Category Archives: fighting fear

stewardship of days

Posted on by April 11, 2025

Last month, that weird illness I mentioned a few posts ago blew through the Valley here and hit about two thirds of our family. So once we recovered from those fevers and aches and exhaustion, it seemed like the perfect time to expose the boys to the chicken pox and get that over with, too.

(Haha, cringe…but really, if you know, you know: It’s not sickness, it’s immunity.)

stewardship of days: how we advance a culture of wholeness & healing

It was mild and they had great attitudes about it. But any illness can throw sleep schedules off, and for the first couple days we were up at all hours, and also sleeping at all hours: One morning up and doing at seven, another night still too awake to fall asleep before one.

So I stayed up long after Vin turned off his light, and read about General Washington’s attack on Trenton. You know, the famous one that proved Americans were lethal even at Christmastime: the crossing of the Delaware in the middle of the night, and the silent advance to catch the enemy off guard while they were still sleeping off their revelries.

Out in front, a company of Virginians led the way, men whose instructions were explicit. There could be no sound, no alarm given to whatever Hessian outposts might lie in their path.

– Jeff Shaara, The Glorious Cause

I quietly turned pages in the dim light. It was 1776 and I marched along with the bandaged feet in the snow, watching for enemy scouts, absolutely loving the gutsy strategy of our country’s forefathers.

Suddenly from his side of the bed, Vin snored loudly. I gave his pillow a push.

“Shh! We’re about to attack Trenton and you’re going to wake the Hessians!”

He mumbled an apology and rolled over, and I kept reading. He made this march years ago, but it’s new to me as I’ve been delving more and more into history. It’s been a fun switch, because as I’ve grabbed more of his history books, he’s been reading more of my psychology books, and that’s not something we planned; it just…somehow happened…which means the Holy Spirit is up to something.

I’ve also been reading Ezekiel, and he, too, is dealing with the sick and the scattered and the need to purge enemies from the land in a fight for freedom:

You have not strengthened the weak; you have not healed the sick; you have not bound up the injured; you have not brought back the strays; you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and scattered they became food for all the wild animals.

My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them.

– Ezekiel 34:4-6

What this looks like might be different in my community than yours, but often it looks like dark pockets of deep dysfunction. It goes far beyond immaturity and lack of education or church attendance. It looks like foolishness flaunted and depravity glorified, like whole swaths of people who need forgiven because they do not know what they do. They can’t see where they’re going and they don’t even know they are blind because the darkness is so familiar, and light is so foreign.

Also, in some of these same pockets, it looks like doctrine that’s only talked about on Sundays in voice tones that aren’t used the rest of the week. It looks like hidden magazines in the bottoms of closets, and religious books on display. It looks like awkward conversations with those who speak the name of Jesus freely and correctly because that Name usually only rolls off the tongue in all the wrong ways, and reverence on Tuesday feels out of place.

I don’t mean all that as one who looks down and condemns, but as one who looks back and remembers.

I was in junior high when I had the chicken pox. My most vivid memory of it, aside from the itching and fever, was reading (and rereading, multiple times) a book that had been newly released for my age group containing vivid depictions of bullying and suicide, complete with how-to instructions.

I think I got it from school; at least one adult in my life had read it and approved. And this was normal. If you, too, grew up in the secular 80s, you know how normalized certain things were that had no business being normal for kids.

So now we’re middle aged, with our own kids growing up in a culture that (still) needs shepherding.

And here’s the question that keeps me up at night lately: How do we strengthen the weak, and create an atmosphere of wholeness and healing? How do we remove the enemy from the land, bind up the injured, bring back the strays, and seek out the lost?

And really, this: How do we help the lost want to be found? Because if you know them, you know some who say they don’t want to be.

The more he thought about it, the more he saw that what they needed was the presence among them of holy men who would teach the ignorant, nurse the sick, comfort the sorrowful, and put the fear of hell fire into sinners like himself….

They taught the children, nursed the sick, converted the sinners, and praised God night and day.

– Elizabeth Goudge, Gentian Hill

That’s another book I’m reading. It’s so good, about a small community living on the coast during a different war. The enemy is near, trying to invade their land, so they prepare, and watch, and drill.

And here we focus more on God’s nearness, but also, the more we’re in His presence, the more we have eyes to see the infiltration of the enemy. We steward our days differently when we know what we’re fighting for, and what we’re fighting against. Because we do not fight against flesh and blood, but often it’s flesh and blood that fights against us.

Somehow we need to love them toward healing while protecting the hearts involved, but also go after the real enemy who seeks to destroy us all.

So we advance silently, walking with their bandaged feet, remembering our own wounds that made us limp in the dark, too.

Strengthening the weak and healing the sick isn’t always about late night baths and checking temperatures. Sometimes it’s about doing the unexpected, learning something outside our wheelhouse, and making a preemptive attack before the enemy gets a chance to put his pants on.

And this is why the boys had chicken pox; it had been thirteen years since the last time we’d heard of a local case close enough to take advantage of it.

“It’s not because we want you to be sick,” I told the boys. “It’s because we want your body to have a chance to fight it.”

But as I spoke, I heard God telling me the same thing about some hard situations. I didn’t want you to be hurt; I want you to be protected, and trained up to withstand attacks.

And that looks like creating an atmosphere where healing thrives, where immunity is strong, where humility is revered, where attempts at entertaining sin and sickness are immediately confronted with the disinfectant of truth in love, and shown the door.

Yes, we allowed sickness in a small measure, but we also did all the things to quickly show it the door and create strong immunity: garlic, oregano oil, baths, tea, rest. (Also, um, tons of Super Mario…because, Gen X parents, yo.) Easiest chicken pox ever; the boys might be a little sad they can’t do it again.

And to create a culture of wholeness and healing, we have to do all the things here, too, to keep the enemy out: worship, pray, confess, repent, study, learn, and grow. We discuss hard issues and process them together. We cover with grace as much as possible and confront only when absolutely necessary. (But also, we listen to country music and dance in the kitchen and, um, play a lot of Super Mario lately.)

We are shepherding and stewarding. So it also looks like deciding what we do with our time, and deciding what’s not worth that time, and deciding how to work smarter and not harder by doing things at the right times and not the wrong ones.

For example, when you only have a few minutes before you need to get a kid out of the bath, it’s probably not the best time to peruse the internet for solace and spiritual enlightenment, but there I was one evening, doing it anyway.

I scrolled to a 1-minute video that a friend shared, and a somber voice slowly intoned, “Dear Lord, I’m sorry for my impatience–”

…and I immediately clicked the X to close it.

Oh, the irony: No time for that, too busy, no thanks. Sad but true.

But also, I wasn’t just being impatient; I was prioritizing. An atmosphere of healing does not thrive in unjust condemnation, or inauthentic confession, or in watching gloomy videos when what we really need is a few funny cat memes before wrapping kids in towels and getting them to bed.

During the day, I still fight Bingley for desk space because he wants to lay across my arms while I write – which works while I’m typing (sort of) but not at all when I’m writing by hand.

When I don’t have words for anything else, I usually journal. And when that’s done and I still don’t have words for the project in progress, the last resort is to get up and do something else. This is why writers snack too much and end the day with dirty dishes and mugs all over the desk, like a college student perpetually in finals week.

Aside from all those dishes, though, were piles of papers that have accumulated for months – lists, notes for projects, cards and letters from a friend who’s much better at correspondence than I am. I need a file for those.

So I went to the shelf where the file folders are, and found one that looked empty, and behold…more papers.

Sigh. Story of my life.

These papers were more of the same. An old bookmark, old notes, another card from a friend. But also, look at this: these quotes I copied on scrap paper in painful handwriting years ago – and instead of writing the title of the book (which would’ve been helpful) I wrote the page number instead. I must’ve thought I’d remember the title, and clearly didn’t.

But it, too, has words for us here (and if you know the book they’re from, please tell me because I’ve scoured our shelves and the internet, and haven’t found it yet):

…cleanse our hearts of any unworthy motives…Let this become Your house of worship, of teaching, of ministering to human hearts, of meeting needs, of caring for little children. Let joy reign here and good fellowship.

Let this place be as a light on a lampstand, a beacon on a hill, shining out for all to see.

Again, the Spirit is up to something, making sure I’m paying attention, helping us find what we didn’t know to look for: Our hearts need cleansed, our spaces need dedicated, our purpose needs to be clear and remembered.

None of those are easy things. The simplest of them can bring us to our knees as we realize God has promoted us to the level of our incompetence so we recognize we can’t do anything without Him.

But we are present with this here, right now — you reading this, me typing this — and that is how we steward all the moments in our days, because stewardship is caring for what’s right in front of us, within reach, not distracted with other obligations and possibilities and needs.

It is my attention to my family, and my heart, and my attitude toward others, and all these relationships in the spheres around me. It is my efforts put toward the projects on this laptop, and that stack of books, and this student, and that client. It is this home, and this day, and the lesson I need to drive the kids to, and the hour I will spend there, working and waiting.

It is a million things, but it can’t be a to-do list or religious compulsion. It has to look like connection, and awareness, and Kingdom culture, instead.

We’re not showy about it, we don’t need to wake the Hessians. We take care of maintenance so we’re ready when a need arises; we have to steward well so we have wide margins that allow for freedom and power. Because the Spirit is up to something, creating an atmosphere of healing, wholeness, restoration, and strength. We make our silent advance — not in attacking, but in liberating — as we follow His promptings throughout the march.

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P.P.S. Remember when we talked about the Holy of Holies, and how we each hold the Temple within us, so caring for the Body becomes a sacred thing? I created a short study out of that, and it’s a free download. You may print and share as many as you need (it’s 11 pages) with your family, friends, kids, small group, etc. Right here:

Holy of Holies 3-day studyDownload

grit: how we wait & keep His way

Posted on by March 6, 2025

I sat at one end of the couch, and our six-year-old with his pink cheeks was at the other. Our nine-year-old had the other couch, and both were banked by coffee tables littered with half-empty beverages.

Up too early with two feverish boys, trying to keep myself healthy and hydrated on only four hours of sleep, I remembered how just in the last post I said my mind was ambitious but my body said no, take a nap. And I wondered if this day would be the same but for different reasons.

grit: how we wait & keep His way | Shannon Guerra

I had just written about limitations, so I guess it was fair that I got to relive it: Limits force us to focus. I could only reach my end of the coffee table, which held my tea, planner, bible, book for class, a scripture verse on a slip of paper, and The House of Seven Gables, all of which I’ve been working my way through.

That sounds productive, but I spent plenty of time just staring blankly out the window, watching the chickadees at the feeder and the cars on the highway. Also, I checked temperatures. Reminded Finn and Kav to drink their tea, and they made slow progress.

Both of the boys had a day – separately, though, praise God – when their fevers spiked high enough to peak with delirium and tachycardia, which is a fancy way of saying we could see their pulses tapping under the curve of their necks while they mumbled nonsense about ice cubes talking and the walls changing shape and color.

It was alarming, but twenty years of reading classic literature hasn’t been for nothing. Everyone who’s read Sense and Sensibility knows that Marianne raved incoherently before her fever broke, too.

So we kept their foreheads cool and let the fevers do their job. And they did, but when we thought they were finally on the mend, a new phase started with congestion and coughing, which didn’t seem fair because that’s not how it’s supposed to work. You’re supposed to get over whatever it is and move on with life, not just transition into a new form of sickness.

But no, two days later, both boys and I were all coughing and sniffling. Still drinking all the fluids and doing the right things, but also, still working our way through whatever it was. My head hurt when I turned too fast to look left or right, but I mostly felt fine as long as I didn’t do anything ambitious like leave the couch.

Sometimes we think we’re making progress, but then we suddenly realize there’s so much more ahead than we had anticipated. And it doesn’t feel like progress anymore; it feels more like discouragement, or even defeat.

He sees you when small steps forward cause you to grieve, because it seems like they ought to be bigger steps forward by now…or they ought not to have been needed at all because the circumstances should never have happened.

You’re not in trouble for having mixed feelings over progress that restores the regress of hard situations.

It’s okay to be both grateful for the progress and grieved over its necessity.

He is doing something in both the grief and the gratitude.

– Grit: Kindling to Relight the Wounded and Weary

I gathered the empty cups and crumpled tissues, thought about the work that would need to be set aside for another day. Wondered how long it would last, and how much I wasn’t going to get done this week.

And then I heard the Lord say, What if this isn’t sickness, but immunity?

Because that’s what perseverance and grit develop.

Wait for the Lord and keep to his way,
and he will exalt you to inherit the land;
you will look on the destruction of the wicked.

– Psalm 37:34

When we learn to focus and persist in the task that’s right in front of us, we protect ourselves from a lot of the drama and distractions in our periphery. We’re not necessarily unaware, but we’re on a mission.

(Like right now, she typed, ignoring the cat who repeatedly walked across her lap, meowing for attention.)

Being stuck on the couch with sick kids is not all that different from being stuck on the couch nursing a baby, which is how I’ve spent almost eleven years of my adult life. Those were the short years filled with long days; different couch, but the same coffee table. Those slow days taught me to steward what was in reach no matter how chaotic everything else out of reach was – drink the water, read the book, memorize the verse. Look out the window, observe and pray.

And this, too, is progress.

Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
do not fret over those who prosper in their way,
over those who carry out evil devices.

– Psalm 37:7

A few weeks ago one of our pastors said the difference between persistence and stubbornness is the direction you’re going, and that’s familiar because we’ve talked about holy stubbornness for a looong time.

Things don’t always go the way we want, but when we practice patient self control, playing it cool, we look like Jesus because we’re doing what He did. The Bible, of course, doesn’t say He “played it cool;” it uses phrases like divine forbearance...but the essence is the same. We, too, are looking past the wrongs and trusting Him to bring things right as we press on in the face of less than ideal circumstances.

We’re doing what needs to be done, no matter how humble or ugly or unimpressive it seems. We’re pressing forward through the obstacles. And we’re letting go of the things out of reach, out of our jurisdiction and control.

We’re (a)biding our time in gritty surrender.

Our steps are made firm by the Lord
when he delights in our way;
though we stumble, we shall not fall headlong,
for the Lord holds us by the hand.

– Psalm 37:23-24

I didn’t want the kid to make that choice, I didn’t want to have to prune that relationship, I didn’t want that to happen. But it’s less about what we want, and more about how we respond once we see things as they are: Will we look to Him? Will we sit at His feet? Will we trust Him and forge ahead, however we’re able?

…let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

– Hebrews 12:1b-2

We are image bearers, becoming Who we behold even (especially) when it’s not easy to keep our focus. Like Mary of Bethany, who defied all kinds of opposition – including her closest family member and the cultural expectations of the day – to enter a room of men (scandalized gasp!) in order to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn from Him. She defied religious norms just like she’d seen Him do, and whenever she was attacked, Jesus came to her defense.

Mary was mantled with authority because of her grit.

The Lord helps them and rescues them;
he rescues them from the wicked and saves them
because they take refuge in him.

– Psalm 37:40

Another thing we talked about in church recently was the process of refining gold. My friend who has personal experience with this pointed out that when gold is refined, impurities are removed – which means the weight is reduced but the value is increased.

I must become less, He must become more…so we make space for Him to move, and give permission to Him to refine us.

Friend, if you are in a hard spot, do you see how He is letting you in to see the inner place, where most people aren’t willing to go? He’s showing you the place in His heart where He also went through change that felt like loss. Betrayals, misunderstandings, moves, and new directions. Rejection, people changing, culture shifting.

And He’s not wasting any of this.

…we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

– Romans 5:2b-5

You know that one area that you’ve struggled with for so long – the one you’ve confessed and repented and prayed and changed habits for, but the battle is in the mind and you’re still at war, wondering if you’ll ever see victory. Wondering if things will ever change.

What if you started seeing yourself in that situation from God’s perspective? What if you saw it as He sees it now: after the resurrection, after death and hell have been defeated?

What if you stopped seeing yourself as bad at handling this situation? Because we fight from victory, not for it.

Much of the enemy’s game is just bluffing and confusion. He wants to convince us to agree with him that this is just how it is, this struggle is our “cross” (ooh, he’s good at twisting scripture!), and we just aren’t spiritual enough to figure this out yet.

But if we agree with God and know that we have been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, including the authority to trample the enemy to pieces, we’ll look at it (and ourselves) differently.

We’ll know this is a work in progress but that God is making the progress, and our situation was never hopeless.

We aren’t bad at dealing with it. We just haven’t seen how good we are at conquering it yet.

No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us.

— Romans 8:37

In difficulty, opposition, or loss – or sickness or frustration or lack – we can choose to forge ahead, even when we’re sitting still. We’re not looking at this through fear’s lens anymore, focusing on the negative possibilities. We’re not looking through defeat’s lens, feeling like it’s over too soon and we blew it.

No, now we see through victory’s lens: abiding, watching it play out, not responding with knee-jerk reactions, but making deliberate moves in trust, confident that the Lord is at work, and He’s giving us the wisdom we need for our work, too.

What will we do when there’s so little within reach? Will we build even when our resources are limited and the materials aren’t ideal? Will we keep going even when the way is more uphill than we expected?

As we look to Him, we start to see like He does, too, and our perspective changes. So…what if this situation isn’t what it looks like? He’s teaching us to be alert, and to recognize that some things are not just what they seem.

What if it’s not really sickness or hardship or loss? What if it’s actually protection and preparation and provision?

It’s not sickness, it’s immunity — this situation isn’t taking from our lives, but adding to it. With the right perspective and gritty surrender, it’s gain, not loss. It’s adding steel to our spines, integrity to our intentions, wisdom to our experience, strength to our mind and character, and the ability to withstand.

Because slow progress is preparation, not punishment. Every time we trust Him, we protect our path forward. So much is happening that we can’t see, and God is doing miracles in us in the meantime as we look toward Him.

This is now available if you’ve been burned out or discouraged, and need some fuel for your calling. Grit is the first in the Kindling series — short, powerful, beautiful books to help relight you. Just $7 for the instant download, and you get both the full-color version and the black & white printable version, too. xo

keep going: a ramble about perseverance & trust

Posted on by January 28, 2025

The cars went up and down the highway, headlights and taillights flickering through the trees. Dusk hits lately around 4 pm, and on this side of the window, my journal was open to page 360-something. I wasn’t sure what to write but I wrote anyway, words about mundane things, hoping something would spark – a theme, an idea, an analogy, a memory of something funny or profound. Just kept the pen moving, pushing it across the lines, because something usually reveals itself.

keep going: a ramble about perseverance & trust

I started this journal toward the end of 2020 and there’s only fifteen or so pages left. Every page doesn’t have to be profound, just like every day of life doesn’t have to be filled with something wildly spectacular. The slow, quiet, routine days are where most of our living is done.

So this journal entry, like the day, was meat and potatoes: books I’m reading, the project I’m working on, what we were planning to do that evening. A headline or two of what’s going on in the world. Nothing exciting but the ink filled the page, and some of it was even legible, so that’s a plus.

It’s the little things, and our attention to them, that really do add up. Like yesterday, when I put a few extra minutes into cleaning the kitchen – did anyone notice the front of the dishwasher wasn’t as streaky? Or that the dust inside the oven was cleaned out? (How do ovens get dust inside them, anyway?) Or that the stovetop was clean? Probably not. (Which is why I’m writing about it so I can get credit, she smirked.)

Those small things are so encouraging to me though, whether anyone else notices them or not. I like clean spaces – just don’t look at my desk – and haven’t always had the margin to notice and take care of those details. I look back on that other season where the air was thick, the noise was loud, and there were so many demands that sometimes only the absolute top-of-the-top priorities, like meals and safety, were taken care of. I can now see how I put figurative blinders on in certain areas, willfully ignoring many peripherals, because there were already too many essentials. It’s amazing how many essentials become peripherals when you’re in survival mode.

I remember telling a friend, a fellow adoptive mom, that I felt like I had some sort of survivor’s guilt as we began to walk out of that other season and into this one. Vin started working with me from home and we could tackle the demands together. There was less chaos, more sleep, and time to process. The kids were bigger and the special needs were less volatile. I had survived, was surviving; we had all made it and were slowly working back toward equilibrium even though we had no idea what that actually looked like anymore because so many things had changed. How do you rest and let go after years of trauma and hypervigilance? How do you know it’s really safe?

I didn’t have to be so strong anymore, and I wasn’t sure that was actually forward progress.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

– 2 Corinthians 12:9a

I felt guilty because there was a sense of ease I hadn’t experienced in years, but many parts of myself and our family had died in the process of getting there. Yes, we survived – but so many other things didn’t.

It was like we had made a trade but had no say in the details of the transaction, and the deal didn’t seem fair. It was too good in some ways, too hard in others.

That was three journals and several years ago, and I still don’t understand it; I’m obviously still working my way through it.

In many ways it’s best to not look too close. When we look at those details it can quickly lead to a naval-gazing, toxic cocktail of blame and regret. We have to surrender the past, the decisions we made and others made, and trust that God knows what to do with them. He knows what to do with each of our hearts in all the dynamics of memories and current choices and loss and grief and ideas of how things should have been, and the distance between that and how they actually happened.

So many details are still being worked out. So if it doesn’t look like that yet, don’t linger; keep going. He’s going to show us how those years resulted in honor instead of dishonor; beauty, not regret; healing and growth in the place of trauma and immaturity. Gain instead of loss.

He’s doing it. We don’t have to understand how that’s possible anymore than we know the starting place or destination of all the cars on the highway. And this, too, is surrender.

Vin and I sat on the couch the other night looking at a list of dreams we made a little over three years ago. The challenge was to write a hundred of them but we only got to thirty, and upon review, we’ve accomplished five so far. Publish Risk the Ocean. Finish book #4 in series. Replace the Stagecoach. A few other items were no longer dreams and we crossed them out, then added some more. Healing for my hand. Find a great assisted living situation for Andrey. And after editing, the list had only grown to 36. So it appears we need to work a little harder on this dreaming thing.

Some of the dreams, though, I don’t want to define. I don’t want to name them because they’re still too fuzzy and I don’t want to shoot in the dark, committing something to paper that I’ll have to cross out later. I have books without titles, ideas without structure, colors but no outlines. Or maybe it’s the other way around. And I feel like answers in many areas are on the way, but meanwhile there’s this strong sense of plodding on steadfastly, determinedly, knowing that the Lord is leading and the answers will come in time. Maybe sooner than we think. So we continue to invest, and not bury, the talents, while we wait for clarity to come.

In the beginning of this season – I think it’s still this season, at least; the one where we transitioned out of dark chaos and into a lighter, brighter version of chaos – we unexpectedly got pregnant and had Kavanagh around the same time friends our age were becoming grandparents. That was about six years ago and we were feeling the full range of parenthood with an adult kid out of the house, a high schooler, three 13-year-olds, an elementary schooler, and the two littlest littles, toddler and infant. Never would I have guessed this would be my life twenty years earlier. Or ten years ago. Or five years ago.

But it’s so good. I mean, mostly, of course – not perfect, and there are plenty of things that are expletive-worthy at times (we call this “writing material” in our house) – but overall, it’s so good.

During that other season, I didn’t know things could be good again. And I’m so glad I made it through to this side. I wish I could’ve told myself how good it would be. So instead, if you’re in that dark, painful place, where you never thought you’d see yourself, I’ll tell you: Give it a few years, friend. Or, just give it a week. And then another, and another.

Keep pushing the pen and filling those pages.

You can do this. Cling to Jesus and keep going forward. So much good is on the other side of steadfastness.

Also last week – I think it was around the same day we were working on our list of dreams, but it was definitely the same day I was journaling without knowing what to write about – I had to take all the kids to an appointment. And even though most of our kids are older now I still don’t miss those days of a small child screaming in the back of the vehicle loud enough for other cars to hear as we drive past them on the Parks Highway.

I mean, it’s been ages since that last happened…I think it was last September? But there we were, running late from the wrestle over seatbelts and sliding sideways to a stop at the foot of the icy driveway where I informed my youngest passenger through gritted teeth NO YOU ARE NOT STAYING HOME AND ALSO NO I AM NOT SUDDENLY GETTING THE GAME YOU WHINED ABOUT NOT WANTING TO TAKE FOR THE LAST TWELVE MINUTES BECAUSE WE ARE LEAVING AND YOU ARE COMING TOO so help me.

Eight kids and twenty-four years later, do we get better at this? I hope so.

So we went down the highway amid screaming louder than the traffic, louder than TobyMac, and I prayed in tongues and considered my options. We could turn around and cancel the appointment, but that would be giving in. So we had to keep going.

One thing I have learned and can remind myself in these moments is that even when the noise doesn’t diminish, or the pain stays the same, or the situation doesn’t look any different, God is still working. He is doing. Prayer is changing things whether I see those changes instantly or not.

If we are praying, He is working. And He is working anyway, even when we’re too weak or distracted or exhausted or, or, or…because it’s not about our feelings.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

– Romans 8:22-26

The tantrum continued all the way into town and finally stopped in the parking lot. We completed our appointment, went back home, assigned consequences, and moved on with the day.

A couple hours later I was chatting with a friend on the phone.

“I have a word for you,” she said. “Keep going. I’m not sure what that means, but I clearly hear that for you.” She didn’t know I had said the same thing in different words in my journal earlier that day, or that I had pondered a 180 on the highway just a few hours ago.

Just keep pushing the pen across the paper, Love. The words will come. And now, as I type this, I’m on page 370 in the journal. Just a few pages to go before this one is filled, and I’ll need to start a new one.

How did I get to page 370? The same way we got to the new year, and the same way we got to every year before this one: We kept going.

We just keep pushing the pen, filling the pages in front of us. We trust, and wait, and persevere, whether anyone notices or not.

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