Get a Life... Take the Job!

My older daughter's birthday is this Wednesday. She would be 25. But she's almost 10 according to her heavenly birthday. March will never come without precious thoughts and memories of her. She was shy, but chipper, bubbly, funny, energetic, caring, loving, and always stood up for the under dog. In the first grade, she was chosen by her teacher to watch over, care for, and work with a little autistic boy in her class. He had an adult aid to work with him, and my daughter worked closely with her--in the first grade! That's how caring she was.

I miss her greatly. I grieve the loss of an adult relationship with her. But I can hear her saying, as she did when she was in the 8th grade and I was offered a full-time job, "Mom, get a life... you need a life... take the job."

God gave me the scripture above about two weeks after her death. I was trying to make sense of it all, which is futile. It doesn't make sense, and it won't this side of heaven. My "job" now is to trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly and love extravagantly. I've been working on that for almost ten years now. I have certainly not arrived, but I continue to strive as I hear my daughter's voice ringing in my distant memory, "Mom, get a life... you need a life... take the job!"

Missing My Unswerving Hope

I have not had much to say here recently because, again, I have not been listening much. I have been running… busy… vacation… dance class… homework… laundry… the list goes on.

I miss listening, and my heart yearns for it.

So today I pulled out my kindle and began reading through My Clippings. One of the first ones to really catch my attention and express my heart of late is from “Hinds’ Feet on High Places.”

My heart has been hurting because of a loved one who I’ve not heard from in a long time. I miss him, I struggle to trust and not to worry. Most of the time I trust, but some days the weight gets heavy.  Because as the Much Afraid says in “Hinds’ Feet on High Places”, “I am afraid… I have been told that if you really love someone you give that loved one the power to hurt and pain you in a way nothing else can.”

The Shepherd confirms Much-Afraid’s fear, “To love does mean to put yourself into the power of the loved one and to become very vulnerable to pain, and you are very Much-Afraid of pain, are you not?”

Oh yes, Lord, I, too, am very Much-Afraid of pain. That’s why I continually find my heart barricaded behind a wall so thick, nothing much can penetrate it. The problem is, when you build a fortress around your heart to keep out the bad, you also keep out the good. Hence, my lack of listening… my lack of journaling… my lack of peace.

When will I learn, Lord? When I get to heaven I suppose. But until then, I’ll keep working on myself… on my schedule… on my priorities.

Love Me Enough

Relationships are messy—they can be painful. We get our feelings hurt, we hurt others—usually unintentionally and often obliviously. A snide remark from an insecure psyche, an uncaring act from selfishness—I do it every day to the people I love. Someone may unintentionally and unknowingly hurt me, and if I’m not careful, I will barricade myself in my own little fortress—making sure I never get hurt like that again! 


Maybe the only way to keep from being hurt is to never love anyone again. But is it really worth that? Not loving carries a pain all its own. So really, I’m just swapping one pain for another.


We have to be intentional in our relationships. We must be forgiving. This life is too hard to get through it alone! 


If you are a friend or relative of mine, let me warn you in advance, I will probably make careless, selfish comments that will hurt you. Please love me enough to talk to me about it. Please confront me about it. Don’t wall yourself off from me. Help me to see my sins of selfishness and insecurity. Help me become a better person. Don’t just be mad at me and quit speaking to me. Love me enough to point out my failures. We are all imperfect people living in an imperfect world. We’re all doing our best, but everything we say and do comes from a brokenness that we can’t fix on our own. 


 So please love me, confront me and forgive me—don’t hide from me and allow me to continue in my selfish oblivion!

The Inescapable Love of Jesus!

Early this morning, I had one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I had gotten up early because my husband and I wanted to go and vote together before work. As I finished drying my hair, I heard a funny little noise coming from our bedroom. I knew my husband was still sleeping, so I wasn’t sure what it could be. I opened the bathroom door to hear a froggy, sleepy little voice coming from the baby monitor. Our precious little one was singing…

Jesus loves me, this I know

For the Bible tells me so

Little ones to Him belong

They are weak but He is strong!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me.

Yes, Jesus loves me!

The Bible tells me so.

Jesus loves me, this I know,

As He loved so long ago.

Taking children on His knee,

Saying, “Let them come to Me.”

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me.

Yes, Jesus loves me!

The Bible tells me so.

Yes, she even included the second verse! As I reflected on that song today, I remembered a night about 20 years ago. I had been having one of those mom days when I was feeling so unworthy, so unlovable. As I rocked my baby, I began singing Jesus Loves Me to her. All I was trying to do was get her to go to sleep so I could have some peace and quiet of my own, but before I realized it, I had tears rolling down my face. I was so blown away by the love of Jesus. I had done nothing to earn or deserve it. In fact, I was probably trying to push Him away. But He wouldn’t hear of it. He loved me, and let me know it in no uncertain terms that night.

I haven’t been able to stop smiling all day as I recall that little croaking voice declaring the love of Jesus this morning before she uttered a single word to anyone else. How privileged are we!

Because You're Mine

Why is it bedtime? Why can't we eat cookies for dinner? Why does Daddy have to go to work? Why is the sky blue? Why do you love me?

Why do you love me?? I expect all those other "why" questions from my three-year-old. I even attempt to answer them even though it usually leads to the next "why" question. But why do you love me?? That one dumbfounded me for a moment last night. How does that come from a three-year-old?

Because you're amazing and very lovable... because God wants us to be together... because you're my girl. Why do I love her? I don't know exactly, I just know that I do love her very much.

Why does God love me? I have no idea. I constantly let Him down... I get mad at Him when things don't go my way... I grumble and complain when He doesn't give me what I want or even need... I forget Him when things are going well and run crying to Him when they aren't.

Yet He loves me. Why? Because I am amazing and very lovable--yeah, right... because God wants to be together... because I'm His girl. He loves me because I am His. Period. That's my unswerving hope because sometimes I am not very lovable!

Relationships--Who Needs Them?

Have you ever felt like God has disappeared? I know I have. That's why I was drawn to this great little book by Shane Stanford called, "When God Disappears." Each chapter focuses on an encounter in the life of Jesus. The chapter I'm reading today has hit me particularly hard. It's the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. I've read that story a million times, but Shane Stanford brings out a whole new perspective. He suggests that the miracle, the raising of Lazarus is not the main point of this passage. In fact, he says, "Lazarus being raised from the dead may not even be in the top three reasons to take note of what happens here." Wow. So what is the point of this encounter?

Stanford zeros in on relationships. Here's what really got my attention in this chapter. "Jesus always goes to the heart of what we dread in this world. We dread being alone, so we make friends. We dread being hurt, so we don't make friends. We dread feeling betrayed, so we don't let our real selves show. We dread loss, so we choose not to love." Oh, how I relate to that! I am a people person, an extreme extrovert. I love being with people. But I have also been hurt. I have experienced major loss--mainly in the death of my 15-year-old daughter. I am also a sinful human being and I don't always treat people well. Sometimes it feels like it would be easier if I just didn't get involved in other peoples' lives.

Even though it is sometimes tempting to withdraw, to isolate myself, I can't. I need people in my life. But I get hurt. People I love die. I blow it in my relationships. So if I can't withdraw, my next tendency is to stay very shallow. Sometimes the shallow life is a great place to be! I used to just bounce my way obliviously through life, happy as a clam, dealing with nothing that threatened to burst my little bubble. But eventually, despite my attempts to avoid it, my bubble got obliterated. I had no choice but to deal with my "stuff." It felt like God had disappeared, and I had to dig really deep to find Him again. I can still tend to live on the shallow side of life, but I have learned that I can't stay there. I have to take the time to dig deep.

As I said in one of my earlier posts, motherhood has potential for the greatest joy we'll ever experience. It also has the potential to hand us pain so deep that we may think we can't survive it. I'm thinking all our relationships offer those two potentials as well. So just because they could cause pain, should we avoid them? Should we choose to keep them shallow and never reveal our true selves?

I offer a resounding NO! Shane Stanford would join in as well. He has experienced great disappointments and pain in his life, but would he choose to never have lived it? No. What about Jesus? Did he experience hurt, loss and disappointment in His relationships? Ha! Have you read the gospels lately? If so, you know He did. But out of all the ways he could have saved the world, He CHOSE to come and live in relationship with us. He CHOSE to make himself vulnerable.

So, even though I may get hurt--no, I will get hurt. Even though I will hurt someone else. Even though I will experience loss, I choose to live in relationship. I choose to let my real self be known. I choose to love.