Dirt.

When all that dirt is embedded in the carpet, depending on what kind you have, it often goes unnoticed. You may not realize how dirty your floor is until you notice the bottom of your sock is collecting hair and filth. While searching under the couch for the remote, you may actually see the dirt while your eyes are just inches away from the pile. If you’ve ever removed a clog from your vaccuum or even emptied the canister, though, you know how dirty your floors were, and it’s a little unnerving.

Even though your dirty carpets may gross you out a little (especially when you look at the photo above), it doesn’t shock anyone. No one is surprised to find dirt in their vaccuum’s canister or bag. As annoyed as we all get when our vaccuum is clogged, we’re not surprised at that either, because pretty much all vaccuums clog. There’s a reason it is so easy to find replacement parts for vaccuums, and there is a reason people so often purchase new vaccuums: it’s generally accepted that vaccuums eventually lose suction and begin to suck. (pun intended.)

I suppose you’re wondering where I’m going with this, and I assure you I do have a point.

You and I, we are upright bagless vaccuums. We are roaming around in a sinful, broken, fallen world full of grime and filth. If we were perfect, like Jesus, we would be able to propel through the dirt and clean it without it compromising our integrity. But we are not, because like the world, we are also all broken. Not one of us is exempt from getting clogs that prevent us from being effective. Every single one of us is spitting grime back out left and right as we maneuver through life. For those of us who are parents, that is heartbreaking because we  realize that our children will not escape untouched. No matter how badly we try to be the perfect mother or father, inevitably we will fail at some point and cause damage in the lives of our children. They will begin to lose suction just like we have. They will also clog. They will also spit their filth back out on others and the painful cycle of sin will continue.

But it doesn’t have to. Not indefinitely.

For those of us with broken vaccuums, Dyson claims to be the savior, parading their ‘no-loss-of-suction’ vaccuums with hefty $500 price tags in front of our smudged noses. But the message of the cross is even better, because Christ himself paid the hefty price.

Only Christ can take us apart, pull out the clogs, clean the filth, replace our broken souls and restore us. Through Christ’s redemption, we are like new. We are effective again and we are able, by his power, to plow through the muck of this world without it compromising our integrity.

Some of you are stuck. You’re looking at the filth you’ve spilled and you’re ashamed. You keep removing the clogs yourself and inevitably, the smoke returns, the suction is lost. But God has a promise for you. He has offered his life for you. He has promised to restore you in his time, permanently. We were never meant to be left in the dark, unable to fulfill our purpose. Christ has come to restore us into right relationship with God, to allow us to fulfill our original purpose, to be free from sin and live as we were intended.

This Christmas, we will celebrate his coming to earth for the first time. He was born, he lived for thirty-three years and he was crucified.  Not one of us could afford the price.  He died because only a perfect man could pay the price for all of us. He came for the broken vaccuums. He is coming back to clean up the dirt.

A good friend of mine (who takes amazing pictures – you’ll often see them on here…) is in social work and lost a client this weekend. After reading her post, I began to dwell on pain. No sooner did I begin to ponder the scope and purpose when I realized I was trying to view an entire mountain with my nose pressed to the rock. The questions are overwhelming. My heart threatened to burst in comprehending the intensity of a pain so deep that it would push a woman over the edge into a fatal and frigid body of water, and then just as my eyes begin to open to the reality, my heart became colder than the water that consumed this woman.

Why have I become so dulled to pain? In fear of feeling too much, my mind shuts every door that leads to anguish. I feel empathy… I feel pain… but only to a certain point. “It’s not real.” Of course it’s real, but that mantra, that phrase that you repeat to yourself subconsciously when you’re watching a tragic drama or a tearful scene in a TV show, does it penetrate the line between fiction and reality? That switch you flip to keep yourself from crying in the back of the movie theater, does it flip itself when you’re listening to something real? Do you find yourself switching off emotion when it gets to be too much, even when what you’re witnessing is no longer fiction?

When I’m reading scripture, and I’m dwelling on the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, and when I’m trying to allow the weight of that sacrifice to soften my pride and break my heart, I find myself visualizing the story on a mental screen. As it flickers in front of my mind’s eye (likely scenes from The Passion), it happens. I’m on the verge of breaking down, feeling something, and the switch flips again. I coldly watch, the image fades, and I’m back in my bedroom with a bible in my lap, and I cannot. Even. Cry. I’m cold.

This woman felt pain at a level so deep, that she was able to overcome what keeps the rest of us above water: that powerful fear and will to live that forces us to swim up and take a breath. I cannot feel a fraction of that pain. I do not want to feel the kind of pain that leads to death. But I do want to feel the kind of pain that leads to repentance. I want to feel anguish because anguish leads to that tight relationship with the Lord that I so desire. You can’t experience true passion without anguish.

We watched a sermon on anguish in Sunday school a while back and it has really stuck with me.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGMG_PVaJoI&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6]

I am asking the Lord to remove the frigid exterior from my heart and open it up to the pain that I know will save me from worldliness and apathy. I’m tearful for the thought of being so self centered that I cannot truly empathize. If I cannot feel the pain of the cross, I will never truly bind myself to the message of the cross. If I cannot feel the pain of the lost, I will never evangelize the way I was called. If I cannot feel the pain of the weary and burdened, how will I serve with a pure heart? How will I live out what Jesus called me to do? My motives will be sinful and impure until I can truly feel the anguish that leads us all to action.

The picture just can’t do it justice.

For one, I wasn’t even looking through the viewfinder when I took it, I was driving. Two, there’s just no way I could get all the color in just a second of exposure. Three, God’s creation cannot be interpreted by a digital camera. My eyes could scarcely take it in. My mind was blown by the beauty. My heart overflowed.

Above me, the backdrop of bright blue was barely peeking through a looming curtain of blue-black, turbulant storm clouds. They spread their rippling fingers down into the blazing stripes of orange, yellow and red that were smeared across the horizon at a slight angle. The land was flat, unobtrustive, and I could almost imagine my car flying into the hemisphere without a road beneath it, about to crash into the majestic view before me. The entire span was so full of drama and movement, so full of contrast and visual power, I was humbled by the site of it.

The fact is, God did not have to paint the sky this way. We could have existed under an umbrella of black or white, never knowing the force or beauty of the plummeting sun. You have to ask yourself the question: Why? God has already given us the answer:

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
-Psalm 8:1

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
-Psalm 19:1

Sometimes it’s hard for me to get into the message or the worship music at church. I listen and I try to let it sink in, and I know I learn, but it often fails to stir me up. I leave feeling informed, but not convicted. But then I come home, and I’m reading Max Lucado’s children’s books to Micah as he falls asleep, and I’m singing “Jesus Loves Me” to him…. and there it is. God is working through these small things intended for children and babies to call me home, to correct me, and to chisel away at my heart. Did I just need to get back to the basics? Back to the heart of things? Had my foundation cracked? Were the meatier messages at church slipping through my fingers because my hands had become too weak to receive them?

I think singing the lyrics to a song I’ve known since I was two years old (at least the first verse – my dad taught it to me while my mom was in the hospital having my sister) reminds me that God is the same today as he was 24 years ago, and he has been beside me this whole time.

If you want an apple, you can do one of three things.

1. Sit at your table and pray for an apple.
2. Plant some apple tree seeds, care for the seedling every day and pray that it will bear fruit.
3. Go out and buy an apple (but you only get one.)

Obviously, I’m talking about something much bigger than apples. When we desire something in life, anything really, we have the choice to simply hope it will arrive, “plant the seeds” and pray for success, or take a chance by pursuing our desires completely on our own ambition and resources. I’m come to realize that #2 is probably the best method. I really don’t think God operates under the principles of option #1. Throughout scripture we see the Lord give his people instructions and take things one step further. For example, Jesus told the servants at the wedding at Cana in Galilee to fill jars with water before he turned it all into wine. He did not make wine appear from thin air and he did not instruct the servants to go purchase the wine.

Likewise, I believe that God has big plans for us, plans that are bigger than what we can accomplish on our own, and yet he desires to include us. This process contradicts what the world worships: selfish ambition, greed and instant gratification. But when God is in the business of turning water into wine, I don’t want to operate under the world’s terms.

Tonight, my husband and I planted some seeds and filled our jars with water. If you find a little moment in your busy day, ask the Lord to give us apples and wine. We really need it.

Tonight I am reminded of the incredible power of prayer. As I cried out to the Lord yesterday morning for help, I had no idea that so many things would begin to happen over the past 48 hours. Our life, like an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, has had numerous sub-plots unfolding and intertwining over the past few years, building in intensity and drama, and reaching a point over the past few weeks that I felt it was all going to unravel at once. I was afraid to ask for it to all go away, as though it were too much to ask of God, who had already blessed us with so much. Who am I kidding? Who am I to stuff such a powerful and loving God into my small box, labeled “expectations.” But at my breaking point, with solutions so far out of reach that I could almost laugh at the thought of trying to fix this on my own, I finally said it….

God, I’m tired of praying small prayers. This is a big one…..

And I won’t go into detail about what I asked for, because you are the internet and this is much too private for you to hear, but suffice it to say that I was not only bold, but specific. I also confessed a lot of things that might have been preventing an answer (pride, lack of faith, etc.) I was also very confident that God would do something because he doesn’t throw you into these situations unless he has a great plan to get you out of them (all for His Glory, of course.)

Boy, it does appear that he has a FANTASTIC plan to get us out of these messes. So for the past 48 hours I have watched in amazement as things have been HAPPENING. Left and right, things appear to be turning around and it reaffirms that I am not serving a powerless God or an unloving or uncaring God. They may not be changing the way I planned, but God’s ways are always better than mine.

How fitting that the daily verse in my inbox this morning would read:

Deuteronomy 31:8–”The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (NIV)

My husband will be the first to tell you that playing with his little man is no small task. Thinking of silly ways to entertain our four-month-old comes much easier to me. I can move quickly from one trick to the next, while my husband struggles to keep up with Micah’s 5 minute attention span. “I can’t wait for him to get older” is his mantra. He wants him to be able to say what he wants instead of cry. He also wants him to be able to move around on his own. Women cringe at this sentiment, knowing how quickly babies grow into the next stage, which has its own difficulties, but I understand his frustration. I felt the same way when we were dating. (I can’t wait to get married – I’m tired of driving home every night!!) There are just certain stages in life that we can’t wait to finish – college, looking for a spouse, planning a wedding – and it’s hard to enjoy them, even if there are plenty of things to appreciate about each stage. We begin to focus on certain goals so much that we start to resent the journey. Before we know it, our goal is achieved and a fragment of history, and what is left? Did we waste all that time waiting for the next big thing and miss out on all the fun in between?

God enjoys the journey. You can tell just by looking around at creation. He could have populated the earth with a bunch of full grown adults, but instead he created pregnancy, babies, children, and childhood. In fact nearly everything in creation starts out small and grows. There is a reason trees take decades to reach their full height. There is a reason he doesn’t wave a magic wand when we begin a relationship with him and turn us into the perfect Christian. We reach full maturity in Christ when we enter the gates of heaven; until then we embark on a spiritual journey of epic proportions. He slowly molds us through life’s experiences, His perfect wisdom (the Word) and the power of His Holy Spirit. I think we should take a cue from creation and savor every bite of life. Every breath is a gift from God, who is the giver of life itself. Every moment deserves our full gratitude and appreciation for everything we receive.

Whenever I’m tempted to wish any part of Micah’s “babyhood” away, I try to focus on all the good aspects (he can’t run away or talk back, for example) that are unique to this season. I am trying to share these with my husband as well. In the meantime, I enjoy watching Micah bore a soft spot into Eric’s heart with all his cute little antics.

While perusing blogs tonight, I found something that really struck a chord.

The Barefoot Mama: “It’s important to identify what impedes you as a mom and then prayerfully and purposefully design ways to fulfill those needs and structure your time in the home in order to attain a balance for yourself”

I’ve just discovered Kelly’s blog through comments and I must pause and say, “Lord, you really know how to introduce me to the right people at the right time.”

For me, “those needs” are primarily spiritual – specifically time spent in prayer and studying God’s word. I’m a much better mama when I’m a better daughter. Spending time with my heavenly father each morning sets the tone for the entire day. It determines whether I stick to my priorities, the measure of patience I have for life’s everyday hangups, the peace in my heart, and the smile on my face. I don’t want Micah to know a mommy who doesn’t intimately know her Savior. I desperately want him to know a mommy who will teach him, through example, what it means to love and serve the Lord with all his heart and soul… to find strength in God alone.

Reading Kelly’s blog cemented a decision I made yesterday to sacrifice that last hour of sleep in the morning. Micah’s naps were becoming too unpredictable to count on them for quiet time. Quiet times fell by the wayside for a while because of this, and my heart suffered greatly. You can only go so long on your own strength before life’s stresses begin to eat away at your peace and joy. Who on earth lives a life without some type of stress or ongoing problem? In a sin-plagued world: no one. We were never meant to live a solitary life – we were created to live in relationship to our creator. You can only talk on your cell for so long before you need to plug it in – and spiritually, we are all living on a very short battery life. Jesus said “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Apart from Jesus, YOU CAN DO NOTHING. You may think you are doing all kinds of things, but is it fruitful? Is it meaningful?

For me, skipping my time with God each morning greatly impedes my success as both a mom and a wife. Sacrificing that hour of sleep in the morning not only gives me an opportunity to worship God with my obedience and devotion, but forces me to trust him to provide me with the energy to get through the day. I’m not going to lie, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rare opportunity to nap in the afternoon magically appears when I start the day off right. My little guy will decide the only place he wants to take his afternoon nap is right by his mama, and his tired little mama is only too happy to oblige.

I know that many of the topics that are discussed in Lies Women Believe are difficult. Also, some of the truths, out of context, can seem unreasonable. For example, in my recent post No Higher Calling, the assumption is that you are married with children. Clearly having a career is a noble pursuit if it does not mean neglecting your family. I do believe, however, that if you have chosen to have children, any job you hold should come second to raising those kids, no matter how much you enjoy your job.

I work at home as a writer, and I choose to complete my work while my son is asleep. I do this so my job does not interfere with raising my son. I have had offers to work outside of the home, or to work hours that would require getting childcare, but I have turned these opportunities down because I believe that I am the best parent for my little one. The best place for a young child is at home with one or both parents. They need our constant attention and guidance. Unfortunately, I recognize that I am in the minority when it comes to my views on raising kids. Most kids grow up outside the home these days.

Children are a blessing, not an inconvenience. In this society and many others today, children are seen as something to work around, delay, drop off, or avoid. Children should be embraced! They teach us lessons that cannot be learned anywhere else. They bless us in ways that no one else can. They will shape us into responsible, caring, humble people, if only we will allow them.

Last night’s topic on children was particularly difficult for one woman who desired a family, but for reasons unknown to me, she and her husband were never able to bear children. Unfortunately the author of Lies Women Believe did not touch on this subject and I believe it led this woman to feel guilt for her loss. She ended up leaving before the end of the study. Children are indeed a blessing, but not all of us will have the opportunity to receive that blessing. Childless families should not be condemned for failing to have children; we do not always know the reasons behind the circumstances. Sometimes women are unable to conceive, and sometimes there are difficult health issues involved – it may be too dangerous or life threatening to conceive a child. God always chooses life. It is understandable for a woman to use non-abortive methods to avoid having children if her life is at stake.

Next week we are discussing women and their emotions… this should get interesting!!