Our longings are made for beauty.
For twelve healing ways to put desire to action, you can download my guide below. I'll explore these ideas more each month.
When goodness is in reach, I don’t always recognize it. This is true for mothers, and for little boys too. A few nights before Easter, I pulled into the Family Dollar after dark and found the plastic eggs and candy for my son. So many of the Easter baskets came in pinks and yellows with flowers and bows, but I did find a green plastic bucket with a cute dinosaur face—bright, round eyes, pointy ears and a jolly smile. I wondered if it was too “young” for my eight year old, but hoped for the best. When I arrived home to show my findings to Gideon, he gasped in delight and dutifully took his place at the table to fill twelve eggs with candy for the class egg hunt at school. Success! Or so I thought. The next morning my daughters woke earlier than normal, determined to make pancakes before school. Comforting wafts of buttery goodness drew the whole family to the kitchen. Gideon called for me with outstretched arms and showed me where he had written his name on his bucket. The morning felt unusually cheery for its early hour and the whole tone of the house felt magical. But soon, a shift came in the eyes of my boy. Plates began to go onto the table. Next to the green bucket. Gideon stared. Nano noticed something amiss and caught my eye. With little shoulders slumped, our boy wandered off to the bedroom. His daddy saw his welling eyes and urged me to follow. Sitting next to Gideon on the bed, I said he must be sad about something and wondered aloud what it was. “The bucket,” he said. “I don’t want to take the bucket to school.” This made sense to me. The time for school drew closer and he must’ve decided the bucket was too young for him after all. “You don’t have to take that bucket,” I told him. “I’ll bet we can find something else…okay?” He nodded. “And Mommy?” “Yes.” “Can you give that bucket back to the store?” I urged him not to worry about that, but he pressed me further. He wanted the bucket gone. In the kitchen, my daughter told me where she had seen Gideon’s Spider-Man bucket from Halloween and we decided that might work. With some help from Nano, we found the bucket in the old smokehouse before Gideon joined the girls for breakfast. While I cut my boy's pancakes, he confirmed that Spider-Man buckets are better than dinosaur buckets. Later when the kids were at school, I debated whether to keep or toss the one-dollar bucket, before I wrapped it in a grocery bag and dropped it in the trash bin. At the school pick-up that afternoon, Gideon announced a change. “Mommy, I do want my dinosaur bucket.” He planned to use it for another egg hunt over the weekend. The second he stepped out of the car at home, he asked me where to look. I assured Gideon I would get his bucket and sent him inside before doing a quick dumpster dive in the front yard. The windows revealed my secret though, and he stood laughing at me when I walked in the door. Then the bucket, though shunned that morning, became a joy to him again. When I asked him what changed his mind, he just said he realized he could still use it. He saw a purpose for it. I can relate to him. I often take time to accept a situation. I want to know there’s good purpose for the stretching seasons I go through. When I struggle to see the purpose, I wrestle with accepting the season. Sometimes the best gifts begin to arrive in ways that look more like loss than gift. Then, my heart is slow to recognize when dashed hopes are being redeemed into something new. What helps a worn-down heart to see a path as worth accepting? God answers prayers, even through pain. I can stare an answered prayer in the face and not see the faithful hand of my Father. I can hear the beauty of the resurrection and not tune in to the softest ripple of its melody amidst the days I live. On the road to Emmaus, Cleopas and his friend heard news of the empty tomb, yet their hearts locked in on memories of disappointed hopes. When the resurrected Jesus began to walk with them on their journey, they knew him only as a fellow traveler—one who was quite uninformed. When Jesus asked them what they were talking about, “they stood still, looking sad” (Luke 24:17). They shared with their new companion about Jesus, the mighty prophet. They lamented how they had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel, until he was killed. The women who claimed that Jesus was now alive seemed to concern them. The empty tomb stirred their worry. Jesus gently rebuked their slowness of heart—reluctant to believe what they’d already heard. He recalled the prophecies they knew, yet they heard it differently this time. His unfolding of the Scriptures, enlightened their understanding. That evening they begged him to have dinner with them. In the moment he broke bread, they knew him as Jesus. Immediately, he vanished, and they said, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32) Jesus stayed in bodily form beside them until their hearts could see—the death he died, their disappointed hopes, was all for good. Their Master walked with them to help them see God’s good purpose and a fire kindled inside them. His presence ignited their acceptance of the story. The breaking of bread, the moment that brought memories, the burning in their hearts, all helped them see the goodness right there. Adam McHugh says, “When the two disciples who walked to Emmaus reflected on their night with that oddly familiar stranger, they marveled that their hearts burned within their chests as he spoke. A central part of the Christian spiritual life…comes in paying attention to the moments when our hearts are burning. In those times, we may just find that we are not alone” ( The Listening Life , p. 184). For the seasons of life we don’t want to accept, maybe we’re not alone. When I hear that the ugliest losses bear the most precious purpose to my Father, something burns in my heart and I don’t want to brush past this. The memories of disappointed hopes cannot truly outweigh the memories of the One who always knows how to rekindle my joy. For all it contains, this season of my life will bear good purpose. I do want this bucket.
There is something about the tiny ways we experience a dream coming true that changes our outlook. Whether it’s an idea brought to fruition, a task finished, a plan fulfilled, these moments train us to believe more is possible. There are seasons when my soul needs to witness these tiny wants coming true while I guard my heart, find new energy and pray for grace to refuel my hope. In those times, if I try to rush myself, push ahead, I don’t leave room for the autumn and winter seasons of my soul. Just as all of life needs times of letting go, and the silence of snow, so there are places in my soul that need what is steady, what is slow. When old seasons of life have died, it’s time to hunt for beauty in the little shoots of life. Here are a few ways this looks for me right now. While these practices are small, they are exercises that help me look forward. Right now, I’m wanting to meet new people at church, and needing to keep it simple. This week I met Sally and Renae. I had brief conversations with each of them. I wrote down their names to help myself remember. For years, I’ve been wanting to read historical fiction again. I finally started. A few days ago, I finished a book set in the early nineteen hundreds. Then, I began another, set a few centuries earlier. I’ve wanted to adjust my morning routine in a way that gets me moving and helps me feel grounded. For the last month I’ve rolled out my yoga mat most weekday mornings and used it for ten minutes. As short a time as it is, it helps me feel alive knowing I’m keeping a promise to myself. When I see my small hopes play out as I come to the last page of a book, tell my husband about new people, and spend regular mornings on the yoga mat, the small things stack up. Something inside me begins to notice that I have choices in life. I wished for a reality and it came to happen. These small practices help me embrace life-giving rhythms, even while honoring the season I’m in and the pace of my soul. It’s freeing to acknowledge where I am. When I admit that I’m not in a season of summer plenty, and admit my capacity for life has limits, this helps me live more fully in the gift of today. While life is communal, we experience it individually too. Parker Palmer writes, “We must come together in ways that respect the solitude of the soul…” The solitude of the soul is our garden to tend. It’s different from our neighbors’. Every garden needs water and light to grow, and sufficient protection to help it thrive. Yet, each garden must be tended according to its specific needs, with consideration for the season it’s in. When our gardens are tended according to their needs, there are times of harvest that bring nourishment to others. The solitary tending brings communal blessing. Each season always had purpose. The Lord who knows the necessities of every garden doesn’t rush us forward. He knows the slow work of growth and invites us to stay in pace with Him as He makes the way for tomorrow. When the season calls us to hunt for small shoots, and care for tiny dreams, He honors the solitude within us. The secret place within is always where He waits. A promise: “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness” (2 Cor. 9:10).
At times, words about goodness have felt vanilla to me, like preschool basics. God is good. The sky is blue. I’ve longed for a goodness that means more than empty positivity. More than rote fact. More than a decade ago, when I was newly married and just entering my twenties, Nano and I sat with a group of church friends who were planning a Thanksgiving gathering. One woman suggested inviting the guests to share four things they were thankful for. Everyone seemed to like her idea. Internally, I sighed. I didn’t understand this and thought we may as well recite our grocery lists to each other. I wondered what might fit what they were looking for, while also feeling more meaningful. I shared the first thought that came to mind. “What if we share one thing we’re thankful for and then four reasons why we’re thankful for that?” They blinked at me and offered polite words acknowledging my idea. The day of the gathering came and I listened as people shared their four-point lists of things they were thankful for. I can’t remember if I recited a list myself. I just remember looking around the room at this group—most of whom had seen many more years of life than I had. I couldn’t understand why this didn’t feel so mundane to everyone else. Thirteen years later, the memory stays with me. I put myself back in that room at the age I am now, and I’ve still seen less years than most of them. Maybe though, I’m a little closer to understanding what they knew. When dreams you’ve hoped for blow away in the wind, when paths you walk turn to somber roads, when the sky around you grows dark, the clouds teach you what you never could’ve learned in the light. Along the journey of life’s disappointments, the soul learns how to see that no matter what blows away, no matter how grave the story, there is always a bird who still sings. The rote facts you learned in preschool become lifelines that save you. God is good. The sky is blue. When a voice inside asks me what I have left, there is still the voice of a child in my distant memory. She sings her alphabet, letter by letter, and somehow every syllable of ordinary life becomes the sweetest song I’ve ever heard. Built into the fabric of this life, into the sound of every letter we work with each day, is a Voice that echoes quietly beneath every harsh blow. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. He looked with delight and said, “You are very good.” From the beginning, goodness was there. Today, His goodness remains. Last week, my family munched popcorn and watched Tom Hanks in Castaway. After he loses everything, then years later loses everything again, he tells a friend what he knows. “I know what I have to do now. I’ve got to keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide will bring?” The sun still rises, and the goodness God made in the beginning is still alive. I remembered myself at age twenty. I sat in a room where I couldn’t hear more than a grocery list. I wanted to hear the reasons why . Little did I know that when we recognize what is good, we are naming the reasons why —the reasons why we breathe. These are the signs there is goodness. This is the meaning that keeps us open to meet another day.