Dear friend,

 

It was summer 2019. A beautiful Michigan summer, though I only saw a few weeks of it. The rest I spent inside either lying on our blue couch or sitting in a wheelchair. My husband - whose work was about as uncompassionate as they could be regarding his role as my caretaker - bustled between a full time management job, cooking meals for the family, tending his toddler and baby and helping me get dressed and showered… for three months.

 

Some of you were following me the year I broke my leg. I snapped my tibial plateau in a women's league soccer game, ushering myself into a season of complete dependence on my husband, sister, and church family. I was devastated. I did not realize how much of my identity was rooted in what I could do until I couldn't do anything.

 

On a perfect, 75 degree day that summer my sister swung through the cottage front door. Sunlight beamed inside, lighting the 1950s tile entry where baby toys and shoes lay scattered. I stared hungrily at the light, longing to go outside – to do something. My sister wasn't alone. She had an enormous rectangle in her hands and was angling it through the door.

 

“I found this at Hobby Lobby, and I'm going to hang it RIGHT where you can look at it," she announced. Prostrate as I was on the sofa, I couldn't object. She glanced at my angle of sight and removed a blue “bushel and a peck” picture from the wall across from me.

 

“There.” Hands on hips she observed her work. “Now you'll read it every day.” 

 

In black script on a white background the rectangle read: The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still.

Last week I studied Joshua. In Joshua 23, Moses' successor reminds Israel that their success in the land of Canaan had nothing to do with them. “One of you routed a thousand,” he says. “because the Lord your God was fighting for you – as He promised.”

 

When I first read those words I was flashed back to a blue sofa, a broken leg, and the scripted words I stared at for eight weeks. The Lord will fight for you. The Lord will fight for you. 

 

In that season, God's fighting for me looked like His grace for my healing. I was in the middle of painful, unexplainable autoimmune disease. We were barely 18 months out from a terrifying job loss during my pregnancy with Eva. And now here I was, a leech and a weakling, sitting on the couch sucking all my husband's energy and time - all because of a stupid soccer game. I couldn't carry anything, wash my own hair, shower, dress or go to the bathroom by myself. My babies had no mother and my sister had no job except me. I was absolutely humiliated, which speaks to the level of pride I had before the accident.

 

My bible (pictured at the top) is littered with notes from that season. Most of the notes are in Psalms. I had to learn that it had never been my job to fight: not for my kids, not for my marriage, not for my ministry. It was God's job. I need only be still.

 

But being still is a discipline. And it's not laziness; you can be still of spirit while being very active in body. But I had to learn to be still of spirit by losing my body (some of us learn the hard way). And learn it I did. I came out of that season a different person. Losing my ability to overcommit and do, do, do didn't just heal my soul; it healed my body. When I became pregnant with Ivan in January of 2020 (4 months after I got off crutches) my five year long, pregnancy-induced autoimmune disease vanished. I was miraculously healed. 

 

Why? I think my body finally revealed what was cured in my soul. I learned to stop fighting. Stop stressing. Stop trying to play God and let Him fight. My body could not handle the level of stress I'd put it through for ten years because it was never meant to handle it. When God took His rightful place on the throne of my life, when I stopped filling my schedule to the brim, when I stopped trying to control every single thing and fill every unforgiving minute, my body could rest. And my body was healed.

 

This isn't to say everyone has the same story. But I don't think it's far fetched to say - when God designed body and spirit to be united - that our bodies reflect what our minds and souls believe. If we believe it's all up to us there is never a moment we can let down our guard. We attempt to “route a thousand” and fail because we were never meant to do it; God was.

 

To this day I remind myself: You need only be still. That's your whole job. “Abide in me,” Jesus says in John 15. “And you will bear much fruit.” Want to bear fruit? Live connected to Him. Live in constant prayer. Live in love with Him. 

 

How wild that THIS is what Joshua said to Israel after reflecting on God's victory: “So be very diligent to love the Lord your God for your own wellbeing.”

 

Because He fights for you, because you only need to be still - devote yourself to one thing, friend. Only one.

 

 Love Him. It's for your own good.

 

 

 

 

 

A little glimpse of what's bringing us joy at home: routines, books, kitchen and home life.