Choosing to Rest...

"God is my Shepherd
And I am his little lamb.
He feeds me
He guides me
He looks after me.
I have everything I need.
Inside, my heart is very quiet.

As quiet as lying still in soft green grass
In a meadow
By a little stream."

Author: Sally Lloyd-Jones (adaptation of Psalm 23)

This sounds great, right? A quiet heart is resting in a meadow, listening to the gentle gurgling of a quiet stream...
Then there's reality: the baby is cranky, very cranky (currently has a virus and is cutting new teeth), and he also has a knack for being caught up in the potty-training adventures of his older sister. Multiple accidents daily and serious lack of sleep at night, alongside the rigors of language study, pregnancy, living cross-culturally, etc...
Rest? Quiet? "I have everything I need"?

We have asked our Shepherd so many times to restore the sleep of our precious, still-very-snuggly 13 month old. Either He's not answering us...or He is. Perhaps He wants to teach us how to rest in Him when life doesn't feel like a meadow with a quiet stream. Perhaps He wants to teach us how to have a heart that is very quiet even as we respond to the not-so-quiet issues He's called us to deal with.

He is, after all, still the One in charge. He has not lost a bit of victory. Whatever He asks us to do, He assures us He will give us the strength to do it. He is totally capable of "strengthen[ing us] with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy" (Col.1).

This is a moment-by-moment battle. When I am tempted to be frustrated (or when I have already begun to feel frustrated), the question is beginning to arise: "Will you rest in Me and enjoy this task that I have given you or will you just 'survive'?"

We know our true identity; He knows our true identity. May we live as the royalty we truly are.

after a month...the rubber begins to meet the road

Making a cross-cultural move always has some degree of excitement to it. There was a time in our lives that we thought excitement would carry us through the stress of a cross-cultural move. Fortunately, before we moved to Costa Rica, we realized that, as much as we love adventure, adventure is not enough to provide endurance under stress.

Stress is finally catching up with us, just a bit. The unexpected "adventure" that we rejoice to find ourselves in (i.e. adding another member to our family this year) is so exciting! But the reality is that even excitement (i.e., adventure) brings stress; in this case, it's the "mommy feels yucky all the time" kind of stress, which brings the "daddy has to do a lot more" kind of stress and the "why don't mommy and daddy have time for _____ anymore" kind of stress.

And so we enter a phase of the adventure that requires a lot of stress management; how can we constantly, consciously bring our stress levels down so that they do not stay elevated? A friend wisely reminded us that living stressed actually works again our language learning by in effect killing the brain cells that we need in order to learn a new language. Not to mention that living stressed brings out the worst in us, making it oh-so-very-easy to respond in harshness to those we love most. The long-term effects of allowing stress to dominate our lives are scary indeed.


Once again my favorite book brings a Word of hope that I can grab onto: "Let the goal of this day be to bring every thought captive to Me. Whenever your mind wanders, lasso those thoughts and bring them into My Presence." Yes, we know that eating right, getting enough sleep (!?!), and exercising (no worries there with all the walking) are great ways to manage stress, and we're doing our best at them. But there is no better antidote for stress than sitting in the Presence of the Prince of Peace. Pray for us to keep going there - and more than just in the morning for a few concentrated moments. Pray for us to live there. "In Your Presence all my fears are washed away..."

The Spirit has been encouraging me with these words today: "I will not ask you to do anything that I will not give you the strength to do." Today I survived a church service with no nursery with a very cranky but incredibly active one year old; it was not fun. But as I sat in an empty room (which I was very thankful for) with him as he screamed, the Spirit said, "If I ask you to do this, I will help you do it. I will even help you do it with a heart that is at rest in me and not full of frustration." This is what I long for - to do everything with a heart that rests in Him instead of pumping the heat of frustration through my veins.  

I/we do not have all the answers. We will have many choices over the next several months; we will need wisdom for how to navigate these waters of childbirth during language school. Knowing that we have friends and family who love us, support us, and believe in us is HUGE - thank you for expressing your support for us.

2 weeks in...

We arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica just over two weeks ago. In that time we've unpacked 28 bags (well, almost all of them - some we're saving for Uruguay), gone through orientation, celebrated two of our children's birthdays, and had three regular days of language classes.

Our house is wonderful. Bathtubs are a rarity in most places outside the USA, and ours is huge! It fits all three kids very well, so that is a great nighttime ritual. All of our major appliances are USA-style, which makes for early user-friendliness:) The rooms and furniture are comfortable, and now we are all set up with internet (which you cannot purchase without also getting cable, so at this moment Jimbo is preparing to watch the Tim Tebow, er, Broncos game tonight). In many ways our house here is more comfortable than our previous housing in Florida.

Our schedule is mostly settled. We leave the house (walking) five days a week at 7 a.m. to get the kids into their classes before ours starts at 7:30 a.m. Our classes are all finished by noon (then we wait for one kiddo until 1 p.m.). Lots of things happen in the afternoons - too many to list:)
We have established Fridays as "family date days." After school we'll try to do something fun as a family - this gives us something to look forward to during the week.  We go to bed earlier than we EVER have before - usually we're all asleep by 8:30.

Our kids are doing beautifully. They have weathered this transition incredibly well - thank you so much for talking to the Father about this for us! Our little one is still not sleeping well at night. We are taking turns getting up with him. We trust that this will not continue for the entire year and are thankful for when the change begins.

Our classes are going well. We (J and I) are in the same classes for four hours five days a week...right now this is a good thing:) We feel confident in class right now.

Right now we are learning that victory is not so much about doing things right (we've made a few mistakes since we've been here) as it is about our response during and after our failure. Consider the following quote from one of my favorite books:


"People usually associate victory with success: not falling or stumbling, not making mistakes. But those who are successful in their own strength tend to go their own way, forgetting about Me. It is through problems and failure, weakness and neediness that you learn to rely on Me."

We have already seen great victory here in San Jose as the stress of doing new things (and I really never can find a pen!) brings out the unlovely in us. What an amazing opportunity to be purified! We all know we're not perfect, but how do we ever move forward? Try going through stress in an environment of grace - His Presence.

We have so much to be thankful for: a (clean!) house, a job, amazing food (cooked for us),  healthy kids, a thriving marriage, supportive families, friends who love us, a high quality language school, and the health and strength to live the Pura Vida (as they say here in Costa Rica) with gusto.

We look forward to sharing with you (and hearing from you) as we progress through the year.
Happy (belated) New Year!

So much to do, so little time

Looking at the next two days is overwhelming. If we were to try to do everything that we need and/or want to do (last minute details, last minute packing, focusing on saying goodbye well, we would be stressed for every minute of the next two days.

A quote from one of my (Timbrel's) favorite books helped me this morning as we prepared to leave Toccoa, GA (where we've been for the past week with my family). Being away from Minneola has been stressful in its own way, especially for the kids, but for us it has also been a break from all the crazy packing, details, and decisions. Now we're entering the packing zone again, and I feel the weight of "how will I get all this done?" returning.

Here's what Abba said:
"Your time and energy are limited; only I know how much of each you have...Instead of wasting so much energy longing for what is not, invest that energy into trusting Me...Trusting Me will draw you into My joyful Presence."

So, we have come to grips with the fact that not everything that "needs" to be done will get done, and we have already crossed a few things off of our list. We are asking Abba to help us accomplish the important things and to help us recognize and let go of the nonessential.

Because one day in His Presence is better than a thousand elsewhere.

Will you ask the Father to keep drawing us into His Presence, and to care for the details that need to happen? We continue to speak "Grace!" to the growing mountain of luggage that sits in our house - "Grace!" to its packing, "Grace!" to its transport to the airport, "Grace!" to its free passage to Costa Rica, "Grace!" to it's acceptance into Costa Rica, and "Grace!" to its unpacking in Costa Rica.

He is enough.

The Rest of the Story...

I find that there is so much I want to share in a monthly newsletter, but there is never enough space.

So here's the rest of what I wanted to put in this month's newsletter, but didn't because I didn't want to overwhelm everyone with information.

We had a great time with Jimbo's side of the family in November. If you're friends with us on Facebook, you can see some great photos from a photo shoot we did.

K is doing really well going to her "class" every day! We are so thankful for this. She is blossoming in the wonderful kids' program that they have here in CO. Baby M is actually the one having a rough time in the "nursery"; we're not sure why. He is also not sleeping well at night. Please lift up his security and rest! Our oldest is loving the program, as we knew she would. She is like a sponge, soaking up all she can. She is excited about school in Costa Rica, but nervous about learning a new language.

Jimbo and I continue to process, process, process. The training we're doing now is definitely set up for that, dragging things out where we can see them and learn from them. So it's an emotionally full time, and a joyous time as well.

Our bags at home are....mostly....packed. It will be an interesting 3 days between Christmas in Georgia and departure for Costa Rica.

We have seen pictures of our house in Costa Rica! How exciting! It looks great.

Thanks for walking with us on this journey, for praying for us, for believing in us, for supporting us. We value each one of you.
-T

Leaving Well

As we walk in our final weeks before making the great leap, we pack, and pack, and pack, and re-pack. Currently we have almost 20 suitcases! And yes, we're trying to narrow it down. We found out that the JetBlue agent who checks us in at the end of December will have the power to give us great favor with the baggage, but it is a case-by-case basis. Thank you for taking this to the Father for us!

In order to enter a new culture well, we need to leave well. One focus of our last weeks is communicating to our family and friends that we value our relationships with them. We are trying to help our kids through this process as well. Please, ask the Father that our relationships would be at a launching point - ending what has been and beginning what will be, and walking in wholeness. The enemy is already trying to keep us from leaving well in this way - will you stand against him with us?

Lessons from Fasting

Fasting is quite often the proverbial elephant in the room. Wanting to be sure that we don't make the mistake of the Pharisees, we don't talk about it very much, especially when we're actually participating in a fast. Could it be that we actually miss out on a lot by not sharing with each other the lessons that we learn during these times? Perhaps more of this invaluable practice would take place if we were more aware of its benefits?

We have been fasting in different ways, allowing the Father to lead us through a 40 day process where all 40 days don't look the same. It has been an amazing time (which isn't quite over yet! what else does He have in store?!?)

This year has been a year of healing - a year of strongholds being revealed and conquered. Fasting has revealed deeper layers of these strongholds, leading us to more complete victory over them. One by one, over the course of weeks, the Father continues His patient work.

One area (for Timbrel) has been dealing with EXPECTATIONS. Early in the fast, I attended a COP that brought a break-through for me. I am SAFE in my identity in Him. His other children are also SAFE in their identities in Him. Because of this, I don't have to live in awareness of what others think about me; neither do I have to waste time criticizing others - they're SAFE.

This area of EXPECTATIONS led straight to a battle with FRUSTRATION (this area was highlighted by my stint as a single parent for 3 1/2 weeks). The lesson here: Frustration comes when my Expectations for others aren't met. The solution: let go of my expectations. My Abba has no expectations for me - who am I to have them for others? Slowly, slowly, I am learning to be in CHARGE of my kids without being in CONTROL of my kids, releasing them from expectations, and disciplining them in love.

Jimbo, meanwhile, has experienced deeper levels of freedom from ANXIETY. He had a lot of time to read on his 3 1/2 week tour, and Steve Farrar's book Battle Ready was a great encouragement in this area. Giants come, battles have to happen, but, as John Wayne once said, "Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway" (a quote Jimbo saw a lot during his time out west).

Perhaps your Father is leading you to fast - from what? He'll let you know. For how long? He'll tell you. Why? to bring a sense of desperation for Him, a broken and contrite spirit. Because where there is brokenness, He is there. And when we give Him our brokenness, He will heal.