Remembering God's compassion and grace

Early in the year, I wrote about focusing my thoughts on Psalm 103, particularly as we work our way through this crazy year. But almost immediately after I wrote that we galloped into three big wrestling tournaments over a period of just 18 days and the madness had begun. Now we're nearly into June, the sixth month of the year! 

This week a close friend reminded me of Psalm 103, so I want to lean into it today, just before we head deeper into the end-of-high-school-and-life-as-parents-of-school-aged-kids craziness that next week holds (and yes, I know that's a ridiculous phrase).

I have frequently felt frail in the last five months. Last week was a rough week for me physically and it took longer than a weekend to recover from it, and I'm still struggling with energy as we head into another weekend. It's been a comfort to remember that God doesn't expect me to be strong.

As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
14 for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.
15 The life of mortals is like grass,
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
    and its place remembers it no more. (Ps. 103:13–16, NIV)

This psalm is actually full of praise for God's compassion. It talks about his justice, forgiveness, healing, and redemption, that he's slow to anger and gracious. That he satisfies us and renews us. And most of all that he is "abounding in love." It's hard for us to grasp how much he loves us, so the psalmist writes "as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love" for us. In Ephesians, Paul prays that we might have the power "to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." That’s a lot of love! Taking Paul's lead, I often pray this for people I know.

I was recently reminded of how quickly we humans jump to judgement, anger, and revenge. I was reminded of my tendency to be a law-keeper and how quickly I judge myself very harshly when I break rules (or get caught breaking rules), or even when I make mistakes that hurt others or don't measure up to my high standards. And how that grace-less attitude flows over into judging others. But God reminded me of Psalm 130, in particular vs. 3 and 4:

If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

Psalm 103 also reflects God's gracious heart. God:

• forgives all your sins (v. 3)
• is slow to anger (v. 8)
• will not always accuse (v. 9)
• will not harbour his anger forever (v. 9)
• does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities (v. 10) 
• has removed our transgressions from us, as far as the east is from the west (v. 12)

How comforting it is to know that I have a heavenly Father who is completely able to meet our needs and forgive our sins. Unlike an earthly king, the Lord God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and without limits in the love he has for me and all who he calls his.

As we move ever closer to leaving for our fifth home assignment my sleep is gradually getting more erratic. I find myself awake at random hours, with worry running through my head. My subconscious provides entertainment in the depths of the night: problems that need to be solved (but perhaps not by me and certainly not in bed at 2 a.m.) and even totally fictional problems that my subconscious has made up (like that exam I forgot to prepare for, or the plane that I nearly missed). This, in turn, is making my energy during the day more erratic. I hate this. But I can't escape who I am. All I can do is repeatedly turn my eyes to Jesus and remember his great compassion and love.

One night in the last week a problem that arose at work plagued my thoughts at an ugly hour, I couldn't let go of the circular thoughts running through my head. I just had to say to God: you need to solve this one, I can't do it now, I probably can't do it later either. In the days that followed that middle-of-the-night cry for help, the problem was solved. To God be the glory!

The other thing that can plague me at times of transition is seeking security in things that aren't really secure: like the promise of accommodation or a car to use in Australia. We've just given notice to our landlord on our house in Japan, after nearly 13 years! But we don't know where we'll next truly unpack our suitcases, nor what car we will drive. There are a lot of unknowns in the coming 12 months. But no amount of worry is going to solve those problems. Yesterday afternoon an email in my inbox from ThriveConnection.com reminded me of how easy it is at times of transition to put my hope in things that only provide a false sense of security. When I do that I forget the only true security is in God, who cannot be shaken.

And . . . I’m back to the lesson God’s been teaching me over these last few years: trust him. No matter what the present or future looks like, trust him.

This song grabbed my attention this morning, and drove me to tears. Maybe it’ll be a comfort to you today too: Desert Road by Casting Crowns

What's Wendy been up to?

So, what’s been happening in our edge of ordinary? A few things!

It's hydrangea season. We get to look at
this every day outside our lounge window.

School finished

I guess that qualifies as interesting news? Our middle son graduated on Friday, so for the first time in many years we’ll have just one child at school, and he’s only got two years left. Empty nesting is just around the corner!

Our middle son isn’t sure what’s next, so we’ve also walked into a period that holds a lot of uncertainty. Over the last several months we’ve agonised over this, but I think we’re at a place now that we’re a bit more comfortable with the uncertainty.

Being married to a teacher, also means that from now he starts to wind down. Our family holidays start in just under four weeks, so the next few weeks I’ll be busy preparing to walk away from work for that time (it’s especially tricky taking holidays when you’re involved in time-sensitive work like social media, but I’m committed to taking a break).

Uncertainty in Japan

We sit, not just with personal uncertainty at this point, but societal uncertainty. Tokyo (as well as several other prefectures) are still under a state of emergency, at least until June 20. Who knows if that will continue? We've been under SOE since the start of the year, barring three weeks in spring. Additionally, there is the uncertainty surrounding the Tokyo Olympics. 

The former mostly affects us in terms of making summer plans. We’d love to book a camping trip or two, but facilities in Tokyo are closed and facilities outside of Tokyo are closed to those coming from Tokyo! We've got a couple of leads for private arrangements that might be doable, so watch this space :-)

The Olympics doesn’t affect us much, though we do still hold Paralympic tickets. It was very sad, however, to hear that the director of the accounting department of the Japan Olympic Committee jumped in front of a train the other day in an apparent suicide. Holding the Olympics is a contentious issue in Japan and those charged with making it go ahead are sadly saddled with a lot of stress.

Editing a novel

Yep, I've been copy editing a novel over the last four months. The only way I could fit that into my life was to do it on Saturdays, which wasn't ideal, and meant it took a long time. I estimate at least 60 hours. It's my first time to edit a long work of fiction (actually the first time to edit any lengthy book), so it took a while to find my feet. But I really did enjoy it. The author is a close friend and his reason for writing is similar to my reason for writing on this blog: to explain to others a less-than-common life experience that we've each lived. 

I think I also enjoyed having a long-term project during this pandemic that I could look forward to doing on weekends. When the state of emergency stretched on interminably and there wasn't much to look forward to on weekends, having a spare-time occupation like this was very therapeutic.

In some respects it was a lot easier than editing short, non-fiction articles, like I do at work. Because facts aren't set in stone, but also because a short article has to have a pretty tight structure and be a complete unit in itself. So I was able to edit much of it a lot faster in the end. Oh, and I had a very appreciative author, that always makes work much more enjoyable.

What's next? I don't think I'll be taking on another extra-curricular editing job for a while, I don't have a lot of spare time and editing once a week does tend to disrupt the flow, making it not the most efficient way of editing a longer work. But if someone had a paying job, I might consider it! 

However, it does open out the possibility of supplementing our income some time in the future, as editing is something that can be done part-time and from my dining room, wherever that is. Also writing coach is something else that is a possibility. It is good to have this experience under my belt now, and know that the skills I have gained from short-article fiction editing do transfer quite well, especially to copy editing. Developmental editing might be a bit more difficult (think: story arc, character development etc.)

As for long-term weekend projects? I'm thinking about maybe picking up a sewing project. We'll see.