Courage

Perspective

January 1, 2016 Perspective


Christmas Eve was rather unusual in our home this year. It was rather uncomfortable for me, but necessary conversations and needed words were exchanged in emotionally packed ways. As I said – necessary and healing.

I like ritual, mine of course, and ritual went out the window that evening, so as I said it was rather uncomfortable for me – I wasn’t in charge I’ll admit it, I’m a little bit of a control freak.

I saw them parade across my screen, the beautiful happy faces, perfect trees and lovely set tables. My holiday expectations. Perspective and expectations tend to go hand in hand. Therefore I was discouraged, I was focusing on the wrong things. I didn’t focus on the strength of character it took to confront and bring front and center those things that everyone knew about.

The elephant in the room was exposed, it only took about 15 minutes but it rattled me, we didn’t do my precious rituals, in exchange we showed our love towards each other through honesty – male version (I’m the only female besides the dog and she wasn’t saying much) I’ve lived around guys most of my life, brutal honesty, yup that is what it was. They ended the conversation, cool with it all, we passed around the packages and not much more was said because of my husbands expert handling a mess turned into a blessed lesson. Peace reigned victorious.

BUT…
IN MY HEAD I was freaking out, “We didn’t do, We didn’t say, we didn’t read, we didn’t do it MY WAY.” I was shocked into silence, except the shouting in my head, “MY Christmas Eve is ruined and my nerves are shot.” I smiled on the outside because I truly knew we needed to have the conversation, it was the timing I didn’t agree with and because of that judgement I have struggled with that ‘reality’ until tonight.

Tonight, when my perspective CHANGED…
As part of my prayer time, oh yes I am SO holy – I need to pray more because I need to change more (smile). Please don’t judge me too harshly, I digress. This thought came to me, Stacey write down ten things that you invested into your children. I began to cry, it was so easy to write ten wonderful qualities that I see in my children, ones they have because of my influence on their life. The influence that was in my life because of what had been given to me. I still cried, tears, snot, blowing my nose – it wasn’t pretty, my judgement wasn’t pretty, my perspective focused on the wrong things.

A gentle, but very persistent impression that my perspective needed to change, that instead of looking at the things that I wanted changed or wished were different, I needed to open my eyes to the very precious gift, the most important gifts: honesty, trust, reconciliation, clarity true love in action – my children and husband knew how to fight, make up and hand out packages all in the space of 30 minutes flat – cool!

I have so much to be thankful for, I am so grateful that my view of a few minutes in time changed forever the perspective I have of who I am as a mother, who my children are and who my family has become as one team.

All the mess and the muck came Christmas Eve and delivered to us Peace on Earth Good Will Towards Men – literally.

(PS I am not suggesting that we should wait until Christmas Eve to ‘get things straight…’ and my husband and I are a team, his input into the boy’s lives has been monumental)

http://bit.ly/1YWevAE elephant pic site

End of Day

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This picture is displayed on my computer screen, each day I look at it but I don’t take time to contemplate why I chose the picture and what it means to me.

Today I stopped, looked at the wooden walkway over the water, the beauty of the sunset and towering mountains in the background and immediately thought, “Don’t walk off the end!” and “No, if I walk off the end Jesus will catch me or I’ll walk on water.”

In this context the picture means ‘trust’ and is a call to trust when logic would tell me I  cannot walk on water, nor will Jesus catch me. (Matt. 14:22-33) Therein lies faith and hope, faith that the Lord is true to His word and hope that what we cannot see is more real than what we perceive with our eyes. These are deep concepts from a simple glance and stare at a picture.

I don’t want to be assumptive of the Lord in the fact that I would walk on water, simply if the Lord asked me to come to him and I needed to walk on water to obey His command – then of course He would provide a way. In this trust, obedience, hope and faith mingle together, along with the relationship build on hearing and recognizing His voice. (John 10:25-30)

The life of faith is not easy, nor is it too difficult, God the master teacher knows exactly what we are able to accomplish with His help and strength. He is our creator, provider and the lifter of our heads. (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 34; Psalm 139) He is God, my lack of faith reveals my lack of trust in a perfect provider God. Even in the position of needing to trust- He meets us to help us when we call out to him (Psalm 18:6)  in humble recognition that we are not sufficient- but in Him we are completely sufficient when we ask and are willing to receive His help. (Romans 16:2)

I gaze into the picture and continue to contemplate: Is it only in the sunset of our days that we realize how intimately caring our God is towards us? How the sacrifice of the birth and the suffering of the cross are both redemptive acts for the hearts and souls of humankind? (John 3:16) That our God, the only God, is very much aware of our desperate need of Him. That it is that deep cries to deep (Psalm 42:7) when our soul is vexed within us and peace is not to be found, only do we locate complete peace when we find our home and being in a supreme God, the maker of the Universe? (Isaiah 26:3)

What do I see in the pictured wooden walkway, wooden end with a lake of water and with an end of day sunset? I see hope and beauty. I see faith, trust, obedience, submission and strength. Most of all I see a place of the redemptive work of God, a place and scene that seems at its finish but truly representing a beginning. A place to sit in peace, rest in His handiwork and know that I am fully loved because I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12-13)

-Stacey Britton
December 28, 2015 Journal Entry

Pieces of Sand

I love the time that I spend at the beach.
I especially enjoy walking barefoot and allowing the tiny pieces of rock (sand) to buff the rough edges of my feet. They work in tandem to accomplish a smoothing of my rough edges. It was not their designed purpose to do that caring act for me, but I was placed in their path and because of who they are they ‘rubbed off’ on me. Their breaking down into small pieces of rock from originally being large pieces of rock and possibly ledge cliffs and before that great mountains did not really matter to my feet at the point that we met. But their brokenness blessed me as the water also did not cease its function and purpose to go in and out with the tide and pull of the moon’s gravity effecting the continued act of the sand being broken, continually broken by the water and encountering other broken pieces of rock.
I find that my mind takes me to my friends and really all of us on earth. We all are ‘broken’ in some form. Oh some of us are extremely successful in the world’s eyes or even in the church’s eyes, but we still all have places that we wish we could magically ‘fix’ or memories that we wish we did not have. Most of the time theses broken places are tucked away and slowly fixed with time. At other times though they scream at us and say, “You need to stop pretending and deal with me now!” I loosely paraphrase our inner talk here (smile).
Then, there are those wonderfully confirming times when the gentle inner talk of our mind, meets what the Pastor preaches about on Sunday, which matched the latest book that we have been reading, which also just happens to match what our loved ones have been speaking into our lives – all at the same time. It is then that we need to really stop and listen, pause, slow down, take time, adjust our schedules and give some time to the creator of our souls and listen. For it is then that the little pieces of sand that brush up against us each time the tide flows in and out of our life.

These are the times that ‘doing good’ or being faithful not just doing all of the tasks of each day, but also the doing good part of maintaining loving relationships with those that care about our souls.

Galatians 6:9 NIV
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up

Stacey Britton

Teddy & Ruth

I often joke about our dog, how she is totally spoiled and untrained, but actually she is one of the most loving pets I have ever owned. For someone that has owned many pets, this actually a high compliment, and not earned very easily. Case in point:
I recently returned from a weekend away in which there was a small teddy bear left in my room for a small fee. It just so happened that particular evening I really needed a teddy bear to cuddle and cry many tears upon. The following day, I did the same, the poor teddy, was a bit damp as I tucked him away in my luggage.
When I returned home I unpacked said Teddy, I placed him amongst my collection in front of the fire place and beside our TV. Eight or nine bears now were a part of the collection in that part of our home. I quickly forgot about that Teddy.
A few days later my husband came home and found the said bear held gently between our dog’s paws and she was carefully licking every place I had cried my tears. My husband did not know the significance of why the dog chose that particular bear over the several others she could have chosen from, so he was a bit unsure as to the significance since our dog had never chosen a bear to cuddle before.
A few days later my husband and I were discussing the new bear and he mentioned how he had found our dog tenderly cleaning every part of the small little bear.
I paused the conversation as I pondered why that bear might be different than all the other bears…then I knew why. She was washing away every tear that I had cried, I responded, “Oh, I know, I cried a bucket full of tears on that bear.”

A silent tear rolled down my face, as I remembered the scripture that talks about how at the end of all time our tears will be wiped away. I realized in a small way my dear dog had reminded me, that I was not alone in that room crying all those tears, that God had been there with me and…

There will come a time when there will be no more need for tears.
Revelation 21:4
‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Stacey Britton

Strengths are Weaknesses?

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Have you ever heard the phrase, “Your strengths are also your weaknesses?” or “When you are given a gift you are responsible to use the gift and not hide it from others?” I have heard those two sayings my entire life.

The first statement encompasses knowing yourself and using balance in your life. The second statement also include self-knowledge but also acknowledges the fact that our creator is a gracious giving God and empowers us with gifts to tend, to grow, to train, to become – a challenge not to just sit by and coast through life but to keep our eyes and ears open for the next thing He wants to teach us.

Have you ever heard the statement that there are “seasons of life” it comes from Ecclesiastes which is a book in the Bible and was written by the wisest man on earth, King Solomon. People came from miles around to ask him for advice, he had it all, wealth, power and the smarts to go along with it. In this book though he came to the conclusion that nothing is new under the sun, that all through his life he had tried this and that and came to the end realizing that it is God that gives and takes away as He sees fit.

Jesus rested, Jesus came away to listen to God the Father and to give His disciples a break from all of the crowds. Then He was rejuvenated and walked on water one time, another time he cast out demons from a man living in a cemetery, another time he calmed a storm on the sea all after his power naps and talk time with his Father. He was and is the perfect shepherd, the perfect model of a balanced, holy life. A human life living ‘full on’ for God in a human body, yet he allowed himself to be brutalized and killed in the most painful way… He is the model for selfless living, for boundaries to those who would try to control him or keep him from accomplishing His mission. He modeled dependence and obedience to God the Father, listening and obeying yet being authentic when things got tough. His mission was accomplished in only three power packed years.

So then I ask myself, how do I live the Christ like life in my longer life span without burning out. Sabbaths day rest. Simple but to the point. Simple but everything in my sphere of influence shouts out my name “come and help me” silencing the tyranny of the urgent to say yes to the BEST choices in my life has been and continues to be my life time place of learning and growing. As each year passes I learn that God is truly my sufficiency and when I remain in Him amazing things happen in my life and in the lives of those that I dearly love.
Journal Entry March 29, 2015