grace for Mothers' Day

Like many church-going moms, I suppose, I find Sunday mornings a little more "get-up-shower-make-breakfast-braid-their-hair-find-church-library-books-and-Lil'-Snip's-good-shoes" than "relax-in-bed-while-we-serve-you-breakfast-y".

So in a rare stroke of genius last year, we decided to celebrate Mothers' Day ... (are you ready for this?) ... on Saturday.

So it was yesterday morning (after a week of hushed planning and negotiations) that I stayed in bed late, as instructed.  My Farmer got Lil' Snip up, pottied, dressed.  I lounged, and read that little book of quotes and verses from the nice people at Our Daily Bread (which we usually keep in the bathroom).  Lil' Snip came and bounced up beside me to try the bed (which he never sees me in, since I get up long before he does in order to keep sane).

Four pages and two visits from Lil' Snip later, I heard an orderly procession of footsteps coming carefully up the steep stairs to the bedroom.  My breakfast had arrived, along with cards and gifts!

Eggs, toast, bacon, coffee, chocolate, a special Spice-decorated brownie, a fragrant posy, cards & coupons galore for backrubs, coffee-making and "anything you want!" all tastefully arranged on a tray for my convenience.  Also two plants started from seed, sugar scrub and lots of kisses.  They left me with my favorite music playing, and a bell - in case I needed anything - traipsing back downstairs to eat their own breakfast now.

(Naturally I had to test the bell, and all three came charging up the steps to hear my request for orange juice, then argued eagerly on the way back down about who would get to pour it and who would get to bring it up to me.)

When I finally reemerged from this delicious little vacation, Spice told me how she had liked to hear my fork clink while she was downstairs eating her own breakfast, because she knew that I was eating the eggs she had scrambled for me.



The night before, my sister and I went to see a movie, "Moms' Night Out" (which I highly recommend if you have in any way helped to raise children, or if you just want a good clean laugh).  On the way home we talked about parenting, and how it reveals our weaknesses.  I told her that Spice, finishing The Little Princess again the other day, had sighed and said that some books are so good that you can read them over and over, and every time you find something new, that you had missed before.  "The Bible", she'd added, "is an excellent example of this."

I could not have said that myself, at Spice's age, being a nominal Bible-reader then, already so jaded that I sincerely thought it would be best if children were not exposed to the Bible until they were 12, so that it would be fresh to them.  (I'm pretty sure I hadn't even read the whole thing yet, whereas Spice is already on her second time through.)

And here is my offspring, so like me in so many ways, saying that she can read the Bible over and over and get something new from it each time.

That, my beloved readers {all two of you ;)} is God's grace.

You and I both know that the few pathetic shreds of righteousness that I may think I have to offer God could not begin to effectively counteract the sinful, self-centered life I lead, that my children are privy to every day as they watch me lose my temper, demonstrate a lack of self-discipline (hello, chocolate?!  unclean house?  unkempt yard?), succumb to fear and depression, and on and on.

My life, in other words, could not naturally produce children who consider God's Word one of "the best books", to be read and re-read so as not to miss the goodies to be found in it.  (Let alone children who "rise up and call [me] blessed", sincerely thinking - until I provide specific & readily-available evidence to the contrary - that I am perfect!)

Only God's grace can do that.  God, who "calls into being that which does not exist." (Romans 4:17)



God's grace may work in mysterious ways.  In the past 12 years I've pondered often the meaning of 1 Timothy 2:15 - "But women will be saved through childbearing - if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety."

I'm no theologian, but I'm beginning to wonder if this verse is more about opportunity than position.  By bearing (and raising) children, God gives me an opportunity to grow in faith, in love, in holiness and propriety.  Do you see it?  Nothing in my life prior to raising these precious (and sometimes infuriating) children has stretched me waaaaaay past my limits in quite the way that they do.

I need more faith, now.

I need Grand Canyon-sized resources of love, now.

I need holiness & propriety more desperately than ever, now, because I want to be a good example for them.  I want the best for them and (scary thought!) I know they're watching me.

So just perhaps, raising these children is a God-given opportunity to "work out [my] own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." Philippians 2:12, 13

Trust me, there's plenty of fear and trembling involved already.  But I want to stand firm on the second half of that now - "it is God who is at work in you".

Maybe you want to, too?  Let go, trust God, and let Him do His work in you, for His own good pleasure.

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul.

He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

For you are with me;

You rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil,

my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

promises for the crucible

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,

Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!

What more can He say than to you He hath said,

To you, who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

"Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,

For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid;

I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.

"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;

For I will be with thee thy trials to bless,

And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,

My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;

The flames shall not hurt thee, I only design

Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine."

by George Keith

uncharted waters

 (or, "in search of a growth chart")


I was lying on our bed this evening, cooling off after supper in the relative quiet of the upstairs, out of earshot of my two dishwashers pretending to be a rather chatty Mary & Laura Ingalls, waiting for my Farmer to emerge from a post-work, pre-board-meeting shower, thinking restless and unhappy thoughts.

I usually fill the gaps in my day, I realized, cramming them full of facebook and email and virtual community, stuffing my brain with Christian how-to books, or even the Bible.  As I lay there, waiting, gaps wide open for once, all this agitated discontent began oozing out from where I had pushed it beneath the surface.

I'm still hungry, but nothing appeals to me,  I thought.  I've got no motivation, and nothing I want to do anyway.  I'm wasting my life.  I could almost hear the subliminal whining:  "I'm booooored."

I don't know what's expected of me, exactly, but I'm pretty sure I'm not measuring up.

Did I do enough today?  I saw the optometrist this morning, meted out chores & played trains, listened to a sermon and a TED talk, baked cornbread (from scratch, because boxes don't get points, do they?), cleaned out the inbox, weeded a couple of flowerbeds, mailed a package at the post office, baked tilapia & boiled green beans ..... is this enough?  What's enough?

Does eating superfluous chocolate (and is there really any other kind?) cancel out the "from scratch" points?  Does spending time on facebook delete my weeding points?  How does it work?  How will I know if I'm doing it right??

Granted, a coughing Lil' Snip has kept me from getting much sleep the past few nights.  So my thinking might be the slightest bit warped.

But I'm lonely.  Unsatisfied with how I've "turned out" so far.  Aching to know that I matter, somewhere.

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Awhile back I started a post I titled "DIY disease" in which I began to enumerate my many "from scratch" loves, from cooking to gardening to pottery.  I love to create, so much so that it's often hard for me to purchase something because the idea of making it myself is so tantalizing .... !

And then, too, there's the "should" element:  if I could make it myself .... then I should make it myself.

It was beginning to occur to me that my DIY fever didn't end with home decor and baked goods.  It had become invasive, encroaching even into my spiritual life:  It was crowding out grace.

I never finished that post.  I didn't know how.  There's been no neat ending in my life, and none in sight now.  I re-read my own words on grace, and perfectionism, and I sigh and nod, and still haven't conquered it.  Will I ever, this side of heaven?

So there's no growth chart for this, for these uncharted waters I swim through, no way to measure my progress.  I grew up on grades and "good job" and I don't know how to be enough, just being loved.  (am I?  I want to ask, am I?)

Other writers I love write of courage and positive action (showing up, doing the next right thing) and I despise my wallowing and still I wallow.

Where's the way out??

Just today, on facebook of all places, a friend reminded me of the words of one of my favorite authors, Ann Voskamp, on writing out her God-gifts:  "Because the picking up of a pen isn't painful and ink can be cheap medicine.  And I just might live."

So there's the way out, or at least through, once again:  to list them, all the day's joy-moments and eye-brighteners and spirit-lifters, to just write them all down after the post that doesn't end neatly no matter what, to just give thanks:


for healthy eyes, despite innocently overworn contacts

for my Farmer, who does know how to just be

for all those blue glass yardsale jars, washed so eagerly by Nice

for the wind outside, blowing my hair, cooling my skin

for the weeds, yanked out so cleanly and easily with
     those colorful new gloves

for a simple supper we always love

for sisters happy to play with each other and Lil' Snip

for hope, somehow peeking through

for God, patient in His all-knowing

for those tiny kittens, handful of helpless fur

for tea

for toast
(and yes, for chocolate)

for you, who read my words and care enough to come back

for those I know who mourn, that it will be turned to joy (Lord, let it be soon)

for all the ways God speaks to me ...
      in music, 
      in the creative process, 
      in beauty,
      in His creation,
      in His Word, and the words of His children

for air to breathe

for a wealth of flowers, His perennial gift to me



"But you, 
             O Lord, 
                       are a shield around me, 
          my glory, 
                      and the lifter of my head."

                                                                                                                Psalm 3:3

grace, defined

I heard it again, just this Sunday - "grace" used casually as a synonym for "mercy."

They are, thanks be to God, two different things, and I would like to differentiate them for the record.

[I am, of course, no Greek scholar, and I hope I am never accused of being a theologian.  This is my explanation of two admittedly theological terms according to my experience of God and my understanding of the Bible.]

Mercy is derived from the Latin for "price paid", and means just that:  when He does not demand from us the price due for our sins (namely, death), God is showing us mercy.  Jesus, in his sinless life and his own death on the cross, paid in our stead the price that we owed to God.  Ever since Jesus' death and resurrection, the scales have been divinely balanced, and God, "who calls things that are not as though they are," looks at repentant sinners and sees His righteous Son.

Grace, thank God, is something else entirely.

Mercy covers the sins we have committed.  

Grace makes it possible for us to live free

from sin's continual mastery.

The English word grace, according to Merriam Webster, means "unmerited divine assistance given humans". The Greek word often translated "grace" is charis - the "unmerited operation of God in the heart of man, affected through the agency of the Holy Spirit."  Charis comes from chairein which means "to rejoice," and denotes first of all a pleasant external appearance, "loveliness," "agreeableness," "acceptableness."  In other words, grace is God providing what we need, though His Spirit, to live in a way that is pleasing to Him and to our fellow man:  namely, without sin.

Mercy:  forgiven the punishment our sins deserve.

Grace:  empowered to live the life He intended.

------------------------  : :  ><  : :  ------------------------

"This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses,

for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God.

There we will receive his mercy,

and we will find grace to help us when we need it most."

Hebrews 4:15-16 (NLT)

on trying

"We read," as one of C.S. Lewis' students quoted his father in Shadowlands, "to know we're not alone."  And sometimes as we read, we discover our own fears put into words by another.


excerpted from Jan Karon's Home to Holly Springs

"He realized as he cowered by the fence that he had struggled for years to get it right - struggled to experience the joy, the peace, the sense of oneness with the One who was born for him, gave himself for him, and in so doing offered Timothy Kavanaugh the supernatural gift of eternal life.

"He genuinely believed in this One, had even been ordained as a priest in his service, and yet, in all the long years of his faith since childhood, he had never deeply, viscerally known the warmth and protection of the divinely unconditional, even tender love about which he had heard and read so much.  He had trembled to think he was a fraud."

I, too, want to get it right.  Sometimes it almost seems I might be getting close.  Sometimes it seems I never will.  Mostly it feels like I'm missing something.

I am tired.

The words "mid-life crisis" left my lips recently, and I was startled to find out that a few of my friends have had the same thought.  In my head I still feel about 23 (and on bad days, fourteen), but something has happened since then.  Well, fifteen somethings.  I guess I got old.

[Ugh.  So dramatic, I know.  I think as I write this of positive, energetic 60-somethings I know and I feel ashamed.  Pity party?  Maybe.  Or maybe just unvarnished disclosure.]


I want it all to count for something.  For Someone.  I don't want to have failed, but I'm not seeing success.  And frankly, I'm tired of trying.

Somewhere in here is grace, and the power of the One who raised Christ and who, inexplicably, lives in me.  Somehow I know I will find a way through, because He is my Shepherd and He guides me in paths of righteousness for His Name's sake.  If there have been green pastures or quiet waters lately, they've been (or they've felt, which I know are two very different things) few and far between.

Somewhere in here is rest.  And maybe, just maybe, it takes being tired to learn to rest.

fuel up

Ever feel kind of empty this time of year?

I don't mean your stomach - if your house is like most, there are plenty of cookies around to take care of that.

I mean your soul.

It's Christmas:   "Joy to the world, peace on earth, goodwill toward men" and all that.  But if reading that leaves you feeling more hungry than happy, if it brings a bitter retort to your lips about
               family feuds
                        and low checkbook balances
                                 and ungrateful children
                                           and harried servicepeople
                                                    and other impediments to peace, joy, and love ....

.....then lay down your credit card and your grievances and hear this:


"Come,  all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;
                and you who have no money,
                                              come, buy and eat!
                       Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.


"Why spend money on what is not bread,
                             and your labor on what does not satisfy?


"Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
                             and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
                                 Give ear and come to me;
                                      hear me, that your soul may live. ..."

Isaiah 55:1-3, 6

"whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst."  

John 4:14

"Come to me, 

all you who are weary and burdened, 

and I will give you rest.  

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, 

for I am gentle and humble in heart, 

and you will find rest for your souls.  

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."  

Matthew 11:28-30

ironing and ego

I ironed my Farmer's shirt tonight.  I'm not what you'd call an ironing expert.  I buy knits, mostly, and his other button-downs are "easy-care" and prints that don't need ironing, really.  So it's been awhile since I've even needed to iron a shirt.  We still use the fold-down travel iron he bought for college.

But tonight I was ironing a new white shirt for Tomorrow.  Remember?  The Sermon (about grace).

Grace was not on my mind as I ironed, though.  I wondered if it was okay to use a hotter setting than the wimpy "blends" that was not, in my opinion, getting the shirt flat enough.  I ironed a wrinkle in (and got it out again).  Memories of learning to iron my Dad's shirts took me back to adolescence.  I wondered how often he'd gone to work with creases off-center in the sleeves.

I finished and hung it beside the shirt he'd borrowed from his Dad (freshly laundered and perfectly ironed by his Mom), which didn't fit as well as he'd hoped.  Hmm.  My shirt didn't seem to flow from the hanger the way the other did.....

When my Farmer preaches tomorrow, I hope they'll see his Father's heart, and not his shirt.

(I hope I will, too).

porchlight preacher

My husband preached to me last night.

I sat amongst the fireflies, on grass, to hear him talk. I watched his silhouette against the porch light where he stood to see his notes. A storm blew up to tickle his pages, but passed by west of us to rain on someone else.

This man of mine stood tall. No nervous pacing to and fro on concrete stage, though nervous he professed to be, and nervous was. His courage braced his knees. He would obey.

I loved him then. I smiled so he'd think to look at me and not his pages. Forgot I was to criticize and look for faults, and only listened. The truth he told, so old it's new, so good it's scarce believed on, is grace alone. To give up thinking we can earn our way to God, and only thank Him for the ticket.

It's hard to take a gift so big. We're “upside-down”, forever. The knowing makes us babes again, dependent. We always have been, anywayl – who makes this air we breathe? and freely grants us life? Not our own hands, for sure, but God above, whose love for us, unfathomably deep, draws us to Him, and Him to us through Christ.

He finishes, my husband. He asks me how he did. I tell him he'll be fine, to just forget himself and think the words he has to say.

God gives more grace.