The Darkness has Not Overcome

Fear is sneaky.

Most days, especially when the sun is shining, I can function normally and leave the rest to God.

But then there are the times when the days have been gloomy and the girls have been testy and night falls and I'm left feeling like the locomotive of COVID-19 is barreling down the tracks toward my family and it's only a matter of time til it hits and all I can do is hunker down and wait.

On one such night last week, I actually did something right about my emotions. I talked to my husband (who's been a voice of calm in the insanity of the last few weeks) and then went up to bed and opened my Bible.

(I'm working my way through "The Story," an adaptation of the NIV that presents the words of Scripture, while in selections, as one continuous story. Reading it is much like reading any other book, with breaks for chapters rather than separate books with chapters and verses. While there are brief editorial breaks to explain themes or summarize missing sections, it's largely simply the Biblical text, and it's been a nice way for me to get a new perspective on passages that otherwise have become rote.)

I opened to my bookmark, and this is the first thing that met my eyes.

That's where the stirring of the Holy Spirit stopped me, and what I believe He impressed on my heart was exactly what I needed at that moment. I'd like to share it with you, in the hope that you may be encouraged, too. It's maybe not completely cohesive, but hopefully it's coherent!

In the beginning - As God was speaking planets and molecules into existence, He already knew that the year AD 2020 would find a pandemic sweeping the globe.

He knew it all: the beginning of COVID-19 in China; Italy's anguish; that hospitals would be unprepared; the steady creep of the disease from our continent's coasts toward its interior. He already knew every detail of what was coming, including the ones we don't know yet.

He isn't surprised; He isn't less good; He isn't less in control.

the Word - Jesus, "the Word," is the sum total of God's message to humanity. He's the culmination of everything God had said before the New Testament, everything God has promised to say to His people, and everything God is ever going to say. Think of it! All this embodied in one 33-year life on planet Earth. (Spoiler alert: His life and teaching still have ramifications for us today!)

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. - Seventh grade science tells us humans are made when an egg and sperm fuse to become a zygote. This mono-cellular carrier of a complete genetic code has all the information necessary to bring into being a fully functioning adult man or woman.

John, the writer of the above passage, tells us that it is actually an egg, a sperm, and God who make each person (although maybe not in that order...).

Psalms says God knitted my children together within my womb.

This is an issue of personal workmanship!

If I take pains that the frisky cat not claw up the afghan I crocheted - if I delight in the art and craftsmanship of my hand and my husband's and our friends' - if I hang these things on my walls and store them gently when they're not on display - how much more does my God care for the two miraculous lives He designed, built, and brought to life? We're not guaranteed a pass on suffering or even on infection, but He knows. He understands. My fear, my attempt to trust, my weakness in the face of the unknown, all of it.

And He loves my daughters more fiercely even than their mommy and daddy do, and He will work all things to good. They are safe in the hands that made them. (And while I still pray that my husband and I will be allowed to raise our children to adulthood, I also thank God for allowing us to raise them this day.)

life/light - In this time of disease, we understand our need for life much like we understand our need for light only when in a dark room in the middle of a power outage. Jesus possessed the life that was the light of all mankind.

And we killed it.

The darkness in you and the darkness in me rose up and extinguished Him. (We spend a lot of time talking about the good in everyone, but why would we put so much effort into proclaiming our goodness if there wasn't actually darkness - sin - there, too?)

He was dead.

Gone.
Kaput.
Laid in a grave.

(Have you been to a funeral? Looked in a casket? Seen it prepared to be lowered into the ground? How many of those people do you see walking down the sidewalk a week or two later?)

And for two days, it looked like the darkness had overcome.

But.

But then?

Then came Easter morning.

Preparing for the Resurrection

No one prepared for the first resurrection.

We look through the Biblical record now, with the perspective of centuries, and see Jesus plainly telling His disciples of, preparing them for, His death and resurrection.

Yet when He came bursting out of the tomb, His followers were still in mourning. Mary Magdalene looked an angel in the face as he told her, “He is alive,” and she still sought His mutilated body.

“How could they have missed it?” we wonder sagely. With the exception of the extravagantly generous woman of Mark 14:3-9, no one saw Calvary - or Easter - coming. Defeat didn't fit their picture of the expected messiah. There was no room for humiliation and death in their version of what the christ would achieve.

We can fill hours with the prophecies they missed, misinterpreted, and overlooked. Starting in Genesis, God prepared His people for a Rescuer who would be bruised (3:15). But they wanted a rescuer who would fill the stomachs of his followers with food, who would drive out their oppressors in the vein of the Maccabees, and who could raise his army from the dead if need be.

Jesus didn't fit their ideal. And if their ideal wasn't fulfilled, they concluded, He must not have been The One.

Which is what makes the High Holy Days of the Church calendar an excellent time to ferret out our own beloved idols. Certainly, if the very people who walked the dusty roads beside Jesus missed His true nature, we who are distracted by books, screens, and thousands of voices bombarding us daily might also have some false ideas of our Savior.

• Maybe you've bought into the idea of a god who dispenses favor for those who check off all the items on his holy to-do list.
• Maybe your version of idolatry is a god who leaves you alone as long as you live a decent life.
• Maybe you think god is out to get you, just waiting for you to give him an opening to zap you.
• Maybe your god made you the way you are and would never dream of asking you to change a single aspect of your life.
• Maybe god made you basically good and wants you to follow your heart.

This isn't a comprehensive list, so if you're sweating over whether or not I'll mention your pet misbelief, don't let my omission quench the Spirit of conviction. I can identify a few, mostly because they've had to be weeded out of my own life. (I've still got plenty. I know, because the Holy Spirit tends to let me know about them from time to time, usually when I'm feeling most comfortable and smug with myself.)

Does it matter? Don't our little beliefs comfort us?

But if they're false ideas about God, we are in fact worshiping a false god. We form God in our image, and wonder why He doesn't perform to our specifications. We can even find Scriptures to support our beloved baals, for heaven's sake! So don't think, because you can give a reference that backs you, that you have an exclusive claim to understanding an aspect of God.

This Lent, and in your celebration of Easter, ask God to show you where you have worshiped an idol rather than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

He will answer, because He is in the business of revealing Himself.

It's why we have Easter, after all.

Eve and Me

Eve gets a bad rap.

Centuries of church tradition lay a heavy portion of the blame for the first sin at the feet of the first woman.

I always thought that was a little rough. After all, where was Adam? Shirking his duty? Watching passively? Going along to get along?

A few years of marriage, however, have caused me to reevaluate my position.

I think Adam was a fairly ordinary guy (apart from the whole firstfruit-from-God's-hand thing).
A gentle man (the original gentleman!).
Content in the world God gave him.
Blissfully happy with this "woman" creature - one like him, yet so unlike.
Enjoying a happy life.
A nice guy.

Maybe something like my own husband (on a really good day. This is Eden we're talking about, after all!).

Consider the dynamics of your marriage. You know, and I know, that if there is something that we really, really want, there are ways to get it. When we set our heart on something, we could probably get our way over just about anything (whether or not it's good for us) given enough time and persistence. I don't have to tell you the tricks to wear down a husband's resolve. I don't have to list the arsenal we have at our disposal - seemingly since birth! - to influence the man next to us. It is positively frightening when you think about just how much sway we hold. Think of the line from "My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding": "The man may be the head, but the woman is the neck that turns the head!"

We can return, triumphant from the fray, with his "agreement," but as discerning women, we have to be aware of the cost of our "victory."

I've seen it. I've felt it. In my own marriage, primarily. In others' relationships, some.

Think about it. What happens when you've pushed and prodded and begged and huffed and cried and given the silent treatment?

Either he holds to his guns and keeps saying no, or he gives in and says yes.

What anguish of spirit there is in a man who desperately loves his woman and desires little more in this world than to please her, yet who cannot, in good conscience, give his wife the one thing she asks! Let's face it: most men like to please their wives. They don't go looking for ways to frustrate us or foil our goals. So when a godly man has reservations about a scheme that is a pet of his wife, it takes some serious mettle for him to hold his ground, even to the grief of his own heart. Then, we're angry, he's dejected, and we think we've both lost. If he would just give in already, we want to scream, then I would have what I want and things would be good again!

So what if he says yes?

If he really feels that to give me something would be wrong, and he says so, and I then corner him long enough that he caves, I get what I want! That was the goal, after all, wasn't it? To get the object of my desire?

A mere five and a half years of marriage have taught me to fear this outcome more than the abandonment of the object of my desire. Why? Because of what it does to my man and our relationship.

When I ask P for something that he feels he cannot, for the good of our family, our marriage, my own good, whatever, give me, he may attempt to tell me "no." If, after I pitch a fit, I get him to cave, I can see his spirit deflate.

He has set out to protect me, and he has failed.
He had desired to do the best thing, and he caved.
He was going to stand, but he's crushed.

His very manhood takes a hit, and unless I wise up quickly and repent, there will be lasting repercussions for his willingness to lead, my relationship with him, and his relationship with God.

Think of Adam: he goes from walking with God, for goodness's sake, to hiding in the bushes with shame.

We have that power, ladies!

You are a driving force in your husband/fiance/boyfriend/brother's life! You can be a source of anguish and shame for him, or you can build him up into the man you envisioned when you chose him to walk through life with you.

Don't think I'm letting Adam off the hook completely. He had some heart issues that caused him to go along with Eve's desires rather than God's. But I'm not writing to our men. I'm writing to us, ladies! Adam's short-comings don't hold the message for us today.

Oh, my sister, be very careful what you ask of your man!

And if, as you read this, you feel the stirrings of the Holy Spirit in you, listen closely.
You may be thinking of the way you've "won," but things haven't been the same between the two of you since.
You may be in the middle of an argument right now, and you can't believe he's being so stubborn about it.
You may be feeling vaguely guilty over the manipulative habits you've allowed yourself to indulge for years.
Don't wait another moment to make things right.

Give up that thing that you've elevated to a higher place than your spouse, your marriage, and the good of your family.
Repent.
Go, and be reconciled.

It's not too late.
But go now.

Don't wait til you're in a pickle like Esau: "when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears" (Hebrews 12:17 ESV). But rather, "now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2).

Run - run! - toward forgiveness and blessing.

Gratitude as an Attitude

Gratitude has been the single most radical attitude adjustment I've ever experienced.

Once upon a time, I had the time and energy to be a volunteer Bible camp staff member. One year (I don't remember how it started), a couple of us girl staffers found a way to stay positive: if any of us seemed to be sliding toward complaining or a sour attitude, one would call out, "Attitude check!" and we would respond, "Praise the Lord!"

A bit trite? Maybe. But it worked. Every time.

Try being negative while giving thanks.
Try complaining when you're busy thanking God for His blessings.
Try holding a grudge when you're remembering what you've been forgiven.
Try coveting while taking note of the abundance of your possessions.
Try ruminating on all your failings while hearing God's truth spoken over you.

Lord, I can't see you. I feel so hopeless. Where are you in times like this? Do you see me here?
I see you. I know you. I know your circumstances; not one of them is outside my awareness.

Father, they've hurt me. Every time I try to forgive them, what they did rises before my eyes and blocks my prayers. How can I move past this?
Look at what I've forgiven you. Love them with the love I've given you.

I've had enough! This isn't fair. This isn't what I signed up for. I have my rights!
Do you remember what I did with My rights?

Gratitude - thanksgiving - sings with the joy of salvation and revels in the riches lavished upon us.

Think of your salvation story. Someday, maybe I'll put mine on here. I've shared bits with those around me as I felt it would be beneficial, but my husband is probably the only one who's heard the whole, ugly truth of it. I don't know about you, but when I think of the ick that's in there and what I've been saved from, my heart kneels in awe. To consider that God could use my story in His kingdom plan is nothing short of miraculous; remembering that gives me a whole lot more grace for those around me.

Thanksgiving colors the air around you when you breath it in and out daily. It changes how you see people and situations, and it affects how others see and respond to you.

It's not a stretch to say that gratitude could fix a lot of what is wrong with this world.
Prejudice.
Debt.
Hoarding.
Adultery.
Family squabbles.
Materialism.
They - and a host of others - all have the potential to fade into nonexistence when people are busy thanking God.

Thanksgiving...
So much more than the fourth Thursday in November.



"And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Colossians 3:15-17 ESV, emphasis added

A Job Done

Back in March, I posted about my desire to put together a meal for the carnival workers that staff the midway for our town festival, to thank them for their work and welcome them to our town. (If you haven't read that one, this one will make more sense if you read the March one first.) On the 12th of this month, that desire became reality.

Actually, toward the end of June, I started getting nervous. I had only heard back from one church, and the response from the newspaper notice was . . . insufficient. Donations came in generously, but as far as putting a meal together . . . I was starting to wonder if this whole thing was going to work.

So, back to Facebook I trotted. Created an event. Invited anyone in my friends circle from the area. Waited some more.

And the responses started coming!

The first one I got was from another young mom. We had only met recently, but we ran into each other again at the kiddie pool. She was going to bring a fruit salad and a dessert! I left the pool on a high.

The next few days included some follow-up and some more positive responses. Enough came in that the ones who couldn't come didn't make me nervous anymore.

This was actually going to happen!

The day of, my dear mother and my 91-year-old grandmother came to help N and me with finishing touches. The first thing we had to do was invite our guests of honor! We drove down to the park, printed invitations in hand, piled out of the car, and went in search of our carnival workers. We didn't have to look far.

We found some taking a break near the picnic shelter and handed out invites. Chatted with a middle-aged mom. Met her daughters. My mom reconnected with someone she actually knew who happened to be working the carnival this summer (leave it to Mom to find someone she knows!). Got directions to their trailers. Dropped off some more invites, tucking them under door handles when no one was around. Found a few workers for Mom to practice her Spanish inviting them.

I was a little nervous. I've never met someone who works the carnival circuit before, never had to carry a conversation with them. I hated that an unfamiliar, stereotyped vocation made me protective, suspicious, wary. But the more we talked, the more at ease I felt.

Having successfully dispersed invitations, both paper and word-of-mouth, we headed back for the house. We organized the gifts, finished baking a few dishes, loaded up two cars, and headed back to the park. Unloaded. Shuffled picnic tables at the shelter. Set up the gift area, the serving line, the drinks.

And people started to come!

We had three tables full of salads, main dishes, and desserts: from veggies and mac salad, to spaghetti and smoked pork loin, to chocolate peanut butter brownies and lemon meringue pie! Yummmmm . . .

The workers filtered in, we prayed, and started eating. A neighbor of mine, and an elder at a local church, had agreed to share a devotion, so while we fed our stomachs, he fed souls. He spoke about God sharing our joys, and he thanked the workers for the joy their work brings to us and our kids. He spoke Truth winsomely.

Some of the workers were open to conversation; others huddled together. The language barrier definitely created some, if not most, of that distance.

We found that these were moms and dads, families and individuals like us, just with an entirely disparate way of supporting themselves. Some had grown up in the carnival world - it was as normal to them as a home and an address are to us. One mom asked me if I could recommend someone to watch her one-year-old daughter while the midway operated - she worked a booth and her husband worked a ride. She wanted "a church lady, because there are weird people these days, and I would feel better if it were someone from a church." I turned to ask a friend, one with four kids of her own, and just that easily, we had her answer.

Conversations over delicious food

When no one could eat anymore, we loaded up everyone with the left-overs and with any of the gifts they wanted. Bath towels turned out to be in high demand, and I was excited that a couple Spanish translations of the Bible were taken. Many, many thank-yous were heard.

Picking through the gifts

When everyone had left, Mom and I tucked N and Grandma into the car with the AC running and finished the cleanup. We loaded everything for the last time, drove the half mile home, unloaded, put N down for a very late nap, washed, organized, put away. Took a cold shower.

I collapsed into an easy chair as Mom and Grandma went out the front door. Finished! Exhausted.

Deep breath . . .

And then N woke up.

All In

If I thought I didn't post very often before a child landed smack-dab in the middle of my life, I had another thought coming.

I wish I had posts niggling away in the back of my mind, just itching to run through my fingers into the computer keys, but I don't. It's as if I've not only lost the time but also the contemplative power to post.

Is my mind too full of to-dos and what-ifs to ponder anything beyond/above myself and my day? Or maybe I've allowed my mind to snack on diversions rather than dig into a feast of actual thought.

Or maybe this parenting thing is just completely all-encompassing.

Parenting isn't something a body can do halfway. A person really has to be all in - or not at all. Good parenting, bad parenting, that's another topic entirely; but if you're going to raise a little ankle-biter, it's going to completely revamp your life.

After N was born, someone told us that having a child was the most unselfish decision a couple could make. I'm still thinking having the SECOND child is least selfish, because then you have an idea of what you're giving up:
the right to your own glass and plate;
the ability to do a task from beginning to finish without interruption;
the possession of your own bed;
the luxury of using the bathroom by yourself;
the chance to sleep through the night;
the pursuit of hobbies, reading, and other interests;
and on and on and on . . .

N and I were at the town kiddie pool yesterday. It's a little wading area set off from the main pool, starts at 0" and gets to 1' 6" at the "deep" end. It comes complete with nine little fountains of water, three sets of three, spraying, bubbling, and shooting in their respective places. A favorite activity of the young patrons is to step on one of the fountains in a set, causing the others to spray further than normal.

N, taking everything in as she does, saw the "big" kids doing this and decided she would get in on that action.

She pulled herself out of the 4" section, hurried her way to the deep end, and flopped her toes down on the first fountain she came to.

Surprise!

The water shot between her toes and, rerouted by her interference, squirted right up into her face!

Shocked and a utterly perplexed, she backed up, furiously wiping water from her eyes. I wanted to laugh, but instead put on my compassionate face and helped her dry her face.

"Did the water squirt you?" I asked.

"Uh-uh," she answered with quivering lip.

"Here, use your whole foot, like this," I demonstrated.

And she did! She was so proud! Stepping on the fountain like the big kids!

She just had to go all in.

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 Death

We had a tragedy recently in our small hometown. During a thick fog, a pedestrian was struck and killed by a motorist.

What shock for the family.

I know the breath-grabbing numbness I felt when my grandma passed away suddenly on April 21st, and she a far cry from healthy. But this was a grandmother, quite healthy, who never came back from a walk around town.

But I think I really feel for that motorist.
Imagine being the cause of such tragedy.
What agonizing heartbreak.

And in such a small town, only a few thousand people, what would it mean to rebuild a life? I don't know the legal repercussions which may yet play out, but wouldn't it be nearly impossible to start again when everyone in town knows that you are that person that hit and killed so-and-so? Even if they weren't angry, even if they viewed you with pity, wouldn't you feel forever defined by that one moment of obscured vision, of inattention?

So would you move away? Would you leave town and try to start again amongst the anonymity of the crowds of a larger city? But then, wouldn't there be that looming thought over every friendship, that once it reached a certain depth, you would need to tell them about that part of your past?

I was walking along our city sidewalks and pondering this shortly after Easter. What if, I thought, the people of this lovely city were able to reach out, not in pity or in sidelong glances, but in a realization of our own sin - both of omission and commission.

What if we all realized that our sin has caused a death, too?

That little white lie? killed someone.
That snide remark? murder.
That vengeful thought? a direct cause of a death.

Whose?

The very Son of God.

The Struggle, Reviz

Back in May, I posted about the importance of struggles in our lives, how they help us grow, if we let them. Now, after having a daughter for five months, I've been rethinking my perspective on it all.

I don't recant anything I wrote then. It's more of a shift in attitude.

Here's what I mean:
My daughter, N, cries in her cradle.
I know that she needs a nap; I can hear the sleep-need in her voice. But she sounds so sad. And then she gives that hiccupy sob that sounds like her heart is breaking - and it threatens to break mine.
I could go in, pick her up, cuddle her, comfort her, rock her to sleep, and hold her in my arms for her entire nap.
I want to.
Or
she fusses over tummy time.
She doesn't want to work on holding up her head anymore! She's tired, and she's tired of laying her face back on the blanket on the floor. The whole rolling-over thing is complicated, and it is a toss-up whether or not she might make it work, and it's a lot of work! "Mom!" she seems to yell, "come fix this!"
And I want to fix it.
Oh, how I want to take it all away and reassure her of my loving presence.
I have done so on occasion.
A lot of the time, I don't.
I have the power to remove that sorrow from her life, yet I opt not to.
Why? Why would a loving parent allow his child - the child he loves more than breath - to be sad, lonely, upset? How can a parent call himself loving when he could fix it, but doesn't? Why would a parent put himself through those tears and heartache when even he would like to swoop in with a rescue?
I know why I do.
I have a bigger picture in mind than little five-month-old N can imagine. I can see the results when I have given in too often. I have a goal of health and happiness in mind for N that allows me to push through discomfort - hers and mine - in order to reach it. (And, I have a stellar husband who is my biggest cheerleader, my fellow disciplinarian, and the foremost member of my support system!)

This all has been affecting my change of mind. I have always seen God as the loving but firm Father, the one who disciplines us à la Hebrews 12:3-11.

"God is treating you as sons," the passage says of times of discipline.  "He disciplines us for our good. . . . For the moment all discipline seems painful . . . but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."

How stoic those words can seem! How stiff and unbending we can make God appear when we toss out these words of "comfort" to someone in the midst of their struggle.

Is this God? Is this our heavenly Father? Is this His heart?

"[Do not] be weary" in times of discipline, the author urges, because "the Lord disciplines the one he loves." This, too, sounded condescending but firm to my childish heart. "Don't be sad about the hurt," I once heard, "It's all for your good in the end, so brush it off and have a good attitude."

But, not being a parent yet, I missed something.

12:3 begins, "Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself." Who is this? Jesus, of course, whom 5:7 describes this way: "In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears . . . " This is the same Jesus that 4:15 assures us "sympathize[s] with our weaknesses."

This is me with N. This is the sadness I experience with her. This is my heart, aching to fix things for her, able to fix things for her, yet knowing, because of my love for her, that I must not.

You know what that tells me?

God hurts with us.

Think of that! The Creator of the universe, the one with all power and all knowledge, the one who knows that the struggle is important, He feels our pain with us! He is not up there somewhere, smiling grimly or grinning gleefully over our misery. He hurts for our pain, so much so that He exchanged His only begotten Son for us adopted sons in order to put things to rights.

Of course, everything is not all put to right yet. We still feel the effects of a broken world and our own broken souls. We're in process still, and that means growing pains as we go, and it means sharp, piercing pains as the filth is dug out of us like infection out of a tooth.

But don't lose heart in the pain. This discipline - literally, disciple-making - has been carefully chosen, painstakingly vetted as the right tool for the task of producing a holiness like our big Brother's.

And, even more so, take comfort:
Those tears you've cried over that struggle in your life or in the life of your loved one - He's cried with you. That ache in your heart from the unresolved issue that constantly nags and threatens and circles back for more - He feels it, too.

He's your Daddy, and He hurts with you.

A Foray into Fear

As a mother, I have stared down the throat of fear like never before.

It comes and goes, but when it comes, it's intense.

During our pregnancy, plenty of reasons to fear surfaced. What if something is wrong? We can't see the baby in utero, so what if his or her heart stops? We might not know for days. Or so-called mother's intuition - how do I know if something is just a worry or if something is actually awry? We were excited for the baby's birth if for no other reason than that we could see the rise and fall of that little chest for ourselves!

New fears took their place with N's birth: does her breathing sound normal? Do I dare let her sleep next to me? Should I worry about SIDS or not? Am I changing her diaper often enough?

Some fears come around daily; others, I've managed to release with time; some, though, come flying out of what seems like nowhere, and those are the hardest to prepare for.

I had an encounter with one of the third kind recently, and it had to do with vaccines.

P and I have been doing our research. We've read about each disease, its likelihood of occurrence, and its complications. We weighed that against each vaccine, the ingredients of each, and their side effects. We took into account our life situation and the circumstances surrounding N's likely childhood. Then, we made our decisions. I thought I was at peace with it all.

But then came the night before her first appointment.

Fear filled me as I watched our bright-eyed little girl laugh, chatter, and squirm. What if she was one of those rare cases who comes down with a horrendous side effect? What if our active, happy baby girl was irreparably changed - forever - within a matter of a few hours?

Thankfully, I had the good sense to talk to P about it before bed that evening.

"Are we doing the right thing? Did we make the right decisions?"

He looked at me levely and simply said, "We made the right decisions."

His confidence jolted me out of my tizzy of worry and gave me the reassurance I needed to fall asleep.

That's when the whole thing got strange.

I dreamed that he and I were trying to pray together when he suddenly started saying, "I'm just so afraid," over and over. A Bible verse flashed through my mind: "God has not given us a spirit of fear..." (2 Timothy 1:7). I realized that the unexplained fear couldn't be coming from God, which meant it had dark origins. I am not one to witch hunt, nor am I very comfortable talking about the presence of demonic forces, but, in my dream, that was the only thing to which I could contribute this oppressive fear.

Still, I hesitated to say anything. That's when we both began to be paralyzed. We couldn't move our limbs, breathing became difficult, and speaking was nearly impossible. I knew then that I couldn't stay silent and began gasping Jesus' name.

The paralysis began to wane, so I stopped speaking, only to have it then return, so I started calling on Jesus again. This time it receded for good.

That's when I woke up, or thought I did. I was back in my own bed, P sleeping beside me, and I could hear N softly babbling like she will at times. The thought occurred, what if the demonic oppression was there because it was trying to get at N?

I woke P and asked him to check, make sure she was okay.

She wasn't in her cradle; she was laying between us in the bed. She was fine.

But how did she get there? P said he hadn't put her there. "I must have walked in my sleep," was my conclusion, and we went back to sleep.

The next morning, I realized that none of the second part had actually happened. I had dreamt all of it, which P confirmed when I told him about it.

At first, I only shook my head over the weird things a brain can do while a body is at rest. I probably ate something that disagreed with me, right? Trust me, I do not get into interpreting my dreams - at all. I believe God can and does use dreams to minister to people, but the dream's message is always confirmed through Scripture. Besides, I really didn't see God using them in that way in my life. I figured that I'm too skeptical for Him to want to use them to speak to me.

Whether this was a divine message or not, as I ruminated upon it, I took comfort in a couple aspects of the dream. Firstly, that I knew where to turn to do spiritual battle. Secondly, that whatever it was that was going on, none of us were harmed in either section of the dream. Finally, that N not only was fine, but also that she showed up between us, in a place of protection.

P prayed with me before he left for work, and I made the trip to the clinic with far less trepidation than I had felt earlier.

After N's appointment, we made it in time for my Wednesday morning Bible study. We're studying Hebrews right now, and I am loving it! I had prepared by going through the material for the week, but two verses nearly leapt off the page as we read the passage that morning: "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood,  he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery" (Hebrews 2:14-15).

Fear, specifically the fear of death, means slavery. We walked in that fear before salvation - were doomed to it for life.

But Jesus.

Jesus saw our frail composition and took it upon Himself.
He destroyed death's power by defeating its king.

When I made the decision to make Jesus my King, I left death's dominion. In the face of my impotence, however, I tend to totally forget God's omnipotence. In my weakness, I go back for visits into slavery to fear when I forget that He has all things under His control.

God's omnipotence means that all things work together into His plan (Romans 8:28).

All things.

Vaccines, diseases, life decisions.
Politics, elections, the fates of nations.

He isn't up there trying to figure out how to clean up our messes; He ordains every situation and every outcome, using them for the good of His Church and for His glory.

With a King like that, how can I fear?

One Question

I think that humans live their lives trying to answer a question.

I do not know if we all ask the same question as everyone else. I don't know if an individual keeps the same question his whole life. I think many are unaware that they live life asking their question, yet even without their knowledge it commands their decisions, decides their habits, jades their perspective, and even manipulates their emotions.

In 2011, I participated in a Christian book study with friends. During the soul-searching it involved, I stumbled across my question. Actually, I believe God pointed it out to me.

"Am I enough?"

What a treacherous question to have, unknowingly, as a driving force!

While it percolated unidentified through my life, I unwittingly asked those around me to answer it. Was I enough of a daughter to be acknowledged by my father and approved of by my mother? Was I enough of a friend for those I loved? Was I enough of a Christian as I played piano for offertory and volunteered in the church library and participated in church programs? Was I enough of a student while I maintained a 4.0 GPA? Was I enough of a human being as I worked  two jobs, kept a daily devotional/prayer time, exercised, got my black belt, played hostess, served my friend as a bridesmaid?

And the answer kept coming back: No. No. No. No.

Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. You're not enough.

Is it any wonder that seeing others get by with less angered me? Is it any surprise that every time I was snubbed or reprimanded without my achievements also being appreciated, my temper took a dive? I was asking everyone around me, "Am I enough?", yet they didn't know I was asking - I didn't even know I was asking - and they were never meant to provide my answer.

It wasn't until I asked God my question - and then listened for an answer - that I finally started to get out from under its domination.

He gave me my answer:

No, I was not enough. I was hopeless, stuck, and unimpressive.

But Jesus.

Jesus brings hope. Jesus enables change and growth. Jesus makes all things new.

Jesus is enough!

When I am in Him, that means I don't have to be enough anymore. Because He is.

What a difference it makes to finally have my question answered: No, I am not enough, but I no longer need to be. Someone else has been enough, and He is enough for me, too.

Life has a whole lot more peace when a question is answered.

Yet, here I am, five years after I got my answer, and I forget that I still ask my question.

I fight with my husband on the days it catches me unaware as I silently ask him to answer it for me.

My baby girl cries in my arms, her eyes begging me to make her tummy stop hurting, and my heart breaks with the weight of my question again.

And I realize that this is my question probably for the rest of my years, in whatever circumstance life finds me. And I thank God I know my answer.

The Struggle

Our little family is in the third trimester now.

Third trimester.

That sounds so much scarier than the first or second trimester did. Now, labor is impending. A birth is coming and coming soon. We are closer now to being honest-to-goodness parents than we are to our past of being just a couple.

All this has been brought forcefully to my full attention as I wait to hear from one of my dear friends who is laboring to bring their daughter into this outside world. I have been praying for the three of them in the silence between text updates, trying not to worry over long silences, practicing trusting that all is well when I so desperately desire that nothing go wrong for our dear friends.

All of which makes me think of the last time I worked in our church nursery.

It was a fairly full Sunday, but we volunteers were handling it well. I was cuddling and rocking a little boy who was sleepy/weepy, which lent me the chance to observe some of the others. There was the brother-sister duo who were playing with the plastic food, the little guy who wanted to read books, and one particular little girl who was on a mission of her own making.

She was attempting to climb up onto the Little Tykes slide, which, ordinarily would not have been much of a challenge for her. She had, for whatever reason, decided that today she wanted to take a a toy up there with her.

This was a good-sized toy, not too heavy, but cumbersome enough that she had to push and prod and shuffle it around while trying to get a leg up on the playset, cacthing it as it threatened to tumble from a precarious perch, adjusting it, and trying again.

My rocker was close to the playset, and I found myself ready to lean over and reach out a hand. One little push and it would be easily centered on the platform above the slide and all that would remain would be for her to follow it herself. Mission accomplished, right?

But before I could lean over and act on the impulse to rescue her, the thought flashed across my mind, "The struggle is important."

I sat back, wondering where the thought had come from, and just that quickly, she had pushed the toy to a secure position and crawled up after it.

The struggle is important.

Sometimes, it is simply important in the sense of accomplishment that follows knowing we persevered when it was hard and got it done anyway.

It is certainly important to the development of infants and toddlers as they learn to hold up their heads, roll over, crawl, run.

Children struggle to read or write or do simple sums but later go on to college and grad school where they have a whole new set of struggles to vanquish.

And parents get to go through their own struggles of pregnancy, birth, and child-rearing - and then they look back and wonder where the time went.

All these struggles are a prelude to learning more, doing more, being more. There is no growth where there is no struggle.

The struggle is important.

Of course, we have families - families of blood and families of Spirit - who gather around us, support us in our struggles, help us with the resources to make it through, and sometimes even remove the struggle from our lives. They are an important part of life, placed there by God's own loving hand of provision.

But we must not be too quick to pray for the removal of our struggles. We must not be so short-sighted as to assume that the faster an issue is resolved, the better it is for us or for our struggling friend.

Growth happens in the action of struggling. Yes, we can grow bitter, but if we truly believe that the struggle is important, we are more likely to lean into the pain, eager for the outcome that rewards at the end.

Sometimes, that outcome is one successful step.
Sometimes, we are rewarded by discovering a world of possibilities between the pages of a book.
And sometimes, after the struggle, we get to meet our very own flesh and blood.

Of Feasting and Fasting

All too often, I hear myself telling God about how things look like they are going to be tight, that I don't know if things will stretch far enough, that He is going to have to cover a need if He wants me to do X. Then, I stop, look around the house, and sheepishly take my worries back as I start to thank Him for everything He has already provided. I mean, really. We have a home. Food in the fridge and in the pantry. A washer and dryer. Furniture to sit on; a bed to sleep on. Indoor plumbing. Safe drinking water. Central air and heating.

How rich are we?

I once heard someone say something along the lines of, "If you only had tomorrow the things you thanked God for today, what would you have left?"

Yeah, I started listing everything.

You've all heard the lecture about taking our lifestyles for granted when so many have so little. I don't mean to add this post to the ranks of white-middle-class-guilt-inducing literature. We don't have to feel guilty. But we should definitely feel grateful. And then we should act gratefully.

If we're grateful, then we're not entitled.

If we're not entitled, then we can give it up (or give it away).

But we don't like to give things up. Think, for example, of the last time you heard fasting mentioned as something a modern American should do. Can you think of a time? Even a time in church?

I used to fast more often. I would take a day a week, even, when I had something that needed some extra praying. It was a strange experience, almost enjoyable, once I stopped thinking about all the things I couldn't eat and just started using that time to focus on my prayer. (I did not know how all-pervasive food was to my thought life until I started doing this. It was unnerving.) The experience was freeing, in a sense, from my normal concerns; it proved to me that I could ignore this urge for a while, that it was not my master.

This month, I've been fasting from desserts and other highly-sugared edibles. Why? Well, the short answer is, "Because I didn't want to."

Note: The moment you tell God that you are not willing to give something up, know that that item is going, and going soon.

Thankfully, He brought me to the point of giving up my sweets through gently working in my soul, rather than creating a medical crisis necessitating such actions. He could have done it that way, but maybe He knew I would whine a lot less if He brought me to it this way.

Today, I have eight days left in the month. I have passed on birthday cake and s'mores. I have resisted doughnut holes and caramel cake. I've looked the other way while Preston ate ice cream or as I walked through the checkout aisle in the grocery store. And, yes, I have set a few select items by in the cupboard or freezer until October 1.

But I have been free.

I have had (almost) a month when I could say no to that sweet something calling my name. I have walked away from dessert and realized that I didn't feel hugely disappointed or like I had missed out greatly. I have not worshiped a brownie in weeks by putting enjoying it ahead of my health or my goals or of God's desires for my life.

I conceived of the goal as a weight-loss maneuver, but it has become a spiritual journey.

Oh, the temptation is there: if not to eat something sweet, then at least to fantasize about what I will eat as soon as the thirty days are past. But to know that God has given us these foods, that they are good, and that they are not my master, that is the real treasure; and, oh, it is sweet.

Glorify

One morning, I was out for my jog, praying as I slogged along – that’s what I do while I jog to keep my mind off how miserable and sweaty and miserable I am – and I used the phrase “Father, I glorify You.” I stopped (mentally, not physically) and thought, “How do I glorify God? What does that even mean?” I turned the question over in my mind a while, but nothing happened to clarify the issue for me. I brought up the topic again on later jogs but each time to no avail.

Honestly, I had really forgotten about my thoughtful wanderings until something happened this past weekend that brought them blasting back to the forefront of my attention.

My sister got married last Saturday, and she gave me the honor of standing as one of their official witnesses to their marriage. (I just about signed the marriage certificate with my maiden name but caught myself just in time!) It was the morning of the wedding, and we were all together in a friend’s home getting ourselves ready, getting her ready, laughing and chatting and fighting nerves and watching the weather and doing all those sorts of things that women do on days like those. I had brought a steamer (a good investment when in lots of weddings, especially since I had found it at a garage sale – hooray for bargains!), and so the task had fallen to me to make sure the last stubborn wrinkles were erased from her dress.

I had my head under a layer of tulle, my hands busy coaxing a few last creases from the satiny under-layer, my mind filled with thoughts of how I would next do my hair and my makeup and how I would make sure the curls in the back looked ok even though I didn’t have a real good mirror and how I needed to hurry because I didn’t want to be that bridesmaid that was late and kept everyone waiting for pictures while I preened and how I was running short of time. (I tell you all this so you know that I really wasn’t looking for spiritual revelations or paying any particular attention to spirituality of any sort; I’m really just a normal person.) In the midst of all that mental clutter, with my head under the skirt of a wedding dress and with my sister sitting a few yards away getting her hair done, the word “Glorify” whispered through my mind.

And it made so much sense.

She was the bride, and we were all there to make sure that she was ready to meet her groom in another hour. She was the point. She was the one who needed to look really good. The rest of us were just there to draw his eyes to her. We were glorifying my sister.

Don’t you see, silly girl? That is what it looks like to glorify God.

He is the point.

Make Him look good.

Use your life, forget about how you look to others, and start worrying about how you make Him look to others.

Glorify Him.