Life & faith reflections

when May reminds you of what you’re missing

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

strawberries
May is usually pictured as cheerful. Kids running through fields of wildflowers, or picking strawberries with red juice staining white frocks. The world coming awake from its wintry hibernation. It is happy. It’s spring. The earth is blooming. 

But what about when you feel at odds with the world outside? Like the inevitable good-byes that come when you live in a military community. Like remembering the bittersweet end of each school year – mostly sweet, because the long, lovely days of summer were ahead; but a bit bitter, too, when it meant change was around the corner. I remember the year I graduated from the only school I’d known because I’d be attending high school the next fall. I can recall the joyous grief when I graduated from high school, as we all were about to scatter to our next stages of life. And college graduation was probably the most distinct. Those four years were a sweet, sweet season of my life that I wept at leaving behind. The drive back to South Carolina from Chicago that May was a trail of tears … mine as I kept wanting to look in the rearview and remember the good times, as if that might help them to last forever.

So I think it’s normal (I tell myself) that each May I feel a mixture of all of the Mays I’ve lived. The excitement, the anticipation, the anxiety, the regret, the sad farewells to friends and seasons. And I can’t help but remember the May two years ago when friends lost their 17-year-old son to tragedy. In meeting with this friend a few weeks ago, she talked about the way that May seems to drag on forever some years (like this one).

If you have felt the May blues in whatever degree, take heart. You’re not alone. Change, well, it’s unsettling at any stage of life. This May our across-the-street beloved neighbors moved. They were the kind of friends you felt truly #blessed to have as neighbors. My husband and I enjoyed the company of the parents as much as our kids loved playing together. We left for vacation for a week and when we came back, they’d moved already. We knew it was coming, but after the fact … it feels like something is missing. Life on our street doesn’t feel the same.

And I’ll be honest. As a mom of twin 5-year-olds, summer feels rather daunting. I want to be the mom who enjoys the extra free time at home with her children (and some days I do), but I too often feel like the mom who gets tired of being camp director/chef/cleaning boss/chief disciplinarian. Times 100 in the summer because of all.those.hours. Every day. And so.much.heat. And no.more.naps. I don’t want to default to PBS kids’ marathons Mon-Fri because “mama just can’t take it anymore.” So while the finish line of preschool edges ever so close these next few weeks, I am trying to remember the “sweet” part of “bittersweet May” and to remind myself that these days with these 5-year-olds will one day be a wistful glance in the rearview of my life. 

wildflowers

 

 

 

 

Holy Monday

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

{repost from March 30, 2015}

It sits just on the other side of triumphant Palm Sunday, and days before the remembering, mourning, and celebrating of Thursday through Sunday. It can feel lost – this “Holy Monday.” (And is that an oxymoron? How can Monday ever be holy? More often “mundane” is an adjective of choice.)

I wonder if “Holy Monday” (and “Holy Tuesday” and “Holy Wednesday”) are needed so that our hearts are ready for the sobriety of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. For something shifted in the crowd who welcomed Jesus with palm branches waving, surrendering their outerwear as a pathway for their donkey-saddled King. Something shifted between this “Triumphal Entry” and the angry crowds begging for his execution on Friday. It was the overlooked days of “Holy Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday.”

The days when I overlook – or fail to look – at my king, humbled and riding on a donkey, but riding nonetheless TO ME; the days when I overlook the tears Jesus wept over this city (and symbolically, over every city in which any of us dwell); these days are the ones when my heart can go rogue. It slips out beneath my notice and goes after its old lovers. The ones promising quick satisfaction without waiting for long promises to be fulfilled. The lovers who tell me I’m beautiful (especially if I use their line of clothing and beauty products). The ones who lure my restless heart with excitement and adventure (forgetting to highlight the fine print warning of: use only at great risk to your soul). It was these false lovers who won over the hearts of the crowds in the four days between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. The false lovers were clothed in religious garb. They planted questions like –

“How dare he claim to be the Son of God? Who does he think he is?”

“We were promised a Messiah to rescue us. We are still under Roman oppression. Jesus cannot be the promised one.”

“This Jesus is not what we really want. He is working too slow – or not at all.”

And these same religious leaders were at work behind closed doors making deals with an insider who would betray Jesus (Judas). They were plotting his death while the crowds went about their business on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. They were stirring up the crowds, with insidious doubts at first and then with explicit commands.

Holy Monday can become “Holy” only when I first admit how similar I am to these fickle crowds. I want a king who comes on my terms, to deliver me in my way, and to make me powerful with him. A king who calls me to follow after him, deny myself, and lose my life to save it? No, thank you. I think I’ll go find someone else. Holy Monday becomes holy when I look at the God who has won me wholly. Even (especially) in the days when my heart feels prone to wander.

when you break Lent (and it breaks you)

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 5 Comments

This is a post from three years ago, and it’s worth reposting. Because it’s just as true for me now as it was then. The only difference is that my Lenten fast is much smaller now – but it’s still more than what I can do on my own strength!

I offer this as an encouragement to look up and out to Jesus. He is our hope, and He is the whole point of Lent. It’s the journey to the cross.

***

Lent.

The period of 40 weekdays that in the Christian Church is devoted to fasting, abstinence, and penitence.

I chose what I thought would be four hard but do-able items for my Lenten fast this year. Call me an overachiever, or more accurately, an over-estimator of my own strength. A month ago I posted about my hopes for Lent. How hard could it really be? And how refreshing and empowering could it be! In taking away many of my heart’s distractions – phone apps, Target, sweets, t.v. – I assumed that God would replace my heart’s misplaced affections with a renewed love for Christ and the people around me.

About three weeks in, I broke Lent. Fully and completely. Not just one day, but I think it was about every day of the week and I broke every single “fast” multiple times. I rationalized why for each of them.

  • Going to Target will help me stick to our family budget on some key grocery items like Kashi cereal and goldfish.
  • “Non-essential” phone app category expanded dramatically. I started Lent with 6 icons on my home screen that I deemed “non-essential.” I’m ending Lent with twice as many.
  • Television is the only way that my husband and I can really share down time together after busy days in the midst of a busy week
  • I really just “need” a quick pick-me-up. Nothing like a bite of chocolate to do that.

My response to breaking Lent? First, my typical pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot-straps approach: “Just try harder, Heather. Get it together. You can do it!” As this failed, I descended to self-blame, punishment, guilt and shame. “This is really not that hard. There are millions of people in the world who LIVE without these things daily, and you can’t just go without for 40 days?? What is wrong with YOU?” That also got me nowhere fast.

And then I realized that maybe this is the real purpose of Lent. To reveal (again) that I cannot fulfill the Law. Any law – of God’s eternally perfect law, other people’s expectations, or my own standards. Maybe Lent is meant to show me how little I can do in my own strength, and therefore how MUCH I need Jesus and His life, death, and resurrection that we celebrate at Easter. Truth echoed in these verses from Romans 3:19-20 –

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Breaking Lent is one way that the law breaks me. It’s a beautiful breaking, for it leads me to the One who restores and makes new. If I didn’t practice a Lenten fast this year, I would be that much less aware of my helplessness to gain eternal life and a relationship with God on my own strength or efforts. And so, in an upside-down backwards way, breaking Lent has broken me of trying and pointed me in desperate hope to Jesus whose death we remember this week and whose life we celebrate next Sunday. Listen to this hope found in Romans 5:6 and 21 –

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. … so that … grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

As we round the final corner of Lent, walking into Holy Week’s somber reflections, let us remember that we cannot earn Easter on our own merit. Our best trying leaves us hopeless. Let us fall in our weariness and allow Jesus to pick us up and bring us with Him to the cross and then the hope of the empty tomb this week and always.

who’s at your bonfire?

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 6 Comments

Last weekend I attended the 30th birthday party for my youngest brother. I’m the big sister of two younger brothers, although they’ve long since surpassed me in height. So now I look like the little sister. (But my wrinkles prove otherwise. Ha!) I am proud of both of my brothers for the husbands, fathers, and hard-working professionals that they are. I love them dearly, and their wives are like the sisters I never had. Since we live far away from each other, family gatherings are more infrequent than we’d choose, but we try to make the moments count when we’re together.

bonfireSo last weekend I drove the hours necessary to be present at his monumental birthday party. And it was a blast! My favorite part had to be the bonfire in the backyard of the extensive property where he lives. As we huddled around the warm glow, the circle of family and friends who love my brother was enviable (in the best of ways). He’s stayed close to home, and so present at the bonfire-birthday-party was a friend he’s known since they were toddlers – who had his own toddler in tow. There was also another good friend he’s known since high school, and a guy he had mentored as well as his incredible boss/employer who’s mentored him. There were representatives of the family – parents and in-laws and a sibling and nieces and a nephew – and we all enjoyed gathering around the bonfire with one another. We came together to celebrate this friend/family member whose joy for life has always been contagious.

And it made me think as the chill in the air increased, and we all began moseying back inside and into our cars and back to our homes – the bonfire is a great image for a circle of friends and family. Ones who’ve made our history with us, who remember the stories we’d rather forget or the moments so beautiful for having been shared.

To gather all the friends I love around a bonfire would entail literally flying people in from the corners of globe – from Singapore and Nairobi, Kenya – and from coast to coast, North/South/East/West.

And isn’t that the picture of heaven? We will all come around – gather together – around the One we love, whose Joy welcomes us in and warms our hearts with the Spirit’s fire.

I’ll leave you with a verse that gives words to this vision from Isaiah 60 –

“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
2 See, darkness covers the earth
    and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
    and his glory appears over you.
3 Nations will come to your light,
    and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

4 “Lift up your eyes and look about you:
    All assemble and come to you;
your sons come from afar,
    and your daughters are carried on the hip.
5 Then you will look and be radiant,
    your heart will throb and swell with joy;..”

 

 

Konmari and my bookshelf

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

On my birthday, my best friend gifted me with a magical book, titled “the life-changing magic of tidying up” by Marie Kondo, a Japanese organizing professional. It had already been buzzing around my circle of friends when Mary told me about it at a spring baby shower. She described it in those very terms – “life-transforming!” and summarized the book by saying, “You clean out your house by asking the simple question of every item in it: does this spark joy?” I’ll admit I was a bit skeptical when I first heard about it. It sounds a bit too simple, and “magical” and organizing don’t seem to fit together in a book title. Plus as a Christian who puts value in the spiritual and eternal over the temporary and material, none of my stuff *should* spark true joy, right?

Yes, and no. Of course possessions shouldn’t spark true, lasting eternal joy, but the things I choose to invest in should bring some measure of meaning and beauty into my life. Beauty reflects God’s glory wherever it is found. And shouldn’t I want my house and closet and bookshelf to only be filled with what seems beautiful (and useful) to me/our family? Additionally, if my energy and time and attention is consumed with maintaining all my “things,” I have less of it to devote to what is truly and most important in my life – relationships, service, justice, mercy, kindness, God’s Word, to list a few.

So I read the book this summer, and decided that when my 5-year-olds started 5-day preschool this fall, I would give the “Konmari method” a fair shot. I’ve sorted through clothing and books so far, with three categories remaining: paper, miscellany, memorabilia. And it has been pretty darn close to magical in terms of how liberating it feels to get rid of things I do not want or need. I can feel my mental capacity increasing as my things in my closet decrease and as my bookshelves open up. For me as a self-professed bibliophile, that says something.

  

And an important caveat: no method is 100% effective, nor can it be for all people. I’m not following all of her suggestions, and there’s a few sections I’m amending or omitting entirely. Like emptying my purse every day and thanking all of my things for serving me each day. Or her instruction not to roll up socks because they’ve done so much work during the day and need some rest. I’m not an animist, and parts of her book sound a bit like animism and a mixture of her Japanese Shintoism. But I as a Christian should be first in line to care for things better, and to live life more simply and with greater joy. Plus – for a second post in the future – all the things I’m purging from my house can be put to better use and shared with those who need them more than I do.

If you’ve tried the Konmari method, has it worked for you? What’s been your experience? I’d love to hear from you. It’ll give me the courage I need to tackle the piles and piles and piles of papers scattered throughout my house as next week’s Konmari task … !

Five Minute Friday: “same”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 6 Comments

It’s ironic that this week’s writing prompt is “same” after a week that’s been anything but same. My daughters turned 5-years-old on Tuesday and also began pre-K for the year. Our family has a whole new schedule now since they’re attending five days a week. I feel like I can breathe again and get to a few projects I’ve been putting off all summer, like purging KonMari style.

For today, I write. Join us?

****

At the beginning of motherhood, it was the repetitive nature of “same” that squelched my soul. Feed, pump, sleep, repeat. Every day felt like the movie “Groundhog Day,” which is exactly the same day on repeat. As much as we all appreciate same, we count on each day to be distinguished in some way. Not for all of them to run together. Even the most rigid of us don’t really want “same” day-in and day-out.

We want the newborns to grow up and begin talking, walking, and eating independently. We want our spouses to change in the areas that bug us. I want to get rid of bad habits that have been the same for far too long.

And yet same can also be an anchor. There are things in life we count on to be the same, and if they are shaken, so are we.

photo credit: theatlantic.com

photo credit: theatlantic.com

Fourteen years ago to this day, 9/11 interrupted the “same” monotony we were dwelling in as Americans and told us life would never be the same. And not only for those immediately impacted by the twin towers’ fall, but all of us all over America. Somehow the illusion of safety under which we lived shattered. At least for our generation who had not known the devastation of either World War.

In a world where so much is shaken, we need “the same.” But change is inevitable, both in seasons and in relationships. How can we adapt to the shifting tides without being overwhelmed by them?

***

A poem I wrote in 2007 upon reflection on 9/11 –

“remembering 9/11”

Before:
innocence,
naivety,
impenetrable defense,
children playing happily in the streets,
businessmen going about their routines,
the Big Apple buzzing with activity
Unaware

Until
the unthinkable occurred
we were attacked by terrorists
Here.
Not “over there”
the towers fell
our proud self-confidence with them

After:
suspicion,
paranoia,
the fear of attack,
danger lurks on every corner
wives grieve, children fear
that today he might disappear
terror enters the American dream
National security?
Now exposed as a myth
(or a political ideal).

Five Minute Friday: “yes”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

Diving right into Five Minute Friday today with this week’s prompt of “yes.” Read more about Five Minute Friday at Kate Motaung’s blog, who hosts this weekly gathering/writing.

***

Every yes entails a thousand “no’s.” So I want to make my yes count. Saying no and drawing boundaries gets a lot of press these days, yet I wonder if that’s because we don’t rightly know how to say yes?

Yes to healthy.

Yes to good.

Yes to valuable.

Yes to our gifts and talents and small, specific callings.

Yes to those we profess to love the most.

Yes to what our souls need instead of what our worlds demand of us.

Yes to love.

Yes to grace.

Yes to embracing what’s true and life-giving.

Yes to the path of life.

Yes to the One who said “yes” to me through agonized cries on a hill called Golgotha.

Yes to resurrection life because of God’s “yes and Amen” in Christ.

Yes to freedom.

Yes to getting messy for good causes.

Yes to engaging social injustice of our day.

Yes to quiet and rest.

Yes to slow and calm.

Yes to an unplanned day or hour or week.

Yes to good books and life-refreshing friends.

What’s your yes?

***

summer book report: a trio of “ordinary” books, part 1

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 3 Comments

Summer is almost over. By that I mean we are two weeks and a few days away from day one of back to {pre}school! The summer has been good, in the way that hard things are ultimately good for you or that vegetables are good for your health. There were many days that felt like I was merely slogging through, like the long, hot days mid-summer when spring was a memory and fall a distant dream. My main tasks were (1) parenting my twin four-year-old daughters and (2) revising the manuscript for my first book to be released early summer 2016 on shame.  These are mutually exclusive tasks. No multi-tasking possible, and it was hard to feel distracted by one when seeking to do the other. Both tasks are also quite ordinary and a bit mundane. It is absolutely an unexpected and incredible opportunity to be writing a book but that doesn’t make editing sentences and punctuation any more glamourous. And, yes, being at home with my kids can be “the best hardest job in the world” when we’re having a blast at the beach or they’re being super-sweet, but these same kids still need to sleep, and get their clothes dirty every day, and occasionally (wink, wink) do not listen to my instructions.

My husband took a mission trip to Japan with our church in early July. He came back with stories of watching God at work in another culture and great pictures of Japanese sushi and Mt. Fuji. While happy for him, I felt a bit left behind like I usually do when he gets to have what I think of as “great frontline experiences” while I am manning the homefront.

But, oh, how good it is for me who can be so prideful and self-sufficient and self-everything to have to learn the hidden work of ordinary! And I was not left without guides, which came in the form of three books I read this summer.

Ordinary by Michael Horton called me to reexamine my definition and methods of success and happiness with the idea that the most important change toward Christ-likeness often happens in the most “ordinary” ways. It’s not only or primarily the mountain-top experiences that build faith, but the day-in, day-out challenge of faithfulness to where God’s placed me today. A few of the many quotes I underlined:

Even more than I’m afraid of failure, I’m terrified by boredom. Facing another day, with ordinary callings to ordinary people all around us is much more difficult than chasing my own dreams that I have envisioned for the grand story of my life.

This is not a call to do less, but to invest in things that we often give up on when we don’t see an immediate return.

When I find my justification in Christ alone, I am free to love and serve others in ordinary and unheralded ways.

Instead of mounting up to heaven in self-righteous ambition, we reach out to those who are right under our nose each day who need something that we have to offer.

We do not find success by trying to be successful or happiness by trying to be happy. Rather, we find these things by attending to the skills, habits, and — to be honest — the often dull routines that make us even modestly successful at anything. If you are always looking for an impact, a legacy, and success, you will not take the time to care for the things that matter.

It is precisely because of this extraordinary hope [of glorification in Christ], therefore, that we can embrace the ordinary lives God gives us here and now.

That’ll preach, as they say back where I grew up in the South. It’ll preach meaning and purpose to you as you’re doing dishes and picking up shoes and clothes of the little people or big people in your house. It’ll preach as you faithfully complete the spreadsheet and budget review and as you reply to emails and answer phone calls. It’ll preach to you and me every day of our lives actually. For ordinary will be part of each day we live, and God is at work right in the midst of these tasks. What hope that is for today!

Next up – A Loving Life by Paul Miller, coming your way in the next few days.

for all the spiritual moms on Mother’s Day

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment
photo from ksl.com

photo from ksl.com

This is for you, the often overlooked one who won’t be officially included in this weekend’s celebration, but who has birthed many, many souls into being. You have done perhaps harder work than that which will be officially honored this Sunday, harder in that it is less recognized for the great personal sacrifice and deep loneliness you’ve carried in your birthing work. As you have ached to mother physical children, you have continued to nurture spiritual children. You have been available all hours of the day and night for the woman in distress, the teen on the brink of ending it all, or the 23-year-old who just had a devastating break-up, or for a peer crippled with the agony of discovering her husband’s affair. You have borne all of this, and more. You have cried along with them, and you have wept hidden tears for the husband you’ve always dreamed about or the children you wish God had given you.

You, like Hannah in the Bible, may have wept agonizing prayers of tears as the aching desires of your heart overflowed. Others have likely misunderstood you, offering you petty cliches that while true felt trite. Like, “Jesus is your husband,” and “God has given you more time to serve the church.” Perhaps what you needed first was an understanding embrace, or one willing to cry with you at the decades of disappointment you’ve carried. Yes, God has met you amidst your loneliness, and he has provided for you, but it has not been easy nor is that need all in the past tense. You know that because you don’t have physical children, more needs will arise and you’ll continually have to ask God for provision. You are in many ways a modern day widow, even if you are married, in that the society often overlooks you.

I want you to know today that you are seen. You are known. And you are invaluable to the kingdom’s advancing and the fabric of church communities. I pray that my daughters will have spiritual mothers like you available to them when I just can’t help them because I’m too close to their situation. I pray that whether my daughters have physical children or not, that they will, like you, spiritually nurture and care for many souls. I pray that in their waiting days – waiting for marriage, or for conception, or for grief of what’s lost to pass – that they will be able to think of at least one of you who will cheer her on by example.

I’m thinking of my friend who ministers to the sexually broken and hurting, courageously risking much to bring the hope of the gospel into these places of confusion and pain. I’m thinking of another friend who has helped develop and teach Jesus-centered curriculum to women and men across the world. And of another sister who is assisting in administration of a Christian counseling center, while she also pours into the lives of many women through personal counsel. Yet another woman comes to mind who has welcomed missionaries and missionary candidates for decades through her gracious and warm hospitality. I’m thinking of you in my church who bolster my heart with your words of encouragement and your endurance in the faith through your care for others and your support of us. I’m thinking of my clients brave enough to speak of how difficult it is to be single, to be childless, of how the world often seems to pass them by (Sunday mornings can be hardest).

I’m thinking of you, and I want you to read this as a heartfelt note of appreciation on behalf of all of your spiritual children who will rise up and call you blessed on the last day. Thank you for your hidden service, your poured-out love, your difficult endurance, and your courage to keep on going step-by-step. I pray that this Sunday you will feel God’s smile upon you in tangible ways. Might we who know 1-2 of these such women be part of God’s words of appreciation to you?

what I learned in April: Uber, Rifle Paper Co, and Coloring Books for adults

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

It was a busy month, but then again I think every month lately has been. April was busy in a different way because my husband and I were out of town for 5 days at a conference/getaway. Which made the rest of the month … well … a bit exhausting, between getting ready to go out of town and then coming back from being away and having to catch up on life. It caught me off guard – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Here are a few things I learned in April (linking up with Emily Freeman):

what we learned in april

1 – Koala bears are not bears, but marsupials. We learned this from a new favorite book recently checked out from the library: Xander’s Panda Party.

IMG_86722 –  Rifle Paper Co. and its designer/founder are pretty amazing. My husband grew up with the owner/designer, Anna Bond, and so we were able to get a personal tour of their company/storefront in Winter Garden. I was in awe of the remarkable growth in five years, and of Anna’s creativity and unassuming spirit. She graciously autographed a few items that I bought, and put up with my starry-eyed admiration when I asked to take a picture with her.

photo from nytimes.com

photo from nytimes.com

3 – Uber is the best way to get around Orlando, Florida. We tried this alternative-taxi service available through a phone app and loved it. I mean, within minutes of requesting a ride, a personal driver showed up at the very corner of Winter Garden where we were waiting.

4 – Crossway publishing company is a great fit for me as I write my first book with them. It’s on the topic of shame, and I’m unashamedly happy to be part of such a team. I was able to meet many of them in person for the first time at the conference we attended in Orlando (The Gospel Coalition).

5 – Jen Wilkin, Christina Fox, Jen Pollock Michel, and Bethany Jenkins are my newest favorite writing-friends. They have each written extensively for several sites including TGC blog, Her.meneutics, and/or Desiring God, and I wish we all lived closer and could hang out and talk about the highs and lows of writing and finding God in the midst of the process together.

6 – I can feel tremendous (self-imposed) pressure to go to all the scheduled events of a conference, when what I may need more is space to rest. This was the double-edged sword for me of the conference we attended: I didn’t want to miss anything, but it was a fairly packed schedule and so I also didn’t want to miss out on anything great either. Added to this was the fact that Seth and I needed/wanted a getaway just the two of us – and instead were part of a conference attended by 6,000. Next time: two separate trips for two different purposes!

7 – Doing too much without breaks leads to a break-down. The week after returning was rough for me. I felt tired yet needed to be “on” as a parent, counselor, and moving assistant for my in-laws. Note to self: working for days on end without rest/good breaks is not good for the soul or body.

coloring page8 – Best new trend worth trying: coloring books for adults. Seriously. Read this article, and then purchase your own here.