Moments in Grace

They say that what ever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That when you go through hardship, suffering, trial and fire, you can come out bitter or better, that the fire, it purifies. That gold, when it is put into the furnace, put under fire, it gives up its impurities, these other things inside of it, they rise to the surface to be skimmed off, leaving behind only the gold. In the Christian life, the heat of battle can purify us. In the midst of the hardest battles we are tested.  We are seen for what we are, all the impurity rising like so much waste coming from hidden places. The battle tests our hearts.  The battle reveals what we are made of.  And when we see it, it provides the opportunity to be purged of what is hindering, to shed our dead weight and become all that we need to be to fight the good fight of faith. We studied American history this year in our homeschool, and sometime in the thaw of winter into spring we studied the Winter of Valley F...

It happened the day before Thanksgiving.     The day my world spun me a little farther off course, sent my faith flying like some planet hurling into the cosmos, sheathed in blackness. I should have been thankful.   I wasn’t very.   I was rocked, spinning, without a compass. Maybe you’ve been there? It was the day the pregnancy test came back positive, announcing the impending arrival of baby number seven into our family and all I could see ahead was suffering. I don’t have easy pregnancies.   They come with pain, months of vomiting and nausea, sometimes heart problems, sometimes high blood pressure, exhaustion, and the last time, I almost died. With my fourth baby I had to wear a heart monitor because my heart just wouldn’t keep up on me.   It raced out of control.   I couldn’t breathe and eat at the same time without difficulty.   I was in a constant state of exhaustion.   Baby number five ...

The path through the woods meanders back in the dusky light.   I’m not quite sure where it leads to. I see it almost every morning as I walk and I pass it but this morning it captivates, beckons mysteriously.   I don’t always like mysterious paths.   I like paths that make sense, paths that I understand, paths that I can clearly see where they are leading. God’s paths are not like that. They wind through sometimes dark woods.   These paths go uphill, often climbing steeply through rough terrain and most of the time I cannot tell where they are exactly heading. Sitting with a friend recently, in a coffee shop we swapped God stories next to a quiet fire and caught up on each other’s journeys.   My single friend told me of her work and the small group that she leads and the women she is discipling and the beautiful things God is doing in her life.   And it was plain to me, as clear as the blue October sky that God was making her fruitful right whe...

The path around the lake was a thing of beauty, blue sky blazing overhead in the crisp fall air. And I almost missed this.   In fact I have missed this over and over again for so many years. But not this time. The kids and I walk, hunters of beauty birthing, curious wanderings. We handle our field guides and nature notebooks like the novices we are but this glory can’t be missed even by the most ineffectual of us.   “Look! Look! A tree frog!” In Ohio, this is not a common sight and we stare in wonder. “Look at that caterpillar! It’s all white and fuzzy!” “Let’s identify that tree over there,” I say.   We walk, drinking in the splendor and I think, when was it that I had stopped believing this was possible? Faith is always the first step to joy. And it has been my doubt, my worries that have kept me wearied and burdened for far too long. “Can your worries add a single moment to your life?” ...

The sun was shining into my windshield like glory flashes as I made the commute down to the University.   I was on my way to the Bible study for international moms and this was week two.   And I was trying to pray.   My mind was wandering over last week’s lesson, our first group, and my baptism by fire.   I had been asked to lead the study the very first week of the group and I had, but I was feeling in a word, inadequate.     The group is made up of mothers from all over the world, some brand new to our country, most only here for a year or two at most.   About half to three-fourths are believers and the rest are seekers, women who want to understand the Bible and who God is but who have little to no spiritual experience with Christianity.   And these women ask difficult questions.   The kind that make you want to hide under a rock because you are not sure that you can possibly explain what they are asking...

My momma always told me, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Yeah, well, I guess lately I’ve taken that to heart. I haven’t been able to write, to talk, to process much because the ugly truth is, I think I’ve been afraid if I opened my mouth, not too much nice was going to come out.   The ugly truth is, sometimes you can struggle through and put on a brave smile and hold back the spewing lava behind your eyes but it still burns you up from the inside.   It still burns.   Bitterness never leads to betterness. And here I am, this very, very pregnant mama, pregnant with this seventh baby, skin splitting ready,   any day now, ready, and feeling very unready to actually deliver this most precious cargo into the light of this broken world.   Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the last nine months contemplating whether his delivery day will be my dying day.   And sure, I shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts, I shouldn’t be focusin...