Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

[Image by Chance Agrella @ Freerangestock.com]

Years ago, I went into Barnes & Noble looking for something in particular—I can’t even remember what—and I happened to pass the Christian section. This one little book sort of leaped out at me. My hand went straight for it on the shelf, even though I knew absolutely nothing about it. The book was called Work in Progress: An Unfinished Woman’s Guide to Grace, written by Kristin Armstrong, who is a writer, a runner, a mom, and Lance Armstrong’s ex-wife.

I don’t reread many books, but I find myself returning to this one from time to time. It’s all about the futility of striving for some imagined, unattainable perfection instead of accepting our unique gifts and using them as God intended:

"When we try to be and do the things that are outside our true selves, we turn into strivers. Strivers are people who endlessly struggle for perfection and end up with far less than good enough. . . . Good enough means being able to accept who and where we are with grace and gratitude and being content with ourselves as works in progress. Being good enough ensures possessing enough humility that God is pleased. We know we can’t make it on our own or by using our old methods, so we go to the Source. In this way, the more we go to God and experience the steadfastness of His promises, our confidence builds. Not confidence in ourselves, but confidence in an almighty God."

The notion of “good enough” is a powerful one. I know a whole lot of people—women in particular—yours truly specifically—who need to embrace it. I remember a telephone conversation with my mother a while back. I had agreed to do way too much—commitments to friends and family and church—and wailed to my mother, “I just can’t DO all of this!!!!” And she calmly said, “Of course you can’t. So decide what you CAN do and let the rest go.”

So many times, I think we set ourselves up to feel inadequate. And if I’m honest with myself, my own feelings of inadequacy usually come from comparing myself to other people—whose gifts and limitations have absolutely nothing to do with mine, so why do I do that? Or maybe I’m comparing my current self to my younger self and focusing on the weight I need to lose or the roots I need to touch up (instead of the smarts I’ve gained and the much broader perspective I have).

We’re all works in progress. We’re all unfinished. And when we freely offer God whatever gifts we've been given, those gifts are good enough. We're good enough to "approach God's throne of grace with confidence."

Sunday Morning Serenity

Yesterday it was warm and apparently monsoon season in Birmingham. Rain came down in buckets and swirls. Now the rain has stopped, but it’s overcast and cold.

Cheeto can’t make up his mind what to do. First, he scratched on the back door of the Story Shack, as if he wanted out. But then he stood on the threshold so I couldn’t shut the door. When I insisted that he make a decision, he went outside—and stayed just long enough to walk around to the front door and peer through the glass, as if to say, “Are you kiddin’ me? It’s freezin’ out here!” At which point, he returned to the heated comfort of his nap chair in the Shack. Now he’s outside for another ramble (though he likely took one half-hearted run at a chipmunk and then ducked through the cat door and made his way to his end of the sofa).

Sometimes I have Cheeto moments. I think I want something. I might even insist on it. But then once I’m in the throes of it? “Are you kiddin’ me? It’s freezin’ out here!” And then I want the warmth and comfort of shelter. Translation: Maybe next time, I’ll pray about it before I act, not after.

Back to the weather. The temps are supposed to swing from 24 tonight back up into the 50s by Tuesday or Wednesday. Those are some pretty dramatic shifts. It’s hard to figure out how to prepare. We can have our own personal dramatic shifts—some good, some bad. And we don’t always have time to prepare ourselves. But we have help:

Even the Spirit of truth;
whom the world cannot receive,
because it seeth him not,
neither knoweth him:
but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you,
and shall be in you.

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more;
but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

John 14:17-19

Sunday Morning Serenity

Do you ever feel like the whole world is trying to sell you something? (I’m hearing Dave: “If you don’t get on social media, you won’t have to listen to all that.” I know. Unfortunately, my job requires social media, and I’ve become attached to it.)

In just a few minutes on Facebook, trying to read the latest news from friends and family, I must’ve seen four or five ads for wrinkle creams and brighteners promising to take years off my face; arguments pro and con for every political stance imaginable; a “revolutionary” weight loss program; a video for innovative new luggage (which really did look kind of great and I’m considering a purchase); a curling iron that will surely change my life . . .

On and on and on. When you stop and think about it, all of those ads, those disconnected voices, are telling you the same thing: You’re not okay the way you are. You need to change. Everybody else knows something you don’t, and you’ll be left behind if you don’t  . . . whatever.

It’s not true. You’re actually fine, even when you’re a real mess, because of God’s grace and forgiveness through Christ. Jesus never said, “Get prettier, get skinnier, get more successful, overcome all your weaknesses, never make another mistake, and then we’ll talk.”

No. He said:

“Come unto me,
all ye that labour and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you,
and learn of me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11: 28-30

God's truth, love, and peace to you this Sunday morning.

 

 

 

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

Image: Jordan Whitt @ Unsplash.com

While I took a few days off, I was “piddlin’ around the house,” as Mama says, when I heard a distinctive and unusually loud, “Bye-bye!” It sounded close. Really close. I went outside to investigate.

Sure enough, my new next-door neighbor, Rory, was on my front steps, his grandfather standing nearby and trying to coax him back into his own yard. Rory is a blue-eyed, snowy blond little bundle of energy—I think about two—whose parents do their best to corral him into their back yard. But sometimes, Rory needs the wide open spaces of two yards. He has learned to say “bye-bye,” which he uses as both a greeting and a farewell (accompanied, if you’re lucky, by a blown kiss).

He grinned at me from my own front steps, then climbed onto the stoop, where he tossed a cat bed out of my brick planter and dug in the dirt for two seconds. Then it was down the steps and into the flower bed for a look around. Then up again. Then streaking across the front yard. Then into and out of the Story Shack, where he found my old Zumba dumbbells (they’re actually just lightweight yellow noise makers that look like dumbbells, so you can imagine how enticing they’d be to a toddler). Then he was ready to go back home, shaking the Zumba bells over his head.

Everything is interesting to Rory—for only a flash, but still. Everything is interesting and new and discoverable. A cat! (He calls Cheeto “meow-meow.”) Colored lights! (We have some on our deck, which Rory sometimes has to see up close and personal.) Dirt! (Could there be a more basic toy?)

My prayer for the New Year is that we adults can recapture some of the excitement of discovery. Every day is made new, but sometimes we forget that. I know I do.

Many blessings to you in 2019.