Firstfruits
You were not created to live
small and safe,
you were created to live
fierce and brave.
LISA BEVERE
Life doesn’t need to be full of darkness for our souls to become weary and exhausted. Sometimes it’s as if I need to give myself permission to remember how even good things that fill my schedule and my day can drain me as my buckets pour out.
Here I sit on the couch, laptop propped up against me, as I try, ever so hard, to ignore the pounding of the men putting on our new roof after a storm with golf ball sized hail put holes in our home large enough to make it rain inside. This roof was supposed to have been done months ago, but whatever. At least it’ll be completed before the Denver snow begins and poor weather conditions force us to wait till next spring.
I am worn out today. Weary. Exhausted. Ben has been out of town a lot lately and the kids haven’t napped in days because of all the roof clatter. I’m not too shy to admit it: I need a break.
I prayed (and prayed and prayed) that the kids could somehow sleep today. That the Lord would close their ears to all this banging, hammering, and walking around above their heads. Because I am about to lose my mind.
And you know what? Though I keep checking on them, they’re out. Completely out. (Thank You, Jesus.)
Have you ever heard the song “Worn” by Tenth Avenue North? I play it over and over these days. It fills my soul with so much hope and promise that even though I’m beat down and exhausted, I’ll make it through as I continue to seek God’s face.
With lyrics like “I’m worn, even before the day begins” and “I want to know a song can rise from the ashes of a broken life,” it fits so well with what I’m feeling and seeing as we continue to settle in as a family and heal broken hearts.19
“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:4–5 NIV
I need to learn to remain in Him. In other words, if I become disconnected from the Vine (God is the Vine; John 15:5), there’s no way I’ll be successful and bear fruit. I won’t make it, as a good mom, a loving wife, or simply plain ol’ me.
But how do I do that? How do I learn to remain in Him? Simply put, I need to follow Him, rather than leading myself and controlling everything.
I can’t see all …
know all …
do all …
But He can.
And He does.
Peace, love, compassion, and joy become as juicy and tangible as a perfectly ripened apple or pear when we follow the Lord and His precepts. As we live a life more like Jesus, He’ll not only lead us but will also give this spiritual fruit as gifts that will be seen as evidence that we live in relationship with Him.
Supernatural strength is another gift from above, and one I’m desperately needing lately. Strength to keep going, to keep smiling. Strength to keep from running to the beaches of Mexico and never coming back.
In my quiet time this morning, Isaiah 43 is where I turned. And though my study wasn’t talking about weariness, but rather my true identity as a daughter of Christ, it struck my heart heavily as I read His promise to us.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”
Isaiah 43:2 NIV
I know He will be with me right where I am. Deep down, I know that I know it. But it doesn’t necessarily mean I always feel or remember it. Yet it’s written right there in black and white in the Bible I hold in my hands. So why can’t I think those same thoughts for my own life? I wanted Him to use me, right? Well … He is. He’s wearing me out and wearing me in, like my favorite pair of jeans from Anthropologie.
God promises to be with me. He promises that the waters will not sweep over me, and even if I’m walking through the fire, I will not be burned. Maybe I’ll even be refined (Zechariah 13:9; Isaiah 48:10), but nowhere does it say life will be easy and nowhere does the Bible share that those making the biggest impact for the kingdom were the ones sipping lemonade while relaxing near the Nile.
I’m slowly discovering through my exhaustion that He is breaking me with a sort of Sacred Brokenness—that my messy and chipped life has been torn and messed up for a divine purpose. It seems to me that this isn’t a bad thing or something to be fearful of, but rather a blessing. Didn’t I ask Him to send me, to use me, all those years ago? I didn’t specify that He only use me when I felt like it. Or when I’ve had enough sleep.
When I close my eyes, I imagine myself kneeling before the Lord as He sits upon His throne. My head is bowed, hiding the tears and bags under my eyes. My arms are loaded full of my weakness, weariness, imperfection, and my desire to control everything from my children’s behavior to keeping up a perfectly clean house, but I raise it all up to Him as if to say:
Here, God, take it. I can’t handle it. It’s too much. Lord, You have said, “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint” (Jeremiah 31:25 NIV). Help me open my heart to receive that, Jesus.
Help me remain in You. Help me remember that apart from You, I can do nothing. You say that if I remain in Your love, Your joy will reside within me (John 15:9–12 NIV). I need that, Lord. Fill me with Your love. Help me show my family Your light and Your love. Draw me closer to Your side, Father.
I’m so thankful that nothing is a surprise to Him. He already knew that I couldn’t do this all on my own. I can’t and you can’t.
Don’t run from tests and hardships, brothers and sisters. As difficult as they are, you will ultimately find joy in them; if you embrace them, your faith will blossom under pressure and teach you true patience as you endure. And true patience brought on by endurance will equip you to complete the long journey and cross the finish line—mature, complete, and wanting nothing.
James 1:2 VOICE
I encourage you to find joy through the struggles, through the weariness. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: take joy. Grab it with both hands and don’t let go, for the Lord has promised us great things if we come to Him (and yes, I am looking in the mirror as I say this).
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28–30 NIV
Days sped by, years actually, and suddenly we were out of the home with a new roof, the one that was deemed uninhabitable, that is now dreamy, updated, and safe. We find ourselves now in yet another house, one I’m still calling our current home.
Elsabet is no longer an infant, and as much as I’d love for them to, our kids rarely take naps. Instead, as I now sit at the desk in the kitchen, attempting to work, I watch through the window as our darling girls play in the backyard. In a gentle, rhythm-like cadence—almost hypnotizing—their dark little knees pump as they go higher and higher on their beloved swings. Abandoned only a moment later, the swings hang discarded, still swaying back and forth, awaiting another ride.
Onto the slide the girls climb, giggling sweetly together, as they often do … and then the little one smacks the older upside the head and the candy-coated moment is gone. Instantly replaced with fighting, crying, and screaming.
I sigh and roll my eyes, saving what I’d just typed on the mostly blank computer screen. Trying not to be annoyed as I wish I hadn’t been disrupted. Again. And knowing my train of thought will dissolve in the morning sun as soon as I open the screen door to both soothe and reprimand my little Ethiopian loves.
With our large family, rarely is there a quiet and serene moment. Rarely can I complete a task in one sitting. Sometimes I don’t complete it at all. Long is my list of to-dos: meals to make and laundry to fold, blog posts and book chapters to write.
The question that constantly parades through my thoughts is: How on earth can I do it all? Well, simply put—I can’t. And neither can you.
It doesn’t matter if you have six kids or one. Maybe you don’t have kids, but your commitments pull at you from all directions.
Here’s my advice to you: give up.
I know what you’re thinking: Give up?! Just bear with me another minute.
My mom always says, “Major in the majors and minor in the minors.” Have you heard that before? The concept is simple: take the time for what’s important, the major things. Spend time on those things; do those well.
The minor matters and concerns constantly surround, and yet life doesn’t fall apart if they’re not done. Sort of like my heavily underlined, dog-eared copies of Lysa TerKeurst’s book The Best Yes and Shauna Niequist’s Present over Perfect. They’re fantastic books, but we don’t need to read every page to understand what they’re getting at: Step back. Prioritize. Spend your yesses wisely.
I can’t begin to tell you how many things I’ve said no to this week alone.
Good things, even godly things, can become idols or distractions when we don’t set boundaries and distinctions.
Our kids? We don’t get do-overs with them. We don’t get to push on their heads and shrink them down tiny again. This is it. God first, husband second, kids third. We all know that, but what does it really mean?
We need to make time with God. Quiet, just-the-two-of-us time. It doesn’t matter when in the day it’s done, as long as it’s not when you’re falling asleep or distracted and unengaged in your moments with Him. Before our kids all slept through the night, I did my devotions during naptime, but now I get up before the rest of the family. That’s what works for me.
We try to tuck in the kids between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. every evening so Ben and I can spend time together before we, too, close our eyes for the night. Our older boys stay up later studying, but if they’ve done all they need to do, they know to head to bed and read or journal until their official lights-out. It’s so very important for Ben and me to spend time together in the evenings, just the two of us catching up on the day as we clean the kitchen together or fold a pile of laundry. And then after perhaps relaxing outside on the porch. Or watching a show as we cuddle up on the couch. Or reading books in bed with our feet entwined. Something simple.
Love isn’t the colossal moments. It’s the small ones piled up that make it so monumental.
Similar to the importance of spending quality time with our spouse, it is imperative with our children. Saying yes to the Slip ’n Slide in the rain before bed (which we did the other night). Having a picnic dinner in the backyard. Piling books and water bottles and blankets into a wagon and finding the perfect spot at the park to read. Just saying yes a little more to the simple things.
No, we cannot do it all. We might as well give up that fantasy now. But we can do the little things, one by one, because piled upon one another, they won’t be seen as minor or as insignificant. Little moments won’t remain infinitesimal but will be celebrated instead as big memories that last a lifetime. No matter how busy we are, we make memories every day. What types of memories are you capturing?
Express to the Lord your own version of the Prayer of Jabez. Though just a quick blip within the pages of Scripture, the life of this man is one of great remembrance because of how his heart was positioned to the Lord.
Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!” And God granted what he asked.
1 Chronicles 4:10 NRSV
Give your plans back over to Christ and allow Him to form a new thing within your life. Allow yourself to be beautifully interrupted. God will lead you to something with an incredible passion and calling. But when that calling or your purpose is fulfilled, don’t think for a second that you’re done! The exciting thing is discovering how He will use your experiences to bring you to yet another place you’re needed.
It’s cyclical, really. Around and around we go as the Lord sets us into motion, being put into action for God’s kingdom.
I can say this now and urge you of its importance because the Lord has brought us though the fire. I haven’t always “gotten it” and have sunk deeper and deeper into a pit of exhaustion and ineffectiveness. Sometimes we have to capsize and disappear beneath the waves. Sometimes we have to hit the bottom, or at least near the lowermost chasm of the abyss, so we remember how much we need Him and cling white-knuckled to the Lord as He ultimately pulls us out.
There are moments and seasons that hurt something fierce but are also so freeing with the knowledge that going through them is a necessity for our future strength and relationship with God. One such season occurred just after we brought Ezekiel home and Ben’s job began to change.
We were still so new to this whole adoption thing and were suddenly thrown into more transitions as Ben began traveling back and forth from San Antonio to Portland every month. He’d be gone five days of the month and spend more time in the office, which I look back on as the most exhausting and overwhelming time of my life caring for and loving a four-year-old, a three-year-old, an infant, and our newest addition, a six-year-old who spoke almost no English and whom we were having challenges with as his heart began to heal.
I remember collapsing onto the floor in the kitchen one afternoon and bursting into tears. As I sat there on the cold tile floor holding baby Imani, Anton and Laith both crawled onto my lap, cuddling and comforting me, while Ezekiel stared with wide eyes a few feet away. I wondered how on earth I could do this. I have so much respect for single parents and military families. I could barely endure a week per month by myself.
Lord, is this really what we’re supposed to be doing? You’ve got to give me more strength for this! I absolutely cannot do it on my own. That day was a turning point for me. I certainly wasn’t at rock bottom, but I was drowning. I needed to cling to Him tighter. I had to, or I wasn’t going to survive.
Give your plans back over to Christ and allow Him to form a new thing within your life. Allow yourself to be beautifully interrupted.
But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31 NLT
Though the very essence of my soul wailed at the notion of being so low that my tiny children were compelled to crawl on the ground to comfort me, the reality was that I desperately needed their unyielding love while sobbing on that floor. And at that moment, God also bestowed their sweet tenderness to remind me of Himself. That His love is also unyielding and tender.
As I ugly cried on the floor, being cared for by my precious preschool-age children, God whispered the word firstfruits into my ear.
Pausing from my tears for a moment, my mind began working like a Rolodex, trying to comprehend how it applied to me and my season. Firstfruits? I asked, confused. Help me understand what You mean, Lord!
I knew that firstfruits are offerings of the first and best crops to God, which is often spoken about in the Old Testament. It was an offering given in acknowledgment of God’s abundant blessing. Definitely not giving Him what is left over, but rather giving Him the best of the best first.
And there is more; it’s not just creation—all of us are groaning together too. Though we have already tasted the firstfruits of the Spirit, we are longing for the total redemption of our bodies that comes when our adoption as children of God is complete.
Romans 8:23 VOICE
What was I giving Him? The leftovers. The leftovers of my time, my energy, and my heart. He was reminding me of the need to put Him first. Above everything. Though I was going to Bible study every week, I wasn’t really spending time with Him. My quiet time, my devotions, my reading of the Bible and prayer time—it was sporadic and hurried. My heart was for Him, but I was in survival mode and He’d somehow gotten left behind in all the craziness and exhaustion that had become my life.
I was being tossed like a ship in a storm. I felt alone and overwhelmed. I was exhausted by the new challenges we faced as a family. I knew nothing could separate me from the Lord, that He was stronger and more powerful than this storm, but I was lost in the wind and waves. What I realized that day was that I needed to have the right perspective of Him. I needed to lean into the Lord and live in a posture of humility. My eyes were opened to the necessity of being bold in prayer, regardless of how I felt. I needed—no, I had to take the time for Him or there would be nothing of me left. I was encouraged with immediate relief knowing that giving Him my firstfruits would not only keep me off the floor but would also help me become an unconquerable force because I would be living in His power.
I wasn’t sleeping much at night since Imani wasn’t, Ben was gone for what felt like a lot of the time, and I simply couldn’t get ahead of anything. The house never seemed clean; the laundry never ended; the sink was never empty of dishes. I didn’t know how to ask for help. I had family and many friends who would have dropped everything to help me if they’d known how much I was struggling, yet I felt I had to put on a brave, smiling face all the time.
I felt (and still struggle with feeling this way) that I had no business asking for help from anyone. This was the life Ben and I chose. We chose to have this many children. We chose to have a family that is outside the norm, full of things we’re still learning how to handle and love through.
Things like how to teach a child English. How to help a young boy heal his hurt and loss and understand that we love him no matter how hard he tries to push us away. How to help two towheaded preschool-age boys not to feel ignored, or replaced, or that our adopted kids are more important to us than they are, even though they’re requiring a lot of extra attention.
Take some of the firstfruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the LORD your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name.
Deuteronomy 26:2 NIV
Firstfruits.
Well, I didn’t have a lamb or crops to give, but I certainly had my firstfruits of time. I was so sleep-deprived and exhausted from Imani waking multiple times a night that there was no way—no way—I could get up earlier. I knew mornings were out.
I felt the Lord direct me, saying to give my firstfruits during naptime. Rather than scurrying through the house cleaning up, doing laundry, and tackling the constant stream of dishes, I was called to first sit and be with Him. Then do my tasks after.
And it changed everything.
I don’t mean to say that everything became sunny all the time, but it was suddenly manageable. My attitude was better, and I had a full grasp on things.
Jesus loved me back to life. My season changed.
Somehow I was receiving a divine amount of ability and productivity. The Lord was multiplying my time, renewing and energizing me. I could see His hand in my life as my patience grew. Grace was extended toward our family and kindness was electrified. Magnified. I was more attentive and loving, and my tasks were not only being completed but being executed thoroughly, and well. And through it all, I confidently leaned on Him, knowing it was in His power, not my own, that it was all getting done.
Two years later, I felt God stretching me once again. Encouraging me toward waking up earlier and spending an hour or two with Him before our children begin to stir in the morning, He released me of my precious naptime in the middle of the day.
In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.
Psalm 5:3 NIV
Whenever I talk about how early I rise, people seem rather shocked that I wake several hours before my children. Assuming I’m some sort of crazy morning person, they often announce to me, “Oh I could neeeever do that. I’m just too tired. I need my sleep.”
Oh, if you only knew, I want to tell them!
I so struggle getting up in the morning. Ben says I’m just like the kids: exhausted in the evening yet forced to actually crawl into bed. I want to stay up! I’ve always been more of a night person. So when my alarm chimes, I just want to cozy even deeper into my blankets and enjoy the warmth of my bed.
Get up! Get up! I urge myself.
Grab your Bible and make a coffee … go! I tell myself as I convince my sleepy body to push back the covers.
Every morning I ask myself, What’s more important, my relationship with Christ or with my pillow?
My day is genuinely so much better once I’ve started it in the Word and in prayer. My attitude is better and I’m more focused, more joyful, less likely to snap at my kids and husband. My family even notices it.
Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.
Proverbs 3:9–10 NIV
My mind often races, full of the things I need to do, groceries I need to buy, and schedules I need to manage. So I’ve learned to have a journal next to me. Once I quickly scribble down whatever is rattling through my brain, keeping me from truly being able to concentrate, I can move on and move closer in my time with my Lord.
I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Ephesians 4:1–2 NIV
As my time magnified, the way I saw things also changed. I began to realize what an honor it was to care for my family. Keeping the house picked up didn’t make me a glorified maid; it was my privilege to take care of them in this way. I’m not going to lie and tell you that I suddenly turned into Mother Teresa or walked around with a halo over my head, never complaining when the kids spilled their milk for the fourth time that day.
I still prayed daily that God would work in me to give me a good attitude, patience, and strength so that I wouldn’t lose my temper with my family because things weren’t as perfect as I wanted them to be. But as my time of intimacy increased, my whole being began to blossom with fruit. The storm that I felt was going to drown me instead made me stronger because it led me back to Him.
My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees. Your instructions are more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver. You made me; you created me. Now give me the sense to follow your commands. May all who fear you find in me a cause for joy, for I have put my hope in your word.
Psalm 119:71–74 NLT