The “Lord Give Me Patience” Prayer

I want to be lots of things. Like, I want to be creative. I’m not just talking “artsy craftsy.” I mean legit creative, like the person who thought of repurposing a hanging shoe organizer as a vertical herb garden. I know there is such a person because I saw this picture of their geniusness posted on facebook…

Who looks at a shoe organizer and thinks, “Ah hah! Gardening!”?? A creative person, that’s who.

And while we’re on the subject of my jealousy issues thinly masked as appreciation of other’s giftedness, take a look at the inside of my refrigerator:

Do you know what that is? It’s a lazy susan.

IN MY REFRIGERATOR.

And do you know why it’s there? It’s there working its geniusness because someone who is not me was creative enough to envision how TOTALLY AWESOME it would be there.

Maybe you’re wondering what all this has to do with a blog title about patience. And maybe you’re also wondering about the best spot in your yard to hang that shoe organizer… the one that has been so sadly and unoriginally hanging on the back of your closet door til now. But stay with me.

I want to be creative. I want to be a happy, energetic morning person. I want a body that magically transforms chips into the nutritional substance of spinach. But I would trade all that for something else…

I want to be patient.

And I have this feeling that a lot of you want to be patient too. Partly I think this because my intuition senses it to be true. Also my blog “site stats” page tells me that almost every day someone stumbles across my blog by searching for “Lord give me patience”… or some variation of that prayer. And it just so happens that a blog I wrote a long while back has that phrase in its title. My blog gets more hits from that search phrase than from any other search phrase by a LONG shot… nothing else comes remotely close.

So a lot of people are praying for patience, this we know. We are them. And I have this little desire… this burning quest to spend some time exploring the beautiful and illusive virtue of patience. And, if all goes well, even living to blog about it.

I say all this as a woman who is, by nature, violently hostile to the very idea of patience. I remember it vividly- sitting in my third grade class one day, with sweet old Mrs. McComb in her chair, her aerosol can of Finesse hairspray sitting there as always on the corner of her desk (this actually is not important information to the story, but the longer I go with it, the more patience you are practicing. Do you see how that works?) Anyway, I remember sitting there as a 3rd grader and reasoning to myself that I had been in school 3 years (which seemed like an eternity already), which meant I had 9 years left (which seemed inconceivable), which meant I would have to be in school 3 times as long as I already had been until I would be finished. My fairly awesome math skillz aside, that was a dark day for me. This is who I am.

And one day that kid grew up and had kids of her own. Three of them. Boys. And you know what? I had them all in about 5 minutes. I’m always fascinated by those people who introduce their kids with something like, “This is Janie- she’s 12. And Hunter- he’s 5. And this is little Avery- she’s 6 months.” In my head I’m always thinking How did you do that? There’s space for like 9 more kids in there. But for some reason beyond my comprehension, it’s often because they were delighted to wait a nice long while before going back and STARTING. ALL. OVER.

???

So know that whatever blogging comes on this topic is coming from the perspective of someone who knows the battleground for patience like the back of my closet where I sit in the fetal position sometimes when the madness gets too much for me to handle.

I mean like the back of my hand.

I give these disclaimers because I just want to be REAL clear that I am not asserting myself as the Zen Mother Jedi of Patience. Know that I am a woman who has actually prayed for Jesus to come back as my best solution to avoiding a grocery store trip with all my children in tow. (That’s not really true.)

(Except that it is.)

But I am learning. And I want to learn. And I believe that Jesus loves even us type A, get it done and make it fast people too. Bless our hearts, He does.

So let the journey towards greater patience begin. God help us.

 

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by sarahonpurpose on April 17, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by sarahonpurpose on April 17, 2012

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Meditating on the meaning of this weekend and the history of the garden…

 
It was a garden.
Where you broke through emptiness, brought forth life, birthed a son. 
Spoken word divided meaning from nothingness.
Shared breath emptied air into lung, grace into heart,
   eternity into spirit.
It was a garden where you set rhythm to life.
 
And then we wandered. 
Broke shalom. Doubted back towards emptiness, barrenness.
Spoken lie divided Father and child.
Shared defiance emptied love of trust, conscience of innocence. 
It was a garden where child turned traitor.
 
And years passed.
By the thousands. Through wilderness and wasteland.
Spoken warnings from the prophets. Divided hearts. Divided kingdom.
Shared judgment emptied the land of its people,
    the people of their strength.
Until one returned to a garden…
 
Another son, face to his Father.
Knee bent, body to be broken. On behalf of the barren.
Spoken pleas divided blood from sweat.
Shared flesh, shared sorrow. Emptied mercy onto the condemned, 
    judgment onto the innocent.
It was a garden where obedience was reclaimed, order restored.
 
And it was a garden
Where you broke all comprehension, brought history to its crux,
   buried the son.
Work was finished. Silence of the Sabbath. Then  
Spoken promises long ago divided the living from the dead.
Shared holiness emptied sin of its power, death of its sting,
   the tomb of its holdings.
It was a garden where you did this.
Where you broke through emptiness, brought forth life, birthed a hope
 
That changes everything.
 
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…
1 Peter 1:3
 
 
 
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by sarahonpurpose on April 6, 2012  •  Permalink
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When Life isn’t Disneyland

I have watched cranes take flight over lapping water and monkeys play on the sandy beaches of Lake Victoria. I have warmed by turquoise waters under the Caribbean sun, have watched seal and dolphin swim south along the California coast of  Zuma. I have hiked mountains among the moss-covered boulders and towering firs of Canada’s western splendor and bounced along red rocky footpaths through the tall grasses of African bush on the back of a boda boda… a hired dirtbike with the driver who chuckles freely at how tightly I hold onto him.

These are the things that go through my mind as I jog this morning. The levee stretches before me towards the Dallas skyline and the hazy sunrise behind it, and every pound of foot to gravel is an act of discipline this morning. Not desire. These are not the days of exotic grandeur, the days when it is easy to jump out of bed and breathe in the majesty that is everywhere around you. Some days you spend 45 minutes laboring with everything in you to get your four year old to do what should only take 10 minutes. Some days an army of boys shows up at your house and doesn’t play nicely or follow your instructions and you finally send them home because you are frustrated and tired. Some days you sit at the middle school down the street and watch an eighth grader leave the campus in handcuffs under police escort and you struggle to believe it can ever be different for him.

So I remind myself as I discipline my body this morning, that my mind and my heart need to be disciplined even moreso…

…to refuse to live numb to God’s grace that has ordained these days too

… to receive the ordinary and the challenging with the same open hands that are willing to receive the extraordinary and the easy

… to recite with tongue and soul the wisdom of the ancients that infuses strength and corrects vision:

Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion… Ps 103:1-4


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by sarahonpurpose on March 27, 2012  •  Permalink
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Seasons of NINE YEARS…

Many of you have heard that we were in San Antonio this weekend for their independent Christian film festival and that we were thrilled for Seasons of Gray to win the Audience Choice Award for best film at the festival. We were so encouraged by the kind words and overwhelming supportive responses of so many. I’ve come away with a lot to think about, a lot to chew on and a lot to be thankful for. And I just wanted to take a minute and share just a few of those things…

First, the journey to making Seasons has been, by no means, conventional. It has been a journey of faith and a labor of love that has not fit any mold or formula other than us learning to continually ask, along with others, God, what do you want us to do and give us the strength to do it. Aside from the actual production of content, the journey has been, to Paul and me, a lab for learning a thousand different things… how to communicate with each other through differences, how to celebrate each other’s strengths and not compete against them, how to persevere when the passion for something dwindles (which sometimes happens over NINE YEARS), how to receive direction from the Lord one step at a time without the comforting illusion of long term security, how to remain grounded in our sense of the Lord’s calling without riding the waves of public opinion… a lot of growing took place through this process. A lot of growing still needs to take place and is continuing to take place as we face one crazy turn after crazy twist still. But the specific, singular point that I am getting to, which I know you are surprised to find out exists after this paragraph, is: We cannot let ourselves underestimate the value of the journey because we are so fixated on the destination. Oh, I am such a destination person, with every fiber of my being, and the Lord is so determined to break me of it, for which I bless His name a thousand times. I am a slow learner sometimes, becoming too attached to desired outcomes and seeing everything that seems to stand in the way of those outcomes as my enemy. But if Isaiah 46:10  is true when God says: “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please”, then the outcomes can be left to Him (which may or may not line up with my ideas or expectations). And the life if found in knowing Him and trusting Him and obeying Him all along the way, no matter what comes.

Secondly, while down at the festival we had so many people give us such gracious compliments on our work. And while it was extremely encouraging to hear, and while we are unbelievably grateful for the roles God has allowed us to play throughout this endeavor, I have been so overwhelmed by the reality of what it took to get to this point… it took hundreds, if not thousands of people. They gave their money. They gave their creative energy. They gave their summer. They gave their stuff. They gave. They gave. They gave. And you will see their names on the screen for a moment at the end of the film, and if you know them personally, you will no doubt remember stories of blood, sweat and tears from a hot summer in Texas a few years back… but in moments like Saturday night where five of us got up on a stage for two minutes in front of a thousand people and were handed a glass trophy, I wanted to shout, you have no idea!!! You don’t know how Jordan Thompson got there early and stayed late or how Sara Fusco navigated location issues under circumstances that would have been laughable had the viability of the entire production not been hanging in the balance. Or how we worked all night and then went home to rest- except Lisa Doolittle and her team who went and worked some more. Or how Karen Bundren figured out how to feed masses of people while losing a loved one and wouldn’t even let me send her home.

And people watched our boys so I could be on set, and let me tell you from personal experience- I would die for my children but those volunteers did not sign up for a glamorous job when they contributed to the film that way. And there were a handful of people who supported us long before anybody else knew what we were doing or were excited about it… they gave quietly and prayed faithfully before we put one frame on a screen or won any award. And you will see Austin Walker’s name and Amy Levy’s and Tamara Smith’s, but if you knew what they did day after day, you would know how inadequate it felt to get up on stage with four other people Saturday night.

Not that those who served did it to be recognized or praised by others for their efforts. It’s just, the whole thing reminded me that we serve One who is always there and always sees. He knows when we give and how we labor and what we sacrifice, even if no one else on this earth understands. And I think of Paul’s words in Colossians 3:23-24…

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

So to everyone who has joined in this crazy journey over the last NINE YEARS, I just want to say, it has been such an incredible privilege to serve with you. Who knows what outcomes the Lord has planned?

In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. – Proverbs 16:9

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by sarahonpurpose on February 28, 2012  •  Permalink
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Two years at Willow…

I was thinking about it last week when he trotted into my house… the little boy who has trotted into my house hundreds of times. He came in one afternoon last week and greeted me in his little man-ish way, and I gave him a smile and called out his name. And I was happy to see him.

And the happiness struck me because though it’s been there for a while, it has not always been this way. Scores of times he knocked at our door and my heart sunk at the sound. Maybe because he is the type of person one might consider (that I might consider) “high-maintenance” or “extra grace required” or some other completely ungodly designation. I cringe as I confess it, but there it is. And honestly, is there any other kind of human? Are some of us gifts to God and others just baggage He has to carry?

Anyway, I did not know he was God’s gift to me. I could not envision that he would be such an instrument of God in my life, because I was so blinded by the way he obliterated all boundaries and respect for my personal space. And so many days he came knocking so many times each day. And I tired of it. I tired of him… my flesh feeling almost at times like he held me hostage. In my subconscious justification of myself, I wordlessly argued that I was already giving enough time and energy, and this little boy was just asking for too much.

I wrestled with it for months though, because it felt so unloving. But it wasn’t. There was plenty of love. Love for my time. Love for my space. Love for my comfort. Love for my control over my schedule. And I remember praying last summer, “Lord, remind my heart that he is the fatherless.” And I remember that even the very day I prayed it, this little boy came over and shared for the first time about losing his dad. Sometimes God can be quite clear about prayers He is willing to answer.

And at some point God changed my heart for him. And changed my heart through him. I’m not sure when it happened. Maybe it was while we were reading stories or sharing a snack or making Christmas cookies or playing whiffle ball in the cul de sac, but when he walked in my house last week and I smiled to see him, I thought about it then… how God has used that little boy to bring me closer to Jesus.

And He did not do it through asking me to “set healthy boundaries” or “find the right balance” or other beautiful sounding things that offer the undeniable appeal of moderation. The Lord asked no less than the complete death of my will. And maybe because He knew how reluctant I can be to truly– truly– offer everything, he graciously sent a little boy to demand it. Every day.

And in the journey of submitting, He exposed how selfishness resides so stubbornly in me still, revealed more how extravagant the love of Christ is, taught me deeper how to discover joy in surrender and filled a little piece of the gap in a young boy’s life who doesn’t know any better than to ask for someone to fill it.

And my flesh would have skipped it all to have more quiet afternoons???

Two years ago this week we moved to this place. And I marvel still in gratitude at how God has used it in our lives to shatter our own kingdoms and increase our hunger for His.

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by sarahonpurpose on February 21, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by sarahonpurpose on February 21, 2012

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  • meditating on…

    John 19: 41-42
    At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

  • listening to…

    Hosanna
    with Christy Nockels on Passion's God of This City album