In the Valley

I don’t have a specific writer for today’s Writer Wednesday post.  The reason for that is the book I’m drawing from is a collection of writings drawn from a group of writers.  It is a book of Puritan Prayers called the Valley of Vision.  Arthur Bennett in the preface states “The prayers in this book are drawn from the largely forgotten deposit of Puritan spiritual exercises, meditations and aspirations.  They testify to the richness and colour of evangelical thought and language that animated vital piety in an important stream of English religious life.”  In reading the prayers of saints who have walked before I have been challenged by their devotion to the Lord, their passion for His glory, their hatred of their own sin, and their fear of the God of the universe.  

The preface goes on to say “The book is not intended to be read as a prayer manual.  The soul learns to pray by praying; for prayer is communion with a transcendent and immanent God who on the ground of His nature and attributes calls forth all the powers of the redeemed soul in acts of total adoration and dedication.  The prayers should therefore be used as aspirational units, the several parts of which could become springboards for the individual’s own prayer subjects.”  During those times when it can be hard to know what to pray for this book includes starting points, vivid reminders of many of the things we should be speaking to the Lord about.  Prayers that speak of His greatness, prayers that wonder at His mercy in redemption, prayers that beg forgiveness from sin, prayers of humble confession, prayers that recognize our helplessness,  prayers of thankfulness for the Lord’s abundant blessings, prayers asking for holiness, faith, grace, joy, contentment, sleep, comfort, happiness, sincerity, and prayers expressing the longing for eternity. 

There are so many things we should be going to the Lord for, so much that scripture calls us to pray without ceasing.  Yet often it’s hard to pray, hard to think deeply enough to approach the Lord with boldness.  I have been thankful to have these prayers as a springboard and a way to focus my own heart of the wonders of the Lord and on the joy and privilege it is to be heard in His presence.  Here is one of my favorite prayers from the Valley of Vision

The Deeps

Give me a deeper repentance,
A horror of sin,
A dread of its approach;
Help me chastely to flee it,
And jealously to resolve that my heart
Shall be thine alone.
Give me a deeper trust,
That I may lose myself to find myself in Thee,
The ground of my rest,
The spring of my being.
Give me a deeper knowledge of thyself
As Saviour, Master, Lord and King.
Give me deeper power in private prayer,
More sweetness in thy Word,
More steadfast grip on its truth.
Give me deeper holiness in speech, thought, action,
And let me not seek moral virtue apart from thee.
Plough deep in me, great Lord,
Heavenly Husbandman,
That my being may be a tilled field,
The roots of grace spreading far and wide,
Until Thou alone art seen in me,
Thy beauty golden like summer harvest,
Thy fruitfulness as autumn plenty.
I have no Master but thee,
No law but thy will,
No delight but thyself,
No wealth but that thou givest,
No good but that thou blessest,
No peace but that thou bestowest.
I am nothing but that thou makest me,
I have nothing but that I receive from thee,
I can be nothing but that grace adorns me.
Quarry me deep, dear Lord,
And then fill me to overflowing
With living water.

Tunesday

Today I have decided to try out another theme day!!  Tuesday sounds a bit like Tunesday doesn’t it? This idea is not new but shamelessly stolen from other bloggers who take one day a week to feature a song.  If you know me at all you know I love music.  I’ve been known to literally break into song without even meaning to.  I sing along with the music in the grocery store, I sing in the car, I sing in the shower, I sing when people say words that are in songs I know.   .  . Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m doing it until a strange in the baking aisle starts staring.

Since music stays so firmly in my mind it has been an extremely important part of my spiritual life as well.  I read a quote once that talked about how while many things like books and sermons pass through a mind fleetingly hymns stay in a mind and the tunes replay again and again causing that mind to dwell on the words, to meditate on them fully.  Adding music to lyrics cements those lyrics in the mind.  While there are many useless songs that can get stuck in my head on occasion there are also those wonderful songs that cause my thoughts to turn to the Lord.  There are those hymns and spiritual songs that tune my heart to sing His praise.

This morning I pulled a book off my shelf to look for a song to share here.  The book is Gadsby’s Hymns and according to the back cover it “is an esteemed collection of 1156 hymns of rich theological content, many of which are not found in any other current hymnal”  Many of these hymns are filled to overflowing with doctrine and adoration of the living God.  Many of the hymns in these pages no longer have tunes and it can be a delight to me to sit down with the guitar and just sing the words, most of my tunes are just a joyful noise unto the Lord with an emphasis on the word noise.  However I am not the only one who knows about this hymnal.  I discovered the book after hearing settings from it by Red Mountain Music, they actually have a CD drawn entirely from Gadsby’s Hymnal, giving tunes back to a few of these incredible hymns. 

For today I wanted to share one of my favorite hymns from Gadsby’s Hymnal and really one of my favorite hymns period.  It is Hymn # 1052 and I learned it under the title “Friend of Sinners”

Redeemer whither should I flee

Or how escape the wrath to come
The weary sinner flies to Thee
For shelter from impending doom;
Smile on me gracious Lord
And show Thyself the Friend of sinners now

 

Beneath the shadow of Thy cross
My heavy laden soul finds rest
I would esteem the world but dross
So I might be of Christ possessed
I’d seek my every joy in Thee
Be Thou both life and light to me

 

Close to Thy highly shameful tree
Jesus my humbled soul would cleave
Despised and crucified with Thee
With the resolved to die and live
This prayer and this ambition mine
Living and dying to be Thine

 

There fastened to the rugged wood
By holy love’s resistless chain
And life deriving from Thy blood
Never to wander wide again
There may I bow my suppliant knee
And own no other Lord but Thee

I can fly. . . ouch. . .maybe not

Is it possible to fall behind on a self-imposed writing project?   Well if it is then I have fallen a bit behind on this blog.  However, I am behind for good reason.  Real life has been extremely busy over the last week.  For the past few years I’ve been involved in St Stephen’s Parish Players, a community theater group on Grand Island.  My mom saw an ad in the town’s paper for auditions about 5 years ago and sent me to go try out.  My audition was absolutely terrible that year; however I was cast in the chorus of Annie Get Your Gun and have been involved with the group ever since both on and off stage.

Last week I ended up doing behind the scenes work for the younger kids show, Peter Pan.  I tend to get sucked into projects without really intending to.  I stopped over at one of the kid’s rehearsals to drop off some piratey things (Who doesn’t have swords, bandanas, and eye patches in their closets?!?!)  and stayed to move set pieces, and then stayed to paint, and then stayed to .  .   . Well you get the idea.  It was time I hadn’t planned on investing, but it was incredible to be able to come alongside and help a group of kids who have worked so hard to put on a tremendous show. 

Everything this week went very well, but it wasn’t a perfect week.  It wasn’t perfect in part because I’m not always good at knowing what my own limits are.  Quite often I don’t want to admit that the limits exist.  However they do.  As much as I sometimes want to set aside things like sleep and meals and all of those basic needs in order to do big things I was reminded this week that when some of those “little things” are ignored everything else suffers.  My generally cheerful and mostly easy going personality becomes sharper and much more easily frustrated.  Plus without those basics my body just isn’t willing to do the things I ask of it, headaches come in full force and knees refuse to bend in quite the same way as they normally do.

This week was a reminder that sometimes, even when it’s hard because I can see work that needs to be done, I need to stop working and rest.  It was a reminder that during times when I am working hard I need to plan for the basics to bring along meals and that sort of thing.  It was also a wakeup call in some ways.  I desperately want to expand my current limits physically and mentally.

I have already been doing that to a certain extent in diet with the whole High Fat, High Protein, Low Carb thing.  That way of eating seems to be a good fit for me so far.  Beyond that though if I expect  to be able to do work that is past my current limits I’m going to have to be intentional about pushing my physical limits with .   .    . wait for it.    .    . Exercise.   I have never, ever been a good exerciser!!  I am strong, I am sporty but I have never liked exercising for the point of exercising.  I have a sweatshirt that has a picture of a person being chased by a T Rex with the caption “Exercise: Some motivation required”  I guess I need to find that motivation.  .  . Anyone have a T Rex I can borrow?  No?

Hopefully the vision I have for my future is enough motivation to start working at pushing my physical limits.  There’s things I want to be able to do, as soon as this summer, that mean I need to be able to walk for longer periods of time, I need to be able to run a bit,  I need to be able to lift and move with greater ease.  Thankfully I’m not overwhelmed by those thoughts; there have been times in my life when I would have been utterly and completely overwhelmed by all of these changes that I need to make.  However they aren’t things I need to do overnight, they aren’t things I need to do perfectly, and they aren’t impossible goals.  Besides that I have the promise that God’s grace is sufficient and His strength is made perfect in weakness.   I also have a greater willingness in my own heart to obey the command “Whether you eat or drink whatever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord”  

So even though I slacked off on my blogging assignments this week, I learned a lot.  I learned more about my weaknesses and also about my strengths.  I also got to spend time getting to know as awesome group of kids better.  One of my favorite parts of this week was sneaking out into the audience at the end of each show, and cheering with all my might for the talented and smiling cast of Peter Pan.

Writer Wednesday. . . Um yeah it's Thursday, but I wrote this yesterday honest!!

The name of my Blog comes from one of my favorite books “Stepping Heavenward: One Woman’s Journey to Godliness” by Elizabeth Prentiss.  The book is the diary of a young woman, Katherine, and begins “How dreadfully old I am getting! Sixteen!”  Reading that for the first time as an 18 year old I couldn’t help, but smile. She continues “I determined, in the first place, to begin this journal.  To be sure, I have begun half a dozen, and got tired of them after a while.  Not tired of writing them, but disgusted with what I had to say of myself.  But this time I mean to go on, in spite of everything.  It will do me good to read it over and see what a creature I am.”

I have dozens of journals myself, a few pages written and then nothing.  I could relate to this girl when I was 18 and I can relate to her now.  Writing honestly about who you are is often a terrifying thing.  In this book there’s a glimpse of a girl’s struggles with herself, her struggles with the Lord, her struggles with sin, her struggles with her own longings, her struggles with temptation.  And through all the struggles she faces, she grows.  She grows in wisdom, she grows in character, she grows in her relationship with her God. 

Reading this book over the years I have often found myself, with tears in my eyes, setting it down and thinking I could have written that of myself.  Things like:

“Amelia has been here.  She has had another talk with Dr. Cabot and is perfectly happy.  She says it is easy to be a Christian! It may be easy for her; everything is.  She never has any of my dreadful feelings and does not understand them when I try to  explain them to her. Well!  If I am fated to be miserable, I must try to bear it.”

“’You would not speak to me so kindly’ I got out at last, ‘If you knew what a dreadful creature I am.  I am angry with myself and angry with everybody and angry with God.  I can’t be good two minutes at a time.  I do everything I do not want to do and do nothing I try and pray to do.  Everybody plagues me and tempts me.  And God does not answer any of my prayers, and I am just desperate.’”

“I came away; and all the way home I fought this battle with myself, saying, ‘He loves me!’ I knelt down to pray, and all my wasted, childish, wicked life came and stared me in the face.  I looked at it and said with tears of joy, ‘But he loves me!’ Never in my life did I feel so rested, so quieted , so sorrowful, and yet so satisfied.”

“It has seemed to me for several days that it must be that I really do love God, though ever so little.  But it shot through my mind today like a knife that it is a miserable, selfish love at best, not worth my giving, not worth God’s accepting.  All my old misery has come back with seven other miseries more miserable than itself.  I wish I had never been born!  I wish I were thoughtless and careless like so many other girls of my age, who seem to get along very well and enjoy themselves far more than I do.”

“The truth is the journey heavenward is all uphill.”

“It is high time to stop and think.  I have been like one running a race and am stopping to take breath.  I do not like the way things have been going as of late.  I feel restless and ill at ease.  I see that if I would be happy in God, I must give Him all.  And there is a wicked reluctance to do that.  I want Him- but I want to have my own way, too.  I want to walk humbly and softly before Him and I want to go where I shall be admired and applauded.  To whom shall I yield? To God? Or to myself?”

“Yes, I have prayed, and he has heard me. I see that I have no right to live for myself and that I must live for Him.  I have given myself to Him as I never did before and have entered, as it were, a new world.  I was very happy when I first began to believe in His love for me and that He had redeemed me.  But this new happiness is deeper; it involves something higher than getting to heaven at last, which has, hitherto, been my great aim.”

“The more I pray and the more I read the Bible, the more I feel my ignorance. And the more earnestly I desire holiness, the more utterly unholy I see myself to be. But I have pledged myself to the Lord, and I must pay my vows, cost what it may.”

“Oh I do wish.  .  . that God had given us plain rules about which we could make no mistake”

“The last day of the happiest summer I ever spent.  If I had only been willing to believe the testimony of others I might have been just as happy long ago.  But I wanted to have all there was in God and all there was in the world at once; and there was a constant, painful struggle between the two.  I hope that struggle is now over.  I deliberately choose and prefer God.  I have found a sweet peace in trying to please Him such as I never conceived of.  I would not change it for all the best things this world can give.  But I have a great deal left to learn.  I am like a child who cannot run to get what he wants but approaches it step by step, slowly, timidly- and yet approaches it.  I am amazed at the patience of my blessed Master and Teacher, but how I love His school!”

I could probably go on copying quotes from this book for hours, but then what would be left for you if you decide to read it yourself?  The encouragement for me in reading this book has often been learning that I am not alone in many of the thoughts that fill my head.  I’m not the first person who has dealt with doubt, pride, selfishness, fear, anger, loneliness.  .   .  All of those struggles have not only been faced by others on this journey heavenward, but there has been victory over all of these.  I am thankful for the honesty in these pages, even though it is a work of fiction, there is a reality in the thoughts recorded that I believe must have come from the author’s heart.

27 Bouquets

Picture this.   .   . The screen opens up to a lovely reception hall. The camera pans across the room, bright silver centerpieces.  .  . delicious wedding cake.  .   . laughing guests.   .   . and after a few moments the camera rests upon the beautiful bride holding a delightful bouquet of flowers.   After a moment the bride turns, counts to three and then tosses the bouquet.  The camera follows it upwards, it arcs, begins its decent into a crowd of reaching hands.  One of the women, ever so slightly hip checks another, and the bouquet is in her grasp, flowers rain over the crowd, her triumphant yell can be heard in surround sound.  This my  friends is the opening scene of 27 Bouquets:  Sequel to 27 Dresses!!

What do you think?  Ok so I’ve only caught 5 at this point, but I have at least two other weddings to attend this year it shouldn’t take too long to get that number up a bit more!!  The thing I love about catching bouquets is you get a guaranteed picture with the bride and a moment to talk to her in the midst of all the reception craziness.  It’s that simple.  I don’t catch bouquets because I believe the magical promise that whoever catches the bouquet will be the next to marry.  I catch them because I want a picture with my friend, and I’m really good at catch!! Plus I can handle all the bouquet catching jokes.  My favorite conversation last night after I caught my 5^th bouquet was someone saying “Hmmm maybe this means you’ll have 5 husbands.” 

Last night I also discovered some women hate bouquet tosses and either refuse to participate or stand as far as they possibly can from the bouquet.  Why do they hate it?  Well because being single at a wedding can be tough.  It can conger up all those fears of “Maybe I’ll never get to do this”, it can bring to mind all those hopes and dreams of their own wedding that hasn’t happened yet.  For some women the bouquet toss is a reminder of their singleness, it puts a spotlight on that part of who they are, and it can open the door for every married person in the place to say “You’ll be next” with a wink of course.

I’ve struggled at times in my life with weddings and some of those same fears and other fears of my own, however last night was not a struggle at all.  I was there to “Rejoice with those who rejoice”, it was a wonderful time not only to see the beginning of a family, but to spend time celebrating with good friends.  I had a woman from the Bride’s family seek me out to explain the cookies I made were just like the ones her Hungarian Grandmother made and tell a few stories of how the cookies brought back memories from her childhood.  It was delightful to meet someone new.   I also got to use my pirate accent in conversation, how often does the opportunity to use a pirate accent come up when speaking with adults? 

Weddings can be dangerous territory for single women, but they don’t have to be.  It is possible to be in the midst of love and romance without being overcome by all those destructive thoughts.  Scripture would not command us to rejoice with those who rejoice if it weren’t possible.  When we can learn to shift our focus from our own fears and worries, it opens the door to incredible joy for others, and even opens up the possibility to dream of the future without rushing it, or being discontent with where we are in life now.  That mystery of being able to hope and long for something while still being content in the state we’re in right now is a great one.  It’s not easy to do, to live with desires for things that may never come, but to willingly submit those desires over and over again to the Lord and to trust that He will give what’s best.

'Cause you had a bad day

Have you ever had a bad day?  Sometimes I have bad days.  A lot of bad days I can point to the things that went wrong, I missed my morning coffee (You saw that one coming right?), the car had a flat tire, I wore my shirt inside out and some cute guy was the first to notice.  Those days when I know why I feel lousy, when I know what went wrong are the easy bad days.  It doesn’t mean I should be upset and frustrated with all the little things that went wrong, but it helps to know how I got there.  If I know why a bad day is bad there’s hope that tomorrow I can do better.  Hope that I can fix whatever it was that went wrong or hope that I can learn to react better to all those outside things that could push me into bad day territory.

Then there are those bad days when nothing went wrong, but it feels like everything did.  It feels like you hit some sort of invisible wall and everything hurts. Every breath takes effort.  Your heart beats too fast and the worst part is you don’t know why.  Nothing is any different than yesterday, but somehow yesterday was full of rainbows and butterflies and today is.    .    . well I can’t think bad enough image to be the opposite of a rainbow.   .  . maybe smelly gym socks. 

On those days I find myself asking “What’s wrong with me?”  Everything was fine and now it hurts to breath.  I’ve found that on those days I remember my weaknesses.  In talking through what I’m thinking and feeling I usually realize that everything wasn’t really fine on the rainbow days.  That invisible wall I ran into wasn’t one that sprang out of nowhere.  It was a wall that was built.  Sometimes it’s a wall of guilt built out of mistakes I’ve made and wicked things I’ve done.  Sometimes it’s a wall of all those little things that I thought I could handle on my own, but really couldn’t.  Sometimes it’s a wall of fears about the future, or now, or the unknown.  Sometimes it’s a wall of worry, worries for the people I love who or going astray, worries for myself.   A lot of things can be used to build walls but eventually I always hit that wall. 

On those bad days instead of asking that question “What’s wrong with me?”, which can often lead to more bricks being thrown in the wall as I decide whether or not I’m hopelessly neurotic, I need to start asking the question “Where did this wall come from?”  As much as I struggle to understand why I feel the way I do there’s usually a reason for it.  Sometimes the reason is as simple as it’s the middle of winter and I miss the sun.  Sometimes the reasons are a bit more complex like “I quit my job and I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life, and I have to move, and I have so much junk, and I might have an interview for a job I really want next week but I don’t know yet, and I need a 50’s dress, and I’m super selfish most of the time and I don’t want to be and .    .   .”

So yeah I hit a pretty big wall, not all the bricks were bad things.   As hard as being an emotional person can be sometimes I’m thankful that tears can be a reminder to stop and to look around at what is happening in my life and recognize that I cannot deal with any of it on my own.  Thankfully I don’t have to deal with it all on my own.  I’ve been promised that the Lord’s grace is sufficient for me and His strength is made perfect in weakness.  I need bad days to remember how much I need His grace for every single breath. 

I know I won’t always have a good perspective of every bad day.  I know I’ll need to be reminded again and again to find out where the wall came from and reminded again to seek the sufficiency of God’s abundant grace. But right now in this moment I’m thankful for bad days, I’m thankful to be reminded of my weakness, I’m thankful for the people God used today to remind me of the blessings in my life, and to tell me not to be discouraged, I’m thankful for all the promises God himself gives, thankful that He is near to the broken hearted, thankful that He hears the cries of His children.  Bad days happen.  Bad days are hard, but they can and will be used for my good even when they are days I don’t understand.  

On the days when I am weary

Lord, you give me peace and rest

When I don’t understand it

You’re still doing what is best

And in my storms and struggles

Let me see your sovereignty

Give me Eyes to see your praises

And a heart that trusts in Thee

Look at this Photograph

In trying to pack up the apartment it has been difficult to know where to start when I still have to live here for another 2 and a half months.  I can’t pack pots and pans I’m still using.  It’s too early to box up dishes, silverware and all the other stuff that is useful in the day to day.  Up to this point I’ve packed up Christmas decorations, some books, and costumes.  All things I won’t need for the next few months and haven’t really noticed their absence.

Today I packed up some things that I don’t need, but already there’s a gap because they are in boxes.  When I first moved here the first thing I did to try and make this apartment feel like home was to hang pictures on the walls.  I also covered the refrigerator with pictures, notes, invitations and magnets and the front door was covered in Christmas cards.  Today the walls are almost bare, the front door is stark white with a few leftover pieces of scotch tape and the refrigerator door is as empty as the first day I walked in here.

I was surprised to catch myself tearing up a little as I pulled pictures from the wall and placed the safely in boxes.  Every photograph means something some make me laugh, some bring tears, some are full of memories from times that have long since passed.  Spending the last few years in this apartment on my own these pictures have been more important than I realized.  They have been reminders that while I may live alone I am not alone in this life.  Having visual reminders of friends and family covering the walls of this dwelling has been a blessing to me.  Being able to look anytime at smiling faces of people who love me has often been an anchor for me during times when I’ve felt lost and alone.

I am ready to say goodbye to this place and I think taking down the pictures that make this feel like home will help me do that.  There have been a lot of good times in this place, game nights with friends, holidays with family, guests in the spare room, prayer and praise nights,  warm cups of coffee shared.  Those are times I won’t soon forget.  Those are times that I will remember with thankfulness.  However there will be good times ahead.  While photographs are wonderful reminders of the people I love I am excited to be going back home.  I am excited to hang pictures on the walls of my room.  I may be giving up my own space leaving here, but I am gaining so much more.