Pain

Baby Eden,

We had to take you to the hospital for dehydration from a stomach bug. You had to get an IV. I had to watch while the nurses held you down poking and prodding around to get the needle into a vein while you screamed. Your eyes kept searching mine while you were hurting, wanting relief and not understanding why I wasn’t doing anything to help you. But I was -- the nurses were getting that precious little bag of nutrients to go into your frail body so you would LIVE. And all I could do for your little self was to tell you it was going to be ok and cry because I knew you wouldn’t understand. As your parent even the little pains you have to struggle through touch a tender place in me, and infuriate me that the Fall has brought this pain to my little one.

And our Father, He so loves us, this is only a small shadow of His kind compassion, His tender mercies for His children. The struggles and pains we scream at, in some higher comprehension, are doing the great good for us. If only we could look back into His eyes and believe. Believe that He loves. Believe that even this is good. 

I love my little lady.

Momma

Blessed Community

Dear Eden,

Parenting is so difficult. Man. Having to decide now what shape and form your health care will be in as we wrestle with the unknown has been a burden on my back. What if we don’t do the right amount of care and you suffer for it? What if we overreact and are judged by others for our decisions and have to pay much more for that reaction?

As this was bearing down on me during our staff training days, there was a call for prayer requests from a school administrator. The family of French Camp has been so drawn into community this week that at the risk of being seen as rash, blubbering, and basically a mess, I decided that I should share about our struggle to know how to best serve you in this new knowledge. Tears came immediately as I talked and I felt like a fool. There were bewildered looks at first and the older crowd of teachers couldn’t even hear what I had said.

But when the details were known, let me tell you about the body of Christ. We need each other for a reason. There is grace to be found in the precious precious family of God. The staff prayed for me, surrounded me to ask for details, told me that we must share our burdens with one another and not maintain some sort of poised pretense. They were compassionate with tears and hugs. One sister told me emphatically that it is God’s desire to see you, little Eden, have the care you would need -- and that they would raise the money themselves if they had to for it. 

This experience has drawn me closer to ones I normally keep at arms length. It has humbled me in front of ones I have looked down upon. It has opened up a space for them to love me and for me to receive their kindness and compassion. And in that moment, my loyalty to our little town of 300 is as fierce as ever for the little portal of heaven that it is. God has granted me grace in my weakness through the hands and feet of the church. God’s family, even with all our weaknesses and sins and selfishness, is full of the Holy Spirit. And sometimes you can smell the holiness among us, an aroma so sweet, it’s to die for. 

Love you,

Momma

Dark Days:

When they really come. 

Eden,

We took you to the doctor yesterday. We were told that with something to do with your small size and other issues, you may have a genetic disease. More testing was recommended, and the future was suddenly very unclear as to what healthy will mean for you. Braces, surgeries, pain were all in the possibilities.

Disability is a powerful word, but not one unknown to your family. We have all been audience to the absolute wonders the Lord has performed through your great grandfather, your grandpa Dean’s dad. What a sorrow the family must have been overcome with at his initial diagnosis now some 35 years ago! To lose the use of arms, legs, body control, and dignity, typically would be seen as hell -- the place where God is not, the place of dread. But how the opposite has been true! The presence of God is strongly made known in your great-grandparents’ house as your great-grandaddy ministers and mentors, writes and preaches, all from the bed, declaring heartily that the more the Lord limits him, the more the Lord accomplishes. Hundreds if not thousands have come to Christ through the teachings of a man that cannot even lift a finger. 

And so, for you my dear, this is my prayer. That God would do something remarkably special with your life, that He would mark it undeniably with His wondrous love.  That you would have Jesus as your love through the difficulties and sadnesses that may meet you. That your limitations would only be gracious reminders to you for seeking the all glorious God in whose presence is pleasures forevermore. 

Momma

#2: Your Will Be Done

Sweet Eden:

You've been on my mind all day.  I dreamed about you all last night.  I dreamed that I was trying as hard as I could to rescue you.  But success was just out of reach the whole time.  I found out last night that this mysterious Ehlers Danloss syndrome could potentially be way more serious than I've been imagining.

I'm scared: scared that this is going to hurt, and that I can't save you or me or your sweet mom or your strong dad from pain that doesn't get better.  Now we wait until the next doctor's appointment, which should be in 3 months time.  Until then, your mom and Grammy and I and the hundreds of other people who already love you get to show off our faith muscles by trusting in the unknown. 

I'm not trusting that you are going to be miraculously healed, or that this will be easy.  Jesus hasn't offered us an easy life--He offers us a life where we abide in Him.  There's a song I love that says: 'When I don't understand, God, I get to choose You.'  I'm trusting in a Person, not in a circumstance. 

Here's who I get to trust in:

The Lord who rules over your body.

The Lord who's gracious and compassionate. 

He's abounding in love for you and for me.

He's your real Savior.  In my dreams and in real life I can't save you--Jesus can.

He did this on purpose.

He will take care of us.

The Lord will craft this story together so that we reflect His glory.  When we reflect His glory, we're doing what we were built to do, which means it's for our best.

Part of me hopes that we're wrong and you don't have this syndrome.  But the Lord's will is better than mine.  His is more merciful and loving and all-encompassing for you.  So the part of my heart that I need to trumpet is the one that surrenders to whatever the Lord has for you.

He has you in His hand.  He loves you sweet child.  My His will be done.

#3: God Is Enough

Adorable Eden,

I love thinking about you.  You have a very dignified persona even as a 1 year old.  I'm excited to see you become a little girl and then a woman and every stage in between. 

The Lord has uprooted two major cornerstones in my life the past couple of weeks.  As I've been feeling the gaps in painful ways, He has reminded me of lines from a John Piper video I've seen over and over.  He's speaking in the voice of a man who's just lost his daughter in a car accident:

God is enough.

God is enough.

He is good.

He will take care of us.

He will satisfy us.

He will get us through this.

He is our Treasure.

Whom have I in heaven but You?

And on earth there is none that I desire besides You.

My flesh and my heart and my little girl may fail,

But You are the Strength of my heart and my Portion forever.

These words have anchored my still-swaying heart.  Everything in my life may fail, but my relationship with the Lord will never fail.  I'm secure. God is enough--all else can fade, yet the Strength of my heart will never fade since that's my Jesus.

May the Lord be your Treasure too.  He's the only God alive to serve.

Being rich in God-

You will never out-give God.

From early on in life I began tithing, struggling to surrender fully but looking to serve Him none the less.

He has given me your daddy, working out dating dilemmas and hope-dashed heartbreaks, to the altar-finish line.

He has given me your grandparents who reared me in the things of Himself, full of kindness and joy.  

He has given me your brothers, boy-treasures, alive with life.

He has given our family innumerable financial gifts at times of significance - cars, computers, checks, college, cards,  -- to the point of embarrassment to share the sheer mountain amount of generosity.

He has taken whatever small things I have given up and returned them 100-fold. 100-fold, if not more. Who in their right mind wouldn’t  trade 1 thing for 100 thinks? [the catch being you don’t get to see the 100 before hand or get to choose what each one is-- but don’t worry ; you’d never even dream up the vast majority of these numbered blessings]

I remember one morning having the brief thought of wanting to buy a quilting hoop while I was to be out later in town.  I forgot all about this that day at the store -- but when I returned to the house in the afternoon, there was a large quilting hoop sitting on my side door step [how random and expensive an item!] with no explanation attached whatsoever. All I had was the encouragement of the Holy Spirit that He knows our hearts desires and loves to bless us.

He has placed me in a ministry where there is as much to do as the day is long, granting fulfilling work to my hands and putting to use my area of study and passion.

He has brought my loneliness into community. I could not ask for more king-friends in my life.  They go out of their way to bless me.  I find myself bursting at the seams with love and investments from these ladies in my life.  

Those not walking with Jesus look at His call to follow as the loss of their life -- but don’t you see? -- the fullness of blessing is in His hands!  Laying things down only means empty open hands to receive blessings from a kind creative God, whose Father’s heart delights in you. 

Obedience.

Eden,

Obey. A humbling command that any child has to wrestle with. The bending of the will to another who has your good in mind, whether or not you can comprehend that good at the time. This is where the rubber meets the road, where what you say you believe turns in to flesh and blood action in actual context. Do you obey? Then you really believe. To you disobey? Then you doubt who God says He is.  

The battleground is mostly in your mind, in your heart, in your soul. God is good. There is a flesh enemy inside you that will fight that statement in you every single day. If you soak in His love and goodness toward you every day, if it’s tangible to you, you will find obedience vastly easier. 

There are intoxicating worldly songs sung in culture that blur your spiritual sight and muddle your listening for love. Take the cold shower of the Word when you cannot think clearly. 

When you have walked together with God for some distance you will have experience as your teacher as well -- how His goodness and mercy have truly followed you all the dark and beautiful days of your life. Proclaim His goodness to the difficulty of obeying in front of you and you will find your will melting. 

Sometimes you will struggle with obedience like Jacob, your rebellious flesh wrestling with God the King. Putting the ugly side of your will on the altar for a living sacrifice -- what a pleasing thing to our Heavenly Father, who can then “trade our trash for treasures” as they say.

I have seen the dangers of not obeying. People in God’s family circles who live shameless sin and trample the very Son of God. They think somehow they have a ticket of forgiveness that allows their terrible distance from God’s rules for His household. Terrible is the wrath of God on those who belittle His Son’s precious sacrifice, dragging His Name through the mud, leaving a bad taste in the world’s mouth for Christ-followers.   

There really is no such thing as two-faced spirituality or riding the fence. An active life of willful disobedience is not a Christian life. The faithful, too, fall to be sure, sadly, pitifully, shamefully; it is not perfect obedience that brings you to Christ. Christ comes for sinners. But when Christ has touched someone, they develop a deep distaste for the rubbish they used to crave.  They cry out in their deepest center for the Spirit to work in them a heart that follows hard after God and to produce in their hearts a delight in following God’s laws. For there is the real freedom. 

You want to be like your momma, and your momma wants you to be like Jesus. Holiness is to look like Him inside in a way that flows outside. Christ is holy. He won’t be with active unholiness; if you say no to God, if you stiff-arm Him -- you are at a stand still  with your Creator.  He won’t gloss over your behavior and tell you it’s ok. He stops talking, stops growing, stops working for you -- and starts working against the idol in your life. Those are scary days, when He will do whatever it takes to bring you back to Him. He is the greatest Enemy of all, in front of which none can stand. 

Do not be deceived little one. Do not forget the grave await us all. Live in light of that day. Many bear the Name, but many of these will not be recognized by Him, by the impartial Judge who sees all things.  Jesus requires all of you; in turn He gives you all. Just as in a strong marriage, there is a possessing of the other in every way -- this is Christ’s call on His precious bride. He loves her too much to let her destroy herself so He makes good laws to follow. If you are not an obeyer as a habit in the hard things, child, you are not led by the Spirit -- and with no Spirit you cannot call yourself one of Christ’s. 

You can trust Him. His rules weren’t meant to be broken; they were meant for fullness of life and rewards here and to come. He has wonderfully good things for you and He wants to make you wonderfully good. Your obedience delights His heart and brings the warmth of familial joy. Walk this path along with me, Eden, the path of His love.

Love,

Momma

“God is always good. 

And you are always loved” -Ann Voskamp