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.

Don't Drink the Water

       While in Mexico, Chris and I were warned to not drink the water.  The likelihood of us becoming ill from the water was very high.  Bottled water became our friend; we could go nowhere without it.  And Mexico in August is hot, especially in the desert.  It makes you thirsty. 

       Thirst is part of being alive.  All living things need water.  But not all water is the same.  Thirst can drive us to do many things.  We can even grab the closest, easiest thing to try to ease the dry burning sensation of thirst.  We go to many substances in an attempt to quench the thirst that is magnified by this life.  We become like my two year old, who went to the toilet.

       One day, late in the morning, the children and I were sitting at the table conversing and enjoying one another’s company.  It was a rare peaceful moment.  Then I see a look of shock and horror come across my daughter’s face.   “What are you drinking, Elias?  Is that from the toilet?!”  I glanced over and saw my  son calmly walking away from the bathroom.  He was cherishing a green Tupperware cup full of precious water that he had collected from the toilet.  He took a long deep drink from the cup and my children erupted.  Some tried to grab it away from him, others expressed their disgust and turned away, and I admit, I just laughed.   He would not let us take it away from him.  He had found a way to take care of his thirst and he was quite proud of his discovery.  He was tired of waiting and asking for a drink of water, the water that comes from our well.  Our well water is quite good.  My husband says it is some of the best water he has ever had.  We are blessed with our water because the source is good. 

        My son did not know that the source he had gone to was a potentially unhealthy one.  He would have to rely on someone else showing and guiding him to a better source.   He needed to drink from the well. 

       Our responses to my son’s efforts to satisfy his thirst were varied.  Probably none of them were good.  We turned away, showed our disgust, and we were thankful that none of us were holding the cup of toilet water.  Someone needed to take Elias by the hand and explain that there was a better place to drink from. 

       Chris and I went to Mexico to be water carriers.  We came with the Source that had quenched our own thirst.  Some laughed as we offered the life giving water we had brought, others were intrigued, and still others practically grabbed it out of our hands and drank it down. 

I still carry around the same life giving water I had with me in Mexico.  Sometimes I offer it freely, other times I turn away in disgust, and other times I laugh in derision.  

      Many people are like my son, thinking they have found an excellent source to satisfy their souls.  I was reminded when I saw my son, with his precious cup of toilet water, that I still have the all important task of water carrier.  As I drink from the Source, I am renewed and my heart is softened.   I hold out my cup of water again.  I remember that I can be a toilet drinker too. 

        We all must drink, but the places we drink from can be deadly.  The young woman who opens her throat to another bottle of Vodka to make the pain of a shameful life disappear,  the hurt young man who grabs for a pale cold shadow of love – even for a moment,  the young mother who swallows another pill to deaden the reality of being unloved, a lonely aging grandmother who tries to hide the bottles of wine behind the plates in the china cabinet, the ever promising entertainment and possessions we fill our days and hours with – dulling our senses and causing our souls to hunger all the more.  We find that we are empty and we discover that the thirst remains.   We long for a drink that will satisfy forever.          

                         ~Your Fellow Sojourner

             “Come, everyone who thirsts,

                        come to the waters;

            and he who has no money,

                        come, buy and eat!

            Come, buy wine and milk

                        without money and without price.

             Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

                        and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

            Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,

                        and delight yourselves in rich food.

               Incline your ear, and come to me;

                        hear, that your soul may live;

            and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

                        my steadfast, sure love for David.

            Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples,

                        a leader and commander for the peoples.

             Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know,

                        and a nation that did not know you shall run to you,

            because of the LORD your God, and of the Holy One of Israel,

                        for he has glorified you.

             “Seek the LORD while he may be found;

                        call upon him while he is near;

            let the wicked forsake his way,

                        and the unrighteous man his thoughts;

            let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,

                        and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

             For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

                        neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

            For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

                        so are my ways higher than your ways

                        and my thoughts than your thoughts.

             “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven

                        and do not return there but water the earth,

            making it bring forth and sprout,

                        giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

             so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

                        it shall not return to me empty,

            but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

                        and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

            “For you shall go out in joy

                        and be led forth in peace;

            the mountains and the hills before you

                        shall break forth into singing,

                        and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

             Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;

                        instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;

            and it shall make a name for the LORD,

                        an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

              (Isaiah 55 ESV)

Turning Back

      I am a collector of stories.  I want to know the telling of someone else’s life, both true stories, and those stories that have been birthed only in the mind.  When I hear a story that has no ending, I put it into a category all its own.  “To be continued…”  Just like those television series that leave you on the edge of your seat.  You have to tune in next week for the conclusion, hopefully. 

      Stories are even more poignant when I am personally part of the story that is unfinished.  It means I must wait.  Some of the waiting can be easy and some can be all consuming.   But when a chapter of a story that has yet to be finished, ends with “thank you”, the waiting is eased.  I can put that story into the “ok, this is going to end alright” category.   The anxiety is lessened because I have been given the privilege to glimpse a little bit of the ending, and it promises to be good.  

       Many times I hope that the things that I do will make a difference in someone at some point.  My motives are not often good, for I find that I am looking for a certain ending in return.  But I am learning that I have no right to demand a particular outcome in someone else’s story, just as I am called to give without looking for payment in return.  “Go and be blessed” should be my refrain.  

     This is a freeing frame of mind for the giver.  It does not keep one in a place of burdened waiting, seeking the outcome of a life style change, a better person in the one that has been helped.  This outcome is not for me to seek.  This is the beauty of giving with an open hand, a hand that cannot close its fingers around anything.  It is the hand of giving that clings to nothing.  There is an immediate return of joy and peace for the one who gives and then seeks nothing else. 

     Two times I found myself on the receiving end of “thank you” this year.  To say my heart was full was an understatement.

      A neighbor girl who lived next to us for the latter half of her childhood turned back to thank me this year.  We had talked and prayed and cried into the night with this girl, pleading with her to run to God for the healing of her hurt and wounded heart.  A meal here, a time to laugh there, the gift of a kitten, a pair of shoes for the prom, a bowl of ice cream, a Christmas card and a hundred hugs.  But the story continued on, and we did not know the ending.  Then, from another state and another time in her life, she turned back.   “I never told you, Ms. Kate, but …”  I sat there, tears of joy flowing into a hand that had been kept open.  Category change.

      Another one came and knocked on our door last night.  A family, not yet all together, came to say hello and to let us know they were ok.  They had moments of need and crisis in the past and we helped in the meager ways that we could – some meals, “you are welcome here”, some money, handshakes, and prayers.  It was not much and we knew it would not bring an ultimate solution to their problems.  But, we hoped that somehow they would remember our care for them.  They could have been us – it was an honor to help them.   “We just wanted to come by and tell you…”  A joyful  miraculous gift on Christmas.  A gift of “thank you”.  Another category change.

      Why does “thank you” mean so much?  I believe that a genuine thank you happens when a person has a deeper understanding of what it cost the giver.  It could have been a monetary cost or an emotional one, and most probably, the choice to give meant that the giver made himself vulnerable.  They know that someone else cared to help fill a need and mend a wound.  Saying “thank you” is a way to give back.  In the act of turning back, the thankful one stops to honor a person.  They build a memorial, not with stones, but with words.  Thankful words full of meaning that plant themselves into our souls.  Words that sow seeds of future grace.  Grace to open our hands again.  And so I pray, “Keep my hands open, Lord.  And when I receive from someone who is turning back, may I turn again to You, and give You thanks. Amen.”

                                                                  ~Your Fellow Sojourner

            “On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.  Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.  Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

 (Luke 17:11-19 ESV)

I've Never Met You, But I Love You

            When I do not love someone the way I ought, it is because I love myself more.  It is the great paradox of life.  To love in the purest way is to die to one’s self.  The world rails against selfless love and cannot comprehend it.

            Chris and I wondered at how we could love a small little family that we had never met before.  We recognized real genuine love and care for these people welling up in our hearts.  How does this happen?

            We love because Someone loved us first.  I cannot love like that, no expectations - no strings attached, if I had not known a love like that from someone else first.  It is a mystery and a miracle.  It is the love of God that compels us to put another before ourselves.

            If it was dependent on me, I could never love sacrificially without any expectations.  It must come from somewhere else.  I can be thinking only of myself and caring only for my own desires, and then from somewhere inside of me, a love and care evidences itself. I cannot love apart from a power that comes from God.

            And so, our little church family gathered around total strangers, motivated by love.  The love was mutual.  They had the same power to love, and we felt it. 

            For the rest of the day, whenever I spoke with someone who had met this family, their welfare was on their mind.  How can we help?  How can we pray?  What can I do?  We want them to know the type of love we have for one another. 

            As my husband said, “It is not wrong that we would be drawn to them and care for them like that.”  We were both quiet.  We knew we were experiencing a love that does not come from this world.  I knew we had an encounter that was planned from before the beginning of time.  Yes God, You care, You use us, You love us. 

            What did this meeting of strangers, that I now love, do in me?  It made me want to look up and out all the more.  Who else will I meet?  Who else will need prayer?  Who else will I have in my home?  Who else will I be privileged to love?

            As Ann Voskamp has said, ”When God is our God, we take His people as our people.” I hope the paper with my name and number and email causes them to know how much they are loved.  Loved by strangers, who never knew them, but who count them as their brother and their sister. 

                                                ~Your Fellow Sojourner

            [15] And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” [16] But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. [17] Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” [18] And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.

(Ruth 1:15-18 ESV)