Battling Anxiety/Seeking Peace: Thankful For My Shepherd

It’s no secret I have a particular fondness for biblical passages on shepherding.

For over twenty years I’ve kept goats and sheep in varying numbers and every day discover one more way I am a sheep in need of a Shepherd.

I wander, I’m afraid when I don’t have to be, I do foolish and self-harmful things, I push and shove to get that certain bit of food or space or whatever when all the while there is an abundance, and I often make it hard for the One who loves me best to guide me to the safety and rest of His fold.

That’s one reason the Twenty-third Psalm is especially beautiful to me.

But there’s another reason-hidden inside the original Hebrew-that makes it a favorite Bible passage and a very appropriate one for these frightening times: within the verses are references to seven names of God.

And unlike we who are named according to our parents’ whimsy, God IS His name.

“The Lord is my Shepherd”

– Jehovah Rohi (The Lord is my Shepherd and my Guide) – “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will GUIDE you into all truth” ~John 16:13

My goats and sheep will follow me anywhere. Why?

Because they know I won’t lead them into danger and if we happen to stumble upon it, I will protect them and fight for them.

My Shepherd King is so much more trustworthy than I am.

He knows the end from the beginning and loves me more than I love myself. If I will only follow closely behind Him, I can rest assured that wherever He leads, I am in His loving care.

“I shall not want”

– Jehovah Jireh (The Lord is my Provider) “My God shall supply all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.” ~Philippians 4:19

My critters are utterly dependent upon me to make sure they have the basic necessities-food, water and a safe and dry place to sleep at night. They can’t run to the grocery store if I forget to toss them grain or hay.

But they don’t pace back and forth afraid I won’t do what I’ve always done.

I waste so much energy and time worrying that somehow God will forget to provide what I need.

He won’t.

It’s that simple. I am not promised everything I WANT. I’m not even guaranteed everything I think I need. But I am absolutely certain that in Christ I have the most needful thing-forgiveness of my sins and right standing with the Father.

Image result for phil 4:19

“He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters”

– Jehovah Shalom (The Lord is my Peace — my calm in the midst of a storm) – “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely” ~1 Thessalonians 5:23

Shalom is a big word.

According to Strong’s Concordance (7965) Shalom means completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord.

Peace isn’t a place or only a promise–it’s a Person.

And that Person is Jesus, my Shepherd King.

When my little flock hears something that frightens them, they run straight toward me and wait to see if I am frightened too. My presence brings them peace.

I am often more foolish than my dumb animals! I run to so many people and things of the world hoping one or the other can bring me the peace I so desperately crave. But I can only really rest when I place my full confidence in Jehovah-Shalom-the One who IS Peace.

“He restores my soul”


– Jehovah Rapha (The Lord my Healer) – “And by His stripes we are healed” ~1 Peter 2:24 (and Isaiah 53:5)

Anyone who has spent time with me here knows I’m no fan of “sunshine” Christianity. I’m no “name it and claim it” crusader. So I do not believe that God my Healer means I won’t ever suffer.

That’s why I really love the phrase “He restores my soul”.

Because isn’t that really what we ALL want? Restoration of the very core of who we are? Rest in the center of our being?

Jesus has restored my soul more than once.

When I reach out and touch the hem of His garment, He heals the most broken places in my soul.

“He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake”

– Jehovah Tsidkenu (The Lord is my Righteousness; in Him I have
right standing with God) “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin
for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” ~2
Corinthians 5:21

Let’s be honest, I can always find somebody that makes me look good. There’s always someone whose a little badder than I am.

Problem is, that’s not how God does things. He doesn’t use a sliding scale or a grading curve to determine who meets the mark and who misses it.

God is holy, set apart, completely righteous, pure and good.

I am none of those things.

And there is absolutely no way I can make myself those things.

But He has provided righteousness for me through Christ’s perfect atoning sacrifice if I choose to believe.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me”

– Jehovah Shammah (The Lord is There; He is our Ever-Present God) – “For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” ~Hebrews 13:5

This may actually be my very favorite name of God. “The Lord is There” is an amazing concept!

“Immanuel”-God with us! The Lord Himself come down to dwell with men.

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The God who made the universe, made me. The God who counts the stars and sets them in their place, counts the hairs on my head and set me in this place at this time.

This virus crisis FEELS like the shadow of death.

It feels like some creeping thing slinking around the edges of my family, waiting to devour us. I can’t see it and I can’t stop it.

But I am not alone. Jesus is here.

HE is here.

Right HERE.

RIGHT NOW.

And I can rest in His promise that whatever I may face, I will never, ever face alone.

“Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies”

– Jehovah Nissi (The Lord is my Banner, my standard, He covers me) – “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard against him” ~Isaiah 59:19

In the Song of Solomon His banner over me is love.

In Ruth, His banner is Kinsman-Redeemer, covering my weakness with His strength.

In the gospels, His banner is victory over sin, death and the grave.

You may be hunkered down in your home, wondering how we all got here- questioning whether this may be a work of evil men or the evil one and when or if we might be rescued.

I can’t answer the why or when.

But I can point you to the Who-the One who wants to love you, to give you strength and to assure you that even death doesn’t have the last word.

“You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

My Shepherd King cares for me when I’m distressed and He fills me with Himself until my soul overflows.

His goodness and mercy pursues and overtakes me!

I have spent many, many hours hunting down a lost sheep or goat. I’ve had some wander off so far in the woods we couldn’t even hear them, much less see them.

But I do not give up. I do not stop looking. I do not go to bed and say, “I’ll find them tomorrow”.

No!

I pursue them until I can bring them back in the fold. There they dwell in safety, fully cared for as long as they live.

I am worth so much more than a sheep. God will not forget me or dismiss me or allow me to wander forever.

He will come find me and bring me home to His heart and His path.

And one day-one glorious day-He will take me to my forever Home.

QUESTIONS:

  • Does the image of Jesus as Shepherd help your heart find hope? Why or why not?
  • Psalms 22, 23 and 24 are considered by most biblical scholars to represent three images of Christ (22-Suffering Savior, 23-Shepherd, 24-Victorious King). Read them together and see if you agree.
  • Is there one of the names of God included in this study that is particularly precious to you?
  • Write out each name of God and see if you can find one other verse not previously mentioned that deepens your understanding of what the name means.
  • What does it mean to say God IS His name? If you have access to an online concordance, find one or two other names of God that might encourage you right now.

PRAYER:

Father God,

You are a good, perfect and loving Father. You are my Shepherd, my Provider, my Healer, my Righteousness, my Banner and YOU ARE HERE.

Help my heart lean into this truth.

Provide the most needful thing-Yourself-as I walk fearfully through this Valley. Restore my soul and flood it with Your peace.

Thank You that You are my righteousness-I am not left in my sins to receive the punishment they deserve. Thank You for Jesus.

Spread Your banner of love over my heart. Spread your banner of strength over my weakness. Spread Your banner of victory over my feeble attempt to ward off worry.

Let me feel Your Presence and help me trust Your heart.

Amen

Scripture Journal Challenge: Battling Anxiety, Seeking Peace

Remember last August when we did a Scripture Journal Challenge on grief?

Well, I don’t know about you, but I need another one.

Television, social media news feeds and online searches scream one frightening headline after another and I need to be reminded Who is in control and to Whom I belong.

So this time we will focus on Battling Anxiety/Seeking Peace.

Find a notebook, find some paper, get your pens and Bibles ready and let’s battle this monster together!

We will start tomorrow with a longer passage-Psalm 23. You may have memorized it as a child and think there aren’t any hidden gems inside the familiar words.

I think you’ll be surprised. ❤

In case you need a refresher or weren’t following along last August here is the introductory post for that challenge to help you get started. (Just ignore the parts that are specific to that topic).

https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/07/31/august-scripture-journal-challenge-grief-verses/

Melanie

Forest of Sorrow

There are so many ways to describe grief.

So many ways individual hearts walk this path.

For many of us there’s a sense of being locked in time, stuck in space, unable to leave the moment one received the news or the few days before and after.

It’s maddening that the earth still turns, the sun still rises and people go on with life when in so many ways our world is frozen in place.

Elizabeth Gilbert describes deep grief as a “coordinate on the map of time” and a “forest of sorrow”.

I like that.

Child loss is a place no parent wants to go. I found myself in territory so unfamiliar there was no way to get my bearings.

Left alone, I faltered, would have stayed lost, was doomed to walk in circles trying to find my way out.

I desperately needed a guide.

Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Thankfully some parents, further along in this awful journey, created safe spaces for broken hearts to gather and to share.

I am oh, so grateful to them for that!

Not everyone who finds the way to hope and light chooses to come back for those still wandering in the forest of sorrow.

But some do.

They retrace painful steps carrying a torch and say, “Come with me. I can show you the way to hope.”

A Bit Of My Heart

“People will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” ~ Maya Angelou

It’s easy when you’re scared to shout loudly at whatever scapegoat crosses your path. But it’s hardly helpful.

My earnest hope in this season of worldwide fear is this: that people will show themselves to be more compassionate than they think they are, that communities will come together instead of falling apart and that while politicians may work hard to spin headlines one way or the other, citizens will insist on helping one another instead of hating one another.

❤ Melanie

A friend recently posted that not all the lessons of grief are bitter.

Some are sweet.

She’s right.

I’ve learned a lot on this journey.  And one of the sweet things I’ve learned is that the best thing to offer fellow travelers is a bit of my heart instead of a piece of my mind.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/03/09/a-bit-of-my-heart-instead-of-a-piece-of-my-mind/

Lost Spring: Social Distancing Before It Was Cool

It really is possible to stay home.

Our family proved it more than 25 years ago.

Four kids, seven and under, one mama and a tiny house survived one solid month of alone time.

Photo taken that same year. ❤

The chicken pox made its rounds in our local weekly Bible study and pretty much every kid that hadn’t had it got it. So it wasn’t long until more than half the class was home riding out the wave of itchy, blotchy skin, fever and discomfort.

We couldn’t get it all at once. Oh no!

It went through my four one at a time with a bit of overlap so we were slathering on calamine lotion by the quart, taking baking soda and oatmeal baths several times a day and watching waaaayyyy more television than any of my children had seen so far in their lives.

It took slightly over a month for us to finally be free of it and I’ll admit it tried my patience. I spent a lot of time looking through the windows at a busy world outside, longing to be part of it.

There was a wisteria vine in my across-the-street neighbor’s yard that crept up the telephone poll outside the living room window.

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I watched as it went from brown twig to wisps of green and finally dripping purple in all its glory while I was stuck inside trying to keep unwell children happy and stop them scratching themselves into infection.

I lost that spring. We all did.

But we came out the other side just fine.

I lost another spring in 2014.

And this time it was absolutely, positively NOT fine.

It’s still not fine.

April 12, 2014 Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Because of both springs, I will tell you this: If staying home means I can be part of the solution to the spread of Covid 19 and perhaps spare another family a lost spring, a lost loved one, a frightening brush with death-I’m happy to do it.

My personal comfort, sense of freedom, arrogant assumption that I am the exception to the well-intentioned and common sense advice of healthcare professionals is a tiny, tiny price to pay in order to slow down the pace of this disease so those who need extra attention, hospitalization and intervention get it.

Image result for slowing the spread of coronavirus

Losing a spring is an unfortunate happenstance.

Losing a son, a daughter, a brother, sister, mother or father is a tragedy.

Hey-I survived over a month with four itchy, irritable children and no internet, no food delivery, no grocery pick up, no online buddies-you can manage a couple weeks.

I promise.

❤

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Through The Fog And Dark

Through the fog and dark and limits of my sight

I hear birds singing

as they welcome the day

I still can’t see.

Are they better than me at knowing the edges of inky night?

Or do they simply have more faith?

Either way their hearts are boldly trusting in the sun they can’t yet prove is real.

Oh, that my own heart would always rest!

Assured.

Unmoved.

Confident.

Certain.

Even in the dark,

even in the fog,

even under the smothering blanket of sorrow,

in the Son.

The One who burst forth from the grave to prove He IS the One.

The One who promises night has limits,

that death is not the end,

that resurrection is sure.

Then I could sing for those still in the fog

and in the dark,

those whose sight is dimmed by tears.

And remind them that

morning is coming!

As sure as the sunrise.

As sure as the Son rose.

Things I Wish I’d Known

I’ve written before that I am oh, so thankful I had NO IDEA Dominic would leave us that early April morning in 2014.

It would have cast an awful shadow over all those years we were blessed with his presence.

But there are some things I wish I’d known.

I wish I had known how hard it is to conjure up his voice now that it’s been nearly six years since I heard it.

I would have taken more short videos, just to have his laugh, his sarcasm, his deep mellow “Hey!” handy on my phone for the moments when I long to hear it. I wouldn’t have erased the backlog of recorded messages on the landline just one day earlier.

I wish I had known there were so few photographs of us together.

I would have gotten over myself much sooner and stuck my fat bottom in every shot my family begged me to take. I would have made certain there was at least one of him and me on each birthday, at special occasions and when he graduated high school and college. I was always the one taking them, organizing something or just to self-conscious to be in the picture.

I wish I had saved more cards, notes and random bits of flotsam from over the years with his words, his handwriting, his childish drawings.

Just a month before he left us, I cleaned out two decades of home schooling records and carelessly tossed so many bits of him into the bed of my truck, hauling it to the dump. Back then it felt like I was unburdening myself of too much paper and too many frivolous memories. Now it feels like an incalculable loss.

I would have listened more often to the wonderful sound of his drums banging away upstairs.

I took a walk most afternoons and Dominic timed his practice for when I was out of the house because it was so very loud. It was considerate and kind. And I DID get to hear him through the windows as I made my rounds but I really, really wish I’d just stopped and fully appreciated his talent.

I could list so many more ways I’d have arranged life differently-if I had KNOWN.

But I didn’t.

So I make my way through another spring, remembering, remembering, remembering.

Always hungry for more.

Defying Fear: First Birthdays and New Memories

A year ago I was in the same city under very different circumstances.

My first grandson had been born at just over 28 weeks because his mama developed HELLP syndrome and was in mortal danger. Both he and she were in the hospital while we held our collective breath, begging for them to be OK.

We were filled with quiet but uneasy joy knowing as we do how death can come to steal it away.

This Sunday, family and friends gathered to watch this little guy grab his first birthday cake with gusto and smear his mama and daddy with blue icing.

You’d never know he got such a tentative start in life just by looking at him.

Grateful is too small a word for how we feel.

Melanie ❤


THIS YEAR:

LAST year:

Last week was a roller coaster.

My first grandchild-a boy-was born prematurely on Saturday after several days of heart stopping, breath robbing drama as his mama went back and forth to the hospital three times in as many days.

My son, his father, is deployed overseas and paddling as fast as he can to get home.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/03/11/fear-of-what-you-know/

Learning To Trust Again: Appropriate God’s Strength

My friend and fellow bereaved mom, Margaret Franklin, Ryan’s mom, shared a beautiful Dutch word with me “Sterkte” (pronounced STAIRK-tah).

It literally translates “strength” or “power” but culturally means much more.  It means bravery, strength, fortitude and endurance in the face of fear and insumountable odds through the empowering strength of God in me.

Not MY strength, but HIS.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/10/17/trust-after-loss-appropriate-gods-strength/

Learning To Trust Again: Access The Truth

I have loved Scripture as long as I can remember.  When I was in second grade I got the notion to read the whole Bible straight through-in the King James Version.  I made it to Leviticus before I threw in the towel.

By the time my kids were grown I had read and studied Scripture for decades. 

But three years before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I realized my reading had become rote-I felt like I “knew” all the stories.  So I slowed my study to a crawl-only one chapter a day-and I usually copied the whole chapter plus my notes into a journal.  I had just finished this time through the Bible in January before Dom was killed in April.

And all that truth stored in my mind and heart was what I “read” for months when my eyes were too full of tears to see print on a page.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/10/16/trust-after-loss-access-the-truth/