How to have wide joy
I paused, considering, then answered:
“Sure, I think going fishing sounds great and I’d love to go with you. We can do that after dinner, once we get our stuff put away.”
The child let out a little sigh,
“No, that’s ok. I don’t want to go fishing later. I only want to go right now.”
I smiled. I know that attitude. It’s the same I often sport, the same one a different child had donned just moments ago when she sighed about the dinner menu. She had hoped for bean burritos, not chicken legs.
Downcast face. *sigh*
I smiled, and told them I had a secret to share with them. A secret that would serve them well all their days if they’d remember it. They leaned in a little, a bit skeptical, but willing to listen.
I held my hands up in front of me, palms closed together like a prayer posture, then separated them about 4 inches apart.
“See this sliver here, between my hands. This narrow space between my palms represents all the things that are exactly as we want them to be. This is getting to fish at precisely the moment we have the urge, this is the meal we most want, this is the game I want to play, the plans I want to keep, the way I want it to go. This represents the circumstances I must have in order to be happy.
When I have high preferences, picky tastes, particular wants, I narrow down this slice of life with which I can be happy. My joy becomes very narrow. Every time I narrow in on what I want, I exclude more and more of life that I’ll be eligible to enjoy. Pretty soon, there isn’t much left. That’s narrow joy.
They were listening. Then I slowly widened my hands, out, out, out, until my arms were stretched wide, as far as I could reach, palms no longer facing inward, but stretched out, like a giant embrace of life. I smiled into their faces.
THIS is what happens when we let go of our high preferences, our picky tastes, our particular wants. This is what happens when we say, “Well, this isn’t my favorite food, but I’m so glad I get to eat. It’ll do just fine.” When we say, “Well, I’d love to this activity now, but I’m grateful I’ll get to do it at all.” When we say, “That’s not the way I’d like it done, but I’m grateful we get to do it together, and it’s better than being alone.”
This is what happens when we decide that no matter what way it happens, we’ll be grateful. We’ll make do. This makes all of life eligible as a source of joy. This means circumstances can vary widely without depleting our joy. This is WIDE JOY.
They understood. And so did I. And we munched our meal with gladness, and fished ’til past bedtime, and we will continue to pursue wide joy with all our hearts.
{Thanks for reading.}
“I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.”
Philippians 4:12
How to recover your lost love of learning
And then I tore the math workbook into pieces while my stricken son watched, and I knew something had to change.
I closed my eyes. What’s gone wrong here??
I’m ashamed to even share it here, but I’m guessing if any of you mamas is schooling a special needs kid, you have had a day when you JUST. CAN’T. TAKE. another school-lesson sidelined by endless interruptions and dropped pencils and blank stares and suddenly forgetting everything taught up to this point.
Chances are this day happens to fall when you’re most hormonal and have approximately 87 other things to do before noon. Chances are you woke up with a headache, gained three more mysterious pounds, are agitated about another issue altogether, and this all creates the perfect storm for that mommy-fail moment you wish you could forget.
This was mine. It was a little math workbook–something I’d picked up for him “for fun.” (Oh the irony!)
We were so not having fun.
Thankfully, my son and I snuggled and prayed, I apologized and he forgave, I recycled the shredded pages, and we talked about how things had gotten off track.
Reflecting, I could see how the tension had mounted for weeks — we’d had a hard few months and as the end of the year approached I became the drill sergeant, pushing to complete the pages, eager to cross the whole year off and be done.
I was so deeply saddened by this. I just kept thinking, “This is not me! This is not the home education I’ve longed for and aspired to and envisioned for my kids. What’s happened?”
I took a few weeks to contemplate this. I prayed, talked to close confidants, read articles here, and processed my feelings with my husband Jeff. Two key things rose to the surface: {Read the rest over at Simple Homeschool. Thanks!}
Promise greeted from afar
I’m not sure why I never saw it: They didn’t see it.
The promise, that is.
And yet their lives are forever recorded in the Hall of Faith, Hebrews 11. They are listed as the heroes, of whom the world is not worthy, they were meant to inspire us to live likewise. They are examples, “success stories”, so to speak. We are called to emulate their lives.
Do we?
Humanly speaking, however, their lives aren’t that spectacular. Take Abraham and Sarah, the parents of our faith — they … had a baby. That’s what they did. The promise was that Abraham, through Sarah, would be the father of nations, that his descendants would outnumber the stars in thy, the sand on the seashore. Wow, that’s impressive-sounding.
But all he and Sarah did, during life, was have a baby.
Exactly one.
And they didn’t even do an awesome job of that. Right? There were certainly some hiccups along the way. But still they are recorded as heroes of the faith, as an example of fulfilled promise. But what’s interesting is this: Scriptures says,
They greeted the promise from afar.
13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar…
I wonder: Are we willing to greet God’s promises from afar?
That is, Are we willing to attempt something far too great to be finished within our lifetime?
Several years ago, I read a powerful book called Birthing the Miraculous. The author encourages you to spend time in prayer asking God for His specific promise, or dream, for your life. I spent time doing this, and very clearly heard:
Hundreds of churches, thousands of addicts, millions of orphans.
Uh. Whoa. That seemed big. I wrote it down, and began praying over it. I’ve returned to it often in prayer. It certainly aligned with our hearts, from local outward. My passion is to see healthy, gospel-centered churches planted. Not necessarily to see churches get big but to see them reproduce.
My desire is also to see addicts find freedom. Here in America, we don’t necessarily have a poverty of resources — we have clean water, food, shelter. We have impoverished souls that have been ensnared by the evil one and held captive substances and unhealthy behaviors. I long to see souls set free. Last week the kids and I joined some friends in cooking lunch for and serving 60 homeless folks. I looked in their eyes and so deeply desired to know their stories. My hope is to at least be able to help a few, just a little.
And I long to see orphans cared for. Overseas specifically, I long to see children living in absolute poverty to be welcomed, parented, provided for, protected. Through our own sponsorship, fundraisers, by giving through World Vision and Next Generation Ministries, we’re taking tiny steps.
But hundreds, thousands, millions? As I’ve contemplated that dream, I’ve thought: I don’t really see how that’s possible.
Of course not. Neither is bearing so many kids they outnumber the stars in the sky.
I recently read a book about the profound impact we have on society just by raising godly children. The example was given of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, who raised 12 godly children in the 1700s. By the year 1900–their descendants included:
- 13 college presidents
- 65 professors
- 100 lawyers and a dean of an outstanding law school
- 30 judges
- 60 doctors and a dean of a medical school
- 80 holders of public office including 3 US Senators
- 3 mayors of large cities
- 3 state governors
- A Vice President of the US
- a Controller of the US Treasury
I daresay if God had spoken that to little miss Sarah Edwards one morning while she was scrubbing the floor, she would have been a little wide-eyed as well. Of course she wasn’t going to bear 356 remarkable children who would hold significant positions of influence in this world, but they would be the result of her godly parenting, her faithful devotion, her sacred mundane. 🙂
She wasn’t trying to be spectacular, she was simply being faithful.
She was willing to live for something far too great to be finished within her lifetime.
Am I?
Oh friends, how I need this! How I need this hope, that the hard choices I make today will reap spiritual benefits, not just for me, but for generations to come. Just this morning I read Galatians 6:8,
… the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Let’s sow to the Spirit. That’s plant seeds that we may never see fully come to fruition, but that will change our world, and change eternity as a result.
A friend from afar, Esther, has HIV. She’s single, and cares for 21 children in her mud-home in Uganda. Her selfless life undoes me. Her motto:
Impart before I depart.
Let’s impart love, truth, Christ into our littles, our loved ones, our neighbors, let’s sow to the Spirit even if we never get to see the full fruition. Let’s live for something far too great to be finished in our lifetime. Let’s greet the promise from afar.
Thanks for reading.
How the presence of danger defines love…
I have a friend who had something horrible happen to her:
In the middle of the night, while she was peacefully sound asleep, a man broke into her house, busting down her door, stole into her room, dragged her out of her bed and into a vehicle and drove off.
Isn’t that awful? Trespassing! How horrible. How rude.
How loving.
How heroic.
How Christlike.
See, there’s one detail that change things dramatically.
Her house was on fire.
But there was this man. A hero. A firefighter who responded to the call and didn’t consider his own life dear to him but risked his own safety and well-being in order to bust down the door, plunge into the blinding smoke and flames, and rescue an unconscious woman from her bed. He dragged her out, put her in an ambulance, and away she went. She was in a coma for a long time. They didn’t know if she’d make it. By the grace of God, she survived. She’s a mama, about my age. Every day is a gift for her now, because someone recognized the danger, valued her life, and did the loving thing.
That detail about the fire changes everything, yes?
What is the “loving thing to do” depends heavily on the absence or presence of danger.
As my husband always says, the key to humble, Christlike rebuke or confrontation is helping people understand,
“You’re not in trouble, you’re in danger.”
Sin leads to death. Always. Destruction. Regret. Loss.
It is never loving to leave someone alone to die in a burning house.
So of course, the question is, How do we define danger? Who gets to decide when that person’s in danger or not? Who determines the degree of danger? A house-fire is rather obvious, but we certainly shouldn’t break into someone’s house and drag them into the street just because they’re smoking a cigarette in bed. Right? One could argue that that’s dangerous as well. Who decides?
Only the One who created us. Only the one who sees the end from the beginning. Only the one who knows the number of hairs on our heads, grains of sand on the shore, the ones who knit us together in our mother’s womb, who is alone wise. The only One who defines love.
In 1 Corinthians 5, there were some people who were in danger. Big danger. And all the people around them didn’t go into the burning building to rescue them. They didn’t think that was loving. It seemed rude. Judgmental. So they just stood around outside “accepting” the people’s decisions. In fact, they boasted about their non-judgmental attitudes! But Paul is livid. Why?
Because they weren’t rescuing people from danger. Sure, the steps he suggests taking are extreme. Basically like busting down the door on someone’s house and dragging them out of their beds. Crazy stuff. But later, in 2 Corinthians 7:8-13, we hear the beautiful result, that even though it was ugly at first, every though it was hard, even though there was grieving and hurt and anger and difficulty, that godly grieving brought repentance (turning from sin) which brought …
LIFE.
Rescued from death.
There was anguish. But some precious souls were saved from the fire because someone was willing to look rude and bust down the door of their life and drag them away from danger.
The truth is, we were all asleep in the burning house (Rom 3:23) but Christ made a way of escape by His blood, and now calls us to be His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:18-21), his firemen. Sure, at times our jobs are mundane, we’re cleaning our gear or washing the truck. But other times we’re called on to do something seemingly rude, something scary that might be misinterpreted, something that makes us scared out of our mind, because the presence of danger defines love.
My friend is eternally grateful that a rude guy busted down her door and dragged her out of her house.
Thanks for reading.
*Originally shared last year