joy

Rejoicing in Hope

~ Heather Davis ~ 11 Comments

I love the photo above. It was taken roughly a year ago in March of 2017 during one of the two weekends of winter we had last year in Middle Tennessee.

Despite having been taken at the end of the winter that really wasn’t, I still enjoy the hope portrayed by this image. In part, it reminds me of  winters of the soul I have endured.

Yet even in the gloomiest and most frigid seasons in my life – actually, even if my entire life was spent in the icy clutches of physical pain and emotional distress – there is something growing beneath the surface.

Hope.

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
(Romans 12:12)

No matter how much other reading I have done the last couple of weeks, the Lord keeps bringing me back to Romans 5 and the idea of rejoicing in suffering.

So today, I did just that.

It’s a beautiful spring day and I took a walk with my Father and my two dogs. Normally at such times, I will offer up prayers of supplication. And for the first 5 or 6 minutes, I did. But the verse kept playing like a broken record in my mind (for you young ‘uns, that’s roughly the equivalent of an mp3 file which didn’t download correctly).

So I stopped my requests and simply rejoiced.

As the occasional pounding behind my left eye grew more regular, I rejoiced that migraines have slowed me down enough to pay attention to what is important in life.

With each step, an ache set up in my left foot and my shoe seemed to tighten as it swelled, so I rejoiced that I can still walk anyway.

In fact, I was able to praise my Father from the heart and mean it for all my little grievances.

Not only because each ache and pain reminds me of the intense joy I will feel once this old body has finally worn down and been traded in for something better. But also because my God is using the time right now for His glory.

…and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings…
(Romans 5:2b-3a)

Today, He had me back up a little and remember that my rejoicing is based in His glory.

His, not mine.

It is because of my physical issues that I am able to meet weekly with one of my part-time daughters, a teen who suffers from chronic migraine and has need of help in her home schooling.

Because of my suffering, I am available when another part-time daughter, also a teen, needs to talk due to family crisis. Or to help her mom when she’s trying to juggle her own reactions to the crisis, plus be a mom, plus keep her job, plus…

And you know what? I can rejoice because God does not need my efforts to provide financially for my family. He is fully capable of taking care of our needs, and He has never let us down.

So today, I took a couple of hours and laid down my guilt over the smallness of my financial contribution, the anxiety over rising tuition and a 20-year-old home in which everything is deciding to break, my frustration over the difficulties in parenting teens, and my weariness with pain.

I laid them all before the Throne of Grace and worshiped.

Because my God is good.

Because He has blessed me with these difficulties so I will never forget my need of Him.

Because my Lord Yeshua (Jesus) suffered pain on my behalf and overcame.

Because He can do amazing things and He doesn’t need me to do them.

And yet, He has given me the privilege of being a part of it all.

The man declares, I am weary, O God; I am weary, O God, and worn out…
…Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
(Proverbs 30:1, 5)

 

All That Glitters…

~ Heather Davis ~ 8 Comments

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
(Luke 12:34)

Ah, Christmastime…

As I think back on the last 16 years of Christmas celebrations as a parent, I could fill a good many pages with items ardently desired by my children on December 1 and summarily forgotten by March 1 – or significantly earlier.

 

Take this rather gaudy tree topper, for example: 20171218_135503.jpg

When my middle daughter was 5 or 6, we were shopping for seasonal decor (which, by the way, is not precisely one of my strengths). She saw this garishly bedecked woman-thing and her eyes were dazzled with all the golden glitter. She and her sister made a fervent appeal to place this sparkly woman (who, to me, seems to bear no resemblance whatsoever to any of the angelic messengers described in the Bible) atop our tree. Since the thing was inexpensive and their mom is rather, shall we say, thrifty… the girls got their wish.

This year, the old tree topper was pulled from a box in a forgotten corner of our attic. A good portion of her glitter now dusts the furniture and floors, some of the fake flowers have gone missing, and her plastic hair has lost much of its original shimmer.

In many ways, she is a reminder of how like children we humans really are concerning spiritual matters.

Far too often, our heads are turned by whatever bedazzles our eyes at the moment. Our obsession with all that is fleeting is perhaps particularly obvious during the gigantic marketing extravaganza of December, but it is no less firmly in place year-round.

This Christmas, I am challenged by my perceptions of what makes up a good Christmas. Is it food, family, health, and comfort? Or is it the Christ?

In my circles, this December has brought with it a tidal wave of hurt, strife, difficulty, and loss for many who are dear to me. Marriages are foundering, families do their best to ignore empty seats, bitter feuds are barely contained. All around me, there is conflict and both physical and emotional pain. There is suffering. There is sorrow.

Yet even still, there is Christmas. Despite what we may be told or how we may feel, the gift of Christmas goes far beyond even the boon of family, friends, health, and prosperity. It is for rich and poor alike, for the happy and the sorrowful, for the healthy and the maimed.

The gift of Christmas is salvation from sin and the presence of the Almighty God forever and ever, and it remains a limitless treasure and an unending well of joy no matter what curveballs life may throw our way.

And it is not just for December. The gift of Christmas is eternal. The Lord really did come to bind up the broken-hearted, to set free those who are shackled by sin, and to comfort those who mourn. What’s more, He does this regardless of our circumstances.

He, Himself, is the Gift. He is the prize. He is the goal. And He is good – so, so good.

This Christmas, I am praying for all of the redeemed to catch hold of the breathtaking expanse of treasure we have in Him, no matter what else may happen.

I am praying for my Lord to find and rescue friends and loved ones who have wandered far and wide chasing after shiny trinkets, which when caught, are nothing more than gilded garbage.

I am praying that the disillusioned will see past the facade of our adversary’s cleverly enticing deceptions to the trap within, and for them to seek and find the life-giving Well of Living Water instead.

Finally, I am praying for all of God’s people to remember that Christmas does not consist in who we are with nor in what we give or get, but in what we already have in Christ.

May that reality give weight to our joy, defining every interaction we have with others and outshining any glitter-coated bauble so the world will know our hope is not in this world.

It is in the Glory of the Lord of Hosts.

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.
(Isaiah 61:1-3)

My friends, as much as I love reading all your thoughts here on the  blogosphere, I must take a bit of a break. It is time for me to spend some time focusing on my Lord and seeking His will for me in the new year. I may be around if time allows, but if not, I will see you next year. Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

 

Uneclipsed

~ Heather Davis ~ 8 Comments

Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

A mere 40 miles to the north or northeast of my house lies the path of totality for the solar eclipse this coming Monday afternoon. Being a bit of a natural phenomenon junkie, it might seem strange that I am not planning on packing up my crew and hitting the road to get inside that swath of real estate in which I could view the first total eclipse to happen in Tennessee in my lifetime.

But I am not.

While I confess that I would dearly, dearly love to see the sun in total eclipse, I also have a healthy respect for Nashville traffic. I know without a doubt that Nashville will have no shortage of traffic on eclipse day.

Just yesterday, I did have some hearty laughs with my friends who are making the trek. We imagined ourselves all stranded on one of the interstates in a gridlock of cars, the pre-eclipse August sun baking its way into our patience, and her spending more time looking to be certain that her youngest two children’s eyes were properly covered by the protective lenses than actually seeing the big event itself.

We laughed ourselves even sillier as we imagined putting their 6 kids and my 3 to work on a couple of preposterous inventions we came up with to protect the eyes of small children who had not been able to acquire the NASA-approved filtered lenses, hawking them on the sides of packed-out streets and parks in hopes of redeeming the hours lost to traveling north – or even find some way to turn the thing around should we be caught in a traffic jam a mile or two south of the path of totality and miss the thing entirely.

To be fair, I had been up since 4 that morning and they had just returned from a long road trip. But it was certainly funny at the time…. though you probably had to be there.

Anyway, all this eclipse talk and planning got me thinking about God. I admit that I did think of Joel 2:31 (The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes), but even beyond that, my mind strayed to the types of things that eclipse God’s glory in my own life.

Pain. That’s one for sure.

By His grace, I have been able to find purpose, hope, and even joy in the middle of chronic migraine and other assorted physical delights. Yet I have to admit that at times, weeks of relentless pain can seem to cast a pall over all of life, even seeming to grow so large as to hide the radiance of the Almighty in my days.

Then, of course, there is family strife – which is just another type of pain. Difficult circumstances. Riots and wars. Woe.

But not only hardship – sometimes the temptations and comforts of life in America can can loom large and I find myself quite suddenly walking in their shadow instead of walking in the Light.

Yet in each instance, whether trial or ease, I find that His glory has never actually changed. It only seems to be so because for that fateful instant, I have taken my eyes off Him. I have either allowed some promised pleasure or some dreadful difficulty snare my attention and come between me and my King.

How I wish that these spiritual eclipses were as infrequent as the solar variety! Even still, I take heart in knowing that they, too, are really nothing more than natural phenomena – simply a part of the process of sanctification as my Lord patiently allows me to see the transient nature of whatever it is that I have allowed to dominate my mind.

Whether it is pain or pleasure, I am thankful that the shadow always passes, revealing once more the steady and unfading Glory of the Lord.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Psalms 19:1

Aug2008 054

Not That This Isn’t Fun…

~ Heather Davis ~ 18 Comments

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Galatians 6:9-10

Life is tough. There’s just no way around it.

As I tap these words out, I am on the 23rd consecutive day of a headache (save a few hours’ break here and there) that has ranged in intensity from just annoying to someone please choke me out.

Still, even with the headache, I am incredibly grateful for the gift f this time: time to pause and breathe after the whirlwind of nonstop parenting and educating chaos that is homeschool; time to get my bearings and figure out if I have what it takes to make it as an author; time to come up with Plan B if I don’t.

Even still, life is tough. Not having the kids around 24/7 does not diminish their presence in my mind. They each have junk to wade through, and wading through modern teen junk is a sticky business. However, raising them, I am forced to think back to when I was a teenager <shudder> and remind myself that it could be much worse.

Yet thinking back also reminds me of the microcosm that is their worldview right now; a fact which was brought very clearly to the forefront in a conversation with my 16-year-old yesterday.  I mentioned a question he had asked me recently, and he replied, “That wasn’t recently. That was my sophomore year.”

I credit God alone that I held my tongue, but all I could think was, “Dearest son, do you mean waaaaaay back 2 1/2 months ago to your sophomore year?”

Oddly enough, in my mind, May still qualifies as “recently.”

And those are the small, nagging, daily problems: the relentlessness of pain, the thorniness of relationships… There are much bigger problems afoot. Loved ones with dementia, the burden on their caretakers, unsaved friends and family members who are literally destroying themselves from the inside out. Disease. Heartbreak. Cruelty. Suffering.

Then, too, there is the constant ache for friends who are suffering their own dilemmas and trials. Beyond that, my brothers and sisters in Christ around the world are being tortured, imprisoned, brutalized, cast out, and killed for proclaiming faith in Jesus as Messiah and Lord.

And the illogic. Don’t even get me started about the utter rejection of absolute truth, logic, or reason. I agree fully with Malcom Muggeridge when he said, “We have educated ourselves into imbecility.”

No doubt. We’ve reasoned ourselves right past rationality and into a highly amorphous state of emotionalism. As another friend pointed out, we’ve gone from hieroglyphics straight through the high works of prose and poetry all the way back to emojis.

We have embraced separation of God and… well, everything and flung our liberty in His face with wild abandon only to find that in reality, we have merely come full circle. We’ve followed our hearts only to find that the triumphant footsteps we have been walking in are our own.

What a weary business modern life has become!

I have to wonder if this future was in the mind of the Lord when He had His last, private discourse with the Twelve … or rather, the Eleven. Judas had already departed and was bartering the Messiah’s life for a small sack of silver.

At any rate, I have been reading John 15-16 repeatedly for the last several days and noted that Jesus emphasized the need for the disciples to remain, to obey, and to love. Remain in Me… if you keep my commands, you will remain in Me… love one another, but above all else remain in Me, for apart from Me, you can do nothing. 

I paraphrase, but read John 15 a few times. He repeats the word “abide” ten times in the first ten verses alone. (“Abide,” by the way, means to remain or continue). Emphasis is put on loving God, loving each other, and keeping His commands – and once He has reiterated his reiteration, He warns them of trouble.

The latter part of chapter 15 and much of 16 speaks much of persecution and sorrow, but also of joy. Living for Truth is tough, much tougher than going along with the societal current. Naturally, it is easy to become weary and discouraged.

But any careful reader of the Word will know that persecution and rejection were always part of the package. The Lord Himself warns them multiple times, even right up to moments before He is taken into custody… and through them, He warns us.

But please note that He first assures them of His love and their need to remain in it.

There is hope, but it is not here on this earth. Our hope is in remaining steadfast through the birthpains of life in the tangled mess of sorrow, joy, anguish, grief, suffering, and peace that is our lot, because someday it will all be worth it.

There is trial, but there is beauty even in the trial.

Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Thistle001

“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away…

…When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
John 16:1, 21-22

 

Getting Real

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
Philippians 2:14-16

There is a common theme that I have heard time and time again among my fellow Christians and have even said myself as a new believer. I keep hearing that we (the Christian community) need to stop putting on false smiles and acting like we have it all together when we don’t, really.  That we need to stop pretending all is well when it isn’t. That we need to get real.

The odd thing, however, is that I don’t actually know anyone who does this. I know no one who acts as if they have it all together, none who put on a happy face and waltz around pretending the world is unicorns and music and roses.  Not one.

Among my brothers and sisters (and sadly, from my own mouth), what I do hear plenty of is grumbling. I see plenty of sad faces and sorrow and regret. I hear so many stories of how we are a mess. I see much groaning under the burdens of life and much fear and anxiety.

In fact, I see plenty of reality, so much reality that my mind would be overcome by it if I did not have my mighty Refuge to run to when all the world seems hostile and alien.

But that’s all an aside. What bakes my noodle is this:If I don’t know anyone in Christ who plasters on a mask and pretends, and yet the people I know keep saying we all need to stop doing that, where is this idea coming from?  I fear that it is actually some bit of spiritual propaganda that has wormed its way into  the center of modern American Christian culture. And frankly, I don’t understand it.

If there is someone with a smile on their face, how can an onlooker know if it is a real smile or a mask? What if that person smiles because they are consumed with the joy of their salvation? What if the smiler is genuinely filled to the brim with the joy of the Lord and that joy is his strength even in hardship?

What if  someone is caught actually, truthfully rejoicing in their suffering because they know that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us?” (Romans 5:3-5)

What if… what if there is a Christian or two who are real, and whose reality is rooted in a belief that “…the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us?” (Romans 8:18)

What if some believers do not have it all together, know very well they do not have it all together, but trust entirely in an Almighty God who does have it all together?

What if these believers have absolute confidence in Him and are content to fight the battles He has given them to fight. What if they are honestly delighting themselves in His Word and relying on the belief that He who began a good work in them “will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ?” (Philippians 1:6)

Aren’t those the very things we ought to be doing, the very things that separate believers from the rest of the world? Isn’t it the absolute trust in God despite our circumstances that make us, in fact, Christians. Isn’t joy and peace a direct result of that trust?

Maybe I’m crazy. I don’t know. But I wonder sometimes if our “reality” lines up with what is written in the Scriptures; if, perhaps,  we need to get real with our faith. I wonder if our getting real doesn’t need to include a little less about us — our messes and our failures — and a little bit more about the incredible victory of our Jesus.

I somehow doubt that the world needs to hear very much about our troubles and temptations. It has plenty of its own.  What the unsaved world needs is to hear more of the victory of our Savior, of the hope we have in Him even in the midst of life’s pain, of a greater Truth that is steady and sure when human wisdom falls short.

I believe the world needs to see us honestly crying to God to overcome our unbelief, genuinely and humbly repenting of our sins each time we fail, dying to our selves and living with Christ.

So let’s get real.  Real hunger for the things of God, for His presence, His glory, His Word, and His Kingdom. Real work of faith, real labor of love,  real steadfastness of hope.  Real submission to Christ. Real love for God that overflows in love for others.  Real self-sacrifice and real belief in a real God who really does save.  Really denying self and living for Christ.

Lord, help us to be real with You, to have genuine faith in You, to be real imitators of Christ. Forgive us our complaints and our self-focus. May we only use our troubles to point others to Your greatness, amen.