Day 57: Christmas, sadness and worship

It's been a while in between posts again, and while Bible-reading is going well, prayer is not as much. I still need to find that time of day where I sit down and talk to God without distractions, until it becomes a habit that I need, just like my morning coffee. He's really speaking to me through the psalms each day, but I know I'll grow my faith more if I dedicate time to prayer.

It's hard for me to feel sad at Christmas, but it can happen. A couple of years ago, just before Christmas, I went through a very difficult trial that broke me into pieces. I remember going to church the Sunday before Christmas, and everything made me cry. I spent much of the worship service trying to hide/wipe away tears. I was wrecked. I just went through the motions and put on as much of a happy face as I could muster although it was as transparent as Saran-Wrap.

God is gracious and has blessed me so much, though. He brought me through that trial just as he brings me through all the trials of my life. This God of Psalm 134 is the God I serve:

Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord,
    who stand by night in the house of the Lord!
² Lift up your hands to the holy place
    and bless the Lord!

³ May the Lord bless you from Zion,
    he who made heaven and earth!

The Lord who loves me with his unfailing love made the heaven and earth. Everything I see around me that seems so permanent was made by his almighty hand. The God who sustains this creation also sustains me, and not just in body, but in spirit. If we are God's children, the blessings flow onto us from Zion. What a God I worship!

And yet when I'm sad, worship is often the last thing I want to do. Corporate worship, anyway. I want to hide from everyone; I don't want to have to interact with people and put on my happy face. But do I have to do that? Would it really be so horrible to come to worship with God's people, to stand in the house of the Lord and lift up my hands to Him--in sadness? To be where I am and let people see that?

I'm my own worst enemy: So often Scripture tells us that one of the remedies to sadness is to go up to God's house and worship him with our Christian brothers and sisters, but that's exactly what I want to avoid because I'd be embarrassed for others to see that there is something wrong. And even though I go, I am not focused on God, I am focused on covering up my mood so that no one else can see what's going on inside me.

And I am pretty sure I'm fooling myself if I put on that mask and think others don't know that I'm feeling sad.

I'm having a sad time this Christmastime, but nothing like a couple of years ago. Thanks to God's keeping me faithful to worship him in his house each week, He's blessed me in so many ways through it and I'm on my way to joy. As I prepare to play piano at our Christmas Eve service tonight, I'm thinking about how blessed I am to really understand what the Incarnation was for; why we celebrate Christmas; why there will be pure joy at the end of this lifelong journey, and why I can experience moments of heavenly joy here on earth. God puts joy right in front of us, and while we can't reach it on our own, we can if we ask Him for a boost. If I can stop thinking about myself so much and love King Jesus more, I'll be able to grasp it.

Day 47: In the capable hands of God

Seventeen days between posts! Bad blogging habits! Oh well, this is not the most widely-read blog in the world. Last week I found out my son is losing weight. He's five months old, and should be 16 pounds by now, but he went from 13 pounds in October to 12 this month. It's been a bit hairy around here, having to feed him every 1-2 hours again. Blog posts have been pretty low-priority.

I would say that of the last seventeen days, I've missed four of Bible reading. I've been praying a lot more, usually in little prayers throughout the day rather than in dedicated prayer-time. Now, just as TV-tray eating isn't as good as a nice sit-down dinner, the same is for praying. But I'm getting there.

I have been reading the Psalms of Ascent and little snippets of Proverbs. How wonderful those psalms are, and just right for me at this moment! Despair and sadness permeate these psalms along with praise and encouragement, and although they are often about Israel's enemies, I'm just inserting my own fears and lack of faith into the 'foes' parts. They all encourage me to trust in the Lord. And I'm getting it.

I've been reading Trusting God by Jerry Bridges. What a great book that is helping me to understand how my place of adoption as a child of God means that all circumstances--again, all circumstances--are for God's glory and my good. Even the sucky parts of my day; even my hormonal mood swings; even my depression; even the trials of sharing my life with a man; even parenting a precocious girl and a spitty, fussy, weight-losing baby boy; even my difficulties in maintaining friendships....all of this is in His hands. And what hands those are. My God knows everything, He is right now sustaining and directing the course of all creation. And you know what? It's for my good! He means well for me. And if God's on my side, how can I come out of this with a loss?

So I'm still having my bad moments, but God really is working. He really is speaking to me in His Word. I feel His Spirit moving me to pray for others, for myself, to Him. I'm sure I haven't completely let go of myself, but I'm definitely loosing my grip on this world, my expectations and my insecurities so that I can cling to God instead. (I need to let go so that I can get a grip. Weird.)

So onward, through the upcoming days, the crazy, hectic, frenetic holidays. I'm in God's hands, and He loves me. I don't need to fear. Not one single thing.

Day 30: of shrubs and trees

{Last time I wrote, I mentioned fear. Today, I came across this post. How timely! This woman has a seriously disabled little boy. I'm falling apart at having a healthy one; I can't imagine I'd be able to hold it together in her situation.}

I've been thinking about changing my project. I have in practice, if not in description. My original goal was the read the whole Bible in a year. It's a great goal, but I need to work on some things in my life, and this has become part, or maybe is symptomatic, of what ails me.

See, Jeremiah 17:5-10 describes two people, one cursed and one blessed. And as I read the passage, I burst into tears...because although I want everyone to think I'm a tree, I am a shrub:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
    and makes flesh his strength,
    whose heart turns away from the Lord.
⁶ He is like a shrub in the desert,
    and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
    in an uninhabited salt land."

I trust in man (myself) and I make my own flesh my strength. It means I've been turning my heart away from the Lord. And you know what? I do have trouble seeing any good in my life. (I know this passage probably really means that good things won't come his way, but that's not how it hit my heart.) 

The next part of the passage just filled me with longing. I love it. This is who I want to be:

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
⁸ He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

I especially love the parts about fear and anxiety being non-existent for the one who trusts God, not men. That's something I would love to see in my life.

So part of what I am doing is to evaluate my expectations of myself. So much of what I am doing is just striving to be holy--and failing, because I'm doing it apart from His strength and mercy. And when I fail, as I inevitably will, I fall apart. My heart is lying to me and telling me that what God wants most from me is to be a godly Christian, to be more like Jesus. And I've been working so hard at that. 

But I've come to realize that I'm wrong. And that's why I'm tired. I need to pare back my expectations of myself and evaluate which are good and right, and even what my motives are. So I need to get back to the basics--an intentional relationship with God, where I look to him from day to day for the strength I need for whatever tasks I have to do. 

That's why my challenge for this year will be simply this: Read and/or meditate on God's Word a few times each day, and pray to Him each day.  There may be days where I can't find the time to sit and read a big chunk of Scripture. Maybe on those days, I will find my strength in meditating on one verse or short passage, or singing His Words to myself in Bible songs or Psalms. And if I let those words sink in and feed my soul, I will be that tree planted by the water. That's much better than a perfunctory reading of a big section of the Bible that's done out of an outward behavioural expectation.

So that's my new adjustment. My One-year Bible might take me a few years. I'm going to start by reading the Psalms and Proverbs portions of that Bible. 

I'm learning that sometimes my expectations may seem good, but they are really all about the externals, and that's not good. God isn't glorified in that. I want my goodness, my Christ-likeness, to flow out from a heart that is resting in His promises and His daily mercies. Then I'll be that tree with roots spread out, that never fears and is never anxious. What a glorious picture.

Day 27: Redeeming a failure

Sigh.

That's pretty much it!

I started this post resigned to two days of failure, but the day is not over yet! So I will turn this into just one day of failure by reading the Bible and praying before I go to bed tonight.

It's been an introspective week. I've been writing down a list of all the different expectations I have for myself. It's exhausting, and the list is not even exhaustive yet. (See what I did there? Good one.) Tonight I'll be reading a passage from Jeremiah, as part of my homework assignment. I'll report on this maybe tomorrow, but I'll be reading it with this question in mind: How are my expectations of myself offensive to God?

Good question. It's not something I ever thought about as being offensive to my Lord. Sometimes I think the word 'sin' is even a euphemism; it's a word that, in Reformed circles, we are very comfortable with. We're sometimes proud to be able to call sin, sin. But to say that my high personal expectations are actually offensive to God? Well, that sheds it in a different light for me. It's pretty heavy, and I've been avoiding this task. I'm afraid of...what, exactly?

Okay, I'm afraid of being sanctified. For real. Recognizing my offences against a holy God for what they are requires me to change for the better. It requires me to be transformed! I'm scared of that. What will I look like? Obviously, the Bible tells me I will look more like Jesus, which is awesome, and deep down what I really want, so why am I so scared?

It's like I'm trying to convince myself to let go of my old self, but it's just these tattered little pieces that I'm clinging to like my old security blanket. I cried about losing that blanket when I was ten, but managed to do fine without it the next night. And God is sending me all these troubles to show me that my old self, my old life, is junk and I don't need it. I need Him, not this crappy security blanket that just causes me heaps of misery.

I think this is part of why I haven't been dedicated to Bible reading and prayer. I'm avoiding some of the things that will sanctify me. How messed up is that? By committing to a year in the Word, I'm opening myself up to mega conviction about the sins in my life, and mega transformation into a child of God who actually bears more than a passing resemblance to her Dad. Overcoming this fear that I recently identified is a big part of what I'm doing in this project.

More on this another time, I think, after I've sorted through some of it. I'm still ruminating on my expectations and what they actually mean. I think this is going to be epic. (In the proper figurative sense as a 'task of great magnitude', not the hyperbolic sense that the kids use these days.) Pray for me!

Day 25: Life making demands

I still haven't been doing a great job reading my one-year Bible, although I have been reading the Bible each day. I need to find a good time for it. Although I think my priorities are often wrong. Right now, I am juggling this with a game of Candy Crush Saga on Facebook. Smart one, Steph.

Sometimes there are valid reasons that I never seem to find the quiet time to sit down and read. Kids, the home, and these things are demanding. It seems like these are important things to tend to, and they sometimes are. But I need to remind myself that the real demands in my life are from God--and He has a right to demand them from me, because he bought my life with the blood of Jesus Christ.

For me, I need the first thing I do to be Bible reading and prayer. I have to nurse my boy first thing, and waking up early doesn't seem to happen.

Sigh. Excuses are easy to find. I don't know if I'm just being hard on myself (I tend to do that) or if it's a real part of my life where I need to be ruthless about my morning activities.

Yesterday I read the story of the wise and foolish builders in Matthew. My counsellor talked about how this story seems to be about salvation (and I think it is), but it also has another level about sanctification. That sand is those little idols we build up in our hearts that keep us from standing strong in the Lord. When the storms come (like postpartum depression), they wash away some of that sand. Right now, God has washed away all of the sand. I can see now that I wasn't resting in the Lord, but in my own strength. It was quite a revelation, and meditating on that passage was pretty helpful to me.

I'm thankful that God has kept me on track so far with this project!

Day 21: A retrospective

So, three weeks into this project, and how is it going? I have realized a few things:

1. Prayer needs to be an essential partner to Bible reading. I haven't made prayer a priority and I find myself stealing moments of prayer here and there. But I think I need purposeful prayer. There are so many things I need to pray for about God (thanksgiving and praise), about myself (patience, joy, kindness, unselfishness), and for others (my husband, children, friends, people in the world I don't even know exist). I also need to pray God's promises back to him. Will the transformation I am looking for happen without real communion? I don't think so. So this is important. I am missing it and I may soon be adding another element to this project.

2. Satan really doesn't want me reading the Bible. Okay, this always sounds dumb: "The devil made me do it!" and that's not what I'm getting at. But really, there are a million distractions, little and big, that will tempt me to put my Bible reading off--and Satan will capitalize on those. I need to be vigilant. I think leaving my Bible reading until the end of the day is bad news. I've been good about reading Romans 8 this week, but I haven't been about my day-by-day Bible reading. I am disappointed in myself because I know there are a few hours each day I spend in doing things that aren't Bible reading. Areas for improvement.

3. I haven't really found the joy I'm looking for yet. I'm not at the point where I crave Bible reading. They say it takes 21 days to make a habit, and I haven't been consistent enough yet. But I don't just want to do it out of habit, either. I want to hunger and thirst for God's Word, like the psalmist in Psalm 42 whose soul pants for the living God. (When I read Psalm 119, I usually feel incredibly guilty, because I don't usually feel that way about the Bible.) I think I have conditioned myself to not love reading the Bible. I've made it boring and dutiful in my mind. I need a change of attitude, but I think that will only come through actually being in the Word, and through prayer (see #1). Lord, give me a desire for Your Words of life.

So, that sums up three weeks of being in the Word. No discernible change that I can tell yet, but I know God is faithful, so I will keep at it. This can't possibly be anything but good for me.

Day 20: Being sad

I was just reading this series on counselling Christians with depression. It raised many good points and issues that made me cry, because I saw myself in them so much. This week, my counsellor told me it's okay to be where I am--to just let myself be sad. That's hard: aren't Christians supposed to be joyful and happy? We've been saved from such a horrible fate!

This author pointed out that life is sad, and the world is not the way it's meant to be, so it's okay to be sad about things. (He also mentioned studies showing that mildly depressed people are the most realistic about the world, including their own strengths and weaknesses and those of others, which: Boo-yah.)

I was reading Romans 8 again last night, which I've been doing each day this week. I was really caught up in the section about suffering and freedom from it. And this is it, right? We suffer with Christ while we wait for God's creation to be redeemed:

^"18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God."

I think here I can see how it's okay to be sad about the state of things. A life full of disappointments, in circumstances, in others, and in myself, is normal. But I know I have hope, that creation (and I) will be finally set free from all this sin and misery:

" ²² For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. ²³ And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (ESV)

This is so me, that bolded part--inward groaning is my hobby. And that's not necessarily okay if I dwell and ruminate on sadness and disappointment all the time. When I'm feeling blue, I need to remind myself that I'll never be disappointed with God, because I have to believe that God will keep His promises. Redemption and freedom are on their way; just be patient and wait a little bit longer.

Now, I know all this rationally, but sadness is not always rational. So I guess that's part of what I'm working on as part of this project. I'm tired of being sad; it really drains you. I know how energetic and good I felt on antidepressants, but I want to fix the problem, not use a Bandaid. I'm hoping that soon I'll be able to be realistic but joyful--finding joy despite sorrow.