Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

"It's a phase," I told myself. No. It's a zoo.

The moments when my babies are out of the loop are some of the purest, rawest, most childlike moments of my life. When I'm standing there desperate, when my heart is an open wound, feeling pulled in all directions, and the cries and screams of my children and the insurmountable lists of to-dos are the salt, those are the moments when I wonder, who is the real child here? 

I'm too weak for this. Too unworthy for this kind of work, Lord. 

"What do you want? Please...just use your words. Tell me what you want!" I didn't understand my daughter's jumbled cries, her fit of rage, so I exercised my authority with another shout.

She tugged on my dress, stomped her feet, and dissolved into a fit of tears.

Breathe. I'm too weak for this. Too unworthy for this kind of work, Lord. 

Hold me. She reached her little arms up, pleading with her eyes.

"Do you want me to hold you?" I picked her up and she nestled into my neck. Suddenly, the world made sense. Hold me.

In her embrace, a thousand words and feelings dripped into my heart like droplets of rain on a dry, summer day.

"Why didn't you just say 'Hold me, Mama.'? Why didn't you just tell me?"

Words were no longer necessary.

My parched soul, oblivious of what my daughter needed in that moment, clung to my little girl and reminded me that I needed to be held, too...that I needed to stop and let the Holy Spirit work in me a new heart, a new attitude, a new hope, and a new perspective--not just on Sunday morning. Sometimes the kitchen floor will work just fine.

We don't always do a great job verbalizing our needs to the Lord. How often do we forget to take care of ourselves? How often do we forget that we need held, too?

I'm not perfect. I can't always read my children's minds. I can't always understand their cries and their words, but I'm thankful God understands me. I'm thankful He knows what I need before I even remember to utter my cry. Romans 8:26 says, "In the same way the Spirit [comes to us and] helps us in our weakness. We do not know what prayer to offer or how to offer it as we should, but the Spirit Himself [knows our need and at the right time] intercedes on our behalf with sighs and groanings too deep for words."(AMP) What power lies in these words!

Thank God for this assurance. What would we do without His intercession? What would we do without His prayers that words can't even articulate?

Whether you're staring at a pile of bills bigger than your grocery buggy, you're wrangling a few toddlers on the church pew, or Laundry Mountain is about to erupt..whether you're facing an unforeseen tragedy, you're too exhausted to pray, you're too angry to give it to God, you're hanging onto bitterness, or you've found yourself in a new season where you're struggling to adjust, you don't have to scream and wail to get God's attention. He is there. Sometimes we simply need to stop, reach up our hands, and fall into his everlasting arms. 

What a fellowship, what a joy divine 

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

What a blessedness, what a peace is mine

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

Leaning, Leaning

Safe and secure from all alarm

Leaning, Leaning

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

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Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

Guest Post with CeJe Thompson Hearn: Called to Mommyhood in the Trenches

“Longevity isn’t the discussion we have here. It isn’t about long-term planning, it is about quality. You have to begin with acceptance. There IS NO CURE.“
I had carried on a discussion like this before. I had seen a face like that doctor's one other time in my life. I had also seen the smiles like those of the sweet nurses, that smile that makes you want to scream because you feel like they know a secret or that says they feel sorry for you. I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for us, but at the same time I wanted to fall into their arms and crumble into a million pieces. I’d been here.

I recognized all of this from when I was told by doctors about my mom’s terminal cancer. No one is supposed to live this moment about your child, yet here I was, on Valentine’s Day nonetheless, and I was in that room alone. Surreal is the only description for seeing your son get valentines from volunteers in a Neuro-ICU. I wanted to scream, “We don’t know you and we don’t want this!”

I will never forget how in that little five minute conversation everything in my world changed. I’m not saying that lightly, I mean everything. Did you know that every part of your body can sense fear? I still smell that hospital room, it smelled of the IV meds; the same meds that would define the rest of our days. The sounds in that hospital room would become the steady, beeping sounds of assurance; but also the sounds of fear that my family would learn to live by. The sights of wires and cords from my child’s head mixed with the colorful nature at Children’s Hospital would become an oddity that my son would learn to accept. I still can’t. I was terrified to touch my own child in that moment, but I was terrified to let him go. Then taste, the taste was that kind of taste that was chemical, it was too clean. Every sense was present and enhanced by a million on that day. Even the amount of tears and the volume of the scream that could come from my body was greater. I didn’t want to be here, but here I was. At that moment, I held the newest membership card to a club I didn’t ever want to join, the club of Parents of (what doctors would at that moment call) Dying Kids. Valentine’s Day.

I felt anything but loved and I felt the strong, helpless love of a Mother all at once.

I struggled for more than a year with what happened that day. I still struggle, sometimes it is just day-by-day. I have screamed and I have begged and I have pleaded with God to change my circumstances. I’ve considered every option, even taking my own life, to avoid watching my son suffer and to avoid the life we live at times. I lost sight of everything good. Evil won some battles in my life for a period of time. I wanted the social media, pretty side of “Mommyhood”, but God was calling me to something bigger than my small mind could fathom. I was called to “Mommyhood” in the trenches.

Hope would come though. Psalm 34:18 says, “The Lord is near to those who are discouraged; he saves those who have lost all hope.”

I received this calling on Valentine’s Day 2015. Since then, I’ve studied what a Mom should be. I had a false idea that a mom prayed for her family, she made cookies, she washed ball uniforms, she planned trips, she volunteered at school, she cooked and cleaned. I knew I was horrible at a lot of that, especially cooking and cleaning, but that’s what a mom did and so I could do those things.

Now there is “Mommyhood” in the trenches.

That kind of momming means praying for your family when you are totally and completely out of words, and wholly dependent on the Intercessor to interpret your groanings. I’ve had to learn that. “Mommyhood” in the trenches meant washing bedsheets instead of uniforms, it means trips to the doctor or hospital instead of the zoo and it means begging a child to eat a bite to avoid a feeding tube.
So why share this on Valentine’s Day? Well, because that Valentine’s Day has grown me into a person who understands that love is so much more than what we understand on the surface.

“You made me suffer a lot, but you will bring me back from this deep pit and give me new life. “– Psalm 71:20

Since we entered the trenches, I have fallen more in love with my husband than I could have ever imagined because he has never left me in the pit alone.

I have learned how much my son loves me and how much I truly love someone who most would say could never give me anything back. My Zach is an example of the purest kind of love and joy. Most importantly, I have truly learned God’s love. I know I will never fully understand His love, but Psalm 86:15 says, "But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." During those nights that I stayed awake and stared, screamed and cried; even as I contemplated ending my life, I had a Savior watching over me. I had a steadfast, faithful, and loving Savior who never wavered. I encourage you, if you are doing “Mommyhood”, or “Wifehood”, or “Friendhood”, or even “Workhood” in the trenches, know a Savior is there waiting on you to call out to him.

2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”




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Guest Post with CeJe Thompson Hearn: Called to Mommyhood in the Trenches