In The Desert

+-She can tie her shoes now. She's lost four teeth, makes her own snacks, and has better handwriting than many adults I know. No one can make her baby sister laugh like she does. I look at her sleeping, long limbs stretched out across a twin bed, and try to remember how small she used to be, like the baby I have now. And even though I know it was just as hard back then, I also know that it was long ago.

This is an interesting place where I am – at the beginning again with a new child, but knowing all too well how quickly I'll be five years down the road. So I keep asking myself why I still get so irritated. Why do I let the little things add up? Why do I allow the baby's mood to determine how my days go? Why do I still get weary even though I love them so much? The answer, I'm aware, is simply that I'm living in humanity. Perspective goes a long way, but it doesn't make the living any lighter.

When we first decided to move to Arizona, I was convinced that I would hate it. I had never been in a desert environment, and having grown up in a wet climate with lush green all around, I assumed I'd feel completely out of place in all the dust and heat that awaited me. A desert had always held negative connotations for me, like isolation and bleakness.

Surprisingly, I ended up loving the desert. It holds its own beauty not found anywhere else on earth, and there's something about its solitude that can give a sense of freedom. I can understand why U2 named my favorite album (The Joshua Tree) after a desert plant. In an interview Bono said, “Spending time in Africa and seeing people in the pits of poverty, I still saw a very strong spirit in the people, a richness of spirit I didn't see when I came home… I saw the spoiled child of the Western world. I started thinking, 'They may have a physical desert, but we've got other kinds of deserts.' And that's what attracted me to the desert as a symbol of some sort.”

Metaphorically speaking, we've all lived in many deserts. All too often I've walked paths in which I've had to reach really hard for that richness of spirit, and sometimes I just couldn't pull it off. I know deep down that there's beauty to be found, even there, but that doesn't mean I can always see it. Even in the dry path I'm walking now, with the scorching sun at my back, a cactus blooms. And I may miss it if I'm too focused on the rest.

And if I'm being completely honest, I've been missing it a lot lately.

My third child teaches me daily about the importance of letting go of expectations. It has been a recurring theme for me throughout her little life thus far – reality not matching up with my ideas for how things should go down. Babies are like that anyway, you know – always thwarting your well-intentioned plans (like naps and leisure time). This third go-round for me has revealed just how much of my hangups in life have to do with holding tight to what's comfortable and safe, of how much my joy in life is dependent on everything it shouldn't depend on. I'm still living in the expectation of what should be, not what it truly is.

Those unreasonable expectations hold disappointment on the other side. When I convince myself of how my day will go. When I make a choice, believing I already know the outcome. When I fold the laundry and expect all the socks to match up. (I'm a silly creature – you'd think I'd have learned by now.)

I believe we're meant to crave the unknown wild, but instead I run from it, afraid of what I might find there. I'd rather it all work out. I'd rather have control. I'd rather not feel so small. Or so I think.

Spend just one night camping underneath a starry desert sky, and the smallness you feel is unlike any other. It envelops you...embraces you. It can be an amazingly freeing feeling to realize how tiny you are in the vastness of the universe – but only if you don't allow it to overwhelm you first.

If only I could remember my oldest every time I look at my youngest, and think about how soon she'll fill up that bed instead of being overwhelmed by her smallness. If only I could always see that the worn-out-cranky-kid-chasing days will soon give way when the sun sets just up ahead. If only I could stop caring about lost socks. If only I could fill up on that richness of spirit instead of running on fumes and frustration.

After all, I can't spend too much time in the desert if I haven't quenched my thirst.

31 Days Of Strength In Scripture: Discouragement

It's easy to get worn out in this life.

Though I do a pretty good job of 'looking on the bright side', I am most often discouraged when I start feeling the weight of the world, and by that I mean I can be crushed by having too much coming at me all at once - things like unmet expectations, disappointments, hurt feelings, stress, and all of life's little downers. And sometimes BIG downers.

But whenever I get discouraged, what I generally try to fall back on is taking all of the good in my life and bringing it to the forefront. It's tempting at times to dwell on what's wrong, but the 'wrong' is always there. We are in a fallen, completely messed up place, out of sorts absolutely all the time. We have to make a habit of finding our little joys and focusing on the good – otherwise we run the risk of getting swallowed up by the bad.

I'm human, and sometimes I forget who I am and what's important. I forget to have perspective, or better yet, I choose not to have the right perspective – because attitude is always a choice.

The good is often pretty simple and easy to see. My children are healthy. We are comfortable and fed and warm in our beds at night. I have people I love to share my life with, however messy that life may get. That kind of perspective tends to keep me going.

But if you are feeling the weight of the world right now, perhaps it's not all that easy to make a list of the good. Thankfully, we can find rest in the hope that lies beyond the veil, despite the battle that wages around us.

“For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
- 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

I truly believe that all we see and experience has value beyond the temporary and a greater and more beautiful meaning than we could ever imagine. Without that hope, I'm not sure where I'd be. I do know, however, that I can have glimpses into eternity by knowing the One who has promised it to me.

31 Days Of Strength In Scripture: Perspective

Sometimes it's as simple as making the effort to get up and move to the other side of the bus.

Other times it's not that simple, but we always have a reason to find hope in the life we've been given.

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'” - John 7:38