That time I worked out my Abs.

I've never had a killer six-pack, but I used to have, ahem, less around the middle.
You know, when you grow to the size of an elephant while you're carrying a child, things change.

So the other night, in a fit of "Let's get that flat tummy back," I had Billy help me with some abdominal exercises.  Just a few.
I'm still suffering the repercussions.  I'm sore.

I've added another exercise to my life of late.

Each morning, I've been trying to spend the first few minutes just listening to the voice of my Maker.

These moments have been sweet, balm-to-my-soul, let's-start-the-day-right kind of moments.
I feel prepared, connected to the Creator of the Universe.
So far, every single morning, I've felt God asking one thing of me:
BE JOYFUL.

Let me tell you something.

I. am. sore.

I generally am aware of my need for contentment in Christ, and I usually can keep a steady handle on when I'm becoming discontent or frustrated.
This last week, however, as I've been making an effort to specifically choose joy throughout my day, I've had major difficulties.
I've been sick.
I've been extra tired.
I've been irritable.

So that's where I'm at.  Sore abs and sore brain/heart.
Because when you work at something, there's usually opposition.
And when God asks something of us, whether it's to move across the world, or adopt a child, or give something away, or just be joyful, there's always another choice that will make itself clear and appealing.

I'm thankful today for a God who gives me grace each time I'm grumpy, which, lately, has been more often than I would like to admit.
I'm thankful and amazed that He renews His love for me each moment.
I'm thankful for a daily reminder each morning that my joy is important to my God.

It's the start of another week, and I'll be working out my joy muscles again.  I'll probably get sore, again, too.

I make no such promises about working on that six-pack.  Don't judge.

Lessons from a Futon

I've been sofa-shopping with my Mom a lot lately.  She's pretty excited, as well she should be.
For years and years and years, my parents have owned a futon.  They have repaired, recovered, and given lots of TLC to this one futon.  It's seen graduations, weddings, pets coming and going, and giggles and sobs.

My mom leaning up against the futon, watching Liam standing.  

As we're walking through large warehouses filled with furniture stuffed so close my stroller struggles to squeeze through, I wonder why she hasn't bought a new one years ago.

The impending holidays tend to ask the same question.  This season can push, prod, poke at your stuff, at your house, at your life.  Promises of new stuff, of life-changing resolutions, of greener grass on the other side implore us to take a critical look at our here-and-now.

What can often be forgotten at this time of year is the beauty of dwelling.
The word DWELL means:
to live or continue in a given condition or state.
...To keep a futon for fifteen years because it suffices and because other things take precedence.
...To be incredibly overwhelmed with thankfulness for the moment of screaming children, of dirty dishes paired with grungy floors, of soft, grimy hands wanting to just hold yours, of late night hugs when the house is finally quiet.
...To not look at that family or that woman with frustrated comparisons, and to not allow our hearts to get cluttered with the unhappy "if only."
...To be fully content right in the house you've been given, right in the stages your children are at, right in this moment God's placed you in.

I choose to dwell today, not because I don't have hope for tomorrow, but because I have infinite trust in the tender, loving plans of a Father who knows this moment, who created this process, and who cares about the journey, not just the destination.

And don't be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God's place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there.

On Baking Bread.

I was just on the phone with my mom, talking about baking bread.

I was telling her about how I'm getting ready to attempt making some whole wheat honey bread for tomorrow, and she was talking about how she often makes sourdough.  So we discussed the different processes of the bread-making (I know, don't you wish you were us?).

We talked about how sourdough bread sometimes takes longer to rise than whole wheat bread. 

We brought up the fact that though the process is similar, it's also different.  

Some breads take more kneading, or less rising time, or a different kind of flour.  Some breads are more dense while others are lighter, fluffier.

Just minutes later, I'm sitting here confessing to Jesus my frustration with the my never-ending battle against comparison.  And I'm pouring my heart out to Him about a sweet friend of mine and the tough stuff she's been handed, wondering why it's so hard for her right now and so different for others.

Immediately, I think about the bread.  

I hear my mom's matter-of-fact-ness, "Some breads bake quicker than others."

And I remember telling her why I must use one type of flour to balance out another so that the bread turns out just right.

I don't understand why certain things are the way they are. 

But I know that the end product will be beautiful if we allow the process to take place.

I don't know why some people experience more or less moments of tightness or infertility or loneliness or exhaustion or whatever your something is.

The process is different for every. single. loaf.

image credit

And if we get caught up in looking at our process versus her process or our time in the heat or the darkness or the kneading versus hers, we'll get nothing but confusion and dissatisfaction.

Because it's more than likely the Baker is doing something different with you than He is with me.  And we're both going to be delicious and beautiful when we're finished; we'll both offer a sweet aroma if we just submit to the timing and the ingredients we're given.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I want to claim that I'm thankful for the moments of knuckling and kneading, of darkness and instability, of heat and change.  I mouth it, and then I voice it, and along the way, my soul cries it out to her Maker: thank you.  I thank Him for this process.  And I thank Him for her process, and your process, and for the glorious, wonderful work He is doing in you and for what you will become.

Happy Days

These are the days of tightening our belts.

Days of older couples across the restaurants seeing our little family and paying secretly for our meals, making me cry.

Days of friends loaning us their extra car at no expense, just because we need one.

Days that God gently holds our anxious hearts, reminding us to live in the moment, to not worry about tomorrow, to be thankful for the right now.

Days of teaching and training a child, days of God-given energy.

Days of my baby being my mirror, exposing me to myself...

Furrowing his brow, pushing forward beyond his capacity, motivated to try beyond his ability... Frustrated when he finds that it hurts sometimes when you rush things, even though you're learning.

He reminds me not to rush.  To try and bloom where I'm planted.  To realize that tomorrow will come, but today, today is where I want to be, and nowhere else.

Even though I'm a little more tired, budgeted, and not-all-together than I would've pictured myself at this stage...

These days are precious, cherished, and there's not a moment I'd change.

I'm discovering that I would not, even if I could, lay more time, more energy, more money, more security at our feet...
God knows just what we need, and I'm pretty sure He's having fun supplying us with our daily needs, surprising us with so many extra blessings, and overflowing us with all things good when we least expect it.

Sloppy kisses, soft cheeks, blue orbs that trust us implicitly, love us just because.
Holding hands on the couch, still glancing over, cuddling in, whispering, "I can't believe you're mine."
Hearts and words and support making up a community that teaches us, blesses us, makes our hearts beat with pure thanks and joy.

Yeah, these days, they're just good.  All kinds of good.

I See Stars

My husband and baby just took the car to get gas for me this morning.

I'm sitting on the couch on the verge of tears, just soaking in the start of another day.

I feel blessings pressing in on every side.

In Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow, she talks about true, lasting contentment.  My favorite line so far:

Two women looked through the prison bars
One saw mud, the other saw stars.

My eyes flit from one thing to another in my precious house... precious because of the people I share it with, the blessing it meant to us, the family that lives and cries and makes messes in it.

I wait on my boys to get home, excited to see their faces even though it's only been ten minutes.

I feel the presence of Jesus in every hug, ever smile, every tender, frustrating moment we spend together.  I love the vision, the purpose, the goal we share here.  I hope people find love and comfort here.  I have.

I look at my life, and I see stars.

Beautiful, shimmering, glittery, make-the-dark-bright stars.

When you look around, take inventory.  Do you see mud, or do you see stars?

The stars are much more dazzling, I promise. 

Ungodly Comparison

God has given me the precious gift of being surrounded by a multitude of amazing women.
I have friends that I admire on a daily basis for the way that they exemplify His character, His hands, His mouth, His heart.

This special blessing is not hidden from the Enemy. He knows these things about my life.
He sees the treasures I’ve been given to come in contact with so many examples of godly women.
He also knows the burning desire I have to please God, to be the best me possible, to fully live out my potential…
And oh, how the Enemy can work to twist my best intentions into something ugly.

Somehow, a sense of admiration for another woman’s caring deed or a godly charcteristic can quickly turn to comparison...

To read the rest, come visit me at (in)courage, where I'm guest posting today!

Feeding Time Reflections

My little man screams, waking up from his nap earlier than usual, wanting me.

I inhale, free my hands and march upstairs to fulfill my duty.

We settle in because he's hungry, and only I can do this, and daddy's still at church leading worship because we went to the early service.

I slide my eyelids down and take in this moment.

Honest truth:  The first thought that comes into my brain is not, "Thank you Jesus for the blessings you've given me."
Sometimes, that is my thought.
Right now, it's not.

Right now, a prayer rises from the depths of my heart and I remind my God of His own Word:

The LORD will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring.

I ask, He gives.  Just that quickly.  I am restored and watered and I am gifted with just enough grace for this moment, for this day.

Being ever aware of my cracked, weary parts means that I can always be quenched, that I can day-to-day, moment-to-moment, tap into the Spirit's restoration versus my own reminder to get myself together.  My perfectionism takes away from the grace of God.  My inabilities, my weaknesses, they allow it.

His grace restores me best when I'm able to admit that I'm dry, that I have need.

He's an ever-flowing spring, and He came to heal the sick.  He's more than aware that I will never get to the place where I don't need more watering, more healing, more restoring.

Liam pauses his eating and looks up at me, smiling, adoring.  God's grace, God's quenching.
I take another deep breath, and I smile back.  Fully restored, in just a moment.

On ministry and being terrified

The next tab in my browser is open to "Manage Group Leaders" on MOPsguide.org.

Deep breaths.

I've only been a mom for 6 months now.

6 months of experience.  Life changing, exhausting, emotional, uplifting experience.

I am unqualified to start a ministry for mothers.

My husband and I are starting to dig into the young married ministry (as in, take it over).

He is just a worship leader.

We've only been married for 3 years in October.

Who will want to connect with us, be on our team, support us?

Tears fill my eyes because it sounds so pitiful in my head yet the thoughts threaten to take root in my heart.

The other night I complimented one of my very best friends (who's husband also works at our church) on how well they do at pouring out and giving and being who they are called to be.

The first words out of her mouth: "You really think so?  I don't always feel like that."

And I think, 

maybe we're not so different, 

and thank you Jesus - I'm not alone, 

and yes, I really do think so.  

(She's pretty awesome, raising two boys six months apart and all.  Read her story and you'll think so too.)

And Jesus whispers in my heart that this is why we are qualified.

Because we are not.

Because somehow, He chooses us anyway, and He works in ways that don't make sense.

Because He can make something unwise wise, and something ugly beautiful, and sometimes, simplicity and empty-handed-ness are the best places to start.

Because it's not about us, it's about Him.

We get to join our willingness to His capability and our little match joins His big fire and we give Him glory.  And the match doesn't go out.  It just keeps burning His story.

image via

And it doesn't matter who we are or where we come from, though somehow He uses those things, too.

And this is what He chose us for, in this moment, and He does not make mistakes.  He doesn't take away His gifts or His call.  He knew us before He called us, before He planted the passion in our hearts.  He's not surprised.  I don't have to be either.

This is going to be good.

This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.

Putting Up Walls

We're learning about boundaries here in the Rogers household.

My son doesn't yet understand that when I give him walls, I'm keeping him safe.

He looks at me through mesh with accusing eyes.
His mind does connect much yet, but he does remember that batting those baby blues usually gets him somewhere.

He needs to know, however, that though he's capable of exploring, boundaries are wise, even if they're not always fun.

I see our future laid out ahead of us.  His pleading eyes and pouty lip.  Reminding myself that I'm laying a foundation.  Hoping that some day he'll put his own boundaries in place.
Today, I'm keeping his head safe.  Later, it'll be his heart.

When he grows, when he's older, he'll need boundaries to guard his thoughts, his relationships, his time, and he'll need them to achieve the balance that God desires.

As I give him boundaries, I remember that all things are permissible, but not all things are helpful.

And I tell myself that I need to guard my thoughts, my relationships, my time to stay healthy, to stay balanced.
My Father keeps me safe when He tells me to flee the bad and focus on the lovely.

And I think, Hey! Maybe we're both learning!

Or, um, maybe it's just me.

We'll keep working on it.

Retrospection

We've been married for 3 years in October, and I am in head-over-heels love with my husband.
This does not mean, however, that we have not had moments where I was completely overwhelmed by our situation or wondered what God was thinking.  Actually, I still have those days now.

I'm incredibly thankful that I am in a very passionate, almost cheesily romantic relationship, because it has often been the fuel God has given us to push through moments that we don't understand.
It's amazing to be able to look back at the past 3 years and see where God was growing us.  We've had moments where we knew that ALL we had to hold onto was God's goodness and the relationship He'd gifted us with.  As a wife, I've had prayer times committing to God that I trusted Him above all else, submitting to Billy because that's what God calls me to do, and fully believing that God honors the family structure He's created.  Time and again, God not only shows up at the end of our confusion, but we can see in hindsight that He was molding us the whole way through.

I'm thankful for a God who is intimately involved in our processes, not just our end results.
I look forward to a life full of them.

via

Change is Good

If you are a regular reader of my lately irregularly updated blog, you will notice that I've made some changes around these parts, and they're pretty big.

Drumroll...
After two and a half years of writing under the "Bon Mot" header, I have decided to move in a new direction, and have changed my title to:

It's been a long time coming, actually.  I've always aspired to be as chic and clever as the French title I had ascribed to my blog.  I've tried, I really have, and, thankfully, I've failed.

About a year ago,  I was in the throes (and still am, in many ways) of figuring out how to be a big dreamer who lives the day-to-day life in peace and contentment.  I wrote a coupling of posts sharing the title "The Journey" (click to read: Part 1 & Part 2).  I tried to articulate that I desperately needed to find the balance between knowing the dreams God had placed in my heart and living for the day when those dreams would come to pass.  I had to figure out how to live through the now, the stuff that makes up real life.

I've worked (in real life) to be the me that blooms where I'm planted and carries her dreams as gifts, not burdens.  In real life, I've become more thankful for the moments that carry us to wherever we'll end up.

My blog just took a little while to catch up to the new me, but it's here now, and I'm so very excited to see where it goes.  The new title, if you didn't catch it, is "One Momentous Life," with a focus on the word "moment."  My cheesy English nerd self loves the idea that the moments make up the stuff of our lives that we may one day look back and see as momentous.  I'm beginning to realize that in rushing away the moments of life, the nitty-gritty of the processes we're working through, we miss so much.  


So, welcome, friend.  I'm a little more comfortable here, and I hope you will be too.

Identity Crisis

All over the internet, I read bloggers giving advice that to be an effective blogger, you must "know your niche" in blogging.  Know your audience, know your subject matter.

This is something I have struggled and struggled with.

What if my goal is simply to write what is on my heart?  What if sometimes, I feel like I want to share something that made me giggle, and the next moment, I want to share something that made me sob?  Am I not trying hard enough to be specific?  Will anyone be interested?

I guess, dear audience, that I would hope to identify you as I try to identify my blogger (and non-blogger) self.  A real, raw person who gets from one day to the next by simply living.  A person that, amidst all of that life-living, also seeks out moments of intensity, moments of purpose, moments that make the heart beat life into places forgotten.  I hope you are a person that dreams big dreams with big hopes while folding laundry one minute and putting the dishes aside to read a book the next.  I am guessing that you want to change the world somehow, yet you feel insignificant and busy and but still somehow hopeful.

If you are anything like me, you are looking for people to identify with.  Words to connect with.  Confirmation that being very real is what life is about, and that these moments are beautiful and messy and we all have them.  

I know that God is not mistaken, and that this mess of me and my blog and my heart may not fit inside of a box, of a subject matter.  And I have to believe that there is an audience that doesn't fit inside any of those things, either.

Worry-Wart

The past couple of months have been quite trying in certain areas of our lives.  We have added one beautiful little boy to our family, and that's been one of the best things ever.  However, there have been other situations that have made me want to crawl back in bed and be a child again without any grown up worries.
Ah, worries.  They plague me daily in almost every form.  I worry when we don't have enough money, and when our cars break down.  I worry about friendships and things I say and odd stretch marks that I now bear in multiple places.  The problem is, if the things I worry about today were solved tomorrow, I know there would be something else to worry about.

So, instead of worrying, today I will:

1. Be thankful for the opportunity for such great faith.  It is in these moments that God continues to show up in our lives in the most obvious ways, just to comfort us.  He keeps reminding me that He's aware of our situation, and that though things may not be fixed in an earthly sense, He will sustain us in our spirits, in our hearts.

2. Choose to breathe life into my thoughts.  God gives me the choice daily between life and death, blessing and cursing (Deuteronomy 30).  It's my inner self, my secret thoughts, that harbor my deepest worries.  I will understand today that I have a choice to not think on those things, to remind myself Who is in control and that He desperately loves us, no matter what.

3. Pump up my prayer life.  I understand that there is a spiritual battle going on consistently.  Therefore, I choose to look past what I can see and pray over my worries whenever they arise.  Prayer works in every area of my life, but especially in my perspective.  When I can hand something over to God (as if He wasn't already in control),  I am reminded of His great care for me, and I can find peace even when things look really bad on the outside.

Philippians 4

A time to be silent

For such a words-lover as myself, the concept of silence is an incredible thing to grasp.


si·lence
[sahy-luhns]  noun, verb,
absence of any sound or noise; stillness.

I can honestly say that this past year has been a period where God has met me through my silence, and it has been an effort to remain still.  However, for a blog, it doesn't always bode well.  I sit down to write and there is no block, but there are also no words.  Nothing to share, not yet.  Jesus whispers into my ear, Patience, my daughter, patience.  And so I have sat.  Without much to say, with little to share.  And I have hoped, friends, that you would be patient with me.  My heart is about to burst with all of the things I have been learning, yet I still feel the urge to remain here, quiet, before Jesus, for just a few more moments.

And so I am waiting here quietly and learning in the process.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for waiting here with me.

Where's Waldo?

I love my life.  I relish the crazy, full, diversified schedule that we keep.  I love saying yes to things.  I love feeling accomplished and tired at the end of the day.

However, between being a pregnant wife, part of a ministry, a small group leader, a homemaker (though that is often debatable), a friend, a sister, a daughter, and a person, I tend to feel a little like Waldo:

If the childhood urge hits you like it hit me, click on the image to enlarge and highlight over this next line if you need a hint:

He's in the upper left quadrant!  

Sometimes, I can't find me... the girl who loves to curl up with a cup of coffee in a silent room escaping in a book... a passion for creative writing sometimes so overwhelming I could cry... a need to indulge in art and emotion and compassion and a yearning to just feel and relish the connection between myself and my Maker.

It takes effort to push these things aside for a moment.  As an achiever, I'm always striving for the next thing, waiting to check off the next line of the list.  Sometimes, I forget that that girl with oddly deep and analytical thoughts and emotions is ok.  I shove her aside for the other one - the do-er, the one pushing for excellence.

But when I make that effort, when I turn off all of the distractions, I am reminded of Who made her, and that He did it for a reason.  When I let Him overcome me, the rest of the list doesn't seem so important anymore; the responsibilities no longer so heavy.  I am allowed and encouraged to be the daughter indulging in her Father's love and compassion and mercy.  It's alright to be motivated by the depth and the emotion and the passion, because all of those things stem from Him.  I am flawed, but I am His masterpiece in the making.

You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.  --Psalm 139:15-16 (MSG)

Persistence

There are so many questions in our lives right now.  What do the next five years look like?  Where will we be?  What does life hold for us?  I think it comes with the territory of being in the starting stages of a life and family.  I've never felt it was more imperative than now to really know where God is leading.  So I pray, and my husband prays (and he fasts... which I'm not doing right now because of the little peanut), and we seek God's face daily.
This morning, however, like many other mornings, I just got overwhelmed.  I want to feel settled and have control over what is coming in our lives.  I completely trust God, but sometimes I get the timetables all mixed up.  I know that His ways are different than ours, but I want answers quicker than I get them.  You know, the whole, "Seek and you will find" bit?

Well, I re-read that verse this morning, and was reminded to not stop... it says to be persistent:

Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.  --Matthew 7:7 (NLT)

Just because I am not getting the answers I want as quickly as I want them does not mean that God is not working.  It's my job to continue to seek his face so that when he's ready to reveal his will to us, we'll be ready.

The Problem with Confidence: The Journey, Part 2

Thanks for checking in on Part 2 of the the journey!  

If you haven't read Part 1, you can do so here!

•••

You can bet that I was hitting my time with God in a big way.  I was spending more time reading and praying than ever.  I was begging God for clues that he had not, in fact, dropped me out of the back of his mind, but I felt like I was getting nowhere.  Looking back, I see that God was allowing my brokenness because it was priming me for what he was about to do.  The time I spent with him started out as my desperate pleas to for him to answer my prayers, but somewhere along the line it changed to desperate pleas that if he didn't answer anything, that he would just show up.  This was the most crucial, most broken spot for me to sit in.

It was here, in my brokenness, that I got hit by a two-by-four with this verse written on it (ok, not literally, but it was kind-of dramatic for me): 

We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ.  It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God.  --2 Corinthians 3:4-5

When I read that verse, I saw how inverted my faith had been.  Until this point in my life, I had not had to question where I placed my confidence.  If you had asked me before, I would have surely said "God," and meant it.  However, reading Paul say that he was only confident in God's ability and nothing else really surprised me.  They key is that he was confident in nothing else.  This is where the small seed of understanding planted itself.

I had to get down to the most core part of myself.  No more self-talk, assuring myself that it would all turn up how I wanted it.  I saw my prayers for what they were--Begging God to give me the life I had pictured.  I desperately wanted things to fall into place, and those exact words, of asking for things to "fall into place" had riddled my prayer life.

However, when I read this verse, I saw exactly where I was placing my confidence: in situations.  I was saying to God and myself, "If only I could be here, I would be satisfied."  I was placing my hope of satisfaction in life on the contingency that God would show up in the ways I thought he should.  I could say that I felt slapped across the face and God said, "Duh.  Who do you think you are to give ME contingencies?" but that would be DEAD wrong.  All of this realization did come on strong, but it came on gently.  I did not feel disciplined or chastised, only very loved. 

That moment I could say to God things that I didn't even know needed to be said before:
I have confidence in who you are and your perfect plan, and nothing else.  I don't have confidence in me--I have confidence in you in me.  I don't have confidence in my husband--I have confidence in you in my husband.  I don't have confidence in any plan, any recognition, or any promotion that the world gives us, no matter how bad or how good it looks.  In the deepest valley and on the highest mountain, I can feel the same satisfaction that I am yours and it is all part of your plan.

Feeling forgotten was no longer an issue, because that was the me that put my confidence in situations.  That feeling rested on the fact that my life did not look how I wanted it to.  This new understanding left no room for self-confidence or situation-confidence.  It only allowed for God-confidence. 

•••

I know that this part was a bit longer than Part 1, so thank you for sticking it through!  I'm hoping that though my journey was completely personal, you are finding things that connect to your own journey.  If you do, please let me know in a comment, or you can email me at contact[at]sarahannrogers[dot]com.  I would love to hear about your journey, and I thank you for being real with me!

Forgotten - The Journey, Part 1

This is a series of blog posts chronicling my journey over the past year.  I'm doing it in parts because I have so much to say about all that God has done in my life, but I want it to be painstakingly real, and that's going to take quite a bit of space.

Welcome to Part 1 of my journey.

•••

My biggest struggle over the last year has been feeling as if God had forgotten me.  I never questioned if he was God or if I should obey him; I just thought that somehow, I had fallen out of the back of his mind.  Maybe I was low on his list.  I saw people taking the next steps in life and wondered why it seemed God had put our lives on hold.  I was so incredibly confused as to why people around me seemed to have the direction they'd prayed for.  I had prayed too, daily, for God to do in my life what he was doing in theirs.
You could have told me that those people had issues and questions with God's plan for their own lives, too, but that wouldn't have helped.  See, I didn't want anyone else to suffer.  I was so overwhelmingly happy for those around me, and I never wished that they would "not have" because I felt like God was withholding from me.  It was not envy that was eating me up... it was the loneliness of confusion.
I was desperate.  I was caught in the middle of so wanting to submit my life to God's will no matter what it looked like, and railing against God for not giving me answers--for not writing on the wall when we would be able to move forward with our lives. 
Whenever I would open up, people would give me the worst advice.  They were all telling me what to do, how I needed to approach God--all things I was pretty aware of already.  I was writing down Bible verses about not questioning God and how his thoughts were higher than ours.  I started to see God as cold and uncaring--I just needed to follow him because he said so.  I found no comfort, which I realize is what I needed most.  I was not doubting God's power, and I was not falling away from trusting in him; I was just emotionally exhausted.

 •••

For today, I'll just leave you with a hint that my journey from feeling forgotten into God's perfect peace has something to do with verses like this:

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.  When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.  When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you....
No one can snatch anyone out of my hand.
--Isaiah 43:2,13

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Bite Me!

I woke up extra early this morning because I had lots of work to get done.  I didn't get but five hours of sleep last night, and that is not the best thing for me.
I want to shout to the world: "Beware!  Don't cross me!  I may either start crying or not be very nice!"
Instead, though, I'd like to be bitten.  And no, not in that gross, twinkly vampire way.

It seems that when I'm most tired and most vulnerable, somebody or some situation takes a bite out of me.  My prayer today is that when (not if- I'm really tired, so I know that for today, it will happen) I get bitten, I taste sweet.  I hope that Jesus in me comes out instead of the tired me because she's not very attractive and she's just not that nice.
Thank God for his Spirit that replaces our ugly inner selves.  I am thankful today for my exhaustion, for in my weakness, I can rely on his fruit instead of my own.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. -Galatians 5:22-23

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Command: Rejoicing

Here, Paul isn't just pleading us to be happy.  He's not just saying, when things are going well, indulge!  Look for the blessings!  Be joyous when you can find something that makes you smile!

Instead, what he is commanding us to do is to CHOOSE to rejoice.  In tiredness, in busyness, and even when life goes the complete opposite way that we would choose.  Through rocky relationships, through changes we don't expect, in heartbreak.

Paul even says it twice.  Rejoice.  

Notice, however, that Paul doesn't say, "Work your best to be happy!" or, "If this doesn't come easily, you're not a Christian!"

Instead, he tells us to rejoice in the Lord, and always, at that.  We are to make the choice to find our joy, our confidence, and our drive in our God.  When all else seems to fail, we can rest in the arms of Jesus, and that is cause for rejoicing.  When tragedy occurs, we know our God is infinitely good, and we can choose to find meaning in that.  When everything is going well, our root of happiness should still be our God instead of our circumstance.  Only then will we not be rocked when something changes or doesn't go our way.

Today, I'm choosing to rejoice.  I'm not rejoicing in my cute house or the beautiful weather or even in my incredible blessing of a husband.

I'm rejoicing because my God is.  I'm rejoicing because He exists and He is good.  Today, and every day, that is enough for me.