Category Archives: peace

growing through it: the fullness that comes after waiting

Posted on by May 12, 2022

Well, friends, with the dry air and spring temps, there’s a new game here at the Lighthouse. It requires two people, or at the very least, an ornery human and an unsuspecting cat.

Here’s how you play: Create a charge by running your hands back and forth on the couch (or just sit there long enough to accidentally create friction), then touch someone within reach. If you induce a loud zapping sound, some screaming, and cause the other player’s hair to stand on end, you win.

growing through it: the fullness that comes after waiting

In the spirit of science and brotherly affection, one of our kids actually got a few siblings to hold hands together to see if the current would fly through the chain and nearly electrocute the person on the end. I’m happy to report that this has been unsuccessful so far, but we’re having people over soon and I suspect they may inadvertently participate in the troubleshooting process.

I’ve been going through an old journal as research for the next book – speaking of painful, healing, hilarious, and wretched experiments – and in retrospect I’ve noticed that particular season of our lives was not all that different from taking someone’s hand and getting electrocuted.

And really, I struggle with how to write about the hard situations when they involve others. It’s come up in conversation a few times recently with friends (and a husband) who are also writers – this quandary of sharing our story when it overlaps with the stories of others. I’ve prayed about it and here’s what God answered:

Write about your past as though you were now close to the people who caused the pain. Write about it as though the sins were atoned for – because they are – and as though the relationships were restored – which they can be, through surrender on both sides. You are only responsible for your own surrender, but you’re not off the hook for praying for theirs. Writing about your past in this way leads you to write the truth in love with compassion and maturity, as you should.

So there’s that, and we’ll see how it goes. Anne Lamott also gives hilarious and accurate advice in Bird By Bird, but I can’t quote it here because if I did your content filter would block my website.

But in the summer of 2013 there’s a journal entry where I wrote out Isaiah 55 in its entirety and what He was speaking to me through each verse. And one of the things He said was, You will tell people to spend time with Me, searching Me, being honest with Me in their day-to-day dilemmas and drudgery.

Several months later I started writing some of the earliest content for what became Oh My Soul, which wasn’t even birthed until a full five years after those earliest posts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

– Isaiah 55:10-11, ESV

Fullness takes time. The waiting is hard and there’s no substitute for steadfastness, for the grit it takes to hang on to His Word when nothing seems to reflect it in the reality you see.

There’s no substitute for the time it takes to grow through the process of living. In any given half-decade, we all go through loss – and gain – that we never could have anticipated, touching hands with many people. Some of them let go too soon and leave us grieving. Sometimes we’re the ones who let go after getting burned too many times. And other times, we hold on for dear life through all the mayhem – because these ones, they are our people.

If He had told us ahead of time the loss and gain we would experience in the last five years, we never would have believed Him. Sometimes keeping us in the dark is a mercy that helps us toward obedience. We are not simply unsuspecting victims; this unknowing is actively doing a work in us for good.

…Getting old is our secret weapon. Readers come to books for many reasons, but ultimately they’re looking for wisdom. That’s something writers can offer only after we’ve accrued it, like scar tissue, usually by surviving things we didn’t want to deal with—a process otherwise known as aging.

– Barbara Kingsolver

And looking at it that way, I don’t really want to know what the next five years will hold. Just yesterday we lost someone we loved. And even though we knew it was coming, I’m not sure that grieving in advance makes it any easier, or if it just prolongs the process.

For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

– Isaiah 55:12, ESV

Life requires troubleshooting and the unknowing is unnerving. But the fullness that rewards us at the end of waiting only comes from learning from life’s friction instead of just getting burned by it.

We get to choose if we want to be more mature at the end of our hard times or not. You can tell the difference if you hold yourself to the same standard you set for those who hurt you, or if you make excuses for yourself without offering grace to others.

You can go through it or you can grow through it – we can learn the hard way, or not all.

Weeks after this game started, I’m still getting zinged from the couch several times a day, and more often than not it’s completely unintentional.

At the end of the night, I’m sitting on the couch with Bingley, and neither of us have learned our lesson. I reach down and barely touch him before zap – he gives me a black look. The tip of his ear is practically smoking and my finger is numb.

Like I said, you can learn the hard way, or not at all.

And I could tell you what he was probably thinking, but I’m pretty sure that would activate your content filter, too.

order of business: what we do to win the day

Posted on by January 26, 2019

Somehow I forgot about this phase of parenting toddlers. The floor is covered in abandoned puzzles and piles of blocks, the couch is drowning in buttons he dumped all over, and throw pillows are arranged like so many lily pads across the living room. You can barely walk through here. The Floor is Lava was obviously invented as a way to avoid picking up toys while still navigating through a room without stabbing your foot on an action figure.

order of business: what we do to win the day

But instead of cleaning up, Finn is distracted by improvising new forms of gymnastics. Three-year-olds are geniuses; leave it to them to discover that a large couch cushion can be used successfully as both a slide and a pole vault.

And let me just confess that I’m not the cool, laid-back mom-of-many that some of you might give me credit for. No matter how simple or minimalist we endeavor to be, there’s no getting around the fact that nine people and four cats create a ton of noise, clutter, and movement. Multiplied by physical pain from nursing, and magnified by looming deadlines and not enough time or quiet space to meet them…all this at once makes fire shoot out my ears.

Or lava, whatever.

It’s a quiet, cold evening when the blood moon is eclipsing, and we get Finn to clean up all his messes without resorting to too much bribery, manipulation, threats, and gimmicks. The kids play outside in the dark, candles are lit inside, and this is the kind of atmosphere that fits us, that we long for: Dinner’s frying, the baby is burping, Crowder’s singing the whole world’s about to change and you can’t help believing him, but you’re also praying the change will be good. We resist fear and choose to walk in boldness to the future He holds.

And I need some good change. Because it turns out, part of living the dream of writing full time includes the nightmare of technical and administrative work. It’s been consuming my weeks lately and I’ve been so frustrated, feeling thwarted as a writer who almost never has time to write.

People talk about love languages all the time but, just for a second, can we acknowledge that there might also be such a thing as Hate Languages? Because if they’re real, red tape and techy stuff are mine. Hates them we does. The urgent tasks suck up the day and there’s no time left to create, and deadlines loom without content to draw from. Toward the end of the month, it’s Cutthroat Kitchen for writers – I’m trying to make a gourmet meal with only leftovers in a mostly empty fridge.

So the Lord keeps bringing me back to this concept of Quadrant 2, or what I’ve often called filling the lake: doing those beautiful things that fill us before we need to pour out, like reading, writing, studying, brainstorming, and investing in relationships.

And maybe it sounds dumb, but I needed permission to prioritize those essentials, simply because many of them are what I most want to do. I tend to put them off until the end of the day, and often there’s not enough of the day left to do them.

Quadrant 2 encompasses activities that are important but not urgent, and easily put off because of their lack of urgency. When put off for too long, though, they become urgent Quadrant 1 activities, messes that need cleaned up and fires that need to be put out (or lava, whatever).

Breakdown results from avoiding that kind of routine maintenance, and by then we have a situation that is more expensive, more painful, and more time-consuming. The work isn’t always performed as well because of its frantic nature. It’s the difference between reading books for fun because we want to learn (Quadrant 2) versus cramming for a test because we just want to pass it (Quadrant 1). Or the difference between picking up your toys when you’re done with them versus waiting until you’ve destroyed the living room and your mama has lost her ever-loving mind.

Urgent matters are usually visible. They press on us; they insist on action….Importance, on the other hand, has to do with results. If something is important, it contributes to your mission, your values, your high priority goals.

– Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

You can do it early or you can do it in haste, and we’re living it out both ways. There are so many things I’m glad I learned years ago so I don’t have to figure them out now (hat tip to my friends Microsoft Word, WordPress, and Mailchimp). But there are a million other things I still need to learn, and I wish I knew them yesterday. And to be honest, there are plenty of things I don’t even want to learn. Here’s looking at you, Photoshop.

But when I fill the lake and work with His priorities and my own giftings instead of against them, I do better work. I do it with joy. I’m a happier wife and mama, a better friend, and a more effective leader. It creates the atmosphere that fits me and fills me.

It is the difference between getting up early and pulling a 12-hour shift to get it all done, or getting up on time to spend the first hour in study and prayer, and finding that the work is finished an hour early.

And I’m pulling overtime on a Saturday, but if there’s an easy way to do it, it’s this: Sitting on the couch with a sleepy Kavanagh, with the same music playing that he heard so much in utero, and the biggest distraction I face is his occasional eruption of spitup. This quiet time is sponsored by Vince working through his own hate language – he has the rest of the kids downstairs, painting.

I can hear the paint rollers running back and forth and it’s a liberating comfort to know that progress is happening downstairs without me. It will be beautiful when they’re done. I am up here doing my part of the work, they are down there doing their part of the work, and we all enjoy the fruit of everyone’s efforts.

And looking back, I can see how He’s been telling me this for a long time. We had a worship night at church last weekend, and I heard a song I’ve only heard once or twice before, and wondered where it’s been all my life.

You go before I know
That You’ve even gone to win my war
Your love becomes my greatest defense
It leads me from the dry wilderness

And all I did was praise
All I did was worship
All I did was bow down
All I did was stay still

– Rita Springer, Defender

And I needed to hear it because even though there’s work that I can do, most of the big work is out of my hands. There’s breakthrough we need that only He can do. Just like last year, when we knew He was moving us but we didn’t know where or how He was going to do it. We never would’ve guessed the outcome. No amount of bribery, manipulation, threats, and gimmicks could have brought that kind of resolution, and it won’t now, either. We win through surrender, just like always.

On New Year’s Eve I was nursing Kavanagh on the couch, and suddenly the fireworks that had been sporadic for two days went off all at once, all around us, and I realized it must be midnight. I looked up and there they were, out every window; you could see them all the way from Houston and Big Lake in the east to downtown Wasilla in the west, and there were more than a dozen eruptions between – around the highway, up Vine, along Knik Goose Bay, Fairview Loop, all across the valley.

I had never thought of what fireworks would look like from this bluff overlooking the valley. It was magical and marvelous and riotous, and wholly unexpected. It was like the whole world was about to change. And God leaned in close and said, See? I’m not done surprising you yet.

under pressure: staying ahead when the chase is on

Posted on by June 16, 2023

Eight months pregnant, which means thirty-six weeks down, and four (maybe) to go. I’m at the clumsy stage, and I don’t mean cute-clumsy – I mean, I am JarJar Binks playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey after drinking three shots of espresso spiked with whiskey. I can barely put on socks without help, and attempting to put shoes or pants on while standing up is now prohibited.

under pressure: staying ahead when the chase is on

We’re also at the stage where the general public feels free to let loose with comments like, “Wow, you have got to be overdue by now” and “It doesn’t look like you could possibly get any bigger” and other thoughtful, sensitive, encouraging insights. But that’s okay, because it coincided with me losing my filter around the same time, and I don’t mind responding like an old woman who has lost all sense of manners, tact, and decorum…and let’s be honest, those already aren’t my strong suits. Sometimes the snark flies fast and furious.

Example: “Wow, this is your eighth child!! Don’t you know how that happens?”

Well, yes – 21 years of a (mostly) rocking marriage. Do you have any idea how many times we haven’t gotten pregnant? Thousands. Bless your heart…

But it’s a season of speeding up when it seems like things ought to be slowing down. We ought to be resting, nesting, and preparing before Kavanagh comes, but his birth coincides with the holidays and book launches and accelerating ministry. And none of those things are negotiables that fall into the “everything is permissible for me, but not all things are beneficial” category – they’re all good and necessary right now.

Everyone was much too tired to speak or eat. The Horses, without waiting to be unsaddled, lay down at once. So did Aravis and Shasta.

About ten minutes later the careful Hwin said, “But we mustn’t go to sleep. We’ve got to keep ahead of that Rabadash.”

‘No,” said Bree very slowly. “Mustn’t go to sleep. Just a little rest.”

– C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

This is my favorite of the Narnia books; I don’t know how many times I’ve read it or how many times I’ve quoted it in posts, chapters, and teachings. This is the story that speaks to me about His Presence in all of our seasons. And here, the two Humans and the two Horses are running ahead of an evil army, to bring warning in time to a kingdom that doesn’t know it is under attack.

“P-please,” said Hwin, very shyly, “I feel just like Bree that I can’t go on. But when Horses have humans (with spurs and things) on their backs, aren’t they often made to go on when they’re feeling like this? And then they find they can. I m-mean – oughtn’t we to be able to do more even, now that we’re free? It’s all for Narnia.”

And here, God is working on my expectations and shifting my paradigms of what ought to be, as things continue to ramp up even when we’d normally take it all down several notches.

….In reality she was quite right, and if Bree had had a Tarkaan on his back at that moment to make him go on, he would have found that he was good for several hours’ hard going. But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you any more you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.

We often think that even the presence of pressure is wrong. My train of thought usually runs something like this: If I feel pressure, that means I’m stressed, and if I’m stressed, it means I’m not calm, and if I’m not calm, I’m not trusting God, and if I’m not trusting God, I must be fearful. It eventually equates pressure with fear or sin. But what if that’s not always the truth?

“I hope we’re in time,” murmured Hwin.

Then they began going up, slowly and zigzagging a good deal, for the hills were steep….

“Hullo!” he said suddenly. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” said Bree, turning round. Hwin and Aravis did the same.

“That,” said Shasta, pointing. “It looks like smoke. Is it a fire?”

“Sand-storm, I should say,” said Bree.

“Not much wind to raise it,” said Aravis.

“Oh!” exclaimed Hwin. “Look! There are things flashing in it. Look! They’re helmets – and armor. And it’s moving: moving this way.”

“By Tash!” said Aravis. “It’s the army. It’s Rabadash.”

“Of course it is,” said Hwin. “Just what I was afraid of. Quick! We must get to Anvard before it.”

We tend to interpret pressure as a lack of faith, or poor planning – and sometimes it is those things, but not always. Not right now in this season we’re in. Because sometimes the pressure is there to provide safety and margin so we can relax and rest later, so that having done all, we can stand.

This race was very grueling for the Horses. As they topped each ridge they found another valley and another ridge beyond it; and though they knew they were going in more or less the right direction, no one knew how far it was to Anvard….

“Quick! Quick!” shouted Aravis. “We might as well not have come at all  if we don’t reach Anvard in time. Gallop, Bree, gallop. Remember you’re a war horse.”

….And certainly both Horses were doing, if not all they could, all they thought they could; which is not quite the same thing.

We experience pressure in labor so we can deliver our babies. We go through pressure in labor to deliver anything else, also.

He’s teaching me to abide hard amid the increase in activity. To take every component and event and non-negotiable to Him, one thing at a time, and ask Him about it – keeping short accounts to continually communicate and hear His will in what to do.

At that moment everyone’s feelings were completely altered by a sound from behind. It was not the sound they had been expecting to hear – the noise of hoofs and jingling armor, mixed, perhaps, with Calormene battle-cries. Yet Shasta knew it at once. It was the same snarling roar he had heard that moonlit night when they first met Aravis and Hwin. Bree knew it too…And Bree now discovered that he had not really been going as fast – not quite as fast – as he could.

Seasons of pressure are no time to take things for granted, and we’re learning (again) to depend on Him and abide at a deeper level than we otherwise would if it was a more comfortable, slow time. It’s not that we’re not resting. But we’re not resting as much as we normally would.

 “It’s not fair,” thought Shasta. “I did think we’d be safe from lions here!”

He looked over his shoulder. Everything was only too clear. A huge tawny creature, its body low to the ground…was behind them. And it was nearer every second and half second.

In our house, in this season, we are writing, formatting, and finalizing the Companion Journal to Oh My Soul, and praying, discipling, and ministering. We are finishing a term of homeschool and pushing through a few last deadlines before December, when early labor will probably start in earnest. And amid All The Things, we’ll get a Christmas tree and lights up, spend days and evenings with friends, and nest the house into a frenzy as we prepare for a homebirth here at the Lighthouse.

And in your house, you’re doing All The Things, too. The trick is not to get out of as many things as possible, or to do as many things as possible, but to do everything He calls us to in His perfect time…which is often different from what we expect. Sometimes, harder than we expect. And sometimes, faster than we expect.

The Lion chases them and spurs them faster to safety; without His pressure they never would have made it in time.

He is the same Lion who chases us. Every time we’ve run with Him, we’ve been right on time. He’s leading us to birth and new life so we can rout and vanquish the enemy.

____

Related: How do we deal with the pressure and still find margin, creating a sustainable culture of rest and refilling? The November newsletter is all about this and it comes out next week. Subscribe here if you need to.