In the Middle of A Winter Season...

In the middle of winter's bleak grayness and dark, the sun withholding, snuggling on the couch with my girls trying to stay warm, bundled up with hand-crotched quilts made with love, I day dream of escape.

As they run around and around the house screaming, me trying to keep them calm and failing, the world outside too dreary for them to enjoy and my head suffering the consequences, I look at pictures of places warm and carefree and I wish desperately.

I'm caught up in this negative frame of mind that says it will never get better, I'll never have a moment's peace, these children here since the day we got married--this sleepless chaos all I know.

I am in deep love with all my babies, but with each new baby, came more responsibility, more weight on our marriage, nights sitting up feeding and rocking, nights and nights of Mama not sleeping for years on end, and with noone to keep them, a small break to refresh myself rarely possible.

With each new little one came more depression and more anxiety, and though those around me said they were amazed at how I held up, I must have hid it well because what they couldn't see was that I was breaking down inside little by little.

On the outside, I was brave and smiling, but on the inside I was a broken, hollow shell, cracked and afraid of failure.

With it all came more grating of myself and less and less chance of breaking free in flight, of pursuing the solitude that I wantingly crave, of getting normal sleep and feeling sane.

The days became like sandpaper against my selfish desires and dreams and my wishing on stars, hoping for the mountain air, reaching for beaches white and seas of sparkling jade became just candles blown out with the secret longing, only curls of smoke left in the wake of duty.

There have been times I thought that my flesh would get so torn with exhaustion and the fight to keep going that my body would go down to the deep. I have longed for Heaven and it's wiping of tears, of sorrows and toiling no more.

Somewhere in the midst of all of this God began to whisper to my heart..."My dear child, you are not alone. I suffered too. Now you suffer with me, you drink of my cup, and this is how you know me deeply."

                                   
                                         {old pictures of the girls playing in the snow}

And the more time that eroded self, the more their screaming demands washed down the dirt-packed high expectations of my needs, and did a cleansing of the heart and soul, running down and pooling at His feet, at the base of the cross, the louder I could hear Him uttering,

"I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."--Jesus, John 6:53-58

So in the middle of this unceasingly busy world of mine without rest and little comfort, if the cup and the bread are symbolic of my suffering with Christ, of my proclaiming His death, then everyday I am drinking down and I am partaking of the bread of suffering.

Every day that I stay here and I don't escape and I bend low, this serving-place becomes hallowed, and the edges of me are scraped and sanded raw and I bleed and I gape open, arms stretched out, hands pierced just as my Christ was holed straight through, the obvious scars I can't deny.

I am in deepest fellowship with Him, when I know Him intimately in His suffering.

And I know that I won't do it perfect--I will forget, and my tongue will lash out at little ones when I am bone-tired and my mind can't keep up with the whirl-wind.

But I press on, and moment by moment, I let Him teach me how to suffer with Him. I keep my heart soft and I remember to drink down fully of His cup and to ravish the bread of His body, because this is the only way to die to this flesh that I'm in. 

My little one comes up to me and I bend low and I stretch out arms and take her in, the edges of me becoming softer, my love for her bleeding out.

Some quotes to meditate on if you have time to read--they are very rich and stimulating to thought:

          "Suffering is getting what you do not want while wanting what you do not get."--JI Packer

"There is no university for a Christian, like that of sorrow and trial"--CH Spurgeon

"All the children of God are destined to be conformed to Christ. The more we are afflicted with adversity, the surer we are made of our fellowship with Christ: Philippians 3:10 - 10 'I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 2 Thessalonians 1:4-5 - 4Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. 5All this is evidence that God's judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering.' "--John Calvin

"He who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore, he prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly. For they hate the cross and suffering and love works and the glory of works. Thus they call the good of the cross, evil and the evil of a deed, good. God can only be found in suffering and the cross."--Martin Luther

"If the first mark of a true and living church is love, the second is suffering. The one is naturally consequent on the other. A willingness to suffer proves the genuineness of love." --John Stott What Christ Thinks of the Church: An Exposition of Revelation 1 - 3 (Grand Rapids, Baker: 2003) 35


"I've never heard anyone say the really deep lessons of life have come in times of ease and comfort. But, I have heard many saints say every significant advance I've ever made in grasping in the depth of God's love and growing deep with Him, have come through suffering." --John Piper


"None of us can come to the highest maturity witout enduring the summer heat of trials:
As the sycamore fig does not ripen unless it is bruised
As the corn does not leave the husk without threshing
As the wheat makes no fine flour unless it is ground
so we are of little use until we are afflicted!" --Kimber Kauffman, pastor College Park Baptist Church, Indpls IN

"Programs, systems and methods sit well in the ivory towers of monasteries or in the wooden arms of icons. Head knowledge comes from the pages of a theology text. But the invitation to know God - truly know Him - is always an invitation to suffer. Not to suffer alone, but to suffer with Him." --Joni Eareckson Tada

Gratitude: {since I've been out of the blogging community, a culmination of the past few weeks}....

a gift found at 11:30, 2:30 p, at 6:30 p...

#535 hearing my father preaching for the first time in many years
#536 all of us eating chips and dip, cookies for Sunday lunch and curling up on the couch
#537 Husband putting the children in bed while I'm lying on the couch with a migraine, him quietly telling them to leave Mama alone

#538 Lorna blending berries for my juice fast

#539 girls running around the house, squealing with delight and the thrill of their Daddy hiding and jumping out to catch them

3 gifts overheard today, all gifts...

#540 Lorna talking to her horse as she leads her to the pasture, "You should be ashamed of yourself that you step in your own poop."
#541 Ivy's synopsis: "Mama, don't think of it as a green swamp; just think of it as a candyland!" --on my green juice
#542 Lorna's "I can't tell you, Mama, because it's a surprise." and her running off excited in her planning.

3 gifts found in writing...

#543 this scripture: "Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring--not only to those who are of the law, but to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all." Rom. 4:16
#544 this gift listed a while back: "husband's forgiveness in my failings reflecting God's goodness"...yes
#545 just this post--oh the beautiful and poignant poetry Ann pulls out of her heart here!

#546 Bella's excited announcement: "Mama, when I told Lilly 'That's a rag,' she said, 'Oh'!"

#547 When I go to pick up Lilly to change her, Bella's four-year-old observation, "I think she smells like poopy!"

#548 When I start changing Lilly, how Bella tells me confidently, "I can do the buttons." then "See? I can do it." Her need to be seen as a respected individual.

#549 light from lampost rippling across the lake at night

#550 running in silence, the stillness all around me, the dark falling down, taking in deep breaths that I didn't even realize I needed

3 gifts found when bent down...

#551 my baby's sugary-soft cheeks
#552 beautiful white and yellow daffodils peeking out at me from deadend grass, radiant in winter

#553 heavenly laughter that makes me soar as i am bent over my baby, bodies close in taking care of her,  tickles and kisses

one gift stitched, one hammered, one woven...

#554 beautiful hand-stitched quilt of Sunbonnet Sue handed down
#555 Husband's canvases nailed up high on wood, him painting away, happy
#556 the way our family days all weave together, tightly, God holding us together, all the messy and all the beautiful, securely held in grace

3 gifts found outside...

#557 me taking pictures of daffodils on a warm day...signs of spring coming...while Lilly runs atop stones and Husband and I laugh at her determination and tiny cuteness

#558 girls bringing me vase of miniature daffodils they picked in woods for Valentine's Day
#559 proud blue jay flitting across the yard in his splendor

a gift broken, a gift fixed, a gift thrifted...

#560 my heart, broken and contrite before God, going on faith and out on a limb, and loving with wild abandon
#561 putting fears aside and loving, in spite of possible rejection, and a woman teary-eyed telling me she loves me--this repaired relationship and how this brought long-awaited healing for me in the body of Christ--extravagant grace!
#562 running shoes loaned to me by a friend

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Also sharing with L.L....

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