Roots or Wings?

I had roots and I have given my kids wings.

I am not sure that there is a black and white answer to the question of which is best.  I have searched deep within myself for many years with little success.  Maybe there isn't one, so much in life can not be filed in neat little compartments.  Maybe God's sovereignty over our lives is personal.  We are messy, us humans that He created.  Maybe I am a wanderlust because I had deep roots.  Maybe my kids will want roots because I gave them wings.

So far I have one wanderlust like me, a home body who clearly wants roots, two who are still trying to decide and two very young adventurers who could not define the term wanderlust just yet, but love to tag along on Mom's random road trips.  My oldest daughter is my mini me.  Her favorite quote is "Not all who wander are lost" - it is mine too.

I want to see it all - I seriously could just keep a "go bag" packed and ready and if someone asked me to leave for another continent on two hours notice I would thrive on the "stress" and beat them to the airport.  On the other hand, I love lazy days at home, I love to be alone in my prayer closet, and I love to curl up with a good book.  What I hate is mediocrity and boredom.  I hate it when my littles sit in front of the tv all day.  It causes a stifling guilt to rise up within me.  I despise "mindless" activities.  I want to see them run in fields, build sand castles, peruse museums, and taste all the samples at Farmer's Markets.  I want to see the wind in their hair and the fire in their eyes.  I want to be doing all of these same things myself.  I love long lazy drives in the country, walking trails in the cool morning, watching the flaming sun set over the mountains or the beach, waking up to the sound of lapping waves and air so thick that you can taste it.

I am a wanderlust and a romantic.  I envision things that have a hard time matching reality - and this sometimes plunges me into a pit.  Sometimes I can climb out of the pit and shake it off and sometimes I live there for a while.  I am not proud of the periods of time I have lived in the pit.  It is slimy and gross and lonely.  No one likes pit dwellers.  They are no fun, they are crabby and frown a lot.  This is how I feel about myself most of the time.  So many don't believe that about me - they believe I am peaceful, content, loving and selfless.  I don't mean to be a poser.  Those things are what I want to be - and some days the scales tip to the positive side.  Many days they don't.  I have ben in a pit for a while now.  So much in our life is changing - good changes, but change nonetheless and it is stressful.  I feel like I am in a mode of self preservation and it is a pervasive mood in our family right now.  I hate it, and I feel paralyzed to change it.  The changes just keep coming - the weight of it feels too much right now.  I see no light at the end of the tunnel.

It is times like this that I see the benefit of roots.  I want my extended family close by.  I want my childhood friends.  Maybe I want my childhood.  When someone took care of me.  I want to be able to drop my kids off at my mom's for a few hours or oh my gosh have them spend the night with their grandparents or cousins.  I can't remember the last time my kids spent the night with anyone.  This is the consequence of giving them wings.  We spread ours and flew away over twenty years ago and we have gone at it apart from human help ever since.  God has been faithful and He is more than enough to carry the weight of what we are dealing with right now.  As I said, mostly all good things - but even good changes can feel overwhelming when they hit you all at once.

Part of me holds on to the hope that my children will figure out how to have the benefits of staying close to their roots and still not being fearful of spreading their wings and flying high on the wind - wherever God leads them.  So, what do you think?  Roots or wings?  Or is it wishful thinking to believe that there is a way to have both?

When the World Goes Crazy......

Our hearts are breaking.  Our world is out of control.  Darkness crowds us and nothing feels secure.  The air is heavy and oppressive and, at least where I live, even the sky is crying.  Drizzling and chilly, heavy with low hanging clouds and fog.   We need hope. 

Isaiah chapter 9 predicted hope in another time and place where darkness reigned.  He said, "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.  Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has shone."

Isaiah prophesied to a world out of control.  A world oppressed with violence and bloodshed.  Innocent people, women and children murdered in cold blood.  A land that was desolate and devoured by war. 

Jesus was born in a world that did not look any different.  A world where the boots of the Roman Empire trampled its citizens into the ground.  Where children were sold to pay debts, people were starving, and the house of the Lord was defiled.   Into this, our Savior laid his head in a feed trough.  Into this, he was pursued by one of the cruelest kings the world had ever known.  Hundreds of baby boys were murdered in the search for the "newborn king" - hundreds of mothers wailed and clutched their dripping breasts as their babies were slaughtered.  Mothers like you and like me.
 
Our world doesn't look any different than it did 2,000 years ago.  Not really.  Those of us in America have just lived lives of prosperity and peace for so long.  For far too long it has been easy to ignore what is going on all over the world.  Today I was accused of not caring about the carnage in the rest of the world because I changed my FB profile picture to show that I am praying for France.  It hurt my feelings - I won't lie, but that's ok - I am over it.  In fact, it was actually a good example of the issues we are facing.  We are constantly "offended" in our country about the "thing" of the week - or day.  We are offended about whether or not a company or store says "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" and meanwhile someone just got their head chopped off and 20,000 children starved too death today.  We are offended about FB profiles, as if somehow that diminishes or enhances a world issue in any way.  Folks, talk is CHEAP.  FB is a poor substitute for ACTION.  I won't try to justify it - I changed my profile picture because the option popped up and though I contain literally NO tech skills, I could do it - so I did.  Maybe I should not have. It was certainly never meant to reflect my entire heart on any world issue.  It apparently made some people think that I was not aware of the attacks in Lebanon.  Or the constant threats that Israel faces.  Or that somehow I did not know that there are sex trafficking victims being held against their will in cages in apartment buildings in YOUR city, and mine - and all over the world.  Little five year olds sobbing as they are used for sex night after night after night.  Little girls who should be playing with dolls and boys who should be building Legos, now completely scarred for life by EVIL.  Evil that most of us can't comprehend and are way too eager to ignore.  Somehow my FB picture made some think that I am unaware of the 163,000,000 orphans all over the world who right now are sitting in despair - many cold, hungry and in physical danger.  Not knowing if anyone will ever come for them.  Forgotten and abandoned.  Friends, I can assure you that I am much more aware than I care to be.  Because you know what, ignoring issues clearly doesn't make them go away, but apparently some people sleep a whole lot better at night than I do.  For now, anyway.  Until the wolf knocks on our door.  Or until God reaches down and shakes you to the very core over the issues that He cares about.  You know, the real issues - not the "made up offenses." 

So, what do we do when the world goes crazy?  I certainly don't have all the answers - I have done little else besides pray and ponder about that very thing for a very long time now.  I know that God is in control, I know that Jesus is going to return and make all things new, and I know that my job in the meantime is to trust Him and do the things He planned in advance for me to do.  What are those things?  Well, in Matthew 25 when Jesus was describing the final judgement He described the "sheep" and the "goats" or the righteous and the unrighteous.  To the righteous He said, "Come you who are blessed by my Father and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and in prison and you visited me.  Truly as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me."  Friends, only true LOVE can drive out darkness. Only true heart change makes any lasting difference at all.  

So, for me personally - I am going to spend whatever time I have left on this earth - and clearly, none of us know how long that is - but, I am going to spend it doing the things that apparently it ALL comes down to.  This is what Jesus said at the FINAL judgement.  When all was said and done - this is what was left.  Feed, clothe, welcome, visit, offer a cup of cold water, care for the LEAST of these. 

Friends, I can do that.  And so can you.  And if we all do - then one by one we change the world.  There is so much work yet to do.  We love, we care, we become the hands and feet of God.  He did not say we do these things if we want to, or if it is "safe" or if they believe what we believe.  He did not say that the "least of these" are our brothers and sisters in Christ, or that they will be grateful and tell us how nice- we are, or that they will even care that we visited them in prison or the hospital or that we welcomed them in.  He did not say that we would hear any words of thanks from the person we are ministering to. 

What He did say we will hear is this - from HIM, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you."   At the end of it all, that and that alone - is ALL I am interested in hearing. 

So, even as our hearts break, may we all look forward to a day when all will be made new and there will be no more tears and no more pain.  A day when forever begins.  Oh, what a glorious moment that will be!

εὐχάριστος

Eucharisto

Mindful of favors, thankful, grateful, pleasing to others.

Eucharisto

Life sings of the holiness of the One who made us.  All of life is glorious, all of life is worth being thankful for.  Even the parts that scream of the ugliness of sin.  There is a redeeming quality about everything, simply because He is.

I have been thinking on the word thankfulness lately - eucharisto.  Grace - charis.  His grace enables us to give thanks, always. No matter what.  The grace that redeemed even me is all that is necessary for me to be mindful of the favor of God in my life.  The question remains, am I grateful?  Do I live in awe of Him?

My daily devotional Jesus Calling has never failed to be perfectly applicable for the day.  This week has been no exception.  In preparation for some news we recently received, my devotion two days ago said this, "Living well is both a discipline and an art.  Discipline your thoughts to trust Me as I work my ways in your life.  Pray about everything and leave the outcomes to Me."

Today it said this, "Though you can not hear their voices, your praise and thanksgiving are distinctly audible in heaven.  Your petitions are also heard, but it is your gratitude that clears the way to My heart."

The cry of my heart is to "live well."  To focus on the things that matter.  To be thankful in all things.  Even the things that don't go the way I planned.  Even the things that seem to be out of control.  They very well may be out of my control, but they are never, never out of the control of the One who loves me most of all.  The One who does all things well.  He is good.  Always.  No matter what.

Today, I need to rest in that, when uncertainty screams at me and things are not going smoothly according to my plan and when things I thought I wanted are turning into other things that I want just as much.  God takes my plans and changes my heart to want His plans.  That is the beauty of a life lived well.  It glorifies my Creator.  It shows a world in chaos that there is order to be found.  That Someone holds all things together and that Someone is good.

Right now my life is in a spiral.  It is more chaotic than our usual chaos.  There are things happening that are bigger than I can see.  God is working and moving in many lives.  The world screams one thing, my God whispers something else.  Even my own heart is deceptive.  My heart tells me I want things to go a certain way, yet God whispers into the depths of it all, "Be still.  You, my child, need only to want things to go My way."  When I struggle to let go and when I struggle to love, He strokes my soul and calms me.  He reminds me of the calling He has placed on me.  He reminds me to love.  Love unconditionally, love completely.  "Don't be afraid, beloved.  I am in control.  Just love.  Love and be thankful.  I've got the rest."

Ok, God.  I give the rest to you.  Do with my life what you will.  I only desire to live it well.