“…you must learn to hold everything loosely…everything. Even your dear family. Why? Because the Father may wish to take one of them back to Himself, and when he does, it will hurt you if He must pry your fingers loose.” – Corrie Ten Boom

“If you prepare your heart, you will stretch out your hands toward him . . . And you will feel secure, because there is hope; you will look around and take your rest in security.” Job 11:13; 18

A few years ago, a little family of blue birds built their nest in a nook in one of the columns on our front porch. The kids and I would take turns peeking in the nest, watching the eggs, never touching, always on the lookout for momma blue bird. It wasn’t long into the spring that the eggs hatched and we’d peek in on those baby birds, mouths agape, waiting for their momma to bring them dinner. We could hear their chirping and observed as their momma flew out—never very far away—to find a meal for her babies.

One day we noticed the momma was encouraging those babies out of the nest. She was letting them go for a test flight. The birds had a short route from one column to the next and then back to the nest. They never ventured very far. They would fly out and return in the same pattern for days and weeks. Then we noticed they flew a bit further; to the end of our driveway this time. Then back home to the comfort of the nest. One day we saw those blue birds fly out of the yard and we waited and waited, but there was no return home. Those baby birds had grown up and grown strong and were now setting out to do what God created them to do—to soar.

I remember watching those birds with tears. I recognized the metaphor. My children, at the time, were too young to realize the significance of those beautiful creatures, and how they were piercing my momma heart. I knew my time was coming. The time was quickly advancing when I would need to send my kids out of the nest to do what God created them to do. But it was years away. Then, I blinked.

Now I’m mom to a college junior, a high school senior and sophomore, and a seventh grader. I’ve sent one bird flying out of the nest. She is soaring above the clouds. She is becoming who God created her to be. She is spreading her wings. And I’ve got three plotting and planning their journey to the next adventure. They are anxious to spread their wings and set out on their own, but those wings still need strengthening. I am learning there are more lessons than I expected as I walk through this season of parenting. Here are a few notes I’ve taken so far:

It’s harder than I expected. I knew sending my girl four and a half hours away to school would be tough. I knew my heart would grieve. I didn’t know how much I would miss the little things. Talking with her after a long day at work. Counseling her about friends and life and holding her hand as I prayed with her. Grabbing her up for a spontaneous road trip or movie or hike. Learning with her; editing her papers. Missing her in her chair at dinner or in her usual spot on the sofa. Squeezing her every morning as she wandered down the stairs in a sleepy haze. Seeing her artwork strewn all over the house. I don’t know if I’ll ever not miss those moments, but the joy begins to overtake the sorrows and I am beginning to recognize those memories as sweet gifts.

It’s filled with gifts of grace. You often wonder how your kids will do when they leave the nest. Have you taught them enough? Did you speak truth to them enough? Did you give them the tools they need to stand firm when they face opposition? Did you pray with them and over them enough? I have found God to be true to His Word in every way. Even when I blew it (which was a lot) and even when I missed it (which was a lot), He filled in gaps and taught my girl. I’ve watched her walk in the truth and press into Jesus. She has become desperate for Him. His guidance. His presence. That, my friends, is grace. In spite of my lack, in spite of my mistakes, and maybe even because of them, God has captured the heart of my child.

It’s essential that they struggle. Those baby birds did not succeed in flying every time they left the nest. But the momma bird didn’t keep them from falling. She let them struggle and encouraged them to try again. Through the struggle, the strength those baby birds needed to soar was worked out. It was through their falling they learned how to get up and try again. My girl has struggled. Her first year away at school was tough. I mean HARD. She faced stress and friendship drama and heartache. She wondered if she could. She wondered if she would. And then she did. She learned how to press into Jesus. She learned how to manage her time. She learned how to forgive. She learned how to find comfort in the arms of her Savior. She learned how to be discerning and humble and kind. She learned how to love well and sacrificially. All those spiritual muscles were built because of those hard things she faced.

It’s better than I imagined. I know that’s a paradox, but there has been a certain beauty in watching my little bird soar. I remember looking at that momma bird as her little birdlings soared through the skies and I could have sworn I saw a glint of pride in her eyes. When I watch my girl now, walking in the truth, learning from her mistakes, working so hard, yet learning to rest in His guidance, all I can see is the faithfulness of my God. All those years of tears and abiding and teaching and wondering and feeling like I was failing my kids, all along, He was holding me. He was holding my children. And He still holds them.

I told my children many years ago, there would be a time when they would need to transfer their obedience to me into obedience to Jesus. Their hearts would need to be fully surrendered to their King. My time with them only serves to model what it looks like to honor and obey their Heavenly Father. They practice with me and their daddy. They learn from us what it is to trust and to respect and to honor and to obey and to seek counsel and to learn and to grow. We are imperfect, fallible parents who struggle with our own humanity and sin. But our job, in all our weakness, is to point them constantly to the perfect parent, their Abba Father, and watch them soar in the shadow of His wings.

Letting go is painful. Letting go is necessary. Letting go is beautiful. Giving them wings is what we seek to do every day as we point them to the One who created them and will hold them as they set out on their own adventure with the King. And we, as parents, don’t want to hold so tightly that God has to pry our hands away. We learn to hold them loosely. And trust that the One who created them is faithful and will be with them every step of the journey. And He is. So we stretch out our hearts and rest in the hope and security of the Savior and sustainer. We let them go and we watch them soar.

Our ordinariness offers us kinship with our Savior and reveals the extraordinary love of God.

I am average. I promise I’m not being self-deprecating. As my teens would say, it is what it is. I am average height. I’m not a tiny person nor a tall person. I’m average weight. I even wear a size, wait for it, medium. I have medium brown hair, not dark brown, not light brown, just medium. I’m average looking. I’ve quite often been traveling, and a random person will tell me I look “just like” one of their friends. Yep, because I look like every other middle-aged soccer mom. My name is even average; given to every other girl born between 1970 and 1975.  I used to get frustrated at my ordinariness. Every person wants to have one thing that makes them special, makes them a superstar in some way. I am no different. Yet as I pondered my ordinariness, I kept coming back to Isaiah 53:2:

“For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.”

When Jesus walked the earth, there was nothing about his appearance that would draw someone to him. He wasn’t tall and handsome like Saul, or even “ruddy and had beautiful eyes, and handsome” like David. His name was even average. The name of every other Jewish boy born in his day. At the end of the day when moms called their kids home for dinner I’m sure the shout of “Jesus! Dinner!” had twenty boys turning their heads. If you lived in the time of Jesus and passed him on the street, you probably wouldn’t have noticed him. Maybe that’s why in Matthew 13, the folks that watched Jesus grow up in Nazareth asked, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things? And they took offense at him.” (13:54-57). In other words, how could this ordinary young man with no apparent special gifts or abilities or appearance to speak of, be doing these extraordinary things?

They didn’t understand that what made Jesus extraordinary was not his appearance or his earthly name or his earthly heritage or even his occupation as a carpenter’s apprentice. All those outward things that we too often put a premium on in our culture—appearance, family, popularity, power, position, achievement–He wasn’t extraordinary because of any of those markers. What made Him extraordinary was who He was—Son of God and Son of Man. That makes His coming to earth even more incredible. He condescended to us—became human. He didn’t enter humanity as the supernatural King of Kings. He came as an average Joe, a regular guy. A man who could identify with His creation deeply and profoundly. He experienced life, not as the King He was, but as an ordinary man. So He could fulfill these words, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)

Jesus came and lived an ordinary life, was an ordinary man, and it was in His ordinariness that He could become the perfect sacrifice, could fulfill the extraordinary purpose of becoming the Savior of the world. The only One who could defeat sin and death and establish an eternal kingdom. Because of Jesus, this ordinary girl has access to an extraordinary God. This God who makes all things new. This God who wants us to come in our weakness and our ordinariness so that we can point others to an extraordinary God. A God who loves us right where we are and just as we are, yet doesn’t leave us as we are. A God who delights in His creation, all of us, those the world perceives as ordinary and those the world perceives as especially gifted or talented or beautiful.

And it is in Christ, that I have a new identity as a daughter of the King, an extraordinary position for this ordinary girl. I didn’t have to earn that position. I didn’t have to look a certain way, or make a certain grade, or perform a certain task, or have a certain ability or achievement. Claiming this new identity simply required my humility to understand I am a broken and needy sinner and I need a Savior, and to receive the gift God offers through Jesus Christ.

I am ordinary. But I serve an extraordinary God. So I will embrace my ordinariness, and allow the extraordinariness of God to define my life. Because when I recognize who I am, the reality that the God of the universe loves me so much He became ordinary for a time so He could rescue me and make me new, is even more mind-blowing. I am nothing special, but my God sees me as someone worthy of His very life. He loved this average girl so much that He came and died for her. And that makes my God extraordinary. And when you are enveloped in His love, and He calls you His daughter, you become an extraordinary reflection of His love.

When I Call on Jesus – Nicole C. Mullen

“As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!” Psalm 40:17

My daughter is a college freshman. The university she attends is four and a half hours away from home. I miss her. A lot. A few weeks into her second semester I got a phone call and her quivering voice told me something was wrong. Soon she couldn’t hold back the tears and I listened as the dam burst and a flood of anguish poured out. Her young, inexperienced heart was breaking. The few hundred miles between us felt immense. I asked the King, as I had many times before, if He was sure He couldn’t just suspend the laws of physics and teleport me to her side. My girl was hurting and I was so far away. Even if I could just stretch a shoulder across state lines to squeeze her or just hold her as she sobbed, I’d feel so much better. I would’ve done anything to be at her side at that very moment, but it was impossible. All I could do was cry out to the King on her behalf.

This semester has been tough for my girl. Academics are fine. Books are constant and reliable. It’s learning how to love people when they aren’t so lovable that’s tough. And learning how to love ourselves as the Lord reveals all our pride and weakness is an even greater challenge. As Christians, we’re supposed to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, right? So if we don’t understand God’s extravagant, ridiculous, unconditional love; how in the world can we love others well? How do we dwell in God’s love? In our flesh, we can’t. Learning to see ourselves as God sees us is impossible. Even in the best of circumstances it’s impossible to love others the way Christ asks us to love them.

So how do we love well? How do we love genuinely and sacrificially when our heart is broken? How do we give of ourselves when we’ve been rejected? How do we serve when we’ve been cast aside? How do we forgive when we feel forgotten? How do we offer others strength when we’re so fragile? It begins by understanding what is impossible with man is possible with God. He can give us a new heart, He can remind us how much we are loved. But only if we look to Him for our strength. And that starts with admitting how desperately poor and needy we are.

As I’m walking through this heartache with my daughter, I’ve been reading through the Psalms. I’ve always adored the Psalms. Poetic, powerful, and, honest. I used to get annoyed with David for whining so much. But I’m more and more convinced it’s David’s genuineness and humility that made him a man after God’s own heart. He would honestly cry out to the Lord with words like “Why have you forgotten me? Why are you so cast down my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?”, but he would always, always land on truth and speak the truth to himself. “Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.” (Psalm 42)

As I read through the Psalms day after day, over and over, I noticed this repeated pattern. Raw vulnerability followed by reminders of truth about the character of God. So where did David gain his strength to stand firm in his heartache? He was willing to admit, as he did in Psalm 40, that he was poor and needy. He was willing to admit his weakness and frailty, but he didn’t end there. He made sure to focus on God’s strength, on His goodness, on His power, on His faithfulness, on His ability to heal and humble and renew and restore.

As I continued to focus on David’s pattern of humility and honesty, I began to find a refrain. God alone is our strength. He is our song. He is our hope. He is our healer. He is all we need. And isn’t that right where I long for my children to be, where I long to be, desperate and dedicated to seeking more of my heavenly Father? And that begins with confessing my weakness, being honest before God, and there I find there is a certain strength in sorrow. A certain knowing that my Abba is enough and His love and His acceptance are enough. And I found myself saying these words to my hurting, but healing, daughter, “What if your greatest sorrows are God’s greatest gift?”.

And what if they are? What if those sorrows propel you into the loving arms of the King. James 1 tells us our trials are meant to mature us; to grow us up in the truth. If sorrow and heartache are what is required for me, and my family, to become more intimate with the King, to become more accurate reflections of His love, then, though I would not choose it, I am learning to be grateful for it. Because in our greatest sorrow; He will become our source of strength.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10

It was a long day. My daughter, the barista, was supposed to get off at 2 pm, but her shift lingered until 3:30. A long line of cars meandered to the drive through and lines of folks eager for their chai teas and mocha lattes curved through the shop. The after-Christmas crowd armed with gift cards and caffeine deprivation descended on the shop like teenagers descend on the last piece of pizza. It was crowded and people were acting, well, very human.

My girl was spent. She climbed in the car and stared out the window for a while. I asked her about her day and waited as she digested the details. “Well, my day started out with a man who wanted some beans ground and I accidentally punctured the bag and most of the beans spilled on the floor. He yelled at me and angrily walked out. A lot of people yelled at us for not getting their orders done quickly. People ordering were just rude and impatient and unkind. Just as I was about to get done just now an older lady yelled at me because her drink was taking too long. Mom, it was awful.”

Her words soon stopped and the tears began to come. She cried and cried. “Mom, people are so horrible. I mean how can they be that hateful, that cruel, over something so small—a cup of coffee. Really? Is it that hard to just be kind?”

As I listened to her and held her as she sobbed, one phrase kept coming to mind over and over again, “Jesus died for them. Jesus died for THEM.” So I took a deep breath and took my 18-year-old daughter’s hand, and said, “But you know, Jesus died for them, too.”

And this young heart, one for whom the veil of the reality of living in a sin-sick world is slowly, but surely, being lifted, said, “How could He do it, mom? How could He love something so horrible, so unloveable? How could He die for that?”

My answer was honest, “I don’t know precious one, but He did. It is a love that’s beyond our comprehension.”

And it is. Romans 5:8 says “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” He didn’t die for us because we were so good or so clean or so kind or so gentle or so giving or so selfless. Nope. He died for us in the middle of our wickedness. When we rejected him. When we were cruel. When we were dead in our sin, in our selfishness. See, we don’t clean up and come to Jesus. We come to Jesus and He makes us clean.

Until we realize how desperately ugly our sin is to God, we will never realize how beautiful, how powerful, how gracious, how merciful the love of God in Christ is. In some cultures, like our American Judeo-Christian culture, and, even worse, the Southern Bible Belt culture, we somehow equate good behavior with a good heart. I’m here to tell you, no matter how “good” the outward behavior, unless Jesus Christ has come in and radically transformed a heart, there is nothing “good” in a person. The actions may be good, but Jesus says clearly in the gospels it’s a matter of the heart. And when someone is squeezed or goes through a crisis or even has to wait for a cup of coffee, what is inside will come out, and what comes out of a heart not altered by a relationship with Christ isn’t pretty.

One of the saddest things my daughter shared with me in her now two years at the coffee shop is the people who are often the meanest and most impatient are the ones wearing the Jesus shirts. In fact, her coworkers, most of whom are not followers of Christ, look for the “Jesus shirt wearers” and use them to stereotype Christians. My daughter has had to explain more than a few times that those people don’t represent Christ. She told them Jesus came to save sinners, and we are all sinners. His love is greater than our sin and His grace is what offers us salvation. Those who claim the name of Christ won’t always be an accurate ambassador of His mercy and grace, but Christians desire to be more like him and less like us.

After that long day, my girl and I sat in the van and cried and we prayed. We prayed for forgiveness for our wicked hearts and asked the King to help us to see as He sees and love as He loves. That night I whispered a prayer asking the King to give my girl some glimpses of grace while she was at work.

After work the very next day she told me, “Mom, this lady came in today and she was so kind. She talked to me about what I was doing and encouraged me and she said ‘thank you.’” It was such a simple thing. It may have seemed so small to that precious lady. But she was a city on a hill to my girl that day. A bright light of love and kindness to a heart that needed to be reminded of God’s love and care for her. A small thing reflecting the infinite love of the Father. And it revealed an otherworldly love to my daughter’s coworkers, those who don’t know Him. It was a chance for her to say, “Did you see that? That’s how my God loves His children.”

So what have I learned from the coffee shop?

• Ask the King to give me His perspective. I need to always remember that Christ died for all. I can’t expect those who don’t know Him to act like they do. I need to love the hard to love and give away the love of God without expecting anything in return—even if I’m rejected; even if someone is cruel or hateful in their response. Jesus was rejected, spit upon, falsely accused, and hung on the object of shame, a cross. If He did that out of love for me while I was rejecting Him, how can I not love others?
• If I claim the name of Christ, I need to seek to be an accurate ambassador of who He is. I know I won’t get it right every time, but I do know seeking to be like Jesus could be the healing balm or encouragement someone needs. Even if I don’t say a word, but am patient and understanding in a difficult situation when my flesh wants to scream, I am practicing dying to myself and taking up my cross and following Him. It’s not about me anyway, it’s about bringing glory to Jesus.
• Take time to be kind. Say thank you. Encourage someone who is working hard. Tell them they did a good job. I never realized how those seemingly insignificant things can reveal the love of God in big and small ways to those you encounter at the grocery store, at the coffee shop, at the restaurant. Your kind words may make an eternal difference in someone’s life. Love like Jesus.