Divine Ordinary

Another week has gone by, and it’s time for 5 Minute Fridays again. If you aren’t familiar, 5 Minute Fridays are when women from all over write about one word for five minutes – no editing, no second-guessing – before they hit publish. Come check it out HERE.

Today’s word is REST.

The word rest seems sort of serendipitous today, as I come off a week of feeling rumpled in spirit (you can read about how God met me in all my wrinkled messiness HERE) and sort of blah. I’ve had a serious lack of focus and clarity, and the desire to start my vacation early even though I still have quite a bit of work to get done before I can officially be “off.”

I am deeply aware this week of my need for rest, but it’s not just rest for my body. Don’t get me wrong, if I have to operate on much less than 8 hours for more than a day or two, I get VERY grouchy (just ask my family!). But more than physical rest, I need mental, emotional and spiritual rest.

Have you been there? That feeling like no matter how much you try to relax, you just end up feeling restless? Here’s the thing, as I was praying and walking today, God showed me that one of the reasons I feel SO weary at the moment is that I have allowed myself to be overloaded and that I have failed to be still, to be unplugged and quiet.

We live in an age where we have information coming at us from every direction ALL. THE. TIME. It’s easy for our minds to be like gerbils running in a wheel from the time we get up in the morning until we close our eyes and try to go to sleep.

Physical rest is important, but it doesn’t matter how many hours of sleep you get, if your mind is never allowed to reset from the information overload, you will never feel rested. Worse, you’ll always feel this vague sense of stress.

It became very clear to me on my walk today that I have been scrambling around, distracted by fractured goals with no clear sense of where I’m going and, more importantly, why. I have heaped a mountain of meaningless tasks on my plate without stopping long enough to ask myself why they are on my plate to begin with.

For the past couple weeks, I’ve struggled with what to write on this blog. I’ve sat and stared at the screen many mornings and wondered what in the world I had to share that would help anyone when I felt so depleted myself.

How can you give water to the thirsty when your cup is dry?

It was like God said to me as He did to Martha, “Rosanne, Rosanne, you are busy with many things.” All this time, rest has been waiting for me at the feet of Jesus. I just need to take those moments to stop, to be still, to take the time to fill my cup again.

How do you find rest when you are weary? I’d love to hear about it!

Blessings, Rosanne

It’s Friday again (how did that happen?), and it’s time for 5 Minute Friday. Not familiar with Five Minute Friday? Well, it’s simple really.  Women, from all over, write about one word for five minutes. No editing. No self-censoring. Just write and hit publish. Sound interesting? Then I encourage you to hop on over to Kate Motaung’s blog, Heading Home, and join us.

LOSE

Lately, I’ve been forcefully reminded that in order to move forward, to go through the doors God opens for me, I have to let go or lose something else.

I have to say no. I have to turn something down. Every yes choice I make, means saying no to something else. Because time is finite. No matter how organized or how productive I am, I am allotted 24 hours just like everyone else on the planet.

To gain one thing, I lose something else.

But we don’t want to admit that, so we try to hang on to what we should be letting go of. In our world, anxiety and depression and that sense of drowning in the demands of our own lives is rampant.

And I think it lies in this simple truth – to swim, to stay afloat, we have to let go of or lose what is weighing us down. If we insist on hanging onto it, we WILL drown. 

Mark 8:36 says, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?

In many ways, in our culture today, we are losing our soul because we are trying to gain the entire world. There is so much pressure on every front, that it is no wonder our souls feel a bit shriveled and dry.

We go and go and go with no end in sight because we are afraid of losing – an opportunity, a moment, a met expectation.

But we weren’t made to do everything all the time for everyone, and the effort to do that is killing us slowly and surely.

I once read this quote and it has stayed with me. “The greatest freedom is the ability to choose our own prison.”

Each choice we make means we lose the ability to make a different, opposite choice. Trying to hang onto both just tears us apart.

What do you need to lose today?

Blessings, Rosanne

It’s Friday again, and time for 5 Minute Fridays. Haven’t heard of it? Well, it’s when women from all over the country (and maybe even globe) get together and write about one word for five minutes with no editing and then push publish. Want to be part of the fun? Join us HERE!

WANT

You can’t look at Facebook or any other media channel over the past few days and not read someone’s letter or post or message to someone involved in the Brock Turner rape case. Usually, the letter is directed at Brock Turner’s father who (now famously) wrote a letter to the judge asking that his son not get a long prison term. Or the open letter is written to parents in general.

All of them share a general theme of what parents SHOULD be doing  so their child doesn’t become a Brock Turner. Anytime something like this happens, blame happens – usually at parents.

Why? Because we WANT a guarantee. If we can blame someone, then we convince ourselves we will or won’t do whatever that parent did or didn’t do, and then we won’t find ourselves sitting in a courtroom listening to the details of how our son sexually assaulted an unconscious young woman and forever changed and devastated her life. Forever destroyed his own life too.

We WANT to know we can prevent it if we just do this or avoid that or teach this. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees in parenting.

Brock Turner’s father has gotten a lot of condemnation for the letter he wrote, reducing what his son did to a young woman as “20 minutes of action.”

This very well may be a case of an indulged, privileged young man whose dad has always covered for him, who has always softened or mitigated the consequences of his son’s actions. That’s certainly what it appears to be on the surface. Brock Turner didn’t even seem particularly sorry for what he’d done – only made excuses and fabricated the best story to explain things in his favor.

First, let me say, there is NO QUESTION that what this young man did was horribly wrong. There is NO QUESTION that he has shattered a young woman’s life and that the consequences of that “20 minutes of action” will stay with her for the rest of her life. There has been a saying for a while that “no means no.” I’d like to add that unconscious should also mean no, that it shouldn’t even be a question really.

But, before we condemn the parents for the actions of the son and before we try and judge a man on the contents of one letter, let me just say I understand why Brock Turner’s father wrote that letter. I don’t agree with it, but I understand.

Because, you see, prison for a young man like Brock Turner would have been horror day after day. Do you have any idea what would have been done to a rich, privileged kid like that in prison? I bet Brock Turner’s father had an idea and that idea terrified him.

I understand why a father would go to any lengths to save his son from being beaten and probably raped repeatedly in a prison. I hope I would have the strength of character to allow my child to reap the consequences of so grave an action, but I would be tempted to try to save him, too. If you are really honest, you’d probably want to try to save your child, too.

Maybe some would say that is what Brock Turner deserves after what he did. Maybe they are right. All I know is that I’m glad Jesus didn’t give me what I deserve.

Yes, Brock Turner is NOT the victim in this particular scenario. The young woman he assaulted is the victim, and my heart and prayers go out to her. But Brock Turner’s parents are also in pain. If they were parents who did all the right things (and I don’t know that we can tell the caliber of their parenting by one letter written in probable desperation), I’m sure they are asking themselves what happened. I’m sure they are gutted and shattered to think a child of theirs could do something like this. If they didn’t do the right things and contributed to this young man’s attitude of taking what he wanted and feeling he was above consequences, then they will sit with the guilt of their failures daily for the rest of their lives.

Before you try, judge and condemn his parents, maybe you should take a moment and imagine it was your son facing prison and all that entails.

We all WANT that guarantee – the guarantee if we just do the right thing as parents then nothing bad will happen to our kids, that they won’t make bad choices, that they won’t do horrible things. But there is no guarantee and no amount of blame will change that.

Blessings, Rosanne

How did it get to be Friday, again? Today, I’m over at 5 Minute Friday. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s where women from all over write about one word without editing and without second guessing themselves. Come on over and join the party HERE.

Today’s word is CHEER.

Tonight, my oldest son graduates from high school. It’s a huge milestone, and to be honest, I haven’t really taken it in, the idea that we are all starting a new chapter, that things will change and then change some more.

The thing is, though, in some ways, things won’t change.

When you were born and a preemie, I cheered you on when you struggled to eat

As you got a bit older, I cheered you when you tried new foods – especially the green stuff.

I cheered you on when you took your first steps.

I cheered you on when rode your bike without training wheels.

I cheered you on your first and last soccer goal over the span of 10 years.

I cheered you on your first pitch and your first at bat.

I cheered you on when you learned to dribble.

I cheered you on at all those Pass, Dribble, Shoot competitions.

I cheered you on in the bleachers when you played your first junior high basketball game and then your first high school game.

I was still cheering for your very last game on the hardwood.

I will cheer you on as you give your Valedictorian speech, and I will cheer you on when you cross the stage to get your diploma.

I will continue to cheer you at each new chapter, each new opportunity, each new milestone.

Because I’m your mom, and I’ll always be your biggest cheerleader.

Blessings, Rosanne

If you are a certain age (or like oldies music), you’ll know the song, “All We Need is Love.” It sounds so good when the Beetles croon, “All we need is love, love, love is all we need.”

And loving everyone sounds like such a great thing – in theory. In reality, it’s not quite that simple because people are, well, human. Add to that our own humanness, and suddenly loving people isn’t all fluffy clouds and rainbows and unicorns.

In fact, loving others can be one of the hardest commands God has ever given us – especially when we’ve been hurt or betrayed by those we are supposed to love. It’s particularly painful when the hurt comes from those who are supposed to have your back. No betrayal cuts quite as deep as the betrayal from the person you trusted the most.

I don’t think that this is a particularly new problem though. Over and over in Scripture, the early church is exhorted to love each other, to forgive each other, to offer grace to each other. I don’t think it would have been mentioned quite so much if those early Christians didn’t struggle with it, like we do.

Paul, the primary writer of the letters in the New Testament, tells us how crucial our love for each other is – because a lost world is watching. They are watching, looking for something they don’t have. Our love for each other is one way we show them who Jesus is.

I have to wonder, though, what message the unsaved world gets from the church if they are basing who Jesus is on by how we love each other. 

Let’s face it, the church as a whole is divided, not just along denominational lines and racial lines, but also within individual church bodies, as well. And I think satan rubs his hands in glee to see all the disunity among the family of God because when we are busy fighting with each other, we aren’t fighting the true enemy. We lower our shields and let our swords drop by our sides, making us easy targets for an enemy the Bible describes as a lion who is seeking to devour us.

Instead of clinging to our right to be right, maybe we should start clinging to Jesus instead. We are focused on things that, really, in the light of eternity don’t even matter. Will we really care if we got invited to that party or if someone said something unkind about us when we are in Jesus’ very presence in heaven?

I’m not denying those things sting, but we have to keep the bigger picture in mind. And that bigger picture which is we are in a war. We can’t afford to turn on our fellow soldiers if we hope to come out in one piece.

I’m talking to myself just as much as the next person in this. It’s so easy to get caught up in the daily stuff I am living in. It’s all too easy to make a mountain range out of an ant hill. I get it. But know that this is what the enemy wants.

If he can turn us on each other, we do the work of devouring for him.

In Galatians 5:15, it says, “But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.”

That word consume means to use up or destroy. It sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Yet, how many times have you felt yourself being used up or destroyed by someone actions or words? How many times have you been the one doing the devouring and consuming?

I wish I could say that if you just get spiritual enough, that everything at your church and with the people there will be smooth sailing, that everyone will just love each other perfectly and never hurt each other, intentionally or unintentionally. But that’s not the truth and we know it.

But I do think we can make a choice to not be easily offended, to not look for insult and hurt where it wasn’t intended or let it go when it was. Often those things say so much more about the other person than you. I think we can make the choice to be mature in our relationships. If we have something that is truly bothering us, that we can’t let go – go to the person in love and get it straightened out. So many times, it’s a simple misunderstanding that honesty resolves.

Unfortunately, no matter our good intentions, the bad news is there is no way we can love each other as we are called to do. However, the good news is that we don’t have to do it in our own power.

Thankfully, God promises us that we are, “equipped for every good work.” I don’t know about you, but that is a big relief, to know I can lean on God to help me do the hard stuff – even loving the unlovable.

How about you? Do you struggle loving others? I’d love to hear about it!

Blessings, Rosanne