOU.
What I mean is, sometimes that person doesn’t even know they are “indebted” to us. So often we have expectations of others, what they “should” give us, what we expect from them, what we want from them, and then when they fail us (inevitably!) and don’t deliver the goods that we expected (love, acceptance, kindness) we write ourselves an IOU and clutch it, white-knuckled, holding onto that grimy, tattered IOU because we think they owe us that love, that acceptance, the kindness.
The picture isn’t pretty, huh? I don’t want to go through life clutching onto an old ratty, wadded up IOU, inwardly demanding that person pay me my due.
BURN THE IOU.
(I won’t burst into song, “Let it go! Let it go!” but it does come to mind.)
As long as I think that another person owes me acceptance and love, I’ll be miserably clutching that IOU.
But freedom comes when we burn it, release the debt, let that person free and we will find …
that we are free as well.
Jesus says some wild things about forgiveness, friends. We do well to take them to heart and consider any way we are clutching old IOUs. Chances are, we wrote them ourselves.
Jesus clutches no IOUs.He paid our debt with His blood when He said, “It is finished.” Paid in full. More than eight-million dollars, a lifetime of debt, more than could ever be paid. He did this for us.
I don’t need to seize, choke, demand. I can forgive, let go …
and burn the IOU.
“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matt. 6:14-15).
{Praying this freedom for you, for me, this week. Thank you for reading.}