March 05, 2014

Releasing to embrace.

March 05, 2014/ Christine Bailey

Today is the first day of the Lenten season. Admittedly, I've never really observed Lent. But this year, I felt compelled to. Adding another baby to the family has made our lives wonderfully full. And with that fullness there is no longer room for everything that was there before.

The above challenge from my Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) lecture two weeks ago has totally stuck with me...release anything in our lives that prevents us from following Him wholeheartedly. What should I be releasing? Following Christ right now means serving my family - my husband and two children - and serving them wholeheartedly, not distractedly. As I prayed over this, I realized something specific I need to change. While I love Instagram as a tool to embrace life, I've been scrolling through my Instagram and Facebook feeds mindlessly lately, using them as an escape or distraction. It's time to take a step back, and this is the perfect time. So I'll be off Instagram and Facebook until Easter. I might even quit Facebook altogether when this is over as I've been considering it for awhile.

At any rate, I'm excited about what this frees up for me. I plan to blog here a bit more - I've really missed it. This time is about sitting down at my computer intentionally to write rather than checking social media mindlessly all throughout the day. It's a choice that helps me embrace my life and creativity rather than taking away from it.

Our lives right now are beautifully imperfect, yet I feel so peaceful. Like I said, wonderfully full. My husband just turned the big 3-5 on Sunday, and we had a homemade pasta dinner {christening his new pasta attachment for the KitchenAid mixer} to celebrate.

He has completely mastered the art of homemade pasta. I might crown him an honorary Italian. As we sat down once again with friends around our farm table that he made with his own two hands, I was grateful again that sharing meals together is an important part of our lives, our story.

And this photo taken the same day just makes me smile. No matter how often I tidy up, our living room is chaos, with toys and car seats and burp cloths strewn on practically every surface. I took a moment to sit on my husband's back with our baby Norah while he did a magnetic world puzzle, and it's just so totally and completely random. But it's our crazy life that I love.

I hope you'll continue along with me during Lent as we seek to embrace these days more fully. And please share any insights you have about taking life more slowly - I'd love to know what that means for you.

April 07, 2012

A life-giving dark.

April 07, 2012/ Christine Bailey

Iris unfurling in my garden, March 2012

Around Easter every year, I love to pull out one of my old faithful book friends - When the Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd. Because, you see...

Waiting does not come easily for me.

Especially now. In the daily trenches of motherhood, it amazes me how many times in a single day I can oscillate back and forth between fully embracing my current stage in life, and wishing for what was, or what will be.

In the midst of broken relationships and other struggles, it seems so lonely sometimes.

But, the waiting is necessary.

This book taught me...

It's okay to have questions; God is not afraid of them.
Waiting can be a "life-giving dark" if we will only accept it as a womb instead of a tomb. In a womb, there is life. In a womb, we are incubating. A life-giving dark is where something is happening, something beautiful. It is not dead or stagnant.
This process is key - it strips us of our false selves, humbles us, draws us closer to the heart of Christ.
Christ longs to draw us close to His heart, even more than a nursing mother. Let Him.

Will I choose life today? Or will I allow the dark, the waiting, to engulf me?

I love the words that Sue Monk Kidd writes in her journal on her birthday, as she continues to wrestle through the tension of life...

"Sometimes it seems that life is a grace too severe, too vast, and too beautiful to receive. But I open my hands anyway. Today I'll talk to myself. I'll say, Accept life - the places it bleeds and the places it smiles. That's your most holy and human task. Gather up the pain and the questions and hold them like a child upon your lap. Have faith in God, in the movement of your soul. Accept what is. Accept the dark. It's okay. Just be true.

I'll say to myself, You're loved. Your pain is God's pain. Go ahead and embrace the struggle and chaos of it all, the splendor, the messiness, the wonder, the agony, the joy, the conflict. Love all of it.

I'll say to myself, Remember that little flame on the Easter candle. Cup your heart around it. Your darkness will become the light."

I absolutely have to believe that's true. Otherwise, what's the point?

Tomorrow, we celebrate Easter. Easter is about the promise that God can and will redeem all things. Out of the darkness came life. Jesus is alive! What does that mean for us, little us, still here on earth?

Wherever you are in the dark, wherever you are in waiting, know...

You are not alone.

I've been there, I understand, you are understood. I hope that you can grasp "how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19; NIV)

That's something I'm clinging to.

May the joy of Easter morning - the promise that the light does come to rescue and to save - give you peace.

Read more of my thoughts on When the Heart Waits and "eastering" here.

April 23, 2011

Easter reflecting.

April 23, 2011/ Christine Bailey

"I watch this morning

for the light that the darkness has not overcome.

I watch for the fire that was in the beginning

and that burns still in the brilliance of the rising sun.

I watch for the glow of life that gleams in the growing earth

and glistens in sea and sky.

I watch for your light, O God,

in the eyes of every living creature

and in the ever-living flame of my own soul.

If the grace of seeing were mine this day

I would glimpse you in all that lives.

Grant me the grace of seeing this day.

Grant me the grace of seeing."

~ from Celtic Benediction by J. Philip Newell

I used to love Christmas best, but as I experience Christ more deeply in my life and fall more in love with Him, as I see evidence everyday of how He cares so intimately about me and others around me, I realize that Easter is the center of it all. We celebrate Christmas for months in anticipation but Easter seems to come and go in a flash. Without Christ's death and Resurrection, His birth does not really have meaning. Without the Resurrection, there is no hope or redemption for this world.

I so look forward to tomorrow morning, having a small brunch and gathering in our living room where we will read Scriptures and I will sing praises to the God who has saved my life, who has not spared me from struggle and heartbreak but who has loved me fiercely in the midst of it, who always provides peace when I ask for it, who has given me more gifts than I can imagine or deserve. This is the God I worship and love. This is the God I celebrate.