God at Three O’Clock

It was a weekend for the books. Chad realized that he was getting another kidney stone. As he started chugging gallons of water and went to the doctor to get some medicine that might keep him out of the emergency room, we found out Sawyer had tonsillitis. Antibiotics, Mucinex, breathing treatments. One night of coughing until 3 am. Then, Emerald started vomiting. That’s right, she came down with something DIFFERENT than Sawyer had. Sitting up until, yep, 3 am, trying to catch vomit in a bowl.

Yippee for the weekend!

Unless the weekend kind of stinks.

Now I’m Lysoling the entire house, thanking God that, at this moment, the stone has passed, no one is coughing, no one is vomiting. As far as I can tell, the kids are having another great day at school, Emerald is blissfully napping, and Chad is enjoying lunch with a new friend from church. And, I, mother-who-catches-vomit-in-her-bare-hands, am sitting comfortably on the couch, appreciating the fresh scent of Lysol that is wafting from every corner of my house.

Have you been there? In those 3am moments? When it feels like the whole world is sleeping soundly, but you are up wringing your hands or watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with a miserable baby or crying out to God that He will take away your pain, take away your child’s pain, hear you when He feels so far away? Have you laid in bed with eyes wide open, picturing all the ways you should be doing more, being more? Have you had a middle-of-the-night panic session?

In those dark, dark moments, dark sky, dark house, dark mind, it can be so hard to feel like God is near. It can seem impossible, what you’re facing. It can get the best of you.

If you let it.

But, why do we give the best of ourselves to worry, doubt, fear, when there is only One worthy of our best? Why spend so much of our energy, time, thinking power, spiritual well-being, deep soul strength, on all of the unknowns and the questions and the nerves? Because there are plenty of things that we know, if we believe God’s word.

We know He is good. Psalm 136:1
We know He is in control. Proverbs 16:9
We know that He loves us. John 3:16
We know that He doesn’t change. Hebrews 13:8
We know that He is working things out.  Romans 8:28

And, even while we know all of these things, all it takes is one little bump in the road to make us panic.  We had plans that didn’t work out.  We had goals that were never met.  We were disappointed by someone again.

What always shocks me about myself is how TINY the problems can be that send me reeling.  Oh, me of little faith.

But, God sees my weakness.  He isn’t shocked by it, nor is He disgusted by it.  Instead, He works in His amazing ways to change my thinking, to make me want more of Him.  To help me, in those 3am moments, when I am so tired, when I am so worn out in every way, to sing His praises.  To look on the face of my sick little baby and worship God because she is here.  And because He is so very present, even when I don’t acknowledge it.

He helps me rub my little boy’s back, through the breathing treatments, overwhelming me with the power of God’s love for me.  His love, which powered my love for Chad and his for me, which powered our love for these precious ones.  And, at 3am, when my eyes are only half open, my heart is opened to His great love, the source of all love, and the reason that life is worth living.

Oh, He is good.  At 3 am.  At the best times and the worst times.  When I can see His hand and when I feel lost.  He is still there.  He is still good.

He is still God.

Everything

Have you ever felt absolutely swallowed up, surrounded, suffocated, and strangled by fear? Have you laid awake at night, tossed and turned, stared at a ceiling that holds no answers, prayed until you don’t know what else to say? Have you cried about the things you worry may happen? Have you been paralyzed by terror?

Even Christians can be fearful. Even when we know that the Keeper of the Universe is in charge of things and is our Father and Friend, we worry. Maybe this is because, although we know that He is in control, we are still concerned about what He may choose to do with our lives. After all, we have seen people more godly than we are who are dealing with cancers, accidents, crime, and a host of other scary situations. We know that, yes, bad things can happen to good people. And, even when we can truly believe in our souls that whatever happens will glorify Him, we still naturally don’t wish to endure the hardships that we so fear.

I have always been exceptionally gifted in imagining the worst. I love a good imagination, but mine sometimes works overtime creating any manner of terrifying scenarios that my kids, my husband, or I may face. I can come up with some of the most wacky, off-the-wall, totally irrational fears. In fact, I am so good at imagining these things that when I was in the sixth grade I began to have panic attacks.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a panic attack, but it is one of the most awful feelings I have ever experienced. You feel like you’re going to die. Heart pounding, throat closing, everything is spinning, and you feel completely out of control. I haven’t had a panic attack in over 20 years, and I still vividly remember what it feels like. I learned at that tender age that I was going to have to be utterly dependent on the God I had trusted to save my soul several years before. I learned how to breathe. How to allow the Holy Spirit to minister to me in those horrifying moments. I figured out that God is there. I remembered that I can trust Him.

And every day since then my life has been a continual exercise in remembering that.

Now when I am afraid of losing the ones who are everything to me, I am reminded that there is only one Everything. And, when I think about how I wouldn’t survive if this happened or if that happened, I am gently led by the Holy Spirit to understand that if the worst happens, I still have Everything. In fact, Everything never changes. He is the Great I Am, the One who Was and Is and Is To Come. And, Everything never leaves. He never stops caring. He never leaves me with nothing, even if He takes all that I know. He gives, He takes away, and He remains.

I’ve heard it said that fear is faith in the enemy. I don’t know if I really believe that’s true. Maybe those of us who are especially fearful were created with extra tenderness. Maybe he made us tender and soft and easily broken because in our weakness, in our fearful state, we are constantly learning to trust Him. To believe Him. To acknowledge Him as Everything. And when we can make it through, when we can conquer and we can be tough and we can overcome our fears, we bring Him glory. Because it is so obvious that it isn’t easy for us. But, God can do so much with tender hearts, imaginations that run wild, and utter dependence. Before long, fear gives way to a deeper faith.

Peace to your hearts, my fellow fearers. God sees. He loves. He is working on us.

A Shot and a Smile

Sawyer has always been a laid back kid. “The Forgotten Child” would sit for ridiculously long stretches and entertain himself when he was smaller.  He didn’t walk until he was fifteen months old, and I’m convinced it was because he honestly didn’t have anyplace he was just dying to go.  He was pretty pleased with wherever he was at the moment.

Today I was reminded how wonderful laid back children are because it was flu shot day.

When I was a child, if my mother started driving in the direction of a doctor’s office, I got hysterical.  It didn’t matter if shots were on the agenda or not.  In my little worried mind, anytime I stepped foot in that office, a shot was a real possibility, so I went ballistic when a visit to the doctor was mentioned.

But, Sawyer sat cheerfully in the waiting room watching Disney Jr. He giggled when I told him he was getting a shot. His eyes lit up: “Do you think they’ll give me a Band-aid?” I assured him that not only would he get a Band-aid, he would probably get a sucker, too.  That knowledge pushed the whole event into the realm of a great day.  I just shook my head in amazement.

I wish I were more like that.  I would love to trust God so much that I don’t get all worked up about what’s about to happen in life.  I want to be able to turn to God when I get bad news and just giggle and say, “Well, I’m sure something good is going to come out of this!”

Or maybe I just need to stop looking at the Band-aids and the suckers of life, the small blessings, as insignificant.  Maybe I should believe that those small things really do make for a great day, instead of focusing on the bad stuff.  At the end of his day, Sawyer’s shot was completely forgotten.  But, how often do my bad experiences dictate how I feel about my whole day?

Sawyer got his shot, his Roadrunner Band-aid, and his orange sucker.  He started and ended his day with smiles.  And as far as I can tell, he didn’t worry about a thing.  Faith and joy and Band-aids and suckers.  In Sawyer’s heart, the shot was just a footnote in an otherwise lovely day.

I love that kind of faith.  I want to be like Sawyer when I grow up.

Sweet Victory

I spent a significant part of my day typing out the lyrics to Christmas music.  Our church’s Christmas musical is coming up, and as I am married to the Worship Leader and I also happen to have remarkable typing skills (eat your heart out, people), I was gifted the job of entering all of the lyrics into the computer.  Many of the songs we’ll be singing are favorite old Christmas hymns, and as I went through them all, I noticed something.

I have been singing these songs for years without really listening to the words.

I have the lyrics memorized, yet I have never stopped to consider what the songs are actually saying.  Of course, the songs are about Jesus. They’re about the baby in the manger.  They’re about Mary and Joseph, the star, the shepherds, the wise men, the angels!  Any child can tell you as much.  But, what I saw today was something a little different.

As I typed and typed and half listened to Sawyer and paused to get Emerald out of crazy predicaments and talked on the phone and cleaned up the kitchen and ate lunch and typed some more, the Holy Spirit began to show me how I should fit into that special night, the one we sing about.  The night of Jesus’ birth.

Consider these words:

“O, come all ye faithful, joyful, and triumphant. Come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.  Come and behold Him, born the King of angels!”

I read those words and it was as if I saw them for the first time.  Come, all you who are faithful, joyful, and triumphant?  Is that me?  Do I approach the manger with faith, with real, true joy and a sense of triumph?  I have to admit that I have never looked at Jesus’ birth as a moment of triumph.

But, in that moment, death was already conquered.  We were saved.  He was here.  Finally.

Emmanuel, God With Us.

I want to live my life like this: faithful, joyful, and triumphant.

He did everything.  The hard stuff.  The impossible.  Surely I can manage to live a life of joy and triumph.  Because His triumph is mine.  His victory belongs to me.  His shining moment under the light of the star on that night was also my shining moment.  And His resurrection from a dark and terrible grave years later was also my resurrection.

Something tells me as you’re reading this you’re thinking, “Well, DUH!”  I know.  I can be a little slow.

But, I’m really glad that in the midst of the somewhat chaotic experience of this day, the Holy Spirit still graced me with a “God is so amazing” moment.  Join me in entering into this Christmas season triumphantly!  He came!  He saved!  Let’s keep the faith, live with joy, and relish the triumph!

Generations of Faith

Since coming to this church, Chad and I have had the special privilege of spending time with senior adults in our congregation. We’ve sat and talked with them, visited their homes and looked at their photographs, momentos of their younger days, awards and newspaper clippings. We’ve seen very first love notes and wedding photos and men with more hair and women with more curves, all spelled out in black and white dream-like photos and yellowed crinkled paper, carefully preserved. We’ve marveled that they have stacks of things waiting for us to look at. We feel honored to be allowed to see their past and hear their stories.

One thing I’ve learned from these encounters is that older Christians have such a faith story to tell! Many have endured tragedy after tragedy. Some have lost children, buried spouses, dealt with mental illness and children gone astray. Others couldn’t have babies at all. Many have been sick–really sick–for a long time or have been miraculously healed. Listening to their stories and seeing their enduring belief has strengthened my faith.

Often we get frustrated with older generations. We criticize them and berate them for being “out of touch.” We giggle when they don’t know how to use technology or when they don’t seem interested in popular culture. But, we are so busy acting superior that we miss the lessons that their lives can teach us. It’s true that sometimes older people can be ornery, and usually they are quick to admit it, but when we learn all the ways that God has moved in their lives through the years, and when we witness a faith that has endured, it changes us for the better.

Young people would be wise to be a little more humble when presuming to tell older Christians how to be. They have endured much, and their faith remains. I feel blessed to be able to get a small taste of what that long-suffering trust in God looks like. I pray that when I am put to the test like our older friends have been, my love for God will hold fast, and maybe someday I will be able to share a long and beautiful faith story with the younger generation.