My lover is…the best of ten thousand men…and I desire him very much. –Song of Songs 5.10,16
Love is love's reward. -John Dryden
Love is not to be trifled with. -French Proverb
Love is a many splendored thing. -Paul Francis Webster
Love makes the world go 'round. -French song
Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. -Franklin P. Jones
Love is blind. -Chaucer
Love is the only game that isn't called on account of darkness. -Annonymous
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -H. L. Menken
Love is all you need. -The Beatles
Love is my lover, my husband, my friend, my strength. Love is my Dave. And who am I to have had such love for 26 years? I am blessed above all. In these times, when we see all around us the ravages of life ripping to shreds families and lovers, long-time marriages and friends, when we understand that not much in life will support and nurture and cover safely precious, tender love and commitment, we are graced and blessed and must continue to declare with more conviction than ever – I am yours, you are mine, we are Christ's. I love you and you love me and we are going to, by faith, finish even stronger than we started, and baby, that is STRONG!
Happy anniversary, Dave…Jeanie
Pictured: a co-worker had just dumped about 6 bags of rice down my dress.
NOTE TO DAVE: Remember when we first got married and you were at DJ at KHRT radio in Minot? And remember how I'd give you lists of songs to play when you went in and you'd play them and say, "This is for my sweet wife" and things like that over and over and you continuously regaled your listeners with stories about how I was making hundreds of homemade meatballs for dinner that night and that kind of stuff? And remember how instructors at school would say, "If you talk about your wife one more time I think I will throw up-it's sickening!"? Well, if you don't lighten up at your new blog, people are gonna start saying that again.
I had a great talklast week with one of my kids about what builds a strong marriage, one that will get stronger over time and that brings great, ongoing fulfillment. Ultimately, I have realized that 2 people following Christ and imitating Him (you know: being a Christian) is the key. Do I treat my husband like Jesus treated people? Do I love Dave as I love myself? Do I prefer Dave to my own wishes? Does Dave love me like Christ loved the church (so much He actually layed down His life for her!)?
We pondered about how natural things reflect the spiritual, but also how a spiritual principle can bring insight into the natural realm.
In the Book of Revelation, Jesus communicated this to the church at Ephesus:
"I know your works, your hard, hard labor, your patience and refusal to quit. I know that you cannot stomach evil. And you weed out those who say they are apostles and are not and have found them liars; and you have perservered and have patience, and have shown courage for my Name and for My cause and you haven't worn out in it. But, you have left your first love – just walked away. Do you have any idea how far you've fallen? A Lucifer fall! Repent, turn back. remember your dear, early love and do the first works again…" (paraphrase from NKJV and The Message)
For a marriage, it might be like this: you've hung in there. You do what is right and you do what is required, but the flame has died down. The passion is waning. You just don't love like you did at first. And you're thinking: Well, neither does he/she…and is this it? After all these years together, I just grit my teeth and do the right thing?
What's the remedy?
Repent (turn from this, go a new direction)! Do the first works. Ahhh…remember the 'first works'?
Falling in love, living on love, delighting at the sound of his voice, meeting him at the door, looking for his face in a crowded room, the electricity that passed as his hand brushed yours, honoring him above all people, speaking well of him to anyone who would listen, envisioning a long future and growing old together still in love, courtesy, kind words, 'fixing up' when his arrival was imminent, shaving your legs regularly (don't stone me for this, women!), making his favorite food, looking at him with admiration, looking at him a lot, giving attention to his thoughts and opinions, apologizing when you are wrong, writing gooey love letters and notes tucked into lunch boxes, looking in to his eyes, being trustworthy with his pain, choosing to see only his strengths and cheering him on in them, being available to him, time…time…time…The first works.
Want to re-ignite fervent love in your own marriage? Do the stuff you did at first. And may you be sustained with cakes of raisins and refreshed with apples because of the intensity of your lovesickness. May his left hand be under your head and his right hand embrace you. May love be stirred up and may you drink deeply from its cup. May you be your beloved's and may your beloved be yours. May your names be written upon each other's hearts and your desire be towards each other. May the great romance be renewed and may you end stronger than when you started (read Song of Solomon and believe for it!).
Summer is a time for love…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: E-mail Dave today and tell him how thankful I am for the sacrifices he is making right now for us and for his unwavering love and Christlikeness to me over the years.
(Pictured: a friend snapped this pic on an Instamatic 110 in July 1981, just as I was leaving the bridal preparation chambers, aka Sunday School room, on my way to marry Dave. I stepped from that room into a oneness I couldn't have comprehended that day. I didn't know at that moment how many things & circumstances or expectations in a lifetime can attempt to steal and stop that love, that agreement, that unity. Now I know and I am committed to ending stronger than we started. Our best days are yet to be!
Last summer I attended the very first partners and prayer support team meeting for the fledgling Worship and the Word Movement ministry in which my son-in-law, Dave, and daughter, Tara, were embarking. God has opened all sorts of doors for them in the ensuing year. In 2 days, they leave for Orlando, where they will lead worship and teach at Life 2007 to 10,000 students. Good things are happening.
And I reflect on it because at the gathering last summer, Dave and Tara led a song Dave had written called, "Yes" (CD by the same title to be released in September) I had never heard it and I was in a really, really difficult time of my life and to tell you the truth, I couldn't sing it. It seemed at the time I had nothing to say "yes" to (I've written about this previously here and here). I looked around the barn on this beautiful summer evening and saw all these sincere faces with pure hearts, steadfast in their commitment to follow Jesus no matter what and they sang, "Yes!" And I couldn't. I felt like God had taken everything from me there was to say "yes" to and that I alone had nothing to throw myself into.
With bittersweet tears shooting out, I said to a couple of my kids, "What? I am suppose to say 'yes' to rest? What is that?"
I'm telling you this by way of confession because I hope you know that it wasn't true that I had nothing to say "yes" to. I hope you know that I was placing myself in a pity-puddle of the refusal to accept pause and rest as gift. And I am confessing this in case you are reading and feeling the same. Make your list and come out of the fog. Wait until the house is empty and start yelling, "YES!" into the air and refuse to believe the enemy lie that there is nothing more.
Here's my list: yes to being Dave's wife, friend, lover, bride; yes to grandparenting Gavin and Guini and Hunter and now Gemma; yes to the friendship and "being there" and mothering, still, the grown kids God blessed me with; yes to blessing the parents who raised me; yes to hanging in there with friends and pursuing life-giving relationships; yes to loving my neighbors and figuring out how that really works; yes to consuming His Words, like honey to my lips; yes to pressing in to really know God; and yes to laying down my desires, wants amd wishes – He must increase, I must decrease. Yes!
The days are coming: "Things are going to happen so fast your head will swim, one thing fast on the heels of the other. You won't be able to keep up. Everything will be happening at once – and everywhere you look, blessings! Blessings like wine pouring off the mountains and hills….God, your God says so." Amos 9.13-15 The Message
YES! What promise! Somewhere along the way, hope re-ignited. I came across this in my early 2007 journaling:
Yes to You, Lord
Yes to Your will
Yes to Your plan
Yes to the process, regardless of how long it will take (a lifetime, Lord?)
Yes to the pain of this purification
Yes to the price (because it costs everything)
Yes.
I love that "Yes" song now and sing my head off whenever Dave and Tara lead it. "Yes, yes, yes, yes…"
Yes is better. Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: This quote by Dag Hammarskjold seems appropriate here: "For all that has been, Thanks! To all that shall be, Yes!"
Happy Birthday, Stephanie, my second-born, my preemie, my miracle-girl, my rainbow woman. You are the child I prayed for, and God gave me what I asked!
It is your 25th birthday. How fast the years have flown. Much like my pregnancy with you, when you arrived a full 5+ weeks early, on a beautiful lilac-scented day in Kokomo, IN, even beating Prince William, after whom you were “scheduled” to be born.
In retrospect, at the hospital, they should have stopped the labor and tried to determine what was causing the bleeding (was it “The Twister” – that amusement park ride that pinned my head to the back of the seat?).
Five or more weeks early is too early.
Instead, my doctor said I probably just mis-calculated the date and he estimated that you weighed well over 7 pounds and he didn’t even put me on a monitor before breaking my water to get labor underway. I had always liked his old-fashioned, grandfatherly ways, but being the older and wiser woman I am now, I should have slapped him a good one.
A little after 2 on a Friday afternoon, here you came, full of trust in the parents God had given you, and we, probably not worthy of it. I really couldn’t tell what was happening.
At first, they all oohed and awed, the medical staff. You were tiny. They did the first apgar and gave you an 8 out of 10. They let dad hold you while I looked on. The second apgar had dropped to 4 and they started looking frantic and they didn’t even let me hold you, you were whisked from the room. Not only did I not know what was going on, they placated me with assurances and didn’t tell me anything. They were the authorities – just “taking precautions.”
Later they told me a team was coming from Indianapolis to “help.”
By the time I saw you again at 7:30 pm, you were wired up on the sides of your head and on breathing machines and I could only touch your hand through a small opening in the incubator. A crisis life team, who had been at work saving your life when I couldn’t even comprehend how much saving you needed, was transporting you to James Whitcomb Riley Hospital in Indianapolis and I could only say good-bye.
The lady in the bed next to me and all her firends were smoking. As I watched you struggle to breathe, “pre-mature infant lung disease,” they called it (your chest caved in where developed lungs would be normally), I asked a nurse to remove the smokers. They assurred me you were safe from it. That didn’t matter. It was all I knew to do to protect you. I wanted you to breathe safely…
In what felt like the middle of the night, but was probably only 10:30 or 11:00, your doctor called from Children’s to say that they had you stabilized. In monotone, he told me it was unlikely you would leave there in anything less than 3 months and that he was giving you a “30% chance of survival.” It was a shock to my system. It was unthinkable. It was not even on my radar that you might die. He asked if I had questions and I couldn’t even think of any – grogginess? stupity? Probably both..
In those moments, I became instantly alert and I cried out to God on your behalf. I did not feel like some giant woman of faith. I knew my prayers were feeble compared to many, but I was a mommy on a mission to knock on heaven’s door for the life of my newborn, struggling-to-breathe, yet unnamed baby girl who was too many miles from me. And I will tell you that soon, very soon, the Presence of the Lord washed over me, bringing such peace, that never once did I doubt the Lord would show up for you when I could not. That night, I was not alone and I met God in a new way. I met Him as a healer. Like Hannah in the Bible, who prayed for a child, He heard my prayer. I knew He was with you, too…
When I was finally released, in terrible pain from the worst stitches ever and the discomfort of having no child to nurse (at the time, I didn’t comprehend the emotion of that – everything inside is screaming out: where ismy baby?) I prepared to go to Indianapolis to see you. A song was playing,
“He means more to me today because of yesterday
I was in the valley and I had to pray
Then He showed me His favor in a special way
He means more to me today because of yesterday…”
I cried when I heard those words, because they were true. I was getting to know the Healer in a way I had never needed to know Him before.
Ten days later, Children’s Hospital released you to come back to Kokomo because you were progressing so well every day. They were in awe. We were rare, they told us. At 12 days old, Howard Community Hospital released you to come home. They said your lungs were actually recovering and developing every day. Though you were only 4 and half pounds when we brought you home, you were gaining weight each day just like you should be – not much, but a little. It was miraculous in every way!
God healed you, Stephanie! The Creator finished the work and you came home with the loudest cry we had ever heard. And you cried a lot and I thought we were doing something wrong, but you were just working those little lungs, strengthening them up!
When I sat down to fill out the birth announcements I had chosen in the weeks before you were born, the scripture on them seemed suddenly prophetic. I had read it before, surely, but now I read it with full understanding:
“For this child I prayed and the LORD has granted that which I asked of Him.” 1 Samuel 1.27
You were a gift for Tara, you’re “Rainbow Bear,” a child of promise. You could talk in lovely conversations by 18 months, but weren’t an early walker, as you preferred to be carried like a princess. You came with the softest heart for people around you (the odd little girl from a harsh home would call you to read to her, which you would faithfully do for long periods, keeping her company – and you couldn’t even read yet!), and the most developed sense of humor – always making your sisters laugh. I remember you falling asleep in the middle of singing the alphabet song and awaking a few hours later to pick up right where you left off. At our conference with your 2nd grade teacher, she said you were the child who, when some one dropped a pencil across the room, would run to pick it up for them. She said, “That is who Stephanie is.”
She was right. You are the one in the family who makes sure everyone gets honored regularly and that they receive the most thoughtful gifts and that no one forgets special things coming up. You watch over us all with great care.
You gave us a wonderful son when you chose, so well, Tristan, as your husband. You gave us our first grandchild, Gavin, and our first granddaughter, Guinivere and they thrill our hearts and are mothered so well by you. Any moment now – you will bring us a new granddaughter (our 4th grandchild). I hope she comes today – right on your birthday – as a special gift of celebration of who you are, Stephie. But whatever – Happy Birthday, my sweet one. Thank-you for all the happy days you have brought (and I will ever cherish the extra 5 weeks we have had together!).
Great love, mom
NOTE TO SELF: I am blessed! I don’t deserve it, but I am blessed…
(pictures: Stephanie at 4 months and about 10 pounds, Stephie and me at her 3rd grade play, Stephanie (8 months pregnant and glowing!) and her family on Easter at Northern Hills, where, by the way, she and Tris helped lead some incredible worship!
Happy, joyous day to you, Norma Jean Moslander, my sweet mom!
Oh, my mamala! This is me…rising up…calling you blessed, calling on the world to festoon you with garlands of celebration, for you have exceled them all. You did it – you raised us: Jeanie, Joey, Timmy, Tami and Danny – and we all probably think that you like us best, for that is your gift (but of course, in my case – we know it’s true, but fear not, mamala – shan’t tell the others!).
A Happy Mother’s Day to my good friends and the MOPS mommies I love so dearly.
Remember this: where God has called you – He has equipped you. YOU are the woman for the job. All the seeds planted, all the tears that fall and water those little seeds – you will see the fruit. they will rise up and call you blessed!
And Happy Mother’s Day to me
For I am blessed beyond measure. God, You gave me gifts for which I can never repay You: Tara, Stephanie, Tredessa, Rocky & Stormie – mine all mine. And then You added on and I got Dave and Tristan and my newest daughter, Jovan. And then Steph & Tris gave me my first grandson and first granddaughter: Gavin and Guinivere. And then Dave & Tara blessed me with Hunter Magoo (who greeted me in church today with a big Bible under his arm – exactly the way I was carrying mine), and…and…and…thegift goes on…
Thank-You ,Lord. I am grateful that You trusted me with these people, I am truly grateful.
Blessings on you today, all the moms I know and the people who love a mom or have one… Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Enjoy the ones who are already here today – and keep a lid on the excitement for the new granddaughter due any moment now…
May 9, 1979 was such a special day, I could not have comprehended it at the time. There was no way for me to know at exactly 7:16 p.m. when you made your first appearance, how my life was about to change, how God was going to make Himself so real, His love so apparent, my life so blessed by your coming. I didn’t realize at the time that you were going to be a river of “liquid joy” that would wash over my heart and gift me and cause me to flourish in a way I’d never had the opportunity to before.
Liquid joy. That was a name Lisa Bierer gave you when you were about 12 or 13. It summed you up beautifully. From the time you arrived, I’d never seen such unabashed happiness and innate joy in a human being.
I was serious and sarcastic. I was un-trusting and wounded. You slid down the very rays of the sun into my house and life and arms and coaxed the hope in my heart to grow and believe life could be different. You refused to leave me in my hidden guilt-driven, shame-based stupor, but even as a toddler, pulled me into the merry-go-round that is life. You lived your whole life (almost) as a joyfully obedient girl, a big Jesus-lover, full of compassion and mercy for everyone around you.
Us. Est. 1979
You grew and you blessed us all. First, there was just me and you. Then dad came along and we were a family. Because I was so young and naive and really stupid about being a mom, you, naturally as the first born, had to help teach me what it was all about. For all the siblings who followed, you stood in the gap and represented them, watched over them and defended them.
The giggles and laughter and make-believe and street ball-games and bike races and tether-ball matches that never ended and babysitting businesses and new neighbors as friends and pretend weddings and dress-up and bread sticks from mixes and first boyfriends and ska and singing competitions and basketball and volleyball teams and Five Iron Frenzy and funny fashions and crazy hair and piercings and innocence and sweetness and exuberance and passion – these are all things Stephanie and Tredessa and Rocky and Stormie have to thank you for. I adore you for them all.
When you were 14, I was going through some heartbreak. You were praying for me and came to me with a song to listen to and you carefully gave me a word of encouragement, a word of rebuke, too, really, but with utmost caution. I listened and as I stood doing the dishes, listening to the song and thinking about what you’d just told me, I was strongly aware that God Himself had sent you and I trembled inside from both the discipline of it and the awe that my little Tara was so sensitive to the things of God.
Hope seemed lost for a time. There were those days when the enemy of your soul set out to rip you away from God’s plan for your life. It was a time of grave danger to your heart, your mind, your soul, your spirit, and even your physical being. You’d been away from home for quite awhile, but had returned for a couple of months and when you were leaving again, the enemy tried to tell me I was losing you (to this poor choice/direction you were taking) for good. That morning before you left the house (and you saw the hot, stinging tears shoot from my eyes as I plead with you not to go), I wrote this in a notebook:
8.4.02 It’s the morning of the day Tara is moving out, disentangling herself of the strong emotional ties we have – trying to make her own way, trying to shine to us, not realizing that I have already seen her light so bright – spots dance before my eyes.
Already the house seems empty. Already a void grows.
I have to trust God that my sorrows over what could’ve been –
the seeming loss of all hope will give way to what He knows can be greater-
and that in all things
He is at work, making a way and that
Hislovewillnotlethergo.
And it didn’t. His love didn’t let you go and when things seemed the most hopeless – God was about to turn it all around. Those days were hard, my love, but I am so thankful that I learned to pray during that time. I learned to battle for what was God’s and I grew in faith. I will ever cherish what was accomplished for God’s glory and for you!
You are an incredible mother to Hunter. I love how you love your husband, Dave. I am inspired by and admire your work for the kingdom of God. I am so pleased with you, honey. Your mommy is so pleased with you! God gave you to me (what a gift). I gave you back to Him. And look at what He is doing!
Happy Birthday, Tara…Love, mom
NOTE TO SELF: I was so honored to have Tara with me last night at the Chapel Hill MOPS group! Give her an extra hug for that!
(photos: Tara and I when she was 2 and Tara with her husband, Dave, and son Hunter – who is 2!)
If you don’t, you will have increased anxiety and breathlessness causing sleep apnea meaning you won’t even be able to sleep for lack of air (a vicious cycle)
Without it, your memory will be impaired and your cognitive performance weakened
It is anti-aging. When you sleep, your body is resting, repairing and regenerating itself from the stress of life.
After 3 sleepless days, you will start to hallucinate and lab rats forced to stay awake continuously die.
A lack of sleep nightly (even an hour less than you should be getting) makes you prone to disease, weight gain and body aches and pains.
You can hear the sound of God’s words while you are in a deep sleep! (Daniel 10.9)
Consistent, peace-filled sleep repairs muscles and other tissue and replaces dead cells.
It also gives your brain a chance to organize and archive important memories*.
Most people think they can get by with very little sleep, but studies say you may be cutting your life short by taxing your immune system and may be living a joyless life because your attention span is so impaired.
So last time (Sleep, Day Five) I told you about my “discovery” of Psalm 127 and the 1-2-3 punch that drove those verses home. “God gives His beloved sleep.”
I am a changing woman. I plan to sleep a lot more the second half of my life. I don’t even feel the need to spin it like, “Yeah, tomorrow I’ll be organizing and archiving my important memories* pretty much all morning.” No, I am able to just say, “I need a nap. See ya.” Ahhh – this is good. I hope I’ll never fall into the trap of trying to prove something all the time again.
Then 2 days later…
It has taken me months to “get” this and enact it and I am still learning. But God has relentlessly pursued me in it. Just 2 days after I “discovered” Psalm 127, He sent out one more clear reminder. Because He knew I’d need it!
It was a Sunday morning(8.13.06) and I was getting ready to go to church. My first beautiful grandchild, 3 year old Gavin, was at our house and full of spirit and energy, as always. He had gotten ahold of a gallon container of bubbles and we were “discussing” whether or not now, just before leaving for church, was a good time to open the bubbles.
He was quite disappointed when I said to put the bubble bottle back where he got it. For some reason he thought his little arms could toss it back and suddenly the ceramic-tiled floor was covered with bubbles and poor little Gav was right in the middle of it. It was like a cartoon scene as his little feet began to try to run out of the puddle, but weren’t going anywhere…but not funny as he crashed to the floor on his back.
He is fast that before I could get to him, he was up and trying again to escape the slippery mess and there was a second crash. All the excitement got the dog barking and stressed out and soon we had a Brady-bunch-like moment of chaos with our mutt trying to run through the bubbles and spending a lot of time running in place, but then dragging the thick, slippery substance all over the kitchen floor and the family room carpet. It was a messy scene, to be sure.
By necessity, I needed to stay home and get this cleaned up before anyone actually cracked their head open. That tile could be murder when wet, let alone bubble-water!
I was feeling a little sorry for myself because it was such hard work – and just as I was making my decision to learn from Jesus Christ how to rest. But I got to it.
Some cartoons or something had been on TV when everyone left, so the TV was still going, but I couldn’t even hear it as I sopped up and washed out towels. When the floor seemed as clean as it was going to get, I threw everything into the washer and as I came out of the laundry room with one last towel to dry the area, the volume of the TV suddenly seemed louder and I hear some guy saying, “I usually don’t read whole chapters when I preach, but I think I will today” – and words now so very familiar to my ears began to fill the air: “Psalm 127, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it…For so God gives His beloved sleep…” He read the whole thing, some preacher named Bayless Conley out of California.
OK. I get it. I am not home because of bubbles. I am home so I won’t forget.
She wholly, fully embraces all new values :)
I have renounced my workaholic, activity obbessed, Type-A, driven, Messiah-complex, performance-oriented, controlling and manipulative, aggressive, competitive, prideful, striving, stressed out, burned out, self-destructive, disobediant, restless and sinful ways.
No matter how hard I worked, it wasn’t working. It was all vanity. But I will have to watch carefully not to go back. I was a good hard-working church girl who needed a Savior and got one. He came looking for me, lost as I was, not from eternal life or a lack of salvation through Jesus Christ, but certainly lost from the abundant, joy-filled life He invited me to join Him in.
Occasionally now, months later, when I start creeping back towards too much work and activity and not enough resting in the Lord and being wholly devoted to Him, I find myself getting back into trying to impress God and perform for His approval rather than love Him from a pure heart. Those are miserable days, full of defensiveness and striving.
Rest is better. Sleep is divine. A nap is a glimpse of heaven.
All you who are weary and heavy laden, Jesus will give you rest…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Of COURSE I have been needing more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep all these years! I am only dust, after all…
What a summer I had last year. I had lost or damaged so many things: relationships, direction, sense of who God actually created me to be, confidence, income, health, peace of mind. My ministry was gone and my marriage was wounded. The only thing firmly in place was my pride, but God was chipping away at it. Who will I be, I wondered, if You take that away from me?
God is getting through to me
8.10.06 I finally confessed the truth to myself and God:
I need sleep. I am so tired. I cannot find peace or comfort of any kind until I get sleep. There is nothing anyone can offer me that will help me in any way until I get rest. And, God is not going to give me my next directions until, through rest, I am in a better frame of mind.
8.11.06 and the 1-2-3 punch. I sat at the kitchen table with my Bible. The only scriptures I could recall about rest were the commands to keep the Sabbath, a commandment I not only broke regularly, but had some pride in doing because I didn’t want to be seen as lazy, but rather a hard worker who earned her keep. The only scriptures about sleep in my rememberance were the ones like, “…the stouthearted were plundered, having sunk into their sleep,” and when David said he would “not give sleep or slumber” to his eyes.
Even Proverbs taunted me with, “A little sleep, a little slumber…so poverty shall come on you,” right after calling me a “sluggard,” and telling me to “consider the ways of the ant,” hard workers, all of them.
So after the revelation I received the night before, I prayed,God, please show me if this is Your word to merightnow. Could it be true that all You are asking of me atthistime is to sleep, get rest, become renewed? Is Your yoke really that easy? Is Your burden really so light? Could You teach even me to cast aside my need to beand to do and couldYou actually give me rest? (Matthew 11.28-30, please read, dare to believe).
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
1.
God gives His beloved sleep. That thought popped into my mind right after I prayed. I had heard it somewhere (probably a few thousand times…I am a slow hearer). God gives His beloved sleep. Simple, plain. To the point. With some trepidation I searched my concordance. There it was: Psalm 127, a Song of Solomon (the wisest of men).
Unless the LORD builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the LORD guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early,
To sit up late,
To eat the bread of sorrows;
For so He gives His beloved sleep.
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
the fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed,
But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.
I read it. I read it aloud. I wrote it out, word for word. I thought about it. I looked at each phrase independantly and interdependantly. I meditated on it. I thought it through from every possible angle. It was this amazing thing I could barely believe was there for me! I spent an hour and a half at my kitchen table with my Bible just trying to grasp this wonderful news: God gives sleep. He was ok with me getting sleep. I didn’t have to do it all. I didn’t have to make sure every single thing got done before I enjoyed the restoration, the recovery that sleep brings.
It began to dawn on me that “unless the LORD builds ” it…it is futile. “Unless the LORD guards” everything, the watchman (me, usually) is in big trouble. The revelation was taking hold that I was living in the vanity of rising early and staying up late and worrying my head off over everything (the bread of sorrows/anxiety). God had actually given me permission to sleep.
God gave me, one of His “beloveds”, sleep. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant or how I would do it and I knew I was really too busy to do it, but I also knew this was a moment in time I could receive and be changed or ignore and spend the rest of my life regretting. An hour and a half of scripture meditation…I got up to start the dishwasher with wonder in my heart…
2.
The phone rang just as I got up from the table. My firstborn (see photo above), Tara, was calling. I thought maybe I would tell her what God had been showing me through His Word, but I wasn’t quite ready to come forward with the full story. It was the sin of my pride being exposed, after all.
She wasn’t waiting to hear from me anyway. She came directly to her point. She said, “Mom, I have been reading the Word and I feel that God told me to call you and tell you this-” and you are probably not surprised to hear that Tara read Psalm 127 to me…every word of it, stressing, “God gives His beloved sleep.”
That was one of those moments, even now as I write it, I am in awe that the God of the universe had time to make sure I was hearing His plan, His will, His heart towards me. It is so humbling.
The P.S. to this is, our friends are not fooled nor impressed by our drivenness. Our families do not think we are living our best life just because we are running circles around them doing-doing-doing. They’d love to have us stop, relax and be. My mom still starts every phone call from several states away with “I know you’re busy and I don’t want to keep you, but…” because she knew I was perpetually in a hurried and harried state of the most earth-shattering projects at all times for years.
The problem is, when we are not rested, we don’t allow anyone around us to rest, either, at least not without making them feel inferior. When we’re rest-less, we cause restlessness in the ones we love most. We even make them do things from our endless to-do lists.
Are you blushing with shame? Remember, I’m not judging. It takes one to know one. My poor husband, Dave, hadn’t had a day off in over 20 years, thanks to my lists and projects. Our full-speed-ahead “fruitfulness” wears out the ones we most love.
3.
Later that evening, I pulled out an article about resting in the providence of God that a friend had given to me to read a couple of months earlier. I had read it at least twice. I thought I would check it out again since it was about the Sabbath and I had a newly-increased motivation in learning to keep it, and obey it.
You are sharp enough to have guessed what I found – I hadn’t even noticed the paragraph about Psalm 127 before or the beautiful statement made by the article’s author:
“God knows that His creatures need restoration by rest, and so He not only commands but even invites us to get it.”
God wasn’t being redundant with me. He was making sure I got the invitation! He knows how slow I am to hear and learn sometimes. I mean, this whole thing is in His Word, so actually, since I learned to read, it has been there for me to read and receive. How many times had I run the other way? My husband Dave and God only know.
Two days later, God would issue another reminder as I wrestled with whether or not I would press in to accept this newfound freedom. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow (Sleep, day six). But until then, I want to tell you that I know from experience that the loss of sleep from over-work and anxiety and pressure is overcome by calling on the Lord who calls you His “beloved one.”
If you need to work hard and press in to do something difficult to feel alive, then press in, “make every effort,” to receive the promised rest, as Hebrews 4.1-11 invites us!
Think about what you are willing to give up to receive what God is willing to give you…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF:“I cried unto the Lord with my voice, And He heard me from His holy hill. I lay down and slept; Iawoke, for the Lord sustains me.” Ps. 3.4-5 Even during the most hectic and disconcerting times in my life, I can sleep in peace knowing God will sustain me and has the whole world in His hands…
8.10.06 So I am minding my own business (and my own busy-ness), wondering why God won’t give me direction for my future. I’m living the Type-A life, up in the wee hours and go ’til you drop late at night life, living to check things off the list that never ends daily. I’m physically run-down, emotionally weakened and I am innocently pondering the events of the day (while I stain bricks until sunset, nonetheless). I was remembering how Hunter couldn’t hear from us, receive from us, needed nothing from us until he could get sleep. Just sleep.
I was on my patio as the sun was disappearing behind the mountains and the Old Testament prophet, Elijah, came to my mind.
1 Kings 17 – 21In partial summary, Elijah was a power-house. He had the favor of God and walked in great authority. God used Elijah to tell King Ahab that a drought so severe was coming there wouldn’t even be dew. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel had encouraged the worship of Baal and killed God’s prophets; God was not pleased. Calling down this type of heavenly curse must wear you out because God made Elijah take some r & r, sending him to the brook Cherith where the ravens fed him morning and night and he drank water from the brook.
Elijah got the restoration he needed there and the brook dried up. That was when he got his next instruction: to go to a widow at Zarephath, where he was not only part of a miracle of provision for her (her oil and flour did not run out until the drought was over because of Elijah), but when her son died later, Elijah prayed and God revived him.
Elijah was the guy who set up the public “testing” between Yahweh and Baal with the building of the 2 altars. Ahab had called him a “troubler of Israel,” and Elijah put it back in Ahab’s court by saying that the king was the troubler by allowing the worship of false gods.
God proved Himself like Elijah said He would by showing up in fire on a water-drenched altar while Baal did not show up despite the hours of prayer and self-mutilation of the false god’s prophets.
Our God showed up! He honored his prophet!
But when Elijah became the target of Jezebel’s rage after he ordered the deaths of her priests, he ran in fear. He ran in fatigue. He ran in exhaustion. Elijah ended up under a tree taking a long nap, wishing he could just die. That is tired! I actually get that. That is whole and complete fatigue!
When Elijah was awakened by an angel and told to eat, he found a freshly baked cake and a container of water by is head. He ate it and then went back to sleep. He wasn’t praying for purpose, begging God for his next assignment, ahem. He was just sleeping, then eating divinely prepared meals, then sleeping some more.
The angel woke him up again and told him he needed his strength so he should get up and eat again. THAT food and THAT rest prepared him for the next 40 days of a tough journey. But it wasn’t until after THAT food and THAT rest that he got his next instruction from God and went to a cave where God spoke clearly and decisvely to him.
The study notes in my Bible say of 1 Kings 19.11,12
“The Lord did not reveal Himself to Elijah in the spectacular ways by which He had shown Himself to Moses. To this discouraged, despondent old prophet, God responds in gentleness.”
God did speak to him again, not in a great strong wind, or in an earthquake or even in a fire. God spoke in a “still small voice,” or a “delicate whispering voice.” Had Elijah not been quieted by a time of rest, had he remained in the endless, noisy cycle of boldly prophesying and working hard at it, he may have missed it – the very thing he needed most.
So here I am on my patio staining those ever-loving bricks on a hot summer night, remembering Hunter’s cries, pondering the prophet Elijah and it was becoming clear: I need sleep. I am so tired. I cannot find peace or comfort of any kind until I get sleep. There is nothing anyone can offer me that will help me in any way until I get rest. And, God is not going to give me my next directions until, through rest, I am in a better frame of mind.
B I N G O !
God got through to me.
This new idea, this thought that I neeeeeeeeeeeded sleep began echoing through my mind. I even dreamed about it. I was going to need proof that this was actually true and by the next day I was ready to find out. But for the moment, fireworks were going off in the sky of my heart like I was being granted some divine permission to indulge myself in something that was good for me – that God might still be pleased with me even if I wasn’t running myself ragged. Could this be true? What if I am not on my hyper-vigilant watch at every second – will the world cease to revolve correctly? Sadly, I would soon find, I had been living with somewhat of a God-complex. How embarrassing.
You may be thinking, “Good grief, of course sleep is from God. Of course He wants you to live a rested life. I have no trouble sleeping and not feeling guilt about it.” Wonderful! I wish you’d clued me in (though I probably wouldn’t have understood, anyway).
But some of you, my friends and family, are so tired you can barely read this. You are holding your world together for all you are worth. You are pleasing everyone and getting everything done and you dare not skip a beat or disaster will strike. Rest is most definitely not a state of mind. It is a place in which you can live. Think about these:
“Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest…be diligent to enter that rest…” Hebrews 4.1,11
“When you lie down, you will not be afraid; you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet,” Proverbs 3.24.
On day 5, I will tell you what I found in black and white right there in the Bible about sleep and how God was trying to make sure I heard it fully, and actually had been for some time.
Hunter needed it, Elijah needed it, and it turns out, I was sorely in need of sleep, too.
Deliver us from from striving & our self-reliant pride, Lord. Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Working for the Kingdom of God does not exempt me from His commands concerning the Sabbath and keeping it holy. It is pride to defy it. Word to all my friends and family in ministry. With love!
So where were we in this little *lack of sleep and rest* story?
I had lost title, position, most of my marbles and any inkling of what God had in mind for my life. I was madly volunteering for anything anyone would let me do, cleaning obsessively, weeding my yard (and maybe even a little of the neighbor’s), helping Rocky & Jovan with their upcoming nuptials and basically over-doing everything I could put my hand to. I was up before the sun and didn’t, or should I say, “refused,” to stop until well after dark. There were no leisurely lunches with my daughters for me, no playing in the pool with the grandkids. I was suddenly “not working,” and all I knew was, if Jesus returns today, He will not find me sleeping or being lazy!
“work…for the night is coming…” – The BIBLE!
During this time, my vision was blurred, I was chronically swollen, my body ached everywhere it is possible to ache, my joints were locked up. I didn’t feel well – ever. This “time off” thing wasn’t working.
Amidst all the activity, I kept praying, asking: what next? I wanted to know how God planned to use me, where I would next get to serve Him. I cried about this a lot, but the heavens remained silent, no to-do list written in the clouds.
I felt miserable and broken and now even God had no use for me. Couldn’t He see that I was a hard worker for the Kingdom? He said He needed laborers for the harvest. Didn’t God understand that I would sacrifice pretty much everything to work for Him? Hadn’t I proven this? I couldn’t comprehend why He wouldn’t put me to work?
It was a very hot summer day in August
8.10.06. The Walgreens sign in town said 104 degrees. My daughter Tara called. She and her husband, Dave, were bringing my adorable almost-2-year-old grandson Hunter to the house for a swim. When they walked in the door a few minutes later, daddy carrying Hunter, the little guy seemed in a bit of a daze. He had fallen asleep in the car and his face was pink from the sun, complete with car-seat sleep-creases.
As they prepared for the swim, his daddy set Hunter down to prepare a water bottle to take outside. Hunter teetered and his body started to tremble. He grabbed the legs of a kitchen stool and started to cry. But it wasn’t like any cry I had ever heard from him. His face was red, agonized; a sorrowful, deep groaning-almost-scream came from within the depths of his little body.
Hunter had our attention immediately: mine, mommy’s and daddy’s. I offered to scoop him up. The cry poured out, he shook his head. No. Do you want a drink? Water? No. Do you want lemonade? No. Do you want some pop? No. Do you want mommy? Do you want daddy? All we wanted in that split-second was to bring Hunter comfort, but nothing we were offering seemed to fill the bill. We could not comfort him. He was troubled beyond any simple outside fix. Hunter could not be comforted.
I know I am the nonna and everything, but Hunter, even at 20 months, was an unusually good-natured toddler. There weren’t random meltdowns for no reason. He wasn’t throwing a fit; he wasn’t trying to get his way.
As it happened, they’d just had a really busy, on-the-go day and he’d missed his usual nap time. They figured a refreshing swim and then a nice late-afternoon nap would be the ticket. Unfortunately, he fell asleep in the car those few minutes before and he was past the point of exhaustion – his trembling body a true sign of that. He needed rest right now, more specifically sleep. Pure and simple – sleep was the answer. Until that happened, there was nothing else that could happen.
God was about to show me some things concerning sleep…
That evening as the sun was setting and I was out on the patio staining some bricks (yes, staining bricks…I know, I’m rolling my eyes now, too), I was remembering Hunter’s gut-wrenching and pathetic cries and how badly he was needing that nap. I thought about how he could not be soothed because he was so tired and that nothing I had offered would or even could comfort him.
Immediately, out of the blue, I began to remember the story of Elijah. This was a power-man out of the Old Testament if ever there was one. He was bold and walked in the favor of God raising the dead and declaring miracles and ticking off government leaders by saying what God told him to say. God backed him with so much authority that he could even change the weather. But as I was sweating away staining my bricks and pondering Hunter’s gut-wrenching cry earlier in the day, God reminded me that even Elijah needed a good, long restorative nap.
More on Elijah later…
Do you need permission to rest and sleep in? I give you mine. I give you God’s. Consider whether this constant state of activity in which you are living is where you have placed your confidence? Are you fully self-sufficient and is it the healthiest place? Is it a place of pride for you? Because, fair warning: God resists the proud. He gives grace (and naps) to the humble, though. So – think it through carefully…
Be blessed and be at rest today! Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: “...ask..where the good way is, and walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls...” Jeremiah 6.16 NKJV
