Archive for June, 2009

Crying as a Spiritual Practice

June 24th, 2009

Recently Christine Sine at Godspace asked the question “What is a Spiritual Practice?” This and another post “Reimagining our Spiritual Practices” lead to her inviting people to join her in talking and writing about Spiritual practices and ways that we connect with God in everyday life. I was intrigued by the thoughts she shared and have been thinking about what are ways that I personally sense God’s presence and engage in a spiritual practice?

I think I grew up thinking that the only real way to connect with God and the only real spiritual practices where reading your Bible and praying, maybe I would have also considered going to church (and listening to a sermon) and Bible study with other believers to be spiritual practices as well, but that was pretty much the extent of it. As I got a little older my repertoire of spiritual practices expanded just a little to include some other classic standards like solitude/silence and fasting. But, I think deep down I knew that I also encountered and experienced God in numerous other ways that didn’t fit into the box of traditional spiritual practices. And it wasn’t until I got even a bit older that I felt free enough to allow myself to engage in spiritual activities and spiritual practices that didn’t fit the normal model I’d grown up with.

Here’s how Christine Sine defines Spiritual practices for her: “for me a spiritual practice is any routine I perform on a regular basis that connects me more intimately with God and God’s purposes.”

I like that. It got me thinking about what things in my regular, everyday kind of life connect me more intimately with God and God’s purposes. There are quite a few things that have come to mind and maybe I’ll write about some of the other one’s in the weeks to come, but for today I want to talk about crying.

For me crying is a spiritual practice, a spiritual experience that changes me and takes me closer to the heart of my Father. Allow me to explain and expand a little… To start with, understand that I’m not really the type who cries at the drop of a hat. You have to be a pretty close friend to have seen me cry as I usually only cry around people I feel really comfortable with. But, I do cry fairly regularly and when I cry I really cry. It usually starts with some little trigger and then grows until I’m crying about everything that I possibly could cry about.

But, there’s something that almost always happens at some point during my crying which I’m not sure is normal or not, maybe it shows my own weakness of faith, but almost always at some point my crying escalates and get’s turned on God. Suddenly it isn’t just about whatever it is I’m crying about, suddenly it’s about me and God and all my insecurities in my relationship with God. Suddenly, all of my doubt, distrust and fear, and all of my anger and accusations come out to play. Suddenly I’m face to face with all my ugliness, all the ugly deep thoughts and feelings I have towards God. Suddenly my sense of God’s sovereignty comes into play and it’s all His fault. Sometimes this moment leads to more tears and sadness, sometimes it leads to guilt and my disappointment in myself for my own distrust of God (which also leads to more tears), sometimes it leads to anger and outright yelling at God (again more tears).

The answer to these moments is always silence. In these moments God has never once defended himself. He hasn’t defended himself through someone else who was with me, or through bringing to mind scripture that I know, or in any other way. It’s always silence. But, I can feel him there, sometimes it’s so heavy that I feel like he’s standing right in front of me just silently looking at me, absorbing all of my accusations and confusion and doubt and just waiting.

But, just as surely as my crying sessions lead to that moment they also lead to another moment. Eventually I get to a place where I’ve cried it all out, where there is no fight left in me. I eventually get to a place where the sadness and anger and fear have run their course and I’m left feeling completely empty and vulnerable. My tantrum has run its course. My tears have done their job and have cleansed out of me all that ugliness and I sit there with it all exposed before me and God. There isn’t anywhere to hide anymore. It’s in this moment that God really comes close. Again he doesn’t answer my questions, ease my fears, or defend against my accusations. He just comes close and holds me in all my vulnerability. And in that moment I feel peace.

That is why crying is a spiritual practice for me. We all need moments like that. Moments that expose our ugliness. Moments that break down our defenses and leave us vulnerable. Moments that cleanse us and bring us to a new place of surrender to a God that we don’t understand. For me those moments happen when I really let myself fall apart and cry.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany

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Grace for Today

June 22nd, 2009

Right when I think I’m finally figuring out this trusting and waiting on God thing, something totally silly happens which opens up the flood gates of doubt and discontent and I find myself once again face-to-face with my own frail faith. Through tears and hyperventilating this morning a song came to mind that I used to listen to a lot. The lyrics being:

“My faith is like shifting sand,
changed by every wave.
My faith is like shifting sand,
So, I’ll stand on grace.”

Today that is exactly where I’m at. I feel thankful for God’s grace, which doesn’t hold my worry and fear against me, but reaches down to me exactly where I’m at and wraps loving arms around me. He doesn’t promise that it’s all going to be ok. He doesn’t answer my many questions or uncertainties. He doesn’t change my situations. But, He holds me. And he promises to never leave me or forsake me. I don’t always believe him, but that doesn’t change the fact that He will be faithful.

That’s where I’m at today.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany

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Some Random Link Fun

June 17th, 2009

Alright, so today for something light and more fun, here are some links that I wanted to share:

First off I never enter contests or giveaways, I am not sure why, but I just never do, but I really think that these camera bags are just too cool! So, I’m entered and you should too – all you have to do is leave a comment (and tell others about it for an added chance to win) ;) Check out the rest of Natalie’s blog and pictures while you are there, she’s a great photographer and I have enjoyed reading her blog for quite some time.

Speaking of cool bags I have decided that I would love this messenger bag from Moop to use as mine and Bryan’s diaper bag – it’s so simple and cute and totally unisex… too bad it’s so expensive… maybe with the next child. I also love this giant market bag from Moop – seriously so cute! I’ve never been into shopping and really never been into bags/purses – I literally have one purse at a time and I use it until it completely falls apart before getting a new one – but sometimes it’s fun to just pretend I am a “purse girl” and if I ever was these are the types of bags I’d love.

This week Bryan and I found this fun recipe, “Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread.” So, cool and it really does produce great bread in very little time. Basically you make a big batch of very wet dough which you NO NOT KNEAD, then you stick it in the fridge and whenever you want fresh bread you just take a little out, let it sit for about 40 minutes and then bake it. Again, NO kneading. The dough lasts in the fridge for up to two weeks.

Today, Christine Sine at Godspace posted this prayer. I was drawn in with the first line “O Breath of God, you moved on the face of the waters and created order out of chaos…Calm our hearts that we may hear you!” And after reading the rest I was convinced that this is my prayer for today. Hope it touches you as much as it touched me today.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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State of the World’s Mother’s 2009

June 17th, 2009

The last few days I’ve been reading (semi-skimming) Save the Children’s State of the World’s Mothers 2009 Report. It’s a 62 page document comparing different countries in terms of care for Children and Mothers. It’s been a really interesting read so I thought I’d share just a few facts from the research that I found surprising and/or interesting:

-          “Four decades ago, America had the best high school graduation rate in the world, but by 2006 it had slipped to 18th out of 24 industrialized countries. As recently as 1995, the U.S. was still tied for first place in the proportion of young adults with a college degree, but by 2000 it had slipped to 9th and by 2006 to 14th. According to the latest OECD figures, the United States has one of the highest college dropout rates in the industrialized world – 53 percent of Americans who enter college do not finish. Only Italy has a higher college dropout rate (55 percent).”

-          “Worldwide, 75 million children fail to complete primary school, either because they drop out in the early grades or because they never got the change to attend school at all.”

-          “In the United States, nearly 2.5 million – or 68 percent – of all American fourth graders are not reading at grade level.”

-          New Mexico, Nevada, Mississippi, Arizona and Alabama are the five lowest-ranked states in the School Success Index. Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine are the highest scoring.

-          The Complete Mothers’ Index ranks countries based on a number of factors to determine “where mothers fare best and where they face the greatest hardships… The contrast between the top-ranked country, Sweden, and the lowest-ranked country, Niger, is striking. Skilled health personnel are present at virtually every birth in Sweden, while only 33 percent of births are attended in Niger. A typical Swedish woman has nearly 17 years of formal education and will live to be 83 years old, 65 percent are using some modern method of contraception, and only one in 185 will lose a child before his or her fifth birthday. At the opposite end of the spectrum, in Niger, a typical woman has little over 3 years of education and will live to be 56. Only 5 percent of women are using modern contraception, and 1 child in 6 dies before his or her fifth birthday. At this rate, every mother in Niger is likely to suffer the loss of a child.”

-          The United States ranked 27th on the Complete Mothers’ Index. “One of the key indicators used to calculate well-being for mothers is lifetime risk of maternal mortality. The United States’ rate for maternal mortality is 1 in 4,800 – one of the highest in the developed world. Thirty-five out of 43 countries performed better than the United States on this indicator, including all the Western, Northern and Southern European countries (save Estonia and Albania) as well as Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Hungary, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine. A woman in the United States is more than 5 times as likely as a woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece or Italy to die from pregnancy-related causes and her risk of maternal death is nearly 10-fold that of a woman in Ireland.”

There’s a lot more info in the report, but those were just a few little things that stood out to me.

These facts are sobering and personally make me wonder what can I and others like me do to change the living conditions of so many women and children around the world…?

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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Letting go and Trusting

June 16th, 2009

So, I haven’t been sleeping very well since being pregnant. In fact I think in the past 23+ weeks that I’ve been pregnant I’ve only slept through the night without waking up once. Honestly, I’m very tired of that. But, last night during one of my many fits of wakefulness I was doing some thinking, or maybe feeling is a better word for it.

It seemed that suddenly I was flooded with all the many things that are currently going on in my life and the lives of those around me that I could worry about. As the many potential worries came at my mind and heart, waves of anxiety started to build. I rolled over trying to shut the thoughts out of my head. I tried to pray for myself and those I love, but it seemed everything came at me so fast and I didn’t know where to even beginning. Soon I was sitting up staring into the darkness, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. In that moment some words came to me, “Which of you by worrying can add a single hair to your head?… Oh, you of little faith.”

What does it mean to trust God in the midst of deep uncertainties and potential devastations? What does it look like to really have faith? How do we stop from spending our days in needless worry that gets us nowhere and does us no good?

I clearly don’t know the answers to these questions as my experience last night shows. But, as I lay there I started to see how truly pointless my worrying was. What did it gain me? It gained me nothing but more worry and anxiety. Then I began to think through each of the situations that were causing me stress. Not a single one of them was something that was in my control or something I could do anything about. I guess that’s why they caused me to worry so much in the first place – if I felt that I could do something about them then I would feel some release of anxiety because I would feel in control over them. But, the truly scary things in life are those things that we have absolutely no control over. So, maybe the act of trusting, the act of letting go of our worries and anxieties is really the act of acknowledging and accepting and surrendering to our ultimate lack of control.

That’s what I worked on last night… letting go. Recognizing my lack of control and accepting that someone far more gracious and loving than me is in control and I could rest in that. I didn’t totally figure it out, but I’m trying.

This morning I opened the Celtic Book of Daily Prayer and came across this section which seemed very applicable:

“Christ of the mysteries, can I trust You
to be stronger than each storm in me?

… I determine amidst all uncertainty
always to trust.

I believe You will make a way for me
and provide for me,
if only I trust You
and obey.

I will trust in the darkness and know
that my times are still in Your hand.”

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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