glenna marshall

He Will Be Strong in Your Weakness

When I took the stage, I was one hundred percent confident in my message. My new boots pinched a bit as I climbed the steps to the piano, but I was certain of the words I would speak, sure that the melodies wrapped around the truth of God’s goodness to us in suffering were the right ones to speak, to sing, to hand out liberally to the women in the pews who had gathered on a chilly, rainy Saturday morning. I was one hundred percent confident in what they needed to hear. But I was also one hundred percent confident in my inability to convey the message rightly. In short, I felt like a walking disaster.

Your weakness is a gift.

Much of what I have learned about God’s kindness to us in trials comes from my own experience with physical pain. It’s not just a story I share because I can’t think of anything else to explain the truth of God’s ability to redeem the broken things in our lives for good. No, it has been one of the main catalysts for my understanding that what I need most in times of suffering is not relief from it but confidence in God’s nearness in the midst of it. When I lived with an undiagnosed disease that was robbing me of health and sanity, it was God’s presence that propelled me through the pain and uncovered my heart’s true longing for Him. It is what drove me to the Scriptures with single-minded desperation. It is what God used to train me to love His Word.

Being in remission for the better part of the last two years has meant that pain is a memory that is faded at the edges. I’ve basked in nearly two years of normalcy and sleep and health. And then, like an uninvited guest, my pain shows up unwelcome and unannounced, no longer a sepia toned reminiscence. Usually it means I’m not handling stress well, but regardless of its impetus, physical pain will hold me captive to my broken body for as long as I live. There is no cure for my disease(s); I will not die from them but with them. The effects of my disease pop up when I need them not to. Unfortunately, any kind of stress–even mere anticipation of something good–can trigger physical pain, anxiety, and insomnia. In other words, when I need to be at my best, my body tends to be at its worst. 

So, a few weeks back when I was prepared and ready to take a stage for an hour and a half, I found myself the night before lying awake in bed with heart palpitations, nausea, and pain shooting up my spine. I wasn’t nervous about the event; I had looked forward to it all week. I tossed and turned, prayed and fretted. Eventually, I walked the floors of the basement suite that were graciously given to me by some members of the host church. I recited every Scripture I could call to memory, staying specifically in Psalm 23.  “This is when I know that You are with me, down here in the valley of physical suffering, Lord.” Why does my body rebel when I need to rely on it the most?

It’s incredibly frustrating to think you’re a dependable, self-sufficient person but to feel trapped in a body that is only reliably unreliable. It’s also exactly how the Lord likes to use us.

After sleeping less than two hours, my alarm buzzed at 6 am, and I dragged myself out of bed to get some coffee. Once procured, I sat with my Bible intending to read Psalm 107, which is one of my favorite spots to land when I’m feeling frazzled. How could I face a room full of women when I felt so physically unable to perform? Who am I to even take a stage? What can I bring to the table that hasn’t been said a thousand times before? “I’m weak, Lord,” I told Him. But I realized in that moment that weak is how He wants me. Weak is a good place to be. Our weakness is where we get to see His strength. I read through Psalm 107, but I got distracted by the words of the next psalm, written by David.

“My heart is confident, God; I will sing; I will sing praises with the whole of my being. Wake up, harp and lyre! I will wake up the dawn. I will praise You, Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to You among the nations. For Your faithful love is higher than the heavens, and Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds…God has spoken in His sanctuary: ‘I will triumph!'” (Ps. 108:1-4, 7b).

It struck me that the confidence David had was not in himself but in his God, whose declaration of triumph connotes a sure, certain victory. David’s response to the Lord’s ability is praise, all praise.

Paul’s thorn.

My phone dinged with a text not long after that. My mom had known I was feeling rough and sent the words of the apostle Paul to encourage me to do the good work set before me, no matter how my body protested. Paul was no stranger to suffering; his life was marked by persecution for the sake of the gospel of Christ. Even so, it must have been tempting at times to boast in the wideness of his ministry, the soundness of his doctrinally-heavy elocution, the far-reaching grasp of his reputation as a messenger of the gospel. If you are in Christian ministry, you understand the temptation there. If we’re not working for wealth or possessions, we’re tempted by notoriety or by how well we use our gifts.

I don’t think Paul was immune here. He was given a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him from boasting in his own strength, and though we cannot know what it was that tormented him, we do know he prayed to be released from it at least three times. His words (and the ones my mother sent to me that rainy, frazzled morning) communicate what we all need to lean into when we can’t understand our weaknesses in light of the work God has set before us:

“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness'” (2 Cor.12:9a).

I prayed through the words, pleaded with the Lord to let my confidence find its home in Him alone. There was no other source of confidence that day. My body was rebelling and my brain was cluttered with the fog that accompanies my pain. I dressed, drove to the event, and found myself sharing my physical weaknesses with the event coordinators so they could pray for me. I didn’t want to admit it; I wanted to appear confident and sure of myself. I didn’t want them to regret asking me to take the stage. But, I knew that I needed their intercession more than I needed an appearance of self-sufficiency. The words prayed over me in that small room off the sanctuary were a balm to my quivering soul. The same words of Paul filled the air, and I knew that this was my reminder that God’s grace was sufficient for me. Not my ability. Not my gifts. Not my intelligence. Only His grace. If anything good came from the stage, it would only be because He was with me, perfecting His power in my very present weaknesses. And I when I took the stage and found my seat at the piano, when I opened my notes and dove into an explanation of God’s presence in our suffering as displayed through the life of Joseph, when I sang the words about God’s faithfulness in my own present physical pain–I knew I was experiencing God’s strength in my weakness firsthand.

After the event, my spine was on fire. I stood for more than an hour and spoke with women from all walks of life, and we shared with one another how God was faithful even in the ugliest stories. A older woman with a lovely Scottish lilt to her voice gripped my hands and prayed that God would be powerful in my weakness. Gripped by pain and mental exhaustion, I stood there with tears in my eyes. The irony wasn’t lost on me. It’s always after an event when God uses the hearers to bless the messenger. Perhaps they want to say thank you, but really they are saying what I need to hear, “You are weak, and He is strong.” Afterwards, I sat in my car in the parking lot before the long trip home and wept with the relief that comes from being spent on exactly the right thing in exactly the weakest way.

If there were reason to boast in myself, then I would get the praise, and what a short-sighted, vainglory it would be. But, the Lord has seen fit to remind me of my frailty, to keep me up at night with a dependency on His strength. And though I hate the pain, the foggy head, the sick stomach, the inability to simply go to sleep, I am deeply grateful that the Lord has made it abundantly clear that my weakness is where He delights to work. For in this, He gets the glory. He does. And on my best/worst days, that’s my desire.

“Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, catastrophes, persecutions, and in pressures, because of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9b-10).

He will be strong in your weakness.

Maybe your weakness isn’t a physical thorn. Maybe it’s mental. Or maybe it’s your backstory, your pre-conversion tale. Maybe it’s the sin that once held you in a suffocating vise. Maybe you speak of it as often as possible so it loses its power every time you back it up against the power of the gospel. Or maybe, like me, your thorn crops up when you need it the least and you wonder how in the world you will accomplish the good work God has set before you. This is the place, friend. This is where He delights in displaying His power–right in the middle of your weakest weakness. He will not share His glory with another, but He will gladly display it in you.

This is where He delights in displaying His power--right in the middle of your weakest weakness. He will not share His glory with another, but He will gladly display it in you. Share on X

Being a messenger with a limp is not a curse; it’s a gift. Broken vessels don’t usually display the strength of their makers, but in the upside-down realm of the kingdom of God, they absolutely can. When tasked with the work of spreading the gospel message, and I’d argue that we all are, you can be confident in His certain triumph. You can be certain that He will be strong in your weakness. You may flop, you may lose your train of thought, you might stutter over your words, you might forget a point, you may not see a return for your work, but You can be sure that His words will not return void. Your thorn may pierce you deeply, but it is only a thorn and it is only momentary. The certain triumph of the Lord our God means that He will accomplish His work. One of the resulting graces of His work is your eternal thorn-free life in His presence forever. And perhaps the kingdom of heaven will be a bit more populous than you expected because the Lord was pleased to be strong in your weakness.

Press on, Christian. He will be strong in your weakness.

 

 

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

The Story of the Song: “Every Sky”

It was night.
I stood on the sandy shore of a beach in Georgia listening to waves I couldn’t see crash on to one another in an effort to aid the rising tide. There was no moon that night, no sliver of reflective light to separate sky from water. I was standing in a dark globe of wind and water, unable to distinguish the line where water meets sky. But for the brilliant array of stars, it might have been a wall nothing in front of me, the edge of the earth where I could step into space.
A briny wind blew in from the water, and the darkness pressed down on me in that way that makes one feel small and utterly insignificant in the presence of such a vast, wild force.  There was nearly a feeling of claustrophobia, the way the darkness pressed in around me though everything was deep and unmeasurably open in front of me.  Unfathomable ocean depths, innumerable stars and grains of sand, untamable force of night and waves.
And yet all must bend in complete submission to the Creator.
At His words, water swirls and crashes or stills and stops. It reaches only so far inland because He tells it where to stop.
We can’t capture it.
But He owns it.
I stood on the shore, wind whipping my hair and filling it with salty moisture that clung to my skin while the words to Rich Mullins’ song, “Calling Out Your Name,” cycled through my mind on a loop:
From the place where morning gathers
You can look sometimes forever ’til you see
What time may never know
What time may never know
How the Lord takes by its corners this old world
And shakes us forward and shakes us free
To run wild with the hope
To run wild with the hope
On the way home from that trip to the beach, I bemoaned the fact that I lived so far from the beauty of the night sky over the ocean. But when we began clipping through the flat farmland near our home, I spotted a storm rolling in across the plains. From a distance, we watched the sky darken and pulse with thunder and lightning. It was a symphony of dangerous beauty, and I was struck at the way it showcased the glory of its Creator.
It was a symphony of dangerous beauty, and I was struck at the way it showcased the glory of its Creator.

(photo cred: Courtney Laube)

Still, Rich’s song looped through my head:
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name
A few days later, I watched a spectacular sunset fill the evening sky with colors and streaks of gold that Van Gogh would have wished to master.
“It’s true,” I thought. “Every sky is a masterpiece. Every sky calls out the name of God.  We can’t tame it, but He owns it all.”
Whether I’m traveling or sitting on my back patio watching my kids play, I often pause to take notice of the sky. It isn’t hard to see the glory of God on display with each cloud, every smear of evening lavender, each streak of lightning, each dark and starry night. Each sky is an invitation to take notice, each upward glance an opportunity to see the greatness of our Creator. I often wish I could be standing on that dark beach, but it doesn’t really matter if my feet are planted in the sand or standing squarely in my backyard.
Because every sky calls out His name.

“Every Sky” is the first track from my new album Hold Me Fast.  You can purchase it wherever you buy music online (iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp).

 In anticipation of the album release, we asked Facebook fans to submit their favorite “Every Sky” photos from all over the world. We sifted through hundreds of beautiful photos in order to come up with this video.

This is part one in series of posts telling the story behind each song my on my album, Hold Me Fast.

My New Album: Hold Me Fast

My album, “Hold Me Fast,” released this morning, and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with you!

I have a lot of weird, mixed emotions about releasing an album at almost-36 years old. I even wrote an article over at Seeking the Still about what it feels like to put my music into the hands of strangers at this juncture in life.  It’s all grace.

I have a slew of posts coming up to share with you why I wrote each song. For now, have a listen and then purchase it at the recommended sites below.


Where to buy:

You can purchase hard copies at Bandcamp, and your CD will be shipped to you.

You can also download a digital version wherever you buy music online:

If you love the album, please share it with your friends and family.

Hold Me Fast

Coming next week to the blog: the Stories Behind the Songs.

The Goodness of God in a Closed Womb

Her words were a sledge hammer to my future.

“It is unlikely that you will ever conceive.”

The doctor patted me on the shoulder awkwardly. Just like that, the future I had assumed and imagined ended in an explosion of grief.

Raining down on me for the next decade were shards of dreams, double-edged fissures of hope that sliced deep when they collided with my barrenness.

I prayed to conceive anyway. The Bible was full of stories of barren women who miraculously had children. I cried out to be one of them.

After a few years, bitterness trumped hope and those stories served as a reminder that God had stubbornly refused to include me in the group of the blessed, formerly-barren. No matter how I tried to trust Him, He refused to heal the brokenness of my body. In fact, my womb continued to fill with disease rather than a child—the most contrary answer to my prayer that I could imagine.

God’s goodness is wildly obvious in an open, fruitful womb. But is also devastatingly present in a closed, barren womb.

I recently began an in-depth study of 1 Samuel as it is the book our church will be working through for the next several months.

The book opens with Hannah’s story. Poor, barren Hannah.

Ridiculed by her fertile, sister-wife (why the Israelites thought polygamy was a good idea, I’ll never understand), Hannah was marked by her grief.

She goes to the tabernacle where she prays so feverishly that Eli the priest rebukes her for entering God’s dwelling place three sheets to the wind. She wasn’t drunk, of course. Only desperate and, in her words, “praying from the depth of [her] anguish and resentment.” (1 Sam. 1:16)

That part I get. And I am deeply grateful that her anguish is mentioned.

But Hannah prays, leaves the temple, is remembered by God, conceives, and gives birth to Samuel, the future-prophet. It’s the glowy, happy ending every barren woman longs for. But some of us never get that kind of ending.

In the early years of my entanglement with infertility I bristled at Hannah’s story. I remember someone gave me a book titled Hannah’s Prayer, or something like that, and I skimmed it with a mouth full of metallic-tasting resentment. There was no guarantee that I could have Hannah’s outcome. When well-intentioned people reminded me of her or Sarah or Elizabeth, I only withdrew further into my bitterness.

Those stories didn’t help me then.

But they should have.

Those stories should have encouraged me because the child each woman eventually gave birth to, though full of purpose and an integral part of God’s plan for His people, was not the point of the story.

The point was that God was sovereign in both His closing and opening of each woman’s womb. And though contrary to all we see and hear about blessing, there is a kindness in God’s refusals. It is difficult to grasp that it is kindness in the midst of loss and grief, but it is not untrue.

More than thirteen years after my initial introduction to barrenness, I can see the goodness of God in a closed womb. And it’s not simply because I have adopted two boys who are the children I was always longing for. They are, of course, the children I yearned for but didn’t know. Calling them “sons” is all the purpose I need in God’s refusal to open my womb, and on this side of it I can willfully submit to His “no” so that I could take part in His “yes.”  But that’s not the full breadth of God’s goodness in closing my womb.

In 1 Samuel 1:5 and again in 1:6, the Scriptures read “the Lord had kept [Hannah] from conceiving.” (HSCB) In the ESV, it’s worded “the Lord had closed her womb.” While I bucked against the Lord’s intentional closing of my womb for many years, this morning when I read these words, I was comforted by the very same sentiment: God was intentional in closing my womb. Yes, I now find comfort in His refusal to open my womb.

Here’s why: I used to read these passages looking for hope for me. I looked for some scrap of promise I could hold on to that might shed light on a future change of circumstances regarding my barrenness. In so doing, I missed the main focal point of the passage: the Lord. Looking for me, I missed Him.  Whenever I go to the Word looking for myself, I miss the wide arc of God’s faithful character.  It took many years to unlearn this approach to the Word, but the Lord has faithfully wrung out my self-searching tendencies. Now, when I read this passage, I see the Lord’s faithful character, even and especially in His refusal to open Hannah’s womb until He gave her Samuel.

Whenever I go to the Word looking for myself, I miss the wide arc of God's faithful character. Share on X

What I now see is a God with intent.

He is no arbitrary God, randomly closing one womb and opening another. If He intended to close a womb, it is because He had purposed that it would be more glorifying to Him in its closure. If He deemed it best to open a long-sealed womb, then it is because He showed more goodness in opening it than closing it. If barrenness was a life-long malady, then it must be because God would be high and lifted up in the longevity of such a refusal. The mainstay is God’s goodness in His decisions for His people.

For Hannah, the arrival of Samuel when he came was important for the future of Israel. In the broad scheme of things, we can trace the path toward the anointing of king David and his future descendent, Christ, who will reign forever. The timing of God’s work is utterly significant.

But, it was also important for Hannah to lament her grief before the Lord and to be noticed by Him. To have the inner workings of her grief written down for us is no small thing when we consider that Hannah lived in a culture that undervalued women. The pains taken to convey her grief and then her trust to leave her petition to the Lord’s sovereign hand should not be lost on us.

I can know that the Lord who saw Hannah’s grief also sees mine. And if He thought it best to keep my womb forever closed, then it must be because He has great purpose in His refusals.

God never withholds from his child that which his love and mercy call good…God’s refusals are always merciful—’severe mercies,’ but mercies all the same. -Elisabeth Elliot

In preparing to teach this text on Sunday, my husband asked me this morning, “What would you say about 1 Samuel 1 to a barren woman?” I’d been sitting on the couch in the quiet early morning hour meditating on just this very thing, so the words came tumbling out:

“The Lord sees you. He is not arbitrarily withholding something good from you. He is sovereign over your barren womb, and that is actually a good thing. There is kindness in a God who does things with purpose, though we may never understand the purpose on this side of heaven. Sometimes you know the purpose. Sometimes, you’re Job, and you never know. But He always sees you, and you can trust Him with your future.”

Though it isn’t the message I wanted to hear thirteen years ago, it is the message I needed. More than I needed a child, I needed the truth of a wise, always-working, faithful God who heard my grief and was present even—and especially—in His refusal to answer my prayer the way I wanted. Living for years upon years with His specific closure of my womb has taught me that the thing I most needed—more than motherhood—was to understand that He is good in His severe mercies.

God’s goodness is wildly obvious in an open, fruitful womb.

But is also devastatingly present in a closed, barren womb.

I would not know the sweetness of a desperate dependency on Him if not for my barrenness. I would not have learned to release the prideful assumption of the master plan I’d mapped for my life. I would not have found breath in the One who gives life when grief closes in tightly. I would not have learned to cling to Scriptures that speak what is true—that God is faithful, near, just. I would not know the dear faces of two children entrusted to me. I would not be the still-barren but joyful mother, a title that makes great sense in the redemptive economy of God. If not for my closed womb, I would not know the joy of God’s refusals.

And so I say with Hannah:

There is no one holy like the Lord. There is no one besides You. And there is no rock like our God. Do not boast so proudly, or let arrogant words come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and actions are weighed by Him. (1 Samuel 2:2-3)

Here is a song I wrote many years ago on this topic:

Simplicity and Front Doors

Dishes are stacked high in both sinks, spilling over on to the counter tops. Of course, there are also the stock pots on the stove, waiting to be scrubbed down.
Trails of bread crumbs meander through the house, evidence of children who found the table to be too crowded with adult conversation. Hardened, dried spaghetti noodles litter the floor beneath the dining room chairs, and I quickly swipe one fossilized piece of angel hair from my toddler’s sticky hand.
kindness is the hinge that opens the door
It’s an hour past bedtime, and my husband is wrangling the oldest child up the stairs to take that shower we’ve discussed for the past twenty minutes. The toddler protests my noodle intervention and pulls on my pants legs while I try to wipe up the puddles of sticky pasta sauce on the table.
Soon, the kids will be in bed and my house will be (mostly) restored to order. I’ve got the routine down after a year of hosting weekly dinners for our church small group. It’s a tall order for a girl who struggles to delegate, who would prefer to be home alone in her pajamas, and who has nervy control issues. But when I discovered, quite by accident, that people are more apt to talk when there is a plate of food in front of them, I felt I had unearthed a secret to living more deeply in community. Serving up a meal for anywhere from ten to twenty people on a weeknight isn’t something I necessarily look forward to or excel at on the best of terms, but it’s especially challenging when teething toddlers or grumpy third-graders infiltrate the kitchen while I’m tying up loose ends before guests arrive. Some nights call for a brief time-out so I can gather my sanity while we wait for Daddy to come home from work and intercept the pregame chaos. What I’ve learned about opening my home while parenting young kids would barely fill a thimble, but through trial and error, I’ve found that simplicity reigns as the queen of surviving and enjoying the full house, overflowing trash cans, and paths of garlic bread crumbs.
Struggling to answer the biblical call to hospitality when parenting young children makes it seem impossible?
I’m guest posting at Kindred Mom today, so please hop over to read the rest of this post. While you’re there, peruse some of the other excellent articles on motherhood of all kinds and shapes in all seasons and changes. You can also join the discussion at Kindred Mom’s Facebook group, and follow them on Instagram, and Twitter.

You can find two more posts that I’ve written on hospitality here:

Remembering to Long

I find myself full of longing at Christmas, yearning for what I’ve missed and for what comes next. There have been years when I’ve wanted to hold tightly to the last days of December, finding comfort in all the joy that has transpired and filled up our days. And there have been years where I could hardly wait to tear the calendar from the wall and empty my mouth of the bad taste of a year of crushed hopes. Either way, I wake up on Christmas morning remembering. I’m remembering the things I can recall with the fragrance of a cup of apple cider, the things that hover at the barest edge of my memory, and the things written down deep on my heart that I long to fully know when Jesus comes next time as a warrior instead of a helpless baby.

Read the rest of this post at Crystal Stine’s blog.

How to be thankful when you’ve had a hard year.

I cannot picture eating turkey on the fourth Thursday in November anywhere other than my grandparents’ rural Tennessee home. Perched on a hill and surrounded by trees, their home is large and sunny with an embankment on the back side that slopes downward toward a small pond where I spent every summer of my life alternately baiting my own hook to fish and then swimming when my Mom decided not to worry about the unmissable smell of pond water and stain of red dirt. In July we filled buckets of blueberries from the ten-foot bushes on the ridge across the pond. In the fall we practiced shooting rifles, and one particularly cold winter, we skated across the frozen pond.

Every Thanksgiving of my thirty-five years, I’ve taken a walk through my grandparents’ wooded acreage after a button-popping dinner of turkey and dressing. Those walks evolved over the years from adventurous romps through the trees with my aunt and siblings to solitary meanderings during my teenage and college years to hand-holding strolls with my husband to curious foraging with my son.

Here's how to be thankful when you've had a hard year: don’t waste a moment of what’s shattering around you. View it as the means for seeing the faithfulness of God. In giving us the gospel, He gave us Himself for always for every painful piece of life. You can be thankful during hardship because the Lord saturates your suffering with His presence. You can persevere because Immanuel--God with us.

This year we’re forced to start new traditions.
It’s been a long, hard year.

My grandmother died in January after years of living under the thumb of the cruel master we call Alzheimer’s.
My youngest son’s arduous adoption process finally settled with permanency in March, though its fractured effects have been felt long since.
In September my mother fell off a ladder and introduced us all to the ominous world of brain tumors.

In some ways, this year was as hard as last year, and last year was the hardest of my life. But I’m thankful for it in all its complex and fearsome interruptions. It’s only when the security of normalcy unravels that you find yourself clambering for what is unmovable. Threaded tightly with pain and suffering is God’s unwavering, untattered goodness.

In some ways, this year was as hard as last year, and last year was the hardest of my life. But I’m thankful for it in all its complex and fearsome interruptions. It’s only when the security of normalcy unravels that you find yourself clambering for what is unmovable. Threaded tightly with pain and suffering is God’s unwavering, untattered goodness.

You can never learn that Christ is all you need until Christ is all you have.

~Corrie Ten Boom

Think about it. When have you learned the most about God’s nearness and unfailing love. Was it when life sailed by with regular, untroubled normalcy? Probably not. You didn’t know how much you needed Him when things were calm and unrippled.

Likely, it was when your world was falling apart and ripping at the seams. Scrambling for something to hold on to, you anchored yourself to Christ. You realized in your aching that He could be trusted with your heart. You saw your suffering as an avenue for drawing near to Jesus in way you didn’t know you needed when life wasn’t so messy or fragmented.

Here’s how to be thankful when you’ve had a hard year: don’t waste a moment of what’s shattering around you. View it as the means for seeing the faithfulness of God. In giving us the gospel, He gave us Himself for always for every painful piece of life. You can be thankful during hardship because the Lord saturates your suffering with His presence. You can persevere because Immanuel–God with us.

Sing with Silas in the prison, hold firm with Paul on the crucible of persecution, enjoy the communion of Christ in solitary confinement with the exiled John, say with Peter, “where else can we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life.”

This holiday season, let’s practice thankfulness for the experiences of life that serve as catalysts for deeper trust in God’s goodness. If not for them, how solid would our faith be? This is how God uses all circumstances for your good.

I hope you find many ordinary ways to express your thankfulness this week.
The Lord is unaccountably good to us.

Today we’re gathering around my parent’s dining room table on Thanksgiving for the first time. I’ll help my mom more than usual, and we’ll laugh about how slowly her hair is growing back after the surgeon shaved her head before surgery in October. My grandmother’s absence will be prominent; we’ll laugh and cry in the mixture of old and new memories.  My youngest son’s busy, silly antics will remind us that last year we cried through every significant holiday moment for fear that it would be our first and last ones with him.

We’ll look back and remember all the ways the Lord has been good to us. We’ll feel love, loss, and remnants of fear, and we’ll know that Jesus walked with us through every moment of 2016.

And we’ll be thankful that in every painful moment, He was near in a way we would have missed if not for the blessing of suffering.

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An Invitation to Hurt is an Invitation to Trust: guest post at The Content Mom

There was no way we could hide it from him.

We’d brought a baby home with every intention of adopting him, but the entire process was being derailed. Our seven-year-old was with us from the moment the plan began to unravel, and I knew I couldn’t hide it. He was watching and asking valid questions. “Will we get to keep the baby? Will you be sad if we don’t? Will we get another baby if we have to give this one back?”

Those questions sent splintering cracks through my already fragile heart. On the one hand I was trying to love and bond with a baby I may lose; on the other hand I had a son who was trying to find security in the shakiest of situations. I wanted to shield him from all that was falling apart.

Read the rest of this post at The Content Mom.

invitation to hurt and trust

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Fear, Anger, and a Deep, Deep Well

The dregs in my coffee cup have gone cold as I sit on this swing and watch the sun filter through the trees. It’s dawned on me only today that the window barely peeking over my fence is situated at my neighbor’s kitchen sink, and if they’re doing dishes at this early hour or pouring their own coffee, they can see my watery eyes, the threadbare bathrobe, last night’s disheveled ponytail.

So I send my bucket of repentance down into the deep cavern of living water, praying the Lord will fill it up every time I sink it down low.
I’m watching the last of the sunrise, knowing I need to head inside and get the kids up. They’ve been up for a while, truthfully, but I’ve got a rule about kids coming downstairs before 7. I swallow the last bit of cooled coffee for the caffeinated benefits rather than the pleasure of the coffee bean, and brace myself to clock in. I should feel more ready, but I don’t. I shouldn’t feel tired yet, but I do. There’s a tiredness down deep, and it’s coming out in ugly hues of impatience and belittling, snapping replies and words I say with convincing authority but don’t really mean.

I’ve been reading John 1 this week, and while my eyes flitted over this morning’s paragraph one last time before closing my Bible, I begged the Lord to let His Word have some effect on my anger today. Please, let it empty me of whatever is making me so angry.

Hours later, when there’s school and work and naps, I stand at the sink, aggressively washing the never-ending army of dishes, and I try to unravel the knotted-up insides of my head. My jeans are too tight and my temper is too short, and all signs point to “caution: danger ahead.” I work at the threads, trying to separate truth from emotion. I know well enough to understand that fear is at the root of anger. And typing that last sentence brings tears to the surface much faster than I’m prepared for.

I’m afraid a lot, friends.
It masquerades as a short fuse or a lack of confidence, but fear is the driving force behind nearly every piece of my anger.

I’m afraid of squandering this parenting thing I’ve chased after, certain I’ll screw up my kids as a result.
I’m afraid of rejection and that I’ll always be hungry for the approval of certain individuals.
I’m afraid of losing the race to achieve my goal.
I’m afraid I’ll never feel tethered where God seems to want me tied down.
I’m afraid of losing my mom.
I’m afraid of the criticism that comes from putting your gifts out there for others.
I’m afraid I’ll wreck my marriage because I can’t get out of my own head.
I’m afraid I’m forgetting what I’ve worked hard to learn about God’s goodness and His love for me.

These things I’m afraid of aren’t usually conscious thoughts. I’m not yelling at one of my kids while thinking, “Oh, I’m mad because I’m afraid that I’m a terrible mother.” No, I’m yelling because I’m selfishly expecting my people to hop to it and obey with a level of perfection and expediency that I would never expect of myself. No, I’m not making conscious connections. But hovering underneath my simmering anger is a razor sharp panic that everything could fall apart in an instant. I could yell too much and lose my child’s heart for good. I could choose to be discontent where I know God’s calling me to see Him and miss the intimacy of His nearness. I could be criticized for my honesty and choose not to say another word. I could lose someone I love and feel throttled with anger at the loss forever.

I sit here wondering how to put it right. How do I undo what I’ve done with my angry words? How do I fix what feels irreparably broken inside? My default answer is to always go to the Word. I tell you that all the time. It’s the cure for what ails you.

But does it work here when I feel like my sin is characterizing me more than my belief in the gospel?
Part of me wants to believe there’s not enough grace for this mess I’ve made, but I know there’s no bottom to that well.

So I send my bucket of repentance down into the deep cavern of living water, praying the Lord will fill it up every time I sink it down low, and knowing more than I know anything else that He will. Like a spring that’s ever bubbling up new water from below, grace is bubbling up and washing out over all this ugliness. While sorrow and regret are weighed down with my dirty disbelief, grace and mercy wash clean and remind me that the Lord holds my future. The things I’m afraid of are not within my control, so living scared means I’m living in doubt that God is sovereignly on His throne, calling the shots with a loyal brand of love I’ve yet to encounter anywhere else in life. I know I never will.

Like the leaves on my morning tree let a little sunlight through with softness and beauty, so the events and circumstances of my life are filtered through the fingers of the Lord who loves me. I don’t have to be afraid, and I definitely don’t have to express my fear through anger. I’m not tied to it like I feel I am.

Like the leaves on my morning tree let a little sunlight through with softness and beauty, so the events and circumstances of my life are filtered through the fingers of the Lord who loves me.

Because He is good, God reminds me from John 1 that Jesus was with Him in the beginning, the Agent of creation. Nothing that’s been made was made apart from Christ. I couldn’t know God without Jesus making Him known. There is no need to fear when the God of the universe has told us who He is. Jesus stepped down and became like us, one of us. And lived among us so that we would see the futility in bowing down to fear and anger and self-love. He put on skin and made His home among people who did not know who He was so that we could be rescued from darkness, from ourselves, from the enemy we didn’t know we loved. He lived briefly, obscurely, humbly and died painfully, openly, and willingly. He didn’t lose in the tomb but beat death fair and square as only the Son of God could do.

 
He was and is and will be.

So that we can get up in the morning and watch the sunrise with confidence that the gospel He gave us is enough to save us.
He has saved me once, and He is saving me still.

There is no fear in that kind of love.

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The Weary Work of Waiting

the weary work of waiting
I asked what’s hard right now.  And you said a lot of things.

A lot of hard things.

One common thread, a blue one soaked in grief and tears and worry, was about waiting.

Waiting to be married, waiting to have children, waiting for a diagnosis, waiting on work, waiting for the right words to say.

Waiting for contentment, waiting for guidance, waiting for healing, waiting, waiting, waiting.

I’ve knitted those frayed blue threads together with worry and bitterness and worn it around my shoulders, a sweater I hated but couldn’t take off.
Friends, I know a little about waiting. I’ve knitted those frayed blue threads together with worry and bitterness and worn it around my shoulders, a sweater I hated but couldn’t take off.

I waited to become pregnant. (Thirteen years later, it has never happened)
I waited to adopt. (It took five years)
I waited for a diagnosis. (It also took five years)
I waited and wondered if I’d lose my child. (It took seven months to know I wouldn’t)

Your list might be longer, or maybe it’s a short list but with a longer shelf life. Either way, waiting is some of the most wearying work there is. And I say work because, though waiting seems and sounds passive (and in may ways it is; you can only react to what is or isn’t happening since the reins lie squarely out of your reach), there is the labor of persevering while you wait. In that respect, it is most definitely work to press on while you fight bitterness and anger, cynicism and hard-heartedness.

 

God has a lot to say about waiting. In fact, He repeatedly sprinkled phrases about waiting throughout the Bible. And you know what is so oddly and maddeningly strange about His thoughts on waiting? He sometimes calls it a blessing, or something to be happy about. Doesn’t that make you squirm? In the thick of waiting it never felt that way to me.  I know right now your season of waiting probably feels like an ill-fitting sweater, three sizes too small and made of the scratchiest, itchiest wool that Granny could dig out of her ancient knitting bag.

There is something good that comes from waiting, but it’s hard to define without first talking about what you’re actually waiting on.

There is something good that comes from waiting, but it’s hard to define without first talking about what you’re actually waiting on. Unraveling the messy threads of longing can reveal what’s underneath the ache. This, I think, is where waiting can become something equated with blessing.

For so many years I longed for a child. I waited five years for the first one, and then five more years for the second. Throw in some other life events that required open-ended waiting periods, and I feel like I’ve spent a fair amount of my adult life waiting on something. Each time, I thought that the thing I was waiting on would quell my anxious feelings or temper down the lack of contentment I felt as I waited impatiently for circumstances to change or for God to do what I longed for Him to do. If You would just answer this prayer in the way that I want You to, then I could rest and be happy. I could move on. I was so certain that stepping out of my current waiting area would relieve my internal struggles. But each time my name was called and I could leave the waiting room, I would immediately find something else for my heart to feel unsettled about.

And I think this is because I wasn’t waiting on what I thought I was waiting on.
The thing I thought I longed for wasn’t what I longed for.
What my heart really longed for was contentment in Christ.
What I really wanted was Him.

What my heart really longed for was contentment in Christ. What I really wanted was Him.But I was so busy hanging my dreams on the coattails of motherhood, self-identity, knowing a particular outcome, getting to the end of what felt uncomfortable—that I couldn’t hear the real, guttural cry of my heart.

In a very real sense, what your heart is truly longing for is what it was created to long for: the Lord.
All the other things you’re waiting on—a spouse, a child, a job change, a relationship mended, certainty, healing—while these things are not wrong to long and pray for (certainly keep asking the Lord to intervene in your situation!), it is wise to stop and recognize that ultimately if God answered each longing with exactly what you asked for, those things would still miss the mark of your hungry heart. You would walk away with the things you wanted, but without a heart satisfied regardless of the outcome of your prayers–and without that, the ache will continue to bounce around the empty corners of your heart.

I love my children more than my own life, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. But, they were not meant to satisfy my heart. My husband is the gift I didn’t know I needed when we married over 13 years ago. But God never meant for him to fill the dark corners of wanting that are hidden way down deep.  It is a reconciled, right relationship with God that my heart first longed for. And as I’ve grown in my faith, He is still what I need more than anything. My heart will ache for His presence until I stand face-to-face with Him in heaven. That’s a good and right kind of ache because there’s contentment woven through the silken threads of submission to God’s sovereignty over my life. It’s an ongoing weaving, but the gathering threads of contentment began in the waiting. God longs to be good to us, and in allowing us to wait through painful seasons, He’s teaching us to long for His presence because He is absolutely with us while we wait.

Hear me, friend.
He is with you while you wait. Near. Present. Close.

And I think it’s what’s behind Scriptures like these:

Therefore the Lord is waiting to show you mercy, and is rising up to show you compassion, for the Lord is a just God. All who wait patiently for Him are happy.  (Isaiah 30:18, emphasis mine)
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for deliverance from the Lord.  (Lamentations 3:25-26, emphasis mine)

The thing the people are waiting on looks like compassion, mercy, deliverance. But ultimately, it’s the Lord behind it all. He is the Giver and Sustainer of life.  And it is good to wait for Him because the heart will learn to be satisfied by His presence when all the heart has is His presence. It is enough.

 

The heart will learn to be satisfied by His presence when all the heart has is His presence.

It is right to petition God for your needs and desires. Longing to be married or to have a child or to know what the Lord is calling you to do with your life—those are not wrong desires. They are good things when they do not overshadow your desire to be content under the umbrella of God’s current display of goodness in your life.  It is not wrong to ask God to intervene! Where else can you go if not to the Father who loves to give good gifts to His children? He sees the anguish in your heart, the hurt of unmet desires, the sting of watching others taking for granted what you long to have or be.  He hears your cry and does not forget it (Psalm 9:12). He sees your troubles and takes the matter into His hands (Psalm 10: 14). Following Christ means that God is for you and your good (Romans 8:28-31, Psalm 56:9). He answers when you call out to Him, and though sometimes it is hard to swallow His answer, He is with you in trouble (Psalm 96:14-16). It is a courageous thing to wait with contentment when you don’t know the Lord’s plan (Psalm 27:13-14).

You might be thinking, That’s easy for you to say. The Lord has already answered your prayers. But, there were long months and years where silence was on the end of every painful prayer. When I watched others move easily through life without doing any serious waiting, I was jealous. I didn’t want any spiritual lessons. I wanted what I wanted.  But it was good for me to have to wait. I learned that my heart needed to do the weary work of waiting so that it would learn to be satisfied in God alone. Alone. Not in babies or my marriage or in a job or role, not in making a name for myself or feeling accepted in relationships. My soul needed to find rest in God alone, and so it was good for me to wait in order to learn the rhythm of being satisfied with only God’s presence. It was enough for me then, and it will be enough for me in the future when I’m sure I will enter another season where I long for a different outcome.

The Lord holds your future, friends. He actually says that in Psalm 16. There’s rest in knowing that He securely holds your future. Let that knowledge bind itself to your heart with peace.  While you wait for what your heart hopes for, know that the Lord’s presence is what your heart needs. Someday you will look back on how faithful the Lord was to you in the wilderness, and you can speak about His nearness while you waited.

But as for me, God’s presence is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge, so I can tell about all You do.  (Psalm 73:28)

I couldn’t get Andrew Peterson’s song “The Silence of God” out of my mind while writing this post. I hope you’ll listen and be encouraged.

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