My One Word for 2015 {with NEW song debut!}

So... a two-month blog silence!  Read on to find out why... (I wrote this post last week on our return journey to Central Asia, but I couldn't post earlier due to Internet issues.)  Remember to click the Soundcloud link at the bottom to listen to my NEW song!  

Queenstown & the Remarkables, New Zealand South Island

As I write this, I am sitting in a place called “Caffé Béne”, in the bustling heart of an Asian metropolis, sipping a barista-brewed latte - my last for a while - absentmindedly staring at the cafe’s weird East-meets-West decor, and thinking about rest.

Right now we’re in a few days of limbo between two months of “Kiwi-leave” in New Zealand and returning to our current “home” on the field in Central Asia.  Home-leave offers a welcome break from the pressures and tensions of life overseas, but while returning to a western country is restful in that I can function in my heart language and I don’t have to cook every meal from scratch, the short times back in our passport countries are usually packed with people to see, places to go, and opportunities to share what God has been doing.  

This time for us was no different.  We’ve rested as we’ve been ministered to in prayer by faithful saints; we’ve rested as we’ve drunk deeply of New Zealand’s natural beauty, and as we’ve enjoyed the delicious, relaxed hospitality of treasured friends.  But we’ve been busy, and it’s taken its toll.  We’re tired, our kids are tired, and our family is running a bit ragged.

I snuck out this afternoon while the kids are napping to write you a note in this little online space which I’ve devoted to exploring the art of this sojourning life.  Most of us are no strangers to feeling fatigued, so I’m especially excited to share with you my word for 2015! 

Lake Pukaki, New Zealand South Island

Last year, I felt God calling me to listen.  If you’re interested, you can read some of the things I learned here… and after 12 months of exploring and experimenting, I am fully aware my lessons in real, true listening have only just begun!  

This year, flowing on from listening, I’ve been invited by God to 

rest 

for a while.  

To rest from striving, from filling my life with effort and strain, to rest from the internet rat-race I’ve been unwittingly running.  

I’ve been invited to rest from my own agenda, from compulsively planning and preparing.  God is inviting me to go with the flow.  To surrender.  To submit to what each day brings.  To submit afresh to my husband.  To surrender afresh to my Lord.  

To rest in the care of my Good Shepherd, and let this little corner of the web lie quiet for a while, while I listen to His voice.  

This year, the word God is giving me for 2015 is rest.  

Milford Sound, New Zealand South Island

I am so happy about this word.  Whew!  What a relief!  

Towards the end of last year, I noticed myself struggling with the tension between wanting to develop and promote some sort of personal “brand” online and the actual reality of my tiny snippets of free time.  The worst part was, no matter how much time I spent tweaking, planning and writing, I never felt like I measured up to all the other amazing blogs and writers I love.  Frankly, I fell into the comparison trap, and it isn’t very restful!  I’ve also noticed that, instead of providing a satisfying outlet, blogging seems to feed a fever inside of me to reach for more ambitious projects than my stage in life will allow - things like writing a book (or two!) which would require me to sacrifice time my children need with me right now. 

I was sharing these tensions with a friend, and her quiet, wise response stopped me in my tracks.

“Maybe you could write your blog on the hearts of your children.”

You know?  Maybe I could.

I feel God inviting me to rest in the presence of my children.  I’ve been so busy managing them I’ve forgotten how to enjoy them.  Over these past couple months, as friends and loved ones reconnected with our family after a 2-year absence, seeing and hearing their comments and watching their joy in my kids jogged me into realizing I need to rediscover their preciousness all over again.  I need to tend their souls.  I need to observe their needs attentively and bring them to Jesus.  I need to rest my soul in prayer for them, carrying them to the heart of their Creator.  I need to seek wisdom as I try to do my part in shaping their character and their hearts.  

So, as this fresh new year unrolls practically speaking, among other things

I am taking a six-month blog break from January to July.  

Instead of writing for this space, I will be journalling about rest - and whatever else the Lord lays on my heart.  

I want to explore the beautiful theme of rest running through the Bible.  

I long to explore new - and old - rhythms of Sabbath rest, to learn how to rest well with my family… alone… in God’s creation… and in conversation.  

I’d love to increase my margins, create more whitespace in my life.  Earlier bedtimes, earlier rising times, more pausing, more looking around, more awareness.  

This year, I want to feed my soul creatively while feeding my family creatively (the end of last year saw us in a pretty monotonous menu rut!). 

I want to enjoy bringing my kids joy, and learning how to help each of them rest in the way he or she needs most.  

Every time I think the word “rest” to myself, I feel a delicious sense of ownership and anticipation.  Rest.  What a wonderful word.  I am looking forward to exploring it, doing it, experiencing and living it.  

I am anticipating discovering the rest of God.  

Do you feel a tug on your soul to join me?  If you do, will you pray for me, as I pray for you, that these next six months will be filled with refreshment of the soul and a rest we have never known? 

One verse God has laid on my heart for this year is from Exodus 33, during one of the most remarkable conversations in the Bible.  It takes place between God and Moses, right after the people of Israel have sinned greatly and God has punished them with plague and the sword.  Then, He pronounces the worst punishment of all: He is sending them on ahead, but He is not going with them lest He consume them on the way, for they are a “stiff-necked people”.  

(When I see that phrase, I feel the stiffness in my own neck - a trait my two-year-old daughter has certainly inherited!) 

Moses begs God to go with them, on the grounds that it’s His presence that sets the children of Israel apart from every other nation.  It’s the fact that God travels physically in their midst, leading and guiding them Himself, that marks them out as God’s chosen ones.  

Moses reminds God that He has said, “I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.”  Then he pleads, “Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight.  Consider too that this nation is your people.”

And God’s answer takes your breath away: 

“My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”  (Ex. 33:14)

There’s a lot more to this passage, and I’m planning to dive into it more and more deeply as this year unwinds, but for right now, I’m savoring those beautiful words tucked away in the middle of the conversation: “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”  

Rest from our enemies.  Rest from the desert.  Rest from being alone.  Rest from slavery, from wandering, from the monotony of manna.  Rest from bickering and quarreling and complaining.  

Rest.  In the presence of God.  

Mmmm.  Doesn’t that sound good?

So.  I’ll see you in July.  In the meantime, I’ll tuck myself away in our little Central Asian village, enjoy my children, love my husband, cook some yummy food, and explore rest.  

P.S. I recently wrote a new song around Exodus 33:14, called “Rest”… click here to listen on Soundcloud.  May you be refreshed!  

What’s your word for 2015?  What about it excites you?  What about it is challenging?  What do you hope God will do in you this year through this word?

Happy Birthday, Ben! You're FIVE!

Dear Ben,

I love you SO MUCH!!!  You drive me nuts some of the time, but you are always ready to come back with a kiss and a cuddle, and snuggle in to be forgiven.  And I have to ask you to forgive me a lot too, for yelling and getting impatient, and you always say, “I forgive you, Mama,” and cuddle in close.

I have been so proud of you this year, Ben.  It’s not easy being a younger brother, and you have persevered in learning to play well with Will and expressing in words when you’re feeling frustrated and left out, instead of hitting or lashing out.  Your words will be the thing that saves you, if you learn to use them well.

When Will started school last month, I saw you blossom at home.  You started being more responsible to get dressed and make your bed in the mornings without being asked; you are playing well with Ruby and helping her kindly; and you are happily sitting up at the table with me for school-time and working so hard at your letters and numbers.  Way to go, Ben!  You are even starting to learn to read with our 100 Lessons book, and as long as I can keep you moving and hopping, you concentrate and finish the lesson.  Woohoo!

You love to move: basketball, soccer, rugby, cricket, tag, climbing trees, running, jumping, somersaults, gymnastic tricks, tricks on the swing, the ropes, the play-hut… you are a blur of motion!  And you are strong and coordinated and brave to push yourself to try new things.  It’s awesome to watch!

 

Then, every afternoon, my favorite time of day with you is when we cuddle up together in your bed and I read you stories.  You have an insatiable appetite for stories, and you absorb them like a thumb-sucking sponge.  The rest of the day I hear you weaving your own stories with your brother and sister, or by yourself, out of all the bits and pieces you remember.  It’s amazing what you remember, and your imagination is beautiful to watch and listen to.  Never stop telling and acting out and reading and writing and living stories, Ben.   It’s what you were made to do.  

You are the perfect guy to be right in the middle of our family.  You help Will to imagine fun games, and you are compassionate and expressive towards Ruby.  She really looks up to you - she copies everything you do and say, including your attitudes… So we really need to keep working on your bad habit of sulking and pouting when you don’t get your way, huh?  Because now Ruby’s starting to do it, too.  Uh-oh, right?

But we know Jesus is living in your heart, we know you trusted Him as your Savior and Lord when you were 3, and every day we see Him rescuing you from your sin and filling you up with the fruit of His Spirit - love, gentleness, kindness, self-control.  You have his JOY in full measure - it bubbles out of you and makes the rest of us so happy!  You are a bright spot in our family and on our street, and you will be a shining light for Jesus in this dark world, Ben.

I love you SOOOOOOOO much!  Mm-MMM!  

Happy Birthday to our big, cuddly, 5-year-old 

Ben-boy!

just a quick note...

...to explain the silence on the blog for the past month.  I've been recovering from my broken foot (doing very well, thanks), and getting my oldest son into first grade in our little local school.  He's in the Russian class, he wears a suit every day, it's been a big deal for all involved.  After three weeks he's doing very well, but we're all pretty exhausted! :)

(Check out my Facebook page for photos of his first day...)

I've got about three posts lined up in the wings (the Internet keeps conking out on me when I get an evening with enough energy left to post), so stay tuned and watch this space for the things I've learned in August & September about listening, motherhood, and this art of sojourning we're trying to do every day... 

Thanks for your patience and your prayers!

Love,
Carolyn

listen to your life {July lessons in listening}

Let life shape itself.

This refrain peppers the pages of Marlena di Blasi’s latest book, Antonia and Her Daughters.  I read di Blasi as much for her pithy quotes and insight into human nature as for her mouth-watering descriptions of Italian food and life.  

Curled up under a light blanket in my dark room, savoring my tiny oasis of calm in the middle of the afternoon, I’m pondering di Blasi’s words, thinking now about life, about observation, about allowing the shape of a day to be determined by forces outside oneself, not by one’s own will.  

This is hard for me.

I’d rather set out a schedule with lines and boxes, fill in each half-hour slot carefully, stick to the plan.  I like knowing what’s coming, the security of preparing in advance so I can rise to the occasion, feel the thrill of success.  I like having all my ducks in a row, how it feels to keep all the balls spinning briskly in mid-air without dropping a single one.  I hate that.  Dropping one.

This sort of square life might be safe, but I’m discovering it lacks a certain… zest.  The element of surprise, maybe?  I’m slowly realizing that surprise is always part of a day;   it’s my choice to welcome it or stubbornly push it away which determines whether the surprise adds to my pleasure in the day, or not.  

Coming upon my daughter sitting on the wooden plank bridge across our backyard water channel, blissfully engaged in reaching her little arm into the cool milky water, scrounging a fistful of mud from the bottom of the trench, pulling it up dripping to smear its cool silkiness over her bare skin… 

How do I react?  Do I scream and scold and whisk her off to the bathroom for a shower, chastise her for getting dirty, for caking her dimpled legs with mud, smearing it over her face?  

Or do I stop, notice the light on the back of her neck, see the shimmer of her fountain of hair, take in her quiet absorption, the way she calmly soothes herself with the elemental coolness of water and dirt against her skin?  

Do I receive the sight of her as a gift, let life shape itself, take what’s given?  Or do I push it away, rigidly insisting on my own ideas of what’s good in a day?

I’m learning.  Slowly.

These lessons in listening, this year of slowing down, of giving myself permission to rest, to be still, to think, to write, to not pursue people unless the fit takes me… these months are changing me, stretching me.  I’ve been like dough that needed time to rise before it can be deflated and stretched over waiting pans.  I’ve needed rising time.  And I’m being kneaded, gently but firmly, and stretched, sometimes to tearing point, over a waiting receptacle which, when I first look at it, I think I will never be able to fit.  

Three children.  A dog.  Chickens.  Guests.  A garden.  A borrowed house.  A village life in Central Asia.  Three foreign languages.  Intermittent running water, sporadic power cuts.  If you had shown me my now-life ten years ago, I would have said, I’ll never be able to fit that.  I’ll never stretch that far.  

Let life shape itself.

Our latest additions!  In for a penny, in for a pound...

I would change di Blasi’s mantra slightly.  I would say, Listen.  Listen to your life.  Let God shape the day, the moment, the hour.  

I’m beginning to hear God’s voice in the surprises.  Things I would have pushed away before, now I’m beginning to smile instead, when I see them.  

The knock of a stranger on my gate. 

Before this listening, before this expanding and growing, before this stretching, it would have been ::sigh::  Not now!  I feel invaded!  I have things to do!  Please, go away… These feelings promptly followed by a flood of guilt, because, after all, am I not here for exactly this, these people, these women?  Am I not called to spill out my life for that knock on the gate?  

Now, sometimes, more often than before, I can meet the knock with calm, sometimes even with pleasure.  It’s ok.  There’s fresh bread.  A pitcher of cold tea.  Sweet peas.  We’ll be fine.  Come in, come in, come inside, sit down a few minutes. 

Lord, order my day.  Shape my life.

This simple prayer has changed my outlook.  I am learning how to stop myself on the point of freaking out and say to my rising panic, Listen.  

I’m learning to notice the afternoon sunlight on the back of my tiny daughter’s neck.  To relish the softness of our (initially unwanted) dog’s coat, the satiny bits behind her ears.  (Yes, surprise - our dog is a “her”!)  I’m learning to expect the inevitable knock at the gate and sometimes feel a thrill, instead of a surge of dread.  To go out on the street after dinner for no other reason than to open my heart to the dusty golden sunset and the silhouettes of my neighbors and their children playing.  

Why haven’t I lived like this for years? I find myself wondering.  This, exactly this, letting life shape itself, is the way to find joy.  

And to be honest, every day is not this way, this listening, receiving, peace-filled, stretched-and-open way.  It comes in fits and starts.  When I’m tired or hungry or at the end of an especially trying day, with intermittent water and even less patience, I am not gracious. I long to grow roots deep enough to always reach that Living Water.  I long for my heart’s cup to always brim with the "Sweet Water" of Calvary love, like Amy Carmichael says, so that no matter how sudden the jolt to my cup, no bitter drops spill out.   

Festina lente.  Make haste slowly.  The light won’t wait, urges Marlena.  

I’m making haste slowly.  I’m learning to listen to my life, to bend my rigidity in order not to miss the beauty of the shifting light.  

The light won’t wait, you know.

Welcoming the moments lets joy flood in.

How do you handle unexpected interruptions?  If you tried praying “Lord, order my day” each morning, how do you think it would change your outlook?

{To listen to the song I wrote about Amy Carmichael's quote, called "Sweet Water", click here...}

of Bill Murray and keeping Sabbath {an unsolicited book review}

I recently finished reading one of the most restful books I’ve ever read.  It is, coincidentally, a book on the spiritual discipline of Sabbath; but whereas many “Christian” books leave my recovering-perfectionist-self feeling guilty and depressed about all the spiritual disciplines I’m not practicing or the good, Biblical things I’m not doing, this book left me feeling refreshed.  Life-filled.  Invited.  Excited about unwrapping the gift of Sabbath in my own life.  

Mark Buchanan’s The Rest of God is a beautiful and, for me, timely invitation to explore the Biblical command to keep Sabbath rest.  His pithy, insightful writing opened my spiritual eyes to see how keeping Sabbath and developing a Sabbath heart enables us to discover not just actual rest, but the rest of God - the things of God’s nature and presence we miss in our busyness.

“In a culture where busyness is a fetish and stillness is laziness, rest is sloth,” Buchanan muses.  

“But without rest,” he continues, “we miss the rest of God: the rest he invites us to enter more fully so that we might know him more deeply.  ‘Be still and know that I am God.’  Some knowing is never pursued, only received.  And for that, you need to be still” (p3).

Being still has never been easy for me.  I like to be doing, getting things done.  I tend to measure the “success” of my day by how many items I’ve ticked off my to-do list.  I struggle to live in the moment and I often resent interruptions.  I find it difficult to lay down my task and look the person full in the face.  

So this book was a much-needed breath of fresh air (and a kick in the pants) to show me how crucial Sabbath is to healthy, Biblical living.  And how much more expansive our potential for true productivity becomes when we joyfully keep Sabbath.  

One of the things that struck me was Buchanan’s differentiation between drivenness and purposefulness.  

He noticed that “the truly purposeful have an ironic secret: they manage time less and pay attention more” (78).  

He follows this up with an invitation to live generously.  Buchanan says that you actually generate “more” time by extravagantly giving your whole self, and all of “your” time, first to God and then to others.  

I wonder... is this really true?

Can I really generate “more” time by extravagantly giving time away?

Giving my time away definitely doesn’t come naturally to me.  I like to hang on to my time, count the seconds, hoard the minutes, and frugally dole out my hours.  The trouble with that approach is (hoarse stage whisper) - “It’s not really mine!”

If my time is not really mine, why do I hang on to it so tightly?  

Sabbath is about trust, Buchanan points out.  “[It] is turning over to God all those things—our money, our work, our status, our reputations, our plans, our projects—that we’re otherwise tempted to hold tight in our own closed fists, hold on to for dear life.” 

Oh yes.  I like hanging on for dear life.  It feels comforting to me.  Secure.  The trouble is, it’s exhausting! 

Buchanan continues, “[Sabbath] is letting go, for one day out of seven, all those parts of our identities and abilities in which we are constantly tempted to find our security, and discovering afresh that we are his children and that he is our Father and shield and defender” (98).

Is any of this hitting home for you like it did for me?  Doesn’t the idea of Sabbath sound delightful?  Just imagine: we’re offered - by God - 24 hours out of each week to take a break from our worries, our insecurities, and our drivenness, and just bounce joyously on the trampoline of the Everlasting Arms for a while?

In one of my favorite movies, “What About Bob”, Bill Murray plays a neurotic hypochondriac who relies on his psychologist for sanity and reassurance.  After Bob compulsively follows his psychologist and his family on vacation, turning up unexpectedly at the door of their cabin getaway, the irritated psychologist finally comes up with a way to get Bob to leave him alone: he tells Bob to take a vacation from his problems.  

“A vacation?” Bob is incredulous.  “From my… problems?”  A look of sheer joy spreads over his face, as the suggestion sinks in.  “Hah!  A vacation!  From my - problems!!”  He backs away happily, hands in pockets, and strolls off whistling. 

Dr. Marvin is overjoyed that his brainstorm worked so well and settles in to enjoy his family vacation - until Bob shows up bright and early at his screen door the next morning wearing a local t-shirt, and announces, “Good morning, Doctor!”  The speechless psychologist quickly pulls him around the corner and demands in a frantic whisper, “What are you doing here?”

Bob happily replies, “I’m on vacation! I’m just dropping by!  How are you, Doctor?”  

Flabbergasted at how his plan has backfired, Dr. Marvin proceeds to concoct a series of elaborate plans for getting rid of Bob, while his family gradually falls in love with Bob - who, on vacation from his problems, turns out to be a normal, likable guy.  

That’s what I want to do, once a week.  (Or every day?)  Take a vacation from my problems, and live in the realization that I am free from the power of sin over my life, and I have been invited into the rest of God.  

What about you?  Do you need a vacation from your problems?  Aren't you curious about the rest of God?

Stay tuned for more thoughts on Sabbath rest, coming soon…