A Voyager's Journal

The Thorns we Grasp

2011-12-21T14:51:00.000-06:00

I went exploring the woods this morning in my new neighborhood and pricked my thumb on a thorn.

1.) Who knew there were thorn trees in Missouri?!
2.) I think I may have the princess-and-the-pea syndrome. I'm so unused to sharp pain it seriously bothered me the rest of the walk.

On the other hand, I'm beginning to think it may have been a grace. A little object lesson. Not too painful, but just painful enough. We reach out to grasp things we think will help, as I thought the angled tree limb would help me cross the creek, but if it's not what God would have us grasp (only what is wholesome, noble, courageous, and beautiful) it could harm more than help. I didn't cross the creek. My thumb was aching and the sun seemed less shiny and the mud muddier.

There is some writing I want to do today - some "creek crossing". I need an aware spirit and a ready mind. But over the last 24 hours my attention has been pulled, without too much resistance from me I'm afraid, to "comforting" things that in reality, not being God's for me to grasp hold of, may actually dull my sharpness for today's task. I have been pricked, and like the fairy-tale Beauty my niece loves dressing up as, the thorn's poison might lull me to a dull sleep. How can I write with a slumbering soul? (To be fair, I think she pricked her finger on a spindle, not a thorn :)

What we grasp onto with our hearts, even in the most cursory of ways, can become a brilliant tool or a stumbling block. A rose, or its thorn. Today's prick reminded me of that. My thumb is amazingly sore - perhaps because the thorn went in right over the joint. I don't want the same to happen within my soul. Thank you, God, for Your corrections - they are life to me!

And hmmm, just in case the thorn trees in Missouri are even stranger than they seem...

3.) If I suddenly look very drowsy, somebody please come kiss me. I'd rather be either alive or dead, than asleep! :)

To all that shall be - Yes!

2011-11-19T14:24:00.000-06:00

Packing your stuff out of house you've spent almost three years integrating into can be a discouraging activity. "This is mine, that is yours..." It seems endless. I've been doing it for a few weeks, and today is the big push. (Mostly because a few men are coming over to carry heavy things this afternoon, and I want to have as much as possible ready for them. Thank you, Father, for giving half the population extra arm strength! I like the way You think :)

It's been a cloudy sort of activity, this packing up of life. Particularly as everything I own is going to go into storage except for my clothes and the food from my pantry. The new place is too small to hold anything else, and I only plan to be there a few months as I look toward the future, and hopefully a home of my own.

Yesterday I suspect my sister(s) were praying for me. After coffee with Jesus and Annie, I had such joy. All day. Anticipation, even. I have always struggled with fearing the unknown. In fact, when Ravi Zacharias gave the commencement address as I graduated college, I know the Spirit specifically gave him words just for me. I watched his back from the stage and let his quotation of "The Gate of the Year" settle in deep:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

I remember if every once in a while. Sometimes with a little guilt that I still need to hear the same thing, that my soul still hates the unknown. At its core, this seems a distrust of God. I have been feeling this distrust again, as I've looked into the unknown days ahead and sometimes quaked. A lot of prayer has been going into this area recently, in the private sharings from my heart to His. Yesterday's joy was a real victory.

This morning, unbidden, Dag Hammarskjold's words slipped into my mind. I think God dropped them there, and I found that they really did reflect my heart - a miracle of sorts coming at the end of what has been a difficult process and the beginning of months that seem potentially dreary:

For all that has been - Thanks!

To all that shall be - Yes!

Oh - my heart really said this! Thank-you God! But, was it just my mind? Would I feel differently tomorrow? Was the comfort brought by yesterday's whispers from Jesus in Luke just a temporary thing? I need more assurance that He is really working inside - and I don't feel guilty about it. He never minds when we want to be sure of what He is saying and doing. Still, I set the thoughts aside and began packing.

Can you resist old photo albums and journals? I can't. But I was determined to be disciplined with my time and not get caught up into reading old things when I should be packing them away. So I didn't. But in an instant of forgetfulness my fingers just slipped open an old album on its way down into the box. On the first page was a quotation, beautifully written out by a dear friend long years ago. What do you suppose it was? Of course.

Now. When I have overcome my fears - of

others, of myself, of the underlying darkness:

at the frontier of the unheard-of.

Here ends the known. But, from a source

beyond it, something fills my being with its

possibilities.

Here desire is purified and made lucid: each

action is a preparation for, each choice an

assent to the unknown.

For all that has been - Thanks!

To all that shall be - Yes!

-Dag Hammarskjold

I'm joining you, Dag, and to God I can honestly say:

For all that has been - thank you! To all You will do - YES!

The Day of the Seven Billionth

2011-10-31T16:34:00.000-05:00

Sunday Morning, 10:57 am. -- Hands rise, voices crescendo, the two-thousand-strong congregation has become one single choir of unified worship.

But not to God’s ear.

An exhilarating flash of understanding strikes me – the pleasure He is receiving, while we sing how much we love Him, is not solely the pleasure of having one great, huge, unified Body honoring Him. It is far more than that. It is the pleasure of having one intimately-known friend express her deep love – multiplied two thousand times over.

We don’t have the capacity to experience more than two or three earth-shattering loves in our lifetime. We never imagine that the words “omnipotent” and “omnipresent” and “omniscient” might mean that when He is in a room of two thousand or twenty thousand, He is receiving and interacting with each soul as deeply and enjoyably as if they were the one person with Him in a two-person universe.

The world is screaming today about how many people there are alive, torn between a feeling of the milestone’s momentousness and a deep misgiving. Seven Billion! Seven Billion!

She who loves self more than others is quaking with the fear that today’s seven billionth baby will plunge everyone, including herself, into spiraling poverty and resource-poor living.

He who loves creation more than the Creator is angry that the Father’s burgeoning family will encroach upon the pristine but temporal land he values more than he does an eternal soul.

Spirits who hate the Father are writhing in eagerness to take down that seven billionth, and billions more with her, into eternal separation from Abba, and to keep any more from being born – since that seems the best method to injure the untouchable God.

And she who truly loves living people, but misunderstands the living God, mistakenly believes each person’s life will be better if the number God has to take care of is kept to a minimum.

In it all, our attention (even that of loving, believing Christians) is being diverted from what has really happened today.

God is rejoicing over the seven billionth life!

In the last two centuries we have hit the tipping point – due to the principle of exponential growth, the Industrial Revolution, medical breakthroughs, and agricultural advances our population is rapidly increasing. Between 1801 and today (about 210 years, a small fraction of the years since creation) we’ve grown from one billion to seven billion. Minus a “Malthusian catastrophe” or natural and man-made disasters that could dramatically reduce the world’s population, the number of human souls on the planet will continue to explode - to the dismay of many overpopulation-fear-mongers. Even Christians look at aerial photographs of the teeming markets and streets in places like Manila and feel their hearts sink. So many people. So many.

The number of synapses in our cerebral cortex is finite. You discover this when you try to imagine the existence of God before creation. We can go back a thousand years. A hundred thousand. A million. But when it exceeds that and billions upon billions of years of His uncreated existence tumble into our minds, piling high, we pull up hard - dizzy and overwhelmed. I can’t go that far back and wide in my mind. It isn’t possible.

The same problem – a limited physical capacity for imagination and understanding – rears its head and brings me to a screeching halt when I imagine knowing and loving each and every soul walking those overcrowded streets in India or Bangladesh or China, or even Chicago.

And because I can’t possibly know each of seven billion intimately, it doesn’t seem to me that God can either.

There are many things that cannot be understood with the mind (if even for the simple fact of the physical limit on the size, speed, and firing capacity of our grey matter). They must, instead, be perceived with the spirit. This is one of those.

I can love many, but to be intimately involved with each of my children probably requires that I have less than twenty (and that’s if I’m a super high-capacity person, which I’m not.) But to assume it is the same with the uncreated Father is a highly egocentric perspective. He is the one who “fashions their hearts individually” and to whom we can confidently say, “every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

But to love SEVEN BILLION people that well?

Without thinking it, we think: “Not even God can do this.”

Without saying it, we say: “His capacity to love and know has a limit.”

These are the heresies we imply when we mourn the advent of the seven billionth; or shrink from the challenge of feeding, clothing, and housing them all; or simply do not celebrate today’s births. We are making God in our own, tiny image. In the end, we are stating what we really think of Him, stating how little we understand about a Father whose essence was Father before He ever created children.

That sort of a Father, the one God IS, is completely capable and completely committed to caring for each child. He made it clear in scripture that He rejoices in godly offspring, that He created us to multiply, that His greatest natural gift to humans is the gift of a child (as His greatest spiritual gift is the gift of a Child).

The hoopla of dire projections, and fear, and counting then recounting available global resources has at its core a deeply imbedded sin that is found festering like an absorbed thorn in the fleshly heart of every one of us – the sin of unbelief.

If I do not believe who He is and what He says He will and can do, then I too will not rejoice – with dancing and shouting and celebrations of heart – over today’s birth of the seven billionth, and over the bean-counters’ projections of another billion or two to quickly follow.

But I don’t count beans. I count He who has promised faithful. And that faithfulness is inextricably linked with the giving of children.

Hebrews 11:11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.

Today is a good day in the Lord’s book – the day of the seven billionth!

Tormenting Righteous Souls

2011-07-18T10:58:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago another one of our states registered into the written law of the land an official determination that what God has called evil is actually good. By human decision, it has been decreed that this evil will be sanctioned by the government, elevated to the status a sacrament has in the church, and taught to children as a higher good.

I had already been grieved by a much more individual sin – the discovery that a person who calls himself a Christian, and believes he is both in relationship with God and seeking God, was directly and blatantly lying to others about a particular event. Instead of repenting when confronted, he justified his actions and made clear his determination to continue in them.

It was when my heart was grieving over the number of Christians who don’t obey Jesus (or even the rules of basic morality) that New York announced its decision. One scripture kept running through my mind. It defines the saints’ predicament, as we live in such an upside-down world, and is actually about Lot, “for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard.”

That is so. I don’t know how you’ve been feeling, but every day I read the news I torment my righteous soul. Not only are terrible things happening, terrible things are being done. Humans are setting themselves above God, actually thumbing their noses at Him – intentionally! Almost worse, evil is not only rampant in our nations, it has infiltrated our churches…so that if we could see the spiritual realm with our natural eyes, we would fall on the floor and weep over the sheer number of those around us who are being crowded and poked and pierced by demonic spirits of witchcraft and perverse sexuality and rebellion and the like.

This weekend my state of grief was intensified, when I came face to face with yet another instance of real sin and bondage in the life of a true believer. When I was younger I would have grown angry – self-righteous and angry. Today I grow sad. Sad and begging for God to do something supernatural (for that’s what it will take) and douse us sinners with grace to be free, and mercy to cover; with desire for holiness like His, and with compassion strong enough to help one another limp into that throne room to receive these gifts.

There is evil all around – everywhere wickedness. To me it feels like the noise of a piece of modern, dissonant music turned into its physical equivalent - shrieking shards of sound and glass coming from all directions, swelling inescapably louder and sharper, piercing my ears and mind and eyes while I moan and crouch and mourn over the cacophony, over what it feels and sounds and looks like, over how painful it is when it hits my ears and how perverse it is when it hits my eyes. This is what unrighteousness feels like to the righteous soul.

We feel all this, and our souls are simply righteous because He gave us His own righteousness. What must it be like for Him, the Original Righteousness? If I curl on my basement floor to the music of "Heaven & Earth" and weep, praying for the church to be made pure and brought near, for Him to return and make everything right and holy - to banish evil - what must He be feeling?

I did weep like that. I couldn’t help it. I am that grieved. I keep praying for mercy, that in mercy He will pour out grace to escape temptation and deception and sin. That our holy and love-filled God would be honored by how we think and what we do, not maligned by it.

During worship this morning I remembered the phrase “as far as the east is from the west” and began seeing the distance from here to the exact opposite side of the globe, for that would be the farthest east-west distance possible. Once forgiven, I could go looking …walking, searching, seeking… for one of my sins, and at that distance, it could take me years to find one. Just one! Then the Spirit prompted my mind to step back a little and stop being so myopic. How far is east from west, in all of the created order? As far as the far east of the galaxy is from the far west of the galaxy? Wait, no – as far as the far east of the universe is from the far west of the universe. I would never find that sin.

I see you Jesus, so big, so big - so big that my very important, very evil sin is absolutely removed from me (and certainly not worth a million-year-quest to re-find). Since this is the case, since you are so capable and I can be so righteous, can’t you change our hearts so that we WANT to simply bring our sins to you so you can hurl them that vast distance? It has become very apparent - our own hearts keep evil cyclical and recurring. Our own hearts. Our own hearts love our sin more than they desire You. Have mercy, Lord!

Corey Russell preached on the knowledge of God, and summing it up, at the end of the service, with every hand over every eye, he led the entire congregation in a real and corporate prayer of repentance and renunciation of a certain kind of evil – of looking on perversity and wickedness with our eyes and in our thoughts and through our hearts. My soul was trying to burst out of my body, as I heard the sincerity in my fellow believers, and in my own voice...as I watched a tidal wave of forgiveness and righteousness wash through and past us, leaving the entire thousand of us standing just as solid and immovable in the same spot, but entirely clean, while the flotsam and jetsam of degrading passions and sins went floating away behind. We are righteous! We can be righteous tomorrow! We will be righteous forever!

Jesus is right. He is much, much bigger than one sin or than our millions of sins. Oh, that we would seek his kingdom and his righteousness. And then, someday when he has come back, the righteous soul will never be tortured again.

“Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea…” Micah 7:18-19

An Egg is an Egg

2010-05-22T13:32:00.000-05:00

A fictional scenario...

I made eggs for the woman living with me. She thanked me breezily, savoring their taste. I like putting a tiny bit of milk, salt, and cheese into a few beaten eggs. It brings out the taste. The next day, she returned the favor, making not simply eggs, but what might be called an omelet, for it had vegetables cut up into it. Pleased with the result, she made eggs again the next day, improvising a little more with extra spices and one less yolk. Over the next few months the vegetable component of the eggs she cooked increased. Once she discovered tomatoes, and how nice they tasted slightly warmed, that became the predominant ingredient. But tomatoes make eggs watery. Her solution, I noticed was to begin using a bit of flour in the mixture with the egg. (Yes, we were down to one egg, and mostly vegetables, which she would set before me every morning with the happy comment: “Here are your eggs.”)

The vegetables had to be sautéed before going into the mixture, and she began experimenting with a little meat. Meat in the morning, she said, could be a very helpful protein boost. She tried ham, bacon, ground beef, and chicken, settling on the chicken as the nicest, lightest option.

“Here are your eggs,” came the cheery greeting each morning. Actually, it was mostly chicken and tomatoes, with piles of sautéed zucchini, mushrooms, scallions, and red bell peppers heaped over the top. Oh, and an egg, mixed with quite a bit of flour in a cream sauce, to pour over at the end as a sort of gentle concrete. Except, without the yolk part. There was enough protein in the chicken, she decided, and getting rid of the yolk might cut down on some cholesterol.

But of course, cream doesn’t go very well with vegetables like those, at least not in my taste-bud world, nor in hers. So before another week was gone, so was the sauce. And, um, the egg white that had been in it.

“Here are your eggs.” She happily laid the plate before me, a wonderful conglomeration that reminded me of a chicken cacciatore.

I suddenly laughed. “Actually, this isn’t eggs. It’s yummy, but it’s technically not eggs.”

“Yes, it is.” Her voice carried a tinge of huffiness. After some back-and-forth she expounded on her thoughts. “The term ‘eggs’ is a name, really, for nutrients in the morning. It means breakfast, basically. This is eggs,” and she pointed again to the cacciatore.

“In the context of food, ‘egg’ is an unfertilized reproductive body of a chicken or fowl, consisting of an ovum – a yolk – and its envelope. Chicken cacciatore is not an egg.”

“You’re being offensive,” she said quietly and politely, restraining anger. “There is chicken in here – and those eggs you’re talking about come from chicken. Which makes this more truly an egg than your supposed egg itself!”

I looked at her in wonder, very surprised. This had been happening over the months, I suddenly realized, and it had never occurred to me to correct her morning “Here are your eggs” statement, for it had never occurred to me that a human brain would be capable of calling one thing, another thing.

I must confess, I think I stuttered. It wasn’t over the stupidity of the statement. Many stupid things are said every day. It was over the fact that she actually believed what she was saying.

I tried once more, kindly slipping to the refrigerator, pulling an egg from the carton, and bringing it back to the table. I laid it next to the cacciatore. “This is an egg,” I said. “An egg is an actual, real thing. Your wonderful dish is simply not it.” The red mass of veggies and meat laid in a great, steaming pile next to the cool, oblong, white shell I had set down.

Anger in her movements, she whipped the plate away from me and I had no breakfast that morning, whether egg or cacciatore. I was a bit preoccupied – concerned, would be the word – as I made my way to work. How was her mind when it came to other things? Was this some strange sort of senility? She was only 36.

A horn honked behind me. Oh – I hadn’t seen the light turn green, lost in thought as I was. As I looked up and pressed the gas, a grocery semi-truck turn left in front of me, having decided not to wait any longer. I slammed on the brakes. The car stopped in time for me to watch, in slow motion, the huge advertisement plastered on the side of the semi. A Beaver-Cleaver family, in retro dress, gathered around the kitchen table. With healthy smiles on their faces, and succulent heaps of red cacciatore on their plates, the caption read: “Every good day starts the right way. Eggs!”

* * *

Sounds like an episode of the Twilight Zone, right? Well – perhaps not as exciting. I watched an interview last night between Jennifer Knapp and Larry King, then went to bed thinking about the ridiculous hijacking of the Christian church. There really are people out there (a lot of them, actually) who are not followers of Christ Jesus yet insist on calling themselves Christians. There are multiple reasons, on Satan’s part, for using this particular strategy – I won’t go into them here.

What struck me last night, as it often does, is how unmovable truth is. Whatever is said, whatever is claimed, doesn’t change reality. One could keep one’s dead cat in the house for days and days after it had been run over, and continually say that it is alive. Tell your friends and family it is alive. Talk to it like it is alive. But that cat is dead, dead, dead. Sorry to say it, but no amount of make-believe on your part is going to change the dead deadness of that cat.

If God grants that His power would flow through me, I’ll be perfectly happy to come to your house and raise that cat from the dead. But until I do – that cat is DEAD. Truth doesn’t change depending on what’s in our imagination at the moment, or on our tongue.

I am looking for the day when the church as a whole will adhere to scripture. I’ve sometimes wished that we could call another of the great old councils, and let the Body of Christ at large publicly disavow as ‘Christians’ every institution, organization, and denomination that does not adhere to the basic tenants of Scripture. But as I think of it, I realize that this era of double-talk may naturally draw to an end when persecution of Christians arises. On the other hand, it’s possible the liberal pretenders to the name will succeed in utterly hijacking the word (Christian), and real believers will be prosecuted and killed as the ones pretending to the name. I can’t predict at this point. Which means right now there is nothing I can or should do except speak the truth – even if that requires boldness and a willingness to be hated for it. So here, friends is the truth (not from me, but direct from the Holy Spirit through the apostles):

1Jo 3:4-10 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. (5) You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. (6) No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. (7) Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. (8) Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. (9) No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. (10) By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

I love Mike Bickle’s distinction between sincere believers who repent when they fall (which we often do) and on whose record of sin God presses “delete”, and fake believers who use “grace” as an excuse to cling in love to their sin and continue in it. (The word “fake” is mine, not his.) These are two very different hearts, and will be treated two very different ways in the final judgments, just as they are treated two very different ways in scripture. Read the above passage with that understanding. Let condemnation be out of the question for the former (believers), and let conviction be deep for the latter – those who are, according to this passage, “of the devil”. I’m sorry to call them such, but it is the truth, and if no one says it out loud, we will all be guilty of having watched them race toward a long and painful existence of separation from all they were made for, and of having done nothing.

Just the Facts

2010-05-22T00:27:00.001-05:00

All I could think were the words: "Do not be deceived. God is not mocked."

I was cutting dead wood out of the rose bush out front, and in the process discovering why most women wear gardening gloves for such activities. But these dead pieces have been bothering me for a year, all interspersed with the living, green branches. I'd finished pulling out the creeping vines that keep trying to take over the front garden, and happened to stick my hand in among the roses, and once a dead twig snapped off I was all in - no stopping for gloves.

But that was not the genesis of the scripture running through my mind. I accidentally cut off two good roses in the process of pruning. One feels quite bad about accidents like that, and has to apologize to the rose that is and the little buds that will never be. It reminded me of why the Lord said he was delaying his judgment until the end (Matt 13:24-30) - so that none of those that truly belong to him (wheat and/or roses) gets accidentally pulled out of the ground along with the wicked (weeds and/or dead wood). Well, there was a huge difference between the dead and living branches, and the determination in me to get out all the dead stuff was unstoppable, even by multiple, painful thorn-attacks. I just couldn't wait until Fall, when no roses would be endangered by my prunes.

"Don't be deceived," I heard over and over in my head, mostly thinking about the gang of teenagers that has started to make our street their hang-out, "God is not mocked." What is dead will eventually burn. That's all it's useful for. Pride certainly makes our brains turn off, for people end up thinking (without ever getting around to verbalizing it) that God IS mocked, that He WON'T follow through, that choices for evil will have no evil consequences.

I think this gang is dangerous - there is a brazen sort of pride in the eyes they use to defiantly meet mine every time I drive past them and into my garage. And I'm sorry to say my imagination has a pretty good idea of what sort of havoc they might be able to wreak around here. But in the end, the stories will all be the same, and my general feeling is not fear but pity. The dead, stay dead. And if possible, get deader. And with those branches out of the way, the living will flourish. (You should see the bush now - very pretty!) Am I going to tell them this?

This all might sound rather harsh, but if we do not understand it, we become as lulled to sleep as the dead ones are. Two more craigslist people have slipped through my fingers without hearing the gospel today - it's about to drive me mad. I am desperate for God to quicken me with compassion over the lost's plight, and with the skill, energy, and words to engage them with the truth. This evening's bush-pruning was a bit of an answer, I think. The chaff will really be burned, the dead branches will really be broken off. The lost will really die. We all need to realize this - myself most of all.

Capacity

2010-05-13T23:49:00.002-05:00

Waiting can either increase or decrease our capacity. It depends on what we do while we wait. Running amok, turning into intense self-focus, going blank and hopeless, or harboring a smoldering, quiet anger – all ultimately sabotage our own wait, shrinking our soul’s ability to fully experience and receive the thing waited for when it finally presents itself to be enjoyed. Why? Why and how, after a long time of dreaming and desiring, could it be possible that we actually are less able to perceive the joys of what we desired? It has to do with the way the human heart is designed. In our all desires, there is found one root. Each hope is like a beam coming off one overwhelming, irresistible orb. What we so want, if we were to look as deeply as truth goes, comes back each time and in each form or manifestation to one thing – one center – one great desire.

It is God.

We want to be perfectly loved, with no selfishness or self-righteousness involved. We want to perfectly love – someone who is worthy of utter adoration and worthy of our effortful attempts at it. We want to be fully ourselves, and no one in the world can tell us who we really are, and cheer us and help us all along the way to become that, except God.

A song I adore says it like this:

To be passionately loved
And to passionately love
To be naked, unashamed
And happy in one place
To have all of your attentions
Surrendered to the truth
And be bathed head to toe
In the blood saved for you
To be eager to release
And the first one to repent
And to never even notice
When hours are spent
To come boldly to the throne
While all of life ensues
And be helplessly in love
With the blood shed for you
To be held like a baby
And to hold on like a baby

And so it happens, that while we desire all the normal and good things God created for us, we can do it in such a way that either embraces or shuns Him. In our minds we think they can be two unrelated heart events, the subtle shunning of God and the constructive desiring of good. The Christo-platonic philosophy of our culture separates God and physics, God and the physical. But I propose that in shunning God, we turn to “off” the very source of the capacity we were given to desire and perceive good. The second flows from the first. With the first dead, is it any wonder that we see people receive their secondary desires (those things they believe erroneously to be their primary desires) and with those things gained and grasped in their hands, they themselves are sucked down into destruction and disappointment and bitterness?

Life can read like a French novel.

And if one can’t read French, a good translation of basically every modern movie out there will suffice. At the end of most, were we to be honest, once the hero and heroine have kissed or the world has been saved or all the orcs’ heads cut off, we find ourselves emotionally poised on the lip of a deep, and blackest of black, chasm. The finale is hollow, the package is empty, the heart is still yearning for something eternally good and eternally truth. And something for us, not for the fake people in the story.

On the other hand, if one spends the time of desiring (of waiting) on a quest to broaden the heart’s openness to the core One desired, to discover the voice of eternal Joy Himself, I believe one will find at the end of the wait that in increasing our heart’s familiarity with and capacity for ultimate good, we are more fully able to recognize, receive, and experience the temporal goods.

This is the exact opposite of the wisdom you find inside every newspaper, on the cover of every magazine, and in the minds of every American neighbor, so watch out. Telling such truths might get you labeled a fanatic, and using reason and intelligence to reveal God might be called mindless religion.

But that doesn’t matter. In the end, you’re happier, you’re whole, and you’ve an eternity to spend delighting in Delight Himself and in all His beautiful beams.

Pangur Ban

2010-04-07T13:04:00.000-05:00

I often have little conversations in my head – remember, I’m a novelist. This morning as I was brushing my teeth it went like this:

“I had such a great cat.”

“What made it great?”

Pause.

“I loved it.”

Oh. She had her little quirks, and she wasn’t snuggly with anyone but me. And thinking about it, I guess she wasn’t all that more unique than any other cat. (Except, she never did get the being-born-in-the-wild out of her, and she did occasionally take week-long vacations from the house, and…well, I wouldn’t want to bore anyone.) But, when that phrase came, “I loved it,” I suddenly felt a tiny bit of the agape that the Lord God has for us, as ones He created.

Within the relationship of belonging (as the creation belongs to the creator) there is something that makes the belongee exceedingly precious and beloved. I wonder if this is part of how love develops in arranged marriages. It is definitely part of parental love toward helpless, red, and wrinkly little babies when they are born. They are yours, and that makes them more important than any other creature in the world.

I was thinking about Pangur (she was lost into the wilds of Chicago about 5 ½ years ago) because of the cat she was named after: Pangur Ban. Years ago I read this poem, written by an 8th century Irish monk and scribe. Being a writer myself, it fit perfectly:

I & Pangur Ban my cat
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

'Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit & find
Entertainment to our mind.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye,
Full & fierce & sharp & sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

So in peace our task we ply
Pangur Ban my cat & I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine & he has his.

Last night I discovered that an animated movie has been made about this monk, which is supposedly very good and which is not playing in my vicinity (The Secret of Kells). Which is too bad, as tomorrow is my birthday and I should have very much liked to see it…a movie with Pangur Ban and his monk. (On the movie’s website you can hear a little song about Pangur Ban.)

I’ve always thought I might name her Pangur Ban when I am able to have a cat again. In the meantime, I will just consider this: that it was my love for the first Pangur that made her so special. And that whether or not I am ever satisfied with the words I scribe, it is the love of the Lord God for me that makes me a delight.

Surviving Firsts

2010-04-03T18:38:00.002-05:00

I have survived several “firsts”. Yesterday I was happily minding my own business, reading on the loveseat in the upstairs office and sipping coffee, when it started sprinkling. Suddenly, the closest thing to a tornado I’ve ever seen came whooshing down, bending the trees sideways and making the air itself gray and difficult to see through because of the amount and speed of the water pounding through it. The noise of tree branches flying through the air began whacking the west side of the house, and I jumped to my feet, realizing the glass might shatter. A “micro-burst” imploded car windows at the Dunn Bros. Coffee shop, smashed Ian R.’s house with a tree, flung the 8-foot fence between our yard and the neighbors to the ground, and yes, knocked over the porta-potty at the Red Bridge Road construction site.

Forward-thinker that I am, instead of heading for the basement, I quickly changed from my pj’s into presentable outside-clothes. (Please don’t do the math, anyone who happens to live around here. Sometimes I write late, and rise late :) My reasoning was solid – sirens sound when a tornado is coming, and so until I heard them, I had time to dress. And one wouldn’t want to be found by rescue workers in one’s basement just in one’s jammies! Or have to run to help a neighbor in one’s robe!

Later, when Elizabeth called to make sure I was okay, and said that she and the kids had been huddled in the bathtub, and that their yard and greenhouse were decimated, and that YOU OFTEN CAN’T HEAR THE TORNADO SIRENS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD, I realized I had made, shall we say, a “poor choice”. Why, when I moved here, did no one tell me the wind would be louder than the sirens?!?

Anyway, “before they call, I will answer.” God said that, and always means what He says, so I was fine. Even when I happily tugged down the huge branch that was hanging from the electrical wires heading to the house.

I spent the whole day without power. Our house has tons of candles – which come in very handy in such situations – and a fireplace that works even when the electricity doesn’t. I couldn’t open the fridge though, or use the stove, or, with my car locked in the garage, do my needed grocery run, so I subsisted on chips until walking to Elizabeth’s for some take-out Chinese. Their pine tree has a rip in the earth forming a semi-circle around its root base. Another minute or so of that high wind, and it would have toppled. Our little few-block-area was the last to be re-lit. The power finally came on after I’d survived the evening, fortified myself against being alone all night in a dark house (with some me-and-a-guitar worship), and snuggled down into bed. Something disturbed me, and I opened my eyes to find all the lights in the house has suddenly turned back on. All.

I did get to spend the day writing a chapter of my next novel in longhand. It reminded me of Perpetua days. I wrote much of that book without a computer. And then I got to spend the evening realizing why people went blind in the olden days. Writing to the constant flicker of firelight is hard on the eyes.

The second “first”? In need of a kosher sweet wine for a Passover recipe I’m making tomorrow, I headed to World Market, thinking they might have something from Israel. Nope. Nor anything kosher. Sigh. Did they know where I might find that? Yes, indeed. And the very friendly wine-section-employee seemed to take great delight in describing to me in detailed, hushed terms – as if it was a secret between us – where exactly to find:

Lucas Liquor Superstore!

Argh! The closest I’ve ever come to setting foot in a liquor store was the Marine Corps Base Hawaii’s Marine Mart. The Exchange and the Commissary didn’t carry alcohol, but at the Marine Mart it unapologetically comprised half the stock. I once needed a burgundy cooking wine and had to wander its aisles in confusion for a very long time before finding some stuffed into a corner. Cooking wines are not a Marine staple, I gathered.

Anyway, sunglasses securely fastened, I texted a confession to my sisters (having to peek at the sign to remember how to spell ‘liquor’ – I kid you not) and marched myself into a liquor superstore. I’m sure I was blushing. In Chicago, those places are the seedy, gross doors you hurry past while trying not to see the people lingering inside. The windows are filthy inside and out, their neon signs blinking steadily come snow, rain, or heat. Drunks with paper sacks wander in their vicinity, and every customer disappearing through those doors brings a sigh of pity to your lips.

I sometimes get a little independent, and don’t ask for help. But this experience was like being ushered through a war-zone in a bubble. I wasn’t even through the sliding doors before I realized a man in a red shirt was walking toward me. “How are you?” he said. “Can you help me find something?” I answered, not missing a beat. “A kosher, sweet, red wine.” And we were off… It’s a good thing I asked, too. I have never seen a grocery-store sized warehouse stocked with only alcohol. Wow. At the far end of the last shelf he bent over and showed me a few bottles, muttering that he wasn’t very familiar with Passover wines. I lost all shopping skill, grabbed the two he’d pointed to though I only needed one, and said I would take both. Anything to get out as fast as I got in.

I instinctively held them out to him, hoping, I think, that like a clerk at a nice department store he would take them from my hands and carry them to the register for me. I didn’t want to walk back through those aisles holding bottles! But he just smiled, oblivious to my discomfort and happy to have helped the customer.

Seeing as I’d survived two firsts, I went for a third and finally returned the glass milk jars to Hyvee that have been clinking around in my trunk for months. Turns out, all you do is give them to a cashier.

On my way home, I discovered that apparently no one has had the guts to turn the Red Bridge porta-potty right-side-up again.

A Very Real Problem

2010-02-13T01:17:00.000-06:00

“Do not fear.”

How many times does the Lord say this? In both the Old and New Testaments, He takes pains to reiterate the point to the thousandth power. Do not be anxious. Do not fear.

It strikes me that He wouldn’t say such a thing if it weren’t true. While we intellectually assent, in our hearts we actually operate as if He’s giving us a platitude.

God: “Don’t be afraid, as it will just generally make life feel worse.”

Me: “But there is a flesh-eating monster coming at me.”

God: “Feeling anxious about it will just make your last moments alive stressful. Try to relax.”

I have to say, re-reading what I just wrote is making me laugh really, really hard. What a big, fat lie we have believed about God! Perhaps I should stop talking in the plural and just take responsibility for my own ridiculousness. What a lie I have believed about God.

Reality is more along the lines of a Mission Impossible movie, where the hero never dies or is defeated, no matter how many bullets he takes, and the girl is always saved.

If the Rescuer says not to fear, as the girl being rescued, the response that most accurately takes into account His undefeatable strength and His determination to save alive the one He loves, is for me to say, “Ok, I won’t be afraid.” Response number two would be to start training my eyes on Him while the flesh-eating monster charges, watching to see what adventurous plan and strength-requiring feat He will come up with to keep that monster from getting past Him to me. Because the fact is, He will come up with a plan – one that probably seems outlandish, too risky, potentially fatal, and requiring absolutely too much trust on my part.

Ahh, there’s the rub. Too much trust on my part. I recently read a book where the girl had to climb on the hero’s back and hold on while he lowered himself from a cathedral’s tower using only a thin rope. (I began to think she must have been a very small girl, and he a very strong man to manage such a thing. But that is the privilege of authors of fiction…being able to write, well – fiction!) Anyway, maybe a man couldn’t really do that. But if we were to think of God’s feats in our lives (be they physical or spiritual) in a physical picture, that would be a pretty accurate one.

God: “Hold on to me, while I do something impossible and hair-raising.”

Me: “You mean that flesh-eating monster isn’t going to get me? There’s only You and three feet between him and me.”

God: “Of course not. I told you not to be afraid of him, didn’t I?”

Someone once described fear to me as a tiny little demon in the dirt raising a big cloud of dust. I needed to stop believing what it said about how big it was.

But let me say this. Even if it’s a huge demon, or circumstance, or enemy…raising a very real problem…God is sure to win. We know it because He told us not to be afraid.

Is That What I'm Thinking?

2010-02-08T11:14:00.000-06:00

Someone is writing a biography about someone (I won't say who) and it has started me thinking...

I don't know how it is possible. Without being God, no one - even if they were to pour over my journals and novels and blogs and facebook posts, even were they to interview all my closest friends and sisters and relatives and roommates - no one would be able to actually perceive, much less understand, the inner workings of my heart or of my ongoing conversation with God.

I know this because I am barely capable of understanding myself, myself. And when God is completely gracious and gives a little word of enlightenment, my reaction is usually, "Oh! Is that what I'm thinking? Oh! Yes, I think it is!" (This is all very Biblical: Jer. 17:9; I Kings 8:39.) Added to that - the number of times I'm near a journal and have the time and umph to write said revelation down, is very few.

Then, when one IS journaling, the hand simply cannot keep up with the spirit and the mind, and ends up recording every tenth thought or so, so that there is no paper record of the split-second interactions with Jesus that brought one to Thought #10, then Thought #20. A biographer would be left to speculate in the worst of ways, devoid of most the pertinent information.

For all these reasons, I think it prudent to request - please do not write a biography of me when I'm dead. Thank you. Unless you're only interested in "on such-and-such a date she went to school; on such-and-such a date she went to China" and that sort of thing. Very boring, I warn you.

When I meet Perpetua in heaven (or on the Millennial earth, whichever one I end up in first) I am very glad that on the back of my little book about her is not the word "biography", but "historical fiction". I did my best by her, based on as much understanding as the Lord and nature would give me through her own writings, her political/geographical/economic context, and my own observances of how God works in hearts. But as far as writing a true biography, tracing the true movements of an individual human heart - I think only the Lord Himself is qualified to write that about any of us. This is why we may be often surprised when we meet our famous men during the eternal years and realize how very different they are than we thought. We might even discover that autobiographies are among the worst of the bunch for giving real insight into the person canvassed. For what man can know his own heart?

Rules of Civility

2010-02-05T20:09:00.000-06:00

I am going to start compiling a Rules of Civility. (Thanks, President Washington!)

Always thank the hostess. This is mostly for the men, who I am sure have never realized the sheer amount of labor that goes into the nice meal or dessert or event they just enjoyed. Sometimes it involves a whole day of cleaning, a few hours of getting to the grocery store and back, another hour of cooking, an additional hour or so of decorating, a half-hour of getting herself gussied up, and a few hours last week of thinking up the plan and sending out invitations to...you!

Always carry a very heavy Swiss Army Knife. And actually, this is mostly for the women, who never know when they may need to have a tiny pair of tweezers on hand for emergency eyebrow-plucking. And it works for fixing cars and turning screws and cutting boxes open and all sorts of other things. Mine even has a thin pen, and a corkscrew so small I'm not sure I'd ever be able to get the cork out anyway.

Never despise a gray hair. It probably means the one sporting it has survived life experiences you haven't yet.

Always thank the Lord if you enjoy something. We forget that He did it all, and that every good gift came from Him. When a beautiful sight spreads out before you, say "thank you"! When an artist comes up with a great melody and you just have to sing along, say "thank you"! I am NOT being religious. When your husband brings you flowers every Shabbat, you say "thank you", don't you?

Which, in turn, leads me to...

Always bring your wife flowers on Shabbat. No explanation needed.

Pasta Pick Up

2010-02-03T19:51:00.000-06:00

Have you ever played pick-up-sticks with angel hair pasta? I just did. Praise God for that scientific advancement: boiling things.

I have not been having great luck today with food. Although I did successfully doctor up a cup of decaf at the local coffee shop, I had flashes of imagining myself, the floor, and the condiment bar covered with milky brown liquid. Something in me knew, just knew, that today might not be the greatest non-klutz day.

A quick tortilla-with-cheese to tide me over until I could cook the meatballs ended in a very burnt quesadilla - which I only realized by the odd sound that started to fill the kitchen.

And then...then the almost-full but not-quite-as-unopened-as-I-thought box of angel hair ended up in a great crisscrossy pile on the kitchen floor. All I could do was laugh. And laugh. In fact, it was the most pleasing sight of the whole day. I am suddenly understanding one of the reasons babies make messes - and we thought it was underdeveloped dexterity!

I did throw out the very last handful I gathered - a nod to propriety. And now I am super-full from just a small bowl of meatballs w/pasta. Which, by the way, has been the state of my stomach (super-full from smallish meals) ever since I prayed against a demon of sugar on Sunday. No, I'm serious. (Repenting for gluttony of sugar accompanied the prayer, of course. Just thought you should know, in case you're planning to try it for yourself.)

One Way or Another?

2010-01-29T16:15:00.002-06:00

Snowing. Freezing. Driving?

No, I thought, I’ll just go to the Sun Fresh. It’s small and expensive, but the closest grocery store to my house. But there is only one road that goes from here to there, and when I got to the intersection, a white police van was blocking the way, lights flashing.

Wasteland to the right (well, a windy road that I have never followed to the end since it seems to lead past oddly populated ponds, electricity compounds, and graffiti’d underpasses). To the left – Walmart. A very far-away Walmart, when the snow is blowing and the roads treacherous.

To the left I went. Odd, how the Lord takes a day and flips it around on you, as if you’re not really the one in control. And odder still when you find that your heart just easily follows him, without the usual frustration over changed plans.

Besides the fact that I forgot to buy the chicken (a central ingredient when cooking Chicken-and-Wild-Rice for dinner guests), it turned out to be a very successful shopping venture. I recognized my check-out clerk as the same one who’d had a cold several months ago and who I’d said I’d pray for. (Not that she had asked, you know. But what can a clerk say if you offer to pray for them? The customer is always right.)

I asked if she was the one; she sort of laughed, obviously remembering it, and said yeah, and that she had felt a bit better. I’m a little slow on the draw sometimes (comes from having once been shy), and it wasn’t until I was already at the doors out that the Lord reminded me He had detoured me miles out of my way in order to re-meet her. So I abandoned my cart to a door attendant who said she’d look after it (she didn’t) and ran back to the counter, interrupting the next customer to reiterate to this young girl (in case she hadn’t already realized): the Lord LOVES you!

It was as I entered the doors of Starbucks down the road, not willing to brave the cold ride home without a latte, that I remembered the chicken. Too many cute men had smiled at me in Walmart – can I blame my memory lapse on that? So, armed with instructions from the barista on how to bake broccoli (with olive oil in a 375 oven for 15 min.), and yet another smile from a cute baristo (is that the male form of barista?), I headed off to Hyvee…where a very handsome butcher seemed quite keen on assisting me. The thing is – a butcher?! Remember Fiddler On the Roof?

Back to the moral.

1.) Don’t let men distract you from chicken.

2.) Watch for God – what seems like inconvenience to you might actually be an invitation to do some heavenly damage (good damage, I mean, to colds and sad hearts).

Uncanny Coughs and Messiah Moments

2009-11-29T21:38:00.002-06:00

There's one thing I'm sure of. As soon as the auditorium hushes, the first fiddle has sounded the note to which to tune, the conductor is applauded, and the music is about to start.....the air conditioning guy releases COUGH-inducing particles into the vents and lets 'er rip!

How else can the horrible and sudden need to cough (and cough violently) always happen (and ONLY happen) right when one is most supposed to be silent? It's uncanny.

There were actually quite a few uncanny moments at last night's Handel's Messiah. It started off with arriving at the auditorium and discovering it is part of a Mormon sect headquarters and right next to their huge temple, which is shaped like a giant slide from the steeple right down to the base--apparently Jesus is supposed to reign from there when He returns to Earth. Right there in Independence, MO. Who knew?

So we contemplated this lit-up oddity in the dark, with the full shining moon hanging up there, and prayed for the true God to bring light to these people stuck in such darkness.

The oddities didn't end there...

Two separate ushers looked at our tickets and "ushed" us, but it wasn't until we met the third, at the back row of seats, that we were told we were on the wrong level. When we did settle into our seats, and the lights were blinking and the doors were on the verge of being closed, a woman in a row in front of us ungraciously tells a group who want to get past her to their seats that they have to go back up, out the doors, and around to the other aisle, as she is not moving. Luckily, they were able to do it all before the doors actually were closed. I tried to dismiss her ungraciousness from my mind, along with my shock, and settle in to enjoy the evening. Not so fast...

Our group organizer and her daughter were a few moments late, and the doors shut them out. One of my seatmates saw them looking through the little window and, not acquainted with the etiquette of such productions, became very agitated, believing the door itself was locked and had to be opened from the inside. She figited and wiggled and wanted to get past me to the aisle to go open it for them, while I tried to explain in the nicest way possible (and the lowest possible whisper) that the ushers would let them in during a moment of applause, and that the door was not locked - she didn't need to go open it. It was a few very uncomfortable moments for me as I wondered how long I could hold her off. Meanwhile, in the background, the tenor is singing "Comfort ye my people." She is to be commended for her heartfelt concern for them, and so is the usher who - praise the Lord! - ended up bringing them in before the song was over. Whew!

So, I settle in again for a peaceful evening. Wait. Not only are the ushers bringing in random late-comers, a whole group is tenderly lowering a handicapped and blind man step by step to his seat in the 3rd row of the balcony. I watch, holding my breath as they go down each stair rise in the darkened balcony, until finally he is settled safely into his seat. This whole oratorio is about the coming of Christ, and I begin praying fervently that Jesus would soveriegnly heal this man's eyes as he listens to the scriptures ... "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; and they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined (Isaiah 9:2)." I start looking around the auditorium from our bird's eye view and realizing how many of these people do not know Jesus. Just as I begin praying for them all to see the Light, and a pause comes in the music so that all the auditorium is in a hushed silence, screaming cries pierce the cavernous room!

Two aisles to our left, right on level with us, repeated crys come - paniced, angry, and odd. The conductor froze. A half-dozen or so people jumped from their seats. Though I was looking right at the spot, I could not see who was in such horrible distress. Wendy, doctor-extraordinaire at my side, sat tensely, half out of her seat. But in a moment a woman came up for air, clutching her drink to her bosom. What sounded like a very verbal heart-attack turned out to be a fall down a step - and the victim had in the process somehow managed to keep her drink from spilling. Holding it close, and crying aloud "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she walked uninjured to her seat in the front row of the balcony, apparently (according to the good doctor) inebriated. That's a more hopeful conclusion than my own, which was that she might be psychotically unbalanced. I think you'd have to be either one or the other in order to repeatedly scream like that, over an extended number of seconds, while several thousand people gaped.

Satisfied that the scene was over, the conductor started things up again. But before long, another just as surprising - though not as disruptive - oddity graced the evening. The soprano. Oh, in the words of the man in the row ahead, she "hit it right on!" Not only that, but her whole body moved in sympathy with the words of scripture she sang, as she swayed and waved and jerked. Finally, as she ended with "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heav'nly Host praising God and saying," she threw her head back, inviting...and the huge choir mounted behind her broke into, "Glory to God in the highest." I could see her physically rejoice in the power of the noise of them praising God. She rejoiced as it swept against her back, in response to her song, and flowed out over the audience. She rejoiced as she stood there for a moment, swiming in the noise of the glory. She rejoiced as she took her seat and threw her head back again, like Eric Liddle as he ran, to listen to the multitude of voices praising God. It was stunning and particularly surprising in such a trained performer - especially compared to the carefully contained, stoic stance of the alto and the tenor.

That woman was a joy to watch the rest of the evening. But it broke my heart.

Her next air was spent entreating us to "rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion...behold, thy King cometh unto thee." How many times did she with great beauty and great fervency - of both body and voice - plead with these several thousand of us to "Rejoice!" Everything she had was put into this plea, this command, this entreaty. And we, oh we!, sat silently and deadened in our seats. When she had done and her last note had faded in the empty space, polite applause greeted her.

I began to imagine this song being sung on the New Earth. As she entreated, the saints would have risen to their feet - a wave of joy and dance would have spiraled among the thousands - a roar in unison would have greeted her last note... I hope she gets to sing it there, and to enjoy leading a company in the high worship of God!

I'm not even half through the evening, and as you can imagine the serendipitous events kept coming...but being more than half through this particular night, I will leave them to your imagination. If, though, you do decide to imagine, put in a cd of Handel's Messiah and imagine this -- what he wrote about, actually happening; the dear Messiah, actually returning; the trumpet sounding, the King reigning, the dead rising, and in your flesh-and-blood ... seeing HIM!

28 Days of Joy - Days into Weeks

2009-11-16T21:29:00.008-06:00

Oh dear - deepest apologies to all my blog-reading friends, as I seem to have left you out of the second half of my 28 days of joy. On the bright side, this is partially because so many good things were happening, I didn't have time to write. Of course, it is also because I spent a little time sick, a little time overwhelmed, a little time angry, and a little time figuring out all the deep stuff God's been doing - just to be honest.

For instance, on:

Day 13-19 - I spent all my free hours hanging out with my neice and nephew and their grandmother (except for one day I did take to write...but I chucked it for Chick-Fill-A at dinnertime). These children are endlessly amusing, and extremely high energy, and in the absense of their parents it was my job to relieve their grandmother as much as possible. Yep...not much writing got done that week, and no blogging, but I have lots of writing material out of it. Such as the new knowledge, supplied by Judah, that butzes and burps sound the same. (That was his reponse to my instruction that butzes should not be heard at the table. Apparently, if it sounds the same as a burp, he thinks it's legal. When did burps at the table become legal?) We took the kids to a harvest party at a local church; one was a pirate, one was a princess, and one a ballerina. No, I'm not the pirate. He's not pictured.

Day 19 - I was given an out-of-the-blue, two-part word at Shabbat dinner... 1. I'm a worshipper/musician (God keeps trying to remind me of this), and 2.) He actually, really, fully, deeply loves me. Yum. (Yum on the challah bread, too. I want to make some soon.)

Day 23 - my third nephew, John-Peter Wilberforce was born. (As his mother says, he's so cute he's kinda hard to take! though he looks a little concerned in this photos.)
Day 22-25 - I spent these days playing single-mom to my niece, Glorie, while her parents were busy about the business of birthing a son. We went to the hospital a few times, to get some holds in :) You can imagine the joy involved in all that! Odd, how joy often comes accompanied by sleeplessness, pull-ups, and an unending need for discipling children. But, as I put in my facebook status, none of that seems to matter when a little girl's hand slips gently into yours during the middle of closed eyes and a whispered Lord's Prayer. I almost died of love.

Day 22 - I got the longest love letter I will ever receive in my life (seriously, I have no doubt on this front) from a man who had never met me, only read my stuff. It was ridiculous, engendered many laughs, took me at least a half-hour to read, was full of overly romantic sentiments, and came my way from a far continent. However, it did pose a problem - how is one to respond to such a thing without breaking the heart involved? The easiest way would be no response at all, but my roomate admonished me that one must be careful "not to wound a man" - and no answer would be a harsh blow to someone who has handed me their heart on a platter. No response was sent that evening, however. It was just too much.

Day 23 - A little bit of affirmation made my heart glad :) Ah, the simplest things!

Day 25 - Got some prayer at the IHOP renewal (it's still going on, by the way) about a pretty deep issue. Spent a bunch of time during the service trying to remember which Psalm had the verse the Lord whispered to me (I don't tend to memorize the numbers, just the words, which can pose problems later on :) but finally gave up, only to have my friend turn to me to pray over me, pull out that very Psalm, and read it over me. Ahhh...beautiful.

Day 26-27 - Sick AND working. Bit of a bummer, that. But the work itself...God was there!

Day 27 - News from a beautiful friend that she will soon be engaged!

Wait, you say, you've left out all the bad days. That's because most of them turned out to be good!

Oh, ok.

On Day 22 I apologized to someone and was forgiven - see? Good.
On Day 24 I was mad and frustrated that I was mad, and tried to keep from getting bitter.
On Day 25 I confronted someone and knew I'd done the right thing.
On Day 26 that someone agreed that I'd done the right thing. See, again?
On Day 27 I watched the most time-wasting of a movie because I was so tired and sick. Yuck.

And on Day 28 I stayed home from church sick (ah, you think this is starting off in the bad-day list, don't you?!) and then bam! one-two-three God lined up row of stuff for me that took me from repentance, to encounter, to faith. And it all wrapped up at small group, falling in love again with the people Jesus loves.

Well now, there is a concise and very incomplete summation of the events (though not the substance) of the missing Days of Joy. Perhaps I'll have to just keep having more Days, as these ones have been pretty eventful. Even when they weren't "happy", they were good, because my great God was all intertwined in them with me.

That is by no means the last word on the 28 days...but it's the last word for tonight, as I'm tired!

Love to all,
Amy

28 Days of Joy -- Day 15

2009-11-02T22:27:00.003-06:00

I know that suffering for Jesus is super-hard, but I read Acts 5:41 this evening and was immediately sobered.

"And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name."

Dear, dear, dear. My little life has so many comforts, even in the midst of the great spiritual battles. Hard they are, yes, but no one is beating me, no one is arresting me, no one is throwing me into disease-ridden cells.

Am I not counted worthy?

I am not being facetious here, or hyperbolic; and I'm not trying to make a point. When will the church in America encounter physical opposition? When we do, I'm going to take it as a good sign. Not that dedication and persecution are causally linked (I can't remember the technical term, but you know what I mean). But power and persecution often are, I think! Once we get dangerous to the enemy's bottom line, the enemy ups his attentions. I don't want his attentions, but I do want to be counted worthy to suffer shame. (I guess that shame doesn't always have to be physical.)

The Lord did comfort me a bit with the reminder that time is a wider and less algebraic thing than I usually calculate. Perhaps I am worthy; that doesn't necessarily mean the "beatings" will happen today. Just eventually...

You've probably already guessed that I was reading my new VOM tonight. The back cover, with the photos of Marzieh and Maryam made me weep. I want to be counted worthy, but I also want every Christian to be rescued and spared the persecution they're under. Especially His women. Lord, make me worthy! But Lord, rescue your daughters!

28 Days of Joy -- Day 13

2009-10-31T13:18:00.002-05:00

I want to write.

But...

I hate isolation. I want a heart to be right in the middle of things.

So I end up sitting alone on a "writing night" and wondering if I'm doing the right thing...conflicted and torn. This is what I told Sally yesterday on the phone. Um, says she, this might be a novel idea, but what about just asking the Lord what He wants you to do with these chunks of time? Ah, yes, duh. Then if He says to write, I won't feel like I'm being isolationist in shutting the world out. And if He says to play (or relate) I won't feel guilty over time "wasted". I'll do it.

So I lay down by the fire last night, being pressed on by a multitude of very powerful, fruitless thoughts. And find myself interceding for a family I've not seen for a year. Each of them, each of them so important to the Lord - each of them, each of them with no knowledge of this fact. And at the end, when I get up to cook the beet harvest, I suddenly know: that's what He wanted me to do tonight.

That was Your agenda!

Neither writing nor playing. Praying. And every lying voice of worthlessness and waste had been silenced.

Yes, but only silenced about that hour, that night. For in my bed, late, instead of sleep came hopeless thoughts of a bleak future. One night can be led and redeemed - but can a whole lifetime, especially if that lifetime includes none of the comforts I've always craved?

Suddenly - strengthened by Sally, by a spirit activated through the earlier hour, by the intercession Jesus is making for me - I will not stand for this! And straight up I shot, yelling in my covers, waking the neighbors. I couldn't stay in bed. Pajama-clad and alone in the house, I went to war.

It's like using a machete in thistles without muscles trained to swing. It stings to confess, repent and rebuke strange entities you've never wanted to even acknowledge. Fear of being diminished, fear of having to do it alone, fear that the movement of God depends on how faithful I've been... All this that I've been operating under - all these things violently pressed upon me - required a violence of opposition, and boy did I give it. All the while knowing that 1.) my neighbors might brand me as the crazy girl who yells at night, and 2.) my emotions were not keeping up.

But, I thought to myself, Isn't that best? This is a spiritual transaction. The emotions are secondary. How odd it seemed, even to me in the middle of it, to see myself in a physical state of war and thundering, and for the source to not be in my soul. I was not yelling because I was riled up, but because my spirit would not stand for any more.

And then, ending, confronting the biggest and most hurtful poison of all, where I thought the most violence would be needed, came the Lord's wise and knowing change of tactic. While I renounced, He drew out the thorn gently like my Dad used to draw out my splinters. Splinters were always my father's job - and he loved pulling out his little tweezers, reassuring me, urging bravery, holding my hand still, and ridding me of the source of pain and infection. He would not stand for a splinter to stay, any more than he would stand for spider bites at night. I remember mornings when we found a bite on our legs - his determined tone, his serious eyebrows, the mattresses on their ends with the sheets ripped off. No spider is going to bite "my little girl".

Pull it out, I agreed with him breathlessly, hoarse. Gentle Father, original defender of my soul and my body, wise in the healing, able willing and knowledgeable to remove thorns and draw infection to the surface... Pull it out.

And I slept to dream of looking for food for my fat white childhood cat, determined to feed her tuna if I couldn't find anything else, aware of how devastating it would be to ever be parted from her. And I woke to remember that she had been dead many years, and that her absence was not at all painful. Not at all.

We may feel soul-tied to the lies that cradled us since our birth into this fallen world, but freedom from those lies will be, truly, freedom... I will not regret them, nor long for past chains. And neither will you.

28 Days of Joy -- Day 11

2009-10-29T22:36:00.003-05:00

Day 10 didn't have a blog because I (and my roommate - I had a partner in this scandal) stayed up past day 10 (let's just put it that way) to watch one of the Lord of the Ring movies. Do you know what my very first impression was, upon popping it in?

"Wendy, what bothers me about Frodo, the whole time, is that he has no joy!"

Seriously, by the middle of the 1st movie, aren't you starting to get sort of annoyed? And don't you kind of cringe inside every time the scenes return to the Frodo pov? It's like 2 1/2 movies of torture when it comes to Frodo. Sorrow, fear, disintegration, loss, damage...leading him to disunity with Samwise, an ear to believe lies, etc. Gee Whiz!

Frodo is NOT a type of Christians - let me just make that clear. At least, not of how the Lord Jesus designed. He came to give us life abundant, not life suffering under the great weight of the evil we have to fight.

Yes, we have to fight evil, but we can do it like a warrior glad to strap on his sword, or like Legolas happy to expend days upon days in running pursuit of saving his little friends...but not like a staggering hobbit full of constant mourning and defeat, and not like Eowyn fighting out of fear and frustration and her own personal strength.

In other great news,

I didn't burn the house down when I accidentally left the candles on all night,

and

I did just get to talk on the phone to my brother in Thailand, where he pulled into port! He was on his way to ride an elephant. Or an Oliphant, whichever you prefer :-)

28 Days of Joy -- Day 9

2009-10-27T21:52:00.003-05:00

Somehow, a bunch of days passed me by on this blog. Sorry about that. Sum them up? Well, a few were beautiful, one involved a burst of tears that was soon conquered by a choice for joy (hooray!), and another was a complete disaster (I won't tell you about it). Here are a few photos of a trip to a pumpkin patch with my family...

Oops, that's the corn part. Actually, I think the adults had as much fun in the corn maze as the kids did.

Which brings us up to date. Today, varied as it was, has ended oddly. I received a nasty email in response to something I'd written about marriage and the church and the enemy, in which I was accused of being out of touch, selfish, full of myself, and full of pride. The writer suggested I work on myself intensely for 3 months, but warned I may never get married.

Wow. Perhaps my response would have been different if a friend had said these things; when it is a stranger it seems much easier to be gracious and circumspect. I checked through the Proverbs first to remind myself of the Lord's advice about getting into arguments, remembered Mike's principle of blessing your enemies, and wrote this person back something short and sweet. Really: sweet. I hope it knocks their bitter socks off and opens a whole new door to the love of the Lord - but I don't really expect it. (Is that jaded of me?)

I don't expect it because it became obvious by the end of the email (partly due to the irrational nature of this person's anger and bitterness) that some major demonic strongholds are involved. It's going to take more than one kind response to bring those down...that takes power, repentance, submission to and reception of truth. But perhaps the kind word can kick-start the process...?

All-told, the incident mostly seems to me to be a direct assault - a cursing - on the joy and freedom the Lord is leading me into this month. In that light, I'm very glad to report that nothing inside is rattled - especially not my belief in God's goodness, His love for me, or His plans to give me fullness of joy and abundance of life.

And may He bless the writer of that email with the same things! Amen :)

28 Days of Joy -- Day 5

2009-10-23T23:38:00.002-05:00

For the last few days I have been in awe every time I've driven outside my neighborhood. I don't know exactly how He did it, but God has been intensely coloring the leaves around here until they are in a state beyond what is reasonable for fallen human beings to be seeing.

I screamed - half cry / half yell - on my way home from the store today, turned around in a stranger's driveway, and went back to the tree of FIRE I'd driven past along the side of Red Bridge Road. I know it wasn't my tree, but I had to stand under it, had to pick a few of its leaves.

Actually, I do know how He did it. I just don't know why. I think it might be for me.

Two weeks of unusually cold weather for October is "how". Sudden cold, instead of a slow cooling, means not just the sugar maples are crystallizing into fire-ridden oranges and yellow and reds. But oh-my-goodness, if that's what the other trees are doing, just try to get your mind around the sugar maples! I've never seen anything like it. Whether the light is diffused through miles of drizzly gray clouds, or is brilliantly shooting clean rays through their forms, the leaves are vibrant life.

It's been good, these days of intentional joy, to have the added help of a riotous, rejoicing earth. You know how the "heavens declare the glory of the Lord," ... well sometimes in a crisp fall, the heavens descend and hover near the grass, pulsating this declaration until all the life above ground either drops its leaves and dies, or having become saturated with His glory, begins radiating that glory itself.

The second-coldest October on record. Is that what it takes for the full potential of beauty to burst out, actuated? These trees all have the genes to turn such colors, but very rarely does their environment facilitate it. I have the spiritual genes for great things; should I be so surprised that the environment He provides to activate those genes is stronger than feels comfortable? Instead of mild and slow, prayers for real power and truth seem often answered by circumstances strong and pressing, sudden and inclement, dangerous precipitous and wrenching.

My heart was wrenched today for people close to me, and I felt sick in body over it. I had to be yesterday in a place where I was unsure of my safety, and I became a compulsive door-locker. But isn't God, who is greater than our hearts, also greater than physical circumstances? Indeed, He is. I have a little window into it already - I have already discovered how He keeps me safe, how He answers before I even know I need help: "before they call, I will answer". But I am convinced that my joy will not increase through knowledge of the specifics of His interventions. Those interventions open to me the discovery of His character, His person. And His person, Himself, is what will begin and supply and sustain my joy. And that is why it is a joy that cannot be taken away from me.

28 Days of Joy -- Day 3 -- Steady

2009-10-21T22:04:00.002-05:00

Ever notice how constantly counterfeited real joy is? My imagination can conjure up a form of "joy", but the real thing is way harder to get a hold of.

That feeling of excitement and anticipation - whether before a big event or a little moment - masquerades as it, until that moment is gone and a sort of blank feeling comes over you. I think we've all felt that - the movie is over and the girls' night is done; Sunday evening is gone and tomorrow is work; the ice-cream in the bowl is finished; Christmas Day is past and all the family have left. Our souls grasp, repeatedly, for the elation of happiness, and are repeatedly at a loss when what had been providing it is suddenly absent - and along with it, our joy.

Or, what we thought was joy.

The thing is, if it leaves like that, it probably wasn't real to begin with. Or it was very, very weak. That's not what I want. I want an abiding joy that extends way past the day all the family leaves town, or the moment the big event is over, or the last chord of Sunday-morning worship has reverberated and faded and we all sit down. No, joy is the steady. Happiness is the intermittent, the fading-and-returning.

I'm choosing steady.

28 Days of Joy -- Day 2

2009-10-20T23:12:00.003-05:00

Well, I know that joy is very different from happiness, and that it isn't measured by the number of things we have to be thankful for, or even produced by rehearsing those things. But still, I decided that was a very good place to start this morning. And so I tried to list stuff off in my mind, but all I could think about was how much I didn't like the task I was doing at that moment.

Ahhh... Eventually, after several minutes of this (actually, at least a half-hour) I suddenly came to myself, checked my emotional state, and discovered the opposite of joy :( A whole bunch of feeling sad and frustrated was all that was there.

Wait a minute! This is exactly what I'm drawing a line in the sand AGAINST.

And so, I chucked the list of "I'm thankful for" and began remembering that Brother Lawrence washed dirty dishes his whole life, and lived in the very presence of God; that dear brothers and sisters across the ages and in oppressed countries have labored on and on in squalid conditions, and have been full of joy.

"Even if I had absolutely no reasonable hope of ever being 'happy' before I die," I told the Lord, "I would choose to rejoice in You." Much better than a list of reasons I currently have to be thankful. (Not that I shouldn't remember those things, or thank Him for them...just that I want to separate the reality of joy from the fetters of physical and emotional props.) And how many of you knew props could actually be fetters? :)

So, my heart did change somewhat. At least, I think it must have, as the succeeding blows of the day didn't feel as "blow-ish". When it turned out the chiropractor I want to see charges more than half my month's earnings; when the insurance lady who holds the fate of my little couch in her hands didn't call me back... Mind you, I'm not complaining - I'm rejoicing! These things didn't make me feel yucky. (Well, they tried initially, but I resisted.)

And then, I proceeded to write a great little scene - God's grace was on it.
And then, I was informed I would not have to do that particular task as often.
And then, I managed to follow along in dance class even though I'd missed last week.

So I ended up with some very good things (there are a few more I didn't mention) to add to the "I'm thankful" list. However, the joy didn't start there. It starts someplace very different, I think. It starts in the person of Jesus Himself.

Oh, and my housemate popped her head in and reminded me that Jesus wants our joy to be complete. Complete! Yep, that's what I want, too. COMPLETE!

28 Days of Joy

2009-10-19T22:04:00.002-05:00

The other night I could not sleep. Pressing down on me, a massive, immobilizing weight, were all the things I had to be anxious and sad over. It has been said that the artistic temperament (which I don’t think I have) tends toward angst, but that has always been an ill-hidden and blatant strategy of the enemy’s, designed to draw people like me into deep mires of oppression and confusion. I finally turned the light back on, reached for Habakkuk and re-read the portion God had led me to the previous day.

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

GOD, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the deer's;

he makes me tread on my high places.

(Hab 3:17-19)

It was that little middle part, the one I’ve highlighted, that suddenly struck me with such clarity. I was granted, simply put, revelation. You know those moments when the Holy Spirit has (very graciously) made it all very black-and-white, very easy to understand? Something in the scripture that has been staring me in the face for decades, and that every once in a while I’ve grasped only to loose, finally stood straight up and demanded a decision.

The question is not whether I am or am not currently experiencing some sort of loss or delay. Nor is the question whether I will eventually be happy (we all know I will, when heaven comes to earth or Amy comes to heaven). The question is what will I choose today? It turns out, I have the right to choose joy. It turns out, joy is the portion promised to me. It turns out, that if I decide to reject joy, or not engage in the pursuit of joy, I will have submitted myself to a double loss, an unnecessary loss – one that could truly be called a tragedy because its opposite was fully within my grasp.

Something deep shifted, and all emotion stood far off, as I stared a simple decision in the face and told the Lord that I chose to rejoice in Him.

I immediately decided to thank Him for anything that came to mind. After a few minutes (and a bunny-trail adventure of having to squish my first cricket – because, well, it was hopping around in the bathroom at night…I apologized to the Lord first and got a very thick shoe to use so I wouldn’t feel its substance) … after getting through only about 5 items of thanks, I fell asleep.

The next day, the Lord had orchestrated that people very dear to me came to pray. There are definitely prophets among us, and these called right out that I was living under a spirit of fear and loss and sorrow, and that the fight against these things was “the fight of my life”. They are right. At the end of our time I pulled out Habakkuk (everybody loves that guy!) and we agreed that the road of joy is one rarely discerned or chosen amongst believers. A powerful time of intercession sealed the deal and dealt with a lot of the power these spirits had, but it is my job before the Lord now to consistently choose His way (of joy) instead of the old way.

And so, I have an invitation. I’m in receipt of one, I mean. To spend each day of the next four weeks fighting for joy – against fear and all its constant companions, like sorrow and loss (which make themselves seem oh-so-spiritual in our Christian circles).

I don’t know quite how it will go, but since our personal “un-restoration” (if I can coin such a term) actually affects all those around us whether we realize it or not, and so, conversely, does our restoration, I want to make these days of joy public. So I extend back to you the invitation I received. Join me in the journey of joy (oh boy…that’s just WAY too much alliteration). Let’s see what God does!

Lord, make the deception of fear utterly apparent to us, give us strength in the inner man to do the opposite of what we have spent our lives training our souls toward, and remove the pretend spirituality of sorrow, angst, isolation, introspection, and self-preoccupation. Teach us to choose the inheritance You’ve offered – joy.

The Whole Story

2009-07-31T10:41:00.003-05:00

Some of my favorite things to read are the Old Testament passages where the Lord starts off explaining the wickedness of those who have not sought Him, the destruction He will bring because of it, and then the absolute grace and mercy He will pour out on the very same people who rejected Him. Zephaniah is like this -- the whole book is just three chapters long; it begins "I will utterly consume everything from the face of the land," and by the end a "meek and humble people" are trusting in the Lord.

I love seeing the whole picture (which is why when I sit down to read the Old Testament, I'm lost to the world for a good chunk of time). And the "whole picture" usually follows the same pattern:

a.) wicked & rebellious us
b.) holy and just God
c.) unmerited favor/rescue/grace from His Hand

Oh, and then of course,

d.) happy us

Usually the fact that God is jealous comes up somewhere there in the middle. This struck me again today in Zeph 3:8. "All the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My jealousy." Immediately after starts the beautiful ending song, where He gives us a pure language, takes away our pride and shame, and brings great rejoicing. "He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."

I remember hearing Oprah describe how she began her descent away from God. She was sitting in church, and the very animated preacher declared that God was a "jealous God". Offense and unbelief entered, and she turned away from Him. It is epically tragic, to the point of poetic irony, that the very phrase describing the extent of the astounding personal love God has for us should be understood by her (and so many) as the utterly opposite emotion, one of selfish violence. Good being spoken of as evil -- the predictable, and all-too-often-effective, tactic of Satan in his campaign against God.

But for such a thing - such a trick! - to lead to the unleashing of the most extensive and powerful harlot spirit in centuries, as it has with Oprah! (Where is Tolstoy when we need him?) Is that it? Can Satan manipulating semantics among people who don't read the whole story really be the tipping point on the world's journey into moral relativism, secular humanism, and the end of the age?

It was already there. The whisper, as horrible a thing as it was referring to, was yet assuring. The anger at God, the rebellion, the sin leaving one open to offense...these things are already existent in a heart that looks to observers like it was suddenly, without warning, smashed by as light a thing as a misunderstood meaning. No, none of it is the fault of semantics. At root, already there, making the heart ripe for such reaping, is demonic wisdom and human pride that have combined to build vast complexes of empty heartroom just waiting to be filled with the anti-Jesus spirit.

(Gulp of air)

Those are my Zephaniah thoughts for the day! Thanking Jesus for His mercy to even grant us humble and pliable hearts, and for promising in the end that we "shall no longer be haughty in My holy mountain," I shall move on to my next task for the day -- cleaning the windows! (Those bothersome spiderwebs shall finally, thoroughly, be demolished.)

A New Feeling

2009-07-28T17:36:00.003-05:00

I met a man yesterday who dwarfed me. I am not exaggerating. I felt, for the first time, what it is like to be petite. One doesn't like to ask intrusive questions, but oh how I longed to know what his genetic heritage was... Finnish, Norwegian, Nephilim...? But I only longed for that after I'd left his house. While in this man's presence I was, well, stunned into silence.

In my long-frustrated search to find an armoire to hide the tv (no one likes to acknowledge they have a tv in the house -- best to cover it up) I've met many an interesting person. But Joe took the prize. A sorrowful sort of soul, who seemed to have five grandkids but no wife, he was not in the least disproportionate. In fact, driving up and seeing him in front of his house, he looked like a regular 6 foot-ish man. But then one got out of the car, walked closer, and his size didn't diminish but grow.

You may think I'm being ridiculous, but I cannot emphasize this enough. I, all 5'11" of me, felt very, very small. I'm sure I've met super-tall men before, but they must have been tall and skinny, not perfectly proportional. On the way home I commented to Annie that perhaps there was a good reason the Vikings were vikings.

Very interesting. I think I now know how pretty little asian ladies feel standing beside American, milk-fed men.

The Best Beans, Please

2009-07-25T21:47:00.003-05:00

"Will the New Earth have fewer resources for human enjoyment than Eden did or than the world under the Curse offers? If you're tempted to say, 'But in Heaven our minds will be on spiritual things, not coffee,' your Christoplatonism detector should go off. It's fine if you don't like coffee, but to suggest that coffee is inherently unspiritual is...well, heresy."
-Randy Alcorn, Heaven

This made me smile. I'm loving Randy's book; sometimes he just tells the truth in spite of the hair-raised yowl it generates in our religiosity-loving souls.

No yowl this evening. I have often said that in Heaven the promises of smell will finally be fully manifest in taste. Coffee, specifically, has always been my example. Can you imagine if it were to actually taste as delightful as it smells? I've always somehow been sure that it will, without having ever definitively said to myself, "we will drink coffee in Heaven."

But Randy lays it out on the table, giving a whole little 2-page section to the question: "Will We Drink Coffee In Heaven?" He's addressing a much wider question, of course, but what me made me smile so was its appropriateness to my evening.

Yesterday I ran out of coffee and, happy with my new Costco card, gleefully bought a huge bag of replacement stuff. Dunkin Donuts. One problem - I discovered this morning. The kind I used to drink at Sally's house and loved was a different blend, a dark roast. The brew I made this morning, to my horror, I hated.

Enter Jesus. Yes, carrying coffee.

Anniebugs, who has been dilligently saving her pennies to buy the food for a bbq she was throwing her worship team tonight at my house, and who thus has NOT been buying any coffees or lunches or extras... showed up this morning to pick me up for a trip to the market WITH AN ICED COFFEE for me in hand. I guess it was celebration day :)

"So, a morning coffee from Jesus, eh?" you say, still slightly skeptical.

"Yes," I reply, "and another month's supply, too, this evening!"

Ryan and Betty, whom I'd never met until this evening, arrived for the bbq with supplies in hand for the making of iced coffee. Supplies they intended to leave, as Ryan has completely renounced coffee & caffeine (as of 5 days ago). An extra-big, unopened bag of Starbucks beans now sits on the shelf above the coffee-maker, along with a collection of intriguing individual serving packages of a Korean speciality coffee you just mix with water - milk and sugar already included. He and Tim both said it's great stuff.

Hmm... Jesus? Why do You sometimes just come out of the blue and treat something so inconsequential with such care? I know it's not about coffee itself, although it is certainly fun to have Your stamp of approval on enjoying a particular taste. (I guess if You distinguish between poor and good wines, and between regular meats and "the best of meats" Is 25:6, its outlandish for me to think You don't discern the taste difference between mediocre and excellent coffees.) But in the middle of the coffee-fun you're saying several important things:

1. Your love is not generic, but of specificity toward me, including all the ways a lover would be aware of the loved -- of her tastes, of her likes, and of how to care for her.

2. Nor is Your love passive. You don't sit back, point out to Your Father how we serve and love You, but never respond directly to us. You are such a responder -- vigorously, sincerely, joyfully -- to every little move of our heart. And sometimes You decide to make it impossible for us to miss that fact!

3. Our religous ideas get in the way of reality - Your reality. Yes, we'll have resurrection bodies. Yes, everything You made is good. Yes, the delights You designed for us are not sinful. Thus Randy accuses almost the entire Protestant population of heresy -- lightheartedly and accurately! It's the old difference between sacrifice (deciding to give You what sounds super-holy and self-sacrificing of us) and obedience (believing You enough to actually act on what YOU SAY, not on what we imagine You must want).

Oh boy...Heaven does not fall into the "sacrifice" category, but the "obedience" one -- happy souls, us, who are destined to obey the truths that emerge when the most powerful and loving Being ever, has focused His heart on loving us well!

Some unimaginable things await -- a New Earth, new waterfalls, new shorelines, [insert here, when one has a few extra eons, several 700-page volumes of all that He's designed], imperishable bodies to enjoy them with, and the real Man Jesus at whose side to explore them all. It's excessively more than I could ask or think.

(Oh, and along with it, every few days, a coffee date with God. Only the best beans, please, and some raw cream to smooth the taste!)

Tactic: The Slow Wean

2009-07-16T11:25:00.004-05:00

I sat down in my morning room yesterday, Bible in lap, and discovered something I'd forgotten. When I am sick (head throbbingly sick), the usual resistances my soul seems to develop to the presence of God just sort of melt away. A.) I don't know WHY my soul would build invisible little walls against Him whom I love so much, and B.) It's odd that sickness would dismantle them, but there it is. What He had to say, simple little verses, seemed to go straight in. I love the feeling of just being able to quickly, easily, and transformingly believe the words of His mouth. Love it!

This is in stark contrast to what the enemy has been doing around here lately, though I've only just realized it today, while sitting in the same morning room chair, with the same Bible atop the ottoman in front of me. One of my dearlings has been recently telling me about her battle with a constant sense of sin. As we dismantled the feelings and actions involved, I concluded she was under a sense of condemnation, not conviction. That conversation reoccured to me when I plopped into my chair this morning and opened the Word with a feeling that I should apologize to God.

Apologize??

"Apologize" is a very different thing than "repent". To repent is a relieving and cleansing activity; and at the end all sense of guilt is gone, replaced with a floaty, clear, almost memory-less sort of attraction to the lap of the Father. But to apologize...

Apologies can be vague, general approaches to smoothing over some rough spot in relationship, or an ongoing personality issue that causes friction. They often come and go with no actual release from guilt. What, I asked myself, do I have this impulse to apologize over?

I stayed up later than I should have for the health of my body last night.
I don't feel I accomplished as much as I needed to @ work yesterday.
I'm still in my pajamas at 9 am, since I'm home sick today.

Wait a minute. None of these are sins, and they're certainly not things the Holy Spirit is actually convicting me to repent of! And yet they'd pressed on me a vague and general sense that I was bad. Condemnation, loud and clear. And yet so subersive and hidden.

It's that always-sense of not having done quite enough, of not being as devoted or systematic in prayer as one should be, of disappointing Him in multiple little things, and of having "missed the mark." I've never liked that summer-camp description of sin: "missing the mark". In one fell swoop enter elements of perfectionism and human striving, now deeply mixed in adolescent psyches with the concepts of actual sin and rebellion. No, "not being good enough" is not a sin to repent of; "not hitting the bull's eye perfectly" is not rebellion. (I know; I just tried a game of darts and failed utterly at it.)

Now, not everyone deals with huge amounts of condemnation, but I think it is more common than we normally observe. Particularly here at IHOP, where devotion and holiness are so sought after, the spirit of condmenation is one of Satan's giants, sent regularly against this camp and "entrenched" to a certain degree. I'm not soft on sin by any means, and I'm quick - sometimes disturbingly quick - to call for repentance. Undealtwith, habitual sin is a gangrene, keeping one from holiness and joy, and spreading destruction to other parts of the body. It must be mercilessly uprooted with the same right determination as a sheep farmer who shoots the wild dogs killing the lambs.

But that is for sin! This general feeling of not being full-force enough, not aromatic enough for God, is condemnation, not sin, and is designed to slowly wean us from the presence of God. The dearling I mentioned before could not rest in God through an entire two hours in the prayer room because she was constantly wondering if she was walking in some sort of rebellion and if that would then keep God from meeting with her there or honoring her seeking of Him...

Let our ruthless war against sin also be a war against condemnation; and may the Lord Jesus win both!

(Disclaimer...I'm not sure of the policy on using photos from the internet. The one above is linked from its original spot, and I think that's legal. If not...apologies - and compliments - to the photographer! It reminds me of how it feels to talk with God after a real bout of repentance. It's a very different feeling than lingering condemnation. If you don't feel like this photo after you've repented of a sin, it's time to go to war against condemnation! :)

Rendering

2009-06-25T21:51:00.003-05:00

At Jim and Anna's yesterday before lunch I blatantly admitted my plan to my hostess as I walked toward her back door. "I'm going to indulge in some garden jealousy." Problem was, when I got outside and actually beheld the garden, my joke turned into reality. Perfect, weedless rows. Plants that would tower over mine... I bent down to pick the needed cilantro and began singing my favorite song, just the chorus, which goes like this: "I repent. Open the eyes of my heart. I repent..."

I have a little bit of blog envy going on too. (I repent.) Annie-bug's blog constantly stays nicely updated. It seems one has the most to say when the most is happening, but that is when the least time is available to say it in. And so, during the last few weeks, my blog has been utterly silent exactly because I have so much to say. Counter-intuitive, eh?

Here's one of the things I have to say: I'm going to let $75 settle down into the dust, and I refuse to pursue its resurrection. Today was another lesson in dividing the heart from the things of this world. And at the end of it all, I decided to do what, for me, is opposite my natural instincts.

I spent $3.30 on an iced coffee to celebrate a $500 blow to my bank account. Wait--I can explain!

It's car-registration time in Missouri, which also happens to be the land of "personal property tax", a yearly tax assessed on depreciable items like cars. Crazy to begin with. I braced for the ordeal in the morning, then headed out to get my car inspected (who knows what hundreds of dollars the mechanics might find in "needed" repairs) and a property tax paper stating I didn't owe any tax, before going to actually get the new plates.

I prayed for favor, followed Lance's advice to "dress nice", and discovered the only things wrong with my car were a bad brake light bulb and a wiggly wiperblade. All told, the "repairs" only cost me $11.00 in parts, since the mechanic smiled, held a "shh" finger to his lips, and charged me nothing for the labor. First hurdle jumped (although I did wonder what he expected from me...and began to pray that the Lord would let me someday see a man be super-kind to an ugly woman--now that would be beautiful. does anyone know? what do men expect when they do something nice like that? they know they're never going to see the girl again, don't they?).

Anyway, on to the personal property tax people, where I was stridently informed that because I had never registered my car in another state, even when I moved away from Missouri, I owed taxes as if I had been living in state. On top of that, though a tax bill had never been sent to me, I owed penalties and interest for being late! I have no problem with paying the taxes...if that's the law, that's the law (as I said to lady behind the counter, "render unto Caesar..." I don't think she recognized the reference). But to pay late penalties on a bill they admit they never issued me, now that seems a bit outrageous.

Outrageous or not, by the time I got home I was $490 dollars poorer. And so I celebrated. Again -- I can explain. There is a caveat to this story:

Several months ago the Federal government had sent me a letter saying "we think we owe you more money on your tax return...please fill out this form." Shocked and fully believing they were 100% misguided, I filled it out and sent it back in. Then several weeks ago, I got a check in the mail for $450. It wasn't until a day later (and multiple conversations with Wendy in which I declared that I'd already been given my tax return and that I had to call the IRS because this money obviously belonged to a different Amy Peterson) that I remembered that little form I had filled out. Wow. At about the same time, the car-registration notice arrived in the mail and a little feeling began to form in my gut...

God had given me money ahead of time to pay the taxes I would probably owe.

Wendy insisted it was for me to buy a digital camera (at least one of my blog-readers has noticed the dearth of photos herein), but something told me otherwise...a "something" which was proved right today.

Remember how, along with telling people to "render until Caesar that which is Caesar and unto God that which is God's," Jesus also sent Peter off to find a particular little fish that was swimming about with gold-coin-provision in its mouth? He did that for me today! I guess the money was Caesar's, but God provided it for me (and from another Caesar, to boot)! Hooray! ... Well, at least some of it was Caesar's. I could really take issue with that $75 worth of penalties, and I have the address where I'm supposed to go to plead the case with the higher-ups. But being tired in general, I'm tired of such things. I'm tired of fighting my own fights. Let God fight them. I'm tired of wanting my own way. Let God choose circumstances. I'm tired of thinking I know the best way for it all to come together. Let God make His plans. And even (gasp) when it comes to injustices, I have lost the need for them to be righted here on the unredeemed earth. They will all be righted, and righted in a much better way than I could currently bring about in this world. I'm ok with waiting a bit for that "righting". So, go down to the dust, seventy-five dollars! I don't want you! I want a heart that longs for Jesus Himself instead of for my own rights, and for His heart to beat inside of me instead of for my own self to stay alive. Money-shmoney, as my sister would say.

So, I did what is foreign to me (the spending of any money at all is generally foreign to me, as my family and friends will attest), and celebrated God's ahead-of-time-goodness by splurging on an iced coffee at Higher Grounds today with Annie and Glorie (MissBe got strawberry milk, of course). Because I've noticed something else -- God's celebrations in the scriptures always seem to involve feasting. And what better way for me to feast than by pounding the final nail into the coffin containing the idolization of money?

I'm sorry there are still no photos in this blog, but I trust you'll agree with me, the gold was for Caesar. (Now if I can only remember to actually screw the new plates on the car before the old ones expire... :)

Sovereign Tar and a Photo Update

2009-05-22T21:01:00.006-05:00

Sometimes I wish I was Flo B., who seems to understand the significance of every serendipitous circumstance. For instance, I had an errand today in Westport –

[ASIDE: Fun to have an errand in Westport on a sunny day, eh? Though, I did have the embarrassment of lugging 4 boxes of CDs in and out of two used-CD stores, having most of them rejected because they were “Christian” bands that wouldn’t really sell. Oh, and one of the guys told me I should try “White Light” bookstore, as it was Christian and everyone walking in there would be a ready customer for such CDs. – They were all very nice about it. Only in retrospect did I realized they were all probably shaking their heads as I walked out, still lugging the boxes, saying, “poor pretty Christian girl.” – So I called Anniebugs to do a quick google for me, just for the phone number of White Light, and she says, “Uh, uh…um it says ‘White Light New Age Books and Crystals and Astrology in Kansas City.’ Uh…” Nix on that idea. But that guy was perfectly sincere. He thought Christian and “spiritual” were one and the same! Annie did find two actual Christian stores for me to call, neither of which could help, but that were so nice that when I hung up and started the car going, I sang a little ditty to God about how much I liked His people. His people are nice!]

So, back to the Errand. Oh, we’ve already covered that. Back to the circumstances that need Flo’s interpretation. I left the last CD store to drive home, and along the nicely sculpted stretch between Westport and the Plaza I hear, “thump! thump! thump!” Exactly the sound and feel of a flat tire. So I put on the hazards, pull to the NO-PARKING side, and investigate. My first thought was, “Can this really happen to a wheel?” for it one-fifth of it was an exploded mass of gooey black rubber. (It’s hot here now, but not that hot.) My second thought was that I had just bought those tires. My third, based on the incredulity the second thought had brought, was that perhaps it wasn’t my tire after all, but a mass of tar ON my tire. I snapped a dead branch off a tree, started poking around, and lo-and-behold, thought number three won the day!

Meanwhile (and here’s a glimpse for you into the way females think) I was wondering if someone cute was going to stop and help. After all, my hazards were on, and I was in a nice part of town, wearing cute Capris, sparkly earrings, and stylish sunglasses perched on the crown of my head. And then I was wondering if this all was a plan that God had up His sleeve. And if someday I would laugh with Him over the fortuitous (providential) mass of tar that had glommed onto my wheel on just that day in just that spot. Then, a weird man wearing his helmet on his motorbike rattled past me on the sidewalk and I jumped from surprise (the tar, combined with my thoughts, was rather engrossing) and immediately rebuked myself for trying to read eternal significance into circumstance. (By the way, he had the gall to look at me as if I was the weird one. I guess it was a no-parking zone, Mister Motorbike-on-the-Sidewalk.)

After some work I pulled the mass of tar off with the dead branch, wiped my fingers on the grass, and got on my way once again. At the end of the road I pulled into the left-hand-turn lane as the light changed to red. My eyes wandered. A middle-aged man in white suddenly jumped into action, waving wildly at a taxi cab and running into the street to catch it. As he did, the badge attached to his shirt pocket flew to the ground. I’m not sure what conversation was had with that driver, who stopped – probably directions. Anyway, as the man returned to his little family group I could see he had not noticed the fallen ID.

I stuck my arm out of my window and yelled: “Your name badge!”

He looked surprisedly in my direction. Who was the girl in the car yelling at? Wasn’t this nice Kansas City, MO?

“Your name badge,” I yelled louder, pointing toward the gutter with my whole arm. “It fell.”

Well, the man retrieved it, a police car came screaming through the intersection (2^nd of the day) and… well… I wish I could tell you that I’d somehow saved his life by being in that place at that time and keeping him from crossing in front of the police car or something. But I didn’t.

(Here is where my thought turned to Flo.) Perhaps, later today, he will desperately need that name badge. He’ll be late to work, and he works in a top secret laboratory, and he’ll need to get information to the governor asap, but if he didn’t have his ID he wouldn’t be able to access it (KC is a little behind the times and doesn’t have retinal IDs yet).

Sigh. Probably not. But perhaps at the end of the day, God will have spared him 10 moments of aggravation and a $5 fee for replacing his work ID. I don’t know. Whatever it was, it was worth being delayed by a mass of tar, I’m sure.

In other news…

The peonies have bent under their weight of glory

The foundation of the house has turned into a bower

The lettuces are as tall as kings (well, two inches is a lot compared to how they used to look)

The beets need to be thinned

The snow peas are exploding toward the sky

And Wendy and I drove OJ’s truck towing the biggest UHaul trailer money can rent, and brought my furniture down from Chicago.

I’ve officially moved to KC!

"She's Fighting Back"

2009-05-11T21:40:00.002-05:00

I’m writing. I meant to clean the kitchen for this hour before bed, but something just happened … and I forcefully changed my mind.

It’s my way of walking in the opposite spirit.

Oddly, I have realized over a number of years that the enemy attacks my fingers and hands when I am writing. Even, sometimes, when I’m just thinking about writing. I guess he doesn’t like what happens when I write (which I find slightly encouraging, actually). It happens too often for me to remember all the instances. But it has become unmistakable.

A new friend asked me an hour ago what projects I was currently working on. I told her a little bit, and my heart began yearning to write, to write.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when, turning to run down the stairs, I whacked my hand against the point of the banister, right on top of the very spot I had hit it on Saturday and had developed a bruise.

I knew immediately what was going on. I should have directly rebuked the activity of the enemy, but this time I sat down on the step and cried—partially because it hurt so much, but mostly because being physically harassed is not a pleasant experience. (Now understand, I am not saying that every little cut or bruise we receive is a direct product of demonic activity. Please don’t imagine that!) It’s fine to express some emotion in a few tears, but that can’t be the end of the story. It certainly wasn’t going to be the end of tonight’s story!

So, though I have no specific soapbox to get on tonight, I decided to write this little blog. Just to thwart and frustrate that attempt at silencing me, that anger at my vocalizing of God’s works. I will not pull back from doing the things of God because it hurts or puts me at risk. That’s what I mean by walking in the opposite spirit. So what if I’m harassed, so what if I’m attacked? May it spur me on even further, rather than cause me to falter!

I write with ice on my hand and a decided bump underneath the ice. But I write happily. God wins! My roommate just summed it up nicely: "She's fighting back!"

Torturing Her Puppy

2009-05-07T00:07:00.002-05:00

I'm starting to write a weekly blog for Exodus Cry, an organization based at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City and focused on raising up a prayer movement to abolish human trafficking. As they say, we can raise all the awareness we want, but unless angels and demons move, nothing will change. This means prayer is the first and most important ingredient of action.

Check out my new post, Torturing Her Puppy.

You can commit on the site to pray, fast and give toward ending slavery in a nation God puts on your heart.

Sobering

2009-04-27T13:56:00.003-05:00

You have to read my sister's blog on population decline and the purposes of God. She has dug and dug, and finally grasped the splinter with the tweezers and pulled it to the surface for us to see. This issue isn't the size of a splinter, but finding out the truth of it is like that searching dig, as the enemy has done his very best to keep it buried and hidden.

http://ojandsuz.com/2009/just-how-wrong-can-prevailing-theory-be/

Sobering.

Person-to-Person

2009-04-21T21:06:00.000-05:00

Cleaning the house almost pushes me to socialism. Almost. I quickly revert to the safer, saner waters of capitalism. Neither, however, seem to be God’s solution.

It’s just, why does each house have the same stuff, which all must be bought, and then which all must be cleaned…over and over and over? Ten sets of pots are being washed up and down our street every day, not to mention ten floors vacuumed and ten bathrooms scrubbed and so forth…

Then sanity brings to mind a picture of what it would be like if there was only one set of pots, and one kitchen, for all the ten households-worth of people on said street. Awful. Multiply that by tens of thousands of awfulnesses and you get gray places like the former USSR, North Korea, etc.

But the reason socialism (the full expression of which is communism) is so wrong actually isn’t the poverty, corruption, and oppression it breeds. It’s the collectiveness of persons, a collectiveness which strips individuality and the human dignity of having been created in the image of God – created as, yes, a person. God, actually, is a far more individual God than most religious folks imagine. As my father began to say during my growing-up years, “Love is person-to-person.” He was referring to God, to God’s love for us, and therefore our love for each other. True love is not a blanket feeling for a large, faceless group. It is a specific feeling for a particular person or people.

A person-to-person relationship enjoys each individual as such – an individual. It expresses itself in appreciating, gaining from, and celebrating that individual’s facets … most of which are very different from the person next to them.

This is why we love each other dearly, but we live as neighbors and not collectives. It’s because God loves us person-to-person. He loves our tastes, which are vastly different from each other, especially when it comes to food and home décor. He loves our personalities – mine is quieter than my sisters’. He loves our shapes, our heights, the sounds of our laughs, the turning of our hearts. What moves me is slightly different than what moves you, and He loves those nuances. It’s not that He loves differences, as some mistakenly put it; it’s that He loves us each separately.

God, of course, is capable of this person-to-person love for each one in the universe. As a human, I am not. But I sure am able to recognize a good thing when I see it (or when it is directed at me). So when I step back from scrubbing the kitchen counter and take a moment to consider then reject a socialistic/communistic approach to living life, it brings a sudden joy to know that I am one of those who He loves and appreciates individually, and to whom He has therefore given the desire and ability to creatively express myself in such realms as home and family and career. Hooray for God! Hooray for love!

Germination?

2009-04-05T01:07:00.006-05:00

I walked into my sister’s house today and saw a big box, wrapped in Williams Sonoma paper, complete with the little pineapple on top. Two days ago I’d discovered an item from their store that I really liked, and had posted it on my birthday “wishlist”. Ahhh…cake plate with dome, that turns into a punchbowl when needed. Hooray! I smiled happily to myself and promised to make nary a comment. I would pretend to be blind…

I slipped to a seat at the table where Judah, happily scarfing mac and cheese, extended his 2 ½ year-old-arm, fork clutched, and waved generally in the direction of the box.

“That’s your present because it’s your birthday coming,” he said. “But you can’t have it until then. Because, it’s the plate for a cake. For your birthday. But, because you can’t have it until then.”

“She’s not supposed to know what it is,” piped Ariel from beside me.

“Ok. You can’t know it – that it’s the plate for a cake. For your birthday,” he clarified.

“Ok, I won’t know what it is,” I agreed, joining the toddler world where all one has to do to make something real, is say it. What a delightful world! I remember it, and how shattered it seemed if something said didn’t solidify.

I’ve been tense for a few days – have woken up in the middle of the night, and have felt the tightness in the morning of having clenched the muscles in my jaw all night long. It is very unrestful. But it wasn’t until today in prayer I asked the Lord why. Why am I tense? It was a surprise to me to think to ask Him, and it was a surprise how clearly I felt I heard the answer – one which He illustrated to me with this recent imagery:

I’d planted a garden a while ago, and yesterday when I went out to put a few more seeds in, I searched for a sprout – any sprout – in the ground. Spinach? Not one. Chives? Scallions? No. Snow peas? None. I went back into the house and pulled out the packets I’d used, searching for the instructions.

“Germination time: 5-10 days.”

I stepped to the calendar and counted the days from planting. TEN. Oh no!

It felt like the bottom had dropped out from under me – like the roller coaster ride where suddenly a downward motion happens at high speeds and you feel there is no stomach, no body, no carriage, no track, and no earth beneath you. Just emptiness. Screaming, black, earth-disappearing emptiness.

My little seeds! Are they all dead? Will they not come up? I did everything for them I knew to do. I double-dug the ground, down a foot. I fertilized it. I put fresh, ready topsoil over it all. I planted on the right date. I covered the beds with leaves and black plastic when it snowed (and in the process finally understood why being wet and cold makes you die so much faster than just being cold). I’ve never planted my own garden before; my mother always did it when we were young. Greenery magically sprouted under her touch. But I suddenly began questioning the reliability of the entire process, of the whole system. Why did I think those ugly, tiny bits of flotsam would turn into green, living, edible plants? Perhaps they wouldn’t – perhaps for me, when it comes to my efforts, that little part of the universe is broken.

I seriously did doubt whether it’s really going to work. After all, I’ve seen others do it, but this being my first time, have never actually experienced it before myself. And today, today is day ELEVEN, but still no sprouts. I used organic, heirloom seeds, which means they haven’t been treated with chemicals and don’t say “guaranteed to grow” on the seed packet.

Lord, nothing might come of all this.

This is what you’re tense about. This is your life right now. You’ve voluntarily (and sometimes involuntarily) given up thing after thing, desire after desire. You’ve let every seed I’ve given you die and enter the ground. You’ve spent a life, now, consistently and willingly enduring loss. Suddenly, with only My promises to go on but no prior experience to assure you, you notice nothing has germinated yet, and the bottom drops from your stomach and you wonder – is it broken for me? I’ve done everything I could, but maybe it won’t work for me. Maybe it will all stay this way – dead, brown dirt. Lord, what if I have no happy ending?

There is only one life. Reincarnation is ridiculous; no one gets to have a trial run and then come back and do it again. Which means, not one of us gets to know for sure, from past experience, that things will really work the way God says they will. We have to take it on faith, and do all the hard things – put in all the hours of back-breaking work, let the deepest hopes die, give up all the things we could grasp in our own strength, and just believe that fruit will come – just believe that the end will be worth the horrible beginning. I know we’ve seen other, older saints do it – or at least have read about them. But somehow that doesn’t translate fully into real faith when it comes to our own little plot and seeds that seem to be taking an awful lot longer to poke their heads through than they should.

I grew up in a huge city where the streetlights were always on. When, in my young twenties, I first drove through winding, mountainous roads on a two-lane highway in the pitch black of night, I discovered the difference between head knowledge and heart knowledge. My head knew road engineers don’t just stop when they feel like it. My head knew the road I was on wouldn’t suddenly end over the edge of a cliff. But my heart couldn’t see farther than my eyes and the 10 feet in front of me the headlights were illuminating. Beyond that -- utter blackness. The unknown. The potentially roadless unknown. My hands shaking, my blood pounding, I finally had to pull over and let my friend from the country drive.

In the incident-by-incident sense, we are seeing God keep His promises, and our faith is built. But in the entire-direction-of-a-life sense, it only happens once. There’s not going to be a “first time” that gives us more courage for the second time. That once is now.

So, He was right; and the reason I’ve been tense?… I wasn’t believing Him. I’m turning 34 in a few days and it’s the first time I’ve had difficulty with a birthday. There seem to be so many things I’ve spent my life losing and giving up, and not even a sprout to show for it all yet.

(Well, if I was being entirely circumspect and reasonable, there actually are some sprouts, and a few half-grown plants as well. But I’m not being entirely circumspect and reasonable, obviously.)

Why did I tell you about Judah? (Hopin’ Suz doesn’t read this blog until after my birthday!) Because Jesus is a lot like Judah. He has a big boxed-up gift, but He just can’t keep the secret. He has all the fruit and harvest and happy endings right there, ready and wrapped, and He’s dancing around us with clear, honest eyes and blurting it all out ahead of time:

But as it is written, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard," nor has it entered into the heart of man, "the things which God has prepared for those who love Him."

[Don’t stop there. Have you always stopped there?! This is the next sentence: ]

But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit…

1 Corinthians 2:9-10

What’s coming is TRUE. Whether or not I’ve driven the road before (or can even see the road), it does continue until it reaches the destination. God’s ways are not breakable, and if the seed falls into the ground and dies, it will produce fruit.

How can we be sure? Because the end results are not dependent on us. We happen to be breakable, and fallible, and unfaithful, and too weak to do our tilling and our sowing and our weeding and our harvesting 100% perfectly. But the scripture doesn’t say the growth comes from any of those things. It says this:

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything,

but only God who gives the growth. 1Co 3:7-8

We certainly can be sure that the growth will happen, precisely because it’s not up to us. I have yet to see whether my heirloom seeds will germinate their sweet little heads above that soil, but I’m resisting the fear that they won’t. After all, God's been doing this for centuries. And I have yet to see the full resurrection of all the life I've laid down, but I’m believing God that I will. King David knew all about this. He said he would have lost hope unless he had believed that he would see the goodness of the Lord while he was in the land of the living (Ps 27:13).

God's birthday box for us contains more than Judah's does, much as I'm going to enjoy the "plate for the cake". It contains joys and fruit to be experienced in this Old Earth, and exponentially more joys and fruit to be experienced on the New Earth. Whichever Earth I receive them in, I'm super, super grateful. And how freeing to know that while sweat and prep and sowing and watering is part of my job, the germination and growth of it all is up to Jesus. That's why its His box, and will be given to us in His time.

Named No More

2009-03-30T11:32:00.001-05:00

We spontaneously went to the fine arts museum yesterday afternoon. A stunning March storm had smothered the city the day before, leaving deep, dense snow covering every surface of ground and branch. What a fun evening it had been to put all the children to bed at my house and stay up late celebrating my sister’s birthday, playing games around the round table in the fire room, getting giddy on being together, being happy, and being the consumers of a perfect lemon sponge custard. Travel was almost impossible by the time we broke up (OJ came within inches of smashing my car in the driveway multiple times while the wheels on his minivan spun and spun), but by morning the sun had come out and Ariel and I tromped from my house to Liz’s for a pancake breakfast and a webstreamed sermon.

It sounded like rain. Bits of thick, dense snow were dropping from the thousands of interlacing branches above us, landing with half-wet, half-frozen plops. Ariel had to hold my hand and close her eyes, for the sunlight on the white world blinded her. The morning spent itself in a slow melt, and by the time the girls and I emerged from our car at the museum its green manicured lawns were fully visible and only small fields of snow still clung to the slopes, under the evergreen shadows, surrounding joyful groupings of daffodils. Their yellow faces were bent slightly downward from the night-long weight of snow, but what a sight they made!

This might be why the interior of the museum became such a weight of its own to us. The purity of all we’d seen for the last 24 hours – the white and spring green and peeking bud-ness of it all – is in direct opposition to much of what that huge, columned building holds. I had forgotten – forgotten the heaviness of windowless halls and room after succeeding room of idols and statuary and man’s attempts to imitate beauty. Stone Assyrian libations to the god of fertilization, bronzed Roman Mercurys with winged heels, corpulent Buddhas sucking the life out of every generation that ever worshiped them.

I hurried, behind Annie, through the room of Buddhas, holding my breath. At a certain point it just becomes too much. I’m not afraid of ungodliness, nor of a spiritual fight. Though I am simple, I know enough to understand God’s great power over the demons these idols represent. But I had forgotten that having been buried and unearthed and moved to an American museum doesn’t mean the spirits attached to those things have been vanquished.

Oonagh reminded me of this once in her sweet Irish accent after we’d toured a kiva in the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde and then each had a disturbed night’s sleep in the local lodge. “What were we thinking, Amy? When the American park service bought this place,” she said, “I doubt they hired priests to come in and perform an exorcism.” I’d laughed hard at the image of American modernists taking such a step, and learned my lesson. Hundreds of years don’t make much difference when land or an object has been dedicated to Satan. Spirits don’t dissipate or wear away through centuries, like stone gargoyles under the acid rain.

It was great relief to emerge from the high halls of that building into the sunlight, the yellow-and-white-and-green spring of life that God had been creating outside for us. We shook off the memory of passing a hundred idols, and took photographs with the fresh daffodils. (Annie, ever more direct than I, rebuked and severed anything not of God, her hands moving in little chopping motions unconsciously for a few seconds.)

This morning a verse that would have seemed obscure to me a day ago popped out as a great, glorious promise:

“For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals, and they shall be remembered by their name no more.” (Hosea 2:17)

Ah, the victory! Ah, the sweetness of a total vanquish! Those evil spirits that have hung on to cultures and peoples for so many centuries, that have smashed and sucked and embezzled the life right out of human beings, that we don’t even have the discernment today to reject-instead pedestaling, spotlighting, and studying them-those evil things will not be remembered by their name. God isn’t going to just cage them and punish them. The remembrance of their very names will be wiped out. If one could walk through the same museum in the New Earth, not only would the statues themselves have been smashed, the white name cards on the walls beside their pedestals would be blank. No one would be able to recall what they had been named.

Names are deep things. They personify a truth and even call forth destiny in lives. Each of us will receive a new one so precious, it is known only to God. The ability to discerningly name was given to Adam and is one of the deepest reflections of the image of God in us. For our name to be remembered no more is to go down, not in infamy, but in an obscurity so deep it cannot be reversed. The Egyptians wrote the dead’s names on tablets, hoping future generations would read and speak them, thus giving those deceased people a chance to be real again in the underworld. Their continued life, they believed, had to do with the continued remembrance of their name. Obviously, truth twisted; yet it acknowledges the power of a name. What joy I found it this morning to have God whisper to me… “they shall be remembered by their name no more.”

He, yes HE, shall really have the victory!

So Grateful...

2009-03-07T11:16:00.003-06:00

A few months ago a friend instructed our small group to ask God what our sins were - personal, church-wide, and nationally. This, in itself, might seem a shocking enterprise, especially considering we were then to go around the circle and share them. Freedom was given to withhold sharing on any we'd like, though, and we happily commenced the praying.

Ungratefulness. It was the last, most personal, and most prominent one the Spirit whispered to me. But I had such a long list already, that when it came my turn to share them I didn't get to that last bit, the ungratefulness bit. Perhaps I was trying to downplay it; perhaps I didn't think it would strike anyone else as very important. Either way, I kept silent. But when the leader finished up the time with his own list, there it was in big, bold type, spelled the same, hanging on the air in his voice: ungratefulness.

At first glance it seems a sort of Oprah-ish concept. "Let's all be grateful!" In fact, I think there was even a book she promoted where one was supposed to write down each day something one was thankful for. This would have some sort of beneficial effect on "my spirit", she explained, pulling heavily on the swirl of new-age thought she was long ago lost to. Unfortunately (for me) her having handled it sullied the concept of gratefulness. (It felt rather like eating salad made by someone who'd been handling raw chicken.) And unfortunately (for her) the right recipient of this gratefulness was entirely missing -- the real God.

Perhaps in the save-yourself world a general sense of gratefulness will have the beneficial effect of at least reducing the harmful levels of cortisol produced in our bodies by ongoing, underlying stress. But in reality (the God-saves-me world) gratefulness rightly directed toward the One who actually gives all the gifts ("Every good and every perfect gift is from above..." James 1:17) will guard the soul against spiraling down into the worst mire of evil and wickedness. Don't think it's that simple? Read Romans one, eighteen through thirty-two. I'll Cliff-Notes it:

Every sort of vile wickedness in verses 22-32 [lesbianism, homosexuality, murder, deceitfulness, envy, hate, violence, strife, disobedience, maliciousness, unmercifulness, covetousness, etc. - it's a stunning list] has its source in two simple, smallish-seeming actions. Or non-actions, if you will. Verse 21: "because...they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful".

[For you word-lovers, "thankfulness" means feeling or expressing gratitude.]

What a horrible spiral to start out of not thanking God for what He does and who He is. Now, I'm not concerned that everyone reading this is, by their forgetfulness to be thankful, on the verge of tipping over into that big, black hole called eternal wickedness. God, after all, is greater than your forgetful mind. (I'm talking to believers here.) But it is sobering to see the connection between my own state of gratefulness and the long-term trajectory of my soul. And since my mind is so forgetful, I'm going to need the Lord to train my spirit to be always, unconsciously, habitually GRATEFUL to HIM.

[Ah-hem. I seem to be turning into my Dad with this liberal use of caps and italics and paretheses and brackets. Now all I need is to start changing font colors as well :) ]

All these are thoughts of a few months ago, which have been brought back to me by the gratefulness I now feel rising inside as I review His faithful kindness to me. Yesterday was my last day at a temporary job He provided for me in a local doctor's office. It was a place I was appreciated, praised, useful, and yes, paid. And of course, in the middle of it all, a place where I was able to bring the Spirit of the Lord and some of the light of God into the lives of those who don't know Him yet. He provided the job through a series of "coincidental" circumstances - ha! :) And I've been so thankful for it.

But what a good day it was to be leaving, to be moving on to a job that will require more of my skills and heart, and that will give the return of a certain satisfaction only to be found in the direct service of the Kingdom and fellow believers.

My list of things to be thankful for is far longer than that. It has to do with fireplaces, homes, nieces, nephews, siblings, beaches, books, revelations, feastings, fulfillments of promises to my friends, the prospect and experience of eternal love... Oh, it all sounds so drab in words. If I could just sit with you and describe, at length, the history of each of these, the length and depth and width and height of Christ's passion for me might make you shiver with delight.

I can't, of course. But just think -- your own list is as long as mine, whether you've ever noticed it or not. Spend today and tomorrow asking God to bring it to mind, and thinking about what He lists. In the process, you'll be building a protection around your intimacy with Him that is virtually impenetrable by the enemy's arsenal of lies and doubts and fears. Ah, freedom.

A Vision of the Church

2009-02-15T18:59:00.006-06:00

Judah (see the previous post) is not the only profound McDowell. They are all wont, at unexpected moments, to pop out with life-changing statements. Suz is the most recent culprit. Her blog post a few days ago is, well, indescribable. Want to read it?? Huh? :)

How could you not, after an intro like that! Here you go -- Enjoy!

A Vision of the Church

.

But Who Lives Up There?

2009-02-15T18:31:00.003-06:00

The joys of an aunt don't begin to compare to the joys of a mother, nor do the trials of aunthood approach those of motherhood. But sometimes, when the four-year-old girl curled on your lap with a "sore throat" says in a choked sort of way, "I - I cannot speak," and then barfs what looks like several days worth of victuals up all over herself, you, and the blanket you'd both been cuddling under, well on those days, the aunt gets a glimpse...

In the midst of it all, with Ariel stuck in the bathroom still barfing, Judah is put at the table to eat his dinner. He begins what initially sounds like un-reasonable questions: "Uh, uh, wha-what is up there?"

"That's the ceiling, Judah."

"But, but what's it called up there?"

"Outside it's called the roof, and inside it's called the ceiling."

"But," [hand still pointing up, his little 2-year-old Brooklyn accent permeating the house] "but who lives up there?"

"Usually nobody lives in the ceiling, Judah."

"But, but where is Jesus?"

[OJ takes over the adult part of the conversation here.]

"Oh, Jesus lives up in heaven with God. Way, way up in the sky, way far beyond that."

[Every time Judah talks its in the voice of proclamation. But the subject matter of this proclamation riveted us:] "I want to see Jesus."

[OJ stops in his tracks.] "Me too, buddy. Oh, me too. I want to see Jesus. Why don't you tell Him that? Tell Him you want to see Him."

[Judah shuts his eyes tight and states loudly and matter-of-factly:] "I want to see You, Jesus!"

That done, his fist reached out again for the apples on his plate, which had recently become covered in ketchup.

Oh. Oh. Yes.

How Did You Get So Happy?

2009-02-04T19:02:00.007-06:00

We're sitting around waiting for the kiddos to get in bed, at which point we three sisters will delve into planning the fourth sister's birthday party :) In the meantime, let me interview a budding young woman of God...Annie Peterson.

So, Annie, what is resting on your heart right now?

"A chubber named Samuel." [NOTE: Samuel Eisenhower is actually resting his little baby body on her as she speaks.]

But seriously...?

"Seriously? That the Lord is doing crazy things and making awesome connections and I am so glad to be part of it all. Connections between Tacoma and Kansas City."

Um, are you talking about the recent spate of train-track-laying we've been doing in our favorite game, Ticket To Ride?

"Most definitely not! [giggle, giggle] I don't know how to say it. The Lord is telling one ministry about the other and how they need each other, and highlighting what He's been doing in other parts of the world. I've longed for this for a long time, so to actually see it happening and be a part of it is thrilling."

Can you explain, for our readers who are not familiar with Tacoma and Kansas City, what you are referring to?

"Tacoma is somewhere where the Lord has poured out a special work of healing and restoration of people's hearts. Kansas City is a place where thousands of young people have flocked, with zeal for the Lord, to basically pray day and night. So the two put together -- restored people who walk like Christ with crazy zeal and are constantly pursuing His heart -- is like dynamite!"

So, the intimacy message is combining with the evangelism message; and the restoration message is combining with the prayer movement. Yeah, the result is ...

"The world is gonna know Jesus!"

Hooray!!! And Annie, can you tell us just one thing? How did you get so happy?

"How did I get so happy? :) Uhh, I'm not always happy. But I got so happy because Jesus has been SO good."

What has He done?

"Well there's really nothing better than getting to be with Him all the time. And when you realize that's reality, you're happy! There's no reason to be sad, cause anything that would bring anxiety or sorrow isn't a problem. Like, there's stuff that is intense and seems like it should bring sorrow, but the Lord says that we don't have to be afraid or sorrowful even in that stuff. There's a time for weeping, but Jesus came that our Joy may be full. And so that's what He does. The fruit of the Spirit is joy, and the Spirit is inside of me, so there's joy." [Several kisses were here given to Samuel Eisenhower.] AND there's a chubba, sitting on my lap lookin' cute."

Samuel Eisenhower, by the way, had his first taste of solid food tonight. I'll digress from our interview for a moment, if you'll bear with me, to download the best photo taken in the whole world within the last few minutes.

There now, wasn't that worth the wait? For added measure, here is a photo of the interviewer and the interviewee... For some reason, my eyes refused to stay open for a flash that night.

And to finish off the interview...

"And THAT was the end of the letter."

What?

"From Emma. You know that part where Mr. Weston is telling about a letter from what's his face. What's his name? The guy who plays Obi Wan Kenobi?"

How do you spell that?

"I'm a dork that I know how to spell that. It's Ewan McGreggor. Yeah. Just one "G"."

Well, I'm the writer who doesn't know how to spell that. So maybe we're dorks together.

2009-01-28T12:19:00.003-06:00

A light layer of white, frosty snow covered everything this morning, so that the world was diffused and quiet. It seemed like it continued right into the sky, making the sunrise's colors into cool pastels of blue, pink, and yellow. But the space in between was in perfectly sharp relief - every bare, lacy tree limb, bush, and even the white truck in front of me on the road. We drove into the sun, and I just hoped that truck wouldn't make any sudden moves, because I couldn't see a thing in the piercing orange light.

It reminded me of the painting "The Song of the Lark", one of my favorites back home at the Art Institute of Chicago.

I want so much. Is it perhaps too much? So many women have worked their whole lives -- in the field, in the cottage, bearing children, raising children. Lives pass in simplicity, full...but full of work that on the surface does not seem momentous or directly related to the coming of the Kingdom or the exercise of one's deepest giftings. And yet, the value in these lives of peace and contentment surpasses, in the unseen and eternal, those lives of high achievement and visible effectivness. Am I right? And should I so fight within my own soul to place and find myself always within the sphere of overt usefulness and Kingdom-bringing? Perhaps what is overt and seen would asuage my flesh, but what is humble and unseen would propell my spirit into a maturity that will follow me into the years after these, those years that are most important...when I'm face to face with God, ruling and judging in agreement with Him, enjoying His presence, living the real life of real life.

Have Mercy

2009-01-25T21:28:00.004-06:00

I've been singing Tim Reimherr's song since I woke up:

Jesus, I plead your blood over my sins,
And the sins of my nation,
End abortion, and send revival.

We're standing in the gap,
Between this nation and Your wrath,
We're guilty, have mercy.

The blood upon our hands,
Is the blood of innocents,
We're guilty, have mercy.

Listen by clicking on the text above and choosing "Standing In The Gap".

So I wasn't surprised when at church this morning Tim was not only leading, but played this song. So many things are converging in our country to point out, blatantly, our deep, deep sin. In my little pile of circumstances this tragedy has been glaring stronger and stronger.

The new president, Obama, has quickly and quietly decreed that our country will fund abortions internationally -- that under the guise of "aid" and "compassion" my tax dollars will be used to kill the poorest and most disadvantaged in the world. When the Democrats are able, the FOCA bill will be introduced and the President will sign it, declaring abortion an inalienable right and thereby nullifying every law that states and the federal government have ever instituted to regulate, reduce, or outlaw it. Non-physicians will be able to perform this medical procedure; young girls will be able to obtain one without their parents' knowledge or consent.

My sister Suz just discovered, to all our horror, that the Chicken Pox and MMR vaccines given to all children (hers, yours, your friends') were developed from the bodies of aborted babies. See the links and read her outraged blog about it here.

I had a dream recently in which I was given a window into what is (or will soon be) the state of the inner conscience of many, many in our country. The line between life and death, right and wrong was so gray and hazy, that I discovered it was hard for people to remember whether killing a baby after she was born was illegal or not. This was several days before Obama's inauguration. After I thought over the dream, I realized it was insight into the heart of the nation and into the utter moral confusion we are entering. While I watched the inauguration I could not shake the feeling of grief. Millions gathered (and more watched globally) to worship and welcome one who would lead us deeper into this wickedness, into the full searing of consciences. It is like watching a movie on some terrible tragedy, like the holocaust or 9-11, and knowing ahead of time what is going to happen. Grief rises up -- in its wake is a helpless feeling of being unable to stop what you know is about to happen.

The difference is, of course, in those movies the tragedy is already fact. There is nothing to do about it. Today's tragedy? We do yet have something to do about it, and that something is not fighting or yelling or quivering in our corners. Nor is it just trying to bring the truth out about where our new leader is leading us to. No, it is praying - for God to move. It is asking for God's mercy. And it is, unfortunately, inviting His strong hand to shake everything that can be shaken, in the hopes that within His judgments some, even some, may turn back to Him and to His ways.

Do what You must do, God, to turn our hearts back. Raise up your prophets like Elijah and John the Baptist, who will turn the hearts of the fathers back toward the children (Luke 1:17).

The Road to Victory

2009-01-15T21:33:00.003-06:00

A week ago tonight I pulled "The Hiding Place" off my housemate's shelf, took it over to Lizzie's, and made Annie watch it with me while we babysat Glorie. Annie had never seen the movie, and I hadn't seen it since I was in elementary school. I don't know about her, but the next day I arrived at work with puffy eyes.

When we'd finally turned the movie off that night - which is usually the moment when one can quiet one's emotion and get hold of any tears that had been pushing themselves forward - I sat next to Annie on the sofa and wept, utterly losing the control I'd fought for through the last few moments of the movie. The Lord had required of Corrie Ten Boom something stunning -- a soft heart in response to evil and terror and torture and loss. And she had been victorious.

"Victory" is the word we associate with winning visibly. When all the world (or all the Sunday night football fans) have seen the win, you'll be labeled victorious. It's a marching, blazing, flags snapping smartly in the wind sort of word. But when Corrie achieved it, it was a quiet, no-one-noticing, silently-leaving-the-dead-body-of-the-most-cherished-sister-behind sort of word. It was gained not by triumphing over the cruel Nazis, but by forgiving them. Not by destroying the killers, but by loving them. And it was so obscure.

Well, obscure in a sense. While all the angels were rejoicing and honoring God because of Betsey and Corrie's love, all the prisoners and guards and townspeople barely saw Corrie's insignificant form, and certainly few of them comprehended the spiritual battle that had taken place inside those camp fences, and the victory the Lord had won over Corrie's heart.

Is it usually like this? It is for me. The biggest things in my heart are the ones invisible to others, and sometimes I don't have the energy or inclination (or freedom) to explain them. It is a part of surrender, this state of having an internal life with God that only He and I know. And it is definitely a humbling process...to not explain or prove myself to those around me, to not have a victory that is as visible to them as it is to me.

I'm not trying to say here that I've had some sort of deep victory I can't tell you about :). No, I'm just pondering the amount of work God has to do in our hearts to get us ready to walk through the sort of thing Corrie did, and to come out victorious in the end. Annie and I read through her wikipedia article after the movie ended, and from the short paragraph on her "Religious Views" this sentence leaped off the computer screen at us:

"She was known for her rejection of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrine. Her writings claim that it is without Biblical foundation, and she has claimed that the doctrine left the Christian Church ill-prepared in times of great persecution, such as in China under Mao Zedong. She appeared on many Christian television programs discussing her ordeal during the Holocaust, and the concepts of forgiveness and God's love."

Of course.

Of course a woman who had endured so much (including the death of almost her entire family) would see right through a new-fangled doctrine designed to keep Christians from believing they would ever suffer deeply. And of course she knew how dangerous such a belief is; when those believers do encounter real persecution and suffering, they are ill-prepared.

I know that when God's wrath is poured out on the wicked during the Great Tribulation, the believers will be severely persecuted. (But not any more so than our Lord was; we are certainly not above our Master.) But what is gently surprising and instructive, in both Christ's story and Corrie's, is the road to victory. That it lies in quietness, meekness, the laying down of life, in suffering silently, in loving to the end.

May we learn this now, Lord! May we not be of the foolish virgins, who do not obtain oil to last the night...for the night will likely be very, very long.

Friendship with Man

2009-01-03T16:19:00.003-06:00

Self-focus. It's scary, imprisoning, depressing, and blinding. Oddly enough, it manifests most in our spiritual walks. We know how beautifully gentle Jesus is -- loving us so thoroughly. He's even excited to interact on a moment-by-moment, situational level. (How many of us have been shocked to discover that He enjoys being asked to provide a parking place, and usually answers?) But in our weakness and egotism, we enter into that part of relationship with Him and forget His part in this two-way friendship. Because I am a friend to Kim, for example, we talk both about her heart and my heart, about what's going on in her mind and in my mind. Friendship is certainly not a one-way street. If it is, you've a pretty good indication that the relationship is not actually a full friendship.

I got frustrated with myself on the trip from Chicago, to Indiana, to Kansas City -- frustrated that my own difficulties had been my focus in prayer for so many weeks. So during the drive from Terre Haute to Kansas City, I asked about His heart. I promptly forgot I had asked, and popped in a tape recording of an old album of my mother's: Joy is Like the Rain. It's a collection of folk-style songs by a group of Catholic nuns in the 1960's. And then He answered. Perhaps my emotions were rawly near the surface and so easily energized. Perhaps not. But I was singing raucously along (in the sense of being loud and enjoying harmonies to the extreme - no one else was in the car, you see) when all of a sudden a line hit me hard. It's in a song about the Wedding Banquet story of Matthew. The master has already sent invitations, been rejected by the people who are too busy, and called for the poor from the town. When his banquet table still isn't filled:

When all the poor had assembled, there was still room to spare

So the master demanded: "GO search everywhere

To the highways and the byways and force them to come in

[This is where I burst into violent tears.]

My tables must be filled before the banquet can begin."

Repeatedly, I would calm myself and listen to the tape over, and then burst into tears at the very same line. Over and over. Inconsolable, body-shaking sobs. It was one of those Holy-Spirit cries where your nose doesn't stuff up and you don't have a pre-existing emotional attachment to the issue you're crying over. Just the Spirit, falling...falling...putting a tiny bit of the weight of His heart onto yours. So I did the only thing I could, after recovering from the tears -- I prayed for His great harvest of the poorest and most marginalized to begin, in every corner of the globe. He's going to begin it soon, I believe. I was shocked, not only that He would answer my prayer and give me a glimpse of what is occupying His heart right now, but shocked by the violence of His passion over it, by how intensely He feels, by the strength of His desire for the poorest and the least. In the middle of it all I had to repent simply for my own lack of passion toward this group, because compared to Jesus' passion for them, my own was invisible and almost non-existent.

Two-way friendship. It's what I want. Not just Him interested in me and my life, but me interested in Him and His plans. Wow. That God would enter into such friendship with man is almost unbelievable. But I believe it.

Reading the Last Chapter

2008-12-31T13:02:00.004-06:00

"Here, do you want this lottery ticket? We already know it wins a million dollars."

"Um, no...no. I'm not ready to be rich."

This supremely telling dialogue was created by my loyal sister as a pretty fair summary of some recent events. I've had it humming around in my head ever since. While the OneThing08 conference here in Kansas City has been unveiling a whole new arena of thought to many of the attendees, and re-energizing my own pursuit of the full Gospel of the Kingdom, it has become so clear to me once again that God has unlimited extents of treasure for us to dive into and explore -- but we have to actively choose to do so. However much our own ignorance or blindness or short-sightedness comes into play in our choices, the root of our answer is the same. We are either giving a "YES" or a "NO" to Him. We are either saying, "Yes, make me rich," or "No, I'm not ready to be rich." But the fact that richness is available is definitely not in question.

Mike Bickle, who I respect very much, has been diving into the book of Revelation and teaching on that most controversial of subjects: the end times and second coming. I know that many Christians are hesitant to think much about these things, hesitant even to read Revelation because they feel it will simply confuse and frighten. I left the first evening of teaching on Sunday thinking about it in terms of my own passion - writing. Who would read an entire novel, only to stop just before the last chapter? Not only would such an experience be entirely unsatisfying, it would leave one in the dark as to the real story, the full meaning of the novel. Without the ending, in which the hero or heroine triumphs and all the threads of the story come together, it would be no story at all. I, personally, have never met a reader who leaves out the ending chapter. (I've met some who read the end first, though :).

But, to be honest, it is certainly the reader's choice. If they want to read all 65 chapters and then lay the book aside before the 66th and last, they can. We can do this with the Bible. We can read it all but the ending. We can study the parts of Jesus we feel are accesible, and then set Him aside before we're confronted with the majesty of His holiness, with how His love is expressed in righteous judgment, with His simultaneous identities as a King, a Bridegroom, and a Judge. But, just like in my sister's little scenario above, what great richness we are voluntarily giving up if we do! It's like abdicating an entire kingdom. I am not content to meet Jesus face-to-face having only known the parts of His personality I picked and chose. In reality, that would mean I did not really know even those parts, for His mercy cannot be understood apart from His truth, and His love cannot be known apart from His power. Let's read the last chapter!

Good to Me

2008-12-11T17:03:00.002-06:00

“The Lord is good to me,
And so I thank the Lord
For giving me, the things I need
The sun, the rain, and the apple seed.
The Lord is good to me.”

Did everyone sing this in their childhood? I must have, but it has been years since I’ve heard or thought of it. As Dora drove the curve into the Honolulu airport this afternoon, this song dropped into my mind; rather, it dropped into my lap. That’s what it felt like. God had dropped it on me, specifically, purposefully, and with a mischievous smile. I’ve been humming it ever since…

As I watch the bluewater below me on this trip back from the far end of the earth.

As I consider the city-like clusters of poofy cream clouds below my vantage point and imagine little worlds populated by air fairies who not only move with the ever changing cities, but pull them this way and that like taffy candy designers.

As I shiver deeply for the second time in 7 months (airplane air, you know). The first time was a few nights ago on Malia’s lanai. The breeze off Pearl Harbor was cooler than I’d anticipated.

As I realize humans are proud of their technologies and jet-settedness, but that God made the earth traversable – just the right mix of challenge and achievability. It’s pre-designed for us to win.

As I ponder the thought that the people who are raptured up to meet Him in the clouds will come from a generation used to seeing the world and the earth from high up. We won’t be so distracted by flying as, say, the saints of 200 years ago would have been. Happy thought, eh? :)

As I rehearse all the ways God has been good to me. (Don’t get excited; there are too many to list here).

But one of them is very apparent to me now. For some reason, Alaska Airlines has a few more inches of leg space in their rows. I’m almost positive, for my knees are not touching the one in front of me. When I rule the world, I’ll do something about the profound discomfort imposed on long-legged travelers…probably by telling people not to travel so much :).

Oh, never mind. Do travel, please. Travel to Kansas City and see me. Travel to Windward Oahu and see the Creator. Travel to Croatia (according to the retired guy in front of me) because you’re interested. See, I’m not Rebecca Lynde, whom travelers remind of Satan, always roaming too and fro over the earth.

The earth, by the way, is very large and small at the same time. I’ve been on the most remote archipelago (that’s hearsay; I haven’t googled it because I’m on a plane at the moment) on earth, and it’s only taking me 5 hours to get back to Seattle.

Seems I’ve evacuated at just the right time. Yesterday we took the morning to enjoy Lanikai, my favorite beach, one last time. Supposedly, soon Mr. Obama will be coming to do his Christmas vacationing there. Can you imagine the disruption…secret service people blocking off beach and roads and parking spots and – horrors – turquoise waters? Yes, just in time. A turtle came to say “hi” to me as I swam, but he stayed underwater and swam back out. I realized the other day that a human being in Hawaii who killed sea turtle eggs would be imprisoned, heavily fined, and suffer the horror of the entire populace. But one who killed a human still in its unviable state…well, nothing. (Sorry, mentioning Mr. Obama reminded me of these sad things. May God show him a turtle, and bless him with the same revelation during his days on Lanikai!)

No Story of Deliverance

2008-12-01T13:52:00.005-06:00

"If Daniel had never entered the lions' den, there would be no story of deliverance."

An author friend of mine sends daily devotionals, and this was in today's. He's so right. I've had a super hard month, and am facing another very difficult transition. December is going to be a challenge. In fact, it seems that every time I'm confronted by a challenge it is more difficult, nuanced, and multi-faceted than the one before. In the end, will it all be worth the trouble?

Let's see... what are the pro's?

It's an opportunity for Grace -- to acknowledge my need of it, and to expend it on others freely.

It's an opportunity for Strength -- to admit I have none, and to operate out of the Lord's unending supply.

It's an opportunity for Joy -- to sweep around the circumstances and envelope them, until they have little to do with my internal state of constant worship and constant communion. I am loved by a Man who will always be greater than any other.

It's an opportunity for Courage -- in the spirit of Joshua, I've been instructed to have courage. It's kind of fun to look back and see where I've obeyed, and how the Lord has come alongside and provided all I've needed for it, and how pleased He is (sort of pleased and proud) with me.

Yes, I think it will be worth it, but I've definitely had to make the choice to grow through it all rather than to just endure it all, holding my breath until the end. This is the choice we always have to make; it's confronting us every day with every imperfect circumstance. What sort of waiting will we do? -- the sort that covers its eyes and holds its breath until everything has passed, or the sort that opens its eyes and looks toward the hope at the end even while the roller coaster is still rising and falling and throwing your body from side-to-side? I want the active waiting, the one that actively endures because of the hope set before me, the one from which I emerge a woman built up with patience and character and hope, the one out of which I will not walk disappointed.

Years ago a prayer team prophetically described me as a pillar of strength, a woman "able to bear great weight." It did not seem good to me...I thought of all the weights I didn't want to bear: the weight of great sorrow, of great difficulties, of long waits, of constant postponement, of unfulfilled dreams, of tragedy and loss (can you tell I'm a novelist? :) Perhaps I will (and in some ways already have) encounter all these things, but the meaning of this prophecy was far different. I will be able, when the Lord has brought me fully forth into my design, to bear the weight of great responsibility, of great joy, of great purpose, of life on a great scale. How am I to become such a person? By bearing and entering into a great love with a great God, by bearing His yoke, by learning to experience it as an easy and light thing, by counting all the deep sorrows and difficulties as joys to draw me closer to Jesus, by sharing in His sufferings. By sharing in His sufferings.

Like Daniel. He was punished for being upright; he was hated for being pure. He was almost destroyed for the great "sin" of loving God...a "sin" that enabled him to be the most useful, loyal, faithful, and loving subject any king had ever had. Daniel. What injustice he suffered as he longed to return to his true home and love - Jerusalem. It is like us, longing for our true home, for Jesus to come back and set all things right. But if he had never entered the lions' den, there would be no story of deliverance. And I want a story of deliverance! Oh how I want it, because oh how I want to glorify God with that story!

Here, finally, is the song I mentioned in my last post. Mercy first, and eventually...eventually...EVENTUALLY...JESUS RETURNED TO ME.

I Just Want Jesus to Come Back

2008-11-30T23:54:00.003-06:00

Jesus, I just want You to come back. Come back to us.

I feel the blow of an unkind word and know that it was spoken in sin and out of the speaker's history of bearing the brunt of other sorts of blows. I shouldn't be spoken to in such a way, yet Jesus shouldn't have been spoken to the ways he was, and he took it silently and meekly. I give up the right to be treated with dignity and consideration, because the One I follow didn't demand such treatment.

Come back. Why have you been gone so long? Come back to us.

Sin has dug its claws into those I know, and torn them. They walk with limps, broken in soul places that should be full of joy. It's all in the spiritual realm, though, and none of it visible on the surface. When it does appear, others just shake their heads and say, "Oh, he has insecurity issues," or, "She needs to grow up a little." But I say it doesn't have to be this way. Saints don't have to be walking wounded; and sin's remnants don't have to control our present or our future. Neither do the injustices we suffered. But this takes You, Jesus. You. You are the only One who is able to both identify and to heal what is veiled to human eyes.

I wish You would come back. Jesus, please come back.

Children in Bangladesh are purposely hurt in order to elicit more sympathy (thus more money) while they beg. Infants are drugged and passed from beggar to beggar.

It won't be right until You come back, Jesus.

Believing women in China often cannot marry, because there are far more female than male Christians. They share the Gospel; they lay down their lives to spread it; they pray for husbands.

We are lonely until You come back. Jesus, won't You come soon?

Relativism hanging on the coat-tails of individualism and tolerance enters the church and feeds on its weakest, newest babes. Sin is tolerated; the great freedom of repentance is not preached; her heel is wounded, wounded.

Jesus, I just want You to come back. Nothing can be finished until You do.

***

Merchant Band sings a song that almost always makes me cry by the ending bridge, which runs something like this:

Lord have mercy, cause it's my only means
to find You here with me, to find You here with me

Life is not right until You split the skies
The Spirit and the Bride cry, "come"
We long for the day when You make all things new
We want to be with You

I can't find this song online, but here's a good substitute: I Can't Wait

Foolish Reason

2008-11-24T02:18:00.002-06:00

Reason only goes so far. A childhood friend who is on the opposite side of the political & spiritual spectrum from me recently commented that although he'd be totally open to debate with me, he realized he has no need to. He's right. The affection I've had for him and his family ever since I was little will never change, nor will his for us. He's super intelligent, so the conversation would definitely be a good one, but a pointless one. It doesn't matter what he believes or does or if I never see him again for 40 years...at the end of those 40 years, if he needed anything (including a kidney) I'd give it.

As I sat still thinking over his comment, I began to wonder about reason in general. If reasoning with one another (and you know I love a good, strong debate) was really the way to arrive anywhere, all the intelligent people in the world would be the happiest. Assuming people could get over themselves and be objective in debate, countries would eventually be run perfectly and consensus would quickly be reached on all the major problems of the world...how to end the HIV epidemic in Africa, whether big government or small government is best for the economy, what the perfect stuffing recipe is for the Thanksgiving turkey. Sadly, all the less intelligent people (I'm talking pure genetics here) would be the, well, sad ones, as they wouldn't have been able to use their reason to run their lives and their finances in the best possible way. But look around. Most of the happiest people aren't from those super-intelligent classes. In fact, the majority of happy people come from amongst those who have less and do less.

Life would be supremely unfair if reason was what made it work. As expected, a bit of scripture popped into my head:

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
(1Co 1:26-29)

What is weak, and foolish, and low? Love. (I know, I'm treading on the toes that view love as the highest of all high things. While it is that, it is also the most delicate and despise-able of all high things. Strong and weak at once.) Love displayed itself most fully in the cross, an object of scorn for many extremely intelligent people.

Do you ever have conversations in your head in which you completely confound and rout the wicked or the unbeliever by the elegance, intelligence, and undeniable logic of your argument for God? I do this almost instinctively when I think about issues up for debate, like abortion or creation or the very existence of God. For a long time I've clung to the reality that "the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God" (James 1:20) and have let it instruct my reaction in conversations that would naturally raise my ire. But I have not considered things one level deeper...down to the question of whether I should even be debating or conversing. (The scripture before James 1:20 actually instructs us to be "slow to speak".)

Back in that 1 Corinthians verse Paul says he was sent to preach the gospel "not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power." He says "the world did not know God through wisdom," and even more revealing, says that God set it up that way because of His own wisdom! I'm glad He's so smart. Imagine if it was wisdom that reveals God to us...imagine if it was wisdom that makes us happy...imagine if it was intelligence that solves our problems. The world would be a pitiful place...let's coin a new term...an intelligentsiocracy. (Sam informs me that meritocracy would be the better label, as intelligentsia's connotations are rather negative. But I like the fact that it has negative connotations...that's partly my point!)

Perhaps I will consciously lean more on love and less on reason to convince people of the truth. I am not giving up on reasonable and enjoyable debate. I am just letting my hope rest in something real rather than in my own ability to out-debate someone. Where is it? It is in the foolish, foolish, foolish, foolish love of Christ. What hope!

Getting Ready for Sam

2008-11-15T00:51:00.004-06:00

You know how sometimes it seems you're going to have to wait forever? And you go along quietly, quietly, not seeing the thing you hope for. Then without fanfare, it is around the corner - in fact, it appears - and you were almost unprepared for the suddenness of its arrival. Things often happen this way in my life. Though I usually feel surprised by the actualization of the hope, my heart has been unconsciously and mysteriously softened, so that it is easy to reach out and embrace a reality that would have been strange and foreign to me had I not had to wait for it.

I'll have to think more about this. We've come to the surprise end of a 5 1/2 month stint of separation from Sam. He's coming home in less than 48 hours, and what pleasure it's been giving us to get ready for him. Arden got a trim on her bangs...

A swath of fabric has been painted with our joy (and acrylic paints which sort of stained the driveway underneath :)

Dora painted the heart.

The rain held off for us...

And we ended with everyone but Genevieve's hand prints.

Ahh, a red-handed Arden. How appropriate is that?! We have tons yet to do, but that will keep us nicely busy all day tomorrow, and then ... comes Sunday!

Little Petersons

2008-11-15T00:21:00.001-06:00

I took Arden to Lanikai beach a few days ago. We just needed to get out of the house, and I hadn't been swimming since before Genevieve's birth. Besides deciding to behave like a laughing angel, that little Binjy decided for the first time in her life to ham for the camera!!

The pictured sunglasses here are not my fault (wail!) ... I saw the Binjy go into my room. Two seconds later I discovered the destruction she had wreaked. Half of Aunt Mamy's favorite sunglasses in one spot, the other half in another. These "buggles" are Dora's extra pair, which I borrowed.

Genevieve wears lots of socks. Mostly on her hands. Here she is, practicing for her grown-up destiny: boxing.

Sweet sisters. They were both holding still enough to get a photo shoot in, which is unusual!

Praying for Our Appliances

2008-11-10T12:41:00.002-06:00

The Lord is good to those who seek Him ... and that includes those who seek Him for very practical reasons. Sam comes home in a week!! It's shocking and exciting, and seems still so far away to Dora, and so soon to me. In the meantime, the appliances have started breaking. A few days ago an, um, shall we say "object", accidentally went down the garbage disposal. A horrific noise ensued, followed by the low, grinding hum of a motor burned out. Dora pulled out the object (ok, it was a pint-sized baby spoon of Arden's) and tried the switch several times. Nothing but that low, burned-out motor sound! We looked at each other with raised eyebrows. While I began wondering if the landlord would replace it or he would, as with the ants, say that it was our responsibility, from Dora's lips came this whisper: "Jesus, please fix our garbage disposal."

Yea! That's right! Sam's the one who would normally take something like this in hand. And in the absence of Sam, why wouldn't Jesus step in? We might as well ask.

Yesterday I absentmindedly used it. It wasn't until after I was done with the dishes that it dawned on me: it had worked!

That's not all, folks! Last night an odd blinking appeared on the dishwasher (which was full, ready to start, and oh-so-smelly). None of the other buttons worked, the cancel button didn't work, and no matter what we tried, the thing would not turn on. Oh boy. Dora pulled out the user manual, which described every possible problem but the one presenting. After many tries we gave up. This morning I wandered upstairs in my glasses, made tea, munched on some cereal, and chatted with Dora. Partially through my bowl I realized that the dishwasher was open, no longer smelly, and half-way unloaded. Oh, said Dora, last night I asked Jesus to fix it, and when I got up to nurse Genevieve in the middle of the night, all the lights were normal. So I turned it on.

Jesus fixes appliances! I love this partly because they're way more black-and-white than human bodies. He designed our bodies to heal and repair themselves. When He intervenes and heals them Himself, it sometimes seems like He just speeded things up. But when He fixes a scrap of metal and wires, that otherwise would have sat rusting until it hit the junkyard, it seems so, so, unnatural.

In other news of the unnatural... a dear friend sent Dora and I a sample bag of sugar-free Jelly Flops, which are Jelly Belly mistakes from the factory store (like two beans squished together or something). I ate a few and really disliked the sugar-substitute taste, sugar being one of my favorite things when done right. Dora, who doesn't mind it so much, finished off the bag. Now, these are jelly beans, remember. This morning I was greeted with this news: "Those jelly bellies made me so gassy!" Come to think of it, yesterday I felt a bit of the same. Hmmm. She googled it, of course, and discovered this was a common theme in comments about sugar-free Jelly Bellies. Then the back of the bag was retrieved and read. There in the fine print, was something along these lines: "Warning, may cause stomach upset. Every person reacts differently. We suggest you start with 8 or less beans."

These are JELLY beans, JELLY! Super unnatural.

Baggers

2008-11-07T18:53:00.002-06:00

I've returned to the world of online! Two days without internet service was a hiccup that quickly exposed how closely connected I am to what the internet supplies -- instant access to information and to people. Wow. If my grandmother could live in my shoes...

On an unrelated subject:

The reason we pay grocery baggers is for their skill in bagging, right? They know to put the bread on top, the cold things together, the heavy stuff nicely distributed throughout the bags. Not at the commissary, it seems, as evidenced today when I unloaded the groceries and groaned aloud on the way up the stairs. It’s a good thing I’d worked out earlier in the day, or my arms would have decided they were definitely too weak. But I’m in the mind-overcoming-body mode, so the bags made it up the stairs. However, that scripture about doing everything without complaining – didn’t quite make it up the stairs with me.

Beauty

2008-10-26T23:53:00.003-05:00

Walking and bouncing, shhh'ing and rocking.
Crying and praying, mourning ... hoping.
Pacing and cuddling, pacing and cuddling.
Crying.

That was me this afternoon as I tried to quiet Genevieve, keep track of Arden, and deal with the news that Jeanine has leukemia. Pacing helps. Going in circles and circles around the coffee table, always seeing from the corner of my eye the beautiful roses Lizzie sent for Genevieve's birth. Holding the goochy baby and pacing.

They're stunning, these roses. (Pro Flowers has them sent straight from Ecuador, still closed, so that they actually bloom in the vase.) I never used to like roses. It was all the hype that surrounds them. So much commercialism. Being told by an outside source that something is beautiful, and knowing that outside source has selfish and ulterior motives, sours things for me. Like diamonds. But at one point I realized that I hadn't given roses a fair chance.

They're a fist full of soft beauty, with the potential of being actually perfect. When they open as they should, it's layer upon layer of gentle enticement. And yet, usually, the secret middle is still protected. Their petals are as soft as butterfly wings. You can feel them best with your lips, which are more sensitive even than fingertips.

I once said that I would know a man understood me if he brought me tulips in winter. (Remember, I'm from snowy, freezing Chicago.) In college, Lizzie and her transfer friends gave me a pot of tulips. It made me laugh and berate her, "A man, Elizabeth! You are not a man!" She agreed happily that she was not. I still enjoyed them greatly. But I've come to discover there is an unending sort of beauty about a healthy rose that tulips lose pretty quickly. All that is good and gentle and strong and sad lingers with them. They make me want to be a flower. This, in fact, is the eternal "almost", the constant frustration, the thing that pulls you back for third and fourth inhales when you should have already walked away from the bouquet. To watch and observe a deep beauty is actually not enough for our souls, for we were created to embody beauty. I think this is why the scripture gives voice to our longing...

1Jo 3:2 "Beloved, we are God's children now,
and what we will be has not yet appeared;
but we know that when he appears we shall be like him,
because we shall see him as he is."

We must be like Him, we just must. Such beauty must become part of us, it cannot remain a thing we simply observe.

Jeanine is a beautiful soul. She is the woman I wanted to be when I grew up. She was married out of my parents' home; Elizabeth and I carried her train down the aisle. She taught me kindness - she is kind. She taught me inclusion - she was devoted to all my siblings, to all her classrooms of children. She taught me adventure - she read a chapter of Swiss Family Robinson to us each night on her bed, little Sammy-boy included. She taught me patience - she waited 10 years to say "yes" to the man who had asked for her hand at the age of 18. She taught me purity - her "little sin" was the occasional pack of licorice gum. She was love embodied (or so it seemed to me as a child). I still remember her gentle rebuke as I sat doing my homework at the laminate kitchen table... "Oh, Amy, you can do better than that." I knew she was right. I never tried hard with penmanship, and it shows to this day.

She hasn't seen me married or a mother. I know how proud she was when I published Perpetua. It thrills me to know I gave her that pleasure, that she was able to say to the woman behind the counter at the bookstore, "The author was my student!" Oh, I pray I get to feel her joy when I do marry, when I do mother my children with some of the love she taught me. I've seen that joy in her eyes over my sisters and my friends, other young students of hers.

And so I pray and mourn at the same time. That she should go through such pain! That she should be in such danger! The Lord will keep her, and keep her heart safe.

Elizabeth bought roses for Suzy after little Samuel Eisenhower was born. Three dozen, from the toothless lady on the corner of Blue Ridge and Holmes. Her hand painted sign is permanently nailed to a rusty telephone pole, proclaiming in loud stick letters:

"Bokay. 5$"

Her husband is there sometimes, helping her. Her mind is slowly going. That's all I know about her. Her roses don't last long either. Well, you can imagine, by the time they get through all the channels to her-on the corner of Blue Ridge and Holmes, across from the pet store and just beyond the underpass-they haven't much life left in them. But I am glad for her, that as her mind goes, her work is to handle these reminders of God. As her husband helps her, watches her, keeps her active...she only knows she is selling bouquets that embody someone's joy, someone's baby, someone's anniversary. Or, as she would put it, "bokays".

Pray for Arden, as she cries through the transition to being one of two children.
Pray for Dora, as she waits for Sam to return and meet his daughter.
Pray for Jeanine, as she spends the month in the hospital.
Pray for the toothless lady, that she would know the Creator of her bokays.
And pray for me, that the constant tension I feel in desiring all that is beautiful but not yet having and being it, would not tear me apart nor open me to too great a grief.

As Genevieve's middle name so soundly proclaims, JOY is our inheritance because it is His inheritance. (She's been lying on my chest the whole time I've been blogging here. It's hard to feel too much grief when there's a tiny little snuggle-bug cuddling herself into your curves and breathing high and quick like a feather weight.)

Joy, please, dear Jesus. Joy.

Manuals

2008-10-26T01:37:00.003-05:00

Until about two months ago I'd never driven a manual car. Well, technically I had. But first I'd spent 45 minutes sitting in the driver's seat next to Sam while he explained in detail (he's an engineer, you know) what exactly was happening to the gears etc. When we finally started going I was thinking so hard about the mechanics of it all, I couldn't figure out the simple actions to go along with it. There were many stalls that afternoon.

This time Deanna taught me. We went zipping around the Baptist church's parking lot, and with her constant encouragement I began to believe I could really do this! Now I'll be able to drive in Africa, or Haiti, or rural America...wherever fate might set me down. (Its one of those odd things that have seriously caused me unconscious worry over the years. What if, in some emergency, I needed to know how to drive a manual, but couldn't?!)

Now, I'm proud to report, I've driven a manual ...

...in the rain
...with a screaming toddler in the backseat
...in the middle of the night, to the hospital, with a laboring woman in the backseat
...home from the hospital, with a 1 day-old newborn in the backseat

(a lot of the life of a car seems to happen in the backseat, I guess)

AND...I find myself aching to get behind that wheel when I feel particularly frustrated or anxious or restless. There's just something about slamming down the clutch, shifting, balancing the energy and force with a gentle synchronized sort of motion... All in all, a great way to vent.

She's HERE!

2008-10-22T02:00:00.003-05:00

Genevieve Joy Peterson finally arrived this morning at about 4 am. I'll write more about it later, but for now (before I fall into my bed) here are a few photos of the little beauty.

Specs:

Born 10.21.08 @ 3:56 AM
9 lb. 3 oz.
22 1/4 inches long

Nothing to Report

2008-10-20T03:39:00.003-05:00

Dora is still pregnant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10 days overdue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the meantime we've been feeding Arden frappuccinos, going shopping, and talking long walks on the beach (it's supposed to help bring on labor). To no avail yet...but you never know...a lot of people are praying.... :)

Undercover Heaving

2008-10-15T02:28:00.005-05:00

Dark clouds scudded over the moon, creating a misty halo that reflected off the wet asphalt and outlined our two darting forms -- I with a long ponytail and bangs repeatedly falling across my eyes, and Dora with the unmistakable curves belonging only to overdue pregnant women.

She ran ahead of me from can to can, checking to see how full the neighbors' garbage receptacles were. I followed behind in the shiny darkness, dragging overweight black bags behind me and tossing them in when she'd found an empty space. No, we weren't disposing of evidence, though it felt like it. And no, we didn't even know what exactly was in the black bags. All we know is that one of our neighbors piled about 12 huge black garbage bags on our front curb about two weeks ago and left them there - just left them - to fend for themselves. But around here, the garbage trucks don't pick up bags, just cans. And so the pile has sat under our palm tree, killing the grass and making us look sort of, well, trashy.

They could have been body parts. Or they could have been donations of clothing left out for the Goodwill truck. Or just plain kitchen garbage. Or... well, they could have contained any number of things. But Dora insisted they contained lawn refuse and laid out her plan to me last week.

"Hey, we're going to wait until dark the night before the garbage is picked up, then stuff as many of those bags in cans as we can find room for. We're going to do this until they're all gone."

I protested, of course. What if, what if... The other option was to put a witty sign on the bags instructing whomever had dumped them on a pregnant woman's lawn to come "get your traish!" This didn't sound like it would endear us to the perpetrators. I boldly declared that I would canvass the neighbors that very day to determine who the culprit was and to demand that they remove their trash. But then I looked out the window at how large of a man Brutus' owner is (that's the crazy dog that's continually trying to jump the fence next to us), and conveniently forgot. Or so I thought. Until...

Several days ago (the trucks come 2x a week) I woke to the news that Dora had heard the trucks in the neighborhood in the early morning, and had run outside in her flimsy white nighty (fully pregnant, mind you) and had stuffed as many of those bags as she could into ours and other cans nearby. There was still a huge pile, though it was significantly smaller than it had been. Shocked and horrified, I waited for the sky to fall. It didn't. So tonight, after the pouring rain had paused and all seemed dark and quiet, I slipped on my flip-flops with her, snuck out onto the puddle-ridden street, and grasped slimy bags filled with who-knows-what. The rain had soaked them so badly I could barely move some, and had to use (instead of the great arm strength we all know I possess) my body weight as a counter balance in order to drag them across driveways, over lawns, and up into garbage cans.

Dora did more than her fair share of this undercover heaving. Several cars passed, blinding us with their twin headlamps, and we attempted to stand up straight and look nonchalant, two women loitering amongst the cans on the side of the road. Yes. You often see women among the cans, don't you? Pretty common sight. No reason to stare, folks, no reason to stare. Just keeeeep drivin. And please don't ask us what we're dragging around the neighborhood, because we don't know.

You'll be happy to know the pile is gone and we're back inside, drinking tea -- Dora, Red Raspberry Leaf to help her go into labor; me, Chamomile to sooth my terribly sore throat. Red Raspberry Leaf indeed! If anything helps her go into labor tonight, it will be the surreptitious heaving of soggy garbage into unsuspecting neighbors' cans. But the pick up is tomorrow, and they'll never even know it happened. If they do happen to notice, the best scripture for them to apply is: "To him who has, even more shall be given."

And the perpetrator's scripture for the day is, from Dora: "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." (But personally, I hope that no one dumps trash on their lawn, whoever they may be. It will just junk up the 'hood again.)

And for Dora and I, "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you." And, if he has dumped his trash on your lawn, clean it up yourself. Burning coals, people! Burning coals!

A Little Ammonia

2008-10-13T18:14:00.003-05:00

Pat has been keeping me amused, unintentionally, with little glimpses of life in the South. From "southern fried baptist" to the woman she overheard telling people:

"I know what'll get rid of those. A little ammonia, or spic-n-span..."

Pat, a late-comer to the conversation, asked, "What do those get rid of?"

"Demons," the woman replied.

And this from a lady Pat had been pretty sure was a believer. The local newspaper reported, by name, on an "incident" in the hospital, and the business of the man in question has suffered ever since. One of her neighbors is a recluse (she knew he was in bad pain when he came over to her house and asked to be driven to the hospital - kidney stones), another is a Jehovah's Witness (who has made herself scarce since after 15 years of friendliness Pat finally told her point blank that she had to believe Jesus was God or she wouldn't go to heaven. I wonder what would happen if she told her that her handsome son could probably get married pretty fast if he'd just quit the JW's), and a third neighbor is a gay man on the point of death who is unable to get on the transplant lists because the marijuana he smoked his whole life - until last October - is still showing up in his urinalyses. He wandered over one day while Duncan was mowing the lawn and poured out his whole life story to Pat, who wasn't quite sure what to do. She wanted to tell him the gospel, but the man's roommate drives over to the Baptist church every week to play organ for their services, so he's heard enough about it to sour him to the suggestion. Such inoculations seem pretty common in the South.

Hank has started mowing their big lawn with his riding lawnmower (which is great), and parking it in their garage (which isn't great). The cats are given three alternate kinds of food at every feeding, and MoJo would prefer that Duncan fed him ice-cream off the spoon instead of putting it in a bowl. At least MoJo doesn't wake them up in the middle of the night to come downstairs and watch him eat, as Minnie used to do.

Oh, and the tiny, invalid grandmotherly-type who lives nearby is constantly hounded by a large beggar, who comes and pounds on her door until she opens it and gives him money. She's not supposed to be smoking, but she gave him money once to go buy her cigarettes, saying he could keep the change. Of course, he took all the money and didn't come back. That day, at least. He did come back later on, pounding, demanding more... I said she should call the police, but it turns out the police don't like to pick him up, cause then he's in the jail. Oh, but it's a moot point, come to find out. He died a few years back. Some sort of liver disease.

You know the recent spate of southern, small-town fiction inspired by the Mitford series? I guess the original source material is alive and kickin'. News to me. What a Yankee I am!

Enfranchised!

2008-10-11T03:03:00.003-05:00

Victory! Well, for me, not necessarily my candidates, but every little step helps. I actually received my absentee ballot in the mail. Strange as it may seem, I wasn't counting on getting it. See, I'm from a city that has been under the strangle-hold of the democratic party for a very, very, very long time. And voting kafuffles go hand-in-hand with that history. Every time I've voted there I've felt the thrill of having wrested something I deserved out of a hand resentful and reluctant to yield it to me.

This reminds me of a story... Once upon a time I went down to the local park department to vote. (Actually, this is a true story. Don't let the fairy-tale beginning throw you off.) It's only 3 blocks from my house, and the voting process is very easy. All you have to do is tell them your name. Thinking back, I realize I've never once shown my ID to prove that I actually am the "Amy Peterson" on the list who resides at --.

Anyway, at the double doors of the building's entrance were several very "beefy" men (read: large, muscular, and unmistakably descended from mafia), there to help people vote, I assume. As I approached the heavy doors they fell over themselves to hoist both wide open, creating a princess-like entrance into the dingy, echoing, CPD halls. All smiles and nods, they were the very picture of eagerness as they pointed me down the left hallway toward the voting room. (There is never a line. Chicago is very efficient when it comes to getting in the vote.)

I happily went through the process of punching my tabs and shoving my ballot down the slot. Somehow or other, when the old ladies at the table had given me the ballot, they also gave me a little receipt that I could carry out with me, showing that I had done my civic duty and voted. Oddly (as I think about it now), this receipt was colored -- one color if you were a registered Dem, and another if you were a Republican. They kept the tear-off part, which I guess was an added safety measure to ensure no one could pretend to be me and vote again.

Clutching my receipt in my hand I sauntered back toward the main doors, happy in the knowledge that there were several large men available to open them. These doors, you see, are huge, metal, fireproof sorts of things. Rather awkward.

I turn the corner to the short foyer hall. I'm on one end; the doors and three men are on the other. I see them. They see me. Their eyes drift down to the receipt in my hand. Their faces harden. Their arms cross. Their backs lean against the walls.

Undisguised hostility oozed toward me and my red receipt. Not a nod. Not a smile. (And I'd been looking rather fetching, as I was in a skirt and on my way to work. It didn't help a bit.)

There was only one way out, so I held my chin high, my eyes down, and walked the gauntlet. (I'd have rather run.) Three slouching guards (each at least twice my bulk, and I'm not a short woman) glared angrily at me on either side; six bulging arms remained stolidly crossed two feet away as I struggled with the heavy 1960's-weight metal doors.

When the door had finally opened and I'd slipped out to the other side, their following anger felt like brick weights pasted to my back. The feeling accompanied me all the way to the car. I shivered some, glad that it was morning and the sky was light, glad my receipt and I hadn't met these public servants in some dark alley.

Chicago's slogan is, "The City that Works", and it really does. I truly admire Mayor Daley's tulips, symbolic of the well-oiled bureaucracy that keeps things moving along and even keeps them looking good as they do. I've actually recommended just such a mafia-inspired governmental structure for poor D.C., which seemed in bad need of help when last I saw it. Chicago may be corrupt, but dog-gone-it, it works. The only thing is, it takes God on your side to get it to work for you.

Which I don't mind, as I have God.

Gosh, I love that city!

Active Waiting

2008-10-10T21:17:00.013-05:00

We're waiting.

Did you know that waiting is an active sort of thing? "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him." Lam 3:25. I mentioned this scripture a few weeks ago, I think. "Qavah", or "wait", involves more than just sitting still. It is an active sort of hope and expectation. That is just what we are trying to practice...

We have bags packed, lists ready, coaching tips tucked away, a mother here, and a place for Arden to go. But it doesn't depend on our readiness. One little unnamed girl, who is probably smiling away inside her safe, warm home, is the variable.

In the meantime, we wait. And try to amuse ourselves. Let's see...

Sam sent me a blouse from Kuala Lumpur. Actually, that's where the box was mailed. The present (so elegantly referred to in his letter as "the shirt-thingy") was probably from Hong Kong. The flash went off in this photo, so it appears brighter than it really is. Very pretty. I wonder if he remembered that I love wearing the old Chinese silk coats my mother inherited.

Let's see...what else are we doing to distract ourselves from the impending labor?

Beaching it, of course!!!

We went with Pat (Dora's mom) to Kailua beach yesterday and I took Deanna's boogie board with us for an inaugural run. Poor Deanna...she got it after a glorious day at Bellows led us to believe that perfection at beaches was to be found easily. Then time after time we would be disappointed...the water was too tame, the water was too rough, the Portuguese Man-o-Wars were out in force, etc. Anyway, she had to give up hope and leave it behind. I tried it out yesterday, only to discover that my timing was off just enough to place me in mortal danger of swallowing the entire Pacific. This is partially due to the fact that I didn't take my contacts out, and really, for the life of me, could not see past the pain once water got in my eyes. Also, big enough waves seem to come in threes. Meaning, if you attempt to catch the first one, only get part way, and end up sitting on the ocean floor trying to clear your eyes enough to see straight...you're just about sure to get pounded by the second one, have your bathing suit twisted completely askew by the third, and experience the not-previously-swallowed part of the Pacific making its way up your nose.

On the plus side, I have a prescription for anyone who thinks they're developing a sinus infection. Go boogie-boarding.

Hmmm...what else?

We were completely distracted last week by having great friends with us... Jon (Sam's Academy buddy) and his bride, Rachelle, stayed on their way from Guam to Norfolk. Poor Jon didn't know what he was getting into, arriving at a house where no man had resided for 4 months. We had a to-do list all ready for him. It involved turning off electrical circuits to repair dangerous wall sockets, tracking down and installing headlight bulbs in the beater, filling up the leaky power-steering fluid, and fixing horrendously annoying pantry doors. (That last one he did of his own accord one morning. I saw him looking at it, testing the door... Little did I ever suspect that one turn of a screwdriver would fix it so perfectly. I, you see, had previously looked at it, tested it, and decided it needed a whole new part and more expertise than I had.) Oh, and tossing Arden high into the air. I thought that was a man sort of job. Jon - how cute is this - turned out to be way more gentle with her than I am. I think it's because he doesn't have kids yet. It takes a while to realize how resilient they are. The problem is, though I have the guts to toss, she can feel on the way down that my arms are not as strong and steady as her daddy's, and she ends up clutching my shirt on the next toss, which, you can imagine, limits the height we can achieve.

We've decided it's awfully fun to take pictures of Dora's belly.

Pat went with us to the Pali Lookout, from which you can see our town, the bay, the base, and Kailua. While I was busy getting artistic...

...someone (Dora?) seems to have retaliated for all the belly-shots, thinking that photos of flying hair were in order. I was shocked. Is my hair really this long? Might be time for a trim.

The first one you see here was nicely posed, although it proved impossible to get Arden to look at the camera. The next two...well... I knew Dora was behind me in the shot, but I didn't know she was cheesing it up!

We went right past the "Road Closed" signs...

...onto the top portion of the Old Pali Highway. I think the mountain up here looks like Scotland. (Thanks, Annie, for passing on the art of self-portraiture.)

Although we'd already turned back uphill, our jaunt was really ended when we found ourselves in an unexpected rain cloud. I grabbed Arden, wrapped my hoodie over her, and ran. At least it ended a little crying fit she had begun over having to hold someone's hand on the walk.

Pitiful, eh? I'll leave you with a happier one. This is titled: Binger on the Beach.

Thus ends my waiting blog. Hopefully, it will not be long before a new one is posted with photos of a wait ended, and a sweet baby girl as Dora's reward. (Ps. 127:3)

I, personally, have also been employing the art of active waiting, but that is an entirely different story, and one for later. Enjoy Jesus, my friends!

16 years and wise...

2008-10-07T15:49:00.002-05:00

Please read my little sister's recent blog post on the question of children's lives. She's sixteen...not only do I want to brag on her, I want you to hear what she has to say.

http://annapeterson.blogspot.com/2008/10/some-issues-are-more-important.html

(Check out her "P.S." follow-up post, too.)

A Deanna Day

2008-10-01T02:16:00.003-05:00

I did crazy things when Deanna was here. She's quite the instigator, and I have the bruises on my legs to prove it. A few days before she jetted off to Amsterdam we went to our favorite beach, Lanikai, where a certain boat is often anchored a little bit off shore. She suggested we swim out and touch it. My careful nature protested that it was too far and too deep. Suddenly, there beside us in the water was the owner, whom we had seen on multiple occasions swimming out to his boat, pushing his little float with fishing tackle ahead of him.

I'm sure he didn't hear our conversation, but he did pause, tread, and invite us for a ride. To be honest, we'd often wished for just such an invitation. Several careful glances at each other were exchanged, and one verbal warning was given -- "As long as you don't kill us," said Deanna. I thought it a good deal, although afterward I realized he never actually agreed to that condition. Swim we did, then, after retrieving our stuff from the beach and plopping it on his floatie. When I knew a ladder was waiting for me at the end, I suddenly lost my fear of going out so far from the shore. (Although I discovered later that clambering into moving boats using tiny little ladders is a good formula for getting pretty bruised up.) These sights greeted us once we were underway...

The little island above is one of two which had been tantalizing us for months. People kayak out there, but not being experienced in such things (or such waters) we'd hesitated to try it ourselves. The islands (the "Mokes") have small beaches and are sanctuaries for sea birds. Once our new friend, Dave, had anchored off shore we jumped into the water again and swam in. I cannot describe the crystal clarity of this water, though you may be able to see a little of it in the photos. The floor is a patterned, light and dark mix of blond sand twining between dark rocks.

Behind us is the island we went to, which is covered with holes in which baby sea birds, all fluffy and weak, are nested. One per hole. They're waiting for a parent to bring food. Dave showed us these, and took us barefooted around the back to the ocean side, where sharp black rocks secreted a little "queen's bath". The process of jumping in, swimming about, and hoisting myself back onto the rocks while avoiding the spiky urchins left a trail of blood running from my knee down my calve, but it was worth the wound. I just wished I'd had my flipflops--those rocks are sharp!

On the way back he dropped us off at his beach house, which had darling stone steps leading up the stone wall which keeps the water away when tide is high. He had to motor off someplace else, so gave us the keys and told us to just drop them over the courtyard wall once we'd left and locked the gate. Nicely toweled off, we left our luxurious afternoon behind and regrouped at Sam's rusted out island beater (the one with the fern growing from the wheel well), ready to "beat" our way back to real life.

It was definitely a treat (even moreso in hindsight, once I knew we'd made it back to the beater alive :). The only unfortunate part of the whole affair is that we owe it to our pretty faces (according to Dave), and Jordan preached a sermon on Sunday about how terrible it is to show preference to people based on things like looks or wealth. On the other hand, Deanna's smiley friendliness and God's desire to show us some of His pretty handiwork were likely the real reason for the afternoon. In which case, I freely accept! :)

Wedding Sausages!

2008-09-29T03:19:00.009-05:00

What you see there, folks, is Amy Peterson ENJOYING this mysterious delicacy known by our family-in-law as Wedding Sausages. At the grocery store they go by "Lil' Smokies". We threw a baby shower for the upcoming Burrito (Dora's 2nd daughter, due in about 2 weeks) and in honor of Dora, we pulled out the crockpot, headed to the commissary, and anchored the party with...Wedding Sausages!

Now, you need to know a little bit of history here. Dora's brother OJ first introduced the Peterson family to the existence of wedding sausages when he requested they be present at the reception of he and my sister Suz. I'm sorry to say, once the Northerners (we Petersons were transplanted to Chicago long enough ago to qualify) were informed of what exactly these things were, his request was denied. (To be fair, I don't think the caterer even had such an item available.) Seems that in the fair South, wedding sausages are staples at every party.

Wedding sausages are placed in a crockpot and heated in a soupy mixture of barbecue sauce and grape jelly. From there, little toothpicks are provided with which to impale and raise them to the mouth. (I thought I needed to be explicit here, as many Northerners read my blog.)

What love induced me to provide these sausages at Dora's shower, you may guess. The deed was done and I endured the scorn of all present as I ate, in public, my first wedding sausage. Here is the confession you've been waiting for: I went back for seconds. And thirds. These little things are tasty! After the evening was over I was challenged by Dora and Deanna, who laughed as they mocked, "So Amy, now will you have wedding sausages at your wedding?" To which I firmly replied, "No. They're tasty, but they are definitely not a wedding sort of food." Groans, as you can imagine, were my answer.

However, I have no shame in displaying to you these photos of me gulping them down, posing with them, and recommending that you take the chance to try one if you ever can.

Dora and the Belly

Kim winning the "how fast can you dress a baby while blindfolded" game. All we had to use as the baby was a stuffed-animal Martian that some neighbors gave Arden.

We ended by decorating onesies for the Burrito...

Being glamorous...

And posing with WEDDING SAUSAGES!

If you've made it this far in the blog, your reward will be great. Well...perhaps not. But you do get to watch a video of me trying out on the public one of the gifts the Burrito was given. It's called "Moo, Baa, La La La." (Something I first became familiar with through my association with Glorie-Be.) Enjoy!

Turning Around in my Cadillac

2008-09-26T00:32:00.003-05:00

Do you like watching strangers peruse your garage sale, peer at all your stuff and turn up their noses, evaluate how much this-or-that is worth, and walk off having wrested something real from you as if it was never of any value to begin with?

I usually start off a garage sale day feeling totally in charge of the world (I'm determining the prices; I'm offering my goods), and end it feeling like an unenticing, floppy dishrag, crying pitifully, "Love me, love me. My old hat is worth your dollar!"

Well, perhaps that statement's excessive. But it is so human to mix a feeling of defiant pride simultaneously with the need for affirmation.

I've gotten off track here, as the situation we're in hasn't had much of the need for affirmation, just that very odd feeling I imagine persecuted and oppressed people the world over have had when those stronger than them survey their lives to see what might be worth taking.

The owner of Sam & Dora's house (they're renting) has decided to sell it. This means that while her husband is away at sea, and she is about to give birth to their daughter in his absence, she may also have to pack up the whole house, find a new one, and move. Of course, I wouldn't let her do much of the packing, but the emotional stress of it all is something I can't take away.

So, people (they seem more like circling vultures) have been periodically coming and walking around our home. Someday I may experience the reality of having absolutely no say over my own life and watching others take what they want. Happily, that is not now. Still, the exercise of sitting still while others survey your living quarters, trying to decide if they want to purchase and kick you out, is tinged with that bigger sense of disenfranchised helplessness one sometimes has nightmares about.

We've been trying to behave in a golden-rule, Christian sort of manner. For instance, we haven't trashed the house in preparation for showings, and we haven't told the viewers that the neighbors have excessively loud cars which come and go in the middle of the night. I did almost tell some people that the house next door is a halfway house. Luckily, Dora corrected me before I did. Turns out it is a "care home". But that would have been an accident.

So we've cleaned and straightened and been pleasant hostesses, all the while praying hard that the house-hunters will be uninterested. We're on tenderhooks, since if the owner doesn't sell by the end of the month, he's taking it off the market until January. That would mean Sam would definitely be home before any moving has to happen. The other day another viewing was scheduled. We were ready. We were hoping. Hoping they'd hate it. We saw a Cadillac pull up the street. It pulled into the driveway. Dora opened the door. The man got out, but the woman didn't. "We're done," he said. He got back into the car and drove away. DRIVIN' AWAY IN HIS CADILLAC. Whoops of joy rose out our windows. There've been no viewings since.

So, I guess our little roost didn't pass muster. It does make one feel slightly defensive. Defensive, and oh so happy!

What an unmarried woman had to say about that!

2008-09-23T03:02:00.003-05:00

Tonight was the Bible study I wrote about a few weeks ago, where I'd be leading on the book The Power of a Praying Wife. Unbeknownst to me when last I wrote, I HAD volunteered for the week that the chapter was actually on the subject of marriage! So here I sat, an unmarried woman waxing eloquent while six married women listened. Only God does these sorts of things.
I was afraid of boring them, and perhaps I did (Dora insists I didn't). Yet, I enjoyed teaching what I did. Several days ago I was talking to my dad on the phone and he popped out with one of those memory-blazing phrases -- the sort that will in the future will always be prefaced with a "my dad says...." What did he say? Ah yes, good of you to ask.

"Satan is always warring against love. He is always warring against relationships."

I've thought about it several times since, especially as I prepared for leading this study. It is so true, and so infrequently considered seriously. Oh, we're aware of the enemy's involvement in major things like divorce and bitterness and adultery. But the little things escape our notice: irritation, annoyance, self-preservation, fear, accusations. The list is extensive, so I won't even attempt to complete it. The point is, we are actually in a war. If we never recognize the fact, we will never violently and vigilantly act to preserve the way of love.

God IS love, and we are made in His image. This means that what Satan hates in God, he hates in us also. The enemy hates love.

Can you imagine this? Really? A personality that hates love? I find it horrific.

We can already see how effective the enemy is in this. Our culture guzzles divorce like beer. What are our defenses against such an all-out attack? What are our counter-weapons? What tools and strategies has the Lord given us to counter this onslaught of powerful hate?

Prayer is the first. Love is the second.

There are two aspects to this love. The first is following the law of love toward one another. That law says that we are to love the other as we love ourselves, that we are to prefer the other above ourselves, that we are to lay down our life for the sake of the other. (Ever notice how much easier it is to follow this law of sacrificial love toward our friends and neighbors than toward our family and spouses?)

The second aspect is this: we are married to two men at once. One marriage will last about 50 years. The other will last over 50 million years (to name a smallish sort of number). Our marriage to Jesus is our first, and our longest. It is the real thing, of which our physical marriage is a picture and shadow and reflection. It is the blueprint. It is the guide.

What does this mean practically? Our capacity for love is greater than a human being will ever be able to fill. We are deeper people than our spouses will ever be able to plumb. Women (and men, I assume) habitually look to their spouses to fill needs God created so extensive that only He could fill them. He left room in us for Himself!

He took me once through the 23rd Psalm, having me declare back to Him that He was my shepherd, my husband wasn't. He was my provider, my husband wasn't. He would give my soul rest and peace, my husband wouldn't. And so on... It was a wonderful exercise. At each verse I acknowledged that God might use my husband as a tool and an avenue, such as providing for me financially and physically. But in the ultimate sense, at the end of the story, a spouse is not going to ever complete what only God can.

I told the girls tonight that they will always be in want, they will always be in need. No husband will supply what God designed only to be satisfied by Himself. Until the marriage of the Lamb and the bride, we will always be waiting. The only way for a physical marriage to be all it was designed to be, is for it to be second to our marriage to God. The only way to really love your spouse, is to love God more than your spouse.

And that's what an unmarried woman had to say about that!

Mastering the Ukelele

2008-09-21T03:16:00.005-05:00

A very dear friend visited me last week here on our island paradise. Kim braved 12 hours in the air to come from New Jersey. Among the whirlwind of fun that follows the visits of friends was a trip to the free ukelele lessons at the Royal Hawaiian Cultural Center down in Waikiki. Deanna discovered that they have certain free activities every day. We've taken advantage of lei making lessons and hula lessons as well.

Although the ukelele (pronounced oo-ca-lay-lay) is much, much smaller than the guitar, I at least had the general idea already. However, it does seem clear to me that my fingers are much too long to comfortably master the instrument. I also had a very difficult time holding it properly. It seems that a larger-ish belly is very helpful as a sort of perch to keep it up where it needs to be. By the end of the lesson I felt (and probably looked) like a hunchback.

It was tons of fun, however, especially singing along with some of the songs. We (as at all the free cultural center activities) seemed to be the only Caucasians in a sea of Japanese tourists. I think at least by the end of the lesson our teacher had grown used to (and even fond of) the loud laughter and protestations drifting across the group from our back table. (We've been late to every activity there, thus the back row, the back table, and the last lei needles...)

Deanna and I loved it!

She even took photos of the songs. Don't look too closely at this one. It wasn't until after I'd finished belting out multiple times "...you do the Ami-Ami for the boys in the band..." that it struck me I wasn't sure what exactly the "Ami-Ami" was, and most probably wouldn't do it for the boys in the band.

Kim wasn't too sure about the whole thing. Especially B minor w/ a 7th.

It was tons of fun! If you come to Hawaii, I highly recommend the process of making fools of yourselves trying to play ukelele and dance the hula.

2008-09-21T03:05:00.003-05:00

It's something to navigate, the difference between facebook and a blog. For those of you not on facebook, I'm adding a little video here of Kim's visit and the avocado hunt we went on. Taylor had told us that the old Pali Highway had tons of avocado trees growing alongside. That was all we needed to know!

We found the old Pali highway during a hike. It was like walking along the ruins of an ancient civilization. And there, high above our heads, was an avocado tree. I haven't much of a pitching arm, so after a few pitiful attempts I decided to photograph the others throwing rocks up to try to loosen the fruit. I happened to catch the big moment on a video. The funniest part (which you can't really see) was watching the fallen avocado roll down the steep highway once it hit the ground. You CAN see Deanna and Kim running after it. This, in case you need to know, is how to harvest an avocado!

Reprieve

2008-09-05T19:25:00.000-05:00

I had a reprieve on Monday. It was Labor Day, which meant that we ceased from our labor (ha! just being in Hawaii seems like a cease from labor), ignored all social obligations, and cooked chicken shish-gabobs--as I so sloppily called them. Those of you who know me humorously take it in stride that when happy or excited I’ll sometimes slur my words. Thoughts of kebobs obviously did the trick. (Of course, I was thinking Persian with some sour cherry saffron rice…)

Though American versions, the kabobs turned out wonderfully. More importantly, the Monday-night-Bible-study was cancelled. Don’t misunderstand, I absolutely enjoy that study. Every Monday evening a band of military wives meet together at our house to have dessert, to study, to pray and to chat. Deanna and I are the non-military add-ons, which is never a chore as I’m highly sympathetic with my brother’s career and my sister-in-law’s resultant duties and joys. However, the current study (one I encouraged, by the way, so don’t feel too sorry for me) is on The Power of a Praying Wife.

Remembering a friend’s tale of spending a year praying for his wife with the corresponding book (Power of a Praying Husband) before he even met her, I decided that prayer is always valuable and I could participate without actually knowing this mysterious man I’ll someday call “husband”. In theory, I’m right. In prayer, I’m right. (It feels great to serve him this way without even being sure of who he is.) But in conversational practicality, I’m in a tough spot.

I don’t know if Deanna feels it as keenly as I do. Several times over the last few months I have been ashamed to discover my heart saying to the Lord, “Don’t torture me.” These are accusations I have never entertained against Him, for I know He does not torture. But in everyday life I have somehow gotten into a situation where I am weekly reminded of how different my life is than these women who all married in their early 20’s and have (for the most part) children to raise and marriage relationships to nurture. While they are discussing what to do with your heart when your husband has to work late and you’re resentful over it, I’m just wondering what it might feel like to be loved so much that someone has pledged to come home always (even if late) – to me. I know I can love like that, but to be loved like that is outside my realm of experience. (Except, of course, for the divine Lover, who as Psalm 73 declares, is “my portion forever”.)

I was delighted to be reassured by Him out of Lamentations 3.

“The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
to the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord…
Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
For He does not afflict willingly (from His heart),
Nor grieve the children of men.”

Yet, it sometimes does feel like a weekly torture, especially when marriage problems and complaints dominate the conversation while I am quietly sitting there marveling at how quickly our human souls can forget how good and how merciful the Lord has shown Himself to us in first giving such a gift as a husband or a wife. It is easier to see this, I suppose, when the gift has not yet been given to me. But He reminded me in this scripture that His heart is not to torture or afflict. His heart is to have mercy, and part of that mercy, I know, is to take me through the necessary trials to purify and perfect my soul. Ah, mercy in all its facets.

I’m supposed to lead the group in a few weeks and I just have to laugh about it. I’ve been put in a position like this before, where I ended up leading a study on the week it happened to be about marriage. I – the only unmarried one in the whole group of 20 women! God’s got a great sense of humor and a great way of showing who actually does the work (the Holy Spirit, of course) when we let him. Somehow, He came through that night and much was done in the women’s hearts. I trust the same will happen again, though I won’t have to teach specifically on marriage. Beseeching the Lord together over our husbands will be much easier. And on that day I at least can be certain that the leader will not admonish me, in all seriousness, to sleep with my husband often and willingly. However scriptural that command is, it is not one I currently have in my power to obey. I shall stick to more universally applicable admonishments, or at least, to ones that Deanna and I can follow just as well as the wives. Perhaps something about unselfishly loving…

Division of Labor

2008-09-01T14:18:00.005-05:00

I just got a facebook message from an old school friend of my younger sister, at the end of which she says that my baby is so cute. How embarrassing... It's true, the profile pictures on facebook don't have any captions where I can specify I'm holding my niece, not my daughter. My "single" status might give people pause (or not) when they see that photo. Hmm... perhaps I'll choose a new one.

In other news, I washed my hands this morning and discovered they are painfully bruised across the tops of the palms. After I'd briefly and frantically wondered what sort of rare disease attacked hand muscles first, I realized my adventures with the lawnmower yesterday were more intense than these writer's hands are used to. It took quite a few tries to get the thing started, but I had to do it as guests are coming tomorrow and I'd already put on grubby clothes, slathered myself with sunscreen, and donned the straw hat. Here is a little demonstration of what occurred after the gas tank was refilled (note, if you can, the slightly wobbly looking front wheel):

I'd been determined to do this, as our friend who mowed it last has been uber-busy at work so Sunday is a precious day for him to spend with his wife and baby, and the other man we might call on for such things just had his second child (rather, his wife did) and I couldn't stand the thought of making him leave them to haul his lawnmower over here and cut our grass!

He, by the way, made a passing comment a few weeks ago that must be shared: "Men's bodies aren't good for much...we can carry things," he said, "but women make food and they make people!" It's a comment I have highly appreciated since--it's not often you hear a Marine so vocally self-denigrating. He was in perfect earnest, but you should have seen his dancing eyes. His very-pregnant wife smiled quietly, while I laughed out loud. I guess women's bodies are pretty amazing. But so are men's--a point that has been driven home often in Sam's absence as I do things he normally would have done. When my sister Lizzie married Peter she made a deal with him -- he would care for the cars, the lawn, and the garbage; and she would do the food and the housekeeping. This strength-based division of labor is not sexist. It's delightfully honest!

Dr. Seus Grooming

2008-08-31T16:15:00.004-05:00

Arden is a little bibliophile. Dora has been redecorating the nursery for the new baby, and Arden found this new little basket meant for toys. She promptly climbed in, settled herself down, and began reading.

Little shaggy-head. I cut her bangs the other day, but hair from the back of her head constantly flops all the way forward, and we don't want to trim it in hopes it will eventually grow long enough to be weighed down toward the back instead.

Because of this, tiny little rubber bands are strewn all over the house. We put them in, she takes them out.

Yes, I know you think you see three pigtails... but just wait...

Deanna-the-Dexterous has been taking charge of Arden's hair recently. The result has been at least one more pigtail per day, until this morning, when I finished grinding the coffee beans and looked toward the living room (where grooming had been taking place) I found this:

When we counted (she enjoys the slight pull on each tail as I say the number), it was up to SIX!

We had some fun playing around with the new hairstyle, which makes it easy to keep the stacking cups on top of the head (one of our favorite games). At least, easy for her. Not so much for me. Maybe I should get Deanna to do my hair too.

All in all, with the recent multi-pigtail fad, Arden often looks like a Dr. Seus character (author of many of her favorite books). It's time to rhyme!

Free to roam
Around the home...

Sheepish Victory

2008-08-30T03:05:00.008-05:00

On a recent very long hike....

...I had the odd feeling of unlimited energy. Up, up we went into the mountains behind our house, passing this view...

And this view...

And even this view...

We hit a 3-way split in the path. One went level to the left. One went down straight ahead. And one went up to the right. "Let's keep going up!" I insisted, while Deanna groaned. My reasoning, which I thought impeccable at the time, was that if we went down, we'd have to come back up again, and I didn't want to do that at the end of a hike. And if we stayed level, what was the point of all the effort we'd already been making by climbing so long? So, ever agreeable, Deanna acquiesced and we began the ascent...up...up...up a path that quickly proved itself NOT the official path, nor even the SEMI-official path. By the time we were practically on our bellies, grasping tree roots to pull ourselves up the next foot, I was verbally repenting and Deanna was insisting that we at least finish what we'd started and see what was at the top. Something gorgeous, hopefully. The path was way to steep to show up well in a photo, but here is one of Deanna sliding back down on her rear (which was the only way to do it). (I'm not giving away too much to reveal that we survived and made it down again, as you should already be clued in to that fact.)

And what did we emerge to find? Not a gorgeous view, not a spectacular mountaintop.

No.

We had climbed to the tunnels of the Pali Highway, which crosses the mountains on the peak behind our house. Sheepish victory indeed.

I'm just sorry for the motorists who were probably wondering what on earth two extremely red, sweaty girls were doing on the side of the highway, and for the police helicopter that so concernedly flew low over us a few moments later when we'd hiked over to an actual lookout. We attempted to look nonchalant and relaxed, and they continued their sweep without a rescue attempt. Happily.

The Bird Squealer

2008-08-26T16:35:00.003-05:00

My open window is just under Arden's. This morning when I woke I heard her entertaining herself in her bed with some high-pitched squeals. They were on one sustained note. At first I thought she was doing repeated, short bursts, but then realized that several birds were answering back on almost the same note as she was squealing. It turned into a regular cacophony. One of the birds even flew over my window to perch near hers. How many children induce birds to shriek and squeal? This one does!

To Kill Some Skin Cells

2008-08-26T02:52:00.004-05:00

Deanna and I decided to head off to the beach a week ago while Dora was out with Arden. Lanikai beach is one of the prettiest places on earth. A little sea turtle came and hung out in the water near us. We had to explain to a few very eager tourists that it was illegal to harass them. In spite of our efforts he was chased off several times, and several times returned after the coast seemed clear.

Unfortunately, a place can be seductively beautiful...at least, seductive to those of us with Swedish and Irish skin who shouldn't be outdoors at all, it seems. I had to sleep with an ice-pack that night. Mind you, tons of sunscreen had been applied before we went, but Michael Phelps had so inspired us that we spent the first hour floundering around in the water trying all his strokes. It was the butterfly that sent us into hysterics. I'm surprised the people in kayaks didn't come ask us if we were drowning, for we certainly looked like it.

It seems that we forgot about the principle of re-application, instead spreading ourselves out on the sand, chomping down on cheetos and grapes, and reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I've learned my lesson, though. It won't happen again. From now on I shall be obsessed with sunscreen (in a very healthy way, of course), and if any of you come visit me, I shall be your personal sunscreen conscience.

Aunt Amy's Heels

2008-08-23T21:53:00.003-05:00

Remember my high-heels night? Arden's favorite thing to do is get my shoes - I don't know why mine in particular - and tromp around. She found my heels upstairs early in the morning after I discarded them. The girl has amazing balance. See for yourself :)

Her feet don't seem to be as tortured as mine were. I guess if you start young...

Racewalking for our own amusement (and yours)

2008-08-22T15:12:00.003-05:00

I often wonder what the neighbors think goes on in our house. The windows are always open, so the laughter must float across to them frequently. Deanna and Dora are usually the instigators, but I happily join in.

Last night we discovered a new Olympic sport (actually, not so new). Racewalking. Scores of men with starvation-sized bodies were walking around and around a track, swinging their hips just as fast as they could. After we convinced Deanna (whose objections were quite loud) that it wasn't an SNL spoof, she decided that she and I must race. I won those initial heats, probably due to my long legs, but once the camera started rolling I seem to have lost my concentration and pace. The final product is posted on her blog... please have as much fun watching it as we had making it!!

RACEWALKING in HAWAII (Competitors: Deanna and Amy)

What next?