taste and see

 

Taste and see that the Lord is good:

blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

(Psalm 34:8)

Today is the Sabbath, a day for rest, a day for taking refuge in the sanctuaries of our homes, our churches, our family, and our faith.  Resisting the striving to simply know that He is God, as we taste and see His goodness round about us.

Walking through the garden the other day I was aware of how sweet the air smelled, the breeze carried honeysuckle, jasmine, and orange blossoms through eucalyptus and lemon trees. Imagine that.  Intoxicating.  The scent of earth and the whinny of horses, all of it home.

Later in the day, as I homeschooled my fifth grader, I encouraged him to use all five of his senses to layer descriptive words into his writing assignment.  Inspired, I put a pad of unlined-paper in his hand and wrote see, smell, hear, taste & touch at the top of the page.  Sending him outside I asked my son to find a location on our property and write me a poem using those powerful tools.  The eleven year old swooshed the bangs from his forehead and rolled his eyes, slipped on his mother's flip-flops then sauntered out into her rose garden.  When he returned he gave me this:

In the Garden

I see the magnificent roses on my mom’s bushes;

I smell the wonderful scent of blooming jasmine;

I reach over to touch the soft peddles of the rose;

I taste the fresh squeezed lemonade from our lemon trees,

cool in my hand.

I feel that I am at home in the garden.

-Caleb

That is the Sabbath... being at home in the garden of God's safe embrace, at the end of one busy week and the start of another. Purposing stillness to look closely, listen carefully, inhale deeply, touch gently, and taste, intentionally, the Lord's goodness toward us.

Today, this Sabbath Sunday, also marks the end of one full week of fasting - which may be part of why I'm slowing down as well.  Depleted in one natural area of my being, that I might be aware of the supernatural at work without and within.  Denying sugar that I can more fully experience the sweetness of The Lord's nearness.

One of the women who has joined along with this online community for our 40 day sugar-fast is author, Katie Reid. She sent me a message, the day I went for a walk outside, celebrating how her food tastes more flavorful and enjoyable than usual.  The sweet tanginess of strawberries, the rich flavors at the dinner table.  It reminded me of the scent on the breeze so I replied to her comment online, telling her so.

Back and forth we've been communicating about our discoveries.  I've actually copied one of them and pasted it below because it was just so good.   Read it with me:

"Last night the kids were going to get some tomato soup from an Indian restaurant and they said, "I'll bet it won't taste as good as yours does Mom." I told them that it is fine for them to like other people's food more than mine because other people can cook better than I can. This morning I was reflecting on that and thought about how we often feel "no one's cooking is like that of home." There is comfort in eating where you feel loved, safe and known.

Then it went deeper. Do we long for the taste and food of our REAL home - Heaven? As believers, that hunger for home should drive us and fuel us. How many times do we settle for a quick, cheap fix for our spiritual hunger rather than the real stuff; the rich fare of Heaven? I have heard in third world countries that believers often talk about heaven and look forward to it. Why? Maybe it is because their days aren't full of comforts or the varieties of foods and pleasures like we have. They hunger for heaven and delight in what's to come. But isn't it us who are malnourished? We feed our face on comforts and we lose a taste for the best yet to come.

Oh Lord, may we hunger for You. May we feast on Your Word and the "hope set before us." (see Hebrews 9:18). Some people think focusing so much on heaven means you are out of touch with reality. But heaven is a joyful reality for those in Christ- where we will taste and see where He is good (see Psalm 34:8). Oh that we would all turn and experience the great banquet to come!

All this

& so much more

is on my mind

this Sabbath day.

Katie Reid is encouraging her friends on her own facebook page as she fasts from sugar as a means to letting God make her sweet.  I encourage you to stop by and get to know her here.

Teach us how to pray...

The Spit-Up Covered Glory of Each Day

Hormones swinging out, then chasing right back in; Each baby brings with him this offering. Emotions climb up high, then calm back down, Our newborn cries, we nurse, but dare not drown.

But sometimes we do, and then wipe our eyes Blow our nose, and go turn off the house lights Succumb to sleep, two hours at a time Waking to sing one. more. time. "baby mine."

A new day starts, then twelve more pass at once Did I shower or ever stop for lunch? How can I be so elated and sad? Those hormones, sleep, and food would make me glad.

But sometimes they don't, 'cause sometimes they can't. Today blends with tomorrow in a rant About the ugly and the true. But O! O, O, O! Let us breath and know, know, know,

The spit up covered glory of each day. Sweet pea scented, baby powder dusted, glorious reflection of swaddled grace Turned up to receive our love, face to face.

And sometimes we do stop, to smell the truth. The roses, posies, sweet pea scented truth Of love, tucked deep in the baby wrinkles Where tears of joy and exhaustion mingle.

How many times did I fall asleep nursing my newborn in the gliding chair there in the nursery?  Waking with a kink in my neck and a baby covered in milk.  It was all so messy and delicious.  And in the night, when I'd awake and nurse my child again, I often asked the Lord "How should I pray?"

"One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us how to pray..." - Luke 11:1

The Lord's prayer spilled like water into wine from his lips, and found it's way into The Word.  We read it there, memorizing lines and praying them in rote.  But only when we slow down to savor each word, do we get the simple beauty of prayer. Mothers, wives, grandma's with a laundry list of requests for your laundry list of loved ones... “When you pray, say: “‘Father..."

Nursing in the middle of the night, packing lunches before the dawning of a new day, spending hours on the floor with puzzles and legos and crayons, "Father, Your Name is Holy."

The music plays loud from my third born's room, "Build your kingdom here" and I whisper the words heavenward, "Your kingdom come."

Beside the rocker, during those early days, was my bible, my daily bread, and beside that bread lay my  journal.  I recorded prayers and scriptures and the last time I fed my son and which side I nursed him on.  I chronicled it all, including confessions.  "Forgive me my sins."  I prayed through every line, in different ways, every day, without ceasing.

Even the first verses I committed to memory as a new mom were listed there:

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

He taught us to pray, and we do, but sometimes we forget how much like a conversation it can flow throughout our days, throughout our sleep-deprived nights.  And sometimes we forget to ask, for our loved ones and for ourselves, and His Word reminds us how.  But life is busy chasing children and cleaning house, until we stop and read it further down the page:

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."

There is so much to a woman's prayer life.  From the simple act of recognizing that He is God, to the bold entrance we can make through the front door of His Grace, making requests and clapping our hands in faith.  It's all too much for me to understand. Which is why I'm blown over with gratitude when other women record their scripture prayers for the rest of us to lift as our own.  Have you done that?  Read through a book, like Stormie O'Martian's "The Power of a Praying Parent", or the new, heart-reviving prayers in Erika Dawson's collection, "Pray Truth: Praying God's Word for My Husband's Heart"? At the end of the book I sometimes start immediately over, because they've led me to the footstool and shown me how to pray again.

It is easy to forget to pray, but O there are women who remind us how...

Let's pray.

"Dear Lord, You are Holy over our sleepless nights and poured-out, spit-up crusted days and taxed marriages and  full hearts.  Build Your kingdom here in our home and in our family relationships, as you've purposed them in Heaven.  Forgive us when we are selfish in our exhaustion, and in your forgiveness remind us to forgive others. Lead us into right choices, even when we feel the pull of temptation strong.  Hem us in, Lord.  Hem us in.  And then be sure, Father, to take all the glory for your own self.  For it is yours entirely.  And I am tired and ready now for bed.  Go before me into the next day, and teach me again, fresh in the morning, how to pray. Amen."

Today you are enough - a little bit of mom-poetry

Today you are enough

I watched my children push themselves

higher up, then higher still.  

Pumping legs and bending backs

to reach new heights until...

The jump-bump of the swing's release

Made their heart-rates increase,

As they whooped and hollered loud; 

Swinging hard they touched the clouds.

Won the prize,

Realized,

feeling so complete,

Flying up and off the plastic glory-seat.  

I joined the celebration

Saying, "How good and strong you are!"

The littlest let go,

and sailed beyond me far.

The brothers laughed out loud

with giggles great and glorious,

And in that shining moment

We sang out in joyful chorus.

But when I turned around I saw

Another mom's expression fall.

Bent low from life, laborious,

With no joy left at all.

Her children played nearby,

Chirping happily with mine,

But she couldn't find a joy-filled tone.

I think, in fact, I heard her moan.

So I caught her eye and smiled then

Infusing courage like a friend.

Because yesterday she was me,

And I was her beneath that tree.

Mothers, friends, sojourners,

Some days it flows like praise,

But other days are weepy, long,

Enshrouded in malaise.

If today you sang a dirge,

And your heart knew great sorrow,

I pray my rhymes encourage,

And point you toward tomorrow.

Today you are enough

by Wendy Speake

For more poetic encouragement that you are perfectly enough...  come this way.

I see you

 

She saw me standing there,

I know she did because she took this picture.  

It's a documented fact now,

how I'd been seen

when I was feeling invisible.  

But that's my old-self,

believing old lies

about how I don't belong.  

What a load of sulfer breath!  

Satan's minions sneaking in all stealth, 

telling us we're broken down,

cast aside, and lonely.  

And the child in me believes it's true.  

All the while someone's standing there,

watching and seeing,

and counting me beautiful

through the lens of their camera.

On this day, that someone was my sweet friend, Tammy.

But every day I remind myself...

Someone's standing there, watching and seeing,

Counting us all beautiful through the lens of His camera.

You see where I'm going with this, don't you?

For even Hagar in her lonely plight, there in the desert with Ishmael, even Hagar experienced the One who watched her closely, so she named him El Roi -The God who sees.

She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her:

"You are the God who sees me," (Genesis 16:13)

And the rest of scripture supports our renewed confidence that He watches us, sees us, knows us.

From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind  (Psalm 33:13)

The Lord sees everything you do. Wherever you go, he is watching. (Proverbs 5:21)

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. (Hebrews 4:13)

I've said it before, that God's vantage point is love.

But here's a miracle at work:

The more I believe this truth to my core,

the more my lens on the world

and on myself

and on others...

opens up to a wide-angle.

The more I believe in my own loved reality,

know myself seen,

know myself safe,

know myself beloved,

know myself cherished...

The more I can authentically know and cherish

those all around me in life affirming ways.

Like the young mom sitting on the floor at Barnes and Noble with a small notepad in her lap.  Her scribbled shopping list on one side of the page and a list of things she's thankful for on the back.  All this as her young children play at the Thomas The Train table.  He's wearing suspenders, sporting a faux hawk; she's a few inches shorter in a tutu.  It's then they come running and hollering for a book.  So she tucks her notes away for later.

And as they crawl into her lap with a stack of Curious George, she looks up and sees me there.  And I see her back... and tell her so.

"You're doing a wonderful job."

Before leaving I stop at the cafe for an egg white and turkey bacon sandwich, because I missed breakfast herding my children out the door on time.  And at a table across the way I see an old woman in a blue sweater, eating a donut.  I see her there, and I tell her so.

"That color blue makes your eyes shine like saphires."

She smiles and breaths in deep, brushing pink sprinkles from her lap.  She just keeps smiling and takes in a second breath, like I'd given her oxygen when she'd been running out.  And we do... run out.  And need to be seen and affirmed and known in the everyday moments of life.  Because we can get lost.  And we do.  And sometimes I just want to rescue those who are on their way under.

Tammy wrote me a note that summed it all up.  How she sees me serving in the quiet corners of life.  And she tucked that note into a small care package and sent it from Dallas, Texas to San Diego, California.  With the most beautiful mug, delicate measuring spoons (much too pretty to actually use), a gift card for dinner out, and other "I know you" odds and ends that all shouted "You're seen."

So today I'm paying the "I see you" message forward, in this care-packaged post.

Because I do, Jenny

And I do, Kacy,

You too, sweet Jacqui

And yes, you too, Kelli

And you, Sherri

And I see you, Mary

And Shannon, of course,

And  you, Aunt Michelle

And you too, Heather

I see you.

But most importantly, let's commit together to find our true soul's identity in the eyes of one.  

The One.  El Roi.  Because the God of the universe can't take his eyes off of you today!  

And now it's your turn to pay it forward.

Go ahead and share this on your facebook page, tweet it, or pin...

making sure to tag the friends, mothers, and sisters who need to know

you see them too.

What a radical thought.  To be seen.