gospel – everything He gives

all this light

January 29, 2016 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

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The heavy snows of last weekend lingered all week, now just piled in soggy clumps here and there. We have played so much in it, the kids bemoaning the sun and the melting each day. It’s been an ordinary sort of week around here, lots of cleaning and tasks and bills and such. The sun was so inviting this morning we were out for a bike ride and jaunt to our little neighborhood playground, but it was still so freezing out!

I found myself battling against some heavy dark of soul this week. I don’t know how much more to share of it here, but only do so because it seemed to be a theme this week between the Lord and I, and I see it reflected in the pictures above, the favorite snapshots from the week: dark + light. I found myself scribbling in my journal yesterday afternoon, “Thank you, Lord — the night can be so dark, black as coal, but the light falls so sweetly this morning.” I found myself cheered by the afternoon light pooling on our dining room table, slanting across my journal laid open, dancing across the snow. These children bring so much light, so much laughter. Life with them is good–I’m so thankful. Could it be that He wanted me to notice? Could it be that He wanted me to see? Could it be that He wanted to preach to me the light of the glory of His grace to me in these ordinary earthly realities? To let the light slant just so in beams across my path, to remind me: The light always overcomes the dark, always.

I’ve needed to preach the truth of the Gospel over my soul this week, leaning hard into what the Word says is true rather than what I feel. I found particular comfort in these words:

“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit…

You are a hiding place for me;
You preserve me from trouble;
You surround me with shouts of deliverance…

Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD.”

Psalm 32:1-2, 7, 10

I am blessed, not because of any other glad or fortuitous circumstance, but namely because I am one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. This is the happiest circumstance of my life, and it is permanent, unchanging, unswerving, though the enemy of my soul would often try to convince me otherwise.

Maybe you needed to remember, too. If you are in Christ Jesus, your sins are covered. All His ways to you are grace. He is your hiding place, your secret place. His steadfast love is your shield and buckler against the enemy, your promise that in the end, no matter what comes, it will be well with your soul. I hope you see His light this weekend, and His steadfast love surrounding you.

He speaks grace

July 10, 2015July 11, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

We pull close to each other in the dark, in our usual way. Legs and arms in a tangle, my head on his warm chest. The hushed sounds of a sleeping home. His breath is slowing as he drifts. I am pressed heavy with the weight of a parenting failure. I know I won’t sleep unless I confess to him. The words creak out slowly. He listens. The tears come in a hot rush, the wracking sobs. He holds. He strokes my hair.

He speaks grace. He speaks grace.

He tells me it is wrong, but that it is okay. He forgives me. He tells me the Gospel. In my desperate fear that I will never overcome this, I will always keep floundering and failing in this area of weakness, that I will keep spiraling farther + farther down, he silences me. He reminds me that the strength I have to obey comes from God who gladly gives me all that I need for life + godliness. He calls out the attack of the enemy on our family. He commiserates with my weakness. He, too, knows what it’s like to fail in this way. He tells me the plan for the weekend, the plan in place to protect ourselves from falling into this ditch again. We will take it a step at a time, he says. We will do this together. He loves me, even now. Even as ugly as I am. Even when I hate myself. He loves me. He holds me. He doesn’t push away, he doesn’t hesitate to stay with me and to keep loving me. He prays over me, he prays for me, he prays for us both. He kisses me.

This is the beauty of marriage. He can drive me crazy with how he leaves scraps of paper everywhere, how he leaves the laundry piled, how he forgets, how he moves so slowly. I can drive him crazy with the disorganized refrigerator, my slow morning starts, my managing. But in the dark of night–he is there for me like no one else. He loves me at my absolute worst and my ugliest. He doesn’t just love me at arms reach–he pulls me close. He accepts me.

This is grace. This is the Gospel. This is the unfathomable gift found in an imperfect marriage between two ordinary sinners-turned-saints. Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col. 1:27).

This is the uncanny, inexplicable love that Jesus demonstrated for us when He gave up His life for us while we were yet sinners. While we were still sinning, utterly undeserving. He loved. He bled. He gave.

I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God;
Incline your ear to me; hear my words.
Wondrously show your steadfast love,
O Savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.
Keep me as the apple of your eye;
Hide me in the shadow of your wings,
From the wicked who do me violence,
My deadly enemies who surround me.
{Psalm 17:6-9}

Savoring the Gospel When You Fail

October 25, 2014October 25, 2014 MarthaKimball2 Comments

There’s nothing like failure to make you treasure the Gospel. I most savor the Gospel when I am most aware of my depravity and continued, seemingly constant need. It was one of those days, today. I am feeling a bit broken and grace-hungry and don’t have much to offer, needing to preach the Gospel to my own soul tonight.

These words from one of my favorite books:

“God joyfully puts the treasure of the gospel into our clumsy, butter-finger hands despite our sinfulness, inadequacies, and failings. But sometimes we just don’t buy that. Two main reasons come to mind.

First, it is contrary to our natural logic that God would choose to use the foolish and the weak to show himself to be wise. We have difficulty seeing how God is praised through our insufficiencies. Wouldn’t the Lord be more glorified through a flawlessly planned and executed hospitality event? Wouldn’t the Lord’s name be more honored if we knew how to articulate his goodness with enthusiastic clarity? Wouldn’t it give more praise to the heavenly Father when his children look presentable and don’t have any unsightly blemishes? Wouldn’t the Creator be praised even more if his redeemed were admired the world over and lifted up as spectacular specimens of humanity? We find it difficult to comprehend how God chooses to use the weak and the broken to show himself to be strong and sufficient.

Second, we’re uncomfortable with our weaknesses and failures. We would much rather host flawlessly planned and executed hospitality events. We’d prefer to articulate ourselves with clarity. We work so hard to look presentable and defer the effects of aging. We want to be admired. Our preference boils down to just that–we are the ones want to be admired. We want to live for our own glory. We’re sinful, self-centered, and reluctant to worship God as our creator who has the right to do with us as he pleases….

There is hope for us who forget on a daily basis the work of Christ on the cross. When we realize that we’ve blown it yet again, we must throw ourselves at the mercy of God shown to us at the cross. When our attitudes are poor, we must cry out to Jesus for help. When we’re certain that we’re doing fine and the shroud of pretense begins to envelop us, we must repent of our pride and grab hold of Jesus, confident that he will heal our broken hearts.

The grace of God reminds us to live in the reality of the gospel and the future that he has promised to us in Christ. Our confidence comes from what Jesus has done and will do in the future in raising us from the dead to eternal life, just as he was raised. We can reject the self-loathing and prideful gloating. This will happen when we see Jesus as he truly is. In seeing him truly, he becomes more and more precious to us, and we in turn become shaped by him as we behold him (2 Cor. 3:18).”

-Gloria Furman, Glimpses of Grace {151-152, 155-156}

“And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor. 3:18 NET)

{The Shelves} Glimpses of Grace

March 1, 2014October 27, 2014 MarthaKimball2 Comments

The sun rises on a crisp new day.

She stands by the window, steaming cup of the strongest coffee in cold hands. She just stands in the silence. Her heart is quiet. She wants to just be here, in this hallowed here. A whisper in her soul says, “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness” {Lam. 3:22-24}.

A heavy sigh. A deep breath. Yes. A new start, thank you, Lord.

The list of resolves begin: Today will be different.
I won’t raise my voice at them today.
I won’t be irritated and distracted and selfish today.
I will serve them happily.
I will enjoy them.
I will open my heart to the beautiful messes.
I won’t be surprised when they disobey.
I will be patient.
I won’t discipline in anger.

And on and on.. this litany of guilt and hope.

And then, the first child’s cry and the day of work has begun. She leaves her coffee, and gets the littlest one to nurse, and the giving away begins again.

But then the baby has a blow out. And the three year old wakes up whining and with a runny nose again. Her husband forgot to take the trash out. Milk is spilled, plastic forks are banging on the table and dropping on the floor, along with food. There’s one child talking back and another one screaming. And she’s hardly made it through breakfast before every single resolve has been broken. What to make of this? What hope is there for tomorrow? What hope is there for her, in her frail and broken flesh to love well?

* * * * *

If there is one book I would recommend to any mom, maybe even any woman, it’s this one by Gloria Furman. It’s what’s on the bedside table this month.

Gloria writes for the stay-at-home momma or the working woman, and she writes to unveil how the Gospel impacts our normal, daily, mundane lives. Does God care about the mundane tasks we perform day in and day out? How does His grace change the way we do laundry, potty training, bed-making, cooking, grocery shopping, guest-hosting?

For me, per the parable at the beginning of this post, this has been my greatest struggle as a parent thus far. This seeming endless battle to live a pure and holy life before God in even the mundane details of life, and yet this daily failing and floundering. My heart is so often discouraged and barely feels brave enough to whisper: Is there any purpose in it? Is there any hope in it? Can a sin-bent woman such as myself ever live a life that pleases God?

“Theology is for homemakers who need to know who God is, who they are, and what this mundane life is all about…As homemakers who are made in God’s image and desire to live for God, we need to know what God’s intentions are for us and for the work we do in the home. More specifically, we need to know: What does the gospel have to do with our everyday lives in the home? How does the gospel impact our dish washing, floor mopping, bill paying, friend making, guest hosting, and dinner cooking? How does the fact that Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness (1 Pet. 2:24) make a difference in my mundane life today?…This book is a description of the distinctly Christian hope of God’s glory and how it relates to the home” (Furman, 16-17).

Gloria Furman is a momma to four children, a pastor’s wife, a doula, a blogger, a missionary and church-planter in Dubai. In this book, with a ton of humor and fresh vulnerable honesty, she shares about the way the gospel of grace has impacted and sustained her in each of these endeavors. How it has impacted the way they open their home, deal with a debilitating nerve disorder in her husband’s arms, raise their children, serve the people of Dubai, learn a new language, deal with infant-induced sleep-deprivation, dirty dishes, bill paying, etc.

One of the things that struck me to the core was her discussion of our common “use” of the gospel as the means for salvation, but not our daily means for sanctification. She quotes D.A. Carson:

“First, if the gospel becomes that by which we slip into the kingdom, but all the business of transformation turns on postgospel disciplines and strategies, then we shall constantly be directing the attention of people away from the gospel, away from the cross and resurrection. Soon the gospel will be something that we quietly assume is necessary for salvation, but not what we are excited about, not what we are preaching, not the power of God.”

Her book goes on to unfold how we need the gospel, how we need to preach the gospel to ourselves daily, that we are to appropriate God’s grace to us in the gospel in order to depend moment-by-moment on Christ’s sufficient righteousness instead of our own attempts at righteousness. It is so transformative a truth, so freeing, and so mind-blowing that it is one she applies to the various different aspects of managing a home, revealing how it plays out practically in our day-to-day.

It’s a book I will treasure and will read again and again. There has not been another book, outside of the inspired words of Scripture, that has met and been a salve to my soul like this book in the current circumstance as a stay-at-home momma, wife, and manager of the home. It literally has breathed new life into this soul of mine! I highly commend it to you!

* * * * *

“Even in my darkest doubts when I do the same thing again the next day, my hope is still built on the righteousness of Christ. The gospel keeps me relating to God on the basis of Jesus’ perfections, not on the illusions of my religious achievements. God strengthens me and protects me according to his faithfulness, not mine (2 Thess. 3:3)” (Furman, 33).

{For those of you who are interested, Gloria Furman will release her second book, Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms at the end of this month!!!}

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