Rainy Days

Rainy days make me happy. Most people like the sunny days, but I love the rainy ones... The best days are the ones when you wake up the the rainy gently falling on the roof. I sigh, snuggle under the covers for just a few more minutes, and then can't wait to get up because the thoughts of drinking coffee and reading a book are just to enticing.

Rainy days make me wonder about life a little. About callings and vocations. Dreams and destinations. Do callings last, even when you think they might have disappeared? I'm waiting to make a visit, hoping that seeing, listening, and meeting might be able to help me make a better decision but mostly open myself to hear the whisper of God. Maybe I have been to afraid to listen, maybe fear clogs eardrums just enough to not be able to listen. Practical didn't work and I found that out. Maybe callings come when you pursue what you love reading, writing, and talking about.

Maybe, just maybe, like Rich Mullins says:

I can't see how you're leading me

Unless you've led me here

Where I am lost enough to let myself be led

And so you've been here all along I guess

Its just your ways and you are plain hard to get.

-Rich Mullins, "Hard to Get" from The Jesus Record

I don't know. I really don't. And its a good thing, I think.

the beauty of gratitude

Abundance overflows even in times of uncertainty and transitions. Thankfulness overflows for:

-the change of season. I love the sight, smell, and taste of fall.

-rainy days.

-the beets we froze and canned today which were given by a friend.

-books and libraries. I have a boatload of books on horses, cowboys, and medieval knights right now.

-penned words.

-the friendship of Mothers.

-coupons and bargains!

What I am Learning

In a conversation with my Mom the other night, she asked about the life giving things in my life, and the things I am learning right now. Well, I can say I am learning a lot. Living with two toddlers has been wonderful and stretching all in the same breath! I love the girls, they are adorable, and hilarious. But they are also cranky and grouchy in the next minute. I love sharing the joys and sorrows of life with my sister. It has been fun being in the same place after so many years.

I am learning about gratitude. How to make the choice to be living a life full of gratitude and not bitterness. There is always so much to be thankful for and I find it easier to be bitter then grateful. I see this lesson as beautiful but painful. Richard Ruhr in his book Everything Belongs says that the real question in life is "what does this say to me?" This question is such a change from the way I want to normally think.

Silence and being pulled away from the world right now has been speaking to me about who I am. I am learning that my past still speaks into who I might be now. Old memories haunt me, people who I have not been able to find closure with appear in my dreams at night, sadness sometimes surrounds me as I wade through memories, faces, and old conversations. I have to face lost loves, relationships, and dreams. This is good, painful and complex but I know part of a greater healing process.

I am filled with hopes for the future, uncertainty surrounds me and I find it thrilling, frustrating, and scary all in the same breath.

There is much searching going on in my life. Not only for the tomorrow future but for the long term future as well. Its as if I am searching for my calling; seeking the call for the vocation I am to serve in. I realized that it has been since college that I have felt a clear calling on my life. It was the second semester of my senior year that it all changed. Do I return to that calling? Or has times changed to much for it?

I listen and wait. Ruhr offers this prayer:

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

gratitude as a life

I am learning that no matter what circumstances surround you, gratitude is a choice.

On this beautiful fall evening I am thankful for:

Crisp fall nights when you have to wear a hoodie.

Husbands who love beyond measure.

Books.

Time to read, write, ponder, and reflect.

Adorable nieces who bring wonder and laughter into our everyday world.

I think that it should be easier. That things should fall into place as I want them to. Once I had made the leap of faith, things should just be what I had hoped, right?

How about wrong.

The days have been stretching me. Moving from our home to this place has been harder then I had thought. I had hoped my restlessness could be contained, that my need for being settled wouldn't be so great, and all the things that I had been struggling through would be gone. I knew that these things don't magically disappear but I guess I had hoped vainly that they would.

I realize that this last year has been one of deep wrestling, with my hopes, desires, and the unknown. My wrestling has not produced answers but only more questions. I have read an enormous amount of books, written pages upon pages, and had many attempts to try and find where I am to be in life.

Nouwen writes that "The question is not how many people take you seriously? How much are you going to accomplish? Can you show some results? But: are you in love with Jesus... In our world of loneliness and despair, there is an enormous need for men and women who know the heart of God; a heart that forgives, cares, reaches out, and wants to heal."

I know that there are whispers being said to me. Something far greater then I can imagine, but I am unsure of what is being said.

"What is next?" I keep asking myself. The question echoes through me again and again. When I am paging through religion textbooks, grading lesson plans, holding babies, and writing.

Can knowing and understanding your calling be this difficult?

Review: Invitation to Solitude and Silence

Ruth Haley Barton's book Invitation to Solitude and Silence was given to me as a gift and I was immediately excited to read it. I had heard great things about Barton's books, she also wrote another book Sacred Rhythms.

Normally when reading a book, I write all through it, underlining phrases that I like etc. But this book was different, it was so beautiful and made me ponder so deeply that I decided that I couldn't write through it. And I didn't.

Barton writes about the need for solitude and silence in a world that is so chaotic and busy. It is clear that Barton herself has had to face her own need to slow down in a chaotic world and she writes about that. This book is realistic when facing the difficulties that come in the development of the rhythm of being alone and silent. I found the advice that Barton presented to be simplistic enough to bring into my own life. I enjoyed the balance that she had in this book between her own story and then history/explanation etc. of this spiritual practice.

At the very end of this book I found myself being able to connect with Barton as she shared her own story of listening to the voice of God and the obedience then required. She writes of being in seminary in preparation for ordained ministry, while also balancing the role of being a wife and mother. In the midst of this the stillness of God spoke to her of calling her from the role of being in seminary into a role of being a spiritual director. This calling brought about a huge change in Barton's life. She writes that "the capacity to recognize the voice of God through the ministry of the Holy Spirit arises out of friendship with God that is sustained through prayer, silent listening, and attentiveness to all that is going on outside us, inside us, and between us, and God."

I'm discovering in different ways in life, how sometimes God calls us from what the world thinks we should be doing into something beautiful, often mistaken by the world for foolish.

If you are interested in spiritual formation, the practice of silence, listening for the voice of God, or if you are feeling caught in a chaotic cycle of life - you should check out this book. Its a beautiful piece of work.

Rising Hope

I write tonight with a heart that is feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with the brokenness that surrounds us - even here, the beauty of the country, the love for all things simple, and the friendship of the one who loves me best.

Today, I went ahead and began a friendship with a compassion child through sponsoring them. I have followed Ann on her trip with Compassion, my heart was broken with the stories that she told of poverty and brokenness. I felt the tugging on my heartstrings, listened to the whisper of the One who redeems and whose love is more radical then I can ever imagine. Shaun wrote a beautiful song of our God who leads us out.

We made our way into the city today, the suburban filled with children's giggles and a baby's soft cooing. In leaving the beauty of the log cabin we have come to call home and the peaceful country roads, we knew that the city would bring different sights and sounds. But I am never fully prepared for what it stirs within me. In one of the most broken parts of the city we observed families; young mother's yelling at their babies, homeless people with a smile on their face, and children who should have been in school wandering the streets. I looked at my sister and we both felt the pangs of what shouldn't be. We saw, felt, and heard the brokenness of people all around us. We talked about the things we have in common with those who seem different then us, we talked beyond economic status and into the heart of humanity. At the end of this conversation we came to the conclusion that there is something happening in our lives.

God is speaking but we aren't sure what he is saying yet.

There is much translation to happen as we feel his presence and the movement of his Spirit in our lives. He is calling us, leading us, and giving us something new. Our hearts are being broken and then rebuilt with a love, passion, and desire to love those around us. Especially those who the world have deemed broken. My heart rises and falls with these passions, I am excited and breathless for what is to come. I know that He works in the most beautiful ways. And yet I am uncertain of how He is going to lead, unsure of what the next footfall looks like.

I'm overwhelmed. And grateful.