Yielding to the Chisel

God uses suffering to purge sin from our lives, strengthen our commitment to Him, force us to depend on grace, bind us together with other believers, produce discernment, foster sensitivity, discipline our minds, spend our time wisely, stretch our hope, cause us to know Christ better, make us long for truth, lead us to repentance of sin, teach us to give thanks in times of sorrow, increase faith, and strengthen character. It is a beautiful image!

And it's an image like no other. When Christ is unveiled in me, it's a unique sculpture. It's what patience, self-control, endurance, gentleness, kindness, as well as a healthy hatred of sin, looks like on "Joni." That's different than the way sensitivity and self-control look on my husband or anyone else. My particular affliction is divinely hand-tailored expressly for me. Nobody has to suffer "transversal spinal lesion at the fourth-fifth cervical" exactly as I did to be conformed to His image.

Yielding to the chisel is "learning obedience from what we suffer." Our circumstances don't change; we change. The "who" of who we are is transformed, like a form unfolding, into His likeness with ever-increasing glory. "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:16-18).

I cannot afford to focus on the hammer and chisel. I cannot look around me and bemoan what God is chipping away.
~Joni Eareckson Tada, When God Weeps

Give to the Winds Thy Fears

"We can draw no deadlines for God. He hastens or He delays as He sees fit. 

And His timing is all-loving toward His children."

~John Piper

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I had mentioned some time ago that sadness has been my second skin. Well, it's still with me. It's not that there aren't many moments of joy. There are. Who could live with these nine delightful children and be void of any joy? Even more, who can meditate on what Christ has done, on His amazing redemption of us, and not rejoice? But, that sadness, that darkness, is still hanging around. Perhaps only those who've experienced this know what I mean.

This morning I was reading again in 1 Corinthians how we're to run this race for the prize. We're to beat our bodies into submission. Such encouragement this is! Too often Satan whispers that life shouldn't be so hard. How untrue! Every day we struggle. Every day we battle something...worries, fears, our own besetting sins.

Right now, I'm simply overwhelmed, by the sadness, by my own flesh, by a host of "little things." I can't focus. I can't even seem to complete a thought, which is one reason any posts shared here are quite sporadic, and why my poor children are learning to interpret "that thingy" quite well. "Clairesy, please get...um...that thingy." Did I mention I'm absent-minded, too? Last night I misplaced my Kindle, and I was sure I had put it in the oven or the freezer. Thankfully, I was wrong.

Everything I do requires conscious effort and will, akin to having to remind myself how to put one foot in front of the other. At end of the day, I praise God for every ounce of grace He's given me just to get done what I've gotten done, as I quietly struggle to squash the thought, "It's still not enough..." But the good news is that there's lots of fight in me. By His grace, my boxing gloves are on, His mercies are new every morning, and He's working every bit of sadness for my good and His glory.

Today I plunged myself into Piper's When the Darkness Will Not Lift and came across this gem. Maybe it will encourage you, too. And if you think of it, I'd be so blessed to have you pray for me.

Give to the Winds Thy Fears

by Paul Gerhardt (1656), translated by John Wesley

Give to the winds thy fears, 

Hope and be undismayed. 

God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears, 

God shall lift up thy head.

Through waves and clouds and storms, 

He gently clears thy way; 

Wait thou His time; so shall this night 

Soon end in joyous day.

Far, far above thy thought,

His counsel shall appear, 

When fully He the work hath wrought, 

That caused thy needless fear.

Leave to His sovereign sway 

To choose and to command; 

So shalt thou, wondering, own that way, 

How wise, how strong this hand.

With love,

Trisha

A Wise Comforter

When we come across those who for good reason are in terrible despair, we must cut them some slack. It would have been wonderful if one of the "friends" had put an arm around Job's shoulder and wept with him, saying, "We love you, Job. We do not pretend to understand. But we love you, and we'll do whatever we can for you."

~D. A. Carson, For the Love of God, Vol. 2

Lord, Thy Will Be Done...But Here Are My Suggestions

You pray that the will of God may be done on earth as it is in heaven, and yet when it seems contrary to your will or interest you struggle or fret against it. You profess to have committed your souls to His keeping, and to leave your eternal concerns in His hands, and yet cannot commit things infinitely less valuable unto Him. How contradictory are these things!

You profess to be led by the Spirit, but this practice shows you follow the perverse counsels of your own spirits. O, then, regret no more, dispute no more, but lie down meekly at your Father's feet, and say in all cases and at all times, "The will of the Lord be done."
~John Flavel
The Mystery of Providence, p. 218

God's Megaphone

"I can't feel my boo-boos," five year old Ashlyn Blocker said through missing baby teeth she'd knocked out without a tear. Ashlyn is among a tiny number of people in the world known to have congenital insensitivity to pain. It's a rare genetic disorder that makes her unable to feel pain.

"Some people would say that's a good thing, but it's not," her mom said. "Pain's there for a reason. It lets your body know something is wrong and needs to be fixed. I'd give anything for her to feel pain." Ashlyn's baby teeth posed big problems. She would chew her lips bloody in her sleep, bite through her tongue while eating, and once stuck her finger in her mouth and stripped flesh from it.

We tend to think of pain as our great enemy, the source of our unhappiness, and we assume that if we could just get rid of pain, we would truly be happy. But in reality, physical pain is a gift--an internal warning signal that tells us something has gone wrong and needs our urgent attention. Similarly, our emotional, relational, and spiritual pain is a gift, warning us that an area of our lives needs urgent attention to bring about healing. So perhaps the secret to happiness is not so much figuring out how to avoid all pain, but learning how to respond to it.

C.S. Lewis said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." God uses the physical pain that does not subside, the relational pain that puts us on edge, the emotional pain that brings us to tears, to get our attention and to turn our attention toward Him. Is that how God has used pain in your life? Do you find yourself praying more often, thinking more deeply, searching more urgently for the truth? When pain invades the busyness of our routine existence, it insists that we reexamine our assumptions and reevaluate our appetites and affections, doesn't it? Pain often affords us--or imposes on us--time for reflection. If we will accept it, pain can give us the gift of reconnection with God, a fresh intimacy with Him, a passionate nearness to Him. Pain brings us to our knees. We begin with our prayers for our pain to be removed. And as He works in us, our prayers change so that we begin to ask that the pain will be redeemed.

~Nancy Guthrie, The One Year Book of Hope

As the Breathing of Our Souls

In the experience of God's people, it is often found that when their outward condition is troubled, their inward state is full of perplexities and fears. In affliction, Satan seeks to make a breach between us and God. He is most malicious with those with whom he has little hope of victory, as in Job's case.

If he cannot run us on a rock, he will seek to upset us with a tempest. If he cannot rob us of grace, he will seek to disturb our peace and comfort. Believers can expect inward and outward troubles because we have married Christ with His cross. We are delivered from the curse indeed but are appointed to the cross.

Outward afflictions may be many and heavy and come upon the neck of another. We may feel the hard brunt enough to exercise our whole strength of faith and patience. Inward afflictions are far more heavy than afflictions of the body, for a wounded spirit who can bear? It is not unusual though, that both of these rods come upon us at once, as a load on a broken back.

What shall we do? We must take a hold on God by renewed acts of faith. Faith is used not only for our entrance into grace, but also for our continuance and progress through all temptations and difficulties. Faith and prayer must be as the breathing of our souls to keep the heart alive. We must trust the Lord in every change and condition of life. I will lay the weight of my sinking spirit on the free grace of Christ. I will renew my hold, life, and expectations there.

This is the path. I will never be turned from it. A trusting Christian in this strength may challenge all the gates of hell. "When I am afraid, I put my trust in You." (Psalm 56:3). Afraid? Who is not? But what course will you take then? Believe. Use faith always, and have it now.
~Elias Pledger, Puritan Sermons 1659-1689
Voices From the Past

Coffee Pot Cider and Death All Around Us

I know. Only I would combine the two and create such a morbid title. My oldest son, the wise Ink, says I'm morbid these days. (This comes from the same guy who wants me to watch fight scenes from Ip Man, a martial arts film. And he thinks I'm the morbid one? ) Yet, my four year old, writes me notes describing me as a "happy Mama." Who are you gonna believe?

Perhaps I'm not morbid. I just have sharper vision and a better understanding of the brevity of life. AND, I know what hymns I want sung at my funeral, and I know that I want everyone to wear a shade of pink. :)

On to the happy thought, first.

I'm a tea girl myself, BUT, there's something wonderful about the aroma of cider floating through the house. I love that this version can be done in the coffee pot.

We even invested in an extra one to use only for cider. I made a second pot using the same mix, and it still tasted great. You can always add a bit of sugar to the mix the second time around if you prefer.

Fill water reservoir with 2 quarts apple cider. In basket lined with filter, place (yes, all of this fits!)

an orange, cut in wedges
 1/4 c. brown sugar,packed
 1/4 tsp. salt
 1 cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp. whole allspice
1 tsp. whole cloves
dash of nutmeg

and BREW away.

Now to the sadder part....it's ok if you leave now. I won't hold it against you.

Today is the 6 month anniversary of my Dad's death. Sunday was the 2 month mark since Michele died, and yesterday was 2 months since I miscarried. I feel a bit sheepish about posting something so common as a recipe...BUT, I know my Dad would have loved to have tasted this cider, and Michele, well, she would have been making this one for her family. And me..I'm fighting for that JOY, and making cider in a coffee pot is just one way I'm doing it.

Death has always been all around me. It's around all of us. I just see it more clearly now. We're all dying every day. Some faster. Some slower.  It's everywhere I look.  But there's that fleshly part of me that wants to ask the LORD if we can pause for a minute, that wants to make the case that I've met my death quota for the year (and maybe next year, too).

 And yes, I know that He doesn't give us more than we can bear, and I know that these precious saints are with Him and rejoicing. These thoughts have kept me centered many days.

Just remember that all of your everyday moments are gifts. Making your bed and changing diapers and washing clothes and cooking dinner, and yes, brewing some warm apple cider for the ones you love. So, enjoy sipping some of this with your own sweethearts and thank God for the gift of the little things that we'll later look back on and realize were very big things.

"Let all those that seek Thee rejoice and be glad in Thee: let such as love Thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified. But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: Thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God."
~Psalm 40:16, 17

Much love,
Trisha

How God Transforms Our Weeping and Praying

Our Pastor shared with us yesterday that Denise Sproul, wife of R.C. Sproul, Jr., needs chemotherapy or hospice care. Yet, this dear mother of eight is too weak for the chemo right now. This news pressed heavy upon me, and I simply had to leave the room.

Sitting in our little "cry room," I gave it new meaning as I cradled my little one in my arm and rocked and cried for this family and for every loss we ourselves have known this past year. You see, the grief is still there, and it's right near the surface most every day.

And I prayed, hard and tear-filled prayers. I prayed like someone does when you know a glimpse of another's struggle. I prayed like I did when I just knew God was going to heal Michele. I prayed like I did when I realized God might be taking away the very baby we had prayed for and rejoiced over. And I prayed like someone who knows very well that God's best is often what we fear most.

Had I not ever seen Michele sick, without hair, counting medicines, trying to keep her food down, too weak to walk a flight of stairs....just battling this cancer (and these were all good days), my ability to weep with her would have been such an impoverished offering compared to walking along with her, even for a few days, and witnessing what her life was like.

When I hear of a Mama who's suffered a miscarriage, I'm cut to the core. I weep for the one I don't even know, and I pray for her. Hard.

Yes, we still weep with those who weep even though we haven't known their sorrow, but when God moves us, through our own suffering, from "That must be a horrible thing to go through," to "That is a horrible thing to go through," we comfort and we pray in a different way.

And that's what I thought about as I stood at my kitchen sink, remembering R.C. Jr.'s words this morning that he was weary, but he knew Jesus was watching over his wife and children. I've never even met this family, but I have wept this morning for them, and I'm sure, for me, too. It reminded me of what the body of Christ should be like and how often I fail to make it that way.

Suffering transforms our praying from a quick, "Lord, please heal this woman and comfort this family," to passionate, tearful pleas, to wrestling, to praying with a fervency that only comes as we pass through our own God-ordained fiery trials.

Suffering transforms our tears, too. I remember sharing about my Dad's death and God's providence in that whole affair with some brothers and sisters in Christ, and not of them wept with me as I shared. I felt exposed and very alone. Because sometimes the best gift we give to someone who is grieving is to simply cry with them, and sometimes the only way we're able to do that is to have suffered ourselves.

I'm not saying that our tears and prayers aren't important if they don't come from a heart that has suffered like someone else has. Every tear and every prayer for our brothers and sisters in Christ is such a gift!

I am saying it is a gift from God that He transcends our sufferings beyond our own four walls and hurting hearts and uses them as instruments to minister with deep compassion to our fellow saints. We can remember this and praise Him for it, giving Him glory as we weep and pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

With love,
Trisha


***I thank you in advance for your prayers for this dear family.