How to Choose What to Forget and What to Remember.

     Being forgetful is not something we pride ourselves on. In fact we do everything we can to remember things. We take pictures, capture videos, journal, and record every special moment possible. Since the beginning of time people have sat around campfires telling stories and handing them down from one generation to the next. Yet, we do forget! I forget what I walked in the room to retrieve, 60 seconds after I set out to find it. I make lists and forget to take them with me. I open a text and forget to respond to it.

     However in this fast paced world that only seems to be getting faster I am trying to carve out a focus on the important things in life. I realize that I need to pick and choose what to remember and what to let go of.
I want to forget how I felt when someone wronged me. I want to remember the way Ava's hair smells. I want to forget feelings of inferiority that creep in from time to time. I want to remember my Papa's whistle. I want to forget how to feel anxious and fearful. I want to remember the way my children laugh when they are all together. All of them piled up in one corner of a room sharing, laughing, teasing, caring.

     Not many people know the unique experience one has loving someone with brain cancer. We all have unique experiences based on what life has brought to us. For our family, not only did we experience all the things that come with cancer and cancer treatment, both conventional and alternative. But, we also experienced  the things that come with dementia.  Previous to watching my sweet husband with this, I also watched my dear Papa go through Alzheimers. He was the closest thing to a father I have ever known. Like Alan, he was big and strong and oh so capable. When the tables are turned and the strong one becomes the one you take care of it does a number on your head and heart.  You begin to think more about the thing we take for granted every day called "remembering". We realize what a gift it is, the memory and the experience that created the memory. So when I read this verse today, the Spirit stopped me.

     "But be sure you live out the message (implanted within you, ) and do not merely listen to it and
so deceive yourselves. For if someone merely listens to the message and does not live it out, he is like someone who gazes at his own face in a mirror. For he gazes at himself and then goes out and immediately forgets what sort of person he was. But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there, does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out- he will be blessed in what he does." James 1:22-25

     I have a list of things I hope I never forget dear ones! Oh so many, but chief among them is what sort of person I am. This, I will only know by staring into the perfect law of liberty and fixing my attention there.
     The world will try to tell you who you are. It will try to define you by what you do, what you look like, where you live or what you drive. It has it's own ruler to measure success and worthiness. But, our God, the Creator who fashioned you with his own hands. The one who knew you while you were being formed in your mother's womb knows you! Let Him be the one who tells you who you are! Take a moment every day to gaze into his perfect law of liberty and fix your attention there. Let him tell you who you are and then live it out. I promise it's the best investment you will ever make! When we invest our time in letting the Lord speak His truth over us, we "remember" who we are. Because His Spirit has implanted that truth into our hearts, as we read it and gaze upon it, the testimony between His Spirit and ours is like a sweet conversation. It is as if we are saying...." Oh yes, now I remember! This is who I am. It is who you created me to be."
     Then, the same Spirit who reminded us is the one who empowers us to live it out! May we choose wisely what to forget and what to remember.

Emma and watching the seeds of parenting bear fruit.

Emma means whole or complete, and that is what she does, she completes our family.  To complete means that it is whole and lacking nothing.

Ava Rose Loves her " Emmy"

The Lord knew that Emma would be the finishing touch on our family.  Her sister prayed faithfully for her to come and come she did when Abbey was about to turn seven.

Sisters and best friends

Emma was a laid back baby, quite content and eventually became a strong willed child.  Take heart all you parents of strong willed children. :)Call me crazy but even though pre-teens and teens are some of the hardest years. There is a part of me that loves them the best because that is when the fruit begins to grow. All the seeds that you have planted for years under go one hard deep weeding as they are faced with the question of ,whose voice they will listen to? Who am I ? Will I let my peers tell me who I am or will I let my Savior? While this can be an extremely painful time it is also quite beautiful. For my own Emma, I hated that this coincided with so much pain from extremely difficult family crisises  one after another culminating in her Father's death. But I must say instead of crumbling under the weight of it all I have seen her dig deeper and press more into her Heavenly Father and who HE says that she is.  

I am so thankful the Lord saw fit to give her two brothers.

Emma also means " healer" or " protector" and that is what she does.  She is the beautiful servant that flits around the house looking for someone to serve or encourage. She is on the look out for whose heart is heavy so that she may intervene and find a way to bring healing to your heart.Her quick wit and one- liners keep us laughing on the hardest of days. When I come to pray with her at night she in turn prays for me. How does she know that this is one of the things I miss the most from Alan's absence, someone praying over me. She chooses bravery when the enemy comes to attack her own heart and runs to her Father for comfort. She is our ever present DJ and loves to fill our home and car with music. Sing any popular song and she can tell you who sings it and belt it out with you.  If our family was a piece of art she would definitely be the glitter placed on top to add that something extra that you didn't even know you needed but was absolutely essential for the very fabric of who we are. We celebrate you EMMA and the beautiful beginning of your 16th year!

My sidekick. So, so thankful!

Revive us Lord! How , O Lord, do we find rest for our souls?

                 Revive me Lord

Revive means to restore to life or consciousness; to give new strength or energy. 

The need to be revived implies that one has grown weak or weary. 

I don't know about you, but I see weariness all around me, and I feel it. Weary parents burning the candle at both ends. Weary children running from one event to another trying to cram a bit of real living in the midst of an already packed schedule. Weary customer service representatives that don't have the time or energy to listen to your requests. Weary neighbors that find it easier to come and go day after day without interacting with each other.  

We are such a weary people that the term "burnout" is common. In fact we have new things offered to us everyday to revive us. We need energy drinks, supplements and coffee            (which I love). We need spa days, massages, vacations and time outs. Don't get me wrong, some of these things are not bad in and of themselves but will they truly revive you? 

The Lord takes me back to Him again and again. "Teach me, O Lord the way of Your statutes, 

And I shall observe it to the end. 

Give me understanding, that I may observe your law and keep it with all my heart.

Make me walk in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. 

Revive me in your ways! "

Psalm 119: 33-37

When we follow God's way, when we seek understanding of His word so that we might follow it better, when the desire of our heart is to obey Him; We are not only revived... We are delighted!

I learned a little song when my children were small that I sang with them often. It included the phrase, " Obey, obey, I love to obey." I wanted them to understand that there is joy in obedience!

Obedience to God's word is not always easy, comfortable or popular. In fact when you take a stand for God you might even experience hardship! Expect it. 

But our obedience to God is more than just rule following. It is responding to who God is and what He has done for us! His pursuit of our hearts and sacrifice of love on our behalf is what draws us to Him. So obedience becomes not a burden but an overflow of our heart to Him. Just as "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." So also, out of the overflow of our heart does the body act.

1 John 5:3 says, " For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome."

In fact they are the opposite of burdensome, they bring life! When we choose obedience, we experience the fullness of joy. Little children are a perfect example. Sometimes my sweet granddaughter will decide that she simply must have her way. It may be something so very insignificant but it is as if a switch has flipped and she must insist with everything in her to demand her way. The longer she persists in demanding her way the more unhappy and agitated she becomes. Then one of her parents will step in and speak very calmly and with so much love the way she should go. It may take a time or two but eventually she concedes and almost instantly there is a return of joy! In fact most of the time she is laughing within seconds. Not because someone has done something funny but because she simply must express the joy filling her heart because of obedience.

 

In this world where time is limited and we are encouraged to simplify. May I encourage you to simplify as well? Whatever it is you are looking for, be it guidance, direction, strength, peace or joy; it is found in one place, the priceless Word of God. In that Word, God lays out for us the pathway to life. He gives instructions because he knows what will truly bring us joy and life everlasting. He knows what revives our soul! 

Come weary one and we will walk together. 

We will lay our burdens at His feet together. 

And we will take His yoke upon us for His yoke is easy.

His yoke is easy because when we are yoked with Him, He is with us, always He is with us, today, tomorrow and in the days to come. And, it is in having His presence with us that we can find rest for our souls. 

Does your soul long for the Lord? Let's back up a minute. Are you longing for "something"? Do you want someone or something to make your heart and flesh sing? Then you want to keep reading!

"How lovely are your dwelling places O Lord of hosts.
My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
The bird also has found a nest for herself where she may lay her young.
How blessed are those who live in your house.
How blessed is the man whose strength is in you,
In whose heart are the highways to Zion!
Passing through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring;
The early rain also covers it with blessings.
They go from strength to strength,
Everyone of them appears before God in Zion." ( Ps.84)

Sometimes my heart aches so badly out of the middle of nowhere. It literally feels like I can "physically" feel the fissures and cracks produced by grief ( the Valley of Baca). As if any moment my heart will surely break in two. 

No coherent thought has to be present to produce this. It is random, and once started, is like the tides that pull in wave after wave on the shore.  It happened today.  Although it began quite randomly I knew it was my heart aching for my husband and for all the ways that life should be but isn't. It crept up on my heart throughout the day and soon became a full out storm. But, like the waves that gradually decrease in power and strength to go, and come another day. It leaves as well, not altogether mind you but the wave has dissipated. 

However in their wake I am left with the simple truth that while my circumstance has not changed, neither has my God! And...He is ever present with me! To hold me when the waves feel like they are dragging me under.  His life ( his presence in me) is the ever present "preserver" that withstands the storms that have and will, come to my life and my heart.  He, lifts me up above the waves so that I might see above them breaking, to the eyes of the one who holds me.

What or who are you longing for? Who is your life preserver? 
He reminds us in Psalm 84 that when our strength is not in ourselves but rather in Him even the Valley of Weeping we might pass through becomes a place of springs. And behold, what should take us down actually takes us from strength to strength!