Bless the Lord (Part 2)

Welcome to Part 2 of the post Bless the Lord in the 31-day series Speak Praise. As we saw on Day 6 of this series, I began a new habit with our child that changed my perspective in a profound way.

I mentioned in Part 1 how the Lord was prompting me to add a new element to our habits as a family. Every night when we were tucking in our little girl, we would say our prayers as usual, but I felt compelled to focus on more than our requests. I began praying blessings over her, prayers of thanksgiving for God's grace in our lives and giving us the gift of a child.

Just as our Heavenly Father rejoices over his children (see Zech3:17), I was learning how to love my child with God's love and allow him to heal the brokenness in my heart.

At first when we were having a lot of exhausting days with tantrums and meltdowns it was really hard for me to have the right attitude and words of thanksgiving.

It started small. “Thank you, God, for making my girl so strong.” I praised God for the character trait that was causing us the most grief--her strong will--because I knew it was a gift and that one day God would develop her character as he intends (see Phil1:6, Jer29:11).

Banner of Love

 
He has brought me to the banquet hall, and his banner over me is love. 

 --Song of Solomon 2:4

Today, I felt less than victorious. The mess of life was too much. I left a pile of mess behind me when I shut that door. 

Breakfast table strewn with cereal box, crumbs, and soiled, empty coffee cups. Socks laid lifeless and stale on the bedroom floor, and yesterday's clean laundry waited to be folded. 

Crumpled sheets pulled back haphazardly were yet unmade. It was an I-barely-made-it-out-of-bed-kind-of-day. I grabbed the check book in a rush to pay a few bills but forgot where they were. 

Today... I was surprised by love.

I received a handmade invitation from my daughter for a special event today. The only thing I really needed to remember was to bring my favorite tea cup.

Walking into my daughter's school, the fellowship hall was adorned with silk flowers, tiered plates of finger sandwiches, assortments of tea, and handmade gifts from the kiddos.

The table was set just for me, a chair pulled out in my honor, a banner draped high: Happy Mother's Day.

Today, I forgot all about the mess I had left behind and walked into a hall of honor.
 

I held my girl on my lap in mommy's arms of love -- and I was held. 

For I hold you by your right hand--I, the LORD your God. And I say to you, 'Don't be afraid. I am here to help you (Isaiah 41:13 NLT).

This is the image of the Father's lavish love for his children -- and for us mamas -- daughters of the King. He frames us in the focus of his eternal affections.

It doesn't matter what mess your in right now or the one you just left behind. Just bring your cup...

Today, the King of the heavens has prepared a table before you and the cup he pours into will never run out, your cup will overflow (Psalm 23:5). 

Here you are accepted. You are held. You are honored. You are loved.

Come with me, mama, sit awhile. The table is set for you. The banner announces your name. Come and receive the fullness of his love.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

--Psalm 23:6

Ready Ground

 
Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared.

Ephesians 6:14-17 NLT

It's twenty minutes 'til. We're ready. Almost. But where are her shoes? We keep them in the bucket by the door so all she has to do is slip them on, strap on that backpack, grab the keys (and the phone!) and get in the car. Even when we're all ready, sometimes even then, we are not.

Last night was evening prep work. Chopping celery, potatoes, and carrots for the crock-pot roast that will be tonight's dinner. Spread sandwiches, pack snacks, and a juice box for her lunch. Gather show-in-tell items. Set the back pack by the door. We do it every night – right? – this routine that keeps everything running like a well-oiled machine. Almost...

We wash.

Load.

Wipe.

Bathe.

Brush.

Dress.

Read.

Pray.

Tuck.

Breath...

It starts all over in the morning. Hurriedly rushing little ones from sleepy dreamland into a battle zone. Hope they have everything they need – and we need – to be successful today. Like many a day, orders bark loud in that tone that teeters on the edge of patient encouragement and scolding nag.

She plops down on the floor amidst scattered dolls, tiny clothes, and even teenier shoes. “Where is Cinderella's glass slipper, Mommy?” Sigh … There it goes...tottering over the cliff with a breeze of provocation. ”I don't know. Hun. Where are your shoes??? We need to get going!” Sweetly nagging.

Learning forbearance in the face of a ticking clock is not the time for the lesson.

Funny. Rewind a couple of hours. My blinky eyes squint open sometime around dawn. I hit snooze. The pillow feels sooo soft and warm. So I soak in a few more winks beneath the down duvet. Several minutes later, the covers are unwrapped and a comforting robe wraps snugly around my sleepy body. Over the side of the bed bare feet search blindly for wool-lined slippers.

Slippered feet shuffle out to my favorite morning spot, and I sink down in the cushions to read and pray.

Worries knot in the stomach like hunger pangs while the coffee maker gurgles and groans. The soul wakes from slumber hungry.

This is when I break the fast between the preparations and the rush. Another day gets plowed through like dry wheat on rocky soil, arid and thirsty, waiting to be cultivated again.

I am the woman at the well. Empty and weary before the day's even begun.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10)

This daily habit of devotional time came from desperate places. On a typical work day, the alarm beeped at 5:30 a.m. waking me to read scripture before getting ready to go teach. Developing a knowledge of the word was my sustenance, readying me to face intense situations as a public middle school teacher.

Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephesians 6:17).

As a new mom I was even more desperate for God's word to get me through many weary days and sleepless nights. More than anything, I desired to live the kind of faith that I hoped to teach my child.

Without God's word as a guide the foot slips, stepping easily back into old footholds.

Let even a few days go by without having the bread of the word and prayer, and the hollow places echo like dust poured out of an empty silo. Come back famished and parched for God's tender mercies. Short accounts are necessary. It's hard enough living the day to day.

For the word of God is alive and powerful... So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most (Hebrews 4:12a, 16).

God's word is vital to our well beings. It's no wonder Jesus said he is the bread.

The soul yearns for more of God's truth and presence. Time spent reading the Bible stops feeling like a duty and more like vitality. Breath it in. Drink it deep. Taste and see.

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).

There she sits on the floor of her messy room pulling pants over chubby little feet as she sings it loud. “This little light of mine! I'm gonna let it shine! Won't let Satan blow it out! No! I'm gonna let it shine!”

And I smile.

Okay, God. Got it.

We head to the door and find her favorite shoes faithfully waiting to be strapped on. Now we're ready. Step out in peace, little one. Step out in the light, old soul. Tummies full and feet ready.

Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path (Psalm 119:105).

Growing Pains

www.jesshekmanphotography.com

Oh, the night wakings. Any mother of young children can sympathize with the perpetual exhaustion that follows many sleepless nights. When our little girl was an infant people told me eventually she would sleep through the night...We're still waiting for that. She's four.

God seems to use these long nights to speak to me. He uses lessons that a mother can understand...much the way I picture him doing for the disciples when Christ walked with them, teaching in parables.

We went through a season during our daughter's third year when these wakings were so disruptive that we became desperate to help our child sleep. That season taught me a great deal about being still.

Often in the deepest part of the night, in the stillness and quiet, God reveals his character. And in appropriate fashion, he uses my oft restless daughter to do it.

One night she woke up crying out in pain. She was curled up in her bed with one leg stretched out rigged. In her disoriented state she asked me to put my hand on her leg and pray. This sensitive spirited child has learned that prayer brings comfort – and the source of all comfort is Jesus.

As I prayed over her, gently massaging her little leg, it became evident she was experiencing growing pains. I began to pray that the Lord would remove her pain so she could sleep.

As a mother I wanted to take away the pain so she wouldn't have to suffer (and frankly, so we could all get back to sleep). Yet that Still Small Voice echoed in my heart: The pain is good. Let the pain come.

She asked me if her leg would be “normal again.” In this teachable moment I explained to her that the pains are normal – good even – because it means that she is growing tall and strong. She took comfort in this explanation and her crying ceased.  

“My cries are all dried up now,” she showed me by touching her tear soaked cheeks. The knowledge that the pain was temporary and there was a purpose for it seemed to bring her fears under submission.

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book...I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? (Psalm 56:8-11)

This month we celebrated her fourth birthday. Memories of the day she was born are fresh in my mind. They say that mothers forget the pain of child birth because of the change in hormones, the love bond between mother and child rush through the body as if to wash away the pain receptors. Still, the memories of those hours of labor won't be lost on any mother!

In birthing classes they teach that the pain of childbirth is helpful as it signals each advancement in the labor process and forces the mother to breath and deliver oxygen to the fetus. About ten hours into labor I wanted nothing more than to end the pain. I was losing endurance and believed I would not be able to continue without relief. In my labor experience, it turned out that feeling the pain was absolutely necessary for me in order to advance in delivering our baby girl.

The pain that I had desperately wished away was needed in order to accomplish a very good thing.

I can safely say that I am grateful for the challenges of child rearing which have taught me to rely on the Lord in more profound ways than I can adequately describe. It is through the trials and adversity that God has stretched me and refined me so gradually I begin to look a little more like Him. This has an eternal value I would never wish away. And for the days clouded with exhaustion, I find my rest in Him.

Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.
--Psalm 54:4

During the terrible twos (and threes) stage of motherhood, I felt truly desperate for help and a good night's sleep. Then I found this amazing book and it couldn't have come at a better time! It's called Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breath by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson

Cultivating Peace

When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow...

--James 1:2-4

He didn't have to but he did, answering a prayer long hoped for, bending down to become small, lifting up in his greatness. It was through adversity that hope was born. Embracing loss, letting it cut deep until what bleeds out is pure and holy.

I don't ever want to forget the pain because it reminds me of the healing. Recollecting and celebrating what once was fallow ground becoming whole and holy. This should give cause for great joy, again and again. 

“Joy emerges from the ashes of adversity through your trust and thankfulness” (Jesus Calling, Sarah Young).

Having endured the sorrows of the past, I can step forward into joy, accepting each challenge that comes my way through grace, with peace. But, when I get caught up in the snare of fear, instead of choosing to live in the victory already won, my feet trip on the path. I try to pull myself up in my own strength and plow ahead in my own power. Keeping my eyes on my feet I stumble, again and again falling into the trap of discouragement, worry, anger, and fear. These are familiar mechanisms I so blindly put on in place of joy and peace.

(Photo credit: Milada Vigerova/Unsplash)

Daily I pray that I may be worthy of the suffering of my past, that none of it would be in vain, offering it up for God's purposes. In the book of 1 Samuel, Hannah was both barren and favored. She could not produce a child for her husband and yet he treated her with grace. When the day of sacrifice came, 

...to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the Lord had closed her womb (1 Samuel 1:5).

The Lord has given me grace upon grace, for he has made me his portion and he has filled me. When grief was poured out through tears upon the alter, he gave a double portion for me. So, when our little miracle was born, it was in response that we took her to church to be dedicated back to the Lord, following the model of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:10-11.

Yet without pretense, I confess that the everyday mothering of this gifted child has not been the portraiture of a saintly scene, babe to breast, halo on the brow, sun beams streaming through sacred panes. But it has been this, every day: Humbling. It has been all of these: Tedious. Monotonous. Lonely. Bothersome. Frightful. Nonsensical. Exhausting. And more... But more than any of these, motherhood has proved itself an opportunity to humbly enter into the sacred.

Humble yourself under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up. Cast all your cares upon him for he cares about you (1 Peter 5:6-7).

Don't think that for a moment I haven't been both treacherously appalled by the enormity of the task of raising a child and gratuitously in love with the holy honor of being a mother.

It is grace. I don't deserve this glorious gift--and I scarcely should be allowed to do it.

When a crying infant startled me awake at an ungodly hour and I wanted nothing more than to put the pillow over my head and go back to sleep. When a writhing toddler bellows and stamps her feet in the storm of a tantrum. When the pressure mounts and I bark orders about how to put clothes on and “Can't you do this by now? We're late!” The stained glass shatters in unholy wreckage upon my pristine cathedral floor.

These walls I've built around my piety, archways leading into holy chambers, and pillars erected to great heights of splendor, such grandiose ideals and righteous expectations for myself – for my child. So when it all comes crashing down in a moment, I am left gazing upon the rubble of brokenness that proves that I am only human. Sin scarring my heart and leaving me breathless.

This becomes the prayer of the righteous – the undeserved sinner-saint – a mother's prayer. Jesus, help. I need You right now, because I can't do this. I cannot strive, control, or cajole any longer. It does me no good. Take this child. Use her for your purposes. Don't let me get in the way of who you intend for her to be. Make her life a fragrant offering that brings glory to your name. Help her to follow you all the days of her life, to stand up in her generation for Truth. That she may shine like a star in the universe – in a generation that stands for nothing – that she might stand for Christ.

The full weight of glory presses upon my shoulders and I am grounded and humbled, brought low by the gravity of this honor. God the Father, the Perfect Parent, answers with wisdom, which he so freely gives, instructing this homemaker to become a peacemaker. 

But the wisdom that comes from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. 

– James 3:17-18

He Carries the Lambs

This is it. We are entering a paradigm shift: baby days become school days. Take a deep breath, chin up, smile through those teary eyes, send them bravely off. All our kiddos going to their first days of school and a lifetime of education. But this isn't really “it”... because it was happening all along. The planting, the growing, the thriving in the fertile soil of a life planned for them long ago.

It may seem like a small thing, but my husband and I just sent our little girl off to preschool. And at some point in the weeks before the first day of school it occurred to me. This is it, her first day of school. Our girl, little walking miracle of life that we've been graced with bringing up, is having another “first”--and for this momma it's a big deal. Because from now on, she is growing up. Yeah, she's always been growing, but now...she grows up.

These days, this blissful little girl with a great-big-giant-spirited will has been telling us every day that she is a big girl. Ever since those diapers came off and she pulled on her first pair of big girl panties. Since she first slept in a big girl bed and slept through the night completely dry. Ever since, she has been learning each day that there is something new for her to conquer on her journey toward independence from Mom and Dad.

Then it hits her. It's bedtime and she realizes we are going to say good night and leave her room. It's Sunday morning and she will be going to kids' church upstairs. It's the first day of school and she will need to be brave and wave goodbye (but Mommy always comes back).

Yet, who's the one that days before the start of school is moping around all weepy eyed? Mommy of course! In the early years I'd ridden the tumultuous waves of highs and lows that are the toddlers years and almost daily wished for a small break when I could just catch my breath. We all need that, just a bit of time to hit the restart button and get refreshed, get to miss each other a little so we can enjoy each other all over again. Sometimes Momma needs a moment, yeah? 

This is the start of something new. So when anxious thoughts creep in and fears snowball in my mind about what kind of student she will be? Will she make new friends? Is she going to drive her teacher mad? Did we choose the right school? Will she make it into a good college? Wait. Not yet! Yeah. You know.

Moms, we have lost sleep for our kids, prayed over them, and prepared them. We carried them many months in the womb or in our dreams and carried them on our hips. We have carried loads of laundry like we carried their little hearts and even their heart-aches. 

The truth is, it really isn't we who have carried our young ones all along, but He. It was always He who carried the little lambs in his arms, carried them and breathed life into them in the womb, and He who carries them through each day after.

And momma? He carries you too. Our Good Shepherd leads us on the heights as well as along the valley floor. The shepherd's staff is a comfort as he gently guides and directs us in all of life's biggest (and smallest) questions, along the deepest terrain (Psalm 23). So while we make every effort to ensure our children's safety and security, that they eat right, sleep right, and that we train them up along the right path, it is safe to acknowledge that the One who actually holds our lambs is the Creator of the universe.

As I drive my girl to school in the morning and see that the sun is rising again in God's faithfulness, I pray over my child, her teacher, and the friends she will encounter. And I let go. He's got this.