Softening the hard ground

I recently listened to a podcast that spoke of the Parable of the Soils (also known as the Parable of the Sower). This refers to the story Jesus told in the New Testament, in Matthew 13:1-23, Mark 4:1-20, and Luke 8:4-15. 

The parable speaks of a farmer who sowed seed on all kinds of ground rather than on carefully prepared fields. Some of the seed landed on a hard-packed path where birds came and ate it, some on rocky ground where the soil was shallow. The plants sprouted and grew but with no deep soil for their roots, they could not bear the sun and soon withered and died. Some seed fell on ground full of weeds, which grew up and choked out the good plants. Finally, some seeds fell on soft ground, on fertile soil, where they grew and flourished and produced a rich crop. 

In the parable, the seed is the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, and the different soils represent the hearts of people; how they respond when they hear about Jesus.

Being a church girl, I have heard this parable my whole life, almost to the point where the words have no impact on me anymore. I think of it as getting anesthetized to the Bible- having heard it so many times that we just don't hear it anymore. 

This time, though, the words struck me in a fresh and relevant way.

The past year has been a hard one, to put it mildly. I was already under tremendous stress before we got the news of our son's death, which drove my stress to ridiculous heights. In those early weeks, when I could hardly breath from the pain, I clung to Jesus like I never have before. I knew that He was the only way I would survive that desperate sorrow.

As the months went by, though, that sense of urgency faded. I no longer stuck to Jesus like a limpet. I was no longer faithful and deliberate about drinking in the healing words of the Bible or filling my days with the beauty of worship music. 

Grief is an extreme roller coaster of emotion, and it affected my walk with God.

How thankful I am, that my understanding of God's grace and love has grown so much deeper these past few years. I know now that God has tremendous compassion for our slow, fumbling, confused journey on His pathway. He loves us hard every moment, every step of the way. He loves us deeply and sweetly in midst of our sadness, questions, distance and anger. His love is poured out to us like the grandest, most thunderous waterfall, every moment of our lives. His love is like the softest, most fragrant and gentle breeze that cools our miserable faces when life beats hard and hot like desert sun.
Because I have learned these important things, I knew that God would not be impatient or angry with me for the place I was in. I knew that He would sit with me in love and help me gently to a better understanding.

One of my new favorite sayings is "God has not brought you this far, just to bring you this far." There is always a further plan. 

This time, He spoke to me through the long-familiar parable of soils and seeds. In that story, He showed me the state of my own heart.  The story was suddenly not about a response to the Gospel, but a metaphor personally tailored to my own struggles.

I saw my heart hard-packed and dry, with tough, stringy weeds and sharp rocks stuck fast. A wave of despair swept over me at that. I was overwhelmed at the thought of all the work it would take to change soil like that to something soft and alive and ready for good things. 

But...another version of the idea in that saying- "God has brought me this far, but He loves me too much to leave me here." 

He quickly changed my view, bringing other verses to mind, tying them to a parable of my own life, to real things happening that very day. 

For weeks, storms of lightning and torrential rain had rolled over us every night. Vigorous weeds had sprung up with all that nourishment, making the spot where our travel trailer is parked look a little shabby. I miss puttering in my yard, so I decided to do a little weeding. It's not my job to make it neat. The people who take care of this park do a good job, but I wanted the physical activity and the satisfaction of the work. 

I put on gloves, took a sack with me and went out to pull weeds. It felt so good. I enjoyed being outdoors with a fresh breeze blowing, easing the weeds out of the soil. Though this ground has been compacted by years of tires driving over it, and though it is covered with a blanket of packed gravel, the weeds came out easily...because the soil had been softened by the steady, daily rains.

Ah. That is when the lights started to dawn. 

When faced with a patch of dry ground with a heavy crop of weeds, what does a gardener do? What did I do, in my flowerbeds back home? I did not start by trying to pry those tough weeds from the brick-hard ground. 

No, I started by softening the ground, by putting water on it to mellow it and loosen its grip.

I did not need to throw exhausting effort at trying to fix the state of my heart and force it back into line. All I needed to do was to put water on it, to let the water gently soften that hard soil. God will do the work of pulling the weeds and digging out the rocks. I just need to get my heart ready for His gentle, healing work.

But how? How do I "pour water" on the dry ground of my heart? I can't set a sprinkler and let it run. What does that even mean, to water my heart?

The verses that God brought softly to my mind as I worked at pulling weeds were these:

Romans 12:2a "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind..."

Ephesians 4:23 ..."and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds"...

Ephesians 5:26 ..."that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word"...

God connected the dots of these ideas to show me a beautiful picture. The thoughts bumping against each other in my head were about renewing my mind (refreshing it, giving it new life) and the phrase "washing with the water of the word."

When I called a halt to my weeding project, I came inside to do some digging in the Bible. I don't have Bible verses and their references all neatly filed in my brain. Often, I do an internet search with the bits of a verse that I recall, which gives me the reference for the verse. Then I look it up so I can see what it actually says.

The picture God gave me with those few words was so beautiful.

The heavy work is all His. All I need to do is to soften the ground. How? By filling my mind with the living water of His Word. My job is only to get into His presence, by reading my Bible. His job is everything else.

That is so beautiful, and brought deep relief to my soul. Instead of heavy labor, all I have ahead of me is to rest under the shadow of His wing, close to His heart, and read His love letter to me.

He will do the rest.




 

God loves me with quarters

Sometimes, when we're too lost in our own pain or numbness, we can become a little blind to God's attentive love for us. Sometimes, when this happens, and He knows that we especially need to be reminded of just how loved we are, He does something a little out of the ordinary to get our attention. He did this for me this week, with a handful of quarters.

Remember those state quarters, one for each of the United States? I loved those. I diligently hunted for them, putting together a set for each member of our family. I got the special pasteboard folders for them, and felt such satisfaction when every divot was filled with its proper coin.

And then came the U.S. territories series, and the parks and monuments series. I truly enjoy both the search and the quarters themselves. Many of them have beautiful artwork.

I didn't start collecting the parks and monuments quarters until a year or two after they started being issued, so I missed a number of those early ones. I've kept a list of what I'm missing, and over the years I've found many of them. There were a few, though, that I had never seen. Yosemite, El Yunque and Acadia were the final three that I had never found.

Since we started living in our travel trailer last December, we now frequent laundromats and the laundry rooms of RV parks, which necessitates a stead flow of quarters. I often take a few minutes to sift through each new roll of quarters, hunting for buried treasure. I have found a few to fill gaps, but still, those few early ones eluded me.

In the process of all the shuffling in our moving process, some state quarters had fallen out of our folder, and Michael's as well. I was so frustrated to see that. Too late, I thought to put each one in a large plastic zipper bag. I did that, sighed, and started searching for replacements for the missing coins. I'd been able to find all but two, by the time July rolled around.

In addition to the frustration factor, there is also the emotional element of having lost anything remotely related to Michael. That nerve is raw.

This week, we passed the thirteen-month mark since we learned of our Michael's death. He took his life on June 24th, and was found by a friend the next day, which is when we got the news. Every month, those two days are just hard for me. My heart hurts, and every one of my nerves is on edge. This loss of our beloved child is like no other pain I have ever experienced. The days that mark the count of how long I've lived without him carry an especially heavy weight.

One of the ways I survive those hard days is to intentionally carry on with basic tasks of daily life. This week, that meant laundry. I could have done my laundry on another day, but I decided to do it on the 24th. I thought it would help me to get through the day in a healthy way. The laundry room is a few dozen yards away, so doing laundry gets me out the door, walking back and forth in the sunshine and fresh air. It's good for me, and does good things for my heart.

I had schlepped the first bag over and started the first load, scanning the quarters as I dropped them into the slots. There was nothing I needed, so I started the machine and walked back to our trailer. I thought that, rather than checking each quarter as I used it, I should probably make the effort to check all of them at once.

I sat down at the dinette and emptied the baggie of quarters onto the table. I pulled out the wrinkled little paper with my list of long-sought treasure, and began the search. On the second handful, I smiled. There was the last state quarter I needed to refill our folder. A few coins later, I smiled again. There was the last one I needed, to fix Michael's folder. I whispered, "Aww, thank you," and continued my search. That comforted a small sore place in my heart, being able to replace what was lost.

I dropped each handful back into the baggie as I finished checking it. In all, we had about one or two rolls worth of quarters on hand. On the third or fourth handful, I turned a quarter and my eyes grew wide. There was Yosemite, from 2010! I smiled so big! "Oh, thank you!"  I set it aside with the others, turned over a couple more coins, and froze. There was El Yunque, from 2011.

I sat and stared at that quarter with misty eyes and said, "Are you kidding me?!" Goosebumps prickled my arms as I added it to the pile of "finds." I turned over a few more quarters and there it was: Acadia, from 2011, the last of the long-sought quarters. I looked at that silver coin, buried my face in my hands, and cried.

It might seem silly, but I had been searching for these specific quarters for seven or eight years. Every pocketful of change, every time I emptied my coin purse, I checked every quarter, looking for these missing few. All those years...nothing.

Until this day, when my heart was sad and sore, and my loving Father reached down from Heaven to send a precious message to me. It wasn't really about the quarters. It was about my heart. Finding every single one of the coins I'd longed to find in one small pile, all together, sent me a very clear message.

It said, "I see you. I see your heart. I know you. I am with you. You are so loved."

The odds of those specific, hard-to-find coins all showing up in one single batch are beyond any measure of coincidence.

But God.

He wanted to speak love to my hurting heart, and He did it in a way that I could not miss. He did what He has promised to do, and what we have seen Him do over and over this past year: to love me, to hold me close, to be tenderly with me in the broken middle of my pain.

He is here, holding me close. He sees my aching heart and catches every tear.

I see His hand in the beauty around me, and when I revel in an exquisite sunset I often think, "He paints the sky with glory." But that is not something He does for me alone. I am blessed and uplifted by the majestic, fiery beauty of it, but it's not just for me.

This, though, was about as personal and pointed as it could be.

My God, my Abba (Papa, Daddy), my Heavenly Father, reached into my world and showed me His presence and His love with an unmistakable flourish.

Some might think of this as a sign from Michael, but I've never known what to think about that idea. It never sat comfortably with me. I read an article a while back, where the author talked about these things not as signs from the departed loved one, but as signs of love from the One who loves us most. That felt right to me. That spoke peace to my soul.

So, this week, when my heart was a small sad thing, hurting and tired, Jesus reached out and sent me a love note, spelled out with common coins.

The struggle to be still

"Be still, and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

Those words have blown in on the breeze, waved like a banner, and been spoken in the words of friends and strangers, so many times in the past year.

In my struggle to understand the "why" behind the massive transition of our lives, I slowly came to think that part of it was so that I would rest, and in that resting, learn to be still in the presence of God. To sit at the feet of Jesus and be loved, and learn- this made some sense of all the changes. Not of Michael's death. That was a bomb that exploded in the midst of intense and comprehensive change.

Some of you already know this story, but for those who don't: Lee first proposed the idea to me in October of 2017 that he would retire, we would sell our home, buy an RV to live in, and that he would work different jobs that hire people who travel. This entailed giving up our family home and leaving our kids, family, friends, church family, community, my work (teaching violin) and ministry that I dearly loved. It meant going from a life of steady income and comfortable familiarity to one of uncertainty and constant change.

When people would ask about our plans and I would explain the kinds of jobs Lee might do, the next question was usually, "So while he's working, what will you do?" Most often, I would answer, "I will rest and write." This sounded lovely, but every time I said it, something about it felt "off" to me. It seemed a little too me-focused. It felt like that shouldn't be the end of the sentence.

After a while, the lights started to dawn, and I added to my answer, "...and sit at the feet of Jesus." Now, the whole thing actually started to make sense to me. I needed rest badly, to help restore my health. In order to write, I needed a less busy life. In order to grow, I needed to sit with God and listen.

So many things crossed my path in those months with the message, "Be still," confirming this idea.
I started looking forward to this time of rest and spiritual refreshment. It seemed simple.

The reality has been much more of a struggle than I ever imagined.

For the first several months of this new life, we were basically on vacation. That time of rest and togetherness was much needed and very healing. It was only when Lee went back to work in late March that I started having long spans of alone time. Somehow, it didn't go as I'd expected, and it took me quite a while to understand why.

Instead of quiet hours of study, prayer and worship, or of richly creative writing, I went face-first into the internet and stayed there. I would spin the hours away crawling through Facebook or watching one YouTube video after another.

At first, I just thought badly of myself for wasting so many days this way. After a while, though, I finally started to wonder why I was spending my days (and nights) this way.

After a long time of wrestling with the issue, I finally asked myself the right question:
"Why am I afraid to be still? What am I afraid will happen?"

Oh. There it was. Yes, it really was fear-based. But why?

The answer lay in my struggles with sleep. No matter how many calming, soothing things I did before going to bed, the moment my mind stilled, intensely upsetting things would flash into my thoughts, usually things to do with Michael. This was upsetting, to say the least.

This was the thing that was stopping me. It was not an unfounded fear. From experience, I knew that if I tried to Be Still I would be tormented by painful thoughts. I would suffer a fresh outpouring of agonizing grief, and I was tired of being desperately sad. Deep grief is exhausting. It wears you to the bone, then pounds your bones until they break. It is miserably hard.

Identifying the problem was good, but it did not solve anything. It was a relief to understand the reason behind my avoidance, but it did not fix it. I talked to God about it, saying, "I see the problem, but I don't have an answer for it. Being still does not feel safe to me." This was my position for a month or two more, seeing the problem but having no clue how to move from that stuck place.

As I was traveling back to the Northwest in late May for a visit, my feelings finally began to shift. I started to feel that the day would come when I could be still. I knew that the pounding waves of sadness would sweep over me, but I began to see that God would meet me in those moments and help me through them. I would not be alone in that storm. He would be with me and would hold me close and comfort me and give me strength. I could see a time, once I went home to my quiet little corner of the world, that I would feel safe enough to go to that place of stillness.

I've been home for a few weeks now, and I have still been shying like a skittish foal from the specter of stillness. I came home completely exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. It was absolutely wonderful to see my people, but all of the people time, travel, busyness and goodbyes wore me out and used me up. Two days after I got back was the first anniversary of Michael's death.

If I had been in a less exhausted state, I might have leaned into Jesus and let His peace carry me through that painful "deathiversary." All I could do, in the state I was in, was to be very still. Not in the lovely, "Be still and know that I am God" way; more the frozen state of a rabbit who senses a predator nearby. That is exactly how I felt- like a terrified rabbit, holding desperately still, knowing that any movement might trigger the predator to attack and destroy me. I had imagined that I might do something emotional and meaningful to mark that first year, but I couldn't. Through those few most-intense days, if I even thought about Michael, I felt like I might start screaming, or throwing up, or both. The pain really is that intense.

All I could do was hold very still and breathe quietly until those days passed.


Colossians 3:15 "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts." <3

I have been using devotional plans through the Bible app on my phone. The other day, the message was about merely existing versus really living. I thought about that, and it rang very true. For people in grief, this is probably pretty common. This past year has been one of gut-level survival. It has not been about shining or achieving or living victoriously. We have survived. So...yeah, in light of this devotional, I am existing rather than living. It's all I can manage, most days, and that's okay.

I do have a tentative hope that the day will come when this changes.

I do believe that someday, maybe soon, I will take a deep breath, take hold of the supportive hand that Jesus is holding out to me, and step into stillness. I know it may unleash a flood of agony, but I also know that it won't end there. I know that in time I will move through the agony and into a better, restful stillness; a stillness that heals.

Far off, somewhere on that hopeful horizon, I can imagine a time when, not only outwardly, but from my heart, I will once again truly live. I will not only survive, one clutching moment at a time, or drift quietly through the days avoiding the pain, but I will live.