Faithful Friday

Faithful Fridays are rapidly becoming the only blogging day to which I am, well, faithful.  I do have some works in progress that I'll share soon, but remembering that God is the ultimate artist, let's look at His works in progress shall we?

I laugh about having ADHD, and sometimes I begrudge it- the real problems it creates for me are difficult (but not impossible) to overcome.    There are lots of down sides like hours and days when the fog rolls in and I can't get motivated to do tasks, much less focus on stuff.  The guilt of zoning out when I most want to be present for my friends and family is not fun, and neither is the struggle with memory {sometimes I feel like a goldfish}.  But there are also some upsides like- having lots of energy, being able to see connections between seemingly different concepts, being able to sleep regardless of the recency of my last caffeine fix, and noticing the little details.  

There's something redemptive about being distractable.  It helps me keep some of my childlike wonder at the world.  While my loved ones and acquaintances may have mixed feelings about my, "Oh hey, look, a butterfly," moments, I have to say I'm glad I caught some of those things.  In the busyness and the rush of today's tempo it gets hard to take time to appreciate the small wonders of our environment.  We can easily overlook the small delights around us, like the cheery yellow butterfly wending its way through the garden, or a magnificent sunset glimpsed through a clearing in the trees.

Recently I've been reminded to focus on the good things, to seek them out instead of focusing on my problems for fear that they'll never be solved.  Just as I was promised, the more actively I seek to find the good, the more readily I find it.  The changes in light, the whimsy of clouds, the colors of the sky- we can write them off as scientific, natural processes, but isn't it more fun, more beneficial and beautiful to marvel at them as majestic reminders of God's glory?  Even secular and agnostic sources are promoting an attitude of gratitude.  As believers we get to personally say thank you to the Creator for these visual gifts!  We can let the world tell us that these are just daily environmental occurrences, or we can accept that these things are demonstrations of Gods love for us.  God doesn't need the flowers to blossom or the sun to shine but He lovingly creates them.  They are His artistic expressions.  They are for you as much as they are for me.  Will you allow Him to woe you today?  Will you allow Him to console you in a brief distraction from your problems?  Open yourself to the possibility that that bright beam of sunshine or gentle breeze are His way of getting your attention and reminding you of His presence.

Faithful Friday: Casting Cares

At twenty-sha-ma-na-na-na years old, I'm not where I imagined I'd be as determined by my teenage self.  Like so many others I imagined I'd have it all by now- college education and successful career making lots of money or at least "making a difference," happy marriage, a house, new car, etc. There's nothing wrong with wanting the American dream, but it is exhausting and demoralizing to relentlessly chase it on your own merit.

Reflecting on the life I envisioned for myself, I'm so thankful for ungranted prayers.  A lot of my dreams changed as I met new challenges, no surprise.  Psychology quickly replaced biology as my major when I realized I was more interested in minds than bodies.  My limited dating history, prior to meeting my husband, reads like a comedy of errors. The economy tanked as I left college and many of us are over-educated for the jobs we're working and the house/car/material dreams are harder to obtain.

I had big dreams of being significant for helping people, but here's what I've learned: it is absolutely exhausting trying to make yourself significant of your own merit, holding onto plans so tightly against the push and pull of unforeseeable circumstances.  I got a graduate degree that held so much promise of making me significant to my community, but using it pulled me away from my family, faith community, and the things that kept me grounded.  I spent almost a year of forsaking the things and people that mattered most, giving all my best effort trying to shine on my own.

God doesn't ask me to be my own light source, but to reflect divine light.  Every bump, scrape, scratch, and ding acquired through living and refinement allows me to reflect His light in a new way.  If I shine it's because He polished me; if I am dull it is because I tried to evade His hand.  Refinement hurts and God's not shy about it.  We are tested in a "furnace of affliction" (Isaiah 48:10) and even the wise will stumble so that they may be refined and purified (Daniel 11:35).  It is through refinement, however painful, that we know we are loved (Zechariah 13:9), as a parent disciplines a child out of love.

Refinement is hard; I'm probably not the first to tell you about that.  It was hard giving up a career that made me proud, but disgruntled.  God loves a humble servant, and humble me He does.  Yet here I sit, happier and more blessed, living a life unexpected.  We all face painful circumstances.  It's part of our refinement.  It's painful to accept that sometimes our plans are ill-suited, but when we surrender our expectations God reveals His glory.

How many of life's pains give rise to something more beautiful that couldn't have existed otherwise?  How much more do we appreciate the things for which we labored or that came at a high cost?  Shall we resent the labor and the cost and give up, or press on in hope of victory?  There's a party going on in heaven.  These battles are already decided and won.  We are free to accept today's challenges as enough for today (Matthew 6:34).  Cast your cares.

Faithful Friday: Diving In

There's that old adage that says, "Write what you know."  Well, I'll confess it here and now, despite how I may act, I don't know much.  I suppose being now securely in my mid-twenties, the "wisdom" of my "all-knowing" teen years has abated.  I look around and I realize the more I learn the more I am aware of what I don't know.  Believe me, sometimes the hardest words to say are, "I don't know."  We're taught to believe that it's a cop-out answer, and sometimes it is a brush off, code for "Just leave me alone.  I can't/won't give you the answer you're seeking."  But in all honestly, a lot of times I genuinely don't know.   I'm learning to humble myself and say, "I don't know; let me look into it and we can learn together."

Okay, since now you know that I don't always know, (Friends! anyone?), here's one of the lessons I'm learning: God loves a bold heart- so start diving in.

I really enjoy the messages of Joyce Meyer Ministries.  I like her approach.  Her messages aren't sugar-coated and she gives a lot of practical advice.  Basically she tells it how it is- we live in a broken world that you can't control, but you can control yourself, your attitude and behaviors; complaining and inaction won't fix the world-it starts with you.

Sometimes I start my morning listening to Joyce Meyer via her iphone app.  One morning she spoke about how God loves a bold heart.  He loved the boldness of David who didn't sit back and quibble over how he was going to defeat Goliath; rather, he just trusted God and went out and did it with the skills he had.  I've told you about how planning can get me into trouble.  I start to think too much...yada yada.  Well this message kind of struck home and it reminded me of another passage that's stuck in my heart.

Jeremiah 31:22 begins with "How long will you waver oh faithless daughter..." It is the verse that pierces my soul when I am discerning what to do and am inactive.  Waver-yes that about sums up how I can refuse to set my mind to one path because I'm afraid of failing, sometimes hoping someone or some circumstance will push me in one direction or another.  Faithless daughter- ouch.  The sting of truth.  The verse comes shortly after Jeremiah 29:11 which promises that God's ultimate plan for those whom he loves is to prosper them.  So I imagine God in this verse saying "I [just] promised you that in the end you will prosper and not be harmed; trust me; step out in faith and do."

I am learning to apply this in everyday life.  As Joyce Meyer has discussed, it starts with the mundane tasks.  For her it was putting a cart back at the grocery store.  For me it's been dishes.  We don't have a dishwasher, or rather we have two dishwashers and our dishwashers are powered by elbow grease.  In our (rather tiny) kitchen, those dishes pile up, especially if we have guests over or if we try and get fancy with our meals.  This morning was one of those mornings where the magic cleaning fairy didn't visit us in the night, so I awoke to quite a mountain of particularly dirty dishes.  It was almost overwhelming to think about cleaning them, but I'm learning.  I didn't think about it. I just did it, as I've done before, and I'm always surprised at how quickly the task goes.

It makes me think, how often do I "deliberate" to the point of inaction?  All the while giving more and more of an opening for the enemy.  It's a special kind of procrastination to put off doing something simply to put it off, not because you wanted to do some other specific thing instead, but purely out of avoidance and sloth.  It's the kind that always brings on the bad guilt that festers in me and makes me insecure about other things.  So for me, I'm learning obedience, discipline, and trust, I suppose, through simple everyday tasks like doing the dishes.  Complaining and magnifying that mountain won't make it go away, but it will make me inactive and unhappy.  I'm learning it's better just to dive on into the task, trusting that it's for my benefit and if it isn't I'll be rescued from it.