Joy

I can hardly describe how marvelous it has been to read the notes and comments that you all have left here over the last few days. Okay, I’ll be perfectly honest:  the support and praise and kind words have made my heart swell twelve sizes.In a good way.

And I couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t exactly the same joy that God felt when He stepped back from creation and said “It is good.” A joy that He feels every time we praise Him for His work, a joy that He wants us to experience too.

I’m convinced that something very God-like (dare I say, "godly") happens when we create well and rejoice in each other's work.  We are His children after all, made in His image. If He takes delight in creating well, why should we be surprised if when we use our gifts to praise Him and bless others, it results in undeniable and legitimate joy?

I think many of us are suspicious of this joy.

As a child, if you performed well, you were probably taught to defer praise, to offer it back in a stumbling returned compliment. If you worked hard and completed a project, you quickly learned to minimize the achievement. And so today, instead of simply saying “Thank you, I love what I do and it’s a privilege to serve you in this way,” we look down at our shoes and mumble obviously awkward phrases like “Praise the Lord” or “It was nothing.”

But what if God is a kind, heavenly Father who actually created us to take joy and delight in the work we do too? Who Himself takes joy in it?

Well, then, that is a joy not to be missed.

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First Things

I suppose it all began with one conversation too many, then a book with the perfect title, and an article about Weebly. Add to that, one very creative sister-in-law, a supportive husband and –BAM- I’m in over my head starting a blog. Actually for some time I’ve thought about blogging, but always came down on the safe side.“Really,” my practical self would counter my dreaming self, “how egotistical are you to believe that people actually want to read what you write?”*dreaming self hangs head in shame*

“Besides,” p. self continues “we’re talking commitment here, real down-in-the-trenches, day in, day out, when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-get-going commitment. Which both of us know we don’t have.”

The turning point came one day when I was trying to get my daughter to complete a project for school. As is often the case, my emotions were in play, and I quickly extrapolated her failure to finish this assignment to a future of shattered dreams, unfulfilled expectations, and wasted talent. Always the dreamer, never the doer.

Truth is, that was probably more how I viewed myself than her.

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Those of you who know me, know that I am a fabulous self-starter, full of grand ideas, and revolutionary passions. You also know that I have absolutely no capacity to follow through to see those dreams become reality. If it had been left up to me, the Ninety-Five Theses would have become the Three-Hundred-and-Ninety-Five Theses and still be tucked safely away in a dresser drawer in Wittenberg.But things change when you become a parent. You dare to dream dreams for your children that you don’t even dream for yourself. You see their potential and want to remove every obstacle that would keep them from fulfilling it; and you’ll sacrifice any amount of time, energy, and emotion to develop their God-given gifts.Still, I think I'd missed the best and most basic way to help my children achieve. I realized that day that as simple as it seems, the best way to ensure my daughter pursues her goals is to pursue mine. And the best way to teach her perseverance is not to lecture her about fulfilling her dreams; it’s to let her see me fighting hard for mine.

Take that practical self.

So this blog is an experiment in following a dream to write, modeling commitment for my daughter, and desperately hoping not to fall flat on my face. You’re welcome on the journey and quite frankly it’d be rather lonely without you. I don’t claim to be exceptional or even always interesting - the title is “Sometimes a Light” after all. The best I hope for is that somewhere my passion and your needs will intersect, and when that happens, we’ll both be one step farther along to becoming what God intends us to be.