If you’re fighting depression, fear, anxiety, condemnation, or any of their cohorts, remember that not everything you’re thinking, feeling, and perceiving reflects reality.
Keep in mind that you’re fighting darkness, which obscures colors and lines. It blurs shapes and makes bright things gloomy.
It helps to not take darkness so seriously, to keep in mind that things are lighter and freer and more hopeful than they seem.
And knowing that makes a big difference.
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.
And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
— Isaiah 60:1-3
Oh Beloved, did you forget who you are? Equipped and guided, led by a strong hand…looked after, held, watched over, affectionately favored by the King.
And I wonder if you’ve forgotten that you are a fighter, if the enemy has made you feel like your sword was too dangerous. So instead of wielding it better (which would hurt him) he convinced you to lay it aside entirely to be safe.
But God is not asking us to be safe or protect ourselves; He’s the one who is our safety and protection. You are a bold warrior and the Kingdom needs you out there. The enemy is desperate to keep you from the fight.
God is eager to pour out more mercy and grace to you. It’s what He paid for, and He wants the full reward of what He died for. So hey, Love…you would be inconsiderate not to take it.
It’s the lies of the enemy again that tell you, “Nope, you’ve had enough, stop getting in line for this, it’s someone else’s turn.” He’s hoping we’ll fall for that trick again, believing God is too small or too stingy or too limited to do and be everything He really is.
But we have to ask for more grace and mercy, because He’s already made it available to us. To act like we shouldn’t take it is to put our judgment above God’s.
He’s a good dad. He knows what we need. He wants us to ask for and receive it.
Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
— Romans 5:2
When anxiety rears up, we tend to feel frantic, like we need to hurry up and do something even though we often have no idea what to do.
But God is not in a rush. That isn’t to say He doesn’t care, doesn’t know our need, or is having fun at our expense.
It means He already knows what’s on the next page, and He isn’t in a hurry to turn to it.
He knows how the answer is going to be revealed, and He knows exactly how stressed out you are in trying to anticipate it while you endure the unknowing.
You know why we’re not good at waiting? Because usually answers come so fast we don’t have time for anxiety. All the millions of little things that resolve themselves throughout the day (What do we get for a gift? What should this kid’s consequence be? Where will I put the broody chicken?) are not any bigger in His eyes than the big things we’re facing right now that also need answers.
We don’t think to even trust Him in those everyday things, but He is just as faithful in the big things. He’s showing us that we can trust Him, no matter what.
The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.
—Zephaniah 3:17
The Lord knows that you’ve done what you could, but this situation still hasn’t turned out the way you wanted, dreamed, or expected it to. He knows you worked and prayed so hard to have it turn out differently.
It’s still turning out, though.
Don’t mistake this as the end when it’s still the middle. He’s not done yet, and neither are you.
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
— Isaiah 43:19
But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.
Looking for more posts like this? Kindling is a series of prophetic devotionals and encouragement to relight your fire in the places it’s gone out, and they’re all here. Or subscribe to get everything right to your inbox.
There I was, texting back the speech pathologist about how to help Reagan, who speaks at about a 3-year-old level. Except I was also cooking my breakfast, and also, I had no idea how to answer the pathologist’s question, which was, “Which sounds are you looking for?”
Which sounds? I thought. All of them. Where do I start? I texted out a short summary of Reagan’s ability and diagnoses, rattled through how Ls and Rs are very hard to distinguish, hard I often sounds like ah or uh unless we correct her, she does not say the y or x sounds in “excuse me” (it sounds like “eskoose me,” but if you read Risk the Ocean you know this is huge improvement over asking to be caboosed), and she does not move her mouth or tongue to make sounds properly, and –
“Why is smoke coming from the pan?” Finn asked, bringing me back to the task at hand right as the smoke alarm went off.
Oh yeah, breakfast. Whoops.
Because I cannot cook hash browns and navigate the intricate juncture of speech pathology and special needs parenting at the same time. One of them needs my urgent attention, and the other, no matter how important, needs to wait.
There are so many competing needs. It feels like everything needs to be done at once, and everything needs our attention all at the same time. But it’s just not true.
I set the phone down and let the situation simmer while I rinsed the burnt oil off the cast iron pan before starting again. We can give ourselves do-overs, just like we give our kids – we can leave the half-written text as a draft, we can mute the notifications, we can hold a boundary to those asking for information that’s none of their business. We can delete the platforms, channels, and social media outlets that feed our cortisol levels instead of feeding us.
And it’s important to remember that, because our inboxes and mailboxes and phones and screens are full of all kinds of things demanding our attention and outrage.
But just because they demand it, doesn’t mean they get it. Especially not on their terms.
We can turn the flame down when the world is on fire, and pour living water on it, instead.
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
– Galatians 3:27
For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
As we abide, we let the One who lives in us pour out onto the world around us, and in doing so we refuse to take the enemy’s bait, choosing instead to play it cool while a firm boundary of equanimity settles around us: This house, this family, this day is our dominion, and whatever tries to barrel its way through will feel all the more heat outside as their feet are held to the fire in contrast with the cool joy of the living water that reigns here in this place.
We overcome not by passivity or blissful ignorance, but by strategically starving the beast that feeds on fear and chaos and distraction. We create order and beauty by walking in joy, trusting God, doing both the modest and immense tasks in front of us.
So, bake bread. Hug your kids. Kiss your spouse. Drink the water. Read the books. Think before blurting out. Appreciate the friend, reach out to the quiet one. Pray for the neighbor. Make something beautiful (like hash browns).
So many tiny, tiny, little things feel so insignificant in light of current events. The enemy goes around, the unholy attention seeker, tossing lit matches in varying degrees of proximity to us, hoping we will lose focus and run frantic, sloshing water out of ourselves in attempt to put out one fire while two others start raging.
But when we face the Living Water, soak, and refill, we can point in prayer and direct a fire hose without leaving His presence.
Last year in one of our intercessors meetings, one of our pastors gave us a double-sided page of notes and said, “Our battle is to abide in peace.” My Gen X summary of his notes is, Keep your cool. Persist stubbornly in joy. Biblical hope is not like the world’s version of wishful thinking; it is the expectation of God’s answers and movement. The joy of the Lord is our strength.
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
— 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
And then not long after that in another meeting, he read this passage:
Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.
— Deuteronomy 28:47-48
And we noticed the first part: Because you did not serve the Lord with joyfulness and gladness…Have you thought about how joy is both worship and warfare?
So we choose joy. We choose gratitude. We choose to play it cool, not giving the enemy more attention than he deserves, and we put our eyes on what God is doing. And as we do that, He shows us more and more of what He is up to. Our focus on Him protects us from what is not of Him, and the enemy is disarmed by our worship.
If I had known this lesson years ago, our hardest season might not have been so dark. Maybe though, really, that was the beginning of me learning this lesson of how to play it cool and survive with a smile when everything looks to be falling apart. But I’m learning it even more now, and when we know better, we do better.
We are fighting (and winning!) the battle of the day every time we pursue the particular “whatever is good, whatever is lovely” God has called us to in this moment.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness [gentleness] be known to everyone.
The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
— Philippians 4:4-8
When the enemy attacks and tries to get you to look at the wrong thing, he’s saying, “Look at this, look at this, look at this!” trying to get your gaze off what the Lord has said, trying to get you to put the weight of your gaze on the other thing, on the wrong thing, and lift it off of God’s promise. The enemy wants to magnify the wrong thing and diminish hope, to shrink your trust in the Lord’s provision and ability, to inflate the discouragement and deception and lies, and to make the problem — which may be very real — seem more than it is, so as to steal the even greater reality and truth and hope of the provision and bright future the Lord has for you.
The Lord sees and knows. He knew it when you felt that gut punch, when you heard the bad news, the snide remark, the lie from the enemy that said you won’t make it. He speaks a better word and His blood is covering you, and He will have the final say. You won’t have to wait too long for it. He is preparing a place for you in the presence of your enemies, and they will watch as He vindicates and delivers you.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
— Psalm 23:4-6
So when the enemy comes at you with, “Look at this, look at this!” and jabs his ugly finger at the sore spot that has been hurting and draws your attention to it by bad news or someone’s careless remark or their disbelief that you could be doing something that they just can’t fathom, we must not fall for it. It’s a ploy from the enemy.
He wants to distract you with the lie so you don’t believe in the truth. He wants to distract you with the accusation so you forget your real identity. He wants to damage your vision.
He knows the time is short. He knows how close your promise is, so he’s desperate to make you disbelieve it.
But the promise is near, and God is present, as close as your breath. Do not take your eyes off Him, because He is your salvation, your very near and present help.
We are cultivating Kingdom culture with every tiny move of faithfulness.
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
– Colossians 3:12-15
So this is me preaching to myself, and any of you who need it, too:
Yes, the world is crazy intense right now. But you still need to have fun. Do not let the enemy steal your joy. Do not let him strip away the things you love, or make you send a message to those you love that life is just too scary right now. Because God’s cool; He’s got this. He’s speaking to His people, including you, and telling you what to do and when to do it.
He won’t always tell you to do something huge and profound. He will also lead you in small, steady, beautiful things, and you will aggravate the enemy with your joy. You will disarm him with your bold, unshrinking confidence in the Lord.
We are creating the culture, and we declare it will be one of joy and peace. Our hearts are unshaken. Great days are ahead.
Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
— Nehemiah 8:10
Lord, guide our words and our walking today, our driving and our doing, our thinking and our talking. Help us to be mature, encouraging, life giving, and truth sharing.
We don’t have to be the loudest to be heard. Protect us from talking too much or any other form of striving. We trust You to lead us and use us, so we will move out of Your way and let You do the directing.
We declare peace, joy, and truth are winning the day today in our hearts and in our communities.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
— Ephesians 1:2-6
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The fog left its mark in hoarfrost on the trees along the Parks Highway, and we drove home from church with all eight of us in the vehicle. It was the last time I would sit crammed between two 6-foot-something men in the front seat of the Stagecoach; one of them has moved out and is on his own now.
I gave him the quilt I’d been working on for months, often right in front of him while he was oblivious because almost-18-year-old boys don’t pay attention to their mother’s crafty shenanigans. Two nights before, Iree and I spent several hours finishing it and the seams had “significant wonk,” meaning they veered and shifted in ways I didn’t intend them to because I’m still new at this and don’t know what I’m doing and it is hard to wrestle these giant things through a small short-armed machine.
As soon as Afton’s room was empty, Cham moved into it. We’ve started to fill her vacated area – which was his space not long ago, before last year’s rearrangement – with a table for spring seedlings and about 200 books that he didn’t want to take with him. There’s still room for the sewing machine, and once the space is filled and echo-less, I’ll be recording audio in there, too. So we have plans, just like he does, and plans are good.
I spent one evening shelving all the books in the new space and sorting through what to keep and what to get rid of: Nineteen books by Patrick F. McManus. Also, the ones on blacksmithing and leatherworking from those phases, and the manuals on knifemaking from that phase. And the first copy of the bread book he learned artisan bakery from – the one we have two copies of, because he used the original until the spine broke and pages fell out from his blissfully long but sadly abandoned passion for breadmaking, when we all learned terms like poolish, pan de mie, and bâtard.
On the day he moved I was fine until that night, making dinner in the kitchen, and suddenly felt the gentle wrench of his absence. Some of his things were missing because he’d taken them, and others of his were still there, discarded because he didn’t want them anymore. I searched the cabinet for a jar and found his collection of cheesecloth from the cheesemaking phase.
He won’t be back for dinner tonight, I realized. Not that he’s been eating with us; he’s been raiding the kitchen late at night when he gets home from work. He’d ask, “What’d you guys have for dinner?” and, depending on whether or not he liked the answer, he’d respond with “Is there any left?” or bored dismissal, and make his own thing.
And that song was playing again – the same one Iree played all last year before she moved, the anthem of the hatch. But this time it wasn’t her, it was the station playing Einaudi like it knows the soundtrack of our home.
I thought to myself that day, Oh, this is easy, I must’ve done all my grieving last summer when he left for fish camp, because I didn’t even feel like crying, all day I was fine. But then it was dinnertime in the kitchen that was so often his wheelhouse, and I still wasn’t crying, but now I knew for sure it would come later.
The song was finishing and I sat on the couch and filled three scraps of paper with grief, tearing sheets from the pad as I went, surprised at how many words and feelings were still pouring out.
I started this quilt not knowing what I was doing, just following the process, just trying to make something beautiful out of the materials on hand. Some of the fabric was good and new, some was old and recycled – pieces of one of Vin’s shirts, some old sheets, other scraps salvaged from an abandoned project. I was just running the machine, just doing the next thing I knew to do to patch things together, snipping ends and threads that stuck out in the wrong places, making pieces line up, and when they went wonky, I’d go back and seam rip and make them square again.
I got so frustrated with all the ironing because it felt like it was such an interruption to forward momentum – stop what you’re doing, iron these panels. Stop again and iron these other pieces. It wasn’t just to smooth things over, though; I realized at the end when I flipped the whole thing over that when you iron seams open, it covers a multitude of wonkiness and uneven lines. The areas I thought might go astray and slant off to an angle looked fine.
I was afraid it would be ruined, or ugly, or a disaster, but it was fine. Beautiful, even.
He smiled when I gave it to him and seemed to know what kind of gift it was.
Here, I made this for you. I hope you like it. I hope you don’t notice or mind all the flaws; I know it’s not perfect. I worked hard on it, but could have done better. I wonder if you’ll look at it more closely later and recognize some of these pieces, and realize where they came from.
We leave our marks on each other just by proximity and relation, and sometimes they are uneven lines and empty spaces we don’t know what to do with. Sometimes when we move away we do whatever we can to rub those marks out for a while, as though they’ve taken up space without our permission and we want to see what’s underneath without their influence.
Here, this is part of me, take it – and we pluck the feathers from ourselves, and thrust them onto our young men and women as they take their own flights, hoping they won’t cast our affection to the wind.
I paused, tore another sheet from the notepad, looked at all the words. Folded the papers in half, stared at the highway traffic out the dark window, the headlights going north and south.
Unfolded the paper, flipped it over, and kept going.
We miss their presence when they leave. But also, as they’ve been longing to leave – which we remember and relate to and rejoice in with them – we realize that we’ve already been missing them because part of them has been gone for a long time. They’ve changed and emotionally moved on already in many ways. The grief has been sneaking up on us, slipping in and surprising us at random intervals for over a year now.
This is not summer camp, or youth overnight, or fish camp. This is launching. And he’ll be back, I know he will; there will be dinners and barbecues and birthdays and it will be better. We’ve done this twice before and we know there’s a stretching distance for a while before the elastic springs back and things reach a new equilibrium. And it will be good. Really, really good.
But it won’t be the same. And that’s the thing we grieve most: It will never be the same. We cannot get that time back. The binding is on, the quilt is finished, there’s no time left for seam ripping and rearranging colors and redoing those panels.
Jesus redeems and leads and saves, and Holy Spirit continues doing the work we can’t, couldn’t, or didn’t. But still, we want to do better and wish we had done better — and I think this is the sign of a good parent, rather than one who’s perfectly satisfied with every aspect of their parenting and confident they’ve made no mistakes — and I’m grateful to still have little and younger ones to keep doing better with.
But it’s not over with the older ones, because we have new time that’s different from before. This time looks like broad, new conversations, and tentative efforts to bring buried things into the open, and a willingness to let spaces stay empty that aren’t ready to be filled. It looks like hilarious confessions and new levels of respect in both directions, and inside jokes filled with a vocabulary that only our family knows. It looks like mutual appreciation and recognition and repentance, and a whole different level of starting again.
Here, this is yours. I love the way some of these colors come together, and I regret not trying harder to make even lines in some of these places. But I hope you love it. I hope it keeps you warm, I hope you remember your mother and your family and your childhood and where you came from…with warmth, and fondness, and gratitude. I hope you know you are so loved.
It might be a while before they realize they didn’t notice all the things we did right in front of them, trying to make something beautiful out of the materials we had on hand.
It was so imperfect. There was significant wonk and things veered and shifted in ways we didn’t intend them to because we were learning and didn’t always know what we were doing. It is hard to wrestle these giant, complex souls to adulthood and keep our lines even.
But it was good, and warm, and filled with pieces of ourselves as the colors came together, and that is even better.
