Middle of June.Leaves are full on the trees, the sky is blue, and the deck is covered in pots of dirt with various green things sprouting. Unless you know your plants, most of them aren’t even identifiable yet.
So when my best buddy in the States sent me photos of her glorious peonies in full bloom, it was a sign of things to come. Hers look like this:
And ours currently look like this:
Do you SEE how gorgeous ours are?
Of course not. You can’t even tell what color they’ll be. (Light pink. Here.)
But it’s not time for them yet, because this is Alaska. Spring lasts for about two weeks, summer gets a late start, and peonies don’t bloom here until July. If you have anything impressive in your garden this early, you probably bought starts from a nursery.
I shared this photo online last week with a scripture verse, and if you’ve read about some odd reactions I’ve gotten to those, let me assure you that at least the comment I got on this one was probably well meaning and wasn’t from a religious weirdo (I don’t think so, at least):
The comment was, “I feel sorry for your houseplant.”
My initial thought was, What houseplant? This is a photo of my desk. But then I looked again, and oh yes, there’s that little snake plant on the floor that has taken forever to grow from cuttings I got from a friend.
It does look sort of pathetic in the photo, but it wasn’t the focus of the post. In reality it looks almost as pathetic has five shoots that have grown up from the dirt, and only two of them show in the picture.
This plant is a slow grower and doesn’t like full sun. So it sits in the corner by my desk and quietly endures judgement and pity from strangers online, listening to Einaudi with me while I write.
But it’s doing its thing; it doesn’t need anyone’s pity.
It doesn’t edit, doesn’t create graphics, doesn’t check email or answer phone calls for me. But it’s not meant to do any of those things. It’s meant to sit there and grow, and there’s no deadline or competition.
It is doing what it’s meant to do, and minding its own business.
Or, can we rephrase that, and say it’s obeying its calling? Because it is.
Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place. With the Lord on my side I do not fear. What can mortals do to me? The Lord is on my side to help me; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in mortals.
— Psalm 118:5-8
Lots of things (and people) look funny while they’re growing, and deal with the ignorant judgment from others who only take a quick look and have no idea what the full story is.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
— Titus 2:11-13
It reminded me of a conversation I had at church last weekend, when someone asked me if I ever wondered about what other people thought of my special needs kids, and why they’re not healed.
And yeah, I have thought that. Vince and I have been in and led prayer ministry for years, and I have no doubt people have looked at us and wondered if we were really qualified to lead or minister or pray for healing because some of our kids’ issues have been super obvious.
But what’s not obvious is where our kids came from, or what they’ve been through, or how far they’ve come. In our local church, only two other people have seen our journey from the beginning.
How many times have we judged others when we had no idea how many hurdles they’ve already overcome?
How many times have we judged ourselves or others for not doing things that we’re not even meant to do? For not looking like everyone else? For not having the same timeline? For having a different starting line and growing season?
He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
— Titus 2:14
We are not all organic heirloom seeds, planted in perfect loamy soil with a long head start in spring, watered on a scheduled timer.
Some of us are just doing the best we can in the clay and the climate we were planted in. We don’t have as much time, and halfway through the year it still looks like we just started.
But if you are obeying in that, it is enough.
We have this horrible habit of setting expectations and rushing timelines that have nothing to do with what God calls us to.
There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.”
— Psalm 118:15
So here, a word for the one who is looking at their progress and wondering why there’s still so little to show for it:
Your early growth doesn’t define your success. Don’t let someone else’s greenhouse beginning diminish your efforts from seed.
It’s not a competition until we try to make it one, and when we do, everyone loses. It’s better to just refuse that game, mind our own business, and obey in our own calling.
Your friend’s Pacific Northwest climate doesn’t diminish your Alaskan rate of growth. So don’t judge your June growth by your August expectations; you’ll know what color you are soon enough.
You are allowed to be the late bloomer. The dark horse. The sleeper whom no one expects, and then wakes with a roar.
The more we know, the more we realize how little we know. And this is both good and bad: It’s great for humility, curiosity, and continued growth, but it’s not always so good when you actually are right but you doubt yourself.
For example, a few weeks ago when we were helping friends move, we pulled into a storage facility right as some other people were leaving. The security gate was open to let us in, and then it closed behind us.
We drove across all the rows of storage units, and…our friends weren’t there.
“They said it’s the one by the church, right?” Yep, that’s what they said…but we’re smart enough to know that there are things we don’t always know, which means this might not be the only storage facility near the church.
Maybe, after we got separated along the road, they went to some other place we’re not aware of, because no one else in our party – which was originally a convoy of six or seven vehicles, including a giant U-Haul – were there.
We pulled back up to the closed gate and waited for the sensor to kick in.
Buuut there was no sensor.
Instead, there was a code box for customers…and we weren’t customers.
Visions of passing Sunday afternoon locked in a storage yard with five kids flashed through my mind. Fortunately, the sign had the company’s phone number on it, so I called that while Vince called our friend to let him know our situation.
My call went straight to voicemail.
“Hi, we’re helping some friends move,” I began, “but we must’ve gone to the wrong storage facility–”
Vin, on the phone with our buddy: “Hey! We pulled into the storage place but–”
Me: “– the gate was open when we got here because some people were leaving, but then it shut behind them–”
“–uh huh…yeah, no, we’re here–”
“– and we don’t have the code to get out, so we’re stuck inside. If you could call me back AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, my name is Shannon and my number is 907–”
“They’re on their way,” Vin said, hanging up. “They missed the turn.”
” – what? Wait, they’re coming? OHHhhh – Okay, nevermind, disregard, this is the right place and our friends are on the way, thankssomuchhaveagreatdaybye.” It’s fine, we’re fine, please don’t call the cops, etcetera, etcetera.
Moral? You can be right but still think you’re wrong because you’re early, or you’re alone, or everyone else is wrong, or you’re afraid, or a million other reasons.
When we know enough to know we don’t know everything we need to know (kudos if you don’t have to read that at least twice), it can be a little intimidating. Inhibiting. Unnerving.
In seasons of deep growth, we realize more than ever that there are so many people who already know what we need to know. In any given situation, there are people who can do this better. Who have the right answers, and all the training. Who don’t make things awkward, or aren’t accidentally rude (sigh), or had polished beginnings that make our raw edges seem to stand out all the more.
We feel over our heads in the deep end, but Jesus is asking for trust and intimacy, not impressive performance. Not back up plans, not fail-safe programs. Not our know-it-all, I’ve-got-this, watch-what-I-can-do mentalities.
We like those things, because they puff us up and make us look good. But we’ve got some dying to the flesh to do.
When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but wisdom is with the humble.
– Proverbs 11:2
So we have to know enough to know that we don’t know everything.
But also, and just as important:
We have to remember that the Lord tells us what we need to know when we ask Him.
If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.
– James 1:5
Do we really believe that, though? Because here’s the next part, and it’s where we tend to get hung up:
Butask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
– James 1:6-8
Well, great, what does that say for us? I thought this was the right place…but no one else is here…and I must’ve got it wrong somehow.
But no, that’s not doubting or double-mindedness. The “doubting” referred to in that verse is not condemnation for not knowing something, or being confused, or having a misunderstanding, or getting the rug pulled out from under you.
It doesn’t mean we always have to be certain about everything. God already knows we don’t have all the answers; that’s why we’re asking in the first place.
In the original Greek, the word for doubting here is diakrinó, and we learn more about it when we look at the root words it’s made from: dia, which means “through,” and krino, which means “to judge.” So you could say that this doubting is “through our own judgment” – or, arguing with God because we think we know better.
Here’s how it goes: We don’t know, so we ask, and He answers.
That seems like a simple flow chart, pretty straightforward.
But we tend to get muddled in the “He answers” part, because that’s where the flow chart forks into two options: We either believe Him and act on what He said, or we doubt Him – diakrinó – and argue.
Because we do hear His answers, but sometimes before we have a chance to put our pants on and act on them, the enemy hisses into our ears, and it’s the same thing he said in the very beginning.
“Did God really say…?”
And we start to have doubts.
Did I really hear God? Was that really Him?
Is He really that good? Is the answer really that simple? That full of joy? That much of a relief?
Or, just as often:
But I don’t want to ______ (wait, move forward, obey, abstain, be alone, whatever).
It’s too _______ (hard, radical, uncomfortable, soon, expensive, whatever).
That must not have been Him.
And there we are, a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind, double-minded and unstable in every way.
In this case, we must not expect to receive anything from the Lord because He already gave it to us but we said, “Ehhh, I don’t think so, no thanks.”
But also, sometimes we start to act on what He said, but then circumstances shift and we question the original plan.
After a year of no broody hens, our darling Uno has decided at the very end of summer that she wants to hatch chicks again. It’s not the best time for it, especially in Alaska, because our winters usually start around mid-October. So I searched “broody hen in fall” and scoured the internet for answers.
And the consensus from chicken keepers all over, including cold climates, said Yes, go for it.
But still, this is Alaska. So I prayed some more, hemmed and hawed, and discussed with the husband and kids. We all agreed, sure, let’s do this. Uno and her eggs would need to be moved to a more protected coop, but we’ve done that before, no biggie.
We didn’t know, so we asked, and got answers. Easy peasy.
And then we moved Uno…and she threw an absolute fit.
Refused to sit on the eggs. Tried to rush us to get out of the new space. Clucked and scratched and rolled in the dirt. Poked her head through the fence to make faces at the other hens.
She totally diakrinó-ed, like she forgot that this is what she wanted in the first place.
Meanwhile, the warm eggs sat in the neglected nest, getting cooler by the minute.
I wavered, and second guessed, and did a little diakrinó-ing of my own while I watched her fuss: Should we have moved her so soon? Maybe we should’ve put her in the other spot. Or used the other box. Or left her for a few more days. Or, or, or…anything, because this doesn’t seem to be working.
But no, I remembered. We clearly heard Yes, do this, and we knew she had to be moved. She couldn’t stay where she’d been because it wasn’t a safe place to hatch chicks. And we couldn’t move her to the other place she brooded in last year because it wouldn’t be warm enough in the fall.
The Lord knows this hen and this process better than we do. We can trust Him. And we can remember that just because things don’t look like they’re working, it doesn’t mean they actually aren’t working. They’re just still working out.
So, how do we know what’s from the Lord, and what isn’t? How can we be certain?
We have to know Who we’re dealing with. When we know Him, we recognize Him. And when we look toward Him, we become like Him.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
– 2 Corinthians 3:17-18
When we know Who He is, we know better who we are. And as we abide, we remember that we have the mind of Christ and can know the things we need to know, and can reject the things that are beneath us.
But be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.
But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.
– James 1:22-25
Wouldn’t we like to be blessed in our doing? We have to act on what we hear, and persevere.
God is instilling in us the faith to walk in a little uncertainty and discomfort without doubting Him. When we obey and persevere, we can handle the tension that comes between our act of obedience and the fruit it eventually bears.
This is how we can be still and know.
After about 40 minutes – longer than I’d like, but not really that long in the scheme of things – Uno finally settled on her eggs. I peeked in on her, and she had knocked over the food and kicked dirt in her water and made a general mess of things, but she was sitting on those eggs like it was her great mission. (Which it is.) We both made it through the doubting and arguing and trusting our own judgment, and settled into trusting the Lord for a nest of chicks in fall.
Can I throw one more wrench in the works here? One of the biggest reasons we doubt – or argue with God – is because we’re actually afraid of what we want.
Often, we’re afraid of freedom.
Here’s what that might look like:
Fear of healing because it changes our routines, what we’re used to, and how we (and others) see us
Fear of Jesus following through with His word and promise
Fear that it’s “just what we want” and not really what God wants to give us
Fear of what the Lord will ask us to do in return, as though we’re making a deal with the devil – and oooh, do you see how deceptive that is?
Fear that we’ll get in trouble if we rock the boat instead of maintaining the status quo
…so it feels safer to doubt God’s voice. Our judgment is better than God’s judgment because He’s really not as good as the Word says He is (but we would never say it that way, of course).
We know what we’re already dealing with and we can just live with it. We don’t know what change might bring, or if we can handle that – and if we’re honest, that’s because we’re not trusting God in any of it. We are afraid, so we hang onto control instead of letting go in surrender.
If you recognize yourself in any of these thoughts, it’s time to examine where those thoughts come from.
Not all thoughts are our own thoughts. Something flies into our head, and we think it’s our thought because it sounds like our voice, therefore it must be from inside us…right? But we’re horrified by some of what we hear, not knowing the depths of where those thoughts come from.
But no, they’re not all from us. Many of them – particularly the ones that contradict the things we know and leave us feeling confused and double-minded in their wake – are planted by the enemy, attempting to get us to make agreements with him.
He whispers, “God doesn’t love you” and even though we know that’s not true, we wonder if it is…and the more we wonder, the more we slide out of truth and into agreement with the enemy. He sneers, “God doesn’t want to give you that” or “God’s mad at you” or “That’s too good for you” or any other statement that rejects God’s truth and goodness.
We can recognize these counterfeit thoughts by the instability and confusion they bring. I know this is wrong; why am I thinking it? Or, I know this to be true; why am I having such a hard time believing it? Because the enemy wants you to. We have to learn to identify and filter out those attacks, to take every thought captive. And we do that by knowing which spirit we’re dealing with.
It doesn’t mean we always have to be certain about everything. It just means we have to be certain about God, and His goodness.
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would approach God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
– Hebrews 11:6
When we’re in over our heads, we want our default to be trust and intimacy, not insecurity and performance. Because when our default is corrected, we move forward in boldness and peace.
We have to remember what we heard in the first place. We have to remember that the Lord tells us what we need to know when we ask Him.
He really does.
God is offering us freedom in the areas we’ve learned to be rigid, restricted, lazy, inhibited, intimidated, and stifled.
When we trade those in for His freedom, we have the margin to be disciplined in the ways He actually wants us to be, which brings joy and beauty and order, rather than the empty pride of a checked-off box or feeling of superiority.
The old flesh is dying off, and we find life underneath it.
This post is also available for free as a short study that you can use for journaling, or small groups, or with a friend. You can print the short 2-page version with just the questions, or the expanded version (8 pages) which includes the post broken into four parts with the appropriate questions for each section.
P.S. Want more on this? Here’s a related post — If you’re finding yourself a little (or a lot) over your head in all new terrain, unsure of what you’re doing or how you’re doing it, I have good news for you: This is where God increases our capacity. Read, or catch the audio here.
Tuesday began earlier than normal with a shattering crash somewhere just outside our room, followed by the sound of a guilty cat jumping to the floor.
Throw back the covers, stumble to the scene, find glass and feathers everywhere. The boys had saved a handful of chicken feathers last fall and put them in a cup, and there they had remained for eight months until Dash decided that this precise moment – when we were in a dead sleep an hour before we normally get up – was the ideal opportunity to test gravity.
So there it went.
Thirty minutes later the mess was cleaned up and we were down by one glass and an hour of sleep, but on the upside we were half an hour ahead of schedule.
Commence chores, breakfast, and coffee on the couch with Dash, who was unrepentant and shameless about starting the morning with a bang. She slept in Vin’s lap with a clear conscience, if she even has one. And like every morning, we plotted out the day, the week, and the tasks ahead.
It’s the middle of June and none of our hens have gone broody yet, which is a matter of serious prayer because no new chicks means precious few eggs this fall and winter. But Molly, our best mama, was in a nesting box yesterday afternoon and last night, so we’re hoping she’ll rally to the cause again and save the day.
“Finn, go check and see if Molls in still in the box.” Those Orpingtons are the best: friendly, fluffy, calm, gorgeous. He and Kav both run out there, and a minute later, Kav runs back.
“Mom, you need to go to the coop. Finn needs you.”
The coffee is suddenly cold in my mouth, and I realize Molly might not have been staying in the box because she was broody. Mug down, shoes on, out the door, across the yard.
She was stiff and gone, but Finn didn’t understand…and then he did. A second later Kav did too, and both boys were crying, clutching our beautiful gold hen, tears falling on her feathers.
Deep breath. Eyes squeezed tight, arms around the boys. What a day; we haven’t even finished breakfast yet.
It feels like the agenda has changed. But really, it’s just become clearer because suddenly the important things are set in bold and the peripherals have faded to the distance.
What is important today? Hugs and eye contact. Finding gratitude and remembering joy. Nurturing hearts with conversations out of nowhere, because feelings and revelations and memories don’t have conveniently scheduled slots. Prayer, tea, and rest, and time to stare out the window. We need that stillness to feel our breath go in, and breath go out, and to notice the light stick of our eyelids that have settled for blinking when they really needed to cry.
And I say, “It is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed.”
I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord; I will remember your wonders of old. I will meditate on all your work and muse on your mighty deeds.
– Psalm 77:10-12
We go gently. Grief, whether it’s labeled mourning, injustice, overwhelm, PMS, regret, setback, or attack, requires tenderness and caution. No sudden moves; we need to pray, abide, and recalibrate so we don’t make a knee-jerk move that operates out of the spirit of stupid.
We can push through like it doesn’t matter, but life works better when we give ourselves (and others) permission to go slow and take the time we need to figure out what the next right thing is. We also need to give permission for grief to happen at all, because it’s so easy for us to discount it. It’s just a chicken. It’s just eggs. It’s just…fill in the blank.
All the tasks and chores and relationships clamor for attention and the emotions are not helping, because everything looks more daunting and hopeless than it really is.
No Molly. No broody hen yet. We’re already not getting enough eggs for the number of hens we have…this is where the worst case scenarios start to play through our minds. Gravity starts spiraling our thoughts downward, and we must check the fall with truth.
But you do see! Indeed, you note trouble and grief, that you may take it into your hands; the helpless commit themselves to you; you have been the helper of the orphan.
– Psalm 10:14
So we shrink the to do list. The most important things go to the top, and even those have to be broken down into smaller, simpler, stupid-easy steps. Write the post. But start with journaling. And don’t make it anything complex, just write what you see out the window.
Out the window, I hear the high pitched, repetitive thud of the shovel. Vin and the boys are in the woods down the hill, finding a place for Molly. I can hear one of the boys crying again, and I hate this part of raising animals. Every time this happens, I reconsider our life choices and think about just focusing on gardening, because no one ever mourns for zucchinis.
The evening is easier because everyone has something to do: the vacuum is going, dinner is cooking, and the younger boys are distracted with a game. Vin is downstairs butchering an injured quail and an older chicken who, unlike Molly, had not earned her retirement through personality, brooding chicks, or even bothering to lay eggs for the last few months and thus has long been destined for freezer camp, except that the boys had been protesting on her behalf. But now, Molly’s death eclipsed the grief over that hen and made the loss negligible. So there she went.
Hard things still need to be done, but grief puts them in perspective and sometimes, oddly, makes them easier. A shaking can bring unity and focus, and motivate us to take care of what we’ve been neglecting. Suddenly we can’t gloss over them in our everyday distractions. In that way, grief is a little like a fast – it brings perspective and growth we never would’ve bothered with in our regularly scheduled programming.
It doesn’t work that way if pain is a competition or we feel unseen and unrecognized. If self pity is in the way, our myopic focus blurs everything else.
But when we realize we’re in this together, we can be tender with the fragility of others because our hearts are hurting in alignment. We’re on the same side, and we recognize each other’s vulnerability in light of our own. And then we all come through stronger, freer, braver, more tightly woven.
It takes time, though. There is still so much to be done. I’m tempted to run back to the to do list, to check off the items, to brush past the people and rush through the things. Do we have that time?
Yes, we have to remind ourselves: This grief is taking us through things we’ve put off, waking us up earlier than we wanted to, and repositioning our perspective to see more the way He does. In that light, we’re ahead of schedule.
We save the day by slowing down, and really seeing what’s around us.
The next morning is better. No smashing excitement, no sudden loss; just everyday life of dishes and laundry and oatmeal. Three’s a crowd in our kitchen so you can imagine what kind of collisions ensue when five of us are pouring cream into coffee, reaching for the cinnamon and raisins, and running back to grab spoons. The family who crams into the same ten square feet together stays together, right? Isn’t that what the needlepoint samplers tell us?
We look each other in the eye, bump into each other, attend to needs, and clean up shattered messes. We have all the time in the world for this. It’s how we live smarter, not harder, and save the day.
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