Life & Death

Proverbs 31:8
"Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute." ESV
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; defend the rights of all those who have nothing." NCV
"Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute." NRSV
"Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die." NKJV

I've avoided my Facebook newsfeed over the last week or so. With a new baby staring up at me and postnatal hormones washing over me, it's too heart-wrenching to read over and over the implications of New York's new abortion law. Then, yesterday, I read Proverbs 31, although I really only got as far as verse 8.

How do we speak out for the unborn half a continent away? Even in a democratic republic like ours, it's hard to know what to do.

Do we rant on Facebook? Sign petitions? Write blog posts? Get out to vote in the next election?

Do Facebook posts change anyone's mind? Can a list of names really sway a politician over such an agenda-driven piece of legislation? What can another piece of cyber writing do that all the ones before it haven't? What good will my future vote here do for the babies who are dying today over there?

Maybe there's another way to open our mouths.

We can mourn.
We can be broken over the wickedness in our land.
We can grieve, privately and corporately.
We can, like Nehemiah, confess our people's sin.
We can ask God's intervention for the lives of the babies, yes, but also for the women and even the men who will be destroyed by one decision.
We can pray against the deceit of the enemy in the halls of capitol buildings as well as in the consultation rooms of abortion providers.
We can gather with other believers to pray for our children and for the children of our nation. (Any takers?)

We can live lives that value life.
We can reach out to the poor and homeless.
We can support the single mom or dad near us.
We can foster and adopt.
We can be patient with the mom ahead of us in the checkout line whose toddler begins to melt down.
We can teach our children of the intrinsic value of every single human being.
We can love the special needs individual.
We can adopt a zero-tolerance policy for bullying behavior or belittling words, spoken or typed.
We can make it our business to encourage the people we come into contact with each day.
We can be courteous to the fast food worker behind the counter and to the customer service rep on the phone.
We can care for the elderly neighbor.
We can take time for family dinner.

Because this isn't just about life in the womb. This is about life in all its forms. This is about fighting tooth and nail against the devil who "comes only to steal and kill and destroy" (John 10:10 ESV). (Heaven help us if this is what it takes for the American Church to realize that... Heaven help us if the American Church doesn't realize it after this.)

This is about the kind of life that only Christ gives and only Christians can offer to a dying world - abundant life.

Letting God Do His Job

HELLO . . . hello . . . hello . . .

Ahh, the echoes of a long-neglected blog!

Usually, my posts grow out of a thought or impression that follows me over the course of several days until it has developed into a full-blown post. Lately, I've been running so fast trying to keep up with our 20-month-old that a thought flies out of my head before it has a chance to root, much less grow into anything worthwhile. Besides - blog or sleep? No contest, lately!

But, for you kind souls who like to amuse yourselves while humoring my vanity by reading these posts, I'll let you in on something that has managed to keep pace with my life lately. It's been much longer in the making than my typical posts, actually.

Go back with me several summers. We had only owned our small-town home a short while but were rapidly falling in love with the idea of raising a family here. We felt we lived in a real-life Mayberry, in the best sense of the expression. The people were kind, the town was clean, and the opportunities were just perfect for our purposes.

These happy thoughts were percolating while I was out for an early-morning jog, trying to beat the heat that July day. My usual route took me past the town park where the carnival was setting up in anticipation of our town festival that weekend.

Now, I've never spent much time thinking about carnival workers and their lives. Of course, I've seen some flicks and heard some stories about the rough life they lead or the shady character that can be a carnie, but that was about all the time I'd ever bothered about them. So, when I say, "the thought crossed my mind," I really don't mean to imply that it came from me. But, it was in my mind, suddenly, and I didn't know what to do with it:

"I wonder what they think of our town?"

The thought stopped me in my tracks. What? Of course they know what a lovely town this is, what nice people we are.

How would they know? What if your town is just another stop to them? Another weekend, to make another check, to pack up and do it again for another town just looking to have a good time?

Did they think we were snobs? Did we ignore them? Treat them as less-than?

What if they didn't even like being here in my town?

Well, I didn't like bothering with such uncomfortable thoughts. After all, I was still a new-comer. What could I do?

So, I finished my jog and conveniently forgot all about the whole thing.

Until last summer.

When the same thing happened all over again.

I can be dense, but I listened better the second time.

But, how does one reach out to a carnie? What do they need? What would they be open to having someone do for them? What have others done?

Enter the all-knowing Google!

Except, Google didn't really know, either.

I searched "carnival worker ministry," and I maybe got a handful of articles, written 10 years ago or more.

Except there was one hit from a Facebook page, dated earlier that summer, and titled (drumroll, please!), "Carnival Worker Ministry"!

Eureka!

I backtracked to the hosting church's website - for a church in Kentucky - and shortly had a phone number.

Gathering my courage about me, I put N down for a nap, tucked into my easy chair with a pen and a sticky note, and dialed the number into my cell.

A couple of rings later, I was speaking with a kind woman with a Southern lilt to her words - not so much that I couldn't understand her, but enough that I made sure to listen closely!

Wouldn't you know it, she just happened to be part of the women's group that headed that particular ministry. I told her my reason for calling, explained Google's lack of assistance, how I had found their page, and asked, "What do I need to know?"

She was positively tickled that I had called and gladly walked me through their yearly potluck dinner with the carnival workers, explained how they prepared, what sort of gifts they collected via donations to send with them, and much more.

At the end of our conversation, I thanked her, and she left me with the church's email address, requesting photos should anything come of our conversation.

Earlier this year, I contacted our festival board, and they were thrilled to have new ideas and new blood - especially, I think, since I was willing to head up the project!

The library is willing to be the collection site of donations.

Now, I am in the stage of contacting area churches. I sent out emails late Thursday afternoon and nervously check my inbox every time my phone chimes.

I would like this to be a community effort, but I want to have a devotion during the meal and give Bibles and devotional materials along with the other gifts, so I need it to clearly be an interchurch and community event. In order to have an interchurch event, I need churches involved.

So, I wait. And pray.

It's scary not knowing what will happen.

Maybe no one will want to come to the potluck. Then I will be doing a lot of cooking.

Maybe a lot of community members will show at the potluck, but none of the carnival workers will bother. That would be awkward.

But, I can't control that.

I can only step out, one foot after the other, in what I believe to be the path I've been asked to follow.

It seems God has been asking me to do that sort of thing more often lately - do what I am supposed to do and leave the rest to Him.

It's tough letting God do His job.

But it's much less work than doing it for Him.

A Letter

This is an open letter to a group of my Christian brothers and sisters whom I have never met, in a place I have never been. You see, you are receiving a blessing this week that has required a sacrifice from me and my family: my sister, B, and her husband, L, as your new pastor and pastor's wife.

Please understand from the beginning that I have every reason to think well of you. L & B had only good things to say about you all after their visit to candidate with you. I have only seen warmth, kindness, and welcome from your interactions with them on Facebook and on your website. But I have learned the hard way that people we love and think we know and who, we believe, love us in return can hurt us the most profoundly. No one is beyond the benefit of an encouraging word of exhortation. And so, I desire to spur you on to love and godliness in your interactions with my sister and brother-in-law because, while God can require hard - even painful - things of us at times, failing to walk in His ways always results in pain, even for innocent parties.

For this reason, I write to you.

Please remember that my big sister is not just a pastor's wife. She is, but she is so much more than that. She is a wife, a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a friend. She is a professional, a college graduate, and an aunt to my unborn child. She is the one who plunked out duets with me on the piano, who played dolls and dress-up with me, who introduced me to my favorite brand of makeup, who inspires me to read worthwhile books. She is well-read and has extensive knowledge about a variety of topics. She has spoken to a roomful of hundreds of collegues and has traveled to divers places. She has many strengths, but she has her fears and foibles as well. She isn't perfect, and moving into a parsonage will not make her so. Please, be kind in your words to and about her. Do not be shocked when she disappoints you or lets you down in an expectation. Get to know her as a real human, not just as your pastor's wife, or you will indeed miss out.

Please remember that L is not just your pastor. He is, but he is also so much more. L has hobbies and favorite books and places. He has quirks and preferences. He is not just learning to lead a church but also a wife. He will shepherd you in the ways of the Lord, but he himself is not infallible. There will be cultural differences as well (have you ever heard of Pizza Ranch or the Minnesota goodbye?). You will call him Pastor L, but do not let that title lull you into thinking that he is a pastor first (I say this because I am guilty of the same with my pastor). No, he is L. Please do not miss the richness of what that means by allowing the stereotypes and expectations of a title to suffice for actually getting to know him as a man.

Thank you for calling B & L. Thank you for extending this opportunity to a young couple fresh from seminary. I look forward to the opportunity to visit with you in person, to meet you and to begin to love the people and place that my sister and brother-in-law have chosen to love. I had never heard about you before a few months ago, and now it is my desire to make you friends as well as spiritual family. Please, in lieu of and agreement with their biological families who are separated by so many miles, wrap your arms - physically, spiritually, in prayer and in encouragement - around these our loved ones. As you do, may their absence from us be a gift to you. May you abound more and more in the riches of God's kindness, and may He strengthen you in the knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Peace be to you.

Christmas Lights

Hooray for Christmas decorations!

They are undoubtedly my favorite of all my home decor items. I love to decorate for Christmas!

But, of all the Christmas paraphernalia, mini white Christmas lights are my favorite.

After decorating this year, I had to sheepishly ask my husband to help me move the piano so I could plug in another extension cord, so I could spread out the five strings of white lights that I currently had on a single extension cord. I know, not the best idea to be loading them all on one like that, and, yes, I got that incredulous, husbandly look that says, "My wife may be losing it," but they are so pretty! I have them twisted into a wreath and twining through a rustic basket of pinecones and peeking through lettering in a little tin box that reads, "Peace on Earth." They're peaceful and bright and cheerful and cozy.

They wouldn't be nearly as nice in the middle of the summer.

The weather pulls us outside then, and the sun shines brightly through the windows nearly all our waking hours.

But in the winter, oh ho!, the winter is perfect for decorating with light. As we cuddle in for a dark, Midwestern evening, those little points of light are enough to gently brighten an entire room.

I don't think it's an accident that we use lights to make our homes ready to celebrate the nativity of our Lord. John 1:4 says that the life He brought was light. Light shines best in the dark. What a dark world He came to save:

the people were oppressed, conquered by a ruthless, godless emperor; that nation was stretching its tentacles of control into every corner of the known world, creating one world empire, and allowing no place to hide; taxes were oppressive; infants were slaughtered at a whim; regional rulers were suspicious and groped for power; pleasure was king, and those who refrained were eyed suspiciously; human life was cheap.

It sounds a bit like a world I know today.

Maybe all these crises and issues of the last century are not as original as we think.

Maybe all our panic over controversies and emergencies should be put on pause to give us a little time to reflect on His light.

For surely, the light that pierced the darkness in that stable in the shadows of Bethlehem in the depths of Israel in the blackness of the Roman Empire still shines brightly today. Indeed, it is multiplied exponentially in the Spirit-filled Church He left behind on earth!

John 1:5 says, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Another way to read this is "the darkness has not understood it." We should be the most misunderstood people on the face of the earth. In a world of deep despair, self-gratification, and false worship, Christianity does not make sense. We die to live, lose to gain, glory in suffering, have peace in chaos, and hope in an unseen reward. 

We look like madmen, yet we claim to have the cure for what is wrong with the world:

Wholeness for the broken;

Healing for the sick;

Light for the darkness.

In-Laws

Gasp.

The phrase that gets joked about as soon as the topic of marriage and family arises.
The words that immediately bring to mind mother-in-law stories.
Seemingly the bane of many and the delight of few.

Why?

Building a new marriage challenges every fresh-faced couple . . . so why do we complicate it with built-in, ready-made expectations of enmity with our spouse's family of origin?

I have been blessed with wonderful in-laws who have welcomed me and allowed my husband and me to begin life as our own family. Yet, it can still be interesting establishing new relationships - ones that will be with me the rest of my life - in a manner I have never before experienced.

I chose my husband, and in that respect I chose my in-laws. I regret neither. Actually, I quite enjoy both, and in this I find great joy! But what a strange tension to know that these are people I shall do life with from now on - and likewise, I suppose, for my husband with my original family.

Normally, I find a friendship with those with a great deal in common with me. My in-laws and I share a certain young man in common and, beyond that, we might or might not share anything else in common.

So what?

In my mind, I draw this out with the marriage/church analogy: marriage is to reflect the relationship of Christ to His Church, and to the extent that a marriage is healthy and loving, it is successful.

So, what about the in-laws?

Adam and Eve didn't have to work things out between their families in the first marriage ever, but God knew that marriage would bring in-laws into existence. (And, I believe, that just because they weren't part of the original creation, they are not necessarily lesser, bad, or lacking in things to teach us.)

We land ourselves with a group of almost-strangers with whom we will grow and experience life at the moment we say "I do." Should this picture life within the body of Christ?

Please, understand me: my biblical research is limited here. In fact, I haven't ever heard this connection made or read about it from any well-respected theologian.

BUT.

If Christ and the church :: the husband and wife, then the couple and their in-laws :: brothers and sisters in Christ?

Am I way off track here?

We grow and learn to love those in the Church for no other reason than that we have covenanted with the same God and made Him Lord of our lives. Here we are, all denominational persuasions, all opinionated on the proper color of church carpeting, all striving to embody a new life under new rules empowered by new grace every day.

Yes, we clash sometimes. After all, not everyone's mother made potato salad the same way. But in the essentials, the big stuff, the things that we can look at and say, "This is fundamental and necessary to Christianity as we know it," I would think that, done well, the Church can cross boundaries that no one else would find a reason to cross.

So, I covenanted with a man for the rest of our lives, and we each got another family as a bonus. A family that we probably wouldn't have known otherwise. A family on the other side of our typical boundaries that we build a bridge to on the basis of a marriage across them.

Because of my in-laws, I have already learned to add pasta to creamy pea salad, discovered the wonders of the bean pot, experienced deer hunting, and reaped the joy of two nephews. They're mostly surface issues, but they're a start of something much bigger, something I am only getting ephemeral hints of at the moment.

Obviously, this is a topic, an idea, that is still growing, evolving, stretching, twisting, and marinating inside me. That means that this post is probably rougher, less polished, than I would normally desire. That also means that I will probably be posting about it again . . .