More than I can bear

I had a little time and thought maybe a blog post or two was in order but wasn't sure what to write about so I did what I always do when I have time and no thoughts, I go to facebook.  There I came across other blog posts on a topic I can totally relate to right now.

"God won't give you more than you can handle"---MYTH!  Not in the bible, not even biblical.

Luckily in the past several months I don't recall anyone saying that to me but I am familiar with the phrase and I can testify to the truth of the other posts which assure us that God can and does give us more than we can handle.  And as evidence you can ask any number of my friends who will all tell you that I did not handle what God gave me this fall at all.  Smeared across the living room floor is how I described myself.

But, God was there, he walked with me, he picked up my burden and picked me up and helped me walk through my big trial.  That is what God promises.  I am probably years away from being fully on the other side of this trial but God has gotten me to a place where I can stand upright and move forward.  I do so because I know if any little thing comes my way he is right there for me to lean on.  I can shrug whatever comes my way right off my shoulder and onto his without skipping a step.  I hope I am done being smeared across the floor over this, God has taught me many great coping skills over the past few months, but if I do find myself there again, undone by far more than I can bear, I know he will be there to help me through it once again.

Since several people have already written well on this topic here are a few links to the ones I like:  Here and then this one HERE and this one HERE.

New year and on the other side of a big hurdle in this trial I am trying to move forward.  My mind is slowly starting to work again and I am dreaming of having interesting thoughts and ideas soon!  For now I am just so happy to be in one piece again and functioning like a regular person.  God is good.

"Then the nations will say about them, 'The Lord has done great things for them.'  The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with JOY". Ps 126:3

We are filled with Joy

I just reviewed all my posts from 2013.  And I am struck by two things:  #1-I really am a good writer.  I totally inspire myself. (I feel a little like Castle, "I really am ruggedly handsome"), #2-this was sort of a depressing year.  And what is more depressing is that clearly last January I was feeling relieved to be at the end of 2012 and was looking forward to 2013 being a better year.  And yet this year...So much I haven't even written.

The good news is that a lot of the hard things from 2013 have had some sort of resolve at the end of the year.  Good or bad they are all on a path and off my plate.  Some problems will be ongoing but, we have finally learned this fall how to interact with the stresses of our life without letting it affect our ability to live life.  And I can focus on areas of my life I can control.  Like my need for a part time job.

I love, love real estate but need at least a little regular income.  I have had some good interviews but so far no offers.  Another interview for a job just a mile from home on Monday.  Would love your prayers.

Whether 2014 ends up to be a great year or a continuation of the stress of the past 2 years, it never hurts to start off with a little optimism.  And I really do think this will be a good year.  Great? I don't know. Good? Definitely within my grasp.

As I was reviewing some recent posts I noticed that I have already written a little about my word of 2014.  This year I didn't have to sit down and contemplate what it should be.  God had been presenting this to me for the last couple months and it seemed silly to even pretend I was going to focus on anything else.

Ps 126:2-3
Our mouths are filled with laughter and our tongues with songs of joy.  And it was said among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for them."  The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with JOY."

My word of the year is JOY.  Joy is not something we have or don't have, it is something we choose.  Joy is not determined by circumstances.  My sister said, "joy is void of circumstance".

For Christmas this year I printed up this and framed it for family and friends:

This picture was taken in Kenya when we were visiting Kibera which is one of the largest slums in the world.  There, as we walked by garbage, rivers of sewage, dirty children and desperate people, was a blue window contrasted against a cracking clay building.  I was struck by the beauty of it in the middle of such poverty.

Joy is like that.  Whether this is a great year or turns out to be another year of struggle we can look around and see beauty, see God working and choose to experience the joy.

I have found about a dozen verses on joy and we are going to try to memorize one a month as a family.  So far so good on the first one.

Ps 126:2-3Our mouths are filled with laughter and our tongues with songs of joy.  And it was said among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for them."  The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with JOY."

 

My greatest strength

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.  Areas we excel in and areas that need some shoring up.  I, for instance, am good at organizing things but not so good at cleaning.  I am good at planning but not implementing.  I am good at sudoku puzzles but not words with friends.  Mostly I will confess that it is easier to see my weaknesses than my strengths.  Always aware of my failures, never wanting to boast too confidently in my triumphs.

This morning I read this familiar phrase:

"The joy of the Lord is my strength"

Normally I think of this in terms of giving me strength to do something but today it struck me different.  Maybe this one of my strengths; knowing and experiencing joy only found in the Lord.  Maybe this is all of my strengths.

I do have joy in the Lord.  I love my life and delight in it but it isn't perfect and isn't always fun.  The joy I have always lived with is not the result of having a perfect life but the result of the love I have for the Lord. The joy I experience in knowing and following Him.

What makes me a great mother, homemaker, wife, friend, employee, etc?  It is my joy of the Lord!  And if I want to be better?  Focus on strengthening my joy in the Lord!  Often when we feel under attack our joy gets lost.  We turn our attention toward the specific problem and try to gain strength for that one situation rather than retaining strength in our joy in the Lord.  My strength comes from the Lord, comes from delighting in Him, comes when I allow myself to be filled with His joy.  It gives me what I need to face any problems, frustrating situations or simply answer the question, "what's for dinner?" every night.

If ever anyone was filled with the joy of the Lord it was Paul.  In his letter to the Philippians he mentions joy at least 16 times in 4 chapters.  And in Philippians, filled with joy, Paul says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."  In this book some call the "epistle of joy" I don't think I am making too big a leap to say that it is the joy Paul has in the Lord that allows him to feel he can do all things.  When your strength is the joy of the lord you really can do anything.

When Paul is saying he can do all things we are talking about a guy in prison, a guy in serious peril in circumstances he would not choose and did not have control over.  Yet he writes things like,

"Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance" 

and 

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!"

Life is full of challenges. But they don't have to get me down.  I am filled with the joy of the Lord and "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."

Where does your greatest strength come from?

Gladness of Heart

"He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart." Ecc 5:20

I don't know if you have noticed but, I have been having a few life challenges lately.  And they have sort of been kicking my butt.  And so I have told you that life is hard because lately my life has been HARD.

I find it is always worst right before it gets better and I am happy to report that I believe I hit my bottom this week.  And having spent hours over the past few weeks crying out to God and praying with friends and seeking wise counsel, I feel like I have sprung back out of the hole I have been in.  Not because anything has changed but because I changed.

I am reading through Ecclesiastes right now.  I know people say it is a depressing book of the bible, and in many ways it is, because you see the hopelessness of life apart from God.  Honestly, without God it is all meaningless, there is no hope, we work, we die, who cares.  But I know how it ends, I know there is a God who gives life meaning and purpose, we work, we die, we leave a legacy, we live in Glory for eternity.

Today I read, "He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart."

Life is still hard, we work, we die, who cares, but...we can either reflect on that fact, the burden of life, the hard, the challenges, or, we can let God occupy us with gladness of heart.  Remembering His Glory, seeing His Blessings, being Thankful for His Provisions.

We tend to not want to brush problems under the rug these days.  Once upon a time that is all we did.  Hide problems and put on a happy face.  Today it seems we have almost gone the opposite, brush the good under the rug because we don't want to deny the problems.  Being true to yourself means you can't say you are doing good when everyone knows your life has challenges.  But if we trust God and let him occupy us with gladness of heart, then challenges and joy can co-exist within us.

It is Thanksgiving week, what a perfect time to come out of my hole.  I have been reading all the thanksgiving posts on facebook.  And my friend Jody has been hosting "30 days of Thanksgiving" and while I have been happy everyone else was thankful this month, I haven't been really feeling it.  Not that I couldn't come up with things to be thankful for but I just didn't care.  However, I have sprung out of my hole just in time to celebrate this great holiday and today I share a few things I am thankful for:

• Boxes unpacked and feeling settled in my beautiful new home.
• New friends for Isabelle.
• The closing of my first sale (in which I wasn't the buyer or seller.
  )
• The hot tub at our new place.
• Family that stands by you through it all.
• Friends who love and pray for you.
• A husband who will get on a ladder in the cold misty rain to hang a for sale sign for you while you sit in the warm car.
• The contrast of black on blue walls.
• Teaching my daughter to sew her first barbie dress.
• Fabric glue to handle the finishing touches.
• A flexible schedule to enjoy Thanksgiving break with Izzy.

I pray God occupies your heart with gladness and thankfulness during this Thanksgiving week and throughout the year.

Infertility sucks. God has a plan.

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Prov 19:18

I  have been thinking lately about our years of infertility.  A couple we know is struggling to get pregnant.  Whenever I hear of someone I know, or even someone I don't know, going through that same struggle we experienced for so many years my heart breaks.  I remember the pain and sorrow.  The constant monthly grieving.  The confusion and hopelessness.  It was not good.

You put on a brave, happy face and keep going through the day to day of your life because you realize you can't just give up on life and become one with the couch.  But you aren't sure you are living.  You are really just going through the motions.  Because nothing in life makes sense.  And the overwhelming sense of powerlessness you suddenly realize you have over any aspect of your life is more than you can comprehend.

Other people seem to be able to do whatever they want.  They plan their life, they plan when they will have children and it all falls right into line exactly the way they planned.  But you can't get pregnant and that was not in your plan.  And there is no willing it to happen.  There is nothing you can DO.  I mean you can try lots of different things, you can pursue lots of medical options but ultimately there is this realization that life really is not created by man's will but by God's and clearly he is not on your side when it comes to this.  And you can't seem to make Him change his mind.  And you want to hate God for it but really, what does that get you?  You believe, you don't believe, you are mad, you are happy, you still won't get pregnant without Him.

AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  This is a good time for a big tantrum.  It feels good but still changes nothing.

It has been 18 years since we last used birth control and 8-1/2 years since God blessed us with Isabelle and finished our family.  So I have had a little time to gain some perspective on this topic.  And one thing I have seen is that the lessons I learned going through infertility have helped me with other challenges in my life and have helped me to understand other people who are struggling not just with infertility but with any challenge that makes you feel powerless and takes away your dreams.

When people are struggling we tend to feel uncomfortable with them.  We are uncomfortable with other people's grief.  So we try to say things to make them feel better, which so often actually makes them feel worse.  (Helpful hint:  If your friends have been trying to get pregnant for 3 or maybe 6 months, suggesting looser underwear and cold showers might be helpful.  If they have been trying to get pregnant for 2 years and are seeing specialists, it is insulting.)

People grieve.  Jesus wept in front of Lazarus' tomb even though he knew he was going to raise him from the dead.  Life is hard and it is OK to experience the emotions of the moment.  We can still grieve and believe that God will give us a child or whatever other desire of our heart is currently unmet.  It is OK to struggle.

We can trust God.  Recently I was thinking about the idea of having the "mind of Christ".  It is a Christian saying that we throw around but, what does it mean?  It sounds godly so when someone says they are having the mind of Christ on something we just nod our heads because it sounds good and spiritual.  I started thinking about what it means and while I don't know what it means to other people, what it means to me is to have an eternal perspective.  While I can only know what is going to happen at this very moment, Christ is concerned with eternity.  So while he understands that we want a child RIGHT NOW, he also knows what we need for eternity.  The growth and reliance on Him that infertility will bring, the perfect child that he has waiting for us at the perfect moment.  The plan.  Our story which will be like no one else's story.  And again, not just a truth in infertility but for any area of your life where you are struggling to see God's plan.

Today I can see in our family how God's plan was perfect for us.  We got to have Jake alone for several years of his childhood before Isabelle came along.  A blessing for us all.  Then we got to meet and bring Sam and Lauren into our family along with Isabelle.  We have a daughter we adore and her birth parents and sister as a bonus which we are blessed beyond words by.  At no point ever in my life would I have made this plan, could I have seen what a blessing, joyful and loving experience this would be.  And because of the pain we suffered through infertility we have been able to love others who are struggling and process new trials as they have come our way.  Not that we don't still grieve and struggle but we know we will make it through and we know Christ's plan will be infinitely better than ours.

If you are struggling today I don't want you to read this and hear, "stop struggling", "don't worry be happy".  If you are in the midst of struggling go ahead and grieve.  It SUCKS.  Nothing changes that.  But I hope this gives you hope that eventually, in ways you can't see right now, it will get better.  God will redeem this moment and bring you joy and completion beyond what you could dream.  Keep going.

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Heb 11:1

A Friend or Two or Three

One of the selling points of our new place was discovering that a friend of Isabelle's from school also lives in this building.  How fun, I thought, for Izzy to have a friend here.  And what a sweet bonus that across the hall from us lives a 6 and 3 year old.  She will never be bored. Plus she won't be the only loud one. And while it is great, somehow I think I got 3 new kids in this move who are just as goofy as the one I already have.  And she is definitely not the only loud one.

And with all of them running between homes my door seems to be always hanging open.

Add dorm living to the college experience we are having.  Elementary school style.

The Beauty that Surrounds Me

Today as I am sitting at my dining room table/home desk I looked over to see this out my window

And even though I am still enduring hard days, and I still don't like it, I am trying to continue seeing the beauty that surrounds me more than worry about the problems that God is handling.

And so even though in this month of Thanksgiving I am struggling to feel thankful, today for this moment I am thankful for a new home with a beautiful view.

Today my friend Jody over at Even the Sparrow is sharing this message on her facebook page

And even though I want to resist it I am trying to rest in it.