Hello, again. :)
To say I've been silent would be an understatement. Ha! After a year-plus of nothing... Well, let's just say that's a little more than silent. I think gone, absent or departed would be a better fit. Either way, silent I have been. It wasn't for lack of things to say. Just ask my friends. They'll tell you. I was never in want for words. The "right" words were elusive, sure. But words-I had plenty of. I think what has kept me "quiet" for so long is that when I write I like to write when an air of authority. As someone who believes what I am writing. For example: I often share the things that God is teaching me. Things I am sure of. So when things became less "sure" for me over the past year my confidence left me. I was challenged in ways I did not expect. And humbled in ways that I did not want. (If I'm being honest.)
But why now? Why dredge up this old forgotten blog and write again? If I've gone so long without sharing, why start again? Honestly, I'm not quite sure. Ha! God is good. That's about all I am sure of. And I know He has given me a voice meant for His glory. He has put a fire in my heart and words in my mouth... or fingers, whichever. And I feel I am meant to share them. For how long, I do not know. To what end... well, only He knows. But for now I obey and write.
If you are reading this and find yourself confused as to the the origin of the melodrama prepare to be enlightened. I'm going to start by writing a brief (Am I capable? Ha!) synopsis of this past 3 years journey. And follow it with a post about why I'm finally writing and what I feel the Lord is calling me to say. Here we go...
To be honest I'm not quite sure what I thought it would be like. Motherhood, that is. Never having had what some call a "healthy relationship" with the term I was rather dreading it. But a mother I became and things were "fine". Not glorious or mountaintop-y but fine. I was never really stretched beyond what I was capable of and things were... yea, fine. I have to stop and say that I was stretched in other ways during this time. I was growing and the Lord was blessing our family. It wasn't a desert experience at all. In fact, we were rather thriving! I guess maybe that's what made what happened that much harder. When you're standing tall getting knocked down hurts that much worse...
Well, we had our second child. A beautiful baby girl whom we called Elizabeth "Libby" for short. She was perfect and again, everything was "fine". I had a little harder time handling 2 young children but still found myself quite suited for the task. I have to laugh at myself sometimes. I wore "fine" like most people wear "wonderful" or "outstanding"! To me "fine" was good enough. All I wanted was to live my life in peace. Be a good mom; OK wife; good friend; etc. Little did I know-God was not OK with my "fine"....
I can remember it like it was yesterday. The day my "fine" became, well not fine. My daughter, then 2, had a bit of a medical emergency. It was one of those medical emergencies that you know is just the tip of the iceberg. And, I remember thinking, "Wait. What? No. Nope. This is not what I signed up for! I signed up for "fine" remember?". What I didn't know then was that, that day had changed me. I had been prepared for fine, boring even. So when things got hard I got a little hard. The scary thing is that it didn't happen all at once. It was a gradual thing. So gradual, that I honestly didn't notice it happening! Things stayed hard and only got harder. And so did I. Until one day I found I was so far from where I had started that it shocked me!
Throughout this time of difficult I knew God was working. And I cannot say it was all desert. God is good. And He blessed us despite my hardening. But is wasn't great. And it was thriving. It wasn't even "fine". And when we got to a year ago the bottom fell out. It would've been hard had I been leaning into the Lord, sure. But standing on my own self-reliance... I crumbled. In the span of 6 months we were brought to our knees. Financially. Socially. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. You name it-God touched it.
We became weary of the day-to-day of our daughter's illness and the toll it was taking on everything we loved. Including our precious, suffering daughter. I liken it to being tossed by waves. The tide is relentless. Striving to drive you down with each fresh wave. We felt like we might actually drown. And at just the right time God moved. It wasn't in the ways we expected. Well, not in every way. We obviously did not suffer financial ruin. And we are physically and socially healing. (Thank God!) But the emotional and spiritual healing is beginning in ways that are hard to explain and were impossible to predict. I feel as though the veil is being lifted slowly to reveal God's purpose for our lives....
I'll write more on that "next time", as they say. But want to leave you with a quote from a book that I've just finished. The Crucified Life by A. W. Tozer. In it he refers to the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The Isrealites who were thrown into the fiery furnace for not bowing to worship king Nebuchanezzar. They survive the furnace by the power of God and here is what Tozer writes should be our take away:
But why now? Why dredge up this old forgotten blog and write again? If I've gone so long without sharing, why start again? Honestly, I'm not quite sure. Ha! God is good. That's about all I am sure of. And I know He has given me a voice meant for His glory. He has put a fire in my heart and words in my mouth... or fingers, whichever. And I feel I am meant to share them. For how long, I do not know. To what end... well, only He knows. But for now I obey and write.
If you are reading this and find yourself confused as to the the origin of the melodrama prepare to be enlightened. I'm going to start by writing a brief (Am I capable? Ha!) synopsis of this past 3 years journey. And follow it with a post about why I'm finally writing and what I feel the Lord is calling me to say. Here we go...
To be honest I'm not quite sure what I thought it would be like. Motherhood, that is. Never having had what some call a "healthy relationship" with the term I was rather dreading it. But a mother I became and things were "fine". Not glorious or mountaintop-y but fine. I was never really stretched beyond what I was capable of and things were... yea, fine. I have to stop and say that I was stretched in other ways during this time. I was growing and the Lord was blessing our family. It wasn't a desert experience at all. In fact, we were rather thriving! I guess maybe that's what made what happened that much harder. When you're standing tall getting knocked down hurts that much worse...
Well, we had our second child. A beautiful baby girl whom we called Elizabeth "Libby" for short. She was perfect and again, everything was "fine". I had a little harder time handling 2 young children but still found myself quite suited for the task. I have to laugh at myself sometimes. I wore "fine" like most people wear "wonderful" or "outstanding"! To me "fine" was good enough. All I wanted was to live my life in peace. Be a good mom; OK wife; good friend; etc. Little did I know-God was not OK with my "fine"....
I can remember it like it was yesterday. The day my "fine" became, well not fine. My daughter, then 2, had a bit of a medical emergency. It was one of those medical emergencies that you know is just the tip of the iceberg. And, I remember thinking, "Wait. What? No. Nope. This is not what I signed up for! I signed up for "fine" remember?". What I didn't know then was that, that day had changed me. I had been prepared for fine, boring even. So when things got hard I got a little hard. The scary thing is that it didn't happen all at once. It was a gradual thing. So gradual, that I honestly didn't notice it happening! Things stayed hard and only got harder. And so did I. Until one day I found I was so far from where I had started that it shocked me!
Throughout this time of difficult I knew God was working. And I cannot say it was all desert. God is good. And He blessed us despite my hardening. But is wasn't great. And it was thriving. It wasn't even "fine". And when we got to a year ago the bottom fell out. It would've been hard had I been leaning into the Lord, sure. But standing on my own self-reliance... I crumbled. In the span of 6 months we were brought to our knees. Financially. Socially. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. You name it-God touched it.
We became weary of the day-to-day of our daughter's illness and the toll it was taking on everything we loved. Including our precious, suffering daughter. I liken it to being tossed by waves. The tide is relentless. Striving to drive you down with each fresh wave. We felt like we might actually drown. And at just the right time God moved. It wasn't in the ways we expected. Well, not in every way. We obviously did not suffer financial ruin. And we are physically and socially healing. (Thank God!) But the emotional and spiritual healing is beginning in ways that are hard to explain and were impossible to predict. I feel as though the veil is being lifted slowly to reveal God's purpose for our lives....
I'll write more on that "next time", as they say. But want to leave you with a quote from a book that I've just finished. The Crucified Life by A. W. Tozer. In it he refers to the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The Isrealites who were thrown into the fiery furnace for not bowing to worship king Nebuchanezzar. They survive the furnace by the power of God and here is what Tozer writes should be our take away:
The revelation of God is the fruit of the flame. How many times have we missed the fragrance of God's presence because we resist the furnace and the tribulation and the suffering before us?... Keep in mind that God has a vision for us beyond the furnace. The fires serve its purpose, burning away the bonds of the world and purifying our relationship with God, and then we move on.... If we are ever going to see God in the fullness of His manifestation, we must be like these men. We must obey Him implicitly and surrender in such a way that He can place us where He wants to place us in order to show us what He wants to show us. And what He does to us He will also do through us to confound the wisdom of the world, who cannot figure out what we are.
God's most delicate tools are reserved for His special children. For the Christian on the path of the crucified life, God will bring into his pathway the fiery furnace, the Refiner's Fire, and show that Christian how much He really loves him. (pages 208-9)Praying for all of us "in the fire". May we, like Paul, consider all things "worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus (our) Lord." (Philippians 3:8 in part)
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