Purposeful Life – Page 2 – EAST WILLOW PLACE

A Heart of Unusual Grit: A Look at Courageous Thankfulness

One of my lovely daughters is blessed with a forelock.

That is to say, she has a patch of thick hair from above her forehead that grows forward rather than backwards. Even as an infant she began resembling Highland cattle, and I was tying her hair back from a very early age so we could see her eyes. (Or she looked like this:)

(Highland Cattle – photo by Shane Aldendorff on Unsplash)

The other morning, as I was trying to quickly get through brushing and tying up the various girls’ hair (I have on average 3-4 daughters who still require help), I got to this particular daughter. She clearly and politely requested only two ponytails, but I knew from experience that this would not work with her particular head. The forelock was a factor, and needed its own individual tie. So I made a small ponytail at the top of her head to wrangle the forelock into control, then incorporated it into the two larger pony tails that she had asked for.

Then she realized what I had done.

In short: Devastation.

I had used THREE and not TWO hair ties, disregarding her request.

Huge eyes welled up with tears, little shoulders hunched, lower lip out, while gusty sobs began, showing just how much I had disappointed her.

Staring at her in mild astonishment, I watched as enormous tears streamed down her face. She dropped to the ground and wept, apparently inconsolable. This continued for about thirty seconds. Which seemed a lot longer than it was.

Finally, with some moderate impatience (yes, I’m not a perfect mom), I said, “Can you please just stop crying and say ‘Thank you’?!”

She needed her hair tied up. I knew what was going to work best for her and what would last throughout her busy day playing, and I had given her a very cute hairstyle. She had no real reason to cry, and should instead be grateful for my loving care.

Then it struck me: I think this is something God wants to say to me sometimes:

“Can you please just stop crying and say, ‘Thank you’?!”

I have my idea of how something should go. I have my plan that I think is the right way, the perfect path, the only option I find acceptable. And I’ve asked Him for it politely, or just merely expect it because it’s the thing that will make me happy. Since I see no reason why it shouldn’t happen, I calmly await the certain delivery of my (ahem) “request”.

Then when I get something different, or it’s not what I had hoped, or I walk through unexpected loss or hurt, I am devastated by the pain and disappointment.

But knowing Who God is, knowing that He knows infinitely more than I, that He understands all the microscopic nuances of my life and its outcomes, I am showing a blatant lack of trust in my Father when I don’t say, “Thank you.”

Even if it wasn’t what I wanted.

Even if it makes me sad, or I don’t understand, or I wish it were different.

Those feelings can be there, but I can still choose to declare my gratitude to the Father who is working for my good, because I love Him and I know I am given a purpose in His Kingdom (Romans 8:28).

The command to “give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20, NLT) leaves no room for my feelings, as much as I may rebel and writhe with the apparent callous indifference to them.

If I want to be obedient to God’s Word, this is a direct choice I must make, regardless of how I feel.

Easy? More like terrifying and incredibly difficult.

Yet I must draw a line in the sand and decide in my heart whether or not I believe that my Creator God is truly the kind, all-knowing, always inherently loving Father the Bible says He is, and thank Him for what He has allowed to be for me and my loved ones.

Or I don’t, and thereby deliberately choose to disobey this clear command.

This is not comfortable.

This is not a placid, soft, warm-and-squishy kind of thankfulness when I’m feeling happy and things are going my way.

This is where my trust in this God I cannot see becomes the granite of reality and I obstinately choose to believe Him and His Word over my emotions, my experiences, and even my own understanding.

Like my little girl, I need to choose to stop crying and say “Thank you.” This is where the sacrifice comes in my “sacrifice of thanksgiving”.

As King David said, “I will not present offerings that cost me nothing.” (1 Chronicles 21:24)

May God graciously grant you and I the courageous hearts and flinty-faced grit to be thankful for truly everything.

“But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me. If you keep to my path, I will reveal to you the salvation of God.”
(Psalm 50:23, NLT)

_{If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it, thanks!}

_{Make your life simpler: Get Maria’s posts delivered straight to your inbox each week! Drop your email below (or on the side bar) to be included on the mailing list if you haven’t already. Woohoo!}

Hungry? A Hidden Surprise Feast for Your Heart

One of my favorite short animated films is “Piper”, from Pixar Films. It tells the story of a sandpiper chick urged by its mother to leave its safe warm sandy nest and begin digging for clams with the rest of the flock down by the shore.

At first, the reluctant chick assumes its mother will still feed it. When the mother instead shows the chick to search for clams in the wet sand, the chick looks askance, but hesitatingly tries – without success.

Completely oblivious to its surroundings, the chick suddenly realizes that the rest of the flock have retreated… and by itself, is knocked over by a wave of cold seawater.

Shivering, sodden, scared, the chick huddles back in its nest, when the mother gently encourages it to come out and try again. Its growling belly shows the growing need to find food.

This time, almost incapacitated by fear and dread, the chick cowers higher on the shore – when it meets a little hermit crab stolidly making its way down to the water.

Following, curious but still cautious, the chick watches as the crab spies a wave coming. Instead of running, it simply burrows down to create a safe nook to hide from the sweep of the water. Unable to escape in time from the wave, the chick quickly copies the crab’s methods, digging itself down into the wet sand just as the wave rushes over the pair, engulfing them both.

The chick hunkers underwater, eyes closed tight, trying to survive till the water recedes. Unexpectedly, the crab taps on the sandpiper’s beak. The chick opens its eyes and to the piper’s astonished gaze, the sandy floor under the water is rich with many clams, each having risen to the surface. As the wave washes back out, the clams begin to retreat below the surface again, digging down deeper, hidden once more.

This little underwater glimpse is electrifying to the sandpiper chick – and the change is extraordinary!

Gone is the little cowering, shivering, fearful chick who hides in the safety and warmth of its nest and is fed by someone else. Suddenly, the chick is energized, knowing where to find the largest clams! Running and piping with delight, it even brings an enormous clam to its mother, so large that several other sandpipers join the feast.

The little piper is still soaking wet. It is still being hit by incessant, cold waves. But now the piper is joyful, revitalized, and is no longer hungry. Instead of avoiding the waves, it realizes that they are rich opportunities for nourishment.

I can relate so well to that little sandpiper. I too often long to stay in the safety and comfort of a warm, sunny nest. I am perfectly content to avoid the cold of suffering and challenges – even while I grow hungry.

Yet when God, like a loving mama sandpiper, nudges me out of my comfort zone and I somewhat uncertainly (and often reluctantly) follow Him down to the shore, I still often expect to be completely coddled, expecting warmth, ease, and safety…

Then when frustrations, disappointments, and difficulties smack me down like chilling salt waves, I too want to give up and run far, far away, back to the shelter of the dry nest and comfortably starve.

Yet, God keeps encouraging me to start living as I was meant to be, growing in maturity and wisdom, learning how to find and consume what is most nourishing to my soul – and it’s down by the water’s edge, not up in the barren nest.

Then, in a time of apparent hardship or difficulty, completely certain that I am unable to breathe or survive in the suffocating cold flooding my senses, He also gently helps me to open my eyes in the middle of it… and reveals a feast of strength and plenty that wouldn’t otherwise be accessible to me unless I was there under the water.

In the time of hard there is nourishment. In the experiences of difficulty there is fulfillment, and in the times of loss God provides for your heart. He knows what is best for us, and He knows what we need. In His care, “even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.” (Psalm 65:11, NLT)

In our experiences that knock us over and threaten to overwhelm, if we open our eyes to Him in trust instead of fear, we will discover an entirely new strength – and even though we might still be outwardly wet, cold, bedraggled, and look a little crazy, we will have deep joy and full hearts, with plenty to share for others.

A person who is full refuses honey, but even bitter food tastes sweet to the hungry.
Proverbs 27:7, NLT

_{If you enjoyed this article, please share it, thanks!}

_{A simple, quick way to get these blog posts directly delivered straight to your inbox for you to read at your ease: sign up below (if you haven’t already)!}

Toenails & Why Your Life Counts: Finding Ultimate Worth

We are all called to great things. The real question is whether or not we understand what greatness means.

Because sometimes it might mean spending time cutting children’s nails.

Amy was a young woman who loved God and felt his call on her life to serve Him by traveling as a missionary to other countries. She believed strongly that she was to share the truth of the Bible, and her focus was mainly on reaching women (who were often ignored or socially restricted from interacting with male missionaries).

Her travels led her to India, where after traveling around in an ox-cart, evangelizing to women in villages with a small, devoted team, she eventually became aware of the prevalent practice of child prostitution in the temples (both young girls and boys). When a little girl escaped from a temple and fled for refuge to Amy’s home, the issue became personal.

Amy began working to free children from this terrible form of sexual slavery, and her efforts led to hundreds of children being freed, fed, clothed, housed, and educated at the orphanage and mission she founded.

No longer able to travel about evangelizing, she instead became “Amma” (Tamil for “mother”), and her newfound duties as a mother of many included that of “cutting the toe nails of a thousand children” (as her biography quotes*).

Amy Carmichael died today, January 18, in 1951, at the age of 83. She had worked in India as a missionary for 55 years without furlough. A law was passed outlawing temple prostitution for children about three years before her death.

The mission she founded still operates today.

She had traveled to India planning to work as a evangelist and focusing on teaching adults about the Gospel… and ended up cutting toenails and mothering a huge number of little children instead.

Would you say her life was wasted? Do you think she missed the mark of making an impact? Toenails seem like an insignificant task compared to preaching the gospel… but apparently not to God.

God had so clearly orchestrated the timing and work He brought her to be about that she cheerfully and joyfully submitted to His plan, His definition of great things.

Her faithfulness and deep humility give me such encouragement, especially in my current season of diapers, pots and pans, laundry, constant teaching, and yes, often cutting toenails.

What I am called to do right now as a homemaker, a wife, a mama, may not seem like high value in the eyes of the world, but I have no doubt it is exactly where I am supposed to be, and therefore I can trust that my God in His wisdom has decreed it to be worthwhile and significant.

And in that trust I can wake up each morning and know that my longing to live a life of worth and purpose is carried out by my faithfulness in serving and loving those around me to the best of my abilities, with the strength and joy He gives.

I fiercely believe this is true for you, too.

What have you been given to do in this season? Do you also fight the thoughts that sometimes come to tell you your efforts are meaningless and trivial, insignificant, worthless?

Here’s what the Bible says: Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being, for the Lord and not for men, because you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
(Colossians 3:23-24)

I find joy in remembering Amy and her work as “Amma” because it gives me renewed strength in my own often seemingly mundane and unimportant work . You can take heart knowing it applies to your work, too.

God sees you, sees your faithfulness, your efforts given in love and service. And He finds that to be of great value – regardless of your opinion or perspective, or anyone else’s. Keep on in your faithful work, my friend. Keep on walking each day in what you have been given to do!

So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.
(Galatians 6:9, NLT)

Even if doing what is good is clipping the toenails of little children.

Maria

* Amy Carmichael: Beauty For Ashes, A Biography; Iain H. Murray, Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, PA (2015)

_{If you enjoyed this post, please share it, thanks!}

I’d love to hear your thoughts – I read every response. And it would be such a joy to have you join the East Willow Place community! Sign up to get my articles delivered straight to your inbox each week. (I promise not to spam you.)

Unlock a Life of Purpose: An Extraordinary Assignment

Around 10:30 a.m. on the morning of August 7, 1998, trucks heavily loaded with explosives parked outside the United States embassy in both cities of Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The trucks almost simultaneously detonated. In what was discovered to be a terrorist attack from a then little-known group called Al-Queda, over 200 people died, with over 4,500 injured people – mostly civilians of Kenya and Tanzania.

This tragedy took lives, property, and a sense of security from thousands. Billions of dollars of damage and years of rebuilding were required in the aftermath. Lives were changed forever.

Yet.

These attacks, while ostensibly creating the panic, chaos, pain, and loss they sought, did not result in the toppling the United States. Not the government, not the people, and not even the work of the embassies. This is because an embassy of any country, while being a physical property, is actually more of a symbol for the government of the nation it represents.

The actual embassy is the group of people entrusted with a mission to a sovereign or government, especially in reference to an ambassador and his/her staff.

Because of this, any place in which an ambassador dwells and works from can in fact be an embassy. So long as there is a ruling sovereign or government to represent, an ambassador and any other diplomatic officials appointed can still carry out their work.

In the same way, we who follow Christ have been given a mission: We too are called to represent Him and His Kingdom to the people and places we find ourselves stationed. We too are tasked with the diplomatic job of declaring the glories and policies of our King, creating connections and relationships that cause others to become familiar with our “Homeland,” our Ruler, and His important message.

Because we are the ambassadors, an embassy of the Kingdom of God is anywhere we live and work.

Each day we must be actively communicating with and listening to our King’s communiqués, training ourselves in the ways of our Sovereign, and seeking to most accurately and winsomely reflect and represent Him to others.

Each of us have been given a unique place to operate in and represent the Kingdom of God. We have also been gifted with certain abilities and strengths that were deliberately chosen for the mission we have been given.

Each of us will need insight, discernment, and an incredible amount of wisdom in correct protocol and interactions with others. Each of us are representing something and Someone much greater than ourselves – and we are strangely odd choices for the honor of these positions, with our brokenness, faults, and failings.

Yet in our dustiness and flaws, in our weakness, we have been given this incredible gift: we get to represent the most magnificent, powerful, and supreme Ruler in this and any universe. We get the astounding privilege of declaring the glorious, joyful assurance that our King has not only created a way for anyone who wishes to become a full citizen of His beautiful Kingdom, but that He wants to make every person who joins an heir-apparent, with the full rights and privileges of His own sons and daughters.

We have been chosen for this work, so that we might display our Sovereign’s beauty and love in a jaw-dropping way to the rest of the world (Ephesians 3:10-11).

And even when enemies come, even if my embassy is shaken or broken by attacks, pain, fear, and loss, even if I should lose my own life – I know my King and His Kingdom still stand, unshaken and perfect, for eternity.

This is our confidence. Our hope unshakeable.

My work, then, and yours – is to stay as closely connected to Him as possible, that we might represent Him the most accurately during the course of our sojourn here. And then – the mission’s end will be sweet, when we finally get to return to our real home, the one for which we have been homesick all our lives.

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
(2 Corinthians 5:18-20, NLT)

Your Excellency, your assignment awaits.

– Maria

_{If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it, thanks!}

And if you’re not already, you are warmly invited to join my members-only East Willow Place community (sign up below)! Each article will be delivered straight to your inbox to read at your leisure.