Today is the day. God said so. So here I go, jumping (well, okay . . . make that "crawling") out of my comfort zone to start a project . . . before I feel ready. (I can just hear my six grown children now, gasping in disbelief: "Who are you . . . and what did you do with our mother!?")
“Today? Really?” I balked. Don’t get me wrong – I am thrilled with the task at hand. It’s just that I like to be ready, really ready, when I embark on something new, and resisted today as a start date. I argued, “Sick . . . disorganized . . . a tad overwhelmed, and all in good part because of my own poor choices, and You want me to do this today?” Lamenting those personal blunders of the past weeks, I was reluctant but finally did succumb – though not without my two cents’ worth:
“Okay, Lord, but it seems really odd to me because, well . . . I believe You gave me a spirit of hope I long to share . . . and even the name for this blog; but, frankly, I don’t understand how You see it today – when I feel so unlovely and unworthy. But You are God and I am Your servant; so here it comes: ‘Beauty for Ashes: All Things Lovely’ – and it starts today!”
* * * *
I had already cancelled music lessons earlier this morning (really, who wants to sing alongside a sore, rough throat and stuffed up head!?) Hours later, I sat down to tea and a healthy meal. Yep, after what happened at breakfast, I sure pulled out all the stops at lunch time: quinoa with minced fresh garlic and curry powder, homemade applesauce with honey and cinnamon, tea made from fresh ginger, lemon, and local organic honey. “I can do this,” I reckoned, sauntering to the table in yesterday’s clothes and unkempt hair. “I’ll write about healing foods . . . and . . . and . . . beauty.”
The thought made me laugh out loud. “Imagine that,” I pondered, “‘All Things Lovely’ – and, um . . . well . . .” Then I prayed . . . and God revealed . . . and finally I understood.
“Oh, Lord," I sighed. "I’m feeling sick, alone, and overwhelmed with much work to be done. I know, I know . . . For the past month I have not been consistent with good choices – not with food, not with rest, not with activity . . . Help me recognize when I should slow down and when to speed up. It seems just a few days ago You spoke to me about this very thing. Yep, last Saturday . . . I'd neglected You. Started my busy day without You because, well, You know: 'So much to do!' It didn't go so well. I became overwhelmed and in the end stayed up too late – and then overslept! You reminded me I was wrong to work way into the night in my own strength. Then during Sunday’s worship service, You spoke so gently as the congregation sang ‘We may trust Him fully – ALL for us to do . . . Perfect – yet [peace and rest] floweth fuller every day; perfect – yet it groweth deeper all the way.’ Yes, I knew You had better in mind for me."
The math side of me got a bit distracted right there as I contemplated the ‘better than perfect’ thing but quickly recognized that, while God's grace is 100% faultless, I can (and do) dampen its effect. When Í'm in position to receive His greatest gifts, it does become a better ‘perfect’ . . . for me. I get that.“
But there was more. I remember.
We continued singing: “Stayed upon JEHOVAH, hearts are fully blessed; finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest;“ and I thought how I sometimes postpone my time of reading God's Word and wondered if that was the reason I was not experiencing rest at 100% level.
Pausing to ponder, I sensed that God had even more today. I opened my eyes momentarily and noticed, on the dining room table, my new fall schedule. It is very full. And yes, of course that’s wonderful -- answer to prayer for my sustenance and culmination of the AT2U--GEMS 6-year goal. However, in that one instant I felt a surge of both hope and fear. “What a strange combination,” I mused.
Closing my eyes again, I continued praying. (Yes, I did pray longer today than most times before meals – deliberately trying to relax before eating, in hopes that my body would accept this good healing food!)
“I get off track so easily, Lord. Too busy one moment; and then side-tracked, not getting enough accomplished, the next.”
My (long) prayer then took a turn it often does – and I found myself asking God for things He has already given: settled peace in my heart, release from myself, freedom to live the abundant life He has granted . . . abundantly! He has already granted abundant increase in those areas of my life. Last year I asked Him to -- and then turned my life’s direction and concentration more fully to Him, finally believing that He Himself would Be God, and I need not help Him out or become distracted by my own desires. Not any longer. I was released.
But here I found myself, caught up again in frustration and lack of faith – expressing wishes for things that are not to be. In that moment of digression, my heart moved away from meditation on God’s keeping power and request for His strength – toward distraction by something over which I have no control. I was trying to “help God help me” . . . again.
But this time, we won the victory! It was too late for fear to settle in because God had already comforted my heart through that schedule lying next to my plate (yes, the very one that had tempted me to discouragement) and quickly reminded me that HE is my Perfect Provider AND Perfect Companion, meeting every need and remaining, not simply beside me, but all around and underneath me. A sure foundation for me to rest upon!
“So, rest already!” I chided myself. “Stop letting the peace slip away! Listen to the music: ‘Stayed upon Jehovah!’”
My heart. Oh, my fearful, worrying heart. I need a “stayed” heart; but mine often is a heart that wobbles to and fro because of worry or fear, threatening to fall off its sure foundation. It needs to remain still and “stayed” – upon Jehovah, right there where it belongs!
"Okay, but how can I keep it there?" I wondered.
I looked up, and in that very moment the answer looked right back at me from the refrigerator door. I had put a verse there during devotions last week when God revealed a reversed order I often take for Proverbs 16:3. “Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established.”
That admonition begins with "commit" and ends with "thoughts established" -- not the other way around. The conditional promise therein is freedom from wavering. Today when I read "established thoughts" . . . well . . . that just sounded a lot like "peace and rest" to me. Peace and rest, yes; but not established by my own thinking. I can't make that happen. My thoughts must be established by God Himself – and they will be, but only after I commit my works (just ashes, really) to Him in trade.
Yes! Now I've got it! Commit. Work. Stayed thoughts. Rest. In that order. Period. It’s a package deal – a better-than-perfect trade up, resulting in peace – and, amazingly, in "His Beauty for our ashes! All things lovely!" It is within reach. And it is what He wants for me.
Now . . . time for some quinoa . . . and better choices ahead!