Seasonal Living

A June Morning with Coffee 

The coffee's steam (and gracious warmth) evokes memories of Papua New Guinea highlands, to Bena Bena villages and the ever-present smoke-and-sweet-potato aroma cloud. It is more, though, the chill and certain discomfort, and the tear-welling awe...to behold Your beauty displayed in the clouds, the grandeur of the morning, a transient and transcendent sunrise moment. I don't see the sun, but layers upon layers of dust-thin sugar white cloud, and blue; a pale yellow hinted on their bulbous laughing edges; a sky marbled and swirled and breathed upon, and sent out to touch my heart and stir my feeble and thirsty spirit. It is too much to comprehend fully. My soul rests in utter weakness and dismay to grapple with Your beauty, artistry, craftsmanship- and dare I say, Your heart?

To get up early and seek the Lord in a quiet place...is greater than a thousand spent sleeping in. Your beauty is greater than a dream, your promises more certain and more alluring than any hard-won illusion. You are greater than my imagination. You are Master of my heart.

The helicopter roars overhead; the birds warble and cry and tussle in the tree limbs; the highway hums with coming and going and speeding and fleeing. But you beckon to me in the quiet place, to come and listen and know and receive. My soul drinks thirstily, warmed up and energized by your gracious presence, the Promise to Abide. How sweet it is. How my soul sings within me. How I long to marvel at Your wonders, at Your heart, for a thousand, thousand years and forevermore. Happily, ecstatically, tearfully, joyfully ever after!

Amen.


_________________________

I came across this bit of writing I composed at the beginning of the summer. As I've been enjoying the changing of the season, I was somewhat surprised to read about the beauty of my already forgotten summer mornings. It was a refreshing reminder that each season presents its own unique bit of beauty.

Each season of life, too, presents its own share of beauty and burden. We must receive them as they are, and be thankful for this present passing moment.

As I read the composition, it was as if the Lord had whispered to me, "Each season comes with both beauty and challenge. And each day comes with its own trouble and new mercy; its own strength and own opportunity for stretching."

I see this in this season of the year, this season of life, this day, and this moment. And it is good. It is good because in each season and each trial, God is good. ("Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS!") Each burden and beauty first passed through my Father's loving hands. I can trust Him. ("How I've proven Him o'er and o'er!")

His hands are powerful enough to bestow what's best, and to sustain me through what is most difficult.

His eye, too, is uniquely never negligent. I am negligent. Just ask my kids who warn me to PLEASE not burn the nachos under the broiler AGAIN! How many times have I forgotten trash day, or failed to come up with dinner, or come too late to catch the child who is falling off the furniture?

He is so different in this regard, for He never misses a need or a desire.

Yes, he's looking at you, Sparrow!

Not only that, but His ear actually inclines toward His children when we voice our desires, our needs, and our emotions. It is a leaning in, a drawing near, indicative of intimate relationship. Each day presents a new opportunity to pour out our heart's earnest cry and know that He is lavishing his generous love on us in return. Wow! Are you marveling with me?

Each season. Each day. New strength. New mercy.

In spite of any turmoil, passing trend, or distorted truth, our Heavenly Father remains consistently present, consistently powerful, consistently sufficient, consistently loving. I could go on and on.

Have you stopped to consider His attributes lately? Have you been captivated by them, entranced by them, changed by them? Have you lost yourself in thoughts of Him lately? I believe that such a practice is a panacea of sorts, curing a great and many spiritual ills.

One of my favorite verses for this particular season of my life, and one that has helped me personally overcome anxiety, is this:

"Be still and know that I am God." (from Psalm 46:10)

You might question, "But what does that have to do with ME? I have problems that have nothing to do with religion!"

I think the point is that it doesn't have to do with me. It has to do with Him. That isn't religion, just truth. He is the answer. He is the cure. He is the point. "He must become greater; I must become less." (John3:30) Less naval-gazing, more Christ-worshiping. This has done so much for me, and I truly hope it blesses you as well.

The Enemy wants you to keep running, keep distracting yourself, keep striving- to never be still! But God gives you permission- nay, commands you to STOP. Be still! Know that He is God! He is the cure! He is the peace! And He is sufficient to meet all of your needs one day at a time.

One day. One season.

For the rest of your life, and forevermore.

God bless,
Natasha

Acquiring a Taste for Jesus

Do you ever feel frustrated with a heart that doesn't want what it should want? I often have. I have often known what I need, but not felt what I should feel.

I just want to take a moment to savor this revisited realization that there is no life apart from Christ. There is nothing I could possibly want outside of Him or His will for me. Jesus IS better. And all that glitters in the world is not gold, but a fool's gold. How silly we are to be drawn to counterfeit again and again. We know it isn't real, but we want it to be real.

I want to be the kind of woman who, as Charles Spurgeon says, visits other books, but lives in the Bible. I need to live here. I need to live at the feet of Jesus, asking for more mercy, more life, more strength. There is no other fount. The only fount I know that gives life is drawn from Emanuel's veins. The others are fake and do nothing to truly quench my thirst.

I have lived so much of my life running around, only to come back and dip my toe in the fountain here and there, only as much as necessary. "That should hold me," I'd whisper to myself. But in so many seasons, I didn't have a taste for it. I wanted to skim the shallows but not plunge the depths. It takes too much time, stirs up too much emotion, fans into flame desires that would take all of me and spur me to abstain from sin held too closely to my heart. Who has time to feel conviction? Ugh! Such a bitter flavor, right?

As I teach my kids to say when they don't like something, "I haven't acquired a taste for it yet." Because as I always remind them, "Tastes are acquired. We learn to like the things we like."

Throughout many seasons of life, I didn't have a yearning for the Lord like a deer pants for water. I would come and go, deciding that this would get me by, and then keep living dehydrated, reclining at other fountains for as long as I could hold out. I wanted the glitter to be gold. I wanted the fountain to be life-giving. It's amazing how long we can live on an illusion, even knowing it is an illusion.

Why do we want to keep up the illusion? Why keep up the charade that there is goodness apart from God? We want to believe the world is not so bad, that getting by without Him is not so hard, that we're not so weak. What a bizarre lie that Satan has perpetuated through the ages. "The world is not so broken. Sin is not so bad. We don't really need anything more than we already have."

I tend to think these lies can only fester in the mind-numbing shallows of the world. They cannot penetrate the depths of truth. They don't "hold water" if you take a good look within and a good look without.

I'm raising kids in a dying, festering, stinking world. What a way to wake up each morning. Good morning, the world is ending. Pass the toast.

It's easier not to think about it. I suppose that much is true. Perhaps that's why that which is easy is usually not that which is right or true. To plunge the depths takes courage. Courage I don't have. Strength I don't have. Back to the fountain we go.

I want to talk about Jesus. Can we talk about Jesus a little more? I want to hear about Him. I want to meditate on Him. I want to sing about Him- new songs, old songs. Melodies begin to roil within my heart. Jesus IS better. But He is not only slightly better. Even as I write this, I don't want to talk to you. I want to talk to Jesus. I don't want to look at a screen; I want to look into the eyes of Jesus. My sluggish, traitor of a heart is acquiring a taste for the right things, finally. Again. And I just wanted to commemorate this moment of truth, this moment of clarity.

Thank You, Lord, for giving me eyes that see- that finally see, that You are all that I want. Your Light shines brighter than gold. And I shall sell all my possessions and spend all I have to buy that field of treasure. 

May my stubborn, diseased heart be trained ever more to love You and to love the things You love, to develop a distaste for sin, a sensitivity that allows me to be guided by Your Spirit. May my heart taste and see that You are good, good beyond words, good beyond the capabilities of my imagination, good beyond the brightest light and the purest gold. May I visit other books, but live in Your Word, live according to Your commandments, and delight in them for all my days. Your Word is good. Your ways are best. You are my one true love. For ever and ever. Amen.

P.S. Thank you for bearing with a lot of tortured metaphors in an effort to rather hear my heart reveling in Jesus. One day we shall have all the right words to make much of Jesus in the best and highest way possible. What a day of rejoicing that will be! 

Confession

How I want to live by sight and not by faith,
to see and judge that all is well,
that no good thing may change at all,
save with comfort and for boredom's cure.

But all life's waves be subject to my thought;
a placid sea of ripples mild; a tamed beast, this life- and I, the King!
Would you grant me this one thing? The entire world in my control;
to switch our roles and allow me Fate to hold.

This small favor, this one request:
to live by sight that I may rest.
A simple prayer, harmless, surely,
for then could I trust you most securely!

A vista view of faith; finally, a faith newfound!
I'd have the strength to walk and to obey.
This one request, my Lord, I pray:
to endow me not with service but with a crown!

I Don't Want to Write Letters to God

I don't want to write letters to You.
I want to steal away to a quiet place,
to feel the fresh and invigorating sunlight on my skin
and to know vividly that it is one of the wonders wrought by Your hand.
Your hand, alone, Oh God of Jacob
(and of Paris and Napa Valley and the Dead Sea,
and of Acorn Lane, where my knees were skinned,

palms sweaty from playground sand and monkey bars),
the God who quiets my heart and knows me
without misunderstanding, without manipulation
or assumptions or overlooking for something better, beyond.
I want to breathe air that is fresh- Your design,
and hear Your whisper on the wind- but closer,
to know Your nearness, nearer than the light

that filters through the maple leaves on a Spring morning.
I want to steal away into the quiet by Your invitation
for a leaning in, a softly spoken murmuring,
a dialog of ease and rest, a spell-binding conversation.
I want to hear Your voice, to know your cadence (-if only!)
to feel the love with my heart that I know with my head,
to have one look- to know You're looking back into my eyes

and feel that I am seen and known and understood and felt.
That one moment, a visit between friends, but so much more,
an adulterer and her Savior, a beggar and her King,
a helpless flounderer and the ardent Rescuer of her soul,
to still the anxious flutterings of my heart, the endless questions
of insecurity, the efforts to prove oneself, the desire to be known,
and to rest, and rest, and rest for eternity in the arms of my heart's One True Love.

Potty Training in (Re)Verse

It's the world's longest potty training

in which nothing is gaining,

only losing:

towels, clothes, sanity,

previously folded laundry

for a toddler's untrained musing

while standing in doorways

dripping, hesitating.

My head is tilted sideways,

asking, "Really?"

How long will this last?

Nobody knows, but the past

tells me not to hope,

only mop and regain scope

while wiping, waiting on her

flushing, frustrating

every daily intention.

And did my toddler mention

(oh, please let it be, once again)

that this puddle is not apple juice

I'm currently standing in?

An Ash Wednesday Psalm

Waste the flesh away

Waste! Waste!

But not the time of day.

Heed the Word of God

For thy Shield, thy Rod

Will hold thee fast.

Of earthly gold be rid;

Only this: Life hid

In Christ will last!

Contemplating the Unnatural Mother

          I reside in the mundane, living out the "softness" of the maternal season of womanhood. For me, the stay-at-home-mom life is a vista imbued with over-the-sink sills giving way to trash can-lined street scenes. It's the rolling in and crashing out of the seasons, the quiet thrumming and daily churning of a small but meaningful life.

          I question myself as much as I question the inscrutable images of other mothers, of other home life methods, comparing the variety of formulas, and weighing the pros and cons of every ritual and rule. And I come away with a resounding question mark, an unsolvable equation. Some mothers are master organizers, whipping out frugal solutions like a magician's rabbits. Others have mastered the art of riding out the waves, finding discomfort comfortable and chaos poetic. I admire both for their achievements and gifting.

          For a while, I grabbed a hold of the idea that there exist natural mothers and unnatural mothers. I decided that women who thrive in chaos, or at least more easily accept the nearly constant state of floundering that comes with sleepless nights, milk supply issues, and toddler tantrums, are the naturals. Some women, I supposed, truly love changing dirty diapers and scoff at the idea of doing anything else, or even wanting to do anything else, ever. Women like myself, I decided, who feel a distinct need for creative outlets, or who thrive in order and revel in routine, are just naturally...well, bad at motherhood.

          At some point, though, I started to suspect that if a lot of mothers look alike to me, then perhaps I'm just not looking very closely.

          Slowly, I'm beginning to accept the idea that there are not natural mothers and unnatural ones in as much as there is a vast variety of parenting styles, situations, convictions, and personalities which come into play to form the complete picture of anyone's experience of motherhood. I didn't cease to be a complicated, ambitious woman when I became a mother. She's all still there, sometimes crying into her cold coffee, and sometimes stomping on the cellar door with her daughters while the dog yelps like mad and I imagine we're princesses at a pow-wow.

          In short, I guess I'm becoming more and more comfortable with the idea that I'm dancing to the beat of my own maternal drum. If any other mothers out there feel out of place or ill-equipped for the job, don't listen to the lie that you're not made to do this.

          Just keep dancing, Darling. Just keep dancing.

Sincerely,
Natasha