Voices in My Head

It's that time of year again - New Year's Resolution time.

As a young mom I made resolutions to yell less, follow through on discipline, study the Word, pray more often and spend more time with my babies. I often felt inadequate despite my serious convictions about my calling to motherhood. I listened to the multitude of voices around me with their endless advice about how to be the perfect wife, mother and woman. I remember dreading anytime a speaker or teacher would bring up the Proverbs 31 woman knowing I did not hit that mark. Most days I was feeling successful if I had a vague idea of what we would have for dinner, and everyone had clean underwear for the next day. I homeschooled my children and felt inadequate in that role as well. Homeschooling at the time was not cool. It was not cool to the world and it was not even cool in the "Christian" community. Voices assured me my children would grow up to be uneducated recluses or flat out nerds! My house was never clean enough, my parenting was lacking, my personal discipline was a failure.

I was listening to the wrong voices.

John 10:27 says, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." The voice of my Savior is the only voice I need to listen to.

We all listen to voices that tell us we are inadequate. We hear these voices everywhere we go. We hear them from people we love, we hear them at our workplace, we hear them from the popular media. Even if we try to protect ourselves from these voices they manage to find a crack and slip through into our thought lives. The only way we will be successful at guarding our hearts and minds from these voices is to listen for the voice of our Father.

This is my resolution for 2013. I want to sit and listen to the voice of my Father. I want to go beyond reading my Bible or even studying to a place where I am able to dwell on His word; letting it sink into my soul. As I dwell on His word, I will be increasingly able to discern between His voice that tells me I am His child, His bride, His creation and the other voices that speak of inadequacy and insecurity - these are the voices of the enemy.

Sitting still is by far one of the hardest things for this mom to do. Balancing marriage, a full-time position as a nurse, parenting two young women at home and being available to adult children away from home along with the myriad of other things that pull and tug at me often push out opportunities to sit. But I must sit. I must take the time to hear His voice, to be renewed so that when He says, "Child, I love you just the way you are" I will hear that and the other voices will fade into the background.

Every child needs a mom who hears the voice of Jesus. That mom knows that she is an unfinished story and that Jesus is the author.

The Art of Slack

Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. Jeremiah 17:7

Some of us are better at doing nothing than others. It really is an art form, even a gift. My husband has told me on more than one occasion that I do not have the gift of “slack” which he says he perfected in his bachelorhood. God, however, always seems to know when the girl needs to sit down for reflection and it almost always comes with a heaping helping of your friendly neighborhood virus.

As a mother of four, when I worked full-time at home, there was no room for illness – moms do not get ill. We blow our noses, pull up our hair, yank on our sweats and face the day of caring for our babies. Period. As a nurse, however, illness and the job do not go well together. Patients do not appreciate a nurse who is hacking and snorting through a visit. So, I sit.

I wasn’t feeling well on Friday – premonition that the virus was coming on but hopeful that my dosing of vitamin C, Zinc and gallons of water would ward of the enemy. Saturday brought a heavy head that only became heavier as I drove myself, my mom and two of my girls to the airport to pick up my eldest, home for Christmas from her Army career. Sunday I pulled my body out of bed, filled a ziplock baggie with cough drops and poured myself into the row of chairs at church surrounded by my family, hastily gulping tea hoping I would not drown out the teaching with a coughing fit. By Sunday night, I was done for.

Today is Tuesday, still fighting, very little voice to speak of and patients whom I really would like to be able to see waiting for me to be well.  Yes, there are other wonderful and capable nurses to care for them – but these are my patients… 

Then, God whispers. He is so patient with me, very gentle. He knows I am stubborn and willful and self-sufficient. I would like to blame this on being the only girl surrounded by three brothers, but alas, I know I am a sinner. My brother once said in a sermon of his that we are like sheep – dirty, stinky, rotten, dumb sheep in need of a shepherd – boy howdy!! 

So, I listen. I listen to my girls with stories of their day together. I listen to their unspoken stories as well. I see in them the hurt that this world brings: insecurities, fear, worry, and unmet expectations.  When they were little it was so much easier to protect them from the world. To control who influenced their lives and who had access to their hearts but as they grow this too is out of my hands and I am forced to remember, often through my tears, that Jesus is their loving shepherd – He loves them infinitely more than I do and I am awed by that love. 

Amazed as well for that same love is given to me – and I know I am not deserving of it, but thank you Jesus, I accept it.  Now, if only I could learn to walk it out. To demonstrate daily to my husband, my children, my family, my neighbors and co-workers, to my friends this love that I have found in Jesus and the knowledge that He alone holds all things.  What a beautiful thing it would be to have such an unwavering trust in God that nothing could shake it from you.  And this is my prayer for myself and for those I love…all of us an unfinished story.

Father's

Four weeks ago Bill Finney, my father-in-law walked into the arms of Jesus.

I’ve experienced a roller-coaster of emotions since that night as I struggle to grasp the understanding of Bill’s ultimate healing and yet feel the sorrow and suffering felt not only by me but also by Bill’s youngest son. I’ve reflected on the day I met Bill and Micah. Micah leaned against the counter in their kitchen with his arms crossed across his chest, stern look on his face, not saying a word, an imposing picture. Bill on the other hand, though physically worn from his four month adventure, was ever the southern gentleman, smiling, charming and I fell immediately in love with this family. I was Bill’s nurse, my role was to create a caregiving plan, train the caregiver, care for the patient, advocate as needed. Micah…he was the castle guard. He exuded a desire to protect his father from any nonsense I was there to hand out. I knew I was going to have to pull out all the stops to make this situation work.  Four years later and I sit in wonder at God’s amazingly perfect plan. His ways, truly, are not our ways…

In the last four weeks I have spent hours and hours sitting on the floor sorting through boxes and tubs of photos and mementos that only begin to represent a life. The attempt to tell the story of a man and his impact on his family and the world through snapshots and newspaper clippings falls dismally short. However, what I saw weaved through these memories was the beautiful story of God’s mercy, His transforming power, the grace He offers so generously. Bill was not a verbally expressive man, perhaps due to his southern upbringing, but he was a writer and a photographer. His heart was expressed in words through letters to his sister and in the photos he took of his sons and their mother expressing great tenderness in every shot.

Father’s have such power. I am unwaveringly convinced that we see the work of the enemy in the hearts of men because he knows if that power is thwarted he has all but won the battle. Bill Finney barely knew his own father whom he lost as a child. He became a father to Scott when he married Scott’s mother. The enemy lost this battle. It happened late in life, but Bill Finney knew Jesus, his bride knew Jesus and his sons know Jesus.

My earthly father knows Jesus as well and I was blessed to hear of Jesus love from a young age and see it demonstrated in the life of my dad. Experiencing the love of a father who loves Jesus – I know this has been the anchor that has tethered me through the storms in my own life; and there have been many. Conversely at times I experience heavy sorrow for the loss of that experience in the lives of my own children. Then God reminds me that He is the Father to the fatherless, He sees and knows the pain, He provides all we need, all they need and He loves them more than I could every understand. Again, the grace and mercy of our Lord washes over me and I count my blessings.  The blessings of my own father who has been a Godly grandfather to my children and the blessing of gifting us with Micah who I know loves my children as if they were his very own.  God does provide and He restores and through His restoration lives are transformed. 

Bill Finney is now dwelling with his heavenly Father…he left his son to be a father to my children… I am so blessed and thankful for the day I met Iron Man Bill Finney.