When The Balls Come Too Fast

As I talked about in the last post, recently I have been struggling with anxiety and a non-stop mind.  And much of it, God showed me was about perfectionism… 

I realized that the tensions I am experiencing come because I like doing things well – I like to focus fully on one thing and do it well – and in recent years – I have been able to manage that.  Maybe shifting focus here and there, but knowing the vision and sticking to it.   

But now the balls are coming too fast and I can’t hit them all back and I am running around crazy trying to hit them all, rather than trying to return just one at a time.  And I realize that so many of my anxieties could be left to one side if I wasn’t driven by this annoying back-seat driver who shouts: Are you sure that is good enough for God? Are you sure you are being a good enough mother? Are you being a good enough support for Mark? Are you attending enough to those in the team? Are you investing your creative gifts enough? (Remember the parable of the talents!!) And I swerve this way and that, breaking hard and turning suddenly, all the time knowing that this isn’t the life Jesus was talking about.

And I picked up a book about peace and even in the open pages I suddenly saw the problem.  I was making everything too complicated. I had despised simple and looked for the new revelation when all the time it was in the simple – in what I already knew to be true.  I actually needed to reverse.  Or in John the Baptist’s words: repent.

It is not about ensuring the children learn everything they possibly could learn this year.  Daniel does not need a saturated timetable of academic and extra-curricula activities.  He needs a Mummy modeling a God-seeking, trusting regardless of the storms, life. Homeschool is about simplicity: 2 or 3 simple goals and working towards them.  Had I asked God what they should be yet? Umm…no.

It is not about taking on the pastoral responsibility of all the people in the team.  It is not about making sure everyone is happy and well and thriving and if they are not it is my fault.  It is about simplicity: 1 or 2 simple goals each week.  Had I asked God what they should be yet? No, not yet.

It is not about being a adoring, doting, grateful, sexy, helpful, encouraging wife all the time and maintaining those high, high, standards I have set myself.  It is about simplicity: 1 or 2 simple intentional goals to show Mark I love him this week.  Had I prayerfully considered what they should be yet? You know by now, I haven’t.

And it is not about having all the ideas and vision and blogposts and other creative ideas all worked out this week.  It is about simplicity: 1 or 2 simple intentional goals.  Embracing the step by step.  And you know I need to spend time seeking God about that too.

And so as I keep telling myself ‘Keep it simple’, waves of peace are beginning to break, and this car which is running out of gas is coming into a pit stop.  I know I need to take a moment to readjust my life.  To put time into my calendar to work out what this week’s priorities are and to prayerfully consider all the different aspects of my life. 

How about you? Are you in need of a pitstop?

‘A plain and simple life is a full life.’

– Proverbs 13:7b (The Message)

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Related post: Keep it Simple

When My Mind Drowns Out Peace

Anxiety has been a heavy itchy blanket I have been trying to put down over the last few weeks.  I feel like I have been rushing here and there – from helping to lead a team, to trying to be a loving, listening wife, to homeschooling and parenting the children, to taking the odd moments to write down the many ideas I have in my head and think about how to turn them into writing. 

I keep trying to shake this blanket off.  And trying to be still.  To spend time in worship in the mornings and quiet myself before Him.  But this noisy parrot of a brain keeps on at me, reminding me of this or that. 

I had enough.  Didn’t Jesus promise peace? In the storms He slept and He told the disciples: In this world you will have many troubles, but…I leave you my Peace.

Peace.  That is what I am struggling to feel right now.  How is it that I can lose a baby and feel His overshadowing peace through it all and now I can’t even feed Kaleb porridge without losing the peace I have gained in my quiet time?

So I spent a week, waiting for peace to come.  My mind all over the place, urging me to keep on, keep busy, keeping going, all the time knowing this needs to stop.  The tensions of ministry, motherhood and creativity surely don’t have to look like this?

So I asked God to show me the roots of this anxiety. 

I surprised myself when the first word I wrote down was ‘perfectionism’.  Now perhaps this won’t surprise those who know me, but it actually surprised me.  Not because I am not aware of a past of perfectionism, but because I was surprised it had become a present.  Yes, I like to do things well, but I am actually generally very flexible with things not being done and I generally don’t have a problem extending grace to others.

But then again – how good am I at accepting grace for myself?

Where had doing things in His strength and His freedom and His Spirit suddenly become about doing it in mine? These standards, this legalism that I was holding over myself – why had they just intruded my being?

And once again, I realize that I had made it about me, instead of about Him, and so it was no wonder that I couldn’t hold on to the ever-accelerating roundabout. 

And I realized how much of my life is supernatural – that I can’t do anything without Him and it is truly Him who holds it all together. 

And so I have decided to hand it all back over to Him again.  Because He can do it peacefully. And I can’t.

God, the one and only—

    I’ll wait as long as he says.

Everything I need comes from him,

    so why not?

He’s solid rock under my feet,

    breathing room for my soul,

An impregnable castle:

    I’m set for life.

God said this once and for all;

    how many times

Have I heard it repeated?

    “Strength comes

Straight from God.

Psalm 62:1 & 11. 

Fighting into the Promised Land

I wrote this post a few weeks ago, when I was really fighting for joy... Thankfully, the dark cloud has now lifted, but I still wanted to share this post with you, because I know it will ring true for some, and also I, personally, need to be reminded...! 

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My peach tree – the one I planted three years ago in my new garden in my new house – this year it bloomed and blossomed and hundreds of peaches fell and swelled on the branches and the tree began to fall forward under the weight of the fruit.

I tied it to a nail in the wall. 

After a few days, the nail fell out.

But I now notice that the tree is no longer falling forward.  The trunk is firm.  The support is no longer needed.

Right now, I am being tugged and weighed down and I am stooped over.  My roots are too shallow and they gasp for water, shaken and helpless against the wind. 

And what is my support? My husband, caring, listening, stopping to ask how I am doing today.  Doing really well at showing interest in things he does not care too much about. My community bringing hugs and smiles and prayers and not expecting everything to be perfect. 

But the growth is going on at the roots.  I can feel them wrestling against the rocks, searching desperately for firm, saturated ground.  Unseen refreshment.

I have been promised some Promised Land.  But I am struggling having to fight to get there.

Remembering that the Promised Land wasn’t entered into without a fight.

But also that that fight was more about faith than it was about weapons.

So I fight forward.  Remember the things I have learned along the way – that the fight for joy starts step by step with thankfulness.  Thankfulness spoken out.   Spoken thankfulness is the hardest right now.  I feel fuzzy and overcome and like hell is doing everything to stick my lips together.

The fight for joy is ushered in by my music, and worship and declaration of who You are.  First listening, praying, leaning on You; crying out for You inside and hoping so much that I will be able to speak it out loud.

Jesus never promised a calm lake. Wasn’t it into the wind and waves that Peter stepped into Jesus’ path? Isn’t He calling me too to step into the storm – in faith – and keep my eyes fixed on Him?

Why am I so scared of drowning, if I know He will pick me up?

And although I'm scared, I know that the supernatural happens so often when the choice is life or death and I choose life.  And You prefer that I try and begin to sink than not get out of the boat at all.  

I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; 

I will tell of all your wonderful deeds. 

-Psalm 9:1

My peeling facemask

I struggle.  I struggle with the idea of struggling. 

There.  My mask is off.  More like a face mask – those peel-off ones I loved as a 14 year old, that pulled out those black-heads so satisfactorily.  Except, this time, I didn’t realize I was wearing the mask.

Part of my soul offered out, exposed.  And the waves of vulnerability break upon the shoreline of pride.  Or is it uncertainty?

Uncertainty of who this woman is.  This 28 year old, so used to going it alone, and no longer wanting to.  So used to fighting forward through the darkness of evil come against her, and fighting so confidently that when a punch comes in from the side I am suddenly thrown off-guard.  My roots are rocked and in this dry, dry soil they are desperately seeking for water.  Trusting that it has to be there.  Just.  Need. To. Go. Deeper…

 My mask collection actually consists of various happy faces: the super missionary; the calm, patient mother; the ever-loving, perseverant wife; the expert homeschool teacher; the compassionate pastor’s wife; the loyal friend; the wise older sister.

I love for you to admire my masks and marvel at my strength.

But any strength that is there is either a mask or not mine.  I would love to say that it is always His, but my own insecurities have not yet been melted away by His perfection.

And besides, in this desert I am finding it difficult to see His radiance beyond the glare of my own anxieties.

And these anxieties annoy me.  They rub against me.  The feel so old – so last decade, so coming of age.  Did I not throw them off?  Am I not now a woman: wonder-woman?

Where did they come from? Where did they creep up from these voids in my soul that are cracking my face mask and causing it to peel?

And Jesus. Beautiful, patient, arms-stretched-out Jesus.  You know.  And yet you still love.  You laugh joyfully and wholly and your laugh tells me I am your child and you accept me as I am.  That you find the masks quirky and silly and totally unnecessary and that you love the beauty of the face beneath – the exposed one, which can only go out in public with Him. 

And you remind me of the lies that the devil tries to tell me: search yourself. Keep looking at yourself – maybe you will get to the bottom of this uneasiness.

And instead, you tell me:

Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.

(Matthew 16:24-26 The Message)

When God Exposed My Unforgiveness

In the book of Judges, peace was only experienced AFTER a battle had been won. 

A battle had to be entered into first, to gain the ground that was Israel's by inheritance, but which had been lost by unfaithfulness and not holding true to God’s ways.

God started speaking to me in my quiet time on Monday.  He told me to grab a pen, and I assumed He would start talking to me about the things that were anxiously on my heart – He didn’t.  He started to talk to me more generally about peace and about areas where I had battled in my life.  

In those areas where I had battled and He had brought victory, I was in peace.  Those areas where I was still uneasy were areas where there were still battles to embrace.

He began to talk to me about the medical system here in Peru.  He told me I needed to write a list of all the health care professionals who I held something against.   

Now I have had two live births here in Peru, and one induced birth for miscarriage at 17 weeks, and I have had MANY encounters with health care professionals.  Most of them have been bearable, some have been surprisingly fine and at some I have suffered abuse that could have been taken to court in the UK. Humiliation and lack of consideration are reoccurring events. (*I would like to just write a quick sidenote to say that I have also had some gentle, tender, God-given care by some timely individuals too!)  

I had already started (and I thought, finished) the forgiveness process with those doctors who had been abusive.  However, I had never considered how my attitude towards medical staff here in general and my lack of trust had been leading me into many situations where I set myself up for a hard time.  I hadn’t realised how much the enemy had held me in fear because of that lack of trust whenever an occasion to visit a doctor arose, or when talking to others about medical care here.  

I then surprised myself by writing a list of 12 people (12! I would have guessed, maybe 3 at tops!) who, on recall, I could feel I still held something against.  I then realised how much I was not at peace with medical care in general here. 

The Lord, ever gracious, led me through a process of forgiving each person on my list and showed me that even the abusive ones, had not been intentionally so – their methods were questionable, but they were trying to get their job done as they deemed best. 

And then it dawned on me that many of the complaints in my life are due to unforgiveness. 

Whenever I complain, it shows I have not forgiven or extended grace to those who intentionally or unintentionally previously inconvenienced me. 

And I started to think about those things I complain about, or am tempted to complain about:  bad taxi drivers; ‘incompetent’ administrators; ‘slow’ shop attendants; a long wait in a restaurant; my children making a 'ridiculous' mess… – I am tempted to complain because of past experience and because I refused to extend grace to those people beforehand.  Ultimately, because of unforgiveness.

How can I leave my house hoping to love those in the world and reach out to them with God’s love if I go out in an attitude of distrust and complaint?

And what happens when I enter into the emotional ‘battle’ of forgiveness? I begin to live in peace.  God’s hand is upon me, and whatever situation I am in, I can trust He will fight for me.  My peace at the hospital won’t be dependent on the treatment of the staff, but rather on the Spirit living in me.  My peace in the taxi won’t be dependent on the driver, but on my Father’s protection.  My peace in my home won’t be dependent on my children’s behavior, but on His peace in my heart.

What are you tempted to complain about? Who do you need to forgive?

Love…keeps no record of wrongs

1 Corinthians 13: 5