What do you need? Year end reflections

I love to look back at old journals. I looked back at an entry this morning that I had written a year ago to the day. It was called reflections 2021. I had focused on the word Jireh which means “God will provide” or “Yahweh”. Looking back at 2021 and into 2022, Jireh was the word God had given me to lean on, to focus on in a transitional period of life.

I had written about how God provided for Abraham in Genesis 22. Got tested Abraham’s faith and obedience. Here are a few things that I learned from that passage:

1. Abraham OBEYED even if God asked him to do something he did not want to do and did not understand. V. 3

2. Abraham DECLARED that God would provide. He had no idea how, he may have had to sacrifice Isaac but he knew God was faithful. V. 8

3. God spoke and Abraham STOPPED and LISTENED. V. 11

4. Abraham obeyed AGAIN and God PROVIDED the ram for the sacrifice. V. 11-13 (Abraham didn’t try to find another way. He didn’t try to be self sufficient here. That’s a tough one.)

5. Abraham REFLECTS on what just happened and named the place in remembrance of God‘s provision. “God Will Provide.” V. 14

So what if God didn’t provide the ram and Abraham had to kill his son? Would God still be good? Would God still be our Jireh, our provider? Yes.

It doesn’t always make sense. I can’t imagine the tears that trickled down Abraham’s face as he walked ahead of Isaac, trying to hide them from his little boy. I can’t imagine how his heart beat that morning as he gathered the supplies for the sacrifice. I can’t imagine the doubts and questions that crossed his mind. I wonder how sick he felt as he realized he would soon sacrifice his own flesh and blood. Yet, Abraham obeyed. He believed in Yahweh’s provision beyond human understanding.

2022 has been a year where I have clung to the provisions of God. Yahweh has provided time and time again. He didn’t ask me to sacrifice my flesh and blood but He has asked me to do things I didn’t want to or fully understand. He has asked me to let go of a lot of things and cling to Him. I have been angry, frustrated, scared, unknowing and even blatantly disobedient, yet He has always provided.

So what do you need? I think the end of every year is a good time reflect. If we don’t make time to reflect, we don’t learn from our past, we don’t gain insight for our future decisions.

So what do you need? Again. Think about that question. As a Christ follower, I know, like Abraham, that God will provide my needs. It may be messy and strange and make no sense but He is always Jireh. No need to help His sufficient, all knowing hand, He’s got you. He knows what you need.

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Dreams

Last night, I dreamed. I woke up with the dream fresh. It was a strange dream as most of mine are- a mixed bag of emotion, random happenings and snapshots of the day.

I was gathering food on a plate from a bar or an area that food had been placed. As I gathered, I saw that everyone else had beautiful cuts of meat, and I had a few small leftover pieces, full of that and some not even cooked.

I gathered what I could on my blue Fiesta Ware plate. (I remember that vividly-most likely from emptying the dishwasher last night.)

I took my plate to a seat only to be upset that I didn’t really have one. I wondered aloud about why I had no place to sit, nothing great to eat. I was surrounded with a few friends and family members with no true place.

I woke up knowing I needed to dwell a bit on the stream. I even did the Wordle today and the word was “dream”. Ironic. Maybe.

I’m sure there are a million ways to interpret this dream but I think it’s about the feeling of finding, of looking around my life, seeing the seats and feeling lost, feeling like I haven’t found my place, my seat.

I also think it has something to do with that plate, my Blue Fiesta Ware plate. I was concerned with what others had on their plate, I was focused on their “better food”. I had the choice to put the food on my plate or leave it.

So I choose to remember the truth of God‘s love for me. I don’t have to fight for my place on earth because Someone else fights for me. I have a seat at the table, the one that truly matters in the end.

I will also think about my “plate”, my life. What am I filling it with? I can look to the left or right, compare what others have to what I have. I can choose to fill my plate intentionally, processing and praying. Avoiding the urgency to pile my plate high.

There’s a story in the Bible about a boy name Mephibosheth. I’ve written about him before, about finding a place at the table. His body was literally broken, legs crippled, but the king made a place at his table for Mephibosheth.

I come with flaws and hurts, a past that needs healing. Yet I have a beautiful plate of food and a chair with a place card that has my name inscribed on it, waiting for me, at the table, always.

Food for thought: Where are you sitting and what’s on your plate?

Rainbows in the clouds…SOL Tuesday

Grief is strange. The loss of a person, the loss of a life once lived, the loss of relationships, the loss of a routine, the loss of normalcy. These losses created a grief in our hearts that festers and grows at the strangest of times.

But then…God sends a rainbow in the middle of the darkest clouds. A reminder that grief is a catalyst for growth, that even in grief there is hope.

Remember to always look for the rainbow. It may be small, it may be faint but it’s there.

What Do You Know? SOL Tuesday

I was listening to a podcast this morning on my way to work as I often do. Emily P. Freeman was giving life advice in the soothing, willowy, calm way only she can. (Check out “The Next Right Thing” on Spotify. I tried to link it but can’t.)

She talked about writers writing about what they know as a daily practice.

So, here I go. Here are some things I currently “know”. (Insert all the air quotes here because, WHAT do I REALLY know?)

I know that teenagers are like roller coaster. Up and down they go, where they stop, nobody knows. Unless you have food. They will stop for food. I know my daughter and son need time to decompress after a long day at school. I know they don’t really need advice but a listening ear.

I know Colorado is hot and dry and I need to wear more sunscreen lest I dry up like an old prune.

I know I am still waiting to take the best yearbook photo ever. I’m 42. Still haven’t.

I know my husband is kind and wants to take care of us even when he is away. I know he loves to cook and I love to eat what he cooks.

I know gas is expensive and I am like an Uber these days. I know I need to streamline our schedules and I’m trying my best.

I know we just went from zero to a thousand miles an hour and we just started school. I know I need to place boundaries around our time because no one is truly happy when we’re exhausted.

I also know that I am truly blessed to have a crazy schedule and healthy kids and a loving husband. I know these chaotic moments and schedules will pass and in a few years, I’ll be calling my kiddos instead of driving them around.

I know we have new neighbors that are kind and good and stop everything when my car battery dies to help out. I know I love our little house we are crammed into. I know I’ll miss it later.

I know these moments are fleeting and fast. I know life is hard and altogether good, if I look for that goodness. I know God has sustained me over the last few years, and He always will, even if His provision looks so different than I ever imagined.

So, what do you know?

James 4:14 “Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

Contentment

I went home and it was good, bittersweet to see the changing faces of the people of I love. The way that places shift and grow into bigger versions of their former selves.

This time going home made me realize I’m exactly where I need to be. Instead of longing for what was, I was happy to spend time with the people that fill my heart and then I was longing to go back to my new home.

Home has changed so many times. I recently told someone that I don’t really have roots. I’ve never been that person that has set roots so deep in a place that they could never imagine leaving. Although there is nothing wrong with that, it’s never what God intended for me. I know that now.

I’ve lived in and left so many places. They all knew a version of me that has grown and shifted and changed. Maybe having roots that grow wherever I go is part of that process. That process of learning to be content in any place God sets me.

Today I will be content. Change will come inevitably and my roots will grow but maybe I’ll never be set in one place. That’s okay. I’ll be at peace wherever I go. I’ll work at that process daily.

1 Timothy 6:6-7 “But godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷ For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.”