Taught in the Quiet

It’s been quiet around here the last month. :)

I’m amazed at how much the Lord has taught me in these last few weeks. Seems like many of the things I *knew* in my head have been fleshed out, brought to life before me.

It has been so full.

Scaling back (significantly) on work beyond the home has left me with so much more. More time and energy, yes, but also more awareness. More availability. More creativity for what’s in front of me.

I tend to view all things in life from a dichotomist’s perspective - either/or, this or that, black or white. All or nothing. I do things to extremes, and over the years the Lord has so graciously been helping me gain balance. Pausing the Strength & Song magazine and routine emails has been another means of Him teaching me this. In time, those things may come back to my plate - but they will be much better balanced and the season will be more suitable.

Instead of using every naptime and much of my free time for work, I am more available for my family and community. And I’ll share a humbling fact - I think I’ve done more ministry in the last four weeks than I did in two years working. (It is hard to determine this, of course, because I don’t see the fruit of my labor when I’m producing emails and magazines. But this month has been so rich; you’ll see why.)

We’ve welcomed people over for dinner. I’ve sat on my couch with ladies from church as we cried out to the Lord on behalf of a friend. The kids have helped me make dinner for a sick friend, and came with me to deliver it. We’ve sat around the fire past bedtime with family, watching stars and kids who’d had too much sugar. We’ve had new friends over to play, a family who just moved back home after 10 years away. The kids and I have been in a morning Bible study, and my husband and I have joined an evening Bible study. We welcomed a desperate mom and her baby for a night while she made some life choices. We’ve had impromptu playdates with neighbors whose yard isn’t so flat.

It’s been full.

These things haven’t all happened at once, and I don’t share them to boast. I don’t have all the things we think are necessary to be hospitable - in fact, the only bed I had to offer our guest was the couch. Yet God has convicted me of the importance of living out my faith in my community. He’s convicted me of the need to actually know my community.

I don’t need to have the answers for everyone. I used to be fearful of my neighbors, fearful that I would say something that didn’t represent Christ well and fearful that I wouldn’t remember the right Bible verse for the moment. Growing up in a Christian home and Christian school and going to church regularly (all good!), I wasn’t sure how to interact with nonbelievers. What do you even talk about, if there’s no similarity of faith? What happens when they ask a question or make a statement contrary to His Word and you don’t have an answer or response?

What a weight I haven’t needed to carry. I have learned better the meaning of Luke 12:12:

Now when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities, do not worry about how or what you should answer, or what you should say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.

He knows what our neighbors need and when they need it. My job is to be obedient to Him. Of course, that can still spark some fear (standing for Truth with nonbelievers is still a challenge sometimes!). But being obedient to Him is to love them well.

Living alongside other humans is messy. (I know, DUH.) It means riding the rollercoasters of emotions with them. It means joy in the morning and weeping at lunch and desperation at snacktime and contentment at dinner. (And yes, it also means days are often measured in terms of meals. There’s lots of food.) I’ve been learning too that riding the rollercoasters means you need to get good at leaving things with the Lord. If you keep it all in your grip, you obsess over problems and how to fix them and make everyone happy and guess what? Only God can satisfy. We do have limits to how far we can extend. He doesn’t. Hallelujah!

I’ve been taught in the quiet. It has been hard, and it has been wonderful. We have a Savior who steps into our mess, who loves us so deeply, who knows the answers to all of our needs. He is the answer to our need. And He fills us with His joy everlasting, He is truly amazing!

I have missed the regular emails and putting together magazines, it is still bittersweet to think of the fact that I’m not doing them right now. Yet this season has been so good, and I know I’m where the Lord wants me to be. I am so looking forward to how He continues to teach me and work in our family. If you need a push to slow down, scale back, or get outside your comfort zone in community… here it is. *Nudge*

Still praying for you, friends. May the Lord lead you and fill you with His joy.

-Amy

Decision Making

Lord, You know the pull I’ve been feeling.

The pull to slow down, to stop even… to let some things go. I’ve tried in the past; I’ve let things go, rearranged my schedule, tried to rest more. But I still wonder, am I doing too much?

And if so, what things do I lessen? What things do I stop? How, Lord, do I go about any of that?

You remind me:

"But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing." 1 Thessalonians 4:10b-12

Lead a quiet life.

"the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things — that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed." Titus 2:3-5

Love and follow Josh. Love Levi and Caleb. Be discreet, chaste, a homemaker.

Lord, is that enough?

Is it enough to serve my husband and my children, to raise the kids, to keep our home and manage schedules?

It sounds so silly, but what if I have free time? Shouldn’t I fill it with things after Your heart? Ministry, things at church, even making some extra money so I can supplement our income and support my missionary friends?

It seems like too much. But I also don’t feel like enough. Lord, guide me and help me to keep my eyes fixed on You. You know how often I compare, and how unsettled I can become. Yet I only want what You want, Lord - so show me.

Lead a quiet life. Love your husband, love your children, keep your home.

Maybe that really is sufficient? Maybe that is what will bring You the most glory?

***

The above is a version of a prayer I prayed for months. An ongoing conversation with God, trying to sort out what He wanted for me and our family in this season. I share because, well, we all wrestle don’t we? We all wonder what God wants for us. Where He wants us. What we should be doing.

Sometimes answers come quickly, and sometimes they don’t. But one thing that will always guide us in the moment (current and future) is Scripture. It’s there immediately. And whatever Scripture says for Christians to do, that’s what we should do. When we’re faithful to His Word, other pieces fall into place.

Over time, I’ve come to realize many things. One of those things being that free time is good time. You might’ve laughed at that part of my prayer, or maybe you’re wondering the same thing. Our time should be used wisely, yes? Yes. And rest is a wise use of time. It equips us to continue going with all the other necessities - the effort into our marriages, the countless meals to prepare and serve and clean up, the disciplining of our kids and the adventures with them, the laundry and mopping and organizing. There’s nothing wrong with sitting down at naptime to read a book or paint a canvas or call a friend.

Love your husband, love your children, keep your home.

One other thing I’ve learned is that life is full of seasons. And this season with children at home is a season focused on nurturing our family. There is absolutely no guilt in that, it’s what God designed. There certainly are other things we can do at the same time, and each one of us is given our own limits and abilities. It will look different for each of us - but there are also seasons coming in which some tasks/hobbies/careers/etc. will fit better. We can do a whole lot of things - just not all at the same time. And that’s good!

May this encourage you, friend. This whole process has certainly led me closer to my Lord and Savior, and I pray the bit that I’ve shared in this post will lead you closer to Him as well.

-Amy

If These Stairs Could Talk

If these stairs could talk, they’d tell you of many things.

The friends and family who visited when we first moved in, sharing in thanks for more space.

The weight carried up and down, things moved from one place to another.

The tears cried on them, many from the kids and many from myself.

The coffee spilled on them, hurriedly wiped up so the white wouldn’t be stained.

The babies carried up to bed, or snuggled in close and brought downstairs to try again.

The moments I’ve sat in the middle, waiting for quiet to come over the bedrooms.

The moments I’ve sat on the bottom, weary, waiting, resting.

The guests running up to use the bathroom, or grab their sneaky babies.

The kids’ friends scampering up and down to play together.

The toys thrown down, the balls thrown up and down and up again.

The times I’ve sat and listened to videos or read texts from dear friends.

The one stair at just the right height to let me sit and watch cars come down our street.

They’re not an idol, these stairs: they’re a reminder.

A means of giving thanks.

Because when I look back at all the memories and daily happenings, I am reminded:

• God provides: for all our needs, all the time

• Our babies are safe and loved

• Our friends and family are welcome and comfortable here

• We live this life fully

We always have enough. We always can extend more, and when we serve out of humility and love for our Lord it never comes back empty. He fills us up. He shows Himself to us and He teaches us what we need to know, when we need to know it. He is so incredibly sufficient!

If these stairs could talk, I think they’d tell of what a great Savior we have. What a hope we have in Him, what care we have from Him.

What a sweet, sweet place to be.

Comparison Is Not the Thief of Joy

Comparison isn’t the thief of joy.

Helping my seven-year-old write a compare-and-contrast essay on puppies and kittens is like a jaunt into the human psyche. We educate our kids so that they’re really good at articulating what’s the same and what’s different. We make sure they can evaluate all the ways a puppy measures up to a kitten. But when they notice a child in a wheelchair or a figure skating man who’s acting like a girl, we clam up and wish they hadn’t noticed any of it. And once they start drawing comparisons with themselves, we do more than clam up; we call it sin.

If Teddy Roosevelt’s maxim is true, that “comparison is the thief of joy,” then it seems we’re all comparing and contrasting our happiness away.

Roosevelt is clearly onto something. Head over to Pinterest or Instagram or Facebook, and you’ll see a thousand posts memorializing his proverb. Listen to Christian talks, sermons, and podcasts, and you will start to think that this little saying is God’s — all that’s missing is chapter and verse. The solution seems plain then: stop doing that. Stop measuring yourself up against others. Stop noticing the discrepancies; it will only lead to misery.

The problem is that we can’t stop comparing. Comparison is a fundamental part of being human, because it’s how we acquaint ourselves with reality. The very first thing Adam did when he saw Eve was to write his own brief compare and contrast essay. “She’s like me! Only different!”

Not only is it impossible to opt out of comparing, but God actually wants us to do it.

Comparing Is Necessary

Comparing is how we discover what holiness is. It’s how we see what is set apart as distinct from us. It’s also how we know what we ought to be like. To abandon comparing is to abandon our understanding of God, and of ourselves. What we need to do is train ourselves how to compare properly, not cut ourselves off from the necessity of comparison.

If we took all the measuring — the comparing and contrasting — out of the Bible, we wouldn’t have much of a book left. God’s laws and instructions fundamentally help us to see what we are and are not, what we should and shouldn’t be. They also help us see how we measure up to others, so that we can either imitate them or do the opposite of them. This is not sin — it is essential to growth, and health, as Christians.

My concern is that, far from letting comparison fuel our growth in godliness, we actually have trained Christians that it’s good to ignore the ways someone else might be doing something well, so that they can spare themselves the discomfort of how they might not measure up. With this logic, bad feelings about my situation or sin problem are the real issue — that’s what must be avoided. When we admonish ourselves or others to stop comparing, we may actually be insulating ourselves from reality.

Of course, we have to evaluate if the comparisons we’re making are real or not. We shouldn’t compare our real life (the house with actual people in it and sticky faces and hair-raising smells) with the fake life of someone we’ve never met on Instagram (the tasteless, odorless, iocane-powder version). That’s a false comparison. Remember, our goal is figuring out what’s real and true, not inoculating ourselves to it through make-believe images.

Make Comparisons Fuel Joy

What if, rather than pretending not to notice that our friend is excelling in homemaking and parenting (while we’re scraping by), we honored her by giving thanks to God for her obedience, her diligence, and her example of Christ that we can follow? What if we started observing her more closely, making more comparisons rather than less, so that we could tease out the principles of godliness present in her life and do likewise?

What if, rather than smugly disdaining the mom who can’t get her act together, we offered her a better way? What if we actually said with Paul, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” not because we think we’re better than she is, but because God has really done something profound in us and we’re confident he can do it in her, too (1 Corinthians 11:1)?

Leading our comparisons in the right direction — away from envy, pride, covetousness, and self-pity, and toward Christlike imitation and the fear of God — will turn us into better parents, mentors, and friends.

Parenting Children Through Comparison

Faithful parenting means discipling our children into reality. Many parents balk when their kids make observations about themselves and their siblings like, “I’m not good at school. Eliza’s good at school.” We rush in to say, “Oh no, honey! You are good at school!” But, are they? Does it even matter to us as parents if what they’ve said is accurate or not? It should.

If our child is doing poorly in school and their sibling is doing great, we shouldn’t pretend like that’s not the case. If we do that, we will be training them to ignore what’s real. We will be training them that true speech is too scary or too difficult for us to handle and, therefore, too difficult for them to handle. We will give them the impression that what’s different about them is so scary and hard to deal with that it’s unspeakable. We shove reality out of the picture so that we can coddle them — while really we’re coddling ourselves. We ignore deficiencies as if they were too much to bear.

But what if we acknowledged that what they’re saying is true, at least in part? Their sister is doing well in school and they are struggling. Then, we can shepherd them to give thanks to God for how he’s made their sister, and ask God for the discipline and grace to help them do better. And while they struggle, we can teach them to ask God for the contentment in the areas that are hard for them, and give thanks for the particular strengths he’s given them that are different than how he’s gifted their sibling.

We won’t be able to do any of that if we haven’t asked God for the thick gospel-skin that helps us live in a world of differences and similarities, without making it all about a narcissistic insecurity that someone, somewhere has more than me, or is working harder than me, or is doing better than me. That is a sickly way for Christians to live! In Christ, we have it all — we dare not dishonor him by our self-pity (Romans 8:32).

Differences Are God’s Design

The Bible assumes some will have more faith, and some less. Some will have this gift and another that gift. Some will be rich and some will be poor. Some beautiful, some homely. Some with lovely homes, some with drab. There will be children with disabilities and children without. There are Gentiles and Jews, tribes and tongues, men and women.

The Bible even assumes that some will be more Christlike and mature than others. Noticing these things isn’t a sin, but a gift, and it need not lead to the evaporation of our joy, but can be the water for its growth.

Holy imitation isn’t about cramming ourselves into another’s mold. It’s about recognizing the Christlike principles another has applied to their life and figuring out how to apply them to ours. It’s not about making all of our voices sound the same, but getting us all to learn the same song of the Lamb who was slain. It’s not about making us all identical, but about training all of us, amid our diversity, to walk together in the light of Christ.

Originally written by Abigail Dodds for Desiring God. Used with permission.