Trying To Be Brave

It has been a long, long time since I have had such a period of stirring creativity, and creativity that doesn't disappear at the first sign of a hurdle.

I don't know if it was recent events, or just a turning point, but I think I can honestly say I've not felt like this in about 4 1/2 years.

And yes, for those of you smart enough, that's how long I've been married.

I assure you, my lack of creativity, or its brevity when it's shown up, has not been R's fault. I promise. If anything, I think he's probably been the one person who has believed in its existence, despite a drought of evidence so convincing that even I believed it had disappeared forever.

A friend, I believe totally prompted by God, put a book in my hand last Friday night - Life Artist by Ali Edwards. She said she thought it was "me". It's a scrapbooking book by an amazing artist - Ali Edwards, who takes scrapbooking beyond glue and paper and sparkly things. Her life philosophy is very much like mine, she is a story teller like me... she seems to see things the way I do. It is comforting to feel like I'm not alone in my sometimes disorganized mental polaroids and journals.

The timing has been perfect. I sit and feel like I'm sitting down to a banquet table. I'm starving and yet cannot eat my fill. I read and read and yet there is still more I cannot absorb. I love that feeling with anything... that feeling of complete saturation, and yet craving more... knowing you can have it when you need it... complete satisfaction. There are only two other books I have ever felt that with. The Bible, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, and now this scrapbooking book. (Eclectic, 'eh?)

All this stirring, not just idle stirring, not just dreaming but now doing. Looking with satisfaction on a clean room, a completed craft, my smiling child, a new discovery about myself. Finally feeling reconciled in so many areas that have previously only known dissatisfaction and contention.
What is this change? Not the "magic answer" that R says we all hope for but doesn't really exist... or does it?

Perhaps it is both hard work, and that mysterious, mystical, undeserved answer.

"And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Rom 5:3-5

Because I've realized again, as I pray for a dear friend whose mother has cancer, that God did not promise me the "princess" life that so many proclaim. There is no glory for myself, no guaranteed perfection in this earthly life. I am not entitled like I was taught at church as a teen. He has told me to expect suffering and persecution - those things are a promise and I have tasted a little. Anything I have that is better than that, is such an obvious manifestation of an abundance of mercy and grace, that I am giddy with a happiness that lets me rejoice at the most simple moments of my day. Things that may seem dull to others make me deliriously happy.

I am also finding that if I make the distasteful things smaller in my mind, they can pass by without wounding me so. I can use them to bolster the things I crave. I can give myself the gift of knowing I have been obedient, instead of bucking against the instruction and subsequent discipline. I can obey because I love Him who requires these things of me.

And so I move on. I have a new courage. I will be brave, and creative, and rejoice in the smallest things, and celebrate my life and love and give generously of myself to the ones around me. And I can do it all because He first loved me.

Green Leaf In Drought - Isobel Kuhn Quote 1

Alone in the kitchen amid her drab tasks Wilda suddenly remembered two tracts. One was by A.B. Simpson entitled, "The 'If' in Your Life." The other was by Hudson Taylor on "Second Causes."
If only that letter had not come, inviting us here. What about the "if"? She got them and read: "'Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.' And He could have been there; He was not far away. He knew all about it, and He let him die. I think it was very hard for that woman... I have come to think that there is an "if" in every life... It is something that God could have made different, if He had chosen, because He has all power; and yet He has allowed that 'if' to be there.
"I do not discount the 'if' in your life. No matter what it is... Come to the Lord with your 'if', and let Him say to you what He said to Martha. He met her 'if' with His 'if'! Said I not unto thee that IF thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? The glory of God is to come out of the 'if' in your life...
"Do not be thinking of your 'if'. Make a power of your 'if' for God...
"Do you know that a light is to fall on your 'if' some day? Then take in the possibilities and say 'Nothing has ever come to me, nothing has ever gone from me, that I shall not be better for God by it...'
"Face the 'if' in your life and say, For this I have Jesus."

The second tract said: "The secret of Hudson Taylor's rest of heart amid such tempests of hate was his refusal to look at second causes... He believed it was with God, and God alone, he had to do." When his dear wife died, Hudson Taylor wrote, "If satisfied with His will and way, there is rest."

Ruth 3:18: Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall.



Do you have an if? Two, three? Do you look at second causes, instead of dealing directing with God? The answers to those questions made me very uncomfortable. I'm still processing.