Each Day Is Always Fresh

I started this blog so I would start writing again. You can see how well that’s been going….

But one of the many things I’ve been learning lately is that while I will inevitable fail and falter at most things, there is infinite grace and I just have to have the courage to start again. So I’m starting again, taking Anne of Green Gables’ advice that each day is always fresh, with no mistakes in it. I’m sure I’ll make more than my fair share today, but writing again won’t be one of them.

I’ve been going through of a season where my sin seems to be ever before me. Fun. But as I’m walking this rocky road, I have been reminded over and over again of what a gentle father God is. How this rebuking is to draw me closer to Him, to show me that I need Him and cannot do a single thing without Him.

That’s not always easy for this stubborn, independent woman. I usually like to think I can get by pretty well on my own. But I think that may be one of the greatest lies of the modern age. We need people, we need God. Desperately. How good He is to remind us of that. And to hold our hand and guide us when all seems lost. To hold us closely to Him when we need comforting. To love us even when we are at our most unlovable.

That’s what dads do. No matter how big you get or where you are or where you go, you are still their dearly beloved kiddo. And that’s a truth we can hold onto. That never changes, just like He never changes, just like His love never changes.

Royal Love

On a totally different note. I think I'm adapting well to this crazy country. This morning I had eggs and crumpets, while sipping my coffee from the latest addition to my mug collection -- fine English bone china, with the profiles of a few royal you-know-whos (or rather, one royal and one you-know-who).

Next thing you know, I will be wearing fascinators and spelling words with extra letters...

To Every Season

Yesterday the skies were bright blue in London. It seemed like the first time in a long time that I actually saw the color of the sky, without hazy clouds dimming the brilliance of the blue. The warmth of the sun felt so good on my face. Spring.

I am so thankful for the changing of seasons -- in the world as well as in life. That even in the seemingly bleakest days of winters, we can hold on to the promise that things will change. Crocuses will push up through hard ground, daffodils will bloom, trees with sprout green leaves. It can be hard in the midst of winter’s grayness to remember this. But that doesn't make it any less true.

I can only imagine in Japan right now it seems almost impossible to believe that life will ever return to areas devastated by ruptured earth, waves and nuclear fears. And I doubt life will ever look exactly the same. But I have hope that life will return and believe in a God who is able to restore even the most broken things, to heal even the most ruptured lives.

If anything, this past month seems to prove that nothing in this world is stable. Not governments, not buildings, not landscapes. It definitely shakes you up. But I don't think that's a bad thing. Too often I cling to things that are passing, that won't last. Only one thing will; and He won't fail us or forsake us. And we can stand with solid feet on that firm foundation. Whatever the season.

Stuck in the Middle

Where to begin?

If you don’t mind awfully, I’ll just begin in the middle. Because, really, the last six months have been pretty uneventful. I did a little traveling. Saw family and friends. I kept my couch good company. I started a new job that was harder than my old job and left me in a bit of a daze until, well, now. And even now I struggle to find good work-life balance. But who doesn’t? Even now I struggle to sit down and meditate on life. Then again, usually when I start to do that, I get a bit depressed. I think too much. One of the downsides to being hyperanalytical.

But I don’t really feel like talking about all of that. What do I feel like talking about? Well, I’m glad you asked, actually. If you don’t mind, I’m just going to ramble for a bit. Mostly about God’s love and His faithfulness.

You see, I’ve been reading Psalm 78 this week and realized that I’m a bit like those Israelites in the desert. Wandering around this world of ours and even after God has gone and done great things in my life, abundantly providing for my every need, asking: “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? Behold, He struck the rock so that waters gushed out, And streams were overflowing; Can He give bread also? Will He provide meat for His people?”

Maybe you, like me, when you read that, think “Duh. Come on people. He brought water out of a rock. What can’t He do? What is wrong with you?” Then I turn around and pretty much do the same thing, asking a God who has taken care of me every single day, every single minute of life, paying attention to every minute detail: “But God, what about this? How will I EVER get through such and such? Are you really there? Do you really love me?” Yep, pretty much the same thing. Brilliant.

The good news, as I was telling my friend Erin last night, is that God knows what He’s doing. It’s funny, isn’t it? How easy it is to believe these things for other people. To tell them: God is FOR you. He is NEAR you. He will NEVER fail you or forsake you. He LOVES you. He DELIGHTS in you. And to struggle to believe any of that in the areas of your life that are a bit of a thorn in your side.

This week, as I writing some of those encouragements to a dear friend of mine, I was reminded of one of my favorite bits in one of my favorite books, Frederick Buechner’s “A Room Called Remember.”:

“The final secret, I think, is this: that the words ‘You shall love the Lord your God’ become in the end less a command than a promise. And the promise is that, yes, on the weary feet of faith and the fragile wings of hope, we will come to love him at last as from the first he has love us -- loved us even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, because he has been in the wilderness with us. He has been in the wilderness for us. He has been acquainted with our grief. And, loving him, we will come at last to love each other too so that, in the end, the name taped on every door will be the name of the one we love.

“‘And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you rise.’

“And rise we shall, out of the wilderness, every last one of us, even as out of the wilderness Christ rose before us. That is the promise, and the greatest of all promises.”

And THAT is the promise. One we can count on. So, on these weary feet of faith, I will keep walking. And on those fragile wings of hope, I will continue to believe that, as Beth Moore taught me, God IS who He says He is. He CAN DO what He says HE can do. Even when I’m stuck in the middle. Especially when I’m stuck in the middle.

It’s the Simple Things

The best things in life are often the smallest.

The first time you exercise after a bout of sickness. A good home-cooked meal. A bowlful of cherries. Flowers you buy just because.

And the best kind of thing – letters from people you love, especially when those people are your niece and nephews. Especially when their drawings remind you that the world is, in fact, a pretty beautiful place, and that you aren’t as far from home as you feel.

Your moment of Zen ...

All in the Waiting

I cleaned the windows in my flat today for the first time in months. I realized when I was home sick this week, sitting on my couch for the better part of every day, that they were pretty dirty.

So I got my cathartic clean on this morning -- the first day without rain in a while. And as I moved from window to window, from inside to out, in that repetitive wiping movement, I realized that those windows were a lot like my relationship with God lately -- that my view has been a bit skewed from the dirty film of my misconceptions about who he is.

It's pretty easy to bring our own ideas about God into situations. To think that God is a lot like this world we live in. Lately, I've been struggling to remember that he is good, that he has good plans for me. (I suppose that's the universal struggle, really.)

A few weeks ago, as I was sitting on a bus stuck in bad traffic that turned a 4 hour trip into a 7 hour trip, I realized that my whole life right now feels like one big waiting room. Not just waiting to get home. Waiting for my new job to start. Waiting for new friendships to deepen. Waiting for someone to share my life with. Waiting to be changed.

The 7-hour bus ride was a return trip from a week retreat with my church. It was good in many ways. I learned a lot. I also struggled a lot. But the thing I came away with was the sense that God is doing something in my life. I just can't see it yet. And my part in the changing of the scenery is to wait. To actively wait, which Henri Nouwen defined best in "A Spirituality of Waiting: Being Alert to God's Presence in Our Lives."

"The secret from waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun. Active waiting means that you are present to the moment, fully and totally, in the conviction that something is happening where you are, and that you want to be present to it. A waiting person is someone who is very present to the moment, who believes that this moment is the moment. You see, that's what the world 'patience' means. See, the word 'patience' means the willingness to stay where you are and live it out to the full, to taste the moment to the full in the conviction that something is hidden there that will manifest itself to you."

If I'm honest, I haven't really wanted to be present to the moment lately because the moment, well, it seems a bit overwhelming. And like a petulant child, I haven't wanted to wait.

It goes pretty much hand in hand with the fact that I haven't made a lot of room for God in my life recently. I have been too busy with work and getting things done to listen for him. I have spent time with him, sure, but in a rushed way that leaves little room for him to speak into my life. Because I have been tired. Tired of the stress at work. Tired of the waiting. Tired of myself.

My life's not going to slow down any time soon. If anything, it's about to get busier. Which is why it's all the more important to train my ear to his still, small voice -- which speaks into even the most mundane moments of my day. People all too often think that God is separate from our everyday lives. But the more I know of God, the more I see that he is in everything. That he is the undercurrent flowing through this world of ours.

I know that I will lose focus again, that I will struggle with the same old battles, just as my windows will get dirty again. But life, if anything, is a process. And for now, I'm with T.S. Eliot:

"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting."

God Only Knows

I think it was love at first sight.

The first time I read a book by Henri Nouwen, I just knew. He was my soulmate.

I suppose being someone who values words so much, it was natural.

And his words have meant a lot to me over the years. I read "Life of the Beloved" after a hard breakup and it helped soothe an aching soul with truths I needed to read. I remember finding "A Cry for Mercy" in a dusty corner of the Borders near the World Financial Center, at a time when I desperately needed God.

Last week, when my melancholy self was struggling yet again to make sense of this life and my faith, I found myself comforted by words from a familiar voice – one a little further down the road.

And sometimes you just need someone to remind you that you’re normal…

“My reading about the spirituality of the desert has made me aware of the importance of “nepsis.” Nepsis means mental sobriety, spiritual attention direction to God, watchfulness in keeping the bad thoughts away, and creating free space for prayer. While working with the rocks I repeated a few times the famous words of the old desert fathers: “fuge, tace, et quiesce” (live in solitude, silence, and inner peace), but only God knows how far I am, not only from this reality but even from this desire.”