The Joy of the Lord is your Strength

Early last year the Lord gave me the phrase "Work smarter with a heart at peace." It spoke to the season I was in of needing to prioritize life and ministry in order to survive and my desperate need to embrace the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding in the face of life's constant transitions and anxieties. I still have so far to go in these areas but the practice of using this phrase as an encouragement, rebuke, and guiding principle for the year fostered so much growth.

I didn't intentionally choose a new focus for this year, but in the past couple of months the Lord has been unmistakably speaking to me of joy and its connection to my strength for the day. 

I'm in a tough season of life for me personally: a task-oriented introvert deep in the chaos of young children and homeschooling, with a newborn arriving imminently and household and ministry responsibilities leaving a growing line of check boxes that glare at and goad me with their emptiness. 

Most days I feel like I am just surviving. I get frustrated and angry and resentful and feel so alone...and yet NEVER ALONE. Deep, pervasive joy is hard for me to imagine in the face of daily monotony and zombie exhaustion. Oh sure, there is joy in listening to my kids' laughter or seeing the Lord do a mighty work in a ministry event but the strength to meet each moment of the day with determined joy? It seems an impossible dream. And then I worry that by my example I will teach my children that following the Lord is a joyless and impossible task, and parenting is a burden best just gotten through--neither of which are the truth. 

And then one day a few weeks ago the Lord brought to mind Nehemiah 8.10 - "The joy of the Lord is your strength." I felt the words rush in and settle down through my body and into my soul and I felt desperate for the hope of it. 

Joy.

Strength.

Yes. I instantly recognized the deep need for these in my life.

And so, in the weeks that have followed--being 8 months pregnant, moving, homeschooling, mothering a challenging toddler, and stepping into new life and ministry responsibilities--I have found myself breathing this verse out as a desperate prayer and life-saving promise when I have felt too inadequate and burdened and exhausted to conquer the task at hand. It is followed quickly by the prayer, "Lord, teach me what that even means" because it is clear that I don't understand it yet.

As I meditate on this verse throughout the year I'm asking the Lord to show me what it means to live into His joy and to be able to look at the future (whether it is the hours, months, or years ahead of me) with strength and joy instead of panic and discouragement. 

I trust that He will answer my request because He is a good Father. And, so, I am going to rest in the knowledge that this isn't just one more thing I have to do this year, but something that can, and will, be poured into my weary self as I draw near to the Lord.

With that, my few precious moments alone are drawing to a close and as I get back in my van to drive back to the responsibilities of the rest of the day I am tempted to feel discouraged, but instead I will repeat "The joy of the Lord is your strength."

Amen.

____

Image from French Press Mornings

Hope for the Introverted Mother

The thing about being an Introverted mom is that you spend nearly every waking minute with people, and not just any people, demanding, needy, little people who have no care or concern for personal space. Almost every moment of the day drains you, even the amazing moments. Motherhood in general, and Introverted mothering in particular, can often leave you feeling poured out and spent and yet feeling like everything you gave still wasn't enough. It's easy to lose yourself because where you know yourself best is in the space of the internal you and, let's be honest, who has the time or energy to focus on that when all day is "Mom, Mom, Mom, Mama....!"

Personally, I find this leads to the indulgence of mind-numbing behavior in the rare moments I have to myself because I don't feel like I have even an ounce of energy left to pour into the development of my internal emotional, mental, and spiritual development. My investment in spiritual growth wanes and my pursuit of things that energize me gets put on hold, and slowly I begin to drift, feeling lost in the sea of my exhaustion and suddenly a stranger to myself. It is then that I become full of guilt and resentment and impatience.

I've found myself drifting again recently, feeling empty and without the emotional reserves needed to respond to the challenges inherent in the day. We've had a few really awful days at our house recently and I've felt like a caged beast (an exhausted and insane Momzilla) trapped with other little caged beasts just trying to survive. Today, however, I ran out the door to Panera Bread as if my life depended on it, leaving my husband and children waving on the porch, to whom (I guiltily realized later) I didn't even turn and wave to as I sped down the block.

I took my Bible and my laptop and claimed my favorite back corner booth to slowly start to row for shore. I read in Psalm 73 where it says, "How good it is to be near God," and admitted to myself and God that I wasn't drawing near and I hadn't been filled with that feeling of goodness. Usually I feel guilty and sort of helpless as I try to muster the strength to change, but today God reminded me of mercy. In Eugene Peterson's A Long Obedience in the Same Direction he writes that we can come to God as children who are loved. Even though we can't comprehend the fullness of God, we never have to draw near to him wondering what we will get in return, for "We know very well what to expect, and what we expect is mercy."

He is a good and merciful father--my father. I am his child. Too often, in the face of the draining list of my children's (and the rest of life's) needs, I forget that I have a father to whom I can bring all of my needs, who never grows weary of hearing "Dad, Dad, Dad...."

The hope for the Introverted Mother is the mercy of God, our heavenly father, our refuge in the onslaught of constant sibling bickering, our strength to answer one more "Why?" and our grace when we feel we are running on fumes for the bedtime routine. He is our shelter in the never ending chaos, a calm place where we can once again find the self he made us to be. It is good to be near God, a position, which if we let it, will gently pull our exhausted selves deeper still into enough mercy to cover it all.

The Ugly Truth

Honestly, life's been kicking the pants off me lately. We're busy, like lots of people, and I tend to be a really focused person...as in too many things at one time makes me a crazy person. Lately, I've been a crazy person.

Being task driven, this means that I still get a lot of work done, but, as I always remind my eager-to-please-people husband, "When you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else."

Well, I like to say yes to tasks. I like to feel a little bit of pressure pressing down on my shoulders--to know that I am taking on a challenge and feel the satisfaction in its completion. I love crossing things off of my to-do list and can get lost in the job for hours on end.

But, saying yes to tasks means I have to say no to something else. Often, what suffers is my relationships, because I only have so much extroverted energy to go around. So, on the outside I'm burning through task lists and on the inside I'm one big ball of ugly.

Usually it's the husband and child that catch the brunt of this. I'm snippy and impatient and lack a generous spirit. This week, the ugly leaked out beyond the confines of the family. It's hard to hide the truth when that happens.

This week I came face to face with the ugly, unloving, and impatient me that has built up inside of my outwardly productive body and this truth smacked me in the face (for what feels like the thousandth time--apparently I'm a very slow learner): It's not OK to trade productivity for love. In fact, its not only not OK, it's completely antithetical to everything I want my life to be about.

1 Corinthians 13 came to mind as I have been processing my inner ugliness:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

In other words: If I finish all my tasks and work countless hours in a day, but have not love...it's all a waste of time. It's humbling and re-prioritizing.

I've got some changes to make, and the first one is recognizing my constant need for Christ. My independent nature eventually always makes a mess of things and reveals that I cannot live my life in a way that matters without Him.

Praise God for His forgiveness and grace, and especially His love. May He give me those things in abundance so that I can live a life pleasing to Him.

When Silence is Better than Sleep

I love to sleep.  It's been shown that Introverts need more sleep than Extroverts and if I'm any indication, it's true.  The worst thing about mornings is that they come every single day.  If it wasn't a requirement for life, I'd do away with them all together.  I can sleep for hours, take a nap, and sleep some more.

Parenting makes me tired.  Probably more than anything else.  The talking, the lack of personal space, the constant activity...the talking.  Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade my Little Nut for anything but, seriously, it's exhausting.  It's a curse for us Introverted parents.  I mean, every parent is chronically tired, but the Introverted mother finds no peace. 

You'd think with this exhaustion I would want to sleep whenever I could but I find myself wanting to stay up late, even avoiding an opportunity for a little Sunday afternoon nap in favor of...silence. 

Blessed, blessed silence.

Sleep is great but before you know it you're awake again and the noise starts all over again, so I stay awake and revel in silence...or noise only I choose to make.  Usually I'm so over-extroverted that nothing truly productive gets done during these times but even totally exhausted time without a hyperactive three-year-old feels wonderful.  No grabby hands and high-pitched singing and endless questions...just me, by myself, on the whole couch. 

Sleep?  Sleep can wait.  Silence is calling.

Work it Out

I am task-oriented and I love a good project.  Work to me, at least work that involves something I find interesting, doesn't really feel like work.  There have been seasons of ministry where I have worked from 7 in the morning until midnight on a regular basis because there were project deadlines and programs to run, and while it was a season in which I experienced tremendous burnout, it wasn't so much the long hours as the projects themselves and the baggage that went with them that wore me down. 

Needless to say, "work" can become my life very quickly.  I am energized by production.  Unfortunately, during the insane and crazy season of ministry (and the accompanying burnout) my marriage became second priority...the INTJs default, "Tasks over people!" 

At the bottom of burnout hell I realized a lot of things had to change.  I took a step back and tried to set some healthier rhythms in place, not just for me, but also for my husband.  Now we have a son, a nutty three-year-old bouncing off the walls who craves attention.  It wreaks havoc on my productivity. 

I'm currently back in a ministry setting where projects are numerous and I am getting a serious itch to be insanely productive.  I can hardly stop thinking about the To-Do list sitting on my desk...not in a bad way, but in a sick and twisted, I-can't-wait-another-second-to-go-finish-my-project way. My preferred work style is "work straight through until it's done."  But, three-year-olds don't feed themselves, and, oh my, where did our kitchen counter go under all those dishes?

So it's a constant give and take, take and give rather...take 5 projects and give 3 back.  It's hard for me to keep in mind that this is a season.  But, my zany little boy won't be running around the house saying "Mama, look at me!" forever.  I'm comfortable with being a work-aholic, but life isn't just about how productive we are.  Mostly it's about how faithful we are to steward the gifts God has given us for His glory...and the relationships He's given us are a part of that too.

I won't give up on projects, and I'm always going to push the edge of being in full-time ministry AND being a wife and mother, but for now, I need to grow comfortable with a new level of productivity, one that includes playing pointless board games from time to time and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

The Off Switch

As a Dominant Introverted Intuitive, life is experienced from the inside out, and what's on the inside is big, Big, BIG (no chubby jokes, please).  It can be exciting, the world of ideas, but sometimes when those thoughts get filled with emotion, and heavy with confusion, the weight of them feels too much to bear.  I've sunk to some pretty dark places under their weight.  It's then that I am notorious about finding the "Off Switch"...any coping mechanism that will let me check out mentally, which includes mindless activities such as eating (again, quell the jokes), watching TV, and generally disengaging from relationships.  And, occasionally, I don't really know what to think and so I just let tasks take over.

Of course, the latter is much more outwardly productive, but more tasks make less room for relationships, which, ultimately, (as ideal as the thought may sound at times) is counterproductive for Kingdom-work.

I've been challenged recently to think about my actions as a pathway for the Holy Spirit to change my mind.  Instead of trying to make my thoughts and feelings change (which is darn near impossible), change my actions and let the Spirit draw my heart toward a rendezvous with those right actions.  More or less, reverse engineering.  For someone who lives on the inside so much this seems foreign, but I know there is wisdom in it. 

However, it doesn't mean flipping the "Off Switch" and completely disconnecting from what's going on inside.  I can't use actions as a means of denial, but as an acknowledgement of the inner chaos and a form of discipline for my wayward heart and mind.  Without that connection the actions are just the spinning of a top--going nowhere fast but back to where I've been.

Some days I need to take a moment to sort through my emotions, but most days I just need to get up and do what my heart doesn't want to...the wisdom is in knowing which day it is, and the knowing only comes from the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

 

"Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light."

Some Days

Some days I feel on edge all day...everyone is annoying.  I'm angry with Little Man because, well, he's three.  And then I feel guilty for feeling angry, but not quite guilty enough to stop being angry.  I'm agitated and on the verge of going nuts and not a single person says a single intelligent thing all day (or so it seems to me).

Yesterday was one of those days.

I have come to recognize that while I am genetically predisposed to annoyance, an all day anger affair--such as yesterday--usually means I've done too much extroverting. 

But what do you do when you're extroverted-out and you have a full schedule and a three-year-old clinging to your leg saying, "Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama..."?  Generally, I spend the day wanting to punch people.  But, this is good for no one.

I have spent the last year trying to figure out healthier rhythms for my life.  Some weeks I am successful at inserting time to recharge, others, not so much. 

Summer time in our ministry is hectic and filled with people...usually the perfect storm for an Introvert to go crazy!!  Yesterday launched my first summer schedule with a crazy little nut boy around the house and it's clear that I will have to be intentional with my time to not lose it!   It's not easy to share the love of Christ with people when their very existence is causing me agitation.

It's not easy to push back the crowding tasks and people and give my soul the space it needs to breathe, but it is necessary.  Here's to doing a better job at intentional recharging...and not wanting to punch people all day long :)!

Confessions of a Control-aholic

It has been said, once or twice, that I like to control things.  OK, maybe a few more times than once or twice.  I could say it's a result of being an INTJ, because we have a knack for seeing things that need to be fixed and coming up with really ingenious ways to fix them!  We have high standards and work hard to reach them, which makes us tough task-masters to ourselves and everyone else.  It's true, but I can't blame it all on that.  A lot of it is just good, old-fashioned, universal pride.

This has played out in a myriad of ways as I have navigated relationships in my life...which would take too long to discuss here (sorry, Husband).  I have, however, been thinking a great deal about how this plays out in my relationship with the Lord.  Some recent discussions with a young lady, who reminds me a great deal of myself at her age (and, yes, saying that does make me old), has me thinking through the ups and downs of the last ten years (again with the oldness) of making my faith my own.

In a recent conversation with this young woman I looked her in the eyes and said, "I wish I had better news for you, but if you really want to learn to trust the Lord, it's going to be a rough few years for you."  My husband calls my habit of making these sorts of statements negative; I prefer realistic.  For those of us who like to rely on our own competence, who want to know what our next step is before we take it, who don't do well with ambiguity and uncertainty, who just want the ANSWER dang it (usually that's not the word I'd use)...learning to trust the Lord is H.A.R.D.!

"The good news though," I told her, "is, if you put in the work, it gets easier with time."  That is to say, sort of in the way that behavioral therapists work with Obsessive-Compulsive patients to help them learn to sit with their anxiety and desensitize themselves to it, us control-aholics have to sit with our anxiety and learn with time that God can be trusted more than ourselves. 

I wish I could be the sort of person who could believe without seeing, but I've never had that kind of faith.  It has taken many years of tears, anger, depression, anxiety, and confusion to begin to realize that God always comes through.  Not necessarily in the way I would have hoped for, but He masterfully, and patiently, weaves His plans for my life into a testimony to His name.  I don't have to have the dang answer.  I don't have to know what tomorrow will bring.  I don't have to be competent in everything.  God has all those things and more. 

But, asking God for more faith is kind of like asking for more patience...you shouldn't do it unless you're prepared for life to kick the crap (pride) out of you.  I've experienced some serious crap-kickings in the last few years.  I've wrestled with God in ways that have left me, like Jacob, limping but blessed.  I carry scars that speak of my stubbornness and a hopeful heart that speaks of a faithful God. 

I still have days where I freak out, where ambiguity scares me, and where I want God to tell me what I want to hear, but they are fewer than they used to be.  I've seen the power and precision of God bring me my son, carry me through ministry burn-out, and change people's lives miraculously.  I've found that my comfort zone gets bigger and bigger each time God nudges me out of it.  I pray (hesitantly and hopefully) that He continues to do so, because my journey of trust is far from over. 

If it means there are days where all you can do is crumple in the corner and cry, but your mind repeats "I will trust God.  I will trust God. I will trust God." that's a good place to start.  I've been there.  The Lord, in His goodness, will bring you through.  There is no easy path to trust for a control-aholic but a life of faith in the Lord is far better than a life of faith in myself...I'll screw it up every time.

How to Kill an Intovert

One day last week I actually had the thought, "Hmm, hamsters have the life.  What I wouldn't give for my own personal bubble."  Granted, being trapped inside an ever-spinning ball really wasn't what I was going for...maybe more like a Cone of Silence.  Yes.  Some days I would kill for a Cone of Silence.

Last week was our Spring Break Program at World Impact.  We had 30 kids running around and I had 9 volunteers and several staff to direct and a crazy extroverted three-year-old doing donuts around the gym.  It was a great week but the Introvert in me flew to my knees and cried Hallelujah! when the last child exited the front door on Friday night. 

Between planning, organizing, hosting the volunteers, and running the program, and getting next to no sleep, it was a long two weeks of extroverting, which ended with our family and our staff getting the stomach flu...so I'm still trying to recover.  Saturday, after our kid's program was over, we hosted an eye glass clinic for people in the community.  I could tell I had reached my people limit.  Some very nice lady was asking about my life story and I could give her little more than one word answers.  I knew it was insufficient and I sort of half wished that I could offer more, but I didn't have the energy to elaborate.

In moments like this I become an angry Introvert, sick and tired of people and yet, ever so slightly guilty that I can't just keep on giving.  I start feeling like I'm not any fun to be around (probably because I'm not) and I get jealous of people who can extrovert all day long and still have energy to give at the end of the day. 

I've spent my entire life with this cycle.  I like to call it The Introverted Funk.  I'm in it right now.  I'm short and impatient.  I feel like crawling in my closet for a moments peace...but hey, I'll take a hamster ball if that's all that's available.  I am filled with dread at the busyness to come.  I'm so tired I could just fall over asleep at any moment.

It's time to pause and as my wise three-year-old reminded me today, "Mama, take a DEEEEEP breath.  It's gonna be OOOOOK."

We've got so much to do that there's not much time for an Introvert to gain equilibrium, but I have to make time to survive.  It does take more work for us Introverts to stay healthy.  There's no sense in wishing I could be different when I get to the Angry Introvert stage, I just need to take the necessary steps to be able to engage with the world again.

I'm gonna take a deep breath and find somewhere to hide for a little while.  If you can't find me anywhere, don't look in the closets it may be my only people-free sanctuary.  Oh and if anyone has a Cone of Silence lying around, feel free to send it my way.

Introverted Funk

I'm reading a book called Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture by Adam McHugh.  As I'm nearing the end of the book I feel I have not fully harnessed it's potential ability to change my life and so I will most likely read it again when I'm done.  There is a lot of practical wisdom crammed between its figurative cover (What will we ever do with our book-inspired metaphors now that everyone, including myself, have e-readers?). 

This book has helped me identify some unhealthy patterns in my life and given me the "permission" to set rhythms to my life that fit me.  I've recently crawled out of a pretty dark place, both emotionally and spiritually with symptoms that felt a lot like depression.  In this book McHugh suggest that when many Introverts feel they are experiencing depression, they are often actually entrenched in an Introverted burn out. 

I was burned out on ministry, extended beyond my limits, and then experienced a loss of feeling centered (which is so important to us Introverts!) for an extended period of time.  I wore anger, apathy, depression, and anxiety like different hats each day.  I disconnected from relationships and found myself doing as little as possible each day.  I was in an Introverted Funk, not to lessen some very real aspects of Spiritual warfare and ministry challenges that were also in play.  But, being able to look back and give appropriate labels to what I experienced is going to be key in helping me not repeat this pattern in my life.  Who knew, eating chocolate was not listed as a helpful strategy for regaining equilibrium.  If clothes could cheer there would be a chorus from my closet at this thought!

McHugh talks about setting rhythms that allow us as Introverts to Engage and Retreat in the outer world.  These include daily rhythms, as well as different seasons in life and ministry.  In order to embrace who God made me, I have to learn to maximize my gifts and steward my person.  I need time of quiet to recharge, daily, weekly, etc. to "retreat" in order that I can fully give myself to the service of others. 

It's easy to feel guilty about our need to "retreat."  Extroverts don't understand it.  Extroverted spouses don't get it, children can't comprehend it, and friends, co-workers, and society generally look down upon it.  But feeling guilty about it isn't acknowledging the fact that God knew what He was doing when He made us Introverts!  It's also easy to ignore the discipline necessary to be healthy and resort to eating copious amounts of chocolate cake, or living with feelings of apathy and cringing when people suggest any get together at all...but it doesn't have to be and shouldn't be that way.

It takes. I think, extra intentionality to be a healthy Introvert in such an Extroverted world.  We need to give ourselves permission to be who God made us to be, while finding opportunities to stretch ourselves.  I'm working hard to discipline myself into healthy rhythms so I can be a better missionary, wife, and mother.  It's a day to day process I can only hope I will get more adept at with time.
Get the book...it might change your life too!