“Maybe they just needed someone else to hold a lamp for a little while.” – Preston Yancey

I listen as you share your heart. Sharing the measures it takes for God to get your attention. I hear your brokenness. You recount  the hindsight of seeing God’s provision, yet still struggle to recognize His voice without a Moses encounter.

Then I listen and watch as you are encouraged, reminded of the faith you have, even when you don’t feel it. I listen as others share their own stories about the ebb and flow of life and growth, of grace and redemption. Seasons filled with overflowing and others filled too often with silence.

And my mind drifts to those seasons. Seasons where we are apt to forget the provision of times past. Days where we forget the gifts already given. The days we need other voices to remind us of His hand when we can not remember. To help us count the gifts He has given us.

*********

“Maybe they just needed someone else to hold a lamp for a little while.” — Preston writes.  Holding their lamp. Yes. We need those who will carry our light for us when life dims our hearts.

When God seems silent and storms swirling around makes us question His goodness, we need others to walk alongside and draw out those memories of gifts given. When the only prayer a friend can whisper is “Why?” we pray in their stead, gently reminding they are not alone.

We view ourselves as weak when we feel we need others to encourage us. We don’t want to burden our friends. We don’t want others to worry. I am quite guilty of this as many are. But really the letting go and allowing others to carry our light for a while is where we find strength.

 *********

We all need a someone or two who can hold our light when it seems too dim, adding their own light to strengthen ours. I watch as these friends carry your lamp. I see the spark return as your heart finds encouragement again. You considered it weakness, this needing God’s voice to shout at you.

But in the end you found strength.

*********

Have you had a season where you needed others to remind you of His faithfulness? Have you ever felt like you were weak during those times?

Linking up with the One Word at a Time blog carnival.

As I share how a social media outlet allows me to keep in touch with a dear friend, I hear the disdain and smugness in the voice as a hand flips dismissing me.

I feel frustration rising and attempt to slow my heart beat. I take deep breaths. You can’t argue with ones whose own opinions blind them.

This experience haunts me for days. My spirit wrestling with it all.

And then I wonder. I wonder, if it is simply fear that drives such harsh and judgmental opinions.

Anything can be made an idol. Anything good can be used for hurt.

But that doesn’t mean we should condemn others for choosing a different way of worship, for choosing to use something we do not.

I’m beginning to think we are quick to condemn others out of fear.

Is it fear that in spite of all our efforts we will never be good enough? Fear that leads us to condemn the choices of others so our own faults will not be seen? Do our insecurities threaten so much that we react out of fear?

I wonder. I don’t have answers. I wish I did. I wish I could understand why the person was so quick to condemn.

Then I see where I have been reacting out of fear. An inner battle fighting insecurities of being replaced. Fear threatening peace. Learning to let go is a part of growth and leadership, but the enemy plants lies. But then a reminder and a glimpse. A glimpse of what He has planned. So I realign my heart and remember, letting go of the fear.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV)

“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NASB)

Linking up with Peter Pollock for the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival.

I stepped back. And for the first time, after four years, I felt like an artist.

Four years ago I picked up pastels and began. Learning to blend. Learning to mix colors. Learning to draw. I took along aside our son. His gift evident from a young age, we knew it needed to be nurtured.

We have an amazing art teacher. Encouraging as she teaches, allowing us to choose the medium and guiding as we experiment.

My son gravitates to pastels and sketching, seeing easily how to draw a subject. His tender heart seen as he sketches animals and his fascination with architecture shown in other subjects he chooses. His gift amazes and inspires me.

The drawing aspect of lessons was difficult for me. With our teacher alongside, I was able to sketch a few landscapes, and while the paintings I did hold meaning for me they still seemed uninspired.

But there is something about painting. Something about creating a piece whether inspired from a photo or your own imagination where a spirit can find release. So I kept trying, kept showing up at the blank canvas.

I soon found a love for acrylic and abstract. Pairing colors comes natural for me. Finally unafraid to experiment and fail, I begin. Brush against canvas. Colors blending. Layer upon layer. I push myself out of comfort trying different textures and techniques.

I begin discovering my voice.

Many paintings later I still never felt like an artist. Until this one. Inspired by a friend’s story of redemption, I wondered if I would be able to translate the image in my mind to canvas.

Colors chosen, I begin. Colors brushed then blended into one another. Background layer then another and another. It’s the layers that build perspective. Depth. I step away taking deep breaths, knowing from experience it will eventually emerge. It does. When I get to the point where I think it may be finished, I step back.

And for the first time I feel like an artist.

Four years after picking up pastels and then brushes, I felt like I had created a piece of art. The cliquish words of other artists who define art as their way and no other no longer haunting.

Too often comparison paralyzes art. We overhear others remarks and see upturned noses and we think we aren’t good enough. I know first hand how creatives are prone to insecurity, always wondering if we are good enough.

But here’s what I’m discovering: Art (or any creative pursuit) isn’t about comparing our work to that of others. No, it’s simply about growing and sharing the gifts God has given us. Comparison only steals the joy we will find when using the gifts and talents He gives.

I still have much to learn, much more to experiment with, but I am no longer afraid to call myself an artist. And through the process, God calls me to encourage others.

So this week I’m taking a step that really feels more like a leap. I’m putting my art out there with more to be added in the coming days. Would you please stop by and maybe share?

To celebrate, I am also giving away a piece here on the blog! Just leave a comment to be entered to win your choice of one of the pieces below. Giveaway open to U.S. residents only and ends Friday, May 10.

She’s been sick most of my life now. Her Chron’s disease diagnosed just before I turned eleven. I don’t really remember a time when my mother wasn’t sick. In many ways I struggle not to let that define me.

In a lot of ways you get used to it. Desensitized maybe. But when that’s almost all you’ve ever known it just is what it is.

But this time was different. This time it wasn’t just her body not wanting to function. It was also her mind.

Symptoms appeared as summer 2011 began. Maybe even before. Symptoms similar to mini strokes, but then the diagnosis came. Cirrhosis of the liver. The latest long term side effect of Chron’s disease, surgeries and drugs that saved her life from the Chron’s 26 years earlier.

Modern medicine can be a wonderful and amazing gift. But many times the effects it can have twenty and thirty years down the road are unknown. So many issues she has struggled with over the years -chemical imbalances, diabetes, chronic fatigue, and others I’m sure I’m forgetting.

And liver disease was the latest for my mother.

As I talked with my sister and dad that Sunday night in February, just two days after my son turned thirteen, something heavy settled on my chest. It was the first time I prayed for a donor. Well, sort of. “If someone is going to die in these awful storms tonight anyway, Lord, please let one be a match.”

How do you pray for something that means someone else has to lose their life? When the miracle you need means heartache and loss for someone else? 

The next day she was admitted to the hospital. There wasn’t much more we could do but wait on a donor. Her window of remaining on the transplant list was closing quickly.

I continued to trust.

Trust. It’s a choice.

When my mother was first diagnosed with liver disease I made a choice. I made the choice that no matter the outcome I would choose to be thankful. Something for which He had been preparing me. I chose to trust in His plan.

I made that choice when her diagnosis first came, before she was even eligible to be placed on the transplant list. I intentionally spoke His words of truth to myself through the long months of waiting for her to be put on the list. Long months of struggling through her confusion as her brain and body were affected by toxins building up in her body. Toxins her liver could no longer filter from her systems. Days where my patience slipped away as I once again paddled upstream through a conversation with her. Conversations where I repeated the same thing for thirty minutes. Her mind caught in a loop, unable to break free. Disease is hard on the victim, but it also frustrates and discourages their families.

So we waited after she was admitted to the hospital. For five days the nurses and doctors caring for her and doing the best they could to ease her pain. As cliché as it sounds, the miracle came at the eleventh hour. A donor. Someone’s life was ending. And they or their family chose to give so others could continue to live.

My mind drifts to the cross when I consider this, but I’ll leave those thoughts for another day.

Would I have been thankful had she not survived long enough to receive a transplant? Would I still have chosen to trust? I hope so. I think so. There comes a point when watching a loved one suffer such unimaginable pain that all you pray for is healing in whatever form that looks like, even if it means complete healing in heaven.

But the choice to trust does not end there. I still have to choose daily to trust. Choosing to trust when the medications frustrate her mind once again. Trusting when the healing and recovery may take just as long as it took for the disease to cause the damage. Choosing to trust that His ways are higher than what we can comprehend.

So I continue to trust even on the days when I don’t feel like it. Because in the end? Trusting is a choice.

You sit.

You wait.

You dare to hope.

And this hope? It is not without cost.

I haven’t been able to pray through this waiting. My only prayer “It’s in Your hands.”

How do you hope? How do you pray? When it means one life must be lost in order for another to live? When that gift of mercy weighs heavy on chest and you are struck with new perspective at the price of the cross. How strong His mercy and love to willingly give His life so we might know heaven.

The losing of one life gives another life hope.

You sit, watching their pain, wondering how much longer they can fight, and you pray for strength and peace. For you as much as for them.

You wait, wondering if it is selfish to want them to stay when the pain is so great and complete healing can only come with heaven.

As you dare hope, you ache in the knowing. What if the answer is the hope of heaven and not a hope for earth? But still you hope.

You choose to trust in the waiting. You choose to trust even if the answer isn’t what you would choose. You choose to let go and say “It’s in Your hands. Either way, it’s in your hands.”

And when we let go, He steps in.

Waiting. This season I am in is filled with waiting. I wait at golf courses as my son practices with his school’s golf team. I wait as my little sister’s baby is due later this spring. I wait for the latest layer of paint to dry on my recent art. I wait for word that my mother will receive a life saving transplant.

So many situations I am trusting Him with.

During the seasons of waiting we have a choice. We can wait with trust or with anxiety.

Trusting doesn’t come easily during the waiting. Some days you wake with complete peace, trusting in His plan. And then others dawn thick with fog. Discouragement sets in to steal peace. On those days, it seems harder to fight. Slowly I’m learning how to overcome and find the peace again though.

* Count the gifts no matter how small.

* Replace lies with His truth.

* Keep serving.

* Be still.

Fog was thick this morning. Yet as I drove into the fog I needed my sunglasses. It was a gift. A perfect picture of what He is teaching me — even though life is surrounds you with fog, choose to trust. Because when you choose to trust, the peace and joy will be present. Even through the fog.

Are you in a season of waiting? How do you keep trusting while waiting?

“Just trust,” He says.

“How?”

“Just keep serving,” He tells me.

“Yes, Lord,” I say. I wonder how, but I know my heart finds peace in this. If he directs the steps He will provide a way. He will open the doors.

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. (Galatians 6:9 NASB)

So I say yes.

Yes, I am listening. Yes, I will keep serving. Yes, I am trusting.

Sometimes the first step in trusting is saying yes.

What are you saying yes to today?

She chases them in circles, never quite able to form coherently.

Trapped. Cluttered.

And this is the hard part. Not the physical aspects of her diseases as all I’ve known for 29 of my 39 years is her illness. When a physical disease robs their mind and they just aren’t the same. Talking with the same person yet somehow different. Perhaps my intuitive nature extra sensitive to it all.

My impatience showing as her thoughts get trapped in loops scrambled somewhere in her mind. At times, having to parent the parent, being firm and stern if needed. But too often I forget her cluttered mind frustrates her even more than it does me. She knows her mind was sharp in the past, and now she feels helpless.

I should learn from my usually impatient child. So patient and calm with her as the grandmother he has always known seems so different. A child who doesn’t like “going with the flow” so adept at it where she is concerned. Again a moment when parent is taught by the child.

My thoughts wander to how God sees His creation. Does He look at the disease sin has caused in this world and think of it all as clutter? It must frustrate Him, yet he loves patiently. Graciously. Slow to anger. Rich in love. Yet He waits.

The waiting. Yes, it is frustrating as well. Always waiting. On test results. On word from doctors.

So on these days when her mind is trapped and we seem to chase thoughts in circles I pray for grace. While we wait, grace. Grace for my impatience and grace to give. I pray for Him to give me His heart to see. For in the end, that’s all I know to do.