Potty training, book review and the Gospel.

Oh what a week! I've literally fallen asleep earlier, faster, and more deeply then I ever have. This week has just been stinking exhausting. I've been potty training Lily this week. So that translates into:

-So much urine. So. Much. Urine. (yea I said urine on purpose, because "pee pee" makes it sound like it's less gross. It's not less gross when it comes from your own child, it's just less avoidable when it comes from your own child.)
-Juggling bored-out-of-their-minds little boys who are looking for some negative attention if it's all they can get.
-Cleaning, cleaning cleaning.
-Emotional energy to cheer Lily on, to congratulate her, and finding the balance between correction and emotional support when she has accidents. (Lord, help her. She is just like me, she HATES it when she doesn't do anything everything perfectly on her own.)
-So much cleaning, and yet never enough.
-Patience.
-Poop.
-No going out. AKA no having fun.
-Coming to the end of myself....riding the cycle of "I"m not a good mom" all the way back around to "Thank you Jesus for your grace."

I've been reading the book Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home by Gloria Furman. It has been the perfect week for her gospel reminders. I wish I could share all my highlighted quotes and passages from this book but a couple stand out and they have pushed me away from my week and into the arms of Jesus...so I think that's worth sharing.

"But something inside me said that controlling my circumstances wouldn't fill the void in my soul. You can't organize your way into communion with God." Furman, loc 928

This ^ was crazy convicting to me. Organization and tidiness in my mind are the keys to a meadow of happiness and rainbows. I LOVE a well cleaned kitchen like a pig loves slop. But I can't control my way into the presence of God and I can't scrub my way into His Peace. I can't earn His love with a million gold stars on a million charts. 

"We have opportunities every day to delight in God. We're surrounded by the circumstances he has ordained for our sanctification. God's grace to us in Christ gives us assurance to follow him where he leads, even when it's into awkwardness, hard work, and pain." Furman, loc 876

-Hard things are often the best things (or in the case of potty training...the necessary things). Always so good to be reminded to delight in God and to keep a grateful heart that He would desire to sanctify me.

So if this was a book review...which I guess it's kind of a potty training review and a book review oddly rolled into one...I give it the highest thumbs up. Well better put, this book is encouraging me in the midst of potty training, and that's saying something.

Winter in Contrast

Today is the beginning of Baptism Weekend at our church, and then we will celebrate with our friends. I adore baptism weekends. I’ve always loved witnessing baptisms and hearing testimonies of believers, but in the last few years I’ve come to cherish them. When we had our miscarriage, I found myself desperate to hear testimonies of God’s work. I knew in my mind He was still good and still at work in my life, but it didn’t feel that way. The first thing I said to my husband in the car after our doctor explained that our pregnancy was over was the phrase “I just really didn’t want this to happen.” It’s so plain, but it was all I could muster in that moment and it was so true at the deepest core of my heart, no matter how simple it was. That day I began to crave the testimonies of others. I just needed to know that the God I was relying on was living and active, not an idea or a figure of history, but ever present in my time of need. Through scripture and the Holy Spirit and the love of others and the testimonies of people around me, God proved himself over and over. The glory of God shone in my heart with such persistence, and yet on the outside I was mourning and experiencing death in an unfamiliar way (literally as well, we found out I miscarried on February 17^th  during our first winter here, and in Iowa that is guaranteed to be a cold day). Strangely enough I don’t remember one day of winter in February or March, because what was happening in my heart was so vibrant. Sometimes it was vibrantly dark and sad, sometimes it was white hot, sometimes it was a soothing warm, but God was molding me and moving mountains in my life.

I love celebrating new life while it’s so dead outside. What a picture of grace, what a picture of the passionate love that saved us from our sin. I’ve always loved things in contrast. I love warm soup with something crunchy, I love my hot apple pie with a scoop of ice cream; I love wearing my hair wild and shaggy when I wear a button-up shirt with a preppy cardigan. I just love life in contrasts. But seeing baptisms, especially of five people I care about, during the coldest winter of my life. Favorite contrast by far.

The Greatest Arrival

We’ve been reading through the Jesus Storybook Bible with our kids (which I would suggest even for people with no children!). We are still in the Old Testament and each story has some mention of our need for a savior, our inability to rescue ourselves, or the prince to come. I love it. It gives me such a deep appreciation for the intense waiting period that creation endured. Reading bible stories in that context gives me a feeling of connection to that waiting period. Of course, I’m not super super old (note that I’m not even about to put a number on that…this isn’t that kind of blog people, take your debates elsewhere) and I wasn’t there literally waiting for Jesus. But I am a part of the carefully crafted creation that has a deeply sincere need and longing for redemption. My debt of sin piling up and swallowing me whole, just like everyone before and after me. Even before I was aware of it, I carried my yearning for reconciliation and peace with God like an anchor tied to my soul. And because of mercy and grace, my souls breathes and my heart beats new life.

 The birth of Jesus is about the arrival of the Good King. The true, noble, faithful, ruler who walked among us has come! It’s when all of creation sighed in relief and then filled its lungs to sing the highest praises. For generations, the faithful waited. The birth of Jesus is where anticipation meets fulfillment.

So let’s rejoice.

He came, He came! He came just like He promised. Our waiting is over. All this struggle and all this yearning, now breathes relief. We have a Savior! We know His name. And we are His people! He adopts us into his family as children. We are welcomed into the blessed family of Christ to join His kingdom forever. We have a beautiful inheritance. And this day that we celebrate each year; it marks the beginning; the beginning of hope, the beginning of GRACE.

Stories: My story

This new series was born out of inspiration. Our small group has been starting off the year by sharing testimonies from each couple one week at a time. Since we are a new group, this has been such a great time of getting to know each other beyond the surface. And by great time, I mean it has been awesome. We have also found ourselves making some new friends as well as getting to know old ones a little better. There have been so many stories exchanged over the pasted few months. It’s made me get the itch for a few good stories. I’m starting with the most important one, and from there…they are in no particular order. If there is one story from my life you need to know, it is this one.

My family always went to church and I knew that my parents loved the Lord. Every morning before school I woke up to my mom putting on her make up in the living room while she watched the news with her bible study book open to the day’s study she just finished with her bible and journal stacked over it. On car rides home from youth group I would talk about certain worship songs from the night and if the lyrics for some reason didn’t sit right with me. My dad used that as an opportunity to try to explain basic theology to me. I vividly remember my dad driving on this huge dark curve in the road near Berry Middle School while he explained TULIP to me, and where our family stood with Calvinism. So now that I have gotten a little ahead of myself on the timeline, you can see that faith was a staple of my life as a child and teen.

When I was seven, I decided I was ready to follow Jesus. It’s funny because I don’t remember where I heard the gospel for the first time, but I knew that you had to pray and talk to God about it. Another thing I don’t remember any detail about is that for some reason my mom had been babysitting a couple of kids for a short amount of time in our tiny duplex. I remember being the oldest and announcing that I was going to become a Christian and asking who wanted to pray with me. Later that day I told my parents, and they decided that I should sit down with them and our pastor and talk about what that meant. Now that I think about it, it’s really sweet and touching that our pastor would do that. Our church wasn’t enormous (at the time), but it was still pretty big. I can picture the conversation with Pastor Steve happening in two different places. I vividly remember sitting in a conference room around a huge, long, shiny, cherry wood conference table. But I also remember eating Fritos in a plastic bowl on our tiny concrete porch, waiting for Pastor Steve to arrive at our home. So like I said, I don’t remember the details well at all. I do remember this little booklet that illustrated a little stick person (me) and the word “God” on two cliffs facing each other. The only way to get across the divide was by Jesus who would bridge the gap. I carried that little booklet with me everywhere. After I prayed with my dad, and knew for sure what I was actually praying about…I looked at that booklet with such happiness because I knew I was on the other side.

It wasn’t until much later in life that I was able to discern between wanting to look good for people and wanting to BE good like Jesus and for Jesus. At my last summer camp after my senior year of high school, there was a worship night out in the mountains in Colorado in May surrounding a big wooden cross. I don’t remember any of the sermon that was preached that night or any of the songs we sang. What I do remember is kneeling face down in the dirt, praying and feeling absolutely overwhelmed that Jesus, being who he was, endured death for me, just as I was. I think it was the first time as a young adult that I really let myself think deeply about the pain and sacrifice of the gospel. I will never forget the beauty of that moment. As I lifted my head from prayer, I looked up to see snow flurries falling down. I know that in Colorado, especially in the mountains, it probably isn’t that crazy for a few snow flurries to fall in May. But to me, it was like hearing God say “I’m so glad your mine.”

When I went to college, I was working out the difference of “God the Savior” to “God the Lord of all my heart and life”—I just didn’t know it yet. I had grown up my whole life with a special needs sister, and had no idea how deeply ingrained her life was into mine. I didn’t realize how different our family was, I didn’t realize how much harder it was for us to get out and do things; I didn’t realize how far reaching the differences in our daily life really were. When most kids go to college they get kind of intoxicated with the bliss of their freedom. When I went to college I got that…and then I got mad. When I realized how much freedom and spontaneity were missing from my life and my family’s life, I was mad. When I realized that my sister would never experience the ecstasy of independence that I had, I got mad.  When I realized that most people are naïve, and lots of people are plain ignorant about anything outside of perfect health, I got mad. I had many crying, screaming, ranting conversations with God. But you know what? It was the first time I had passion in my relationship with God. I kept pushing to find the Truth and find Jesus and find goodness in the midst of my confusion. There were moments I wondered if Christianity was just a cult that threw clichés solutions at trite little problems. I wanted to find the people who fought for the hard answers, I wanted to find the churches that went further than emotion, I wanted Jesus to be real and I wanted him to give me some answers. One day in the car, waiting to pick up a friend from the dorms…I got my answer. It came clear as a bell. And you know what? It brought peace beyond my understanding…because honestly when you see what it was…you will wonder why it didn’t just make me more mad.  For the (probably) one thousandth time, I shook my proverbial fist at God and asked “Why her?!” And then it came. “Because I’m bigger than her. You need to see that I’m bigger than all of it.” And that was it. As painful as it was to hear, the truth is that God is no less God because my sister has special needs and He is no less God because I don’t get how it all adds up in the end. That was when I started believing that God hadn’t forgotten or overlooked us. That was when I cracked the door open just a little bit, to believing that God could still be a big sovereign God and be good and be loving, and not heal my sister.

I want to be very clear that my process was not an over night thing. But this was the catalyst of change for me. This was when I took ownership for my own relationship with the Lord, regardless of how it looked to the outside world. This was when the grace of God stopped being about checking boxes and starting being about authenticity. Over the next few years, there were a few more catalysts of change for me. Transferring to a large liberal state school changed my approach to spiritual discipline. Moving across the country to do ministry with my husband changed the way I viewed obedience. And the list goes on.  I struggled very much when I started writing this out, because I wanted to plump up some parts and make sure that people saw that just because my story wasn’t dramatic, didn’t mean it wasn’t interesting. But the truth is that my story is somewhat simple, and yet still miraculous. This is the story of my soul’s life. 

I Don't Know How You Do It: Easter's Victory

Recently (and by recently I mean because winter is finally fading and I'm finally coming out of hibernation with all three kids in tow) I've been asked one resounding question...like a lot. "How do you do it?" Well, let me tell you.

I do it because God called me to it. And because he called me to it, He will equip me for it. And I know that I have the strength to endure it because He does. And I can do it, because Jesus is victorious over all!

And that's how this just became my Easter post.

I know it might seem like I'm over spiritualizing, but honestly--if I don't get this Truth every single day, then I'm not "doing it" or at least I'm not doing it well. If the victory of Jesus becomes something I take for granted then, not only, am I not doing it...I'm missing it. The moment I realized and took on my motherhood as my greatest calling and most important ministry "obligation," I started becoming aware of the crazy endless supply that was available to me every day and every moment. It's just as urgent and real as a young woman moving over seas to pursue her ministry as a missionary, or a pastor studying and teaching and leading, or a worship leader writing new songs and leading a congregation---that is the realness and the seriousness with which I should approach my calling. If I said to you, "My ministry is with these three unbelievers that live with me. They need help with basic life skills and are in desperate need for love and nurturing. They only know what I have told them and shown them of Jesus and the gospel."....I mean that kind of puts it in perspective right? The calling on mothers is real.

But this is where the very best part comes in. If Jesus was victorious over sin and death, then can't I trust Him to be victorious over naptime and tantrums and The Cat in the Hat (for the one millionth time) and loading up three under three in the car by myself? Can't I trust him to give me everything I need for that day? Can't I trust that even though I work so hard that I can absolutely bathe in joy simultaneously? Can't I trust that even when I miserably fail at motherhood, He isn't done with me?  If I really truly believe that Jesus defeated the grave on my behalf so that I would have abundant life, then shouldn't life reflect that abundance?

That's how I do it. I don't do it.

Precious Is The Flow: Good Friday

Has there ever been anything in your life that is so wonderful and so cherished that you are just dying to tell everyone, but at the same time it's so personal and so deep that you know that you could never do it justice? That's where I'm at with this Good Friday post. This year it is just hitting me in a real sacred, inner deep deep heart kind of way--clearly I can't really describe it. All I can manage is this:

Precious Precious Precious

Sacred and Holy is the blood that was spilled...for me.

In the last moments, He forgave me.

Who am I that I should be so deeply loved?

How great our God to be capable of such complete and full forgiveness even while enduring torture and mockery at my hand.

What ≠ Who

I think that there are things that God puts in place to spur on and encourage and push our gifts and talents forward; cultivating whats already there. A major "pusher" (haha "I'm a pusher Cady," name that movie) for my writing is spending time musically worshipping, especially under my husband's leadership. He is such a vital part of the writing process for me, but I'm going down bunny trails now. 

Last night at church we sang the new Chris Tomlin song, "Jesus, Son of God" and one particular line of it really got me thinking. 

"Be lifted higher than all you've overcome

Your name be louder than any other song....

The cross was enough"

I started to realize how often I associate who Jesus is with what he has done. Maybe I'm alone in this, but sometimes in my mind it goes like this:  

My collection of redemption = Jesus

Maybe that’s confusing. Think of my collection as all the evidence of the grace that has been poured out on me. Everything that has been saved and transformed and redeemed would be in there. I'm so thankful for my salvation, my sanctification, all the sins and trials that Jesus put to death. I love love LOVE hearing the testimony of other believers; I love hearing what Jesus is doing to change lives. But here’s the thing—all those things, still don’t add up to who Jesus is. Jesus isn’t the sum of our testimonies.

Jesus is Jesus. Jesus is one third of the Triune God. Jesus is the perfect one who lowered himself to dwell among us. Because of him we have freedom. Because of him we have life. Because of him we have ABUNDANCE. We benefit from his life, his death, and his resurrection.

Let’s share the stories of salvation and redemption with everyone! But let’s never neglect to say His name. The name of the one who saves. The name of the one who is Holy and Righteous, regardless of what he has done in our lives. The God who stands alone.  Let’s never trade who He is for what He has done. Let’s never shy away from saying His name: Jesus. 

The Gift of Christmas Lies

For so many of us Christmas is such a special, sacred, holiday. Sometimes it is easy to become disgusted with the focus on material gifts and parties and the whole "keeping up with the Jones" that Christmas has become. Sometimes we let our love for Christmas morph into a hatred for the way that the world responds to it. And hear me out, I would love a life where there wasn't complete insanity in every store and at all the busy intersections. But if you think about it Christians keep expecting everyone out in the world to treat Christmas with the importance that we do, and that isn't really fair. People who are not believers and followers of Jesus Christ  know that we are all supposed to value Christmas and cherish its "true meaning," but how many people even know why? This year I am embracing the surface level, materialistic lies about Christmas because, like all lies, these Christmas lies will be exposed. The sentiments of Christmas and fairy-tale like story of Christ's birth have become surface level for most Americans. But that only means that the true story of Christmas is that much more accessible. The marvelous story of a world hungry for deliverance and a savior who came to save them is real. Christ is real. Christ is the only Son of God. Christ is the only way to salvation. Take advantage of "fairy tale", and share the real story behind it.  Merry
Christmas.


"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28 ESV)

The blood

Right now our church is doing a mini series on The Lord's Supper. It has been awesome so far and there is still more to come. Last week when we took The Lord's Supper as a congregation, it was the sweetest one I think I have ever been a part of. Usually in a big room full of people, it is never really quiet. There is always a baby babbling or a woman unzipping her purse or pages turning or people whispering. ALWAYS. But I promise you, if the room hadn't been carpeted, you could have heard a pen drop. Everything was quiet, everyone was still, and we all knew that He is God. It was the kind of quite that I have only heard in empty places. That sounds contrary to what is was, if it was empty--I think it's because hearts were being emptied of sin and making room for the Holy Spirit. It was beautiful.

The worship team came up for a last song, Nothing But The Blood. And the hope that comes along with the atoning blood which washed me white as snow was overwhelming for me. I thought "I cannot imagine existing, much less living in this world if the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus had never happened." Then for the first time an important light bulb lit. "For those who haven't been told, it is as if none of it ever happened. They live in the darkness of a world with no hope. That is why it is good news. It did happen."

Once I lived in darkness, but someone gave me good news. I think for the first time, I really get that. I really get how important that is.

Easter is my favorite; Easter is hope

Easter is my favorite. It beats Christmas, Halloween, and definitely Valentines day. The last two...I mean duh, come on those are not really in the running to be anyone's favorite, but Christmas? Yea it beats Christmas, barely, but in my book it still beats it.

Easter is the celebration of the sacrifice and triumph that forever changed my life and I hope it changed yours too. Easter is what hope really means isn't it? No, not literally. Explaining that will take a moment, I need to step back and tell you a story. So several years ago during my college days, one of my many many "phases" was the stereotypical-enlightened-college-student-save-the-world phase. I had found a humanitarian cause that I was passionate about and decided to throw myself into it. I applied for an internship (which thankfully I did not get) and was prepared to up root and move to a third world country. My dad was patient in listening to my rants (I'm sure he knew that this too would fade just as other temporary passions had before), but then gently pointed out one very major flaw. If my plan for "saving the world" did not include and completely center itself on the gospel, then I really wasn't saving them. He pointed out that while drinking wells, and new shoes, and safe homes were all wonderful things and very worthwhile causes, if those causes had no intention of saving their soul then it was essentially improving their temporary quality of life until they spent eternity in torment. I never thought of it that way, I had never looked at life with the gospel in the center. I mean sure God and being good and reading my bible and going to church...all that was at the center, but this was the first time that it really dawned on me that without the gospel activating all of that...it meant nothing. None of the people who "needed my help" would really ever have true hope until they had Jesus.

Ok, so now we are back. Now you understand why Easter is hope (my abridged version). I love that every year we take a day and we praise the one who made us new. I love that for that day, we stop and we remember what it took to overcome sin and death, it took Jesus. Perfect, perfect, clean, holy Jesus. I love that we celebrate the event that gives us our only true "second chance" just as the flowers are budding and blooming. I love that we celebrate that Jesus came out of the tomb during the time of year when we emerge out of our winter hibernation. I even love that Easter egg hunts happen, even though they don't really hold any connection to Christ's death and resurrection, because when people are out enjoying nature they are witnessing the power of God. "For what can be known about God is plain to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse" Romans 1:19-20. And I love that even when the egg-hunts get rained out (which could very well happen this year) that we can marvel at his love "he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth" Hosea 6:3. And I really really love that Easter is one day on a calendar, but the gospel "is the power of God for salvation to every who believes"(Romans 1:16-17) every day. Every single day, hallelujah!