Watering Cans and Living Water

 These days, we are doing so much growing.  Watching the beauty of seeds planted in past seasons developing into incredible new life.  Days of sun beating down and wandering through the garden with my two-year old, watering cans in hand, admiring what our God does in our very own yard.  We see the daily transformation of strawberry plants as they flower and now as the berries are growing plump.  We gently lift small new plants from their little containers and carefully tuck them into the fresh potting soil in our old, rusty pots.  Her litte chubby hands leave a trail of soil along the driveway as she grabs fistfuls to pat around the roots.  

 I watch her trot through the yard, carrying her purple watering can, so proud of how she is learning to care for the life that is entrusted to her.  "This guy need a drink?" she asks me each time, before dousing the plants and the pavement and the porch steps with water.  She wants to water everything. 


Something about the way she is joyful in the working makes me hope that when my Father looks at me as I'm tending the lives in my care, He sees the same passion.

And like my little girl with her watering can filled to overflowing, so is my life, my spirit.  I hope that I am someone who "waters" like my toddler does... taking the abundance and the very life-giving Truth that has been given to me and pouring it out, recklessly, enthusiastically, continually.

There is so much of God's grace and goodness springing up in our lives.  Intricate, beautiful, exciting opportunities to make much of God and to glorify Him in our lives are continually unfolding.  Our lives are being poured into by others and by the Lord even as we are endeavoring to be ones who are continually being emptied of ourselves so that we can be filled fully with Him.

"But we have these treasures in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." 2 Corinthians 4:7


"Jesus answered, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'" John 4:13 & 14

Measuring My Life with God's Ruler

Converting measurements is not my thing.  I'm a word girl, not a numbers girl.  I measure in inches, and in Ukraine, measurements are in centimeters.  So, when I'm shopping for my heart-son, I always get a kick out of having to Google the conversion of measurements, so I get the sizes right.  I mean, I can't even think in centimeters!

It's like this in my relationship with the Lord, too.  He measures things differently than I do.  He measures time, progress, prosperity and success by standards that are not natural to me.  And He is faithful to teach me how to convert my measuring tape so I see my life more like He does.

When I think things aren't happening quickly enough, I am reminded "For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by." (Psalm 90:4)

When I'm not sure things are turning out as they should, He whispers, "For my thoughts are not your thhoughts, neither are your ways my ways... As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8,9)

When I've sought out abundance in terms of owning nice things, Jesus says, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19)


When I've seen success at times as something people achieve through financial security or things I can see, I'm corrected by the words of my Lord, spoken to a man who had attained every measure of success as society would define it.  "Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, 'Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?'...Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.'  When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth." (Matthew 19:16, 20-21)  Jesus himself is clear that being willing to let go of our "stuff" is far more a measure of success in his eyes than being able to aquire it.

God's Word indeed pierces right through to the division of the bone and marrow (Hebrews 4:12)!  Every word of God shoots Truth and conviction straight into my spirit, and I cannot hear this Truth and remain unchanged.  I cannot spend time with a Savior who abandoned the splendor of heaven to suffer consequences of sin I earned and walk away with anything but a very clear understanding that I cannot be the one who decides how things are done or what is valuable.  I cannot measure my life by comforts or possessions or feeling a certain way.  I can only hold up as my standard a life lived in emptying out of love undeserved and yet freely given.

I'm not sure I'm ever going to become really good at figuring out sneaker sizes using centimeters, although my boy is worth every moment I'll spend trying to figure that one out!  And as I work on my centimeters-to-inches conversion for things like shoe shopping, the Lord is very faithfully about the task of changing the way my heart measures.

How God Answers Prayers

For the past year, I've been asking God to stretch me.  To help me step outside my cozy comfort zone.  To strip away the stuff of "me" and make me a reflection of Him alone.  To build my faith.  To help me leap boldly into the unknown.  To show me the hard places, the Jesus-going places, where His light is needed.  To build a fiercely trusting heart in me.

God answers prayers like these.

He doesn't answer like "I Dream of Jeannie," with a little blink and an instant transformation of my heart into some super-trusting, joy-in-trials mastering, Christian super-hero kind of woman.  

The answer is in the process.  

He allows me to be uncomfortable, and inch by inch, I walk farther from my comfort zone, and I feel the fears that held me there rise up and then slowly slip away.   

He allows me to be in circumstances out of my control, so I have only two options: panic or trust.  Looking at my own strength or clinging to Christ.  As I look behind me, I see that my first response is more calm and trusting now than in seasons past, and I know I'm growing.  

He asks me to walk through places that try my faith, because only through the testing of my faith does it grow.  Only by His Word watering my spirit and His presense in the valleys do I become strong.  

He asks me to leap, and I have a choice: "yes, if" or "yes, period." I used to be a girl with lots of contingencies for God.  My "yes" had terms attached.  Now I'm saying, "Yes, Lord.  Period."  And just leaping.  (God has me mid-air in some places right now.  I'll let you know more about where I land when I get there.  But I know it's going to be good.)

He is opening my eyes to needs around me and burdening my heart with the desire to live a life spent fully and well.  And my definition of a life well spent has been totally and thoroughly turned upside down by Jesus.  I cannot chase a dream of comfort and ease ever again.  I cannot aspire to own a bunch of stuff that impresses me more than I desire to give in a bunch of ways that impress Jesus ever again.  I know God blesses us with wonderful gifts, and he loves for us to enjoy the blessings he pours out on our lives, but my blessings are also tools for blessing others and  for living a life of offering thanks to the One who gives good things.  

So I am thankful to the Lord for answering my prayers.  For being the One who knows precisely how to giftwrap seasons of growth as beautifully and lovingly as He does seasons of ease.  And when I think of the blessings received in my spirit within times of stretching and faith-testing, I start to see it all as a gift to me anyway.  

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, becasue you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."  James 1:2-4

Feel the Burn

One of my best friends loves a good workout.  I don't really like any workout, good or otherwise (to be totally honest).  My friend loves nothing more than to work out until it hurts, to feel the burn.  She wants to come away from her workout session knowing she's pushed her body to the point where her muscles have been broken down from the exercise and will need to rebuild and repair and then will be stronger.

Not being one prone to the enjoyment of exercise, I am faced with the striking parallel that my spiritual life is something where I am no more a lover of the workout process.  Fortunately, I value the growth, so I endure the growing process.  And as I've sometimes struggled against the ways God has asked me to grow, over the past year in particular, I realize that I'm becoming more comfortable with the way it feels.

Just as my friend's body responds to the exercise by increasing the strength in her muscles and burning  away pesky fat cells her body doesn't need, leaving her leaner and stronger and more energized, my spirit grows and changes in response to how I handle the weight of my cares and my relationship with the Lord.  I'm learning to like the burn.  I'm beginning to enjoy the anticipation of increased strength I'm developing as the nonproductive parts of who I am are being broken down and stripped away.

"Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him."  Psalm 37:7


What strikes me as so ironic, however,  is how often the hardest thing I'm asked to do in order to become strong and fit spiritually is to sit back, rest in the Lord, stand still in His presence and wait.  It feels so much better to me when I can "do" something.  Last year, the Lord provided me with many opportunites to practice stillness, and a very interesting thing happened.  I finally gave in.  I could feel my willfulness and my determination finally surrender.  In my stillness and my obedience, God trimmed away some of the excess, useless stuff in my heart and in my life, and He built up my trust in Him, strengthened my spirit and my faith, and He made me stronger.... in Him.

We have had two adoptive home studies done in the past few years.  The first was for a baby, and when we were called about twins to adopt, the Lord clearly showed us that this was not His will for us.  He closed the door.  That was a February afternoon.  I cried into my hands, with sobs that came from a place so deep that I wondered if my heart would survive the sadness.  But we knew it was the right thing to do, so we moved forward, trusting the Lord.  A couple weeks later, I was pregnant with Sage!  God knew His plans for us.

Right now, we have a completed, current home study once again.  I'm not really sure why, to be honest.  I mean, I know we did it because we were pursuing adopting an older child last year, and the Lord led us to do the homestudy and provided the money for it, so we did it.  And the Lord brought us into a relationship with the child we'd hoped to adopt, which has been a huge gift to our lives.  But the door for his adoption closed.  For a number of reasons.  And we know with conviction that had it been God's will for this boy to be here, he would be, and we also know that there are other ways the Lord will use us as a "family" to him.  So we have committed to be a long-distance family to him, sending him things, staying in touch, praying for him, sharing the love of Christ with him.  We know God has not abandoned him and that he has a big future in the making, because God's plans for him are good, even when they are different than my own.

I've cried about this, too, but the tears are not the same.  This time they are quiet, and as they fill my eyes, I know that while my feelings are ok, I am not fighting against what God's doing in my life.  I am willing to unclench my fingers from their tight grip on my dreams in order to hand them to my Dreamgiver, because my life needs to be shaped by His purposes instead of my own.  The dreams from Him, He will package beautifully and hand back to me when the time is right.

But I keep finding myself pushing the Lord for an answer.  I'm trying to understand the "why" of it all.  I keep thinking there must be some culmination of these experiences, some reason why my heart is completely broken for the cause of the orphan, why we have a second homestudy and no adoption process going on now or even in the foreseeable future, why we'd be led to spend money on something that God didn't intend to use ultimately for an adoption.  I like things to make sense.  I ask God to explain.

And He does something very precious in response.  He quiets my soul.  He reminds me of how good it feels to stop pressing for answers, to stop trying to understand how or why an Almighty God does the things He does in the way He does them.  His voice in my spirit is soothing.  I feel myself relax into the trusting and the stillness and the surrender.  And I am ok with realizing that I am not owed an answer to my questions.  Sometimes God brings me to a place where I can look back and see the way certain pieces fit together.  But my faith is based on knowing that He is fitting the pieces together even when I can't see how.

What it all really comes down to is relationship.  I've come to know God more intimately as I've gone through situations outside of my control.  I've been at the end of my rope, so to speak, a number of times and in a variety of ways.  And He's told me to stop hanging on so tightly to that rope - that it's Him I need to cling to.  There are days my clinging to Him feels easy and comfortable, like my toddler with her arms slung around my neck.  But there are also days where I'm clinging desperately.  The only difference between those days is me.  God is always there.  Always the same.  Steady.  Unchanging.

God also reminds me of something else very important.  He has given me a husband who is an amazing leader.  I can rest in the peace and safety of knowing that my husband leads our family with grace and wisdom and with a relentless strength.  When my heart gets the better of me (as it tends sometimes to do), it's ok, because Selden leads from a much more capable place than emotion.  When I don't understand why God's doing or not doing something, I can let it go, because I know the Lord's leading Selden.  I thank God multiple times a day for the blessing of my husband's leadership.  He is my hero.  I will follow that man anywhere.  I trust him, and that trust lets me live in a freedom that having to understand or control things could never afford me.  The genius of God designed marriage to work that way, and I benefit from it so much.

I'm now thankful for the times I can feel the growing happen.  I know the temporary discomfort is producing good things in me.   Just like my friend and her workouts at the gym.  My faith muscles are strengthened when I am powerless and decide to rely on the only true source of strength.  It gets easier each time the challenges come.  My endurance is greater, because I realize I'm not able to endure on my own, so I rest in the Lord.  The resistance I have to work against produces results.  So I'm learning to embrace "feeling the burn."  

"...but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."  Isaiah 40:31

Spiritual Growth, Karate Kid Style

I confess:  as a kid, I was a huge Karate Kid fan.  It's true.  I can still hear Bananarama now...

One thing that always bugged me about the movie was how long it seemed to take Mr. Miagi to teach Daniel just what the heck he was supposed to be doing.  It just didn't seem to make any sense.  I was so frustrated every time I had to watch the whole confusing "wax on, wax off," "paint the fence," "sand the floor" sequence.  I just wanted to get to the part where Daniel was kicking some Cobra butt!

For the past year, I've been noticing that God's been walking me through some rather tedious growing experiences.  I journal about my prayers and what I see the Lord doing in my life - the places I'm struggling to understand Him, the things I find myself fighting about with Him, the stubbornness I notice cropping up in myself.  And the faithfulness He shows in response.

Many times this past year, God has asked me to wait.  For all sorts of things.  For all kinds of reasons I don't really know.

Wax on...

Somtimes, God has allowed me to see an open door and has led me to walk toward it.  He has allowed me to invest my heart in dreams He's planted in my soul.  And some of those dreams have been met with what appears, from my limited perspective, to be a resounding slamming of doors.  

Wax off....

God has asked me to trust Him, even when it means being willing to close my eyes and jump out over the edge of my tiny little comfort zone.  Sometimes I have landed in the middle of a place more incredible than I could have imagined (like seeing the fulfillment of my dream of being a "housewife").  And other times, He's let me risk disappointment and put my heart on the line for something that has not turned out as planned, asking me to remember that He is the Lord of my life, and He causes all things to work together for my good. 

He's also asked me to let go of my grip on my dreams and be willing to open my hands to Him.  He's taught me that what I, in my human perspective, may have considered the end of a dream may very well be the redefining of a dream by the Lord, so it reflects HIS heart more than mine.  So I have to trust Him more.  So He will be more glorified in my life.   Because He is interested in accomplishing more things at once than I can really even imagine.  

I'm stepping back, at the beginning of a new year, and I'm looking at how the Lord has been refining my faith and my relationship with him.  I'm seeing some of the pieces fit together.  There is more of a connection.  I know He is preparing me still for work that is yet to be done, yet to be dreamed or understood.   He is often hard to understand.  Sometimes the training ground of faith is a series of seemingly aggravating growing experiences.  But God allows us to walk through these things, because He can see the culmination of all He's doing in our lives, and it is for our good and His glory. 

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."  James 1:2-4