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Category: hope

don’t doubt

don’t doubt

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about why I choose to call this blog “the path less traveled.” From the first time that I read Robert Frost’s poem, it seemed to me to be a picture of the Christian life – a life that may be less traveled – and not just the of Christian life in general, but of my life.
Long ago I decided to take the “one less traveled by”. I decided that I wanted to let Someone Else take control of my course, to let go of my plan and follow His. I chose the path that led away from Self, toward Christ. 
Every now and then the other path looks so tempting, so easy. But then I remember that this is the one I have chosen, because it is good. It is sweet. Difficult at times, yes, but everything that is worthwhile is hard at times. By God’s grace I have been saved, and I am so very grateful.

a life that is so full of Christ that it leaks His grace.

We are still waiting,waiting to see what God has in store for us.

“I wondered what God was doing with my dreams. . .
He was rescuing me from them.

“… God’s order looked like disorder to me. I struggled with the shock that came by His rule. For me the theology of God’s unshakeable sovereignty had always been easy for me to verbalize, and suddenly, I wasn’t so sure what it meant to live it.

“God’s relentless love is after my total transformation. God’s love often brings hardship, confusion, and surprises. These things aren’t sent our way just to mess with us just because God is more powerful than we are – but they are from His hand of glorious grace, because He is exercising His power for the purpose of our hearts being transformed.

“Don’t doubt God’s goodness and love next time He allows something that unpleasantly surprises you. Instead lift your hands up to Him and celebrate. . . because you are being rescued.

“You are being transformed.
You are being loved.”

http://resolved2worship.xanga.com/741613511/valentines-2011-our-love-story-part-six/

a little announcement

a little announcement

We’re moving (again)!

John has been transferred to Indianapolis and we are scheduled to be there this Thursday or Friday. It will be our fourth move in three years, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

There are times when I am excited, excited to see how God is working, excited to see what will happen in the next few years, where He will take us and the things that will happen along the way.

But there are times when I am scared, too. I want to be able to trust Him with everything, knowing that He is absolutely sovereign and is directing our days, but it scares me. I want to know where we will end up, where our next baby will be born and what city we will ultimately call home and when we’ll get there. I want to know when I can put down roots and have them be permanent.

But I don’t.
God does.

I want so badly to be able to trust Him with that, and trust Him gladly.

But for today I have a few tears.


for when I become complacent

for when I become complacent

“Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

“Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

“Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

-Sir Francis Drake

I’ve read this prayer before, but it was a while ago and I had forgotten about it. The little ones and I were visiting Brian and Leah over the weekend while John was hunting, and the pastor of their church led the church in reading this together during the worship service.
I’ve been pondering it for a few days and thought I’d post it to share with you all.

Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little
…
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
…

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes

I’ve found that sometimes God uses poetry to re-say things that He has said before, things that I’ve heard so many times that my ears and heart become deaf to them.
God has plans and dreams for our family that are so much bigger, broader, deeper, higher and more wondrous than we can imagine (Isaiah 55:8-9), partly because He is God – all knowing, all seeing, all present – but partly because we are at times content to dream little dreams.

So, Father, what dreams would You have us dream? Disturb us, Lord.


poem and ponderings

poem and ponderings

God’s Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.               The heavens declare the glory of God;
  It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;                   the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 
  It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil                                                              -Psalm 19:1
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?                   Creation itself also will be set free from its
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;                          slavery to corruption into the freedom of
  And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;         the glory of the children of God.
  And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil     For we know that the whole creation groans and
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.                             suffers the pangs of childbirth together until now. …
                                                                                         but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us
And for all this, nature is never spent;                                 with groanings too deep for words;
 There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;                                                – Romans 8:21-22,26
And though the last lights off teh black West went
  Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
  World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
– Gerard Manley Hopkins
He. Is. Faithful.

He. Is. Faithful.

“suffering is not for nothing. It’s not just an opportunity to try and trust God. There is something glorious that He desires to produce in us through our sufferings.” a. ann

“Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who has promised is faithful;” -Heb 10:23

He is faithful.

He is faithful.

He is faithful.

He. Is. Faithful.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I can expect “baby blues” to hit me about 6 weeks after I give birth.
For some reason, even though I get tired and a bit emotional after my babies are born, that passes fairly quickly and it’s not until about a month and a half goes by that I start reaching out for help. Or quietly shutting down and weeping.
It happened after Emma, and now it’s happening again.

It’s wonderful that Ian has started to smile. He lies there, saying “ah ga, ah ga” and smiling. Emma comes over and wants to snuggle. And it’s good. I wipe away tears and try to smile back.

I’m not really sad, per say, but not really happy either. The tears lie just beneath the surface and anything – or nothing – will make them flow.
I want to be happy, joy-filled, entering into Emma’s play. Most of the time I am. It’s just so much, much harder right now.

This feels like such a poor explanation of what is on my mind, what I wanted to say, but it’s a start. I want to come out on the other side of this time knowing that God was faithful, giving me grace. Knowing that, somehow, He was working out something glorious.
I want to see that fruit.


39 weeks

39 weeks

66 degrees (supposed to get to 86) with 91% humidity. And I am hot.
When the humidity here gets over, oh, about 50% I seem to loose my ability to cool down. Maybe because of all the extra fluid in my body?
It’s on mornings like this, where I wake up around 5 already sweating and then try to get back to sleep, that I feel as if I’m going to be pregnant forever. That I’ll always be this hot, this awkward, this big, never give birth, never get to meet our little one face-to-face, count his fingers and smell his sweetness. That those toes will always be jabbing me from the inside and I will never be able to count them.
And then I remember that God said that there is a season for everything. Everything. Even a time for birth (Eccl 3:2). Meaning that this too will come to an end.
And – after a while perhaps – I will miss it.

a song to start the morning

a song to start the morning

One of the men in our church sang this during the service yesterday, and it brought me to tears (I had to borrow a Kleenex from the lady ahead of me). I recommend listening to it if you have time this morning. It is so good.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

-Revelation 21:1-5

dreams

dreams

We had dreams. Some of those dreams came to pass, others didn’t. But we keep dreaming.

When I was little there was a time where I wanted to be a ballerina, and John had wanted to be a pilot.
I wanted to be a surgeon, then a nurse (among other things). I even started taking classes to achieve that. But I wanted to be a wife even more. And a mother. I wanted a home and garden, a husband and babies of my own, a place where I could create beauty and take care of the ones I love.

Some of those dreams will never become real. Some of them have. Some of them are in progress, becoming reality. There are some, though, that are still so far from becoming real that it takes all the hope that is in me to keep them alive. Because, “hope does not disappoint us…” (Ro 5:5) and “God is faithful …” (I Cor 1:9).

(the little tag in the frame says “dream”)
But as for me, I will always have hope;
I will praise You more and more.
My mouth will tell of Your righteousness,
of Your salvation all day long,
though I know not its measure.
-ps. 71:14-15

emotion

emotion

the last few months of being pregnant with Emma found me dealing with emotions and battling fear. Not constantly, but still battling it. Being a slightly overconfident, self-sufficient, stubborn and fairly secure person, fear is a fairly foreign emotion for me. Especially the kind that made my heart race and woke me up with nightmares.

Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you may go. Joshua 1:9

I would all of a sudden become convinced that John was going to die, and I would have to give birth and raise Emma alone, or I would be overcome by the possibility that Emma could be born with severe defects. John would wake up and pray with me, over me and for me. I memorized and meditated on scripture about trusting God, about not fearing. And it helped.

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.

After Emma was born the fear subsided. There was (still is sometimes) definitely the first time parent nervousness of checking and double checking her breathing while she slept, wondering if she really is okay, if she is growing normally, if I am a “good” mother. But overall I have been able to turn those fears over to God and He has given/is giving me the grace to trust Him.

God is able to make all grace abound to you … II Corinthians 9:8

abounding

abounding


just ducky, originally uploaded by Lizi Beth.

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.

“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”
-II Corinthians 9:8,15

Yes. All grace. Abound. For every good deed.
Yes.