Bigger Picture Moments: I See You

Yesterday, in a fit of frustration, I called out to God, asked Him where the heck He's been lately.

I've been feeling a little invisible. A little forgotten. A little frustrated lately.

With not being pregnant anymore.
With hearing repeatedly to be still.
With trying to be patient.
With feeling like I'm literally standing on a boat in gentle waters most of the day and some days rendered unable to walk without holding onto the wall or a hand for support because I feel so off balance. 

It's all things I don't often wear out on my sleeve.

All things I can keep circulating in my brain, quiet prayers constantly being uttered in a persistent, humble bringing to God and asking Him if He could just

Heal me of the grief from losing the babies.
Give me a direction in which to move.
Give me patience if I can't have that direction yet.
Restore the life balance and with it my physical balance. 

Please God. Please.

Maybe I'm greedy. Maybe I'm needy. Maybe I'm feeling a little like desperation looks.

I know I have much for which to be thankful. I know He's answered many prayers these past few months.

But still I plead for restoration and direction

and to just know that He hasn't left me here alone in this place of frustration.

Sometimes I forget and I mistake God's silence for stillness. 

Sometimes He has to remind me clearly that the two are not the same. And in that sometimes He breaks His silence.

Like yesterday.

Our senior pastor and I record a weekly video called Joe on the Go. And in it he spoke about how that morning he was reminded of the story of Hagar when she's out in the wilderness and she called God "the God who sees me."



I didn't give it a second thought.

Until I came across that very same story of Hagar again on Facebook.

And then

again in a book I was reading.

I closed the book, taken aback, and heard a whisper in my heart that said, "I see you."

As I journaled the day, I realized, too, that on a day when I had an explosion of frustration from feeling so invisible from what I was truly wearing on my heart, God sent others to really see me, too.

My husband saw I needed more sleep yesterday and wanted to make sure the kids slept until a decent hour before leaving for work.

My almost six year old noticed that morning that I was rushed and encouraged me to relax and slow down. {He's not even six! He rarely notices more than light sabers and play forts let alone the way I'm feeling!}

A friend messaged me during the day to say that she knew how I was feeling and could she come over tomorrow?

Another friend shared that she felt like our friendship made worthwhile the hardship of having moved to the suburbs.

Simple conversations that seemed to sing, "You know, I see you. I really, really see you."

And on a day when I had an explosion of frustration from feeling so invisible from what I was truly wearing on my heart, God broke silence to say, "I see you. I really, really see you, too."

And in being seen, I feel like today my eyes are open to what's really going on these days -- I'm not wandering alone, off map in unchartered territory.

I'm under the careful watch of the Shepherd who knows where we're going ... even when I don't.

Five-Minute Friday: Quiet

There is pregnant silence

the kind that is quietly laboring

and bearing down

and contracting the muscles of the heart

as I sit in the stillness of early morning

about to birth a change in heart and thought

conviction.

A friend once told me to be careful

and carefully pick the hills on which

I would choose not only to run up

and standatop breathless and winded

heart pounding

but also the hills on which

I would choose to die.

And I know

as I reach the point

where I think I just can't do this

I let go

the heart changes

and beauty is birthed

from a dying of my strength

and goodness

and justice

and trusting in His.

Thinking, That's All: Presence

I never liked the silence of me alone in a room without at least the presence of another to make it less still.

And then I discovered a Presence in which I wanted to bask, with whom I wanted to rest in the timelessness of quiet, in the quietness of slow-passing time.

I forget so easily, though, as easily as I forget the one thing for which I went to the store when I'm walking to the checkout, cart full of things we only half-need --

I forget amid the constant foghorn of busyness sounding through the thick air that my heart is filled not by the workings of my hands, but rather its filled by His handiwork within my heart during these times of stillness, during these times when my mind switches off the constant drumming of a make-it-or-break-it beat and instead beats in the rhythm of grace and rest.

I forget that His rhythm beats in my heart best.

We spend two days, John and I, in retreat of everyday life, filling small pockets of time with silence in His presence, keeping company with others who seeking to live in the intersection of where their deep joy meets the world's deep need.

We come around the table, seeking the very spoken Words Jesus shared in the upper room with his disciples.

We break bread together, trying to make sense of those Words, apply them to the here and now of our lives.

Together, we share life in solid community, bound by an appetite to know Him and make Him better known in our own hearts and in the hearts of those who crave more than what culture says life is in the here, in the now.

We share what has left us tired and aching -- the loneliness of being alone in a crowd and the noise of brains that won't enter into the rest to which He invites us.

It is an extreme paradox, this place and time in which we live, where we feel most alone when we are together and when we seek to come into His presence we feel alone because we are taken captive by the thoughts, the fears, the busyness of the day.

We break in retreat these two days to keep company with God.

Together.

Alone.

TogetherAlone.

And the quiet isn't so quiet.

Together

Or alone

when we keep company in His presence.