Just Enough for Today
I still remember the day my dad firmly said it: “Kari, don’t ever worry about money.”
He wasn’t making a promise of his personal funding, but he had watched my anxiety over the years and finally stepped in. It was a loving rebuke. I received it.
That year, 2008, many things turned around and one of them was that–with a resolve as firm as his rebuke, I quit worrying about money. Budget, yes; steward wisely, yes; but worry, no. I was convicted of my tendency to look ahead in fear, and by a generous work of God’s Spirit, that fear is gone.
But there are plenty of other things to take its place.
It was no coincidence that we were fasting when I read Exodus 16 the other day, when the children of Israel complain to Moses,
“You have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger!” (v.3)
Funny how UN-critical you become of the Israelites when you’re really, really hungry. Instead of wagging a finger, as I usually do, my only thought was, “Yeah, you know what? I can totally understand this complaint!”
Funny how physically identifying with others changes our perspective.
And God Himself proves compassionate to their plight as well. He doesn’t rebuke them (yet) but rather sends daily provision in the form of manna, to be collected each day, just as much as they needed for that day. They were strictly forbidden to gather more and store it up.
Just enough for the day.
And all over again this timeless truth pierced my heart with power of God’s kind conviction.
You only need just enough for today.
Because while I don’t dwell on tomorrow’s money anymore, there’s plenty about tomorrow I do dwell on. Mostly teaching notes, retreat prep, the capacity to handle the flood of responsibilities that inevitably come each day. When deadlines loom and projects stack and emails sit unread for way too long.
And while I can honestly say I am disciplined to be with my kids during the day and I don’t physically pull away to tackle those tasks, they hover there in the back of my mind.
Do you have something hovering in the back of your mind? I’m pretty sure we all do.
Whether it’s a task, a fear, a need, whatever, when tomorrow hovers in my head, it always silently steals the slightest bit of my joy and attention and affection.
It slowly lures me away from entering into the joy, the peace, the glory of each day.
God’s command was clear: Gather enough for today.
My Father (the Heavenly One) firmly said it this week as well. It was kind but firm. A rebuke to be sure: Kari, don’t ever worry about ____________. I will always provide for you.
Jesus taught us the same thing: “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Just enough for today.
Just enough money. Just enough food. Just enough energy. Just enough wisdom. Just enough creativity and inspiration.
Gather just enough for today. There will be more for tomorrow. Let that something hovering go, give over tomorrow to Him, and gladly receive this day and the just enough it brings.
{How will you gladly receive this day and trust Him completely for tomorrow? Thanks so much for reading.}
*Originally published Jan. 27, 2014
The only way to not lose heart…
I clicked and there she was–her wide smile and beautiful four young children–and I couldn’t breathe. I wanted so desperately to close the computer. Close my eyes to this unthinkable suffering. I cannot read this, I kept thinking. I can’t even look into the face of her horror. She writes of peace and gratitude, but I can’t breathe as my own puppy-breath littles skip around me and I sit here warm and in good health, planning for an upcoming sunny vacation.
Oh God. WHAT ON EARTH? This is WRONG. Where is JUSTICE in this? HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU BE GOOD IN THIS??
I know I’m being irrational. People are suffering all over our planet, Mamas dying daily as their babes look on. Littles are left alone, orphaned, abandoned.
If we saw the suffering, as God sees, in its horrific entirety, it would destroy us.
We cannot fathom how great is the Fall.
Yesterday at church, we re-began our journey through the Bible, studying God’s sacred scriptures cover to cover. As we dove into Genesis and saw The Good World, as it was in the beginning, I get the feeling that we can imagine Paradise about as well as a little child raised in some impoverished 3rd world slum can imagine a Hawaiian vacation.
In other words, we can’t imagine how good it was and how horrific this is, how great was The Fall that we took, humankind, when we took that bite of independence.
But stories like Kara’s give us a fresh glimpse into this and I cannot fathom how the Father’s heart must hurt to watch it all. And yet. He does have a different perspective and we must take on that same perspective if we are to have any hope at all.
[bctt tweet=”The ONLY way to not lose heart is to look at the world through His Word.”]
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Cor. 4:16-18
I am coming more and more to believe that everything else boils down to this. A new way to see, over and over, again and again, constantly begging God for fresh grace to see as He sees. Why, God? So many things I don’t understand. I believe Jesus heals. Why haven’t You healed her? So many questions. But this does remain.
We are all wasting away.
And all our “light” (it doesn’t feel light!) “momentary” (it doesn’t feel momentary!) affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory. It’s working for us! Somehow. Somehow this, even this is working for Kara, for her husband, for her littles, for the world. I don’t understand it but I put back on His Word and look at this fallen, torn, bleeding world and see again what is unseen:
Hope.
This is the only way to not lose heart.
That nothing’s wasted. Nothing’s meaningless. Everything, everything, worked for the good of those who love Him.
This week, whether your light momentary affliction seems petty or severe, may this rule your mind and anchor you to hope. It is the only way to not lose heart.
{Pray for Kara. Her book, The Hardest Peace, shares her journey. Thanks for reading.}
The Worst Day: How to make what’s not working work for you
For whatever reason, Wednesday was the worst day.
Nothing truly tragic, just the garden variety of fatigue and frustrations, discouragement and disobedient children. It was Jeff’s day off, the day I usually take to write and study in preparation for speaking. But for whatever reason it just wasn’t working.
And we fell into the funk. Hard.
Every household probably has its own funk-patterns. For us it’s the dance of switching from Mommy’s-in-charge to Daddy’s-in-charge, handing over homeschooling hat, planning out the day with enough structure for some of us and enough freedom for the rest, with enough housework to keep from falling too far behind, but with enough rest and play to feel refreshed, constantly re-routing based on the inevitable curve balls of life, and then tossing into the mix my own indecisiveness, reluctance and lack of confidence about spending a day away from the kids.
And of course I tried to tackle it all without coffee. Never a good idea.
Of course I’m joking, but sometimes we have those days, right? The perfect storm of emotions and hormones and physical factors tossed in with a whole host of spiritual forces we cannot see, stirred up with the widely varied personalities, needs, desires, and feelings of four feeble creatures called a family.
And my good man and I looked at each other and said, “Something isn’t working.”
*Sigh* Please tell me you have those days too?
But one little paradigm shift helped us make what wasn’t working work for us (got that? ;).
One of my favorite things about The Plan (I know, it’s a diet book, stick with me here!), is how the author leads you on a complete paradigm shift about weight. Instead of emotionalism, or tying the number on the scale to our feelings of value or worth, failure or success, she leads you to treat it as data. What do I mean?
Let’s use a real-life example. Let’s say you eat a bowl of popcorn. The next day your stomach hurts, your eyes are puffy, your weight’s up 3 lbs. overnight, and you feel terrible. Instead of feeling bad, beating yourself up, and feeling discouraged, you say, “Oh. Apparently popcorn isn’t a great choice. That’s great data to apply to my daily life. I don’t think I’m going to eat that anymore because it makes me feel awful.”
You take what’s not working and make it work for you.
So Wednesday, when we were spinning our wheels and turning circles and I felt ready to blow a gasket or burst into tears, suddenly I remembered: This day is data.
Meaning: Take a look at what’s not working and make it work for you.
In real-time, this meant sitting down and praying, “Give us wisdom to see what’s not working.” It meant slowing down long enough to see. It meant thinking through our Family’s Mission Statement and evaluating our day based on what really matters. It meant me going for a walk by myself, to get the alone time my introverted soul so desperately needed. It meant making a whole new plan for the day, each of us investing quality time with one child, to get their love tanks full again. It meant me trusting that the teaching notes will get finished … another day.
(And … in the spirit of full disclosure, it meant me going to Ikea to get an under-the-bed storage bin to contain all those blasted Legos!)
It meant making a plan for next Wednesday that’s much more likely to work, because we took what wasn’t working and made it work for us.
In Colossians 1 we learned this week that prayer is supremely practical. Prayer doesn’t enable us to escape the world, but equips us to engage with it more effectively.
Prayer gives us the spiritual wisdom and understanding we need …
to make what’s not working actually work for us.
{Praying you can use the “data” of today to give you wisdom for tomorrow. Happy weekend! Please pray for the Mountain Ministries ladies retreat this weekend as we seek God together. Thank you so much for reading.}
*Originally published Jan. 24th, 2014
On grieving, growing up, and living wide awake
I pull down the D.
Oh God. Breath catches. Eyes fill. Why is this so hard?
This was what I hoped for, for them ready to have their own space, for this next step. In a world that hurries childhood and pushes independence prematurely, I didn’t want to. Why not let them be little? They loved sharing their small room, both beds squeezed in and their own messy-lovely artwork Scotch-taped all over the walls. So often I’d asked if they were ready to move on and their response was always, “Never! We always want to share a room.” I knew when it was time we would know.
And now they’d initiated it–maybe Dutch could have the guest room? Dutch, 8, suddenly shifted into boyhood and his “Pattersonian lab” and sprouts growing along sills and telescope perched precariously and waist-high stack of encyclopedia–more and more he craved a special space just his own. A place to sit quiet and read and dream and think.
I get it. A room of one’s own.
But now it swirled all around me, how much they’ve grown. Already. And as I took his letters down from the wall, one by one, D-U-T-C-H, I remembered how I’d made them almost 8 years ago, mod-podged the paper on to look like ocean waves.
I carry the letters into his new room and find him lost in thought, carefully putting all his favorite things in place. Up until now, I’ve arranged his room. Decorated it.
Up until now, he was really just a little boy extension of me. But now he’s something else.
He is his own man-child self, apart from me.
I stop in the hall, silent, just to watch him. The ceiling of his small room slopes down low on one side. That must be why he looks so tall, I think to myself. But I glance down at his high-water sweatpants and smile.
Nope.
He looks tall because he’s getting tall. And he’s in this room because he’s growing up.
That night I go out with some girlfriends and one of them is planning her son’s 18th birthday and his graduation party.
I think about pulling the D off the wall. I know I’ll blink and be in her shoes. How do you do it? we ask her. How do you handle the letting go?
“Grieve every stage,” she says. “At every single stage, embrace it, enjoy it, celebrate it, then when it’s over … grieve it.”
Yes. Isn’t that it? Inhaling every season, soaking in it, savoring it, living wide awake to it, then grieving when it’s gone, eyes wide open for whatever glorious good the Giver will gift us with next.
Later, late, I slip back into the dark house and quietly creep upstairs. There at the end of the hall, in his new room, his reading light is still on, an encyclopedia still open, but he’s sound asleep.
I lean down, close in, and kiss his sleeping face. Forehead, cheeks, chin, and silently say goodbye to yesteryear, asking God for grace to grieve each glorious phase and bravely, joyfully, embrace each new one as it comes. I look up and Jeff is standing at the door, smiling.
I pull Dutch’s quilt up over his shoulders, tuck it under his chin, switch off the lamp. Jeff takes my hand in the darkness and we tiptoe back to our bedroom.
I’m glad for sleep, and for living wide awake.
{Thanks for reading.}