The Nothing

In my spiritual eye, I could see the emending storm. It was coming like The Nothing from The Neverending Story. My spirit is peaceful as I knew we would survive it. I didn't know how, but I knew we would. We may be weather beaten coming out the other side, but we would definitely survive it. Our marriage would remain intact (issues with financial trust and control played a huge part in the break down of my first marriage and was the leading cause of Big Man's parent's marriage splitting up after sixteen years) and our children would be fed and clothed. All our needs would be met one way or another. We just simply had to endure. Or do we?

At what point in our faith do we just assume that our circumstances are meant to teach us a lesson? Job's circumstance wasn't meant to teach him anything. The Enemy was ALLOWED (oh yeah. He had to ask permission!) to put Job through this trial because God knew his heart and had faith in Job that he wasn't faithful because of his circumstance nor would he lose his faith when he lost it all. I know so many people who read into Job and just get mad. How could God let Satan abuse this man so badly when he lived so virtuous a life? But I see a faith so deep and a trust so great that even the powers of Hell won't move it. I'm not talking about Job's faith in God. I'm talking about God's faith in Job. God knew his heart and saw in him the depths of his convictions and knew he would not stray from him regardless of his circumstances. I want this. I want God to have this kind of faith in me.

Now I'm not saying that I want Satan and his legions to release The Cracken on my life! I'm not saying I want God to throw me to the hounds of Hell to prove my obedience. I'm not stupid by any means. I'm saying that this is the relationship I'd like to have with God. Mutual faith. Mutual trust. To be THAT kind of servant. Like Joseph in Potifer's House. Trusted with all he had.

Except, why do we think that, in order to have this type of relationship with God, we have to suffer the lengths of Job? Why did I feel we had to ENDURE this storm? Didn't the man I call my king calm the storm on the sea? Doesn't He control the weather? Insurance companies don't call it "An Act of God" for just any reason. They are all subject to his will. Aren't we all?

In talking to NiNi, I was describing what I was seeing lately. The only way to draw a proper picture was to describe it as The Nothing. Yet, The Nothing ripped up everything in it's path and left just that in it's wake....Nothing. Just gray matter where there use to be living things. If The Nothing was coming for us then why did I think we would survive it at all? Isn't that the intent of The Enemy? To kill, steal, and destroy? Yet isn't that the intent of faith, as well? A blind belief. A belief that against all odds there is hope and He will work to our good the things intended to harm us (Gen 50:20 ). Then NiNi asked me an interesting question. Had we prayed for God to STOP the storm?

???

Well......no, actually. We hadn't prayed to stop the storm. We'd just been praying for the strength to endure it. To get through it. To survive it. WHY??? Why doesn't it occur to us as Christians to ever ask God to just make it stop? Why do we assume that each thing is either A) straight from the devil when it may in fact be from God to teach us something that will prosper us in the future or B) a Job-esque circumstance that we must endure to get our blessing? Why don't we consider option C) that all God is waiting for is for us to come and ask our Daddy for his help.

So I did. I hit the floor. OK, actually, I made a bit of a spectacle out of myself trying to get 8-months pregnant on her knees by the side of the bed. Here's what I saw almost as soon as I opened my mouth.

The storm just started to dissipate. The clouds rolled back and started breaking up. Sunlight filtered through in lemonade rays. And I knew that this was about the posture of my heart.

Elohim

It has been so long since I bellied up to the table, I didn't even know at which "dish" to begin. So I asked God outright. Where do I go, Lord? Your word is so vast and I've been so long away I don't even know where to go.

And I remembered.....

Names from a power point flashing onto the wall above my head.
A book on a shelf long ago purchased.
A section in my Bible that gave a brief summation of what those names mean.

I remembered the Names of God.

I remembered Tara leading communion talking on the character of God.

So this is where I began. I pulled the book from the shelf along with two different translations and I sat down at my dining room table and began to seek out Elohim.

Elohim, the one who made it all. Created the heavens and the earth. Separated the light from the dark. Water from the land. Day from Night. This most ancient name of God contains the just the mere idea of God's CREATIVE power as well as his authority and sovereignty.

The creativity of God awes me. The sheer magnitude of his scope and vision is incredible. The artist in me. The part that takes the time with plate presentation at dinner so that it's aesthetically appealing. The hairdresser who is always balancing out the color wheel with the angles and planes of the face. This is the part that stands enamored with his ability to think up creations like the duck billed platypus AND give them a purpose in the food chain. The God of the Universe. The maker of the Milky Way. This is whom I worship. The One Who Made It All.

And yet, He still comes to sit with me and have a cup of coffee. To take me to the story from which I was named and expose a new layer of the onion. Taking me to the part in which Laban was perpetually cheating Jacob of his wages. For YEARS. YEEEAAARRRS, people!! Yet, no matter how Laban tried to cheat him God prospered Jacob. Reading that, I knew we were in this for a minute. There aren't going to be any quick fixes. No immediate rebounds. This faith journey, this trust testament. Still I have peace. Maybe it comes from jumping into the wave instead of fighting against the torrent of the sea. Accepting that this is where we are going to live for a bit instead of looking for an instant relief that doesn't come, but still manages to bring the gifts of disappointment and despair.

What I learned of the character of Elohim was a reminder. That the God of the universe is large enough to carry our burdens. That the one who created the sea cucumber is creative enough that the plans of mere mortals are not so convoluted as to be able to stop his ability to give us our needs as we need them.

He's got the whole world in His hands
He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got the mommies and the daddies
IN HIS HANDS
He's got the little bitty babies
IN HIS HANDS

He's got the whole world in His hands

Walking Out Loud

I've felt the pull to write again. It's been an off and on endeavor over the years. It's always been hard to write whenever I quit smoking. Writers are strange and fickle creatures with peculiar habits. Whenever I would put the pack down, I would go into stalemate with words. But here I am, three years after I snubbed out my last smoke, pecking away at the keys watching the words in my spirit be birthed onto the screen. Sometimes there are more than one reason for the desert we are journeying in. Maybe, just MAYBE, this could be another one.

I've felt a call lately. A call back to this blog. A call to share this place we are sojourning through. This hard, rocky, brutal place that digs into our sandals and cuts at our feet. Testing us. Propelling us forward because to stop means certain death. A command to go back to Walking Out Loud this faith that is humbling and sometimes hard to share. A command to be transparent during the difficulty of financial poverty and the spiritual growth that comes of watching God show up. A need to be obedient. Above all things obedient so as not to get stuck permanently in a place that was only meant to be for a season.

A month ago, my husband went into work fully aware that there was some restructuring taking place in the near future. He knew it was scheduled to take place at the beginning of August. His position would change and with it would come some changes in our salary and commission percentages as well. We were looking forward to this as the past year had proven stressful as he created the Property Management Director position for a start up. We were all looking forward to him stepping into a job that he enjoyed. What we didn't expect was that the last week of July he was told that effective immediately we would no longer have a salary, but would now be straight commission. No notice. No transition time. No time to train the incoming Director. Just immediate change. As often is the case with real estate, we are at the mercy of the banks. Almost immediately, there was a bottle neck in closings leaving us with no houses to rehab and market. No houses means no commission. No notice means no time to plan for bottle necks. No time to plan means only one thing: we are leaning solely on God as our provider right now. The past year has brought with it different emergencies that depleted our savings and increased our debt. There is no back up. There is no Plan B. We have been brought to a place where we are wholly dependent on the Lord.

I believe this is part of the point. I believe this is in part a lesson on not confusing your provision with your Provider. Not equating your freedom with your finances. Leaning solely on the promises of God and accepting whatever this path might look like. He has brought us to a place where we must lay down our pride and our expectations and say, "I believe in YOU, Lord. My hope is in you. My faith is in you. My family will be fed. We will have shelter. We will have our needs met and it will be because of you and all the glory will be yours."

My husband, my handsome and faithful Big Man, has a phrase he has said to me since we met. He says, "Our faith is personal, but it's not private." There is a deep truth in this. Parts of it I have wrestled with. Namely the part I'm writing about now. I was raised that you don't talk about money. It's rude and ill-mannered and no one's business but your own. Part of it is pride. Small town upbringing drips with a Keeping Up With The Jones' mentality. Even though we've chosen to try to lead a relatively "simple" life forgoing new cars (because I despise a car payment more than anything in the world) and making most of the things we could buy out of convenience, I still struggle with wanting the appearance that we are capable of "handling our bid-niz" and not just having another child we can't seem to afford. So here I am. Stripping down nekked to walk out this faith in technicolor. Leaning in on my part of the lesson in this desert experience and gleaning the reward of seeing my words on the page.

Lessons on Serenity

My sweet friend, Lenda, has a saying: "I never learned anything profound on vacation."

I'm always brought up short by the vast truth in this statement. I should have known then that I wasn't going to learn to be serene in an already peaceful place. Oh no. The reason Serenity has its own prayer is because you need it.

The start of this year has me beat down and heavy laden. It began with a gas leak in the fuel track of Ruthie the (not so) Wonder Van. First it was under recall. Then it was already fixed. Then it hadn't been fixed. Then it was maybe it had been already fixed, but nobody knew. Then it was yes it definitely had even though we'd told you it wasn't and since you can't remember the exact date, time, and name of all the people that told you this too bad so sad pay for it yourself. Then it was oh that guy left. Then after a solid month of having one vehicle and becoming cab driver mom carting the mister and small fry all over the city it was "It's under warranty." Dude, I didn't even care at this point. I was just so happy that we didn't have to pay $400 on a van that is on its last leg.

In the meantime, the kitchen faucet went belly up and refused to push any water out of the spout. This fell at a time when we were tapped. I'm mean beyond broke seeing as it was the week after Christmas and just had to buy a new battery for the defunct van. For a whole week, I carted dishes back and forth to the bathtub and did dishes there. But then we went on a mini date night to Menard's and Home Depot finding an awesome faucet on the clearance rack for $40! SCORE! It's awesome. The water pressure is amazing. It's black. Our sink is stainless. I don't care. It adds to our quirky, wack-a-doodle house. But it couldn't stop there. Oh no.

The dryer went on strike refusing to heat. Cancel two hair appointments seeing as my cape and all shop towels are in said dryer. Cold. And Wet. Good News? It was a fuse. That we didn't even have to pay for :)

At Christmas, I kept burning everything. I thought it was because I cheated and bought pie crust. Turns out it was because the knob to the oven was stripped out and I couldn't control the heat setting. I couldn't turn it off either. So a new stove it is. Except that due to Big Man's position at work, he is in constant contact with a man who runs a used appliance store. We went down there and I picked out a Maytag gas range that was self-cleaning with A CONVECTION OVEN!! Payment? Just the trade in on our old range since B sends him so much business. Whaaa?

We can't stop there, folks. The faucet in the bath tub pulled a full out Vietnam protester act and simply refused to revert the water from the nozzle up into the shower. The little do-hickey (that's the technical term) that reroutes it broke. Now, we have an 84- year old Arts and Crafts style house that I adore. And with that Arts and Crafts style house came a claw foot bath tub that I THOUGHT I would adore. I don't. In fact, I hate it and completely understand why they are ripped out of every house that has them. You can't just pop down to Lowe's and pick up a $30 faucet kit and it's as good as new. Oh no. You have to buy specialty parts. $80 specialty parts. Not cute $80 specialty parts. But it was an easy fix and my husband is quite handy :)

Two days later, the screw holding the curtain rod into the ceiling over our claw foot tub rusted through and fell on down...while I was in the shower. It is now duct taped. I don't care if it ever gets fixed as I really just want a different tub.

Harder even still was a week ago last Sunday. Brandon's 91-year-old grandmother had a stroke. She was moved to hospice last Wednesday. It's just a matter of time now.

It's been one hit after another since our week of rest at the end of last year. I should've known. Serenity is not found nor practiced when the road is easy. Makes me wonder what the rest of the year will be like. But here is what I've discovered as I type out the horrors of the past four weeks: We were provided for. The stress is great. I'm not going to gloss it over. It's starting to take it's toll. We are snappy and unkind. Over-tired and beyond weary. Our love is still strong, but our communication is shotty. And I need to sit at the blog and write more as it nurtures and helps balm my sore spots.

I feel amazed though as I write this down. We only had to spend $230 ($90 for the battery, $40 for the sink, and $80 for the bath) when so many things went kaput. In that period, Brandon also painted our living room and my mom gifted us beautiful curtains I found at Penney's. My table has a lovely vase full of flowers from Brandon's bosses telling us they are praying for his grandmother. I am glad I sat down here today to whine and complain because in doing so God reminded me of his provision.

Kisses to your faces,

Rach

The Word of 2013

A couple of years back, I had a friend who told me that she follows a blog where the writer picks a word for the next year. I thought this sounded like a lovely idea. So I prayed on what my word for 2011 should be and SHINE kept ringing in my ears. So Shine it was and Shine I did. I graduated school. Bought a house. Got married. It was a good year.

2012 rolled around. And again I prayed for a word for that year. GRATITUDE was what kept popping up, so gratitude became my word for 2012. It was easy at first. In fact, the more you practice looking for things to be grateful for the more things you find to be thankful for. As 2012 rolled on, we hit hardship. Rough waters. Patchy times. Lots and lots of change and highly stressful situations. Looking in the rear view, I realize now that the word gratitude completely did it's job. Even in the hardest parts it became second nature to find the things to be glad about. I usually have a glass-half-full perspective, but this was different. It was deeper.

Here's 2013. Leading up to it, I had nothing. Not a word on the radar. It hit me New Year's Day. I hadn't even asked God what my word should be. Just a minor importance, I think. Schlepping across the hardwood floors in my new jammie pants and furry slippers to let the dog back in, I started the prayer asking God what my word should be for 2013. Apparently, He'd been waiting for me to ask because the  words weren't all the way out before I started getting bits and pieces of clouded code type feelings and jumbled lettering forming strange word associations in my mind. I have to confess that my receptors to the Holy Spirit have been less than in tune for some time. This is my fault. I've been stuck in "suppose to's" which makes it hard to lean into who God says you are instead of the pressures you put on yourself to be. Walking outside of who you are born to be is exhausting and has made me mean. It's also blocked too many nurturing words from the Father.

Not understand why I keep getting twinges of a house that is peaceful or words like calming clipping very shortly in my ears, I stopped by the table and said...out loud..."I think I'm seeing where You're going with this, but I can't pinpoint the word." Off to the bookshelf  I shuffled. Picking up the thesaurus, I flipped to the word peace to see what jumped out at me. Then I saw it. No. That's not it. Oooooo. Tranquil. That's a lovely, pleasant, nice to say word. I like TRANQUIL, Lord. *Nagging feeling telling me to go back to the last word* OK fine, but isn't it the same thing, really? I mean this is a thesaurus. It lists words that are similar....why don't I like this word if it means the same thing too....why don't I really want to know the answer to that question? My eyes skimmed backwards to the sort of offending word.

There blinking back at me (Oh, yes. It's alive. This word is most definitely a character. It blinks. It breathes. It haunts, just so you know.) is the word that I see elegantly scripted on coffee cups in the Christian bookstore. One plaques above it's own prayer. Oh yeah. It has it's own prayer!! It's that much a word. It's a big one. Entire philosophies hang on this ONE WORD.

S   E   R   E   N   I   T   Y 

The state of being serene, calm, and tranquil. *deeeeeeeep exhale* There is a reason He pushed me. It's to make me better. More like Him. Because He loves me enough to not leave me stuck where I am. Because He's heard me say for as much years as I could talk that the thing I wish I could change about me is that I'm a screamer. I'm a screamer because I have high anxiety and I don't slow down. In truth, I don't know HOW to slow down. My house is often in a state of high stress because I operate in a state of high stress. The only way to change this and to make it more functioning for the rest of my family (including 2 introverts who do not do well with my state of manic) is to answer my prayer. So here goes. The word of 2013 is serenity.

It's going to be an interesting year. In the past six days, I've failed miserably at being the least bit serene :)

Ramblings

School is done is a little over 2 weeks. Sooo not soon enough :-/

Life is an odd pace right now. A year of nights and the girls are really stepping up their game of Let's Hose the New Step-Poppa. Simple rules that have always been the standard are met with defiance. The amount of creativity that goes into getting out of chores is absolutely incredible. If they would harness it into just half of what they are currently using in failed escape plots said chores could be done three times over. It's frustrating and causing some tension. Love it while you can, kids. In a couple weeks there's a new sheriff in town. Momma's back home at night.

Somewhere in the past couple of months, meat has started to lose it's appeal. It's not that I don't enjoy a good steak and I will never give up fish. It's not an animal thing. No mantras of "Nothing With a Face" will erupt from my lips. It's the hormones and chemicals and the conditions that effect the healthiness of the meat we eat. Currently, our deep freezer is in the garage at my dad's house. Without that we can't buy local cows or pigs and have them processed. Free-Range Chickens are almost impossible to find already killed and plucked. Buying grass fed meat is crazy expensive. So I've started cutting it out in an attempt to limit the toxins from my body. What I've found is that I don't miss it like I thought I would. I feel better than I've felt in years. My body is functioning on a level that I don't recall it doing since I was a teenager. I'm still tired from 50 hour weeks at the salon and my knees are increasingly trying to become arthritic (getting older SUCKS....physically), but I feel good. I feel fuller, yet I'm eating less. My stomach which has long been my problem area is shrinking faster than my butt! Whaaaaa???? I've NEVER had that happen. The part I'm liking best is the freedom I'm feeling in this type of diet. I eat meat if I want to eat meat. I just don't have as much of a taste for it, so I'm looking for more interesting... more fun things to eat. I was talking to Emma about how I was thinking about this around New Year's. She responded that it was kinda funny because she'd been thinking about it too! Emma has been stricter with her new found vegetarianism than I am...She's already lost TWO pant sizes!!!

I've started making my own face wash. I'm not some uber-crunchy granola. I just like using natural things to clean my home and nourish my body. The oil mixture makes my skin a wee bit dry so I think I need to add more olive oil or vitamin E and go easy on the Castor.

I was reading voraciously, but school seems to take up so much time. However, I'm reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. I love love love Oskar. But I feel that the character is too young in age for how it is written and too old at the same time. Which I guess is how it feels to be too young and too old as well.

Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider (I'm not posting links as this is written today to purge my thoughts and share this anyone who happens to be listening all that has occupied me as of late. Google works wonders.) has transfixed me in the first chapter. I can't move on until Brandon and I manage to sit down and hash out a Purpose Statement that I can type out and print up in scrawling print on beautiful paper to motivate and remind our family that loving each other and the least of these is what Clan Maxwell is ALL about.

Purposeful living is worth the struggle of the change. I wrestle with the want of 'stuff' as much as any other American. I'm a clothes whore and have been trying to buy more second hand and find new ways to reuse old items. To not base my worth and value on what's on my back and feet. But I do so love all things hair and make-up and fashion. It's a part of who I am. It's also what I do. I just don't want it to define me. Which in the past I have allowed.

New Year's Resolutions are going well. Being present is an awesome experience. You connect so much more with the those put in your sphere. Choosing Gratitude as my word for 2012 has changed me tremendously in only 27 days. Even if I'm not typing up a new post every single day on The Gratitude Project Blog, it is not being eclipsed by the daily grind. If anything, it has brought me closer to a more tenderized heart.

I'm still not making the time for my devotions that I was craving. I keep trying to set up a plan of some sort to get through my sort of secret resolution to get all the way through the Bible this year...but I got bored with Job....again. Truthfully, I'm choosing to go through vegetarian cookbooks and play Castleville than get into the Word. Yes, Castleville. Because we are THAT family. You know the one. Overly competitive with each other. OK so maybe it's just Brandon and I, but the race is on to get the most Castle points. I am shameless in this. I'm having a wonderful time saying things like: "You have a BLACKSMITH'S SHOP!!! I don't have a Blacksmith's shop!! But I have a tailor *smug smile*"

HC (House Church) starts tonight. For now it is just me, B, and NiNiblended family. Just a family.

I'd like to go on retreat. By myself. A hotel somewhere for a weekend. Just to draw closer to God. Jill did this last winter. It had never occurred to me until then that you could go solo on a trip that wasn't guided by someone else and it still be a retreat. It didn't occur to me to take one until about a month ago. I'd like to go on a small trip for the second anniversary of our first date...our own sort of Rededication of Our Relationship to the Lord Getaway...but we have an actual marriage retreat 2 weeks later, so I guess that'll have to work...even though we don't get to share a room. I don't like that. It feel unnatural to sleep away from him.

I have to cut myself off now. It's been ages and ages since I've sat down to write. Oh, how I've missed it so. I'd just keep regurgitating information and thoughts and feelings, but the kids need picked up in about an hour and I'd like to watch Once Upon A Time while looking through a cookbook :)

Kisses to your faces, Babies!!

Rach

Recalculating

I have so many things going on in my head and 12 of them (AT LEAST) I want to write on and each are different but of course totally connected...*DEEEEP Breath*

It started a month ago when I snagged a Joyce Meyer Believing God CD Series at the library to listen to on my way to school each night. The majority of it centered on what we of a Pentecostal background like to call 'stinkin thinkin'. Because we have the power to speak life and death (Proverbs18:21) what we say and how we think often effect our own blessings or the where our spiritual life is heading.

So it began...the collision course that lead my egotistical flesh to run head first into the truth of my heart. The realization that I go to school and everyone tells me I'm so sweet and that I really walk out this Christianity thing and then I come home and I'm short with my kids about the dishes, hard on my husband for not being up to my speed with the parenting thing, plain ugly with my best friend, and here's the kicker of it all...I didn't really feel that way!!! I could not wait until I got home to be with my family, but the second I walked in the door it was like a wave of annoyance washed over me. Oh and let's not forget that I am the QUEEN of Justification so aaaallll my actions and reactions were beyond called for, y'all.

The more I pressed in to the changing of my attitude the worse my behavior got. Emma had said on more than one occasion I was being a jerky (didn't go over so good...after all she is only 14 and I know everything cuz I'm bigger, right?). NiNi kept trying to gently call my attention to some details that just flat pissed me off at her. I was avoiding her and usually snippy and mean when I didn't. How come all she ever saw was the negative stuff about me? Isn't that why I gave her the CD to listen to too? So she could see herself? Why is it other people think I'm great and she's always cutting me down? I'm sick to death of her always pointing out every flaw I have. How come I can't grow around her? She just wants to keep me stuck and I'm tired of staying stuck for her!!! This was pretty much the tirade I went on in my head (you know, the place I was suppose to be getting away from negativity so it wouldn't poison my heart and hinder my walk).

Then one day last week she called and we started talking. I was immediately offensive and offended and any other adjective you wanna dot in here. Somewhere in that conversation where I was prattling on so I didn't have to listen to her, I told her how in the last week I had woken up three times in the middle of the night really angry with B. I mean hopping mad. Hurt. Rolling away from him in a huff. I didn't go to bed that way. I would have to fight to not stay angry when morning rolled around. But I would wake straight up in the dead of night mad as a March Hare. As I said it out loud something in me jostled awake. I felt like I was sluggish and just coming out of a really deep sleep which held very realistic dreams. I was operating a vehicle and completely lucid yet my spirit felt as Snow White must've felt when she finally came out from under that nasty spell. At the same time all this was happening in my spirit, I heard NiNi say with forceful alarm, 'That's not natural!!'

I had a vision of a sci-fi force field in front of me. It was iridescent and pliable. It had give but would not break. It muffled everything as if I was listening underwater. And most of all it seemed to have a numbing effect...except with irritation and/or anger which then was amplified.

I don't know if the field is dissolved or just weakening. I haven't seen it since. What I do know is that I went home that night and spilled my guts to my husband. We had a sort of spiritual confession session and it seems to be on the up. I'm still getting testy about stupid things that I have to stop and check if I'm truly feeling that or am I simply reacting in a way that was becoming habitual. Like Frodo in Shelob's web there were thin veils of cobwebby things that have been choking my heart, silencing my spirit, blinding my eyes, and binding my hands and feet....God is pruning the dead places.

I'd ventured off my path...not far...but enough that I've gotten a couple of thistles stuck in my feet. Out of clarity comes recalculating. Letting God reset the map and pull the splinters out so that He can bandage the wound and set me right.