If you haven't already, please go read the daily Mass readings for today. You can see them here: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/013115.cfm
They are so good. I love how our church makes it so easy for us to read the bible by matching up old testament readings with the gospels that make them make so much sense. Both readings today on their own do a great job of teaching us about faith, but together, it really hits home.
I don't know about you, but I seem to bounce back and forth in my belief without often realizing it. It's not that I ever stop believing in God, but maybe just slowly start to forget just how GOOD He is, or just how much He cares for me and has a great plan for my life. You know, one moment something amazing happens and you believe, or you're waiting on something great and you just KNOW, no matter what, that God's going to come through. But then there are the times that we get discouraged, maybe pessimistic and we entertain thoughts that God's not in control of this situation, or let ourselves believe He's not concerned with it. Or maybe we just kind of forget to include Him in the mix at all, doing it on our own, going our own way without realizing that means we're not following Him.
Today, this story of Abraham was God's wake up call to me about just where my faith is at. What an amazing man who believed what God promised, even when it seemed impossible. How hard is it for me to often believe things that don't even seem that difficult? Why did he believe? Simply: "he thought that the one who had made the promise was trustworthy." Heb 11
God, give me faith like Abraham, and help me remember just how trustworthy you are.
And then, as if Abraham doesn't make me look bad enough, speaking of the descendants of Abraham it says :
"All these died in faith.
They did not receive what had been promised
but saw it and greeted it from afar and acknowledged themselves to be strangers and aliens on earth,
for those who speak thus show that they are seeking a homeland.
If they had been thinking of the land from which they had come,
they would have had opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better homeland, a heavenly one.
Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God,
for he has prepared a city for them."
They did not receive what had been promised... God, give me faith like these holy people, who never gave up on you. Even when they met death without having received their promise, they knew their God enough to know he was trustworthy. And they knew Him enough to desire a heavenly homeland more than an earthly one. Just like Jesus, who met death before receiving His promise.
God's timing is a tricky thing. We often must wait for God's promises to us. Usually not nearly as long as many of the Saints did, but they never come as quickly as we'd like them to. That's when I have to really draw closer to Him, because the more I know His heart, the more I know just how trustworthy it is, and I can confidently trust in His timing.
Then, I have to acknowledge that striving to obtain the faith that God asks of me will be an endless task on this earth. Even as the disciples are in the boat with Jesus, they lose faith. I'm sure I'll have so many more ups and downs along the way, but if I keep Jesus in my boat, even if my faith is to falter, surely He'll be there to get me back on track and reassure me that "the one who made the promise is trustworthy."
God, give me faith like Abraham. Jesus, give me faith like yours. Holy Spirit, quiet my heart as I wait.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Winter Won't Last Forever, I Promise
It's been spring-like here in Minnesota the past few days. An odd thing for us for January. We are used to temperatures well below zero many days, cold winds, blowing snow and a blanket of white covering everything you can see. Of course, even though that's the "norm," we know in Minnesota that our weather can often be quite outside the norm. So, it's thawing. We've had 40 degree temperatures, sunshine and rain. The snow has mostly all melted except for big piles or drifts that hold together longer, the icicles hanging from trees and buildings have all dripped off or fallen off and the ground is thawing. Instead of snow and ice we have water and mud.
It's amazing when we are so used to the cold temperatures that 40 degrees feels so incredibly nice. I went out today without a coat and didn't even realize it until I was in town. (Hopefully my mom doesn't read that, she'd still shake her head at me.) And even though when I step outside and feel the moist warmth that is so refreshing and welcome, I can't help but hold back tears as I look out my window at the world melting. All I see are L & L, our foster children who came to stay with us during the melting months and into the spring of last year. All of my memories of this type of weather include them and I can't help but miss them and worry about them. We wished and prayed and wanted for them to become a part of our family. They went back to their birth parents and while I hope for the best, I can't help but worry constantly, knowing the challenges they faced in the past in that living environment.
I picture their bright eyes and hear their beautiful laughs as they jumped in puddles, climbed snow piles and tackled me. I remember the chaos of stripping down 3 mud-covered toddlers on the rug by the door before they could make it any farther and plopping them all in the tub for baths and tossing all the clothes in the washer, only to repeat the entire ordeal each day. But all the remembering in the world can't ease my worry and hurt over losing them and the horrible reality of knowing I can no longer protect them. I was their mom, and I couldn't protect them. Often I wonder if they blame me, for abandoning them too, just like every other adult in their life had done. They had let themselves get attached, love us, trust us even. And then one day we said goodbye and they never saw us again. I could go on and on about how I hate the system and spend all day playing out the "what would their lives be like if they had stayed", but mostly I just hurt. I ache to cuddle their tiny bodies while reading a book, or play one more game of ring around the rosy. I would give anything to watch them run around our yard or give me big smiles with popsicle juice running down their chins. And I can sit and sulk in that pain and hurt, entertaining negative thoughts about the evil in the world never getting better.
God nudges me in those moments and reminds me I'm getting wrapped up in the wrong places again. It can be so easy to forget just what life is about, just what we're here for. When the world is so twisted and messed up and we feel so out of place, I have to remember that this is not my home. That hope that someday I will go to heaven and NEVER EVER watch another child be treated with anything less that perfect love, never feel worry or hurt, that is the hope I cling to. I am so blessed in my journey to have been given so many reminders of that. When our winter gets so long that we can't remember anymore what summer even feels like, all of the sudden we get one of these 40 degree days. You know the feeling...you step outside and feel the sunshine on your face, the warmth in the air, the birds chirping, and you can just sigh and say "that's what spring feels like". Days like that are reminders to us that winter won't last forever, and spring is coming. Luckily for us, just like God give us warm moments to hold on to, He also gives us reminders here on Earth to help us remember heaven is coming. I hold on to the pieces of my faith that give me that same reassurance. Sunday Mass, Adoration, a special connection in prayer, a friend who shares the faith, seeing the love of the Trinity reflected in my family, a beautiful funeral....It's in those moments that we just KNOW better days are coming. Hold on to those moments, make it a priority to make more of them in your life, and use that reassurance to make it through the cold times in life with never-ending hope in what is to come.
It's amazing when we are so used to the cold temperatures that 40 degrees feels so incredibly nice. I went out today without a coat and didn't even realize it until I was in town. (Hopefully my mom doesn't read that, she'd still shake her head at me.) And even though when I step outside and feel the moist warmth that is so refreshing and welcome, I can't help but hold back tears as I look out my window at the world melting. All I see are L & L, our foster children who came to stay with us during the melting months and into the spring of last year. All of my memories of this type of weather include them and I can't help but miss them and worry about them. We wished and prayed and wanted for them to become a part of our family. They went back to their birth parents and while I hope for the best, I can't help but worry constantly, knowing the challenges they faced in the past in that living environment.
I picture their bright eyes and hear their beautiful laughs as they jumped in puddles, climbed snow piles and tackled me. I remember the chaos of stripping down 3 mud-covered toddlers on the rug by the door before they could make it any farther and plopping them all in the tub for baths and tossing all the clothes in the washer, only to repeat the entire ordeal each day. But all the remembering in the world can't ease my worry and hurt over losing them and the horrible reality of knowing I can no longer protect them. I was their mom, and I couldn't protect them. Often I wonder if they blame me, for abandoning them too, just like every other adult in their life had done. They had let themselves get attached, love us, trust us even. And then one day we said goodbye and they never saw us again. I could go on and on about how I hate the system and spend all day playing out the "what would their lives be like if they had stayed", but mostly I just hurt. I ache to cuddle their tiny bodies while reading a book, or play one more game of ring around the rosy. I would give anything to watch them run around our yard or give me big smiles with popsicle juice running down their chins. And I can sit and sulk in that pain and hurt, entertaining negative thoughts about the evil in the world never getting better.
God nudges me in those moments and reminds me I'm getting wrapped up in the wrong places again. It can be so easy to forget just what life is about, just what we're here for. When the world is so twisted and messed up and we feel so out of place, I have to remember that this is not my home. That hope that someday I will go to heaven and NEVER EVER watch another child be treated with anything less that perfect love, never feel worry or hurt, that is the hope I cling to. I am so blessed in my journey to have been given so many reminders of that. When our winter gets so long that we can't remember anymore what summer even feels like, all of the sudden we get one of these 40 degree days. You know the feeling...you step outside and feel the sunshine on your face, the warmth in the air, the birds chirping, and you can just sigh and say "that's what spring feels like". Days like that are reminders to us that winter won't last forever, and spring is coming. Luckily for us, just like God give us warm moments to hold on to, He also gives us reminders here on Earth to help us remember heaven is coming. I hold on to the pieces of my faith that give me that same reassurance. Sunday Mass, Adoration, a special connection in prayer, a friend who shares the faith, seeing the love of the Trinity reflected in my family, a beautiful funeral....It's in those moments that we just KNOW better days are coming. Hold on to those moments, make it a priority to make more of them in your life, and use that reassurance to make it through the cold times in life with never-ending hope in what is to come.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
You're Right, It's Not Enough to Be a Mom
I've asked myself the question a hundred times, as I know so many other mom's have too: Is it enough? Meaning is it enough to JUST stay home with my kids or to JUST be a mom and wife. I've always been very career driven and put so much of my self-worth into my success in my career. I've also always felt a strong call to tirelessly share the Gospel. I've prayed and prayed about the plan that God has for me, and when I felt called to leave my job to stay home with my kids it took me a lot longer than usual to listen because I worried about that question: Is it enough? Will it be enough to satisfy my needs and desires to share myself? Is this really all that God wants of me? Surely I could do more...
I think over the last year God has revealed this message to me in many different ways, but one night in particular a couple weeks ago, it finally sunk in. Here's what it looked like:
My husband had just turned out the lights and I turned to look at the video monitor as I pulled up the covers. "He really is the cutest isn't he." I said. Our 4 month old was sleeping peacefully, looking ever-so-small in that big crib. "We'll see how cute you think he is at 3 AM," Dan replied. .” “He’s always cute,” I argued and snuggled in to my pillow. I had just started to drift to sleep and then came his soft cries. "Seriously baby?" I waited to see if he’d find his thumb and go back to sleep but the cries got louder. “Ok.” My body protested as I pulled the covers off and forced myself back out of bed. As I walked out of the bedroom Dan mumbled in his half-asleep state, “maybe he just needs to be changed and will go right back to sleep.” “Yeah right” I replied as I walked to the kitchen and made a bottle. I went up to his room and greeted him with a smile, “Hello sweet baby,” and he can’t help but take a break from his crying to smile at me. Then he goes right back to letting me know how hungry he is.
As soon as the bottles in his mouth and he’s comfortably in my arms as we rock in the old chair in his room, he is quiet. I take it in. I realize that the baby that looked so tiny yet on the monitor suddenly seems so large in my arms. Looking down at him, I’m taken aback by just how big he’s gotten. He stretches all the way across my body, his feet hanging far over my thighs. His head is no where near the size of a newborns. But he is almost 5 months old. I try to remember how little he used to be, to compare. I can’t. I can’t picture it. It was just a couple months ago. I try to think of specific moments: his birth. OK, there he is. I can see his scrunched up face crying so violently. I can picture his tiny legs curling up every time I changed him. But there are so few memories I can recall. The tears stream down my face as I hold him against my chest patting his back for a burp as his breathing becomes that of the soft rhythmic sleep. And then I know. THIS is the surprise.
You see, during Advent and Christmas I was praying and feeling like God was going to reveal something to me. That He had a surprise for me, and I was racking my brain trying to figure out what it was and anxiously awaiting it's arrival. In my mind I was hoping for a door to open in my ministry or for a foster placement or another adoption or even my own successful pregnancy (the sky's the limit when God says He's going to surprise you, right?) I had been looking and praying and looking and praying and nothing had happened yet. But there, in that moment, I held that tiny little boy and tried to memorize the sound and feel of every breath, because I heard: "This is the surprise. And you're missing it. You're missing it because you’re so busy chasing something else. These boys you’ve been given, they are your purpose." It’s as if I could see my whole future life in front of my eyes and I knew that if THIS was the only thing I did, I would feel satisfied, accomplished…I would feel the only thing I’ve ever wanted really: to make my Heavenly Father proud. How I’ve stressed and struggled and worried how I’m meant to do that and it’s been here the whole time. These tiny hands and feet, these eyes that look into mine with such love, this is my surprise, and I won’t be missing it anymore. It's not ENOUGH for me to be a mom and a wife, it's EVERYTHING. It's my entire reason for being. I was created to love my God, my husband and these amazing little lives that have been given to me. It's so much more than "enough."
I think over the last year God has revealed this message to me in many different ways, but one night in particular a couple weeks ago, it finally sunk in. Here's what it looked like:
My husband had just turned out the lights and I turned to look at the video monitor as I pulled up the covers. "He really is the cutest isn't he." I said. Our 4 month old was sleeping peacefully, looking ever-so-small in that big crib. "We'll see how cute you think he is at 3 AM," Dan replied. .” “He’s always cute,” I argued and snuggled in to my pillow. I had just started to drift to sleep and then came his soft cries. "Seriously baby?" I waited to see if he’d find his thumb and go back to sleep but the cries got louder. “Ok.” My body protested as I pulled the covers off and forced myself back out of bed. As I walked out of the bedroom Dan mumbled in his half-asleep state, “maybe he just needs to be changed and will go right back to sleep.” “Yeah right” I replied as I walked to the kitchen and made a bottle. I went up to his room and greeted him with a smile, “Hello sweet baby,” and he can’t help but take a break from his crying to smile at me. Then he goes right back to letting me know how hungry he is.
As soon as the bottles in his mouth and he’s comfortably in my arms as we rock in the old chair in his room, he is quiet. I take it in. I realize that the baby that looked so tiny yet on the monitor suddenly seems so large in my arms. Looking down at him, I’m taken aback by just how big he’s gotten. He stretches all the way across my body, his feet hanging far over my thighs. His head is no where near the size of a newborns. But he is almost 5 months old. I try to remember how little he used to be, to compare. I can’t. I can’t picture it. It was just a couple months ago. I try to think of specific moments: his birth. OK, there he is. I can see his scrunched up face crying so violently. I can picture his tiny legs curling up every time I changed him. But there are so few memories I can recall. The tears stream down my face as I hold him against my chest patting his back for a burp as his breathing becomes that of the soft rhythmic sleep. And then I know. THIS is the surprise.
You see, during Advent and Christmas I was praying and feeling like God was going to reveal something to me. That He had a surprise for me, and I was racking my brain trying to figure out what it was and anxiously awaiting it's arrival. In my mind I was hoping for a door to open in my ministry or for a foster placement or another adoption or even my own successful pregnancy (the sky's the limit when God says He's going to surprise you, right?) I had been looking and praying and looking and praying and nothing had happened yet. But there, in that moment, I held that tiny little boy and tried to memorize the sound and feel of every breath, because I heard: "This is the surprise. And you're missing it. You're missing it because you’re so busy chasing something else. These boys you’ve been given, they are your purpose." It’s as if I could see my whole future life in front of my eyes and I knew that if THIS was the only thing I did, I would feel satisfied, accomplished…I would feel the only thing I’ve ever wanted really: to make my Heavenly Father proud. How I’ve stressed and struggled and worried how I’m meant to do that and it’s been here the whole time. These tiny hands and feet, these eyes that look into mine with such love, this is my surprise, and I won’t be missing it anymore. It's not ENOUGH for me to be a mom and a wife, it's EVERYTHING. It's my entire reason for being. I was created to love my God, my husband and these amazing little lives that have been given to me. It's so much more than "enough."
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