Letting Go of Regrets

Two days ago, I wrote in my journal about some regrets I have... Most of the time I can put them on the back burner and continue to enjoy life, entrusting those regrets to the Lord. But lately I feel them weighing me down. I've been having dreams at night that make those regrets feel even more acute.

Then today, I read a devotional that I get a couple of times a week called "The Loop." It often strikes a nerve, and it certainly did today:

You want to know what it looks like to pray to Me? To be with Me? To listen to Me? You are full of questions . . .when you pause. . . when you ponder your heart. Questions about Me, about how to live this day, about how to have more joy and freedom  . . .

Don’t feel guilty about the hard days, the long days, the stumbles, even the falls. You could look back on them, analyzing them, thinking about how you could have done things differently and how tomorrow, no matter what (oh, you are resolute!) you will not repeat what you did before. .  . Except, you fear you will.

You fear time passing so quickly—so quickly—and not being able to hold on tightly enough to time. A moment isn’t holy in-and-of itself. It is Me, inhabiting the moment, which makes time holy. So how could you mess it up? How could you make a moment less holy?

Don’t regret, child.

The only purpose in looking back on time—in endeavoring to appreciate it—is looking forward, looking to where I was, in the moment, then. Look back, if you must, but only so you may see Me in the moment.

Wow, did I need to hear that! I need to know that He was there... in those moments I regret. I need to know that He can make those moments holy. I need to know that He can redeem them.

I need your touch, Lord. I so need your presence in my life. I need to hear from you. I need your direction, your joy, your peace. I find my strength in you.

Give me grace in place of judgment

Give me love in place of comparison

Give me generosity in place of envy

Give me joy in my position--my God-given position

Let me be who you want me to be

Let me do what you want me to do

Let me love whom you want me to love

Give me what you want me to give--not just materially, but gifts of empowerment, support, encouragement, beauty, creativity

Again "Be Still"

I have been holding on to Psalm 46:10 since last September. And today, I read in Nehemiah 8:11 those same words, “Be still.” At a time when the Israelites were filled with grief and regret over their sins and failures, the Levites calmed them and spoke grace to them. At a time when their failure was weighing heavy on their hearts, dragging them down emotionally, the Levites encouraged them to celebrate and rejoice in God’s goodness.

This speaks to me because I struggle with the what-ifs. Sometimes the grief and burden of past failures weigh me down and keep me from being who God wants me to be. There is a time for mourning and grieving and confessing. But today is not that day. I have mourned. I have grieved. I have confessed. So today I pick myself up, dust myself off and I

rejoice in the goodness of God, trusting Him to redeem my past failures and, yes, even my sin. And that is my unswerving hope.

New Life: Enduring, Persistent, Relentless

I'm going to be sharing this story tomorrow night with a large group of ladies at our church in the form of an interview. I'm feeling butterflies and I think about it. I'm a better writer than speaker... not sure I'm great at either, but I feel like God has given me a message that I can't keep to myself. So, I'd like to try it on you all. Here goes...

 

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how your Christian Journey.

I grew up in a Christian home, but it was one where being a Christian meant going to church every Sunday and being good—or at least looking good. As I became a wife and a mom, I worked very hard at making sure everyone thought my life was perfect. And, for the most part, it was good. Then I came across a book by Kay Arthur, called As Silver Refined. It opened up a whole new perspective for me. In the book, she talks about disappointments being God appointments, about how God refines us through difficulties. In the beginning, she tells the story of an ancient silver smith and the process he goes through in refining silver, and she compares that with how God refines us…

The silversmith starts with an ugly piece of ore that has been taken from the ground. First, he has to smash the ore with a hammer. Once he has crushed the ore, he puts it in a crucible and builds a fire. Now the fire must be very, very hot, but not too hot. He puts the crucible in the fire, but the silver is very precious, so he never leaves its side. He carefully watches as the metal melts and the impurities rise to the top. He skims the impurities off the top then allows the crucible to cool. But he is not finished. Again, he builds up his fire. It must be very hot--hot enough to melt the precious metal in the crucible, but not too hot. Again, the impurities rise to the top and he skims them off. He goes through this process several times. He finally know his work is complete when he looks into the crucible of silver... and sees his own reflection.

That is what God is doing with us... refining us as silver.

I didn’t realize until later what a divine appointment reading that book was for me. God was preparing me for some really tough times in life.

Our theme tonight is new life.  What symbolizes new life for you?

We have a little Prairie Fire Crab Apple tree on our property. It has become a symbol of new life… persistent, enduring, relentless new life. It is a story of redemption.

Why is this tree so special?

This tree was given to us almost 9 years ago by my nephew’s baseball team. Our older daughter had been to many of their baseball games.

Tell us a little bit about your daughter. 

She was a happy-go-lucky, bubbly, silly 15-year-old. We lived out West and she loved to spend much of her summers with our family here in the Midwest. She often went to my nephew’s baseball games. She got to know those boys, and they were all great friends. In March, 2004, we moved back to the Midwest, and that transition was difficult for my daughter. My priority for the next three years was to get her through that transition and through high school. But just three months later, we got the call no parent ever wants to receive. There had been an accident. Our beautiful, vibrant daughter had been killed instantly…  That little Prairie Fire tree had been given to us in her memory. We planted it between two giant rocks on our property and I turned the whole area into a prayer garden.

You have told me before that there were days following the accident that were difficult to even get out of bed. I am sure creating your prayer garden gave you something physically to do.  What else did God give you to help you move forward.

We were preparing to go back out West to do a memorial service at our church there—for her friends. I was thinking and praying about what I would say to them. They were really struggling with their faith and I wanted to be authentic with them. I didn't want to spout scripture and I didn’t want them to think that I thought my daughter was perfect. That made me think of the scripture in 1 Corinthians where Paul says, “when I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child” I knew that the friend they knew talked like a 15-year-old, thought like a 15-year-old, and reasoned like a 15-year-old. But she was not that 15-year-old anymore. I looked the scripture up in the Message Bible, and suddenly, God was speaking directly to me! Not to my daughter's friends. He gave me a word to hang on to that has gotten me through on days when I didn’t feel like going on. The words jumped off the page at me and brought healing to my devastated heart.

1 Corinthians 13:12-13

The Message (MSG)

¹² We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
¹³ But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

 For my daughter, the weather has cleared and the sun shines bright! She sees it all--as clearly as God sees her. She knows Him directly just as He knows her. But for us, we're still squinting in the fog and peering through the mist. We don't understand. And until we do, we have three things to do: trust steadily, hope unswervingly and love extravagantly. [hence, the name of this blog!]

As you were holding on to that hope and moving forward, tell us what happened to your beautiful tree. 

In the fall 2008, a huge windstorm blew through and snapped our little Prairie Fire tree off at its base. It was the saddest day we had experienced since the event that brought us the tree in the first place. I thought, “How can you be so mean, God?” The one living symbol we had of our daughter’s life had been ripped from the ground just as she had been ripped from our arms. It was so painful to see it lying rootless on the ground, so my husband built a fire. We held each other and cried as we watched that broken little tree go up in flames.

As you were working through that pain with God, you had another chapter of life that was developing. Tell us about that.

The 12 months following the day our little tree was broken are like a blur in my memory. Our granddaughter, who my son named her after his sister, who he loved so much, was a year old. Things with her parents were not going well, and she was in a foster home. I thought, “God, how can my granddaughter be in a foster home?!” I made 10 trips to Arizona in 12 months. We were trying to get custody of her and bring her to live with us, but being so far away and having state agencies involved made it difficult. I was full of grief and even anger toward God. We were at the mercy of the system, but isn’t the system at the mercy of God? Couldn’t he move us through the red tape and bureaucracy to get our granddaughter home? How could He let her sit there in a foster home when she could be here with us? And, by the way, couldn’t He have spared our little tree?! What would have been so hard about that for the God of the universe?

How did God show his tenderness through all of this? 

God is so full of grace and mercy. In my grief and rage, I felt His presence… even more so than usual. I vented my anger at Him in one breath and plead for his forgiveness in the next. And I believe He understood and loved me through it. So did my friends. God was gracious enough to put several people in my life who watched me struggle and squirm… who heard me rant and rave… Who were sometimes even targets of my anger. But they also understood and loved me through it.

I remember that year, as you struggled with anger and doubt but then God began sprout those seeds of hope again.

In the spring of 2009, I went out to work on my prayer garden, and to my delight, I saw several little shoots coming up from the roots of my little Prairie Fire! I carefully cultivated the soil around it. I watched it and cared for it as best I knew how. Eventually, one shoot stood out among the rest, so I pruned the rest off and watched all summer as that one shoot continued to grow and eventually became a whole new tree! Then in the late summer of 2009, we made one more trip out West and brought our beautiful little girl home with us! She has brought so much life to our too-quiet empty nest… sometimes more than we can handle!

You have been on quite a journey with God.  From this experience, what would be your message to all of us?

Whether your life is going well, or you’re going through a difficult trial, be authentic with God. Even if you are angry with Him, confess that to Him. Don’t try to be something you’re not. Seek Him with everything you’ve got. He’ll give you something to hold on to. He gave me 1 Corinthians 13:12-13. He may not give you the same verse, but He’ll give you something. He may not give you a tree that tells the story of persistent, relentless life, but he’ll give you something.

"Hi Mama!"

I don't remember the last time I heard my daughter say, "Hi Mama!" But I do remember that every time I heard it, my heart smiled. I remember hearing the young women I worked with say those words to their moms on the phone and I always hoped my daughter would do the same when she was grown. But it was not to be. She will be forever 15--that's when her earthly life ended and her heavenly life began.

I thought I would never hear those words again in this life. But God has such an amazing plan of redemption that filters down through every area of our lives according to His providence.

These days I get to hear the words, "Hi Mama!" all the time. Oh there's something about those words that does a mother's heart good. Each time I hear them, I'm reminded what an amazing privilege I have in raising a second little girl. I am reminded that I do not deserve this privilege. But God gives it anyway. That's how He works. He gives us what we don't deserve--that's grace--and it is my unswerving hope!

Hope Renewed

I am loving The Hope Experience. I am on Day 40, which talks about Naomi and Ruth. What a story of redemption! The book of Ruth was my daughter's favorite book of the Bible, so it will always be special to me. But after this past year, the story of redemption is so near and dear to my heart. I went through several months of bitterness like Naomi. I can't compare my life to Naomi's. Her loss was not just emotional, but her very survival was on the line because she had no husband or sons to provide for her. But I can relate to her grief, her loss of hope and the feeling that God had completely left her.

Her hope was finally renewed as she looked into the face of her grandson, Obed. My hope is also renewed every time I look into the face of my granddaughter. I am so moved by this picture of redemption. I'm honored to have my granddaughter in my home and humbled that God would allow me this privilege. There are still plenty of struggles ahead (and daily!) but my hope has been renewed, and that's a much better place to be than the valley of bitterness I was in a year ago! Oh how I love my Unswerving Hope!

Redemption

I was just reading Paula's blog, His Ways Are Not Our Ways,  and was reminded of a similar story of redemption in my "Prayer Garden." About a year ago, we had a wind storm go through and it broke our little Prairie Fire Crab Apple tree right off at the base of the trunk.

Now, I like all my trees, especially the flowering ones like the Prairie Fire, but this was not just another pretty tree. This tree was given to us five years ago in memory of our 15-year-old daughter. When it broke off, it felt like another kick in the gut. My husband had built a fire to burn some other brush and limbs that had fallen in the wind storm. There's not much you can do with a tree that has broken off at the base, so we threw it on the fire. We both sobbed as the little tree burned. Even after four years, our grief still seemed fresh. I was mad at God. He is the God of the universe who calms the storms and raises dead people to life, could he not have allowed this one little tree to withstand that wind storm? I told him that I felt like he was so mean. We lost our daughter and one of the most special comforts we had was that tree. I had built my whole prayer garden around it. Now there wasn't even a stump!

As you can guess, this spring, several shoots grew up where our little tree once stood. All summer, I've watched it and pulled the weeds around it until I could see one strong shoot rising above the rest. Then I cut the others and continued cultivating the soil around it. Now, as Fall is approaching, that one shoot has again become a little tree! Our little Prairie Fire is not dead! It is very much alive! What a testimony that our God is not mean. It sure seems like it sometimes, but I was mistaken when I accused him of that. He is also very much alive and very much in charge. We just can't always see the work that is going on under ground out of sight. He knows what He's doing even when we don't.

So, God, again, I will trust You. Even when I can't see the big picture. Even when I can't see You working, I will believe and trust that your are doing a good thing. Thank You for showing me your redeeming power and thank you for redeeming my little Prairie Fire!