listening to God | ☕ Espressos of Faith ☕

Flipping That Tassel: A Letter to the Class of 2018

Flipping That Tassel Our oldest son graduates high school, along with close to 400 classmates. Maybe even in the rain. Outside. Oh, joy! It seems to culminate in this one night, but truthfully, the past few weeks have been nonstop events on our calendar: senior awards, senior scholarships, band banquet, language awards, induction ceremony, baccalaureate, etc. It was so hectic I found myself rescheduling medical appointments multiple times on the day of some of these events. Despite syncing Apple Calendar and setting a timer on my phone, I could not keep it all straight. That panicky feeling kept creeping in insisting that I was going to miss something important.

And then there it was: That maroon and white tassel with 2018 dangling off the end of it. And I completely flashed back to 1990. Rainy day just the same, almost three decades earlier. All the nerves of exiting one chapter and entering another one rattling around like a live wire inside me.

Only this time, in 2018, it was my firstborn.

This day was the end of many things, yes, but it was the beginning of a lifetime of choices, decisions, dreams, achieving, and sometimes falling, sometimes failing.

What? Why so negative? Not the most inspiring graduation message, Bonnie!

Oh, but it is! Because the road ahead Read the rest of this entry »

Mistaken Crowns: When We Are Not the Answer

19 May

I could hear the ramping up of emotion in the dining area from my room upstairs. My youngest son, who struggles with anxiety, had just survived his first few days of the new school year and was quickly unraveling from holding it together for six hours a day in front of peers and staff. As ugly as the meltdowns can be, I could see from the short time they lasted and the quicker recovery period that he is developing coping skills. Even so, this particular afternoon, I really didn’t want to be the recipient of his angst. I had been in a lot of traffic and went to my room for a while to get my peace on.

But then, the storm—the one where lightning is starting to flash and a big crash of thunder will soon follow. I’m so used to being hyper-vigilant that I almost ran down the stairs, but then I stopped myself. I heard something. My oldest son responded to the distress signal and calmly entered the room, speaking gently, rationally, briefly, and directly to his little brother. He was following all the instructions I offered him recently on how to bring Little Man down a notch.

And it worked.

Mistaken Crowns.jpg

I began thanking Jesus out loud in my room because it was amazing to hear someone else step in and do a better job than I often do. It was a relief of dramatic proportions. After about 20 minutes, I came downstairs, asked Little Man how he could have handled his stress better for the next time, and quietly affirmed his older brother.

I was not the one God put on this assignment, and had I barreled ahead, three people would have missed a blessing. Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments

Posted by Bonnie Lyn Smith on May 19, 2017 in Ministry Moments, Relationship with God, Renewing Our Minds

Tags: blessing, crowns, God complex, God's anointing, God's assignments, God's guidance, God's leading, God's purposes, hearing God, Hearing God's voice, Jesse, king david, listening to God, pride, problem solving, Samuel, solving problems, the Lord looks on the heart, the Lord sees not as man sees

Waiting on God in the Valley

12 Sep

Ever feel like screaming: Waiting on God in the Valley

“God, where ARE you? It’s the eleventh hour, and I’m beyond impatient waiting on you to show up!”

In a crisis situation, that desperate plea sounds pretty reasonable, right? We’re frantic, and we cry out. There’s nothing wrong with that. David did this repeatedly in the Psalms. God isn’t afraid of our honesty. In fact, He welcomes it.

Even so, there are four fundamental misconceptions with these statements, and believe me, I’m guilty of wrong belief myself!

God is not with us.
He might not respond, so we have to get His attention again.
It really is the eleventh hour.
It’s about us.

As for Number One, can I just say here that Read the rest of this entry »

23 Comments

Posted by Bonnie Lyn Smith on September 12, 2015 in Ministry Moments, Relationship with God, Renewing Our Minds

Tags: 1 john 5:14, christ who lives in me, cross of Christ, Deuteronomy 31:6, down to the wire, eleventh hour, faith, galatians 2:19-20, God answers, God hears us, God with us, God's purposes, he hears us, He will not leave you or forsake you, immanuel, in the valley, It is finished, listening to God, Lord your God goes with you, matthew 1:23, relationship with God, rescue, time lords, trusting God, waiting on God, where is God

Squeezing Lemons: When Help Isn’t Helpful for Everyone

26 May

The other morning my tween daughter came downstairs to report her difficult time getting to sleep the night before. She had recently sold her daybed to make her bedroom more of a study/hangout pad. Knowing my husband was in the middle of creating what is currently transitioning from a fictitious to real full-size loft bed for my oldest son, she figured that eventually his woodworking gift would benefit her as well, so she settled into decorating the top bunk of my younger son’s room to be more chickie-like, assuming the room-share situation would be tolerable in the short term.

As it turned out, she was wrong.

My youngest son (who struggles to turn his mind off at night) had recently started listening to a relaxation CD. (I had listened to it first to make sure it wasn’t sending him subliminal messages to eat cookies in the middle of the night, find inner peace in his belly button, or pretend he could fly like a superhero. Thankfully, it had passed my test.)

What I wasn’t thinking about on my dry run with the CD was what such a “tense-it-up-now-relax-it” storyline would do to someone without anxiety.

Yeah, I didn’t think about that at all.

As I set out breakfast, my angst-ridden daughter vented about her experience with the CD, up-bunk the night before from my son who was getting his calm on—

—and it wasn’t pretty.

Read the rest of this entry »

14 Comments

Posted by Bonnie Lyn Smith on May 26, 2015 in Drawing Healthy Boundaries, Relationship with God, Renewing Our Minds

Tags: advice, anxiety, counsel, discernment, God's wisdom, godly counsel, Job, Job 42, Job's friends, listening to God, Psalm 32:8, Psalm 81:10, relationship with God, relaxation CD, the way you should go, unwanted advice, wrong advice

What Blessing Is in Your Fort?

18 May

I came home the day before Mother’s Day from a long-overdue visit with a friend. We had a lovely time as she introduced me to her favorite chocolate shop in Cambridge. I enjoyed an iced milk chocolate (yes, indeedy—that specific!) mocha with the purest chocolate I’ve ever tasted. It slid down my throat like silky cocoa sweetness with a “Yippee!” as it landed. It was vacation in a cup.

We tooled around a bit, stopping in a naturals store where I picked up a ginger lotion and peppermint essence for my sinus headaches. I don’t usually spend that kind of time shopping for me; it was so incredibly soothing: talking with my sweet friend, walking around in the beautiful sunshine that decided to stay in Boston for a while, and even taking the T, with its rocking rhythms as it jerks forward and later glides to a halting stop.

It was a sensory delight in every way: scents, sounds, sun, smooth mocha intake. I got my peace on in a big big way. And then—then I came home to… Read the rest of this entry »