Our God is too small

I found this (oh so adorable) video on Youtube.

Watch and listen...

J. B. Phillips wrote a book called "Your God is Too Small" - I remember reading it a very long time ago; it's probably out of print by now. He made a valid point. Often we tend to create God in the image of some authority figure in our lives. As a result, we start thinking of God as this big super-human - with foibles and faults just like us, including the tendency to jump on our case when we mess up, or (alternatively) say, "There, there dear," and ignore it when we rebel against everything He stands for.

Our God is really SO unbelievably, indescribably BIG. To quote the hymn-writer, Perfect in power, in love and purity.

If He wasn't, He wouldn't be God!!

Now let's consider this video - and let faith leap up in our hearts.

Some days are like that

One of my favorite storybook characters is Alexander. I first heard this children's story when I was in University, and even though it's a children's book, I could identify with Alexander so much.

Here's a link to someone reading his story. 

It was written by a Canadian author, Judith Viorst.

Grown-ups have different things that classify as "having a bad day" - but the feelings are the same. The main point was that some days it seems that everything piles up ... that events conspire against us to produce a fiasco. That's normal. The moral? Some days are like that. No matter where you are, they happen; as much as you might want to run away from them, they're inescapable. But that's okay. Tomorrow is a new day.

Wise words. I remember Alexander's story when I've had "one of those days." And I am refreshed by his honesty, and by the fact that I'm not the only person who has these days; everyone has them.

Even in Australia.

Heads Up

God! Look! Enemies past counting! Enemies sprouting like mushrooms,
Mobs of them all around me, roaring their mockery:
"Hah! No help for him from God!"

But you, God, shield me on all sides;
You ground my feet, you lift my head high;
With all my might I shout up to God,
His answers thunder from the holy mountain.

- - - - Psalm 3:1-4 (the Message)

The aviation world knows it well. Attitude determines altitude. Literally. Attitude refers to the way the craft is oriented in the air. If the nose of the plane is up, then the plane will go up. If the nose is down, the plane will descend.

One person I know, from whom I have learned much about staying in TODAY, says it this way, "Never let a bad moment turn into a bad day." A lot of that has to do with attitude. Am I looking up or looking down? Is my focus on the positive or the negative? Am I looking at my circumstances - or at how great God is? Even if I am looking toward God - a higher plane (pardon the pun) - do I really believe He has my best interests at heart, or do I believe that He's just waiting for me to screw up so He can thump me? That's going to determine my spiritual altitude.

So much to unlearn.

Tsuri - a 2-ounce wonder

About an hour ago, Tsuri was euthanized. She developed a respiratory infection - remember I said she was wheezing?? Well it turned out to be something called mycoplasmosis: something rats are born with but doesn't show up until middle age or later - by the time the symptoms show up the decline is fast. Her breathing was labored, it took all her strength just to inhale. I heard the vet talking about quality of life - but I knew before she came in that this was it. Something about the cold light of day in that examining room made me realize that it wasn't fair to ask Tsuri to go through more of this. The folks at the Vet College Teaching Hospital were absolutely marvelous. They treated her - and me - with the utmost respect and compassion. They let me grieve and they gave her body back to me in a little box with a little blankie over it - said I could keep it.

So I brought her home and put her in the cage with Ceçania, her cage-mate. Ania, in true rat fashion, scratched at Tsuri's ears, washed her face, shook her shoulders to try to wake her up - and then walked away. I reached inside the cage and removed the little body, and put it back in the box in which I brought it home. We'll have a burial for her later... in the same spot in the flower garden where we've buried all the critters that have made their way through our menagerie of a household.

It's amazing how much one little rattie can worm her way into my heart. She's out of distress now - and in the last 6 weeks she has taught me more about the Christian life than I've heard in many sermons.

I could say more but I think I'll go hug my kids now.

Fallen From Grace

It's one of the most controversial issues in the Western Church today. Everyone has an opinion on it. People ask me this question every so often when they have objections about Christianity.

What about Jimmy Swaggart? (or Jim Bakker, or --- fill in the blank.)

People who aren't churched or who are disillusioned by Christians can't get past the hypocrisy. People who are Christians generally fall into two opposite camps. Either he's the devil incarnate or he's the most anointed gospel singer/preacher ever to hit the airwaves since Billy Graham. I guess I fall somewhere in the middle, and I suspect Jimmy would too. Jimmy is human. He's no better or worse than you or me.

I'll be honest here. I never used to like to listen to Jimmy's singing - or his preaching. He was too phoney (I thought) in his singing, and he was way too dogmatic when he preached. "Methinks the man doth protest too much," was my comment to myself.

Then, as is the case with many in visible ministry, he fell into the abyss of sexual infidelity. Because he was in public ministry and so vocal against some of the very same things that were now being exposed about him, the media were crazed - like sharks in a feeding frenzy, they could smell blood. The faithful, his followers, were deeply hurt.

When he wept in repentance for his sin before his congregation - I was one of those who wondered if he really meant it or was this just grandstanding. I'd heard him preach before, felt verbally abused, and changed the channel. But this time, for a while I again started listening to him when he talked. I was pleasantly surprised.

Gone was the cocky, judgmental, wag-the-finger-in-the-face style I'd cringed at before. He had learned a thing or two about the depths of God's grace, and he talked freely about it as it pertained to his own life. Humbly. Inside, I nodded. This was better. This was real.

I'm not saying that I agree with everything the man has said or done since. But I'm saying that at least he's real, he's human and he knows it - and it's led him to be more compassionate toward people, and for that reason, I like him a lot better now than I used to.

In fact - and you may tar and feather me for this - I don't believe that Jimmy "fell from grace" when he sinned. And I don't think that he "needed to get saved again." Christians sin. When we sin, (and we will, John said in 1 John), we have a perfect Advocate with the Father.

Jesus never gives up on us.

I've had a look at that expression, "fallen from grace," in the Bible, and it's really not what everyone thinks it is. The term itself appears only once - in the book of Galatians. Galatians was written to people who thought they had to add their observance of religious rituals and rules to what Jesus did for them, in order to keep themselves saved. Paul told them that if they thought they could do that, they had fallen from grace. (In other words, they'd missed the whole point of what grace is: God's UNMERITED favor.)

So it isn't sin that causes a person to "fall from grace." On the contrary, it's rigid adherence to the shoulds and the oughttas - out of a sense of fear of losing what God has so freely given ... if we don't toe the line. Wow. There's a lot of folks in the church - apparently those who think they have this thing in the bag - who have fallen from grace. I have myself, a time or two. Or a hundred.

Thank God He is so patient!

God's grace is so very much more, so much deeper than we can imagine. It covers all sin: every single one, no matter how big or small - past, present and future - of every person who has ever lived, is living now, or ever will live. The extent of it is so great that the Christians of Paul's day were accused of preaching that they could do evil so that good might come of it. Grace permeates everything; it is what makes possible our next heartbeat, our breath. We underestimate its reach, its power, its ability to rescue ... to the uttermost. If the realization of the greatness of God's grace doesn't result in a life filled with gratitude and love back to Him, there's something wrong. We've missed the point.

God loves us - each of us - unconditionally. Imagine that!!
I think Jimmy finally "got it."
I think that we can "get it" too.

Tears are a language

The double-standard is shocking.

Women feel overcome with emotion - and nobody thinks twice about them shedding tears.

But let a man do it and eyebrows raise. Some of the most insensitive, thoughtless comments have come out of people who saw a man cry in a situation in which it was entirely appropriate for him to do so.

"Straighten up."
"Be a man."
"Get a hold of yourself."

Personally I believe that (just as a woman is never more feminine than when she cries real tears) a man is never more masculine than when he dares brave the social norms of today's western culture and shows his emotions. He's demonstrating to those around him that he is comfortable enough in his own skin to be honest about how he feels inside of it.

I'm not talking about crocodile tears here. I'm talking about real, gut-wrenching emotion.

It's a powerful thing. Emotion is not wrong. In fact, it can be the most right thing in the world: a catalyst for change, even. Think how many people were moved with compassion when the earthquake hit Haïti in January 2010.

Emotions were designed to be transient, temporary states of mind. The feelings of fear and anger are warning flags that something is wrong - and expressing emotion (whether in joy, sadness, anger, pain, or fear) relieves stress and helps our bodies achieve equilibrium. They signal to us what things are the most important to us. They connect us with our dreams, with our passions, with our callings. They tell us when a boundary has been crossed - or if a wrong needs to be righted. They keep us stable - as long as they are allowed to touch us as they pass through our spirits.

Since God created us in His image - all of us - and He feels things deeply, it only stands to reason that we would do so as well. It is healthy and good to experience emotion and be able to express that.

It's what we do with our own emotions that can enrich or stifle our lives. Stuffing emotional pain down inside of us and not letting it out - or holding onto it long-term without dealing with why - only builds up internal pressure and leads to physical sickness: high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, kidney problems and so forth.

If those strong emotions are directed at God - and let's admit it: sometimes we get mad at Him - He can take it if we want to vent at Him. "He's got broad shoulders," my mom used to say of certain people when I was growing up. I think that applies to God too. He "desires truth in the innermost parts." And He loves us through all of it.

If the emotions are directed at someone else - that's okay too. We can take them to God and tell Him the truth - "Hey God, I can't deal with that $U^%$^ person who hurt me (or who hurt someone I love) - I want to forgive him/her because I want to do what You've asked me to do - but I can't. This is what he/she did ..." and then pour it all out, cry, scream, rant, rave - whatever it takes. He'll hold us in His arms and let us do all of that, and still love us. That's actually the beginning of the healing process, the first step toward forgiveness.

But until we are honest with Him and with ourselves, healing can never start to take place. The tears we shed are precious to Him - they speak volumes heavenward like spoken words could never do - and God understands that language.

Sunshiny day

Today has been one of those perfect summer days. Not too muggy, it's sunny and hot, with just enough breeze to keep the bugs away.

So I decided to do something I've rarely done since I went on vacation a week and a half ago: do a little sunbathing. As I felt the sun soaking into my skin I also felt the stresses of the day just melt away. How did that happen, I wondered. Ah, forget it. This feels good.

Distant were the calls of today's schedule, of my blog (horrors!!) and even thoughts about tomorrow's itinerary. Mmmm. I could get used to this. I guess this is what vacation is supposed to feel like. Decent!

Looking back, I wasn't really doing anything in those few minutes that I couldn't do elsewhere in my mind. Enjoying the moment - whether it's lying out in the sun, feeding a helpless animal, catching up on emails at work (which I will be doing in less than a week), or running errands in town - is a state of mind. I'm starting to learn that. The better I learn it, the happier I am. And the more I let go of the stuff I DON'T need - like trying to fix other people, manipulating them with guilt or shame, or blaming myself for their mistakes - that only reduces the stress more.

I could get used to that too.

Always enough, always more

One of the wonderful things about the Christian life is that just when you think you have it by the tail, God reveals even More of Himself - and it blows you away all over again.

I was thinking of Moses this evening. He first met God in a way that cut through all his objections, all his baggage, and brought him to the place where he was willing to be the Deliverer that was promised. Although not a word-for-word rendering, the way Disney's Prince of Egypt renders that meeting (click on this bolded text to see it) is pretty potent. The first time I saw it, in the theatre at full volume, it left me breathless, my face soaked with tears.

The Bible says that Moses spoke with God as a man speaks with his friend. He had several meetings with God. The first was in itself a powerful experience. Life-changing!

But he went even deeper while seeing God's wonders being done in Egypt, crossing the Red Sea, and getting the ten commandments.

He might have believed that he knew God as intimately as one could possibly know Him. Yet - God had other things to teach him and the most important one was that one can never fully know all there is of God. There is always more.

Moses desired so desperately to know God deeper and deeper. He asked Him, begged Him, to show him His glory. God told him that seeing His face was impossible to survive for human flesh - but He would let Moses see His back parts. When Moses came down from that encounter, his face shone so brightly that people had to ask him to wear a veil over his face when he was with them. He only took the veil off when he went to meet with God again.

That brilliance rested on him for weeks afterward.

After God gave Moses the instructions to build the tabernacle (a tent that would house the Ark of the Covenant when they were not traveling), and it was built, the Levites took the Ark into the tabernacle for the first time and left it in the Most Holy Place. God's presence came down to rest in that enclosed space. Moses thought he could go into the tabernacle and meet with God as he had on the mountain.

But he could physically get no further than the door; the shekinah (glory) presence of God stopped him in his tracks. The manifest presence of God was so great, so powerful, that not even Moses - who had spoken with God as a friend - could get near.

He learned that God is so incredibly great that it is never possible to fathom the depths, the widths, and the heights of His awesomeness. There is always more.

That is a most humbling experience. It is a warning to those among us who would convince themselves that they have a monopoly on God - that He only speaks in this or that way, that He only acts in this or that prescribed manner. He is so much bigger than that. Moses learned this through the things he went through in the wilderness, through years of getting to know God in ever-increasing intimacy.

And he wrote about his experiences so that we would know that there is never an end to the possibilities of going deeper and deeper into God by the power of His Spirit. There is never an end to His love, to His grace, to His patience, to His kindness, to His power, to His integrity, to His justice, to His faithfulness...and so much ...more.

The beginning of motherhood

A few years ago, a doctor was doing surgery on a pregnant woman's uterus to correct a defect in the placenta or some such thing, when the baby reached out and grabbed his finger. The child was only about 20 weeks along, not considered a "viable fetus." Yet that one experience convinced the doctor - who had been "pro-choice" before - to join the "pro-life" camp.

I know that we believe firmly in the church that life begins at conception. It's difficult to argue for abortion faced with the kind of evidence in the photo. I'm told that the doctor was deeply moved by this experience and became a pro-life advocate. I'm not sure if that's really the case or not.

But something about the whole abortion debate bothers me. Don't get me wrong - I believe that abortion is murder. That's not in question at all for me. But I believe that there is a disconnect in the church between this belief and the actions of some of its members.

Let me explain. I was pregnant with my first child - about as far along or farther than the woman whose child is pictured above. It was Mother's Day. When the pastor asked for mothers to line up to receive a carnation to honour their position as mothers, I - believing that life begins at conception - stood up.

Someone tugged at my sleeve. "Sit back down," this person said. "You're not a mother yet."

Not a mother?? Hadn't I been feeling the life inside of me moving? Wasn't my body nourishing my baby's body and helping it grow? Wasn't she keeping me awake at night already? Haven't I already made sacrifices for her? Wasn't I already moving in such a way so that she wouldn't feel trapped under me? (I slept on my stomach before becoming pregnant...) Wasn't I already getting to know her likes and dislikes? (big band and classical versus rock music, etc.)

I protested, saying that I was SO a mother. The person said to me, flatly, "You're not a mother until after the baby is born." Point blank. Just like that. I couldn't believe my ears.

Hm. So it's not a baby until it starts to breathe, is that what you're saying to me? I thought. But I said nothing. I was too shocked, hurt and bewildered by the whole experience. It took me several years to get over this and figure out what was behind that kind of statement.

So my point is this, I guess. If we're going to picket the abortion clinics (something I personally wouldn't do to someone who was that much in distress that she would brave the ridicule, accusations, and sarcasm of "Christians" to find some way out of her painful situation) and stand against abortion - let's be consistent!! Let's treat a woman who is pregnant as carrying a real person inside of her body ... and acknowledge that this is just as much motherhood as when the baby is born and we have to put clothes on it to keep it warm (and - as so many do - hand its care off to someone else for awhile when we get tired of looking after it: pregnant mothers don't get to do that).

Let's shed "superstitious thinking" - you know, the kind of thinking that refuses to turn the page on the calendar on the 31st of the month and has to wait until the 1st before flipping up from June to July - the thinking that fears "tempting fate" or some such nonsense, and let's think through and truly live from our convictions in such a way that it affects what we do ...and say.

Let's quit just talking about loving people as they are, and just...
DO it.

A safe place to be

Last night I was thinking about this path of healing I've been on the last 18 months. I was trying to think of something - an analogy - that would describe how this all started and how the process happened. Then I remembered something that happened about 20 years ago.

My mother had given me a Hoya Carnosa plant. It was lovely. I admired hers - and she had two of them, so she gave me one. This photograph to the right is a picture of a hoya carnosa in full bloom - each of the flowers emits a gloriously heady fragrance from drops of nectar that hang from the centre of each one.

I put the plant she gave to me in the spare bedroom ... intending to water it. At first I did, but after a time... I forgot. It shriveled and the leaves dropped off. The stems became brittle. It looked dead when I found it again, about 6 months later or so.

I was saddened. And I was unwilling to throw it out. Not yet. So I took it from that place where I had neglected it, and placed it in a central spot in our house, where I would see it every day.

I started to water it - keep the soil moist - for weeks. Nothing happened. It still looked dead. I poured water into the soil anyway.

Unknown to me, the root system was gathering strength, being renewed.

And then I noticed it.

A shoot! A tiny shoot coming from the centre of all that deadness. Encouraged, I kept up my program of pouring into its life. And it responded. Shoot after shoot, over time, started coming from the brittle twigs - and some of them eventually softened. The truly dead twigs fell off. New life had begun - it was like the plant felt safe enough to "branch out."

After about a year or two, there were long, glorious stems and from those, lush green leaves where once there had been deadness. But there were no blooms. I added a little tiny bit of plant food into the watering once a month, to give it a little boost.

Then the riotous blooming started. A nib appeared - it looked quite prickly. Then another, and another. Gorgeous clusters of hoya carnosa flowers grew from those nibs - one flower from each of the prickles. My plant book said to leave the nibs alone even after the flowers died and dropped off, because more flowers would bloom in the same spot again. And they did. Again and again and again - and each time it never ceased to amaze me.

For many years that plant gave back to me its beauty and the simple pleasure of being itself.

And all I really did was give it an atmosphere that was safe, persistently pour into its life and feed it with food that was appropriate for its species and size. It was in that atmosphere that it grew, flourished, and started giving back to me - and to its world. I just took care of it, and gave it the proper amount of light, water, and food to give it a chance ...to be.

That's what God did for me when I first started this journey - and what He continues to do. He brought me out into a safe place where I would not be neglected, where my dried-up spirit could be nourished. He never gave up on me. He poured His love and grace into me when I felt like I was abused, victimized, and abandoned, and He kept me in an atmosphere (with other people who had gone through the same process) where I could feel safe, where I could develop some roots - and eventually branch out.

Through this process, I came into who I really was. I discovered my inner beauty - all because of His loving care, His gracious acceptance of me the way I was, His insistence on giving me a safe place to be, and Him using people to be "Jesus with skin on" in my life. I started to blossom with gratitude in that atmosphere of love, nurturing, and acceptance.

And I am determined to live this day, this 24-hour period, toward Jesus. If you smell a sweet fragrance from my life, it's because of His loving care for me that there is the fragrance of me being me - for Him.

Finally.

As the Deer Pants

"As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after You..." (Psalm 42:1)

I used to hear this verse and have this picture of a deer peacefully drinking from a still lake at sunset.

But the picture is far from peaceful. A deer usually only pants when it has been running for a long time, pursued by hunters (usually with dogs). It heads for the water, deep into a river or a stream (the deeper the better) so that its scent can be hidden. It runs at top speed and will exhaust itself trying to get to the water - for only there can its life have a chance of being preserved. It will only quench its growing thirst from the water itself, after it is safe from its attackers.

The Psalmist had this mental image in mind when he wrote those words. He knew that only in God could he have a hope of having a real life. This is a picture of desperation - of intense desire, of knowing that God was his only source of safety.

I wonder - in this western culture of affluence and instant gratification - if we can grasp the concept that our only chance to truly live is in the knowledge and the awareness of the presence of God?

A promising development - Tsuri

Guess what I saw last night when I went to get Tsuri for her feeding?

I caught her climbing on the bars of the cage! This is the first time - to my knowledge - that she's had the strength in her paws to hold on to the cage bars and support her own weight - since her stroke a month ago!

She fell off when I opened the cage door - but even for her to have held on for as long as she did is very encouraging! She has developed a wheeze to her breathing...so I hope that doesn't mean she has a respiratory infection (very serious in rats and humans alike). However, the added strength is a good sign. Maybe someday she'll even be able to eat seeds again.

Plus - her hair is starting to grow back in behind her ears where she'd been obsessively cleaning so much (because of stress, or frustration) that she wore the hair off. And since she has been bruxing (grinding her teeth) the whole time, she doesn't need to have her teeth clipped. (Rats are rodents - their teeth need to be worn down because they are constantly growing. If they are sick, or there is a problem with a bite that doesn't close properly, sometimes the teeth need to be shortened, just like you would clip fingernails that get too long. It's mostly painless for the rat - but not nearly as easy as clipping fingernails since teeth are thicker and there's that little tongue that keeps getting into the wrong places).

Now all we need to do is concentrate on getting her back to her pre-stroke weight.

I'm not unrealistic. Rats rarely survive beyond 6 months after a major stroke, if they survive at all. And once they have a stroke, they're liable to have another - which is usually fatal. So for now, we are taking one day at a time and rejoicing in every little bit of progress. And along the way, Father God is teaching us all about dependency, relationship, and trust.

That's so cool.

Intimacy

I heard the most amazing definition of intimacy once.

Intimacy = Into me see.

Wow. That's potent - and profound.

I remember reading recently the story of the sheep and the goats. You know the one, where Jesus separates the sheep from the goats on the day of judgment and says to the ones on His right, "Come, blessed of My Father...for I was hungry and you fed Me, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, naked, and you clothed Me..." and to the ones on His left He says, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire..." And then He proceeds to say that they never fed Him, etc. (Matthew 25:31-46). In a similar passage (Matthew 7:20-22), He says, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom." He describes people who think they're doing His will, who will be surprised on the day of judgment. As He sends these people away into everlasting punishment, He says, "I never knew you."

"I never knew you..."??? That's a pretty awful indictment - and it appears to fly in the face of everything we were ever taught about the nature of God. God is omniscient - He knows everything, about everyone. What IS this, anyway?

The first time the verb "to know" appears in the Bible, it's extremely personal. "Adam knew his wife Eve - and she conceived..." You don't have to be an OB-GYN to understand what is meant by this. It's a very intimate picture. Let's put that into context, and all becomes clear. Adam wants to "know" his wife. In order for that knowing to take place, Eve has to open herself to him, to allow him to be intimate with her.

It literally DOES take two!

So I'm fast-forwarding to Jesus' story. "I never knew you" means "You never allowed Me to be intimate with you, to know you, to be one with you."

In other words, He is saying to them, "There was always this wall between you and Me. You never really 'got' Me. You never opened yourself, your innermost being, to Me. You never allowed yourself to share your deepest heart with Me - or to let Me share My deepest heart with you. If you had, your life would have been so very different, filled with joy and love which overflowed back to Me and spilled over into those who were lost, hurting, anchorless. You WORKED for Me and did great deeds in My name. But you never let Me in to the deepest part of you. I wanted so badly, so desperately, to know you intimately. But you wouldn't have it. It was always about you - never about Me - never about us."

How very sad!! I can imagine Jesus weeping as He says this to them, just as He wept over Jerusalem before His crucifixion week. The longing of His heart, to gather His people under His wings as a hen gathers her chicks (another picture of intimacy by the way) is spurned. What agony that is for Him when He knows that there could be so much more!!

The knowing He so desperately desires is a face-to-face, eye-to-eye knowing. It's not a duty-bound, ritualistic show of our own piety. It's intimacy. Uncluttered by "should" and "supposed to" and "got to." Just an individual, heart-to-heart relationship with the Lover of our souls. Nothing more complicated than that.

If the Holy Spirit is tugging at your heart - as He is at mine - I suggest you join me in a simple, heartfelt prayer.

"Oh, God - into me see."

You can't take me - I'm Free!

Free is a state of mind.

I love to watch the movie, "Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarrron" because it tells the story of a wild horse who is captured by humans, how they try to break him, try to get him to serve their purposes, and how he never loses the knowledge of who he is. He is free - it doesn't matter what the ropes, chains, and whips say.

At one point he becomes discouraged, only to be reminded of his heritage - and he does everything in his power to make his way back to the open plains where his family is waiting for him.

The things people do and say to us can put us into bondage, and we can stay there for many years. But inside, the person Jesus died to rescue is still there, still needing to shed those chains. Jesus will do it too, if we are committed to the process. To be sure, it is a process and doesn't usually happen overnight.

But it's well worth the fight to be free (click here).
So worth it.

Boy it's HOT!!

Don't get me wrong - I love the heat. One of my favorite places is curled up next to a fireplace on a cold winter's night. But summer - I hate to complain because it happens for such a short time in our part of the country.

I love the warm temperatures. It's the humidity and the bugs that annoy me.

I could spend a lot of time complaining about the weather, the climate, the economy, the construction that never happens except when the population triples during tourist season and people are already stressed to the max because crazy Uncle Max has decided to descend on the family (no I don't have an uncle called Max and I don't know anyone who does...) and the kids are more and more bored: "There's nothing to do!!" - so their idea of fun is going to a mall and spending our hard-earned money.

I could even spend a lot of time complaining any other time of year. In the winter it's the cold and wind. In the spring it's the wet and the muck. In the fall it's - well, it's that winter is right around the corner and autumn lasts an even shorter time than summer does.

But I can turn this whole thought process on its ear and look for the praiseworthy things. It's something I'm training myself to do.

In the summertime, the sun is nice and hot, the vitamin D is plenteous, I get to go on vacation, and I'm not encumbered with heavy coats, caps, scarves and gloves when I have to buckle myself in the car.

In the fall, - well - what's not to like about the fall? Beautiful colors, not as much lawn-mowing, the extra expenses of the summer (air conditioner, electricity, eating out because it's too hot to cook) are gone, and the neighborhood kids are back in school and not setting firecrackers off in the middle of the night.

In the winter - hallelujah, NO BUGS! The driving isn't all that bad - even the potholes are filled in with the snow and ice. And since winter lasts such a long time here, the crime rate is lower than in most places - criminals don't like the cold either.

In the spring, there is hope for warmer temperatures. The trees and crocus are the bravest souls - they bud long before I would venture out. The days are getting longer - spirits are up. The birds are coming back - one of my favorite sounds is the cooing of mourning doves early in the morning... that or the twittering of the sparrows in the hedge.

It's been said that attitude determines altitude.
I like that.

Beyond the Walls

The picture at the right is a model built of the Temple that stood in Jerusalem in Jesus' day - the one that King Herod built. It's difficult to fathom how huge this place was. Those little pebble-like things at the left of the picture - those are houses.

The Temple was like a city unto itself. All kinds of activity went on in there, all to do with the business of worship, sacrifice, and alms-giving.

Outside, there were hundreds if not thousands of people whose lives were not in the least impacted by what went on inside, even though the presence and impressiveness of the Temple itself was a continual reminder of the rituals taking place within its walls. Yet the people outside were not practically impacted. Most of them believed that the state religion had little to do with their every-day lives and that it was fine in its place, as long as people didn't get carried away with it. (Hm, that sounds familiar.) Deep in their hearts, however, they'd been disillusioned by religion, hurt by its representatives, and therefore decided that God had abandoned them. They felt ostracized, judged, rejected. Among these were prostitutes, tradesmen, fishermen, farmers, tax-collectors, bakers, and many more.

Jesus did go to the Temple. But He himself said that not one stone of it would rest upon another. His prophecy came true some 45 years later, in 70 AD when Titus came in and razed Jerusalem to the ground.

He wasn't about the building or what went on in there.

Jesus spent the vast majority of His ministry outside the walls of the Temple - bringing help and hope to those who were in desperate need of someone to care, to show them what God was really like, and to meet them at their point of need, whatever that was. The vast majority of the people who followed Jesus around the countryside were the disenfranchised of the nation, the ones the Pharisees and Sadducees (whom Jesus called hypocrites because they put on masks of piety) looked down upon. The religious elite would never dream of sullying their reputations by hanging out with people who used foul language or went to the publican's house (that was the local bar - where do you think we got the word "pub" from?)

Jesus sought them out; He was constantly on the lookout for people who were hungry for a relationship with God. Like Zaccheus. Jesus loved people (still does) the way they were (and are). His message? God loves you so much that He is willing to give His very best so that you can be in a relationship with Him. You want to know what God is like? Look at Me, and you won't need to look any further. I and My Father are One.

Strong words. He backed them up with strong actions - and an unconditional love that drew in such people as Matthew, a tax-collector (a Roman sympathizer who profited from the occupation of Israel), Simon (a Zealot who was anti-Rome to the core), James and John (the tag-team brothers who were known as "Sons of Thunder"), Andrew and Peter (big, burly fishermen whose language was no doubt crude and unsophisticated), Mary Magdalene (a demon-possessed prostitute who, after Jesus delivered her from her demons, became one of His most devoted followers), Zaccheus (another tax-collector), Nicodemus (a member of the ruling council of Pharisees, whose religion was patently unsatisfying and who knew that Jesus held the key to a fulfilled life), and hundreds more of varied backgrounds and different occupations.

And Jesus did all of this, impacted this many people, outside the walls of established ritual, religion, and rules. He challenged the established thinking of the day and told instead of a Father who loved even when deserted, who forgave freely, and who continually longed for relationship with us.

Sometimes I wonder when we're inside the walls of the church building enjoying the service and reveling in the presence of God, what relevance this has to the people outside if it doesn't translate into us being the salt and light that Jesus talked about, that Jesus was when He was here.

Let's be honest. The deepest wounds we have received have been at the hands or lips of church members - haven't they? People outside the walls of the church know that. That's why they don't usually come to church or even want anything to do with God "if that's what Christianity is like." If they don't want to be stabbed in the back, they'll take their chances out there, where they're on their guard at least.

I knew one fellow once who was relatively new to spirituality, fresh into a brand-new relationship with God, who honestly believed that those calling themselves Christians would actually be like the Jesus they preached. His own relationship with God had transformed his life, set him on a healthy path, and restored his self-respect. He eventually got a job working in a (supposedly) evangelical fundamentalist church - it paid his bills and he was grateful to be working for people who he thought would not shaft him. But a couple of the leaders in the church found out about his previous life, perhaps felt threatened by the fact that he didn't worship at their church, and made his work atmosphere into a living hell. They judged him, did things deliberately to try to make him lose his temper and go back to his old way of living, and they generally attempted to manipulate the situation so that he would lose his job. They were more concerned (to use the temple analogy) with sweeping up inside of the walls, making sure that their little empires were protected, than they were about loving and accepting people who were made in God's image.

My friend became so disillusioned that he had to take stress leave and be on medication to control the panic and the depression into which he slid. The horrible actions of God's representatives made him question his faith and turned him away from, rather than attracted him to, the church. It took him a long time to heal from that - and it was totally uncalled for.

This happens all too frequently. We can deplore the actions of these leaders. But are we any different? How often do we go outside our comfort zone? Someone comes into the church - or even into our circle of influence outside the church - and (let's say) they look like a gang member. Tattoos all over, including the face, a nose ring, a do-rag - and smelling of body odor. Hm? Isn't the first thought to show this guy the door? I think of this example because just recently, someone showed up in an evening service somewhere who looked just like that. This girl who had been in the morning service brought him to the evening one.

Here's the thing. Nobody showed him the door. Nobody reached for his wallet or her purse to protect it from getting stolen. The girl who brought him, let him sit with her, right in the front.

Because the people attending that service saw him as a real person with real needs and real value, that night he gave his heart to Jesus.

Is he still going to have tattoos on his face? yes. Is he still going to have the nose ring and the do-rag? probably. Does it matter? Absolutely not!

Is he going to meet Christian people who will judge him by how he looks? Let's be real here - of course he will. Is it right? Certainly NOT! But lookit - this guy can reach more people for Jesus BECAUSE he has the body art, the piercings, the trappings of his old life. He understands the mentality of the culture he has just been saved from. Who better to reach the people in that culture than someone like him? I can't imagine some person in a 3-piece suit who won't even SAY the word "tattoo" - being able to reach that guy's friends... can you?? Wouldn't that guy in the suit do far more to damage the message of Jesus to them than the guy with the tattoos would?

God has a calling for each and every person who has made Jesus the King of their lives - a calling that is as different as each person is from another. Our life experiences are completely different and there are some people to whom we cannot relate. I can't reach the same people you can; you can't reach the same people I can. But each of us is called. Not to park our butts on a pew once, twice, even five times a week. We're called to go "beyond the walls."

We've been rescued from so very much! We forget that!! We isolate and insulate ourselves from the people "out there" because they have (so we think) nothing in common with us. Their speech is littered with um, colorful metaphors. They listen to different music than we do. Their lifestyles, centered around pleasure, are those which we don't share. They do different things to unwind after a hard day's work. This kind of thing is outside our comfort zone. We pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves that we're coming apart from them and being separate. Our friendships are all with fellow-Christians and we can't seem to relate to the people around us who don't believe in Jesus.

But we do have something in common. We all need Jesus - them and us. Every moment, everywhere, in every situation. The life Jesus died to freely give us isn't to be kept in this one little compartment called "church." Once we "get" this - loving and reaching the people next door, or the people at work, or at school, or ... wherever God tells us to go (and it has to be God, because the guilt trips we hear sometimes over the pulpit won't cut it) ... becomes so much easier because we know there's no difference. We all need mercy. We all need grace. Jesus is the answer ... for everyone.

There is no "us." There is no "them."

If we are silent, if we stay in comfort and ease inside the walls, God will find another way to reach them - but we will have missed out on receiving something very special as we could have watched God transform their lives from up close. How much better to participate in His plan and know the joy of being there when the Light comes on for someone we care about!

If we already go beyond the Walls and reach people ... and we are tempted to congratulate ourselves for that, I quote Don Fransisco here (from the ballad of Baalam, about 1978 or so) -
"God's the one who makes the choice of the instrument He's usin' -
We don't know the reasons or the plans behind His choosin'.
So when the Lord starts a-usin' you, don't you pay it any mind -
He coulda used the dog next door if He'd-a been so inclined."

Free

The first time I remember seeing a horse, I was perhaps 5 years old. I remember saying to my dad, "What's THAT, Daddy?" He told me it was a horse. "Can I have one?" I pleaded with him right away.

It was love at first sight. Over the years, I've tried to have as much to do with horses as I could - limited when I was young due to financial constraints and now limited because of the allergies of the people I love. Yet I still admire the creatures from afar, and whenever I get the chance, I go to a barn and just drink in the smell of leather and horse dust - far more attractive to me than the artificial smells of perfume.

I've never been able to imagine anything that pictures freedom quite like the image of a horse galloping across a field. Rarely have I felt more free physically than when I have been astride a well-trained horse, out in the open, and a spontaneous race broke out between my mount and that of another rider. It was exhilarating. I felt like I was flying, trusting in the strength of the animal beneath me to take me where I wanted to go.

For some people, like my husband, they get this feeling in other ways. With him, it's flying in a light plane. For others, it's playing a favorite sport. Or riding a roller-coaster. Or hang-gliding, or bungee-jumping.

When freedom is removed - when it's curtailed somehow, or when it's limited - that removes the appeal. Like those canned pony rides that were so popular at zoos a while back. I hated those. Yes, you got on the pony. Yes, it moved under you. But it was kept to a walk, there was no mental connection between rider and animal, and you went where someone else wanted you to go. To me that wasn't riding, that was being led around on an animal. All the fun was sucked out of it.

I have to admit, that's what church feels like sometimes. Programmed, regimented, and revolving around someone else's idea of what it's like to live the Christian life. I'm not knocking going to church. There is a vital role that "community" plays in spiritual growth. But if that is all there is - if one doesn't "get on the horse" oneself, experience God for oneself, then where's the freedom in that?

His invitation is to mount up. Live life. Experience Him.
Be free.

Just Be

There is a well known gospel song called The Lighthouse. It talks about Jesus being the lighthouse that rescued the author from the rocks of sin.

Might I suggest that we as Christians are called to be lighthouses too?? The light we shine can point the way to safety - the safety that is in Jesus.

But before we get all hyped up thinking that we have to do the rescuing - let's think about what lighthouses are. I'm talking about manned lighthouses here, the kind we grew up thinking about. They are tall buildings, only wide enough for one person to live. They are located on the edge of the most dangerous shoals, constantly in sight of the rocks that easily could sink a ship. And in themselves, there is absolutely no ability to save those ships.

The saving power comes from the light that's inside.

That light is huge. It is much larger than could ever be useful just to light one building. It is in the uppermost place in the lighthouse. It is so powerful that its candle-power fills the compartment it is housed in, and spills out through the windows to the surrounding waves ... for miles.

The keeper of the lighthouse has two jobs. The first is to make sure that the light is on at all times, even in good weather. The second is to make sure that the windows where the light shines from are completely transparent at all times, so that the light will travel the absolute farthest that it can when it's needed most.

I don't need to draw a diagram here. Our calling as Christians is to make sure the light is on - to let it shine, in other words, and to make sure that there is nothing that hinders His light from shining its brightest. We take care of our responsibility by keeping ourselves in fit spiritual condition, by staying close to God, making sure that there's nothing between us and Him. That comes from being honest with Him and with ourselves. We can even make mistakes. As long as we don't try to hide them, God can even use our mistakes for His glory.

We leave all the results (those rescued by heeding the light, as well as those who see the light and ignore it - to their own hurt) up to the Light of the world - the presence and power of Jesus shining through our lives. To do this, we don't need to DO anything. We just ARE. We ARE ...for Him. Out of that relationship with Him, out of that intimacy with the Almighty, comes an integrity of spirit, an honesty of heart, that is compelling. Truth, transparency, and trust are powerful.

If we could just BE!!

BE - live our lives - toward Him. Give His presence, His love, His power, His mercy, the highest place in our lives - and be ourselves (in Him) before a world that's watching. They can tell a fake a mile away. And they won't be able to see even the strongest light that is masked and dirtied up by hypocrisy and pride blocking its path.
We get so distracted by our "doing." There are lots of people out there "doing." That's all the reward they're going to get - individuals who get on TV or who get some other kind of recognition for the good deeds they do. There's not a whole lot of folks out there "being." "Being" a prayer to God. Not trundling off on this project or that program, "doing." Doing without being produces only one thing: burnout.

Jesus said that when we (truly) believed in Him, out of our innermost BEING would flow rivers of living water. Rivers of gratitude, of love, of joy, of peace, spilling out of our lives and producing the kind of "doing" that is authentic, based on relationship and not duty.

Let's just be - and let His glorious light shine through...

Thank the Maker!

There's a line from the Star Wars movie (the original one) where the robot, C3P0, takes an oil bath - and as he sinks down into the warm liquid he exclaims, "Thank the maker!"

The scene only takes 5 seconds or so, but I remember thinking how rare it was to hear anyone be grateful to our Maker for such a little thing as getting clean, or having a need met.

Yesterday the whole family went to see my mom. She has a hummingbird feeder hanging from one of the eaves of her house, next to her living room window. My oldest daughter was outside at one point and happened to see a hummingbird zip in from a nearby tree, hover in front of the feeder for a few minutes, and whir out of there just as quickly as it came.

Moments like that sometimes get taken for granted. But it was special to her because she doesn't often see hummingbirds on our property.

She was thankful to have seen it, to enjoy the wonder of one of God's most amazing creations. A simple pleasure - sparking gratitude. What a concept.

How much more we have to be grateful for than simply the wonders of nature, as majestic as they are! How easy it is for us to become blasé about the miracle we walk in every day, the forgiveness of sins, the right standing we now have with God because of what Jesus did on the cross ... and let's not forget the empty tomb - and that blessed hope: the promise of His coming!!

I think it was a monk named Brother Lawrence who decided, after much meditation and prayer, to "practice the presence of God." He decided that whatever he was, in everything he did, that it would be God's. He discovered the secret that nature itself teaches us: being precedes doing.

This one thing transformed his life and gave him instant access to supernatural power to live a holier life from the inside out, not from religious rituals and rules. He put this into practice by praying before, during and after each task he did. In doing so, everything he was, everything he did became an act of worship. Even if we could remind ourselves to pray on the hour - some of us have chimes on our watches - I suspect we would become more aware of the constant presence of God with us.

Brother Lawrence's life was filled with menial tasks. His contribution to spiritual life was unnoticed during his lifetime, but someone found his diaries and started putting those together along with the letters he wrote to people. The letters were donated by those whose lives had been changed by their association with Brother Lawrence. We know through these writings that his whole life became one long, uninterrupted prayer of devotion - just like Keith Green wrote about in his song, "No Compromise."

Here are the lyrics -

Make my life a prayer to You; I wanna do what You want me to -
No empty words and no white lies; No token prayers, no compromise!
I wanna shine the light You gave through Your Son You sent to save us
From ourselves in our despair - It comforts me to know You're really there!

I wanna thank You now for being patient with me
Oh it's so hard to see, when my eyes are on me!
I guess I'll have to trust and just believe what You say,
Oh You're coming again, coming to take me away.....

I wanna die and let You give Your life to me so I might live,
And share the hope You gave to me - the love that set me free -
I wanna tell the world out there, You're not some fable or fairy tale
That I made up inside my head! You're God the Son - You've risen from the dead!
I wanna thank You now for being patient with me
Oh it's so hard to see, when my eyes are on me!
I guess I'll have to trust and just believe what You say,
Oh You're coming again, coming to take me away.....
I wanna die and let You give Your life to me so I might live,
And share the hope You gave to me - I wanna share the love that set me free!

(c) 1978

Where would that kind of passion, that kind of dedication come from - if not from a deep and profound gratitude and a conscious continual contact with God?

How many of the world's objections to Christianity would be silenced if we all (including me) lived like this?

And it all starts with three words -
Thank You, Jesus!

Today

A few minutes ago I was thinking of a song I learned as a child.

Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine,
I'll taste your strawberries, I'll drink your sweet wine...
A million tomorrows shall all pass away
'ere I forget all the joy that is mine - today. (Randy Sparks - sung by John Denver)

The song itself is about not caring what tomorrow brings, just living in the pleasure of the moment. Many people would find that offensive. Even sinful.

I think there is wisdom in living each day as it comes. That way, without regrets about the past and worry about the future, there is only today - enough strength, enough wisdom, enough courage for this one day, dispensed as we need it. Another song that comes to my mind says,
We have this moment to hold in our hand and to touch
as it slips through our fingers like sand -
Yesterday's gone and tomorrow may never come,
but we have this moment, today. (Gaither Vocal Band)

I spent decades filled with regret over the things in the past I could do nothing about - things which happened to me without my consent, and some of which I had a part in creating. I spent the same time worrying about tomorrow, worrying about what people thought of me, what they meant by what they said to me, whether I would ever have any real friends. I wasted that much energy - in remorse, in anxiety - that I didn't have enough energy for the 24-hour period I was experiencing. When I first started to rid myself of the chains of the past and start living in today, it was uncomfortable because it was so new. However, as I continued, I noticed that my enjoyment of the moment was enhanced, I had more energy to handle the things that were happening now - and I was happier. Go figure.

It's a powerful word - the word "now."
It's where God, who is eternal, lives.

Everyday miracles - miracles every day

I was listening to All the Power you Need on a Hillsong worship CD just today. Just what I needed to hear!! Part of the song goes, "He saves, forgives and heals, takes back what the devil steals. My debt's been paid in full, and ev'ry day He does miracles!" It reminded me to check my GQ. Gratitude Quotient.

Every breath I take is a gift from Him. It's a miracle I get up every morning. All day long, what might be termed "mini-miracles" happen on a regular basis. The sound of a mourning dove cooing just as I go outside in the summer sun. An email - not a forward - arriving just when I need to know someone's in my corner. Something mentioned or explored in a daily reading. A kind person in traffic. One of my kids doing the dishes or putting his or her clothes in the hamper. An unexpected hug. A smile. A song. A sunset. A rosebush in full bloom.

All of these things, gifts from One who loves me and wants the best for me.

Wow!

A packaging incident

Today at church, when we first got to worship team practice, my hubby had what could be called a "packaging incident." He was trying to open a package that housed a cord for a guitar. It was attached to a card and held there by those thick plastic bands that make it impossible to open anything ...unless you have bolt-cutters or something. The only thing available was a bread-knife. He remembered to cut away from his body, but when the first plastic tie gave way, and the knife took off like a racehorse out of the gate, his left pinky finger got in the way and he sliced it to the bone, diagonally across the side of one joint.

Boy did it bleed! In spite of hurried first aid given on site, the 3/4-iinch wound kept opening up and bleeding all over him. Finally I decided enough was enough and announced to the shocked worship team members that I was going to take him to out-patients. I was in the process of taking him to the hospital when the bleeding stopped. We decided that it would be such a long wait at the hospital just to put a stitch or two in, that we just went home, got his bloody shirt and pants into the wash as soon as we could, and I was able to apply a proper dressing to the cut.

As a result, and after a change of clothes, we were able to attend church this morning (we were a few minutes late), so of course, we were not there in time for him to be on the team. Someone else had taken over his instrument.

It turned out that this was one of those God-things. Hubby needed to be in the congregation today, because there was something he needed to deal with at the altar that he never would have been able to do while he was on the platform playing his instrument!

The incident and its results got me thinking about the little things in our lives that we don't think anything about: these are things we don't think are important, but they turn out to be pivotal in the grand scheme of things.

God cared whether my honey was on the platform or not. He dovetailed all the things that happened today so that he and I were freed from ministry obligations. God worked it out so that he could pay attention to his spiritual needs. Not only that, but the worship leader asked the congregation (about 5 minutes before we arrived) to bear with the team because they were a little short this morning - and told them we'd gone to the hospital ... and why. So after church there were all kinds of people coming up to us, and asking him how he was doing. It was such a little thing but it gave people an opportunity to show their love. And it brought home to both of us how God is not only interested in the tiny things of our lives, but also how He can use the strangest things to accomplish what He wants done in not just one person's life but also in so many others'.

When I was a little girl, going to Sunday School, I loved the song, "God Sees the Little Sparrow Fall." The idea of God caring for even the little things of this world was conveyed through that song, and it stayed with me as I grew. Over the years, again and again I have been reminded of Jesus' words about how His Father saw the little sparrow when it fell to the ground. And how He said, "Do not fear, then. You are of more value than many sparrows."

I remember saying yesterday that the widow of Stuart Hamblin (long-time gospel songwriter) is known to have said, "People talk about this thing being sacred and that thing being secular. I don't think it's that way. I think it's all sacred. Everything in life, everything we do and say is sacred."

Even a packaging incident.

Crow tastes ba-ad!

Oh, how I hate to "eat crow."

I think everyone does.

I hate it when I do some thing or other that is based on my gut reactions and I don't think it through, or I don't ask the right questions, or I don't go to the source before jumping to conclusions - and it comes back to bite me - uh - well, in the butt. Always. Every time I learn something new. I feel like Anne of Green Gables when she said, "Marilla, I never make the same mistake twice. But - oh, Marilla - there are ever so many to make!!"

This time I learned another very important lesson.

Never let someone else do your talking for you. Go to the person yourself and be your own mouthpiece. Even if it's hard. OUUUCH - that was hard to learn!!!

It began with me getting sick because people at work were wearing perfume and scented products. We have a scent-free policy at work and I was told that the managers couldn't enforce it because all they can do is accommodate the sufferer. Labour Relations got involved. They told me they couldn't do anything until I named names. I didn't want to but I didn't see any other way for me to get the message out that this was making me sick. I felt I couldn't go to the people who were wearing the stuff, because I couldn't get within 15 feet of them without getting a headache. Even 5 minutes' exposure (at the time) would give me a migraine. I felt I was stuck; I was in tunnel vision mode and couldn't see any other option than the one they gave me. (Read about my illness here).

Management never told me exactly what it was they were going to do. If I'd known, I never would have allowed it.

All I knew was that they were going to have "conversations" with these people. I thought that was a good idea; after all, I couldn't get near them to have those conversations ...and I HATE confrontation.

After a time, I noticed that the people I named were not speaking to me at all. I knew they were probably miffed at me, and that bothered me. However, I didn't know what else I could have done. I was stuck in the mindset that the kind of confrontation I would have to have with them must be face-to-face, and I couldn't do that - physically couldn't. Lately, though, God was working on me, and making me realize that things were not the way they should be between me and these people. Besides, some of them were still wearing perfumed products - even though they might not think they were. I finally approached someone to work out ways to talk to each of these people without putting myself at risk, but I hadn't put any of it into practice yet.

Thursday past, I had to take a file to one of these people. She - brave soul - honestly told me that she was very hurt by the way I handled the whole situation. Then she let me know what she had to go through last summer when I named names. She was called down to the union to have a formal reprimand put on her permanent record. She was told who made the complaint, what it was, and she was not given a chance to defend herself. She was treated as guilty from the get-go. She was totally blindsided.

I felt so very bad. I never intended for the people I trusted, the people who were in leadership and who were supposed to have everyone's best interest at heart, to put anyone into that position.

I apologized profusely for the pain she had to endure, the embarrassment, the trouble I got her into without knowing it. I freely admitted that I handled the whole thing badly. I explained to her where my head was at the time, but I made no excuses for my cowardice. I fully took responsibility for not going to her first - even by email - and trying to work things out.

The whole conversation took 10 minutes. At the end, she felt better, I felt better (sort of) and we understood each other. At least we're talking, which is more than what we were doing before.

That's one less conversation I have to have.
I've got about six more to go. (gulp) I feel like poor George of the Jungle right before his big swing (in the movie with Brendan Fraser). "Biggest swing ever, will hurt very much. But George have to do it! (...whimper....)"

I still don't like the taste of crow. But I know that it keeps me humble, and I have learned so much from every portion.

Even this one (yuck!)

Do I Trust You?

Every morning Cody comes to me to spend time with me. Occasionally, as I pet him, I notice a mat has developed in his mane. He's a long-haired cat and the location of these tightly tangled globs of fur is usually around the underside, in the curve of his neck, so he can't get rid of them by himself because he cannot reach them to clean his fur under there. The mats pull on his skin, so they're uncomfortable.

To relieve this, I reach under his neck and start to pull the mat apart at the base, starting from the outside edges. The process takes a while and it is decidedly uncomfortable for him because the neck is a sensitive area, but it's like he knows I'm trying to help him, so he hunches over in dislike, but he stays and he doesn't try to bite or scratch me. Eventually the mat comes loose, and I let him sniff it. It's my way of telling him, "See, that's what that awful thing was." He sniffs it, gives it a lick that says, "Wow is that thing ever messy!" and then he licks my fingers and rubs his face against my hand. "Thank you, Mom." His relief is obvious. For a while there is a bald spot where the mat once was, but that's temporary. The fur eventually grows back in, just not tangled.

Early in my recovery from the grave clothes of my upbringing and other experiences of my childhood, I had to settle the question of trust. I had to answer the question, "Do I trust You, Lord?" Here's the song of that same name ... by Twila Paris:

Before I even got there, I had to settle in my mind that God was trustworthy. I was entering a process where a lot of old memories were going to be dredged up, memories I had buried because they were so painful. The potential to be hurt all over again was pretty real. That's when I re-discovered Psalm 139: 3. In the New Living Translation, it reads, "You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment, You know where I am." Later on, in verse 12, David talks about darkness being as bright as day to God. That was important to me because as a child I was terrified of the dark, and even as an adult I liked to know what was happening and often referred to myself as hating "being in the dark." I love how the Message puts it, "Then I said to myself, 'Oh, He even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!' It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to You; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to You."

God used these verses, plus a whole bunch of other ones, and the trust my cat showed in me, to speak to my spirit that He was trustworthy, and that I could therefore trust Him that the process was necessary to rid me once and for all of the hurts of the past. When I started to trust His motives as being those of love and compassion, when I realized that He would not cause any more discomfort than was necessary to "remove the matted fur" - and when I knew in my heart that He would give me times along the way where it was okay to stop and rest, I could finally step with growing confidence into that healing stream. I realized that I didn't have to know it all ahead of time, that it was enough that God did, that He loved me, and that His goal was to free me of the inner hell I thought I would always have to endure. No matter how long it took, and no matter how painful it might be, He would walk me through it and would allow me to catch my breath.

And experience has borne that out. He has been there the whole time. His patience, His love, His strength, has been with me from the start. He found the terrified, cowering little child in me and spoke peace, love, and assurance to her. He went into each of those painful memories and infused each one with His compassion and His strength. He held me and let me experience all the emotions I was too afraid to express when I was going through those hurts in the first place - and gave me the strength to admit if and when I was wrong, to see the hurt inside my abusers, and to have compassion for them and forgive them. This was something I had never been able to do, would never be able to do on my own. It took time - but He stayed with me.

He's still here.

He is trustworthy and He loves me ... even when the mats - and matters - are huge.

New every morning

Cody and I met in 1998. He was four years old. His family had to move away and leave him behind and they were heartbroken when they left him at the Humane Society shelter. His former owner left a letter to the new prospective owner telling about him, what words he knew, what food he liked and didn't like, and any other information she thought was necessary.

I was impressed with that. I was also impressed with this huge cat with the most gorgeous pea-green eyes. At 4 years old, he was about 17 pounds but he wasn't fat - he was just BIG. Part Domestic Long Hair, part Maine Coon, and 100% chicken, he absolutely hated everything about that place - the incessant meowing of the other cats, the barking fits of the dogs when someone would walk in, the smells of ammonia and cleanser, the hardness of the floor of the cage, the bars. He was miserable.

I snaked my hand into his cage. He rubbed his face against my knuckles and closed his eyes - as if to shut out the other distractions and concentrate on my touch. I knew he and I were a great match.

I was right. After the initial difficulty of getting him to go into yet another cage for transport as recommended by the caring staff at the shelter, I brought him home, my hands and arms raked with scratches. He wasn't sure about our dog until he realized that there was a baby gate keeping her in the kitchen, and she went to a crate at night to sleep. It took him about a week to settle in. Before long he was jumping on top of her crate after she was in bed for the night, lying down and twitching his tail in front of the crate door.

But he never forgot that day when I went into the shelter and took him out of "that place."

Ever afterward, he looks upon me as his savior. He's absolutely devoted to me. He thinks the sun rises and sets on me. I can see it in his face when he looks at me. He has never forgotten the awfulness of the place I took him from, and he has never forgotten that it was I who rescued him. It's never gotten "old." He has never taken his new life for granted.

He dotes on me. It's a little embarrassing because he holds nothing back.

Yet, his undivided attention has taught me so much about worship, about living the Christian life the way Jesus intended - the way He mentioned to Martha when she complained about her sister Mary. I can be doing something completely unconnected to Cody, and I'll look and there he is - watching me. Then he blinks long and hard, the way cats do when they're really happy, and if I listen really closely, I can hear a very faint purring coming from this shy giant. As I type this he has - without me even realizing it - snuggled down beside me on the sofa, as close as a kitty can get without being on my lap, eyes closed in feline bliss.

I'm not even petting him. He's not getting anything out of this. He is just enjoying being in my presence.

My hubby told me this morning that someone commented to him recently about the way I worship - they said that I worshiped with all that was in me. My response surprised even me. "I can't do anything less," I said. "He rescued me - over and over again - from hell, from so many things, and from myself." And my eyes spontaneously filled with tears. That kind of reaction surprised me - not the statement itself (because it's true) but my strong emotional response after all these years.

But I got to thinking about it. Really, the amazing thing is not that I worship so intensely.

It is that He loved me first - way more than I could love Him back.
He loved me - enough to reach into my self-made prison, and unlock the door.

I echo the words of a recovered alcoholic, who said, "I know not whether God in His grace and mercy will open up the gates of Heaven for me, but I do know this : He opened up the gates of hell for me ... and let me out."

Yabbut...

Heyyyy-yAbbuuuuT! It was the common cry of Lou Costello when he called out to his partner Bud Abbott - usually when something didn't go as planned. Their comedy is classic. It still makes me laugh.

I like THAT kind of yeah but.

The other kinds aren't quite so attractive to me.

Yeah, but that was in Bible times. We live in today.
Yeah, but that was fifty years ago. God doesn't do that anymore.
Yeah, but that's in Pensacola. It couldn't happen here.

It's a word - for people say those two words like a single word - like yabbut - a word we hear far too often.

Yabbut - well why NOT?

Isn't God the same God He always was?
Doesn't He love us as much as He always did from the beginning of time?
Isn't He everywhere, not just in one place?
Can't He do anything He chooses?
Doesn't He ache for us to have a deep and vibrant relationship with Him?

So what's with the yabbut?

For Beautiful Lips, Speak Only Words of Kindness

Audrey Hepburn said that. I love it!!

Apparently, the full quote is, " For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone."

Here's her photo in her zenith - her "girl-next-door" persona only enhanced her physical beauty.

She also said something like, "People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone."

Here's another: "Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it's at the end of your arm. As you get older, remember you have another hand: the first is to help yourself, the second is to help others."

She's also quoted as saying, "I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."

I remember watching Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire dancing in a scene out of an old movie once. Wow! Then recently I found out she couldn't dance a step before that movie (I even forget its name...) and she took the role anyway. After that, she plunged herself into learning the steps. The result was breathtaking.

Watching old movies is not something I do nearly as much as I would like to. I consider myself a throwback to a previous generation. I like stories that "end right" - where good wins out over evil and the lost princess always finds her prince, and they live happily ever after. I don't watch movies that approximate reality or have a lot of "angst" - there's way more than enough of that in everyday life to make me jaded. I prefer to escape from the way things usually turn out, and feed my sense of "rightness."

Stories like the Wizard of Oz, It's a Wonderful Life, The Sound of Music, Star Wars, the Lion King, or Raiders of the Lost Ark really provide me with a release - strengthen my belief that truth and justice are worth fighting for, and that the bad guys will eventually get what is coming to them. These stories are what John Eldredge would call "mythic" in that they tell the real story of the human heart - that we are in a world at war, that things are not what they seem, that we are more important than we have been led to believe, and that we can make a real difference.

That's something I wouldn't mind being a part of. I guess that because I am a Christian, I already signed up without knowing it.
Cool!!

Peace pursued

Update...
I finally decided to do what I was asked, make the changes I was asked to make, and pass the whole thing off to someone else who could better handle it, without being sarcastic and continuing to be rude (see last post). I actually got a thank you email from the person who was in charge of organizing everything - which she is very good at, by the way. Organizing things, that is.

I just don't like someone organizing ME.

The thanks were nice to have. I just have to learn not to over-commit just because someone throws a guilt trip on me. It's coming. Slowly. Part of my recovery from my particular brand of addiction to controlling people (that is, "fixing" or "rescuing" people) is learning how to say no, learning how to let people live their own lives and staying out of what doesn't concern me. After some 40 years of doing that, it's kind of hard to get rid of - but when I do, the rewards are so much bigger than I could have imagined.

Someday I'll learn to act as my first recourse, not react as my last. To think ahead and prevent a catastrophe rather than do what comes naturally and get in a huge mess because of it.

I love the T-shirt I saw on a renovation show once. This carpenter had a T-shirt on with only one word, written exactly this way:

THNIK

Makes you thnik - er - think, doesn't it???

Pursue Peace

I was talking to someone on the phone earlier this evening. She'd asked me to do something for her, which I had done. Then she started finding fault with it. She wanted this thing changed, then that thing changed, then the other thing. From the very beginning of our association I had felt she was only asking me to do this thing so that she could find a way to control me. Finally I said, "Do it yourself," and hung up on her.

It probably wasn't the best way to handle that situation. Later, as I pondered what to do next, I realized that I had expected too much from the interaction, and that I had not listened to my instincts from the get-go. My instincts initially were to allow this person to do whatever it was she wanted to do without me getting involved.

The issue of getting along with other people has been one that I've had many misconceptions about. I used to think that if I didn't get along with someone, anyone, then I wasn't a "good Christian." As I've grown as a person, and can see my own weaknesses, I've come to realize that people do things for all kinds of reasons. I've learned to recognize when I was controlling others (or trying to), and that made me more aware of how others sometimes manipulate people without even knowing it, and are not even aware of their compulsion to control others. Or if they are aware, they use their tendency to do that as an excuse to keep from trying to change. "I can't help it; I'm just that way."

This realization has led to some rather painful but liberating results. When I realized that I was in a poisoned relationship with a person I thought was a friend for many years, I knew I had to end it. This person excused her efforts to control me by saying, "That's what friends do - they don't have to watch what they say around each other." It tore at me every time she would criticize me, make me feel so small and insignificant, as if I didn't measure up to her standard, and then one day she said something to me that made me understand that these things were boundaries that should never be crossed - and they were always there, but I never acknowledged it. That's when I ended it. The relationship had been robbing me of something I had come to cherish as I healed from my past: my peace.

As for today's conversation, I had to come to the place where I just let go of my need to be right, and let her go ahead and do whatever she wanted - because she was going to do it her way whether I liked it or not, and my peace was too important to me to sacrifice it for anything.

What am I going to do now about it? I'm not sure yet. I do know that if she tries to force the issue, she may end up not getting what she wants at all... at least not from me. I've also learned that if I rush too quickly to "make it right," I might end up back in the same situation I just extricated myself from, feeling subjugated and patronized. That's not peace.

Paul said, "If it be possible, as much as lies within you, live at peace with all people." Okay, have I done everything possible? I'm starting to realize that perhaps the reason why relations have always been strained between the two of us is not because someone else's decisions kept us from connecting, but because I was tired of being treated like I didn't matter. Every time I tried to re-connect, my personhood got trampled. My peace suffered. It still does.

I still don't know what I'm going to do. But I know Someone who can show me.

There's no arguing with experience

I remember once being criticized by someone for "focusing too much on experience" in my Christian walk. My response was, "What is the Christian life if not an experience with the living Christ??" The person did not have an answer.

My hubby was running an errand today, and ran into an old acquaintance. She was telling him about a 19-year-old niece of hers who was having problems of fatigue, weight gain, and several other symptoms. Her parents took her to the doctor, who did a creatine test (to see how efficiently her kidneys were filtering out toxins). The normal count is between 20 and 60, the lower the better. Hers was over 7,000. Yes, seven thousand, it wasn't a typo. The doctor ordered her to go on dialysis right away. A further kidney test revealed that she had lost complete function of 55% of one of her kidneys and he told her that she would be on dialysis the rest of her life.

In desperation she submitted to be prayed over.

Today, she watches what she eats, keeps hydrated, and that kidney has still lost 55% of its function. But she doesn't need dialysis. And she's full of energy. "I go to the XXXXXXXXX church," (naming a denomination), the aunt said to my husband. "We don't believe in miracles happening today. How on earth am I supposed to explain this?"

What a happy crisis of faith to have. I can sense God chuckling as He grants this miracle, knowing full well it will cause so many people to cease keeping Him in the box they've kept Him in, all their lives. He absolutely hates to be pegged; He's constantly surprising people with His power, His generosity, His grace and mercy, and His quirky sense of humour. Oh come on, He's got one...what about the platypus??

Seriously - there is absolutely no arguing with experience. The man blind from birth, healed by Jesus, essentially said that he didn't know a lot of things about who Jesus was, or where He came from, but "this one thing I know. I once was blind, but now I see."

It's delightfully compelling.

It's all about Him

General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, was a mountain of faith and dedication to the Master, yet he was so incredibly humble. He never lost the wonder in the fact that he had been rescued by God. His gratitude took up the rest of his life.

"Oh, God, what can I say? Souls! Souls! Souls! My heart hungers for souls!" he said passionately.

Here's a short biography. It boggles the mind the things that can be accomplished when a person is sold out for Jesus.
When asked for the secret of his success, William Booth said:

"I will tell you the secret. God has had all there was of me. There have been men with greater brains than I, men with greater opportunities. But from the day I got the poor of London on my heart and caught a vision of all Jesus Christ could do with them, on that day I made up my mind that God would have all of William Booth there was. And if there is anything of power in the Salvation Army today, it is because God has had all the adoration of my heart, all the power of my will, and all the influence of my life."

What an amazing legacy. Yet I firmly believe that he would be the first to say, after he had done all he could possibly do, that he was "but an unprofitable servant." This wasn't false humility. It was recognition of the impossibility of repaying a debt paid for him in full, by the One who did not owe him anything.
The story is told of General Booth's final hours. He was visited frequently by many people as he lay on his death-bed. Of these, a couple of the Army's officers came to see him. Everyone knew his time was short as he grew more and more weak. One of them said to him, "Well, General Booth, soon you will be going to receive your reward."

The old gentleman raised himself up as much as he could and looked at the man with fire in his eyes. "I go to receive no such thing," he said sharply. "I go to receive ... mercy."

His was no spirit of entitlement. He knew there was only one God in the universe and that it wasn't him. He was continually amazed that Jesus could love him and would offer him eternal life. He was fully aware that it was entirely the opposite of what he deserved on his own merits. "I go to receive - mercy." His whole life was about the mercy and grace of God. It's the foundational principle of the Salvation Army - which has seen countless lives redeemed by God's mercy and grace, overflowing with gratitude in service to this same God.

I look forward to meeting him someday.