There are times in life when NOT doing something can usher in a sacred moment.  I had one recently.  I learned a lot from this moment, and I want to share. 

My energetic, bright, and confident daughter brought me a few pages of an essay that I had seen her working on for the past few weeks.  She was exceptionally excited about this essay that is a true story of the scariest moment of her life.  I was a character in this essay, and I could see in her eyes her need for me to approve of her work.  She was proud and delighted to share it with her mom.  I sensed in that moment that in believing in her work, she would feel my love for her.  How I would value her work was tied to how I felt about her. I could see it.

I read her words out loud.  There was so much energy and life in the story. I saw how excited she was to tell this story…but I also saw typos. I saw misspelled words. I saw incorrect placement of commas. I saw how the story wasn’t exactly how it happened.

And I had a choice.  I had a choice to use my strengths (insight, assistance, discernment to make changes for the better…people pay me to do these things) or to RESTRAIN.  Without a doubt, it was God working in me in that moment.  I had been learning about the Discipline of Restraint from one of my mentors, Alicia Britt Chole.  I had worked to build up the muscle of restraint.  This, my friend, was a test. 

I looked at her, mirroring back to her the excitement that she was oozing, and I told her how proud of her I was. I told her that the story kept me on the edge of my seat even when I knew the ending. I gave her a hug.  I celebrated her work, and I celebrated her. 

Fast forward a week or two.  As I picked up my daughters from school, my daughter told me about her day.  She said that her teacher read her essay to the class.  The teacher praised my daughter, saying that in the history of 25 years of teaching, this was the best essay she has ever read from one of her students. 

I, of course, was so pleased that she did well. But I was even more thankful that I had not been a critical, disparaging voice echoing in her heart.  Had I corrected her, she would have remembered that her mother only saw the negative.  The discipline of restraint saved my daughter the belief that her mother didn’t approve of her. 

I sat back and didn’t say what I thought.  I held my tongue and offered my heart.  I have to say it is one of my proudest moments in the last year, and it is all because I used RESTRAINT.

I will continue to learn to get out of the way, to give less of myself. 

Next challenge:  critiquing my husband’s sermons.

Laura

All I ever needed to know about work I learned from my father.  Jacob Keller was a blue collar worker, a millwright, who worked in the factories of northwest Ohio and southern Michigan in the latter half of last century.  His profession wasn’t prestigious and certainly not glamorous, but my father embraced his work and always had pride in what he did.  There was a dignity in his approach to what he did.  Here’s some of what I learned:

• Never be late to work.
• Work the full shift to the best of your ability.  The union said my dad could start putting his tools away 15 minutes before his shift was up.  He always worked until the end of the shift and then put his tools away.  “Eight hours work for eight hours pay,” was his motto.
• Never complain about a job. 
• Work when there’s work to be done.  You never know when it won’t be there.
• Take pride in what you do.
• Work well with others, but never tolerate a loafer or a shirker of duty.
• Enjoy what you do.  My dad always loved the challenges of installing new machinery and embraced learning new things until he retired.

I thank God for my father and how he taught by example.  Remember on this Labor Day to be thankful for what you’ve been given to do.  Enjoy your work!

Jim

“Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the Spiritual Life.” - Simone Weil

“Patience is everything.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

How many times in our life have we been told to have patience, or be patient, or patience gets us to good places?  How many times are we telling others the same thing?  Somehow, in some way, our patience is tested every day.  Whether it is a child, a spouse, a friend, a line at the grocery store, or being on the phone dealing with some sort of business item with an automated voice telling us what to do and to wait. It is constant.  

As Simon Weil wrote, “When it comes to the Spiritual Life, patience is everything.”  We cannot rush growth and we cannot rush God.  Somehow His timing is perfect!! Waiting patiently can be one of life's hardest tasks, but most rewarding if genuinely understood and practiced.  It tests us…try's us…causes us to grow if we allow it to.  It also can bring a sense of deep healing in our lives and relationships around us.  Patience is virtuous.  It will cause us to get to a different place with God, others, and ourselves.

Melissa

Sundays for me have always been different.  I was raised in a church-going family and there were never any questions as to where we were going on Sunday morning and whether or not we would be on time to church.  Being on time, I was told, was being five minutes early.  And there were certain things that would not happen: family arguments were not just frowned upon, they were forbidden.  My father was the enforcer, and my brothers and I respected him and honored his wishes.  For Dad, his Sunday was a day that wasn’t just some legalistic day set aside for religion, but a day where he could once again find his center, and catch his spiritual breath.

One of Jesus’ major confrontations with the Pharisees was over the observation of the Sabbath.  Jesus regularly healed on the Sabbath, not as a provocateur, but as an affirmation of one of the major purposes of Sabbath rest: to heal and recover.  My father worked five and often six days a week in factories all over northwestern Ohio and southern Michigan.  Those of you with factory experiences will immediately know that they are not centers of spirituality and deep religious thought.  My father dealt with this environment in an authentically Christian manner: he worked hard and he honored God by his words and relationships. I sensed Sundays weren’t just a time of religious duty for my father, but a necessary time for healing.  I watched my father use his Sabbath for three primary purposes…

…to restore energy – My father worked hard and Sundays were a time where he ceased work.  If he had Saturdays off, that was the day for chores and man-duties around the house.  Sunday was for rest.

...to heal – Dad never was sick, to my recollection.  But he used his Sabbath rest to allow God to bring His healing touch to his life.  My father’s best naps were on Sunday afternoon, and when we would watch the Tigers play baseball, he only saw one third of the game because he would contentedly doze off.

…to become whole – Dad would use his time at church to remind him first of his own brokenness, but then be reminded of God’s grace and redemptive touch.  He would comment on our car rides home from church on what he had learned and what his response was.  Church was never tedious for my Dad.  It was seen by him as a necessity in his spiritual growth.

My father, born of German immigrants, is to this day the best example I’ve had of a man who lives an authentic Christian life.  He is also the best example I have had of someone who has embraced the Sabbath as it should be embraced, a day that was set apart for us to more effectively become the people we were created to be.  Thanks, Dad!

Jim 

I have been doing some reading recently on a myriad of topics, and humility is one of them. In one of the books the author says that one cannot go into a deeper sense of knowing self or God without humility. That made sense to me from several different levels, as we cannot hear what God is saying or doing in our lives if we aren't humble enough to listen. I came across another quote, not from the same author, which says this:

"What makes humility so desirable is the marvelous thing it does to us; it creates in us a capacity for the closest possible intimacy with God."

Humility reminds us that we are not always right, that we need others, and we need to stay in check with ourselves so as not to put ourselves in the position that God is suppose to be in our lives. I think it is easy for us all to do that. We have a lot of access to a lot of "stuff" instantaneously these days which is both good and bad.  With that, we are becoming a society that doesn't know how to “do” intimacy with God, self, or others as we are too distracted. I encourage you to take time away from inanimate objects or other things that can tend to keep you distracted from God or other important people in your life. Doing so will continue to create a space within you that both longs for, and desires God. This will invariably expose our need for Him. Knowing our need, will keep us humble. 

Melissa