The trees look glorious at this time of year.  They are relinquishing their leaves, standing bare and beautiful in the wind.  It is a death of sorts.  They quietly change colors from the varied shades of green to inviting warm tones of brown, orange, and gold.  And then the leaves fall off.  And they still look glorious reaching up to heaven...reaching for God, breathing for Him.

What a wonderful way to handle loss. 

My second son, the 3 year old, has a favorite song right now.  "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord..."  He sings it whenever he remembers, which is all the time.

What a wonderful way to handle loss. 

The trees and my son are handling loss alot better than I am lately.  I am not always reaching to heaven...my arms feel heavy lately.  I am not always praising God like my son is.  I want to but it seems like work.

Over the past three months two people have passed away, the pastor's family at the church I attend has announced they will be leaving at the end of February, and I find myself in an umcomfortable place.  A little bit broken from people dying, a little bit beaten from the idea of more people leaving, and not being able to find joy as easily as I used to.

I am reading through Job in the morning.  I can relate to Job's losses as of late.  And he provides a great example to follow.  He suffers loss and he blesses the name of God.  Job loses everything that matters to him and that's his first response - this wild, tenacious thanks:

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return.             
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:20-21)

This reminds me of my son running the house praising God.  This reminds me of the trees reaching to heaven.  It's all about the impossible made possible.

In giving thanks, one lets go of pain, suffering, and loss and discovers a little bit of joy. It is the only way to breathe fully.

Spurgeon said it well:
"Praise is the beauty of a Christian.  What sings are to a bird, what fruit is to the tree.  What the rose is to the thorn, that is praise to a child of God."

Nothing is a given - everything is a gift.  Praise him.  

I nod, smile bravely at my son and look out the window at the trees.

Loss and glory are intermingled.  Grace and God come in.




  







 

The following is a prayer to help me to remember that motherhood is about sacrifice, serving, and laying down self.  A theology of sacrifice if one can think of it that way.

Sacrifices are not something we usually think about when we are looking for joy.  If anything, sacrifices make us groan.  But let's think of the upside down kingdom of God and all that it means.

There is victory found in surrender,
new life found in laying down self.
Contentment not in laying up treasures,
but in laying down self.
Joy is in the giving,
not gaining something.
It is joy found in sacrifice.
It's not always easily found,
but it is there.
Joy found in sacrifice.

The only platform in the upside down kingdom is an altar. 

The only platform Jesus Christ stood on was a place to lay down and die.  And we as His followers can stand only on that kind of platform - a place to come lay down as a sacrifice.

Joy can be found in sacrifice.

Ann Voscamp wrote on sarcasm in her blog over the weekend.  She included a marvelous picture of a chinese lantern in its autumn glory.  You can easily see the brightly coloured seed inside what is a darkening shell that is ready to crack and flake off.

What a beautiful metaphor for the Christian life.  When everyone is critical, cynical, condemning, sarcastic, doubting, or dissenting a Christian turns to what is he or she believes to be hope. Christ.  Everyone else speaks of the fallen world, but Christians speak of hope.

Christ brings hope.  Christ brings joy.  By focusing on what is positive in the midst of the critics, cynics, condemners, sarcastic doubters, and dissenters, believers stand tall in their hope, their joy in Christ.

Do we know that cynicism is simplistic?  It's obvious.  In a fallen world, it isn't that hard to see the cracks. 

As the sages and the prophets, the disciples and the revolutionaries before them, Christians point to the dawn of a new Kingdom.  We point to the light that breaks through all things that are shattered, all people that are broken, a light that reaches for redemption, to a Blazing God who never sleeps. 

We are the brilliant.  We don't deny the darkness as we seek the light. 

"The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light."

The eyes are always first.  The way we see is the way we are saved. 

We see Him.  We see the great Doctor.  He knows our name.  He holds the stars in his Hands and His girds underneath.  He never lets go.  He is Joy.  He is Light.  He is the Warrior who defeated the dark. 

The point is we are free from our own tendency to complain when we know the Father's Heart for us. 

Light is a radical in a dark,fallen world.
 
Joy comes in being thankful to Him.  Joy is exhilirating dangerous.  It's igniting, contagious, otherworldly.  It wins demon wars.  It isn't Pollyannish to be thankful.  It is revolutionary.

Be a light.  Speak of Him.  Show some of the that glorious autumn color in your life. 

Be thankful and speak of HIM.

Sometimes we have it and sometimes we don't.  I know there are many days when I just feel way too overwhelmed to even think through my day.  I function on automatic pilot and I feel terrible about it.