Thirty-one days hath December. Consider this post 1 of 31. I’m challenging myself to share my heart here every day this month in the hopes of honoring Jesus, the Word made flesh to dwell among us, Emmanuel.

I begin with a quote from Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot. I read P&P when I was in college. I was a freshman, and I literally thought I’d be married within the year. To whom, I wasn’t quite sure. I just knew it was supposed to happen that way. So I’m pretty sure I sailed through the book on wild wings of romanticism, completely ignoring the theme of Elliot’s story – that sometimes we are called to make great sacrifices in matters of the heart, but always, God is faithful – and reveling in the juicy details of Elisabeth and Jim Elliot’s love story. I knew that reading it again 15 years later (seriously? 15 years?) would give me a fresh perspective, and my how that perspective has indeed changed. More on that later. For now, the quote:

For those with ears to hear and eyes to see, there will be very great release from unbearable burdens in the language of autumn trees, for example, when they dress most gloriously in preparation for death. The red of the leaves is the sign of the cross. Winter follows, when snow closes everything in frozen silence. The trees then are skeletons, but wonders are being performed under the surface of things. Spring comes, and the hidden wonders burst out all at once – tiny shoots, swelling buds, touches of green and red where all seemed hopeless the day before…If the leaves had not been let go to fall and wither, if the tree had not consented to be a skeleton for many months, there would be no new life rising, no bud, no flower, no fruit, no seed, no new generation.

I cannot tell you just how deeply this resonates with me. I was that tree turned skeleton. I watched as every last leaf burst into color, dried up and fell, and I stood bare and cold, bracing for winter winds. Yet all along, I knew that something new was being birthed in me. Something amazing was growing just beneath the surface, and knowing that helped me stand, even if some days I was only barely managing to stay upright. I’m so grateful to be able to say that over these last few months, Spring has definitely come. I know God’s love and grace in a way I would have never imagined possible. I can think back to those skeleton-tree days now and feel not sorrow, but gratitude and awe.

There is certainly more growth to take place, and I know that as long as I trod this native soil, my life’s seasons will be ever-changing. But for now, I’m reveling. For now, I’m rejoicing. And I’d like you to know that if you’re watching your leaves fall, or if they’ve fallen and the bitter winds are closing in, there is hope. Our God is in the business of resurrection. If we are in Christ, the deaths we experience will always give way to new life. The winter may be long, but the spring will come and you will marvel at His goodness. Perhaps you can give the video below a look/listen and be encouraged.

It is not over, and you are not alone. He is there with you, healing you, growing you, working in you. And He is forever good.

I enrolled Olivia in 4K at a private school for the 2012-2013 school year. Her birthday falls after the state’s you-have-to-be-five-by-this-date cutoff, but I just had it in my head that she needed to start this year. I was one of those younger-than-everyone-around-me kids in school, and I felt like she needed to have that same experience. I don’t know why, but somehow I invented this correlation between starting school early and being smart. So Olivia took the 5K test. The school said she wasn’t ready, but they have a wonderful 4K program that focuses on getting kids ready for 5K, and she would fit right in. In essence, she would still be starting school. She just wouldn’t be starting kindergarten. Since I’d decided starting early meant she had the best crack at being a genius, I signed her up.

I don’t recall taking much time to pray about it.

As August 20^th drew closer, I started to make the necessary preparations: uniforms, supplies, scheduling…but something about it felt odd. I was standing in the aisle at Walmart, trying to find this certain brand of watercolors, and I realized: I am beginning my child’s scholastic career. One year ahead of schedule. In three days, when she starts school, she will begin a journey spanning a minimum of 14 years. I shook it off and kept shopping, but that just-below-the-surface panicked feeling wouldn’t go away. We met her teacher, I read the student handbook, I wrote her name on boxes and Tupperware and Ziploc bags and blankets and t-shirts. And I still felt unsettled.

Monday morning came, and with it, her first day of school. I dressed her in her pink polo shirt and khaki jumper, and I had her stand on the front porch to pose for a picture. Still, the odd, unsettled feeling persisted. I figured I was just nervous that we would be late. So I hurried her into the car and we headed to school. I was literally ill the entire day. But I dismissed it as a case of the jitters. Five days this continued, until late Friday night, we were at Nana’s and Livi told me a story about something that had happened that day, something that had hurt her feelings. And something inside of me snapped.

I rattled off all the things I’d been feeling, all of my questions and hesitations and worries. Then I made it around to my reasons for enrolling Liv in school, and I realized: I had not done this for her. Not really, anyway. I had done this for me. I did it so I could feel better about the fact that I’m not able to be home with her all day, every day, teaching her the alphabet and how to count to 30 and how to tie her shoes. I don’t want her to wait until she is almost 6 years old to know how to read, and I know that if I had that life where I get to be a wife and mom who stays home and bakes and sews and home-schools her kids, she wouldn’t have to wait until she is almost 6 years old to know how to read, but as it is, I do not have that life, so while I go to work five days a week, I need someone spending all day with her making sure she learns. how. to. read.

I wish I had been willing to articulate that four months ago. It would’ve saved me a boatload of cash.

Long story short, I spent the weekend processing everything, and first thing Monday morning, I talked to this person here and that person there, and presto change-o: Olivia was back in her beloved daycare. The daycare I never should’ve yanked her out of in the first place. The daycare where she may not learn to read before next fall, but where, while I go to work five days a week, someone is spending all day with her making sure she knows she is loved. Making sure she knows who Jesus is. Making sure her little body and soul are nourished.

In all of this, I realize just how tightly I cling to Olivia and to my plans for her life. I am reminded that I did not fashion the world with my hands, and my plans are flawed and short-sighted. I am reminded that my precious daughter is a gift, and she ultimately belongs to the Lord. My job is not to cling to her but to cling to the One who made us both, trusting Him to guide me in mothering her. I know He has a plan for her. I know that plan can be trusted. I know He can be trusted. I know…

…that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.                                                                                                                                    Romans 8:28

A few weeks ago, I opened a book by Kay Arthur that takes Psalm 23 and breaks it out into individual devotional-type readings. I love Kay Arthur, and I’m a huge fan of the Psalms, so I figured we were on solid ground here. And we were. Until page 9, when she says this:

“Sheep are helpless, timid, feeble creatures that have little means of self-defense. They are among the dumbest of all animals, and because of this they require constant attention and meticulous care. If sheep do not have the constant care of a shepherd, they will go the wrong way, unaware of the dangers at hand. They have been known to nibble themselves right off a mountainside! They will overgraze the same land and run out of food unless the shepherd leads them to new pastures, and if they are not led to proper pastures, they will obliviously eat or drink things that are disastrous to them.

Sheep easily fall prey to predators, and when they do, they are virtually defenseless. Sheep can also become cast down and, in that state, panic and die. And so, because sheep are sheep, they need shepherds to protect and care for them.

If you belong to the Lord, you, Beloved, are the sheep of His pasture.”

Excuse me, Kay Arthur? Did you just call me helpless and feeble and dumb and weak? I am SO not any single one of those things. Ever.

Except that I am. Even if I wouldn’t own that, though, I know that God’s Word is inerrant, and His Word compares us to sheep. I’m also fairly certain that sheep look and act basically the same today as they did in the beginning. Still, I had trouble receiving Kay’s explanation. Normally I love for Biblical word pictures and analogies to be broken down and explained – it’s one of my favorite things about studying the Word. But in this case, well, it’s just unflattering.

Not only that, I had to wonder: is this my inheritance? To be this dumb, weak creature who doesn’t have a shred of good sense about her?

What’s funny about my bristling at Kay’s description of sheep is that not two weeks before that, I was absolutely reveling in the beauty of John 10, where Jesus says He is the Good Shepherd. My friend Bill Smith explained the shepherd’s role as gatekeeper in this way: the shepherd will lie down in front of the sheep pen and will physically be the gate to the pen. Not a single thing can get in without having to pass through him first. Oh, how I love that sense of protection, that deeper understanding of Romans 11:36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things…”

It stands to reason that I found it considerably difficult to reconcile all of those lovely sheep and shepherd word pictures from John 10 with the stark reality of just how nutty sheep are. So I put it aside for a while, thinking maybe I could receive it more willingly another day. Say, in ten years? After all, I intend to be so much more spiritually mature by then.

Alas, ten years was too long to wait for peace in the sheep pen. Last Sunday’s sermon at Fellowship North focused on, you guessed it, Psalm 23. As it were, I had been flailing about in confusion all weekend over this one decision I’m facing and a word that had been spoken over me that I just couldn’t seem to interpret, much less receive, so the thought of being a helpless, harassed, confused and panicky sheep no longer offended my sensibilities. Plain and simple, it fit. I sat in the pew, feeling tired in that kicking-against-the-goads way, and Harold read verse two: “He makes me lie down in green pastures…” It sounded so lovely that I don’t remember a single word of the sermon after that – I was transfixed by the idea of how He makes us rest.

I wanted to know more, so I did some of my own research, and here’s what I found: when sheep are cared for by a truly good shepherd, they listen to that shepherd explicitly and will follow him anywhere. As a result, the sheep are not feeble and panicked and defenseless. They are calm, content and secure in their shepherd’s care. And that is the kind of sheep we get to be.  Do you know that when Matthew referred to the various crowds Jesus spoke to and upon whom He had compassion as ‘harassed and helpless’, he reinforced that description with the comparison, ‘like sheep without a shepherd’? (Mt 9:36, emphasis mine) It is the shepherd who calms the sheep, who leads them, who hems them in. It is the shepherd who makes the sheep lie down. All of this was so comforting to me, for this reason above any others:

Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd.” 

John 10:7-11a

He is the good shepherd, immeasurably the best of all the good shepherds there ever were. And I am more than happy to be one of His sheep.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Kay Arthur book I’d like to finish…

“God will never give you more than you can handle.”

I’ve heard it. You’ve heard it. I’ve said it. You’ve probably said it.

I don’t say it anymore. 

See, I don’t think it’s Scripturally sound. (It actually takes me quite a bit of nerve to admit that in wide-open web-space.) Now, I know that the Scriptures say that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear. But does that also mean He’ll shield us from anything else we can’t bear? I don’t think it does. In fact, I think life is more than we can handle. For the sake of discussion, I’ll do us all a favor here and narrow the lens just a bit.

I think we go through seasons in life where our immediate portion is particularly difficult to manage. Usually it involves some type of suffering, pain, stress or discomfort, and the magnitude of whatever it is we’re going through knocks us flat on our haunches – broken nose, dislocated shoulder, sprained ankle and all. Yet a race still begs to be run. But that doesn’t mean we’re doomed to failure. On the contrary…

When we are weak, He is strong. When He is strong, we see Him everywhere we look. When we see Him everywhere we look, we live life to the most very full! We draw near to Him and He heals us, carries us, shoulders our burdens…whatever it may be that we need in the moment – He shows up, and He cares for us.

If God never gave us more than we could handle, what of the trials that we are to consider joy because our tested faith develops perseverance which, in turn, renders us mature and complete? What of being hard-pressed, persecuted, struck down? What of Job?

Seriously.

I spent a few minutes planning my week earlier tonight. I wrote down every appointment or event I have scheduled, along with multiple to-do lists titled ‘Housework’, ‘Yardwork’, ‘Work-work’, ‘Biblework’ and ‘Runningwork’. And I walked away from my previously pristine calendar now covered in ink with just a few conclusions:

1. There is no way in the world that I am going to get everything on that calendar taken care of. No way.
2. I shouldn’t be anxious for anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, I should present my requests to God so that the peace of God, which surpasses understanding, will guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus.
3. Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.
4. He is able to do exceedingly above and beyond all I (or the bossy calendar on my refrigerator) could ever ask or imagine…
5. His grace is sufficient for me, for His power is made perfect in my weakness.
6. My times are in His hands.

There’s a certain amount of freedom in taking that monstrous calendar, lifting it heavenward and admitting: I can’t even begin to handle this. Because you know what’s amazing about God? He will never give us more than He can handle.

And He can handle everything.