Can I see?

"Can I see?", a question I get asked quite often by my sweet 3 year old. The most recent of which occurred on the way to story time this morning. We had some overdue library books to return and Caleb asked me if we remembered to bring them. I told him we had and that they were in the front seat by me. To which he replied, "Can I see?" I explained to him that I was driving, but when I came to a stopping point I held them up so he could see from the backseat and he was satisfied. Mom had indeed told him the truth. The library books sat in the front seat waiting to be returned. And this got me thinking about the many times he asks this question. Most often it has to do with food (specifically chips) when I tell him the bag is empty or there are no more he asks to see as if we are some how not being honest with him or dare I say keeping some for ourselves? No one told him ask this question. He came up with him all on his own and I think that has something to do with the intrinsic idea of faith. Does he take us at our word? 

As a follower of Christ, I have been so careful to be true to my word with my children because I know how I parent will affect their view of God, the Father and His Word. Sometimes I mess up, but for the most part if I say something, to the best of my ability, I follow through. I want them to know they can trust me, and that what I say will happen. So I stop and think before I promise something, and if I say I will read a certain book after nap time for instance, you better believe Caleb remembers. As soon as he wakes up he asks for that book. When Caleb first asked me the question, "Can I see?", I have to admit I was a little hurt. How could he not believe me? I am his Mom! Have I lied to him before? Does he think I am holding out on him? And this morning when Caleb asked me the question I felt God whisper in my soul....this is how I feel when you ask me, "Can I see?". You aren't trusting me. You are not taking me at my Word.

One of my most favorite accounts in Scripture is of a royal official who comes to Jesus pleading with Him to heal His son. When Jesus tells him his son is healed, the man just takes Him at His Word and leaves. What faith that man had! 

So Jesus said to him, 'Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe'. The official said to him, 'Sir come down before my child dies'. Jesus said to him, 'Go; your son will live.' The man BELIEVED the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, 'Your son will live. ' And He himself believed, and all of his household. John 4:48-53

Oh, how I long to be one who takes Him at His word and leaves. 


"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."
 Matthew 5:8

Pure here means purified by fire, sincere, genuine. It makes me think of the story of the refiner's fire. The metal is continually dipped in the fire and the silversmith knows it is complete when he can see his reflection in it. Sometimes this whole battle of fear feels like it will never end, but God purifies us through trial. And as He does, we will be able to SEE Him (behold Him) and He will begin to see more and more of Himself in us as we yield to His Spirit in us. He must become greater, we must become less (John 3:30). 

So when Caleb asks me, "Mama, can I see?" I patiently show him (prove myself) just as Jesus did with Thomas. Thomas wanted to see the holes himself and Jesus showed him, but replied "Because you have seen me, you believe. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." (John 20:29). But I want my son to simply believe me because I love him and I am telling him the truth. I want him to trust me, and I know our faith is what pleases God. 

If you are in a place where you are tempted to wonder if God is indeed telling you the truth, if His Word can be trusted, or if He is perhaps holding out on you (Psalm 84:11), remember He is good. He is our Father and we can take Him at His Word. Faith becomes our sight: when we believe, we do  often get to see (if not this side of heaven, I know we will see in full there). Perhaps the way we battle fear is by asking Him to give us eyes to truly see Him, see others and ourselves as He does. I encourage you to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). Take the next step and watch Him provide! If He can show you, as He did with Thomas, He will, but sometimes He may not be able to show you what He is doing yet. He may be working on things behind the scenes and they just are not ready to be unveiled yet. But hold on, when He comes to a stopping point (like I did while driving this morning) He may be able to show you. Continue that walk because He is true to His Word and He loves you.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, the men of old gained approval....and without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for He who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." Hebrews 11:1, 6

When God Speaks

He will quiet us with His love

I remember years ago hearing someone talk about how when God created the world He chose to speak everything into existence (aside from man, which He formed with His hands). Think about that. He could have done something else, but He chose speaking as His primary agent for creation. Christ is also known as the Word. And He is speaking still, if we choose to listen and make space in the midst of all the noise of our lives to hear Him.

Some friends of ours have been encouraging listening prayer a lot lately, and at Bible study this week it was a girls week and we sat and listened. Except for one thing...I have a newborn. A sweet, adorable (and yet sometimes hard to calm) baby boy. I had a hard time not hearing his screams so I went downstairs to get him from Bryan and sat in a room by myself nursing our baby, hoping he would calm down.

As I sat there, I thought there is no reason why I cannot talk to God here in this room, alone instead of the room next door where everyone else is. I asked God if there was anything He wanted to tell me and He so beautifully spoke to me in the way He often does- analogies.

The words daughter and"self-soothe" came to mind, immediately followed by quiet and then two passages of Scripture.

"The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing." Zephaniah 3:17

As a girl growing up in church, this is a very familiar passage of Scripture. I have often focused on the fact that God sings over us, His daughters, but that night I focused on the phrase I hadn't given much thought to before: QUIET you with His love.

Daughter
I heard God call me daughter. He first reminded me He is my Father. He is my Daddy and He cares for me, just like I care for Ethan, the little baby I was nursing at that very moment. This is huge! How often I let this identity statement just go in one ear and out of the other, but lately I have been struggling with worth and identity. Being a stay at home mom is wonderful, but oh so hard and exhausting at times. I struggle to get dressed most days and as someone who is super type- A and takes joy in checking of her to-do list, the newborn days are a huge struggle. It is good to be reminded that my relationship with God is not dependent upon what I do or don't do on any given day, but simply on His Son, and since I have trusted in Him for salvation I, too am His child.

Self-Soothe
So when it comes to raising babies, most books will tell parents that they must give their babies an opportunity to "self-soothe" (i.e. cry to sleep?! Okay, honestly I have never quite figured out what people mean when they say this but let's just say I am on my third kid and none of mine have been able to self-soothe at a young age. Maybe because mine haven't been able to find their thumbs that young or because two haven't taken pacifiers, but I'm not quite sure how leaving a newborn baby swaddled on their back in a crib is teaching them anything other than to cry, but no judgement here. It just hasn't worked well for me. Even if they wanted to self-soothe, how would they? They can't even move. I just haven't ever personally felt comfortable letting my little ones cry until they are a bit older and can actually more realistically self-soothe by rolling, reaching for a pacifier or their lovey, etc.) Anyways, when God spoke this I feel like He wanted me to know just like I don't like to leave Ethan to "self-soothe" or cry loudly for hours on end, He does not leave me to do so either. In my crying, my complaining and whining, He does not leave me. In my attempts to self-soothe with a bowl of ice-cream (except now I gave up dairy). scrolling instagram or watching a tv show at the end of the night, He does not leave me. And in fact, in all of my attempts, I am not even able to truly self-soothe (spiritually speaking) and neither are you. We weren't meant to do so.

Quiet
He wants to rush in and quiet me with His love, if only I will become aware that He is there, if only I listen to Him in His singing and don't get so wrapped up in my own little world of possibilities and what-ifs.  Notice it's His love that quiets us, not His glory or holiness or righteousness or any of the other qualities of his God-ness. If I am able to remember and truly believe not just in my head, but in my heart, that He LOVES me, I will stop my whining, my complaining, my worrying, my frenzy of fear and I will be still. I will rest in the arms of my loving Father, who is Sovereign and good and knows all and is alone worthy of all my trust and adoration and praise.

God was so kind to remind me of another Scripture:

"Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the song of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me." Isaiah 49:15-16

I could never forget Ethan sitting there, nursing, but even more so God does not forget me. And He does not forget you.

One of the questions we were asked to answer in our exercise of listening to God (really it was just like having a conversation with a friend) was is there anything that is creating distance between you and Him. I have felt this distance for a long time, and confessed that to God and asked Him to show me the root of it. I used to read the Bible and journal daily, for at least a decade but since 2013 I have struggled to do so consistently. I came up with a long list of possibilities: marriage, motherhood, lack of sleep, distractions of social media, to-do lists, tutoring, etc. but He spoke one word: FEAR.

In 2013, two things happened: we lost our first baby (you can read about it here) and I found out I was born with a heart defect. Enter in FEAR. I have always struggled with worry and anxiety to some degree but with these two events the enemy rushed in and grabbed a foothold in my mind and my heart. I often fear that I will die soon or fear that something will happen to one of my babies. When I look back over my life, I get saddened by how often I let fear rule. I was fearful I would never get married, then fearful that God would take Bryan once we got married. I was fearful that we could never have children, and then when we lost Sam, I was fearful we would lose all of our babies. When I got pregnant each time I was so afraid it often robbed the joy- and during each pregnancy I was given more reason to fear (with Caleb I had a white spot on his ultrasound so they thought he may have cystic fibrosis, with David I had a hematoma so I couldn't do any heavy lifting, with Ethan I had low PAPP-A so we had to have weekly tests towards the end due to a greater chance of stillbirth). I get so upset with myself that even though I know God, I allow my joy to be robbed by fear. Lately I have heard so many heartbreaking stories of loss: a guy I worked with a summer camp tragically passed away leaving behind his wife and three young children, another friend's cousin lost their two year old in his sleep, another their wife, another their child to cancer. When I hear stories of such tragic loss or even watch them on television (house fire on This is Us....anyone else?), I cannot help but cry for hours on end if I let myself truly imagine what these people are going through. And then a little voice comes "what if that happens to you?" If I let it, fear runs rampant and makes me believe I am forgotten. The truth is HE HAS NOT FORGOTTEN US. Even if the worst happens, He still has not forgotten us. See in the moments when our prayer isn't answered the way we hope, it is so easy to think, "well He must have forgotten me....He healed that other person, or He gave them the gift of marriage, or health or a child"...or whatever it is that your heart desires most. But, He is God and we are not and He can see the whole picture and we only get a pinhole. I cannot self-soothe, or be self-sufficient and prevent anything bad or unwanted from happening to anyone I love. I cannot prevent my boys from experiencing pain, and I cannot explain why any of these tragic things happen. But I can say no to fear and say yes to faith in the midst of any trial. That is our choice. We can forget fear when we realize He has not forgotten us. In the Zephaniah 3, verse 16, the verse before the Scripture above, it says "fear not...let not your hands grow weak". This fear is the same fear used in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve were afraid because they had not obeyed God and they hid from Him.

Fear leads to hiding. It leads to distancing ourselves from our Father. Faith leads to running into His arms (Hebrews 12:1-2).

We lost my Maw Maw a few months ago, and sometimes I still want to call her or bring the boys by to see her, and then I remember she isn't here anymore. Death is so final- this separation from the ones we love so much so hard. But for those in Christ, we know death is not truly final. It is actually the beginning of our most real life. Do you know Him? Like really know Him, like a friend? Read His Word. Ask Him to speak to you.

I recently heard a beautiful analogy on the God Centered Mom podcast (highly recommend!): she used to work with kids who got their cochlear implant and she said her favorite thing was being in the room when the device was turned on for the first time. She said that the very first two things the parents wanted to communicate to their child was 1) that they loved them and 2) their name. Do you know God as your Father? He wants you to know that 1) He loves you (John 3:16) and 2) He knows your name (Isaiah 43:1).

None of us knows the number of days we have left on this earth.

For now we know only in part....but one day we will know more fully. Here's to asking God to free me from my fear, to remembering He has not forgotten me and to running with faith the race set before me (not perfectly, but with my eyes on Him).

If you have time, you should check out this great song with rich lyrics..."your plan is still to prosper, you have not forgotten us, you are with us in the fire and the flood....you are sovereign over us"

FORGET FEAR. FREED BY FAITH