September 24, 2009 @ 6:20 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock, The Writing Life
Sometimes I think we look at Bible stories and imagine the characters in those stories to have been perfect in their own imperfect-ness, if that makes any kind of sense.
Though we read about their shortcomings, their weaknesses, their failures, it is almost always the moral of the story - or the end result - that we walk away with. These are the parts of the stories that we tuck like nuggets into that secret place in our souls where we capture the essence of what it is we think we are supposed to be. Or supposed to do. Or supposed to accomplish.
The reality is much more human, and it is that element that I think about this morning.
I love how Moses’ story ties into this. God heard the cries of the Israelites and He desired their freedom, so God invited Moses to join Him. It really didn’t matter what Moses thought the plan for his life was. What mattered most was God’s plan for Moses’ life.
So many of us today have a preoccupation with knowing God’s will for our lives. I know I’ve struggled with this before - some days, I still struggle with it. There are some areas where it is very evident that God is at work (like with my family), but there are other areas where it appears God is silent (like with my writing.)
What I am trying to remember is that God’s focus has always been on getting His people to come into line with His will and with what is on His heart, so that we (I) can adjust our lives (my life) to Him, rather than having God design His plans around us (me).
And what is God’s plan? God is, and always has been, actively drawing people to Himself.
This should liberate me; should free any reckless, nervous thoughts about the future. Because this alone means that I do not have to come up with plans for God, or design ways to achieve kingdom goals.
He is at work, and when I join Him - right where He is, I am in perfect alignment.
devotionals, life lessons, walk with God, writing
September 15, 2009 @ 6:22 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock
“I used to have a comfort zone where I knew I wouldn’t fail. The same four walls and busywork were really more like jail.” — My Comfort Zone
_______________________________
I glimpsed the elderly woman as I pulled into the parking lot of the department store. Obviously somewhat crippled, she hobbled slowly, with one of her arms tucked in an awkard position against her chest. My heart clenched just as it has been doing more and more often these past few months. I can’t explain these moments but it’s as though all of my senses are - for the briefest of seconds - keenly aware of all the most minute details.
Even as she walked into the store and away from my view, I had a feeling I had not seen the last of her…
My dad is the kind of neighbor everyone loves. Sometimes I can’t help but be entertained that - at near 70 - he’s constantly mowing the yard of an elderly neighbor or sitting on the porch of a much younger one, taking a little advice. The business of age seems to mean nothing to him; he sees people, not their mile markers in this life.
My great aunt is a woman who listens to God’s voice. If she feels God stirring her heart she jumps in the car and just GOES. Many, many times I’ve had a hard, challenging day and she would just shows up. In recent years, it’s been the phone call…the one that often lasts a looooooong time. But it’s the ending of these phone calls that I know I’ll always remember: “Okay, hon - I’ll talk atcha later.”
I’m surrounded by people who consistently minister to others. I marvel at them. Admire them. Want to see this same thing in me. These are folks who aren’t afraid to pray with people, and - when seeing a heart that needs a lift - simply don’t care about anything else in that moment except doing what they can to meet it.
Their plans don’t matter in comparison to God’s plans.
From the outside it looks effortless. But I know that there was a time when moving in these realms must surely have required that they move outside the borders of their comfort zones. Even the most confident, self-assured person has fences and borders that protect the raw edges that we don’t want anyone to see or touch. And yet people with a heart for God’s children don’t derive their confidence from their own abilities, talents or even their own personality. They absorb what’s being funneled from the hallways of Heaven and put it to use on Earth’s dusty pathways.
I’m trying to be like that. I’m trying to listen and just do what I feel God’s asking. I’m also learning to be brave - to pray with a friend RIGHT THERE. To make the call. To write the words. Daily, it seems, there is something - either a person or a situation - that challenges me to step beyond the point of personal comfort and venture into another’s life. If I have learned anything over the past few months it is that I want to do as I’m asked.
But I can’t say that it’s always easy for me…
I wasn’t at all surprised last night when - in the ladies dressing room - a fitting room door opens slowly and the elderly woman from the parking peered out.
“Can you help me?”
I stepped inside.
My new friend may have thought the next ten minutes were about someone lending her an extra hand, an extra eye, a great conversation - but I knew the real truth. She was helping me. Helping me to venture further from my place of safety on the sidelines, and to walk bravely into a world that is not at all about me.
But ALL about Him.
September 3, 2009 @ 6:49 am | Filed under: Family, Uniquely Me, he said she said
“The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.” - Frederick Beuchner
_____________________________
(journal entry from mid-May)
Tonight was a quiet evening. We sat in our (now) small living area - Mike in his chair, with his computer (doing sales call reports) and me in my spot on the sofa, with my computer (doing homework.) It was just a few minutes before nine when there was a knock on the door.
I think it startled us both. In the couple of weeks we’ve been here, we’ve not seen many people, let alone knocking on our door.
Mike set his computer aside and went to the door. Even though he was less than twenty feet away, I could neither see nor hear our visitor. I could only hear Mike’s side of the conversation.
“No, thanks, we don’t really need any this time.” He closed the door and locked it. “That was a local high school girl selling cookie dough for—”
He stopped mid-sentence and I can only guess it was because I had sprung up from my seat and was at his side when he turned around.
I opened my mouth and tried to find a voice for the overwhelming pull that had propelled me upward in the first place. I spit and sputtered, uttering words that seemed to come from out of nowhere. I’m pretty sure that ‘community’ and ‘witness’ and ‘part of the plan’ all came out of my mouth in that brief twenty second period, but I don’t know that it made any kind of sense at all.
Mike unlocked the door and stepped out into the breezeway outside our door, looking down the hallway for the girl. She was at the next apartment.
“Hey, I think my wife wants to buy some after all.” Mike beckoned her back.
I spent the next five minutes introducing myself to Kenesha, a striking African-American teen with the most beautiful blue eyes I think I’ve ever seen, and buying the white chocolate-macadamia cookie dough that - truly - we did not need. Even as we chatted, I was almost mesmerized by her personality, and I even had the briefest of seconds when I thought - again - how unlike me this was, to be so involved in an animated conversation with a complete stranger.
But there was an unspeakable pull toward this teen that began while I still sat on the sofa, before I’d even laid eyes on her, or heard her voice.
After I handed her the fourteen dollars for the cookie dough and then shut and locked the door, Mike chuckled from his chair. “Think we’ll ever see that cookie dough?”
I was silent, still kind of in awe at what had pulled me from my spot on the sofa in the first place. Somehow I knew it wasn’t really about the cookie dough at all. We sat in total silence for about five minutes. And then Mike spoke.
“Do you ever get the feeling that we’re here for more than just the reasons we think we’re here?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
September 2, 2009 @ 6:35 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock, Uniquely Me
One of the great mind destroyers of college education is the belief that if it’s very complex, it’s very profound.” - Dennis Prager
__________________________________
(originally journaled in early April 2009.)
The past few weeks have been surreal.
I can scarcely believe we are actually doing this. I keep waiting for the REAL me to rise up and say something along the lines of “what the…?” But there is nothing except certainty that is flowing smooth and easy inside of me.
Even as I pack the house in the late night hours when I’m all alone, moving through the rooms and hallways, I have no qualms about this decision. It’s the nighttime that is usually the breeding ground for fear and trepidation and - some nights - I keep waiting on it. But it’s a visitor that never knocks.
My logic tells me that surely I must have been konked on the head and awakened with some other woman’s rationale and emotions. This is NOT me. I worry. I fret. I resist change.
I’m emotional.
But the reality is that I’m calm and certain, in a way that I just can’t explain. In less than two weeks I will walk out of this house - this style of living - and I will walk into an apartment over an hour away. We will know no one. I will stay many, many nights by myself while Mike is on the road. I am leaving behind the concept that “bigger is better” and the theory that as I get older, my “things” should become bigger, nicer, finer…
I sit here tonight and wonder what happened to the woman I was. When I look in the mirror as I brush my teeth, I look the same. But I no longer recognize the inner woman. I don’t know her. I think I should be afraid.
But I’m not.
I go to bed with peace and awaken with a quiet excitement.
I don’t know what to expect, but I do know that I should be expectant.
(Two weeks later…)
Tomorrow the movers will come.
By this time tomorrow night, I will be preparing to spend my first night in Commerce. In an apartment. In a community that is so unlike any I’ve lived in before.
Boxes are packed and labeled. Many will go with us into our new home, but even more will go into storage. We are losing over 1400 square feet of living space with this move, so - in ways even we had not anticipated - simplicity is truly finding us.
It’s a funny thing. Sometimes the very thing we ask for, pray for, finds us and takes us by surprise. Very seldom is it packaged the way we’d imagined, or presented in a way we’d recognize.
But it is a gift, nonetheless, presented by Him, simply because we requested it.
There have been so many mini-miracles (is there such a thing? are they all huge, and that is why they are miracles…?) to transpire over the past couple of weeks that we have almost been amused. I’m pretty certain that I have both, laughed out loud and broken down and cried, because it further solidifies that this move is the one thing that needs to be done.
Even in the moments when my logic kicks in and I run through the mental list of just why this is a crazy move, and just who probably now thinks we’ve lost our minds, and where I’m headed…even in those moments I can’t ignore the obvious.
Too many things have aligned in short order. Too many people have unknowingly been a part of this plan. Too many past prayers and nights and days spent in restlessness -knowing that I was in the big middle of the deep, learning to swim and tread water, and yet not being able to see the other shore. In a crazy, crazy, definitely unforeseen way, I’ve reached the banks and I’m crawling ashore. It’s certainly not where I’d pictured myself washing up. The beach is not white and sandy like I prefer. The water is not crystal clear and cool to the touch. It’s not paradise. It’s not my dream.
But for some reason that I am still helpless to explain, it has become…home.
Tomorrow I go there.
life lessons, living simply, walk with God
September 1, 2009 @ 6:44 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock, The Writing Life
Sometimes our lives can resemble a book.
There is a little romance. A little drama. A little humor. And a little (or a lot) of conflict. Of course every story needs conflict. That’s what keeps us interested. We enjoy seeing the characters of our books get into - and then out of - trouble.
Of course, in reality not every situation has a happy ending in 30 minutes or less. Real life is different, but it’s also better.
Every day there are words coming out of our mouths.
They can either build people up. Or they can tear them down. In the United States we having a saying, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
Truth: words hurt. They maime, they wound. Every word that comes out of our mouths will either hurt or help. It will either bring loved ones closer or push them away. This is something we need to consider when we are speaking—to our children, to our spouse, to other family members. To friends.
But this is not the only dialogue happening in our lives. Whether we know it or not, there is another continual dialogue going through our minds. It’s our internal dialogue. The dialogue occurs in two ways. “Thorough and organized” dialogue or dialogue that “bounces around like a little rubber ball in your mind.”
“Thorough and organized” thinking is similar to a great novel plot or movie script. A script is something the writer uses to put the movie on paper. It provides direction for the producer, the actors, and even the set directions.
The script isn’t the movie. The script is direction for the action. The script guides everything. Without the script there is no order and the action has no meaning. would jump around. Nothing would make sense.
Sometimes we don’t organize our thoughts in our mind, and our actions are the same. Our actions, our lives, seem to be without meaning and order.
Those times when I find my thoughts just running around in my mind, with no plan or purpose, I know I am in the big middle of chaos. I’m not talking about organizing daily activities. We all somehow manage to organize our days, some better than others.
But the BIGGER thinking, such as: Where do I want to be in the future? Where would I like to see my family in the future? What would I like my marriage to look at five years from now?What kind of adults do I want my children to be?
Sometimes we let our minds get carried away with concerns. We think about things that happened ten years ago. Or maybe we consider worries we have about tomorrow.
We also find our thoughts are full of emotions. Happy thoughts, sad thoughts, excited thoughts, or scared thoughts. Our thoughts are focus on whatever is going on that moment. One day things are good. The next day things are not so good. Our actions then follow our emotions, which we know can lead to all types of trouble and issues.
I don’t want to allow my thoughts, or what is happening around me, to be in control. I want Him to write the script of my life and then I want to allow my thoughts to follow that script and no other.
Why is that so hard at times?
August 27, 2009 @ 7:08 am | Filed under: Uniquely Me
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” - John Pierpont Morgan
_________________________
It was the Friday after the New Year. 2009.
We drove east on I-30, headed towards TAMU-Commerce. I had a two-o’clock with my new advisor, and Mike tagged along just for the ride. For several months I had kept a running list of pros and cons for switching schools. There was a huge part of me that resisted. Probably the part of me that normally can’t stand change. But it had become all too clear that I had two choices: change schools or settle for the major that I didn’t really want.
Sometimes I question my decision to even go back to school. As much as I enjoy it, the time and energy it takes sometimes exhaust me. I miss the massive amounts of writing time that I used to take for granted. I miss spending lots of time with friends. I could live the rest of my life without finishing school, without teaching…and my life would still be full, vibrant and happy. It’s not as though I need to do this.
Yet…I do need to.
I’m not sure when or where I knew it, I only know that somewhere along the way I intuitively knew that this was something I was meant to do. As the first couple of years slid by, I have alternatively loved/despised school, but I’ve not wavered about the fact that it was something I needed to do.
So on this Friday I was scheduled to meet with Dr. Bolin and chart the remainder of my school career. Even as we drove, I commented several times that - really - the drive is not bad. Already I was assimilating myself to the realization that I would be on this very road a lot as I commuted back and forth.
Looking back, we have no clue who made the first move, spoke that first word…For someone who marks milestones by emotions and feelings, I have no memory of this particular milestone. It’s very odd. I only know that something happened along the drive that day. I looked out the window as we passed a certain section of town and I felt a pull. A sense of somehow belonging. Of somehow having a sense of purpose there.
I couldn’t identify what it was that I was experiencing and it never occurred to me then to voice it. I simply attended my meeting, made academic plans and then we drove home.
It was much later - back home - that the surreal began to take place. We looked at one another and it was Mike who spoke first.
“I…I felt something today.”
I didn’t question his words or the tone with which they were spoken.
I knew.
life lessons, living simply, school stories
August 25, 2009 @ 10:32 am | Filed under: Uniquely Me
(Hey Robyn. Hey Denise. Here ya go, ladies… 
I posted this song here a while back, and also to my personal online journal and - I have to say - it’s the song that has lived in my heart since.
Waiting is sometimes the hardest thing to do. Ever.
I’ve been quiet here for a while. My friends think I’ve abandoned blogging. I’m not sure what my readers think. This is my effort to share the story of a true revolution. And one in progress, at that. This is the story of the past few months and what has happened, and is, happening in the Wilder home and hearts.
This is the story of a home that gave up ’simply living’ in order to begin ‘living simply’ and what we’re discovering in the process.
There is so much more woven into the fabric of this story than mere catch phrases of the hour. It is more than a return to the simple things; instead, it is a return to the First Love, to His call on our lives. It is the tale of our journey of faith. It’s a journey that changes just a bit everyday, just enough to continually surprise us in good ways, in uncomfortable ways, and in all ways in between.
I think that God must surely look down on me in some of my less-than-finer-moments and wish that this daughter of His wasn’t quite as feisty as I can be at times. The truth is that He’d been trying to talk to me for a while, but I’d not really cared to have the type of conversation I knew He wanted.
I was in hiding.
But it didn’t work. Not for long. My soul can only take so much distance before I run to Him, fall on my face, and cry out for His touch once again.
I needed to be quiet for a while; needed to get to that place of solitude where His voice was all I heard and His touch all I craved.
And so I got quiet. Got quiet here, and got quiet quiet in life, trying instead to tune in solely to the people and responsibilities that He’s placed in my hands, my heart - my life.
In upcoming blog posts I will endeavor to chronicle what happened next. I’m not quite sure in what order, if any, they will be told.
I’m a work in progress.
My God is amazing, the guiding light of my life.
This is not the journey I thought I’d take.
I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what will rise up to greet me along the way. I know…nothing, really.
Except that I am waiting - always waiting - and, for the first time in a long while, my thoughts have stilled, my heart has quieted, my soul has found peace.
This is the story of how it began.
How I gave up simply living, in order to begin living simply.
May 20, 2009 @ 10:09 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock, Uniquely Me
What in the world…?
I pulled my cell phone from the charger a few days ago and stared down at it. I had just one bar. How could that be?
For the third time in about as many days I noticed that my phone was steadily losing its charge. Adding stop in to get your phone checked out was pretty much the last thing I wanted to put on my ever growing to-do list.
I was puzzled. The phone was not that old, nor had the battery been giving me any previous problems.
I’m a creature of habit, nothing if not predictable. Every night for the past year that we’ve been living in this house, I have plugged my phone into the same spot to charge overnight. Without fail. If I’m home, then my phone is on the charger.
So my frustration stemmed mainly from knowing that I’d soon have the hassle of making the stop at the phone place, and not so much from anything else. I plunked my phone into my purse and moved to finish my chores before heading out to run errands.
It was sometime in the next half hour or so - as I pushed the vacuum cleaner across the carpet in my bedroom - when it hit me. I snapped the off button on the vacuum and practically ran over to where my charger lay.
I had to get down on my hands and knees to follow its cord around the small table and behind another piece of furniture until…
I gave a gentle tug and the entire cord popped out in front of me.
IT WASN’T PLUGGED INTO THE POWER SOURCE.
As I sat there on the floor, holding the charger and feeling quite stupid at this point, God began to speak to me. In those few minutes of alone time in the big middle of mundane chores and household duties, He layed out an object lesson for me that I don’t think I’ll forget anytime soon.
This is how you become when you go too long without being plugged into my power.
The guilt was immediate because I knew exactly what He meant. The past few weeks had been harried ones. The pace had been frantic, the burdens quite heavy, and the emotions have run rampant.
And yet - in the middle of all this - I guess I felt I had enough “stored up” energy to power me through it all. I prayed, but the words were hurried and my heart wasn’t always all the way in it. I made enough of an effort to spend time with Him that I guess I convinced myself that I was indeed fine. Just like my phone, I was plugged in as far as I could see.
But…
I WASN’T PLUGGED INTO THE POWER SOURCE.
Not the way I should have been. Certainly not the way I am used to. And definitely not the way I needed to be if I want to continue to be the wife, mom, friend, leader, etc… that I know I am called to be.
It’s been several days now and I cannot pass by where my phone lies being charged without thinking back on this lesson. God stopped me on that day and in that way that only He has with me, He slowed me, soothed me, and redirected my thoughts. My intents. My heartbeat.
He, very simply put, energized me.
