Becoming Wallpaper

Shannon MartinLeave a comment

Becoming a convert to the Mennonite church has taught me a new meaning for being a servant and what servanthood consists of.  As an enthusiastic new member I felt the high of having encountered the Holy Spirit in an entirely new way.  I was more than willing to buckle in for the ride.  The people pleaser in me loved this new idea, that in serving the church, the church family, and anyone that came into my path was a way to serve God, while igniting the Catholic remnants in me that believed that I needed to earn graces and my place in heaven.  No opportunity to serve was too big or too small and the word “no” disappeared from my vocabulary.

It started with a small ministry of love.  Taking a very dear gentleman to church for the last couple of years of his life.  I felt great joy and privilege in doing this, and felt incredibly blessed by the church family I gained.

The combination of an energetic new pastor with an exciting vision for revitalizing worship and my desire for people to like me proved to much for me to resist and I became an overachieving servant in our small congregation.  Committees, special events, babysitting, pet sitting, programs, delegations, party helping, I said yes to everything and the compliments and attention came rolling in.  I felt like I was making a difference and fulfilling a call.  My gifts for organization were truly put to the test as I quickly became the go-to girl.  I had to be racking up some major grace points with the man upstairs, and I just knew that he was going to lead me to a better place in my life.

Life became a little more full, but no real changes in my circumstances occurred, but I was convinced I just needed to keep being a faithful servant with boundless energy.  Continue taking on new ministries, continue seeking new calls.  I wanted great things, so God probably was expecting great things from me.  It seemed little things were starting to improve in my professional life, and I gave all the credit and glory to my heavenly father.

Then change happened. Our congregation said good-bye to the pastor and his family and wished them well in their new calling and we prepared to receive another pastor with new visions for worship of his own.  Now I am finding that I am a relic of the old vision that can’t quite seem to find my place in the new vision.

Additionally I have been such a normal part of worship services and events that I have started to blend in with the wallpaper.  Since wallpaper blends in the people pleaser in me isn’t feeling quite as joyful.  The good news is I understand this is a fault I possess that I need to pray on and keep conscious of.  I am slowly become more choosy about what new tasks I take on or what projects I become involved in.   I am pursuing new things in this writing arena, which is causing me to stop and listen, and reflect on myself, my feelings, and the road that I am on.  I am evaluating my commitments at church and at work.

All this reflection has me realizing that I am a worship leading hypocrite.  I am telling people to trust in a God who loves them and blesses them, but at the same time I am angry and doubting him.  Angry because I am still living in the same small space that I hate, trying to get ahead in a world that has sky rocketing costs for food and fuel with pay increases that don’t even begin to keep up.  Angry because I feel stuck in a job, but feel unable to move on because I lack the piece of paper from a college or university that says I understand my job, despite my years of experience and the fact that I have way too much student loan debt that I have no idea how I am ever going to repay it all.  Angry because I just can’t seem to get to the place financially where it is possible for us to get a cozy little house of our own.

In the midst of all of this anger it dawns on me that I am using all of these serving opportunities as bargaining chips with God.  Since I am doing this for your flock, can you make that happen for me?  I am overwhelming myself with commitments, that has to count for something right?

Wrong.

God never promised me that he would trade with me.  He did promise he would love me unconditionally and that he will never forsake me and that he will help me with my human fralities if I ask him to.  He also has great plans for me, and he is taking care of me.  I just need to stop and take the time to reflect on my blessings:

  • I have a husband who loves me, and has managed to survive my craziness for almost two decades
  • I have a healthy son who is incredibly creative, loving, and funny
  • We have a roof over our heads that keeps us warm and dry, even if it isn’t the type of roof I want
  • My husband and I are both employed
  • We have reliable vehicles to get us to and from those jobs
  • There is plenty of food in our cupboards for me to use to cook my family nutritious meals
  • Many people love and support me as I strike out on new paths and encourage me on the paths I am still traveling
  • He is providing me with the tools I need to sort out what ministries I will be continuing on with and which ones it is time for me to let go of

I am still struggling with identifying what I need to give up in ministry and what new roads I need to go down, but I have faith that he will see me through these dark periods of frustration and that I will come out alright in the end.  After all, if God is for me, who can be against me (Romans 8:31)?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blind Trust

Shannon MartinLeave a comment

Feelings of pity and empathy engulfed me as I listened to their story.  My heart filled with an overwhelming aching sadness.  Before I knew it, tears began filling my eyes, building up until my eyelids reached their full capacity and the tears spilled over and began flowing down my cheeks.  As I was driving down the highway.  On my way home from work after a long busy day.  Listening to the radio.   Crying because the fictitious wife in the song blaring out of my speakers had found out she had cancer and her husband is promising to be there for her.

Has anything like this ever happened to you or am I alone in my insanity?  Is this the effects of having an over active imagination that can visualize the scenes in the song like they are actually happening and playing out in real life?  Or is it a ghost compassion because logically the couple in the song doesn’t exist? Then I justify this in my head, asking myself how many real, live, human couples have had to walk down this long, winding road through a valley?  What does this say about me mentally that I am having an emotional outpouring driving down the road?

I hope this means that I am a human being that can feel sympathy and compassion for the human race.  Is there something more to this outburst though, lurking in the background?  Am I really feeling sorry for myself and wishing for someone to promise to walk down my hard road with me?  Anything is possible.

Luckily for me, there is someone who promised me a long time ago, at the moment of my conception in fact, that he would be with me always and would never abandon me.  He reaches down from the heavens to hold my hand and guide me, if I would just stop and listen to where he is leading me to.

A few months ago while spending a weekend away with our youth group we ended up on a ropes course designed to help build bonds of trust.  The final exercise that afternoon was for the group to pair off, place a blindfold on one of the partners in each group of two, and have the other person give the blindfolded person directions for walking safely forward.  Did I mention we were in a mountainous, woody area?  We had to rely solely on the verbal instructions coming from our partners and trust that they would protect us from harm and help us to safely arrive at our destination.  Half way down the partners switched places. Everyone got to experience the helplessness of needing someone to guide them.  Blind trust in action.

Why is it that I didn’t hesitate  about putting on a physical blindfold and allowing another human being to direct and guide me down a winding hill path littered with rocks and sticks, but so often I just can’t seem to give this same blind trust to my maker?   Most likely because I am stubborn and want to buy into the human concept that I am strong enough to do everything on my own.

Some days I feel like an incredible hypocrite.  I know that God has placed callings on my life, and I try to follow them, but I am really making those the priorities in my life?  Or am I trying to dictate the outcomes I want in my life.?

When God says, ” My child, I want you to write,”  my response is, “Sure thing God, just as soon as I feel comfortable letting go of these other areas I am currently working in to serve you and your children,”  when it should probably be “Here I am Lord, lead me and I will follow.”

At the end of the day it all comes down to I need to let go and trust God more.  He will provide me with all the tools I need.  I need to trust that the Lord will open the right doors for me at the perfect times according to his plans and timeframe, not mine.

So perhaps I wasn’t really crying for pretend people after all, but for myself as I became overwhelmed by his holy presence filling my car.  God was talking to me through the music in the car telling me to stop my endless worrying and finally let him truly take over and lead me on my journey. Promising me he knows the way and He will take me all the way to journey’s end.  Time to put on that blindfold and follow him.

 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and do not rely on your own insight. 

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make your path straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

My Heart Is Hurting

Shannon MartinLeave a comment

The leaves have started to change.  It has not been a gradual change like when the trees slowly exchange their leaves from lush green foliage to red, orange, and golden Autumn splendor, but a sudden depressing event.  Indeed it is as if the leaves were surprised to find that September has almost ended and fall has officially begun and they grabbed the first things found in their closets, which ended up being  in drab, brown earth tones.  Perhaps that is why the past couple of days have made me reflect on what has been and what is happening in the now, without any glorious epiphanies, only an ache and even possibly a loneliness that is mourning the quickly passing days as another year is quickly flashing by.

My heart is hurting,  missing those who have gone on to glory ahead of me.  I am remembering them all, their quirks and their strengths, and all of the wonderful times spent with them.  Some helped me become the pixie I am today, patiently guiding me with their wisdom.  Others were school friends who left this earthly life too soon.  Still another was a much-loved brother.   Robbed of vitality and made weak and frail in this life by a ravaging disease, he was one of the strongest, and most courageous people I have ever known.  He graced us with his faith.  He brought us joy with his devilish sense of mischief and humor that brought twinkles to his eyes.  We will all be together again someday in the heavenly realms, and my life has been made the better just for having known them.  So until we meet again I will treasure the storehouse of memories they have left with me.

My heart is hurting for Pastor Saeed Abedini, an American who has been in an Iranian prison for two years because he refuses to renounce his Christian faith.  I can not even begin to comprehend the tortures he has endured.  Nor can I fathom the anguish his wife has been and is continuing to go through not knowing if she will ever see her beloved again.  I think of their two precious children who are being denied their father and grieve with him as he misses all of the daily moments of life with his family.   I am also thinking of all of the Christians around the world who are also being persecuted for their faith and just pray for them, the pain and suffering, the loss of innocent people, the utter abominations their children are witnessing that are stealing the joys of childhood from them.  I pray that these people all feel the compassionate, comforting, and loving hands of our God in the midst of all of the suffering and violence.  We know that God will always give us joy and peace in our hearts if we ask for it, but that doesn’t mean that on this Earth we won’t encounter unspeakable troubles and horrors.  Even in the midst of all of these atrocities God is present and he will help these people to overcome if that is their path, or to endure as the trials go on around them.  He will be with them, just like He is with all of us until our work is done.

My heart is hurting for the friends that have come into my life and have since moved on.  I am very grateful to have known all of these fantastic, talented, and lovely people and wish them all the best and that God will continue to shower them with blessings as they continue on their paths in life, even though their paths have now branched off from mine.  Some keep in touch, others do not, but either way they are all still in my prayers.  I am a firm believer in the “A Reason, A Season, and a Lifetime” philosophy which comes from a poem written by an unknown author.  There are a couple of different versions of it floating around out their but all basically say the same thing.  Some people come to us for a season and then move on.  Others come to us for a reason.  Either we are supposed to help them in some way, or they are here to help us with something, through something, etc, or possibly both, and then they too move on.  A few we are blessed with for a lifetime, they go with us through our entire life’s journey.  We never know if a new friend is here for a reason, a season, or a lifetime, but we can enjoy whatever time we do have together.  You never know when you may bump into one of these souls again.  Reuniting with old friends are joyous occasions, and make you appreciate each other that much more in my opinion.

Even though I have been feeling pensive, and a little sad, I realize that these times of sorrow and darkness are all part of living in a broken world.  The second musical ever written by Rodgers and Hammerstein was called Carousel.  It features a song called “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, a poignant song of perseverance through all things:

  • When you walk through a storm
    Keep your chin up high
    And don’t be afraid of the dark.
    At he end of the storm
    Is a golden sky
    And the sweet silver song of a lark.
    Walk on through the wind,
    Walk on through the rain,
    Tho’ your dreams be tossed and blown.Walk on, walk on
    With hope in your heart
    And you’ll never walk alone,
    You’ll never walk alone.

Yahweh is always a present light in all darkness, leading me through it and giving me hope and comfort.  He will always walk with us, through the storms of life as well as the joys of life.  I believe this with all of my being, but I still fall into these dark traps of despair.  However I think that this is a good thing if it leads me to call out to Yahweh to help me, depending on him and surrendering all to him.  These times of reflection allow me to see all of the blessing I have received in my life.  God uses these times to cleanse my soul and refuels me with new purpose to go forward doing God’s kingdom work here on earth.

Even those trees will once again dress themselves in lush green leaves, just as soon as they have been cleansed by the white snows of winter.  Praise God!

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? Isaiah 43:19 NRSV

 

 

 

Finding Some Quiet Time

Shannon MartinLeave a comment

So I am sitting here doing some research on a couple of different Bible verses that have caught my attention lately.  My thought process is these can possibly be topics of upcoming posts.  I am doing some initial brain storming and using biblegateway.com to compare them to each other in different versions.  I also have my headphones on and am listening to Pandora, which just happened to be on one of my country stations when I turned it on.

You may be wondering why there are headphones blaring music into my head when I am working on a serious quest for knowledge.  Well the simple answer is we live in a very tiny mobile home so I don’t have an office, or even a normal size bedroom, to place my desk (whose name is Cordelia) in.  Instead it is in our very small living room.   If my husband is home when inspiration hits me and we are sharing the living room space, then the television is also going.  Normally when I am working on a post or a Bible study I will turn on music to help me center my thoughts in our little noisy home, and it tends to be instrumental versions of popular Contemporary Christian songs, similar to the music played at Hobby Lobby.  Tonight I was so engrossed in my research and totally lost in my thoughts and the words that i didn’t really pay attention to the music when I turned it on, it was just kind of going in the background.  Any one who knows me knows that I listen to a wide variety of stuff as testified by the rather eclectic collection of songs in my Ipod and the many different stations on my Pandora account.  All of a sudden it hit me that the song that was playing was an old Garth Brooks song — I’ve Got Friends in Low Places, not Contemporary Christian elevator music!  The sheer irony of the nature of my reading coupled with the idea of having friends in low places was not lost on me.  If ever there was a time to not take a coincidence as a hidden message from  Providence this would be it!

It is pretty safe to say that Husband thinks I am slightly more than a little crazy at this point.  He has had his suspicions all along but they have now been definitely confirmed.  When the above realization hit me instantaneous laughter bubble up and out of me.  The good, deep kind of joyful laughter that comes from deep down in your belly and brings tears to your eyes.  So maybe it was an “aha” moment from above after all.  Not one that had a calling or some deep meaning in it, but a simple reminder that I needed to take a moment to relax and unwind, and find my balance after a long, busy day.  It is necessary to take the time to stop all of the noise and just sit still, let it be, and breathe.

Life is a never-ending to-do list.  Take today for an example.  Wake up and shower, get Max up, ready and out the door, commute to work, work through an audit at work all day, commute home, make dinner, squeeze in a little time to start some research — perhaps my mind is going on over load.  Where do I make the time to just be?  Is all this busy-ness robbing me of the true joy that God intended for me to experience on my life’s journey?

There are a plethora of self-help articles out there that tell us that it is ok, even vital, to make the time to take care of ourselves.  They encourage us to find some time to unwind, pamper ourselves, focus on our needs, and forget about the rest of the world for just a couple of minutes.   They tell us we need to take the time to recharge ourselves.  What I don’t see in these articles very often is them telling us to listen for the whispers from the one with the great reset button.  If I don’t take the time to incorporate some quiet in my life, how can I hope to deepen my relationship with God?  Has society in general developed too far in the wrong direction?  I have access for instant noise 24-7.  I never have to be alone with my own thoughts or be available for those vital conversations with God that happen in the silence.

So the challenge I must accept is the one that involves me being more intentional about finding some quiet time each and every day.  A prayerful, meditative time each new day to allow my relationship with the heavenly father to grow.  I need to remind myself that in these quiet silences our Divine God will place balms of healing on my soul that will soothe and repair it, as well as encourage, motivate, and recharge me so that I will be ready to face anything that comes my way with wisdom, peace, and relative calm.  Sounds great! Right?  I think it does, but somehow I just can’t seem to get there.

Fear not!  God is loving and full of grace!  Even though I continue to mess up this simple thing, he tells me it is ok.  He is always available for me, in my busy-ness, in all the craziness, and in my silent times.  So as long as the sun comes up I will continue to try to incorporate some quiet times into my day, it only takes a few baby steps at a time.

Psalms 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God

Did I Bite Off More Than I Can Chew?

Shannon MartinLeave a comment

It definitely wouldn’t be the first time and most likely won’t be the last.   A little over a year ago I began to feel nudges.  Not physical nudges like somebody was poking my arm, but those pesky little spiritual nudges that say our Daddy in Heaven has a new assignment for me.  Just like human fathers, it has become my belief that our heavenly Father likes to tease his children for a while before letting them in on his plans for each of them.   We are created in his image so it makes perfect sense that he has a sense of humor, mischief, and merriment.  He whispers to us, “I have a new, fun, awesome plan for your life!  Can you guess what it is?”  So I started to look for the little clues he was leaving me that would tell me what he had in store for me next.  Eventually, with the help of two wonderful people (one a pastor who is also a good friend that has moved on to follow a new calling of his own in distant lands and the other a patient lady with a great big heart who has sentenced herself to being my spiritual mentor), the conclusion was made that my next assignment was to write.

Pure excitement gripped my soul.  God wants ME to be a writer!  Memories of pretending to be Anne Shirley and Laura Ingalls Wilder for hours on end all through out my childhood flooded my mind.  It made absolutely perfect sense to me that I should join the ranks of these fictional kindred spirits of my youth and become an author.  So I did the only thing a dutiful, loving child of God can do when given a new task by the Father.  I questioned him on his choice of assignment for me and tried to stall as I wrestled with self-doubt.

What was I supposed to write about?  Will the writing take the form of a book or an article or something else completely?  Where do I even begin?  I haven’t had any education in the writing arts what if i can’t do it?  Am I capable of writing anything another human being would find engaging?  How do I get started?  For months these questions rolled around while I delayed getting on with the task at hand.  Until I decided that the spec sheet of my assignment specified that I should pay tribute to a dear man by incorporating his legacy of poetry into a daily devotional format.  Armed with this new information I plowed ahead with more procrastination.  So maybe that wasn’t the plan after all.  Perhaps I had misread the memo and wasn’t really supposed to write after all.

Never fear!  He didn’t leave me to flounder around in the shadows of self-doubt.  Instead he brought new people into my life to advise and encourage me to pursue the writing road.  Renewed energy surged through me for my devotional project.  I even came up with a name for the project, then stalled again.  On the advice of a new friend who is a gifted story-teller and writer I compiled a sample of the dear man’s work and eagerly sent it off to three folks that had never met him to see if his poems had any appeal outside of the family circle with sentimental attachments to the words.  Oddly enough the reviews came back with positive feedback for the poetry, but two of the three reviewers said they wanted to hear my voice, and asked what is God putting into my heart to share with his children on planet Earth?  One of them suggested I start small, with a blog.   As a result Wisdom Wanderings was born.

Awesome! Mission complete!  Task finished!  I have become a writer!  Now I can be done, right? Not exactly.  Plans for further writing abound and continue to be at the front of my mind.  There are a couple of drafts started for new blog posts, and ideas for books to review in future posts are running around in my head.  The classic movie Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner brought us the epic line “If you build it, they will come.”  So I am going to choose to trust in God and that he didn’t assign me a pointless calling and continue to publish new posts on a regular basis hoping that if I write it, followers will come.  If you are a fellow human being and you have found your way to my blog in its infancy stage, thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings!

But wait there’s more!  The time has come to take the next steps in this call to write and branch out to magazine articles.  I have chosen the magazine and gotten the requirements for submitting items for publication to the editors.  While I haven’t begun the actual writing of said article there are a couple of topic ideas running through my head that I have plans to begin researching.  One is on two important female characters that had very important roles in the Old Testament, despite the fact that they weren’t Israelites.  Another idea involves taking a look at when and why the angels were created, and comparing the fallen angels to the fallen humans in the Garden, if that is possible.

It has been said that I don’t dabble at anything, so in true Pixie fashion I am also planning to try my hand at writing curriculum for the new Mennonite Sunday School curriculum, Shine as well.  Providence seems to be in agreement with me as it led me to an issue of the Mennonite World Review where I ran across an article (want advertisement) that was looking for people to write curriculum for year three of this new program.   Of course I clicked on it and now have all the information needed to submit a sample to be considered as one of the said writers.  Unlike the blog posts or plans for magazine article submissions, this idea includes a built-in time frame.  All samples must be submitted for consideration by the middle of December.   So I guess I better get busy!

So have I bitten off more than I can chew?  Possibly, but I serve a  God who is greater than me, and through him all things are possible.  If this writing thing is indeed a gift he has graced me with, then he will also give me the wisdom, words and abilities needed to be successful at it.  The exact audience he is intending me to reach will be reached, as he will see to it that the needed opportunities arise to make it happen.  After all, He is a gentleman,  and he will open the doors needed for me if I just have faith.   So buckle up!  I am embracing this new calling and looking forward to seeing where this journey will lead me.