Faith

Sundays have long been a day when I cook.

Some Sundays, I perform better than others.

This Sunday, with my kids on a quick trip away with Bray to the farm, I had big plans. I grocery-shopped early this morning with recipes in hand for this week’s menu for our family and for others.

I rarely have time to make more than two meals because of kid interference, but without interruption I was confident I could make progress.

In addition to the meals for our week, which is shaping up to be very busy, I wanted to deliver meals to a couple of other families who have had their hands full.

I don’t know if this is a result of living in the south or growing up in a preacher’s family, but I like to cook for people who could use some relief. After a baby comes or a divorce hits or during an illness or after a death, a meal is the only thing I feel like I can actually do. It was like that after the hurricane. I couldn’t take away all the loss and destruction, but I could feed people.

I need to do.

Here’s where this story goes down a little side trail, so hang with me.

Recently, my best friend started figuring out her Enneagram number which led me to investigate mine. None of the tests out there gave me the same result, but the best I could tell I was a Number 3.

After reading the description, this made some sense to me. The Achiever. Driven, success-oriented, image conscious. I think of this number as sort of the worst one you can get. And because I have struggled with pride for probably as long as I can remember character struggles, this assesment resonated. In my mind, being driven and struggling with pride meant I was selfish.

As I read on, each Enneagram type apparently has a “wing.” That is, as they explain: Your wing complements your primary type and adds important, sometimes contradictory, elements to your total personality. Your wing is your ‘second side’ of your personality.

No matter how I tested, Number 2 kept coming out as my wing. Now that one is The Helper. That person is generous. I couldn’t quite marry that type with how I saw the selfish part of myself.

Then, a few weeks ago, little bit and I were driving to one of my friend’s house to deliver a meal since she’d recently had her first baby. Little bit looked over at me and said, mommy, you’re always thinking about everyone else before yourself.

I cracked. While I held it together in that moment, when I was retelling the story to my best friend, I just cried. It’s like I got a glimpse of the good that God sees that I can’t see because my weaknesses block my view of the good. I told her, of course I’m a Wing 2, why am I having such a hard time with that? I love to help people. I love to volunteer to host parties for new kids at the school and take people meals and make sure teachers who are divorced get flowers and show up to organize clothes or food pantries.

I visited a church this morning where a dear friend of mine preached the service. A powerful message on our “origin story” – we are God’s beloved and we were made to be loved (and love others). She explained that so often all these negative messages we’ve gotten over the course of our lives drown out the message of our true worth and meaning. We can’t see our true value and God given purpose because we only see our weaknesses and failures.

Yes. All of that.

So what does all this have to do with my Sunday cooking?

I looked at these two extra pans of food. It took no real extra effort. I just made double batches of enchiladas and tetrazzini. Those pans reminded me of the goodness that God placed inside of me. The desire I have had, for basically ever, to help.

I can recognize that without any harmful pride, of which I still have plenty in other areas of my life. This is not a boast but a recognition of His grace in me. A tiny little way He allows me to love others since He has so lavishly loved me.

Their band sang a song with a refrain that says, I give myself away. I give myself away, so You can use me. I played it on repeat today as I cooked. We give ourselves away to be used by God. In whatever small ways we can find.

For whatever baggage there might be out there about women and kitchens, I sure found a lot of freedom in mine today.

At a retreat I attended yesterday, one of the leaders opened with a devotional from Nehemiah 1.

Nehemiah is a book in the Old Testament of the Bible that I’ve been fascinated with for years. He’s this classic example in Christian literature of the spiritual gift of leadership.

But as much as I’ve dug into portions of the book of Nehemiah, there’s always been some of it I’ve skipped over.

The devotional renewed my interest in this book. So last night, I started reading further in.

I was stopped cold by Chapter 3.

I couldn’t stop reading it.

If you’re not familiar with the story, Nehemiah is this Jewish guy in exile from Jerusalem who has made it all the way up in the Gentile king’s senior leadership. He hears Jerusalem is totally broken and burned, so he bravely asks the king if he can go back to his city and his people and rebuild (and amazingly the king lets him).

That’s where the story picks up in Chapter 3.

This is what struck me:
v. 2 – The men of Jericho built the adjoining section, and Zakkur son of Imri built next to them.
v. 4 – Meremoth son of Uriah… repaired the next section. Next to him Meshullam son of Berekiah… made repairs, and next to him Zadok …also made repairs. 
v. 11 – Malkijah and Hasshub… repaired another section and the Tower of the Ovens. Shallum son of Hallohesh, ruler of a half-district of Jerusalem, repaired the next section with the help of his daughters.
v. 17 – Next to him, the repairs were made by the Levites … Beside him, Hashabiah, ruler of half the district of Keilah, carried out repairs for his district.  Next to him, the repairs were made…

Do you see it?

Does that knock you over?

And that’s not the whole chapter! “Next to” is said OVER TWENTY TIMES!

All these different people from different tribes and people came together to rebuild. Group A? RIGHT NEXT TO Group R! Team 12? BESIDE Team 423!

Working right next to each other to rebuild God’s city.

What if modern Christianity looked like this?

What if we were writing about Modern-Day Prophet X’s call for rebuilding crumbling cities and people and families and faith?
v. 1 – Next to her, the repairs were made by the Catholics…
v. 2 – Beside him, the Protestants carried out repairs for his district…
v. 3 – The Democrats carried out the repairs on the next section, and next to them the Republicans also made repairs.
v. 4 – The Fountain Gate was repaired by those from Mexico, and next to them the Egyptians also repaired the wall by the King’s Garden, and beyond them, the Russians made repairs up to a point opposite the tombs. Beside them the Nigerians worked on the point facing the armory and next to them the Californians and Texans zealously repaired another section.

Wow.

Can you see it?

I can envision it. I want so deeply.

It doesn’t say everyone came together and agreed on everything forever after. PLUS, it says people wanted to kill them for doing it. So much so that the rebuilders had to split so that half of them could guard those doing the building and then they could swap. (Chapter 4’s premise is “Opposition to Rebuilding!” And Chapter 6? “Further Opposition!”)

The act of restoration and rebuilding does not come easily. Or cheaply. It most certainly does not come without significant opposition. But there’s a blueprint in the book of Nehemiah that it can come.

And y’all, I can barely type it without crying, in Chapter 7, “after the wall had been rebuilt,” there is a LIST of the exiles who returned. Read it. “These are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken captive…” and then there is an actual list with actual numbers of the people from the different families who returned along with the priests and temple servants.

After the hard and painful and severely opposed work of rebuilding was done, the exiles returned from captivity.

If this is not the picture the church universal should be working their fingers to the bone to achieve, then I don’t know what is.

This is the example of rebuilding we must follow. They came home. They confessed. They sealed a covenant.
Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the Lord.

Today, I led my monthly Monday work bible study for the last time.

A co-worker asked me to start a group four and a half years ago. I agreed, reluctantly.

My first week of Bible Study, October 2015, was the week after my husband lost his job.

My, what a four and a half years these have been.

The kids have changed schools. Both Bray and I have changed the kinds of day jobs we have. We’ve had health scares and vacations and remodels. Grief and joy. Suffering and laughter.

I went back and reread my first few bible study notes. Each month, I taught about a miracle. I wrote down the scripture text and then wrote down all my research and thoughts on those topics.

The first miracle I taught on was 2 Kings 4, The Shunamite Woman, still one of my favorites of all time.

The next one was from 2 Kings 6, where a lost axehead floats.

Then came the passage from 1 Kings 19, where Elijah flees in exhaustion and terror after performing the biggest miracle of his life on Mount Carmel. (I love me some Kings…)

As I was rereading my notes, I saw a theme from these beautiful miracles emerge. I didn’t even know it was a theme when I was teaching this in the fall of 2015. But I can see it now. And how God must have been weaving that message into my soul then when I need to know this truth so badly.

Run to God.

Always run to God.

Run to Him in your desperation. Run to him in your fear or your worry or your terror or your panic or your stress. He can take whatever emotion you throw at him – anger, depression, loneliness, grief.

They all came to Him in desperation. A mother after losing her son. A worker after losing his means to work. A prophet facing exhaustion and possible death.

Don’t let anything distract you. Don’t let social media or work or even friends divert you from your one true path to Him.

Lay whatever it is in front of Him.

Then watch what He can do.

A breath (2 Kings 4:34).

A stick (2 Kings 6:6).

A whisper (1 Kings 19:12).

Nothing is too far gone.

I didn’t expect to, but I cried through most of my study today. Gracious and encouraging co-workers who have become friends passed me tissues and prayed over me. It can be a little overwhelming to reflect on how God has worked so miraculously in your life over the years. And it can be a little overwhelming to lay something important down to make room for the next thing God needs to do.

I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to join a community who basically learned right along with me as God convicted me with scripture and I shared what He was teaching me.

It’s always powerful to remember what He can do. With so very little. He cares about the big and the small in your life. And nothing is too far gone.

Our church has begun having periodic Sunday evening services of quiet and contemplation. Lots of space for prayer and reflection among the candlelight and communion.

They are precious respites in the chaos of the day.

This evening, I had the privilege of attending our service featuring the Examen with my daughter while the boys and dad had back-to-back baseball and basketball.

The Examen, if you are not familiar, is a five step prayer process that leads you to see the good, and the hard, and determine what to keep and what change.

Today was a mixed bag, personally. There’s still a fair amount of tension in our house and there was lots going on but also a lot of dear sweet good one-on-one time with each of the kids.

So in the process of the Examen, we tackled these questions, with space and time to breathe and pray and really process:
Step 1 – Thanksgiving, What am I especially grateful for this day?
Step 2 – Petition, I ask to know God and to see myself how He sees me
Step 3 – Review, Where have I felt joy or goodness or love, taking time to see that and feel that, and then where I have felt harder emotions (anger, sadness, frustration…) and what should I do with those emotions
Step 4 – Response, In light of the things God has revealed to me and about my day, what should I do more of or less of or what work is still outstanding – how do I respond to God;
Step 5 – Looking Forward, how will I enter tomorrow based on what I’ve reflected upon today, what has He revealed to me that I can now put into practice tomorrow

It was deeply centering.

When driving home, I asked little bit what she thought of the service. I loved it, I love these Sunday evening services, she replied.

Ah. Such goodness. We all, regardless of our age, need a centering prayer to quiet our hearts, to remind us of the love of our Father Creator, and to convict us where there are things undone.

Will leave you with one of the final songs of the evening. In the early morning hours, when it’s still dark outside, this is what I’m going to be waking up to. The Goodness of God: