Snow Globe

Father, thank You for the beautiful snow falling, snow I didn't even see in the forecast, a detail I guess I missed.  I sit here, looking out the window as it swirls, gaining in size and speed, and I feel as though I'm in a snow globe, wondering when all that is shaken up will soon settle back to a state of stillness and peace...

Yet at the same time, I don't long for stillness.  Stillness can mean stagnancy, and snow, with each miraculous flying flake, is anything but stagnant.

A snow globe is meant to be shaken, beauty in the frenzy and the shaking, watching outside as the trillions of flakes dance and collect around the centerpiece, the focal point in the glass sphere.  We are like that, pretty on the shelf, but everyone is drawn to reach for it, flip it upside down maybe a time or two, perhaps shake the dickens out of it, and set it back upon the shelf to watch and see, wait as a new pattern of flakes falling reveals another beautiful display.

I don't long for easy.

I am not pleading for stillness.

My only cry to You this morning, Father, is as You turn my globe upside down a time or two, You would be tender in Your grasp, tender with our hearts, faithful to Your Truth and promises, Healer, Strength-Giver, Provider, Safe Haven, Loving Father, Treasured King.

We weren't designed by Your hand to walk through this life alone.  Please, hold our hands tenderly as the snow flies...


*Today I'm a little late to the party, but I'm linking over to Lisa Jo Baker's "Five Minute Friday" where her writing prompt for last Friday was "Fly."  It's a fun writing exercise, no more than 5 minutes in the true spirit of it, just a time to write creatively, without the pressures of anything else...just enjoying the art form of writing from the heart.  Head to her site, link up your specific blog post (not your site domain) and then read and comment on some of the other posts to encourage others.

Laundry Rooms Change Lives

Lisa Jo Baker posted a writing prompt for #FiveMinuteFridays on her website last week after an exciting collaboration where she and her readers banded together and raised funds to provide a clean water site and laundry facility for women in a community in South Africa, from where Lisa Jo hails. If you are feeling inspired by her writing prompt, feel free to join in and link up, and take time to read through some of the other entries from women doing the same.

I knew after reading what she shared about the laundry outreach in SA that her writing prompt would be the word "laundry."  I mean, it had to be.  At first tons of mismatched socks ran through my mind, along with daydreams I have frequently about donating half of our clothes just so we don't have as much laundry.  Then I thought about sharing how, on days when I remember and am intentional, as I fold fluorescent shorts and shirts, pair dozens of black socks, and linger extra long on soft, snuggly footed jammies, how I pray for my family, and fold, and fold.  Praying for their hearts to long for and know God the way He desires to be known, not tainted by the world or fundamentalist religion, but by faith which is bigger, and deeper, more pure, how He intended.

But then I remembered a laundry room from years ago where not only was my life transformed, but the lives of many college students were, as well.



Laundry, GO!

My husband and I lived in a laundry room for 5 years.  I was a Resident Director at a college in St. Paul, MN, and part of the job requirement was to live on campus, amongst the students with whom I spent my days, meeting, listening, praying, crying, laughing, and growing.  And, in order to access our little apartment, we had to walk through the dorm laundry room.  Being a builder's kid, I knew this was an architectural afterthought, but it worked for us, and the low, steady hum of the machines actually provided for a quiet refuge on our side of the walls.

Not only could we do 4 loads of wash all at once, but we could turn around, pump the machines full of quarters, and have everything dried and finished in just 2 short hours.  I won't lie when I say, I kind of loved it.

But what I loved even more than having all of our laundry done in a snap were the conversations which took place over the tables in that laundry room to the hum of the machines.  Girls would come sit with me to talk about life and love and God and relat

ionships and dreams and disappointments, past memories, hurts, passions, confusion.  Prayers were prayed in that laundry room.  The Holy Spirit showed up there many days, hand in hand, praying over these future world changers, knowing and humbled God had trusted these amazing young women into my pasture for a short time, grateful I wasn't deterred by the environment, but seizing it as a space where supernatural heart change could take place, not only in their hearts, those seeking, but in mine, their leader and confidant, hungry to know God more and to seek Him for their sake and mine.

Of course dirt can come out of soiled clothes in a laundry room.  Every Friday for 5 years it did.  But I also know my ministry was launched from that little laundry room in St. Paul, Minnesota.  It's there I learned, in airing my dirty laundry, it provides a space for other women to feel free to air, and clean out, their own.

STOP!

Thanks

One of the perspective changes I had while Noah was in the hospital, and then since he passed away, is one of thankfulness.

Growing up as a Catholic kid, it was regular practice to give thanks to God for each meal, pray every night for family, friends, neighbors and strangers, and say the words of the "Lord's Prayer", offering thanks and seeking His hand and guidance for each day.  

Somewhere deep down within my heart I've always known giving thanks, showing appreciation, and having a heart and mindset of gratitude, leads not only to a better life in general, but is innately how we were designed, the act of it one of worship allowing us to see God's heart more purely.  

A lack of thanks is precisely why I believe many in the first-world are over-stressed, excessively busy, and self-medicating, no matter the drug of choice.  It's also why I believe God and faith in Him are afterthought, if thought of at all.

And I know, because when I turned 15 and left the Catholic church for "churches" that I thought were The Way, I also left the practice of reciting the Lord's Prayer regularly, being told and believing, it was a religious practice to simply recite prayers out of habit.  For a time my prayers were ramped up with more expression, a bit more volume, being told my expression and explosion matched the amount of my faith.  It's funny how looking back, and having been there at the time, that is living in my own head and heart, it never really felt right to boss God around, commanding Him this and that in Geeeeee-zus' name.  But over time, that became rote, as well.  But in those circles, it's not rote, but rather celebrated as super-faith.

Today, I'm more than thankful I was raised in the Catholic church during my formative years because the experience laid a firm foundation for my faith and how to recognize "trends" in "christianity."

For years, instead, I just had conversations with The Lord, talking to Him throughout the day, upon waking, every night.  Always giving thanks at meals, lacing thankfulness into the day, but still, if I stopped to pray about someone or something in particular, I was still asking for something, something I wanted, an outcome which would benefit me and mine, or you and yours.

And He does want us to, there's nothing wrong with asking.  It's not that we aren't supposed to ask.

The problem is, some seasons in my life have been solely based on asking rather than always based on thankfulness, no matter what.

Since having Noah and losing him, I've still had seasons where my attitude isn't gratitude on a daily basis.  Discontent, longing for purpose, wishing I knew what I was here for, wanting less stuff, wishing I could encourage others officially through "ministry", believing it to be a job description at times rather than a way of life, wanting less, wanting more, wanting different.  

Five years ago I introduced Emily to The Lord's Prayer, dissecting it, showing her how it begins with perspective, God first, then us and our needs.  She memorized it on the way to school in the car over time and is now helping me teach it to Ryan.  The whole chapter of Matthew 6 is one of my favorites, permanently marked with a ribbon, because it's practical insight from the Creator of the Universe for our day to day existence...yet, at least in my 27 years in Evangelical Christianity, I've never once been told to pray that prayer daily, because it may become rote or religious. 

In addition to saying and typing it,  I also love the motion of pen on paper in writing it...

So on this morning, I've decided to do what's not the trend, to pray the way I knew as a child to be uncomplicated and focused on The One who knew the answers, whether I ever did or not.  Today.  Not only am I going to start out with The Lord's Prayer, not a quote un-quote Catholic prayer (and thank God they have kept it alive!!!), but one Jesus taught anyone who would listen in order to have a life of perspective.  I'm going to pray it with both gratefulness AND religiosity, religion, simply being a word to describe a conscientious activity with great meaning.  

I'm thankful Jesus was forthcoming in these instructions of how to pray, not answering with another story or parable.  It's plain and clear.

Give thanks.

*If you'd like to join with others practicing the art of thankfulness, we'll be writing about Thankfulness on our blogs every Monday morning for an undetermined time frame and would love to read yours, as well.  We aren't setting up a "linky" thingy, but rather are simply exercising the art of writing, and writing specifically about being grateful.  

Here's a post from my friend, Elizabeth Jackson.
And here's one from my friend, Heidi Jo. 

Just Write

It's ironic, and not, that the prompt for Lisa Jo Baker's "Five Minute Friday" is "write."

Just write, but be intentional about it...

GO:

Because today at lunch with a writer friend, who is writing a book with her husband, I asked, "How do you actually write a book on marriage?  Do you guys, like, brainstorm ideas and topics on a marker board, get a plan and go for it?  Is it linear, beginning to end?  How do you actually write a book?"

She laughed and told me she had asked her husband who has written 2 books the exact same question! She told him she had some questions and wanted to talk about it, wanted to know the angle, "Do we write about topics?  Do we come at it, 'He said, She said'?"

I asked my friend what insight her author husband relayed.

"He said to just write."

And we laughed and cussed and told one another how we both love Anne Lamott and Bird by Bird, so the prompt and advice wasn't new, but still just as profound.

Funny how the thing we both love to do, that is write, the thing we do in our heads and hearts most of the day, writing the stories we observe in our lives and the ones we feel and experience, is so difficult to scribe on paper, or tink on a keyboard.

Yet we know we've been designed to write and when we do, we come alive and feel all is well with the world.  Even when the writing sucks and no one ever reads it because it's simply filed away in our documents, trapped in a flat folding computer on the desk.

As corny as it may sound to some, we didn't hear corny as we exchanged our deep love for writing and how when we do it we know we're doing what we were designed to do, writing for the One who designed us, published or not, not seeking the approval of anyone, just doing what comes naturally.

STOP

Grateful for this prompt today.  If you want to just write, link up over at "Five Minute Friday" and then read the blog post of the person ahead of you and encourage them in the art of writing.