I sat in church, singing songs of praise and wrestling with the monotony that seemed to plague my life and soul this particular day and the many of the days strung before it.
It’s tempting to let those thoughts creep in. Thoughts that say, “Your life is pointless.” Thoughts that say, “Could your life be any more mundane?” Thoughts that say, “Of course God is with people doing important work, or out in their jobs surrounded by people who need Him. But me? Why would He be with me when I’m at home sautéing zucchini on a Tuesday afternoon?” Thoughts that say, “The vast majority of your days right now are too boring for God.”
I sat there singing, these thoughts tugging at the back of my mind, when God spoke through the chaos of my mind so clearly that I couldn’t miss it.
“I want to walk through your day with you.”
My mind instantly flooded with images of Jesus right there next to me, walking with me, matching me step for step, as I carry poopy diapers to the trash and wipe crumbs from the lunch table.
Even now, weeks later, I am filled with awe as I think about it. The Creator of the Universe, Savior of the World, the All-Knowing, All-Loving, All-Holy God want to walk with me. Every step. Every moment. Every mundane hour of my day.
And not just me.
Mommy, Jesus wants to walk through your day with you.
He wants to walk through the meal prep and clean up, the diaper changes and clothing changes, the play time and the nap time, the discipline and the teaching opportunities, the coffee reheating and grocery list making, the Facebook scrolling and the library book rereading.
He wants to walk through your day with you.
He wants to hold you through each moment.
He wants to be there with you.
He wants to be intimately invested in your life.
He wants to.
He isn’t dragging Himself through the day with you bored and exhausted and counting the hours. He isn’t giving you half-attention while He pours more of His love and energy into the preacher prepping His Sunday sermon and the perscuted Christian halfway around the world.
For one: He doesn’t have the limits we do. He can pour all of Himself into being with you and simultaneously do the same for the evangelist preaching his heart out to a full stadium of people.
For two: He is walking beside you full of hope and joy and comfort and wisdom and grace. He is interested and invested in you and all the little repetitions of your day. He created the cycle of days and the beauty of repetition and He desires that you see Him and serve Him in it. That you invite Him into it.
And more than that, He is able to use the monotony of your life for more than you or I would ever dream possible.
The things that seem so insignificant and boring to me right now are not boring or insignificant to Him. He values each moment of my life enough to be with me through it.
God’s Spirit lives in me. 1 Cor 3:16
Nothing, not even the mundane, can separate me from God’s love. Rom 8:38-39
God is with me wherever I go. Joshua 1:9
Mommy, Jesus wants to walk through your day with you.
Will I recognize that He is with me? Will I take advantage of HIs presence in my day-to-day? Will I? Will you?
{In posting this, I realize that I probably should have published this post before the one I wrote and posted last week. So if you haven’t read last week’s post, maybe head over and read it now.}
This is my life. I want to live it present. I want to live it full. I want to live it fulfilled. I want to live it fruitful.
Many days I find myself looking at my life like looking into a row of mirrors. One day mirroring another, mirroring another, mirroring another and another and another. For years. Maybe for the rest of my life.
It’s dizzying. Repetitive. Pointless. Or so it seems.
But we serve a God who created this earth from the breath of His mouth, infusing it with glorious purpose. He created the sun to rise and set every morning and night. He created the waves of the ocean to endlessly lap at the shore. He created awake and asleep, hours and days and years in their cycles.
There is a liturgy, a form and a pattern, to this life that was created by God. And He called it good.
If I can’t find the purpose and the joy and the worship in the little, repetitive moments throughout the day, then I will end up living empty. Living from one bit of rest to the next. Living from this fun distraction to that. Living from one drudgery to the next. Living only to escape the cycle or to worship the cycle.
It’s much easier to see the purpose in something when we can see it as a whole. I can see the purpose in motherhood when I look at it as a cumulation of years of loving and serving and teaching my children. I can see the purpose in studying God’s Word when I look at the results of years of faithfulness. I can see the purpose in eating healthy when I feel the effects of it stretched over weeks and months.
But I don’t want these motherhood years to only feel purposeful when looked at as a whole. I want to be able to split them up into the individual days and hours and minutes I live and see the gospel purpose in each of them.
I want to walk through the endless cycles of wake and sleep, cook and clean, play and rest, diaper and diaper and diaper again and see the gospel purpose in each and every moment as I walk it.
I don’t want the caring for my body to only feel purposeful when I step back and think about staying healthy so I can someday meet my grandchildren.
I don’t want to see the purpose of seeking Jesus daily only when I look at it over the span of a lifetime of seeking and studying and pressing into Him and His Word.
I want to see the purpose right in the small, everyday moments of obedience.
Because I know that purpose is there.
The question is, will I choose to see it?
Will I choose to ask God to reveal the purpose He has given to each moment of my life? And will I rely on His strength and power to live into it?
I remember being in high school and constantly hearing adults telling me and other girls my age, “Be yourself.”
At times I got almost paralyzed by the idea. How did I know who I really was? How did I know that I wasn’t just faking myself out? How did I know that I wasn’t being helplessly shaped by my environment?
As an adult, I’ve stayed far away from that question. There have been so many other things to learn and grow in. However, it still plagues me on occasion, especially in my current season of hearing so much talk about “loosing yourself” in motherhood: the warnings about how not to, the encouragment to dive in headfirst, and everything in between.
A few weeks ago, as the first showers of a rainstorm caught me on a morning walk, I pondered again this frustrating question.
How do I simply be myself? How do I know who I really am?
As the rain fell and I scurried through the gathering drops, it hit me that the answer had been in front of me the whole time. The answer was there, just presenting itself as the answer to other questions, to other needs.
There are two different version “my truest self” I could find, and it’s up to me to decide which it will be.
I can give in to my every whim and desire and curiosity and become the fullest manifestation of my own sinful, broken self possible. Or I can spend all my energies and passions pursuing Jesus, growing close to His heart, seeking to know Him, and allowing His perfect knowing of me to reveal in me who He ultimately created me to be.
My truest self isn’t one predefined destiny that I need to search out from some hidden space deep inside me.
My truest self isn’t a destiny written on the stars that will take some epic journey to discover.
My truest self isn’t waiting at the end of a spiritual retreat designed to bring me into better touch with myself or nature or the universe.
My truest self can be found, but it will be found by the very real and practical life choices that I make every single day.
My truest self is who I am and who I choose to become, who I allow myself to become.
My truest self is either the me I become by indulging my every desire or the me I become by laying down my desires to follow Christ as He makes me into the woman He designed me to be.
Will I pursue becoming the truest version of my own sinful nature, or will I pursue becoming the truest version of who God created me to be?
Will I shoulder the responsibility for choosing the path my life takes, or will I allow myself to be batted along by every whim and fantasy I encounter?
Will I lay down myself – my own sinful desires – and instead put on Christ, trusting that His version of me is the very best version of me there could ever be?
Will I choose to follow Jesus even when it feels like loosing myself, knowing that only by loosing myself will I find all I ever needed and wanted in Him?
I hope you’ll hear my heart in this. I hope you’ll hear the words God spoke to my heart that morning a few weeks ago. I hope you’ll ask God to speak these truths into your heart.
I hope you’ll see that who God created you to be for His glory is worth far more than any other version of yourself you might be able find. I hope I will this. And continue to see this.
Because the truth is, sometimes this path will feel like just the opposite.
It will feel like dying to yourself. It will feel like laying aside your natural desires and instincts. It will feel like abandoning yourself. It may even, for seasons, feel like saying goodbye to your deepest passions and dreams.
Jesus even told us this in Matthew 10:39. “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
In the end we will find that abandoning ourselves for His glory will lead us to know Him and then ourselves in a way we could never have found on our own.
In the end laying down our lives will look like gaining the richest, fullest, most real version of ourselves. A version better than we could ever dream or imagine, because this is the version dreamed up by our Creator on the day He first thought of us.
It might just take till heaven for us to fully see it. But I truly believe that what we do see while still here on this earth of who He is creating us to be will take our breath away in all the best ways.
I don’t even remember what my “word” for 2016 was…it’s been that kind of year.
I do remember that I almost didn’t pick one. That it took me almost a month to decide on one. And even when I did finally choose, I was still a little unsure, a little hesitant.
I didn’t remember, until I just now checked, that I never even wrote about my word here on my blog. I’m not sure that I wrote it down anywhere, but I’m not going to go searching.
In years prior, my word really meant something. I stuck with me throughout the year. It provided a mantra to live and grow by. It was the focus of my write 31 days challenge in October. It was the theme of my year.
Each year past, by the end of December, God was already guiding my heart to the realization of whatever new thing He was about to do in me. And out of those realizations sprung my words.
But this year, I didn’t remember my word. It didn’t stick with me, guiding my heart and lessons. And I didn’t write for 31 days.
2013 my word was Breathe
2014 my word, or rather phrase, was Work Hard, Rest Well
2015 my word was Humble
2016 my word should have been Remember
As I look back on the year past, it is sprinkled full of remembrance.
Remembering lessons I learned in the past and relearning them for my present.
Remembering who I wanted to be as a person and attempting to refocus my life in that direction.
Remembering in the form of rereading a book or passages from books and so desperately needing the reminders.
Remembering how deeply I love my husband and reasserting that love in new ways while heading down the new path our life is on 5 years after “I-do”.
Remembering, or rather, memorizing scripture during the first part of the year. And during the latter half, remembering that I am supposed to be memorizing scripture.
Remembering what is most important and pulling back and back and back until just those things remain. I’m praying that 2017 will grow me solid in those places and allow me to creep back into some other places too.
Remembering that God is good, even when I feel like I’ve now lived years of my life choosing to remember when it doesn’t feel like it.
Remembering that my decision has been made and there is no turning back. I am a Jesus-follower, a Jesus-lover, a Bible-believer, a heaven-bound saint. There is no turning back. Remembering the how and the why of that decision and choosing to remain firm when sometimes all feels doubtful.
Remembering that one lesson I’ve had to relearn a million times…He is enough for me. Jesus and Him alone. He is enough.
Remembering the habits and patterns I’ve worked hard to grow into my life and wondering how they slipped away.
This was year a year of remembering and relearning and revisiting the lessons I thought I had learned, the things I thought I’d moved past. This was a year of humbling myself to relearn, to revisit, to be re-repentant. This was a year of being reminded how desperately I need Jesus to keep refreshing and renewing His work in me each day.
And if I’m honest, most days I’ve fought it. I’ve fought the remembering. I don’t want to step back into the painful lessons of yesterday, no matter how urgently necessary they are for my present. But slowly, tip-toeing at first till I’m brave enough to sprint forward headlong, slowly, I’m going back.
I’m remembering and relearning and renewing my mind for today with the lessons of yesterday.
And I find as I do, that the lessons from then, go so much deeper today. There is so much depth and so much freedom to be found as I review and remember and revisit and relearn. And I ponder again what I’ve often said and often tried to disregard, that this walk with Christ is simply one of learning and relearning the gospel over and over and over again.
I’ll be learning and relearning the gospel of grace until my dying day and each time I accept that fact anew, so much freedom is released inside me.
I didn’t know this was where my year would go. And perhaps it’s good that I forgot my word. Perhaps I needed to learn this lesson unguided. I don’t think it’s a lesson, or rather a million little lessons, that I’m near finished learning yet.
This new year, I didn’t think I was going to choose a word at all. Until God gently placed one in my lap.
Peace
My word for 2017 is peace.
I am praying for and seeking to cultivate peace this year. Peace in my heart, in our home, in my mind, in our marriage, and in my serving.
Peace. In my head it is such an over-used, misapplied and misinterpreted concept. But in my heart, I know that it is a sacred gift from God and something that He talks about over and over in His Word. It isn’t a special feeling or spiritual knowing. It is something to be worked for, prayed for, and fought for. This is my 2017 prayer, focus, battlecry.
It was the middle of a worship night and my mind was running crazy down the path of some anxious scenario. I wanted to be at this worship night. I wanted to be all in worshipping Jesus. I wanted to be distraction and worry free, but here I was, chasing anxiety again.
For a moment, I let my mind follow the anxious path. I could feel body tensing and tears springing to my eyes. And the words I’ve told myself so many times floated through my head…
”It’s good to think through this, because now, if the worst does happen, I will be prepared to deal with it.”
But in that instant it struck me: these words I’d so often repeated to myself were not wisdom but lies.
My mind spun as this truth sank in. Finally, as the spinning calmed and my thoughts collected themselves, I breathed deep.
I knew in that moment I had a choice.
Closed eyes. Deep breath. Whispered prayers. And then I lifted my head with this resolve.
I will not move on in life persistently imagining and preparing myself for the worst case scenario. Because there is no need.
In Jesus I already have everything I need for life and godliness. I am already equipped to deal with any trial God brings my way, because Jesus is in me.
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” 2 Peter 1:3
I do not need to prepare for the worst case scenario, because I already am prepared in Jesus…because I have Jesus living and active in me.
All this running of scenarios and what-ifs in my mind wasn’t just “helpful planning” or even “harmless anxiety”. It was sin. It was indulging in the lie that I am somehow in control of my own life and emotions in such a way that were something bad to happen to me or someone I love, I wouldn’t need help.
I believed that I would be okay because I was prepared enough and that all this preparation would make me strong enough to handle whatever life could throw at me.
But preparation doesn’t make me strong. Jesus makes me strong because Jesus is strong in me.
If I truly believe that Jesus was already strong on my behalf when He went to the cross, then surely I can believe that He will be strong enough in me throughout every day of this life.
As the truth grew stronger inside me, I slowly refocused my heart on worship…bowing my heart and head before my Maker in joy and praise.
But our Enemy doesn’t give up easily. Anxious thoughts came storming into my mind many other times throughout the night. But this time, I had another weapon with which to battle. Another truth with which to take out the lies.
