Adventures in Writing #1 - {A Mouse in the House}

Tuesday Thoughts is where I pick a topic that’s on my mind, set a timer, start with “Go”, write about it for five minutes, and end with “Done”. Editing is non-existent and I am grateful for that since I can spend hours fine-tuning and agonizing over a post.  Even writing this paragraph, I've written and rewritten it about five times, sent it to my hubby to edit, rewritten it, and am still debating whether it's acceptable.

In this exercise, I am enjoying the freedom to just write, without stressing about perfection or what others might think. This is my lovelimess after all.

...

GO

A mouse in the house.

Can it be that I'm afraid? My stomach flutters as I grab the broom. It is so small. What if it is carrying diseases? my stomach clenches. Do I touch it?  It could bite me. It could infect me.

It scurries from the bathroom and hides in a small corner of our wall.  We've closed it in.

I'm shaking a little, which doesn't make sense.  I can't be afraid of a small animal... What do I have to fear from such a little mouse?

I grab the broom. Can I sweep it out of the house?   What if it runs at me and touches me? It's small eyes look so terrified. I can't hurt it. A part of me wants to touch its soft fur and comfort it. But the fear wins and I want it out. Now.

Andy grabs a garbage can and we use the broom to corral it in. Andy tips the trash can upwards and takes the small creature back to its world.

And it hits me in the gut. Like the Voice breaking through my barriers and I see the Truth I didn't know.

Fear makes us keep our distance. Fear takes away our compassion. Fear steals our sympathy.

Too often I take my broom and sweep my life clean of the small, the hurting, and the "diseased" because I'm afraid. I'm afraid they'll infect my life with their brokenness. I'm afraid that I won't be able to control where they go in my life and how they'll touch me. I'm afraid they will be unpredictable. I'm afraid to let them in. I'm afraid they'll need me.

So I grab my broom and sweep them out. Back to their world.  Just like the little mouse with the fearful eyes. 

And my heart is stirring now with the Spirit, showing me what fear has kept me from. It's kept me from Jesus. It's kept me from walking through the world that He walks in and loving the people that He loves.

And next time? Next time I might ask that dirty mouse to stay and eat some cheese.

Done.

Adventures In Faith: {Satisfied}

A whisper in my ear. Another lie. 

Failure.  I know. I am still failing. At everything.

I can't do this anymore. I'm so tired.  It all feels likes so much work.

My bible lays next my couch, beckoning, promising to fill my empty heart with the things it needs.  I turn away and turn a mindless show on the television.

My bible calls out again. You need me. I get up and do the dishes, pushing away the tears that are threatening to spring up again.

Jesus calls. Come to me. I play with my daughter and put her to bed.

Jesus, help me. I cry in the shower. The tears mingling with the water flowing.

My bible is still there. Next to the couch.

I hear Andy asking questions, What do you want to do tonight?

I can't think. I can't handle this one little innocuous question.

I need to read my bible. I say it in my head before it makes it to my lips, but it does.

I grab my bible and drink, deeply.  I feel like I'm quenching a deep gnawing thirst. Each moment more in the Word and the thirst stops aching so deeply. Every word and I feel my emotions gentle, my heart beat more calmly, my tears draw back.

I didn't know I needed it so much. I used to go months without reading the bible. And now? Now three days and I feel myself drying out inside.

“My people have committed two sins:

They have forsaken me,

    the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,    broken cisterns that cannot hold water."

Jeremiah 2:13

Digging their own cisterns.  The metaphor rings deep in my soul and I think of how I have been trying to hold water in my own leaking pool, which has been dug in the dirt of my effort, and finding over and over again that the water there doesn't satisfy and is full of disease and sickness.  Finding myself over and over again hunched in pain as my water makes me ill and poisons me from the inside out. 

"For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

Revelation 7:16

And here I find that His word is true and that as I drink from His spring of pure, clean, living water, my tears begin to dry in my eyes.  Even as I am still reading His word, he takes me and satisfies the deep emptiness inside that He was always meant to fill. 

Jesus is enough for me, filling every crack in my heart. Flooding in and washing the broken pieces out while bringing his soul-quenching peace. A soul delighted in God will want for nothing other than God. It knows at the heart of life is Him and, once found, nothing but Him can quench the thirst that He is meant to sate.

Satisfied. I am satisfied. 

“Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives.”  Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

5 Things I've Learned From My Husband

Everyone wants your advice.

Or so the unstated philosophy of my family goes.  They have a catch phrase that precedes any tidbits of advice that they will push on you, solicited or not.  It goes: If there is one thing I've learned in my life...

In honor of them [and unsolicited advice everywhere], I've created the Five Things I've Learned... series on this blog.

Be prepared to be amazed by the unsolicited tidbits of life-learning I will pass on to you.
....

5 Things I've Learned ... 

From My Husband

1. Dancing in the kitchen is better than a ballroom.

I once thought the best dancing happened in ballrooms, with mood lighting, good music, and a variety of skilled dance partners. I was wrong. The best dancing happens at home, after a long day, when your husband turns up the music, grabs your dish-soapy hands, and twirls you onto the kitchen floor and you dance the evening away with just him... and maybe your two year old. That is the best dancing.

2. How to use lightroom and photoshop.

Guys, I really thought I was tech-savy. And then I met Andy. I am daily learning how little I know. The more I learn, the more he seems to know.  I can't catch up. This man is a tech-genius.

3. What true forgiveness looks like.

I mess up. A lot. And in big ways sometimes. And yet this solid rock of a man that I married is gracious, kind, loving, forgiving, and always understanding. How did I get so lucky?  I'm pretty sure I'm getting better at demonstrating some of the godly characteristics that he has shown me, but he constantly impresses me with how he lets God live and love through him.

4. Cars are a hobby.

Can't they just be transportation? Do they really need to be hobby?  I'm waiting for the day when we have the same car for more than a year. It hasn't happened yet...

5. The best advice is a listening ear.

It doesn't make sense, but watching Andy proves it again and again. People don't need your advice. They just need your unconditional love, support, encouragement. They know what is wrong in their life, and they likely know how to fix it. They don't need you to point it out; they just need you to listen and care. And if they want that advice? They'll ask for it.

Who knew?

© Andy and Elisha Catts - our first wedding anniversary in Sunriver, Oregon.

Comment Discussions: What have you learned from your husband?

Two Years and Ten Points

I like blogging.

I actually miss it.

And I'm thinking I will try to make it a habit again.

Let me catch you up on the last two years:

Ready. Set. Go.

1. We had a daughter, her name is Isabel. She is officially two and a half years old. [Seriously?  How is that possible??] She never stops talking. Ever. She must get that from her dad.
2. We moved. To the country. And it is amazing. We have a little 130 year old farmhouse that we call home. It's cozy. For us and the mice.
3. We need a barn cat. For the mice. Coyotes might have eaten our other ones.  The cats that is, not the mice.
4. Our second daughter, Melody, was born in June. She is precious, perfect, and sleeps like an angel. I'm thinking I may be able to handle this whole mom-of-two-kids thing.  Maybe.
5. We no longer have hobbies. We have children. [Did I say that out loud?]
6. Sleep is now a privilege, not a right.
7. I officially appreciate the sound of quiet.
8. My bible may very well be a lifeline in the midst of all the craziness.
9. I will probably be blogging about God a lot. Since He kind of is amazing and all.
10. I love you all. Really, I do. :)

There you go. The last two years summed up in ten bullet points.  And now you know why I've been absent from blogging. I was just able to sum up the last two years in bullet points and I just might have been racking my brain for anything something to say for half of them.

So hi!



© 2007 Elisha Catts

Birthright, by David Needham

Birthright intrigued me before I even started reading the book. The title worried me a little – do I know who I am? What if I’m one of those Christians that doesn’t know who they are? What if this whole book is going to point out all of my “Christian” failings?  What if, deep down, I’m not good enough to be a Christian?

Oddly enough, those fears were real.  My brain knows that you can’t earn salvation or be good enough. My heart knows it most days too, but somewhere in this dark place in my mind, there’s a little nagging voice that will always say, “You’re not good enough.”

I’ve always struggled with this – this belief in Satan’s lies that I’m a failure.  In the last five years, God has done amazing work in my life, bringing healing to this area of self loathing: a bible study on Galations affirming that I can't earn salvation, my husband’s continuing grace in my life,  my family’s love and support – everything in my life has been speaking to me that I am loved and forgiven.  In fact, I’ve even seen progress in my life and walk with God - proof that I’m growing and maturing in my walk with the Lord.

But, somewhere, unresolved, was this little seed that was still planted in my mind, reminding me that I will never be good enough. “True,” I told it, “but I’m forgiven. I may not be good enough, but Christ has paid my price.”  This always felt right, but it never erased the quiet doubts that others would see me and view me as the failure that I knew myself to be. There was always the thought I was messed up inside – trying hard to don Christ’s love, even living in His Spirit – but still broken inside.

And then I read Birthright – not that I am completely over hearing the nagging thoughts - but now, I have seen my new identity. One I think I knew was there, but that Satan kept lying to me to cover up.

I knew that if I abided in Christ, he would help me resist temptation and, more than that, not desire sinful things, but to realize that while abiding in Christ helps, He has done more than that for me – He has literally given me a new nature.  To believe that, to my very core, takes the fear that who I really am will come out and be seen by all. It changes it to a belief that I am a new creation in Christ. One that, yes, will be tempted by sin, but one that is no longer a slave to sin. In light of my new nature, I am not only a sinful person who is forgiven and trying hard to love the Lord and live in His Spirit, I am a child of God who delights in His Spirit and who is free from my old sinful self.  

David does a better job explaining it than I can summarize, but I suppose the imagery of an adopted child is what I imagine - a girl from the streets who is adopted by a wealthy and loving family. She will always worry that the friends of that family will forever to see her as the street girl she was; no matter how many pretty clothes she wears or how perfectly she speaks, no matter how vehemently that family proclaims her as theirs, that nagging feeling will linger in the back of her mind. But the child born to that family, will never have those doubts and fears.  It would never cross her mind that she didn't fit with her family - she is their child and is confident in her identity.

And that is what Christ has done for me. I am no longer that street girl. I am the child born of God. That nagging feeling can leave, because I am more than adopted, I have been given a new nature, and have been made a child of God.

2 Corinthians 5:17 - 

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old things have passed away; behold, the new has come."

A Story of Grace

I hear the steady sound of breathing as my husband sleeps... His warm back is pressed against mine. The darkness of the room is deep as I lie cozy beneath the blankets, pondering what she has asked of us... of me.  She wants us to share our testimonies.  She asked us to tell how we are different now than we were before Christ.

My testimony... the words burn my heart. What testimony?  I have only known unfaithfulness in my walk with God. I have only known failure. That familiar self-hatred eats away at my heart again. You have nothing to share, the enemy lies.  You are not a different person. You'll never be like them - righteous and holy. You will never be able to share about how you are different because you aren't and will never be different. You are selfish. You are worthless. You are a failure. 

The tears fill my eyes as I listen to the liar. And yet, I hear His voice there too, whispering truth. You are my daughter.  You are forgiven.  You are washed clean. You are Mine. I have made you holy. I have given you a righteousness that is not of your own.  I love you. Your testimony is of Me.  Your story is My faithfulness.  I will never let you go. I will show you the surpassing riches of My grace so that you will be the evidence of My love.

As His words pour into my heart, banishing the enemy's lies, I listen as He tells my story the way that He has written for me.

And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness."  My testimony is one not of my own works, but of the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness towards [me] in Christ Jesus.

I grab my iPhone from the dresser next to the bed and quietly type the story that God has given me. I will share my story with these women and pray that others will see Jesus in it. I will pray that His grace to me will show others His love for them. I will tell them that I, myself, am not different;  It is Christ in me that is.

"For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."  - Philippians 1:6

Stolen Time

It is quiet. The only sound is the anxiety pounding in my head that says she'll wake up at any moment.  That beautiful little girl who consumes my life now. The precious little eyes and smile that take up every free moment I possess.  The lovely little cheeks that prevent me from thinking about myself anymore...

In my quiet, stolen moment, I pray for a little time to myself. A little time to breathe, to write, to quilt, to shower... what was it like to shower without listening for a little voice?  I choose writing. The whir of the computer is oddly calming. It feels so full of potential. The anxiety stays - will I be able to finish this one blog post?  Too many posts started and left unfinished these days.

My empty oatmeal bowl sits beside me.  I remembered to eat breakfast, this once. Boxes are everywhere on my floor. My attempts to simplify these days have created a mess that is hardly simple. Baby toys are littered between the boxes. I should be cleaning now, not writing, but I'm choosing myself this time, not my to-do list. Even as I write it, I wonder if it is selfish, stealing these little moments and doing something for me. The things that need to be done grow and grow and I find myself shrinking beneath them.  And yet, as the shrinking happens, I redefine myself, this child who is growing into womanhood.


I try not to put my insecurities on him. This poor husband who loves me when I don't deserve it.  Sometimes my heart wants to put my feelings of self-hate on him.  Choosing to create stress in his life in the hopes that he doesn't notice all the things I didn't get done today, again.  Even now, in the beauty of Christ's grace, I try to earn love. Even now, after five beautiful years of marriage, I'm trying to win his love that has always been freely given.

In this stolen moment, I'm choosing not to earn this time. I'm choosing to receive love not because I deserve it with my clean house and my clean life, but because love is offered. I'm choosing to be okay with failing. I'm choosing this silent moment for myself and fighting the feelings of worthlessness for doing so.

I hear her little voice in the monitor babbling. My heart is swollen with love for her. This little person I gladly give my sleep and energy to.  This little love that fills my life. This child who does not steal my time but receives it freely given.