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My Life in Ink – JoAnne Hancock

My Life in Ink – JoAnne Hancock

Tag Archives: obedience

Where Will You Store Christmas?

03 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by JoAnne Hancock in We Are Our Stories

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Advent, Christmas, home, homeless, hope, obedience

Last Sunday was the first in advent.  It was the day proclaiming hope and it reminded me that a day on a calendar cannot guarantee the very emotion that day promises. It was the day we withdrew our offer on a house; the house I just knew we would be in by Christmas.  It was a day that left me hopeless…though peaceful.

It was a day on which we continued our long obedience in the same direction, something Eugene Peterson said and my boss keeps quoting.  It invades my thoughts every time he says it for I want it to be the truth of my life.
long-obedienceTwo years ago I never dreamed our earthly possessions would still be in storage.  Our great bed.  Our new couch.  My new Bible reading chair.  Our daughter’s life.  Our Christmas.  Lots and lots of Christmas.

I love Christmas.  I love the Baby, the decorating, the lights, the parties, the baking, the traditions, the giving, the HOPE.  Somewhere in the pile of pictures in storage is the sign that reads:
hopeI love HOPE enough to buy signs defining it that live on the walls of our house.

Only we don’t have a house.  Our current housing has been a true gift.  We have lived in a mobile home park in the midst of many senior adults from our church.  It’s exactly where we have needed to be for this season.  We love them and they love us.  But, because it’s a snow bird rental, we knew we needed to be out of it by years end.  No problem.  We had eight months.  We’d be out in plenty of time.  We would celebrate Christmas in our new house with all of the decorations on display that we have not seen for two years.  Our girl would pull in from college to sights of tradition, memories, gaiety.  All would be right with our world again.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Instead, we have begun the search for a rental and Christmas week will include another move.  (We have a peace about that decision.)  It’s not what I wanted Abi to come home to.  (But we have a peace about our decision.)   I just want her to come home.  And she will.
DSC_0308I’m tired and I’m weary.  They are different.  I’m ready to be in a house that reminds me of us.  I’m ready for God to show His hand.

As I’ve been working my way through all of this, God has been speaking to me about what it means to be home. 
in-the-hands-of-the-fatherIn the last couple of years, I have been reminded by many that we DO have a home; we simply don’t have a house.  And I understand the heart behind that thought and can even recognize its truth.  I’m grateful for its truth.  I love my family.

But, if you have said that to me, you don’t know me very well.  My heart has always been in my home and much of what home means to me has been reflected in our house.  It’s been my delight to make a sanctuary there for my family.  It’s been my greatest privilege to gift them with the comfort of our home.  It hasn’t been about the stuff and it still isn’t.

It’s about belonging.  It’s about rest.  It’s about comfort.  It’s about familiarity.

And that’s the reminder God gave me this week.  He simply wants ME to be all of that for HIM.

He wants to be home in me.

He wants to belong with me.  He wants to rest with me.  He wants to comfort me.  He wants to be familiar with me.

He wants my heart to be His home.  He is much more interested in decorating my heart with Himself this Christmas than He is with anything I can pull out of a box and place on the hearth.

Don’t get me wrong.  I miss the decorating.  I’ll celebrate extra big the year we have a house laden with our familiar Christmas decorations.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERADSC_0293But…for now…for this season…

God is still doing His perfect work on my heart.  My heart is His requirement of me this year.  And it will be my gift to Him.
make my heart your homeI’m at peace with that.

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Fasting May Be Old Fashioned But It Still Works

01 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by JoAnne Hancock in Ministry Musings

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

fasting, obedience, parsonage, prayer

During my sixth and seventh years of life our family lived in Glassboro, NJ. I can’t say I have a lot of memories of those years but among them are the woods behind our house that served as our playground; woods filled with poison ivy and a path that led to the sewage treatment plant, scientific experiments that included slugs and salt, the beautiful teenage girl that fascinated me when she used orange juice cans to curl her hair, mom giving piano lessons to Steve, the Sunday night dad and a couple of laymen staked out the dark church hoping to catch whomever was stealing the altar flowers every week and my introduction to fasting.
Glassboro woodsWednesday nights were called “Prayer and Fasting” and since our home was dubbed “the parsonage,” you can be sure we participated. I don’t recall mom and dad eating anything but, since there were four children between the ages of 4 and 9, some semblance of dinner had to be served.

Among my facebook friends there are many who would give a hearty “yes” to the question “Can I get a witness?” regarding the culinary skills of my mother. She could compete with any 5 star chef. Not only that, she has always been the master of creating fellowship memories around a table filled with incredible food.
feastBut my memory serves a very different story when it came to our Wednesday fasts. I remember long faces staring at bowls of soup and no homemade bread in sight. I also remember the night mom cut and fried an eggplant so that we thought we were getting the very rare treat of French fries. Suffice it to say that my brother Dave never did take well to food trickery and he is still bitter about this event in his life.
eating soupI don’t know if it was my early childhood experience or the fact that I’m one who can get busy on a project and simply forget to eat but, I have never been one to fast. Enter early November, 2013. Forty five years after the eggplant debacle. And God, as only God can, began speaking to my heart about a fast.
fastingMy heart had been growing increasingly heavy regarding a personal situation that was not resolving with me in charge.  Fancy that!  Because I skip meals by nature, God was asking me to fast sweets…through the holidays…and trust HIM to work out my concerns. So there I was, already with all of our decorations in storage and now facing the choice of obedience regarding the absence of cookies, cakes and cheesecakes. I love sweets. Even more, I love Christmas sweets.
DSC_0322You know what is so interesting? When I made the choice to obey, giving up the sweets was not even difficult. It was the obedience part that was most difficult – the first step. Then God took over. And in His loving way, He put a guard over my mouth regarding the situation and He worked all things for good as I committed the situation to Him through prayer.

My plea was not immediately resolved. It was a process. But the process now belonged to Him.  My hands were off.  His hands were on.  Things were now in proper order.
prayer and fastingColossians 4:2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.

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The Gift I Did Give My Daughter…

26 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by JoAnne Hancock in We Are Our Stories

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

empty nest, missions, obedience, parenting

My last post spilled out the gift called balance that I failed to give my daughter.  If I could change that I would.  She’s eighteen.  It’s too late.  My regret has been established.  Her forgiveness has been complete.
giftsHowever, there are some gifts her wonderful dad and I did give her.  They were hard gifts to give.  She never asked for them.  They didn’t make her popular.  Truth is, they didn’t make us popular either.  We couldn’t be her BFF and give her these gifts.  But we also knew that our vision for her future would never come to fruition without the consistent administering of these gifts.

One of those gifts was obedience for we knew, without it, our daughter would never find true success and fulfillment in life.  And we knew she would never find Jesus without obedience either.  So we had no choice but to embark on the long, arduous journey of teaching obedience.  For, if we erased her chances of finding Jesus, no other parenting successes or failures would have mattered.  The ultimate choice was hers but it was our responsibility to consistently introduce her to Him and to do so without hypocrisy.

So how do we teach obedience?  By modeling it.  By being obedient ourselves. By being vulnerable and honest with our children.

I know, I know.  Abi could not grasp that concept as a toddler and young girl.  So our best alternative was in routinely letting her know that disobedience has consequences. Consequences stink…for the child and for the parent.  But they are unavoidable where disobedience reigns.  The consequences of “young child disobedience” are nearly insignificant compared to the life altering consequences of adult disobedience. Therefore, she had to learn while it didn’t hurt as badly.
parentingAs she grew older, we knew Abi was measuring our expectation of her obedience against our own willingness to obey.  She was right to do so for expecting obedience when we ourselves are not willing to obey is a sham.  Teenagers know that.  They aren’t stupid.

Abi’s greatest front seat view of obedience-in-action was when her dad resigned his job in 2013.  It was politically incorrect.  In the eyes of some, it put a stain on his career. It was misunderstood.  For a few it was a victory dance; the details of which we could likely never divulge.  There were even family members who questioned.  To this day it remains our greatest life wound.  And our greatest teacher.

But it was “Jesus obedience” and our girl knew it.  She had been taught to trust and to recognize truth so when her dad told her “If I stay one more day, I will be walking in disobedience” she knew from experience that she had a dad for whom disobedience was not an option.
hard obedienceJesus obedience.  The hardest kind no matter what your age.  Outside of the “thou shalt nots,” it’s misunderstood obedience and thought crazy by on-lookers. Often, it’s even thought crazy by the one doing the obeying.  But, if you really know Jesus, you likely also know Jesus obedience.  It requires immediate action.

And here’s where I am in some difficulty over the gift we gave our daughter.  She has chosen to learn the lesson and is practicing obedience.  Jesus obedience.  Obedience that may take her around the world.  Not just mission trips, rather mission life.  Africa. South America.  China.  Inner-city America.
povertyI know there are lost people in million dollar homes and at the Country Club around the corner.  She says Jesus isn’t calling her there.
mansionNow, the gift we gave her requires boomerang obedience on my part.  My husband’s got this one.  Me?  Most days are good.  Some days I struggle with celebrating the gifts we DID give as much as I regret the ones we did not give.

But this I know.  Jesus loves her more than I.  My job was to parent.  I chose a great man to co-chair that assignment.

God’s word instructs us to obey.  We taught that.  We modeled that when it was harder than hard.  Now we trust.  It’s our gift to beautiful, wonderful, obedient her and, ultimately, our gift to God.

obedience

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