When We Get What We Don't Deserve...

On Monday night, K threw a temper tantrum at the dinner table.

While temper tantrums are not unheard of in my house, I highly recommend not throwing one at the dinner table.

Her family had finished eating dinner and dessert and she was still working on her veggies and mac and cheese.

Her family was cleaning up the kitchen. She was not happy that there was no one  left to sit and watch her eat. That no one wanted to grow any more gray hairs waiting for her to decide. That no one wanted to sit and drift away on the ebb and flow of time watching her slowly shovel one teeny tiny morsel after another.

She had warnings and cautions and ultimatums.

But she didn't heed those; she threw a temper tantrum. Because apparently with this child, bigger is always better.

There are always consequences to our choices. Always. We try to raise our kids so they know to make good choices and understand what happens when they make poor choices. 

But often the best teacher is a hard lesson.

K had a rough consequence. She fell straight off her chair, crashed into the floor, and sent her teeth through her bottom lip.

This isn't the first time this has happened. Not a year ago she was helping the husband outside move firewood, tripped, and landed her lip on the wood and sent her teeth through her lip. You'd think she'd learn to keep her lips out of her teeth. Or her teeth out of her lips.

So there was blood and tears.
There was ice.
There was medicine.
There was curiosity.
There was drama.
Then again, when isn't there drama?

And there was the husband. His hands bloody. His shirt bloodied.

Gentle. Calm. Efficient.

Mercy-full. Grace-full.

Even in spite of her bad choice which resulted in a rough consequence, the husband was that little girl's hero on Monday night.

He was my hero on Monday night.

You see, I don't do so well with blood. Especially when it has to do with the mouth. I have what I like to call a mouth phobia. The husband is charged with taking our girls to the dentist because I really don't like stuff that deals with the mouth. I get a serious case of the heebie jeebies smattered with a large dose of what often feels like panic and served with a small side of fear.

So when that girl plunged to the floor in all her diva drama and I realized that we had an event when I saw the blood, I sent the Eldest outside to get the husband. As I picked up my broken girl and carried her to the kitchen grabbing towels and wash cloths out of drawers on my way, I soothed her with mama-murmurings and waited for the cavalry.

And the cavalry fixed her right up; the husband is getting quite experienced at handling these kinds of things.

And three days later, her lip looks almost normal from the outside. The inside is a different matter.

And three days later, I'm reminded of how God deals with us when we make rotten or dire or straight up bad choices and we have mighty big consequences and He doesn't leave us to get what we rightfully deserve.

Instead He walks even that broken road with us. 
The road we willfully choose after we have ignored all of His warnings and cautions.
That road where we frolick right into that deep dark hole and there just don't seem to be band aids big enough to cover our scrapes and bruises.
After we have ignored His Truth because we are sometimes just a little bit...well...dumb.
Yeah, He walks even that road with us.

And instead of His wrath because we made a bad choice, He offers us His grace.

Instead of judgement, He offers us His mercy.

Instead of leaving us to get our just desserts, He offers us a new rag, a clean rag if we will but give Him our bloodied one.

And the thing with God, He's more concerned with our insides, with our heart, with our brokenness, than with our outsides.

He's not impressed with out facades and our masks and our pretending. He's not moved by our false bravado or our excuses or our justifications.

Nope, He wants the real deal and that real deal is found on the inside.

K's lip inside her mouth is probably a more accurate gauge of how her lip is healing, of how her heart is mending than how it looks on the outside. I mustered up some courage and I pulled her fat, puffy, swollen lip down and I looked at the mangled mess of her lip on the inside. And I admit, I squirmed a bit squeamish.

Aren't we all just a bit mangled and bloodied and maimed on the inside?

Aren't we all a bit of a mess on the inside trying to hold it fast together on the outside with nothing but a bit of flimsy twine or old, dried up rubber bands?

Aren't we all creatively contriving our next mask, our next facade, to cover up and hide our broken bits? 

We don't take spills and come out whole. 
We come out wounded.
We come out broken and bloodied and raw, too.
Scabbed and scarred and warrior wounded.
And Jesus takes all of that and offers us new, clean rags. 
Beauty for our ashes. Joy in our despair. Healing for our suffering. 
Mercy when we don't deserve it. Grace to wash over all of it.

K will have another scar to add to her growing collection.
Another scar to serve as a reminder of the power of her choices.
Another lesson to add to her growing repertoire.

But here's the thing about scars--they are grace indicators. They are landing strips of healing.
They are signs of growth. Of Jesus working.
They are signs of lessons, hopefully learned deep in the depths of our hearts so that what we learn would be an overflowing out of our hearts. 
They are signs that while we may have fallen, we got back up.

We might bear scars, but our scars become reminders of Jesus' scars. And His scars cover our own brokenness, heal our woundedness, not so we forget our brokenness, but so that we can move forward and be messengers of God's grace in the midst of our brokenness.

I've made lots of mistakes.
I have frolicked into my fair share of deep, dark holes.
And I have lots of scars to show for my willful choices.
But, God's grace is bigger than my mistakes. 
God's love for me is deeper than those deep, dark holes.
And sure I'm broken,
And sure I'm a bit of a mess.
But mostly I'm His Beloved. 
And He can use even me.
Scars and all.

Grace Always Rises,
Jamie

Happy Four-Day!

Today my babies turn 4.

I was 37 weeks and 1 day pregnant with thirteen and a half pounds of baby.

 I was 37 weeks and 1 day into a life-changer, a life-shaker. Filled with grace and hope. Bursting to push them forth into this bright, noisy, beautiful world so I could touch these little people I had grown inside for 37 weeks and 1 day. 

These little people I had fallen in love with.

 

Good Friday. 

Four years ago.

I labored hard one journey and began another.

One that I have needed much help on along the way.

One where I have learned I do not have to know it all, be it all, or do it all.

One where God has taught me grace and forgiveness and redemption and mercy.

One where I have laughed much and cried much and hoped much and loved much.

I have discovered motherhood is a state of being. 

It's not a place you end up because you had a kid. It's a mindset that you grow in to. I spent the first year after I had the Eldest growing in to being a mom. It was not pretty and it was not easy. I spent the first year as a mom of three figuring out how not to lose one, figuring out how exactly to keep three kids fed and watered, realizing that my laundry had just tripled, and learning just how little sleep one actually needed to survive.

Motherhood is the journey. 

The beautiful, hard, sometimes not so pretty journey we embark on to grow our kids. 

I spent a few years believing it was the place you ended up at, the end all-be all, the glorious arrival gate you disembarked at when you brought your baby home. 

I was misinformed.

That was just the starting gate.

Four years ago.

There's something about this birthday that strikes me different. 

I remember when the Eldest turned five and I thought, Now we're getting somewhere.  

But it's not five. It's four and I'm thinking, Now we're getting somewhere. 

Maybe it's because there's two. Maybe it's because I'm a nerd and there's symmetry with two and four and they were born on April 2 which is the fourth month 

and there's two of them and they are turning four.

Maybe it's because I can look back and see so much of God's grace on my journey and I find myself so thankful. Thankful that I have three beautiful girls and a crazy life and they have a daddy who dotes and who disciplines and a dog who puts up with their princess crowns and horseplay. 

Thankful that I have a God who sees and knows all of me...even the ugly parts...and loves me anyway. And loves me enough to lead me on roads where I'm changed. 

Thankful for the friends who held a baby, fed a baby, burped a baby, and got a shirt full of reflux as payment and then dared to come back and do it again. 

Thankful for my family who loved me even when I was rotten and sleep deprived and snarky and saved me from myself on more than one occasion. 

Thankful for the little Christ followers I see growing in the hearts of my little people. Thankful for how they look at the world because it fills my heart to overflowing.

It is well with my soul.

I'm thankful for the hard days because they make me appreciate the good days even more. For the sleepless nights spent feeding a baby or walking a baby because they won't ever be babies like that again. 

Thankful for the endless bottle feedings and bowls of baby cereal and mashed up bananas because there's no more bottles or baby cereal or mashed up bananas...

well maybe we still have mashed up bananas, but I don't do the mashing. 

Thankful for the sweet baby smell and the sweet baby sleep and the sweet baby sounds. 

Because now there's little kid smell which is sweet in a different way 

because it grows proportionally to the amount of sunshine they take in. 

And now there's little kid sleep which sometimes is fraught with anxiety and trouble 

or it's lovely and peaceful and deep. 

And now there's little kid sounds which mostly make me laugh 

and sometimes make me cry. 

This isn't really how I saw my life going.  

I didn't think I would be a mom of a set of twins or three daughters. 

But where we end up is rarely where we saw ourselves going. 

And to be honest, I'm so glad. 

I'm so grateful that I'm here and not where I thought I would be. 

I'm so grateful I'm up to my eyeballs in laundry and homework and projects and temper tantrums and dishes and cleaning and princess dresses and drama. 

Sure there are days when I want to disappear. 

But then one will say something about wanting real pixie dust or 

if the emblem in the center of my steering wheel is for when my car goes underwater like Lucy's in Despicable Me 2 and I laugh till I cry and 

I'm. just. so. grateful.

It is well with my soul.

God's plan is always the good one. There's always good and grace and joy and enough. 

Always enough. Maybe not enough of what we think we need. 

But enough of Him. Enough of Grace. 

Enough.

And maybe four means so much because they have taught me so much. 

And it has been hard and it has been overwhelming and it has been...beautiful. 

Happy Birthday My Sweet Girls.

Grace Always Rises,

Jamie

the girl who cried wolf

Remember the boy who cried wolf?

I’ve got a few of those. Only they’re girls. Girls who cry foul and false.  It’s remarkable what can be contrived to cry about--things I have never before considered are now cried about in my house on a somewhat regular basis. It's enough to drive me to permanent earplugs.

I have tears over the proverbial spilled milk. Tears over lost shoes. Tears over toys and bubble baths and dinner. Tears over band aids and markers and leggings. Really, if you can even imagine a possible scenario where tears might be able to play a role, I've got it covered.

And since there are so many tears in my house these days, my compassion meter may be running low because really, a mama can only handle so many silly tears before she needs a very long vacation on her own private island. 

So this night, I was making dinner after exiling all of them to their beds to play silently because my ears had started bleeding from all the bickering loud and mean.

Divide and conquer. Sometimes this strategic tactic works. 

The best defense is a good offense. 

I should remember this. Too many times I’m caught in the middle of a moment with my playbook gone missing and then I’m just playing self-defense and that’s when the sky starts to fall dark and cloudy on me.

Case in point:

The little girls three are exiled to their beds.

I've got my hands in chicken and veggies and my mind in the quiet…at least for this one breath to try and catch my breath so that I might be able to take another.

Peace in the middle of the storm.

And then my serenity is cracked, my ears jarred, my heart races. There’s all this blood curdling screaming. Over and over. And. Over.

I admit, I rolled my eyes. Like I haven’t heard the screaming before. And like any good mama, I stood in my kitchen with my eyes rolling and my unkind mutterings under my breath about what in the world is going on in my house and I waited. Because, and you mamas know what I’m talking about, if we wait sometimes the screaming stops by itself, sometimes the problem remedies without intervention. We pray for those times, those moments that disintegrate without our engagement.

And sometimes it just gets bigger and uglier. So I waited to see what side of the coin I would get.

The screaming didn't waver in intensity. It’s the child who has a proclivity for volume in her diva-drama. The same child who would rather sit and scream over something than use all the words the Good Lord has empowered her with to solve problems.

So I storm-walked out of the kitchen, my steps short and quick and angry and loud.
I was ready.
To blow up.
To wage war. 

My anger carried me fast and hard down the hall. I stopped in her doorway, put my hands on my hips and stared at the perpetrator. Yep, I copped some major attitude. Pretty sure I’m not gonna win any mama awards this week. She’s sitting on her bed with some crazy little toy in her hands, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Just. Screaming.

Somedays I just want to scream with her.

And I stand there, with my attitude and my hands on my hips, giving her my very best stink eye.

“Kadence, you have to use your words. I don’t know what’s wrong and if I don't know what's wrong, I can’t help you if you’re gonna sit there and scream.” And I said it with sass. The kind of sass that she would've gotten in BIG trouble for, but I doled it out with finesse. See…no awards here.

My blood is boiling. When will they learn? When will I learn?

She screams again. And in between gasping breaths and loud shrieks she starts to mumble.

“My finger….my finger…” More shrieks. More screams. More tears.

I fan the fire raging. “What about your finger?” From where I’m standing her fingers look just fine. It’s her shrieking that could bring down the house and her mama’s mind that I’m worried about.

And as I’m looking at this screaming child, I glance over to the other bed…not two feet away from Kadence... and Ryleigh, yeah, she’s sitting there playing with some lace up cards. Humming. 

Peace in the middle of a storm.

How is it that I am well and fully irritated, ready for war, and I was in another room and this child is sitting two feet away from the screamer completely unfazed?

Peace in the middle of a storm.

“Stuck!...It’s stuck.” Gasp. Sniffle. Sob. Scream. Repeat.

Oh. Rats. And double rats.

I look at that crazy little toy she has in her lap. And she tries to raise one of her hands and she can’t because her little ring finger is stuck, smashed, wedged. And her other hand is trying to hold the crazy little toy so it doesn't move and remove her finger.

Her tiny little finger was held captive between two plastic prisons: the handle and the cartridge that goes in the top of this crazy little toy.

I had a moment of panic for a multitude of reasons. The most concerning was that I had been standing in the doorway for a good 60 seconds with my mad on. And that was after the maybe 2 minutes I had stood in the kitchen up to my elbows in chicken fuming and festering.

I would be crying too.

The little girl who cried wolf really had a wolf to cry about.

After some quick looking and some quick thinking, I pushed that cartridge down fast and hard to free the finger. I rushed that girl to the kitchen to find some icy love for that smashed little digit.

And five minutes later she was fine.  Because isn’t that how kids roll? Life rolls off them like so much water off a duck. And they keep on trucking. And they keep on believing. And they keep on loving. And they don’t even miss a beat.

Mamas on the other hand? We fester and obsess and flog ourselves. We cut our own selves short and low because we let nothing roll off us like so much water.

Instead we wallow in our lacking, we swim in our mistakes, we glory in our regrets, we insist on torturing ourselves with all the coulda, woulda, shouldas. We wander endless in our own lacking. There's no grace for us. Nosiree. 

Jesus isn’t the one condemning me. I am. 

And how, exactly, does that fix anything?

Seriously, I should borrow a page from my kids’ book.

But here’s the Truth. And I gotta remember the Truth. So the lies don’t win a battle in a war Jesus already won. So that I can find harbor in Grace and Redemption and Forgiveness. So that tomorrow I can claim His new mercies and be mercy-full.  

The truth is this. God has not called me to be a perfect parent. He has called me to be a Christ follower, a Jesus lover, a Grace giver, a Truth teller. Sure, I’m a mess. Last time I checked though, Jesus wasn’t afraid of messes.

In fact, most of the Jesus followers in the Bible were messes. Let's remember King David who had a thing with Bathsheba who wasn't his wife or Peter who denied Christ three times or Martha who believed that doing good was better than just being with Jesus or Moses who thought he wasn't fit to be the mouthpiece of God or Jonah who ran away instead of obeying God.

My mess is nothing new to Jesus. He's not appalled by it or repelled by it or worried by it. Instead He's working to redeem it. To turn my mess into something beautiful, to make something glorious out of my ashes.

Really, I’m just a mess of redeemed mistakes and redeemed moments so that I might know Jesus more and love Him more deeply.

I know what my triggers are that send me spinning and flipping. I am my own worst enemy and when I’m in the thick of it and I can’t see {or hear} the cries of pain over the cries for attention, I make the choice. Oh, maybe not on purpose. I’m sure most mamas don’t purposefully choose to flip their lids and toss their tempers all over dinner, but we do.

I choose in to the madness and the crazy and the volume and the temper tantrums. I choose those things over the Fruit of a Living God.  And what kind of example is that showing my little people? 

It all comes down to what I want more of. I want more of Jesus. I want to know Him more and love Him more. And I want my kids to see Jesus in me and want Him. Heart transformation in my little people begins in my heart. With me. This seems to be a theme with me.

I have to exhibit self-control which means I have to be the branch that sprouts the fruits of the Spirit so that I can exhibit self-control. Which means I have to know Jesus so that branch can grow strong and healthy.

Because the more I know Jesus, the more He prunes away the dead and decaying and destroyed so that the real Fruit can grow strong.

And then I can refrain when the urge to act like a four year old hits hard in the middle of a screaming storm. 

Peace in the middle of a storm. Jesus in me. 

I know. We’re human. We’re tired, worn out, busy, frazzled, hard-loving, hard-working mamas. We get caught in the moment and caught by surprise and caught in the tangled web that the enemy tries to catch us in. And we have a momentary lapse of, you know, sanity. And we engage. With the emotional capacity of a small child. Because we weren't prepared. We were caught off guard.

Go back to that whole “the best defense is a good offense.”

Jesus is the best offense. 

Grace Always Rises,
Jamie

How to make a deer angry...

I remember looking at my clock. 1:34 am. An unattractive hour to be sure.
There was some very dramatic pandemonium involving the dog and the husband downstairs.
So like any normal human being, I went back to sleep.

I asked the husband the next morning.
"What happened last night?"
"Titan scared a deer."
"What?"

Titan is our German Shepherd. He's got some neuroses but hey, who doesn't? He's been part of our family since before the Eldest was born.

And he's a senior citizen. Emphasis on senior.

His hearing is selective. I think. 

His seeing is also selective. I think.

And if by chance my thinking is off, he's deaf and blind. And the husband would argue, occasionally dumb.

He can sometimes manage stairs, and other times he plays the helpless victim. He's a piece of work, this dog. But he's got a heart of gold and he really loves the husband.

So on either side of our front porch we have these deep planters. It's like a three foot drop into the planter from the porch. Because the husband is who he is, most of the vegetation in these planters has been removed or cut back. He likes things tidy and these planters were anything but when we first moved in.

So now these planters sit rather lonely, empty, and terribly inviting since they are also out of the weather.

In addition, I feel it's also important to note that in the last several weeks, the husband has also seen fit to remove and cut down a lot of the ground brush on our property. Apparently the husband discovered that we have very amorous deer who have been using these overgrown areas for, ummm, making baby deer.

The husband has taken a personal offense to this and has waged a small-scale war on baby deer-making on our property.

I know. First-world problems.

But since he can solve these with chain saws and fire it's all good. And I think it makes him happy. The husband. Not the deer.

In fact, I think the deer are angry.

Titan sleeps by the front door. At 1:32 he started whining and fretting and pacing.

It's annoying when he starts with this. To put it mildly. Part of that neuroses thing.

 My husband, thinking that Titan had to use the facilities, opened the front door at 1:33.

At which time several things happened simultaneously.

Titan slipped, slid, and stormed out the front door. Not only do stairs give him some trouble, but getting up quickly and finding purchase on hardwood floors gives him some trouble, too, thus the slipping and sliding. Hazards of being old.

In all his slipping drama, he knocked the front door wide open which caused the bells the girls have hung on the door knob to jingle, jangle, and crash to the floor with another louder cacophonous jingle-jangle.

This is what woke me up at 1:34.

The door hit the wall and then slowly swung back closed--which was fortunate only in that it kept the deer from storming the castle, so to speak. Because then I wouldn't have been able to go back to sleep. And that would have been quite the inconvenience.

The poor deer who had foolishly made her bed down in one of those planters was rudely awakened and terribly disoriented by our elderly dog who really didn't have to use the facilities at all.

Instead, Titan lost the few marbles he had left because there was a deer right there for the taking and he was freaking out, in the way only a dog can who has the hindquarters of a deer right there in front of him, the mind of a 16 year old saying "get it," and the body of a 95 year old which completely dictates the speed and agility with which he can't move.

Not that Titan would know what to do with the deer if he actually had the deer...and really, he's old...it's more about the idea of the deer than actually gaining possession of the deer. But there he was, completely freaking out...

And his freak out caused that deer to have a major panic attack.

Ever wonder what a deer having a panic attack might look like?

Yeah, me neither. But the husband could sure tell you.

So the deer is trying to get out of the planter. The dog is trying to get into the planter to get the deer, but he's old so imagine an arthritic, hunched over, very elderly gentleman who may also be partially deaf and somewhat blind trying to catch a squirrel and that might resemble what this scenario may have looked like. Meanwhile, the husband is trying to get the dog, stay away from the deer, and get in the house. But the dog is now selectively deaf and the deer is in the flight part of "fight or flight" so the husband is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or a dog and a deer. Take your pick.

The only successful thing was the deer who managed to avoid the arthritic jaws of the dog, get out of the planter, and then managed to knock that crazy loud dog right over because the dog is now selectively dumb and didn't get out of the way.

I think it was out of spite, but who really knows the mind of a deer.

Unfortunately, the husband was in the way because he was trying to hold on to the dumb deaf dog who'd been knocked over by the deer. So the deer mowed him down next as she was trying to make her escape because why wouldn't you knock over the guy who cut down your frolicking grounds? I mean really, how insensitive.

And then she disappeared into the starry, moonless night. Probably to plot her next attack. Or to find a less chaotic bed.

Scorecard:
Deer               1
The Husband 0

Did I mention that I think we have angry deer?

This morning, the husband was walking down to check his burn pile from yesterday.
As I was driving down the driveway, I noticed three deer hanging out by the pile of ash. 

You know, in protest because he cut down their love nest.

I rolled down my window, held up three fingers, pointed down the hill, watched the husband pull up short and cautiously fix his approach, chuckled, and drove away.

Grace always Rises {yep, even with angry deer},
Jamie

How to battle the what ifs

Somedays I wish the whole world would just go away and let me have my moment of doubt, of weakness.
In solitude.

With no audience. 

With no questions.

With no arguing.

With no what ifs clanging around like so many cymbals in my head.

It's those what ifs that really trip me up.

I think we all have an Achilles' Heel. Right? 

Our fatal flaw.

Our downfall.

The thing that makes our brave words fall on the shell of an empty, fearful heart.

The thing that brings us low and small.

The thing that makes us question just about everything there is in the world to question. 

The thing that always seems to make us want to run, but sadly there just isn't anywhere to run.

The thing that makes our hearts cry buckets and our souls grieve sadness.

The thing that causes our hope to falter and fail a little. or a lot.

The thing that shames us because we know in our heads but our hearts refuse to follow.

The thing that the enemy uses to push us down and roll us like a tumbleweed through a desolate, lonely valley.
The thing that squelches our growth, our joy, our living.
 

I'll be honest. Mine is fear.

Yep, I said it out loud.

Fear.

f.e.a.r.

It's been my Achilles' Heel since forever.

Paralyzing, portentous, irrational.

So irrational in fact, that I'm afraid to talk about the things I'm afraid of. I put on a brave face and I spew out brave words, but when you get down to the nitty gritty, I'm no better than the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. 

Yeah, I'm a hot mess.

And the biggest fears are the ones spinning around in my head. The ones that come from watching too much TV or reading too many thrillers, which ironically, I don't really do. My imagination does this all on its own. It has a teeny tiny trigger and then BAM! Look what I can do, mom! The ones that never happen are the ones that paralyze me. The what ifs.

I wonder how much time we mamas spend what if-ing ourselves to a painful demise.
How many moments are stolen by this byproduct of fear? 
How many moments are missed because I was caught in a what if and not in the moment before me--the piece of time I was standing upon and within?
How many smiles and kindnesses and happy sounds go unobserved into the atmosphere because I was what if-ing my life to pieces? 
And how often in the process of what if-ing my life to pieces does my life actually go to pieces?

I do this. a lot. I have Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, and depending on the circumstance, Plans D, E, and F as well. I want to have all my ducks in a row and all my pieces on the table all the time. When they go missing, I get twitchy. i. get. fearful.

Sometimes what if-ing is good--like what if my baby gets hungry while I'm out? Yes, pack some formula, some bottles, some extra cuz you just never know. And if we are talking about me, I pack diapers and wipes and burp rags and extra clothes and jammies and pull ups and an extra set of socks and if you have extra socks, may as well have extra shoes--for you and the baby. Because what if...

I confess.
I may have a slight control issue. It's almost laughable, I know.

There's no reasoning to what ifs. There's no rationale to fear. There's just straight out battle. Warfare.  
And how do I battle shadows? 
How do I slay dragons that don't exist? 
How do I make the demons flee and tremble?

How do I make the knot, the one that grows in the pit of my stomach and weighs my feet down just like my spirit so I can't move to the light, go away?
How do I give up control so that Jesus can take control? 

I am brought up a bit sad and low when I think of what all my what if-ing does. 
I have pushed God's sovereignty right out the door and then locked it up tight behind Him. I have made my fears my idols and my what ifs my offerings to a god that can never free me, never save me, never forgive me, never redeem me, and never heal me. And the One who can patiently waits out my what if-ing because He knows. He knows I will grow weary of trying to outwit, outlast, and outplay the world. He knows my heart will turn back before my mind will.

Because all of my well laid plans, all of my what if-ing, all of my strategies are illusions--a teetering house of cards that needs only the smallest of life's breezes to collapse.

The Lord wants my what if-ing. He wants my plans. He wants my fears. Because what He really wants is my heart. All the nooks and crannies where unsavory things hide and lay waiting, where my fears lurk unchecked, and my what ifs take up residence. He wants the whole ugly-beautiful mess. So He can take that and offer me peace.

And with peace comes the security of knowing my Abba Father's love for me is greater than my very best what if. That His provision and protection and divine interceding is more potent than my worst fear. And in Him there can be no darkness. And in Him there can be no fear. Whom have I to fear because God is for me and if God is for me, who can be against me. I have been redeemed and freed from a life of slavery--slavery to a slippery master, slavery to fear, slavery to what ifs.


What if instead of spending my moments being afraid or what if-ing my moments away, I spent them pressing into Him, trusting that He will be with me whatever I face--He will go before and be my cloud by day and my fire by night. What if I held up my hands and surrendered my filthy, dirty, holey rags completely and fully to Him. What if I bravely gave Him all the fears I'm trying to out plan and let Him plan my road? Because what I'm really doing when I cling so tightly to my fears and my what ifs is leaving God out. I'm choosing fear instead of faith. Anxiety instead of love. Control instead of surrender.

And this is the battle. This is how I slay my invisible, too real dragons and this is how I make the demons flee and tremble and this is how I make the shadows turn to light:  

I speak Truth even when I cannot feel Truth. I claim Truth even when my heart feels differently. I cling with all my might and with all my weakness to the One who has promised He will never leave me and He will never forsake me even when I'm paralyzed and can't do, can't believe anything else. I choose Jesus. I claim Jesus. I speak the name of Jesus.

Because if God is who He says He is, then He will do what He has promised to do. And if I claim Jesus, and keep claiming Jesus, in the middle of my darkness then the darkness will flee. Oh, I might not feel it, but it will happen. If I claim God's sovereignty and provision in the midst of my what if-ing, then suddenly the need for the what ifs seems empty, wispy, insubstantial. Because what do my what ifs matter in the presence of an All Powerful, Almighty, All Knowing God? They don't. God is more concerned with the heart behind the what ifs. He's more concerned with the state of my soul than the state of my imagined fears.

I know this sounds simple and simple is never easy. But simple is always better. God made everything about having a relationship with Him simple, just not always easy. But relationships can only exist, can only grow if there's trust. And if there's fear, there's no trust, and without trust there's a compromised relationship.  If I want to battle my what if-ing, my fears, I have to choose more of Jesus. I have to choose to be overwhelmed by Jesus and not by fear. I have to choose faith instead of fear and love instead of worry and surrender instead of control. And it won't happen in a day. But it starts with a small choice: To confront the what if, to catch it and take it captive in Jesus' name, to cover it with love and grace and watch Him transform fear into faith, that's the road. That's the choice. That's the battle. 

And that's the victory.

Grace always Rises,
Jamie