Lullabies and Love

 I’ve been reading about surrender to the Perfect Love of God.  I still don’t know how to perfectly walk out this surrender of control to God, to let God control my relationship with God, my other relationships, life, and world. It is scary to be utterly dependent on another. To say, “Have your way.”

Yet I am learning more deeply than ever that God is good.

 

I still don’t know if God will ask me to do something counter to my heart’s desire. I remember God says he gives me the desires of my heart. And I believe some of my longings are from God and part of who I am created to be.

I still don’t know how this Perfect Love works. Where does this boundless fountain of love come from? This fountain that never runs dry and loves every single breathing person on this globe. Who is this Trinity we call God, Jesus, Spirit? Can I trust this Love? This love that is for me. Will it sustain me?  Satisfy me? I get glimpses of it and taste it. When Perfect Love draws too close to the shadows in my soul, I shrink back.  Fear says, “Are you sure Trinity can be trusted?”

 

There have been God representatives in my life who tried to change me, fix me and fit me into their religious mold of uniformity.  They didn’t really see me.  This conditional love clouds my understanding of Perfect Love.

I find myself slipping into performing, into being what I think others expect me to be.  To please people is a temptation for me.  My resentment rises.  Feeling stuck follows.

I withdraw and wonder if God is like that? Will God ask of me what I can’t do? Will God ask of me that which gives me nightmares and puts me in the mold of “rightness” for that person, situation, denomination or employer?  The box that stifles my freedom to be me.  

No! It is for freedom that Christ has set me free. I am no longer a slave to culture, to religion, to patriarchy, or other people’s ideas of what I should be or do.

I still don’t know how to walk in this complete surrender, to Perfect Love, to God’s complete control. I take small steps into the expanse of grace and freedom. I remember that I don’t have to make anything happen in this life.

Then words or an experience knock me off balance. I shrink back into myself and grab the controls; back into the shadows of resentment, fears of failure and to shame over my uniqueness.

 

I hear a quiet lullaby in my soul.  It is a song that Holy Trinity sang over me before I was in my mother’s womb. It is a song of love and delight. I am invited to know myself and know God, to know God and know myself. I am invited to trust the control of my being to the One who knows who I am and loves me without boundaries.

I still don’t know how this Perfect Love of the Trinity works but I will keep listening to the song because what I have experienced is good.

 

Whisper, Tale of a Winter Butterfly

Monday morning I woke to the sound of a bird singing.  It's tune was hopeful and brought a sleepy smile to my face.  In bird language it announced the assurance of Spring on its way!  It was gray outside and the schools were on a two hour delay due to the snow and freezing rain of the night before.  The bird didn't know his song should delay because his Creator wired his rhythms and it was time to sing.  Little did I know, something else was stirring!

After a Skype call with Maria (who was in Nepal on business) at noon, Kevin noticed that one of my chrysalis' had birthed a black swallowtail butterfly.  I was thrilled...... then panicked.  It is COLD and March and not a thing blooming!  What does one do with a butterfly that hatches too soon?  I posted to Facebook this question and my cousin Ed suggested the place to start was a name!  I call him Whisper, because today Spring whispered a promise to me in birdsong and a butterfly birthday.  Life is seasons and rhythms and moments marching on, offering us treasures if only we notice.  Now I have a name for the butterfly in a hurry. 

 

I put the jar containing his roommate chrysalis in the  cold garage hoping to stay another premature birth. I put an orange quarter in a saucer for its sustenance. I learned from my internet research that I can feed a butterfly Gatorade, fruit juice or sugar water (boil and cool ten parts water to one part sugar).  Soak a cotton ball or paper towel in one of these solutions and feed the butterfly.   It advised me to protect the butterfly from hot light bulbs.  Good idea.  I wonder how long he will live in my house this winter.  Their lifespans are short, usually a few weeks.  But the miracle of caterpillars and cocoons and butterflies thrill me.  And while I would have preferred he birthed at a time when he could be released to the sky, I am treasuring his beautiful wings and these thoughts he inspires.

Though it is my oversight, storing the chrysalis in a warm kitchen, his too soon emergence reminds me that I often hurry the time in cocooned waiting, impatient for the next thing, the promise of new freedom or adventure or seasons.  I hear God whisper, "Wait for my timing, Daughter-of-mine.  Trust me in the season of preparing.  Be present in the now!"  Our Lord Jesus is not hurried in the way He works in our lives.  He takes His time and makes all things beautiful according to His design and purpose for each one of us.  Jesus delights in our journeying with Him, us keeping in step with His Spirit and the opportunities He gives us to observe, participate and grow. 

My butterfly clings to the sunny window, fluttering against it as it tries to fly to the sky.  It knows where it belongs, flying free, doing what butterflies do.  Instead, it has to settle for my feeble attempts to give it an imitation life. 

I hear God whisper, "Don't settle for the imitation life this world offers.  You will wear out your wings looking for meaning in things that don't satisfy. Your longing for delight, abundance and purpose is only found in Me.  Find Me and you will find your life!"  

I can enjoy  the comforts my western culture say are necessary, a perfect family, career and financial success, a wonderful wardrobe, a beautiful home, status, position, influential friends...but my soul will suffocate with too many demands, too much to prove and no time to breathe.  Even though I have provided my butterfly with an amaryllis in bloom, a sunny window, fresh squeezed orange juice served in a pretty blue dish and protection from the elements, he still longs for something.  His fluttering at the window tells me that he knows he was meant for more.  It is distressing me and tears are puddling in my eyes as I am typing for I hear his wings beating against the windowpane.  I hate that I robbed him of his true life.

What sadness God must feel, when we trade His wonderful gift of life for fool's gold.  Jesus cautions me in Luke 12:15 to be on guard against all kinds of greed; saying "a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."  The Message states Jesus invitation in Luke 12:31 this way, "Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions."  My longings will be satisfied only in relationship with Jesus Christ.  Psalm 46:10 invites, "Be still, and know that I am God."  From that place of relationship I am free to become who I am to be .  Accepted and beloved.  My soul breathing with freedom to play and explore this wonderful gift of life.

I recently finished devouring another book, A Million Little Ways by Emily P. Freeman. You can find more about her here at her blog, Chatting at the Sky. My copy of the book has page corners turned down, highlighted sentences, my responses jotted in the margins...it is as if she wrote the book looking inside my head at the wrestling matches I have with myself and God.  Freeman eloquently reminds me that,

  "You are made in the image of Creator God and carry his Holy Spirit with you wherever you go.  You are a poem written inside the person of Christ and exist to carry out his inner desire.  You are an image bearer and you have a job to do."


I have a job to do.  You have a job to do.  Fill up with Jesus, pour out meager offerings and watch God multiply for His glory and to our delight.  Life!

A few weeks ago I was reading Luke 13:18-20, Jesus' describing the kingdom of God.  I was inspired to compose a poem like I used to in elementary school,  Haiku-style:

The Kingdom Of God

 

 Seed and yeast offered

To God becomes boughs and bread

Refreshing many.



 

Itty-bitty things, unassuming and small, when offered  to God with a  little faith become encouragement to the weary worlds we occupy. Not because of us but God through us.  I'm learning this rhythm of offering my words, my smile, my strength.....me...... to God to use for the ones He places in my ordinary life without needing to worry about outcomes, results, success or lack thereof.  In this place, being an image bearer of God with a job to do, I can flourish and fly in the freedom God planned for me.  Not limping about in an imitation world of abundance,

but truly free!

 

 

 Free as this hawk Kevin, Maria and I watched soar above the treetops but below us or at our eye level from our vantage point at 9,000 feet in the mountain of the West Elk Wilderness in Colorado.  (Photo by Maria) Free, doing what hawks do,  their lives reflecting the glory of God!

May our lives be lived in freedom and abundance for God's glory and our delight!  How are you flying today?  What is your signature style of freedom in who you are?