This week finds us laid low at home with a nasty head cold. The kids and I have been fighting low fevers, runny noses and sore throats all week, not to mention the fatigue and bad attitudes that easily accompany such symptoms. We’ve pretty much stayed home all week, surrendering to the rhythm of what God has given this week, and all the copious opportunities for sanctification that have resulted. This rainy, dreary Friday finds my soul rainy and downcast as well. The hard work of parenting has truly bowled me over a bit this week. Bombs and airplanes have exploded in the skies in the world this week, and in our little home, words and tempers have flared hot as well.
Rain drips in steady streams from the awning outside the window. I can’t help but feel God’s heart weeping too. Weeping over angry words, thoughtless hands, grumbling hearts. Weeping over the sin in us. The sin in the four walls of this house, the sin in the angry bombings in Israel, the sin in the pulsing, beating chambers held within my frail flesh.
It’s summer here in these blue mountains, and the vast field in front of our home is full of ripening blackberries. Brandon was out in the foggy, dusky morning, picking for an hour or so. And though I can hardly muster the energy to do it, I gather the kids together this morning to take what God has given and to make something of it. To make something together. To tie on apron strings and pray for family ties to bind together. To pour flour and sugar and butter in a bowl and put our six hands together in the mess of it, and pray for something beautiful and tasteful to be produced by these hands, instead of hurt we are so easily capable of. To place the elements together in one dish into the heat, and to pray for something better to come out of it, as a result.
“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” {Eccl. 3:1}
It’s hard to surrender to the seasons. I want only good days. Only summer-sun-fruit-producing days. Only laughter and comfort and love. But God has demonstrated His wisdom in the use of seasons. There is a time for every season, a time for planting and waiting and hoping for fruit. A time for harvesting and enjoying an overwhelming abundance. A time for the earth to freeze as hard as iron and for all to appear dead forever. A time to long for the signs of life, and a time to long for that first wisp of snow that closes us up in our homes with books, crackling fires and all things pumpkin. It would be iron pride in me that would demand to produce all the time and never allow the field to lie fallow. As much as I want to always keep the same pace in our home, the same happy, busy pace, I have heard the Lord calling me every day this week to surrender to the season of this week, which has consisted of wiping noses, holding feverish children, reading books and taking naps. It has meant surrendering to seeing more of the interior walls of our home than playing out in the sun. It has meant seeing more of the interior of our hearts, than the busyness that often proves to mask the issues bubbling underneath. It has meant fighting the gloominess that easily descends over my heart in a week like this, and looking for the grace and the gift hidden in the bitter.
In all things, in all things, give thanks. {1 Thess. 5:18}
I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth. {Psa. 34:1}
The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him.
{Nahum 1:7}
The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. {Psa. 145:9}
In God’s economy, life and death are both a part. Life always comes from death. It’s His sure promise. That’s how we can have rejoicing in the sorrow, because we know every form of death has been overcome, and a season of life, in due time, is coming. Tender mercy is hovering over death. That is how I can find joy even in a week where the days have ended in hot tears and hot baths. I must be willing to embrace every small death He gives if I want to see new life. I must surrender to the seasons.
And He has made everything beautiful in its time. {Eccl. 3:11}
everything He gives 