Pinging

   My grandparents had a ping pong table in their basement that always intrigued me when I was a girl.    Occasionally I would attempt to hit a stray ping pong ball with the orange paddle across the dusty table.  Sometimes I would hit the ball in such a way that it would bounce off the ceiling and hit the floor, only to keep on pinging up and down, up and down.   It was hard to chase it down and recover the ball. 

    My husband uses a word to define that moment when one’s emotions have reached a certain height: pinging.  Picture that ping pong ball pinging off of the ceiling as it bounces up and down, up and down.  That would be an accurate description of me lately.  My emotions can ping all over the place; I need something to stabilize me.  To hold me still. 

     I have felt my body tense up under pressures that come like waves, like a sea sickness. Recently I had someone ask me if there was anything new going on in my life.  I was dumbstruck.  New?  Are you crazy?  I hope not!  I can’t handle anything new.  I told him “no, but I have embraced the fact that I live a busy life.  I don’t like it, but its just the way it is.”  He answered with, “well, don’t be busy then.”  My initial response was, “easier said than done,” but I knew he was right. Pinging is not pleasant, for me or anyone else around me. I do have choices.  Choices can be radical, and they can cause sweeping change.  Its about time for some of that change, even a midst dirty dishes.  

     The next day I went to my sink to wash dishes once again, and in my mind I started to complain.  I began to pray, and then a question came to me.  Could it be that you are you overwhelmed because you are underwhelmed by Me?  Yes.  The answer was and is yes.  I am only overwhelmed when I am underwhelmed by Jesus.  What would my days and hours be like if I was overwhelmed by Jesus, and underwhelmed with the burs and cuts and mud of this life? 

     My husband’s work pants and boots take a beating.  They have rips, hitchhikers, stains, and holes from walking through thick briers while he is surveying.  Sometimes he is overwhelmed by the stuff he must fight and cut through to get the job done.  Other times he sends me beautiful pictures of the scenery all around him.  It is then that he is underwhelmed by the briers and ticks and mud.  God’s beautiful creation overwhelms the problems.  He has sifted through the difficulties and looked at the good that remains.

     We have a colander that belonged to Chris’ grandmother.  She gave it to us to begin our married life together.  It has held up very well.  In fact two people have asked if they can have our metal colander, the most recent being my daughter.  I have used this colander to sift out many, many things.  As I think about how to resist being carried away by all that surrounds, I picture this colander that sifts away all that is unnecessary and holds onto what is needed.

     I have a Savior, and He supports me in the whelming flood.   Jesus helps me to remain steadfast, immovable, when all around rushes past me, threatening to carry me away.  He is my anchor; He then is all my help and stay.

     When something is anchored, it is not expected to move any time soon.  It is a picture of settling down or into something.  It is a form of resting.  Christ anchors me so that I can rest in the midst of the storms of this life.  When I uproot myself and drift away from this Anchor, then I am carried away by the overwhelming barrage of thoughts, duties, “ought tos”, and others’ imperatives.  In these times, I am underwhelmed and in unbelief.    I have uprooted myself from Jesus, the Anchor of my soul. 

     God’s grace is sufficient for the troubles and temptations of each new day. I need to resolve to let the washing of the water of the Word overwhelm me.   I need to be underwhelmed by all, but Him.  I have a choice, to ping or to be still in the presence of the One who holds me close, when all around my soul gives way. 

~Your Fellow Sojourner

 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.  She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.  But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42

Taste and See

     Several years ago my father in law began to change.  He was being faced with the reality of death.  He had lost his father, and was watching God bring our son back from renal failure and possible death.  And so he walked and prayed under the stars.  He was walking through a wilderness of the soul.  He was coming clean again. 

     My husband did not have a very close relationship with his father as a child or even as a youth.  His father was wrestling with the demons of drugs, lust, and a wounded heart while Chris was growing up.  Then, six years ago, his father experienced a deeper faith in a God, which until then, had only been distant. 

     Something that had been hard and painful at times began to take on a sweetness.  God was bringing good out of bad.  He was buying back a soul from a pit.  The love and forgiveness my husband gave my father in law was a healing balm for a fragile soul.  We watched someone come alive.   I watched God draw a father and son closer together. 

     This week, Chris’ father will be moving ten minutes away.  We have never lived so close to him, not in body or in spirit.  We are all tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.  It is like a good pancake.

     Tonight I will gather up rich milk, sugar, eggs and butter to make pancakes.  We will savor the sweetness of our meal together.   And just as in Passover, our children will ask us why we do this on this night every year.  Tonight we will recount all the wilderness journeys that we have walked that ended not in the bitterness and gall of death, but with the sweet goodness of God’s faithfulness.  We will tell our children that we can taste the sweetness of a forgiven life because He tasted the bitter gall for us. Tonight, I will treasure up all of His bright designs

      This year, I pray that our pancakes will taste a little bit different.  I pray that they would become even sweeter than the last. 

~ Your Fellow Sojourner

 God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

-William Cowper