Hi All,Rather than writing something for this week’s #MMM, I’m asking you to do the leg work and link up with your favorite verse and a reflection on what that verse means to you.
I’m looking forward to being fed by this awesome faith community and will be back next week (yes — on Memorial Day!) with another regular installment of Monday Morning Meditations!
You mean the world — keep writing and I’ll keep visiting and finding much encouragement in your words.
xo,
Jane
Monday Morning Meditations is a faith community that reflects on a Bible verse each week. Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to join the conversation, simply write a reflection on your own blog about this verse, and follow the link-up buttons at the bottom of this post. Then, encourage the blogger who linked up before you by reading her post and leaving a comment.
Of course whether you link up or not, we’d love to hear from you in the comments or on twitter!
Standing behind her masks the weeks and months that have swiftly passed, disguising the truth and tricking the eye.
Instead, it is her profile that gives away the fullness of time inching closer. With blonde ponytail swaying, she works quietly in the kitchen and counts the days until healthy screams pour from infant lungs and she is a mother for the fifth time.
And in that moment, she will scoop up her son, the newest member in a band of brothers that will adore him. He will tuck his legs close to his own new, pink flesh and become a small sack of sugar against her chest. His sister will swoon and the dog will pout his brown eyes and thump his tail on the floor to herald his arrival. Daddy will wipe happy tears and kiss his wife and crown his son as the joy of summer.
That’s what happens when the young are carried close to the heart.
That He would be watchful and would lead me.
He tends to us and does not leave us alone. He gathers us in his arms when we feel vulnerable. He carries us when we are weak and most need his love and comfort.
Jesus is the shepherd that, like a mother, gathers and protects His own.
And as His child, I’m invited to snuggle up next to His heart and experience the peace that comes from His presence.
What an amazing, unimaginable, humbling thought: that the creator of the universe, who by the power of his word created all things, is gentle enough to care for me and hold me in his arms.
Oh that I would live today knowing that God’s heartbeat is right next to my own – that I would live a life gripped in his love and held captive by his grace.
And may you go into today knowing the same.
Do you remember those days? Rain slides down your windowpanes like butter on a hot griddle and you squeeze a little more tightly, trapping the minutes in your mommy arms.
Sometimes being a mom means your days are filled with picked dandelions and pretty rocks unearthed from next to the swing set because they most certainly are probably diamonds.
And mom, you’re worth those gemstones and those imperfect bouquets birthed from perfect love.
But sometimes it’s full hair-pulling handprints on your clean windows — and dirt scattered on just-mopped floors, and you slap your hand against your forehead because you feel as though you just can’t push a broom for one more second. And the fighting and bickering and dripping popsicles make you seriously consider walking out to get the mail…and not coming back for at least 19 minutes.
It’s all of those things.
This week I was walking through Target and I came upon a mama pushing her sweet brown-eyed boy past the row of vacuums. She was smiling and rolling her eyes as her 4 year old kept busy pointing at and counting each item they passed. Mom’s drumming fingers hinted that it must have been going on for awhile.
Sixty-four…
Sixty-five…
Then, “Mom, go forward!”
Sixty-nine…seventy!!
Like the old ladies at church did to me eleven years ago, I tossed my imaginary gray curls and moved my walker aside to admonish her.
“Enjoy it… (smile, sigh)… I miss those days!” I said.
I do.
I miss the mornings of chocolate milk and PBS shows and naps together on the couch. I miss the dimples on their hands and the smallness of their voices and the bigness of their adoration.
But mostly, I’m grateful.
So grateful to have shared my days and loaned out my heart to three little humans who are the very flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones.
So for all the moms reading, Happy Mother’s Day.
May you be overwhelmed with gratitude and may you be shown appreciation.
May you be smothered in kisses and bathed in the conviction that your work matters.
May you forget about the laundry and the dirty dishes and the shedding dog and the crumbs on the floor … and just enjoy your kids.
Enjoy them, Mom.
Because your love is what Mother’s Day is all about.
Monday Morning Meditations is a faith community that reflects on a Bible verse each week. Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to join the conversation, simply write a reflection on your own blog about this verse, and follow the link-up buttons at the bottom of this post. Then, encourage the blogger who linked up before you by reading her post and leaving a comment.
Of course whether you link up or not, we’d love to hear from you in the comments or on twitter!
I bent over the hamper to pull a wad of stinking, twisted, inside-out clothes from within when I saw it: a shirt still on the hanger.
That’s right: still on the hanger.
My ears burned red.
My eyes pinched and squinted.
I breathed out a mumbled and venomous, “Youuuuu kids…”
Balling my hands into clenched fists, I whipped around looking to give someone a piece of my mind about respecting the work that mom does for the family. Didn’t they KNOW how long it takes to collect the dirty laundry, sort it, wash it, dry it, fold it?
I felt taken-for-granted and my flesh wanted justice.
But no one was to be found. Instead, I looked outside and found our little ones trolling through spring grass, laughing and running with summer capes surfing the breeze behind their dirty feet.
I breathed in deeply and watched them: I watched them being kids in May.
And I remembered that serving others isn’t about keeping score.
It isn’t about working for my own image-making, for my own glory, or to somehow ensure my own ease.
It isn’t about mounting up a list of “look what I did for you!!”
Serving others is really about serving our Lord Christ.
And while that doesn’t mean we let our kids off the hook with their chores or with learning responsibility, it means that my heart needs to change.
Because in whatever I do:
“Whatever I do…” Colossians 3 tells me that I’m really doing it for Jesus.
Suddenly that hamper doesn’t fire me up so much. And those dirty floors look a little different.
Because suddenly, they’re an opportunity for me to serve.
Monday Morning Meditations is a faith community that reflects on a Bible verse each week. Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to join the conversation, simply write a reflection on your own blog about this verse, and follow the link-up buttons at the bottom of this post. Then, encourage the blogger who linked up before you by reading her post and leaving a comment.
Of course whether you link up or not, we’d love to hear from you in the comments or on twitter!
The phone sang its curious little tune to the kitchen audience while I frantically bustled to find it. Lifting a stack of graded school papers carelessly tossed from a backpack earlier that day, I pulled the phone from its hiding place in the wreckage and pushed the talk button.
Her voice on the other end of the line was encouraging despite the revolving door of my prayer requests. Each week she calls and most weeks I spill out a new variation on an old problem:
My struggle to make peace with who I am; with who I am not.
My desire to seek after His plan, and my heart tugging me in ways that I don’t always understand.
My confusion about what is next — or what “should be.”
She listens and I can hear her nodding through the line.
She understands.
And she prays for me.
This has been an emotional and difficult year for me in many ways, and not the least among reasons why has been sending all three of my children off to school. My decade-long stint as “stay-at-home mom” has ended in so far as needing to wrangle Cheerios and change diapers.
It has left me wondering, What’s next, God? Where would you have me? and What’s best for our family?
And then this week I heard a sermon about Jesus at Cana.
I walked through the dusty roads, arrived at the wedding with white linen banners billowing.
I heard the urgent concern in Mary’s voice when she presented the problem to her son: there is no more wine!
I imagined the weight of those stone jars as they were filled with water.
And I received her instruction as though it was meant for me: “Do whatever he tells you.”
Do. (stop thinking about it, Jane. Do it.)
Whatever. (no footnotes, no loopholes.)
He. (Jesus is guiding.)
Tells. (Jane — you must be listening to hear him!)
YOU. (like our post last week about freedom, his voice in MY life will be different from his voice in YOURS. I need to be true to MY calling.)
And I hear myself again fretting and wondering and doubting.
But what John 2:5 teaches me this week is that my life and my steps forward can be eased by listening to the wisdom of Christ’s mother. Like my own mom who used to cradle me and smooth the hair back from tear-streaked eyes and sweaty brow, Mary whispers:
Quit worrying.
Do whatever he tells you.
Then, by linking up, we have the awesome opportunity to teach, inspire, and encourage others on their faith walk while we grow in our own.
Would you honor us with your presence around the table today? Here’s how you can participate:
You can also leave a comment with your reflections if you don’t have a blog to link up!
***
TODAY’S MONDAY MORNING MEDITATION
There I was, sitting in her kitchen noisily slurping every last drop of Coke that could possibly be clinging to the sides of my ice cubes.
And there she was, mixing her ground-from-fresh-non-GMO-wheat flour into the trusty Kitchen-Aid mixer.
The metal arm, quiet and obedient, churned and massaged the dough until it sprung to life in the bowl. With a quick glance at the splotched recipe printout, she dusted the countertop with a veil of cornmeal, and turning out the dough onto the prepared surface, worked the mass until it was smooth.
The smell of warm yeast and cinnamon was intoxicating, and I started thinking that I must be some sort of failure for not ever even contemplating making homemade English muffins.
I mean – I didn’t even know it was a “thing” — like, even possible.
There was no denying it: I was a lowly, Coke-slurping, store-bought-bread … girl.
Pathetic.
Thankfully, (insert trumpet blast!) the Bible tells a different story!
What I love about today’s verse is that we have freedom in Christ to walk a seldom-traveled path, turn left at the fork in the road, and follow the unique calling we believe God has laid on our hearts and lives.
Even, and especially, when it does not fit in with the norms and expectations of our neighbor.
Because the Spirit of the Lord has already been given to me, I know that he resides within me. I know that he is my counselor, comforter, friend. He prays on my behalf. He moves, directs, guides.
And the way he moves, directs, and guides me may be very different from the way he moves, directs, and guides you.
So freedom in Christ takes on new meaning. It is:
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is…” there is fresh-baked bread and store-bought bread. There are homeschoolers and public-schoolers. There are working moms and stay-at-home moms. There are Evangelicals and Catholics.
There is You.
There is Me.
The first contraction was a slow but screaming twist in my belly. Getting up from bed, I headed for the bathroom, heaving slightly, not quite sure what to expect.
He was my first baby.
Each wrenching wave that shocked my body declared the time was getting closer. This was not Red Lobster-gone-wrong, nor was due to the fact that I had sat cross-legged on the floor for entirely too long that night.
No, this was something different. Something life-changing.
My son, born on Mother’s Day, now knocks on the door of eleven years and leaves me staring at him, drifting through the years, wondering how in the world he can already be nearly as tall me.
He leaves me wondering how in the world he can be such a wonderful young man. Already.
Father and son enjoying the fire.
I was reminded recently that we’re all growing little leaders right now. Amidst the mac-n-cheese and the mess of every day, each rung on the ladder builds on the one before, and we are left with a stairway to endless possibilities, beginning with the dimpled hands at our lunch tables.
So how can we steward those hearts, especially the boy-hearts that have so tugged on our own?
How can we raise boys to be godly men?
How can we instill the qualities that, Lord willing, will bless a rosy-cheeked and starry-eyed young woman in the future?
Each Monday this community of faith seeks to encourage one another to get in the Word, to reflect on it, and to apply it to our lives. Then, by linking up, we have the awesome opportunity to teach, inspire, and encourage others on their faith walk while we grow in our own.
Would you honor us with your presence around the table today? Here’s how you can participate:
You can also leave a comment with your reflections if you don’t have a blog to link up!
Here we are, just two weeks out from Resurrection Sunday, and life is gaining speed. Chocolate bunnies still parade the sale rack, marching in quiet rows between piles of Easter basket grass, and already the calendar bulges with obligations.
This spring, like the five before it, I find myself promising to slow down.
To say “no” more often.
To commit to fewer, more meaningful activities.
But like the five before it, I am sucked into the same spiral, and it feels like I’m living for myself: living to check boxes on a list and to complete tasks rather than living for Him who died and was raised again.
In these seasons, my feet grow heavy and self-condemnation threatens to trip. After all, no one wants to be the Christian about which Ghandi was speaking when he said:
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
When I read the words of Paul to “live lives worthy of the calling”, to me that means that others should know that I am not my own.
Thankfully, I’m reminded that God is not a God wrapped up in our performance:
Getting our hearts healthy and holy before the Lord means that He should be our focus no matter what the calendar screams.
Here are a few ideas:
Please share your thought in the comments or link up!
I didn’t expect her to begin crying or for me to stand there like a rotting tree stump in her presence, unsure of what to say, feet stupidly rooted to the carpet beneath me.
My brain was screaming for wisdom, my eyes searching her face for clues as to what would provide comfort or calm.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I stammered, reaching out to touch her arm. But what my own ears heard sounded more like Charlie Brown’s teacher than anything resembling a consoling response.
(Wah – wah – wah …)
I don’t know where they were, but I can tell you that they were not coming out of my mouth.
I’ve always wished I could be “that friend” — you know the one — she always knows just what to say, making you feel nearly guilty for not paying her an hourly counseling rate.
But since I’m not, I rely heavily on other methods of encouraging my friends and family, especially those coping with cancer, waiting to bring home long-prayed-for adopted children, or those living in chronic pain.
for friends and family members who are walking a difficult road. Add a bookmark with a prayer for them.
I held her hand as our sunburned feet shuffled across the sandy floor of the ocean. Waves slapped our shins and then our knees as we waited for calm and scanned the frothy water.
It was after supper and we were still dressed in our going-out-to-eat clothes. An orange April sun slid down the sky like butter on a hot griddle, landing in a pool at the horizon. Evening was the perfect time to hunt for sand dollars.
But exploring the ocean bottom also comes with uncertainties, and she was mindful of them all. Grabbing for my hand, she insisted I remain close by.
“Mama, do you think there are any stingrays here?” she asked. “Do you think that sharks come into this shallow of water?”
I reassured her and asked the question I’ve come to ask often in my mothering:
Her eyes swallowed up my courage and we shuffled ahead. That night my little farmer harvested a handful of sand dollars.
She also remembered how to trust.
As I was reading Galatians and preparing for this post, Hebrews begin whispering in my year:
And today I add my own name to that list.
It’s exciting, and slightly terrifying, to consider what my verse might read, because I understand what it means:
It means that I walk blindly sometimes. Most of the time.
It means I have to trust every day. Have faith every hour.
It means that I choose to die to myself so that Christ may more fully live within me.
It means that I put one step in front of the other with arms outstretched and flailing and groping. It means I walk in what seems to be darkness, because the life I live in the body I live by faith, and I want to emerge in the light.
What is stunning is that Paul is not adding a footnote or an asterisk to this statement. He is not leaving room in the margins for comments or opening things up for discussion.
And why?
{I love this part.}
Because Jesus Christ loved him and gave himself up for him.
It’s so radical and so entirely beautiful. It’s a picture of fidelity and of being wholly committed to something other than yourself.
And it’s what I want my life to be about: living by faith because of the great love of Jesus who offered everything — and who still offers everything — even if I respond with nothing.
Like cool water splashing at my face and hands, love like His takes my breath away.
So I keep shuffling, hand in hand, with Him.
***
If you are joining us today and would like to participate in our link-up, we’d be honored to have your voice in the conversation! Just make sure that your blog post or comment is relevant to today’s Scripture passage.
Simply:
THEN…
Follow the linky button below to “link up”! Once you’ve linked up you must visit the person ahead of you in the list! Let’s be encouragers!
Also, would you be so kind as to reference this blog as the “home base” for Monday Morning Meditations? I’d love to grow this community of writers!
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