3 Thousand Different Kinds of Beautiful

1) Sunlight on water can be a thousand different kinds of beautiful.  Even over the same body of water, this East Texas lake for instance, every morning sky reflects uniquely and changes by the minute.  Every evening, I peer from this mezzanine-like porch through drooping cathedral limbs at the water and sky unable to look away for fear I will miss a "scene".  The elements never change, but I experience them differently every time I watch.  All I can do is stare, trying to sear the spectacle into my brain.  But once the waters are dark, I can not fully remember the fullness of the view or recreate the happiness I felt in it.

2) Likewise, though scripture (and liturgy) is unchanging, I seldom remember it fully after I close my Bible.  Neither can I easily recapture the experience, the reflection, or the connections I made during my reading.  Like a sunrise, a single passage can affect me differently on different days.  From the angle of my circumstances and the amount of understanding given me, I see the verse in a different "light" every time I read it.

3) Unlike unchanging elements and the Bible, my 5-month-old daughter changes with precise regularity.  I stare at her in wonder morningly.  I file the mental picture in my memory along with the glorious sunrises and life-changing Bible study moments- all three categories jumbled and fuzzy in my mind, never to be repeated.  In this limit of mortality, I feel a mix of sorrow and delight.  But mostly I feel awe.

However long & hard I strive, I will never arrive.

I listen to podcasts almost daily while I do chores or drive.  Sometimes, I have to pause, dry my hands, and take notes.  But lately, with blogger Edie Wadsworth's new "Grace Talks," my notes turn into full on self-evaluation sessions.

In Edie's "The Life You Love Manifesto," she describes our Life of Faith as a life of receiving, not of doing.  She lingers on the point that "we bring nothing to the table except sin and despair" and every good thing at the table is from God.  I look back on each guilt-generating seminar and self-help book that I have raved, craved, and prayed over and am finally comforted.  Truth that I already knew rings truer.  Peace sweeps over me.  God brings grace; grace leads us to hope because it grants righteousness.  On my own, I am not righteous.  Nothing I could ever do will ever change my status- neither of my two statuses:

1) I am totally bad.

2) He makes me totally good.

Edie shares her personal experience (I hang on the wise words of older godly women) of trying trying trying for years and years to get it right, stuck in the endless cycle of spent energy and guilt.  I am so there, my friends.  I have created and renovated self-improvement lists, habit-breaking strategies, and personal schedules for which there is not enough time in the day.  No matter how long and hard I try, I will never arrive.  The more likely scenario is that I will spend another decade striving, failing, and guilt-ridden, possibly bound for the stress that beautiful and redeemed writer Ann Voskamp once felt when she wrote,

“I wake to... the wrestle to get it all done, the relentless anxiety that I am failing. Always, the failing. I yell at children, fester with bitterness, forget doctor appointments, lose library books, live selfishly, skip prayer, complain, go to bed too late, neglect cleaning the toilets. I live tired. Afraid. Anxious. Weary. Years, I feel it in the veins, the pulsing of ruptured hopes. Would I ever be enough, find enough, do enough?"  

We can spend our lives on earth lamenting that we cannot reach godliness not realizing that, when we see Him in heaven, we will more so lament not having fully experienced the freedom and rest that He offered while we were still on earth.  Oswald Chambers so beautifully describes the "delight of despair" you will feel at the moment when you fall prostrate, as John did in Revelation 1:17-18, and Jesus touches your shoulder,

"You know it is not the hand of restraint, correction, nor chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father... it is an ineffable peace... full of sustaining comfort and strength.  Once His touch comes, nothing at all can throw you into fear again."  

In this mortal life, we should not expect to continually feel the utter fullness of His patient love- for we cannot remove ourselves from the context of our earthly circumstances and daily conditions constrained by our mortal needs and faults, surrounded by the devastating faults of others, and filled with sympathy or sorrow (Bernard of Clairvaux). But, when we see Him, we will be given understanding.  We can delight here and now in believing that moment will come.  I choose to fall into that happy rest that he offers now.  I will put forth effort, but I will not put my hope in that effort.  I will never "arrive" or be "enough," but He is enough and His grace is sufficient for me.

As women, inside us is this longing-

 -An insatiable need for validation, adoration, affirmation, affection, and devotion.  And we are like, "Where is this coming from?"  And where should we channel it?  After we find comfort in the realization that we are not alone in our deep quiet longings, should we suppress them?  Should we alter expectations of our husbands?  If unmarried, should we seek men who may satisfy these?  Should we kindle deeper friendships?  Or should we consider that there may be an entirely different source altogether? 

I long to feel adored, beautiful and treasured.  It is good and right for my husband to be sensitive to those needs- he was created with the desire to treasure someone after all.  God created both men and women in his own image.  As God placed in us His own desire to be loved, sought after, and cherished, He placed in men His own desire to be relied upon and affirmed by the words of the one he cherishes.  The puzzle pieces fit perfectly, actually. 

God intentionally placed in men and women an even greater need for Himself.  No person was intended to provide these needs anymore than we were meant to be fulfilled by their attempts.  Therefore we should neither burden them with impossible expectations nor set ourselves up for disappointment.  Christy Nockels suggests, "By posturing our hearts to look to God to meet the God-needs and acknowledging that He alone can meet them, we've positioned ourselves for the next posture: fulfillment."   Our security, validation, self-worth and identity should not be rooted in men's compliments or lack thereof (or anything else for that matter), but in the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. 

Proverbs 13:12 says, Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.  Many women are heartsick from deferred hopes of relationship or of fulfillment within relationships; but if we let God provide the God-needs, we will feel like a flourishing tree, lovely and fruitful Jeremiah 17:7-8.  

Ephesians 1:4-10

Chris and I plan to complete a Study-Discussion-Decision Emersion over Christmas break.  One week is dedicated to distinguishing God-needs and Spouse-needs in our lives and in our marriage.  I will likely post the exercises soon.  

Panicking like a Hebrew

Sometimes when I prepare to feed my 6-month-old son, he loses patience and panics- he throws his head back dramatically and screams all while wriggling and making himself hard to hold onto and harder to convince that "the food is right here, buddy.  Open your eyes."  I sometimes tell him, "Son, I know your needs.  I will feed you and clean you and keep you warm and give you love.  I have provided for you thus far, why would I stop now? I am going to take care of you." 

Today I added to my lecture, "You are acting like the Hebrews.  At the Red Sea, when they saw Pharaoh's army pursuing them, they flew into a needless panic.  Had God not shown His compassion for them when He brought them out of Egypt, had He not proven his power through 10 wondrous plagues, had He not provided for them a pillar of cloud (guidance, shade, cool) and a pillar of fire (guidance, light, warmth) in the desert.  Later, He would even give them manna from the sky and water from a rock.  Did they think He would abandon them at the sea?  Well, Son, God parted the sea and they walked through on dry land and THEN He wiped out their enemy.  Exodus 14.  Baby Boy, I have not failed you yet.  Why are you panicking like a Hebrew?" 

Then I realized that God has reason to ask me the very same question.  Wham!  Humbled.  "Heather, why do you worry about your life?  Look at the birds of the air...your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you  not much more valuable than they?  If God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  Matthew 6.  I have provided for you thus far, why would I stop now?  I am going to take care of you."  Oh.