This life…it holds so many choices. – Including the choice of how we will choose to view our life.  Will we see only the holes and shattered dreams broken around our feet, or will we use those holes to see past ourselves and into the wonder of God’s great glory?  Will we walk past the beautiful sunsets, unable to see past the thoughts in our own heads?  Will we ignore the gift of a beautiful bloom or a hug at the very right moment?  Will we see the gifts that have been set in our lives just for us?  Will we fail to notice our God who loves us so compassionately that He continues to pursue us, no matter how often we fall or turn away?

Life is simply a series of tiny moments.

We either cherish them or take them for granted.

So, here’s the beginning of my list…the things I’m grateful for, the things that make me smile.  These are the things I cherish.

1.  Dressing up with my girls and twirling around like the princesses we are.

2.  Snow days with my family and watching their delightful expressions as they build forts and catch snowflakes on their tongues.

Welcome back!

Two years ago, there I sat, my heart shredded and my thoughts pounding the back of my head, threatening to explode if I refused to un-cork them.  It was in those darkest times that three words slipped between my lips.  Give me grace.

At the time that I first uttered this secret whispered prayer, this thing that was somewhere between a plea for help and warrior’s cry, I don’t believe I fully understood the thing that I was asking.

Grace?

I mean, why not pray for strength.  Or, peace.  I can think of a million other one-word things that would’ve made more sense.  But, grace?

Grace… it’s finding favor with others and having good will towards them even when they don’t “deserve” it.  – Even when they’re the ones that made you hurt.

Little did I know that God was working in the depths of my darkness so that I could experience the light, and that this little three-word prayer would echo back to me two years later.

For a season, my heart bled ink onto the pages of my blog.  It was open, honest, unfiltered and raw.  It also tended to be discouraged, angry, and bitter.

Then, the Potter began kneading out the knots and air bubbles in my soul.  Before long, just living life as my Father began scraping away became my ultimate focus.  Most days, I was too physically and emotionally drained to press my fleeting, whirling thoughts and feelings into coherent words, much less sentences.

Seasons in life are inevitable – just like the seasons here, where I live.  During the winter months, when the air turns frigid and nips at your nose and the wind bites at your back, there’s one thing that I miss even more than the sunshine.  I miss the sweet songs of the birds.  As much as I love looking straight up into a flock of dancing, fat snowflakes, I do miss the beautiful melody of our winged friends.  I suppose we all go through our seasons of silence.

It’s not because I’ve figured everything out that I’ve found my voice again.  Quite the opposite.  It’s that I’m no longer trying to figure it all out.  And, with that…comes an amazing freedom.

I’m reading this wonderful book, One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voscamp, and don’t want to put it down.

We all have those moments, days, and even years where our life seems to have crumbled to shambles beneath our very feet.  This book is about the dare to live fully right where you are.

Join the author, myself and many others as we come together to discuss this wonderful life-changing book (HERE).

My blog has changed a lot since I first started it in 2008 – and I’m sure the changes haven’t gone unnoticed.

The truth is – my life has undergone just as many, if not more changes.

God has been busy at work not only molding my life – but me, as well.  I can’t say it’s not a painful process – because it is.  But, it’s also freeing and gratifying.

1.  God can turn your misery into your ministry.

2.  Love is a choice.  And sometimes, you have to make that choice on a daily basis.

3.  While a tiger may not be able to change its stripes, people really can change.  Some actually do.

4.  A marriage is best when it’s woven of 3 strands – with God being the one in the middle.

5.  We’re really powerless without God.  Sometimes we (I) get caught up in how we (I) can “fix” things…and sometimes, I’m able to do something okay.  But, if I let God guide it and me, it could be AWESOME.  Other times, I’m so busy on what I want and what I think, I get in the way and hinder more than help.

6.  God never abandons us.  He never lets go.  Sometimes, we let go of Him, but He never left.

7.  It’s in the valleys of life that we change.  The mountaintops are nice, but there’s not much  to see except the next proverbial mountaintop.

8.  Being angry at someone and expecting it to hurt them is a lot like drinking acid and hoping THEY will be the one to get sick.

9.  Your words can bring peace or pain – We all get to choose how we use them.

10.  You can’t change and stay the same (person).

We’re often taught that if we are good, follow God and do the right things, our lives will be great.

But, the fact is – life is still life.  The bumps and bruises don’t stop coming.  Even when (sometimes, most especially) you’re good.

I’ll be one of the first to admit that I often forget this little nugget.

Sometimes I get so caught up in life, that my prayer begins to look like:  “But God, What About ME?!?”

It’s hard, isn’t it?  When we’re not doing the things we think we should be doing, the things we want to be doing.  When we can’t purchase the things we feel we need or the things we think we deserve.  When things just don’t go our way.  When troubles weigh on our hearts and minds and we just feel so alone.  When we lay things down to follow God just to be met with obstacles instead of miracles.  When justice seems like some big joke.

And, if you’re anything like me, it can be easy to look around you and begin comparing yourself to others and their circumstances and lives.

We begin to count the good things, the holy things, that we have done for God and suddenly, it feels like He owes us.  Or, at least we should be more deserving than some of these other folks!!

Oh man, how I feel that way some days.  Sometimes things just seem so incredibly unfair that I just want to cry out, “But God, What About ME?!?”

In Job 30, Job feels a lot like we do sometimes.

²⁰ “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer;
I stand up, but you merely look at me.
²¹ You turn on me ruthlessly;
with the might of your hand you attack me.
²² You snatch me up and drive me before the wind;
you toss me about in the storm.
²³ I know you will bring me down to death,
to the place appointed for all the living.

²⁴ “Surely no one lays a hand on a broken man
when he cries for help in his distress.
²⁵ Have I not wept for those in trouble?
Has not my soul grieved for the poor?
²⁶ Yet when I hoped for good, evil came;
when I looked for light, then came darkness.
²⁷ The churning inside me never stops;
days of suffering confront me.
²⁸ I go about blackened, but not by the sun;
I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
²⁹ I have become a brother of jackals,
a companion of owls.
³⁰ My skin grows black and peels;
my body burns with fever.
³¹ My lyre is tuned to mourning,
and my pipe to the sound of wailing.

And God’s response?  It was something like:  Who do you think you are?

We live the way we should be anyhow, and we expect brownie points.  We know Jesus was nailed to a cross for OUR SINS and because our Lord loves us so much, yet sometimes our response is to ask for more.  Sometimes, it’s like we forget.

We all know the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), but so very often, we zoom in on the brother that comes home.  But, how much are we like the other brother?  – The one who went out into the field and came back to his brother’s party, exclaiming how UNFAIR things were, after all it was HE that was the good one.  Why wasn’t HE getting blessed with special treatment?  But, while he was doing everything right on the “outside,” his heart was still in need of changing.  He looked the part, alright, but he hadn’t become the part.

Oh, how hard these stories have hit me this week.  I cried out, “But God, what about ME?!?”  And, this week… he said, “Yes, what about you?  Let’s talk about that…”

Ecclesiastes 7:9, “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools. (NIV)

My showers are generally the only time I can really get “me” time – even my sleep is often disturbed by little fingers poking my eyelids to ask me random questions in the night – so, there’s a rule in our home:  Don’t bother mommy if she’s in the shower.

And yet, never fail, as soon as I turn the shower head on and step in, little feet pound into my bathroom, “Mooooommmmyyyy….I can’t find my blankie.”  A whiney voice begins, pausing only to make sure her invisible mommy location sensors have honed in on the correct spot.  Then, a barrage of questions tumble out of her sweet mouth, “Hey, can I get up?  I’m hungry.  Can I have candy?  Can we do school today?  Can I watch TV?”

My mind is silently screaming as I coax my mouth to not follow suit.  “Sweetie, do you know where I am?”  I try to softly reply (when really all I want to do is use the removable shower head to spray her, which would get the same point across, but would mean more messes in so many ways).  “Oh yeh!  I’ll go play ’til you get out.”  She says.  Sometimes.  But, then there are days (like today) when a meltdown ensues because the logic of the moment seems to get all muddled up in 3 year old emotions.

So I hurry with my shower, accidentally putting face wash in my hair and shampoo on my face in an effort to be able to jump out and save the world (or at least my sanity).  Jumping out of the shower, I multi-task drying off and combing out my dripping hair with turning cartoons on for my 3 year old, who will be satisfied at least long enough for me to put clothes on.  Then, I notice the barrage of texts and emails and missed calls on my cell phone from my 10 minute shower.  Suddenly, the baby has launched into an all out scream.

My to-do list quickly runs through my mind before diving off some cliff, where it may or may not be retrieved at a later moment.

My brain is spinning, my teeth clenching, and quite frankly…I feel like an un-coated wire with frayed edges walking around.

My nerves are shot and it’s only 9 AM.

Do you ever feel like that?  Do you ever get so overwhelmed that you feel like your head might just spin off into oblivion?  In Ecclesiastes 7:9 it says, “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools. (NIV)  I’m often trying to remind myself of this verse as I walk around with a 3 year old screeching because her baby sister picked up her favorite purse and that same baby sister is climbing my pajama pants (which just so happens to be the ones without drawstrings!).

There are many days when being a mom/writer/wife/friend/teacher gets me frustrated and all I want to do is bring out the duct tape.  And, sometimes (unfortunately, not always) I bite my tongue rather than say something out of frustration.  –That doesn’t fix my heart issue, but it sometimes helps me from saying things that may be negative that I can’t take back.

However, if I don’t get control of the frustration, my frustration leads to anger – and anger can easily spin out of control, which makes good parenting impossible.

In life, anger is a God-given emotion (even Jesus got angry sometimes), but having a spirit that’s easily provoked can be dangerous.

God, give me patience today (and everyday).  Lord, help keep my spirit calm and when things that easily provoke me come into my day, please help me to focus on you.  Help me to handle the “big” frustrations and the “small” frustrations with controlled spirit and mind so that I may bring you Glory and those around me, kindness and love.  Amen.

The bills stacked and tumbled over the kitchen table at home.  The babies were crying in the backseat as I tried to think of what we had left in the pantry for dinner that night.  Tempers were short throughout the house and beyond, and it felt like it was me against the world.

Have you ever felt that way?  – Like it’s you against the world?

Maybe you just lost your job.  Maybe you are going through trying times in your marriage.  Maybe you’ve lost someone.  Maybe you had to file bankruptcy and lost what felt like everything.  Maybe it’s just been a really really bad day.

In Judges (14 and) 15, Samson takes a wife who betrays his trust.  He chooses to exact revenge and makes a lot of people very angry.  Before he knows it, he’s lost both his wife and his father-in-law and everyone wants him dead.  Literally.  It’s Samson against the “world.”

Well, although Samson is delivered by his people to the Phillistines in ropes, God burns the ropes so it falls off and Samson fights and kills a thousand men with…(wait for it)…the jawbone of a donkey.

(Now, did you get that?  He kills a thousand ready-to-fight men with a jaw bone.)

After Samson fought those men, he was so thirsty and tired he thought he was going to die.  So, he cried out to the Lord, “You have given your servant this great victory.  Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”  Then God opened up a rock and water came out of it.  Samson drank and regained his strength and went on to lead Israel for twenty years in the days of the Phillistines.

This is one powerful story.

Not only did it FEEL like the world was against Samson, but for him it really was.  But, he gave it to God and God freed him from the ropes that bound him.  Everyday, God offers the exact same thing to us.  He offers to free us from the things that hold us down, to set us free.  Then, through God’s power, Samson was able to have the strength to beat down one thousand men who wanted him dead with a JAW BONE!

Oh, but it doesn’t stop there!

After his great victory, Samson was tired.  He began to feel defeated.  How often does that happen to us?  -We have this awesome victory in God and the next thing we know, we’re back in a hard place.  Well, instead of whining about it, Samson called out to God.  He recognized that God had helped him and asked Him to help him some more.  And, you know what?  God did.  God didn’t just give him a water puddle, God gave Samson flowing water.  Then, Samson drank and was strengthened.  I’m willing to bet this wasn’t just any water.  I’m also willing to bet that God would love to strengthen you and me…any time, anywhere.  We just have to stop complaining and ask and believe.

Then, Samson went on to lead the Phillistines for twenty years.  Oh, how easy it is to skip over that last part with a “Yeh, okay, good for him.”  But, this guy was just FIGHTING AGAINST THE WORLD and now, HE’S LEADING IT!

It may feel like we’re fighting the world today, BUT GOD can change our situations quickly and bless us abundantly.  We just have to let him.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NIV)

This helped me and I wanted to share it.  Go here (it’s a devotional).

I figured I could just skip the “no more baby” news with Lorelei – or hoped – I thought maybe if we carefully didn’t mention it again, it’d leave her pretty little head.

Nope.

As I finished up a phone call (through which she’d been playing), she looks over at me and says, “Mama…is the baby dead?”

I suppressed the tears threatening to spill forth.  “Yes, baby.  Remember the baby in mommy’s tummy?  (she nods) Well, it went to be with Jesus.”

“Oh, okay.” She replied with a nod.  I studied her face, watching for any signs of stress so I would know when to stop this conversation.  Her eyebrows knitted together with a look of concern and she said, “So, I won’t have a baby brother? ”

“That’s right.”

“But… I wanted a Shark” (if it was a girl, we’d discussed the name CHARLOTTE as a possibility)

I smiled.  “Charlotte.  You wanted to name the baby Charlotte.  But, Charlotte is a girl’s name and you wanted a brother.  Anyways…it doesn’t matter.  The baby’s with Jesus, now.  And, it’s all okay.”

“Why is the baby with Jesus, mommy?”

“Well, Jesus wanted the baby to come live with Him.  He wanted to hold it.”

Her little face frowned again, “But *I* want him.  I want to hold my baby, too!”

“I know, me too.  And, someday we will when we go to heaven.  But, you know, it’s okay…” I paused, touching her chin.  “Mommy and daddy will work on getting you your brother after a while.  And, besides, you still have a baby sister.  Aurora’s pretty great, huh?”

She slowly nodded as a smile crept across her face.  “I love her.  She’s cute.”