“Every act of beauty is a defiance of despair.”
― Lancia E. Smith
As autumn progressed, my soul underwent a withering. When self-giving is met with seeming indifference, the welling up of the impulse begins to dwindle; in this season, it has all but dried up. I noticed a curling-in effect, like when the moisture begins to leave the edges of fallen leaves. Now, my soul lies quiet on the floor of my heart, thin and papery. The numbness of disillusionment has gradually blanketed my heart like the snow on the ground. Tired to my bones, I have longed for hibernation, to be left alone, with no demands on time, energy, brain, or hands. With spring approaching, I am hungry for lightness of spirit.
When I feel a lack—of energy, time, sleep, creativity—I’m far less likely to open the door of my home or my heart with a gracious, generous attitude. Yet, needs intrude, demanding my attention. If I’m depleted, what does it take to restore the well of generosity in my soul? How do I reverse a scarcity mentality? What can I do to exchange doubt for fresh faith, a sense of lack for an awareness of God’s abundance?
A few times a month, the small village in Central Asia where we live and work loses electricity without warning. Today at 9:02, when the lights go off and the furnace is suddenly silenced, a collective groan emerges from the rooms where my three homeschoolers are working at their desks. Resigned to a day of no internet, no running water from the taps (our water pump is electric), and a slowly chilling house, we slump briefly in discouragement. But wintry sunshine streams through the living room windows, where my daughter and I move to the table to work on what she can accomplish without her computer. Afterwards, on impulse, I pull down our stack of old magazines and some large sheets of paper and begin to cull images.
My spirit is ruffled and restless, and the familiar practice of leafing through the well-clipped pages soothes me. I choose a wide strip from a page with acorns and leaf mould, and tear carefully around an antique bookcase lined with gilded titles. I rip a photo of a white china table-setting in half, feeling it mirror the sensation of my capacity being halved by the demands of this autumn. Each image either connects with a current longing, or reflects in some way the state of my soul. An open songbook, out of focus. A winter forest with snow-covered branches, late-afternoon sun turning the sky a pale yellow. A single candle in a silver holder, the straight brave flame infusing the darkness with glowing umber and gold. A quote clipped from an old calendar page: “Every act of beauty is a defiance of despair.”[1]
The room is warm. The clock ticks. My soul expands.
The source of my generosity cannot depend on whether I feel rested or have had enough time to myself. If Jesus had waited to be generous until he was rested, his ministry would not have existed. True, he pulled away often to replenish himself in his Father, like David did when he and his men returned to Ziklag to find their wives and children carried off and the town in flames. His men wanted to stone him—“but David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.”[2] Utterly spent and bewildered by grief, attacked and blamed by those closest to him, David sought strength directly from the Lord, and in the Lord’s strength he went on to lead his men to retrieve every single thing that was taken: wives, children, flocks and belongings. Like Jesus, born centuries later from David’s line, the young almost-king made a heart-habit of strengthening his weary, beleaguered soul in his God. Only from that inexhaustible well could he draw strength to shepherd his grief-stricken followers.
What does my heart naturally do when I am worn out, exhausted in spirit? If I’m honest, my first response is usually not David’s faith-filled turning to God; instead I push harder on myself to get it done until I crack under self-imposed strain and take out my fear of failure—often expressed as anger—on those around me.
The end of the story of David and his men in 1 Samuel takes an interesting twist. When David and the rescue party arrive back at the two hundred men who were too exhausted to continue across the valley, the ones who went with David want to prevent the ones who stayed behind from sharing in the spoil. David rebukes them: “You must not do that with what the Lord has given us,” he admonishes. “He has protected us and delivered into our hands the raiding party that came against us.” and he insists that all share alike in the plunder.[3] Because David had strengthened himself in the Lord His God, he knew the credit for the rescue belonged to God, and therefore so did the blessing and benefit from their efforts. It was not for David to decide who shared in the reward and who didn’t; the gifts were for the strong and weak alike, because, as David well knew, it was the strength of the Lord that enabled them to acquire the plunder in the first place. If God had given the strength, God owned the results, and had the right to generously reward all and sundry, not just the ones who tried the hardest or ran the fastest.
I know if I were in that story, I would have collapsed at the bottom of the valley, gasping, sweaty, legs like jelly, unable to move another step. Apologetic and yet utterly without power, I would be wheezing, “You guys go on without me, I’ll catch up!” fully intending to guzzle a belly-full of water from the stream and stretch out flat for a nap. I would envy the guys with the strength to push on, mastering their fatigue like ultra-marathoners, who would later have the satisfaction of wrapping their arms around their precious families and ushering them gently towards home. Later, hearing the triumphant crowd approach as I hauled myself up on shaky legs, dehydrated head throbbing, I would feel humiliated watching somebody else herd my family toward me. I wouldn’t feel like I deserved any part of the spoil.
Yet future king David, the man after God’s heart, insists that “the share of the one who stays with the supplies is to be the same as that of the one who goes down to the battle. All will share alike.” As well as grateful, hearing David dignify my helpless exhaustion with a useful job title—“the one who stays with the supplies”—I think I would feel pretty sheepish receiving a share of free food, clothing, jewelry and animals from the grudging hands of someone who didn’t collapse like a wimp at the bottom of the valley. The thing is, the strong had to acknowledge where their strength came from. It was God who enabled them to keep going past the breaking point to defeat their enemies and save their loved ones. They needed to recognize and receive the generosity of the Lord toward them, and realize that same generosity extended to their exhausted fellows as well. And the ones whose limits forced them to stay behind needed to be able to accept those limits and humbly receive the gifts of God in their lives, regardless of whether they felt deserved or earned.
Before I am able to give without resentment to others, I have to acknowledge and receive the Lord’s generosity toward me.
What does it look like to “strengthen myself in the Lord my God,” to receive the nourishing, replenishing generosity of my Good Shepherd? Today, it looks like a sunny session on the living room floor, surrounded with paper and glue, accepting a power-less day as a gift, an invitation to do something easy and beautiful that brought me joy. On a different day, receiving God’s generosity might look like a slow walk outside in the soft air, or a gentle half hour of stretching my body, a cozy cat nap under a blanket, or a cup of fragrant tea and a half hour of reading.
I leave a patch of white in the center of my group of images. Phrases scroll across my mind: “…this I call to mind, therefore I have hope… the Lord’s mercies are new every morning…” I pause and look up the words, found in the exact center—the heart—of the grief-laden book of Lamentations: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end…’The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’”[4]
My pen tip inscribes curving letters in rich black ink: The Lord is my portion.…The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases… every morning… His mercies are new…
[1] Statement by Lancia E. Smith
[2] 1 Samuel 30:6 (ESV).
[3] 1 Samuel 30:23 (ESV).
[4] Lamentations 3:22-24 (ESV).
The featured image, “Have a Seat,” is courtesy of Ariel Lovewell and is used with her kind permission for Cultivating.
A writer, songwriter, and amateur music producer, Carolyn holds a Bachelor of Music from Wheaton College, where she pursued her twin passions for music and spiritual formation. Living overseas for the past twenty years has given her a keen interest in the connections between the inner life, the craft of making, and the art of sojourning, especially how tending her own soul affects her ability to tend the souls of others. Carolyn has contributed to an anthology of pandemic art, Beauty from Brokenness, and to Yet We Still Hope, a collection of honest, vulnerable essays by women serving overseas. You can connect with Carolyn and find her music and resources for the sojourning life at www.carolynbroughton.com.
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