Category: January 2016

One of the adventurous parts of being human is that we cannot predict the future. Our foresight only extends so far. We can make assumptions, predictions, bets. Often these fore-casts are based on previous experiences or seemingly trustworthy data. But if we are honest with ourselves, these are not infallible prophesies.

This lack of concrete foresight is very…interesting, at the least. For some (probably most) of us, it is often frustrating to be in the thick of circumstance and not know what the outcome will look like. Sometimes making a decision feels like walking onto a wooden plank into a wall of mist, having no indication of whether that plank is a dead drop-off plummeting you to destruction, or whether it leads to somewhere…

…And if to somewhere, where does it lead?

Sometimes I wish that I had God’s all-knowing perspective on things. He is intimately acquainted with all of our circumstances. He knows what brought us here — who engineered our circumstances — and He knows what is around the corner, through the fog, at the other end of the tunnel.
Sometimes life feels like hanging stagnantly in mid air, like being stuck in limbo, unable to move anywhere of my own accord. Frustrating. Discouraging. Anxiety-inducing, if I allow it to be. It is kind of like having spring fever in January, knowing that spring is still likely three solid months away (or more, living in Canada).

Seasons like this are like an apple tree in the winter. Above the surface, it looks like the tree is dead. The harvest season has taken its fruit. The frigid cold of winter has stripped it bare of its lush greenery. It appears to be fruitless and forlorn.
What is unseen to eyes above ground is all the quiet growth that happens below the frozen surface. The roots dig deep and cling to the moisture below ground to keep the tree alive.* This is a period of quiet, deep, unseen and possibly painful growth for the tree. On the surface, it bears the cutting chill of winter wind and bends under the weight of the wet, heavy snow. But it is neither dead, nor useless. All the magic happens unseen, unnoticed, unappreciated.

Sometimes, life is like being an apple tree in winter. Spiritual “fruit” has been plucked. Leaves have fallen, and we feel bear and exposed to the elements of circumstance. With our human understanding being limited to the surface, to the immediate, to only what we can tangibly interact with, it can feel like we are stagnant and fruitless. Useless. Stuck in the ground and not doing anything of value, other than trying to hold up under the cold, thoughtless pressures of the present situation.

Point being, such wintery seasons are not pointless. We are simply not privy to what is happening beneath the surface. For all we know, God is busy drawing our roots deeper, challenging us to cling to Him for nourishment when it seems like we have been stripped of all trace of life on the outside.
These seasons are marked by various traits, differing for each person. Loneliness. Silence. Mourning. Illness. Waiting. Change. Mundaneness. Exhaustion. Pressure. Challenges.
We are typically prone to respond with negative emotions to these kinds of circumstantial symptoms. Fear. Frustration. Anxiety. Anger. Bitterness. Impatience. Impulsiveness. Doubt. Discouragement. Giving up.

Personally, I need to retrain my reaction to winters. Rather than growing discouraged and anxious, these seasons are incredible opportunities for me to cling all the more tightly to the Source of abundant life. He knows exactly what He is doing! When He seems to be telling me to wait, I need to patiently trust that He has something so unbelievably amazing in store that it is well worth waiting for. When He is using His carpenter’s tools to sand edges and carve out knots in my life, I need to trust that the pain I am experiencing in the present will produce something more beautiful than what I can see now. And when my life seems stagnant and unfruitful, I need to dig my roots even deeper into His Word; I need to more firmly establish my mind and heart in Christ, so that when the fruit does come, I will be able to bear it well…

Let us not grow weary in well doing. The day of the Lord is quickly approaching. Our time here on earth is frightfully short in comparison with the vast, awesome expanse of eternity. Our God is a God of goodness, order and purpose. He cares about details. He cares about each day; not because He is limited by Time, but because He created time and because we, His creation, operate within its bounds.
So be rest assured, He does not waste it. No matter how “stuck” or useless we might feel, He is always working in us, around us, through us. Though we are not in control, we have a choice as to whether we will work patiently with God or impatiently against Him.

It is a safe thing to trust Him to fulfill the desires which He creates.

~ Amy Carmichael ~

*Disclaimer: I am not a scientist/biologist by any means, so if I get these details/ideas wrong, please pardon my ignorance. I am aiming for a particular analogy, not scientific accuracy.

You never know the value of what you have until you no longer have it.

I think everyone can relate to this phrase on some level. For some people it’s a lost person. For others, a lost job. A comfortable home. Financial security. Family. Education. Freedom. Health…you name it.

For me it’s colours.
How can you lose colours?

Blindness.

I remember the initial shock when I woke up in the hospital. It’s a strange thing to wake up, to be conscious, to open your eyes and not be able to see anything. I blinked several times. I rubbed my eyes. Maybe I was in a very dark room? But there were people talking…my parents, some unfamiliar voice…
“Kat? How are you feeling?”
“Mom? Where am I? Can someone turn on the light?”
It’s terrifying when a simple question like that is answered in silence.
“Mom. I can’t see anything, will someone turn a light on?”
Wow, my head is throbbing…
“Kat, the lights are on,” said Dad’s voice quietly.
“Then why can’t I see anything?” More silence. And the panicked thoughts, What’s going on?! Why can’t I seen anything..?

I didn’t remember much of the accident. Just falling from the top of a ladder, and then blackness. And even though the rest of my mind and body awoke from the blackness, my eyes never did.

I miss colours. I miss walking in my Grandma’s garden and seeing all the flowers. Bright red, soft blushing pink, vibrant shades of green, deep alluring blue….all in my mind’s eye still, but out of my visual reach. I can feel their soft petals and smell their fragrances. But my ability to imagine their graceful beauty is limited by the pictures filed away in my mind.

I remember sitting down at the piano for the first time after I got home. I felt the keys, the hand positions. I found middle C, and played a little improvised ditty. It’s amazing what fingers can remember when eyes can no longer guide them. I felt the curvature of the piano’s woodwork, the back where my books would sit open when I was practicing…there, one of my books. Probably Debussy’s Children’s Corner, because that’s the last one I had been playing from. Doctor Gradus. I put my hands in the opening position and began to play. Seven or eight measures in, and then — memory lapse. What comes next? I thought hard, I replayed the previous measures, but could not remember what to play next. I instinctively reached for my book and turned to the second page of the piece….is this where those measures were..?
But I couldn’t see them.
I cried the day I realized that I couldn’t read music anymore. I would never behold with my eyes the beautiful notated music; the rests and dynamic markings, the flawlessly printed notes whispering to the trained musician’s eye of all the magical musical potential they held.

I miss seeing faces. I can recall to mind what my Mama’s face looks like, her smile, her dark hair with hints of red. When she laughs I try to recover the mental image that goes with that beautiful joyous sound. I want to see the tears of joy rolling down her cheeks as she laughs.
I miss seeing the sparkle in Dad’s eyes when he tells a joke. I hear the joke, I catch the wit, but I can’t see that knowing glance he would often cast in my direction, waiting for a response to his humour. I miss his smile, his black goatee speckled with white.

Picture memories are all I have of people, places and events. They are astonishingly vivid in my mind. But they don’t compare with the sensory experience of seeing something as it unfolds.

So with floods of emotion and all the willful creativity of my imagination, I listen to the laughter, the music, the thunder and lightning and tap-dancing rain on the windows. I smell the fresh air after the rain storm, the spices Mom adds to the soup she makes, the coffee Dad makes after dinner, the flowers in my Grandma’s garden. I touch the textured fabrics of the pillows on the couch, the quilt on my bed. I touch Dad’s face when he laughs to remember the contour of his smile and feel the smile lines by his eyes.

This is how I see. This is how I behold beauty. In the hidden eye of my mind.

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Yesterday I took inventory of how I am doing on my New Year’s resolution(s). And I realized very quickly that I have already failed on numerous occasions to meet them.
No, I am not in a state of despair and hopelessness over this realization. Nor do I think that I am a failure as a person because of it. Whew.
Rather, it produces a little chuckle inwardly. Why? Because the nature of learning is to make mistakes (not to mention, it is good to laugh at yourself once in a while). And my resolutions this year revolve more around a process of continual growth than around counted successes. To learn is to try, make mistakes, and keep trying until you master the thing in question.

s a n c t i f y 
verb: [sangk-tuh-fahy]
1. to make holy; set apart as sacred; consecrate.
2. to purify or free from sin…
5. to make productive of or conducive to spiritual blessing

I once read somewhere that God takes delight in the process of sanctifying His children. I often think that the end result is the part that brings Him glory. And of course, it does in its time. But if God can only be glorified in the fully sanctified person, the “finished product”, what of His glory now?
Sanctification is a life-long process. No human being will know perfection in this life time. Ask the retired missionary, the ancient saintly lady in your church, your grandparents…any one of them will tell you that even at their ripe old age, they are still learning and being refined by their heavenly Father. “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

So what of now, then? Much as I like the idea of a finished product (says the perfectionist in me), I do believe that God is glorified in the processes of growth. When a little lump of clay submits to the Potter’s hand to be shaped, refined, sanded, and made into a vessel, that little clay lump is a delight to the One who is transforming it, even before it has become a vessel.

My resolve for this year is to learn to be patient. I knew going into it that to learn the thing would require the practice of it right off the hop. And truthfully, I am not very good at patience. However, just as learning a Bach invention requires patience (lots of patience, as I have discovered), learning patience also requires patience. It requires practice. It demands a conscious decision to be disciplined, however tedious or unrewarding it may seem at the time, and to be consistent in the implementation of that discipline.

If you are like me, and have discovered that already you have fallen into the mud and mire on the path of resolve, take heart. Part of the adventure is the rocks on the path, the puddles you have to walk through, and the tree branches that slap you in the face along the way. By encountering these obstacles, you learn to avoid the rocks, to walk around the puddles, and to watch out for those obnoxious tree branches.
Praise God and thank Him for the journey He is taking you on this year. Rejoice! because His grace is available to us more than just at the beginning of the year. He daily supplies us with the grace we need.
Give yourself the year. It has only just begun.

Seeing then that we have a Great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

~ Hebrews 4:14-16 NKJV

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Definition taken from Dictionary.com

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you.

So said the Savior. There were few who followed Him at that time. He was a threatening headache to the church leaders. He stirred up public mischief. I am sure the political higher-ups of His day were wearied of constantly hearing of this Man from Galilee who made such a fuss among those Jews. Jesus of Nazareth. A carpenter’s Son. Yet with astounding authority — even audacity — He taught, reprimanded, healed, forgave sins.

…Let not your heart be troubled…

Trouble. Anyone who has walked this earth for a measurable amount of time is acquainted with trouble in at least one of its many forms. He was well acquainted with trouble in all its forms. He even said to His disciples, “In the world you will have [trouble]…”
And yet He says, “Let not your heart be troubled…”

Once in a while, I believe the Holy Spirit brings to my conscious thought the idea of loss. Loss, I mean, in the sense of losing a dearly loved person to the formidable embrace of death.
How would I bear it? Would I continue trusting the One to whom death is subject? Would I lean on Him hopefully in the midst of unimaginable grief? Would I yet praise and adore Him?

Sometimes I romanticize the idea of loss. However, my experiences of it are very limited. And when I do think seriously of the possibility, and, indeed, reality of great loss, I am not eager to be acquainted with the depths of emotional, spiritual and physical grief that I have only heard and read about. The ache I experience in missing family and friends, who I know to be well and safe, occasionally evokes a physical reaction. Loss of appetite, sometimes a weighted feeling in my chest, tears etc. But I have never known the crippling pain of losing one of the persons nearest to my heart.

To then imagine — or attempt to imagine — the intense agony of Jesus as He died; His heart breaking for every soul on earth and every soul yet to be born, as His own blood was streaming on behalf of the ungrateful wretched people who so desperately need(ed) His salvation…
His heartache is incomparable with any other. It far surpasses the experience of any human being before or since. None could bear it as He did.
Bear it? It killed Him. He died with a broken heart over the sin of this world and the lost state of the people He loves so fathomlessly.

And then He arose. And He conquered it.
I praise God. Though my earthly vessel, and those of the sweet people whom I love so much, will see deterioration and death; yet we will be raised up. We will be resurrected in new bodies. Every saint in Christ Jesus, those who are unknown to me and those I love dearly, will have the joy of meeting again in glory. And we will see Him, face to face…

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.

~ Isaiah 26:3 ~

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John 14:27, John 16:33

Last semester, my piano professor frequently said to me, “Amy, you need to be more patient with yourself.”

I was caught in a cycle of discouragement, frustration, and negligence with piano. I was discouraged by the sloth-like pace at which I was progressing, and therefore had a hard time getting myself into the practice room. And when I finally did practice, I would become so frustrated with myself for making mistakes, then trying to correct them, but seemingly not making any fruitful progress. And this frustration was only increased by the fact that I knew my painfully slow progress was a result of me not practicing. But as discouragement did a number on me, I often went two or three days without getting to the keys. And so went the cycle: discouragement, therefore not practicing; not practicing, therefore frustration and more discouragement….
And my professor would tell me that I need to be patient with myself and with practicing.
But even in this digressive cycle, I still wanted to get better, and I still wanted to play. But I wanted to work on a passage once, fix it, and never have to work on it again. Why do I have to play two measures of a Bach two-part invention twenty times before I can actually get through it (almost) flawlessly? And then I would still have to go back to the piece the next day, and do that same passage twenty more times!

In a word: impatience.

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My visit home has been immensely refreshing. I have had the time and space I often crave to pour into reading, writing, reflecting, and prayer (though I really never do enough of that last one). And amid this reflective study, one particular word has perpetually inserted itself in my pools of thought:

P A T I E N C E.

I have discovered, somewhat begrudgingly, that I greatly lack in this priceless virtue. If I examine the progression of my thoughts turning into ideas, and my ideas turning into actions, in light of patience, I find an embarrassing shortage. Instead, I would say that the majority of my decisions are made impulsively and hastily.

And so, I have come to a resolution for 2016.
And that is patience.
I am not expecting to execute this active virtue with expert precision and flawless performance right off the hop. Just as patience is required to learn a piece of music, to grow in patience will require patience (see the irony?). It will also require grace, diligence, and prayer. There will be stumbles and failures. Just like those darn two measures of a Bach invention, I will have to “practice” being patient, likely more than twenty times.
But Jesus says, “Ask….seek….knock…If you [know] how to give good gifts…how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”
So my thinking is: if God is able to do “exceedingly abundantly above what [I] ask or think”, surely then He is able to teach me patience.

2016 Challenge: Dare to ask God to do things in you that seem out of reach for you. {Nothing} is impossible with Him.

At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays…
But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future…
But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us…
Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.

~ Oswald Chambers ~

Matthew 7:7 & 11; Ephesians 3:20, Mark 10:27