When the Wise Become Fools

     Not too long ago, the wisemen came and took over my living room.  The wisemen had hijacked Noah’s ark and held baby Jesus hostage along with his mother Mary.  There was evil afoot.  Every so often, the animals on the ark would walk the plank, and only diabolical laughter could be heard as the ark sailed the living room rug. Jesus and Mary seemed doomed.  The wisemen had not gotten the memo – we are supposed to worship Jesus, not put him in the brig. 

     Even though my children had rewritten the story of Jesus’ birth, I consoled myself in remembering that God’s plan had not been taken out of His hand.  God has already accomplished all He desired without any detours.  No wisemen gone rouge could bother me. 

     There are no guarantees – all of life is a gamble- live today for tomorrow we die – live for yourself.  These ideas reveal what most of the world believes about life.  It sounds a lot like the wisemen taking over Noah’s boat and going for a joyride.  And even though I laughed at my sons’ revisionist history, I too want to take control of the ship and do my own thing.  I am afraid of not squeezing all that I can out of my life.  I want to be like the living room wisemen and write my own story.  I am ok with putting Jesus in handcuffs.

      But even if Jesus is all tied up below deck, He still affects our lives.   He really did live.  He really did die.  And there are too many resurrected people walking around for Him not to have lived again.  I know.  I am one of them.   But I spurn the blood that ransomed me.   I am unfaithful.  I leave Him.

     Every day I find my heart wanting to leave the home of my Father and go find my life somewhere else.  I am lured by the siren song of comfort and ease, of the perfect wrinkle free day, and of daydreams that are full of every imaginable thing.   I take my inheritance and try the road of my own desires.  And I never think of where my choices will lead until I taste the bitterness of the outcome.  Aloofness sets in and my heart begins to cool.  I must turn toward home again to warm my hardened heart.  Yet every time I go back to God I wonder.  Will He take me back again?  Have I wandered too far this time? 

     As He stands with outstretched hands I see that He has come not for the healthy, but the sick.  It is the only place I can go for restoration.  And this pattern is becoming more and more common for me.  The more I walk with Jesus, the more I see my tendency to want to walk through life apart from Him. 

But He has a love that is stronger than the death that threatens my soul and He has a jealousy that is fiercer than any grave that would forever bury me.   There is no place He will not go to rescue; there is no bitterness, no anger, no apathy that His death and life cannot heal. 

     What the wisemen on the ark forgot was that the baby below deck came to die for them.  He came to return blessing for cursing, life for death.  Like the pirate wisemen going back to the crèche to worship Jesus, God will resurrect the curses of my life and make them into the blessings He intends them to be.  This is Redemption’s song.  A beauty for ashes, a strength made perfect in weakness. 

     For that day, my spirit is longing.  And with the Spirit and the Bride, I say come.  Come and take the people of this world who think themselves wise and show them they are fools.  Come and give these fools the gift they need.  A humble heart surrendered to the Love that many waters cannot wash away.  And I, like all the other fools of the earth, will discover that I have nothing to give Him, nothing but my heart.

~Your Fellow Sojourner 

                 The boys reading by the tree (Noah's ark is docked under the sofa table.)

                                     In the Bleak Midwinter

       In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

               earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

               snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

               in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

               Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;

               heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.

               In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed

               the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

               Angels and archangels may have gathered there,

               cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;

               but his mother only, in her maiden bliss,

               worshiped the beloved with a kiss.

               What can I give him, poor as I am?

               If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

               if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

               yet what I can I give him:  give my heart.

                  By Christina G. Rossetti

Don't Skip

     Are you one of those? You know, the ones who like to read the last page of a book first?  As a lover of story I want to encourage you to stay that hand and wait.  Wait for the end.

      When we read the end of a book before the beginning, we are assuming too much.  We want to read the “good stuff” and in so doing, we lose the richness of all the intricate details of the story. We lose the weight of what the story truly means.  We miss the tension that brings fullness and life to the storytelling.

    There are places in books where you can’t stop reading and so you try to stay up all night to read what will happen next.  And then there are times when you put it down after reading one paragraph.  Stories can become redundant or dull.  Excitement can wane.  We forget that excitement has its price. 

     In order for there to be dashing rescues or joyful meetings, there has to be conflict or pain.  There has to be a problem that seems to have no resolution, that looks as if all is lost. 

     When my daughter wanted to read Anne Frank’s Diary this summer I cautioned her.  I warned her that the content and vocabulary may be challenging.  She had a habit of being “one of those” who started a book and then wanted to know what happened in the end by about chapter two.  And so I told her, “You may read the book, but only if you finish all of it, without stopping or skipping ahead.”  “Ok, I will Mom.  I Promise.”

Bella singing stories of Christmas with the Wye Youth Chorale.

     And yes, the moment came when she slumped into a chair one morning to announce that she was done with Anne Frank.  It was too slow, too boring, and much too long.  “Oh no, Bella.  We have a deal, remember?”  And so, week after week, she trudged through the novel.  Sometimes she would enlighten me with what she was reading and other times she would just read because she had to.  Then one day, she finished the book.

     On the day that she reached the end of all 283 pages of Anne Frank, she shared her thoughts on the experience with me.  “Mom, I cried.  It was so sad.”  “I know, but you know what, I am proud of you for hanging in there.  You did it.”  “Why would anyone do that to someone?  Those people didn’t even do anything wrong.  I hope that never happens again.”  And then I had to tell her that people still do that today.  The innocent are sought after and killed just because of their race or their beliefs or because they are inconvenient.  I told her this is why stories like Anne Frank’s are so important.  We must remember.  She realized the value in reading all of a book that day, the boring, the exciting, the long, and the hard.  And much like Bella, there are times when I want to skip ahead to the “good parts” in life, instead of walking through the difficulties. 

     There are moments of great oxygen siphoning pain in life: when you see your husband carry your bloody child into the ER, the moment when you find out about the inoperable brain tumor, or when you hear of two people that once loved each other, now love each other no more.  Who can come and bring help to these situations?  Who can create another eye, or heal a brain, or make two people love each other again? It looks hopeless, and you feel helpless. 

     We know that each day is like another page in a story, waiting to be read.  But we are a weary people and we need to rest from the events of the day.  We turn the light off each night and close the book.  The story must wait until tomorrow. 

     I love the picture of the setting and the rising of the sun.  The sun will set and the sun will rise no matter what has transpired during the last 24 hours.  It is constant.  This cycle brings an end to the harsh sunlight and the heat of the day; and it brings light and warmth to a cold dark night.  It gives hope for another day; hope to remain in the story of life.

     Many times we wake to the same thoughts.  The leftovers from yesterday’s anxious feelings or unexpected bad news that paralyzes.  We don’t see the subtle changes in our character or the small progress in others’ lives.  We assume we know how it all will end.  We are experts at prediction.  Often we go ahead and shut the open book of our lives and walk away.  We have “read” the end of story.  We say, “I know how this is going to go.  No point in looking for a different outcome here.  Why raise my hopes for something that just isn’t going to happen?”

     But faith doesn’t work that way.  Faith keeps working even when we do not see the end.  Faith keeps dipping His pen into the ink to write another chapter, to add the details that broaden and color our lives with grace and mercy and love. 

    We see a girl blossom into young adulthood with 20/40 vision in her one eye, vision that has become clearer and more compassionate.  We find ourselves telling other people with a smile and a tear, about a woman who loved life and loved her God and left us all too soon.  We learn to pray for the impossible.  We ask for a dead marriage to be raised to life again.  We pray that the Author’s pen is still writing.    We long for the story to continue until the good part comes.

    And it will come.  The Author and Finisher of the faith of every believer in His story writes with love and care.  He is not like an earthly writer, scratching out notes, throwing pages of a rough draft into the trash can, or leaving a work unfinished.  He writes truth, ensuring that no word falls to the ground without a purpose.  The goodness in His story comes now, in His Words that are found and eaten; words that are healing, strengthening, caring, and sustaining.  And the goodness that is still to come, when He will make all wrongs right. 

     So we must wait for Him.  Even though we cannot read the last page of our own story, we can trust the Writer.  We become strong as we read the stories of those gone before and those still with us.  He does not write in pain and loss, harm and death without tasting it himself.  He does not call us to walk where He has not gone or will not go.  And in the harshness of life, there is glory.  Such a weight of glory that we need to read every word of every page to soak in every ounce of its richness.

     The glories of Christ have come, are here, and are yet to come.  Hope in God keeps us going and keeps us turning pages.  We want to know if everything will turn out all right.  Yet in our desperate times, we want to rush through the difficult parts and skip to the end, where everything will resolve.   But the stories of our lives are not yet over; there are no final details written down on the last pages of our journey.  And what gets even better is that our story is not only a part of the greatest story ever told, it is a story that has no end.

     His world, His realm, will have no end.  He is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.  The King of all Kings interrupting time and history to come as a man, illuminating God’s glorious plan to save a people for Himself.  A people who will live with Him in a world without end.

~Your Fellow Sojourner

“For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace

there will be no end,

on the throne of David and over his kingdom,

to establish it and to uphold it

with justice and with righteousness

from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”

Isaiah 7:6-7

 Boys and their chalkboard story.

How Tradition Found Me

     It used to trouble me, those holidays, and what to do about them.  I would hear people speak of traditions and how important they were, especially to children.  Without intentional traditions in the home there could be a void, a hole not filled.  I remained uneasy about making traditions, or the lack thereof, for years.

     The major holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter would loom large and daunting in front of me.  Large spans of time, days and weeks, to be filled with tradition.  And as everyone knows, it is the Momma, not the Poppa, who often guides the family through each holiday, ensuring that everyone experiences a healthy dose of tradition.

     We have celebrated these holidays in various ways over the years.  No two years were alike.  In fact, the year we were expecting Bella’s arrival, we didn’t even have a Christmas tree.  We stayed home on Christmas, without a tree, and without a new born baby.  We calculated that one wrong!  So we decided to party it up for New Years, and so did Bella, at around 4:30 in the afternoon on December 31^st.  We spent New Year’s Eve in the hospital that year. 

     As I heard prominent women speak of making traditions for your family and the importance of them, I felt the need to go and “make” these traditions as well.   It all sounded so wonderful.  I would get the Martha Stewart magazines and cookbooks out and plan my strategy for creating our family traditions.  Nothing stuck, nothing worked, and mostly, it just frustrated me. 

     Then a few years ago I just relaxed about the whole thing.  No plan, no agenda, whatever comes our way will be ok.  This worked for a little while, and then, we began to feel the need for more intentionality.

     I found that we didn’t have a regular pattern in our family life in order for traditions to stick.  We didn’t have those comfortable ceremonies and routines that helped to give us more purpose and meaning for those days on the calendar in which we stop and remember.  Then I realized that a tradition we participate in every week could help us with our holiday traditions.

     My husband began talking about the importance of liturgy in our church service well over a year ago.  I saw an excitement in him as he slowly began bringing meaningfully crafted liturgy to our Sunday morning services.  Week after week, month after month, word pictures from our Sunday services began piling up in my soul.  I would find myself taking away phrases and pictures not from the sermon alone, but from the entire service.  My spirit was learning to walk through paths of gospel remembrance each week.   They were familiar, they were hopeful, and they pointed me heavenward. 

     I began looking for things that resembled our Sunday morning liturgy in our everyday lives.  What did we do as a family that also painted these pictures of the grace and mercy of God and of Christ in our hearts and minds?  What if we endeavored to highlight those traditions in our family that do the same as the Sunday liturgy, orient us back to God?

John and Abigail Adams come to dinner.

    I began to see glimmers of gospel rich patterns in our home.  We gather in the living room three to four times a week to read Scripture and pray and look for Christ in the Bible.  We pray at meals and at bedtime.  We light candles and pray every December, counting down the days to Christmas.  We pray and give thanks over every birthday.  We read almost every night about who God is and what He has done. We never set out to do any of these traditions intentionally, they just found us. 

     Not all of our traditions are about God, nor do they have to be.  We like just having fun too!  But for us, we know that the traditions that are not centered on God will not last.  My children may make oatmeal like I do and love to read history books like their father, but the traditions that point them to Christ will make gospel paths in their souls for an eternity.  They will find themselves walking these roads in dark and happy times alike.  They will remember talking about the “Light of the World” come as a baby to take away the sin of the world by candlelight.  They will remember reading about the fire of God burning up the sacrifice of Elijah in their pajamas.  They will remember sitting on their Father’s lap as he reads about the God who died to save their souls. 

     One kind of tradition only deepens, grows, and remains over time.  The other kind of tradition, the patterns that are not so Christ centered, have a way of fading into the background. We find that we are in need of something that will make these old truths precious to us again.

     The advent season, in particular, reorients us as we enter the New Year. We find that we have been in the desert, wanting and wasting over the past year.  We are longing for a Savior.  How long oh Lord, how long?  It is a time of turning our faces to the moment when God the Father said, enough.  Emmanuel, God with us, has come. 

     These traditions we keep are a lifeline for us as we walk through the swirling waters of life.  We grab a hold of the hope that is reborn in each of us this time of year.  We watch the old pass and the new come.  Babies are born and life comes again.  “Long lay the world in sin and error pining… a thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.” 

John making me laugh.

     We look forward to marking our calendars with special tradition keeping days in which we can reflect upon and renew our vision of the past, present, and future.   Like the Pilgrims of Plymouth, we have many reasons to give thanks.  “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come.”   And in the traditions that point us to Grace, we can be sure that “Grace will lead me home.”

~Your Fellow Sojourner

“To Thee, O Lord, Our Hearts We Raise”

To thee, O Lord, our hearts we raise
in hymns of adoration,
to thee bring sacrifice of praise
with shouts of exultation.
Bright robes of gold the fields adorn,
the hills with joy are ringing,
the valleys stand so thick with corn
that even they are singing.

And now, on this our festal day,
thy bounteous hand confessing,
Upon thine altar, Lord, we lay
the first fruits of thy blessing.
By thee the souls of men are fed
with gifts of grace supernal;
thou, who dost give us earthly bread,
give us the bread eternal.

We bear the burden of the day,
and often toil seems dreary;
but labor ends with sunset ray,
and rest comes for the weary.
May we, the angel reaping over,
stand at the last accepted,
Christ's golden sheaves, forevermore
to garners bright elected.

O blessèd is that land of God
where saints abide forever,
where golden fields spread fair and broad,
where flows the crystal river;
the strains of all its holy throng
with ours today are blending;
thrice blessèd is that harvest song
which never hath an ending.

By William C. Dix

Captain of the Storm

     “That didn’t really happen.  I mean, He can’t stop a storm, right?”  I heard as I walked into the room. “Yes, he can.  He’s God.” The twins were in theological deadlock.  One was being a realist and the other a believer in the impossible. I felt a need to direct them a little.  “Well, God can do whatever he wants, he is God.”   Then Winston continued in his incredulity. “How did he do that? “  “Just listen,” I said as the cd began to tell the story of “The Captain of the Storm.”

     Later in the day, the “believer” needed some correction.  We had met in this place of correction many times before for the same infraction.  Liam needed a breakthrough, a fresh perspective.   I reminded him of the story he had just heard.   “You know how you feel all that anger and sadness and frustration?  It’s like a storm isn’t it?  Jesus can still that storm in you, Liam.  You need to ask Him to do that.  I need it too.  He can still the storm in your heart.”  And do you know, his shoulders softened and his eyes got big, and I knew that something was happening to him.  He was coming to the point of understanding that the only place he could go for any real hope of change was to God.  And as I was talking with him, I saw myself.   

     I had been feeling the monster storm of anger and the overwhelming waves of frustration too.  It stopped me in mid stride to hear my son think that God could not possibly have stilled a storm.  But, I don’t believe it either.  I let the storm of life swirl around me and I let it carry me away.  I get caught up in the riptide of my emotions.  I know that giving myself over to emotions only leads me to a dangerous uncontrollable place.  A place where I forget who God is, that He not only created the seas, but He can part them too.  The test comes for all of us.  Who will take control?

      I know that I can no more captain my own soul than the kayak I stepped into last month.  It looked easy.  I mean, kids were doing this, right?  And so, throwing caution and common sense to the wind, I lowered myself into the kayak.  After pushing the kayak into the water it didn’t seem that bad.  The sky was beautiful and sunny and we were surrounded by fellow kayakers who were smiling as they rowed.  Then the spinning began.   I knew this directionlessness would not get better.  I didn’t know what I was doing. What looked easy was misleading.  All I prayed for now was that we could somehow row ourselves back to shore. My worst fear was that a rescue party would have to come three yards from the shore to help one directionless mother and two children.   I knew I would be secure on the shore.  I could trust the land.  I knew how to navigate that.  Thankfully we spun our way back to the sandy bank and a kind soul pulled us out.  Boat captaining is not in my future.

     In battle the Captain is the one who leads his troops into danger.  A good Captain knows where his men stand.  How much have they slept?  What have they eaten this morning?  Is anything weighing on their minds?  Who has wounds that need time to heal?  Are they thirsty?  He must know what his men will face when he leads them into the fray.  He knows he holds their lives in his hands. 

     I know no better captain than the One who has faced every hell that life can throw at a person.  He has known hunger and thirst, he has known insult and desertion, and he has known homelessness and a longing for home.  He bore it all to lead me through every fiery trial.  My God has captained every storm perfectly.  He even shows me how to close my eyes and rest a while.  He shepherds me through the valley of the shadow of death where I fear no evil.  With His rod and His staff, He comforts me.                                                        

     I spoke these words from the 23^rd Psalm to Ms. Flo last week.  She can’t seem to stay out of the hospital or the rehab center these days.  She doesn’t know what lies ahead.  “I wish I could just know, just know that I am with Him.”  And my heart leapt to tell her yes.  You can know that He is with you.  He is the Good Shepherd who cares for His sheep.  He will come to all who call on the name of the Lord.  He will safely to His haven guide, until the storms of life have passed.

~ Your Fellow Sojourner

                “Jesus Lover of My Soul”

                  Jesus, lover of my soul,

               let me to thy bosom fly,

               while the nearer waters roll,

               while the tempest still is high.

               Hide me, O my Savior, hide,

               till the storm of life is past;

               safe into the haven guide;

               O receive my soul at last.

               Other refuge have I none,

               hangs my helpless soul on thee;

               leave, ah! leave me not alone,

               still support and comfort me.

               All my trust on thee is stayed,

               all my help from thee I bring;

               cover my defenseless head

               with the shadow of thy wing.

               Thou, O Christ, art all I want,

               more than all in thee I find;

               raise the fallen, cheer the faint,

               heal the sick, and lead the blind.

               Just and holy is thy name,

               I am all unrighteousness;

               false and full of sin I am;

               thou art full of truth and grace.

               Plenteous grace with thee is found,

               grace to cover all my sin;

               let the healing streams abound,

               make and keep me pure within.

               Thou of life the fountain art,

               freely let me take of thee;

               spring thou up within my heart;

               rise to all eternity.

                 By Charles Wesley

So What's Your Story?

     Everyone’s got a story.  If you are with someone for any length of time you begin to touch on their story.  Sometimes it just comes out, and then there are times you have to “read between the lines”.  Other times you can easily see a person’s story peek out, like my daughter’s tale.

      Little children will often ask Bella what happened to her eye.  A four year old girl at the park approached my daughter and requested her immediate friendship last week.  Bella willingly became the little girl’s playmate as they began climbing on the play equipment together.  Every now and then the little girl would ask her what happened to her eye.  My daughter is always ready for this question and sometimes she has fun with her answer.  “It was a freak spitball accident.”  “Oh, wow”, the little girl said, and then ran off to play somewhere else.  The little girl would play and laugh for a bit until she was overcome with curiosity and would ask Bella what happened to her eye again.  Bella declared her one of the cutest girls she had ever met.  I was reminded again that Bella wears her story for others to see.  But I know that most of our stories are not so obvious.

     The playground at A.I. DuPont Children’s Hospital is fast becoming one of my favorite places to sit and think.   One can see children and families from all over the world; European, Asian, Middle Eastern, African, and American walk through the hospital playground.  This multicultural parade is so beautiful to me.  This is truly a unique place.  It is a place where everyone has a story to tell.

      A child doesn’t come to a place where there are world renowned specialists unless they have some sort of difficulty.  Some children walk with canes or braces, some cannot walk at all, others have casts, and still others are frail and thin.  But many of the children look just fine on the outside.  Their story is hidden, like little Gracie’s sister.

     A beautiful young family sat down with me at one of the picnic tables on the playground.  The mother sat with her 10 month old daughter while her husband ran after their three year old Gracie.  After a few questions like how many children do you have? and what do you think of the hospital?, their story began to unfold. Their youngest daughter was born with a hip displacement condition and so they sought out the best help they could find.  Their search led them to Dr. Bowen, who wrote a book on the little girl’s deformity.  Dr. Bowen is also Jackson’s doctor.  The little girl is looking great and her future is looking good. It was after meeting this little girl who shared Jackson’s doctor that the words to one of Jackson’s favorite songs came to my mind.

     Jackson heard a song when he was 7 years old that really impacted him.  “Give me your eyes for just one second, give me your eyes so I can see.”  I remember asking him why he liked the song, and he told me that he wanted to see people that way, the way God sees them.  God was giving him a tender heart toward others.  We had no idea that just a week following his baptism, at 7 years old, just how greatly our family would be impacted by pain.  It was the week that Bella lost her sight in her left eye.  Jackson’s song took on a whole new meaning.  We were all drawn right into my son's own prayer to see people in a whole new way. 

     I have been learning to slow down when I meet people, to look and listen to people more intently.  I am learning to walk a little of their own path with them.  It is in our weaknesses that many of us find strength.  None of us are fit enough.  We are all flawed.  Our flaws are a part of our stories.  Each life has value because of the precious story that it tells.  Even a newborn baby has a story – like my nephew, who came into this world just fine, beating all the odds of surviving an umbilical chord that was knotted 4 times.  Levi’s life tells a story even now, as an infant.  We all stop and take notice because his story causes us to marvel at the gift of life.

     Affirming another’s worth can be as simple as listening to their story.  Or like one child wrote at the A. I. DuPont Hospital, “Just smiling at someone can make a person’s day.”  By looking for other people’s stories we can learn how to care more deeply for people.  Many stories translate to prayer for me.  How can I pray for this person?  Where is God working here?  And as I look for more stories, I find myself praying for more people.  It is becoming a natural overflow.  I am taking their stories to Jesus. 

     As I am praying for people, it humbles me. I am reminded to never assume that I have a person all figured out.  Little Gracie’s sister looked just fine, but as her Momma carefully placed her x-ray on top of the stroller, the little girl’s story became more real to me.  This Christmas she will celebrate her first birthday, and maybe, just maybe, she will walk on Christmas Day. 

     Our stories make us who we are; the good, the hard, the painful, and even those things we don’t want to remember, they are a part of the stories we are living.  And living is what we were meant to do.

~Your Fellow Sojourner

“Give Me Your Eyes”
Looked down from a broken sky
Traced out by the city lights
My world from a mile high
Best seat in the house tonight
Touched down on the cold black top
Hold on for the sudden stop
Breath in the familiar shock
Of confusion and chaos
All those people going somewhere, 
Why have I never cared?

Chorus:
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
Ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see

Step out on a busy street
See a girl and our eyes meet
Does her best to smile at me
To hide what's underneath
There's a man just to her right
Black suit and a bright red tie
Too ashamed to tell his wife
He's out of work
He's buying time
All those people going somewhere
Why have I never cared?

I've Been there a million times
A couple of million eyes
Just moving past me by
I swear I never thought that I was wrong
Well I want a second glance
So give me a second chance
To see the way you see the people all along

by Brandon Heath

Studio Performance of Brandon Heath singing "Give Me Your Eyes"

 

                                         What is going on here?!  

For Everyone Who Climbs

     These rocks of affliction seem to never leave the skyline.  They tower over us with their shadows cold and grey.  We awake each day with the impassioned thought to climb; climb, ever higher until we reach the top.  We begin but soon our bodies are pushed to the limit.  We look up.  The distance is just too far.  And we must look down again to begin the decent. 

     At the end of the day, after our attempted climb, we sit.  We sit and close our eyes and dream.  We set our hearts and minds on the hope of the shadow moving and the warmth of the sun pouring over us, thawing out our cold and weary souls.  But mountains do not move.

     And then, one day another climber comes along.  He doesn’t look too pretty.  The cuts and bruises tell of a similar tale; we know the marks well.  But he has a confidence about him, a steady look in the eye, and a patient hand.  He says, “Let’s ascend this rock face together.  I have stood at the base of a wall of rock such as this, and I have come down on the other side.  I am ready to climb.”  And in blind faith or desperate hope, we agree to go along.  The struggle is still there and the obstacles the same, but when we are too weak and our hope has waned, our fellow climber bids us to go on.  We push through the most difficult and dangerous parts of the climb and the summit comes closer. Our hands and feet find holds we did not see before.  We are helped and our weakened souls become stronger.  We begin to breathe the air of hope.

     As we pull our bodies up to the top, we stop to look for our friend.  The climb was long and the work was hard, but we were not alone.  We had someone there to help us up when we had fallen; we had someone there to show us that we did have strength, when we thought we had none.   With aching legs and muscles taught, we stand upon the precipice.  We close our eyes and feel the breeze.  In our hearts we hear a new refrain, “It was worth the pain.  It was worth all of the pain.”  

     And we stand there, in awe of what we have just ascended.  As we think back to where we have come from we feel a twinge of doubt, but we push the thoughts aside.  We are standing on the majestic point of a mountain and we feel a surge of pride roll over us like a wave.  But to take any credit for coming this far would be foolish.  We know we only kept going because someone had gone before us who knew the way.  We had a trailblazer to follow.  And now we see that we too know the way that others must take. 

     We make our plans to go down the rock.  We know we cannot stay here.  We know we need to go back to the lower, more level ground.  And as much as we want to rest in the valley for a little while, we know the next climb will come soon and we must be ready for it.  There are other climbers down below.  Our knowledge and our pain are precious now.  These experiences and things we have learned could become stagnant if they are hidden away and never shared with another.  We are a people of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We even know the One who made the mountains.  We know that He has led us to these rocks that have been so full of trouble.  But it has been a trouble shared, not wasted.  It will be like precious oil that has been spilled out to heal another troubled soul.  This affliction turned to healing, He has called good. The rocks that had once afflicted us will be like smooth stones we can hold in our hands, to remember. We have stood on top of the massive rock that would have crushed us.  But we were not crushed. We have become more than conquerors.  ~Your Fellow Sojourner

Mt. Hood in Oregon

Little Red Hen Gets Wise

           It’s day three of “no toys”.  I am still sane, in my right mind, and most importantly, alive.  There have been no attempts at mutiny and no death threats.  So far, so good.  This “Little Red Hen” may have stumbled upon some wisdom. She is not going to do it all by herself, anymore.

            Each morning, I have been greeted by a different toy grouping that has been dumped out onto the floor.  My days began with a mess made mostly of small unnecessary plastic objects, and ended with a mess of small unnecessary plastic objects.  It drove me to drink some strong coffee and to do some deep breathing exercises.  The toys were taking over.

            So, two weeks ago, I sent a warning shot across the bow of my children’s Toys R Us Carnival Cruise Ship.  The toys were going to go for a long walk, somewhere far away.  Their life aboard “The Good Ship Lollipop” was going to change.  It was either the toys or me.  I decided that no three foot by three foot blob of toy Legos, army men, and plastic blocks was going to get one over on me.  I knew that the toys themselves were innocent.  The toys had just become a casualty of war; my war against “Lazy Butt Entitlement Syndrome”. 

            My final solution: organize the toys one last time in their bins, clear room for them in the attic, and store every last one of the toys in the attic.  My only compromise: when I saw change of heart, one bin might, might come out each week and then be exchanged for another bin, but no more than one bin per week.  After my declaration had been broadcast to the family, my husband stood up and applauded, the children were frozen in silence.  Then, the fight began.

            I was prepared.  I made myself mentally and emotionally ready for anything.  I anticipated a great resistance and I got one.  It began early in the morning on the day of “The Big Sort”. 

            Fits of shaking, tears, fists shaken at the heavens, and many great speeches on the benefits of toys came my way.  I was a wall, unmoved, undeterred.  Then the bargaining began.

            “Mom, can I just keep this one car out, this one hat, this one plastic army man…”  I stood my ground, “No”.  The psychological warfare was not working.  Then they began their final assault.  The weeping and deep guttural groans erupted from them like a choir of dying hyenas as the sorted toy bins went up the attic stairs. 

            When the final toy was put away, the children became very still and peaceful.  I think it surprised them that they were ok, even after the toys were all put away.  They accepted the reality of what had just taken place and fought no more. 

            Now the fighting, yelling, and hours of picking up toys became almost nonexistent.  It was a moment of grace. I think the Little Red Hen finally got wise and decided to stop making and baking the bread for her ungrateful friends.  She has too many other things to do in a day.  She was tired of watching her housemates play all day while she worked for them. Sometimes Mommas have to make hard calls to protect their little ones.The change in toy policy brought us a peace we desperately needed.

            My youngest son, Elias, was observing a mother cat and her kittens outside of a friend’s house today and said,” That Mommy kitty is protecting the baby kittens because the baby kittens like to play in the trash.  And that trash is yucky.”  Yes, my son, just like that mommy cat, I too want to protect my little “kittens” because they too like to play with the “trash”. 

            A seasoned mother once said, “Little children exude little plastic toys and bits of trash.”  It is so true.  A small child cannot care for the large inventory of toys most of us have collected over the years.  Children can become overwhelmed by so many things to see and do, let alone pick up and put back just the way they find it.  It can be a full time job just keeping all of the toys put away and organized.  Frankly, I have too many jobs and it was time for me to retire from “toy manager”. 

            John Rosemond, well known parenting columnist, likes to say that children cannot handle any more toys to care for than their numerical age, and the child’s toy inventory should never exceed ten.  That is a hard line you may say.  Well, it is all in what one may want.

            I was becoming the shoe salesman at Sears.  “What size do you wear, how does it fit, don’t like that?, I think I may have that in brown, let me go check.”  I was going to the stock room exchanging box after box of unnecessary plastic objects and I was beginning to get the look of the shoe salesman at the end of the day.  It was not pretty.

            When what my children and I thought they needed in order to get through the day to be happy was taken away, it exposed some interesting things.  What would we do with our time now?  How can I keep myself occupied now?  Will I be ok without the toys?  So far, we are all fine.  And you know what, not once, not for even one minute, have the children asked me to get their toys out for them.  They play outside longer, they imagine all kinds of things, they tell stories and act them out, they build things in the woods, they draw, and put puzzles together.  My children play the way their grandparents played, with less. 

            I have been on a journey to simplify our lives for a while now and my courage is building.  I am gaining the strength to follow through on what some may think is a life of Spartan minimalness.  But I am seeing us come alive to a life freed up from “stuff” and I am seeing what was once dull begin to sparkle. 

            Today, we picked up some trash, did some laundry, and put some dishes away before we went to the park.  There were no visions of block puddles upon the floor or mounds of plastic animals in the back of my mind.  I was not distracted.  I was focusing on my children who were being children. I was able to see my children gain courage too.

            My daughter was able to take part in a ropes course along with some friends, including zip line and rock wall.  I watched her being pulled way up into the air in her harness and then swing back and forth in the air with a smile on her face.  “I had to be pretty brave today, Mom.  It was hard, but I did it.   You should do it too, Mom.  If I can do it, you can too.” 

           Yes, Bella, if you can do it, then so can I.  I can be your Mom and protect you and your brothers from all of that ”trash” you like to play in sometimes.  I love you and you inspire me to go higher too.    Less stuff and more people, more time with the people that I love.  More time to watch them soar higher and higher with smiles on their faces.

~Your Fellow Sojourner

Bella and her friends at the ropes course.

Article by John Rosemond on Toys

It's Natural

Caring for a younger little person is second nature for my children, but I never saw it coming.  I had heard that in bigger families this kind of caring for one another can happen naturally.  I looked for this phenomenon years ago in my children, but did not see it materialize. Then, we had twins.

When the twins arrived we were thrown into a world of stepping slower and bending lower, out of necessity.  It was “all hands on deck” and we have kept that motto ever since. 

Sono Harris used to say that the youngest child should set the pace of the family, not the oldest.  Even Jacob from the book of Genesis knew this truth.  He knew what hard travel would do to the young ones in his care.  “Then Esau said, “Let us journey on our way, and I will go ahead of you.”  But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are frail, and that the nursing flocks and herds are a care to me. If they are driven hard for one day, all the flocks will die.  Let my lord pass on ahead of his servant, and I will lead on slowly, at the pace of the livestock that are ahead of me and at the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.” It was a season of slowing down for Jacob.

Think what would happen if we insisted that our three year old do all that our fourteen year old does. If we brought our three year old along for the ride whenever Jackson does his all day and into the night grass cutting at his Grandmother’s,  or we allowed Elias to run in the pitch black for hours to play late night flash light tag.  Not only are these allowances not healthy for a three year old, neither are they safe. 

We have had to say “no” to certain events and invitations due to our young children.  The alternative to always saying “yes” has resulted in a slower more home bound life.  I have found that our older children order their days around the knowledge that they will be needed to help care for their younger siblings.  We don’t tell them to do this, they just know.

Some may say, “That is not fair to require that of your older children.  Just think of the burden you are placing on them and all of the things they are missing.”  But our two older children, and even our six year old twins, do not see what they “miss” because they have each other.  When we do have days that are faster and filled to the brim, or when my oldest children do more apart from their younger siblings, they will often regret their time away to some degree or need to recharge by being at home with family. 

It is like the grandmother I met last summer who grew up in Queenstown, Maryland.  She had told me that several years ago she moved to “busier” Kent Island.  We were both pushing two year olds on the swing set in Queenstown, and she began to reminisce.  “You know, I loved it here.  I spent my whole life here. “I asked her what she thought of the way things had changed since her childhood.   She told me she was glad for her childhood, the way she was raised.  “We didn’t know we were missing anything.  We never went to a mall.   We were happy because we didn’t know what we were missing.”  She spoke about family and friends rather than experiences.

That struck me.  It calmed some of the questions and thoughts that come to my mind in this fast paced world.  What if… what if my children don’t ever do…or get to experience…  This woman had no regrets and no bitterness from her smaller, slower world as a child.  It made me smile inside. 

I have seen empathy and nurturing increase in our lives because there is always someone who needs care.  And yes, we complain and we dream of servants who can work for us and hours of free time, but we do not dwell on these thoughts.  We move on because we are needed.  And when we give, we find that it is more blessed than to receive.

My oldest is very close to my youngest.  There is a 10 ½ year difference between the two.  My daughter, almost 12, longs for more babies to care for, or to “mold into her own little minions.”  I am content with whatever God intends for the number of children in our family.  I can see that no matter how many children we have, the hearts of the children we have now will only grow in compassion and care for others.  And I pray that by the grace of God, they will look to slow down their adult lives in order to walk along side others. I hope they love people, no matter what the cost. 

Today, as my children ran out into the back yard and disappeared into the woods, I heard one after the other call to their youngest brother. “Elias!  Where are you?  Come here.  Don’t go there, be careful.”  My little son was surrounded by his brothers and sister as he stepped into a wood that seemed to swallow him up.  I stood in the backdoor smiling, sipping my coffee.  One day he may need to call on his siblings to contend with him as he faces the enemies in his life.  I do not think he has anything to fear.  I can see them come to his aid and it will be a day of reckoning.  As one man, they will fight for one another and for their God.  It’s natural; they know nothing else.

~Your Fellow Sojourner

Our own home grown militia. 

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,

the fruit of the womb a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior

are the children of one's youth.

Blessed is the man

who fills his quiver with them!

He shall not be put to shame

when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Psalm 127

Jackson and Bella explore the cannon.

Winston, poised and ready.