Learning the unforced rhythms of grace...

Dear friends,

I have said goodbye to my children twice this week. Oh the aching pain of separation and the transition from a full house to an empty one once again. The kids were to fly back to Cameroon on Sunday afternoon after their fall break. It is so exciting to pick them up at the airport and embrace them knowing that there are days ahead to be filled with being in the same space together, five places set at the dinner table! We can catch up with latest, in person. I can hear my oldest's ever deepening voice. I can behold my daughter's laughter with her beautiful eyes shinning. My last born still curls into me as we embrace. I hold the familiar shapes and sounds of our family together close.

But, alas, they must return to school, and depart us once more. So we made the trip to the airport, said our tearful goodbyes, prayed together and went our separate ways. Only to be called hours later. The plane had a maintenance issue and the flight was canceled. We joyfully picked the kids up again and their stay was extended by a couple of days. It was great to have them home! However, Tuesday came and we took them to the airport again. Two goodbyes in one week. Emotionally exhausting.

I've been challenging myself to find the eucharisteo "thanksgiving" in the everyday. To pray prayers of thanksgiving by actually writing out lists of things I am thankful for. I've been reading the Bible in a very focused way and have found it to be transformative. It is not easy though. It's hard to be thankful for sending our kids away on a plane; to live a life separate from us in the everyday. It's easy to question and complain. I miss my kids on a profound level and being catapulted into an "empty nest" before being ready is jarring. But I am learning the unforced rhythms of grace. In Matthew 11:28-30 it says ( The Message version) "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

Sounds great, but how? I am still feeling my way through. I am asking God to burn off the cataracts of my soul. Eucharisteo is coming into focus, clearing my cloudy vision as the sludge of selfish ambition is melting away in the heat of God's word. "I am beset by soul amnesia. I empty of truth and need the refilling. I need come again every day -- bend, clutch, and remember -- for who can gather the manna but once, hoarding, and store away sustenance in the mind for all of the living?" - Ann Voskamp

I am gathering the manna words of God everyday. I am asking God to sustain me. My children or my job or my friends or my husband or the material things I have cannot and should not sustain me. "How I want to see the weight of glory break my thick scales, the weight of glory smash the chains of desperate materialism, split the numbing shell of deadening entertainment, bust up the ice of catatonic hearts." The lament of Ann Voskamp echoes my own prayer, although she says it lyrically. I cry out with a burning ache to live a life that is vibrantly alive. His Kingdom come, His will be done.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

COVID 19 positive in the remote equatorial rainforest

Image
"... because sometimes we need the space to chew on things before any answer can have real weight. Some truths need to happen to us, like when a child feels the cold ocean waves lapping at her feet for the very first time. Such encounters lift us out of ourselves until the world breaks open, becoming suddenly more wild and wondrous than mere moments before. And premature analysis, no matter how airtight, can empty such occasions of their evocative potency." -Justin Rosolino, from his book "Idiot, Sojourning Soul" I live in an almost mythical place, like a setting in a storybook, it is stunningly beautiful, mind-numbingly mundane in it's same, same everyday and at times also flat-out unpleasant and ugly. The contrasts of light and dark, good and bad are like a furious rainstorm that comes suddenly on a sunny day, a deluge of precipitation that cracks the heat in half and softens the red dirt roads into a myriad of puddles reflecting the sky and trees above ...
Read more

You think you know a guy...

You think you know a guy...  I mean I've been married to the guy for over 20 years.  Then suddenly, while we were getting ready for our walk/run this morning, he walks in the room holding up what look like a pair of spandex bicycle shorts.  They are completely unfamiliar to me.  I assumed it was unclaimed laundry from the basement ( it happens a lot around these parts living with 12 teenagers).  Steve's face is alight with delight as he excitedly exclaims, "Look Honey, it's my old baseball sliding shorts!"  He goes on to show me the pocket in the front to hold the athletic cup.  It's like he's reunited with an old friend.  "Wow" is my only response at this point.  Then I ask, "when did you get those?"  He takes a moment to think back and responds, "When I was 15!"  Wait, what?!  "You've had these 'sliding shorts' since you were 15??"  He responds with, "You never know when you might need sliding shor...
Read more

Peas and Carrots

Image
"Turn both your pockets and hearts inside out and give generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean not just your dishes and hands." - Luke 11 That verse lept off the pages of Luke as I read the bible after praying for God to speak to me directly about whether or not I should go to the Hope House orphanage to stay the night and help take care of the nearly 50 kids living there. You see, I have reasons not to go... I am traveling to the states today (a day and a half later) and it will be a long journey and I really need my rest. I get headachy and miserable when I don't get enough sleep. And I have visitors at the guest house now that need my attention and I need to pack and do some last minute shopping for family members that I will see soon in the states... And... well you get it! Honestly, it's hard to go to the Hope House. I am often overwhelmed by the needs and in awe of the love and care that dwells there. Kristy O'Neal is here for four mont...
Read more