"What do you seek?"

I have strange fears. 

One of them is eternity. 

Yes. Eternity. 

I've had this fear since I was a child. I can remember clearly being in second grade and lying in the bed, trying to figure out eternity. I would think about it at length, trying to understand how heaven could never end. I would think about it until the anxiety would force me to stop or I would have to succumb to a full blown anxiety attack. 

I thought I would grow out of it. 

I didn't. 

I remember still being in a Bible study with my friends several years ago and confessing this strange part of myself nervously to my friends. A sweet friend blessed with the gift of faith said, "Just don't think about it."

Okay.

That didn't help.

I still, at any moment, can ponder the concept of eternity and work myself into a complete anxiety attack.

I'm quite sure this is sin.

{This oddity was finally helped a little by the theological revelation that time is a concept created along with our world. It didn't exist before the creation of the universe and won't exist after. To even ascribe the word "eternity" to heaven is to ascribe a  human term to a non-human concept. It won't exist there. This helped. Some.}

This tends to color how I feel about dying too. I am completely confident in my salvation. The realization that death ushers me into eternity? That's a little more of a problem.

I usually conquer this peculiar flaw of mine with praise and an outward confession of my weakness and begging God to help me trust Him.

{and I know all the right theological answers. this is just a supremely bizarre aspect to my sinful anxiety.}

So

The hubs and I headed off one Sunday to finally see "The Hobbit." We love these movies and watch them periodically. 

I particularly love Elrond and his home, Rivendell.

(photo credit: http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Elrond)

This is the cheesiest video ever, but I needed to include here just a glimpse of Rivendell:

So hubs and I are watching "The Hobbit" and I'm innocently enjoying the movie. Elrond's image fills the screen and I involuntarily sighed and thought, "Aw, I hope Jesus is like that."

That sort of shocked my system, and I sat upright and thought, "WHAT did I just say?" 

Gosh.

But soon images of Rivendell flowed off the screen and soothed me, and I found myself wishing that this is what heaven would be like. 

"If heaven was like that, I wouldn't want it to end."

Okay, folks, this is where I knew it was time to get into the Gospels.

See, I spend most of my time in the Old Testament. There are tons of reasons why, but I just prefer it. 

Anyway, after I found myself wishing that Jesus looked, sounded and acted like an actor on a screen, I knew it was time to spend some deep, real and long time with Him. 

I repented and opened my Bible to John.

Oh, sweet John. I asked the Lord to meet me on the pages of John.

Just as sometimes you don't realize how thirsty you are until you take that first drink of ice cold water, I realized how much I needed to be near my Savior. I needed to hear Him and see Him and touch Him and be touched by Him.

I began to worship as I saw again that He has always been. 

And then these words:

What do you seek?

He said these words to His first disciples, former disciples of John the Baptist, Andrew and Peter. They "heard Him speak and and they followed Jesus." He turned to them and said these words, not in a condescending or confrontational way, but in a gentle invitation for them to interact with Him. And that's why I needed to be here with Christ. Sometimes I think He wasn't kind. He wasn't loving. He's tough and hard and demanding. 

Or this is how I feel when I step away from Him for too long.

And I felt Scripture beckon me and ask me the same question. Gently. Kindly. It was an invitation to interact with Him, just as He said to Andrew and Peter, "Why are you here? What would you like to know?"

And I told Him that I missed Him. I was sorry I had stayed away too long. I needed to be near Him and hear His words again. 

So I read. I tried not to stop and study too much. I tried to just read and allow His words to flow over me. To soothe. To convict. To fellowship with Him. To learn from Him. 

And there is was. The invitation that I had seen quite often here lately. But to see it here, in Scripture  in context of His words, and His story, it was precious. 

So I read and I read. And I met Him here in these pages. I saw His love and saw His commands. I studied when my cultural expectations crashed against the words in the pages. When He wasn't kind enough or sensitive enough. And of course I was wrong over and over again. He was kind and gentle. It felt good to get back to Who He really was and is and what He is calling me to.

Hard words. He says hard words too. 

It felt so good to see His words unfiltered and fresh off the page lodging themselves in my mind and in my heart.

I felt changed each morning just by spending time with Him here. 

Jesus. 

Not God. Just Jesus. 

The part of the trinity that I grapple with the most. Savior and King. What does that look like each day in my life?

The words in John soothed my fears and ushered me to worship.

Then Lent came. What a sweet way to celebrate this time leading up to Easter. With Jesus. And just Jesus. 

I pulled this out. When John is complete, I will read all the Gospels, together as one. To see their stories woven together to paint this picture of Christ. 

To celebrate this: the "ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah." 

What about me will be different by spending time with Him in these pages? No theology. No rudimentary word studies that are probably doing more damage than they are good. No commentaries. No books written about these Gospels. 

Just the Word.

Just the Words of Christ. 

How will I be changed? 

I can't wait. 

And I'm quite sure Jesus is infinitely superior to Elrond. I'm positive Rivendell will look like a sewer compared to Heaven. I know that my finite mind was not created to here on earth comprehend what eternity will be. 

But do you know what soothed this in me? When Jesus said to His disciples as He was getting ready to go to the cross, 

 Father, I desire those You have given Me to be with Me where I am. Then they will see My glory, which You have given Me because You loved Me before the world's foundation.

He desired even then that I be with Him in Heaven. How can I be afraid of being somewhere with Someone who loves me with a love I can't even fully comprehend?

So what am I back to? 

Trust. 

Yes, Jesus. I trust You. With my salvation. With Your plan for my life. And even with Heaven. 

I'm thankful for Your patience with me.

And I'm thankful for the power of Scripture. May we all seek Jesus on its pages more. 

This is how you lose your soul

It was August. 

We had left our beach vacation after a mere 36 hours into it due to a hurricane headed straight for our condo. 

The husband was starting a new business, and he decided that since we were home, there was work he really needed to get done.

So the kids and I hung out at the house. For nearly a week.

We had fun, but we were a little out of sorts. Not bored, but just sort of stir crazy.

I'm glad now looking back that we rested for a bit.

Mainly because a hurricane of a different kind was brewing, and it was headed straight for us.

Busyness. 

The insane sort of busyness that slowly bleeds your soul dry.

And I was unprepared for it. 

I remember us leaving our first flag football practice and seeing one of the dads running across the parking lot, two small boys in tow. He was yelling over his shoulder, "We have to hurry! We have another practice across town and we're late...!"

We got into our van and inched our way out of the parking lot with all of the other families that had come to a sport practice of one kind or another and finally merged onto the main road clogged with weary commuters trying to slowly make their way home, and as we barely creeped down the road I thought, 

This is how we lose our souls...

We are so busy. We are so busy we don't think or feel or breathe. We just keep spinning constantly every day until we collapse into bed way too late at night so that we can get up way too early the next morning so that we can do it all again.

And then we die.

Really.

This entire life of ours spins and spins and then it's over. 

And it made me sick inside. And a little panicky.

I whined to the husband, and he said, "You got boys. They play sports."

Well, okay.

I mean, I understand that. 

I guess. I mean, I wanted them to have a fun thing to do. They spend all their time with me, and I really thought them having something fun to do outside the house would be... fun.

I don't think I really thought it through all the way. 

I narrowed my eyes at the husband and said, "I have spent the last 5 out of 7 days/nights in some way doing something with flag football. That is not okay with me."

It felt good just to whine about it.

The girl kid was also doing an extra voice clinic. That meant that the only night that we weren't busy during the week was Tuesday. That night quickly filled up too. Saturday mornings were now dedicated to football games, so that meant there wasn't a morning where we weren't up and at them early. 

I felt like I was going a little crazy.

And the whole world is like this. Everyone I knew was like this. When you greet someone and you say, "How are you?" they would respond, "We are so busy!"

And now I found myself saying this too.

Why?

One thing the Lord was clearly showing me here was that I needed to get out of my house. I need to be around people. I need to interact with people other than those in my own tiny little world.

I got that.

And it was nice. To meet new people and be around different folks. 

Okay.

And I realized that I cannot be at home all the time. 

I got that.

But how do I be this busy and not lose myself?

And getting this busy made me feel disconnected from God. 

I really, really hated that.

And then I hated even more when I started feeling okay about being that disconnected from God.

That made me really panicky.

I hated having one eye on the clock in the morning when I was spending time with Him. I hated knowing that I had only a certain amount of time and then I had to move on. I hated feeling the clock ticking all the time.

I hated how I felt: scattered and tired and emotional and in the middle of a giant mess.

The up side was that I didn't have time to think. 

I see why people get this busy. It's sort of like being drunk. You're numb and like a robot. 

Nothing real happens. 

We anesthetize ourselves so we don't have to deal with what's going on inside of ourselves.

And by "we," I mean "me."

And I think we use our kids to do that, for the most part. There's plenty for them to do, and you can literally spend all of your time shuffling them from one thing to another. 

I ended up this way, and it was quite by accident.

I kept wondering, "Why? Why do we do this?"

To avoid the realities of life? To avoid what's deep inside of us? Because life didn't turn out the way we had hoped it would so we pour everything into our kids and into making our lives busy so we don't have to think about what could/should have been? 

It's hard to think these things at the YMCA when your kids are happily at flag football practice. 

You feel sort of abnormal.

Maybe I'm over thinking it all. Maybe we can just be happily super busy and have deeply committed, active, intimate relationships with our Savior. Maybe this is just a joyously happy busy season of life, and when the kids are gone we settle back into a slower paced existence with our spouses, content to just be alone with them moving slowly through life for a change. Maybe we are allowing God to do a work deeply in our hearts and spirits more than I think we are, and there is fruit later from this season of life, and we will reap in joyous plentitude all that we are sowing in our lives now.

And by "we," I mean "me."

I'm reading a book on prayer, and this quote jumped out at me this morning:

Many Christians give in to a quiet cynicism that leaves us unknowingly paralyzed. We see the world as monolithic, frozen. To ask God for change confronts us with our doubt about whether prayer makes any difference. Is change even possible? Doesn't God control everything? If so, what's the point? Because it's uncomfortable to feel our unbelief, to come face-to-face with our cynicism, we dull our souls with the narcotic of activity.

It's easier to be busy than to think.

I get that. 

I also worry that when I'm this busy that there is the potential for me to mess it all up. I'm too tired to be kind to my husband. I'm too busy to listen to the depths of my daughter's heart. I'm too distracted to teach my sons how to be men of God. The house certainly isn't clean and we aren't eating healthy food and I'm bossy and nagging and weepy and angry and stressed and not good for a lot of anything positive, much less eternal.

Then our first sermon from a sermon series on prayer happened. 

I sort of knew that it was going to kick my butt. The Lord was gracious enough to have prepared me for that beforehand. I knew it was coming.

Luke 17 ~

And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 

they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: 

they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; 

but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

I think mine would look like

she was cooking and baking and eating, and schooling and doing laundry and cleaning, and teaching and reading writing and running and trying to lose those exasperating 15 pounds, and dying gray hair and laughing and watching zombie television shows and doing lots of good in Your name and texting and listening and sharing and studying and talking and...

then she died.

(The Bible doesn't point out all the evil that society was doing during these times. Just the happy, normal business of life.)

So maybe that's not so bad. Maybe that's what we all want. Have a good education, get a family, and nice house, enough money to go to WalMart when you need to, go out to eat, take a vacation and be nice.

Don't get too wild and crazy. Don't talk about the Bible too much. Don't get all weird and make people feel uncomfortable. Most definitely don't ruffle any feathers. Just be nice, normal and go with the flow. Be ordinary. 

Then you die and stand before Christ, and you and He can hash it all out. There's grace, right? He understands. He understands that I had a house to clean and kids to get to football practice. 

I'm sure of it. He understands. 

He just wants us to be happy.

This is what my busy soul thinks, anyway.

Reflections on Revelation

We studied Daniel when Zane was a baby.

I'll never forget studying in the bed each night with commentaries spread all around me, trying to do so quietly, barely moving as not to disturb his little baby body snuggled next to me. I remember sitting in the floor sharing with the ladies of our Bible study group while he crawled over my legs. I remember literally being on my knees asking God to help me understand the complexities of the last half of Daniel. I remember making manipulatives and dancing them across the floor trying to explain verses and chapters. I remember being so completely exhausted at the end of that study, and I remember asking the ladies to do Revelation.

And I remember the resounding, "NO!"

Not that I can really blame them.

I have wanted to study Revelation since then. I tried a time or two on my own, but I felt the longing to study it with someone. I waited patiently, trusting that time would come.

And as God so often does, the opportunity to study Revelation didn't come when or how I expected it, but I also recognized the opportunity to grow in trust of this God. So there it was: a sermon series. 

I was a little nervous and very excited.

It started really well.

I plunged into this enigmatic book asking God to do a work in me.

And He did.

I wanted this to be a life changing study for me. I really did. I wanted to learn things that would change me forever. I wanted to raise an ebenezer that I could look back on for the rest of my life as a result of spending time with this book.

I decided I needed something tangible to keep my mind stayed on what I was studying. I chose this beautiful carnelian bracelet. {The lady that made it lives in the Canary Islands, and receiving a package from there was almost as fun as the bracelet inside.} I haven't taken this bracelet off since I received it. I love to rub the stones and feel the coolness and smoothness of them under my finger.

I am so very addicted to the tangible.

(And He who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian...Revelation 4:3)


I studied and studied this book. I studied until I dreamed about it. I studied until I talked about it to nearly everyone who would listen. I read commentaries and articles and listened to sermons and taught it and thought about it and longed to have deep discussions with hot cups of tea until the early hours of the mornings. I stayed up late and got up early.  I studied until I was sad and nervous and discouraged and fearful and wanted to quit this life and run away.

I'm sure that's about ninety percent all the wrong things to do. But that's what I did.

I opened one of the books that I use for the kids in school one morning and these words leapt off the page at me:

I heard the imploration, "See the big picture." Stop studying the intricacies and step back. See it as a whole. What is the main message? What is the big picture?

I'm not good with the big picture.

I like the intricacies.

I like charts.

We got no charts.

{I'm still a little bitter}

But I learned something in that too. I'm learning to ask myself more, "What is the big picture here?"

In life. In my walk. In God's plan for my life. "What's the big picture?"

See? I'm practicing.

I also learned not to be too hard on myself here. I didn't walk away from Revelation with a perfect understanding of this book. Or even a perfect understanding of why it's okay not to have a perfect understanding of this book.

But God was so gracious to remind me of the first time I studied election. I studied and studied and came away from that study just as confused and broken and sad and searching as I did when I started.

God said, "Rest." So I did.

I studied it again later. I came away from the second study not as confused but still sad and less trusting of God. I felt like everything I had known had been wiped clean but I still didn't know what I truly believed. I felt unsettled and exhausted.

And God said, "Rest." So I did.

A sermon ushered me into my third study of election. I wearily opened the Bible and thought, "Here we go again."

And this is where God did a work. He showed me new things in verses I had read so many times before. He took me on a journey through Scripture and led me through this study with such sweetness and light, and I came away from it rejoicing in His perfect plan. I still couldn't fully wrap my mind around election, but my need to explain it all humbly crumbled to the desire to embrace it rather than process it.

It was good. Now I see this beautiful plan of God's woven all throughout Scripture and wonder how I missed it all before.

As I wrestled with the way I studied or failed to study Revelation, God poured out His grace in reminding me of this other journey. He reminded me that I have a sweet foundation of what I did learn in Revelation this time and there will be a time to study it again and build on this foundation.

I am so deeply and profoundly thankful for that.

We start a new series tomorrow in church. As Revelation fades into the rear view mirror, I find myself oddly sad. Tears drip down my face as I think about closing this book that seemed so daunting just a few weeks ago. I don't want to leave it behind. Ringing true is Revelation 1:3

Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things that are written in it...

I am sentimental by nature, but more than that, I want to remember what I learned. I want to stay changed. I want to be challenged by these words still, even after today.

Perhaps what I want to remember the most is the simple summary that rang from the pulpit and continues to echo in my head over and over again:

our God wins

Despite what my humanistic eyes want to see and what my deceptive heart wants to believe, this simple truth has the potential to change every single nuance of how I live. And I want to continue to strive to let it.

And oh I want to worship this way every single second of every single day~

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing...To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." 

Farewell, Revelation, for now. I promise to think of you often. And I look forward to spending time with you again. I'm really thankful you are the most spectacular and unimaginable ending to this great Canon I love so much. 

My new favorite homeschool book

We finished The Jesus Storybook Bible in school earlier this year, and I wanted something else to follow it up with that my five year old could relate to. 

On Black Friday, thanks to one of my favorite blogs, I found some amazing Black Friday deals, including one on something called The Gospel Story Bible. 

I wasn't sure it was going to be a wise purchase, but it was such a good deal, I decided to give it a chance. 

I love this book. 

I like it even more than The Jesus Storybook Bible. There are more stories from the Bible, and I love how the author weaves the gospel through each of these stories. I love that it has questions at the end of each story to remind me to ask to see if the story resonated with the kids. Or if they heard it. Not that this ever happens here. They listen with bated breath to everything I say in school. 

Anyway. 

The artsy part of me is in love with the illustrations in this book. I am not fond of illustrations of Jesus at all, but these illustrations are on the more abstract side of things and don't appear to be attempting to depict an accurate image of Christ. This makes me happy. Or at least happier than I would be with other typical illustrations.

But that's a pet peeve of mine, so we can probably ignore that all together. 

The point is that this is a wonderful addition to our homeschool library, but I would buy it even if I didn't homeschool. 

Job and the Dandelion

The year 2011 was rapidly coming to a close. I was catching up on my blog reading one day, innocently lingering, enjoying the last of the break from school the holidays had to offer. There were posts full of yearly Bible reading plan recommendations, and I skimmed them rather absentmindedly until I heard the unmistakable nudging of the Spirit, "Which one would you like to do?"

Oh boy. 

I have studied the Old Testament ad nauseum and was really enjoying the time I was spending in the New Testament. 

But I knew what this meant. I needed to just do it. Obey.

Coincidentally, after a bit of research,  I chose a plan very similar to the one our church used to walk through the Bible chronologically year before last. I admit to having heart palpitations at seeing the reading plan again. As much as I am a type A/OCD person, and probably other letters that indicate further neurosis, as soon as I am saddled with a schedule, I tend to rebel. 

This is a large portion of my charm, I am sure. 

Part of me dreaded starting over again. I especially hated the thought of committing to a "plan."

 Then I decided for once in my recent past to just obey. So January 1, I flung myself into Genesis 1. 

And of course I was blessed. I learned and meditated and worshiped and thanked God at how He provides for me. 

He knew I needed this. 

I knew what was coming, though. Since this was a chronological plan, Job was coming after Genesis. And I'm going to be honest: I didn't feel up to studying Job. 

Even though the book of Job starts well and ends well, Job spends the majority of the book in a trash pile covered in ash and dirt.

And though I fully acknowledge my tendency towards being a drama queen, I feel like I've been sitting in my own pile of trash and ashes for a bit. 

And I wasn't sure I felt up to visiting Job in his.

I want to make very clear that I'm not equating my life with Job's. 

He lost everything. I have not. 

I do think that this book underscores and very clearly illustrates a believer's struggles with God. Trust through suffering. Dealing well with the difficulties of life while struggling with God. The unseen that goes on around us that we are completely unaware of yet figures significantly in our struggles. 

Did I say trust?

Oh yes. Okay. 

Trusting God. 

Nevertheless, Job came after Genesis on that blasted reading plan, so I plunged in, very nearly holding my breath. 

Oh, Job. 

I get teary at the mention of your name. I ache for you. It's not just that you lost. You lost nearly everything. I can't comprehend the magnitude of the loss you experienced. It nearly takes me outside of myself. 

source

I stared at this picture for a long time. I needed to grieve with Job, as strange as that sounds. 

I'm convinced that quick readings of the Old Testament deprive us of the depth of the teachings that it offers. These were real people who struggled in ways that most of us never will. To barrel through texts for the sake of checking off a daily reading plan will never teach us all that God intended for us to learn through His Word. We must linger over texts, sinking deeply into the stories, spending time with the people there. 

Maybe this is why I dislike those reading plans. And maybe it's why I'm decidedly far behind and it's only March. 

Anyway. 

Oh, Job. You lost it all. You crawled to a trash dump outside the city. You turned your face to the heavens and looked to the One who was supposed to care for you and provide for you and be faithful to you always and you asked, "Why?"

Haven't we done that? 

One doesn't have to go far to identify with Job. 

Haven't we all asked that singularly worded question?

Why?

I am convinced that you can be the most passionate and dedicated follower of Christ and still be taken to your knees in brokenness and pain and sob out to the Father, "Why?"

Why are you letting me suffer?

Why are you far away?

Don't you see?

Don't you care?

How is this best?

Why did you allow this path for me?

When will it end?

It's easier to read Job than to live our own lives because we know how it ends. You read the story with the benefit of knowing how it ends. If at any point you become overwhelmed with Job and his story, you can flip to the end of the book and see him restored. That's comforting.

But to visit Job in his trash heap, you feel his pain. It's palpable. 

I wept with him verse after verse. Chapter after chapter. I cannot see Job 13:15 through dry eyes:

Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.

And consider the last half of Job 23:

Behold, I go forward but He is not there,

         And backward, but I cannot perceive Him;

When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him;

         He turns on the right, I cannot see Him.

But He knows the way I take;

         When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

My foot has held fast to His path;

         I have kept His way and not turned aside.

I have not departed from the command of His lips;

         I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.

But He is unique and who can turn Him?

         And what His soul desires, that He does.

For He performs what is appointed for me,

         And many such decrees are with Him.

Therefore, I would be dismayed at His presence;

         When I consider, I am terrified of Him.

It is God who has made my heart faint,

         And the Almighty who has dismayed me,

But I am not silenced by the darkness,

         Nor deep gloom which covers me.

I've been there. I am there. As I continue to walk in obedience to Him, feeling Him stretch me and push me and use me, I squirm under the pressure. I plod forward, face turn upward, trusting and studying and praising and worshiping and working and resisting the urge to do what comes naturally to me:

I plant my feet and scream into the wind, "What are you doing?" I point to all the wrong and incomplete in my life and in the midst of the storm and the wind and the raging waves, I plead for Him to move. 

Yet, He knows the way I take. 

I feel Job's pain as he pours himself out before God, angry. Hurt. Exhausted. He pours himself out defiantly, honestly.

And then my favorite. 

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind...

God answered all of Job's hurt and longing and pain and questions with more than sixty of His own.

These aren't my original words but they are true and I say them to myself a lot: In response to all of Job's questions, God only reveals Himself to Job. He doesn't answer Job's questions. He just reveals Himself.

Isn't that good? The Lord owes me nothing. He knows that if He gave me answers to my questions, I would only have more questions. The only things that satisfies me is Him. More of Him. The only thing that quiets the storm is Him. 

As God's questions start to flow from Him in chapter 38, I find it hard to breathe. Is He revealed anywhere in Scripture as clearly as He is here? Or is it just that my heart is so thirsty for Him after swimming in Job's pain for the proceeding 37 chapters? The tears stream reading question after question which evoke such worship. We are but nothing. "Behold, I am insignificant..."  He is all. 

Oh, the worship. 

I tried to picture Job's face. How quickly after God started speaking did his anger melt away? How quickly did he bury his face in the trash heap? Did he fall, prostrate? Did he regret questioning the Creator and sustainer of the universe?

And then God was done. 

And I love Job's response:

I know that You can do all things,

         And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.

‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’

         Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,

         Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

‘Hear, now, and I will speak;

         I will ask You, and You instruct me.’

I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;

         But now my eye sees You;

Therefore I retract,

         And I repent in dust and ashes.

But what kills me is that nothing had changed for Job at this point. His children were still dead. He was still destitute. Homeless. His wife was still devastated. He was still covered with the most heinous sores. He was still deathly ill. He was still sitting in a garbage dump. 

Nothing had changed.

Except his view of God.

I can't get past that. 

Nothing had changed. 

On the outside. 

I can't control my circumstances. I can't control the world around me. I can't control what comes, or what doesn't. I can't control death or sickness or disaster or catastrophe or heartache or pain or loss or hurt.

I can acknowledge Who God is. 

It was a long couple of weeks in Job. So, so many tears. So many struggles. So much trusting and desire to trust and prayers begging God to help me trust. 

And as I stepped into Exodus, I still thought of Job, in his trash heap, questioning God. And hearing God. 

I kept thinking of God's response. All those questions. "Do you see how perfectly I wove the universe? Do you see how how perfectly I created it? Do you think I am doing the same thing in your life?"

And why don't I see it? I see His perfection all around me. Yet in my own life, I think He's making colossal mistakes. Because He's not meeting my demands. My longings go unfulfilled. And it feels like it's killing me. 

I wrestle with this day after day. 

I walked one morning, again, pouring out my doubts and fears to an ever patient, ever present God.

I noticed a dandelion, nearly reaching out into the sidewalk in front of me, dancing in the breeze.

I stopped and dropped to the cold, damp sidewalk. 

It had been a long time since I had studied a dandelion. It's perfect. Perfectly spherical. Each light, delicate white fluff anchored in the most perfect interval. Soft and beautiful. I studied it in the morning light for a long time. 

And you know what? It's a weed. A nuisance. We dig them up, mow them down, douse them in chemicals and tell our children not to enjoy blowing them because they will wreck our pristine yards. 

A weed. 

Yet God took such care to make them perfect and beautiful.

How much more care is He taking care to craft my life just as perfectly?

Would I have continued on by that dandelion that morning had I not been thinking so deeply about Job? And God's questions to him? 

I don't know. I took pictures of that dandelion. I made a picture my screen saver on my phone so that every time I saw it I would hear God start out His questions for Job by saying, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?"

I still struggle. Daily. But I know there are truths in Job that I must choose to believe. And there is no way to read Job 38 - 42 without worshiping and submitting to Him. 

There is just no way.

So I go back there often. I think of Job in that trash heap. He stays there in my mind. And maybe someday I will think of him happy and restored. But for now, he's there. Trusting. And waiting. 

And I'm there too. 

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"He doesn't tell you how long this particular episode is going to last. And so? You and I trust Him. We trust HIM. We wait. We serve Him. We keep our feet on His paths. We treasure His Word, and whatever God desires, He does. We keep leaning on Him, even though we can't understand what He's up to."

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"Everything that happens, including the things you cannot explain or justify, is being women together like an enormous, beautiful piece of tapestry. From this earthly side, it seems blurred and knotted, strange and twisted. But from heave's perspective, it has an incredible pattern. But best of all, it is for His greater glory. Right now, it seems so confusing, but someday, the details will come together and make good sense."

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"You couldn't piece it together if you tried. You aren't able to understand it and there will be times you won't like it. But as we're learning from Job, He's not going to ask your permission. And so? We trust God. Those who do that discover without trying to make it happen that they have begun to demonstrate grace under pressure." 

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"The Lord was nailed to the cross; you can count on being nailed to the wall. It's helpful to see each ordeal that way - as being crucified with Christ... God gives us over to such bruisings because they are part of the process to make us what He intends us to be. The hurting makes us sweeter, more mellow, We lose the fear of losing out; we learn to let go of what we want. We're not so easily provoked to wrath by harm or reproof. We learn to absorb abuse without retaliation, to accept reproof without defensiveness, to return a soft answer to wrath. It makes us calm and strong." 

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Why Leviticus?

This is a blog post that got away. I really, really thought I wrote this last year. I went back and looked even, thinking that I wrote it already. And it wasn't there. So much like you think of a really good retort a day later to someone who catches you off guard, this is my, not NO really, I thought that LAST YEAR!

  Oh well! It doesn't matter, really. But, I do realize that I need to get these suckers out when I first feel them writing themselves in my head. Now the two other posts I have rolling around in my head are going to have to come out too! woo hoo!

  So anyway, last January, 2009, God impressed upon me to start reading the Bible through. No problem. I got my little "read through the Bible in a year" Bible and got started. It was all good, until I got through Exodus. God again impressed to me that this was great. Now I should study through the Bible. 

  Um, yeah. Okay. I got LOTS of free time. I actually do love to study God's Word, but I'll admit, it's not always the very first priority of my day. I got a little stressed, wondering when I was going to find this time. I knew I was supposed to get up at 6am and study the Word. 

  Um, okay. I'm trying to obey happily, but I was still dealing with Zane at various times during the night at that time, and sleep was something I longed for and dreamed about. God asking me to give more of that up seemed a little harsh. But I obeyed. And boy was I blessed. So here I go, studying in my own non-theologically educated way. And I was good during Genesis and Exodus. I learned things I never knew, meditated on what I learned, and was just steeping in God's goodness through His Word.

  And I then I get to Leviticus.

  Good grief.

  I skimmed through it, shaking my head, wondering WHY in the HECK I needed to know all this stuff. I reread it, trying not to skim through it. I would read a passage, realized I day dreamed all the way though it, then reread it. Ugh. It was hard.

  So I was walking one morning, after reading it yet again. I came to love my early morning walks, because they because a time of reflection and conversation with God about His Word. So really, honestly, I was just asking Him "Why Leviticus?" There is so much detail. The detail. Oh the detail. I see the Bible as precious real estate. It just seemed like a lot of time and space was dedicated to this book when I would have liked to have seen some other stuff in there more than this book of Leviticus. I mean REALLY.

  So God, in His infinite grace and patience with me, listens to me rail on and on about this book. About my frustrations with this book. All my why's and good griefs and UGH's. Then, I hear it. I hear God say, "You want to know why Leviticus? You want to know why? I'll tell you why..."

  So I started to get a little nervous. As I imagine Moses realized, once he asked God to show him His glory, when He realized God was going to actually do it, though, "Uh oh." I thought, "Uh, maybe I shouldn't have questioned God, the creator of the Universe, about what He decided to put into His Word."

  But God was kind. He said, "You want to know why Leviticus? I'll tell you why. You read it. You read every word. You think about what it was like to live under that law. You think about the people that lived under that law. You think about the priests that obeyed that law to the letter. About the people that needed that law. Think long and hard. Then, think more...

  Then. Think. About. Jesus."

  I do think I literally stopped in the middle of the street. Paused in the middle of life. 

  Jesus, in one fell swoop, wiped out the book of Leviticus. Much like the curtain was torn, so was the book of Leviticus. He. Wiped. It. Out.

  I was blown away. That's why Leviticus. So that while read in the shadow of the cross, the book of Leviticus takes on a whole new meaning. It means a lot to me now. Jesus died, in part, to wipe all of it away.

  And that's why it remains, planted firmly in the Old Testament that I adore so very much. To always remind me of not only why Jesus died, but of what he wiped away when He did. Much like my God, the crucifixion is much deeper, much more complicated that I make it. It's not just "Jesus died so I could go to heaven." I cheapen it when I reduce it to that level. There's so SO much to it. What Jesus gave up, what He washed away, what He wiped out. How He did it and why. It's just so much. So heavy and precious.

So as we study the book of Leviticus in church now, am reminded of these amazing precious things that God revealed to me over a year ago. I am so thankful for God's teaching me through His Word. I stand in awe of Him and His Word.