Great Plans

The depression was creeping in; dark fingers in the periphery of my mind. I knew it was coming.

A place of ministry that I love is coming to an end I don't understand. I know life is messy. I know condemnation comes in places I don't want. Don't agree with. Can't stop.

But God's timing was purposeful. Impeccable. Sovereign. Because I could not bow down to the cloud of depression.

When the depression started in, the ministry of my heart, Brighten A Corner, had a fund raising concert just two days away. This was already a PLAN B, as PLAN A failed to come together. I knew I had to remain engaged. The team had worked so hard...and it was coming together.

People started coming. Auction prizes were being bid on and sweets were being delighted in.

The opening three acts were all fabulous. The Holy Spirit was thick in a room of people enjoying music, ministry and one another. The hard work was paying off.

I introduced the headlining band CLOVERTON...thrilled that my little idea of bringing them in for a concert had come to life. I was the only one on the team who knew their music--the one song played on the radio and another on the internet--but the team gathered around the idea. When the band took the stage the room was electric. Their talent was stunning. The music, the lights, the smoke filled atmosphere of the church was the breathe of fresh air my soul was craving...

Then the lead singer, Lance (who feels like a friend) began to share from his heart. The other band members discreetly left the stage as the spotlight rained down on a man and his piano. He began to share his song about a great verse, Jeremiah 29:11. Great Plans I have you.

And I was undone.

I know you’re tired

the darkness in your eyes

I’ve come to recognize

So lay yourself down

in the shelter of my tree

rest awhile with me, here

Great plans I have for you

No one's opinion of me should ever replace God's opinion of me.

And HE used music to fill my soul with hope, as my heart is going through the humanness of grief.

Over and over that song is being poured into my mind. The tears of loss are falling, but they are mixed with the tears of gratitude that always there is hope.

It is a privilege to serve the Lord. It is a treasure to be open to His message. It is joy to know God brings people across our path to speak to us.

Great plans he has for me.

Dayenu.

Special Needs Sandwich

There were moments today that certainly did not reflect the fact that I spent eight weeks last fall teaching a Peacemakers class.

Oops.

I think it is a mistake to think that being a peace maker translates to "everything is always peaceful". Or that "peaceful" equals "quiet". Right?

My hubby said, "That nurse is always so nice to me."

Let me be clear. I did not imply she wasn't nice. What I said was that her decisions meant that we were much further away from where we wanted to be. She was very nice about it.

But the results were the pits.

And I was upset about it.

And now she, the administrator of the nursing home, and several mouth-wide-open onlookers know it. As I apologized for my outburst to one of the physical therapists she said, "It's okay. It is perfectly understandable." 

Finally a voice of reason.

In this current season of life, several times a week I drop my daughter with special needs off at school and travel 35 miles to attend to my mother and father in law, who, with different stages of dementia, also have special needs. I find myself taking deep breaths just to get through the day.

Loving people is not easy. And wanting really great things with extremely limited resources is a  challenge.

When the rehabilitation center my father in law is in wanted to reduce his "mood" medication I was not happy. How do you explain that his good moods are a sign that something is terribly wrong? They didn't believe me...laughed it off...said it would be fine.

After a long day of refusal to do therapy, bad news from a Neurologist, and having to take my mother in law down the hall to her own room, he gritted his teeth and growled at me. Half an hour later, as I took a few things into his room, he threw up his hands at me and said, "Get out of here! I don't want to see you."

And my heart broke.

Not for me, I know better. My heart broke because he was truly that emotionally agitated--whether it was rational or not--and now we have to move him again.

To...I don't know where. On paper they belong in an Alzheimer's facility. In real life, they are two sweet, old people who just want to be together. They won't run away. They won't get violent. They won't walk down the hall naked.

But they won't remember who I am without some coaching. And often don't remember their last meal. And could never be responsible for their own medications. But don't need to be surrounded by people who can't carry on conversations. And that means we. are. stuck.

So I try to remind myself that God has it all under control. But that is currently and exercise in discipline, and not anything close to an emotion.

I just don't feel it.

But I want to.

And I will keep praying that God will turn my want to into an emotion. That HIS peace will wash over me and I will know what to do.

Meanwhile, I go hug my little peanut--the daughter who is different--and that restores me. Sometimes I feel like I am in a Special Needs Sandwich...that in between generation...and the filling is a bit thin...but I need to go on...

Themz Fightin' Words...

There was tension in the air, and it was thick.

"I have 6 speech therapy appointments, 5 doctor appointments, out of town company, my father in law may have had a stroke and need to be moved to a different facility to receive more care. I cannot set up a time to meet right now."

"Come on, Robin, you don't have an hour?'

"No. I don't. I am spent."

"Okay, a half an hour."

And that is when it became abundantly clear to me..."I will not do this. My family comes first. You are going to have to wait."

In that moment it did not matter what disagreement, misunderstanding, difficult part of being human led us to this point. I realized exactly what my priorities were, and I would not budge. No matter how offended/angry/disappointed anyone else was. My family comes first.

Less than twenty four hours later my father in law was back in the hospital with life threatening dehydration. He never returned to his previous retirement home...he is still in a rehabilitation facility.

In three short weeks I was in the Emergency Room four times with three different members of my family.

That night of intense "discussion" may be one of the best things to ever happen to me. My eyes feel open wider. My thoughts keep circling back to one notion:

What if I only spent time on things that were worth fighting for?

Can I let everything else go?

What if I spent time asking God to truly show me...if something is not worth fighting for, is it worth expending any  of my energy on it? How much of my time, energy, emotions do I waste on things, people, places that will never help someone be closer the Lord or teach my children God's ways or make me love my husband more? Does anything besides those three things really matter?

I am going to continue to dwell on this idea.

I am praying God's joy for simplicity radically changes me, and I can focus with laser intensity in a few things and achieve excellence in those few things.

I am grateful for the fighting words that helped me plant my feet and say to myself (more than anyone else) "I will not do this right now. My family needs me."

Moments

We have never really been pet people. I don't like saying goodbye to animals at the end of their life, and my hubby says we are too dysfunctional for pets. He contends they will end up being more work for him, and he already has a (very) full plate. So, this Christmas, when I got my heart set on getting a kitten for our 11 year old daughter, things got a bit tense. I assured him we would all chip in. I promised it would go well.

But his feet were a bit planted. And so were mine.

In the middle of another “discussion” I simply got honest with him. “I am not fighting for a cat,” I pleaded, “I am fighting for a moment. The time when we can buy that child a present that will make her cry is coming to an end. Our options are fewer and further between than just a few short years ago.

I am fighting for the look on her face when she sees the cat.”

And with that, he gave in.

In the teary blink of an eye, we became cat people. My daughter named her Purr; my hubby said it was short for “Purrfect.”

Although the kitty is currently in “time out” for scratching the couch, we ALL love her dearly.

God’s graciousness can shine through the tiniest of things. The tiny decision to make room for a little girl to love a kitten, and we realize it was not the thing we dreaded…it is a good thing.

Sometimes when you change your mind, you leave room for God to change your life.

?????

I am sitting here slightly nauseous. The stress is mounting and I am frustrated.

Lord, help.

I am not sure how to stop the spinning and I know I need to breathe but I am in a coffee shop with teenage noise everywhere but it beats going home where my husband might still be there and still be cranky.

His stress has been mounting for a while.

I want to eliminate it, but I don't know how...not really. I am trying.

I want things to be exactly how I want them. I thought they were moving in that direction and then things shifted. Different perspectives can sometimes be beautiful...like the colors of a kaleidoscope; and sometimes they can be distorted...like trying to wear the wrong pair of glasses.

I want beauty to infuse my world.

However I need beauty to infuse my soul.

Nothing in the last 24 hours changes that. Not the bad day. Not the bad mood. Not the different idea.

"By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; And by knowledge its rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. A wise man is strong, and a man of knowledge increases power. For by wise guidance you will wage war," Proverbs 24: 3-6

I want to seek wisdom with greater effectiveness. I feel empty, which is a great pace for God's word to fill me.

I want to ponder understanding. How can I understand the members of my family at a deeper level? How can I encourage them to understand one another at a deeper level?

Help me, Lord. ????????

Coming to Grips

Of course I cannot sleep.

I am trying to wrap my mind around an election that was unfathomable to me.

There is no single thing to blame. It is not the hurricane, not the media bias, not the wrong candidate. It is that a culture can be so numb to the loss of freedom and staggering debt that chokes the life out of innovation and creativity that makes this so devastating. How can you restore hope, when freedom is lost?

We are a society that is lost if we don't understand the magnitude of how much we live outside of our means. When there is no more money, what then?

Eventually someone will stop lending and start buying. Buying shares in a nation that has been free for centuries.

Please, Lord, show me how to respond.

AMEN

Coming Out of a Slump

I knew last spring that I wanted to do a Peacemakers Bible Study in the fall.

Because conflict is so  real, and conflict is so REALLY hard to deal with well. I was asking God, "How can I BE ME...fired up about things that fire me up, passionate about truth and transparency and NOT have conflict wreck me emotionally?" The book Peacemaker by Ken Sandee is phenomenal, and his ministry had a Bible Study for women. Perfect.

Procrastinating as I do, I did not get the DVD's in my hands until mere days before Bible Study was to begin, and as I watched them I knew I could not show them. The topic--so important--needed to draw people in.

I fell asleep during the second session.

And so my well-planned out fall, with a weekly DVD Bible Study format, radically changed. God was saying to me, "My precious, precious baby girl...you have so much work to do on handling conflict in your life; pressing play is not enough to really grow you the way I need to."

Those who have served in ministry for a while have learned a constant: Where you are teaching, Satan loves to attack. So, when the icy winds began to blow into my marriage and my home the first week of Bible Study, I was not surprised.

It has been really, really good study. Tuesday Night ladies are a really, really great group.

But as the responsibilities of preparing and teaching for an hour and a half each week were added unexpectedly, I fell into a slump in many other areas--homeschool, laundry, dusting, and dishes.

The Bible swallows me and my attention whole. I am riveted by it, and excited about applying it to life. I love to see women growing:

One stepping out in service with boldness that is completely fresh and new; another riveted by a message God is piercing into her heart and head, begging for a way to get out; someone else with a brand new marriage that is 4 kids and a decade and a half old; and yet one more precious woman dealing with loss and tragedy, excited about how God has used them to teach her kids about faith.

Really, folding socks just pales in comparison...

But my family IS ACTUALLY the most important place of ministry I have, and if I want to shift the icy winds in a new direction, intentionally building my home routine is essential. God showed me undeniably that He loves my family, and reminded me how small minded I can be in what I allow to cool my affections. As always, when the ice is beginning to melt, I  know (yet again) He is calling me to re-focus on taking care of the peace in my home.

Five batches of soup and ten other meals prepped and in the freezer for later, loads and loads of laundry folded and put away, pave the way for conversations with my hubby.

When the chills of life separate us, I miss him. He doesn't necessarily say it, but I know he misses me, too. We laugh at me...while making an incredibly important point at the Peacemakers Bible Study, I stop dead in my tracks, "I did that very thing to my husband tonight," I tell my friends. "That means I have to go home and apologize and I don't want to."

But God IS FAITHFUL, and by the time I got home I really did want to apologize.

I don't want the ugly me to go on unchecked. I am grateful for conviction.

A few days later I look forward to chores at home and the hope of getting things done.

I tell hubby that I find my heart longing for simplicity, and he is in total agreement. Together we work on priorities, fearing that the holiday season will bury us alive if we don't purpose for it not to; and I am praying God moves my hands and my feet to follow my longing. Because a peaceful life requires Bible Study, friends and a commitment to my home...not necessarily in that order.