stress

Resting in His Heart Beat

/ shawnheather96 / Leave a comment

Recently as I was holding baby Max, he was doing his little grump noises, where he sucks on the pacifier and “complains” with each suck. He was sleepy, but fighting it, and his whole body was becoming more and more tense. As I held him close to my heart and patted his little bum, I felt my own body tensing up. Slowly I inhaled – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 – held it for 7, then exhaled for 7 and started again. Box breathing, I think this is called, and I learned it from my counselor as a way to regulate my nervous system. I’ve started to incorporate breath prayers into it. As I breath in I think, “More of You,” and as I exhale I think, “Less of me.” It’s quite effective and helps me center my body while putting my gaze back on him.

This time, however, my own body was tensing, and Max was becoming more and more agitated. I had always heard that babies can sense your own state of mind. So as I breathed in and out and set my own heart to a calm pace, I prayed, “Calm his heart,” and “Give him peace.” I slowly watched Max calm down. Soon his breathing and heart were regulating to mine, and we were both relaxing into peace again.

It’s not always that simple. Sometimes he is hungry or needs a diaper change. But often it is just that he needs a little help regulating all those emotions and that growing nervous system. I get it.

As I was staring down at Max’s little face, God once again used this little one to remind me of his love for me. Psalm 27:8 says, “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, LORD, do I seek.’” In seeking him, sometimes this means the restlessness in me is simply hunger. I need his Word to nourish my heart, mind, and soul. I need to be intentional about spending time taking it in and allowing it to transform me. As I hunger and thirst, his word fills and quenches.

Sometimes seeking him means coming with the mess that I can do nothing about on my own. I come in my filth – my dirty diaper or my vomit all over me. I can’t clean myself up – only the work of Jesus can do that. I can only look to him to do it. If I try it becomes worse and worse and I find the mess smeared all over me and everything around me. But God is not scared of it. He looks at me, his child, and reminds me of who I really am now with this new, exchanged life with Christ.

Other times, probably more often than I care to admit, seeking his face simply means laying my head over his heart, listening to that steady beat, taking in the soothing, calming, life-giving breath of his Spirit, and regulating my system to his. Sometimes all I can do is rest. Truthfully, this is probably the case for me more often than not. I am a do-er, I like to get things done quickly and efficiently. I like to see results and move on the next thing. Sitting and resting – intentionally quieting the world around me, closing my eyes, and listening only to the heartbeat of my Savior – that seems, well, inefficient, lazy even. There must be something I should be doing.

I don’t think that when Max is laying on my chest struggling to calm down. I whisper, I breath deep, I trace my fingers over his face. Because I know that his little body needs sleep so he can keep being who was made to be. He needs rest, he needs help with all those emotions and reactions within his body. As he rests, his body becomes stronger, his mind becomes healthier, and his emotions more stable. He is able to wake and be joyful and engaged.

Why do I have a hard time believing I need the same?

Once again Max is pointing me to Jesus, but not by anything he does, rather simply by his own neediness. It’s ministry through weakness at it’s finest.

Listen and Receive

/ shawnheather96 / Leave a comment

I want to be the person God created me to be, not just a shell of that person.  Before I surrendered my life to Jesus and asked the Holy Spirit to live within me I was but a shadow of the person that God created me to be.  I know that I am still being sanctified, and the finished work of that will not come to fruition until I standing face to face with Him one day in Heaven – how glorious that will be!  But I believe that He has a good plan and purpose for me here on this earth, too, and often I am just “doing life” without remembering this.

My Bible is old, beat up, underlined, and highlighted.  I have had it for many years, so there are prayer requests and answers to those prayers written beside verses and on the inside of the cover.  While I love this because it is a good reminder of the way He truly does answer prayer, sometimes it makes it hard to read things with fresh, new eyes.  My mind almost thinks that if it is not already highlighted there must not be anything there that applies to me.  This week I opened my Bible up to read the Psalms and was on chapter 81. I started skimming through it since it was not highlight already, but my heart caught when I read the last few verses.  “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me.  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.  If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!  Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.  But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”  (Verses 11-16)

I read and re-read this part of the passage again trying to figure out why my heart was catching each time.  What did the Spirit want me to get from this?  The Israelites were in outright rebellion- worshipping foreign gods and refusing to listen.  I am not in that place.  I have been in my life before, but in this time there is a lot of peace in my heart.

Like the hug of a parent reassuring a child that she is not in trouble, I felt the presence of God.  I knew this was not a rebuke so much as a reminder and encouragement that He knew something about me that I had forgotten – I am His and He is mine.  In that he desires to give me good things.  Often I miss out because I am simply not listening.

One of the things I had to do with my kids when they were younger (and still sometimes) is to cup my hand under their chin and make them look me in the eye and repeat to me what I just said.  We humans don’t tend to be good listeners.  We are looking at other things, thinking about a response, getting distracted by things of this world.  Sometimes we just plain rebel and say, “No!” and stick out fingers in our ears to prove that we are not listening.

My issue wasn’t outright rebellion this time, but I realized that my heart and mind are often distracted and looking for answers and peace in places other than Him.  The beginning of this lockdown phase was a welcome relief for me in some ways.  I love hosting people for dinner and having people stay in our home.  I am an extrovert, and I am really missing my people right now.  But the slower pace of the first week, and having our daughter back in country made me take a deep breath, sleep more, bake some delicious, homemade food, and have more conversations as a family. It also allowed for my heart to be still for longer periods of time (as much as possible with this ADHA brain) and dig into His word.  My prayer times were meaningful and my heart was full.

Then life started happening again.  Like all of you, I started adapting to my “new normal.”  Suddenly, as I was immersed in trying to make it all come together – work from home, school, family, church, learning new technology, etc, – I found my heart crazy and panicked.  When I had free time all I could think about was doing something that didn’t require learning something new or thinking too hard.  So Netflix became my new god, sitting in my room with headphones to block out the world became my new temple, and snacking on easy, sugar filled things became my new sacrifice.  With this practice the peace I had known was eventually used up and gone and I was doing nothing to refill it in a way that truly life-giving.  I was listening to too much noise all around around me and not able to filter out the still, small voice that was the true answer.

That the first week or two of quarantine was a gift, but it is not what real life can look like forever.  However, the peace that I had those days is also real, and a glimpse of what is to be mine forever.  When I wake up each morning and surrender my heart to him; when I get done with a stressful zoom meeting and take just a moment to surrender that stress to him; when I am frazzled because everyone needs my attention at the same time but I pause to take a breath and say, “Father, help!” – these are holy moments.  They are the times that take my ear back to listening for His voice.  When I stop and surrender my anxieties and stress to Him, He carries the load and suddenly I am lighter and able to keep doing whatever it is He has called me to do in the moment.  Everything doesn’t become perfect or sorted out, but my ability to do look at it in peace, calmness, and   (yes!) even joy becomes a reality as the Spirit flows in and through me.  Then, and only then – when my ear is poised to hear Him and my heart is ready to respond- that is when I am satisfied with the “finest of wheat and honey from the rock.”

So I ask you today – what altar have you been worshipping on?  Many of these things are not bad- I can enjoy my favorite TV show and have a chocolate chip cookie once in a while.  But when when they become my go-to and I stop listening for Him then I can’t see the amazing and miraculous things He has prepared for me.  Brothers and sisters, He wants to give you so much more than you can even imagine.  We just need to make space to hear Him and receive.