Category Archives: peace

wide spaces: finding grace in the overwhelm

Posted on by October 26, 2023

I drove home from an appointment with Reagan’s team at our homeschool, leaves skipping across the road while the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band sang about fishing in the dark. Just me, no distractions, no kids arguing in the back – a good time to think some deep thoughts.

It was our annual special ed meeting, a newish development for us but also one I dreaded last year. But this year I feel like a grown up about it, which means I’ve reached a new level of maturity that borders on reckless indifference. Reagan is almost eighteen and that means nothing to her development, care, or education, but it changes a lot of things legally, initiating a whole new level of well-meaning bureaucracy in our lives.

wide spaces: finding grace in the overwhelm

In the meeting we discussed goals for math, reading, and writing. Math, for instance: The team suggested getting Reagan a watch to help her practice telling time, and we talked about what that would accomplish.

“Nothing,” I told them, “other than a broken watch, because she will get it in the water, pick at its mechanisms, and destroy it in within two weeks. We might as well find a twenty dollar bill and have the fun of lighting it on fire.” (I know, fun at parties, remember?) She doesn’t understand the concepts of seconds, minutes, and hours, anyway. She does understand days (usually), months (sometimes), and parts of the day, like evening and morning, with variable accuracy. Even on the days when she remembers how to tell time, it means nothing to her, and it was bought at the cost of weeks of frustration and often disobedience.

Money? Same thing. She knows what coins are worth, but that information is meaningless because she doesn’t understand buying, selling, earning, or spending. There are no hooks to hang that knowledge on. Yes, we take her to the store and go through the motions with her, but that’s all it is – going through motions. Her mind doesn’t understand the concepts of what is really occurring.

I flipped the blinker and turned right, wondering how many years you can teach first grade math to the same child. One reason we homeschool is to keep our kids from wasting time with busywork, but for eleven years that’s all it seems like most of her math assignments have been for her. But we’ve persisted, hoping something would finally click, or she would be healed, or we would see some bigger progress.

So how do we get more basic than the basics? Are we just pushing these things to make ourselves feel better? These are the questions I’m pondering lately. Have we wasted all this time, trying to teach her useless things? I know, I hear you; it hasn’t really been wasted. God never wastes anything. But just give me a minute so I can overthink this.

I don’t want to give up hope for her healing. I want to live in the green light and yet at the same time work with her where she’s at – where she’s still at, where she might always be at. I don’t want our days to be long, frustrating exercises in futility, checking off boxes when those boxes don’t apply to her.

I want to find the right boxes, where she clicks perfectly and thrives. And yes, we are an out-of-the-box family, I don’t have a problem with coloring outside the lines. But I’m tired of fishing in the dark, firing blind. We need structure and outlines and achievable goalposts to reach for, because things have been so “too much” and yet often also “not enough.”

There were four of us in the meeting and everyone was on our side; there was no combativeness or judgment, praise God. But there are always stark reminders that these other women, kind as they are, don’t fully grasp Reagan’s challenges. One mentioned vocational rehab as an option, and I reminded her that Reagan is cognitively anywhere from two to six years old, and you would not send a preschooler to vocational rehab.

“Right,” she nodded. I appreciate her agreement and understanding, but I’m so tired of being the only one that keeps these things in mind as we live with her limitations. I don’t want to be the naysayer all the time. I don’t want to naysay at all. But here we are: The freedom to do anything, but limits everywhere.

I read this about limits recently:

…What nuns, hermits, and students do is facilitated rather than hindered by the confines of the formal structures they inhabit; because those structures constrain freedom…they enable movements in a defined space. If the moves you can perform are prescribed and limited – if, for example, every line of your poem must have ten syllables and rhyme according to a predetermined pattern – each move can carry a precise significance.

– Stanley Fish, How to Write a Sentence

…and this makes sense to me. I need the focus provided by parameters and limits within the overwhelm.

So eleven years into this, we are reevaluating how we structure her days, and praying again about how to make them the most fruitful. And this, at least, is normal for every kid I’ve homeschooled: Tweaking and adjusting is normal, frequent, and to be expected.

We don’t want to push things for the sake of pushing them, or because they’re what’s “supposed” to happen, or because it’s what she ought to be able to do in a perfect world without FAS and other traumas. I’m all done with the exercise in futility, and yet I’m also not ready to admit she can’t be healed.

Which means I’m here in the middle, realizing for the brazillionth time that I can’t force healing, growth, or learning to happen. We need His grace; it has to be His work here. And we need to find other ways to engage and grow her that won’t be a constant source of aggravation and strife for all of us.

I heave a long sigh, and the Lord corrects me. Hey Love, you do not carry the weight of the world. I do. Agree with Me. So I do, mostly…I think 99.5 percent, at least…and I remind myself He’s doing great things. Working on our behalf. Making our efforts mean something. Giving us wisdom and discernment.

Every step forward for each of us is pure grace.

But still, I haven’t had a real vacation (the kind without kids, appointments, or interviews) in 22 years and there’s this 3-inch binder for Reagan’s paperwork and future planning that I need to look through this evening. Or at least, one of these evenings. Or at least by late November.

And I want nothing to do with it; I want to fling it out the window. I want to be Knightley, napping in the rocking chair.

So, maturity…yeah, I dunno if I’m getting anywhere with that in my own heart, either. The further we get it in this, the more I come up against my own selfishness, my own disappointments, my own imperfections and limits. My own need for grace.

I have been overwhelmed with overwhelm, and am longing for some…I don’t even know. Peace. Space. Victory. Rest.

And then a few weeks ago I read this, about the Lord leading the Israelites out of slavery and into a good land:

Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”

– Exodus 3:7-8

Did you see that? Three big things are happening here. One: The Lord sees their struggle. That’s super great, we need to be seen and heard and known.

And then B: He comes to deliver them to a good place, which is filled with hope and relief and promise. I can just see that good and broad land, with rolling fields, gardens, and a little stream cutting across a cluster of woods.

But then, C: In the same breath, before He even finishes the sentence, He says the place is absolutely teeming with horrible, idolatrous enemies they have to conquer.

Record scratch. Wait a second.

But I think this is where I’ve been living. I mean, maybe there’s a pattern here: We get to a new breakthrough, we start to see light ahead, and boom – new challenge, new overwhelm, new enemies to conquer. In fact, I’m almost positive I’ve written about this before, a little over a year ago. So why are we here again?

Because it’s the next level. The Lord delivers from overwhelm, but He also delivers us into overwhelm. Because He’s doing something in the midst of it.

I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
    because you have seen my affliction;
    you have known the distress of my soul,
and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
   you have set my feet in a broad place.

– Psalm 31:7-8

We can keep pushing Reagan through math workbooks, and enjoy the predictability of knowing what we’re getting into because it’s what we’ve always gotten. Or we can toss them aside and look at a wide, new land of almost limitless, overwhelming other options. Really, it’s not that different from the deliberations public schooling parents face when they first switch to homeschool.

My friend said this the other day about her daughter:

“We never had to do more than say ‘yes’ and just be there for her and love her. As long as we were faithful to do that, He did all the rest. We could’ve just rested in that instead of all the tears and worry.”

And I know this in my head but I have had to learn it over and over – which really, does that mean I’ve ever learned it? – because I have also spent many days in long, frustrating futility with tears and worry. I’ve wasted a lot of time with that useless busywork. But I’m hoping that this time the concept of grace will stick, that it will click, because I need healing and progress, too.

Learning that I can trust Him in all of it makes all the difference. Right, I’ve said that a million times here, and I think I’ve believed it 99.5 percent of the time, even. But probably because it’s taken this long to have hooks to hang that knowledge on, I’m finally learning about grace and trusting Him in new ways – like, I’m finally feeling it in my bones, and understanding that we are bound by love, and therefore, free.

If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.

– Numbers 14:8-9

I can almost grasp it right here – this shift that has been so slippery, so hard to hang on to, but it’s starting to make sense and feel real: Because if I can trust Him, then the future brings more joy and rest. Because if every step forward is His grace and not dependent on my perfection or ability, then the obstacles ahead are bread for us. Instead of the expectation of more limits and more confusion and more lack or dread or any other thing not of Him, there’s something that looks a little like reckless indifference – but what it really is, is freedom. It’s the next level.

It looks like rolling fields, and cultivated gardens, and a stream running free in all the directions He sends it.

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dominance: praying revival into a world on fire

Posted on by October 12, 2023

Life has leveled up to a new level of ridiculous. I don’t mean the current events – I mean, they are, but we can talk about that later. What I mean is, there’s a rooster living in our bathroom.

I introduced you to Freckles in the last post. And yes, even inside, he still crows in the morning. Not the first day; he was too injured and didn’t eat or drink for about 36 hours. But the second morning I woke up to crowing at 7:14, approximately twelve feet from my head. The next day it was even earlier, 7:03.

dominance: praying revival into a world on fire

Knightley meowed from the corner of my pillow, and Vin murmured, “Cats to the left of me, roosters to the north…here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”

But this morning was better: Freckles, now acclimated to the late schedule of homeschoolers, waited until after 10am to start crowing. I told you, he’s marvelous.

(Wait, did I mention we also have five quail who’ve been brooding in the same bathroom for six weeks? They need to transition outside but currently their brooder won’t fit through the door because there’s a cage the size of a Prius blocking it from opening all the way.)

So some things have to change. Since we had too many roosters with all the chicks that hatched this summer, we sent two of the lesser-favored ones to (ahem) freezer camp, and in the reshuffling of space and territory, the other young rooster took it upon himself to prove dominance. Freckles got the worst of it; I found him hiding in a nesting box with one eye swollen shut.

And then – because Vin and I clearly still don’t know what we’re doing – instead of removing him that night like we should have done, we handpicked who he should roost with and put him in the coop with the gentlest hens…so we thought. The next morning both of his eyes were swollen shut and his ear was also terribly swollen, because one of them had picked on him overnight.

It’s what chickens do. If someone’s injured, they attack. It’s not exactly Kingdom culture.

That was Saturday, when everything else all over the world escalated. He’s been in our bathroom ever since to recover in safety, with occasional trips the first couple days to the living room for spa treatment (meaning, Vin held him while I swabbed his swollen eyelids with a steamy washcloth and talked to him about his nice complexion) and afternoon excursions during the last couple days to play with the kids in the yard or help the guys change tires because we got our first snow this week.

Our beautiful fall quickly turned to bleak-fall-mixed-with-winter, and we need to figure out what to do about roosters, and quail, and garden pots that need put away. I cannot resolve world events but I can tackle these. So while world leaders strut about a war they helped create to line their own pockets as others pay the ultimate price, I’ve been distracted with the small events in my own territory, watching Freckles make progress as his eyes start to see again.

Is it enough, though? It’s such a small thing in light of so many unknowns and concerns about the future. We can pray deep and wide, but physically I can only reach so far.

And I thought about not sharing any of this at all because people on the internet can be stupid. (Not you, of course. Other people.) Why do you have more than one rooster? You should just get rid of the one who lost the fight. You should do this and this and this…People who don’t bother asking about the size of our flock or other dynamics are happy to throw out all kinds of unhelpful advice and criticism so they can feel like experts. But I’m not here for advice or criticism; I’m just here learning and trying to do the right thing, like most of the rest of us.

(For the record, we have too many hens for one rooster, and I don’t want to eliminate the one who’s nicest to the hens and our family. DUH.)

In the middle of the world threatening to light itself on fire, there’s something visceral and focused about trying to bring healing to one creature, and about not just letting nature take its course but instead being an intentional steward, partnering with God to bring restoration.

Sometimes I am the creature who needs healing, and if I can get the log out of my own eye it makes a huge difference on a wider scale. This right here, where I can touch, is where I do the most important work. When the world is ridiculous, this is where I show it who’s boss: He is, of course.

Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.

He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.

– Psalm 25:8-9

So I harvested carrots, and pulled ripe tomatoes from the vines growing in the living room, and spent more time listening – really listening – to my kids than I was inclined to after bedtime. I cleaned the gross area under the sink and prayed for other gross areas to be cleaned from our country.

I read to my kids, and prayed with a stranger at the thrift store, and smiled at people who looked like they were in a hurry, because I’d rather be at home instead of running errands, too.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

– Psalm 37:3

Such tiny things. But I want people to be unable to drive through Wasilla without being touched by the Lord and encountering bold love from His people. This is my territory, the land He’s made me (and many others) steward of. This is the place I can touch and cultivate. This is where we release Kingdom culture, ignite revival, and prove Who is dominant.

This morning we were praying about how creation groans, and how creation sings God’s praises, and how creation bears witness to God. We listened to the same song I sang when I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant with Kavanagh, struck with the glory of sober obedience: If creation still obeys You, so will I.

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.

– Psalm 24:1

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

– Romans 1:20

And as we prayed, I kept hearing the phrase, “Creation, obey Him!” The enemy is bent on destruction because chaos and ugliness don’t reflect the glory of God or draw people to Him. But beauty, order, and strength do.

So in the midst of chaos, when anything I can do feels so small in comparison to world events, I’m pursuing order and beauty and strength in the areas I can reach. Because things here have to change.

I cannot counsel world leaders who beat war drums, but I can finish the tasks on my own desk. I can ask God to heal the wounded while I tend my rooster. I cannot prepare for all the unknowns, but I can pray for people to encounter God in dreams and visions as I bring order to my own house. I cannot root out evil networks, but I can ask God to invade hardened hearts as I wipe the counters and run another load of laundry and pray for those driving up and down the highway.

People are trying to light the world on fire, but what if the fire they get is revival, instead?

The globalists and the terrorists – but I repeat myself – think they dominate but they haven’t seen real power yet. They have no idea what comes of the prayers of those who have favor with the King who turns evil on its head: Communities saved. Culture redeemed. Workers of evil brought into the Kingdom of light.

What if we prayed that way, and the Lord confronted the perpetrators with the blinding light of a Damascus road experience? Because He does.

What if we prayed for those who are fleeing and despairing, and Jesus showed them He is the God who sees? Because He is.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

— 2 Peter 3:9

For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.

– Psalm 37:9-11

It’s another season of sober obedience; our hearts might get hurt in this. But that’s the case in parenting, forgiving, writing, reaching out to others, being a friend, or trying to learn anything new. We might get hurt. None of this is safe or guaranteed.

But letting nature take its course and resigning to not doing anything is an insult to the One who gave everything, even when He knew it would hurt. He hasn’t called us to bury our talents and do the safe or easy thing. He’s called us to level up, even if it looks ridiculous.

He hasn’t called us to act like chickens, but to be saints, a royal priesthood.

 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

— 1 Peter 2:9

It might bring the eucatastrophe we didn’t know we could hope for. We can pray for revival in the face of all the threats and posturing, and watch a quiet uprising that lights the world with a different kind of fire – the kind that burns but does not consume.

We pray rockets of revival and repentance into hearts everywhere, starting with our own. And the whole world will be changed, and we never saw it coming.

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P.S. Links for you!

  • How do we walk in God’s presence, and rest in God, and also be His resting place? What is He calling us to be, and how do we succeed? This is a life-changing teaching from Hayley Braun; her message starts around 1 hour 55 minute mark.
  • Incredible podcast here on hearing God, imagining with Him, and spiritually occupying the land the Lord has put before us, with Lana Vawser and Courtney Kueck.
  • Did you see my guest post at Raising Arrows? It’s on post-adoption depression which I absolutely did NOT want to write about, especially after writing a whole book on it…but we can do hard things. So I did. It’s a super vulnerable post and I hope it blesses you.
  • We just started A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens this week in Gaining Ground. I’d love to have you join us! Don’t be intimidated by Dickens; he’s wonderful and we’re tackling just 35-40 pages a week.

beautiful mess: when our colors start changing

Posted on by September 30, 2023

I was afraid they would take over our living room, but so far it’s been okay.

About a hundred tomatoes are growing in two pots next to the couch (and a hundred more in two other pots that are growing in the basement) because the nights started getting too cold to leave them out there but they were still too small to harvest, just tiny green clusters that looked like grapes. So we pushed them up against the window where they could get twelve hours of daylight in the safety of a frost-free environment.

beautiful mess: when our colors start changing

I was also afraid that bugs would crawl out of the pots and start emerging everywhere, but so far there’s just been one little spider who built an ambitious web among the branches. For a while I let him, thinking that if there was a fruit fly problem, he would help mitigate it. But then he got presumptuous and expanded his architecture into a grand multi-dimensional Taj Ma-spiderweb that made me nervous, so I gave him an eviction notice and dusted him out of there so I could reach the growing tomatoes.

Because lo and behold, it’s working; they are changing colors. We are growing ripe tomatoes in our house. YAY. Almost a dozen are ready to be picked, and all I need now is some feta.

Fall is magical and idyllic: the colors, the sunlight, the new books, the new ambitions. Cham’s in the library rocking chair and Kav’s on the floor nearby, both reading. I’m almost done with Anne of Green Gables (which is perfect for fall) and all of Anne’s studies and concerts and recitations make me daydream about homeschool co-ops and reading groups.

Several packages of books came in the mail this week – some for the new school year, and others of our own to replenish inventory – and I’m listening to a teaching in my office while I reshelve everything. The speaker starts interceding for different cities and suddenly I don’t know why but I’m crying – and why am I crying so much lately? I’ve never been a crier, but God is changing my colors here, too, because it’s happening more and more during worship…and He’s teaching me that worship looks like a lot of different things, and most of them aren’t related to music or singing.

I know I’m rambling a little, but this is what fall is: Oh, look at that tree, and that tree, and that one. Look at all the things that are demanding our attention in new ways, all because their colors are changing.

Why do we buy, or borrow, or read all the books? Because we want something inside them to change something inside of us. We know we need our colors to change, too.

We don’t usually mind changing as long as we’re in charge of the process, or it’s gentle enough that we barely notice. But the change we most often need requires our surrender, and that’s when we dig our heels in.

A few years ago we finally made a lot of big changes after months (years) of prayer – we shed some friends, a church, a couple social media accounts – and life has been adjusting with new colors ever since. And in this season, more colors keep changing: Kids keep coming and going, another one is probably moving out next spring, two others need to transition into guardianship…and that’s one of those things where in some ways nothing changes, but in other ways, everything changes. The new colors don’t make sense and we have no idea what they’ll really look like.

Outside, most of the leaves are still hanging on tightly to branches and this is probably the last perfect week of fall before they all let go. We still have a few sunflowers and poppies blooming, and I keep checking to see if any of the ones that bloomed earliest are ready to harvest for seeds yet, but no, they’re still not, even though their petals have been gone for months. They went from enchanting violets and lavenders and crimsons whose bold petals stretched outward in every direction to these compact, reclusive green pods, and nothing to show for the change in color.

Sometimes we go through this process, too, and we wonder what God is doing with us. I used to feel so vibrant and free, and now I don’t know what I’m doing. Am I still the same person, even? Why do I feel less instead of more?

External changes are hard enough, but personal change — like when you know God is calling you higher, closer, humbler, or bolder – is a whole other process of molting and metamorphosis. But who we are hasn’t really changed; we’re just becoming more us as we become more like Him…and still, sometimes we dig in our heels, not sure if we should cooperate. Not sure how it will turn out. Not sure what we’ll have to give up, or what we’ll have to pay.

And sometimes shame and pride come in, and we dig our heels in here, too. I know this isn’t working, but I don’t want to change because that means admitting I’ve been wrong. If I change, people will see the difference between who I’ve been and who I’ve needed to be, and the space between feels embarrassing…so I’d rather just stay here.

To make it harder, some people walk in feigned maturity and make it awkward or difficult for everyone else to grow. I’m talking about the ones who drag us back in shame to our past, or speak dread over our future, and say things like, “Oh, just wait till ______ happens [insert story of martyrdom that demands your reverence to boost the speaker’s ego]. You’ll think differently then.”

These ones did not truly mature past the level they brag about, but stalled out when their insecurities outweighed their surrender. I have a theory that these are the same people who complain about all their responsibilities and never having any free time from the comfort of their easy chair while watching TV in the evenings. (They probably shouldn’t say those things to homeschooling moms who are balancing the phone on one ear while checking math assignments, washing eggs, and stirring dinner on the stove.)

There’s no shame in changing colors and turning in the right direction. Maturity requires humility. Sanctification means we are constantly a work in progress, and it’s okay to be a beautiful mess.

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.

– 1 Timothy 4:12-15

The only ones who lord it over us are the ones who refused, staying in the old phases, clinging to their old colors and baby fuzz, convincing themselves that to be perpetually in one’s twenties (or thirties, or whatever) is the ideal of happiness because it means there was never anything in them that needed improved upon. And this is why there are so many middle-aged and elderly narcissists (who, ironically, raised younger generations of narcissists, too).

The prodigal wonders, If I change now, will I be ashamed and embarrassed later of who I was, when who I am now becomes who I used to be?

– Oh My Soul

But what an amazing, holy, beautiful thing it is to allow God to change your color. We’re afraid it will take over our safe spaces…and it will. But it’ll be okay. The Lord is a strong tower; we can run to Him and be safe.

We have all these spring chicks who are almost adults now, and none of them resemble what they looked like before their feathers came in. They lost stripes, added speckles, and changed colors all over. Watching them over the summer has been a constant process of re-acquaintance as they’ve changed so fast – Oh, it’s you, Freckles. Last week you were brown with stripes, and now you are fifteen shades of chestnut, copper, and mahogany, with a gorgeous green tail that looks…suspiciously… like a rooster’s.

It turns out he is a rooster, but he’s my favorite and we’re keeping him, so there. He’s ginormous and still growing.

And those tight-fisted green pods of poppies are each growing hundreds of seeds that will reproduce themselves next year. They’ll let go, soon, too – I’ll know when I can see little windows open up at the tops of them that let the wind blow through.

One flower’s worth of lavender or crimson or violet will bear a field’s worth of color. They aren’t dying; we’re not dying. We are reproducing, replicating, propagating, spreading His colors into fields we could never reach now, far into the years ahead.

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