Such a Time As This

Faith, Hope, & Love

The 12 Books That Shaped My Year

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

– Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

I was a girl who loved books. In middle & high school, I spent many an afternoon curled up in my mother’s arm chair with a novel and cozy blanket. A favorite pastime was to browse the library shelves to see what treasure I might spot hidden in the long shelves.

Last year, I made a resolution to read more books. I actually had a stack that I shared with you guys on New Years Eve 2017. Motherhood had eaten up so much of my free time, I was determined to take some back for myself. 2018 was going to be my year to read all the books I had been waiting to read for the last decade.

Except, that wasn’t meant to be. I got about half way through 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and I just couldn’t take one more minute. I quickly realized that it wasn’t my dream to read that stack of books. I wanted to spend time reading books that would help shape me and allow me to grow as a mom, a woman, and a follower of Christ.

The Books that Shaped my Year

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  1. Forgotten God by Francis Chan
  2. Home Comforts: The Art & Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson
  3. The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer
  4. The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran
  5. Culture: Living as Citizens of Heaven by A.W. Tozer
  6. The Waning Authority of Christ in the Churches by A.W. Tozer
  7. The Harbinger by Johnathan Cahn
  8. The Unhurried Homeschooler by Durenda Wilson
  9. How to Talk so Kids will Listen & Listen so Kids will Talk, Adele Faber
  10. The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun
  11. Letters to the Church by Francis Chan
  12. The Bible – Chronological Bible

I’ve never been an especially quick reader. I’m even less so now. Being a mom brings near constant distractions. However, one thing I learned about my resolutions… it doesn’t matter how quickly I read or if I squeezed in so many more books that I did the year before. I just needed to keep on going… one day at a time.

I hope this list inspires you to take a chance and just jump in. It’s never too late for brand new start. It isn’t too late for a resolution to read. I hope to share with you more in the coming weeks of what I learned from some of these books – and even better, what I’m reading right now.

On Flus, Heartache, and Finding the Best Medicine

The shimmering snow flakes speckle the quiet windowpane at the front of my cozy library room.  I’m cuddled up with my grey fleece blanket in the charcoal armchair with the round ottoman. Behind me stands a row of books.  

Sneaky as a mouse, the tiny wide eyed 3 yr old comes prancing into the room, asking me to read.  I nod my head and smile.

It’s peaceful and calm as I turn the pages of, “How Big is a Million,” and “Caps for Sale.”  Reciting the words on the pages in front of me, Mr. 2 yr old boldly walks to the side of the chair and raises his hands. “Up?” He asks.

In a moment there’s not just one, there are two.  Two cozy, quiet preschoolers covered in a furry grey blanket on the charcoal chair with the little round ottoman. 

We finish another and then pick up a children’s version of the Nutcracker, and then an I Spy.  My wild Miss 3 is as still as a sleeping mouse.  

I lift my head and breath it in.  Joy. 

Joy. 

This is what joy feels like. 

A stolen moment with two littles who are quiet and content to sit, to listen, to snuggle.  

This past week has had its ups and downs.

Miss LadyBug, age 6, came down with the flu on Tuesday.  I knew something was wrong when I was making breakfast.  She was sitting at our island wrapped in a fleece blanket.  She had her head down. “I’m so tired,” she breathed out a deep sigh.  I felt her head.  Fever.  

I tried to keep her away from the others, and even though she only drank juice, nibbled some toast, broccoli and eggs, and slept most of the day, it wasn’t enough.

I warned the younger ones to leave her alone – she needs her rest. 

Still the next day Mr. Middle, age 8, was down for the count.  I thought maybe it would stop there.

My hubby had left Thursday morning on business and by that night he was shaking with the chills and had to drive back home early the next day.

And then it was my turn.  Friday evening I had a fairly mild cough and was feeling a little under the weather.  I woke up Saturday with a fever of at least 102 and feeling pain in my legs and feet.  If I didn’t know better, I would thought I had walked a long distance barefoot.  Everything was sore.  

We found out, Tuesday, that my husband (and the rest of us) have Influenza A – – most likely the H1N1 strain which is going around.  

I had plans this week. Most of my plans were left in my calendar unchecked. And I look around at all there is to be done.

So, as I sit here holding the two littlest, I remember this week, I remember 12 years ago when my two oldests were this size, the past 16 years seem to flash before me. Sometimes you have to go on a journey to find the right perspective.

I remember being too busy to slow down. 

I remember trying to focus on all the wrong things. 

I remember thinking about what is hard. 

I remember forgetting what was beautiful. 

I remember my tiny babies.

I remember the ones I never met.

I remember what an honor and a privilege it is to raise this house full of little people. From the tallest to the smallest.

In that moment my feet landed on solid ground and I caught a different bug – the bug of joy.  And I grasp it with all the strength I have.  

It maybe be an icy, snowy wintery day and it might even seem a bit gloomy out.  You may be sick and tired and fighting a fever or the flu.  No matter where you’ve been or how you’ve wasted time. Slow down, breathe deep, and look around you.

Find the joy. When you find it hold on with all the strength you have left. It’s a strong medicine for the weak and weary.

A Tale of Sorrow and a Tale of Grace

Are you carrying around painful memories of something that happened over the past year?  Maybe you are still angry, bitter, or deeply hurt over something which was said to you or done to you over the past 5 years.

Do you want to know a secret? The Lord revealed something to me in the first three months of 2018. 

The Lord revealed that I was carrying around a burden — bitter memories –of something that happened around Christmas of 2003.  That’s a long time, friends.  That was about 15 years of dragging around my own bruised, mistreated feelings.  

Last year was a year of learning and growth.  As I mentioned in my last post, it wasn’t the way I planned it, but it was the way it needed to be.  

We’ve all been there at sometime. 

Maybe you cried after logging onto your social media account sometime last year.  Or you felt insane anger pulse through your veins because of what a “friend” shared about a politician on their page.  How many of you have felt deeply hurt by a close friend?  How about your dad or mom? Did your closest ally betray you in the battlefield of life?

Who among us has never been offended or felt jaded by a mean spirited remark?  Seriously, just being on *ANY* social media platform is enough to lose friends, be offended, feel hurt, or be enraged these days.

Throughout my life I’ve seen not only my own hurt but the hurt of those around me.  I’ve witnessed how other people deal with their pain and even what causes them pain.

Sometimes, people make careless remarks that don’t carry much weight as they let the words fall from their lips. However, those same words can feel like a punch to the gut in the heart of the receiver. 

Sometimes, others say things out of concern but to the recipient there are deeper implications.  Other times it’s said as a joke, unknowingly losing a close friend in the crossfire of the laughter.

Just go on any mommy Facebook group to see the drama that happens between husbands and wives, neighbors, best friends, mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws. It feels like a boundary-less world we live in.

Let’s face it — we are human and most of us will find ourselves hurt, angry, or sad for a whole host of reasons.  

I’ve been dealing with strong feelings of what is “right and wrong” since I was a child.  I have an entire diary to prove it.  That diary became my therapy during my elementary and middle school years.  It got replaced by poetry writing and a strong melancholy by high school. God showed me a better way – a healthier way to deal with the ocean which is my emotions.

Here is what I realized this year.  And I will preface this by saying this was one of those epiphanies that shouldn’t have been … because it is right there in Scripture.  It’s just it took me 30-something years to learn this little gem.  

Satan will use anyway he can to guide you into sin.  He will literally even use our own traumatic experiences, our own grief, our own heartache to hijack our faith. Seriously. He’s crafty. That’s why God gives us such clear instruction.  It’s like the old cartoon of the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other.

  • God tells us to forgive.
  • Satan tells us we don’t have to. 
  • God tells us to love. 
  • Satan tells us it’s more fun to hate. 
  • God tells us not to hold on to our anger. 
  • Satan tells us that our anger is justified. 
  • God tells us to put others above ourselves.
  • Satan tells us we deserve more.
  • God tells us his ways are higher than ours.
  • Satan tells us we are the masters of our own universe.  

The problem is we live in a sinful-fallen world and we live in a sinful body with a heart, that, as my pastor put it last week, is an idol factory.

We all have a tendency to look after our own needs, to defend ourselves, and to, in many ways, put ourselves first.  It’s not easy to write this because I’ve lived this and walked it too many times … so I know how painful it is to have people hurt us. 

However, when we wallow in our own self-pity, let our anger turn to bitterness or self-deprevation – when we allow our hearts to darken, we take our eyes off of Jesus and we put them on ourselves.

I don’t care how messed up the other person is – or how mean they are. I don’t care what they do or don’t deserve or the laundry list of what they did to so and so.

 

I have been there before. Trust me, I have. I found myself so focused on how someone else hurt me that I didn’t stop to remember a key verse in Ephesians.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” 

Ephesians 6:12

To make this easy to follow, I put together 3 simple steps to remember when you get hurt or offended or angry this year  this week.

Step One:

Friends, run to Jesus.  When people hurt you, run to Him.  Pray and pour out your pain and your frustration.  Pour out your heartache and your grief.  Pour out your heart and life to the one who created you.  

He sees you. He knows you.  He made you.  He loves you.

Step Two:

Secondly, identify if there was a miscommunication, an accident, a slip up.  Try to figure out the cause of your hurt.  Was it truly purposeful?  

If it was, pray some more.  Remember that you aren’t battling against flesh and blood.  There is a spirit realm that wants to entice you, wants to fluster you, wants to weaken you.

Pray against the powers of darkness and pray for the person who was or is trying to hurt you. Jesus himself tells us this in the book of Luke…

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  

Luke 6:27-28

Step Three:

Thirdly, go to the person and share with them your frustration.  If it is a friend or a relative, please be honest and share your feelings.  Make 2019 a year where you don’t bury your resentment and allow them to simmer into a poison in your soul.  

“In your anger do not sin” : Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

Ephesians 4:26-27

The thing that struck me the most is that someone else can choose to harm us or hurt us with their words or actions.  That’s a sin.  A weapon against God and man.  But our response also gives room for God to work in our lives or for the devil to gain a foothold and cause us to stumble into sin.  

My first thought when I realized this is — that isn’t fair.  Why should the sin of others cause me to sin.  The short answer (I found out in time) is that it shouldn’t.  We need to choose Jesus. We need to choose grace.  Choose mercy. Choose prayer.  Choose love.

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Colossians 3:14

And always remember:

God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers.

Matthew 5:11

Do you see? The Lord didn’t give us these instructions to punish us, He gives these to us because He loves us. He doesn’t want us to grow in bitterness and heartache but to grow in grace.

On Dust Bunnies and Resolutions

Last year – 2018 was a year filled with hopes and dreams.  Isn’t every year, though?  I found my self hitting roadblocks in my resolutions and aspirations.  

Isn’t perspective an interesting thing? I couldn’t see it when I started but now after walking this road for the last year I can look back and enjoy the view of what the Lord brought me through.  

As I started on my journey I thought it would be a year filled with excitement and new beginnings.  I had hoped to begin writing a book, as I shared right here on this blog last New Year’s Eve (2017).  

God had another type of journey in store.  It was a deeply introspective one.  It was brimming with heartache, pain, hurts and regrets.  

After many years of stress, anxiety, and severe health problems I was ready for the completely new start.  I was finally in a place to move forward with some of my own personal hopes and dreams.  I thought it would be as easy as clicking my fingers and checking a list.  

What I didn’t know 367 days ago was that I wasn’t ready.

This past year the Lord helped me clear away some cobwebs and dust bunnies…the things of life that are left behind after dealing with difficult hurdles, traumas, and hardships.  

I didn’t know it a year ago but I had some forgiving to do.  I had some letting go that had to come before my heart could be free from pain that became a burden that I didn’t even know I carried.

I had to face the last of the negative voices that plagued my freedom.

I had to battle some spiritual warfare that was easier to run from.

The Lord taught me many important lessons this year.  Sometimes even when you think the war is won there are few battles left to complete.

Our God is a God of order.  Even in our day to day life before we take on a new responsibility there are matters to attend to and checklists to complete.

  So I see now that when the Lord brings you through something – He is going to finish the job.  He won’t leave you hanging – fending for yourself.  He will leave no stone unturned.  

I’m writing this rather ambiguous post because I feel in my heart that somebody needs to hear this right now.  Someone is facing a daunting year of hardships.  Someone is trying to move on with their life before they faced the giants that plague them.  

My word last year was “bold” as in “be bold”.  I never knew how hard I would have to fight to be bold.  Although these things seemed small from the outside, from the inside they were gigantic tasks that only served to strengthen my faith.  

So, if you are facing a cluster of cobwebs that you’d rather sweep under the rug and ignore.  Know this: sometimes the hardest step is that first step of faith.  He will hold your hand and walk with you through whatever you are facing.   


“The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14

Filed Under: Faith

Why I Won’t Choose a Word this New Year

Today is the start of a new page. It’s a new chapter of the story that is still left untold. For the last several years, I’ve chosen a word, a word for the year, as many bloggers have been in the habit of doing.

This year is different. I’m not choosing a word and it’s not because I didn’t like my word from last year. It’s not because God didn’t use my word from last year to move me in ways that were unseen 365 days ago.

There is another reason. I suppose the reason has less to do with me allowing God to guide my year with a word but more with acknowledging that God is the Word. He can do anything and all things through the blank slate that is this year: 2019.

He can do more than what my small, human mind can imagine. He can make a way where I see that there is no way.

He can take what is old and broken and make something glorious.

This year, I’m left in awe of what God is doing in my heart and mind, in my family, in my church, in my city, in my country, and in the world.

You see, our God is a magnificent God. He is the King of Kings. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts.

And yet… and yet he cares of us. He cares for even the smallest, the least of us.

I’m excited to share with you what God has been doing during 2018 in my life. I’m even more excited to see what God can do when we give him all of us. Not just for 2019 but for our lives.

So this year, I’m not asking God for one word. I’m seeking the one and only Word. Because, “In the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1

Friends, If you are struggling with finding a word or debating whether to choose one, I encourage you to join me on this journey. It’s a journey of testimony and faith. This year, I want to drink from the living water, seek His will, and show God’s love to this dark world. Remember what our Lord tells us in Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

No matter what 2018 left you with or what you are facing in the coming months we must seek the Word. Draw close and listen carefully.

We must seek the Word because this Word never fails.

“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares for you”. 1 Peter 5:7