#FMF

privilege: the wonder of surrendering our lives to Jesus

/ Joy Lenton / 17 Comments

 

My husband often jokes that I have a hot-line to heaven, the privilege of seeing my prayers answered more than he does. Maybe it’s because I see no limitations in what I pray about, including minor things, such as obtaining parking spaces and finding lost objects – yes, really!

I didn’t grow up in a privileged way or with any sense of entitlement. On the contrary, my background prepared me for the school of hard knocks I’ve been in for the majority of my life. Yet threaded through it all, often in intangible ways, God’s goodness and grace have been the backbone of everything I have experienced.

Although it might have taken me years to really appreciate it, I am discovering that time and hindsight are uncovering the enormous privilege it is to be a beloved child of God and a woman of faith who, despite her obvious weaknesses and glaring inadequacies, has been given the privilege of living and witnessing for Him.

I have the privilege

I have the privilege of being a writer and poet
who God works through to minister to others
while I pour out my heart, witness to his work deep
within and seek to encourage them to trust in him

I have the privilege of being a child of God
who is wrapped round tight with his infinite
love, made safe and secure by his mercy and
held closer than I am aware of or can see

I have the privilege of being a woman of faith
with God’s holy grace filling and flooding my
days, and his forgiveness readily available
for every sin I might commit, and those
I don’t even know about yet

I have the privilege of being able to pray
minute by minute throughout the day, as I
yield and surrender my heart and soul to my
burden-bearing Lord, and watch how wonderfully
he lifts my cares and pain, while restoring me
gently back to wholeness again
©joylenton

**I also have the privilege of a 5 minute poem arising in response to this week’s #FMF prompt of ‘privilege’. You are very welcome to come join us here and read the wide variety of posts being shared.** 🙂 

simplify: simplifying by expanding our holy joy #FMF

/ Joy Lenton / 14 Comments

 

January invites us to set new goals and parameters, expand our plans and interests, or maybe mirror winter-bare trees as we try to simplify, pare back after the indulgence of Christmas excess, shake loose our encumbrances and embrace less.

Minimalism began to whisper my name a few months ago and (at a snail-like speed, of course), I began tentatively journeying towards it. However, I have been greatly hampered in my efforts to cut back and declutter, due to the usual depletion and weakness, higher priorities demanding attention and worsening health issues.

While my home has small areas that are trimmed back to basics, much of it is still very cluttered, messy and untidy. Although I haven’t given up on changing that scenario, even if my health and inner life look like they need to be a top priority right now.

Simplify

Looking around my house, I still see evidence

and detritus of Christmas, but is that a bad thing?

Shouldn’t the incarnation of Christ be at the heart

of my home, my life, my work and witness for him?

I need to simplify, I really do, not just remove the

mess and clutter but make God the primary focus

of my life, and try not to live in a me-centric way

where holy joy cannot get a foot in the door or stay.

I need to simplify, have a daily soul cleanse and

decluttering, plus a minute-by-minute awareness,

mindful walk of faith. If not, I am in grave danger of

creating islands of junk, falling foul of their stink

and letting rot sink into my soul, because my

perspective gets skewed. Lord, would you help me

to try to simplify, to place all that I am into your hands

and centre my thoughts more on living according

to the Light within? May I follow your footsteps, seek

hard after your heart, surrender to your loving plans

long created for me to fully believe and receive.

©joylenton

**This year my primary focus is simplified down to an essential, as I aim to prioritise my God-given word of “joy”**

Today’s joy notes…

  • my sore throat easing and pain being less invasive
  • a good night’s sleep for once, praise God!
  • energy and inspiration enough to write
  • flu symptoms abating a bit, yay!
  • a beautiful bright, sunny day, which lifts my mood immensely

I am also joyful to be joining with my lovely five-minute-friday friends after a long, long absence! You can find us sharing our words here. and you’re very welcome to join in too. This week’s word is ‘simplify’.

 

PS: In case you’re interested in the concept of minimalism, I’m getting a lot of useful tips and inspiration for a minimalist lifestyle from the ‘Becoming Minimalist’ blog, in reading Joshua Becker’s book ‘Simplify’ and dipping into his more detailed read, ‘The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own’.  🙂 ❤

abandon: on surrendering our lives to God

/ Joy Lenton / 24 Comments

 

Being abandoned, even temporarily, feels devastating. Nothing else quite strikes at the core of who we think we are and what our perceived worth and value might be in another’s eyes.

Many of us feel the sting of shame at being rejected or abandoned by our birth parents, whether at birth , later on by the way we are treated, or as casualties of our parents’ splitting up.

Such things leave scars which can mar us for life, if we let them. I only began to fathom what unconditional, fully accepting, lavish love looked like when I came to faith in Christ in my late teens.

I still marvel over our Heavenly Father adopting me into His family, viewing me as His oh so precious, beloved child. And I am not alone in this, because that’s how He sees you too, my friend, and longs to be in a close, loving, intimate relationship with you.

There are some barriers in the way at first, most of all our sin. Though unbelief and rejection of His love can also be a hindrance to receiving it. Thankfully, Jesus made a way where there seemed to be no way.

His death on the cross and glorious resurrection are the means whereby we become reunited to God. They reveal how we, too, can learn to die to sin, overcome our shame, guilt and pain and rise again in newness of life with Him.

Once we see and believe just how much God loves us, we start to realise we are never as alone or abandoned as we might feel. And we are given daily grace and strength from Him.

Abandon

I want to become a prisoner of

Hope, abandon myself on the altar

of dependence, and rest in God’s

all-sufficiency—because he has given 

us the greatest abandonment of all

nailed fast to a wooden cross

 

Jesus chose to abandon himself

to death, to suffering, to ultimate sacrifice

for our sin, for our sake, for our lives

He chose the path less travelled, seeking

 

to be a servant of all, relinquishing

his kingly crown and throwing down

the gauntlet to the kingdom of darkness

which had us in its thrall

 

Now we, who were orphans of circumstance,

hostage to habit, taunted by temptation,

have become beloved daughters and sons, children

of God instead of life’s lost, unwanted

ones. We’ve received a fresh heritage

 

made rich by faith, given a brand new

start, new heart, clean slate, on which

our Father God can write his eternal glory

story—as we abandon ourselves willingly

to surrender, and close relationship with him

©joylenton2017

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed. but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” ~ 2 Corinthians 4:8-10 (emphasis mine)

Happy to be linking my (rather late), poetic #FMF words in companionship with fellow wordsmiths gathering at Kate Motaung’s site. Just click here to join us there. 

**NOTE** – If you’re seeking solace, you might like to read my poetic memoir journey of discovering grace in life’s hard places. It’s available free today to download here on Amazon Kindle.  🙂

safe: learning to trust when life feels unsafe

/ Joy Lenton / 28 Comments

fmf-safe-poetry-joy-file-image

 

My childhood didn’t fully prepare me to trust or feel safe and secure in the ways I might have hoped it would. But it did lead me to seek for ways to lighten the darkness in my child-heart by enjoying the simple pleasures of life, like blowing bubbles or chasing butterflies.

Not all of the methods I chose were actually safe or helpful, until God shone the light of His presence into my life and I was undone in the best possible way. Because up to then, love had been far from easy, unconditional, lavish or free.

Life can feel less than safe in this dark world,  as I still wrestle with demons from my past and deal with myriad challenges in the present. Yet my hope and faith are safe, secure, resting on God’s redemption, goodness and grace, His wild, wild Love and forgiveness that covers all my sin, and His broken heart for a suffering world.

In thinking about the word ‘safe’ for this week’s five-minute-friday prompt, several things suggested themselves. There was even a first attempt poem that didn’t quite feel right, though it may well get shared another day.

I am so grateful God is a God of second chances—as well as second thoughts—and how He has provided this alternative poetic offering unexpectedly today, albeit a bit later than planned.

Safe

The watery womb was my home

I nestled close, listening to thrum

of human heartbeat, soothed again

by its sweet refrain rhythm

 

And as I stretched my limbs

I sensed the confines of this space

gradually closing in

 

It was time—time to be born

before my time to die—time

to breathe, live outside this home

 

I sensed movement, tightening

and squeezing. It didn’t seem safe

but I trusted to my fate

 

Then a soft night light shone warmly

on my screwed up face. My eyes had grown

unaccustomed to the Light

 

Hands groped for my body, held me

tight, as lovingly as can be, cradled

me safe, welcomed me to life

 

And I knew, instinctively, despite

how different this would be, how hard

my Father was still holding me

©joylenton2017

Please click here to join us for the #FMF link up. You’ll be blessed by the beautiful writing and warm, supportive community there.  🙂

safe-poem-excerpt-fmf-poetry-joy

breathe: when it’s time to breathe freely again

/ Joy Lenton / 21 Comments

breathe-fmf-poetry-joy

 

Is it just me, or do you also find that the more outwardly busy you become, the more your thoughts tend to spiral out of control? It’s as if we try to get a handle on our lives by mentally processing and digesting  stuff, so that we can sort and sift what to retain or ditch.

And in doing this we also hope to wrestle with our worries, and maybe even banish them, forgetting how giving our concerns a lot of head space usually achieves the opposite effect, making them multiply instead.

Finding (and maintaining) a calm core to our days in the midst of life’s busyness, storms and demands, calls for awareness, deliberation and decisiveness.  It requires us to still ourselves body and soul and to pause long enough to listen to what our life, and God, is saying to us.

I find that prayer, especially of the centering kind, is a marvellous and needful pause during life’s busyness. It helps me to remember to breathe… and yield my cares to God, leading to a deeper soul peace. Though it can often get sidelined when I’m  feeling overwhelmed by extra demands being made of me, as the five-minute-friday poem below suggests.

Time to breathe

I wonder, is there time to breathe?

Yes says the flourishing flower stretching

her growing beauty out of tiny seed

The race is not to the swift, nor

battle to the strong, but to those who

learn to wait patiently—enduring long

 

Yet I take such small, sharp, shallow breaths

and I sense a tight constriction

within my chest. For it seems that I

have somehow forgotten how to breathe

in synchrony with life’s rhythms

or go gently into each season

 

Instead, I mentally rush headlong

into each day, barely pausing to breathe

or pray, pushing a body so fatigued

and sore to do Just One Thing More

And it’s no wonder I feel all out of

sorts, stressed and harassed, of course

 

Because I’ve forgotten to stop and sit

with stillness, or simply stay in tune

with Holy Spirit—and calmly rest myself

in Him, rather than in my easily

exhaustible, all too human limits

©joylenton2017

breathe-time-to-breathe-poem-excerpt-fmf-pj

 

I think I should have heeded the words I wrote here last week about feeling out of control and needing to breathe!  :/

But I’m glad I listened to inspiration coming, so I could share my thoughts with the fabulous #FMF writing crew gathering over at Kate Motaung’s site to write about this week’s prompt of ‘breathe’. Come join us?

control: relinquishing outcomes into God’s hands

/ Joy Lenton / 13 Comments

control-relinquishing-outcomes-to-gods-hands-pj

 

Control is a slippery customer. The more we try to grasp it, the more it slides through our fingers. And yet we still try to hold on to those things we perceive we have a sense of control over.

They can become a mirage of sorts, shapes in a mist made material in our eyes. Control is a longing stemming back to Eden. Our souls seek to cling to it, and in the process we soon discover how ethereal and insubstantial it really is.

Maybe we’ve had control wrested from us in the name of love, leading to a lasting distrust of feeling decidedly out of control. Because it initiates primal fears, makes us nervous to realise we’re not running the show, that deep down there’s some insufficiency within.

Perceived lack and insecurity are strong motivators for tenaciously hanging on to the thin threads of our thoughts, clinging to desires, people and possessions, as though they could all be taken away somehow, unless we hold on hard.

When we reach out to God instead, we begin to relinquish control of our lives—one small step at a time. We learn to rest in, rather than resisting, His work in us. We develop a relationship based on trust in Someone faithful beyond compare.

And we soon discover that the freedom and liberty we gain in Christ is more fulfilling and meaningful than living a controlling  life where self-control is the hardest thing of all to achieve.

Control

I need to breathe, because I feel out of control

though it’s a human illusion to have complete

ownership over it all. How easily we

forget how our very breath is a gift from God

and every step we take or decision we make

fits within his eternal plan. And His prescience

precedes our existence, like his purpose

outlasts our earthly lives, our desire to build

empires, to dream, to daily survive and thrive

potter-image-morguefile

 

So I still my soul, as life spins me sideways

I seek to surrender these cares and concerns

these hoped for outcomes—release them all

into God’s safe hands. I choose to trust, just

because we can wear ourselves out on the wheel

or turn toward the One who’s moulding you and me

We’re lumps of clay being shaped by a gentle

Potter’s hands. We’re all potential works of art

potter-and-clay-image-by-lauren

 

to grace this world with our Maker’s mark

We’ve been given freedom to slip away

from his grasp, or yield to a touch that

only wants the best for us. There’s nothing

keeping us stuck—apart from a willingness

to become all we can be in the hands of Love

©joylenton2017

I’m sharing these free-flowing, imperfect poetic #FMF thoughts with fellow wordsmith friends at Kate Motaung’s place, where this week’s prompt is ‘control’. You can read the amazingly diverse posts being shared and come join us here.

control-poem-fmf-pj

refine: paring back to neccesity

/ Joy Lenton / 13 Comments

refine-pared-back-pj

 

It’s that January feeling.  As air sighs out icy purity and trees wear their winter-bare skeletal clothes,  our souls begin to sense how weighed down we really are, how much we need to refine back to necessity.

The excess of Christmas is beyond us. A new year signals time to begin again and waken anew to promise and potential ahead of us. But we’re not always ready to shrug off blankets of lethargy or sloughs of despondency, nor certain of the choices before us.

Hibernation looks inviting. Many of us lack the physical or mental energy to move ahead or make needful changes to our schedule, never mind our lives. I find myself torn between the very real need to snuggle under the duvet and a desire to refine my life.

I need Holy inspiration, wisdom and courage to make lasting change possible. I need God’s strength and guidance to even begin to move forward a little. Change is possible if we pray, seek God’s support, take it slowly and celebrate small victories along the way.  And just like trees, without the paring back we cannot grow or flourish as intended.

Over the next few months I hope to review the vision God has for my life, to discover afresh that releasing is the key to receiving His best. It helps to remember just Who has us in His loving, capable hands.

“Fear can keep you up all night but faith makes one fine pillow” ~ Philip Gulley

A desire to refine

I need to refine my life, clear out

the clutter, remove dead leaves, pare

back to bare bones and finally see

what is at the heart of me. I need

to define my days in the light

of eternity, live complete, wholly

and holy surrendered to my destiny

 

This is a season to rout out

dead wood, slim down to essentials

sift and sort these interior

and outer rooms, ready my soul

for a fresh infilling of Holy Ghost

I long to become a home, a haven

for others—first I need to let loose detritus

 

Because it’s only when we refine

down to necessity that we begin

to truly see who we are, where

we are now and how to become

all God fully intends us to be

©joylenton2017

a-need-to-refine-poem-poetry-joy

 

I’m happy to be sharing my poetic thoughts with the lovely five-minute-friday writing crew today as we reflect on the prompt ‘refine’. You can find us gathering at our gracious host, Kate Motaung’s site here, and you’re warmly invited to join us. 

Advent invites us into the continual now of God’s presence

/ Joy Lenton / 10 Comments

manger-nativity-pj

 

We sit with great expectations in this season—usually driven more by insistence from the media than by us fully reverencing the manger. Rarely are they met. More often than not, we emerge out the other side of Advent as a weary wreck. Maybe there’s a way to do things differently? 

As I rested upstairs, had a needful break to recharge this afternoon, breathed out slow and sat with the Lord for a while, these poetic thoughts emerged…

Advent invites us…

Advent invites us to savour the now, ever-present sense of God’s presence in this world, invisible yet still tangible somehow.

It reminds us of the manger being but a step to the cross, a way of remembering all that Jesus bought for us at such a great cost.

We’re invited to linger and marvel at Love come down. We’re welcomed to a stable, a baby fit for a shiny Royal crown.

Here, in swaddling clothes, manger-wrapped and ready for us to receive Him is a Gift to accept and unwrap the promises hidden deep within.

And the Advent now also suggests tension and stress, cards to write and send, folk to invite, parcelling of presents, our own gifts to share with family and friends.

There’s a drive to have the right kind of offering, forgetting how our love and our presence are always the best thing.

In all the rush and hurry, haste and paste, decorating and baking, we can lose sight of that starry night in Bethlehem. We can neglect to make space in the here and now for the One who this celebration is really about.

I’m guilty as charged, knowing I need to heed those soft whispers nudging my spirit more than before, because I’m in danger of forgetting my Saviour in the drive to do one thing more before collapsing with fatigue.

But when we stop, take a breath, a sacred pause? Why, we find God is here, in the moment, of course. Always patiently waiting for our attention, He reaches out across time and eternity to welcome us into the Now of His glorious presence.

There is peace here. There is calm. There is deep soul rest. We receive not only what’s better but what is best. We can ignore the clamour, the hassle, the shout, become replenished, renewed from the inside out.

Here is a whisper, a breath, an eternal song being sung, a melody being heard and received, a lullaby for our restless souls. And here we belong. No pressure, no pleading, just a realisation that this is what we truly need now—during Advent, Christmas and beyond.

©joylenton2016

I thought I was too tired to think straight, never mind write today, however God whispered these thoughts which enabled me to join in with this week’s five-minute-friday prompt of ‘Now’.  Come meet the writing crew gathering at Kate Motaung’s site, and check out the great posts being shared. Just click here to follow me there.

advent-invites-us-poem

crave: deciding what our souls are really longing for

/ Joy Lenton / 28 Comments

crave-what-our-souls-are-longing-for-pj

 

It’s hard to be neutral these days, immune to the constant bombardment and urgent invitation to spend. Consumerism feeds our every desire—including those we didn’t even know we had before—as it makes  most of us, especially weak-willed people, crave far more than we can afford.

As a woman of faith, my desires also reflect the holy work going on within, mirroring the way God is slowly changing my thoughts and altering them to be more in line with following Him.

A craving sounds like such a desperate thing. It makes me wonder if my heart is truly craving what it needs. Am I yearning for God, desiring to know Him better above all things? I hope so. Some days seem to be more about gritting our teeth and getting on with it, more about survival than sweet surrender, don’t they?

But my hope and prayer for you and me is to be able to sift the grace glimmers from the glitter and glitz, the eternal, lasting treasure from the way the world measures things, the Hope we have in Jesus from the urge to buy what pleases.

Because we soon discover that no thing in itself, no person can completely satiate our deepest soul longing, the God-shaped vacuum only He can fill.

Such thoughts helped shape my five-minute-friday poem below…

What do I crave?

What do I crave? The TV ads suggest

myriad things from saucepans to rings

They believe my life is bereft without

the great benefit of their products

 

But is it really? Can Christmas be bought? Can love

be a commodity like everything else on the shelf?

I think not, because here’s what I crave most of all

in a free-flow, no-particular-order kind of way…

 

I crave rest and healing, a greater God-revealing

Hope for the future on bleaker days and a

deeper appreciation of the gift of grace

Hands holding me steady, lifted in prayer

Friends to support, encourage, be here

 

I crave strength for today, solace for sadness

Calm patience to cope with all of life’s madness

A growing faith and trust in God’s ways, as

I yield and surrender my will every day

 

I crave peace and quiet, solitude and silence

as I listen, contemplate all that life means

Inspiration to write, create and give

Energy enough to love well and live

©JoyLenton2016

How do you differentiate between true soul needs and general desires?

What are you craving most in this season of busyness and excess?

Blessed as always to have words coming today in response to the #FMF prompt: ‘crave’ and to join fellow writing friends gathering at our gracious host Kate Motaung’s site to share their thoughts. Do come over and see the great posts on offer here. 

what-do-i-crave-poem-poetry-joy

Learning how to yield to rest

/ Joy Lenton / 8 Comments

cat- yielding to rest PJ

It’s natural for cats (and babies) to yield to rest at every given opportunity. They swiftly switch off from the world for a while, whenever they feel like it. But it is not always so easy for the rest of us.

I sense God urging this weary woman to desist from her online labours and rest a while. I’ve already had to pull back from so much, including writing as often as I want to.

Yet I sense a sliver of resistance within, even though I am desperate for rest.

The struggles are manifold for a person with M.E who has to carefully consider the use of all (or any) available energy, engage mindfully, pace and rest regularly on a daily basis. To be asked to do so for weeks at a time seems daunting.

Because rest so often feels like a giving in to insignificance rather than a gentle yielding to necessity.

This feels especially true for writers, who are meant to develop and maintain an online presence, retain their visibility.

Questions arise when we have to withdraw for a while: Who am I if I am not present to the world? How can taking time out be such a blessing to me?

And that’s when God steps in with His thoughts to help still our anxious ones…

Prayer Whisper: ‘Yield to rest’

prayer whisper image

“In rest and repentance lies your strength. In surrender to Me you find your true significance.

Time may be of the essence, but do you not know that I stand beyond its confines?

Have you not considered how I also wrote eternity into your heart so that you would seek Me with an open mind and embrace My love to infinity?

When you resist rest, you resist opportunity to witness My deeds and to hear from Me in the quiet spaces of your day. 

Unless you can release the drive and desire to succeed or to be seen into My hands, you will wear yourself out in circles of comparison and slip into ditches of discouragement.

Come, My child. Come and rest those ambitions, dreams, hopes and plans as you yield them to Me. I am the One who will exalt you in due time when you humble yourself before Me.

It is My greatest desire for you to walk in daily dependence on Me. Watch and see what the Lord will do. No good thing will I withhold from those who love Me and walk according to My precepts.

Come closer. Relax your hold on life and allow Me to carry you as I also keep all things safe. Here, in My Presence, you will find deeper rest and peace than ever before. A peace only I can give you; peace which no-one can take away.

Trust that all your cares and concerns are safe in My capable hands. I know what you can bear and what is too heavy for you to carry.

Seek My face at intervals throughout your day. I made you and I will sustain you.”

Such words bring me up short. They also allow me to exhale, breathe easy again.

This is a season for slowing down, a time to rest, recoup, recover, become restored. You may find yourself in a similar situation.

We can relax better into a season of rest when we realise how much God looks forward to us spending quality time with Him.

He longs to infuse fresh energy into weary bodies, instil new inspiration into dulled minds. God also requires our willing submission when His Spirit urges us to draw aside for a while, take a break with Him.

I need more rest, more of God’s best for me in every way, and I feel ready to relinquish my hold on other things to make it possible. Will you join me? 

We can meet up here again (and over at Words of Joy) and see what God has worked in us when we’ve become less concerned about our own accomplishments, or the lack thereof.

Forgive me for running way over time for my last #FMF and #letusgrow post for a while. The prompt, ‘rest’ was a beacon to my brain.

Here’s a tiny helping of haiku to set us up for more restful days ahead…

sleep haiku - poetry joy