Good Old Fashioned Kick in the Pants

I’ve been thinking lately… a lot. Time has slowed down considerably now that the summer has hit. Not for anyone I know. Just me. That’s why it’s slow. Sometimes I revel in it, and sometimes I want to see if a .44 may have any affect on the sun so that I could go spend an afternoon at a park without suffering from heat stroke. Like I said, I’ve been thinking a LOT.

I wish I could say I’ve been praying a lot too, but that’s a muscle I’ve been neglecting more often than I want to admit. Have you ever noticed that you can convince yourself that you’re praying when all you’re doing is complaining? Well, I have because I have. It’s not that my intentions are complaints when I begin, but then whether it’s pregnancy hormones, circumstances, or just plain depravity, my prayers so easily sound like that of a bowstring wrapped in foil, scraping across an unsuspecting violin. The point is, it’s not pretty.

Now, I get legitimate frustration from things outside of our control. BELIEVE ME. If you had an hour to sit down and hear the story of the past few months of our lives, you’d see why I understand. And it’s not as if the Lord is surprised or overwhelmed by our complaints. However, for some reason I have allowed too many excuses slip in, only resulting in a void of thanksgiving, peace, and faith. What has too often replaced these is grumpy reminders to God of those things of which He is already perfectly aware.  Paul said the famous phrase-turned-cheesy-song “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say  REJOICE.” (Phil. 4:4)

Always doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for a “yeah, but” list. He’s using an imperative. And all of this comes just before he tells the Philippian church to be anxious for nothing, but to pray with thanksgiving. This is my goal for today.

BAM!

I was kind of biting my nails last night whilst watching the famous Gary Lezak (Kansas City’s “Weather Leader”) sport his goofy shirt and tie combo, but more for the sake of the hail he was projecting than his apparel, though it’s still kind of a toss-up. I was envisioning coming out of my back door this morning to a mutilated garden. Though I took precaution with a garden cover over my entire bed, I know enough about wind to know that my only guarantee of total protection of my delicate plants would be an over-sized lead casing to cover my entire garden. I didn’t have one. So on went the garden cover, accompanied by many prayers.

The only problem with my plan was that poor little plants can get crushed under any kind of cover. To my utter relief this morning, I not only peeled back the cover to find a perfectly intact garden, but an exploding one as well. This is the benefit of thunderstorms. With all of the dangers, thunderstorms provide a far greater amount of nitrogen than a gentle spring rain. (If you didn’t know, gardens LOVE nitrogen… except for peppers, but that’s a different blog post for another time).  Oddly enough, I did not learn that from a garden book, but from a commentary on Zechariah 10:1.

“Ask the LORD for rain n the time of spring rain. From the LORD who makes the storm clouds;  He will give them showers of rain, to everyone the vegetation of the field.”

The first time I read that I was a little bit confused because I associated storms with destruction, and thought “why do storm clouds look like a positive thing in this verse?!” It was then that I discovered the bit about the nitrogen.

This is what I got from the garden this morning! Tons of sage and a nice fat bunch of large parsley. Thankfully the hail we had earlier today did very little damage to the veggies.

And because I can never get sick of Peonies, here are cuttings from a few hours ago. Last year they were white, so I’m enjoying the change!

Rhubarb Lesson of the Day

Last week I learned that there were more things about rhubarb I have never been made aware of it. A few years ago my mother-in-law purchased a “Ruby Red” rhubarb plant. It’s done swimmingly every time it’s been transplanted, but this year was the first year I can actually harvest this lovely plant for food. Only one perplexing problem arose- it was anything but “ruby red”. I’d describe it as sort of red until it gets mature, and then morphs into green stalks with little red tips toward the root.

The problem? I’m not sure, but I suspect the interesting weather patterns we have been experiencing. In fact, after we had a freakish spike in temperatures in the 90′s earlier this spring, I had to chop out the seed heads that were forming (which is something that shouldn’t form early in the year!) Well, the more I read up on rhubarb the more I am confident that I can harvest the stalks without having to worry. So… I’m going to try it. Green rhubarb pie, here I come!

Lately….

Well, here’s my annual post! Okay, to be fair, I have a lot on my plate, and blogging often hangs out on the bottom rung of the priority chain right under “sleep” and “eat” (not necessarily in that order). Due to lack of funds both in my wallet and in the wallet of potential customers, my cake making “business”, if you can even call it that, has hit a  sustained lull. I blame NFL owners for this since they seem to have all of America’s money anyway. This being the case, I have taken up a number of interesting ventures.

Never in my life have I gardened, but I am now. Tomatoes, basil, onions, peas, beans, peppers, chamomile, sage, rhubarb, lettuce, carrots… the list goes on and on. Whilst humming cheerful tunes from My Fair Lady, I managed to obtain lumber from the nearby Lowes, and built myself a grid for my square foot garden. Running my fingers through fresh vermiculite and composted chicken manure is surprisingly satisfactory, and though my neighbors snickered at my determination in some pretty back-breaking work, I am OWNING my beds. I’ve absorbed books upon books on the subject of growing things, and have yet to be bored by all of the wealth of information found therein.

On top of this I decided to be a teaching assistant for the International House of Prayer University’s Book of Daniel Course. I have to admit, I’m my parents’ daughter. My teaching gene kicks on, and all of the grading and managing of a classroom makes me itch to know the subject matter more and more. Some would think it’s among the more boring responsibilities available, but I happen to love it. It’s not that I’m particularly good at administration or that I like administrating life in general- it’s that I’m a nerd and love to learn and be challenged. Plus Daniel is one power-packed book and has been a favorite for 7 years.

More than anything else, though, hunger for the Scriptures has swooped in and grabbed me by my throat. I have been spending more and more hours in the prayer room when time allows, and in that time I have been struck by how necessary our daily bread in the Word really is. I have recently become acutely aware of the loss I suffer when distractions create excuses, and excuses create a void where Biblical study and meditation once resided.  It’s never worth it to lose ground in reading the Word and getting to know the God who wrote it. But I have resolved to feast daily and let the Lord renew my mind, taking back the ground that was lost in my own memory of the Scriptures. The Lord is worthy of my time, and my time is the most valuable possession I can give to Him, so I’m hittin’ the Good Book pretty hard these days.

Back Home

Today I got to visit one of my favorite places in the world- the prayer room.  To be perfectly honest, it’s a place I have not spent enough time in for the past year. My daughter is a year and a half, and I’m STILL trying to find a groove. It’s amazing how long it’s taken me to get to a point where I am able to work around naps, snacks, and meals, but it occurred to me yesterday that if I can’t get this down with only one kid, my hopes of getting it down with more kids is pretty slim. To that I add that I’m now 7 weeks pregnant with our second baby.

For several weeks I have been asking the Lord for grace to go deeper in the Scriptures, as well as to help me carry this baby with ease. The last pregnancy was extremely hard, and though I’ll spare you the details of my daily challenges during that time, I admittedly dreaded another pregnancy if it meant I was going to have the same experience. Thankfully, it couldn’t be more different this time around. Morning sickness comes and goes, but only occasionally strikes hard, and I’m at least armed with the knowledge of how to avoid the triggers that send me into it.

That being said, the one thing I’ve needed more than anything else has been rest, but last night my husband and I stayed up late with a friend, and then continued talking long into the night. I wanted so desperately to feel well in the morning so that I could go to the prayer room, but based on experience I wasn’t so positive about the way it would pan out. To my total surprise, however, I felt so energetic after only six hours  of sleep (which is NOT enough when you’re in your first trimester!), and within 15 minutes I was ready to head out the door. Even as I type this, I feel so well and energetic. It’s odd when you expect the bottom to drop out at any moment, but I’m thankful for this day.

My husband took our little toddler so that I could pray, and the first hour of being in the prayer room was one of the most refreshing hours I can ever remember experiencing anywhere. It was like coming home.  I just cried on the front row, feeling each instrument resonating through my hands and chest as each note was played. The meditation was focused around the Word made Flesh, and I couldn’t imagine leaving the room for any reason. If I had my druthers, I would have spent ten hours in that place. It didn’t matter what part of the Bible I was reading. First it was John 1, then it was Jude, then it was Psalm 1, then Mark 14, and then it was a couple of chapters in Jeremiah. All I wanted to do was absorb the moment in prayer and letting the Word of God wash over my mind.

Taking communion was like a feast for my heart. Letting the Holy Spirit search me and convict me of recent slip ups and sin, and confession and repentance felt like warm bath, cleansing away all the grit I had let accumulate. All I could do was say “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!”

The moral of the story? If you’re a part of IHOP-KC, take nothing for granted. We are so privileged to be here. To have a place that’s open all day long and all night long for the purpose of ministering before the Lord in prayer and worship is such a gift. I get to go back tomorrow morning… and I’m psyched out of my mind about it.

Daily Bread

Upon the request of my friend Trisha, I am setting a small goal to begin blogging again. The hard part about blogging for me is the veritable lack of “flow” in small periods I am able to give to writing, because they are often abruptly interrupted by chasing an extremely fast-crawling baby before she reaches the stairs to begin her  frequent ascent. Thankfully she is currently playing at my feet by dragging as many Tupperware containers out of the cabinets as she can.

For the last several months I have been pained over a gigantic lack of Scripture reading and studying in my life, so last week I put together a plan to get rolling. Of course, since motherhood is not so new to me anymore, I hold the plan loosely, recognizing that it’s more of a suggestion than a to-do list. However, I find it funny that there is so much warfare surrounding the simple reading of the Scripture.  *pause for baby chase*

Given the amount of times in the last year I’ve attempted similar lifestyle changes to the one in progress, I’ve had my fair share of frustration over planning out my day. But I believe that this time is different. My husband runs a Christian summer camp for teenagers, and ever since the couple of weeks leading up to the beginning of it, I have noted a sudden rise in all forms of attempts at derailing my confidence in the ability of God to aid me in spending time reading the Word and in prayer. Side note: when you engage in partnering with the Lord in ministry, expect resistance from the enemy.

Anyway, so far every time I sit down to have that quiet precious time with the Lord, something interrupts. Where my daughter’s nap used to last an hour and a half in the morning, ever since I began to plan my day around moments to get in the Word, this nap has been whittled down to 30 minutes on a good day. Today I was stoked because I found some old highlighters that would not bleed through rice paper. I searched the house and collected as many colors as I could locate, warmed up my nearly untouched cup of coffee, and since Natalie had only been sleeping for about 10 minutes, I was sure I would get around an hour to tear through Revelation and probably knock out Jude. A couple of text messages distracted me for a few minutes, but I was still good on time, and began my morning voyage on the high seas of the Holy Writ. Twenty minutes later, I heard the cries. My child was awake.  And annoyed about it.  I was happily highlighting my way through Revelation, but had barely begin. I I let her carry on for a short bit, but then the cries turned to screams, and upon closing the cover to my favorite book, I felt the ache.

I do not blame my daughter for interrupted sleep. It’s out of her control. Frustration would be too strong a word to describe such interruptions. “Disappointment” may be better suited, but even then, it’s a mixture of ache, longing, desperation (not in the negative sense of the word), hunger… maybe Bible-starved is the closest I can get to an explanation.  It would be one thing if it happened one or two times, but EVERY TIME? My record so far is 40 minutes of actual reading time, and today something special finally occurred to me.

Before beginning this new “schedule” of Bible time, I was daily aware of my need and my lack in making the Scripture enough of a priority to plan my day around it, but still felt so overwhelmed at the prospect of actually STARTING to read, that I neglected it no matter how conflicted I felt. Today, however, as much as I would love to have two hours to just dig deep in the Word of God in some way or other, whether by meditation, study or simple reading, what hit me was the fact that I was finally unable to live without it.

I’m not satisfied to live off of fumes from days and old studies gone by, or by someone else’s revelation. That’s why Jesus called it “DAILY bread”. I used to have all the time in the world to saturate myself in the Word of God, but now only brief snippets of moments. The powerful thing is that it counts. And what the devil doesn’t get is that all of the interruptions he can throw my way to keep me from the Word, only serve to deepen the hunger.

…And thank God for Bible on CD.

New Lessons in Patience

A passage that has been a great comfort to me as a mother is Romans 5:3-5. I heard it preached a while ago, and it gave me such courage that I wanted to develop my own thoughts as it pertains to my own circumstances. Teething, fatigue and ear aches have created a very unpredictable sleep schedule on a regular basis as of late, which has at times managed to extract every nerve from my soul that they might be cast into a proverbial sizzling pan of hot oil. There are times when I know the grace of God is strengthening me to take a deep breath and to be patient, and there are times when I want to take out some frustration on a nearby unsuspecting teddy bear. One thing is sure, however. My lessons in parenting have constructed an overall increase in patience in a way that I never knew could be.

Yes, I’m exhausted and wake up every morning with the sensation of having my eyelids super-glued shut, and my legs feel as if I’m walking on two blobs of boneless tissue, but I have been learning that this kind of servanthood is taking me down to the workshop of the human soul where the Holy Spirit is utilizing every moment of cooperation I give Him to make me more like Jesus.

Each passing week that yields sporadic naps and several night wakings forms more and more peace in me. I can’t explain it except to say the grace of God is abundant for this job; motherhood, that is. Thankfully, the more I give way to it, the more I enjoy my daughter in her struggle to rest. Enjoying her rather than reacting emotionally to her immaturity has done more than reduce stress. I actually believe that God doesn’t react emotionally to my immaturity.

If you have ever said you don’t want to have kids, let me just say that I used to say the same thing. What I found out after having one is that it was my selfish pride and fear of royally screwing a kid up that held me back, but so far there has been no greater doorway into the heart of God for me. If  there was no God who bestowed no grace to parents, then all the fears of having children would have been legitimate, but all those traces of unbelief in my heart about the goodness of my God are crumbling. Parenting alters everything about your heart, your mind, and yes, your body. I would not have it any other way.

Paul says it this way in Romans 5:3-5:

“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. “

At a Loss for Word…s

Lunch time. Homemade Cayenne Hot Cocoa. Bean Burrito. Stove Top Popcorn. Psalm 119.

As my daughter has been “napping” for somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes, my days have been so far from routine that I don’t quite remember what it means to call your schedule a schedule. Thus the burrito, hot cocoa popcorn lunch combo. At least it’s snowing outside, reducing the oddity of this lunch by a small fraction as it is comfort food. Time with the Lord has of late been squeezed in whenever possible since the  vast majority of my day is twirled around the ever elusive “nap.

I’m perched on a stool in my dining room, listening to the hum and clanking of the jeans in the dryer with a whining cabin-fevered dog at my feet, staring at a less familiar Bible these days. Yes, the Bible I’ve had for the past 5 years has managed to disappear. If you’ve ever fully “moved in” to a Bible that you’ve lost you understand my agony. Nothing seems to be in the right books, and what used to be quick references now has too frequently turned into a wild goose chase. Sometimes I can’t decipher if I’m pained that I lost it, or if I’m in pain that I don’t know the Bible as well as I just know my OWN Bible.

I’m now using my dream Bible- a calf-skin ESV with wide margins and center column reference, which was a beautiful gift from my in-laws  when I graduated Bible school. (I’ll give you a minute to get a napkin to wipe the drool from your chin). There’s only one problem; five years of precious notes from times of study and loving meditation, all the color-coding, all the questions I wrote all over my old Bible have disappeared with it.  However, what more often than not feels like a fly in the ointment, is also a blessing in disguise.

I discovered this yesterday when I read through a favorite chapter of mine- Psalm 119. As I prayed through it I was struck with verse 162. It says in the ESV, “I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil.” Imagine yourself being invited to participate in something like “The Amazing Race”, where the winner is decided based on who first discovers a room chock full of loot; money, rare antiquities, gold, new cars, and a deed to a beautiful mansion, just to name a few. Imagine being the first to enter that room as the winner, there to claim your prize! Can you fathom the feeling deep in your gut knowing that aaaaaalllllllll of this is yours?! Can you imagine the way your mind would begin to race as you began to dream up what you were going to do with all that loot? Can you imagine the sobriety and dread that would come over you amidst the elation when you realized that you are about to learn how to be a responsible multimillionaire?!   All of this would change everything in a moment… unless of course you’re already acquainted with having those kinds of resources at your disposal.

I began to look at Psalm119:162 on it’s fresh clean page in my calf-skin ESV with new found revelation. Read it again: “I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil.” The Psalmist has something profound to teach us. I want to rejoice over the Word of God with mounting excitement, holy fear, wonder, and sheer giddiness!

So… though I take a moment of silence in missing my dear old Bible, I have this new one inviting me on the chase into the knowledge of God. This is going to be fun.

On The Wings of Change

The waiting period has to be the most emotional for me. For the past month, Zack and I have agreed to begin our search for a new house, one that would be ours for at least a decade or more. It all started at the beginning of last month when Zack massively encountered the Holy Spirit in such a way that he has been a changed man ever since. His heart has been continually aching for the poor. “I want to be like George Bailey”, he told me. I agreed, but didn’t have the same zeal until a week later when I went to the prayer room strictly to spend some time waiting on the Lord to see what He might want to tell me. After a divine appointment type conversation with a dear friend in the coffee shop, I began to have Luke 6:30 racing through my mind.

“Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back”, it says. The verse is offensive to the American dream, but Jesus gives no qualifiers to make it easier to swallow. Zack and I had only just begun discussing moving from our present situation because of some unfortunate circumstances that occurred with the owner of the house.  We had the option of either trying to buy it, or choosing to move elsewhere.

Suddenly I found myself burdened for the poor as well as I sat in prayer, but in a way I never would have expected. We could stay in our house and try to buy it, but  pictures began to flash through my mind of the people I most admire. All of them had two common characteristics: they are joyful and they are generous.   It was not only that they were generous with their finances, though that is a great prayer of mine (God, make me a joyful giver!  I want to give millions of dollars away for the spreading of the gospel!), but they are also generous with their heart and their time. There are those who give of their resources but never open their heart, and never give of their time. I want to be one who is generous in all three areas: heart, time, money.

Among the people I saw as I prayed came a random scene from a movie that I don’t particularly like. It was the movie “Ever After”, which I haven’t seen in years. The prince of the story is entirely too self-preoccupied for his own good, but after meeting the heroine of the story, he is ignited with passion for things he had never considered before. The scene that came to mind was when he was gushing to her about this newfound zeal and says the line, “I used to think that if I cared about anything I’d have to care about everything, and I’d go stark raving mad. But now I’ve found my purpose.”

My stomach fluttered inside of me and I realized that what I thought I was made for was only a small fraction of the story. What was I beginning to understand about my future? It was as if Jesus was inviting me and my little family into the type of ministry that few (including myself) would think possible. Yes, we could stay in our current house, but I began to feel as though Zack and I were to be like a father and a mother to many who needed to know that kind of love. Too many people have grown up only knowing the abandonment and disappointment associated with being a child of somebody. I’m not even talking about adoption, though I pray we will be able to do that one day as well. I’m talking about expressing the love of Christ to people, young and old alike, that the Lord puts in our path who have never known the peace of a loving Christ-centered home, the warmth of an environment where prayer is commonplace, and the safety found in the care of ones who value those who cannot fight for themselves.

I felt as though the Lord was saying that the home we are currently in is too small for the  ministry assignment He has for us: to do life as lovers of Jesus with a tangible expression of helping those in need in a real way, on a daily basis. It’s a very expensive undertaking. We need a house with lots of room, lots of beds, lots of food, but thankfully I know this: the Lord ALWAYS pays for what He orders.  I have no idea what all of this will mean for the coming year, but life is about to get a lot more exciting for this little Hensley clan.

Lessons, lessons…

The solitude of being a mom holds in itself the supreme opportunity for either the formation of meekness or carnality, day after day, and moment after moment. And one minute you finally feel as though you’ve obtained a measure of meekness, and the next you feel as though you grabbed meekness by the shirt collar, shook it, and chucked it out the window! And then there are those moments when you have every reason to let the carnality have its way, but instead you lean into the grace of God and choose the way of kindness… and oh, those moments are so valuable to the Lord. At times His pleasure over me in those moments make me laugh at how often I preferred the public pat on the back from a man or woman of influence to feel valid. It’s not as often as I want it to be yet that I experience that kind of awareness of His gaze, but I know there’s gold to be had in eternity when I cooperate with His grace.