The Beautiful Wounds

    It is the week before Easter, Holy Week as many call it.  This year, we began this week of remembrance with an unexpected snow storm.  My daughter groaned, “This snow is going to ruin Easter!”  What she really meant was, how am I going to wear my new Easter dress and go Easter egg hunting in snow?!  What she didn’t know was that even though we were beginning the week with our biggest snow fall of the year, we were going to end the week with some of the warmest temperatures of the year.  She did not know what was coming.  She did not know what to hope in. 

    In this family, the week leading up to Easter is crazy.  We just have weird things happen around here, and usually it is the night before Easter.  My husband and I definitely think the cause for these strange happenings is spiritual.  There are forces at work, trying to get our hearts and minds off of celebrating Jesus’ resurrection.  And as you may have guessed, the Easter craziness usually involves a child or two with an injury. 

     About three years ago our son lost a good chunk of his big toe when a piano bench fell on him.  I just looked at Chris and said, “I am going to the emergency room.  You have to preach a sermon in the morning.  I will call you later.”  And that was that.  The following year, a projectile object cut deeply into our son’s face, right above his eye.  I lost it.  Chris had to drive that child to the E. R.  Not one of my shining moments.

     So far, so good this year.  We have already had one fluke injury a couple of days ago, and its only Friday.  Sunday is coming.  We have to pass through the night to get to the morning.  And so, we remember the wounds of our past and present.  By looking at these hard things in our lives for a few days, we become watchmen.  We wait with greater anticipation for the morning. 

     When our tears are spent and we have been overcome by our pain and our wrong doing, we become quieted.  We come to the end of ourselves and we have nowhere to look but up.  Up at the cross where blood and tears and sweat flow mingled down.  For you.  For Me.  And it is there that we begin to taste a sweetness.  A joyful sweetness, because of the morning that is to come.  A morning that is full of promise. 

     Scripture tells us that He was crushed for our iniquities and the chastisement for us all was upon Him.  He was beaten for us and He was rejected, a man despised on the earth.  The excruciating pain of what Christ endured became beautiful to us.  His wounds have healed us. 

     With every year, we have seen with our eyes the healing of our own wounds and the binding up of our own broken hearts.  He gently restores and buys back what was taken.  He gives us beauty for ashes.  We have seen the faithfulness of God and that He does not change.

     And so, I do not fear the next 48 hours.  All I have to do is look at the wounds.  The beautiful wounds of Christ.  He obtained peace for my soul, crushing the power of sin and death.  He gave me the oil of gladness through the hope of life eternal.  My pain may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.   Christ has risen and so will I.  I will leave this body of death behind.  And on that morning, oh what joy, what joy!            ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

Who has believed what he has heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;

he has put him to grief;

when his soul makes an offering for guilt,

he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.

                                                            Isaiah 53

                                                      

                                                       New Life pushing through.

Why I Love Being a Creative Woman

      I have not always liked being female.  There have been times in my life when I thought that being a man would be so much more fulfilling.  But more and more, I love being a woman.

      I feel like a wine that has been marinating for a while.  It is starting to ripen and the taste is improving. I know that my life has been brief compared to many. I do not speak only about myself, but for all women who have courageously lived some life.  

       I love the variety of creativeness in women.  No two women are alike.  Women are as varied as the differing patterns and colors of a lovingly handmade quilt. Yes, men are creative, but women, women have a creativity all their own.  Artistry softens our lives, because our days and hours encompass so many things. We have been designed to embrace life with an artistic flair.   

     Circumstances and people can attempt to suppress the gifts in a woman’s life, but if a creative spark is there, it will glow, however muted it may be.

       One of the key things in my life has been the people who saw the gifts and talents I have and called me to use them.  My father has always been my number one creative cheerleader.  He has never told me that I should not try to do something or that I could not do something.  He has always believed in who God has made me to be.  He helped to forge a foundation in my life that would enable me to take risks and make big leaps of faith.  Thank you, Dad.  Thank you, everyone who helped in pouring the beautiful creative foundation of my life. 

       I enjoy telling other women, no matter what the age, to “go for it!”  It is a joy to see women walking in what they were destined to do.  It is like seeing a fine piece of art.  When you get up close to the real thing, it is always bigger and clearer than what you thought it would be.  You see the details that made it great.

       But I am all too aware of the times in my life, and in others’ lives, when fear dampens the creative flow.  Fear is the enemy of the joyful creative life.  What if this does not turn out to be what I think it will be?  What if others never understand me?  What if it costs me a great deal?

       Truth and love are the fire that reignites the creative soul.  Speaking, reading, hearing, meditating, and living the truth turns into courageous faith.  Love cushions us when the naysayers come.  Love heals the wounds of the failures of the past. 

       Are you a woman?  Embrace it!  You have been creatively made and have a creative intention.  Are you a man?  Speak truth and love to the women that you know.  Call them to live a courageous creative life, and you will be blessed by them!  Are you someone who believes themselves to be uncreative?  Do not compare yourself to another, do what you love to do and bless someone else.  Even making a bed can be a great creative endeavor. 

       Anna Mary Robertson was born into a farming family with ten children in the 1860s.  She went on to marry and live the life of a farmer’s wife and had ten children herself.  The hardness of life drew out her creativity.  Instead of becoming bitter at the end of her life, she made art.  Grandma Moses shared with all of us her love of the simple ways of life through her paintings.  But, her creativity began long before the first painting dried in her daughter’s home.  She had been embellishing her life with art for a long time.

        I want to go into my future embellishing everything around me.  Like the woman of the poet in Proverbs 31, I want to wear strength and dignity so that I can laugh at the days to come.  Oh, let me not eat the bread of idleness, but let me hold and taste the fruit of my hands.  I cannot see what the days ahead will hold, but I do know that as I use these creative gifts, I will stop and close my eyes, and smile at the future. 

       ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

"The Oaks" by Grandma Moses

When The Saints Go Marching In

     A Monday night in March, in downtown Annapolis, is not what you would call a bustling hive of activity.  A few shopkeepers walk past windows and several adolescents scoop ice cream or pour coffee, while boats rock quietly back and forth in the tiny harbor.  The buildings are quiet and the people are too. But this past Monday, I took part in attempting to wake up these sleepy Annapolitan streets. 

     My two oldest children and I walked briskly into the parking lot of St. Mary’s Catholic Church to join a growing crowd of Marylanders.  Sights, sounds, and colors all converging for one purpose, to march.  I did not know most of these people, yet I felt as if I had come to a big family reunion.  Grandmothers, Grandfathers, Aunts, Uncles, Mothers, Fathers, Cousins, Daughters and Sons. 

     Monday, March 11^th is six days after my fifth child, Elias’ birthday, and two days before the twins’ birthdays, Liam and Winston, who are my third and fourth children.  It is the week when our family remembers the birth of our three youngest sons.  To retell all of the miraculous moments surrounding their birth would take many pages and many hours. They were meant to be here.  They were meant to live.

     I could also fill up pages of comments and thoughts from others telling me that I was not wise in wanting more children.  Oh, if I had listened to their voices…  I am so thankful for Truth, Truth that speaks louder and clearer. 

     And so, I came to walk and to pray, to march in awe of what God has done in me and in my family.  He is the Author of life, and life more abundantly. He does not need me to speak for Him, and so I stopped my mouth from speaking. I fasted from speaking and turned all of my thoughts to prayer.  I had a fleeting sense, a sense of calm before a storm. The storms that surround battle, the storms of war.

     One of the last things I said to my son before I put the duct tape across my lips was of war.  “It’s not quite like going out to battle but its close.  Can you feel it?”   And he stood quiet.  He was sensing something as well.

     The people who had poured out of the chapel moments ago, crossing themselves, praying, picked up signs and buttoned up coats.  They found their places in the lines that formed behind the banners.  They had received a blessing and were emboldened to stand, to march.  There were no orders given.  There was no need.   They all knew why they had come, and all grew quiet as the trumpet blew.

     It is as old as battle its self, the trumpet sound.  And at the last blast, the drums began.  Step, step, stride, stride.  It was solemn and quiet. 

      Some greeted us along the way with supportive signs.  Others smiled and honked their horns.  But it was very quiet.  The weight of death was on our minds.  The loss of one soul meant to live is unspeakable, and often, unnecessary. 

     Tonight we blew out twelve candles, six for each of our sons.  We laughed and prayed, remembering how neither of them was supposed to be blowing out even one candle.  Just as their lives have defied the odds, they have emboldened our own.

      I have always said that when the twins were born, my pride went out the window.  With doubling the joy, came doubling the humility.  Every day became an adventure.  Much of my preconceived ideas of mothering and family life changed.

      When Elias arrived, we just threw him in the mix.  We call him our mascot. He is our lively little ambassador.  Our last three children were the result of new marching orders.  We decided to step out of the way and give ourselves to raising and nurturing all that God would give us. 

      I would like to say that we took those marching orders to heart, without any doubts.  But, I can tell you that there have been many days that I have wanted to step out of God’s plan for our family.  But now, more than six years later, I have the benefit of looking back.  And although the terrain has been rocky and dark at times, I can truly say that God has been more than good.  He has been so very good. 

~Your Fellow Sojourner

Our little birthday celebration.

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

Coming Full Circle

           The black and white photographs in my aunt’s flower covered picture album tell a story that I never tire of hearing.  The photographs in the album are of my father and his siblings when they were children, and their mother, my grandmother.  In these pictures, my grandmother Elva, tall and thin, is often seen with her children.  She has a knowing look about her; sometimes serious, sometimes playful.  And then, as the album progresses, she is no more.  The pictures of my grandmother end.    

            As I sat in my aunt’s home surrounded by my grandmother’s children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, I was constantly bumping into Elva’s legacy.  A photograph here, the same knowing look in someone else’s eyes there, her high cheekbones in the faces of her children and grandchildren.  Even as I was seeing into her future, I was remembering her past. 

            Then my uncle prayed for those yet to be born, and I watched as another link in my grandmother’s legacy was being forged.  We are all aging.  There may not be many more great grandchildren to be born.  The great great grandchildren are soon to come.  The generations are expanding, even while the foundations of my grandmother’s legacy are distancing themselves from the present.  I am feeling the weight of where I stand.   I see that it has all come full circle.

            My aunt knew that when she was born, my grandmother was already positive for tuberculosis.  The lump came into my throat as she spoke those words.  Death sentence.  The remainder of Elva’s life was one of pouring out all she had.  She did not keep her life in reserve, but broke the vial that held her precious life.  She held on to nothing.

            I have pieced together the story of her life, like a puzzle in my mind.  Every time I come across a precious piece of this woman’s story I place it in the picture.  I stand back and view what is taking shape,  and I am amazed.  What should have been tragedy is a beautiful work of art. 

            She made a choice to marry the coal miner, to make his simple life her own, to bear his children, to stand up under poverty and sickness, to live a humbled life.  Others shook their heads and mourned the life she had poured out.  Lost.  So precious, what could it have been…

            But to me, it is so beautiful, because it was so costly.  I do not know if she thought of me.  Maybe she had a fleeting thought about future generations.  But oh, how I have thought of her. I keep her picture on my refrigerator to remind me.  I see a woman from almost one hundred years ago doing what I am doing now.  Being a wife and mother, allowing another life to depend upon my own, giving birth, accepting hardship, standing up and pushing through when all around seems fruitless, loving those who do not understand, and having no regrets.  She could have chosen to follow a career, to seek out a cure and hold onto her years in comfort, to live for herself.  But she did not.

            I have her blood running through my veins – the “I want this life to continue beyond myself” kind of strain.  The blood that pumps from a heart that only beats for Someone else.   I see glimpses of the same blood in my own children.  As my sons and daughter stand underneath the sheltering branches of their mother, I know that they are standing on the roots of my grandmother’s life.   

            And so, I resound with Mark when he speaks of another woman, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.” (Mark 14:6 ESV)  How many women have made this same choice?  How many are scoffed at for pouring out their lives on behalf of future generations? The world, and many who are lured into the “myself above all else” kind of thinking, are troubled when they see a woman who would choose to pour herself out for others. What about the degree?  What about the money and the time?  What about lunch dates and manicures with friends?  What about a body that will forever change when it has given birth?  What about all of those wasted years of wiping bottoms and noses and tears?  What about all of those long, long years of inconvenience?

            My grandmother did what she could.  This is all I hope to do.  I want to do all that I could have done.  Not for me, and not just for my children, and yes, hopefully, not just for those children yet to be born, but for the worship of Another. 

             This is why the story of my grandmother continues to be told, because it was a life that was lived as it should have been.  She lived it for me and for all those after me, and she poured out the precious fragrant oil of her life onto the Lover of her soul.

~Your Fellow Sojourner

Dedicated to those yet unborn.  You are precious in His sight.  

             And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.  There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial.  And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”  (Mark 14:3-9 ESV)

A Little Healing, A Little Hope

Mothers know the out of control, helpless feelings that life can bring.  We put on a strong façade, but inside we cry out for something or Someone to help us.  We need to be helped, even as we help others. 

I know that I am not alone in watching helplessly as you see your child in pain.  I also know that I have not seen the ultimate pain of losing a child.  I cannot imagine that pain.  I sometimes make myself “go there” and walk my soul through what life would be like if I saw one of my children die.  We have come close, but we have received mercy and grace instead of death. 

In the day to day, moment by moment living, I do not dwell on such deep things.  I focus more on the laundry that grows ever higher or the second bump or bruise of the morning.  I throw up quick prayers that say, “Ok, how do I deal with this one, God?”  and “Help me to keep it in check, Lord!”  I pray for the “little” things in life.  I even pray for God to heal a little hand from warts.

My son has had his thumb covered with little warts for some time now.  It began as one and then spread all over the thumb, then spreading to the other fingers.  We attempted some of our own voodoo medicine.  Nothing worked.  We didn’t make it a big deal and we would often just forget that they were there. 

I was reminded of the warts when I would go to hold his hand to help him cross the street, or trim his nails, or help him write his name.  And when I would see them or feel them, I would pray. 

My mother and father have a story about warts and prayer.  Apparently, when my mother became pregnant with me, she broke out in warts all over her hands.  They did not know why and they could not get rid of them.  I know that they prayed, because they remembered.  When I was born, the warts just went away.  This gave me a little hope. 

As the warts continued to spread, I became more bold in my prayers.  We prayed together for God to heal him.  I also felt the gnawing guilt that a mother feels when she knows she should do more to help her child.  I felt my finiteness.  I could not heal.

Tonight, after a bath, I helped my son dry off and get dressed.  Then, I pulled him up on my lap to trim his nails and tell him a story of my own childhood.  This is a tradition of mine.  I tell the children a story when I trim their nails, to distract them from the evil metal pinchers that are bearing down upon their hands and feet. 

As I took his hand in mine, I noticed something.  It was smooth.  I looked down and the warts were gone!  I stopped, and I said, “Liam!  Your thumb, it doesn't have any warts on it!  You have been healed!”  And he said, “Yes, I guess I am, Mom.”  Everything stopped for a moment.  I remembered my parents.  I remembered feeling helpless.  I remembered that God hears and heals. 

The warts are a reminder that we are merely human.  Our bodies need healing.  Our souls need hope.  We live from one little healing to the next.  We rest on one little hope to the next. 

I will remember this little healing and I know that this little hope will grow.  It has already.

~Your Fellow Sojourner

Here is the song I sang with Liam at bedtime:

My God is so big!  So strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do.

My God is so big!  So strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do.

The mountains are His, the rivers are His, the stars are His handy work too.

My God is so big!  So strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do, for you!

Someone else's cutie singing the song.