I Have All I Need.

Another flyer arrives in our little mailbox and my heart pounds.  Advertisements for pillows and vases and more Spring-like STUFF haunt me.  They haunt me while I pray for a young boy in Uganda who wants only to be healthy.

And we say we care.  We care about the poor. We care about the sick. Oh yes, we're Christians!  Of course we care about people.  Really?

I'm realizing that saying I care and living like this consumer-driven world tells me to - is just plain lying. God is doing something in my soul, whether I want Him to or not.  And I've come to this point where a simple flyer makes me almost nauseous.

I read a blog post about another boy in Tanzania.  He lives in a mud hut where he barely has the basics for survival, yet, on the walls of his humble home he boldly paints "Psalm 23".

"The Lord is my Shepherd,

I have all I need."

This boy, who to most of the world has nothing - knows this truth - when the Lord Jesus is your Shepherd, you truly do have everything you need in this world.

I breathe out and the tears come.  Again.  They come often these days.  But, I am the most at peace I've ever been in my life.  I truly am.  Yet my soul is uneasy.  But I think our soul ought to be uneasy in this messed up world.

The scripture says it, TEST everything.

So, I'm testing myself and I'm testing this culture.  So many of us live life wanting the next thing - always the next thing... the more, the bigger, the best.   We want to buy, we want to be entertained, we want to do whatever we want.  My heart aches and I'm literally sick of it in myself.  No more of this 'baby steps' garbage I've been telling myself for years when it comes to what I need vs. what I want.  There is no time for baby steps.  We are called to live in leaps for Christ.  I want to leap.  I want to run towards Him with every once of myself.


I want to say "I have everything I need", and actually mean it.  Actually live it out.  Actually make others my priority in a way that means, yes, I sacrifice.  But when I start talking about the things I can sell - heads shake.  It's radical... it's weird.   No, it's not - it's required.


I long to want for nothing so I can
intentionally hold on to what really matters.

I want to hold dear and smell long the little potted Basil plants our children made for Mother's Day.  They were so proud to give this simple gift.  So joyful, bounding from Sunday School with colorful mugs in their little hands.  I want to savor these simple gifts, given in such pure, unconditional love, and know I have all I need. 

I want to memorize what it's like to watch our children scooping for tadpoles and playing with frogs. Their innocence.  Their ease with nature.  Their need for nothing that comes in packaging or with a price tag.  I want to be all there and just engage.  Stop cleaning, stop fixing, stop doing and just be.  Just be in this mindset of, "I have all I need".  I want to live in this child-like state of complete contentment and awe of God's creation.

We are called to truly live in an "I have all I need" mentality for a reason.  It frees us from the bondage of consuming.  It opens our eyes and ears to the Lord.  And it frees us to wildly give of our time, money, resources, and every other little thing He calls us to let go of - so we can cling to the precious, the eternal. 

The LORD is my shepherd,  I shall not be in want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,  he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.   

  On the journey... never there,  Cassandra 

Linked In:

Women Living Well

Raising Homemakers

Good Morning Girls

Five Minute Friday - Identity

I find myself in a gentle stream where birds chirp above, minnows scatter below and the fallen trees bounce in shimmering water.  "Homeschool" at its richest.

 

My boots fill completely with icy water while I desperately chase a Spring frog.  I laugh hard - right out loud, so loud, everyone hears, some give me strange looks.  My kids giggle and look at each other.  It is pure, sweet, child-like joy that overtakes me in a moment that 10 years ago would have made me madder than ever.  I remember a nature walk when I did nothing but yell at my husband because my feet were 'mucky'.

WATER in my boots?  WATER IN MY BOOTS?  Yes, water in those boots - and flowing over... pure happiness.  Haha!  Praise God for transformations.  And frogs.

And in a world obsessed with, "What do you do for a living?", I find my LIVING right here with a glorious frog in my bucket.  And I'm fighting and learning to be completely happy to just LIVE.

To just BE...
in this moment
in this stream
in this life.

Yes, THIS life.  The life God gave specifically to me.  I'm striving madly to be in His purpose.  I'm reflecting today and I'm again realizing how backwards everything is in this crazy world.

Our culture has made life about DOING instead of BEING.

So, we ask, "What do you DO?" rather than "WHO are you?"  And we all rhyme off the things we 'do', getting different responses, depending on who we're talking to.  Some of us desperately try to impress, to convince people we're doing enough to measure up. Or at least we're doing more than her.

I don't want to be lost in doing - I want to be lost in loving.  Loving life, loving creation, loving these children, loving my husband, loving others, loving the moments.  Loving grace.  Loving the constant changing of my heart.  I want to be still, do nothing the world views as 'successful', and still, find divine purpose. 

To be 'just a Mom' spending mornings wholly flooded by stream water, toads, and laughter - for many, it isn't much of an answer to the question of, "what do you do?".  It just isn't.

"So, Cassandra, what do YOU do?"

"Oh, I romp around with my children all day.  We play in streams and read books and eat snacks by the waterfall.  We breathe in God's beauty.  You know, that kind of thing."

"Oh."

 

 I'm starting to think the question "What do you do?" truly means, "What have you accomplished?"

And it's all a matter of perspective.  A worldly view of success and identity pitted against what Christ says about why we're here.  This should be the question at the front of a Christ-follower's life: "who am I?".  How we live it out determines our destiny AND our eternity.

'If I gain the whole world and forfeit my soul..."  then what? 

Identity,  TRUE identity is found slowly, gradually.  It's that Christianese word, 'sanctification', to which we are all called.   And it comes down to accepting who God Almighty has designed us to be.  And you know what I've realized?  If we are truly in His will - our identity might not be very impressive to others in the so-called "real world".  We may end up with nothing but a frog in our bucket - but it will be pure bliss.  It is what it is, friends.

Overwhelming joy, however, is found sitting right smack in His arms, surrounded by the life He gave me. Surrounded by the ones he gave me.  Wet socks and all.

"What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, 

yet forfeits his soul? 

Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?"  

Matthew 16:26

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever 

loses his life for my sake will find it.

Matthew 10:39

 Linked in @ Five Minute Friday

Growing and Writing and Fruit.

This week we're tilling and planting and digging and getting dirt-covered.  We're smelling fresh rain and marveling at shoots springing up everywhere.  With soil in my gloved fingers, I've been doing a lot of thinking.

I've been considering Fruit.  Fruit on a vine, fruit plants in bunches lined in soil along our deck.  Fruit waiting to bloom everywhere.   And vegetables too - but the bible doesn't talk of the "Vegetables of the Spirit", so, we'll stick with fruit for the purpose of being at least somewhat linear.

And the Fruit of the Spirit is what we're discussing around our breakfast table this week too.  Love, joy, peace - being patient, kind, and good.  Being faithful, gentle, and having self-control - I so want all this.  I strive for it.  I dig and till, and water, and beg God for it.

This week, as I've strived to 'not write',  I've realized writing is part of who I am.  I'm hesitant to call myself a 'writer' - not sure I've earned that name.  But I do know writing is like breathing for me.  I write to communicate.  I write to understand.  I write to muddle through.  I write to seek.  I write to encourage.  I write to realize I know nothing.  I write to press into almighty God - to press into what really actually (seriously) matters.  That writing here can actually be worship and a very real way of seeking Father God.

For me, to not write, is to not fully inhale and only partially exhale.

My parents tell me when I was a kid I'd go to bed talking and wake up continuing the conversation I couldn't finish the night before.  I still do that.  My poor sweet husband tries desperately to stay awake at 1am while I talk on and on about injustice and Uganda and a family in Soroti I long to hold.  It's 1:12am and I'm still writing about building houses and holding orphans and scribbling the, "Oh LORD... let me see... open me fully Lord, that I would be more like You... USE ME, use me, use even me, if You will..."  I often have to verbally remind myself to slow down, shush, and stop talking but the mind never stops and it won't.  Until I get it all out.

I chuckle now, thinking how God has a sense of humor in all this - you know, because He DID make me. 
The same goes for pen to notebook or finger tips to keys.  I can choose to not write, but I honestly feel I'll bubble over if I don't put thoughts to words and words to sentences.  And those sentences become realizations.  Sometimes epiphanies.  Sometimes life-changing read-alouds when those divine 'ah-ha' moments leap forth from the recycled paper page.  I am humbled to my knees at the times God speaks to me right through the clicking keys.  Right through the sloppy pen strokes.  And His truth can actually speak right through this little blog and this little heart of mine.  And this is only possible because God uses the incredibly broken.  Thank you, Jesus.

I'm captivated by tiny shoots and dark soil and every kind of growing plant, bursting with color and hope.  I'm envisioning how God plants seeds in our very hearts and with His living water, makes them grow.  And I feel the churning of the soil, the tilling, the newness and excitement of planting season - full of dreams and possibilities.  And I'm longing for the springing up.  The growth.  The Fruit.  Only through Him and only in Him does this amazing transformation of a soul take place.  And I've been blessed to feel it, to know it.  To not be there, but to 'press on' towards what He would have for me.

And - well, to keep writing about it.  Because we are called to profess it with our lips and maybe that could mean through typed words that shoot up from the pit of my vulnerable heart and wind up here, on this little page or in a journal or on a piece of loose paper, sprawled cursive in the dimness of wee-hours.
And I'll keep seeking and begging and clinging to the truth that He has a plan for these scribbles - ashes to beauty.  Chicken scratch to eagle's wings... but only by His grace.

Linked In:

Stop.

I just finished reading Katie Davis' book, "Kisses from Katie".  If you haven't read it, I strongly encourage you to purchase a copy, get out your highlighter and tissues, and go to town.

The reading of this book coupled with so many other things going on right now - and I truly feel at this unexplainable place in my life.  My husband feels the same.  And we're looking at each other and wondering just what our Lord has in store for us.  Just what might come, if we are open to obeying His word and His whispers.

Never before have I been at such a powerful crossroads.  Life is fragile, I know this.  We are called, I know this too.  Even called by name.  And God is slowly revealing His plan for me, for us, for our family.  It's beautiful and crazy and wild and confusing, and completely indecipherable one day and so very clear the next. 

I've come to a point where I'm hearing whispers of Stop. 

Stop?   Yes, stop.  Stop trying so hard to come up with something to say, something to write, something to proove a point about.  And start focusing those hours on Him. 

Stop talking, and start listening.  Stop writing for everyone else, and start writing private love notes to God.  Start seeking with everything in me so that He may reveal His whole and perfect plan.
Stop and listen to the breeze and the children's laughter, and the children I can't see but know are suffering.  Open your heart in a new, fresh way.

So, forgive me if I'm quite absent from these pages for a while.  I love writing here, but I'm choosing to Stop for, well, I'm not sure how long.  To truly unplug from here (... imagine!  The irony!) - and to wholly, passionately, fully plug-in to the One who has all the answers and wants desperately to direct our ways. 

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
¹² Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³ Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  (Phil. 3)

From Katie's book:

"I was coming to understand that what it means to be real is to love and be loved until there is nothing left.  And when there's nothing left, and we feel we're all in pieces, God begins to make us whole.  He makes us real.  His love sets us free and transforms us."

"Nowhere in the Bible does it say that I deserve a reward here on earth.  Colosians 3:23 says, 'Whatever you do work at it with all your heart.'  It does not end in, 'and after this hard work you deserve a long hot bath and some 'me' time.'  It does end with, 'since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.'

Reflecting on this from the Word of God:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ 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 invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 

 ³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

⁴⁴ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. ”

Tilling the Soul.

I get it.  The theraputic nature of gardening.  I didn't always.  The grit of the soil between my fingers, it now connects me deeply to God's earth.  The tilling of the ground - an act as ancient as time.  And I do it this week.

Hardened dirt lays before me.  Naked and grassless in a small area, maybe 6ft by 4ft in our messy, unkept, but gloriously green backyard.  But not this patch.  It's dead brown.  We need to plant seed - so I start to till.  On a sunny, cool morning, I just start hitting the soil.  Me, a three-pronged weapon and bare dirt - we have a date.

WHACK.  The forked tool comes down hard.
WHACK.  Again.

I hit the dirt over and over, my intensity building.  As the soil breaks, I break.  In the very moment I'm hitting and coming down hard on this dry, lifeless land - I'm coming into myself.  I'm realizing.  Life... my life, has been the dry soil.  The thirsty, life-seeking soil.  So incredibly parched for so long, yet blinded to my own need...

For purpose.  For grace.  For God.

And I've been longing for the green grass all along, but fearful of the tilling.  Resisting the tilling.

Yes, I know in theory how all this works.  Land grows grass and trees and flowers and food.  But to grow something beautiful where barren land once was - well, it is a process.  The tilling, the violent preparing and breaking up of the soil - it's necessary for growth to take place.

WHACK.

And it's no longer the soil I'm preparing, but God preparing my heart.  Yes, I'm a crazy garden poet - and dreaming dreams while wearing rubber boots.  And my daughter looks on and giggles.  And it's ok.

WHACK. This culture - my dislike for the life of 'plenty' is growing, mounting, almost suffocating me.
WHACK. My greed.  I hate it.
WHACK.  My ignorance.  Give me wisdom, God.
WHACK. His calling - to love.
WHACK.  How am I loving through my actions?  How is my LIFE love?
WHACK. Wasted years.
WHACK. Wasted ambition.
WHACK. His love.
WHACK.  His grace.
WHACK.  His calling for my life.  My family's.

SRAAAAPE.  And the soil is raw and ready.  But I'm sitting, staring at it, simply lost in thoughts.

How do I live drastically and intensly devoted to Jesus?  To my neighbor?  At 28, my eyes and my mind are finally clearing and I'm starting to realize, as Katie says... that my life is upside down.  And I'm ready for God to completely rock my world right-side up.  I know He's planting.

Crazy, unimaginable seed.
Love seed.
Passionately counter-cultural seed.

And my soul is tilled.  My heart is open.   Blemished, imperfect - but open.  Ready for the process - ready for more breaking, more ripening, and the planting, and the growth.  This year has been a year of tilling.  It's been painful - it's been unexpected.  It's been like violent scrapes of prongs in vulnerable earth.  But I'm still here.  He sustains.  He prepares.  Even the 'me's of this world.  He prepares even us.

And so it goes.  Just as the garderner's hands break up the earth for planting... doesn't God do the same to our very soul?  To the very deepest part of us?

Breaking up is part of the readying.  Shaking up, mashing up, scraping through - it is the ripening... and it is sacred.  He is preparing us for the plant and His everlasting waters, will always be there to sustain us.  Always pouring freely.  Filling to overflow.  And then, when we are most vulnerably bare, something miraculous springs up.

But it takes the tilling.  And it's uncomfortable.  And hard.  And Holy.

And a privaledge.