So I’m having a hard time keeping up this blog, but it’s not for lack of desire. Writing, though frustrating at times, is something like therapy for me. When I don’t do it, I honestly go a little crazy.

It’s just that life won’t settle down. I started this blog when I felt like life was settling down, and before you know it, a whole new crop of questions, concerns, trials, and temptations came popping up.

But isn’t that life? Just when we think things have simmered down, just when one set of problems seem to dissipate, a whole new set is ushered in to take their place.

And it’s just so frustrating. Do you feel me?

It’s like that stupid arcade game with the gophers…I just keep smacking those things in the head, and they just keep popping up. It all makes me feel so helpless and inept. I hate those gophers. Can’t you get it together, Dana? Can’t you figure it out? Can’t you keep things in check for like, I don’t know, 5 minutes?

All of these feelings have a lot to do with what I want and I’m not getting. So my prayers sound a lot like this:

Lord, please fix this, take care of that, bring me this, and get rid of that. Lord, just make this better and make me better. Just take the whole mess and sort it out for me. This needs to stop because it’s making me crazy. Amen.

You get the gist. So this Sunday’s sermon really, really struck a chord with me. My pastor was preaching a Palm Sunday sermon, and he opened with a story. A woman in his congregation was going through a hard time, but it wasn’t her first hard time. In fact, she had had a very difficult life. As he was reassuring her with God’s Word, the woman listened to his words of comfort and then replied:

In my life, I’ve learned that God knows what we want, but he gives us what we need.

My pastor said those words stuck with him his whole ministry. At this time in my life, they are extremely comforting. When I’m not getting what I want, when I’m tired of what I’m up against, when I feel like it just won’t end, I can be assured that God knows what I need.

And this thought perfectly tied into my pastor’s Palm Sunday sermon. The Jews wanted this victorious King to save them from the Romans, but is that what they really needed? No. They really needed a humble Savior, one who would sacrifice his very life to save them from their sins. All of our sins.

So when I think God needs to vamoose all my problems, I’m probably mistaken. I can pray about them, of course, but perhaps he knows that I need to sit with them awhile, let them refine me and bring me closer to him. Maybe I need them to remind me to not get too comfortable here on earth or to look to my own strength to navigate.

And to wrap it up, my pastor said the most eloquent thing I’ve heard in a long time. Maybe our prayers shouldn’t end with take this and give me that. They should end with: Lord, make me want what you know I need.

Can I get an Amen?

My dad was here to visit a few weeks ago, and on our way to pick up my daughter from school he was telling me about one of his congregational members. She got married later in life to a wonderful man. After a couple happy years of marriage and just a couple years from retirement, she fell terribly ill and now is in a nursing home. Poof. All of her plans up in smoke in just a few short weeks.

I’m sure you’ve heard similar stories. People getting sick too young, children dying, awful catastrophes wiping out hopes, dreams, and carefully laid plans. As I grow older, I’m starting to face up to this truth: it’s not if something bad happens, it’s when.

This thought has been laying heavy on my heart lately: when will the next bad thing happen to me? When will someone I love get hurt or be taken from me? How can I shield my child from tragedy? My faith is being tested by this world and its trials.

I don’t think I’m being irrational. Jesus said that we would have troubles in this world, but he didn’t want us to be overcome with worry. He plainly says, “Do not worry.” I know these things, but my heart is having a hard time accepting it all, and getting over my fears. I’m having trouble trusting God with my future.

My pastor helped. This Sunday he told a story about when he was a child. He was bored one day, sitting outside looking for something to do. He noticed a line of ants crawling back to their hole, and he began to play a twisted little game. He would cheer the ants on, encouraging them as they neared their hole, “Just a little further, ant, you’re almost there.” And right before the ant reached his home, he squashed it flat with his foot.

Is God like that? Is that how we think God acts? Cheering us on most of the time, but then letting us get smooshed flat when trials and tragedies come our way? When surrounded by hurt or the fear of it, do we wonder if God is really on our side?

I have to admit that yes, I’ve caved into these fears. I can’t see what’s going to happen, and so I’ve let fear, not faith, set up camp in my life.

My pastor went on to assure me that our God is a trustworthy God. He is a loving, caring God who loves us deeply and purely and with a love beyond our imaginations. He has our lives in the palms of his hands, he lifts us up on his strong eagle wings, he knows us intimately and cares about our every step. He knows our needs and desires, our hopes and dreams. He gives us only the best gifts.

How can we be sure?

Just look at Jesus:

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32

Could we have better proof?

We know that we don’t have to fear God or what he will allow into our lives because he gave each one of us the ultimate gift: his Son. If he would sacrifice his own Son for you, he loves you with a love beyond comprehension. He loves you with a love that we cannot always understand, but with a love that we can trust. It’s a love that will carry us ultimately to heaven, and beyond all the trials and tragedies we endure in this world.

(Just like that little old ant from the song…I have high hopes, high hopes, high in the sky apple pie hopes…)

I’m t-i-i-i-i-red.

I need a break. Do you feel me? Spring break is right around the corner, and I’m counting the days. It’s just been a busy year. We’ve moved twice, once across the country. And to be honest, I’ve been tired since my first child was born six years ago. (Yes, I see that tiny violin that you’re playing for me.)

I often ask myself if I’m doing something wrong. What kind of tired am I actually feeling? Is it the physical tiredness of not enough sleep. Yes, I chase a three-year-old around every day, but I get enough sleep now that neither of my kids is an infant anymore. Is it emotional tiredness? The stress of being a mom and a wife, of working part-time and being the homemaker is certainly enough, but I really enjoy all my roles: homemaker, writer, and tutor. And yes, there is the fact that we threw our life up into the air, and now everything is just settling into place.

But what I think I’m feeling most is spiritual tiredness. I’m weary, and I’m ashamed. I’ve been carrying too much of my life, too much of my worry, too many of my sins and shortcomings around for too long. I offer them all up to my Father, but too quickly take them back on my shoulders. I believe that Jesus took these things to the cross with him, but I still think I need to give him a leg up there.

Why? I do the repenting part so effortlessly. I don’t have a problem saying that I mess up. I do. Every day. Oh boy, have I messed up. All of my sins line up and stare at me quite regularly, and I’m haunted by their gaze. So I’ve know I’ve got the contrition part of repentance down. And as I go through the C’s of repentance (confession, correction, change), I know I strive for those as well. Not perfectly, not wholly, but consistently.

It’s the fifth C of repentance that I struggle with, and it’s the step I’ve skipped regularly in my life. I feel the horror of my sin, I confess it to God, try to correct it and change it, and I know the law has worked on my heart. But the fifth part of repentance is not the Law, it’s the Gospel. The fifth C of repentance is CONFIDENCE.

Confidence that my sin has been removed as far as the east is from the west. Confidence that Jesus has a white robe for me, that his blood washes away my sin. Confidence that he remembers my sin no more. Confidence that Jesus shouldered all of my sin on Calvary. Confidence that I don’t have to do anything, that it’s foolish to think that I can add anything to his perfection. Confidence that I can REST in his grace.

Truly, fully, completely rest in grace. Rest. Rest. Rest.

There is no better words to my ears, even if an angel would show up on my doorstep, give me a gift certificate to the day spa, and while I’m gone clean my house top to bottom, do my taxes, organize my family photos, get Nate Berkus to redecorate my house, plant a fat sum of money in my bank account, and orchestrate an all-expenses-paid family vacation to the Canadian Rockies for me.

Nope. All of that stuff is trash compared to the rest I receive for my soul in Jesus. We get trapped into thinking that if all of this stuff in life were better, than maybe we’d have some rest. But even if we got that all handed to us in one Oprah-like swoop, our souls would still be weary. There is no replacement for the rest we find in Jesus.

I say this only because I can get wrapped up in chasing so many other kinds of “rest,” thinking that these answers will give me peace. But I forfeit so much peace in chasing after the wind. And I get really tired doing it, too.

With clearer, better vision I see that the rest I have in Jesus can be found when I tuck my children in for the night, and open the Psalms or reread the Gospels and then kneel down to pray to my Father. These sure-fire investments of time and energy reap rest and peace, joy and confidence. God’s Word reminds me of the fleetingness of this life’s trials and the vast eternal era of rest in heaven. And I get a taste of heaven’s rest right here on earth when I relax into the sure knowledge of my forgiveness and salvation.

Lord, help me to live in the confidence of your grace. You are the rest my soul so desperately needs. Amen.

I haven’t met that many people that enjoy waiting.

Correction.

I haven’t met any people that enjoy waiting.

I spend a good chunk of my day waiting: in lines at the grocery store, in traffic on the freeways, and on the other end of the phone line to get a human instead of a computer to come process my credit card payment.

Typically, I am impatient. I have places to go and children to feed and a to-do list to complete. My time is a precious thing, and I hate it when people waste it…especially those companies with automated phone systems.

Sometimes there is more at stake when we’re waiting. We’re waiting for an acceptance letter from a college, a meeting about a job promotion, a call from the doctor with the results. There are some pretty big things we have to wait for: to find Mr. Right, to have children, to make a career change.

Sometimes the waiting seems like too much too bear. We get worried, tense, and short-tempered with our friends, spouses, and children. We do unhealthy things to pass the time…eat too much, drink too much, shop too much, sleep too much. Worry too much.

How can we bear it? “When God?” we demand. “When will you come to me with some answers?” we pray. We lose faith when we aren’t granted answers, when we aren’t granted sight.

So often I’m waiting FOR God, so that my life can “start” or return to “normal.” I question him, his faithfulness, his timing. But I’ve begun to realize that during these times of waiting, he doesn’t just want me to wait FOR him.

He wants me to wait WITH him.

Our God is gracious. He has already answered the greatest question of your life: what happens at the end? He has sealed up your salvation in Jesus Christ. In heaven, all our waiting will be worth it, all our questions will be answered, all our waiting here on earth will be worth it. In the meantime, we have some waiting to do.

Some of our questions will be answered this side of heaven, some will not, but we can take comfort in the enormity of the answers we have from God. Wait with him in this day. Find peace and patience in what you know. God is with you. He makes everything good in its time. He has equipped you with all you need along the way. His timing is perfect. Everything he gives you comes at precisely the right moment and not one second too soon or too late.

Waiting can be a good thing when you have the right company. I can’t think of any better friend to wait with then Jesus.