eyes on the Author- the every morning struggle to walk by faith

I don't wake up full of vision and motivation.  Actually, what motivates me most is the idea that my french press and single-origin coffee from Guatemala are just minutes away from awaking my senses with it's warm, toasty aroma.  And on those days when I get my stiff, puffy-eyed body out of bed and make my way to the cabinet to prep the press with my favorite coffee and find we're out, I feel great motivation to get dressed and drive to the local store so I can hurry up and get back home before too much time has passed and get my coffee going.

Basically, coffee motivates me to get up in the morning.

Mixed in the grogginess between eyes open and that first cup of coffee I remember who I am.

I am not my own.  I am a Christian.  The weight of meaning in that word falls on me like gravity on the fledgling attempts of a young eagle to fly every morning.

I feel myself falling.  Falling. Squawking out a cry, "Help!  Help Lord!  I am yours. Let me hear your loving kindness in the morning lest I be like those who go down to the pit!"  Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but never failing, my faithful Helper and Friend, my God, my Father, the one who made me a Christian and bought me out of slavery to the law of sin and death, he swoops down and lifts me up on his everlasting wings.

He's teaching me to fly.  To soar on wings like eagles.  To walk and not grow weary.  To run the race set before me as a woman finding her identity in Christ, as wife to James in a difficult marriage, as a mother raising men, in a community and time full of the "treasures of Egypt".  And when he finally lifts me up I see the wonder of who He is and what He's done and what He's doing in me, I can face the day.

I don't always get a chance to reflect on the truth of what God has done in calling me his own daughter like today.  Usually the day marches on and I struggle to fix my eyes on the One who wrote this story. He's the author of my faith, and since he is, he's also the one who will finish the story he started in me.  He's not an inconsistent blogger or an aspiring writer.  He's the author of life, and the writer of faith, and the one who began this good work in me.  And he will be faithful to complete it.

Every morning the struggle is real.  And that's no cliche.  I need to get my eyes on Jesus every morning and remember who I am, and the promise that He who began this good work in me will be faithful to complete it.  I need to remember that God gave me life in Christ and I am destined to be with him forever.  I need to remember because I'm called to die daily.  I'm called to follow Jesus in taking up my cross daily.  I'm not here for my best life now.  My life is not all about me and getting all the pleasure and comfort and ease I can squeeze out of the day and people in my world.  I'm a Christian, my best life is already and not yet.  I taste it here in every little resurrection, when I deny bitterness and embrace forgivenesss, when I deny ease and choose serving, when I feel the sorrow and the pain of my own sin and others' sins and rejoice in the promise that the One I love, who I have never seen, He will make all things new.

If I could just get my eyes on the Author today I'll be OK.

"...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith," - Hebrews 12:1-2

Memorial Day: Remembering when you don't remember

(photo credit)

I'm a generation X-er.  The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Shock and Awe headlines of March 2003, are the acts of war I remember.   And as close to home as the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan have been to me, no one close to me has lost their life in the battles of the past 16 years.  Memorial Day could easily become the symbolic start of summer for me and nothing more.  But I'm a mom of teenage boys, and I hear the news headlines and appreciate American history and the value of human life too much to let that happen.

For me, remembering those who have lost their lives serving in the military means intentionally remembering when I don't remember.  It means purposefully reflecting on what it means to me that I live in a country where over a million people have given their lives in combat.

My 12 and 14 year old sons know war mostly in terms of first person shooter games (something I'd rather they never knew).  They hear headlines and know the story of 9/11.  For them, the history of war is glamorized.

My point is, neither I nor my sons know the impact of loosing someone we love to war.  So I decided to have the boys use Google to calculate the combat deaths from every U.S. military conflict.  Once they added all those lives up, they had come up with 1,243,493 sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers given for us.

We never knew one of them.

Their lives and deaths weren't glamorous.  They weren't perfect.  They weren't Marvel comic heroes.  But they put themselves in harms way in the moment they lost their lives on a mission to protect this country from the evils of foreign oppression and dictators.  Without them, the country my sons and I live in may not exist.  Both they and I need to take the time to remember those we don't remember so we can foster gratitude and soberness and thoughtfulness about this country and our roles here.

I asked my boys to write either a poem or essay... some sort of reflection on the 1,243,493 souls who gave their lives in military combat for the freedom of citizens of the United States.

Connor, my 14 year old wrote an essay, "Why These Lives Matter To Us."  Ryland an acrostic using the words MEMORIAL DAY.  Me, a blog.  Our stopping to think and reflect on these lives with our words is important.  It's a way to honor the ones remembered.  Even when we don't remember.

While writing this over my Twitter feed came a tweet about the book The Things Our Fathers Saw: The Untold Stories of the World War II Generation is on sale on Amazon for $0.99 in the kindle edition.  We'll be reading some of that tonight too.

As a Christian, my ultimate homeland is not the United States of America, but I want to be a blessing to her and honor those who laid down their lives for sojourning Americans like me.  I also want to be a sober minded, serving citizen and a mom who passes thoughtfulness and gratitude and the gift of remembering on to her kids.

How are you intentionally remembering the 1,243,493 today?