Heart of Wisdom
So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12
It wasn’t what we expected, of course, when we planned the big family camping trip. But it was remarkable, that although we’re spread out over hundreds of miles, we would just all happen to be together, literally within a few feet of each other, when the cell phone rang and we heard that news: Grandma had passed away. Within seconds, Dad had his dear wife, son, and daughter all gathered round him, arms holding him tight. Gratitude flowed as freely as our tears, so glad that we could all be together. Together to grieve, but together to rejoice too, remembering Grandma Mary and her 98 years of life.
We spent the week remembering, laughing and crying, praying, again just grateful to be together, providentially put out in a campground with no urgent tasks or jobs or places to go. Plenty of time for reflecting, and of course, enjoying Papa’s very favorite pastime: Boating.
Just a few days later, hundreds of us ladies gathered to consider Jesus’ Great Commission, looking together at His call to go and make disciples of all nations. We marveled at all that Jesus accomplished in His short life. So intentional. So deliberate. His time was short. He made his mark.
He influenced a few so significantly that the world was never the same.
During the conference, I was struck by a side conversation I had with another gal, who’d had a cancer scare.
I was struck, simply, by our smallness.
I am not the only one who can speak at a conference. I am not the only one who can love, feed, and clothe my children. I am not even the only one who could care for my husband. It is, perhaps, hard to swallow, but someone else could easily fill my spot.
And someday they will. For all of us. We come. We go.
The next day, we family gathered again, this time around an open grave. No matter how much we prepare ourselves emotionally for such events, it’s like a punch. We sat around her coffin as Jeff stood and led us in remembering her life, her strength and resolve, her determination and tireless devotion to her family. He drew our attention to the gospel, to our hope. To Jesus. It was captivating.
But then it was over. The service ended, and a few minutes later, her body was already lowered into the ground, dirt slowly covering her coffin.
Several hours later, I sat outside my parents’ house, sorting through the last of grandma’s stuff. Some jewelry, crochet needles, a quilt that still smelled like her. I tucked those few precious things into the back of our car, and left the rest in boxes in the back of Dad’s truck. Ready to go to Goodwill.
And just like that, she’s gone. Her belongings distributed. Her body buried.
Of course her memory lives on, and her spirit lives on. It’s not that I mean to ignore this glorious truth. But even at 98 years, longer than most of us will ever have … life’s still so short. In the grand scheme, even 98 years is just a breath.
So this morning, as curl up with coffee and read,
“The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty (or 98!) … they are soon gone, and we fly away… So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:10,12
I don’t like death. I don’t like grieving. I hate crying. But the events of this last week have been good for my soul. The brevity of life brings priceless perspective, and although we might be easily replaced, although others may easily fill our roles or perform our tasks, our lives will forever leave a mark.
How so?
On those around us.
The belongings will go to Goodwill someday. Someone else will fill our spot or do our job or carry on where we left off. But our significance is in our influence.
What mark are we leaving on those around us?
In the words of my brother, my grandma’s love wasn’t sappy or sentimental, but it was substantive. Sounds just like Jesus’ kind of love to me. And so we were all shaped, changed, bettered, in some way or other, by her substantive love.
Though life is a breath, I believe this is the heart of wisdom we need to gain: Our lives matter because they make a mark on everyone around us. Praying we will know our smallness, and yet also know our unique privilege of making a forever-mark on everyone around us.
May someone be shaped, changed, bettered, in some way or other, by your substantive love.
Thank you for reading.
Set the sails, wait for wind
I waved goodbye to the kids, walked straight to the room where I’d be staying, collapsed on the bed … and sobbed. Gasping-for-air sobs, tears streaming, snot running, can’t-see kind of sobs, hoping no one could hear me.
What NOW, Lord?
Sure, I had prepared for this conference. I had 37 pages of notes, it’s not like I’d been napping all summer, but something still hadn’t clicked, I didn’t have the same sense of readiness, confidence, and anticipation that I’d always had before.
I remember Beth Moore saying she often had to face the fear, “Oh no, what if THIS is the one, the one where God doesn’t show up?!!!”
I could relate. I’d recently had lunch with a lovely woman of God, also a speaker, and we’d related about the fact that we, like everyone else of course, are utterly lost without God’s power and Spirit. Not just sorta kinda. Utterly. There is NOTHING I can do in my own strength to effect life-change in others, or myself.
It is an uncomfortable feeling, this utter-dependence thing.
Especially when there are hundreds of eager faces awaiting, all ears, ready for a Word from God. I looked around the room, if only there was a way to escape! But I was dropped off at the camp, I didn’t even have a getaway car! 🙂
Of course I’m exaggerating, but not much! Those of you who have ever stepped out in faith in any way know this feeling: What if I step on the water and I SINK?!
Thankfully, I knew the truth: You set the sails and wait for wind.
Because I’m not alone in this, and neither are you. We all have to get from point A to point B, by faith. We can either believe we’re in a rowboat, miserably working all by ourselves, sweating and straining and stressing and moving very slowly. Or we can believe we’re in a jetboat, blissfully remarking, “Just let go and let God, man!” and completely ignore our very real part of the process.
But the truth is, the spiritual life is akin to sailing.
There’s work that we can do, and there’s a lot of work we can’t.
We work and we wait.
Our job is to set the sails. We create an environment where the wind of the Spirit can work. If we neglect our hearts, our habits, if we lazily pursue pleasure instead of doing the hard work of repentance, prayer, and raising the sails of God’s Word, we will miss the power and joy of His work in our lives.
But when we set the sails well, we can rest, wait, without fear, without anxiety.
Because it’s the wind that moves us, there will be fast seasons, slow seasons … still seasons. This is ok. This is normal. We must know the difference between stillness and stagnancy.
Is the stillness because of the wind, or because we’ve neglected our sails?
No checklist here or easy answers, but as we grow, we learn. We learn how to set the sails, and wait.
That first night at the conference, God’s wind blew in a powerful way. As some precious sisters in Christ stood on that stage before me and finished the work of setting our sails, and God was faithful to move us.
I learned all over again how to ditch the rowboat, the speedboat, the FEARboat! I learned all over again how to set the sails and wait. Our God is a mighty wind and He is faithful.
“…Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Phil. 2:12-13
*This post is from last year, but I find myself feeling exactly the same way, OFTEN. Right? I prayed this week, “Oh Lord, I feel so inadequate.” Although I feel like that, I know the truth. I AM inadequate to move a sailboat in my own strength. I know I am inadequate to cross a vast body of water, in my own strength. But I have set my sails and I have placed my hope in Him and HE IS FAITHFUL. Amen?! Amen! So, would you also please be praying for us this weekend as we gather for the CBNW Regional women’s camp conference! We have set the sails and wait on the wind of God’s faithful power and presence, to do His good work in our hearts and lives. And what about you? Where do you need to go, spiritually speaking? How can you set the sails and wait for His wind? Thanks so much for praying, and for reading.
When He’s taking FOREVER to show up…
I shifted positions on the sand, looking over my shoulder again. Where was he?
The tops of my thighs were definitely red--that sad white space above the shorts-line exposed in early summer when we bravely (and a bit reluctantly) don bathing suits. I tried to hold my small paperback strategically to block the sun, glancing back again. Where WAS he?
We were having a fabulous anniversary weekend. The book Touching Godliness had deeply stirred my heart, and I knew the word submit was to be my banner for the next season of life. But, I’d asked God, Submit to what?
In a half-second He spoke to my heart:
- Submit to embracing the role of wife and homeschooling mama.
- Submit to serving the people right in front of you.
- Submit to obedience in the small, silent stuff, where no one sees but God.
- Submit to joyfully serve, honor, and respect Jeff, believing the best about him above all other human relationships.
Oh, that’s all? (ha!) Ok, ok, I get it. I’m taking notes.
And of course, every lecture needs a lab. God’s sanctification school is no different. So I figured this weekend was a good place to start practicing.
So, we were lounging on the sandy beach beside the Deschutes River. It was hot. Really, really hot. Dozens of people were walking by with inner-tubes, putting in to float down the river to the Old Mill district. We thought it’d be fun to do the same, and Jeff knew his mom (in whose house we were staying) had tubes. So he, seeking to bless and serve me, said that he would take all our stuff to the car, leave me to relax on my towel, and he’d drive to her house, grab the tubes, then come back so we could float down river.
Perfect. Even though he’d already run a half-marathon that morning he was still willing to run the errand so I could relax. Good man. So I handed him everything, including my phone.
It was 12:30pm, and she just lived a few miles away so it would be a quick trip.
“If I’m not back in an hour then I’m in wreck somewhere,” he jokingly added as he walked away.
I settled in on my towel, happy to relax. I wasn’t sure how much time went by but it seemed he was gone quite a while. I swam in the river to cool off. Then sat back down, glancing back periodically to see when he’d arrive.
People came. People went. No Jeff. I heard someone say it was 1:30pm as they packed their kids up to go home.
People came. People went. No Jeff. I heard someone hollar, “Hey, it’s 2pm, let’s get home!”
That’s when my thighs started getting red. I shifted on my towel. Adjusted my book to shade different body parts on rotation, pulling corners of the small towel up and around my legs. The family next to me called to their kids, “It’s 2:30, we better get going.”
No Jeff.
I laid down and closed my eyes. Where WAS he?
All of us wives are prone to react in different ways:
::Some assume catastophe: “He must be dead!”
::Some assume irresponsibility: “What is that idiot doing now?”
::But some believe the best: “I bet whatever has happened, he must be doing something awesome on my behalf.”
By the grace of God, on this particular day, I believed the best. Though I couldn’t figure out what on earth would take him so long (and didn’t hear any sirens so I wasn’t concerned about safety), I figured something worthwhile was happening, and asked God to protect me from skin cancer.
So I sat and waited. And waited. And waited. And kept glancing back over my shoulder, looking for a glimpse of inner tubes.
And then, to my everlasting surprise, as I sat gazing out at the river, my eye caught something strange:
What? There’s a man kayaking UPstream, towing a paddleboard behind him! I squinted and looked longer …
It was JEFF!
I stood up, and I must say, it was kind of “scene-from-a-movie-ish.” He was dripping sweat towing this paddle board upstream and I jumped off the beach and ran into the water.
I yelled, “What are you DOING?!” (But I was smiling when I said it.) He told me the story. He thought he’d surprise me with an awesome adventure–bringing a kayak and a paddleboard so we could each paddle our way up and down the river together. He loaded both huge items by himself, but when he arrived back at the beach, there were no parking spaces, and he couldn’t get close enough to leave the car and alert me. So he had to drive all the way to the end of the river run, downstream, haul both the kayak and the paddleboard himself, tie them together, and paddle all the way upstream hauling the paddleboard, in order to rescue me from the beach.
He finished his story, breathless, and handed me a water bottle, “And I made you a limeade slushy to drink.”
I slurped the icy goodness and shook my head, smiling. “You’re amazing. Thank you so much.”
We pushed off from the shore, and paddled up and down the river in the slanting afternoon sun. In the quiet float downstream, I leaned back, reflecting:
When God is taking a long time to “show up” in my life, how do I respond?
::Do I assume catastrophe? God must not here! He must not be real! He must not love me! Everything must be falling apart!
::Do I assume irresponsibility? God must not know what He’s doing. I better take care of things. How dare He treat me like this? Poor me, having to wait all this time while God goofs off.
::Or do I believe best? I have no idea what’s taking so long, but I know the character of my God. I know His Word. And I know that whatever is going on, He must doing something awesome on my behalf.
With tears welling up in my eyes, I looked up into the blue sky, “Lord, when You’re taking forever to show up, help me to believe the best.”
{God loves you and is working up a crazy sweat doing awesome things on your behalf. Thank you for reading!}
*Originally published July 2013
On baking bread and slow days
*We are camping this week, out enjoying some slow days. No bread baking, but lots of time for slow rising of hearts and souls, letting them get filled back up by God’s peace and joy as we spend time, unhurried, with Him and with each other. It reminded me of this. Praying you are able to take some time out for slow things, for savoring summer, for relishing His goodness and glory, for listening to each other and just enjoying this life He has given us. Have a great week!
—
On slow days I bake bread.
Sometimes as many as six loaves, if I know the pace is about to pick up or the afternoons are about to get hot. I only use my oven on cool, slow days.
Last Thursday was my slow day. The last cool day on the forecast, the kids were happy to be home, and when I returned from exercise they were nowhere to be seen–lost in imagination, hidden in large cardboard boxes turned to transmogifiers and time-machines and secret hide-outs and space ships. There are 12 of these giant boxes currently on my back porch: I long ago gave up on strict tidiness. My kids’ creative inventions aren’t always cute, in fact, most often they’re eye-sores.
But I figure I have decades ahead for a tidy, cute house.
No doubt then I’ll ache with missing these cardboard-box days.
So I let them make believe, and I make bread.
My mom was a bread baker. A legendary one. A paleo-dieter would not have lasted long in her kitchen. Her crescent rolls–buttery, perfectly-puffed-up, slightly golden brown on top–were a staple at every holiday. She taught me how to feel the dough, the right warmth and elasticity. She taught me how to knead with quarter turns, sweeping flour slightly underneath, pushing the heels of my hands down and pulling up gently with my fingers to pull the dough over on itself–rhythmic. She showed me perfect bread isn’t as much science as art, and her recipes included lines like, “Add flour until the dough feels right.”
At lunch time, I call the littles and slice a loaf into sandwiches, heavily-loaded with chicken-salad. Their eyes light up: It’s their favorite lunch. We sit on the steps of the back-porch, surrounded by boxes, and silently savor our simple feast.
Later, while I’m wiping up crumbs, Dutch calls: “Mommy, will you come sit with me?” He’s on the front porch, perched on the wooden railing, feet dangling over the edge, above the flowers far below. I join him, carefully perched on the railing, my legs dangling beside his.
He is my nature-boy. He once remarked that the ocean was his best friend. Today he points out colors–the purple japanese maple, the light-green new-growth, the dark cedar branches, the “sunset orange” (his words) zinnias and white-magenta striped pansies. He thinks the pansies look like purple tigers.
“I’m so happy, mommy. This is my favorite thing. If only people could just be happy with what they have, the trees and flowers and bugs. Then we wouldn’t have so many problems.”
I smile at his philosophizing.
We stay there, on the porch, dangling legs, and I think of kneading dough: Think of how often parenting baffles me, until I slow down and put my hands on it and feel–then I know when it’s right. I think of gently forming loaves and lives and letting them rise slowly, on their own. I think of watching and waiting to see these rounds turn golden, almost ready.
So often I think I need a trip to the store and a parenting book.
More often I need a slow day to bake bread and dangle legs.
{Here’s to slow days. Thanks for reading.}