No contest

I was woken up at 2:00 a.m. to howling winds that sounded like a train and rain lashing against the windows on all sides. It's the kind of storm that is almost impossible to sleep through, ignore, or drown out. The only option is to sit and listen in awe, try to figure out if there is a tornado warning, and hope for the best. In our case in the wee hours this particular morning, there was in fact a tornado warning.

Half asleep, we dragged our protesting dog Maximus to the bathroom and set up camp. In the end we only stayed in our cozy (tiny and cramped) guest bathroom for about ten minutes, and then basically went back to our normal lives and tried to go back to sleep. I couldn't, however...go back to sleep...and so here I am, at 3:24 a.m., writing about it. (This is after re-arranging ALL the furniture in the guest bedroom in an attempt to expend enough energy to get tired enough to fall back asleep.)

For those few minutes we were in the bathroom just waiting, helpless and human, I couldn't help remembering something the Bishop said in one of his sermons I listened to a while back: "God is love, but he is also a lot of other things". Just to think storms like this that send us running to our bathroom tubs don't even begin to show us the power of the pinky finger in God's right hand. I couldn't help but smile as I sat waiting in the bathtub with my pillows, blankets strewn everywhere looking like I was about to go bobsledding, Max lying on his huge pillow literally taking up the rest of the bathroom wondering what the heck was going on, and my husband sitting funny on the toilet with the laptop trying to find out. As we listened to the thunder roar, the lightning strike, the winds moan, and the rain slash, I thought, "man, all I know is I'm sure glad THAT God is on MY side."

"...And these are but the outer fringe of his works;
how faint the whisper we hear of him!
Who then can understand the thunder of his power?” Job 26:14

Racing to the swings

What a bust. I used to LOVE to swing...at recess I would race as fast as I could to try and get a swing so i could spend all 20 minutes just sitting... feeling the wind in my face going higher and higher and just breathing in life. I would make up stories about where I was flying, and fill my heart and mind with inspiration, hope, and imagination. I wasn't scared I was going to fall. I felt the opposite. I felt like I could do anything, go anywhere, and I knew that I was safe even though I was flying through the air at an alarming rate and at what seemed to me to be great heights. I had faith that the swing would catch me on the way down, that the chains were strong. After a good swing I would leave with more faith in myself, the world, and even in God.

Tonight while I was waiting for my youth ministry class to start, I decided to go play on the playground. Where is the first place I go?...the swings..no contest. However, the experience I have on swings now is drastically different from that when I was in grade school. Swings now make me dizzy and sick to my stomach really fast. I don't know what that means, but I do know that swings no longer hold the meaning they once did. As I sat there sitting in the swing I couldn't swing in because it made me feel sick, I started thinking that like with many things, the swings didn't change, I did. My body grew to where it hurt to sit too long in a swing, I didn't get the same thrill pumping my legs as hard as i could to go higher and higher, and my body didn't handle all that motion the same way it used to. I'm okay with that.

What I'm not okay with is getting rid of swinging altogether. I started thinking about what would be equivalent to my "swing" now. When did we stop swinging? Why did we stop swinging? And we wonder why kids are so carefree. What if we took 15 to 20 minutes twice a day to run somewhere so we could just sit? To feel the wind on our face just breathe in life? To fill our hearts and minds with inspiration, hope, and imagination? I'm not talking about watching a show or getting on facebook. I'm talking about going somewhere that we leave everything behind, and just breathe in life for awhile. It's about time we started racing to the swings again.

New goal: Have faith like a child...on a swing.

The thing about harvest time

John 4:27-42

Harvest season is such a wonderful metaphor of our call to share the Gospel with others. With that metaphor, however, comes an urgency that I think is easy for us to conveniently ignore. Have you ever waited too long to pick the fruit from a fruit tree? It's no longer on the tree; it's on the ground. The harvest is a season. We often have a small window of time to act, and once that window has passed, there is no going back and the fruit is no longer fit to harvest. We have a limited time to let God work through us. Yes, one lifetime, but it's hard to think in terms of a lifetime. Let's think in terms of one day, one person, one moment even.

We often have one chance to share the Gospel with someone. We may never have that chance again. Hopefully we have more than one chance, especially if we are talking about someone with whom we have a friendship, but I have often found that I will have the opportunity to share with someone that I may never see again in this life. Even if it is a close friend, family member, or co-worker, it is sometimes a rare moment when the right atmosphere, conversation, or situation presents itself for us to share our faith. What I'm saying is when that moment comes, seize it! Before we know it, the moment will be gone, and we may or may not have another chance like that one.

Because Jesus took the time right then to reach one person, one Samaritan women, a door was opened, and he was able to reach her whole village. No effort to honor Christ with our lives and to proclaim the Gospel goes unnoticed by God. We may not feel like we reach a whole village every time we stop and help a person in need, share our heart about what God is doing in our lives, or take a leap of faith and invite someone to know Christ; but that is God handing us an opportunity to serve him by letting him use us to further the work he has previously done in someone's heart.

The idea of evangelism can be really overwhelming and intimidating for anyone at first. Start with one person. Take a leap of faith and share your heart with one person. Let God use you to harvest the faith growing in someone's heart, and you may just find that even though you didn't have the perfect words, get the perfect response, or see immediate results, you know deep down that God is saying; "well done my good and faithful servant; the best is yet to come".

A voice to remember

I see my grandma from behind as we walk into the room where the church service at Bethany home will take place. Immediately, I recognize the back of her head, as she sits in her wheel chair at the back of the room. I have a flashback of trying to get up early enough in the morning to watch her put up her waist length white hair into a perfect bun. I will never forget the day she asked me to help her put her hair up. We walk up to her, give her a hug, and sit on either side of her. She slips her hand in mine,something deep in my heart just lets go,and I just start crying. I try to regain my composure and focus all my attention on the music.

We are sitting with all the other people at Bethany home listening to the instrumental hymns playing before the Sunday morning church service starts. As I listen, I start hearing this voice...someone humming this faint alto harmony..in perfect tune...confident,soft,and beautiful. It is so faint I can hardly tell where it is coming from.

Just then I slowly turn my head and realize...it's MY ninety-year-old grandmother humming perfect harmony. My heart stopped for a moment, and I leaned over and blurted out "grandma, do you like singing hymns?"(my heart starting to beat faster in anticipation). She paused and thought about it for a moment, and whispered, "I just can't help but sing", as if she were giving an apology.

I almost lost it completely right in the middle of the church service. If you know me, you know that I am exactly the same way. It is nearly impossible to stop me from singing. At that moment so many things became clear to me at the same time that I had never really put together that I felt like I was having an out of body experience. Like I was was watching myself hum the melody along with my grandma's harmony as I tried to hold back the tears.

I have read and read the scriptures that talk about blessings and faith being passed down through generations, but at that moment I felt it. It's like I was holding the hands of all my ancestors before me, singing to my Savior with all faith, passion and joy in the world. I too just can't help but sing.

The video below is later on that day when we sang hymns together. Not only is "The Old Rugged Cross" my Dad's favorite hymn, but right after I took this video, my Grandma said that this was her mother's favorite hymn as well. She said singing it "made her homesick for her momma". My Grandma's mother died when she was five years old. She has been waiting eighty-five years to see her mother again. As my Aunt Joyce said, "that's a long time to do anything." I imagine she is thinking about her mother as she sings in the video. It isn't glamorous, I'm singing too loud so it's hard to hear the others, and the angle isn't great...but regardless of how it looks, Christ was very present in the room that day, and I think we all were changed somehow after our visit with her. I can't really explain it, but then again, with the best things in life, you just can't.

The fight against anger

"So our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he shows us his mercy. Have mercy upon us, oh Lord, have mercy, for we have had more than enough of contempt. To much of the scorn of the indolent rich, and of the derision of the proud." Psalm 123:2-4

I woke up on the WRONG side of the bed this morning. I'm talking breathe fire wrong.

Have you ever had that morning where one thing just sets you off, and from that moment on, every driver seems to be slowing down on purpose, every light turns red just for you, and the world just seems to be laughing in your face? Well that was me this morning.

After a very early morning and a series of events that had me at the breaking point, I decided that I was going back to sleep, and I would refuse to let anything else bad happen. In essence I was trying to run away. As I lay sulking, I realized just how mad I was...and about what? That everything didn't go according to my plan just the way I wanted it to? I realized in my head that I was acting like a child, but in my heart I just felt so..angry. I kept thinking to myself, I don't want to be like this, I know this is not where God would want my heart to be, so why can't I just make it go away and let it go? It was then that I knew I need to stop everything and spend some serious time with God, like, NOW.

So I went outside and started watering the yard, got a cup of coffee and settled down in the sun with scripture. As I was reading Psalm 123, these words jumped out at me.

"So our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he shows us his mercy. Have mercy upon us, oh Lord, have mercy, for we have had more than enough of contempt. To much of the scorn of the indolent rich, and of the derision of the proud." Psalm 123:2-4

Now in this context the writer is actually asking God to save them from others who's hearts are obviously in the wrong place. However when I read this, I felt like this scripture was talking about me. Because of my anger, I had now become the person the writer was asking God to save them from. That scared me.

I was showing contempt and scorn for those around me.
I was indolent in that I felt a sense of "entitlement" to have things go my way, and instead of saying 'thy will be done', I was saying I'm going to be lazy, sulk, and feel sorry for myself because I 'deserve' something better.
I was even taking a derisive attitude toward God. What I thought had been the world mocking my foul mood, was actually my foul spirit mocking the blessings God was trying to give me.

When we take on this attitude, we are furthering the epidemic of entitlement in or nation. If we can't get what we want exactly when we want it, suddenly we are justified in our anger because we feel we deserve something else. Actually, when it comes right down to it, we deserve death:

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

It is only by the grace and mercy of God that we live and move and have our being. It is God's prerogative to give and take away, and we are setting ourselves a trap to think that we 'deserve' not to have trials and seasons of hardship.

As I sat meditating on this scripture, drinking my coffee in the sun, and watching my dog run around carelessly, I actually started laughing. What had been about to make me cry, pull out my hair, and scream all at the same time, now seemed so trivial that I was actually laughing...and asking God to forgive me for my selfishness. As Anne of Green Gables quotes "It's so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn't it?"

The good news is that when we take off our anger colored glasses and put on the full armor of God, suddenly we see things as they are and not as we would make them. So let us fight the good fight by not letting anger take hold of our hearts, but instead by singing this song through our brokenness so that God can dissipate our anger into joy:

"You give and take away, You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name."

Renewing our minds

Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-what is good and acceptable and perfect.

As I was reading today, the phrase "renewing of your minds" struck me as fascinating. To make something new again is something that our culture is obsessed with. Unfortunately our society mostly cares about this idea when it has to do with our physical appearance, material possessions, and credit score. Although we say that we look to Christ for our 'renewal', is that reflected in the way we live?

Fill in the blank: In the morning in order to get ready for the day ahead, I always _______. Drink my cup of coffee, listen to music, read the paper, or workout? After a long day, I like to renew my mind by_________. Watching TV, reading a book to help us get away, spending time with family, or for some, putting up their feet with a glass of wine and relaxing music. Wait...now that I look at it in writing...something seems to be missing...but what? Oh, that's right, my relationship with God: my 30 second prayer before breakfast that God will help me get through this day and bite my tongue when I'm around _____, and at night before dinner thanking God for the food and for all our blessings, and before bed asking God to help me actually sleep through the night and be rested so I can start it all again tomorrow. Yep. I knew there was something missing.

We say that God is the most important thing in our lives and our first priority.

I wonder what would be different if I started setting aside a whole five minutes a day to talk or spend time with my husband...and we wonder why God isn't speaking to us. My husband wouldn't be either!

But seriously, by our own standards we wouldn't really call spending five minutes with someone a deep relationship. We would probably consider that at best a friend with whom we barely scratch the surface, and at worst barely an acquaintance. Someone we are in relationship to, not in a relationship with.

So how does this all fit into renewing our minds? Well, if we work backward, we want to discern the will of God and do what is 'good and acceptable, and perfect' right? So in order to do that, we have to 'renew our minds'. What does renew mean anyway? Well, for a moment let's look at the actual definition of what it means to renew:

re·new
1. To make new or as if new again; restore: renewed the antique chair.
2. To take up again; resume: renew an old friendship; renewed the argument.
3. To repeat so as to reaffirm: renew a promise.
4. To regain or restore the physical or mental vigor of; revive: I renewed my spirits in the country air.
5.
a. To arrange for the extension of: renew a contract; renew a magazine subscription.
b. To arrange to extend the loan of: renewed the library books before they were overdue.
6. To replenish: renewed the water in the humidifier.
7. To bring into being again; reestablish.
v.intr.
1. To become new again.
2. To start over.

Those are a lot of really cool images of what it means to renew something. If we thought about letting God renew our mind in all those ways, it seems like it might take more than a total of five minutes a day of us just talking at God. I will be the first one to say that sometimes, God does reveal things to me in five minutes, but almost every one of those times I have been listening and not talking. We pray and ask God to show us where he wants us to go, pour out our heart, and ask for our needs. Those are all wonderful and really important things, but at that point it becomes a one way conversation.

All of us have had a friend who talks and talks, but never lets us get in a word. What would happen if we decided that in our most valued relationship with a family member or friend, we were going to start doing all the talking, but never listening to what that person had to say or listen to their point of view? A real relationship requires a giving AND taking, talking AND listening. Hopefully more listening than talking, as I'm pretty sure God has more wisdom in one whisper of his voice than I would have if I talked my whole life long.

The craziest part is that God wants to talk to us and so he can help us and let us know how much we are loved. It's not like going to dentist...well maybe sometimes it feels like it when he tells us things we know will mean changing our lives, but even those things are to refine us and mold us more to his image if we let him. Things like reading the Bible, praying, spending time in nature, sitting in silence, or just sitting and listening or singing worship songs help us to be still and just be with God, listen to God, and wait for God to show us something or reveal himself in scripture, nature, etc.

Let's fight against the urge to put God in a nice, neat box that we can check off. Okay God, I've got five minutes now for some serious renewing, so let's have some quality time and lets make it quick!

"There's no such thing as as perfect people, there's no such thing as a perfect life, come as you are, broken and scared, lift up your hearts, be amazing, be changed, by a perfect God." - Natalie Grant