When Trust Seems Absurd - The Battlefield of the Mind - Day 9

By the time it was 5:00 p.m. on September 11, 2001...when people were arriving back home from the workday...a nation was numbed, in shock, speechless, traumatized over the deplorable acts witnessed LIVE, either in person or on television, that occurred in New York City, Washington, DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I know for my generation, and those younger, it was a face of evil never seen before.

As the days trickled on, more and more details came known about the personal stories and circumstances...faces of people who never came home...children, some unborn, whose fathers, mothers are gone forever. I even learned a colleague of mine was on her way to San Francisco from Newark, New Jersey on Flight 93.

I don't know why I see children suffer and die from cancer, accidental trauma, and various forms of abuse regularly. I don't know why children are born with horrible conditions, sometimes incompatible with life itself. I don't know why my precious, only son, was born with severe autism and has never said my name and lives a life totally dependent on others for everything. I don't know why a woman who served Christ all her life, and was my best friend, is now enduring her 13th year with Alzheimer's. And I may never know.

But that is when everything and everything around you, as well as the thoughts within you, scream of such absurdity to trust in God...and that's when you must trust Him the most!

I used to sing this song by Twila Paris years ago...and the words still resonate:

Sometimes my little heart can't understand

What's in Your will what's in Your plan

So many times I'm tempted to ask You why

But I can never forget it for long

Lord what You do could not be wrong

So I believe You even when I must cry

Chorus:

Do I trust You Lord does the robin sing

Do I trust You Lord does it rain in Spring

You can see my heart You can read my mind

And You've got to know I would rather die

Than to lose my faith in the One I love

Do I trust You Lord

I know the answers I've given them all

But suddenly now I feel so small

Shaken down to the cavity in my soul

I know the doctrine and theology

But right now they don't mean much to me

This time there's only one thing I've got to know

Chorus 2:

Do I trust You Lord does the river flow

Do I trust You Lord does the North wind blow

You can see my heart You can read my mind

And You've got to know I would rather die

Than to lose my faith in the One I love

Do I trust You Lord

Chorus 3:

I will trust You Lord when I don't know why

I will trust You Lord 'til the day I die

I will trust You Lord when I'm blind with pain

You were God before and You'll never change

Do I trust You, do I trust You, do I trust You

I will trust You, I will trust You Lord

I will trust You Lord

I am grateful for a God I can trust even to others it seems absurd.

Trust and Grace - The Battlefield of the Mind - Day 8

This is one of my favorite passages...and such a good reminder:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV)

Have any of you been watching the mini-series on the History Channel, The Bible?  Wow...I don't know about you, but those times seem SO brutal!  Trust ... it was a life or death proposition.  Daniel.  David.  Moses.  And God's chosen people, those they led, were so reliant on God for everything.

And what about the trust required of 5 young men who obeyed God who, in the mid-1950s, went to Ecuador to go to reach an indingenous isolated and hostile tribe known as the "Aucas," which when translated means "savage."  They not only went, but took their young wives, and their children would be born there.  Believing the promise that God had sent them.  Yet...after much prayer, efforts of successful engagement with these people...these men, Jim Eliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Pete Flemming, and Ed McCully were speared to death on January 8, 1956.  Five women were now widows and 8 children were fatherless.  But their faith never wavered.  You can find the actual Life magazine feature article here, starting on page 10, with lots of photographs. But I'll tell you the rest of the story at the end of my post.

So...most days we are not facing such tests or trials...and yet why is trusting God so hard at times?

1.  First, God gives us the grace we need for each day.  As Charles Spurgeon said, "[God] isn't going to give you Monday's grace on a Sunday, nor Tuesday's grace on a Monday."  Deuteronomy 33:25 says, "as your days, so shall your strength be." (ESV)  We will not receive the grace to face anything until we need it...but it will be sufficient for us to trust.

2.  Along those same lines, I believe the greater the grace, the greater the battle in our minds.  I'm sure these great examples of faith struggled...how else could they have developed such faith...only through stress and resistance...remember?

3. In that light, I also believe that in these days, the enemy uses complacency, rationalization, and busyness to keep us out of God's word and away from His people, tools to counter the landmines we come across subtly...and daily.

So, those missionaries in Ecuador, believed God had a plan and trusted, threw all they had on His voice.  Only to end in tragedy?  Oh no, some of the wives returned, as did Steve Saint, the son of Nate Saint, who was only 4 when his father was killed.

If you don't think God has ALWAYS has a plan...watch the murderer of Steve's father, Mincaye, and Steve himself, during an interview in 2007...about 5 minues.


Today I am grateful despite the battle in my mind, I NEVER have to rely on my own understanding of God's plan...just believe there always is one.

Journaling Journeys ~ Truth Will Always Be Truth

I had planned to do a photo shoot and post about my love for journals and the favorites of my collection.  Oh, but as God often does...a detour!  A change in plans...

Last week I felt it was responsible and ethical for me to call attention to some issues at work, although I knew it would cause some difficulty and struggle for someone I care about.

Since then, the Lord reminded me of a message He gave me seven years ago sitting in a waiting room to talk to a counselor about the news of my unmarried 19-year-old daughter's unplanned pregnancy.  (It was in a daily devotional periodical sitting on an end table and I picked it up and read that day's entry as I waited.)

How did God remind me of this?  I had cut it out and glue-sticked into a journal...one of many I was going to photograph Thursday night...  Coincidence?  I think not.

 

Take a good look at this photograph...really look at it!  Then read part of the cut-out page in my journal that follows:

I was reminded of the story of a man who took home a cocoon so he could watch the emperor moth emerge.  As the moth struggled to get through the tiny opening, the man enlarged it with a snip of his scissors.  The moth emerged easily -- but its wings were shriveled.  The struggle through the narrow opening is God's way to force fluid from its body into its wings to support them.  The "merciful" snip, in reality, was cruel.  Without the struggle, the moth would never be able to fly.

Go back and look at that photograph again...you can see where the tubes of fluid are what provides the structure for the wings function.

 

God not only used revisiting that in an old journal, but I had this fascinating opportunity on Saturday to photograph this gorgeous creäture on our butterfly bush in the front yard.

 

In April 2005, God knew I would want to rescue my daughter from the struggle that the coming days would bring.  This week God knew I would want to beat myself up because I did not rescue a young co-worker from the struggle that comes with failure in the early years of a young career.  And He brought this illustration back across my pathway.

 

In all honesty, I do not believe growth is possible without struggle, resistance, adversity, and correction.  I have never been able to get around it.  Just as the struggle of a butterfly creates the strength of its wings, just as the ripping of muscle fibers in the human body creates strength as the muscle heals...so does struggle and adversity in our lives strengthen the muscles of our faith.

 

When I look back on the most precious moments of my life, they always entail struggle and disappointment and failure.  For it has been those times that God's presence has been the sweetest and through the process, He has made me learn and become that which could never occur any other way.

Jesus, may I always see Your gift of  Your strength in the strain  of my struggle.

With gratitude,

Mother's Day Mercies

"If we could see beyond today as God can see..." is my mother's favorite song.  And since October 2011, I have been challenged and inspired to seek the gifts God brings each day, through my photography, through Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts, and of course, through God's Word.

I have not had a true conversation with my mother in almost a dozen years when she developed Alzheimer's. Today she is mute, sleeps most of the time, and has not known me for nearly three years or more.  And yet, despite the pain of seeing this wonderful woman await her Bridegroom as she endures what Robert Schaefer calls "the identity thief of the 21st century", I know there are gifts God brings in the middle of it all.  That is, what Ann Voskamp calls, "Hard Eucharisteos."

I am incredibly grateful beyond words for the 55 years she has lived out her faith before me, for demonstrating a servant's heart as she cared for her mother 24/7 for the last years of her life, and for her unwavering walk with Jesus that influenced me to walk with Him, also.

But what about now -- what about in the present?  Her hair is now long and I can french braid it freshly when I visit.  I can still touch her hand and pray with her and breathe in her presence.  I can feed her a strawberry sundae from McDonalds and play her favorite hymns and gospel songs from my laptop, knowing that the Spirit still ministers to hers.  I can find reasons to praise Him for the hard Eucharisteo...that makes my world stop and ponder about what is really important.  And I can kiss her forehead and stroke her face...little acts that someday I won't be afforded.  I can hear her singing her favorite song in my memory:

If we could see beyond today as God can see,
If all the clouds should roll away, the shadows flee;
Oe'r present griefs we would not fret, Each sorrow we would soon forget.
For many joys are waiting yet for you and me.
If we could see, if we could know, we often say,
But God in love, a veil doth throw, across our way
We cannot see what lies before
And so we cling to Him the more.
He leads us til this life is o'er, trust and obey.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  I love you!