Tree

I grew up in the places where trees are not afraid to touch one another.  Woods and forests and glens were my homeland.  And trees were for climbing and swinging free.  The willow on campus with its long beckoning branches became my rope swing and my fort.  The choke cherry made paint for sidewalks.  The maples were for climbing and sneaking behind during hide and seek.

Grace

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Grace.

It happened a year ago August.  I had left a sweet meeting with my dear mentor and I was unglued in the best sense of the word.  We had gone into the depths of some painful memories and I had wept and been freed up even more.  Jesus is relentlessly, yet patiently excavating my heart and digging out the remnants of old hurts and bringing up the wounds so that He can breathe healing all over them.  Each time I meet with my mentor in this way more and more of that old gets sloughed off and there is a fresh wind of peace and joy blowing through the open spaces.  But the wounds are often fresh when I leave her and I feel more vulnerable and tender for a time.  Healing is like that. 

This meeting was no different and on the way home -- my long two-hour drive back to my life and family -- I was looking for something to listen to as I drove.  I finally turned on my laptop on the passenger seat and pulled up my audiobooks file.  I have this habit of downloading free audiobooks whenever they are available so I quickly scanned the list.  Not knowing who wrote what, a title struck me: "All of Grace."  I hit play.  As the author's name was spoken, I thought, "hmmm ... maybe not."  I know this author, C. H. Spurgeon.  I have his devotional, "Morning and Evening."  I do respect him and gain so much from his writings, but he is also a person who was very exacting at times and I knew I was a bit tender and needed kid gloves that night.  I reluctantly continued to listen and bit by bit the message sunk in.  When we are vulnerable, there is not much to defend us.  What is heard sinks in without a wall to keep it out.  I can't find words to explain what happened as I listened, but it was as though the very voice of God were speaking these words of grace to me, personally.  I drove those two hours, hearing from God through the most unlikely and unsolicited source. 

I heard God say that He justifies the ungodly.  It comes into all our minds -- and it surely had come into mine -- that somehow we need to be good enough for God to want to have anything to do with us.  And I have spent years doubting the true love of God for me.  But, there, in the dark of my car, alone on the freeway home I heard it:  God does not come because we are just, but to make us so.  This old truth was made new to me that night.  It is simply impossible to convey the miracle of an awakening.  I had knowledge of this truth, of course, but in this unexpected moment, grace broke through.  And it broke through like a dam breaking.  I felt the rush of newness and the freedom of Jesus' forgiveness.  In the same book Spurgeon says that we can have a recumbant relationship with God.  I think of that often now.  How I can lean back as in a chez lounge and find rest.  It is because of grace that I can relax into God.  Dallas Willard used to say grace isn't just for the sinner -- the godly burn it up like a jet burns up fuel.  We need that grace and we have it in abundance.  Can't you just feel the wind of freedom and joy?  It is not just wishful thinking, it is the ground on which I now firmly stand.  I've had a grace awakening, and I just can't be the same again. 

Stop.

Together

You should see them.  The two of them, bundled under a blanket reading a book.  Big brother arm around little wide-eyed brother as they soak in a story together in the warmth of their friendship.  You should see them -- the two of them -- as they wrestle around and play made up games with rules only they know in the secrets of their brotherhood.

We used to be two.  Me and my sweet husband.  We had to wait to have our first.  When I heard I was pregnant there weren't words or songs to describe my joy.  And several months later we found out about her.  Our niece in great need whom we had never met because of the lost and broken life of my husband's brother.  And we took her in to be our own only three months after our first was born.  Together we committed to her.  And we were on the roller coaster together.  All four of us a brand-new family of strangers who meant the world to one another.

She left when her mom got it together and we were left just three.  And it never was the same and it wasn't quite complete.

Grief leaves its marks and together we had to overcome that loss and make life enough again.

And six years later after the loss of our niece God gave us our second son.  My oldest said, "Sometimes God answers prayers slowly because, Mom, I've been praying for a baby brother or sister for two years."  And in his then-six-year-old life that WAS slowly.  But God did answer. 

And together those boys just might conquer the world as they have surely conquered my heart.  They say "phileo" is brotherly love.  We have it in spades over here -- and God is what holds us together.

Stop.  

Laundry

Laundry.  It piles up around us sometimes.  Boys drop it on the floor instead of the bag ... "Put it in the bag, please, hun .." said over ten times in a morning ... till I'm weary of my own voice and weary of the piles of unfinished mothering and attempts to pour in all that is needed for a life in short eighteen years ...

And some days we just leave it all where it is and go walking.  We pack our paints, hit the bike path, don't look back and sit by the lake and laugh and create and drink in views of egrets and ducks and people walking dogs ... those "laundry can wait days" give life the pace a savoring heart needs. 

And, then when someone just pops by, we have to put the laundry away so it isn't sitting out for every one to look at.  Just like so much of life stashed away from critical eyes who may see the unfinished, unwashed, unkempt parts of me and fear that you won't find me as tidy as you'd like.  But, there are always those friends who come in and do the laundry with you.  Those are the keepers.

And there's the laundry sorting where you think about each boy and his jeans torn in wild abandon on a grassy hill or a bicycle stunt and his carefree love of living out loud with his neighbor friends.  And you stand and fold and smile about those boys who just can't turn a sock right-side-out to save their lives, but they sure turn me right side out most days just by filling this house with all the life it can handle.

And when all the laundry is folded and stashed away and I have things lined up as I like and the boys are tucked in and the night light in the hall is on, if it's been one of those days, I can thank God for new mercies.  But if it's been the other kind, those memory making, heart quaking, eat-em-up days, then I can sigh and pull up my covers and just thank God for all of it -- the dirt, the wash and the folding.  

Stop. 

Ordinary

Ordinary.
Plain old me.
I wanted to be ordinary when I was little and my parents knew I was "gifted" and allowed my teacher to skip me ahead a grade -- a not even five year old attending 1st grade.  I could do multiplication and read at an eighth grade level, but when I went to first grade -- with sweet Mrs. Booth -- the kids there looked at me with a look that told me I was anything but ordinary.  When I had to leave the classroom during reading time because the other kids were learning to read and I was reading chapter books -- big ones -- to go to the library to read to the librarian, I had one longing.  I wanted to be ordinary.

I didn't want to stick out, be different, be "bright" or "gifted."  I just wanted to fit in and be like the rest of those children.

I wanted to blend in.  I didn't want to claim the me He made me to be with quirks and insights beyond my years.  I wanted to fit and meld.   

These days I feel very ordinary much of the time.  I wake up and take care of my children, clean a kitchen (sometimes), do laundry (sometimes) and teach my boys at home.  I have a husband, two cars and a dog.  We're pretty ordinary.

And yet, God steps into the ordinary and calls out the extraordinary that He designed in the beginning. 

The manger was ordinary and obscure.  Riding there on a donkey was ordinary.  Being a boy from Bethlehem, a small town with no notoriety -- pretty ordinary.  Yet, from that ordinary and plain beginning, God Himself came in the form of a baby and rescued the souls of those who would be saved.  He, the extraordinary God stepped into humanity and provided Himself so that any and all as dark and broken as they may be can come and be transformed.

And He steps into our ordinary whenever we invite Him.  He is the God Who stoops to bless.  He'll come into the mundane world of laundry and Candyland and two-year-old tantrums and mommy burnout and touch those moments.  Extraordinary love piercing the ordinary and transforming even now.

STOP.

Write

Okay.  Here it goes.

Write.  Whew.  Just the thought of that word knocks my breath out and fills me with dreams simultaneously.

I have wanted to be a writer since I was four years old.  I couldn't even physically write then and I knew in my bones I wanted to write.  To express.  To let myself be heard and known.  And, back then, in four-year-old land, I was able to be and do anything without any fear or harm.  Those days were not completely carefree.  I was in the middle of a life filled with perfectionism and expectations.  My father had an iron fist and I was sometimes on the other end of that tragic, awful, painful experiencing of manly anger gone awry.  But, still, there were periods of peace and childhood undisturbed and I had hopes and dreams.  I was going to write and I was going to matter and be heard.

Years went by and my father got ill.  He had a polycystic kidney disease and had to travel out of town for hospitalizations, treatments, surgeries, dialysis.  My sister and I lived in various homes of friends and even with people we only knew a little.  My dad was emotional and distant and yet at times he was still there, loving me despite his own issues with rage.  My mother was frazzled and harried.  I wrote.  I loved my writing.  It was a place of solitude and comfort and refuge.  I could pour out and sort through thoughts as I wrote.  Writing wasn't to matter.  Writing mattered.

My father got more and more ill.  I grew to be a teenager and the disease won one night when I was twelve years old.  He was wheeled out past us on a guerney with his eyes as big as quarters and the life all gone out of him.  Writing became my pouring.  I needed to bleed out the pain and anguish of grief, of love lost and lost too soon.  I was a heart-stricken adolescent and writing became my therapy.

Years passed and I grew older.  I kept sporadic journals and wrote on Facebook and sent letters of encouragement to friends.  People always said, "I wish I could write like you." or "You always have such a way of saying things."  But in that time since the four-year-old magical world slipped by and the real world of rejection and loss crowded in, I lost my dream of writing for a while.

This past year or so I have heard God's whisper: It is time.  You can write.  I am starting now.  I am writing.  I am blogging.  I am crafting.  I am expressing.  I am stepping out and allowing God to move and restore dreams.  I write now to encourage, to share and to bless.  Writing has come full circle. 

Stop. 

True

True.

Whatever is true, dwell on these things.
I think about friendships and how many times I have actually assumed something based on the way someone said something or what they looked like when they said it.  Is it true?  We can get so spun out assuming what another person is thinking.  Is it true?

I do know what is true and it isn't always the prettiest things about us that are true.  It is true that we are redeemed, but in order to be redeemed, we have to know that we are lost and broken.  Where do we share those broken places?  I have been blessed to have the few spaces in this world -- sacred friendships -- where I can be all of me and not be cast out.

That woman, caught in adultery in the Bible, she is thrown out in the middle of the crowd and everyone takes up a stone.  But Jesus.  Not Jesus.  He sits low to the ground and writes something in the dirt and then He speaks.  He speaks first to her accusers and what He speaks is True.  He says, "He who is without sin throw the first stone."  He stills the crowd with this invitation to self-examination.  Not one of them can throw, they drop their stones and go one by one away.  Then He turns to the woman and says, "Where are your accusers?"   And He says, "Since they do not accuse you, nor do I."  And then He says, "Go and sin no more."  His love is true.  He breaks into this brokenness and offers pure, true forgiveness.

How often do we pick up stones?  Do we turn to those around us and even silently in our hearts look at them and throw stones at their brokenness?  Do we think they are worse than us?  Do we feel better when we put them in a place of condemnation?  But there is no condemnation in Jesus.  This is true love.  It is love that went to the cross instead of condemning.  He went there for my brokenness and yours.

I have had some throw stones in the past year.  One in particular.  She was an unexpected hurler of stones and when I got "hit" I was so blindsided.  I didn't know what to do and I became so stricken with fear at the thought of running into her in common places.  I put her above Jesus in my heart and let her opinion of me rule my thoughts.  I wanted to forgive her, but I just couldn't.  She hurled a stone when I had thought she would be a person with whom I could be broken and transparent.

God doesn't waste these painful experiences.  When others hurl stones, He is there.  He unveiled my heart to me and showed me my need for acceptance and even showed me the idol of others' opinion of me.  That is true.  It isn't pretty, but it is true.  And when we bring our sin into the light and see it for what it is, He will heal us.  True love.  True love went to the cross for me.  True love asks me to forgive in His name.  True love walks me through the process.  True love calls me by a new name, marks me for heaven and loves me as I am until I am more like Him in time.

What has His true love done in your life?  I'd love to hear.

She

She was more than I had hoped for and I was so nervous to even ask.  I had gone to that dear enlightened professor a few months prior and asked him, with fear in my heart, “Could you refer me to a woman who does what you do and might mentor me?”  He was quiet and I said, “Was that an inappropriate thing to ask of you?”  And, he, true to form, said, “I am just thinking.”  And then he said, “I could unequivocally recommend her … and you can reach her husband at his office here and he will get you in touch with her.”   And I got the number and kept the paper for months.  Two months.  I never called.  The fear was too great – the need was so great.  What if she didn’t want me?  What if I were too much for her?   After all, she didn’t know me and her husband is a little important and she may think I am - Just. Too. Much.   But, I finally did call and he gave me her number and she suggested we meet at a Mimi’s Café to see if God had something for the two of us to do together.  So, I went.  And she was there and we ate and I unloaded my story and my desire and my need on her – sort of just like that.  And she listened, and she even asked if she could take notes.  At the end of that meal she gave the verdict.  “I think God does have something for us to do together.”  And that is how it started.

God did have something.  It was she He had in mind.  He knew all those years that after the pain and loss and loneliness and fears and tears there would be a season, not right after my return to Him, but soon enough after that I would find her and she would walk with me into very dark places and help me crawl out intact.  God sends those soul spelunkers who go deep and know how to navigate the unspoken recesses and draw out His image from within years of darkness and pain.  She is one.  You wouldn’t really know it from meeting her at first.  She may seem just like someone’s mom; someone’s grandma; someone’s wife; someone’s friend.  She is all that.  But, if you wait and you come, you find out there are skills and insights and even a bit of a tough gal in there who will go toe to toe on your behalf. 

She was a missionary child in China when things were not so friendly at times over there.  It was another age and she was there with her beloved mother who wrote so many letters every day to people and memorized scripture and knew how to win a heart and how to care for a soul.  You wonder where some of this goodness came from.  It has rightful roots and then it has its own territory as well.  And she loves those whose feet go out to share His love and the Good News and she devotes her life to caring for them and giving them refuge and an ear and a shoulder and a shove when needed.  She prays.  She laughs and she listens long and hard.  She sends up balloons often.  That’s one of her dearest phrases: “Let’s send up balloons” or “It feels like we ought to send up balloons about that,” or “There is so much there to celebrate.”  

There was a light that came into the darkness and that light was the light of men.  And it is her light and she shines that light and does so with boldness and tenderness.  Into my life came her light which is HIS light.  He brought us together and I told her every little thing.  Everything.  And she was able to sit still and hold that space with me and love me through it.  I tipped over the rock and showed her all the mealworms and weevils living under that dark place and the muck and gunk that ordinary people do not get to see – at all costs – and she sat with me and unearthed it all and allowed it to exist between us.  And as she did He moved in mighty ways of grace and did such healing works that I was propelled forward into strength unimagined before.  It is a gentle strength in the deeper parts of me now.  And it has a life of its own – of His own – that is becoming even stronger as it becomes more gentle.  

What became of me came partly through her and in that way she birthed the new thing or at least was the good midwife.  And who could ask for this?  Who would dare?  Yet He knew and He planned and He gave beyond what I could ask or imagine.  She.  She is my spiritual mother and my dear confidante and one who stands strong and gentle and listens and prays and believes the best and hopes when I despair and sees through and beyond so that I could grow to places He intended.  What goodness is God that He would give me her, a fellow sinner redeemed and willing?   

And now as she ages, and life takes its turns it is my turn to care and carry some burdens on her behalf.  Even in spiritual parent/child relationships there is a turning of the tables and we get to return what was so freely given to us.  And I freely turn and bend my knee to God for her and offer her my love and support.  It seems so small a thing to do for someone who has done so very much.  And yet, it seems huge that I could be so equipped at this time to be able to extend strength and to contain love and goodness and faith enough to reciprocate even a little.  It is time and I am ready thanks to God and to her.