Faith

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Looking Into the Fog

With homeschooling and being together every day, all year long, I wouldn’t have thought it would be such an issue. But, it’s why I almost always start school by the beginning of August. The summertime squabbles had hit our house hard. I stood in the kitchen, the drizzle outside finally slowing down, and realized we had been indoors and I had been playing a referee for the last two hours. I could hear from different corners of the house various children arguing over toys, how many people could fit on the couch and where they should keep their feet and whether or not calling someone ‘mean’ was name calling or just being accurate.

I needed to do something. Fast.

“Everyone out to the cabin! I have something I want to show you.”

The cabin has been my retreat for quiet and prayer.

Walking through the rustic wood door is always something like coming home. Upstairs is a loft with three small beds while downstairs in the one small room there’s a bed and bureau, a small table, a few chairs and a woodstove. A grandmother quilt covers the full bed and a great-grandmother quilt sits carefully folded on a shelf my father-in-law built. The cabin is full of his handicraft made from scraps of wood he scrounged from around the property during his visits. Last time, to make some shelves, he said to one of the boys, “Do you think your father would mind me stealing this board?” In reply, the ten year old said, “Well, it’s not really stealing since you’re just moving it from one spot to another.” He’s taken scraps from one place and made little treasures in another. My mother-in-law carried the chair cushions home one summer and brought them back reupholstered with extra material for curtains and a wall hanging. After each visit I find new little touches of paint or wood or material. There are touches from my own mother as well. One of her oil paintings hangs on the wall along with her sun hat left on a hook. I keep kindling wood next to the stove in an old washbasin she gave me. When I was four and there were hard times and no running water, the basin was where she gave me Sunday night baths. After my mother’s visits, I’ll often find a book on one of the little tables. Last time it was a book about an island off the coast of Maine and after she left, I sat holding it in the doorway while I watched the children swimming in the pond.  As I flipped through pages of verse and photographs, I could almost smell salt water and feel the rocks and sand and I could have been sitting next to my mother in the doorway of another little cabin on a point on Islesboro.

The children all piled into my little sanctuary and suddenly it wasn’t so quiet.

I grabbed the Bible from the top of the bureau and tried to hush the chatter. “I have a story to tell you.” The promise of a story quieted them down though a few arms and legs were still restless and there was the occasional protest from someone close enough to be nudged or thumped.

I began. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was three years old and lived with her Mommy and Daddy and three sisters.”

I reached up on a shelf and took down two worn puppets. “This monkey and this lion belonged to her. She would sit on her parent’s bed and she believed they were real. They would talk to her (sounding a little like her mother and father) and she would try to feed the monkey bananas.”

The kids laughed and said they knew who it was as I put the monkey and the lion in the hands of my seven year old. I reached for something else on the shelf. I took down a picture of the same little girl sitting in an old fashioned baby buggy with her two older sisters standing next to it. I told the kids some stories of the fun these sisters had, including some wild baby buggy rides and of how gullible the little girl was and how she always believed the big sister who tricked her over and over with the same joke. I handed the picture to my oldest daughter and reached for another. I took down a framed picture of the girl a little older, holding a lead rope and with her little sister sitting on the pony named ‘Molly’. I told them stories of these sisters and the pony and they laughed and I could see in the eyes of my little girls that they were longing to be there on that sweet Molly.

Next I took down a cross stitch of a little house and the words, “Joy be with you while you stay and peace be with you as you go.” I told them about the girl grown older and in college. She didn’t know what she would do with her life but deep down inside she wanted to love a husband and children and to have house with a guest room where people would come and stay and she could feed them and make them feel safe and happy. So, in between writing term papers she would sit on her bed and cross stitch and wonder what might someday be.

After putting the cross stitch in some little hands, I took down more handiwork that had a picture of a house and the words, ‘God Bless Our Home’. I told the story of going to Maine for Christmas and my grandmother telling me that she had a neighbor make a picture to match the one she had hanging on her wall because she thought I’d like it. But, then after she got it from her neighbor, she lost it and had been looking for it everywhere. So, she decided to give me the one from her wall and wait until the other one showed up to replace her own. I held in my hands the little gift from my grandmother, and with a familiar heaviness rising, I handed it to one of my little girls.

There was one more child and I looked around the room for what I should have him hold. There were more items that I had placed there to remind me of our family and the history that gives me roots and steadiness as I pray and hope. But, instead of those, I reached up and took the clock down from the wall and placed it in the hands of my nine year old.

I told them each to hold the items I gave them and think about them and the stories I told while I read them a poem. I turned to the book of Ecclesiastes.

There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

 

I looked in their little faces and told them how precious each time is. That they shouldn’t waste a moment being angry with each other because this time together, where we live in the same little house and eat dinner together each night, is going to pass away so soon. Every moment together is precious.

I looked at my little boy holding the clock and asked him how much time had passed since I had handed it to him. He did a bit of math in his head and said it had just been some minutes.

“Will those minutes ever be here again?”

Like it usually does, the weight of the lesson fell on me. The kids were soon off again, playing and laughing and bickering, while I stood for another moment in the cabin.

The minutes are moving too fast. 

Before I followed the children outside I pulled out the bottom drawer of the bureau where I keep stacks of my old journals. I reached way down to the bottom and pulled out one with a Minny Mouse cover. I stepped outside where I could watch the kids play, thankful that the rain had stopped.

Opening the cover I read the first date. I would have been thirteen, just a year older than my daughter is now. I remembered opening the cover for the first time, at my sister’s house, after just hearing that Molly the pony had been put to sleep. With a sad smile, I saw that my first entry was a poem.

You were the pony next door

Though to me you meant more

In my heart forever

Remains a great treasure

Which is the memories of us

Of undying friendship and trust.

Though your happy days here are over

I wish you in heaven a field full of clover

I will never forget you

My love and friendship is true

Your kind, friendly eyes

Hid no secrets or lies

Your great heart we could never tame

Though you were kind without shame

You carried us all

Fat, skinny, large or small.

I was both laughing and crying inside as I read the last line of the poem. I still grieve in poetry though I’ve given up on rhyme.

I read the rest of the journal, seeing this little girl that isn’t me and yet was and the stream of consistency in who I have been and who I am now and wishing I could go back and save her from some of the choices she was about to make.

I ‘fell in love’ several times my eight grade year but I never loved any of those boys with the same intensity with which I loved the horses named Thunder and Shawnee or even the dog, Bendyl. I read the page I wrote after sitting on the bleachers talking with a friend. This little girl and I both talked about how our boyfriends kind of grossed us out. We didn’t even really want to hold their hand, especially in the hall at school. We wondered what was wrong with us. I wanted to go back and grab that little girl out of that middle school and give her some Breyer horses to play with and a couple of gerbils. I prayed a silent prayer and thanked God for the gentle growing up my children are getting.

Mostly, the pages were about horses and friends and true love always and every now and then an interesting historical tidbit like the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A few pages were a little harder to read and again, I wanted to go back and snatch her away.

I didn’t remember thinking much about God or ever reading the Bible back in those days. So, it was with surprise that I came to a page and read the words, “I’m not so mad at ____, anymore. I read in the Bible about not fearing man because they may be able to hurt your body but can never touch my soul! Not that ____ ever hit me. He just has no power over my soul. Only the Lord has that key!”

What? How could this little boy-crazy girl that only went to church on Easter with her grandmother have written down, twenty three years ago, the truth that I thought I was just finding now? The very same verse even?

Suddenly, tears were streaming down my face.

He was there.

I had wanted to reach back and save the little girl writing in her journal when she was lost and being used because it felt like she was so alone.

But she was never alone.

In the weeks leading up to my thirty-sixth birthday this month, I often found myself singing a few lines from Stevie Nick’s song, Landslide.

“Well, I’ve been afraid of changing

‘Cause I’ve built my life around you

But time makes you bolder

Even children get older

And I’m getting older too

Oh, I’m getting older too”

I have strongly been feeling the, “Oh, I’m getting older too” part. I’ve also been afraid of changing. I’m dreading my children getting older. I love it right now.

And, I don’t know that I’ll love it in the future. It’s likely that bad things are going to happen. There are going to be goodbyes and I don’t want to say them. Even if there are good things they might mean bags will be packed and tickets bought and planes boarded. I don’t want any more changing.

I’ve built my life right here.

I can’t see what is ahead. It seems like at some point in their growing up, I have a conversation with each one of my kids about whether or not you can walk on a cloud and what it would be like to be inside of one. A little voice says, “Can you see anything when you are in there or is it all white?”

Sometimes when we’re eating breakfast, since we’re quite high on a hill, we can look out over a valley and see the fog rising off of several lakes and ponds. Some mornings we see a heavy fog settled below us and then head off in the van to run errands. On the way to town, we pass through the ‘clouds’. I remind them of how thick and solid they looked from a distance, but when we’re in them they’re just wisps and we can see ahead of us. It’s just from afar that you can’t see.

And I think, isn’t that just like life?

I’m afraid because I can’t see what is ahead. And, because this is a world broken, there will be things that will break. My loved ones seem so fragile when I look ahead into the fog.

But just like there was someone behind me bringing that little girl the truth she needed to get her through, there is someone there in the fog ahead of me. And, from where he is, he can see clearly. He’s already there.

The only thing that overcomes the fear of the future and the inevitable change is to build my life on what doesn’t change and to fix my eyes on the one who is and was and always will be. There is something solid to stand on because there is something that will never change.

I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.(Romans 8:38)

I am going to savor each precious moment of now. This minute is passing and it will never come again. There is grief in the passing of moments but there is something to cling to with hope and expectant joy as we look ahead. There is a love waiting that has carried us through the past and is strong enough to carry us through whatever lies waiting in the fog.

He’s already there.

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Another Beginning

Right Now

I’ve really been struggling with how to begin. This is one of those stories that weighs and pushes and won’t let go and won’t be forgotten until it’s released. So, I am just going to start with right now.

I just did the dishes and made sure teeth got brushed and read ‘Little Rabbit’s Loose Tooth’ and gave seven goodnight kisses. I talked with my husband about work and licensing the dog and made chicken salad for his lunch tomorrow with the leftovers from dinner.

My life is all about ordinary things.

This is a Tuesday, so tonight I gathered my Bible, my journal and this laptop and I made my way across the yard to the cabin; the tiny house for company and for quiet.

And, this is where the ordinary stops.

It’s been almost two years since I stood by the woodpile and felt the pleasure of God. One day I woke up with a letter in my mind that I felt compelled to write. As soon as my feet hit the floor I was writing it in my journal and I would write sentences between getting the kids breakfast and finding shoes and feeding the dog. When it was done I typed it up, attached it to an email and then came the moment when I couldn’t bring myself to send it. It took me over two weeks and some encouragement from a friend and mentor before I could bring myself to hit the send button. Insecurity was bubbling over as I thought about my words showing up in email inboxes. I left the computer and stepped outside to get firewood. That is when an unexplainable feeling came over me. There I was doing the ordinary thing of getting wood for the fire, and I suddenly was wrapped in a new sensation that felt like the pleasure of God. It was like he was smiling at my obedience.

I don’t think of myself as charismatic in my worship of God. I like things that are solid and orderly. I like to read and study, to be still and ponder, to hear wise people; to find truth and know it before I feel it. I don’t put a lot of stock in feelings or dreams or impressions. I love Christianity because it is verified by history and great thinkers and you can savor deep, satisfying theology that comes in heavy books and is laid out in letters and words and chapters. I love truth that can be found and sorted out and lined up and applied. Its orderly, it’s trustworthy, it’s solid.

But, God isn’t a theory. He isn’t a philosophy.

He says, “I Am.”

So, that is why I’m here tonight. Because I have another story that is pressing up and in and won’t let me forget it even though I keep trying. I have to remind myself why I’m writing. It isn’t to convince anyone or to teach or to promote myself. It’s to pour out my journey of faith the way it really is regardless of whether or not it sounds sane to others. It’s not to be right but it’s to be honest. It’s peeling back the self-protective skin and exposing the raw reality of my experiences of seeking and being sought. It’s because I believe that ‘He is’ and the pleasure of God is more satisfying than accolades from any other voices. So, this is the story that wants to be shared, and it begins with the same letter I sent two falls ago.

The Letter

To my precious sisters in Christ,

Since we moved to this hill in the ‘wilderness’, I’ve spent more time with my eyes turned skyward. Our home is open and full of windows facing the west so I find myself pausing often in my work to gaze at the sky. During the day the expanse calms my spirit. The sky is so big and my worries so small. At night when I pause to look up, a billion lights peering back make me gasp for breath. For a moment I feel exposed, finite and vulnerable. There is something about seeing this space between me and the stars that reminds me of our Maker’s power- that even makes me afraid.

And then I remember, “As high as the Heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him.”

This God who is so powerful that it makes me tremble to look at his creation, let alone himself, actually loves me with a love as great as the height of the heavens. Just a taste of this love does something to my soul. I hunger for more!

When God created humanity He breathed into us His life; He made us in His image so that we could be vessels that hold and reflect and delight in his glory. Even in this fallen, shamed woman there is something calling out for restoration- that part of me made to delight in God and to be delighted in by him longs to have its purpose fulfilled. And that is the beauty of the love of God… that it is not a passive love. It is a love that reaches down from its holiness and enters into our darkness. That fear when I look into the night sky is the feeling that I deserve to be crushed by the weight of that glory. I am condemned by the way the image of God in me has been broken and turned inward so that it seeks to find and reflect glory in myself instead of in the only worthy God. Jesus, being in the very nature God, let himself be crushed in my place.

How great is the love of Christ to allow that condemnation to fall on Himself so that I can stand and gaze uncondemned. Instead of feeling the shame of exposure I can surrender to his covering. He makes my heart a habitation for his spirit, wraps me in his righteousness and beckons me to draw so near that I am drawn into oneness.

My soul longs for me to abandon myself to this truth and to abide there.

And my confession?

The truth of what he has done should make my knees bow before him and my mouth confess he is Lord. My response needs to be prayer. But I have so neglected the privilege of prayer. “I’ll pray for you,” is too often a polite response instead of an honest promise of action.

Recently, as the leaves have turned, mostly fallen and our first year in the woods turns colder, I’ve had some days of loneliness. I started thinking of activities that could fill my time and connect me to others. I decided I was really lacking vision concerning why God decided to place me here. So, I prayed that he would give me purpose and a vision and that he would show me how to avoid the pitfalls of loneliness and connect to others, especially to my sisters in Christ.

His answer was different than what I expected- it was simply “pray”.

On our property is a little cabin. In the little cabin is a wood stove. What I need to do is to kindle a fire in that stove and to expect God to kindle a fire in my heart.

So, practically, I asked Jon, “Can I go?” He said, “Go.”

So, I’m committing.

Tuesday nights you will know, Lord willing, where to find me. I’m going to kindle a fire in the stove in the cabin and at 7PM I’m going to head out and pray he lets me be an offering on the fire of his Holy Spirit. That He would meet with me and burn his love for others into my heart and that I would offer it back in intercessory prayer.

Will you pray with me? Will you pray for me? I know my little cabin is too far away on a little dirt road in the wilderness to ask with expectation that you would join me physically (though you would be so, so welcome!). But, regardless of that, I so desire to have you a part of my communion with Christ. I want to pray with you in spirit and to pray for you. You are going to be in my heart as I strive to seek his presence more intentionally than I ever have before. Please let me know if you have a burden I can carry into that presence.

And, please pray for me to be consistent. One night a week… just a few hours… but I know how hard it is to pray for even ten minutes. ‘My spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.’ It is a battle. But I am so convinced that this is real… that He is real… that he wants to be with us. His love is what arms us to fight self and the enemies of human souls. His love is what is calling out, “Come… bring your small spark and let me light the fire!” Jesus, please fill us with the faith to call back, “Here I am, Lord, bring your flame!”

With expectation!

Lara

Experiencing God, Experiencing Fear

That first Tuesday found me in the cabin, having kindled a fire in the old woodstove. I sat on the bed with my Bible and my grandmother’s hymnal and I began to pray. Not many words came out before I had to stop. I have had times when I’ve felt overwhelmed by God’s holiness or his love or his comfort. I’ve experienced feeling his nearness when going through something challenging or even beautiful times like the births of my children. I’ve been comforted by the knowledge of the presence of God many times. But, this was different.

I was afraid. I was overwhelmed, not with the intellectual belief in the omnipresence of God, but with an almost tangible sensation. There was a presence that was as real as if a friend had walked in and settled himself in one of the chairs. Instead of comforting it was terrifying. My first prayer that night was for this to stop. I didn’t want to offer myself on the fire of the Holy Spirit. This meeting was too much. I felt like I was going to die. But, as I cried out for distance, it felt like my prayer was answered. It felt like the Spirit drew back and I could breathe. I still experienced a more real and powerful sense of his presence with me in that place but it was gentler. I spent the next few hours in prayer and it felt like a conversation with a living, hearing, present Jesus. I poured out my heart the way I would to a trusted friend. My Bible was open and while I never heard an audible voice there were times of quiet when I felt like he was impressing things on my heart.

I left the cabin and I still felt overwhelmed by my experience as I climbed into bed beside my sleeping husband. There was a lingering fear.

Long before these days, shortly after I became a Christian in high school, I had a dream that has always stayed with me and brought me comfort. I can’t say whether it was from my subconscious or from God but it was beautiful and memorable and a gift regardless. In the dream, I stood on a sloping hill next to a large tree with overarching branches that were full of green leaves. I was either praying or singing or both and there was a feeling of complete satisfaction and joy. I was worshiping God and it felt like I was doing what I had been made to do. It was as if I was completely well. I’ve thought that the dream was a little taste of what Heaven will be like. That worshiping God in a pure and complete way will be the most satisfying thing possible.

But, the dream after the first night in the prayer cabin was different.

I was dying. It was hard to breathe. I was lying in a hospital bed with my two oldest sisters talking quietly on either side of me. Somehow I was also the tree from the ‘Heaven dream’ of long ago. But there was a steady, strong wind blowing through the branches. I was dying and simultaneously, the leaves were being blown off the tree.

I woke at 2 AM and was sure that I was going to die. I felt like the presence of God that had been in the cabin was going to take me with it. I was going to be pulled out of this life.

A New Invitation

Our church has a women’s prayer group that exchanges requests by email each week. Several weeks ago, when facing some things that were making me anxious, I asked them to pray for me concerning fear.

And, that is when this story started unexpectedly stirring in my heart and mind.

For a long time, I didn’t understand my experience of fear that first night in the cabin or the dream and so I pushed them to the back of my mind. I thought I had been naïve to ask for such a deep level of intimacy with God in prayer. I wondered if it really *was* God or if it was my imagination or something darker. And, while I like to think I don’t put any stock in dreams, the dream did leave me shaken and I didn’t want to think about it.

I had been reading through the book of Luke and shortly after my friends started praying for me I found myself in the 12th chapter. In it, Jesus has a lot to say to his disciples about fear. He said we don’t have to be anxious about our physical needs being met or about defending ourselves before others or about preserving our lives. He said there is only one thing to be afraid of. “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” The only thing to ultimately fear is the judge of our souls.

But the very next sentence Jesus spoke tells us more.

“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

And again, he tells us, “Fear not, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”

The only One to be afraid of is God. According to the words of Jesus and through what he accomplished for us, we don’t have to fear God. He will never forget us, we are of great value to him and he has been pleased to let us call him ‘Father’ and give us the kingdom.

There is nothing left to fear.

I thought I understood this when I wrote the letter to my prayerful sisters in Christ. I didn’t realize that I was expressing the battle of my life. God answered the cry of my heart that night long ago, and gave me the gift of opening my eyes to what holds me back in my relationship with him.

John Piper, in ‘Desiring God’, wrote, “The deepest and most enduring happiness is found only in God. Not from God, but in God.” There is a draw, a longing, to experience God in the way I did in the worshiping dream from long ago. There is something in me calling out in response to his call and wanting to be fully surrendered; to be made whole and complete and to experience the ‘deepest and most enduring happiness.’

But, in order to do that, I need to be like the tree in my second dream. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35) Like the wind in my dream, the Holy Spirit will work steadily and powerfully to blow away all of the pride of self, the fear of man and the panicked desire to cling to safety and comfort that is my grasping effort to save my own life.

I am such a fearful person. And, if it was just the discomfort of living with fear that was its affect then maybe it would be easier to just push it to the back of my mind and live with it simmering rather than face it.

But, I am convinced that what is keeping me from a more intimate, sure and faith-filled walk with God is not that he is unwilling to show himself to me. It’s that I am holding back. My fears are keeping me from drinking in the great, lavishing love of God toward his children (1 John 3:1).

Once again, I feel him calling me deeper and calling me to invite you to come along; to face fear and battle against it with truth. I’m praying for the faith to hear him calling out ‘fear not’ and the grace to trust, deny fear, and follow after him.

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Camp

I took the key down from the nail where it’s hung for decades and opened the door just as I’ve done a hundred other times.  As I took a step inside, my chest felt heavy and I fought back tears, not because it was different, but because it was so much the same. The yard sale finds on the shelf beside the novels, the rugs on the floor, the pillows on the couch, even the silly talking ant from ‘A Bug’s Life’ that the kids love; they were all there. It’s as if they didn’t know things had changed.

I used to find the ‘sameness’ of camp every year comforting. Even when I was a little girl I recognized it. When I was ten years old a dozen things changed in my life.  My two oldest sisters moved out, one to go to college and the other to get married. My mother also remarried and bought a house with my new stepfather meaning a change of neighbors and schools. Even my dog had to be put down. I felt like I had been shaken out of everything that had seemed steady. I remember walking through the same door to camp that long-ago summer, sitting down on the couch and noticing some plates hanging on the wall. They had pictures of a fish and a bear and a deer and I thought about how I had seen them my whole life and with a sigh of relief, I realized that camp doesn’t change.

Before we made the trip last week, one of my younger sisters cleaned and vacuumed. She filled the bowls on the counter with candy and treats so they were just the way they always had been. When I set the key down beside the bowl filled with ‘Devil Dogs’ and Hershey’s minis, the tears broke through.

It’s strange to me how food and grief go together.

The kids all came running in with their sleeping bags and backpacks and chattering voices and stopped short when they saw me. The three year old turned back and I heard her say to my husband, “Mommy’s sad! Mommy’s sad!”

So, I breathed deeply and dried my tears. I reminded them that this was the camp that belonged to my Grammy and they understood and the chattering started again and I got busy helping with all the negotiations of who sleeps where.

I’m thankful for how children and life go together.

The first night at camp was hard.  Jon slept in the middle of the sea of wiggly sleeping bags and told stories into the night so that the baby and I could sleep more peacefully in Grammy and Grampy’s room. I didn’t pull back the covers of the bed that Grammy might have been the last one to make, but slept on top with my head on one of her pillows. I saw some sheets and a decoration left on her bureau like she had been working on something and moved on before she finished.  Her camp shoes sat behind a chair next to the wall, the soles worn smooth. Her hairbrush sat in a basket.  I thought of Grampy, who says that nighttime is always the hardest, and heaviness pressed in around my heart as I closed my eyes and slept.

Many mornings I wake up with something like a theme song for the day in my head. Sometimes it feels like inspiration, sometimes it feels like a little joke from my subconscious. When the baby was teething a couple of months ago, and I hadn’t had adequate sleep for days, and the children had been bickering more than usual, I woke up with ‘a little ditty about Jack and Diane.’ My first conscious thought of the day was, “Oh yeah, you know life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone…” But, thankfully, that first morning at camp, I found myself singing the line of a different song as I woke.

Jesus has overcome

The grave has been overwhelmed

The victory is won…

 Until I got home tonight and searched for it online, I couldn’t remember the rest of the song. (It’s Chris Tomlin, ‘I Will Rise’.) But, those few lines were what I needed that moment. It was the reminder that death isn’t the end. I know there is something beyond the grave because I know Some One that has passed through it. The victory is won.

Last summer some work was done on the camp’s foundation. Grammy isn’t here to help with the landscaping but Grampy said he’s trying to do things the way she’d like them. He planted some perennials and showed me where he had started some flowers from seed. One of the neighbors at camp had included a package of forget-me-not seeds in a sympathy card and Grampy planted them this spring. They are starting to grow, just little seedlings when I saw them yesterday, but those forget-me-nots are making their way up from the soil next to the bleeding heart plants.

Flowers and grief and life seem to all go together.

I cut a little stem off of Grammy’s rose bush in front of camp before we left today. I’ve never tried growing a rose from a cutting but I’m going to attempt it. It sat sticking out of a water bottle in the console on the long drive home. Like a little birthday gift from Grammy.

When I was growing up, I was happy to have a summer birthday because it meant that I got to celebrate it at camp. When I was a little girl some relatives would gather and there would be presents and singing and Grammy’s marble cake. Even when I was a teenager I would invite friends to celebrate with me at camp and we’d play music and swim in the lake and still Grammy would send over a marble cake. This year, I woke up at camp on my birthday, and I knew that there would be no marble cake. This year, even if the camp is the same and sits steady on its new foundation, something has changed. Something has shaken.

But there are still unshakeables.

Jesus has overcome

The grave has been overwhelmed

The victory is won…

This morning the loons were calling as I woke up. I quietly put on a swim suit and tiptoed past the still sleeping bags and made my way out of camp and down to the shore. I love mornings at the lake. Everything is still. It feels sacred to be the first one to break through the glass-like water and send the first ripples of the day into the lake. This morning I waded in slowly, remembering past birthdays and wondering about the year ahead. I stopped when the water was up to my knees and I looked out over the blue to an island and then to some tall pines standing on a hill to the east. The sun hadn’t quite reached over their topmost branches.

I thought of all the people, here and gone and young and young once, that this place has meant something to. And I thought of the One who knows us all. I prayed. I prayed for them and for me and was thankful for Him. The quiet of the water became the quiet of my soul and I whispered the words, “Into Your hands I commit my spirit,” and I dove headlong into the water.  As my face met the surface once again, the sun was just rising over the tops of the pines.

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The Farmer Poet
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The Farmer Poet

Most of the farmers I know are poets. There is poetry in dirt and seasons and calves being born and butchering day and manure and seeds and cold mornings with cows bellowing and the itch of hay chaff in the linings of a pair of well-worn gloves. You need to have some lines scratched on your soul to keep going with the sun rising and rain clouds on the horizon and where the seasons are always changing and before they do you need to have hay in or fields turned or fences up. You have the makings of a poet when something in your drudgery is beautiful to your soul and when your helplessness doesn’t keep you from doing the next thing.

I remember an old, blue Leyland tractor, the doors to the cab wired shut for double protection against being bumped open. Four of us could fit when it was time to ted the hay; little boys with baseball caps and t-shirt tans standing on either side of me. I focused on gears and getting the speed of spinning forks just right to spread the rows of hay into fluffy piles to dry without beating them into dust.  The clacks and rumble would put the baby strapped to my chest to sleep and I would feel her breathe and the sweat would stick us into one, round, flesh again. Once in a while a boy would point and shout about a bird or that he wanted to get out the next time we came nearest the house so he could run to the cool basement and retrieve a popsicle from the big freezer.  Mostly though, thoughts just jostled around in our minds and often even there a quiet settled. A quiet that is hard to achieve when you wake up early to pray and you remember about the phone call you need to make before noon and that you are low on milk and maybe the kids will be okay with toast instead of cereal and what will you need to print out for the history lesson today? While the tractor made circles, my spinning thoughts, like the drying timothy and clover, fell into rows of order and rest.

We planted a huge garden in long rows on the farm. At the end of June I stood in the middle of a mass of overgrown weeds and searched for rows and vegetables and paths.  Life was everywhere but it was choking out what was planned and worked for and supposed to be in jars in the pantry come fall. I cried overwhelmed, frustrated, disappointed tears and knew I couldn’t catch up. On the first of July we had strawberry shortcake for my birthday and then headed out to the garden where my husband pulled weeds and chubby hands pulled weeds and I pulled weeds with a baby in one arm. And there was a path and sun on tomatoes and a heap of weeds to compost.

This spring I planted a little raised-bed garden here in the woods. There were ample sticks to mark my rows of onions and hills of squash and even though the soil is rocky, I have hopes for jars in the pantry this fall. This little garden patch feels manageable. But, as I planted seeds in rows I remembered something a friend said recently. ‘Gardening is just another form of dependency.’ We plant seeds but we are at the mercy of the Life-giver to make them grow. I think of how the same brown dirt grows a deep, purple-red beet, a firm white potato, and leafy, green lettuce. This is a deeper magic than can be conjured with a watering can and a hoe.

A little boy asked if he could help and I gave him a row of beans to plant. He took a fistful of seeds and worked his way down the row. There were more rows to plant but he’d had his fill and happily bounded off to ride his bike. I was left alone with the packet of seeds and thought about how this is a hobby. If the beans don’t grow there is the grocery store and they’re cheap to buy and nine year old boys used to plant beans or else they went without. For a minute I wondered if I should call him back.

When I became a mother I didn’t have time to read for pleasure. There were parenting books to read and how-to-have-happy-perfectly-lovely-successful-children manuals. And the sun shone and the rains came and I was crying overwhelmed tears on my bed and I knew that children don’t grow in neat rows and around us and in us there’s a wildness that makes me afraid the harvest won’t be what I had once dreamed. I don’t have the deep magic to make people grow and the manuals don’t hold the right spells either.

Seven times I’ve been handed a baby, like a seed, fresh and new and unknown. And, each time, my heart wanted to break through me and cover them with fierce love like a thick, rich soil blanketing them from the elements. But soil is just a place to grow roots. It is stretched and moved and changed in its nourishing of the new life.  In the love and the breaking and the helplessness, my children have grown me into a mother-poet, leaning hard into the only Life Grower.

There are days when I feel overwhelmed. Like the weeds are going to take over. There are nine of us growing together and there are messes and hurt feelings and school work that sits unfinished along with the dishes. Daily I’m aware of my powerlessness to change hearts or to force kindness or to speed up maturity or to make our lives neat and orderly and safe.

But, a mother-poet leans into the deep magic of the Life Grower.

The lines scratched on my soul are changing from ‘keep them safe’ or ‘’raise good kids” into ‘tend them faithfully’ and ‘love them well’. It’s the knowledge that the only thing I have to offer is the gospel that I still need myself.

The gospel that makes me a mother living moment by moment by moment leaning into grace, offering grace, pleading for grace. It takes me out of the ‘what will be’ and into the ‘what is now’. It is the prayer and the grace to understand the seasons. To know the time to shelter, to plant, to weed and to water; to keep them close and speak truth and discipline and to shower with loving-kindnesses. And to know the seasons to let the plants break through the soil; to bear the pain of release over and over and over again. It’s learning to trust, to do the next thing, to lean hard into the Life Grower.  That Great Poet writing His story, bearing His fruit, reaping His harvest, in each of our farmer-mother-child souls.

The Keeping Strength
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The Keeping Strength

I’m not altogether sad to be nearing the end of April. This month I’ve been like the weather; the alternating sunny and gray days when we don’t bother to start the fire and yet the sun isn’t warm enough to completely remove the chill.

Last night it was my turn to go to a church service in the evening. My husband and I swap who goes and who stays home with children. These meetings are something new. Our church has grown and like a plant that has to be divided when it is full of life and outgrowing its container, there are plans being made to plant a new church in a new place. Just like the gospel story itself, it feels like a beginning that is a continuing.

Driving there, I’m all alone for the first time in weeks. I remember I haven’t been in the Word. I’ve let endless lists of things to do before the day is done crowd out my time to read and be still. Maybe that is the gray that’s been clouding over me. I turn off the radio and sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness”. I grasp in my weak memory for a verse. I find Psalm 103, memorized when I was in college. “He redeems my life from the pit and crowns me with love and compassion.” And, like it always does, the Word starts reaching in and pulling me back. Redeeming. Too often I see myself still in the pit. Or on the precipice about to fall. But He doesn’t see me that way. He sees love and compassion instead of thorns encircling my head.

April was our maple sugaring season. It was late this year or maybe it’s always late here in the woods where the feet of snow keep their grip longer on the trees. I’m still finding my bearings in these woods. On the farm we had great, old maples; huge trunks that my arms only reached halfway around. Late in February they would start to send the strong stream of sap from their deep roots and our buckets would be overflowing. Our trees in these woods are young. We’re careful to put just one bucket on many of the trunks as they don’t have as much to give.

While I put syrup in jars I think about my marriage. I think about how we started out like saplings and we couldn’t handle well any extra strain on our resources. Tree rings of time and babies and laughing and fighting and being disappointed in each other and finding that our faults were gifts to mature each other; we are probably one bucket trees now. And what flows when we are pierced is sweeter.

I’ve heard that when someone reaches the same age that a parent was when they passed away, they can experience a sudden sense of their own mortality. I’m near the same age my parents were when they divorced. As I drove alone last night I had not a sudden, but a familiar and lingering, sense of my own faithlessness. I was thinking about a new church and my own weakness and how much I believe. How there are a hundred ways I could fall away, hundreds of lies that I could believe that could hurt my family, my friends, my church, the name ‘Christian’; a strange mixture of being sure of Truth without confidence that I will keep believing.

But I made my way to a folding chair and sat with believers and felt hope stir. A question was asked by someone behind me. “What is going to make this church different from all the others that have disappointed people?”

What does make this different? What makes this church or this marriage or this soul different?

This morning I had a waking dream. Half asleep and half aware, I saw a green bottle that was my ‘growing up’ family, broken on the rocky coast. Shards of glass lay in pieces; my mother, my father, my sisters, and me, sharp and edged and incomplete. And, then I saw waves and sand and time. And years passed and the edges were smooth and rounded and treasures to be found as sand is sifted through hands on a summer day.

The day had dawned with a little clarity and before our school day began, I sat in a circle with my own children and a jar of sea glass on my lap. Glass collected from the rocky shore of Maine on days when I would sit and watch the waves and dream of my ‘today’ family. I placed one of the smooth, still salty, pieces of glass in each of their little hands. I told them the story of a bottle broken and the glass that would have pierced a bare foot and the story of the waves and the sand and the time. I told them how when God created the world he made something beautiful and that it was broken. We are each part of that broken beauty. That sometimes we rub against one another and as broken shards collide we will hurt each other. That sometimes it feels like we are tossed and turned and pressed on all sides. But God is like the waves that continue forever and he is the One who washes us against the sand. He makes us His treasures.

And we read from Romans 8, “For God works all things together for good for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…”

He knows us and he has always known us. He is doing whatever it takes to conform us… to change and smooth us… to take broken pieces that hurt each other and make them treasures to be gripped in tender hands and gazed upon, pointing to the power and the glory of the sea of grace that is shaping us.

The love of God, the love that He showed us through the death and resurrection of His Son, is not the young love of limited resources. It is the love of the Ancient of Days. It isn’t even the strength of maturity like a husband and wife of many years can find but it is the strength of eternity that can only come from God. So I can rest and work and love, knowing that the one who calls us loves us with a keeping strength.

‘The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.’ Psalm 103:8

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A Beautiful Church

There’s a little Baptist church in midcoast Maine that makes me catch my breath when I walk through the doors. I’ve never been a member or even a regular attender but there is a powerful wind of memories that meets me as soon as the doors swing open.

When I was a little girl, I would come through those doors once a year wearing a pink, flowery dress and an Easter hat. I would sit close to my grandmother and she would hand me peppermints during the sermon and quarters to place in the offering. I still remember one of the sermons. The pastor enthusiastically told the story of Jesus using whips to drive the money changers out of the temple. Close to thirty years later I can still picture the pastor waving his arms and feel my shock at hearing that the same Jesus holding little lambs in my storybook Bible could use whips and turn over tables.

Yesterday, I didn’t hear much of the sermon when I visited the little church. I paced in the back with a fussy baby and noticed that some extra pamphlets from my grandmother’s funeral the day before still sat on a table. For so long there had been two strong grandmothers in that little town and for the second time in three years I had come home and to this church to gather with family in a goodbye. Beside the table where the pamphlets sat were double doors leading to the sanctuary. I remembered how my sisters covered the little windows with white paper on my wedding day so that my husband-to-be wouldn’t catch sight of me until the wedding march was played and the doors were swung open.

My baby was getting louder so I made my way to a side room where a lady I didn’t recognize was working in the nursery. After we spoke for a few minutes she asked me my maiden name and when I told her, her eyes lit up. “I went to school with your father… I used to be a substitute teacher in your kindergarten class and bring in my guitar and sing. Do you remember that? You were so shy! It’s nice to see you are talking now!” We laughed and I vaguely remembered the guitar and the songs and the shy little girl.

My three year old heard there was Play-do and snacks so we made our way to the Sunday school class in the basement.  On the stairs I met a man holding the hand of his own little boy. There was a greeting and a brief memory of being seventeen and decisions that felt so heavy and confusing. Later, as I saw his sweet wife walk by with a new baby, I smiled and thought how God is kind and forceful and we don’t really choose but He moves and He purposes and He creates.

My little one finally fell asleep so I carefully eased into the back pew.  My husband sat with my newly widowed grandfather and a row of our blonde headed children. I remembered sitting in the same spot one Sunday as a teenager and not being able to hold back tears. I didn’t even know why I cried. A sense of something too beautiful for me to own overwhelmed me and loneliness welled up as the hymns were sung. It was surreal to remember and see through time the pew, both full of my people and the girl that I used to be as she sat in the wave of loneliness.

After the service, my eight year old boy asked about the old, cast iron bell that sits in the entry. It used to hang in the old church that burned down. In that old church his great, great, great grandparents used to come and sing and pray. Tucked away at home, I have a poem my great, great grandmother wrote to their beloved pastor when he was ill. She used to pray and write and listen to the bell that my little boy stood longing to ring.

I love history and small towns and feeling like there are roots that twist from the blood in my veins into the buildings and soil and old bells.

Nearly every Sunday for the last twelve or thirteen years, my growing family has made our way to another New England church. This church is in a college town and most of us are from someplace else. When I look around at the congregation I don’t see extended family, old friends or teachers. There are no ghosts of me as a girl. There isn’t even a church building with a bell and steeple, just a high school auditorium rented for the day.

In the Old Testament, before Jesus walked as a man with fishermen and sinners, God’s people built a temple where they could worship. God’s Spirit dwelt in a special room deep in the temple called the Holy of Holies and a thick curtain hung to separate this dwelling from the people. God was too holy to approach. Only once a year the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies in order to sprinkle blood of atonement at the mercy seat.

The day Jesus died on the cross, when He said ‘It is finished’, the earth shook and this curtain of separation split down the middle. Jesus, being holy himself and the only completely sufficient sacrifice, was able to do what no amount of ritual had been able to accomplish. The Spirit drew near. Now the church heard the words, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”  Instead of separate and impenetrable, the Holy of Holies became the Christian heart.  Instead of looking to a physical temple or a church building, we look to the people God has chosen and we see him abiding in their midst.

Some Sunday mornings I don’t want to go to church. I’ve thought it would be nice to worship alone and I would feel more near to God in the woods and the stillness and beauty of the trees. But, God hasn’t made his Holy of Holies out of wood or boards or branches or blue sky.  He’s made it out of people.

Part of me says that there’s no way this can be true. I’m a Christian and I know that I’m not holy of holy. I see other Christians and they aren’t holy of holy either. I still see God in the distance waiting for me to clean up my act. Out of the corners of my eyes I peek to see how other Christians are doing and judge us all according to the progress we’re making. The progress we’re making on the road that isn’t there.

God isn’t far away. He’s with his people.

And Jesus is passionate. The same zeal that made him fashion whips out of cords and throw tables to cleanse his Father’s house consumes him. It’s what nailed him to a cross where the blood flows and gives us something better than roots. He gives us grace and breaks the curtain.

He loves us. He’s passionate about us. When we get that, it changes us. Suddenly we are the holy of holies. His Spirit abides and overturns our old nature so that we love him and we can love each other.

His church is beautiful and it’s not because we’re perfect or because of the white steeple or because of history in the pews or because we like each other.  It’s because we’re His, and He’s in us and we belong to one another. It’s because we’re all dressed in grace and where there is grace and His Spirit, love flows. We are tied by blood that isn’t in our veins but that washes our hearts and calls us to look to the cross. His church is beautiful because we are singing the same song and clinging to the same message.

“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.” 1 John 4:14-16

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Waiting By the Door

My husband helped a friend drag his ice shanty off the lake Sunday afternoon. It was cold for March and our friend brought his toddler to play with my kids while they worked. The little guy arrived with his backpack full of extra diapers, snacks and juice and I pulled out trucks and trains from the toy closet. I scooped him up with a smile but he looked back with arms outstretched and wanted to be with his Daddy. There was a goodbye, a closed door and tears. Eventually the distractions of toys, a houseful of kids and snacks dried the tears but every now and then he’d shuffle over to the door, point and say, “Daddy?”

As I pacified the little boy with some goldfish crackers, I looked in his teary eyes and I knew how he felt. He wanted his people and we weren’t them. He was waiting for the one he loved to open the door.

I’ve been feeling homesick myself. I’ve had this vague feeling of separation anxiety. Last week I drove on familiar roads leading to familiar places and a sense of belonging stirred. This was where ‘my people’ lived and had lived for generations. This is where my memories lived and the hills and back roads and houses are brimming with them. Strangely though, one of those memories is that even when I lived there, there was a feeling, even on those familiar roads, that I didn’t fully belong. I was homesick in the only home I ever knew.

My grandfather married my grandmother just a few months short of seventy years ago; just days after they said their vows, he left to fight in the war on the other side of the world. Their daughter was born while he was away and he came home to a little girl almost a year old.

That baby, my aunt, died of cancer several years ago. My grandmother died on Saturday.

I had always heard that my grandmother wasn’t interested in Christianity. My grandfather would have gone to church but she didn’t want any part of it. I stood in her kitchen on Friday and my grandfather told me through his tears that things had changed this past year.  Grammy had prayed a prayer of faith and belief. Her heart softened and she found hope and grace in the message of the gospel.

When doubts enter in, I find that I have a default religion. In our own way, on our own paths, we’re all headed home and will end up in a better place. It’s what we hear over and over when someone dies. This is a familiar road my heart travels. It says that a decision my grandmother made doesn’t make any difference. The love and beauty of my grandmother’s life is enough and she will either rest peacefully or if there is a heaven the doors will be flung open. It says there is no need for what Jesus did on the cross. In some ways this seems bigger, more universal, more satisfying on the surface than my Christian faith. Strangely though, it leaves an emptiness. It doesn’t ring true or complete.

In the kitchen, with my grandmother a room away and the life fading from her body, the cross made all the difference in the world to my grandfather and me. It didn’t just put a mask on the ugliness of death; it faced it head on and said that it wouldn’t have the victory. It opened up the floodgates of hope and it meant that when my grandfather finishes his commission here, she will be waiting once again with my aunt for him in Heaven.

But still there’s a nagging thought in my grief this week. A familiar thought. What if I didn’t have the assurance my grandfather gave me that day in the kitchen? Can I live with a religion that says there is such a thing as Hell? Do I really believe such a place could exist and that someone from this world could end up there?

One day a spider made his way into our house on a log destined for our woodstove. Just as I was putting the log in the fire I saw him start to scurry from his hiding place. As I saw him there, looking for a way of escape, I was overcome with a sense of guilt and of my power. If I tried really hard I might have been able to save him. I didn’t try. I left him to the smoke and the flames and the heat and as I closed the door, I felt wicked. The spider had done nothing deserving of being burnt up. I had made a calloused decision to let him die. I had sent him to his own Hell. It wasn’t fair.

I left, or tried to leave, Christianity once for this reason. I could not reconcile a God of love with the idea of Hell. I decided my empty, default religion was preferable. I believe in love, in gentleness, in beauty. That’s where I want to live. That’s the religion I want to cling to.

So, then, what do I do with what isn’t love and gentleness and beauty? This world is not the Utopia my default religion would like to create apart from God. There is evil. If I existed in a world where there is only love and kindness and children never got sick or were abused or starved, and someone told me about this world, I would say there is no way a loving God could let something like this be. This world with its pain and hate and awfulness could never exist. But it does. And if I’m honest, I know that the evil I see in the world exists in my very own heart. I’m not as innocent as the spider that I left in the fire.

I found myself praying even after I told myself I had given up Jesus. The truth is that I need him more than I need to have answers to all my questions. Who God is draws me back even when I don’t understand His ways. One day as I struggled in prayer, verses about thanking God came into my mind. There was one thing I had never thought to thank God for and that was Hell. What could there possibly be to thank him for about that? But, maybe out of obedience, maybe as an experiment, I said the words, “God, thank you for Hell.” And, then, I found I could keep talking. “Thank you that you overcome evil. Thank you that the things I hate about Hell… like pain and death, hate and suffering… you want to destroy.” God is not neutral or calloused about pain and suffering. He is not going to let evil continue.

There is so much I don’t understand. But I know He is good. I know that what has been revealed about His character means that He is trustworthy.

I’ve been looking at a lot of photographs of my grandmother. In just a few moments I can flip through photos of her as a child, a young wife and mother, a grandmother. I knew her for my thirty five years as her grand-daughter. There is so much of her life that I didn’t experience. Even during the years I was part of her life, there were parts of her that weren’t mine to know. We each knew her differently. Only One person knew her from the time she was forming in in my great-grandmothers belly until the time she lay on the bed in a stream of light from her window breathing her last days’ worth of breath. He knows her now. He knows her completely.

Today, my grandmother is the same woman in all the old photographs, but because her heart clung to Jesus at the end of this life, she is new as well. Grace changes us. Jesus said that when we finally see him we’ll be like him because we’ll see him as he really is. We’ll see reality apart from the evil that is in this world and in our own hearts. My grandmother is more like herself than she’s ever been before.

I can’t wait to see her again in the beauty she wears in Heaven.

And, until I make my way there myself, there will probably always be something in me that feels like the little boy at my house waiting for his daddy. There’s a little insecurity, a little doubt. There are a lot of questions that aren’t answered. But on Sunday, when the door finally opened, the little boy squealed and bounced for joy and was in his daddy’s arms and the reunion was complete. He was in the place he belonged with the one who loved him.

Someday the door will swing open for each of us. What we believe about the one who is on the other side means the difference between running and hiding as from a stranger or seeing him as our loving father and running into his arms. Faith can seem too simple, too narrow. But Jesus said that to enter the kingdom of God, we need faith like a little child. Faith is what knows and trusts the sound of our Father’s steps and waits with outstretched arms.

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Embracing An Honest Conversation

Though it’s hard to believe, there was a time in my life when I really savored a good debate.  I think it was back when I knew everything (you know, when I was in high school).  These days, if you have something controversial you would like to discuss with me, please submit it in writing and wait patiently for me to get back to you in a day or so.  Or, on the other hand, maybe I’ll just bake you cookies and hope you don’t bring it up again.

Anyway, back in those simple days, there was one guy in all my classes that loved a good debate as much as I did.  We’ll just call him Jimmy.  Since we happily and energetically argued about anything, it was no surprise that when I decided that I believed in Christianity this became the ultimate source of fodder for debate.  I thought that I really needed to convince Jimmy of the truth that I now held as of eternal importance and he was delighted to find a topic that he could get me really riled and emotionally distraught over.  As a new Christian I took some interesting approaches.  I wanted to show him how much it hurt God’s heart to have his name used in vain.  So, the lucky day we were paired as partners in chemistry class I decided to exclaim, “Jimmy!” or “By Jimmy, now you’ve done it!” whenever something would go wrong just to let him see how it felt to have his name used as a swear word.  So he could, you know, empathize with God.  He thought God would find it very amusing.

The challenging thing about Jimmy was that he asked really good questions.  There were the classic questions like, “What about the people in the jungle that never heard of Jesus?  Can you really say that they are going to be damned to Hell?”  Then, there were some surprise questions like, “Why do Christian girls wear fancy underwear on dates?”   Let’s just say the conversations were unpredictable and lively.  And, since I had gone to church consistently for maybe three months and I started every day reading a chapter of the Bible and ‘Our Daily Bread’, I believed I should have an answer for every single question.

Somehow I convinced my friend Jimmy to start reading the Bible.  As much as he enjoyed the debate for debate’s sake, I think he also really did earnestly desire to find out what was true.  When he came back with his assessment after reading the Gospels (the four books that tell the story of Jesus’ life) and some of the early letters to the church from the apostles (they didn’t have blogs or mass email back then) I was really taken aback.  Jimmy said, “I really liked Paul.  He was a nice, humble guy.  Jesus seemed so arrogant, though.”  Jesus was arrogant?  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  Or could I?  Deep down inside, though I would never have admitted it to Jimmy, I knew what he meant.  It was much easier to read what other people said about Jesus than to read what Jesus said about himself.  Some of the things he said made me feel uncomfortable.   In the first century those things made the religious leaders of the time so uncomfortable that they decided to crucify Him.  There wasn’t much I could say to Jimmy about Christianity after that.

After what I saw as my evangelistic failure with Jimmy, I was happy to meet people in college that were excited about sharing their faith.  I started attending a Christian group that met on our campus and found some older women (they were like twenty two or something) that taught me how to use a little booklet to share the basics of Christianity and hopefully lead people to say a prayer when we got to the last page.  I lived with my sister in an apartment off campus my freshman year.  She was not a Christian.

I came home armed with the booklet and asked sweetly, “I was just learning something, can I, umm, practice it with you?”  An older sister always eager to see me learn something new, she good naturedly agreed.  So, we sat at the table in our little apartment and I shared each point thinking that this would be the moment it would all make sense.  We got to the last page.  She didn’t say the prayer.

I did keep trying with other people though.  This actually led to some good conversations and it was kind of fun to approach strangers and ask them if they wanted to talk about spiritual things.  Most people actually do like to discuss big questions and big truth.  Do most people like being read a booklet?  Not so much.

I didn’t give up on it completely though until I went on a summer missions trip to an inner city.  I was helping with children’s programs and kept a bunch of the kiddie version stuck in my purse to easily pull out and share.  I did share it; a few times to a few precious children.  And, then I realized I was lying.  You see, in the adult version, one of the essential truths is that ‘God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.’   I hadn’t thought about what that was really saying until I saw the way it was simplified for kids.  There were two drawings of the same child.  In the first, before he knew Jesus, his life was a mess.  I think they had him doing poorly in school, missing the ball in soccer and his parents were mad at him.  In the second picture he had asked Jesus to become the center of his life and everything was wonderful.  Good grades, happy parents, goals in soccer.  Really?  This is what I was going to tell the little girl who lives with her grandmother probably because her father is in jail and her mother is on drugs?  The little girl that didn’t speak to me for the first week and now won’t let go of my hand?  The little girl who snuggled next to nineteen year old me and whispered that she wished I was her mother?   Was I going to tell her that if she prayed a prayer to ask Jesus into her heart that her life would be wonderful?  I trashed the booklets.

You see, I realized I had a problem.  I thought I had to protect Jesus from the truth.

The truth is not always so pleasant sounding.  It goes something like this: God loves you and you might get cancer.  God loves you and you might struggle with infertility.  God loves you and you might get in a car accident and end up paralyzed.  God loves you and someone with evil intentions might break into your home.  God loves you and your child might die.

God loves you and you are going to suffer.

The truth also is that there are some really hard questions that I don’t necessarily have good answers for.  How can God be completely powerful and still be completely loving when there is so much pain in this world?  Why does He let suffering continue so long for the sick and dying when we can barely cope with seeing an old dog suffer and we try to give it a peaceful end?  Is God less humane than His creation?  What about Hell?  What about the unending, painful, crushing, tormenting punishment for still aware, thinking, feeling souls?  Can we brush that off?  Should we as Christians say that it shouldn’t give unbelievers pause when they think about the validity of what we believe?  There are hard questions.  I don’t have all the answers.

So should I just lose heart?

I still believe there is a beautiful, freeing, exhilarating story to tell.

With all my heart (and mind) I believe that the Bible really is true.  It’s a collection of reliable books that tell the history of the world, of the ancient Jewish people and the accurate history of Jesus and his church.  I believe that Jesus lived and was murdered and that he was resurrected so that we could be saved from the disease of sin and the terminal diagnosis that comes with it.  I believe that God hears and answers prayer.  I believe His love is so much greater than we can fathom.  I believe in a lot of hard to understand doctrines like the trinity and the sovereignty of God and the reality of Hell.  I believe in the Holy Spirit working in hearts and his church to spread a powerful message called the gospel.

And, I totally get why a lot of really thoughtful people think these things I believe are foolish.

The apostle Paul was a highly educated, respected religious leader.  He wanted to see the followers of Christ wiped out.  And then, he met Jesus.   The message he once thought foolishness became a great treasure.   He left his respectable position behind and spent the rest of his life sharing the message.

It was Paul who said, “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.  But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.”  (2 Corinthians 4:2,3)

Like Paul, I want to renounce underhanded ways and embrace honesty.  I don’t want to soften what the Bible says to make God look better as if I could have written a better story.  In the story God authored, Jesus suffered great humiliation and the shame of the cross.  Why?  Because of his love for those he had come to save.

Do I love others enough to be thought a fool?

“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”2 Corinthians 4:7

God places His story, the treasure of the knowledge of the gospel, in jars of clay. Remembering that it is the surpassing power of God that transforms his message from foolishness to shining light, I’m suddenly free to trust Him with His own message.  I’m free to give up the debate and really listen to other’s stories and also to their questions, sometimes admitting that I have the same ones.  And ultimately, I can love others enough to plainly share the truth even if it makes me a fool in their eyes.  

I really don’t enjoy a contentious debate the way I did in high school but I’ve come to really love an honest conversation.  I’d love to hear where you are in your own journey of faith.

by

The Path Home

I’m sure I first fell in love with my husband on a walk in the woods. Which walk I can’t say because there were so many that first summer. We’d pull on long sleeves and pants over our shorts before climbing on his motorcycle (no need to mention the motorcycle part to our kids!) and then be off. Most often our trip would partly consist of being jarred uncomfortably along a dirt road leading to a far part of the woods in northern Maine (north of Bangor anyway). There was the memorable ‘appliance graveyard’ hike where we wound ourselves through a plot of old refrigerators, ovens and other remnants left to rust in the woods and ended up on a boulder in the wilderness as the sun set and darkness settled. Then, the coyotes started howling and we howled back in a conversation only they understood.

Often on our adventures we would look for a mountain to climb and then sit victorious at the top, looking west as the sun set and watching the stars come out. We’d see the distant glow of light from a town far away and feel like we were somehow separate from the rest of breathing, drudging humanity; closer somehow to the coyotes and stars. Maybe it was the effect of sitting with someone who was gently being revealed as the man I would be united with for life, or the stillness in the cooling air, but those moments after the sun set seemed to stand still. They were miniature eternities where time seemed peeled away and I felt that all that had come before in my life and all that would follow, even for generations, was surrounding us as we sat together. They were moments when we would speak in whispers even though there were miles stretched between us and any other listening ear.

But then, a breeze would break through with an extra chill, or a mosquito would bite and one of us would have to look at our watch and time came back.  We would have to make our way back down the mountain.  Always without a flashlight we’d start back down the rocky, often unfamiliar trail.  He always led the way and I remember being thankful for his white t-shirt reflecting the little bit of moonlight on a particularly dark night.  Ours was an unordinary falling in love.  He didn’t hold my hand until the following winter when he placed a diamond on one of my fingers.  So instead of a finger grip, my eyes stayed fixed on this man as we made our way down.  With the night closed in around us, in a far and unfamiliar wood, I just kept moving one foot in front of the other.  There were stumbles, branch scratches and the occasional fearful shiver when I thought about the dark trail behind me. But my eyes kept searching and fixing themselves on the man I trusted leading me home.

Years have gone by, babies born, boxes packed and unpacked and here I find I’ve followed him into the woods once more. The trees surround our cabin-house and we can watch the sun set over distant hills in the west. Instead of just two adventurers there are nine of us now and someone often speaks the words, “Let’s go for a walk in the woods.”

This is a sweet, happy, busy life we’ve been blessed with. But this isn’t all.   I have unwrapped countless gifts in this life.  I have been blessed with the fulfillment of nearly all the dreams I had as a young girl.  But strangely I’ve found them wanting.  The greatest joy in this life is dulled by the brokenness of living in a world where sin and death have entered in.  Its the pain of holding a great treasure in your hand only to watch it fading slowly away.

This life, with all its blessing, is being used up.  We can grasp it only to have it slip through our fingers. My hope isn’t found by looking at the great gifts in my life though I am deeply thankful, beyond words, for each one.  My hope comes from remembering that I’m not really home yet.  I’m on a path where even my dearest, most beloved friend can’t blaze the way. 

Ultimately, the journey my soul makes through this life is not one I make as a wife or a mother or a sister or a friend, but I am journeying on this path as a follower of Jesus.  He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”   His road home isn’t always what I would naturally choose for myself or for those I love.  Sometimes I think there must be some other way.  I start looking for hope in some other place but always there is emptiness and a darkness when I turn my face away from Him.  Its like trying to satisfy my thirst by eating sand.  I get more parched and long again for the life giving water.

I can’t escape that I am a believer.  A questioning, praying, stumbling, fumbling in the dark, believer.

But he keeps calling and there is grace.  “Light is sown for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart.” (Psalm 97:11)  He calls me, covers me with his own righteousness and lights my way.  This gospel is simple and hard and so often I feel like I can only see a glimmer.  It’s a bit of light springing up along the path like a seed that was sown.  It’s the encouragement to keep following.  It’s the seed of light that grows into faith and blossoms into joy.

So, here I am, just starting to share my journey, hoping that those little seeds of light in my life might send a glimmer of hope to another soul like me, in a far wood but on the path leading Home.