Photo National Gallery UK- Vincent van Gogh “Farms near Auvers”
And then it was February. Deep Sigh. Hello my friends! I have missed you and missed writing. My mind, heart and body have ebbed and flowed through light and dark this season. The quietness of winter has revealed the disquiet happening in my own soul. “Sit and rest” He says while unbeknownst to me my reply has been, “No but I can’t. There’s too much to do and I’m not sure I can actually trust You that it will all get done.” I have come to run the race not with endurance but with anxiousness. A cloudy, gray, irritated anxiousness. As I write I see the days I couldn’t even formulate a plan at all on how to get from point A to point B. However, in His amazing grace we wake up, live everything in between and go to bed (as long as He hasn’t called us home) to live with purposeful breath in our lungs another day. He sees us through- and that should be counted to Him as ever abiding faithfulness.
I am being stripped of “doing it in my own strength.” I was walking along and suddenly realized that what I say to be true and what I am truly living are different things. In this scenario a couple things can happen. One, I can continue on dissatisfied and discontent because my hopes are one place but my direction is another. Or two, I can have a hard, lots of tears, striped to the soul kind of time where I wrestle with God and put up a fight and then submit to a good Father who has called me to walk with Him in better and in worse. To trust Him to create a new pattern of regulatory submitting all my own ideas and best laid plans, realizing once again He is in control and I in fact am not. I am such a dufflepud (Narnia reference). This isn’t the first time and it certainly won’t be the last.
As we look at seasons and try to come up with the why’s and unslumping yourself ideals (Dr. Seuss reference), all I can say is there is purpose in it all. I hate it as much as the next girl, ugh man do I hate spiritually gray days and dark wrestling’s, but I’ll say it again, there is purpose in it all. God is reminding me it’s baby steps. Do the next right thing now and then 5 min from now. Trust Him for my daily bread and do not neglect meeting with others. Sisterhood, friendship, hospitality and large groups are things we absolutely want to avoid when we feel undone. And then all the lies satan can throw at us like shame, guilt, bitterness, jealousy, discontent etc and the list goes on. Fight back! Don’t roll over and continue to be kicked even if you may want to because I wanted to. I pray you have those in your life to feed you Truth. Not an it’s ok and you’re a good person kind of stuff but the REPENT if need be (like I needed to) and you were MADE to Glorify God and enjoy Him forever so walk in VICTORY kind TRUTH.
There is beauty springing up all around us do you perceive it?!
I want to leave you with a beautiful poem from the boys schooling this week.
Contentment
Once on a time an old red hen
Went strutting round with pompous chicks,
For she had little babies ten,
A part of which were tiny ducks.
“Tis very rare that hens,” said she,
“Have baby ducks as well as chicks-
But I possess, as you can see,
Of chickens four and ducklings six!”
A season later, this old hen
Appeared, still cackling of her luck,
For, though she boasted babies ten,
Not one among them was a duck!
“Tis well,” she murmured, brooding o’re
The little chicks of fleecy down—
“My babies now will stay ashore,
And, consequently, cannot drown!”
The following spring the old red hen
Clucked just as proudly as of yore-
But lo! Her babes were ducklings ten,
Instead of chickens as before!
“Tis better,” said the the old red hen,
As she surveyed her waddling brood;
“A little water now and then
Will surely do my darlings good!”
But, oh! Alas, how very sad!
When gentle spring rolled round again.
The eggs eventuated bad,
And childless was the old red hen!
Yet patiently she bore her woe,
And still she wore a cheerful air,
And said; “Tis best these things are so
For babies are a dreadful care!”
I half suspect that many men
And many, many women, too,
Could learn a lesson from the hen
With foliage of vermilion hue,
She ne’er presumed to take offense
At any fate that might befall,
But meekly bowed to Providence.
She was contented- that was all!
- Eugene Field
Xoxo
Jada