January | 2020 | itsawonderfilledlife

Archive for January, 2020

A Virgin Forest in Us All

Posted in life, Walking with God, WONDER, tagged #asnowfield, #delightandcelebration, #menuha, #virginiawoolfe, sabbath on January 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Recently I read a quote by Virginia Woolfe:

“There is a virgin forest in each; a snowfield where even the print of birds’ feet is unknown.” Virginia Woolfe

I think it might be the introvert’s version of heaven. A solitary place within us, where no one has even left footprints. A place of personal seclusion, rest from all noise, interruption from our quiet, but deep thoughts. In a sense,

it is Sabbath.

Sabbath, the day to remember and keep holy. The day orchestrated by God, for us, which he, himself participated in, after the creation of the world and all in it.

In Hebrew (the language of the Genesis Sabbath) the word used for rest is menuha, but it does not refer to the rest that is a nap … menuha refers to celebration, delight.

In my mind, what God meant when he included Sabbath into our lives, was like a snow day. A day when you wake up, ready to do the routines of life and work, but it’s snowing wildly and all the regular plans of the day get cancelled and a sense of freedom and delight fill your soul.

It is a snowfield where even the print of birds’ feet is unknown

Sabbath is not just a snow day, but a mindset. It is taking delight in the midst of work of the snow … shovelling, scraping, bundling up with a heart celebrating in the creation, the Creator, while taking pleasure in the work that we have to do.

Sabbath is a mindset of celebration and delight, in the midst of the work as well as in the rare afternoon nap … snow not mandatory … but sooooo lovely.

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Want to go to Church?

Posted in Walking with God, WONDER, tagged #corporateworship, #sabbath, #thelordbewithyou, #wanttogotochurch, #worshipisrelationship on January 5, 2020| 1 Comment »

Sunday. Sabbath. Lord’s day. Day of rest.

Many words to indicate the traditional day of going to church, for the Christ-follower (of course not all participate in corporate worship on Sunday).

Each week the calendar rolls around to this day, this time to gather with others to pray, sing, share, give and receive the message that will encourage, challenge us, gird our loins, as it were, for the week to come. It is opportunity, freedom that is not available to all in our world. We are blessed to gather together to worship our Savior, our Redeemer.

“Do you feel like going to church tomorrow? today?”

We ask this of each other, of our loved ones and friends, of ourselves as we lay our heads down to sleep the eve of the Sabbath. The question can roll off our tongues like oil, not pausing in our cranial space for consideration, before shrugging and deciding, no, not this week … I’m too … tired, busy … peopled-out.

“Do you feel like going to church tomorrow? Peterson suggests that is the wrong question. “If Christians worshipped only when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship … Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship.” Eugene Peterson

Yes … yes I am going to church today … I am working on my side of my relationship with God … that is what I have control of today.

The Lord be with you …

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Left Behind

Posted in Grief, life, WONDER, tagged #grief, #leftbehind, #movingthroughgrief, #newyearwithoutyou, #sayinggoodbyeforever, #theroadtolife on January 2, 2020| Leave a Comment »

As this new year approached, my heart grew heavy.

The close of 2019 reminded me that it is the final year my family and I will have lived with our dad, husband, grandfather, friend. 2020 (and the years to come) will not be shared with him … his story ended in 2019, last year.

For some reason this turn of the calendar made the finality of his passing more real than those last moments at his hospital bed, the wake and funeral, even more real than the committal service at the graveside.

It leaves me and us lonely for his presence, his life. It makes a new year, without him, unimaginable. The life that he brought to our lives has left an empty space … a silent pause in a song, an ellipsis (…) at the end of a sentence.

Happy New Year …

We can struggle to say those words, but their message is lost on those trying to imagine a new year, a new day, without one they loved … love. To move into this new year, to own and accept it, to write it on paper or speak it from our lips … well it’s another acknowledgement that it’s really real … that he is gone … and he isn’t coming back.

It is as if accepting the arrival of this new year relegates our loved one into history. As if, while we move forward into the new year, into the future,

his life, he has been left behind, in the past … by us.

It is interesting to me how little comfort faith can be when such grief weighs one down. It is not that I question the existence of God, or heaven or eternity … it is that the loneliness is such that none of that matters, for the selfishness of loss and grief is temporal … now.

It is not, I want the best for you, dearly departed … it is purely that I want you back … selfishly, for me.

For, you see, in reality, my grief is not that my father has been left behind in the years past, but that I, we have been left behind, by him. He, who has always been there for me, for us … he, who had never abandoned us, who would never abandon us … he has gone on, and left us behind … to move forward without him, without the security and direction and unconditional love that he always represented.

We walk forward into this new year, this new future, knowing that we are leaving him behind, that we have been left behind, by him.

Forward is the only way through grief, but lifting ones feet over the starting line is agony.

“Recovery can seem like a betrayal. Passionately, you desire a way back to the lost object (person), but the only possible road, the road to life, leads away.” Hilary Mantel

“He heals the broken hearts and binds up their sorrows.”
Psalm 147:3

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