The Mothering Chronicles 11: When Homeschooling Mommas (and all the other mommas too!) Hit a Wall

I homeschool my boys.  Essentially what this means is I'm a lunatic.  Who, might I ask, in their right mind would give up a paying career to teach children at home . . . unpaid?  There are several obvious flaws with this choice.  1.  No pay.  2.  It's hard.  (If I taught in regular school, I might get to teach the same subject to the same grade each year.  In homeschool I have to learn new material every.single.flipping.year.  And that was all well and good, pie-in-the-sky, happy-happy-joy-joy when we did faux-archeological digs and attempted to make hot air balloons.  But Algebra?  Really?  Somebody stab me in the eyeballs with a thousand sewing needles and relieve me of my misery puleeeeze! )  3.  You have to fold laundry WHILE you teach.  4.  I no longer have a justifiable reason to buy cute new clothes every fall because the official homeschool teacher's uniform is track pants, fuzzy socks and a sweater.  5.  Did I mention the part about no pay?  Yeah, okay, moving on then.


I also run.  Years ago, when I first began running, I used to pray that God would send me a butterfly, a deer, a fuzzy caterpillar, ANYTHING to distract me from the jog.  I'd go for about five minutes, then all of a sudden, my legs were cement.  You could not have held a gun to my head and gotten me to jog one step further.  I was lamenting this dilemma to a girl with uber cute running shoes and very tidy-hair who pertly replied, "You're just hitting your first runner's wall.  It's normal.  It happens to everyone . . . even me.  You have to run longer than seven minutes."  She said some kind of scientific-smart-runner stuff about how your mind doesn't tell your heart to adjust its pace until the seven minute mark.  My eyes glazed over.  All I heard was, "You can do this.  Just run longer than seven minutes."  Hope.


The other day, I was running with a friend.  She's been wanting to learn to run (I know, right?  How do you learn to run?  I think it's just like walking except faster.) for like a year.  She's doing way better than she even realizes, but she seems to hit a wall.  So, I thought I'd go with her.  Sure enough, we're jogging along (Did I mention when I jog it sometimes feels like there is someone riding piggy back on my waste?  It's just my bootie bouncing, but I feel you should know it's the size of a small child.) and she says, "I can't do this.  I'm gonna have to stop." 


I'm like, "Oh no.  You're not stopping.  You've got this.  Keep going."
She's all, "No, I can't keep going."
I'm, "Can you feel your pulse in your temples yet?"
She, (heaving) "No."
Me, "Then you're not stopping.  You've got more in you.  Keep going."


Eventually, she stops.
Just a millisecond because I turn her around and point her down hill and tell her, "NO!  You are not stopping until time is up.  You can do this.  Keep going.  Don't quit.  Put one foot in front of the other.  Slow your pace if you have to, but do not quit."


I feel you should also know she was packing heat, so I was very brave in pushing her so hard because at one point when I pointed out a very large bull-frog on the side of the road to her (What?  I thought she would enjoy the distraction!) she said, "At this point, I. DO.NOT.CARE."  I am like ninety-nine percent sure she had her hand on the trigger when she said that, but I could be mistaken.  Maybe.


Anyway, she saw the wall coming.  She kept telling me it was coming, and then boom!  She.Hit.That.Wall.


And I've been homeschooling my sweet princes for six years now.  And boom!  This year, I hit the wall.  We're talking full-on homeschool burnout.  (Way worse than the garlic toast I burn in the broiler oven every single blasted time!) My eldest is headed into 9th/10th grade courses. (Yeah, I know, right?  One of those moms whose kids don't know what grade they're in.  So annoying.)  The younger is headed into 6th.  And I feel like I am headed into the grave.


And you're probably laughing, cause it's kinda funny that I say I feel like I'm headed into the grave, except I'm crying while I type those words because dadgum, friends, sometimes you just hit the wall so hard that you feel like you're gonna bleed to death.  And it isn't just mommas who homeschool because I cannot even listen to my working-out-of-the-home sisters' schedules without having a panic attack.


I bet you are just as sure as me, like ten million percent sure that every official, politician, and school board person who ever put their little brains together and decided that Algebra was necessary for a kid who is clearly NOT going to be a math teacher could probably be certified as insane.  That or incarcerated for acts of evil.  Or both. 


Can I also tell you that I rank listing last year's grammar and science books on www.homeschoolclassifieds.com or ebay and then praying they sell for a good price so I can buy more curriculum for next year higher on my list of torturous tasks then plucking nostril hairs out?  I do.   (A little education for those who don't have to sell their curriculum . . . it sits in a giant box waiting patiently for me to list it.  Listing it involves meticulous explanation of what exactly the material is, the edition, the year, and what comes with it.  Then you have to respond to annoying, perky first-year homeschoolers who want to know if there are any scratches on it and does it come from a pet-free home?  Ummm. Hello?  I homeschool boys.  Two clues there:  1.  Boys--Yes, there are scratches. 2.  Homeschool--That's practically synonymous with pets.  Sorry about your luck, little lady.  You're going to find rabbit hair and probably boogers.  I'm just saying.


Now some might question my decision to home educate or try to solve my "wall" by suggesting that I stop, put the kids in school, get a paying job, quit my whining and call it a day.  Okay, thank you for that.  But it's a bit like telling the person who wants to become a runner to quit running and start walking, isn't it?  Here's the rub on that just so we're clear.  I'll totally quit homeschooling as soon as God tells me to.  Promise.  He's the one who got us started on this journey that I swore I would NEVER take, and so I'll keep going until He says otherwise.  And trust me, I check in with Him on that pretty regularly. Usually in those conversations He starts calling me Jonah, I immediately go grab Moby Dick and holler "literature lesson in the living room now!" and then I don't eat fish for a week.  Good talk, God.  Thanks.


But if you want the truth, the honest truth, home educating is just a lot of long, hard work. (Kind of like parenting, right?)  And the weight of the responsibility of seeing these boys through their education is like an elephant riding on my shoulders.  Not even just an elephant.  A pregnant elephant.  With twins.  Dear God, it's heavy.  I can't screw it up.  It's all on me.  I mean, if your kid is in public school at least you can point one or maybe two fingers at the government, the teachers, the school board . . . SOMEBODY . . . if they don't learn everything.  With home education, every finger is pointing at me.  And I'm such a wimp.  I hate people pointing at me. 


And the other thing is this, after you've done it a while, sometimes you just feel like you are over it.  I'd like to read a book that doesn't have to do with Ancient Greece, please and thank you.  And honestly, Shakespeare, I'll take a few of your quotes, but really?  The rest?  I used to love your clever words, but now I'm tired and I want Good Housekeeping recipes and time to try them out.  (Also, I think that was a run-on sentence which makes me want to murder the person who invented grammar. Or maybe just maim them. That would be fine too.)


But this morning, I sat down to read my Bible in Mathew 4.  Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John from their careers as fishermen to be his disciples.  Then he takes them and goes out healing masses of people, tending to their needs.  I'm picturing Him out there patiently touching scaly skin and glassy eyes, caressing crying babies and breathing new life into broken limbs.  And these people?   They come by the dozens because they heard he could heal.  They heard he was healing people no one had ever been able to help before.  They just keep coming and coming. You know he's got to be exhausted after a while.  They all need him.  They're counting on him.  Every finger's pointing at him.  The elephant's on his shoulders, and the Bible says they came in multitudes. 


After a while, Jesus sees the multitudes, and he goes off to a mountain where he sits down with the disciples.  Just the 12 of them. 
And I fall in love with Jesus all over again when I notice that he took them off by themselves away from the crowds.
He's so perfect, isn't he?
He gives them this upside down sermon where he tells them, "Hey, remember the poor in spirit that we've been seeing in all these crowds? Yeah, well, they're gonna inherit the kingdom of heaven.  Remember the mourners?  The ones who were grieving the death of their spouses, their children?  That doesn't annoy me.  They'll be comforted. It's the merciful that will actually receive mercy. See, it's the meek, the ones who are laid out flat like a pancake, that will inherit the earth one day.  . . ."  And man, I feel like my life's been flattened like a pancake.  Rolled out thinner than pie-crust.  So thin, it's sheer and I feel it would shred were I to try to pick it up.


And I wonder if he told them that sermon cause they were fed up?  Done.  Tired of all those people grabbing at his attention, demanding his time.  I wonder if at first they were flipping out excited about the miracles and the thrill of the journey, the thrill of following Christ in this new thing, but if, after a while, they were just a little over it all.  So he righted things for them.  He set them straight.  Reminded them.  Helped them to see the way of things.  His way.


I love that sermon, I do.  But it's the sitting with the disciples that just washes over me.  After all those big miracles and crowds, when I know he had to be exhausted.  He sat down and talked with his disciples . . . those he called.
He just sits with the ones he calls, you know?
You and me.
Because whether he's called us to be a momma, a home educator, a public educator or a doctor, we all hit walls sometimes, don't we?  And it doesn't mean we quit.  Doesn't mean we go back to fishing.  It just means we need to sit a while.
Let him set things straight.


Mary knew that, didn't she?  Martha's sister?  Remember?  She chose the one thing that was "needful" while Martha was encumbered and troubled over many things.  Martha and I are actually twins separated at birth.  Mary is definitely adopted.


Because she must have understood that Jesus is The Way through the wall.


Didn't he say, "Come to me ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest?"
And sometimes we say we believe Him, but our words and our lives don't always line up. 


These aren't new things are they?  There's nothing new under the sun.  Mary and the weary and heavy laden verse . . . we've heard those sermons preached, haven' t we?  It's not that we need a new book, a new preacher, a clever pinterest quote or better curriculum when we're burnt slap out, is it?  We just need to do the simple thing that works.


Sit on a mountainside (or a sofa) with Jesus.
Be with the one who said, "Apart from me, you can do nothing."
Be with the one who said, "The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it." 
Be with the one who said, "Lo, I am with you always . . ."


I don't think walls bother Jesus that much.
He made one come down just by having people march around it.
The Israelites just had to believe He'd do what He said He'd do.


So, I'm sitting before my own little wall. 
Sitting here with the one who gave me my marching orders six years ago.
Sitting with the one who promised that he "will do it."
And I'm like, "Hey, God.  I'm so out of breath.'
And he's all, "Keep going.  I'm with you always."
And I'm heaving, "I think I feel my pulse in my temples and my head may explode."
He's, "My promises are true.  Do you believe me?"
And I'm breathing a little easier, "Yes, but will you help my unbelief, God."
And those walls?
I think they're cracking, tumbling down a little.  Maybe?
Because He's good.  And He loves to sit with us a while.

When Cutting Means Living

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." 
John 15:1,2

We have fruit trees here at our new house.  Several of them.  Spring came and whispered to waken them, but still they sleep.  A few blossoms roused, but mostly, they remained covered in lichen and  tangled in hungry vines.  I had held out hope that perhaps, because of their age, they'd surprise us with a bumper crop. 

But when the blossoms were few, I knew the truth.  There wouldn't be any fruit.

There were dead limbs.  Lots of them.  Some more obvious than others.  Some with crunchy grey-green lichen growing on their rotting flesh.  Others with honeysuckle and poison ivy vines choking them in their effort to grow heavenward.  And when he said they'd all have to come down, I argued with my husband--surely some of them were alive?  But even to knock knuckles against them revealed what I didn't want to accept.  The sound was hollow.  Lifeless.

And I can't help but think that perhaps when others see me, they see dead limbs too.

Limbs that no longer bear fruit.  Limbs no longer drinking from the vine.  Limbs that offer no fragrant flowers, no lush leaves, no fruit.

I stood, that day he said they'd need to come down, determined to keep them, determined to leave them be and let them have a chance.  I stood between those trees and my husband, the tree-gardener in our family.

And I can't help but think that perhaps I stand between myself and the true Gardener.

I wonder about this Gardener that severs branches and limbs, takes the lifeless to give life in the future.  I wonder about His ways.  His economy.  His methods. Taking the life of lambs and pigeons to free heart-life of repentant people so long ago. Taking the life of His Son to give life to mankind.

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
John 12:24

Seeds that die and produce many.
Joseph severed from his family and he saves nations, the entire Hebrew race.

Could it actually be that had Joseph remained in the comfort of his father's favor, he would not have born fruit?  Could it be that my clinging to languishing limbs is preventing me from producing fruit?

And what of me and my dead limbs?  What of the limbs that no longer bear fruit?  Do I really want to see them?  Do I really want to know what they are?  Would I really let that Gardener come in with his saw and make the cuts?

Come to me, ye who are weary . . .

Holding lifeless limbs can become wearisome.

ye who are heavy laden . . .

Lifting dead weight can drain a soul.

and I will give you rest . . .

The rest comes in the releasing.

Sometimes the releasing comes in stepping down as the guard of lichen covered limbs.
Sometimes the releasing means letting Him make the cuts.
Sometimes the releasing is goodbye to our plans.  Our ambitions.  Our ideas.  Our pride.
And I have much of that.  Pride.

And sometimes the cutting off leaves a gaping hole for a season. 

Sorrow may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

Maybe I have some holes right now.  Some that are gaping.  I'm waiting for the joy that comes in the morning.  For that sweet sun to rise and whisper the Gardener's song, the song of making all things new, the song of healing, the song of hope, the song that promises fruit.

Fruit that will last.

Unraveling Our Rows-Us at the Plow

     "Gaze straight ahead, Sarah, gaze straight ahead."  It's mom's alto voice offering me her very best err only ( since she's had WAY more tickets than I) wisdom for driving.  We all remember--my four sisters and I--how mom would say this phrase over and over, like a 45 skipping, as we passed any other vehicle. A lot of good it did us--we all managed to back into one towering tree at the foot of our driveway so many times, mom finally had it cut down.  But it turns out, it may have been the best advice for life anyone has ever given me. Jesus once said something similar. "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God." (Luke 9:62) 
     It's a passage I've read, thought I understood, and read again--maybe fifty times.  I always felt it was the verse that sort of targeted the "Lot's Wives" of the world--those people who are rescued from their sinful selves and yet they look back. With a harlot's heart, I've longed for what might have been, what used to be.  I've been one of those gals. Yeah, more than once.  But, recently, I was listening to this missionary from Australia and he expressed something further, something more than that longing for what might have been.  Looking back can also be the longing for what is.  "How," he asked, "can you plow a straight row if you are looking back?" 
     Not a bad question, and I know from experience, you can't.  Gaze straight ahead, Sarah . . . Mom always told me to look straight because if I stared at the tractor trailer in the oncoming lane, I'd inevitably veer towards it.  A veerer.  That's a good word for me, maybe for all humans. Veer comes from virer.  A French word from the 16th century, it means to turn.  Turners.  The veering kind.  I wonder, when God molded the heart of man, did he think  I will give them the ability to turn, to change course, to choose, to go to the left, to go to the right.  I'll give them head-eyes to see physical things, and heart-eyes to see spiritual things, the eyes that will allow them to long for things and people and ME.
     And I see myself, hands hoisted on worn wood handles, eyes tunneled straight ahead, plowing.  The words of Hebrews 12:2 vibrate in my heart, "keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith . . ."  My eyes are fixed, and I'm plowing this row.  Not just any row.  It's my row, the row God chose for me when he placed my soul in the womb of a Jesus loving hippie thirty-five years ago.  He knew then, chose for me then, the place, the position of this row.  Knew my row would have four biological sisters and a passel full of spiritual sisters that keep me tethered to sanity, knew my row would have a dad who thinks hard on life, a mom who has the Jesus-Spirit, and eventually a husband who would mirror God's heart to me. He knew my row would get filthy when two tumbling, bumbling, boys started littering it with their giggles, their footballs and wiggling worms.  He knew.  And he knew I'd get bogged down in the thick of loving and living.  He knew I'd start looking at all the living loves in my row and forget The Pioneer, The Perfecter. Knew I'd forget the gazing straight ahead.  Yeah, I'm the veering kind. 
     When a wheel turns over and over in the same place (veers completely, repeatedly) we call it spinning our wheels. And is it possible that just by loving the blessings more than The Blesser, we plowers can plow ourselves into a rut?  Never blatant sin.  Never adultery or murder or drugs.  Just loving creation more than The Creator.  (Shhh. It's called idolatry, but I don't like to think of myself as that.)
     Just the other day I had to drive The Marshmallow--Jeff's white F150--onto a lawn and turn it around.  I'm careful with that old tank.  It's always had a grudge against me, that truck, it insisted on getting stuck.  Naturally, the wheels started to spin on the wet grass and red clay, and my cheeks, sensing their predicament grew as red as that spattering mud.  See I've gotten that dadgum Marshmallow stuck more than once, and we've had to dig out with a shovel and stick a board under the wheel to get traction again.  So, I knew better than to get myself spun into a hole I couldn't get out of.  I put her in park and hailed down the first camouflage-hat-Justin-Roper-boot wearing guy in a four wheel drive truck I saw. 
     It's in our (the row-plowers, follower of Jesus) nature, we can tend to spin our wheels sometimes, and we don't even realize we're doing it.  We fall in love with a man and forget The Man.  We begin a career, make a decent salary, and forget The Provider.  We get busy with life and forget The Alpha and The Omega-Beginning and End.  We become absorbed in causes, in needs and forget that apart from ME you can do nothing.  We want a fancier home, and we forget we Aren't Home. We look at our neighbors row and covet.  We see sites along the way and start creating our own agenda. (Come now, let's be honest.  We plan for our retirements, our vacations, our income tax refunds based on our personal goals, and forget that Jesus gave us clear direction--The Great Commission.) We start deciding why we are here, where our row will go.  We do that. We veer. We do.
     Sometimes, though, we are like those people Paul talked about in Romans when he said, "For although they knew God (And I do know Him, don't I?  I've known Him since I was a gangly girl and he held a heart broken by divorce, when I was a tender teen and  He held a heart broken by a red-haired boy, when later He provided for husband and I because the money envelope we kept in my hand-me-down bureau was empty,when He healed though we thought death had come to take my physical body.  Yes, I have known this God.) they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened.  (And I have been senseless, haven't I?  Forgotten it was God who provides and not my husband, not the toil of our hands, but the God who gave us hands.  Forgotten it is God whose children these boys really belong to, and mine is just the honored position of steward.  And who built this house we live in . . . really?  Jeff and I for fourteen and sixteen hour days?  Or The Sustaining God that strengthened the arms and feet and sent help along the way?)  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings . . . They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen."  (Romans 1:21-24) 
     They exchanged the truth of God.  I am the way, the truth . . .  Yes, I spin sometimes because I forget that the things I see along the plowing journey--the people, the contents of a full life--are all merely images, reflections of the truth of God, but the truth?  The Truth?  That is God and God alone.  And this idea of gazing straight ahead takes on real meaning.
     "Let your eyes look directly in front of you and let your gaze look straight before you.  Make the path for your feet level, so that all your ways may be established.  Do not turn to the right or to the left; turn yourself away from evil." (Proverbs 4:25-27)
     Look directly in front of you.  That word look?  It means to consider, to see, to rest one's hope in.  It isn't a mere taking in, it's a stopping, a gazing at something long enough to attach a sense of trust or hope in the reality of a thing.  And for a follower of Jesus, we don't get the luxury of attaching reality to anything but the face of our God.  We do get to love, we do get to enjoy, we do get to embrace all the beauty that fills our rows, but our hope, our reality?  God.  Just God.  And that guy that put his hand to the plow and looked back that Luke talks about?  Luke used a Greek word that means to look at long enough to know by experience.  If we choose to experience the created and know it better than The Creator, we're not well suited for the Kingdom of God because we'll be strangers in the place that was truly our home all along.
    To plow straight, we need to look at God long enough to know Him by experience.  We need to know Him more than the other loves in our lives.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, you strength  . . . (Mark 12:30)  And how can we love Him if we don't know Him by experience, and how can we know Him by experience if first we don't gaze.  Gaze straight ahead, my friends, straight ahead at The Pioneer, The Perfecter of our faith.

Pray with Me:
Truth, My Reality, unravel my row.  Father, draw me to your face.  Teach me to hunger for You above all else.  Straighten my row for your name's sake.  I love you.

Listen with Me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD6Z1-e7UgU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mJFFrVnczE

When Runaways Remain

Around 25 years ago my sister and I became unhappy with how things were taking in shape in our family. Hidden behind a ridge in the mountains of northern Georgia our hand-crafted cabin bulged with three wild-haired big eyed hippie's daughters. (Later there were five girls, but not then) Our feet tended to be bare and we flowed inside and out with little concern for societal norms. We were raised to love Jesus and the land He painted at creation and for some reason two of us had become disgruntled with what I now realize was a beautiful childhood. It was agreed upon that one of us should run away. Now my sister will tell you that though two years my senior she often shared her ideas with me and then encouraged me to act on them. I don't remember there ever being a discussion as to who was going to do the running, but you can probably guess it was me that ended up packing my bags. Early one morning before the sounds of my mother awoke us we whispered our goodbyes. Before leaving, I boldly climbed onto the counter and helped myself to an unopened box of cereal--a BIG No No. Then I made my way as quietly as possible around the wild cherry tree and down a small slope to the back of the house where the crawl space had an opening. For whatever reason, I felt this was as good a place as any to run away to and so it was there I stayed--a disgruntled, disappointed and frustrated runaway. In the end I think we actually had to tell my mom I had run away. They never even noticed my absence. That may have had a good deal to do with the fact that I didn't manage to stay gone very long. This morning as I was reading in John 15 my memory was washed with the pictures of that childhood story. Verse nine of John 15 says, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love..." Eleven times in the first ten verses Jesus speaks the word remain. Remain. The word is well translated as in the Greek it means simply to stay, to remain, to abide or consider Eugene Peterson's translation: "I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love." (John 15:9) When you know the depths of someones love you never want to leave. But when the love of those who care for you is called into question then it is human nature to run. If we run then at least we aren't present for the pain of disappointment. Obviously as a little girl I had become disappointed with something happening in our house and I questioned the rightness, the fairness, and the love of my parents. (I had probably been asked to do some unreasonable thing like feed the dogs or fold laundry :-) But my sister and I both felt the best situation was to jump ship, to run. The thought of staying and persevering through something didn't weigh enough to stand a chance against the idea of running. Two and a half decades later I find people still tend to run when things get rough. Some are like me--they don't run that far. The fight they had with their husband just sends them running to call their friend. The frustrations with their children just drive them to the computer. The stress at work sends them for a little retail therapy. The disappointment with themselves sends them to the freezer for the entire container of Moose Tracks. I've been there--literally. Sometimes they run farther though--they leave their marriage. They never speak to their relative again after the last fight. They quit their job and hunt for another one. Sometimes running doesn't seem like running, it seems like a logical solution to avoid a messy conflict. But when we run from God we run from our very source of life and over time the light in our life will flicker and burn out. It may take years, but mark my words it will happen. I've seen it. I've lived it. The two children who lost their mom, the hard working family man who lost two jobs in one year, the family who lost their home, the woman who lost her chance at love all have one thing in common--the choice to remain or run. They're real live people like you and like me and they face insurmountable-how in the world could a good God allow this-it's not fair-it hurts so hard I can't breath-circumstances. They face the gritty questions in life to which there are no good answers and they're hurt, they're disappointed, they're angry, they're frustrated and they're desperate. You better believe they're gonna be tempted to run. The challenges I face seem insignificant compared to those of so many others but still I find myself tempted to throw in the towel too from time to time. I am comforted by the truth that Jesus loves me with the same incredible love that God poured on Him as He faced the gruesome reality of death by crucifixion. What a life changing truth it is when He says to us I love you with that same exact love and I want you to "live in" my love. When you know that you know that you know that you are loved without question you feel so safe, so secure you never want to leave that kind of relationship. My husband has showed me what that kind of love feels like. In him I have found a love that has endured without hesitation or contingency and I've been able to take that picture and paste it on the heart of Jesus to better understand what He means when He says He loves me. To live in the love of God we have to believe in it. We have to stand on the truth of God's Word and declare to our doubting hearts, "My Father will NEVER leave, NEVER forsake, NEVER abandon, NEVER give up, NEVER release us, NEVER fail, NEVER falter. His love is permanent and it is mine." (Hebrews 13:5, Deut. 4:31, Ps. 138:8, Jude 1:24, Romans 8:39) No matter what we face, we face it shielded by the love of God. If we aren't living in God's love it's as if we are a soldier cowering. behind the largest, mightiest, strongest most impenetrable sword ever fashioned shaking and petrified because we can't see the shield. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean it's not there. We are shielded by the God who commands lightning bolts with a single breath. Jesus wasn't removed from the greatest trial known to mankind, He was loved through it and in that love He found the strength to carry out the most heroic mission of all time. Only after He made it through death did God raise Him to His right hand. Joseph didn't receive a 'become the pharoah's right hand-man' free pass. First he was loved through a pit, and prison terms and then he was lifted up into the position God had planned all along. What about Esther? God didn't just change her king's heart and spare her people, He loved her through the fear of risking her life to save her people. Trials are a reality of this life. Disappointment. Pain. They are the stories of the heroes of the faith. But they are only fleeting emotions in the lives of those warriors--the permanent backdrop for every single one of these stories is the guaranteed love of God. Without exception His love is our guarantee. I Cor. 13:13 says, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." When we lose faith, and we will, when we give up hope, and we will, may we remember the greatest of all--the God whose very name is LOVE. In His love may we remain. Pray with me: Lord, Your name is love. Your love is so unfathomable. But I have to admit there are times when I want to scream why, God? Why do you allow pain into our lives? Why do you allow heart break? Why? And yet, Lord if you never answer the why's, won't you fill me with belief in the truth of your remaining love. God help me to live in that love. Help me to linger there, to stay, to put my suitcases down and grab hold of your love with all my might. Thank you, Father. Read with me: Jude 1:21 Listen with me: God loves you--Deborah Klassen