Last night marked a milestone in our family as we poured through mounds of paperwork at my daughter’s kindergarten registration night.
My Facebook status read, “How is it even possible that I will be attending kindergarten registration tonight? Someone please tell me where 5 years went…” 
The time passed just like all time passes, second by second, moment by moment.
While the years seem to fly by, I’m trying desperately to remember to live in the moment. Lots of tiny glimpses of the daily happenings piled up in a heap turn into the days, weeks, months, and years of my life. And I try so desperately to make the little moments matter.
Some days, it’s beautiful. The moments look like building towers on the floor with the little ones, snuggling on the couch watching Elmo lullaby videos on You Tube, cutting strawberries and marveling at all the seeds, and reading books and books and more books before bed.
But other days it’s a struggle. The little moments of these days have snapshots like an entire box of Kix cereal spilled all over the living room floor, a feverish baby recovering from surgery fighting his dose of medication, crying to my husband because I don’t know how the budget is going to work this month, and falling asleep exhausted on the couch with my laptop (again) with too many to-do list items and not enough time or energy to complete them.
In reality, most days are made up of a crazy combination of ‘beautiful’ and ‘struggle’ moments.
Ok, let’s be really real. Sometimes it’s all a struggle and I worry and stress and fret and busy myself with tasks but forget to offer up all my cares and concerns up to the only One who has any power to change anything about anything. Yet in the middle of my mess, God meets me where I am as I seek Him daily.
Lately, my morning quiet time has been more focused on how much I can accomplish on my to do list instead of sitting and soaking up God’s presence in these precious quiet early moments of the day. When it happens, my Bible study has been reduced to browsing through one chapter of Proverbs a day and cracking open the daily devotional Jesus Calling. Slowly but surely, I’m also working my way through Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts.
While it’s definitely leaps and bounds from where I’ve been in the past with my quiet time (non-existent for many years), the time is often not spent in the deep reflection and study that I know will grow my relationship with God in the way I desire.
Even though I’ve not been offering my whole self to my Creator, his grace is so evident to me as he meets me where I am in my weakness and fills me with His truth. He takes the small things I offer (think fishes and loaves) and turns it into provision for my life. This morning I have been filled again with his gracious and tender love, an example of how deeply He cares for me in the midst of my chaos, turning it right back into order – His order.
It’s Friday and today’s Five Minute Friday writing prompt from Lisa-Jo Baker is “joy”. I love the community of the #fmfparty women on Twitter each Thursday night and I stayed up late last night waiting for the prompt so I could join in with my words and share our hearts together through our writing. The prompt was posted around 11pm and instead of writing, I laid my head down to “rest” for a moment and woke up 30 minutes later to my husband walking in the door late from work. Foggy-headed and discouraged that I stayed up so late yet couldn’t manage to type out a few words for 5 minutes, I closed my laptop and crawled into bed.
This morning, after a long week of brain-draining training at work, a cranky toddler recovering from surgery, anxiety over finances, and the monthly hormonal swings that leave me snapping at my husband, I just wasn’t sure if there were any impactful words in my heart for me to share around the prompt of “joy”. Enter God’s grace and his provision (as always!). I opened up my journal to where I’ve been taking notes as I read through One Thousand Gifts and saw this quote:
Stress isn’t only a joy stealer. The way we respond to it can be sin.” And then more: “I can’t fill with joy until I learn to trust.”
Knowing this was God speaking truth into my life in the midst of my quite stressful week, I turned to my other morning staple, the Jesus Calling devotional, and read these words on the page for March 21:
Trust Me and don’t be afraid, for I am your Strength and Song…I want you to share My Joy, living in conscious awareness of My Presence.”
And there it was. My answer to the joy-struggle.
Trust.
Trust that God is working all things to the good as I seek Him daily. Trust that He will provide in the ways that our family needs it. Trust that this overwhelming season at work will resolve soon. I must practice trusting God. It is not enough just to believe He exists.
Remember, even the demons believe! But it’s my job to trust and then, only then, will my heart fill with joy as I am grateful for his love and provision in my life. Is it easy? Oh, surely not. Trust is a process and part of why I think we’re told in God’s word to “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” The verse continues by reminding us, “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” (Phillipians 2:12-13)
We offer up our lives as a living sacrifice, trusting him with each tiny choice we make instead of dwelling on the daily pressures and struggles.
Stress is a joy-stealer. Don’t let the constant dwelling on the worries of the world steal your joy like I’ve been letting it steal mine.
Instead, embrace the answer to this joy-struggle and trust God in the midst of the fears of the unknown.
Remember with me that trying to control all the variables of your life only leads to more fear and uncertainty. Instead, let’s focus on God’s truths and seek him as we trust him with our lives – not just once for our salvation, but daily, moment by moment.
Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Isaiah 12:2-3
*This post is part of Lisa-Jo Baker’s 5 Minute Friday series, where she empowers bloggers to write for 5 minutes each Friday on a specific topic. Free writing. Writing just for the sheer joy of it. Today’s topic was “Joy“. While this post was not written in the usual 5 minutes, it was what was on my heart today to share after a week of quiet here on the blog. I’m also linking up with Essential Fridays, Fridays Unfolded, Sunday Share, and The Weekend Brew. This post contains affiliate links {full disclosure}.
Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful! Loved every word of this.
Thank you Beth! I struggled with writing this week and this was what came out early Friday morning. Trying desperately to trust God with all my circumstances, moment by moment.
A beautiful reminder that God will meet us where we are. I think we sometimes we believe that we have to be at a certain point in our Christian walk, a certain state of mind before we can really be in the presence of Jesus the way we want. But it is in those stressful, struggling moments that He can touch our hearts. Thank you for sharing your words.
Absolutely! My relationship with God faltered for quite awhile because I had forgotten that He will meet us where we are. I was trying to “get it together” before pursuing an authentic relationship with Him and now I regret all the time I wasted doing so. But thankfully God redeems the time, despite us.
LOVED your words on joy! This phrase in the earlier posting really jumped out at me, “Even though I’ve not been offering my whole self to my Creator, his grace is so evident to me as he meets me where I am in my weakness and fills me with His truth.” Thank you for being vulnerable in allowing God to use you in your weakness. Praying you have a blessed and beautiful week.
Barbie, I am learning in so many areas of my life right now the importance of remembering that it is in my weakness that God can use me the most. Man, it’s a hard lesson to learn!
This is just beautiful LeeAnn and so poignant to my life right now. I’m so busy these days that I’ve been very tempted to also be anxious, worried or just down right stressed out. But our lesson today was on loaves and fishes and how God is, among so many other things, the ultimate provider! And not only does He provide what we need, but (in His time, not ours) He provides in ABUNDANCE!!! Even those of us that talk to Him on a constant basis are still consistently tempted to forget that He is I AM! He not just a being that’s distant and far away from us, He’s our creator, and while He has His ears keenly aware of every single person on this planet, He works individually! Yes, even in our crazy chaotic lives…yours, mine, every one of ours. And He’s got this!!! I love you!!
Yes, we are all so forgetful about the truth of God’s nature sometimes, aren’t we? This year I’ve been using the Jesus Calling devotional and it’s helped me keep the right perspective. It only takes 2 minutes a day to read, but it sets the tone for my day like no other! It’s on sale at ChristianBook.com for $12 in the pretty pink color or cheaper if you don’t want the soft faux leather one. (Link: https://goo.gl/glGilC) I got myself a copy last year and it was the best purchase I made all year long!
Trust and rest beat pressure and stress. Oh yes! Loved this post. These words spoke straight to my spirit, “Trust Me and don’t be afraid, for I am your Strength and Song…I want you to share My Joy, living in conscious awareness of My Presence.” Isn’t that the key? God is definitely my strength and I am learning slow how to see Him as my joy and song. Lee Ann, you wrote honestly and movingly about the struggles you face, and with awe and wonder at His amazing grace. Thank you! May the week ahead bring blessings of peace to you and yours. 🙂
Joy, thank you for your kind words! I have needed the reminder that trust and rest beats pressure and stress lately for sure.
Great post! I think trust is the hardest part of faith!