FEEL what you feel

2016.  Wow. 

As the year dawns, I've been reflecting on what I could do to improve myself, to improve my life, resolutions to make.  Since I am in a process of continual growth, I am sure some things will come to me.  However, the one thing I keep coming back to - because I am reminded of it over and over - is the importance of feeling what I feel. 

It sounds ludicrous when you say it like that, doesn't it?  But I am serious!  

I saw this poster someone put on a social media site recently.  It talked about how worry hurts the stomach, fear hurts the kidneys, and so forth.  Let me be clear on this: emotions are a gift - even the "bad" ones!!

The only time that emotions are bad for us is when we hold them back, or hold onto them for a long time.  The act of keeping that grip on them is harmful, yes.  But they are not the culprit.  We are.

The brain has several parts, and people talk about their frontal lobes and occipital lobes and so forth, they talk about their IQ, and may even boast about it.  But few people think about how at the very base of the brain, under all those cognitive processes (like memory, decision-making, logic, reasoning, and so on) are a whole network of what look like nodules - this is what neuroscientists call 'the limbic system' and it is responsible for the emotions that we feel.  

Now, I figure if those things are there and protected by the skull, so deep down that even skull penetration with a foreign object is not likely to strike it, they must be pretty important.  

The limbic system (connected chemically to the brain stem at the base of our skull) is where we get such important chemicals as adrenaline - which helps in fight-or-flight situations!  Our emotions do have a purpose, and it is best to deal with our emotions the way the designer intended.  

I look at it this way.  Our feelings are the nervous system of the soul.  We need nerves in our body to tell us what is hot, cold, pleasurable, painful, and tasty (or not).  When we touch something hot, our nerves carry that message to the brain and in fractions of a second, the brain reacts and tells our body part to get out of there! Pain - and pleasure - show us what is safe and what is not.  Just so with our feelings.  Listening to them will tell us what is safe and what (or who) is not.  Experiencing them can bring us great reward, and suppressing them for a long time not only cuts off the painful emotions, but prevents us from feeling the pleasurable ones too.  

Photo "Silhouette Of A Man On The Rocks At Sunset" 
courtesy of satit_srihin at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I would rather experience some pain than not have the capacity to feel it at all, and eventually end up hurting myself (and those who love me) by not being able to have compassion.  And I would rather be sad or angry or afraid (even though those emotions are not pleasant!) than not be able to feel them when it would be right to do so.  What kind of person would I be (for example) not to feel angry, even enraged, when someone (and that someone also might include me just as well as it could another person) is being treated unfairly?  

A healthy person experiences the whole gamut of emotions (not usually all at once!), listens to them and expresses them in safe ways, and does whatever is necessary to deal with the causes of those feelings - whether it's looking after the self, or comforting another, or even fighting passionately for what's right.

Once feelings have served their purpose in making us aware of something, and once we have expressed them and acted on them in appropriate ways, it is okay to let them go ... they will come again when they are needed.  It's how we are built.  It's what we do.  And it's how we can really live. 

Huh. I guess that's it, isn't it!  If I had to choose a theme for this year (for myself), I guess I would choose the line to a Bon Jovi song:  "... I just wanna live while I'm alive."  (It's My Life, 2000, emphasis mine).

It's me

It happens occasionally. 

I hear something that touches my heart, and I weep. Or I get to sing something that means a lot to me and my emotions take over my voice box and I choke up and can't make the notes come out the way I wanted. 

Once in a while that happens in public. And every so often, I can tell when someone is puzzled by it, because that individual questions me on it and makes assumptions that I must have experienced some great loss recently. It's as if the person believes that the singing is the performing part of Judy (first wrong assumption: I don't perform. Music is a part of me; I can't "not sing"), and the emotions have only to do with something that people are "supposed" to get emotional about. Like, say, grieving a death or something like that. And only a recent death. If I behave otherwise, it's instant judgment (or at the very least, bewilderment) because the attitude is that one should maintain a "stiff upper lip." I'm regarded as weird if I am affected by something beyond the accepted time frame, or if I am moved by something that means a lot to me. Like music. Or the beauty of nature. Or yes, even the death of someone who's important to me - and it doesn't have to be recent, or even someone I know personally. 

Thanks to David Castillo Dominici
who took this photo,
"Little Boy Covering His Face"
and posted it at www.freedigitalphotos.net

This happens to a lot of people; it's not just me. I remember a young girl of my acquaintance going to school a year after her older sister's sudden death (which happened under mysterious circumstances and to which there was never any closure), appearing "down" one day, and being told by a teacher that it had been long enough for her to "get over" her sister's death. 

As if you ever get over something like that. Really. 

I have a great deal of trouble with the mentality that denies and subjugates emotion as something "bad" or at least embarrassing and to be avoided. 

Here's the thing. I'm me. I'm a sensitive soul and I know it. I don't make apologies for it. In fact, I find it odd that people aren't more affected by beautiful sights or sounds, or by the misfortunes of others, because I am. I've wished in the past sometimes that I wasn't affected by things so much. However, even though sometimes I still want to not be quite as affected by the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," I've come to understand that it's my sensitivity and my empathy that make me who I am, and I don't need to apologize for it. It's my ability to have compassion and to 'weep with those who weep' - or to access the emotions attached to memories from my past - that will eventually (one day) make me a good counselor ... even if it is hard on my head sometimes. 

Emotions are part of the human experience. They were designed as a built-in early-warning system and pressure relief valve for the human spirit. They're normal and healthy. I would rather feel the things I feel, even if they are unpleasant, than to shut off those emotions, and then eventually, never be able to feel ANYTHING ... even the nice things. That is what happens when one makes a habit of clamping down on emotions too consistently. I've seen the results of that, and they are not pleasant. 

So - this is me. Bumbling with emotion sometimes, tongue-tied and thinking of a million things I could have said after the fact. Emotional and glad to be so, given the alternative. 

As the song goes, "I just want to live while I'm alive."

Be there

I must check my email and each of my blogs at least three times a day. It sounds like a lot - and perhaps it is a bit excessive - but I don't want to miss anything that might be important to my readers ... or to me. 

For most of my life, I spent the majority of my time (until I got into recovery in January 2009) trying to escape. I tried to hide from my past, my feelings, my circumstances, even my children. I did that by burying myself in eating, reading, watching TV, playing games, doing crossword puzzles, even going to as many church functions as possible ... to escape the realities that made up my life. It wasn't even that my life was that horrible. It was that I wanted to get away from ... me. 

Once I started learning to make peace with my past and even to like myself, I found that I was better able to be there for the people in my life, including me. It surprised me how pervasive that tendency was - and still is to a certain extent. Now and again, I do have to remind myself what is important. And, in order of importance, here's what it means for me to "be there":

Be there for me - Self-care has become huge for me over the last 40 months (wow, has it been that long?). If I'm not looking after myself, I will have absolutely nothing in reserve to give to anyone else. I've written about this so much in the last two years or so that it's become a familiar song. Yet, I learn through repetition, and the reminder to practice self-care is something that I've needed to repeat many times to myself. Doormat-itis is deeply entrenched and it got that way through repetition. Recovery from that takes just as much repetition, if not more.

A very large part of that is making time for intimacy with God. I must admit that of all the things that are crucial to my self-care, this priority tends to get crowded out very easily. That's why I need to remind myself that this one relationship is central to every other and that if it suffers, they all suffer. 

Photo from a post called "How to be a Good Listener"

Be there for my husband and kids - This sometimes means laying aside what I would prefer to do and choosing to do what one (or more) of them like(s) to do, even in the little things. Watching Tangled instead of Star Trek. Listening to the radio (or to - gag me - Country and Western) in the vehicle rather than to my preferred kind of music. Or just listening to them ... which is (of course) far bigger a deal than what kind of movie or music we each like.

Be there for my friends - Lately, this has meant working harder at not talking so much about me, and letting them tell me what is going on with them: caring for them and not worrying so much about them not meeting my needs. I have a tendency to put on my martyr hat and try to get people to feel sorry for me. I'm learning that the less I say about me, and the more I keep the focus on them, the less trouble I get into. ;)

Be there for my clients - I was going to say "...for my employer." But you know, the reason I go to work is not for my boss, although I do try to keep her happy whenever I can. The thing that keeps me going back is the knowledge that my efforts make a difference in people's lives. I take a great deal of pleasure in that. Of course, there are things about every job that are less than ideal; that's to be expected. But overall, I feel blessed to do two things that I love doing - helping people, and writing to do that - for a living. Not everyone gets to do that.

Be there for my church - I have made a commitment to my church to be there in ministry whenever I can be. When I make a promise, I do my level best to keep it, and this is no different. It doesn't hurt that I love doing what I do, and I get to do it with people I care about. What a gift.

You may have noticed that I separated my spiritual commitment to intimacy with God and my commitment to church ministry; I have done so for a very important reason. Many people equate their service to the church with their obligation to God. I don't. The latter, for me, is about the vertical relationship; the former, about the horizontal ones.  Priority One is the relationship between God and me; I think of it as my "plumb line" - the one on which everything else hangs. Without it, there is no third dimension to my life: it's all flat, like a soft drink without the bubbles. Duty-driven. With that third dimension, it all makes sense to me. Life has context and contour, sparkle and sizzle. 

The core relationship permeates and infuses all the others; it's part of who I am, how I define myself, and enriches each of those other facets. 

One thing is sure. Living like this might be many things - not all of them pleasant - but it's never dull.

Thinking on my feet

The last several weeks I have been taking a class where occasionally I am called upon to give opinions on topics I don't know much about and have no warning about: impromptu topics.  

I knew it before and bemoaned it, and in the last few weeks I have re-discovered that I don't think very well on my feet.  I need time to reflect, to ponder.  More than just a few seconds.  This is one of the reasons I write rather than use any other means of communication.  

Often, I'm just not interested in the topic at hand.  Current events bore and depress me, so I usually refuse to read or listen to the news.  I haven't listened to radio on a regular basis since I was in my 30s.  I got tired of listening to twenty songs I hated to hear the one I hoped they would play.  And I found talk radio filled with nothing but idle prattle which might put me to sleep rather than stimulate me.  

This came home to me yesterday as I had to give a three to four-minute presentation on one of three given topics which were given to me just two minutes beforehand.  The two minutes were for preparation of what I wanted to say and how, and then I was to launch into it.  Moreover, the person who asked me to do this was a virtual stranger to me.  There was absolutely no rapport with this guy.

To top it off, I really wanted to do well, because in mid-January, I will have to do it for real - to keep my French-speaking levels up.

So I stumbled, backed up, repeated myself, made all the classic mistakes, and when I had exhausted all I could think of during the speech, couldn't figure out how to end it.  By the end of it, I was doing what is commonly known as "bullsh**ting." Grasping for words - literally not knowing what the next words out of my mouth were going to be.  

My problem was that I knew that my skills were being judged and I got nervous and insecure.  To top it all off, the presentation wasn't in my mother tongue and I knew that my grammar would be scrutinized as well.  I braced myself for the criticism I would receive.  But all the fellow said was that I had gone over the time, and that I had gone into too much detail while using a personal example.  

I know he was being gracious.  But the fact remained that this realm of not being able to articulate what I think "on the spot" is a known weakness of mine.  I knew it; I've always known it.  And I have always settled for just living with it.  

The Serenity Prayer says, "God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference."  I'm getting better at accepting things I can't change.  I still need a LOT of Wisdom.  And I'm finding that there are more things I thought I couldn't change ... that it appears I can.  

Like thinking on my feet.  Apparently it is a skill that can be learned!!  Who knew?  I went looking on Google this morning briefly, before anyone else was awake, "how to think on your feet."  I was surprised that there was so much written on the subject, and came up with some simple strategies to help me relax and structure my thoughts "on the fly".  As I get closer and closer to my real impromptu presentation, I hope to be able to use some of these techniques.  

One more way to grow.  On my feet.  Huh.

The Heart Whisperer

National Geographic Channel produces a show starring Cesar Millan, also known as "The Dog Whisperer."  He understands dogs in a way that works miracles when people have tough cases of dogs' unwanted behavior.  I love watching the show, and I've used his techniques on occasion to salvage what might have been disastrous situations.  

Cesar Millan (left) and Pat Parelli (right) sharing a photo
op, found this at
http://www.westernhorsereview.com/blogs/
my-stable-life/dog-whisperer-meets-parelli/

One show I particularly liked was when he went to work with Pat Parelli  (also known as the Horse Whisperer). A lady at a therapeutic riding school was having a problem with a couple of the school dogs, and there was also a horse that was giving some problems - so she invited both men to come and help them.  

Cesar jumped at the chance to meet Pat because in essence, they work in the same field - just with different species.  Both of them rehabilitate the animals' mental or emotional problems, and train the owners to understand and work with the strengths and mentality of the animals in order to produce a balanced, happy family unit, be it a pack or herd. 

It was amazing to watch these guys working - and working together. 
Click here for the whole episode at NatGeo (The video will open in a new tab - and is about 45 minutes, but the first 32 minutes shows them working at the riding school.  If the video stops, saying that there's a commercial break, just close the tab, come back here, re-click the link, and move the slider on the video to just after the stopping place [dot] where you left off...)   :D

Okay, I have to admit, I watched the video again.  Wow.

Just as there is a dog whisperer and a horse whisperer, there is a Heart Whisperer.  All our lives we've been conditioned by people in our pasts - whether they intended the result or not - who have caused us to be fearful, dominant, disruptive, or just angry all the time.  But the Heart Whisperer is different.  He knows how we feel, how we think, what makes us tick.  Dogs need exercise, discipline, and affection.  Horses need safety, comfort, and play.  And humans need love, acceptance, and respect.  

The Heart Whisperer knows that because He created humans.  A voluntary relationship with Him is one that gives all three: love, acceptance, and respect - first from Him to us, and in growing measure, from us to Him. It is this relationship that is core.  It is foundational. The other two relationships (that of ourselves with ourselves, and that of ourselves with others) hinge upon that primary one with Him, and have the same three components: love, acceptance, and respect. 

The relationship has to be voluntary.  We were not made to be robots.  The process is slow.  We don't learn as quickly as horses or dogs.  With us, it takes time to really "get it."  Fortunately, His patience is endless.

Because He is the source of all love, His love is unconditional.  Because He is the source of all acceptance, His acceptance is total. And because He is the source of respect, the respect He gives is ultimate.  In relationship with Him, we learn how to love, accept, and respect Him first - not by means of a gigantic guilt trip or by striving all the time to follow rules which are impossible to follow - but by allowing ourselves to believe in and open ourselves to His love, acceptance and respect for us.  It is then that we can offer ourselves those same gifts, and then eventually give them to others.  

There is so much shouting around us to try to force or manipulate us into behaving this way or that way - trying to wind us up, to turn us into nice little toy soldiers.  But His kingdom doesn't follow the methods and philosophy of the world.  No, His realm is of the heart - and He continues to whisper His message to our hearts.  If we'll listen.

Telling versus Asking

For a long time, I spent time endorsing and espousing the idea that if God promised a certain thing, then all I needed to do was "claim" it.  To "take authority over the enemy" and to "speak those things that be not as though they were." But the more I get to know Him, the less sure I am of that kind of attitude, which I once thought was "faith."  

I agree that Jesus has given us the victory.  I agree that He is more powerful than satan.  I firmly believe that He has all authority over the powers of darkness.

But more and more I am convinced that I don't.  That I am not more powerful than satan and that I win NOTHING, that if it wasn't for God, I would not even be breathing.  Moreover, I don't need to defend God on the debate battlefield, or to labor or travail as if trying to push Him through a keyhole into the world or reality I want Him to occupy.  It is a form of manipulation, even of self-aggrandizement, to "take" the authority that belongs to Him and use it to clobber someone or something.  He's far bigger than I am, far more powerful.  All I need to do is to ASK.  

Not TELL.  More and more I cringe when I hear people "command" God to do something for them (or satan to stop doing something).  They screw their faces up and strain and grunt and groan as if by their effort the supernatural could happen. Such faces would scare little children.  Heck, they even scare ME.  I need to be clear on this.  God is supernatural.  I am human. I am not supernatural, don't want to be, can't pretend to be.  

Asking involves saying Please.  Now THERE's a concept.  That God has the right to say no.  He is not obligated to do anything - at all!  I need to ask Him in a near-forgotten attitude called humility.  And leave the decision up to Him. And accept whatever He decides.

My primary concern must never be how much money I am giving to missions, or whether this hot political issue is right or wrong, or what I'm going to do with my rebellious teenagers... as tempting as that is for a recovering control freak (I was so deeply into judging people that I pushed people of all stripes, even my teens, away from me and robbed myself of having a voice with them.)  No - my primary concern needs to be one thing and one thing only: intimacy with God.

And I must make no mistake.  God, as much as He loves me, as gracious, merciful and forgiving as He is, is not "safe."  

There is an interchange in the book "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" when Lucy asks the Beaver if Aslan, the great Lion, is "safe."  The Beaver replies something like this: "Safe?  I should think NOT!  After all, he's not a tame lion.  No - he's not safe.  But he IS good."  That epitomizes the respectful closeness that I have with God.  

Intimacy with God is definitely not safe.  But in my relationship with Him I have found that He is good, He does what is good, and He seeks the highest good.  Not necessarily for me, but for His purpose.  

So when I ask Him anything now (and I find myself asking for less and less; I thank Him more and more) it is to know His will and to have the courage from Him to do it.  Or if for someone else - I ask for His highest good in their lives, trusting that He will do it, whatever that is.  The only thing I tell Him now is how I am feeling; He already knows it, but ... it helps me to get it out into the open.  I am learning to let God be God ... and to stop taking that role upon myself.    

The Power of the Wind

I'm one of those people that dreams of an idyllic paradise where the sun always shines in the day, the rain only falls at night (if at all), and there is no snow, cold, or wind.

Even in the summertime a perfectly sunny day can be ruined for me by a strong wind. It blows in my ears and gives me an earache, sets off my tinnitus, and blows any hair style I thought of having (to use an expression I heard when I was growing up) all to barf. It can really put me in a foul mood... if I let it.


But the wind serves a purpose.  It is the harbinger of weather changes, aids in cross-pollination, spreads seeds, and helps in the water cycle by speeding up evaporation.  It strengthens root systems in trees, makes them more flexible.

It can also give us an inkling of the power of its Creator.  The boulder in the picture to the left has been sliding across the packed sand in the strong desert wind. The wind.  The invisible moves the visible. Who can forget the sight of palm trees whipping and mighty century-old oaks snapping in hurricane after hurricane?  There's no controlling when, in what direction, how hard and how long it will blow.  


I guess that's why God said that His Spirit is like that.  Unpredictable, unseen, yet so evident if you just listen, look, feel.  Oh, He's there, whether we like it or not at times. He's there when things are decidedly uncomfortable.  He's there when we long for a wisp of a breeze to cool us off.  He's there when the storms of life pin us against a wall.  And He decides where He goes, what He does, who He touches, how He works. Unstoppable, powerful, gentle, passionate, ... all those things and much, much more.  After all, He's God.

Practicing Kindness

Kindness is an art.  It really is.  

In order to get good at it ... it has to be practiced.  

I sometimes wonder why there has to be suffering in the world.  While I don't claim in the least to have it all figured out, I do think that one of the reasons is that it gives people who are blessed with good health or perhaps more money, to be kind to those who aren't.

For those of you who know me, or who have been following my blog or my posts on Facebook, you know that I suffer from MCS - Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.  It's an insidious, debilitating disease that has nothing to do with allergies and everything to do with toxins: neurotoxins to be exact.  Modern scented products contain them: petrochemicals and aldehydes that are used to make artificial scent.  I've tried and tried to get the message out but it keeps getting interpreted as, "Judy doesn't like perfume."  (sighhh)  

The thing is, up until about ten years ago, I used to WEAR the stuff.  Then it started making me sneeze, giving me headaches, etc.  And after 2003's Hurricane Juan put mould in our basement, it got way worse. And even worse after Tropical Storm Hannah (2008, November) did the same thing, only the mould stayed for a longer period. After Hannah hit, so did the migraines - five minutes' constant exposure would give me a six-hour migraine. (Ever hurt yourself so badly that you felt sick to your stomach? Imagine that kind of hurt in your head and neck for hours at a time).  I had to wear a mask anywhere I went just to keep the normal perfumes from Febreeze and other room deodorizers or fabric softeners to a dull roar.  Even with the mask, someone who used body spray would inevitably walk by and leave a cloud 15 feet in diameter behind them.  And no mask can filter that out - unless it's the kind you get in a Haz-Mat suit.  

People ostracized me thinking I had H1N1 - or that I was trying to be sensationalist and make a point.  Some pitied me; others judged me.  One time I complained of scent at a worship team practice because of one or more of the members.  Rather than apologize and promise not to use it anymore, the collective decision was to stop everything and pray for my healing.  Hm.  Did I feel heard - or loved?  Uh - no.

Trapped?  Oh yes.  Even after a single healing experience got rid of about 70% of the intensity of my reactions in a moment of time on November 6, 2009, I still have to watch my level of exposure because if I am exposed too long, it's still decidedly unpleasant.  I take a kelating agent (magnesium citrate) to bind with the poisons and flush them out of my system, but this mineral works slowly and exposure to chemicals (to use an analogy) tops up my chemical intolerance tank faster than the little leak at the bottom can drain it. So I still need to stay away from scented products to be healthy.  Much easier said than done.  It's everywhere.

Why wasn't I just healed completely?  I'm not sure exactly.  But maybe it was so that I'd keep my passion about this issue strong. Maybe, just maybe, it was to make me continually grateful that things are not nearly as bad as they were, and to allow me to be able to confront my own anger at the people who persist in using chemicals to mask their own natural scent.  Everyone has his or her own, by the way.  Just saying. Maybe it was to make any future healing that I might receive, all the more miraculous because so many people have seen and are aware of the plight of those who suffer from this illness.  Most suffer way more than I.

And maybe it was to give an opportunity for other people (Christians especially) to practice (instead of judgment) the art of kindness - sadly, almost a lost art.  

Vignettes

As far back as I can remember, there was one thing that was a constant in my life.  It gave me a sense of stability that I might not otherwise have had, given the vortex of abuse I knew.

Every morning after breakfast, my father had to leave for the foundry, a loud, hot place where they made stoves on an assembly line. He'd get his coveralls on, give his hair a final combing, and head out the door.  And then it would happen.  He'd pause, then turn.  And suddenly she was there.  Mom would be at his side, it seemed like magic.  A quick kiss on the lips, (smack) and he would continue on his way.  It was something I could count on, something that for some reason made me feel good inside.  Later I understood what it was.  It was love.

Earlier in their marriage, my mother told me later, Dad had had to work for CN, the railroad. It took him away from home for weeks at a time.  "But he wrote to me while he was away."  She never said anything more about it, but one day I was going through some things with her in their room, and I stumbled on a bunch of papers tied up with string.  "What's this?" I asked. She blushed and nodded to me to go ahead and look.  There were those letters.  All the letters he wrote to her when he was on the railway.  In them there was such longing, such love, such passion - not like what you'd read in Penthouse or even Cosmopolitan.  But how much he missed her, how much he loved her, how very lonely it was without her.  That's when it dawned on me.  My dad was a romantic, and an incurable one at that.  And she kept those letters. Secretly SHE was too!! I often had wondered where I got that.  Who knew that I couldn't help but be one with both parents passing it on to me!
 

It was common to see strange cars pull up into our driveway on a sunny Saturday.  One or another of my dad's friends would bring his car to our place and mention to him that this thing or that one didn't work on the car, they couldn't get the timing right, or whatever.  He'd get a twinkle in his eye.  "Well, just for fun, let's have a look."  Ha.  "Just for fun" was his code.  He knew what was coming - he knew he could fix it.

Within a short time the car would be working fine and the guy would reach into his pants pocket for some money.  "Your money ain't no good here," Dad would tell him.  "Put that back."   He was like that.  He enjoyed tinkering on cars, fixing little problems, making things right.  It wasn't work to him. Taking money would cheapen it somehow, rob him of the joy.

He prided himself on being in control of his emotions.  My grandfather, his dad, died because of a tragic tractor accident when I was seven.  Dad went through the funeral, the burial, his face stoic.  Afterward - many years afterward - he told me, "Nobody saw me cry." Translation :  he cried.  But never in public.  Never.

I never met a man who worshiped his mother any more than Dad did.  He talked about her cooking quite often, described it in detail.  He'd worked in the woods with his dad and the appetites were large and in charge.  Today the dishes his mom prepared would coat the old arteries up "real good" with cholesterol ... and NOT the good kind.  But back then, they needed the extra energy stores that fat gave them.  Anyway, my mother was a great cook, but Dad never complimented her all the time I was growing up.  When we asked him why not, he shrugged and said, "If I told her it was good, she'd stop trying." 

One day when I was in my late teens, though, Mom had outdone herself. We had company over, it was a house full and the kitchen table was groaning from all kinds of goodies.  Turkey with all the trimmings, gravy made just right, the whole nine yards.  We'd begun the meal and we could tell Dad was enjoying it.  Every mouthful he seemed to roll his eyes up, yet he was getting more and more uncomfortable.  Finally he couldn't stand it.  "My oh my, that tastes good," he exclaimed.

We all stared at him in stunned silence.  Then in a trice, Mom was gone from her seat.  She bounded across the kitchen to where we kept the bread knives. She grabbed the biggest one, ran over to the door between the porch and the kitchen, knife raised above her head.  Then with two strokes, she cut a quarter-inch notch in the lintel!!  We were all so shocked that nobody said a word.  In triumph, she put the knife away, and flumped back down at the table.

In the uncomfortable quiet that followed, Dad spoke up.  "Now. You see why I never tell her it's good...."

The whole group erupted in laughter.  Even Mom!

Dad struggled all his life with addiction to cigarettes.  He had started when he was 5.  His mom used to help him sneak tobacco out of his dad's pouch, and I remember him trying many times to quit - and failing.  Mom had quit when I was a baby and she was on his case every day to stop.  He couldn't.  She got after him when he drank on the weekends, too.  He just did it to be sociable and to feel good... couldn't hold his beer, and would fall asleep on the sofa.  All in all he was mild compared to some.  But nothing but tee-totaling was good enough for Mom, who had grown up in an alcoholic home.  At the time I agreed with her ... and so when it came time for me to get married, I was concerned that he would show up at the wedding with liquor on his breath.  I begged him to promise me that he wouldn't drink on my wedding day.  "Please Dad."  He promised.

And he kept his word, bless him!  The day came and he was just - Dad, nobody else.  He and I were about to walk down the aisle together in front of some 300 assembled guests, and I turned to Dad and slid my hand into the crook of his arm just before the first notes of "Here Comes the Bride" started.  I thanked him for keeping his promise not to drink on my wedding day.  "I love you, Dad."  He squeezed my hand under his arm and leaned into me for a sideways hug.  "I love you too, dear," he murmured to me ... so only I could hear.

Not until after the honeymoon did I see the photos someone took of Dad sitting with Mom, after he had given me away, with my 2-year-old niece on his lap.   He was crying.   MY father!!  

I broke down and sobbed like a child.  He really did love me.  He really did.

I never forgot it.  I never will.

Grace upon Grace

It's mesmerizing, watching the waves come in at the shore. I remember a few times as a child on rare outings to the beach, losing myself in their hypnotic rhythm, allowing myself to be almost dizzy with the motion of a constantly moving landscape while I stood still, almost ankle deep as wave after wave lapped up nearly to my knees and back down. Then I'd feel the wave suck a little of the sand out from between my toes on its way back to the ocean - and within seconds it would all happen all over again. One after another - they never stopped. Rough, smooth, sunny, windy, rainy ... it never mattered. The speed and intensity might vary, but they never ceased rolling in. There was something comforting about the constancy and dependability of it all.

So when I first heard Gordon Jensen's song, Grace upon Grace, it touched something deep in the recesses of my spirit.

The concept of grace is not new to Christianity. But it is often sold short because all the preaching and the usual talk on grace talks about the forgiveness we have from the sins of the past. But let's think about it for a while. When Jesus died on the cross, you and I had not even been born yet. All our sins were in the future at that point in time - and so were all the sins of our children, and grandchildren, born or not even conceived yet!

In fact, when Jesus said, "It is finished!" He was talking about paying in full for every sin, past, present, and future - forever - for every person, past, present, and future. Nothing we have ever done and nothing we will ever do is too much for God, will not take Him by surprise, or cause Him to love us any less. Once we give Him our will and our lives to take care of, He will never leave us - never! His intense passion for relationship with us is faithful, persistent - even when we aren't. The deposit, the down-payment of His Spirit that He has placed in each of us will not let us go; He is faithful and persistent to complete what He has started and He has guaranteed that completion. That grace keeps on coming and coming, pouring over us, never-ending, above and beyond what we could ever imagine. Such lavish and loyal love - coming from the most pure heart in the universe - can only produce one reaction in the life of one so loved: a life lived from gratitude.

Consider these words:

Like the ocean in waves ever seeking the shore
To His children comes the grace of the Lord -
And like a mighty sea so deep and so wide
His grace to us is an endless supply....

Grace upon grace like the waves on the shore, always enough, always more -
Grace upon grace like the waves on the shore - all that we need is ours from the Lord.

In daylight or midnight the waves touch the shore,
One on another they faithfully pour!
Summer or winter they never subside
And so our gracious Father provides
Grace upon grace like the waves on the shore, always enough, always more -
Grace upon grace like the waves on the shore - all that we need is ours from the Lord.

Thank You SO much, Lord Jesus!!

Filled to overflowing

"... and the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day."

This simple children's story makes me cry every time. So does the scene in A Christmas Carol where Scrooge has a spiritual awakening. And when I read the book "Heidi" - I lose control when I get to the part where the grandfather sees himself in the story of the prodigal son, and comes back to the church he walked away from so many years previous.

These kinds of stories touch something deep in nearly everyone who reads or watches them. They are stories of redemption, yes, but more than that, they speak hope to our hearts that life can be so much more than existence. They tell us that we were made to experience life to the fullest, whether through happiness, sadness, love, anger, fear or confidence. Emotions, designed to be transient, are God-given, and God can use them to point us toward Him and remind us that He is passionate about us. More than that, they can enhance and heighten our awareness that He is right with us.

His desire for us is to be fully human, all that we were created to be, and moreover, to walk with Him, hearts overflowing with gratitude and love for Him, spilling over into each others' lives. Something that came to me recently is that we sometimes are in awe of the fact that Enoch walked with God. He probably didn't think it was all that strange, rather, it was natural. When he walked with God, he didn't arrive instantly at the destination, but he enjoyed each step as it came. One step at a time. He lived each moment enjoying God's presence. And God enjoyed his company too.

It's all He's ever wanted for us too.