reward – A Life of Simple Joys

Holy Week Reflections: The Grace of Dawn

The last of the dark clouds drifted across the rising sun, just over the trees topping the hills. Beams of light flooded the room as the sun, at last, broke through and shone freely.

Such is the season of Lent.

In this Holy Week, as I reflect on the last days of Jesus’ earthly life, I am struck by the symbolism God has placed in all of nature.

In this season of life, as naiveté is stripped away and the world groans in longing for His return, I am struck by my need to remember that my Jesus is acquainted with sorrows…accompanied by grief. He sits with me in compassion and understanding because He knows.

He has suffered and sits with us in our suffering.

I have lit the Lenten candles each morning, watching as each day the new candle adds light. I look to the Light as I pray before the candlelight, settled in my dependency, determined to keep walking forward. I dwell, fascinated by the curling smoke as the candles are extinquished one-by-one, for a few long moments. I sit in holy grief, knowing my sin nailed my savior to that cross, yet sit in hope, knowing that he won.

He rose.

And I am free.

Lent, unlike Advent (which is filled with child-like anticipation of the Newborn King), is heavy. It is the knowing of my faults, the realization that His suffering should have been mine. It is taking the time to sit in the weight of my sin while knowing, with each passing day, that my sin has been nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.

Praise the Lord, Oh my soul.

Lent is stepping into the suffering of Jesus, because He stepped into mine. It is identifying with the cross, allowing Him to bear mine. It is looking ahead, to the day when He stood, filled with breath and life, and walked out of that grave and took me right along with Him.

Lent is hope. It is promise. It is Grace.

It is the golden ribbon of morning puddled along the far black horizon, taking shape as Hope dawns faithfully day after day.

He is risen. He is risen, indeed.

Eyes forward.

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Revelation 21:5

In the crazy of moving during this, the most ~~busy~~ wonderful time of the year, I have struggled to keep my sacred mornings with the Lord. In fact, four days before we moved my desk got packed up…including my Bible. Now, I always have the online version but I so prefer the actual physical book in my hands, the weight of the Word on my lap.

I woke up each morning, not with relaxed anticipation of time spent with Jesus (which had become my blessed norm over the past months) but with lists of lists spinning through my overwhelmed mind. And celebrating Advent, in the insanity of packing every. single. thing. we owned and moving it thirty minutes up the highway to a new house in the hills surrounding Nashville, fell to the backburner. I purposed that as soon as we moved in we would make up for lost time.

As soon as we had left the old behind we would begin anew.

And we did.

As I wrote in my last post, we moved in with lights and candles and trees all in place and ready to point us to the coming King. We feasted and sang and baked and gazed in wonder at the expanse of sky above in the absence of the once-familiar trees. It was sweet and began our life in this new place with good and needed memories.

And now, the New Year is upon us. For the past few years I have asked the Lord for a word from Him. A glimpse at what He might have ahead for me, a focal point for my prayers and vision as I walk into January.

I haven’t received it from Him just yet, but I know I will. He has been perfectly faithful, every time I have asked, to give this to me. So I watch and pray and listen, knowing the newfound quiet of our surroundings can only help me hear the voice of my Father. (Though, I do have five kids and three dogs so…quiet is a very relative term!) As we leave this old year behind, shutting the door on the successes and failures, joys, heartbreaks and grief, we have an opportunity to begin anew on January first.

Does it mean I forget the hard? Well, yes, maybe it does…or it just might mean I should.

In Philippians 3:13-14 Paul says, “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

I believe this is a worthy goal for us as we begin the new year. 2018 does not have to be overshadowed by the pain hangover of 2017. Instead, we can allow the struggles to push us onward and upward, remembering why and for Whom we are here in the first place.

Because if we remember the “why” we are less likely to fall into bitterness and discontent. And if we remember for Whom we are here, well, it makes it awfully hard to be selfish.

Not that I struggle with selfishness. *sarcasm*

So I’m seeking the Lord today, asking for His word for me to be made clear before the New Year dawns. If you are doing the same, I would love to hear what the Lord gives you! What a gift it would be for us to pray for one another as we begin this fresh leg of our journey.

May the God of angel armies bless and keep you in 2018. May you know who you are and Whose you are as you walk each day with Him. And may the Peace of the Lord Jesus be with you and sustain you throughout this new year.

The Making of a Home

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.

John 14:3-4

If you had asked me what the absolute worst time I could imagine to squeeze in a move to a new house could be I would have, without hesitation, said Christmas time. Need I list all the reasons?

I think not.

But here we are. In our new home. Just moved in with only days before Christmas morning arrives.

Call us crazy. We might be.

God has a way of stretching us when we least expect it and, more often than not, the stretching is accompanied by great blessing. In fact, sometimes it is because of great blessing.

We scaled down quite a bit in house size. That meant some extreme and brutal purging in the midst of buying Christmas gifts and decorating our new home. Talk about conflict. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you my brain is just plain tired. Don’t even ask about my body. But the process has been so good and sanctifying.

First of all, it spawned this little corner of the internet. My quest to simplify our life and to find contentment and inspiration in the everyday normal of life brought me here, to you. Second, I was convicted to the core about how much stuff we had accumulated. Stuff I had honestly forgotten I even owned and, obviously, did not need. I was determined to move only that which was needed and brought joy. That may or may not have traumatized our resident hoarders. (Ahem.)

We sold what we needed to sell and gave away the rest, which was a lot. Friends and Goodwill benefited greatly and we spent weeks moving one SUV-load after another to our new space. As Christmas neared, I spent two days putting up trees, the special decorations that speak “Christmas” to our family’s hearts, and dreaming of the first magical days in this house with a view. Horses grazing out front, hills and trees and sparkling ponds out back. A porch with a swinging bed where my daughter contentedly strums her ukulele and laughter echoing down the wooden stairs as the kids explore and discover their new favorite spots to land. Moving in with Christmas already in place has been so good and helpful for our transition. Having our traditions waiting was a gentle buffer to the stress a move brings. I am grateful for that.

And now I can look out my window and watch the sun rise over the hills, the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen and the eggnog-scented candle burning next to the sink. I sigh and thank God, once again, under my breath as I take in this beautiful and quiet moment on an Advent morning.

Christmas was waiting, here, for us, when we arrived. All that meant joy and Jesus in this season was prepared beforehand so that our arrival would be seamless. Home, with all of the trimmings and sparkle and tradition, was ready.

Though the original Advent took many by surprise (remember, there are 400 silent years between the Old and New Testaments) the reality is that the preparations had been underway for thousands of years. From the day Adam and Eve fell into sin, God had begun the countdown to the arrival of Jesus to redeem and restore mankind to intimacy with Him. The star was ready to shine. The manger was built. Mary was chosen and Joseph placed in to “such a time as this” before anyone in the world realized what was coming. God was moving and working behind the scenes, preparing Christmas for his Beloved.

For you and for me.

And as we arrive, one by one, in His Kingdom by faith don’t you imagine He rejoices as we cross that threshold of eternal life? Don’t you think it pleases His father-heart to no end when we gasp in wonder and realize what He has done for us, embracing the gift of Jesus and walking through the doors of eternity to begin life with and for Him? I do. Most definitely, I do. Our God is full of good gifts and lavishly loves us. He gives us beauty and feasting and music and laughter for us to enjoy, together, as a family. These holidays are just a foretaste of what is to come and, today, I am going to linger a little longer at the window and watch the wind blow through the horses’ manes as they graze. I am going to sip my coffee slowly and inhaled the sweetly scented candle as Christmas carols play softly in the background. And I’m going to thank God for leading me down this road to a more quiet and less cluttered life that frees me to be in the moment, fully, with the ones I love the most.

Merry Christmas, sweet friends. You are loved.

Perspective.

She sat with my daughter, bent over the canvas with a brush hanging from her lips, peering critically at every detail of her work. Wondering if it was good, or maybe even (dare she hope?) great. My daughter and I looked at it from a few feet away…amazed at the depth and perspective in her painting.

“It makes me want to jump in and walk through it,” I said. My friend grinned, encouraged by our enthusiasm. We all looked again, loving how a little distance seemed to smooth out imperfections and bring the work to life. The more she painted, the more layers and colors she added, the more alive the painting became. To watch it happen was like getting a glimpse of what God must have felt as He created color and depth and beauty on this earth. What a gift!

Painted by my talented friend, Jenelle Schimpf

I retreated to my desk a little later, thinking over her work. How like our Father to use art to teach truth. How appropriate that the Father of Lights would reach my heart through the play of light on oils and canvas.

In a season of history where the world feels so jumbled and chaotic, when the news is rarely good and tragedy hits too close too often, it is all too easy to feel lost and confused and unable to see God at work in the midst of the struggle. But He is. He is so busy, painting the masterpiece of Creation, adding layers and color and depth to the form of Man and history…HIS story. Carefully He adds light here, darkness there. Intentionally He places every color exactly where it is needed in order to produce the end result that He has in His mind’s eye. And we, you and me, get to be colors on the great brush He holds in His hand. We get to be a part of the beauty and the glory that is God’s story.

That sounds lovely, doesn’t it? I think so…until he plops me into an area of blackness, of darkness contrasting the light where I had hoped to land. But if that is His will for me, in this season, to settle into a dark place…though it may be difficult…I have to make a choice. Do I trust the Artist and allow Him to use me where He wants me or buck against Him, muddling the colors and marring the end result? If I submit and let Him use me in the darkness, then I become part of His glory and beauty. Maybe I am being used to define the light, to draw attention to the bright beauty of the painting’s center…Jesus.

It reminds me of a beautiful little chapel in Carthage, Missouri…the Precious Moments Chapel. Many years ago, on our honeymoon, my husband and I visited this special place. As you enter the chapel you are met with a beautiful mural…Hallelujah Square. It is filled with images of children and families, of reunions and tears being wiped away, of crutches no longer needed and broken bodies healed. But the most beautiful part, to me, is where Jesus stands in the Square. When Samuel Butcher painted this mural he did not realize, until he was finished, that he had placed Jesus Christ at the very center.

Isn’t that so like God? All of the sadness and sickness and heartache that we go through, all of the longing and seemingly endless waiting point back to the One who is at the center of it all…Jesus. As we walk through these days of the season of Advent, try to take a few steps back and ask God to give you His perspective on your role in His masterpiece. See if, just knowing there is a center focus to it all, a reason for the dark color values as well as the bright ones, doesn’t help you lift up your face a little more and hold your head a little higher in hope. Ask Him for faith to endure, for the ability to trust His hand as He works in and around you. Remember all the ways He has been faithful in the past and choose to trust Him to be the same today and tomorrow as He was back then.

Because He is.

Rediscovery

I read books because I love them, not because I think I should read them.

-Simon Van Booy

For as long as I can remember, I have been a voracious reader. Our local library always had a summer reading program where kids were rewarded based on the number of books they read. In the summer between my 5th and 6th grade year I read thirty books. Mostly Nancy Drew. I walked around my house with my nose in a book, artfully dodging furniture and objects on the floor without ever taking my eyes from the page. I read myself to sleep, awakening the next morning with the book still open. On my face.

I LOVE to read, but as the years have gone by I realized something important and disturbing about myself. Though I continued to compile a library of books and would tell you that one of my favorite hobbies was reading, the truth is I was reading very little. In fact, it would take months to get through a book.

I wrestled with this, at first blaming busyness and the season of life that I was in. Sure, that was part of it. But I had to take a long, hard look at how I was using my time and be brutally honest with myself.

I spent more time on social media than I spent reading good books that blessed my heart and mind. I could tell you what Susie had for dinner last night and that Jane was now low-carb. I could also tell you that Carrie’s toddler refuses to wear socks and that Mary’s son is a star pee-wee football player and sports a custom pair of cleats. Nothing wrong with any of these things, right? Except that they were gradually eating away something that had always been very important to me: Immersing myself in a beautiful book filled with rich language and beautiful prose. Allowing my eyes to rest from the blue light of a computer screen and settle on the Times New Roman font evenly spaced across the off-white pages of a novel. Feeding my imagination with images of cities far away and encouragement to live simply and live well.

Instead, I was scrolling mindlessly, taking in tidbits of information that would be forgotten within days and training my mind to operate on what I believe to be a very shallow level in the interest of being “connected” and “in the know.”

So I stepped back. I didn’t delete the apps from my phone or deactivate my accounts. Extremes have never worked to break bad habits in my life. Instead, I began to replace the bad habits with good ones. It started with keeping a book in my purse. At first it was largely ignored as I checked my phone in waiting rooms or parking lots, but the mere presence of that book literally called to me. Eventually, I put the phone down and reached for the book. It felt silly, at first, to have to be so intentional about this but that is exactly what needed to happen. I had to make a choice.

A simple choice.

Over days and weeks the choice became easier. Reaching for the book began to feel normal again. Reading in my easy chair became my go-to. My desk, now organized, has become a place of study and journaling and creativity that it had failed to be for several years. And the result of making one choice at a time, of slowly replacing a bad habit with a good one, is that my stress level has dropped tremendously and I have the head room free to enjoy silence and give God a blessed chance to speak.

And speak, He has.

My relationship with Him is growing every single day as I make one choice at a time. My prayer life has deepened and the Word of God has come alive. I have read more books in the past three months than I had read in, probably, the last three years.

Social media no longer sucks me in like it used to. I can put it down. In fact, I am more hesitant to pick it up because I can feel the difference in myself after and hour in a good book vs. an hour of mindless scrolling. Facebook does so many good things, reminding me of birthdays and anniversaries and helping me keep in touch with dear friends who I would have otherwise lost touch with many years ago. But it is also addictive and endless.

And there are few things more satisfying than reaching the end.

We are now in the midst of the most beautiful season of the year, where we stop and give thanks to God and prepare to welcome anew in our hearts our Savior. Nothing is more important right now than really immersing ourselves in the wonder and glory of the Holidays! But if we are not careful, we can allow distractions to suck away precious hours that we can never get back. It’s not worth it. I want better for us, don’t you? I want my kids to see the value of meditation over the crazy beautiful story of the Nativity and get lost in the shadows cast by the candlelight in our family room. I want my life to be filled with music and poetry and scripture so that it drowns out the lies the enemy throws at me in weak moments. I want God to be honored in how I spend my time, down to the precious minutes of “down time” He sprinkles throughout my days. If I’m always looking down I will miss it and I will miss HIM.

So here are a few tips for making the change from screen to page:

Be honest with yourself. How much time to you really spend on social media? Don’t give in to the temptation to “round down!”
The best way to stop a bad habit is to replace it with a good one. What do you know you should be doing when you habitually reach for your mobile device? In my case, it was read. So bring along whatever it is…book, planner, etc. Keep it near you and convenient so that you don’t have an excuse.
Ask yourself why you keep going online? Ann Voskamp has a printable that I posted on my refrigerator with suggestions for things to do before clicking. It was convicting to realize how five minutes here and there can truly make a difference in the level of productivity I achieve on any given day!
Turn off your notifications. This really helped me! Something about what I call “the little red drops of blood” with flashing numbers screaming, “Attention! You have posts to read! Hey, you! Look at me right now!” would make me crazy and I felt like I had to keep them cleared out. So I turned them off. Simple. And that goes for your email inbox too. That thing can be a beast. If I had a nickel for every minute I spent deleting junk mail…
Start each day early, making time with the Lord first priority. Open your Bible before you open Facebook. Linger over the Word of God, read different translations and compare, maybe creatively journal the words that God uses to pierce your heart. But keep it simple. Prayer is not complicated, and neither is reading the Bible. It’s a love letter, not a textbook.
Work before play. An old friend told me this was what she taught her kids when training them to clean up after themselves. (She was much more successful at that than I have been, by the way. Judge away. It is a parenting fail I humbly own.) As adults we can model that adage by choosing not to “play” (go online for pleasure) until all of our work is done. House clean? Dishes done? Laundry put away? Quiet time spent with God? Great. Then reward yourself…but resist the urge to go straight to screen time! Start with a good book. Light a candle and wrap up in a soft blanket. Get really comfy in that big chair and see if, an hour later, you still care about what Susie made for dinner. Chances are, your book is much more interesting.

Now go. Feast and rest and love and enjoy all the beautiful bounty of this season! Look your loved ones in the eye and be all in, not wasting a single moment. Don’t give in to distractions and complications. It’s not worth it! Have a blessed and SIMPLE Thanksgiving!

How to be Thankful (Lessons from the Torture Chamber)

This year has been a doozy. Dear ones whom I love have suffered immeasurably. Devastating injuries, sickness, death, divorce, struggling children and the inability to just pay their rent have beaten them, literally, to a pulp. Continue reading “How to be Thankful (Lessons from the Torture Chamber)”