Instead of insisting on freedom to create spiritual reality, shouldn’t we be seeking to discover it and disciplining ourselves to live according to it? . . .
In many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, the liberating restrictions.
Looking for a way out of another winter that suffocates?
A pika was lost in a snowstorm.
She looks around her. Which direction to turn? She is cold, alone, afraid and doesn’t have much time before the cold winter chills her to the bone. Death arrives quickly out in nature.
And that pika is me.
(You, too?)
Why a pika? Because who knows what a pika is? (And how known do you feel?)
We look around us, seeking a direction to follow or something solid to hold onto.
The days of our lives are thrown in the garbage can like the pages on our daily calendars. There goes another day, week, decade.
We find our first and then our 100th gray hair. Do we continue to pull these hairs out? At what point are we defeating ourselves, even harming ourselves, by pretending that the clock of time isn’t ravaging us?
What do we hold onto?
What direction do we travel next?
Who can lead us?
Do we hunker down, curl into the fetal position for warmth, and hope for spring?
Will the joy in our souls remain at the end of this winter?
Where is the warming hut, the cup of hot chocolate, and the friend with the listening ear?
I wasn’t sure if I could keep the car on the road because I couldn’t see through my tears.
The downpour we were driving through didn’t help, either. “Keep it together. Keep it together. . .” was my mantra until I could get inside, close the door to the world, and let these emotions out.
I wasn’t sure I would be able to drive the car home.
Inside, I collapsed behind a closed door and told my husband the news. His sadness began deep, deep in his soul, in the place where love resides, and found its expression. It was the future we mourned.
A dark cloud had cast a shadow over the future of one of our children. Like a candle in the snow, her joyful little light was sensing wind on the horizon. And the odd pieces of cardboard I found nearby to try to shield her from the wind didn’t look like enough right now.
Heal her, God whispered to me months later.
I was minding my own business, letting my mind wander while in the hot tub.
“Um, what now?” I asked. I sat upright and perked up my ears. “What did you say?”
Silence.
I had heard him. Would I take the next step in faith? Or would I put cotton in my ears and dunk my head under the hot tub, ensuring I could not hear any more of this foolish talk?
They told me this was incurable. Everyone knew that! The best we could hope for was some moderate success with behaviour modification – a few small wins.
Will we pick it up, inspect it, hold it to the light and find a friend with a hammer to crack it open?
Or will we put it in our pocket to consider later if we remember?
The joys and the sorrows of life arrive, and we hang up our clothes at the end of the day. We forget them there for awhile. When we remember, through foggy memories, that there may be a jewel in our pocket (!), we look again, but it fell out. There are only the singed edges of our pocket to remind us that we were holding a bit of heaven for a while.
But it’s gone now.
What’s for lunch?
And God feels far away, again, even though He just descended from heaven to meet us. We treated His gift like just another stone on the path. Will we catch the next jewel He holds out to us? Will our eyes be open enough to see this time, or will we trample, again, the precious jewel that He offers, His firelight shining in the darkness?
It’s only a sparkle at first.
Time to bow low and fan the flame of His voice in your life, friend?
Come along. Let’s journey together.
Oh. And she was healed, God guiding and then redeeming my pathetic attempts to listen, Him re-directing me and helping me up when discouragement hit. For that is His way.
Jesus said, “There is no need to dismiss them. You give them supper.”
“All we have are five loaves of bread and two fish,” they said.
Jesus said, “Bring them here.” . . . The disciples then gave the food to the congregation. They all ate their fill. They gathered twelve baskets of leftovers. About five thousand were fed.
Do the fingers around your neck create fear that makes your every breath panicked, too?
And so, how do we fight the enemy of time?
Openly discussing our fears is the hand that removes this snake from around our neck for a while.
Why is time so scary?
We watch the snake slither next to us as we sit here on the sidelines, pondering the game of life.
It doesn’t look so big anymore as we see it now, here beside us.
It is not the kind of snake that can choke the life from us, a constrictor. It is a harmless, small snake, but its pressure, when wrapped around our necks, feels suffocating.
And so, how is your life going?
Let’s chat, be honest.
Did you shoot and nail every basketball into the hoops you aimed for when you were younger and your dreams were less tarnished?
If you did, how are you doing now, after the applause ended?
Just another one of us, a straggler in old rags, sitting by the side of the court, wondering what the game is all about?
Yeah, I hear you. I put my arm around you. Got any wisdom for the rest of us – the confused, discouraged, and hungry?
I’ve got one story. Here it is:
A dilemma confronted her. The dilemma woke her in the middle of the night. It was the calm, clear voice of her Lord.
Invite him to stay here, He said.
She was supposed to invite him to stay at her home. Nothing too extraordinary. Except that he was the leader of one of the most savage street gangs in New York. He was a bad guy, rotten to the core.
This one act, this time at her home, was the safe respite, like a rest in Rivendell, that he needed as he journeyed away from Mordor. (Apologies to non-Lord of the Rings fans for this sentence).
It’s about the woman who invited him into her home.
She took a risk.
She obeyed God.
[He] protested, “Master, you can’t be serious. Everybody’s talking about this man and the terrible things he’s been doing, his reign of terror . . . !”
Of course, we can never know this, but as a thought experiment, what if this ONE ACT redeemed an entire life?
This ONE ACT allowed millions to be touched and inspired by a life that otherwise could have vanished in the wind.
Poof.
It’s possible, again as a thought experiment, that in this ONE ACT of obedience, the fruit from a life was as expansive as the sand on a seashore.
And I step on the snake next to me, crush its head.
God told the serpent: “Because you’ve done this, you’re cursed . . . I’m declaring war between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He’ll wound your head, you’ll wound his heel.”
Her heart pain rose up, up out of her chest and demanded expression in deep sobs. Jesus saw her. He stood by her side, his arms outstretched to offer love and guidance.
She didn’t notice Him.
In the prayer room that same week, Jesus communed with another woman, one of his dear ones. In the quiet, she was growing in hearing His voice. And then, prompted by Him later that week, she took a risk.
“Jesus sees the tears of the mother,” she whispered that day to the stranger, to the hurting woman. The stranger was the one who had been sobbing all alone. And in that busy place, at work, hearing the words from God, she burst into tears again.
The hurting woman could now sense Jesus was near. Jesus spoke His words through the mouth of one of His servants. Her words came from the heart of God and were received by another as a hug from Jesus.
The hurting friend relayed the story to me.
“I didn’t tell her anything about my daughter,” she gushed at me, astonished.
But heaven met earth that day. Light from beyond our sun, from the Son himself, streamed into the heart of one of His children and exited her mouth to wrap the hurting woman in a hug from Jesus. And a seed of faith was planted in the heart of that hurting woman that day.
And all heaven rejoiced.
Breakthrough happened in one more heart.
The unseen became visible, if only for a flash of a moment. Will this spark be fanned by the flame of the hurting woman making time for God, giving expressions to her reservations about church and the brokenness of His people? Will she push past the frustrations and find her way, in the quiet, to the place in her soul where Jesus speaks?
May she find her ears.
Will she pick them up, attach them and give them a listen?
They are lying there on the floor next to her. She may put them upside down or not quite in the right location initially. Will she re-attach them and try again tomorrow?
Will you?
Oh God! Open ears! Un blind eyes! Help us exchange our mud puddles of entertainment and distraction for the vast ocean of Your joy and presence! May Your Kingdom come! Help more and more of Your beautiful children, the ones You paid the ultimate price for on the cross, get out of their boxes and realize they have wings! Help them soar, Jesus, we pray.
If so, take a risk. Consider laying down your pride and showing up at the church near you where Holy Spirit is moving. Or join us online as we learn to lay aside our distractions, pick up our ears, and learn to love to pray. And may you, too, friend, be set free.
Caveat: This isn’t a promise of a highway to an easy life. But we do have Someone to help us. And walking with Him leads to more life.
It’s worth it.
What is the next step on your spiritual journey? Do you have time to follow your clues? May you keep travelling, dear friend.
Closer, nearer, pungent aroma of steamy breath, foul stench of death surrounds me
“HALT!” I yell. “BACK DOWN!”
It cowers at my feet
My raised hand bears the silhouette of a dagger
In this eerie place
I light my torch
It’s blazing fire light comforts
And the dragon vanishes with the darkness
It lurks nearby, I know
Ready to draw nearer, to pounce
Should I forget, again, who I AM
It flies at me again
Like a mosquito
Irritating
Except it is the dragon
It will consume me if I let it
It seems to be only a minor irrigation
But it will leave me cowardly, a broken shrivelled residue of myself if I listen
To my thoughts
And so I pick up my sword
And I fight
Though I am already exhausted
And I win
Only when I remember
Who I AM
The Accuser of our brothers and sisters thrown out, who accused them day and night before God . . . So rejoice, O Heavens, and all who live there . . .
God, may we no longer be blustered by accusations. May we remember who You are, and therefore remember who we are as heirs of the King. Please empty our head of the thoughts that do not align with how You think of us.
May we keep Your thoughts of us, Jesus, closer than the dragon’s.
As you listen to the song below, consider asking Holy Spirit, “How do You see me?”
If our goal is win long-term wars, we will lose short-term battles.
As homeschoolers, we lose many short-term culture battles because the system is not designed for us.
Take swimming, for example.
I signed one daughter up for a private swim lesson, one-on-one with a teacher. Then, wait – I noticed they offered private swim lessons for up to two students. I decided to throw both kids into the pool.
“Oh, Ma’am,” the lifeguard explained apologetically, “we can’t take both of your children simultaneously because they aren’t in EXACTLY THE SAME swim level. The rule is that for a private swim lesson with a MAXIMUM of two students, both kids must be at EXACTLY the same swim level.
As homeschool parents, our brains go into culture shock.
EVERYTHING WE DO, ALL DAY, EVERY DAY HAS TO BY DEFINITION, be tailored to teach multiple students at various levels.
I found myself wanting to explain how to homeschool.
“Oh, come ON!” I wanted to say. The younger kid will undoubtedly learn a BIT of the more complex swim stroke if not the same proficiency! Undoubtedly, the older kid can do a BIT of review and maybe brush up on the nuances of a swim stroke while the younger one gets the main idea.
But if I were to speak, the words would go around the ears and over the head of the lifeguard. These words cannot penetrate -be understood. Two cultures have made their way to the front lines of the battlefield and only one culture wins this war.
I placed only one child in private swim lessons.
Inwardly, I laugh hysterically at the idea that two children of slightly different skill levels can’t be taught simultaneously. But my morale plummeted a little because I lost another battle. We lose a lot of short-term culture battles as homeschooling parents.
We must decide which long-term wars we are ultimately strategizing to win.
I propose the following:
1. We strategize to win the war of, when kids have left home, having kind children.
But they may look like idiots according to middle school report cards (losing a battle) when we are aiming for high SAT scores at graduation (ultimate war to win). “What is she going on about now?” you ask. I’ll explain next time.
3. We strategize to win the war of having passionate and engaged young adults.
For example, consider this post. We don’t kill our children’s natural God-given drive to learn. Similarly, the Homeschool Legal Defence Association found homeschooled students to be particularly diverse, tolerant and civically engaged.
4. We strategize to win the war of having the strength and wisdom, as parents, to finish the race of homeschooling for as long as this is the best option for our family.
In the interim, though, we are in our cocoons and so we are losing cultural battles all over the place, or at least it appears that way since we are blind for a while to what truly matters. Our goal is to win the long-term war of living in alignment with our most authentic intuition of a good life (although the good life almost kills us).
When our transformation finally arrives, and our identity is formed by how God (not our culture) sees us, homeschooling parents can finally relax and have fun.
Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.
Then, our children can survive the most important, long-term wars.
What wars are you preparing your kids for, getting them dressed in armor for, hoping they will survive the fight?
Jesus, give us wisdom, we pray. May we look at each of our children and at our culture, using the glasses You use to look through. And may we strategize well so that our children will win the most important wars. And strengthen us for this challenging journey of parenting and of standing up and of walking upriver in the strong tide of our culture, we pray.
I have been giving him treats for “staying” and lying down in one position for more than a minute or two.
One ear cocked to the side, yawning sometimes – the dog’s instinctual response to say, “I’m trying to understand you here!” – sometimes excitedly getting it.
But most of the time, he stares at me, wondering how to get more treats.
And this is a perfect example of what we are like as we come before God.
He has something to give to us. The analogy breaks down here because God doesn’t simply tempt us with crumbs but has the full banqueting table to offer. But you get the point.
My dog sometimes forgets about me and my rewards and lies down distractedly.
And then I give him a treat.
And doesn’t that happen to us too? We forget about God, go about our business, and then we hear His heart whispering. He offers us food when we least expect it.
Well done, God comforted me, excitedly offering me a food reward. Huh? “What the . . .” I had just woken up. In my heart, I looked up at God, my head cocked to the side, confused.
He comforted me in His love, in His presence.
What was I doing right? I stumbled to the coffee machine, trying to put the puzzle together. The machine brewed, and God poured delight into my heart as the coffee machine poured delight into my cup. I scratched my head, trying to figure out why God was pleased with me.
I listened to HIS cues.
I responded to HIS call to obey.
The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.
He had been asking me to wake early, to write, to offer this page of food to you, dear reader.
And I obeyed.
That’s it.
Regardless of outcomes as defined by our culture, in God’s eyes, this writing is a success because it is motivated by obedience. Like a child with a crooked, smudged, stick-figure drawing, the parent is pleased with her art. God, the parent, is pleased with our crooked efforts at responding to His whispers.
And what you are seeing is the actor on the stage, the polished version of me for you to read about.
God says write.
I write.
Applause.
End of show.
But behind the scenes, there is chaos. An entire repertoire of people, those on lights and sound, and the director helped me look polished for you. They cried tears, remade the costumes, and helped me fit into my new identity.
I offer credit where credit is due:
1. Thank you to our friend who scared back the monsters intimidating me and offered me his hand. “Stand,” he said. And he prayed passionately that day in our kitchen, “She is about the King’s business!” he declared.
And I believed him. And I exchanged another piece of my old heart, the one linked to how people judge my life, for a princess robe. And I danced in joy.
And You danced with me, Jesus. Keep dancing, you whispered. Keep following Me where I lead child, regardless of what they say.
And I’m still dancing.
2. Thank you to my husband, the giant man. When I was in the metaphorical hide out, the place I shouldn’t have been, God led him to find me. He ducked to half his height to enter the place that held me captive.
When he entered, the evil shapes fled. He is not scared of the same things I am. His lack of fear terrifies them.
“Come, friend,” he offered, holding out his hand. “Don’t be afraid.” And he held me in his arms and comforted me as I wept. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
And there wasn’t. Because he regularly prays I will dance in freedom, in that grassy place. And so I do.
3. And I say thank you to so many of my friends. You prayed for me. And you told me what you thought God was saying to me, though you didn’t always understand.
And I took those pieces, precious as each one was, and I thought and considered and prayed and placed them into the puzzle of my life. Thank you. I honor you.
4.And I thank you for the eagle you sent, Jesus, who swooped down and woke me and fed me. “Get up.” She nudged me, and I rolled over, trying to go back to sleep.
But she was persistent, unphased by my life’s lack of spiritual success.“Try this food,” she suggested. I tossed that aside, too. I wasn’t used to the taste.
She tried milk, and I drank it with relish. I was thirsty. Later on, my stomach could hold a bite or two of meat. I was growing up.
“How is your time of worship?” she asked me again, and again, and again. Finally, I could answer her to say that I am learning to abide more frequently in Your presence. And the next time I danced, I held the sceptre you gave me, Holy Spirit.
And so thank you, Jesus, for the many, many actors behind the scenes of our lives.
What was the path that took me from there to here?
Good question!
I’m glad you asked.
Here are the key stepping stones that led me across the river, onto a narrower path, without so many hurdles.
1. Pretend to be sick when you aren’t
What I mean is, if a few sniffles and a “headache” can help your kids bring you tea, quietly close the door behind them, and get all their homeschooling work (mostly) done in a hurry to “help” you out, then isn’t that just a helpful parenting strategy?
Yes, they may play a few more video games that day, but sometimes we have to negotiate with the enemy (is there perhaps a more precise word here?)!
And how do we need fewer “emotionally unstable” or “sick” days? This is the obvious question we want to ask ourselvesas the mature adults that we are. We don’t want to HAVE to lie (I prefer the term “play pretend”) to our kids quite so often. What I’ve learned is the following:
2. Try not to be such a nutcase
Oh, come ON, admit it! You ARE a nutcase, too! I haven’t met even ONE homeschooling parent, for example, who didn’t start this way.
We start our homeschooling adventure with our new homeschooling planners (I have paid up to $99.99 for mine – a VERY expensive calendar with a bunch of blank paper inside).
We ALL start with our new, sharp pencils and energy overflowing from within. We purchase a shiny new curriculum or textbook and dutifully divide the book into 36 weeks, the total number of weeks in a school year. When we have completed this exercise with our stack of texts, we wipe the sweat from our brow and think – GREAT! I know EXACTLY what my kids will be learning on March 16, next year!
We ask for ONE or maybe TWO areas of prayer for each child. Oh, and for us.
God’s priorities will not be those we choose for our kids. We prioritize hockey and extra math lessons so that EVERY KID born in this country will be in the NBA (or whatever the popular sports leagues are) and have myriad universities begging them to attend.
Instead, we humbly exchange our vanity, linked to our child’s successes, for God’s chosen priorities for them.
And His priorities for us are interior postures of the heart, a heart sickness within each of our kids, and in us to focus on. Lying? Selfishness? Bickering? Jealousy?
Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
It’s the kids who are born as tyrants, but if you become a tyrant, there is order in the home. Then the true skill we need to learn next is how to become a tyrant to ourselves. We need to grow in the skill of bossing OURSELVES around.
When we show up at a paid job, in our office clothes and clipboard, we say “Yes Ma’am!”, do what we are told, then come home exhausted and put our feet up.
But when we show up on our first day of homeschooling, for example, no terrifying boss threatens to fire us each day.
It’s easy for us and our kids to stay in our pyjamas.
Essentially, what is the MINIMUM work that needs to get done by my kids and by me? CHECKING my kid’s work is MY JOB I need to do, whether I feel like it or not. How am I doing with that job?
And if you find you are in overwhelm again? No problem, dear friend.
1. Declare another sick day!
2. Pray a LOT!
3. Learn a couple of tangible skills to proactively manage the ship!
He put a slip of paper in my hand before he held out the rope to lower, lower me back down the pit, back down to the kids with their swirling needs and to a dog with multiple dietary discomforts.
When I returned to the couch and to the kids and the dog that day, I held the folded slip of paper He had given me in my hand.
I opened it carefully and somehow the room quieted in my soul, even through the sharp noises of bickering kids and an excited dog.
So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.
The book I love that I longed to introduce to my children.
When she was hardly more than a girl, Miss Minnie had gone away to a teacher’s college and prepared herself to teach by learning many cunning methods that she never afterward used. For Miss Minnie loved children and she loved books, and she taught merely by introducing the one to the other.
And He got a big red pen, the one that I use on my kids to edit their writing, and He edited my life.
This has got to go. This too. And this.
He gave me one or two things to focus on this season, one for each child and one for me.
And it got a little easier.
I was the one who needed to change, to tweak our homeschooling life so that joy could erupt through the cracks of the brokenness of our lives a little more often.
Consider asking God what wounds He wants you to lift to Him so He can remove the bandaid to allow light to shine through the scar, blinding others so they too, may seek their healing.
Restoring Life 