Some will trust in six months savings, some will trust in no remaining balance credit cards…

Some will trust in having checking accounts with lots of extra cash available, some will trust in regular pay checks…

Some will trust in tenure and fat retirement funds, some will trust in our invincible economy (ha!)…

Some will trust in houses full of stuff and cars paid off, some will trust in doo dads and gadgets…

Some will trust in having more than enough for groceries, gas, shoes for their kids, some will trust in a steady job…

But I will trust in the name of our God.
But I will trust in God’s anchor on my soul.
But I will trust in God’s economy of provision, his delight in giving extravagantly and generously towards me.

I will find my security in the experiential knowledge that I am loved, deeply adored.
I will find my sense of everything being okay in my expanding view of God’s character from the window of my heart.
I will find my peace in the bountiful supply of the Holy Spirit who is alive and well within me and around me.

I declare today that money and financial security do not dictate my mood or my sense of peace in this world.
I stake this ground that I will choose to not be afraid any longer when I open up my online bank account.
I wave my banner with joy that I am only asked to take one day at a time, trusting God for all I need that day and watching with awe his gracious provision of my daily, little piddly needs.

He made me.
He knows me.
He loves me.

For he is in control and therefore I will trust in his great name.

To make God radiant.

To teach people how to hear God’s voice for themselves.

To train people in the things of the Spirit.

To increase the level of encouragement in the church.

As I was sharing I all of a sudden see Ivan extending his strong arm across the table with a smile of delight on his face and he starts to bless me, right then and there. At first I thought he was just doing one of those one sentence, quick and easy sort of blessings. Nope. He gave me an Ivan blessing. I closed my eyes and took it in and received it.

I am a launching pad for people. I have felt this for some time. I have always seen myself as a somewhat pushy, but loving Mama bird who is regularly nudging the little baby birds out of the nest. Letting them fall, giving them room, swooping them up when they can’t catch the wind under their wings, soaring with them over the fields. And eventually letting them grow up into big, healthy birds. Silly sort of image but it works. It was refreshing to have God remind me that he still has a plan to do that with my life. And maybe he is even doing it now and I am unaware.

As with every blessing you have placed on your head, one must say, “I receive it. Thank you.”

It occurs to me that I am actually making some Waukegan friends sort of moment:
The Waukegan knitting group I have been going to more regularly since Scarlet was born is meeting in this charming fiber store in Grayslake called Prairie Arts and Fibers for the summer (shameless plug). As we all sat around the big oak table tonight, knitting and enjoying one another’s company, one of the women began to share. She began to cry and cry and cry and couldn’t stop crying as she vulnerably shared of her own sort of loss and grief just oozed. It occurred to me that in order for this woman to lose it, so to speak, there had to be some depth of relationship and trust. And I felt honored and thankful. I have nestled my way into this little covert knitting group and I feel it to be a treasure and a blessing. I have longed for friends that live locally. Women I can call up and hang out with, invite over for a last minute dinner, walk to their homes, play with their children, do life together, you know? And I think it might be happening. I have little pop up seedlings of relationship such as these that I am just amazed by as I watch them pop through the soil of my life, my neighborhood, my community of humble Waukegan. And I am so thankful.

And lastly, a delight in Audrey moment:
I walked in the back door into the kitchen this evening and there was a makeshift vase made of one of my small candle holders and a mini boquet of Audrey’s new found treasure: clover. I smile and say to Jesus, “Thank you for this little one.”

[Warning: this song is uber powerful and it might be best if you are sitting down and in a posture to just be blown around like a young tree on windy, summer day.]

Jesus was often accused of bringing such controversial new teachings, ones that rocked peoples worlds and blew their minds. New teachings that went against all that they knew to be normal and right. He was really good at busting through the walls of the boxes a person’s mind could construct and demanding that a new paradigm be set up that didn’t have walls and often was completely upside down. How amazing, but at the same time, how disturbing.

I can look back down this road and see large craters in the earth where Jesus blew apart my theology and established a new direction in the road for me to travel with him. These craters have left such a lasting impact on me that I can never be the same. As a woman preached recently, “I have been ruined!”

New teachings…

The new teaching found in the three semester, week in and week out, Bible study where I encountered Jesus face to face in the Gospel of Mark. I felt like I got to tag along after Jesus in his fast paced, zip-zip, ministry trip, watching him, leaning up against him, seeing him tame the storm and feed the thousands. It was a close up encounter with Jesus that I had never, ever before experienced and he became quite real to me. Spending a summer in St. Louis among the urban poor in a radical (literally) church who taught the theology of sonship, an immersion in grace, grace and more grace. I attended a massive mission conference called Urbana and my small little box (aforementioned) was obliterated in one squishy movement as I began to see in tympanic and magnificent tones God’s heart and passion for the world, the nations and the poor. I took a risk and went by myself to a week long conference called Pastoral Care Ministry led by a powerful woman named Leanne Payne and came home with a whole new vocabulary and framework to live from. Christian Hedonism originally coined by John Piper and the theology course Lindsay graciously offered some of us students and InterVarsity staff as we read through Unity of the Bible by Daniel Fuller and discussed its deep Biblical truths. And finally, my time being in the Vineyard and learning how to pray and minister to others, how to interact with the Holy Spirit in a way that is naturally supernatural and just more of that grace soaking thing that happened in St. Louis. And I might add one last one that is not necessarily in the spiritual category of experiences but still a profound teaching that at the time felt like it saved my life: a book written for women who are preparing for birth, Birthing From Within. My birthing worldview shifted dramatically here, reorienting me to a place where I could process the birth of my first daughter and receive deep, deep healing and thus be empowered to give birth to my second daughter.

Forever I am changed. Forever I am grateful.

Each of these is a new teaching that at first appeared like a roadside bomb exploding before me and knocking me back but as time has gone on, they have proved to be priceless in all that they have taught me. They collect before me like special rocks you might collect off the lake shore on a winter day not knowing what beauty and power they contain but you hold on to them anyway. And as time goes on, more and more meaning is attached to that seemingly simple looking rock and you can’t seem to part with it.

Friends, I have encountered another new teaching this winter. My husband introduced me to a new-to-me preacher out of the UK named Graham Cooke. I have listened to a good many of his teaching CD’s and have found them to be like really amazing food that fills the stomach of a hungry heart. I feel so starved for deep and meaningful teaching that challenges me regularly and doesn’t allow me to keep living the status quo or worse, regressing. I feel malnourished in my intake of the Scriptures, lacking in the regular ways it debrides my soulish heart and thinking. Graham Cooke has been spoon feeding me a new teaching and I am eating it up.

If I had to break it down to what is at the core of his teaching it would be this: I am the apple of God’s eye. Oh, how He loves me. His affections run deep for me. I seem to forget this basic spiritual concept that is a necessity in a relationship with God especially during hard times that go on and on and on. And that is the second core truth to this new teaching: there is meaning and purpose behind and in and around all of my suffering, struggle, pain and loss. God is in it and he is producing something great and marvelous in me through it. And this “production” is entirely rooted in God’s deep, deep love for me. Graham calls it the process of maturity and it is a teaching not for the faint of heart but rather for one willing to take great risk in continuing to trust that not so safe but really good God of mine.

I feel sermons growing in me as I absorb and process this new teaching. Sermons for a later date when I have come up and out of this season of hiddenness, as Graham calls it, and rise up more whole and made true and pure, like silver. Until then, I will continue to eat of this new teaching, warmly welcoming it’s explosive nature on my insides, knowing that I am being transformed into someone strong, beautiful and quite glorious.

I always take this as a clue. A hint of what God’s Spirit is calling up and out of me.

This morning this song was already being sung in my mind and heart.

Praise is rising, eyes are turning to You, we turn to You
Hope is stirring, hearts are yearning for You, we long for You
‘Cause when we see You, we find strength to face the day
In Your Pres- ence all our fears are washed away, washed away

Hosanna, hosanna
You are the God Who saves us, worthy of all our praises
Hosanna, hosanna
Come have Your way among us
We welcome You here, Lord Jesus

We have been praying for over two years now for God to provide a way out for Ivan from this company. I have been pleading with God for this freedom, but I guess I was hoping the door would materialize with a clear and defined path leading from it. Instead, all I see as we open the door is rippling blankets of complete blackness.

The last three years have been a succession of one flimsy card tilting a little too far to the left or right, putting pressure on the rest of our house of cards, threatening to bring it all down. Beginning with a traumatic birth experience and proceeding all the way till now, divorce and implosion of my husband’s family, a bad car accident, depression, and isolation falling in the middle. “When will it all end?” I keep asking myself. I keep bracing myself for the next card to go down. What will be next?

As the mystics describe, I am in my descent, a spiritual place of hiddenness, dryness, and dark times. I do not like it. I keep bucking against it, the survivor in me will not resist the temptation to put my hands up and fight and scream and throw tantrums. However, I feel the tantrum drawing to an end, the way you see it happen with a child, where their muscles are getting more and more fatigued. Their breathing has changed to short little sobs that resemble hiccups. Their eyes are dazed and their will has all but been crushed.

I find myself trying to make the choice to just give up and surrender to it all. Surrender in a way that chooses to believe God is good rather than he doesn’t really care about me after all. Put my fists down and trust that he is not trying to harm me. A place of quiet trust that doesn’t fight to figure it out on my own and make it happen out of my own strength and creativity.

So in an effort to surrender in this way, I have been looking for God’s creative hand and the transforming work of his Holy Spirit in me and my family’s life. What are you doing, God? Please cast some light out the door you have opened, even if it is just one arm length in front of us. I have to believe that he is wanting to do something new and beautiful within me.

As I have been listening, I think I caught a hint of what he might be up to. Just a hint on maybe one of the many things he is percolating within me and my family. Don’t laugh when I tell you the series of events that brought this revelation to pass, this shimmering light of glitter in the darkened door frame.

It all started with a rerun of an Oprah show. The one on “paying it forward”. And then a few weeks later I got the old movie “Pay it Forward” in the mail from Netflix. I really enjoyed the story despite the horribly sad ending. No, I am not inspired to do a replica of this concept; I am getting to the point quickly. About this same time, I was on gmail chat with a chum whom I sent a fun Christmas care package to and she was remarking how generous Ivan and I was. I don’t normally consider myself generous. I definately have seen remarkable generosity in Ivan, but it rarely raises its head in my own heart. I had given another very small gift of some household items, dish washing detergent and garbage bags, to a friend of mine who was in need of some practical things in her home and she seemed short on change.

As I look out this door into the darkness, any subtle ways of generosity seem like a very ridiculous possibility considering we are going to be down over half a salary with Ivan not working. I find my heart tending towards stinginess and control. So when this odd thought passed through my head I took it as a hint: “Give that same friend a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread.” In my stingy state, it seemed like too much to ask of me and that is when I really knew it was a hint from God.

God is wanting to produce a harvest of generosity within me, my marriage, my family in these times of seemingly not having enough. As I caught this hint and it sunk into my heart, my memory swirled back in time to all the ways I have experienced the generosity of God through the hearts and hands of people I have been in community with over the years.

The time someone slipped a $100 bill under my pillow with a note from Jesus. Or the semester 6 students from my InterVarsity fellowship worked 4 extra hours each per week and put the money into a fund for me so that I wouldn’t have to work a part time job and be able to keep up in my studies as a nurse and all my IV responsibilities. I have never gone hungry, slept on the streets and really have had more than enough all my life. Despite all this, in the face of a darkened doorway, I still approach life as a glass half empty and fear seeps in and despair swirls around.

God is wanting to cultivate generosity within me that blesses people all around me, but mostly produces a new strength of faith within my heart.

It’s loaves and fishes time, people.
Watch and see.

She slips over my belly to the designated area where gender is determined and announced, “It looks like a girl.” Looks being the key word. But she seemed confident with all her 15 years of experience behind her. Ivan, being the scientist that he is, asked that she share in detail what she is looking for. And as I said, she was a patient one, and pointed out this and that which were pretty strong indicators of a little XX in there.

I had a feeling.
Ivan had a feeling.
Everybody else said boy.
I am glad it is a girl.
Not just because I have all the stuff organized by months and age in nice containers in the basement.
Not just because I think girls are a little easier in the first few years of life and I need some ease with all that is going on in my life.
Not just because I love pink.

But I was just delighted it was another girl. It taps into a deep place within me that longs and dreams of being a powerful influencer of my children. Not that I couldn’t be a wonderful influence on a little boy becoming a young man. But I am finding it particularly delightful being a blesser and nurturer of a little girl. I asked Jesus about why two girls and I was all of a sudden flooded with an overwhelming sense that God will use our parenting in a certain and special way to bless women. I have already seen our marriage do this in women’s lives. I especially feel that Ivan will be a powerhouse of sorts in fathering little girls and young women. And I can’t help but think that somehow me observing and experiencing Ivan’s fathering of our daughters will be a profound ministry to my own fatherless heart.

So I wept on the hard table and smiled as joy leaked out of me at the thought of another little girl. We welcome you, little vanilla bean.