Jennifer • Handmade by God

Sleeping Covered

Too many times in the middle of the night I find myself awake and unable to just relax. My brain won’t quit. It’s unstoppable in its determination to keep me from sleep as it plans and prepares and worries. Fear of the known and the unknown consume me from head to toe, and I end up wishing so badly to be a kid again, able to go to bed with no worries about my safety, my future, or my needs. I long to go back to the time when I had nothing to lose sleep over. Back to when my mom and dad had me covered.

Lying in the dark, making my best attempt at becoming calm, this question often enters my mind. Why can’t I trust the Lord – my heavenly Father – to take care of me?

I think I now know why. I’m not “becoming as a little child.” I’m being a grownup who knows enough to be scared of the world… A grownup who tries very hard to be responsible and careful and prepared… A grownup who’s lost the ability to put my faith, unconditionally, like a small child, in someone who’s always taken care of me and has always planned for my well-being.

Sleep should be the easy part of each of my 24 hours. It used to be! So I’m going to practice being a little child who doesn’t spend even a second wondering if anyone is watching over me. I’m going to go to bed peaceful and content in my heart, confident that God is awake and has His eye on me now and forever. He’s got me covered.

“Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.’”

Matthew 18:2,3

Above and Beyond Peace of Mind – Part 2

Now that I have really worked through what exactly the peace of Christ is (“Above and Beyond Peace of Mind – Part 1), I have a far better understanding of where I was originally going with this verse. During my first writing, I casually brushed over that phrase. But once I really started digging into it, it became clear to me that I needed to be able to adequately explain why His peace is so completely peaceful.

And all of the thinking and searching and googling and concordance checking was more than worth it. Now I have something concrete in my mind — reasons why the peace of Christ is so outrageously exceedingly great that it surpasses understanding.

But I must add one more very cool thing I discovered while studying this verse. And that is this… I looked up the Hebrew word for rule and discovered that it means to act as umpire. And so I asked a baseball expert to tell me what exactly an umpire does. This is what he told me. An umpire does all of the following:
rules on fair balls and foul balls
calls balls and strikes
calls players safe or out
controls the flow and tempo of the game
controls player and coach behavior
uses discretion
calls interference
makes “on the fly” decisions
makes judgment on plays
determines strike zone
gives warnings
throws people out if necessary

So, if I let the peace of God do its job, I’d find that it would control my heart by informing me when my thoughts or actions are foul. It would allow me to determine healthy boundaries. It would set the pace in all my circumstances. It would guide my behavior and my reaction to the behavior of others. It would warn me when I was getting into something that would bring me harm. It would keep me steady. It would give me the wisdom in situations that called for an immediate response. It would give me the discretion I need in order to stay peaceful. I would have peace of mind rather than the free-for-all fighting that goes on within me at times.

He sees the whole game. Me and everyone else. He’s fair. He’s completely qualified. He is the final authority. So if I notice a loss of peace in my heart, then the peace of Christ (the umpire) is just doing it’s job.

Above and Beyond Peace of Mind – Part 1

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts..:“ Colossians 3:15

Peace of Christ…. hmmm…. clearly (to me anyway) that’s not the same thing as peace of mind, because I’ve been known to do all sorts of things to try to ensure that I have that. I’ve opened bank accounts and investment accounts so that my money would be safe. But I still wonder if it’s in the right place or if it could all disappear. I have car insurance and health insurance so that I don’t need to worry about accidents or bad health. Yet I do, because illness and accidents happen. My lesson plan book and materials are ready for the next school day so that I don’t waste one moment of my life away from work worrying about work. But there’s often something more I wish I’d done.

I try to be careful about my actions and decisions and words so that my life is not chaotic. But sometimes I fail and my life explodes. Yeah, no peace of mind in any of that, because it’s me trying to make peace happen depending upon my own strength in a world of no guarantees.

Even in the best of times, I have found that my mind still is aware that everything could suddenly change without warning. My ability to contain myself and situations has limitations. So whatever amount of peace I am able to create is very fragile. And fragile things make me nervous. The peace of Christ, on the other hand, is peace that I have because He reconciled me to God. That means that He took the blame for all the sins of my life – past, present, and future. So I can rest in the fact that I have been declared innocent in the eyes of God. He doesn’t see me as a hopeless, worthless case. He sees me as the beautiful creation of His own hand. I have the assurance of His presence in my life at all times day and night and the promise of His exceedingly great power at work in me.

I can be confident knowing that no matter what happens, He is ultimately in control of everything and will work it all together for good. He knows my every thought and commiserates with my every feeling. This peace is not of this world. It is peace at all times and in every circumstance. Perfect peace. Peace that surpasses understanding.

I need to allow that to rule my heart.

Covered in Poop?

“…walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith…” Colossians 2:6

Having just watered all my potted plants, the word rooted caught my attention in this verse. My tomato plant is not doing well. It was once a deep healthy green and full of blooms and baby tomatoes on their way to full maturity. A few delicious red ones did make it all the way to their full growth size over the past couple of months. But most had black bottoms — something about the soil needing more nutrients. I fixed that problem.

But now the few green tomatoes left on the plant are being attacked by a caterpillar. I figured this out immediately, even though on first inspection I didn’t see any damage. All I saw was caterpillar poop on the leaves. Looking closer, I found more not good stuff — a hole where the pest had chewed his way into one of the tomatoes. Gross.

I’m sad (and seriously disgusted), because I had such high hopes for this plant. I did mean to repot it in a bigger container filled with more soil so that it would have every advantage and be able to supply me with an abundance of tomatoes. I knew the roots would get too long for that pot and the plant would suffer. But I got busy and didn’t do anything about it.

And so, the plant is suffering. Caterpillar poop, dead blooms with no tiny tomatoes taking their place, dead leaves mixed with pale green leaves. Damaged tomatoes. What did I expect? Yes, I watered it faithfully and fertilized it. It had as much sun as my balcony offered. It was sprayed at the first sign of insects. Usually. When I remembered to look closely. But the soil is where the roots are. And the plant has outgrown the soil. It seems as though it is fighting hard to produce SOMEthing, but that’s all that’s going to be happening if I don’t rescue it.

That’s kind of like my life when I don’t surround myself with God’s word, when I don’t stay alert to Satan’s attacks, or when I shorten my time with Him because I’m too busy. I stop growing. I lack luster. My love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control – my fruit – is full of holes. I’m attacked. I’m weak. And I feel like I’m covered in poop!

A Merciful Memorial

This past summer I began a study of the book of Romans. This is from my journal, written on July 19th…“Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another…” Romans 12:10

Kindly affectionate in Greek means cherishing one’s kindred; fondness of natural relatives; fraternal toward fellow Christians. The idea repeats itself a few words later, “with brotherly love”.

So, I am to think of my fellow Christians as my family. I am to value them and esteem them so highly, and let that set the tone for how I treat them. In fact, we are all to do this to each other. If we are all esteeming and valuing each other, we are all setting examples for each other. We fill each other with value.

I wrote that much and stopped. And then I wrote:

Hard to concentrate. Today is my dad’s memorial service.

I didn’t think I had anymore to write about. I thought the verse was very clear. It didn’t seem that there was much to elaborate on. But I was frustrated, because I like to have a finished thought and an “Ah-ha! moment” at the end of my writings. At the same time, I wondered what I was doing trying to even think deeply at that particular moment. My head was so full of my dad and my heart was so full of the sadness of missing him. And then I understood just why I’d read that verse that day. The rest of the journal page says this:

This verse is so fitting for today and for my dad, because he did this every single day to everyone.

The passage in Romans goes on to say, “…not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.”

Anyone who knew my dad would have to agree. All of that was who my dad was. What a particularly tender mercy from God I felt as I understood why my study of that book led me to being in those exact verses on that exact day. While I was grieving, I was (and continue to be) so thankful that God blessed me with a dad who set such a loving example for me to follow.