Sit Tight

Not a day goes by that God doesn’t whisper into my ear saying, “Be still”. The word, “still”, by definition goes against every fiber of my being. Until the last 5 years or so, I haven’t understood what that would even look like. However, God never fails to present these situations that in the past would cause me to squirm, fidget, or even run. Given that I am such a socially awkward person you can imagine how many moments I have in one day!

On any given day I am prone to have multiple situations I would prefer to run from. Somewhere in my life I developed a coping mechanism for each awkward moment. In silent moments, I always had to interject something. In tense moments, I always had to make a joke. In teary moments, I would emotionally separate and probably still make a joke. In moments of disagreement or situations requiring confrontation I would run. In moments of strife, I would jump in and “fix”.

In the last few years though, God has been working with me on this and just really asking me to “sit tight” and feel whatever is presenting itself at the moment – asking me to just let there be silence, let there be tension or tears or whatever may be. Naturally being a “fixer”, it was hard to resign myself to just being present but not coming up with solutions. The idea of just being surrendered to what comes and to be sensitive to the idea that it may be just what the Great Doctor ordered; no matter how uncomfortable it feels to me.

It has itself playing out when I visit my hospice patients – just listening to what they are saying and what they aren’t saying – and staying with it regardless of how uncomfortable it is. It plays itself out in my friendships, just sitting tight and praying for friends or family when they hurt my feelings or gossip or whatever the circumstance may be. This was the point I used to run. Now I feel God asking me to just stay and wait it out. How hard this is! I find myself asking the Lord how long I have to wait. How many times do I have to hear a friend gossip before I can be done? **That was a lesson I learned years ago from a best friend – I loved hearing her juicy gossip about others, but was somehow blindsided when she gossiped about me** Now when I spot a gossip I am the first to turn my head and disengage – let alone pursue friendship. “Lord, you really want me to be a sitting duck just to be obedient to you?”

God is funny that way, though. Somehow He brings people and situations in and uses them to refine us. I can complain all day about others and how they’ve wronged me, hurt my feelings, or gossiped or cheated me -- but it isn’t about others. It’s about me. It’s about what I’m going to do with it. How am I going to handle it? Am I going to sit tight and trust God? And no matter which way I turn, I feel God gently asking me if I’m going to sit tight and trust in Him; to be still and know…that He is God.

I’m convinced it’s Satan voice I hear when the words “run” or “give up” nowadays. I won’t say that God will never tell us to steer clear of someone or some situation – I know better than that. But many situations in life are just that – temporary situations that God is working on behind the scenes. We just have to be willing to sit in the uncomfortable hot seat as long as it takes. It isn’t always pretty, but honestly, the view from that seat is raw and real and most definitely perspective changing.

Has Anyone Seen My Thankfulness?

     When reading the story of the Israelites being led through the desert, provided for at every turn by God himself, I have admittedly thought to myself, "How could they doubt with all the Presence they were blessed with?" How could they, how could THEY, how could they? It seems so implausible given the circumstances, that they could actually complain, grumble, and doubt the fact that they were being Divinely cared for. The day's manna hadn't even digested before they were doubting and grumbling again. And again. And again.

     Four months ago, a doctor asked me if I wanted a chaplain to come sit with me while she and others tended to my son's medical emergency. Two words a parent never wants to hear in the same sentence...chaplain and son. She said, "This could get dicey". For about 20 minutes my little world became a monstrosity of emotions. When they came to get me from the waiting room, a flood of thankfulness overtook me as she said, "The ventilator tubing had kinked itself inside of him. We never see that." Thank God. The problem was not with my son but with the equipment and it was an easy fix. Thank God. Thank God. I wish I could say that was the first time I had seen medical staff have to perform resuscitation on my son. It wasn't. With his seizure disorder, I had seen it before. It looks the same in every doctors eyes. The first time it happened, no one had time to remove me or my mom from the room. We just sat and watched. We watched him seize for over half an hour. We watched him turn ashen gray.

     All of this to say, today, he's a healthy 14 year old boy with nothing medical looming over his future. I have witnessed miracles. Huge miracles. I have been fed daily manna from my God just the same as the Israelites. I have clung to God as my world threatened to crumble around me and asked Him to just stay beside me and give me what I needed to get through that moment. And the next...and the next. Here's the kicker: I have turned right back around and grumbled. Grumbled that I didn't have enough. Grumbled that I wasn't enough. Grumbled because I couldn't feel Him. Grumbled because He wasn't fixing some problem for me. I have grumbled and complained to the very God that has spared my son's life over and over again.

     Hi my name is Cynthia and I am like the Israelites. How could I? How dare I?

     How quickly I can forget the tender mercies of yesterday. The miracles I have been witness to. I have personally seen God do big things! I have had some of the best seats in the house and yet, I have found myself telling God I need more, I want more, show me more. Someone said something today that got me thinking about this. I have seen such great wonders of God. The Israelites had seen such great wonders of God. What if, because they saw such huge and obvious blessings literally pour from the heavens, they became addicted to the constant shower of Presence and the rush of adrenaline God provides. What if the greatness of what they saw made everything else about life mundane and boring? Laborious and monotonous. Thus came the grumbling and complaining. What if they had seen God provide so much they wondered in their humanity when God would stop showering them with blessings and do away with them because of their lack of faith or disobedience?

     I would be lying if I said I never think those things for myself. I have experienced the Presence of God in huge ways -- as if He were sitting next to me. So in between those huge experiences, I find myself asking Him why I can't feel Him. As if He has left me. Yeah right. It's my attitude that has tried to leave Him. It's the world, Satan, that has crept back in to my thoughts telling me I don't have enough, I'm not enough, I will never be enough.

     So, what is enough? When has He done enough? When will I stop complaining? When I force myself back to the beginning. When I pull myself out of my stinkin' thinkin' and grab hold of my foundation again. Christ dying on the cross just for me is enough. I know that, it's huge. Yep, that's enough. But He didn't stop there for me and He doesn't stop there for you either. He's already done enough but He keeps doing. He spared my son's life multiple times when the reality is He didn't even spare His own Son's life.

     I tend to read the Israelite story with disgust at how they could lose heart with God right there, providing just because they were His chosen people. And yet, I, four months out of my son's surgery found myself losing heart and becoming frustrated with life's situations. I found myself asking God where He was and why I couldn't feel Him. Once I get my heart right, I realize He's still here, still right next to me. Still doing big things, but how could I notice when I won't pull my head out of my worldly "ars" and look with my heavenly eyes? God never abandons us, but too often our perception does.

The Firecracker De-Fuser

About 6 weeks ago, my husband and I embarked on a new and temporary adventure. We offered to let my grandpa live with us for what appears to be his final season of life. This would be why my blog has gone lifeless and barren of late. This would also be why my house is messier, my leg hair is growing hair of it’s own, and my dog ran off to find a new forever family. And to top it all off, just a few weeks after gramps came into our home, it was also the start of our new homeschool year — with an entirely new and different curriculum and approach.
**Sidenote: let me explain my personality in one word: Firecracker. Listen to this song if you need more explanation.

The first time I heard about the above song was when my mom and cousin caught it on the radio one day and laughed because they both immediately thought of me. Aside from the fact it’s talking about a romp in the hay, the firecracker premise fits none-the-less.**
So, given the fact that I explode easily and have now found stress and time constraints to be a constant any and every day….I haven’t been totally pleasant. Those who don’t know me well and have seen me probably thought I’ve been just pleasantly peachy. Those who know me well and who I love most out of any in the world have seen the fiery, short-fused bawl baby that I really am. You can probably guess who that would be…
God bless…my husband. He catches 97.8% of the flack. I do not and have never handled stress well. Which cracks me up given the life I’ve had. You’d think I would be a professional stress squasher by now! Yeah, not so much.
Here’s the difference between my husband and every other man I’ve ever known ~ Since nearly the very beginning of our relationship, he has had the uncanny ability to see beyond my tangible, face value emotion to the heart of my issue. He has always searched out the “Why” of my behavior. It’s as if he has stared at and studied the abstract portrait that is my past so in depth that he can now recognize the hues that filter and color my current life experiences.
I had a hard time understanding unconditional love and an even harder time understanding that there would ever be someone who really had the ability to do this. My husband helps me to understand what it looks like to live out unconditional love. He sees the walls I put up and why. He sees my buttons and why they are my buttons. He sees how my sometimes self-sabotaging ways serve as a protection mechanism. He just gets me. Sometimes he gets me before I get me!
Then I got to thinking — Isn’t that how our Father God gets us? He can see the “why” in our actions — Isn’t that why He can love us unconditionally? Our “why’s” reside in the heart and that’s exactly where he looks. He sees our life’s painting and the color palette we filter life through. And though I should always be striving to die to my fleshly emotions, when the firecracker in me explodes, He is there to remind me of His grace and unconditional love. And honestly, that is what my husband does for me too. He reminds me of his unconditional love and extends grace to me unfailingly.
I always wanted to understand unconditional love as it applies to Christ but never could grasp it. I still don’t think I have a full grasp on that reality, but thanks to my kind, caring, and patient husband, I do understand it better and I try to learn from his example. So much prayer went in to my husband before I ever even knew him and God provided in abundance. Thank you Eric for loving me enough to search out the “why’s” in me. I am blessed to be walking this life with you by my side.
**Another side note — mushy is SO not my thing, HOWEVER, God placed this on my heart and I thought I would share it. I know many others are blessed with earthly examples of unconditional love that we sometimes mistreat or take for granted. Don’t.**