Small Seeds

I have to confess I didn’t like you much the first time I heard about you and when I met you I liked you even less.  I can’t say my second interaction did much to improve my opinion.  They can dress you up in medical jargon but it doesn’t change what you are: a killer, a destroyer and a thief.  Experts would say that somewhere within the brain proteins are malfunctioning and synapse are breaking down.  That’s informative but it doesn’t begin to encompass what I saw as I watched a friend in a battle to help her family cope with illness. 

Alzheimer’s is horrific.

I got off the phone and reached for my bible.  Overwhelmed and sad, I looked for comfort, flipping through the pages looking at highlighted verses trying to find something to turn back the darkness that was swallowing a friend.  That’s when I saw the verse in Thessalonians, 

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.  1 Thess 5:16-18     

There are some scriptures I get along with.  I love them, I quote them and I bask in the light they bring to my soul.  Then there are others that get right up my nose and make me angry.  This is one of them.  I went from sad to vexed in about half a second.  Why is it, that devotional time is always described as pleasant, uplifting and inspiring?  Specifically, what is wrong with me that some days spending time with my bible makes me want to scream at heaven and punch something?  It’s not good.  At that moment, Beth Moore, Francis Chan or Carter Conlon could have come through my door to encourage me and I would have grabbed a bible and hit them with it. 

I called my friend back.

God is merciful to sinners.  I explained I was feeling powerless and getting caught in a trap.  We are called to rejoice in difficulty.  In my ridiculous mind, I think that if I spend enough time in prayer, I can get spiritual enough to turn suffering into something beautiful. 

I can’t. 

Suffering is suffering and anyone who tells you otherwise is stupid. 

I apologized and asked if we could pray together.  “But this time, let’s try to add thankfulness to the suffering.  Is there anything to be thankful for?  It doesn't matter if it is little, we can use anything. ”

What unfolded was the most precious prayer time.  We were able to carve out places and some of them were tiny, where she saw God.  Where God was kind, and merciful and even lovely. 

I want to share some of our prayers with you friend, because I want you to understand how small the seed of thankfulness can be.  Not everything in our prayer life is beautiful and elaborate.  Sometimes I am gritting my teeth and grasping for straws.  Anything, anyway, to give God the praise he is due and turn the tide in my angry heart.

We started small.

“Father God,

I bring you this circumstance.  I confess that I would give anything not to be here.  I’m so upset, so angry that you are making me walk through this.  I want to be delivered out of this.  I don’t want to do it.  I thank you I can be angry and you still love me.

Thank you that I didn’t have to wait at the pharmacy and the pharmacist was kind.  Thank you for the drug coverage.  That coffee shop was a nice place to stop Jesus, thank you for the flower on my hot chocolate.  I pray you would bless that young man’s coffee art.  I was pleased that when I came home, the dog was happy to see me.  Thank you that when the dog threw up, he did it on the lino and not the carpet…….”

And on we went.  The prayers became more insightful. We laughed through some of it, we cried through other parts.  What grew in that prayer time was a genuine thankfulness for many who were in the trenches giving care, courageously walking though pain and sorrow.  It was still awful, but God was there.

God is still here dear friend.

Lord Jesus,

I ask that you would be with all of us who are walking the season of sorrow.  Show us where you are Lord God, in the midst of the trial.  Lord, many have disappointed hearts, because you did not answer our prayers the way we asked.  You have entrusted us with disappointment.  Heal our hearts Father God and bring us closer to you.  Help, because we are weak and small.  Have mercy, because we are broken.  Give us eyes to see little things, little blessings.  Help us add thankfulness to our prayers.  Help us to rejoice.

For we ask it in Jesus name.

xoxKaren 

Bruised

Hi Friend!

Is it warm where you are?  We are up in the 90 degree range in the Pacific Northwest and almost everyone is getting a bit edgy.  When the color of the road doesn’t match the sky it's perplexing. We distrust a completely blue heaven and if the grey doesn’t show after more than a week or so, the population gets nervous.  On that note, most people are enjoying the outdoors but have already planned what book they will curl up and read when it starts raining again.  

I am walking normally again which is nice after limping for a week.  I was about 8 years old when I began to realize that I had an magnificent ability to injure myself.  My older sisters caught on to it first and used to tease me mercilessly.  After about a decade of therapy I can say without any bitterness they were on to something.  I am amazing.  I specialize in burning myself when I bake but recently I’ve started to knock things over just to change things up a bit.  To call me klutzy really doesn’t capture the excellence of my skill set.

The definition of a klutz is an awkward, clumsy or foolish person.  While I can definitely play the fool, awkward doesn’t describe me. I prefer to think of myself as an overwhelming, slightly misguided energy source. To start with, it sounds better and secondly, I get more credit.  Anyone can knock over a drink.  Only a seriously overzealous individual can knock over a drink while trying to stop the remote control from hitting the floor because she dropped a stack of books on the table and sent it flying after she tripped. 

So no one was really surprised last week when I stepped into the pantry and started to shout.  No one, except my 8 year old, who hasn’t been on the planet long enough to realize how talented her mother is.  When she heard me scream, she came running.

“Mummy, what is wrong?”

“ARRGHHH……”

“Mummy?”

“Darling go away!  I hurt myself.”

“But what did you do?”
“DARLING, LEAVE MUMMY BE!!  I CANNOT SPEAK RIGHT NOW AND IF YOU ASK ME ONE MORE QUESTION I’M GOING TO SCREAM.”

“But you are already.  And I didn’t even do anything….(insert quivering upper lip)… I just”

“DO NOT START CRYING!! YOU CANNOT CRY!  LEAVE WITHOUT CRYING IF YOU WANT TO GRADUATE!”

It was at that point my knight in shining armor entered the kitchen.

“Are you bleeding?”

“NO!!”

“Are you burned?”

“NO.”

He calmly put his arms around our daughter, reached for 2 extra strength Tylenol, poured me a glass of water and escorted her from the room.  I took the pills sat on the floor and cried.  After 5 minutes, he came back into the kitchen, handed me a tea towel to dry my tears and grabbed an ice pack.  Only then did he ask me what I did to myself.

I explained I had done absolutely nothing when a very large glass bottle containing cooking oil had launched itself at my foot.  I would like to say I had regained my composure but when he got helpful and placed an ice pack on my foot I punched whatever part of him I could reach.  Being an expert at wife management he moved out of range and sat on the floor with me until I was done being adversarial:  about three years give or take….  

When I had repented to my youngest child and the pain killers had kicked in, I thought about how much pain hurt and how hard it was not to lash out.  I have trouble keeping my mouth shut at the best of times, let alone when I’m injured.  Prayer time that night was interesting because I ended up in the gospels reading about the crucifixion of Jesus.

Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate.

“You have said so,” Jesus replied.  The chief priests accused him of many things. So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.”

But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed. Mark 15:1-5

At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.  And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.” Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said. With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.  And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”  Mark 15:33-39

Friend when was the last time you walked through the gospels?  Read the crucifixion scene, if you have the time, go through it in each gospel.  At no point does our Lord lose control.  He doesn’t lash out, accuse, or threaten anyone.   I started to think about God’s power to withhold.  We are so blessed to have a Savior who is motivated by love and mercy.  So very fortunate, that the wrath of the Father was taken out upon the Son. 

If you are living for Jesus, I want to ask you something.  Do you think God is angry at you?  Is there anything in your life that you need to bring to the Lord?  Are you worried he is going to be irate in the face of your failure?  The wrath of God has been satisfied dear heart.  Let me encourage you to take your bruises to your God.  His power is amazing, his mercy is splendid, his heart is for you.

I ‘m praying for you this week,

xoxKaren 

Naked Truth

Hello Dear Friend,

I miss you.  I had a wonderful family holiday thanks to a ridiculously generous couple.  I was astonished when they provided a week in a beautiful flat to rest and relax.  Last time I vacationed like that it was 1997.  There wasn’t a blue tarpaulin anywhere and I didn’t once need to light a campfire.  It was delightful.  To show our appreciation I bought them a pie.  I don’t think the pie really captured the gratitude I feel, but it was a good object lesson.  Grace is like when you give a family a vacation and they give you a pie. They are such darlings.  Perhaps I will start to pray them some new friends…. Ones that can give object lessons on tenfold sewing and reaping. 

I wish we were in the same country.  If I were at your house, I would grab the blue quilt from off the back of the chesterfield, push the cat out of the armchair, and curl up.  Then I would start asking where my tea was, and if you were going to share the chocolates your mum sent.  Don’t tell me you don’t have any, I know to look in your bedside table under all the books you are NEVER going to read. 

Honestly, I came back from vacation a little bit messed up.  You asked why I hadn’t written and I didn’t answer.  The truth, “I can’t stop thinking about all the almost naked people that were walking around the lake and I’m worried I’m going to blog about it,” didn’t seem helpful.

So here we are……

I need to blog about mostly naked behinds.

If you are under 18 I would like you to leave now.  I still love you, but get your mother to read this first.  It will save us both an angry email exchange.

Okay…… so……. 

When I am out in public I people watch.  Mostly, because I am hyper vigilant and need to be ready to launch my friendly self at anyone who looks sideways at my children.  The other reason is because I have a hard time sitting still and doing nothing.  In order not to rip out my hair or start organizing a stranger’s picnic blanket, I study my surroundings.  I watch, I listen, and I pray.

After this trip, I found out I also gasp, scream and hide my eyes while shouting “too much good news!”  Ask my girls, they might actually acknowledge I’m their mother now.  The truth is, there are a lot of undressed people who frequent beaches. In fact, mostly they are naked, with a minimal strips of fabric sticking to their person.  Okay, I get that.  But after overhearing some of the conversations naked people were having, I left the lake with a headache.

One case was a beautiful 13 year old girl who was wearing a bikini.  I suspect the swimsuit was in fact stolen off one of her 18 inch dolls.  It did little to cover and a lot to advertise.  Mother was dressed in a similar fashion.  When the girl’s suit started to ride up where cloth shouldn’t go, her mother pulled her aside to scold her.  “You have to be more careful!” she hissed, grabbing at the offending fabric.  It was kind of ridiculous, like being set up for failure.  Why not hand the child a face cloth to wear, and then scold her for getting a sunburn 8 hours later? 

Over and over again, the scene repeated itself.  Mostly women, sometimes men, dressed minimally in order to influence, impress, and incite.  So many times, the would-be-nudist was too young to comprehend the impression they made.  Over and over again, I wondered, “Where is your Father?  Why is he letting you wear that?” 

If you are a pagan, this question isn’t for you.  I understand your answer; freedom attained, fight repression, sexuality celebrated.   Really I get it.  I have been there.  But if you are a father who is in the church, I desperately would like to know, “Are you comfortable with your daughter dressing like that?”  Because let’s be clear, after your daughter has been out, somewhere there is a man at home, thinking about your girl in her state of undress.  Isn’t that a bit sad? 

Man of God, sometimes I feel we set you up for failure.  I ask you to lead the family, but then emotionally blackmail you if you make me angry.   If an argument gets heated, I reserve the right to throw every emotion I can at you in order to win the fight.  I ask you to lead, but make you afraid of upsetting me so you can’t speak your mind.  Please forgive me.

Man of God, I’m praying for you this week.  That you would spend time with God to know where He is asking you to lead.  That you would use the spiritual disciplines of fasting and prayer to get you to the place where His peace covers your family.  For you to rise up and be loving and leading. 

I’m cheering for you,

xoxKaren

Emotional blackmail:  Withholding conversation and positive interaction in order to prove how angry I am.  I will not talk to you or work things out because it is more important for me to punish you by my silence or disapproval.