He is Building a House

Once a facebook friend posed the question: If you were a house, what would you look like? In the midst of a day with my actual house begging to be cleaned, I fiddled around on my phone for half an hour, searching for a house that matched my personality (We’ve all been there, right?).

This is what I came up with:

I am obsessed with the color yellow. I love vulnerability, and windows, and new life, and life in process, and I value beauty...and tend to find it in unlikely places. It was easy to find a house that made me feel known.

However, I am actually not this house. I’ve realized that recently.

Our landlord is selling our current rental and we have to be out in January. Something moved us, call it faith or insanity, to believe we could celebrate Christmas in a new place. Instead the process has been one let down after another, with the Lord whispering, “Can you still believe?” Last weekend we were at a conference and I firmly believed, but in the quiet moments, back home in my mundane life, I’m not so sure. I ebb and flow in faith and fear, stability and shame, feeling like I don’t want to be productive in my life, but hidden in a closet with chocolate and chips because somehow junk food makes uncertainty a bit more more manageable.

I’ve been a Christian for awhile now, in various seasons of shifting and unknowns, and it doesn't get easier. Like, shouldn’t I know how to do this by now? Yesterday I found myself asking God, “What do you want me to do?” Because that’s the thing, what caused harvest in the last season won’t work in another. God is teaching us reliance, not formula. Still, I like a good formula.

Should I worship?

Should I war in prayer?

Should I fast?

While all of these things are well-meaning, nothing trumps waiting on the Lord in expectation. This is where our strength comes from (Isaiah 40;31). But, I have to say, waiting is the worst! I am so over waiting in my life.

Sunday morning I was reading the Bible because when God isn’t speaking clearly or showing up, that’s where I start. Our life scripture is Isaiah 54:13, “All of your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace," but I had never actually read the verse before it (or, at least it had never held meaning).

Tossed with tempest is how I would describe these last two months. Not comforted. Terrified? It’s almost foretelling though, as I wait for a house, that God is making me into a house. Before He began teaching me, shaping me, culturing grace in my life, I imagine this is a little more what I looked like as a house:

But now, He is laying a firm foundation of brilliant color, of priceless value, raising up impenetrable walls, repairing the gates of my life that once swung to and fro on a squeaky hinge into crystal. He is making me into a house to case His presence, to carry and reveal His glory, and the very seasons that have tossed me are the ones that secure my foundation. 

When I read this scripture, I let go, again, knowing that so much of what happens in the natural is currency in the supernatural, it’s painful process and toiling and uncertainty laid at the feet of an unseen God that builds up our spirits, and makes an impossible testimony. Over and over in Isaiah God is called Redeemer. My life is a mess right now, figuratively and literally. But, He is Redeemer, and I am learning to look at this mess, to look at myself as a house being redone by a master craftsman, and some of His best work is done when I wait well.

Now, I have to say, because God tells me this so often, He isn’t surprised by my humanity, by the days I resurrect a ten foot wall around my heart and say, “No! You cannot work on this part of my house today because it hurts and I can’t go there with you.” He tells me so often, “There is grace to be human.”

Yet, when we let Him work, when we choose not to distract ourselves, and just sit at His feet, this is the better thing (Luke 10:41-42).

Sometimes I want to say to God, “I’m just a simple girl. I don’t need to be made of rubies and gemstones! A nice brick house will do.” Still, when I’m feeling brave, when I’m at the altar in extravagant worship, I find myself praying really big prayers, “Use me. Build my character. Break the mold of what I think ministry looks like. Teach me to love like you. I’ll do whatever it takes!” Then, suddenly my life takes a very uncomfortable shape, unpredictable, messy (did I mention my life is messy?), tempest-like, and I’m waiting on the Lord, again.

There used to be a vacant lot across the street from my house, and one day a big truck dropped off lumber and brick in the center of it. As days passed, men showed up and began piecing it together, measuring, sanding, sawing, and laying a foundation. It was literally out my living room window, and every day I would watch the men work and God would speak to my spirit, “I am building something.” I thought He was speaking to me about revival or a personal ministry, but now I realize He is building me. In the mess, in the waiting, in the quiet trust, I am becoming like Christ, built upon Christ, Himself. I am the neediest fixer-upper there ever was, but He has a vision for my life, and He will not stop until the work is completed...and I will never stop waiting on Him. 

It's Okay to Feel (permission granted from a feeler)

I always carried a shame for being the sensitive one.

From a young age I was drawn to babies, animals and dolls alike. New life made me cry.

Death also made me cry. 

The first time I learned of the Holocaust, I wept to the point of exhaustion and breathlessness. This pattern of feeling deeply continued on in my life, but I never grew into it. Instead, I was medicated. I always assumed there was something wrong with me, that a PG-13 movie peak scene was sometimes too much, like that time I was 16, on a date to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. A horse was shot with a bow and arrow in an opening scene, and I fled the theater in tears. I could not return to my seat, but I had abandoned my popcorn and purse in my mad dash so that the nice guy who had accompanied me asked management for a flashlight to crawl on his hands and knees and retrieve my belongings from our row. No, he never asked me out again….and I wouldn’t have either 😜

And, so over the years, not able to restrain my emotions like I wished that I could, I just kept them to myself, crying in private. Or, I tried to make it seem cute that baby commercials and Christmas and stories made me cry, even if internally I felt like a giant loser. Thankfully, I've grown in my identity as a child of God, and not been medicated for a over decade now, I’m learning to become more comfortable with who I am. Just two days ago I happened upon the shirt that I wore when I met my husband for the first time. I held it in my arms, smelled it, pulled it on, and then I cried. I remembered how it felt to see him 10 years ago, to sneak lightening fast peeks at the color of his eyes, and how that first hug bound me to him for life. I could not imagine a life not having access to those bear hugs! When he came home from work, I was wearing the shirt and he said, “Did it bring up some good memories?” I nodded, and casually admitted I shed some tears. Years ago I would have told no one.

I am in a season of engaging my emotions responsibly. I’ve read books (including the Highly Sensitive Person, which recommended I visually return to the birth canal and comfort myself. Didn't quite finish that book 😅), and I've listened to numerous podcasts. I’m beginning to discover that there is nothing wrong with me.

However, I have a confession. When one of my daughters cries, I am convinced there is something very wrong with them. I have THREE daughters and that means there are very many tears shed in my house, daily. Sometimes one of them will cry over spilled milk, and the other two will cry because the first one cried. Suddenly I am every authority figure in my life that ever said, “You are the sensitive one” and I am telling them, inadvertently, “You are too sensitive!” I have tried to hone in my frustration with the exuberant amount of emotions that cycle around this place, but mostly I am telling the three little girls to suck it up. Literally no life lessons in that. Paul approached me weeks ago and said the Lord had convicted him to be gentler on our girls as they process their emotions, and right then, I knew the Lord was speaking to me, too. I’ve been practicing being okay with their emotions, even as I learn to be okay with mine.

Two days ago Sonora was laying around doing nothing and I asked her to help me fold laundry. She started to cry, and said, “Can’t you see I just need rest?” Yes, I was frustrated. Why does a 7 year old still in her pajamas at 11 am need rest?  I felt the Lord nudging me to engage her. “Why do you feel like you need rest?” She starts to sob, “I just need time with my mommmy!!"

 I held onto her as she cried, but really, I was confused. I had sat with her that morning and done schoolwork, and we baked breakfast muffins together. I couldn’t figure out at what point in my day she had been abandoned. In fact, that entire morning she had been my shadow while the other children played! So, I held her, fighting those feelings that she was being totally irrational. “I sat with you this morning. Do you remember that? We made muffins together...” She cries, “I know!” Then it occurred to me, as a highly emotional person myself, that maybe she didn’t understand why she felt sad. I understand this as someone who has had shame attached to my emotions, avoiding them. So I asked her, “Do you want to ask Jesus what’s going on?”

I could be extra-spiritual here and tell you we went through inner-healing and everything was swell, but she sobbed louder, “I don’t want to talk to Jesus!” Alrighty, then.

I realized that even though she was resistant to talking with Jesus, I could still talk to Him, and model His love and care for her. I closed my eyes and waited, then said, “This isn’t about having time with me or needing rest, is it?”  I waited for her to answer. I waited and waited while she cried on my shoulder, and everything that needed to be done around the house became further pushed behind. Then, she spoke, “I’m really scared we won’t find a house to live in. I don’t want things to change. I want things to be normal, like the last two years. I want Christmas in this house. I want my birthday in this house.” And, on and on she went with a list of things that been building for weeks.

First of all, her process enlightened me to a personality trait of hers: she doesn’t like change. She likes stability. She likes order. She likes her things in place. She’s my “clean” child. To be honest, I’m more like her in my nature, but over the years, I’ve learned to cultivate trust in God, even when I don’t know the future. Our house has been alive with chatter over the changes coming, the BIG changes that are going to be so fun: Christmas in a NEW house, NEW bedrooms, and all the while she has bottled up her own frustrations and here they were in a mess we had to piece together. After I helped her realize where her emotions had stemmed from, I told her that it’ s perfectly okay to be sad, to be scared, to have doubt, and to be frustrated….as long as she voices these things so we can process them together. I reminded her of several testimonies of God’s goodness and faithfulness in our lives so that I did not leave her in hopelessness, but simply gave her permission to feel. Then we hugged, and she skipped off a different child, alive with passion for life. Then I repented for all the times I’ve told my girls their emotions are too much for me, thus teaching them their emotions are too much for them so they avoid feeling or attach shame.

I want to teach my girls that’s it’s okay to feel. I want to continue teaching myself to feel responsibly, so that I can in turn teach my children how to do this.

I was reading the story of Joseph to the children days ago, and while I’ve read the story many times and been encouraged, a new element stood out to me.

Genesis 42:24 “And he {Joseph} turned himself away from them and wept.”

Genesis 43:30 “Now his heart yearned for his brother, so Joseph made haste and sought somewhere to weep. And he went into his chamber and wept there.”

Genesis 45:2 “Then Joseph could not restrain himself before all who stood by him and he cried out, “Make everyone go out from me!”...And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of the Pharaoh heard it.”

Genesis 45: 14 “Then he fell on his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. Moreover he kissed all of his brother and wept over them.”

Genesis 46:29 “So Joseph made ready his chariot and went up to Goshen to meet his father Israel; and he presented himself to him, and fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while.”

Joseph’s humanity was highlighted to me again, and again. He wept.

Jesus wept. (the shortest scripture in the Bible, as you may know)

I wanted to put this together mainly to encourage parents with emotional children to not push their emotions aside, but really press into to why they are crying, whether it stems from that very moment, or something that triggered them days ago. Teach them to notice their emotions, acknowledge them, and find a place of resolution, whether it is a simple cry, or there is forgiveness that needs to be lent, or a good cuddle from dad. More than anything, and I speak as someone very much in process, be careful to tame your frustration. Sometimes the tears are a simple tantrum, but sometimes they are a gift from God, a key to your child’s heart. Use discernment, and don’t be afraid to engage them in their process of growing in emotional maturity. Join them on the journey. As the inventor of emotions Himself, God will not abandon us in our pursuit!