Unforced Rhythms of Grace

Yesterday marked 5 years since I took the first steps away from my nursing career.  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving will mark five years since I last filled the position of Registered Nurse.  Leaving nursing was an idea that only made sense to my husband and myself.  It did not make sense.  I was two and a half months away from my wedding.  In our planning and wisdom we had decided that while I was feeling that God was leading me to leave nursing we would wait until we had been married a couple of months.  Our thought was that I would go to a part-time position and begin pursuing college classes that would prepare me for ministry.  

It was the perfect plan.... 

Until it wasn't.

I will never forget the moment I realized that all of the planning we had discussed meant nothing when God said it is time to leave.  

You see, I'm a detail person.  I find great joy in making the details work to accomplish a goal.  My first goal at that time was to make it through my wedding.  But God had decided that there were lessons to learn.  So we listened and I handed in my two weeks notice.  There were so many people that thought I was crazy.  I was quitting with no plan.  I sort of feel like I understand how Abraham felt as he packed up to leave his home country.  

Neighbor

"Hey, Abram, we see you are packing to leave.  Where are you headed?"

Abraham

"I'm not really sure.  I'm just suppose to leave"

Neighbor

"Dude, you are nuts!  Do you realize that there are heathens are out there?"

Abraham

"Yeah, but God said go..."

The crazy thing...

Within a week or two of my resignation at my job, our associate pastor at the church we were attending handed in his resignation.  As I was asked to fill his position as an interim I had my first taste of ministry.  While ultimately that position did not work out, it served to provide some valuable insight into what life in ministry would be like.  

As I've been thinking about that first step that began a rather crazy journey, it has struck me that November tends to be the month God consistently seems to call our family to follow him in crazy ways that test our faith.

Two years ago, after the position at the church had not worked out I was still working at a local optometrist office.  It wasn't nearly what I made in nursing, but it helped with the bills.  Then in November of 2015 God called us to the radical again...  He indicated that it was time to let go of that little part time job.  So after much prayer and with much trepidation, I once more handed in my resignation, letting go of the security that this job provided.  All of this as we were expecting our second daughter.  

Fast forward another two years and yet again in November, God has called me to let go of security again.  This one is a little fresh to share, but the truth in this situation is that I'm once again unsettled. While I can look at my past and see that each time we have moved in the direction that God has directed, He provides amazing opportunities that I never would have imagined.  

But still, I find myself standing once more at the abyss of the unknown.  I don't know what comes next...  I can't plan for the next step in my Bullet Journal.  I can't look at the details and connect them all in the right order.  Instead I have been called to wait.  Waiting is a nerve wracking place to be....  It is full of uncertainty and a fog clouds the future.  I can't see the next step right now...

I suppose it was likely a situation much like this that inspired 

Psalm 119:105 (NIV)

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

Right now, the words that I find bringing comfort to my uncertainty come from Matthew 11:28-30 in the Message:

"Are you tired?  Worn out?  Burned out on religion? Come to me.  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 will learn to live freely and lightly."

"Learn the unforced rhythms of grace."  

Part of me wants to force results.  I want to muscle through it forcing the details into a place where they work.  But deeper connection with God is not found in the busyness and white noise with which we surround ourselves.  It is found in the "unforced rhythms of grace".  

The truth is I am tired.  I'm exhausted in a soul deep way.  I desperately need the rest that God promises in this passage.  So for this season I find that the uncertainty points me to rest.  It points me to pull on those things that I lose sight of when I fill my life too full of the craziness.  I asks me to not just learn, but to remember what I have learned about the rhythms of grace God desires us to embrace and live out of freely and without burden.

#nospendOctober

Earlier this year I purchased a book titled Living Well, Spending Less by Ruth Soukup.  Can I share that I loved this book and jumped on board implementing most of the ideas.  Except that crazy idea of a no spend month.  That was the one thing I was certain, I did not have the strength or will-power to do.

Fast forward 9 months later and I find our family nearly one week in to a no spend October.  I think the number of people I've had tell me they could never do that made me reflect and realize.... That was me back in January and February as I was reading this idea for the first time.  I had a long list of all of the reasons that it didn't make sense for us.  We had baby.  We "needed" to have the ability to eat out.  We needed date nights.  My list of rationalizations went on and on.

And then something happened....  God turned our life upside down.  In January, I could rationalize the need to meet people for a meal out.  The need to invest in relationships that made it impossible to give up the dining out budget.  Going to a church service took everything I had so what else were we to do, but go grab lunch out afterward?

The interesting thing about inviting God into your everyday life, something that our family has tried to do more consciously this year, is that God starts to show you what is really a value and what is just taking up space in your life.  As God moves more fully in to the life you invite Him to share, He starts to push out the things that are taking up space that He intends for something else.  

What I've discovered in my journey from "Just Say No (to this crazy idea)" January to "No Spend" October, is that when I let Him in more fully God starts to push out the unnecessary.  In some cases it's relationships that while they aren't "bad", they aren't pushing me to find ways to draw closer to Him.  In other instances it was busywork that I had allowed to consume my life over the past few years because it was "for a good cause".

The crazy thing is that our No Spend October is becoming our busiest month this fall.  We are finding opportunities to practice hospitality that we missed in the busyness of our "full" life.  We have the opportunity to take part in a Family Day at a local orchard with our daughter's daycare (ok, so I reached a little bit and justified that as a grocery expense since we're getting a bag of apples out of it).  We get to spend time with 3 different groups of friends (and that's just what we have scheduled).  We're going to the Halloween Hike at our local park on the last day of our No Spend month.  It's crazy, but our life is being stripped down to purposeful things.  Things that I walk away from feeling like I've received an amazing blessing by God in being able to just stop the craziness and allow God to push some of the unnecessary things out of my life.  So I have room for the life He wants to invite me into with Him.

Finding Me

It's been a struggle to write lately.  I try.  I sit down and I start, but nothing seems to come out quite right.  The words feel forced and like they aren't coming from the real me.  They are from the me who has been instructed for years to keep it together.  Even in the places where I discovered the concept of genuine and authentic, ultimately the message I received was leaders do not let themselves show that much emotion.  How am I suppose to function that way?  How am I suppose to go through life tamping down my emotion?  I'm discovering that it is similar to tamping gunpowder into a musket.  Eventually.... It goes off.   Eventually my body can't handle the strain any longer.  I start having headaches, panic attacks and tension that turns my entire back into a mess of knots.

Sunday as I sat in the auditorium of the church we've been attending over the past few months, God sent a reminder in the message.  A reminder of the masks that the Pharisee's lived behind every day.  It was a much needed wake-up call for me.  It made me remember the 30 year old who had tearfully wrestled with God about changing churches nearly 5 years ago.  It made me remember the 32 year old who left what many saw as a secure job in nursing to follow a calling God placed in her heart.  It made me realize that somewhere along the way, while being on staff in a church, in the place most people would think you'd be closest to God, I lost sight of how He wanted to care for me.  I lost sight of my faith somehow.  The faith that made Abraham pack up and take a journey for which there was no map.  The faith that sustained Joseph even in the prisons of Egypt, that allowed him to continue to believe in a crazy dream that God had given him.  It had faded in my life.  Somehow I began to rely on the things I could see.  The way things had always been done in the past.  I believed the messages of I wasn't as talented as others, therefore I didn't really make sense where I was.  I let myself become persuaded to initially agree to a job that I wasn't suited to as a potential means to an end because it made sense.  And somehow agreeing to all of those things I lost who I was.

God's brought some rather interesting things into my life in the last week that have had me re-evaluating and re-discovering myself.  The first is a program called Dressing Your Truth.  It's a program designed to help women discover who they are and how they can best present themselves in a way that enhances their natural-God given beauty and personality.  For me, having taken personality tests, DISC profiles and extensive counseling, I was pretty impressed at how one particular type of beauty/energy they described fit me.  It was like seeing the potential in myself through someone else's eyes. (As a squirrel side note: I discovered I have curly hair.  That was super exciting for me!)   The really crazy thing is that I had started this make-over process before hearing the message on Sunday about Hypocrisy.  Earlier in the week I had begun to sort through the clothes in my closet searching for what they refer to as Type 2 colors as the best reflection of who I am as a person.  

As I sat listening to the pastor I realized that I had already begun the process of pushing away the lie of the masks I had begun to wear again.  I want to live as the truest version of myself!  I don't want to be what someone else tries to convince me I need to be in order to be effective.  God created me with everything I need to be effective in the role He has called me to fill.  Since it's my own unique role it's not going to look like anyone else.  Even mentors, who I greatly admire will look different as they live out their unique call.  I'm called to learn from them, not be them.

Today, as a date my husband and I went to see Disney's new Pixar film Inside Out.  While many have commented on it's cuteness, I suspected going into it that it would be an extremely emotional film for me.  I wasn't wrong (I'm starting to know myself well...).  As the story-line progressed, I recognized something about myself.  Much like the trailers for the film show there is a lot of attempting to suppress Sadness.  To not let it have it's way in the story of our lives.  I tend to try to do that myself a lot.  Somewhere along the line I bought into the belief that sadness is an emotion that is not acceptable.  That it is an emotion to be hidden.  The thing I took away from an animated children's film is that we experience the greatest joy after we've acknowledged the sadness that exists in our lives.  The truth, I've experienced great sadness this year.  I cry when it seems like I see my friends moving on, celebrating the addition of others to their lives, when it feels like I've been forgotten.  I realized today that I spend a lot of time apologizing for this necessary emotion, rejecting it's existence and hiding behind a false mask of joy.  When I do that, when I deny sadness it's crucial role in my life, I deny a part of who I am.  There's a saying "Don't cry that it's over, smile that it happened."  I'm not sure I agree with that anymore.  I'm not so sure that the smile isn't a mask we use to reject the sadness we don't want to experience.  Cry that it's over.  Mourn the loss of something that was special.  Because only by experiencing the sadness is it possible to experience the joy to it's fullest.  

So what do a make-over, a sermon and a Pixar movie have in common?  Well, in my life they share a message that God seemed determined to get across.  Live in who you  were created to be, allow yourself to experience every piece of life and stop hiding behind the masks.

Desolate

But He would withdraw to desolate places and pray. 

~Luke 5:16 ESV

Desolate.  It's a rather depressing word, don't you think?  It's a word that I think we often associate with destruction and loneliness, but its the very word used to describe where Jesus intentionally went.  A place where there was no busyness, no people.  Where it was just Him and God.  An empty place where he could be filled.

Desolate.  I find myself asking the question lately though, if Jesus chose to go to a place that was empty, silent and lonely, what should I be learning from that?  

The truth I'm finding about myself though is the desolate places aren't always places I want to go.  They become the places where I learn about myself.  Sometimes in those desolate places the lies that I've spent years believing about myself are challenged and while that sounds like a good thing it actually can be painful.  I'm challenged to see myself as having worth when it's often easier to view myself through the lens of less than good enough.  You see if I start to see myself as having worth in God's eyes then it means I need to listen to what He wants to say to me in those desolate places.

I'm an introvert who would much rather be lost in the white noise of activity even if it wears me out because silence means that God has the opportunity to remind me who I am to Him.  If I can lose myself in the noise of other people's words that indicate I'm lacking in some way then I'm not required to step up to the task to which God is calling me.

Desolate.  No matter how I try though it's the place that God continues to call me to meet Him.  I hear Him beckoning, offering the rest that my soul longs to embrace.  But inside I often fear it comes with a price.  I somehow feel that the price tag is that I have to give up something that I can't part with.  Some part of me that means I'm no longer Tonya.  

Desolate.  As I'm drawn into that empty place, I realize something amazing.  I see that the emptiness doesn't mean that God is taking away all of these important things.  I'm finding that He's giving me a gift in the desolate place He's called me to meet Him.  He's giving me the gift of simplifying so that I have more energy and more time for the things that bring me joy and energize me.  He's giving me the gift of rest a moment to recharge so that I'm ready to be who He designed me to be.

Facing the Past

Recent conversations with a couple of friends combined with things I've found myself struggling with recently have made me think a lot about how our past affects us.  It's funny, but it seems like every time I start to think I've made progress in an area something happens that makes me think maybe not as much as I thought...  Maybe it's just God keeping me humble, but after managing for a few months with no issues from one I think maybe I had started to think I had it under control, which obviously meant God had to show me I'll never have it under control.  

I realize it's a lesson that will probably still have to be repeated occasionally, but I discovered something this time around that I hope I remember a little more quickly in the future.  To deal with wounds from the past the only way to heal is to continually give them over to a loving God.  Of course much like Frodo discovered after being stabbed by the Nazgul some wounds while they heal always leave reminders.  They bring with them certain reactions that are instictive because of the original pain they delivered.  We pull away from the pain that we expect. 

Of course even though we pull away almost instinctively we still have the final choice.  We can continue to pull away and react defensively or we can face our fears and insecurities and allow God to use others to help us deal with them.  I suppose that one thing that stood out to me as I personally faced some things and it was that maybe as a way of getting me ready for the next growing phase God had sent just the right people into my life to give me the reality checks I needed at the time I needed them.  People who weren't afraid to say slow down, hurry up, kick it in gear or even just wait. 

I think it brought me back in a full circle to something the last several months have been reinforcing.  Success in life really is about the relationships we make.  Not success in the "I made the Fortune 500 list" way, but success in that I accomplished things I never would or could have on my own and I did it because of the people who held me up when I was discouraged, encouraged me when I didn't see what God was doing and held out for the bigger picture they could see from their vantage point. 

God's Timing

It's a funny thing how sometimes when you are going through some of the moments that change and define you the most you somehow don't realize how important they are until you look back in hindsight.  I think that's one of the interesting thing about God's timing.  It's subtle.  I think that's something that I've realized over the last five months especially as some of the lessons and experiences I've had over the last five years have come together and started to make sense.  It's had me re-evaluating my life, the people God has sent into it and the impact they have made especially over the last four years. 

In meeting up with friends I hadn't seen in a few months I realized something about God's timing.  Sometimes it's not just about when new events, people or circumstances are introduced into our lives.  Sometimes it's about the fact he asks you to surrender something you hold dear so that he can return it for an even greater impact in your life. 

I think one of the greatest challenges I've faced came earlier this year, in the belief that God was asking me to give up something I held very dear with no guarantees for the future.  It made no sense to me that at a time in my life when things seemed to be going good I was being asked to give up what I loved and was familiar with, something that I could look at and see had been a positive thing in my life.  At that time as the events of two years began to come together into the events of a mere four weeks, the recurrent answer that came from a friend to my repeated question of why ended up being "It's all in God's timing."

It's an answer that seems to have repeated itself often over the following months and tonight I realized that not just the new things that come into our lives, but the renewing of old relationships as we are ready to deal with them or react to them in a different way are in God's timing as well.  If we try to recapture initial moments of relationships as we know them, we lose the chance to see what can develop in God's timing.  While we see our slice of time and how it impacts us if we refuse to allow God to work in his time we miss the opportunity to experience what he has in store for that relationship.  Sometimes it means allowing time for it to grow and sometimes it means letting go.  Ultimately it comes down to realizing that God truly does have a perfect time for everything and if we let him work things out in his time it turns out infinitely better than our timing.

Being vs. Doing

What is a life sold out to God?  As someone who grew up in church and often heard how we need to "sell out to God", "surrender our life to Him"  and "die to the world".  I'm sorry to say eventually I came to the place that it really didn't matter how it was phrased I began tuning it out thinking the idea was this high spiritual plane that I could never even hope to achieve so what was the use in trying?  In my mind it became better to simply not try rather than try and be reminded of my shortcomings.  Not necessarily the right attitude to have, but one that I was able to function with.

I'm not sure at what point the light bulb actually went off in my head, but at some point I came to a realization about the problem with my thought process.  I was operating under the idea that I had to "fix" myself so to speak before I could "surrender completely".  I had to make myself acceptable before I could expect God to accept what I had to offer.  In other words, I had Cain's problem.  I thought somewhere in me there was something that God would be honored to accept for his service if I just worked hard enough at it.  I think it was at that point I realized plans are good.  To go through life never having a thought as to what you will do next is not really an option, but how often was I guilty of trying to plan how my spiritual life would go.  I realized that in much the same way I would plan my day out at work, I'll do A, B and C before lunch, D, E and F after lunch and if I get to G and H that's great, but they could wait until tomorrow.  I was applying that to my spiritual life.  If I could read a certain amount of Scripture that day, spend a set amount of time in prayer and go to church a set number of times a week my spiritual obligations had been fulfilled and if I repeated this enough one day I could maybe reach that place where I was "sold out" to God. 

The moment I realized that God doesn't want perfection, he wants willingness was a life changing point for me.  It meant stepping back and not doing, but being.  In doing I was showing others what I could do for God.  If my attitude is wrong I might even be trying to show them how fortunate God is to have someone like me representing him on the humble earth.  The interesting thing about the word do is that in any form it can pretty much stand by itself in a sentence.  It doesn't depend on another word to help define it's intent.  As for being, that's another story entirely.  It needs other words to show it's true and full meaning.  For me that meant that in being rather than doing I have to allow something other than my own steam to define the sentence of my life.  If I can do something in my own power, if people can look at my life and totally explain everything that happens by my strength and endurance then I'm really not living a life that emphasises the wonder and strength of God.  If I can show how I planned to get from point A to point B it's my story, but if there is no human way to explain how point B came from point A, well that's a story that only God can write!

A friend recently made the observation that he believes the way we go through things is the way God makes sure we learn well the lessons he's teaching us.  I must admit that based on my life in the last five years I completely agree with him.  Somehow the struggles as you try to accept that God has a bigger picture in mind while dealing with the daily disappointments of life not being where you anticipated at this point in your life take on a different view when you make it through that lesson and are on the other side.  I think that acceptance that we cannot manage the outcome and giving up control over some part of our life where maybe we didn't even realize control was such an issue for us is one of the hardest parts in the idea of being versus doing.  There is a part of us that wants to sit down and work on our ten year plan so that we feel productive, but the still small voice didn't come when Elijah was calling down fire on Mount Carmel it came when he was at his lowest and couldn't "do" anything to help himself.  In much the same way we have to come to the place that we are willing to "be" the conduit that God can use to show his greatness rather than showing the world how great God is by what we "do".

Comfort Zones

Comfort zones are interesting things.  I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to love them.  They symbolize security.  They provide this little cocoon of safety and familiarity.  When I'm in them I have this protected feeling like nothing can really truly hurt me as long as I stay in their familiar embrace.  Of course the thing I've come to realize is that comfort zones while they definitely have their good points and the times they are necessary, to truly grow you have to step outside of them at some point.  I mean what happens if a catapiller decides hanging out in that cocoon is way better than ever coming out of it.  When it comes out it becomes vulnerable to any number of dangers.  Outside of the cocoon there are birds, spider webs and little kids with science projects to complete!  Inside the comfort zone those threats while still there seem less likely.  It's like in our comfort zone we can close our eyes like a toddler and insist that none of those dangers can see us.  Of course as long as the catapiller stays in it's cocoon it never has the opportunity to see what it's full potential is, what a beautiful butterfly it can become.  If the eagle's offspring insists on hanging out in the nest it will never discover how high it is truly capable of soaring.  So what do we miss when we insist that our comfort zone is far enough?

Don't get me wrong.  As I mentioned before comfort zones can be great things, they can help build some confidence in areas, they can be necessary for emotional and even spiritual healing, but eventually if we are ever to achieve the vision God has of what he wants us to become we will have to step out of the comfort zone.   It doesn't require much faith to stay there since we pretty much think we know how life will go if we do so, the faith comes when you follow the call that leads you out of that familiarity, the call that encourages you to get out of the boat in the middle of a storm and walk on the water.  To me Peter is an awesome example of what you can experience if you are willing to consider stepping out of your comfort zone.  I think we often tend to think of the "where did your faith go" aspect of Peter's walk on the water while the other side to it is Peter walked on the water!  Outside of Jesus who else in the history of mankind has managed that?  Does that mean the dangers and pitfalls cease to exist?  No, but realistically they are there even when we stay in our comfort zones so why not find what the true potential God has for us really is?

The Present Future

Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.                                     Jeremiah 33:3 (KJV)

You know it's funny how so caught up in life we can get that we never think to stop and actually think about how much God cares about our everyday existence.  I mean think about it He cares so much that while we are so busy trying to work our way through all of the "small" things in our life that while maybe they are rocking our world at the time we look back at them later and wonder why they were such a big deal at the time all that time He's looking at the bigger picture we cannot even begin to comprehend. 

Now I'm usually the type of person who while I like to think that I tend to look at the bigger picture, I've never really stopped to look at God's bigger picture when I'm in the middle of something.  It's not that I don't think about it, it's just that I'm so busy being consumed by what is going on around me that I can see that the idea of God's future that He's working toward can be like a fortune teller's prediction.  It's there, you think about it, but at the same time while you are so sure of your faith and belief it's not enough to shake you out of the rut you've fallen into of living for the future based on what you understand about today.  Now at this point I can already hear the gasps!  I compared God to a fortune teller?  How sacrilegious!!  But isn't that what we do?  We think about the future He has for us as this thing as shrouded in mystery as the intentionally vague predictions of a gypsy fortune teller.  We want what we classify as excitement so badly that we will settle for creating it out of something that can be exciting in it's own right if we just let God lead our future.

Just as recently as yesterday something made me stop to look at what most of us would see as the little coincidences of life and I'm still alternating between laughing and crying about it!  I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I had one of those moments I like to refer to as my light bulb moments.  One of those moments in time where you come to a realization that the life God wants to give you and the future He has for you is so much easier to attain than we want to make it.  Honestly, admit it we are the ones that make things like becoming a missionary to deepest darkest Africa more exciting than going to work in small town America and challenging ourselves to see who we can impact today.  We are the ones that see glamor in being handicapped and achieving great things rather than being healthy and making an impact in the people we meet daily. 

We are blessed with so many things that we take for granted.  And yes, I do realize that is a phrase we hear trotted out on a regular basis to encourage involvement in a variety of areas including, but not limited to volunteering and religious involvement, but I'm not talking about the "normal" references such as health, family, etc.  I'm talking about the things that we even get into the future and "forget" about.  How many of us are guilty of just going through life and never realizing at the time that God has put the exact people in our lives for the exact time we need them?  How many times do we make things harder for ourselves by not utilizing the resources He gives us for a time such as this. 

So back to my light bulb moment.  As I set thinking about some of the recent things that have happened in my life and realized the unlikely areas I had received advice, support and prayers when I needed them the most it was almost overwhelming!   My pastor often says that it's amazing how we are able to trust God to save us and with our distant future, but we have such a hard time trusting Him with the present future.  It's so true.  We can trust Him with what we can't see, but we are always guilty (myself included) of trying to figure our way out of the present problems on our own.  Much as a toddler looks up and says "Mommy, I do myself" in much the same way we look at God and say, "Ok, you can step back, I have it under control, I can manage this one", but how often do we end up with a comedy of errors worthy of Abbott & Costello in the aftermath!

How different could it be if we took the resources and support that God sends into our lives and actually used them?  I'm not one to make New Years Resolutions, but this year while I'm not calling it a resolution exactly, one of my prayers was that I would learn to look at things in a different way than I have in the past.  That I would start to let God work more in the immediate future rather than the distant.  In doing that I have found that my entire view of life has changed!  I'm seeing the relationships He has sent into my life in an entirely different way and feel so overwhelmingly blessed sometimes all there is to do is laugh at how I never saw it before and cry that He thinks so much of me and my future that He takes the time to make sure my path crosses with those people that change your life and view on life completely and forever.