Joy Dare
This week has been a challenge for me with this! Several things felt like progress last week in having energy and being able to do a few projects I had been wanting to do and with sleep for our little guy. Then sickness came at the end of the week, and the weekend hit with really disrupted sleep again, and it was a huge weight of discouragement for me! I have struggled this week and have often been unable to shake a heaviness and a discouragement and just feeling completely exhausted again.
Today I read a post by a high school student from my Dad's hometown. Her dad was the pastor of one of the churches there where some of my extended family attended. Yesterday, she and her parents were in a car accident, and neither of her parents survived. She also has 3 siblings, and they and the community have experienced such a huge loss in such a tragic event! I read this post she had written, and while she was honest about the pain and the loss and certainly not glib or naive, I was so struck by her heart to thank God for the support she was receiving and for all her parents had given to her life and, mostly, for God Himself for holding her and carrying her through, as she recognized He was the only way she was making it through this experience. What wisdom beyond her years!
The thing with this Joy Dare is that I started it, not to just feel warm and fuzzy about how blessed my life is but to really breed in my heart and reshape my habits of mind around gratitude and praise for the One who is worthy beyond all circumstance! Praise is the thing that lifts my eyes from the hard stuff to the One who is actually able to handle the hard stuff! How quickly I am drawn back into trying to press through it myself when what I really need is to acknowledge that this is beyond my strength but I am loved and known by the Creator of the universe whose strength is made perfect in my weakness.
So, as much as I really struggle to embrace it, today, I am grateful for weakness. And I will continue to remind my soul to be thankful for weakness until it breathes freely in just enjoying the moments that are gifted to me, no matter how messy they are or how messy I am or feel! Until I really embrace the reality that I am loved and valued when there is nothing I have done or accomplished that makes that make sense and stop squirming and striving to prove my worth in my "doing." Until I live receiving and extending true grace.
So, in one sense I have "failed" at the Joy Dare this week, and it was truly feeling like a big fat failure to me. Yet, in another, this is what the point of it is for me anyway--this transforming of my soul, this softening of my heart, this lifting of my soul to really see my beautiful Lord loving and working in me and the life and moments He has given me.
Given that,
#75 Weakness
#76 Grace
#77 The words of a teenager in the midst of her pain
#78 Being loved unconditionally and being valued simply for being the daughter of the God of all creation
This week has been a challenge for me with this! Several things felt like progress last week in having energy and being able to do a few projects I had been wanting to do and with sleep for our little guy. Then sickness came at the end of the week, and the weekend hit with really disrupted sleep again, and it was a huge weight of discouragement for me! I have struggled this week and have often been unable to shake a heaviness and a discouragement and just feeling completely exhausted again.
Today I read a post by a high school student from my Dad's hometown. Her dad was the pastor of one of the churches there where some of my extended family attended. Yesterday, she and her parents were in a car accident, and neither of her parents survived. She also has 3 siblings, and they and the community have experienced such a huge loss in such a tragic event! I read this post she had written, and while she was honest about the pain and the loss and certainly not glib or naive, I was so struck by her heart to thank God for the support she was receiving and for all her parents had given to her life and, mostly, for God Himself for holding her and carrying her through, as she recognized He was the only way she was making it through this experience. What wisdom beyond her years!
The thing with this Joy Dare is that I started it, not to just feel warm and fuzzy about how blessed my life is but to really breed in my heart and reshape my habits of mind around gratitude and praise for the One who is worthy beyond all circumstance! Praise is the thing that lifts my eyes from the hard stuff to the One who is actually able to handle the hard stuff! How quickly I am drawn back into trying to press through it myself when what I really need is to acknowledge that this is beyond my strength but I am loved and known by the Creator of the universe whose strength is made perfect in my weakness.
So, as much as I really struggle to embrace it, today, I am grateful for weakness. And I will continue to remind my soul to be thankful for weakness until it breathes freely in just enjoying the moments that are gifted to me, no matter how messy they are or how messy I am or feel! Until I really embrace the reality that I am loved and valued when there is nothing I have done or accomplished that makes that make sense and stop squirming and striving to prove my worth in my "doing." Until I live receiving and extending true grace.
So, in one sense I have "failed" at the Joy Dare this week, and it was truly feeling like a big fat failure to me. Yet, in another, this is what the point of it is for me anyway--this transforming of my soul, this softening of my heart, this lifting of my soul to really see my beautiful Lord loving and working in me and the life and moments He has given me.
Given that,
#75 Weakness
#76 Grace
#77 The words of a teenager in the midst of her pain
#78 Being loved unconditionally and being valued simply for being the daughter of the God of all creation
2 comments:
I love you, Rachel Snowden. Thank you for sharing. (And will you shoot me your mailing address!??! marahjean@gmail.com)
Thank you for again sharing, challenging, walking through this life thing together, much love.
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