Shannon S. McKee

musings and moments

Taking Time for Preparation and Reflection

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Today is the first day of Lent. I’ve never been part of a church that stuck to a strict liturgical calendar and I’ve never fasted from anything for the 40 days of Lent. But, I can appreciate the benefit of some of the reminders like Ash Wednesday and I certainly want to prepare my heart for the greatest earthly celebration of all celebrations – Resurrection Sunday. I’ll be using the next 40 days as time for additional pause and reflection. As God, in His sovereignty, would have it, Lent comes at a perfect time for me in life. I am in a season of longing and brokenness so this steady march toward the cross and the prayerful reflection on the beauty of Christ’s profound work is exactly what I need right now.

Each year, I try different approaches to this time. Last year, I was exhausted, distracted, and barely prepared for the Easter season at all. So, there’s no surefire, magical potion or legalistic regulation about how you have to use this time. In fact, there is no Biblical mandate at all about how you observe the next 40 days. The point is His grace toward us in Christ – not any ritual or sacrifice that WE can make for Him. As if He needs anything from us. He did the work already – ours is simply to respond to Him.

But, if your response to Him means you’d like to do something during this time, you can join me in doing the She Reads Truth Lenten Study, You Are Mine – it’s a study through the book of Isaiah. You can do it online for free or download the app for a few dollars. I ordered the book this time because I really am a pen and paper sort of gal. Plus, the design is pretty and that wins some bonus points in my heart. {wink}

This morning’s reading is still rattling around in my heart as I consider the heavy cost that accompanies sin and rebellion. And, yet… white as snow. He washes us. White as the new fallen snow. Breathtaking. I am in awe.

p.s. – if you go to my church and are already studying the book of Mark with 200 other amazing women on Monday nights, please finish strong there. (It is, after all, a book about Jesus and His work on the Cross!) You can do what I am doing and do two studies for a few weeks; or you can wait and start preparing your heart for Easter after that study is over in a couple more weeks. Remember, there’s nothing magical about it being 40 days. Do what will help you walk more intimately with your Savior and Lord. Isn’t freedom great? 

Sweet Nothings… from God

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Bible study as delight not dutyBecause of Rick’s sermon yesterday, I thought I’d post this reprint of my original post on why I love God’s Word so much. When I originally wrote this, our little church was still little (ish) and we were meeting in The Block, not at our current address. I cant remember for sure but our women were probably studying Esther or the names of God that semester. How I love what God continues to do in our midst…

This week I’ve been pondering on reasons why I love the Bible so much. Here is today’s revelation: IT’S GOD. TALKING. TO US.

God. Bending down from His throne exalted above the heavens where He is worshipped in a never-ending chorus of praise and worship by magnificent creatures in a place that has no gross blemish or corrupt stain.

Why?

Because He wants to talk with us. God does. You know, the One who spoke the galaxies into existence? Yes, Him.

He wants to talk to us. Wants to whisper sweet nothings in our ears and remind us that we are more deeply loved than we could ever imagine – despite our many flaws. Longs to tell us the most ancient stories and unfold some of the great mysteries for us.

To recount the time He told the proud waves to stop and scrunched the land up into little piles that we call mountains. Or the time He became as small as a spec and lived in a womb for nine months. Or how He was thinking about me…and you…and the joy set before Him. Back when the weight of the world bore down on His shoulders in the darkest-of-dark moments 2,000 years ago.

Or how He’s going to give me a new name one day. On that one day when He comes on the clouds to catch me up and take me home where I belong. To that one place that doesn’t even need a sun because He’s there.

Yes, He’d like to chat with me about those things.

And, I’d rather read the comics or watch Gilmore Girls or check Facebook? Something is seriously wrong with this picture.

Do I really need to say more?

Bible Time

Lessons from The Black-Eyed Susan

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The Black-Eyed Susans are dying. They’ve spent themselves.

They are in preparation for a new season. One where they’ll lie still and quiet under the heavy blanket of snow this winter. But they’ll be back next Spring, inching back out of the ground when it’s safe – they’ll come forth in greater number and strength.

Come summer they’re sure to burst forth again, filling the long side of our house with life. This is the way of things. Sure as sure.

I always take a picture of them in their glory. Right about July. They make me smile there – tall and proud with their vibrant yellow petals and their big black center.

But, in this season of my own soul-tending, I have been struck afresh by their beauty in a different way. I am marveling at them right now, as they lay dying. There is another kind of beauty in them at this stage. It’s a stark kind of beauty. One that comes after the glory.

Because they have spent themselves for something wonderful.

They are depleted and exhausted by their summer effort. Their proud stems are bending over and most of their petals have dropped. A few hang on… reminders of the glory.

There is something profoundly beautiful about that dying. Something that stirs in my soul as I contemplate the shriveled leaves and the scattered petals.

So strong is our longing for the glory, that sometimes I think we miss the beauty of this. Jesus didn’t. He knew that the dying had its own kind of splendor. In speaking of His own pending death, He said this: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” 

If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that we’re actually not so sure about this. In his short piece on repentance, William Willimon said it this way: “Whatever the Gospel means, we tell ourselves, it could not mean death. Love, divine or human, could never exact something so costly.”

Could it really mean that Jesus bids me come and die? And that there is really some beauty in that? A glory of its own?

In the agony of having my petals stripped clean by a strong-willed child or a selfish friend, there is beauty? When I pour myself out for my kids and I have nothing left but shriveled leaves and a blackened nub? When I am bent low by the harsh winds of this world and insensitive demands of others? When no one even notices me? Beauty? There?

Jesus says yes. There is. Will we believe Him? Will we come and die,  laying our own desires aside? Spending our days serving others? Giving instead of buying? Going instead of relaxing? Sacrificing instead of indulging? Submitting instead of demanding?

And after we have been spent, what then? Will we yield to Winter and wait for Spring to call forth new life from the very ground where the spent petals lay?

Nature echoes it. The Black-Eyed Susans attest to this truth. Spend yourself and see, they say.

Will you?

Gathering Around a Long-Awaited Letter

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In case you missed it, I’ve been spending a good bit of my free time lately prepping for our Women’s Bible study that starts in a couple of weeks. I love teaching the Bible to other thirsty women. Several years ago I wrote a post that describes some of the emotion that wells up in me when we study the Bible together. Here’s a reprint from the old blog’s archives.

You know that prickly sensation when you’re in anticipation of something? I like to think of reading the Bible like that.

Sort of like we might feel if we didn’t have instant messaging or tweeting or email or even phone service. And we had to wait for letters to come great distances to hear from the ones we loved. I imagine it like the early immigrants to America might have felt. Maybe a letter has just arrived from our Grandad who still lives in the Old Country. How we all grab for it and want to read it first. Instead we gather around in the fire – brothers, sisters, cousins, all of us together. And one of us reads it out loud. And maybe his Scottish brogue comes through thick in his writing and Mom has to explain this or that because our own memories of “home” have grown dim. We didn’t really mean to forget. Not really. But, truth be told, it’s hard to remember what he looks like anymore or the way his hug feels after a walk in the meadow. And the littlest among us barely knew him at all before we left.

But when Momma reads we remember. We hang on every word. And I get goosebumps as I listen to words penned by his precious hand. A bit of him. Here. With us now.

That’s how I feel about getting to open my Bible and pour over its Words. It’s an imperfect analogy, I know. But, it gets at the heart of it for me. Sometimes we open the letter together, all gathered around the Book while someone reads it aloud. But, I’ve also got to acknowledge that the letter is for me alone also. It’s God’s communication to ME.

SONY DSCFor, I did receive a letter from a great distance. Only it’s not from Grandad. Naw – it’s even better. This letter is from the very One who called the stars out by name and told the proud ocean waves where to stop. And knew me while I was still being knit together in my mother’s womb. The One whose mercies are new every morning. He who heaps grace on me – grace upon grace. He has spoken. Written down all the things He wanted me to know for this life. Fantastic accounts of love spurned and the relentless pursuit of a Suitor. A picture of the cheater wooed back. Of a love that wins and a future hope that awaits me.

A letter like that shouldn’t be sitting pristine on a shelf. Friends, do you know that men died so that we could get this letter? And read it in our own language? This is a letter that deserves to be poured over. Read again and again. Slowly, savoring every word. Pages worn thin from getting it out over and over again.

I know I need the letter. Oh how I need it. Because, I’ll be honest, sometimes I forget. I forget what He’s like and how His story has become my history. Let’s face it, there are lots of other voices competing with the letter. Trying to keep me from it. Some even mock the letter. “How do you even know it’s from Him? What if it’s a fake? Or been altered by the deliveryman?”

But I know better. Aside from apologetic proof upon proof, there is the reality that His fingerprints are all over His correspondence. His heart beating with the very idea of something so impossible as grace. There’s nothing like it in all the wide world. No ancient text from any other religion that quite reads like this one. I both need and WANT to hear what He has to say. To be reminded afresh.

I know, right? You felt it too. Goosebumps. So what are you waiting for? Go get your letter and soak in the words from the heart of your Suitor. Go find out for yourself what it is that makes Him so worthy of your affection.