From Languish to Lavish

 

What happens when a LANGUISHING heart taps into LAVISH love?

Last night, I read the word “languishing” in an article written in the New York Times.  This morning, I read the same word – “languishing” - in the book of Psalms in the Bible.  When a word I haven’t heard before or in a long time is suddenly repeated around me, I sit up and take notice.  I believe it’s God giving me a cosmic tap on the shoulder and I’ve learned to pay attention. 

Languishing means to be weak, to droop, to be exhausted, to feel forlorn or depleted.  It’s how many of us are feeling right now as we trudge slump-shouldered into our second year of Covid lockdowns and isolations.   We feel stuck, cut off from the life we want to be living.  Our days have lost their lustre.

“Hey mom!  What are we doing tomorrow?” my kids will query night after night.

“Same as we did today, guys…” I drone wearily night after night.

Adam Grant’s article* nailed that feeling I feel; Yup, I’m languishing.  How about you?

If I were an electronic device, I’d plug myself in and charge up my batteries.  If I were a gas tank, I’d glug gas into me real quick.  If I was a cluster of drooping yellow tulips, I’d scream for water. 

It’s quite obvious that I am in need of a fill-up, a charge-up, a replenishing.  But batteries, gas, and water won’t suffice.  So where on earth should I turn?  Where on earth can I go?  Where on earth is the answer?

There are many distractions on this earth that may give us some energy, lift, and thrust but are they enough to let us fly?  To truly grant flourishing and prosperity at a heart and soul level?

Nope.  Though the distractions of good food, great company, a solid education, engrossing entertainment, sensual sex, happy holidays, amazing art and literature will hold and fill us up for a time; they are all finite.  They end or run out and cannot sustain us through the whole season of our complicated, messy, constantly-changing, roller-coaster life. 

Which is why I am suggesting we plug our languishing hearts into the lavish abundance of God’s love.  His love is profuse, extravagant, sumptuously rich, unreasonable, and endless.  It never runs out and when we fill-up with His love, our cup runs over.   That means we will have more, more than enough. 

God’s love can hold and fill us up for all time.  And it fills us with this strength-inducing thing called HOPE. 

Not so much a hope that our circumstances will change; not so much a hope that covid will end and we can collectively rip off our masks and hug and congregate once again; but, rather, a deeper and longer-lasting HOPE that no matter what happens, we are loved and looked after.  A HOPE that even if Covid goes on for forty more years, God has a purpose and a plan for all this and for every single one of us.  For me and for you.   A hope that God will see us through this time. 

And I get it, hope might feel risky right now.  Many of us have had our hopes dashed over and over again over the past year.  Hope for that surgery that was planned.  Dashed.  Hope for covid to be over.  Dashed.  Hope for this birthday to be celebrated with friends.  Dashed.  Hope to sit bedside in the hospital with our loved one.  Dashed.

Hope might feel risky right now because we’ve been anchoring it into the slipperiness of circumstances.  What we need is a firm and secure holding place to grow our hope from.  What we need is the rock-like solidity that is God and his beautiful, glorious, lavish love. 

My friends, let’s tentatively tip-toe our languishing hearts and drooping shoulders into the lavish abundance of God’s love.   Let’s plug in here and wait for the fill-up of HOPE to happen.   It may take a while to charge up, fill-up and renew your strength so just keep plugged in and wait for it.  Wait for it.  Wait for it.  Wait for it.

And, even if covid continues, let the HOPE growing out of God’s love allow you to flourish today.

 

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“Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled.  My soul also is greatly troubled.  But you, O LORD - how long?”  Psalm 6:2,3

 

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.” 

1 John 1: 3a

“I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heart my cry.  He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.  He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.”  Psalm 40: 1-3

 

*New York Times article referred to:  “There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling:  It’s Called Languishing”  by Adam Grant

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html?smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR1OeLi1YWzF_6LIKzGZqWtFRycrVNuMv2LoEviXF4P14Ywy9EZV-sNf15o

The Sound of Snow

 What sound does a snowflake make as it swirls toward the ground?

Rain pitters, patters, splashes, and sloshes.

But a snowflake lazily drifts, floats, spins in a silent lavish audacious dance toward the earth.

White blanketing the pear tree blossoms; burdening the daffodil heads with glistening weighted drops; coating miss kim lilac branches with intricate lacy cold.

Today, it snowed and more snow is on the forecast for tomorrow.

What do you get when you cross a spring snow storm with a lockdown, I wondered in annoyed and frustrated irritation today. It all seemed like a cruel joke and in retaliation, I decided to not go outside any more today.

"Take that, Outside! No walking with you!" I sneered.

Every year, I laughingly count on that One Extra Surprise Snowstorm that arrives late in spring. Every year I wait until mid May to wash the winter gear and fold it all away for next year. But every year, Spring lures me in with her seductive flowering trees and bulging green tree buds and shy lily shoots. And this year, it happened again.

After all, the maple and willow trees had adorned their green haloes; the magnolia trees were bursting with pale pink blooms; deep purple hyacinths clustered fragrantly in gardens; and bold yellow forsythia flowers colored bare branches.

Plus, it seemed Iike a warm and gently arrived spring would be a wonderful trade-off for our current pandemic-flavoured, locked down state of existence.

But, no. Snow seemed to be the cruel joke of the day and I scowled fiercely at it all day.

Until tonight, when Outside beckoned.

I love love love being in nature; it's my Outdoor Therapy because when I'm in nature, I'm surrounded by God's creation, I feel so close to him, and I spend much of my walk talking with Him (well, when I'm not chatting with the neighbors. Hi, Linda!)

On my evening walk, snowflakes swirled around me, coating my eyelashes with wet cold.

And it was so peaceful and beautiful and wonderful that I wondered what sound does a snowflake make as it swirls toward the ground?

Do you know?

It makes no sound. No sound at all.

And with the loud silence, my heart felt peace.

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#womenencouragers #snow

Covid Can't Steal My Joy

 

• I hear them before I see them.

  Actually, I'm sure the entire neighbourhood hears them because they are loudly laughing and shrieking with delight. They run outside on stocking feet to bounce boisterously together whenever they can. All four of them.
  I watch for several seconds from behind the screen door before I sneak out into the sunshine to shoot a video.
  It's important that I really see and remember moments like this. It's important that we all do.
  Why?
  Because we can get laden and weighed down by the negatives, grievances, and general suckiness of this world. It's easy to be heavy-hearted after hearing about the Provincial emergency and stay-at-home order here in Ontario. It's easy to become frustrated, angry, and depressed. I know I am.
  And all that negativity sucks the air out of the room, doesn't it? It distracts us from seeing the raw beauty that is still there, from witnessing moments of exuberance and unbridled laughter, from glimpsing snapshots of delight.
  Covid has stripped down and stolen so much from us over the past year; but guess what? It doesn't get to steal our joy!

  Nope-on-a-rope!
  Joy is rooted in an unshakable and audacious confidence that God is still in control of all these things, all these days, all this covid. Joy is a condition of the heart that overflows and spills over into the words we say, the things we do, the thoughts we harbour. Joy is not slippery like happiness because it doesn't hinge on our circumstances looking a certain way. This means that even if you and I are not happy about the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders dictated by covid, we can still find joy.
  Listen for the laughter. Look for the beauty. Seek out the signs of spring. Experience the delight. Remember these moments and two-hand cling to joy.
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  "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning." Psalm 30:5b
  "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Proverbs 3: 5,6
  #womenencouragers #seekjoy #covid2021 #StayAtHomeOrder

  #gotthejoydowninmyheart #joy

  
  

All Shook Up! (an Easter Reflection)

 

It’s April 1^st, but I’m not laughing. 

The sun’s out, a long weekend stretches ahead, but I’m unsettled.  I can’t stop thinking about a tale of two cities.

There’s the city of Jerusalem circa 33 AD that's "all stirred up" when Jesus rides into town.

And, in a vast contrast, there’s my city which is currently in a grey-lockdown level of shut-down due to covid-19.

 

A city stirred up and a city shutdown.

 

I worry that all our Easter celebrations will be cancelled for the second year in a row and my heart feels heavy.  There have been rumours of people quarantining; of schools closing early; of numbers in Ontario rising and these feel like the ominous precludes to the impending doom of further shutdowns.

 

And I wonder how to get stirred up about Easter when my sentiments feel like such a far cry from the long-ago sentiments of those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem.   They were loud and boisterous.  They were exuberant and joyful. They waved palm branches - a beautiful symbol of victory and peace - and shed their cloaks to lay before Jesus and the donkey colt he rode in on. They cheered "HOSANNA" and welcomed Jesus as if he was a conquering hero.

They were not despondent, discouraged, or disquieted.

 

So, I do a little word study because word studies make me happy (also cheerful, gleeful, and delightedly jovial).

 

Some etymology work unearths the fact that the "stirred up" in the story of Jesus' Triumphal Entry comes from the Greek word seiō which means to shake, agitate, tremor, or quake.  The Bible uses this same word (seiō) to describe the earth shaking after Jesus died or the guards trembling when an angel appears to roll away the stone from his tomb. 

 

If being stirred up means to be shaken up and agitated, then I think Hamilton just might be a city that is simultaneously shutdown AND stirred up.

 

In Jerusalem, the source of the agitation was Jesus.  He was ushering in hope and victory at a time when there was oppression and defeat.  In Hamilton, the source of our agitation is covid-19.  It ushers in despair, uncertainty, and divisive opinions at a time when there was seeming comfort and peace. 

 

In both cases, people are unsettled, and this is always a good time to sit up, take notice and seek answers. 

 

Covid has exposed the transience of this world.  It is susceptible to sickness and death.

Covid has exposed our love of the comforts in this world. 

Covid has exposed our argumentativeness and inability to listen to one another.

Covid has exposed the fact that our hope cannot be found in this place called earth.    

Covid has unsettled us, shaken us up, and caused despair. 

 

And the wonderful thing about all this agitation is that it makes us look long and hard for hope, peace, and comfort. 

 

Which was ushered in by Jesus long ago. 

 

Jesus gives hope for humanity. 

Jesus died for the sins of all who believe in him and then he rose again. 

Jesus conquered sin and death.

Jesus promises peace and rest and an end to despair. 

Jesus is the point of our Easter celebrations even if church is cancelled, dinners are postponed, and we can only see loved ones while masked and standing 6 feet apart.

 

The Easter weekend is almost here.  Are you feeling shaken up?

There is hope for you and me today and it’s certainly not found in this covid-contaminated place.  There’s hope today and it’s found in Jesus.