Where Did All The Holes Come From?

               When Chris and I married, we never had a vision to become rich.  We never even intended to save a lot of money and retire comfortably.  And we have never had a desire to accumulate a lot of nice stuff.  But, everyone has expectations when you marry, and we have had our share.  One of our expectations was to have no gaping holes in our dry wall.

                I remember one day, while in my parents’ kitchen, my Grandmother asked me when I was going to learn to cook and help out around the house.  My very proud twelve year old self informed her that I was going to have a maid when I grew up and so there would be no need for me to learn such things.  My Grandmother laughed uproariously of course. 

                The answer is no.  No, I have never had a maid.  And yes.  Yes, I have learned to cook, clean, and manage a household by the grace of God.   I have learned what I have needed to learn mostly out of necessity.  More importantly, I have learned to do many tasks because of people.  People have needs and needs are met by people. 

                When Chris and I were twenty-one and twenty, we both realized we were being drawn to the same road in life.  We both wanted to care for people and to show the love of God to people.  We wanted to help people in need.  Any need, both physical and spiritual. 

                Even at the very beginning of our marriage, in our tiny one bedroom apartment at the top of a flight of steep stairs, in a post World War II brick home, we held an open house for our friends.  Our little living room was packed.  We loved it.  We were discovering what hospitality was all about, people.

                The challenge for me has been the home itself.  You know what you have in your mind when you plan out a home and how it should look.  I am no different.  My dreams of what our home would look like and what would be in it have been many, and I have dreamt them often. 

              But God saw fit to do something in our lives.  He has always ensured that those dreams are never exactly realized the way we see them.  They never quite materialize.  We have always lived without something that we wanted.  The temptation has been to do something to fill the lack ourselves rather than to learn contentment. 

              Many times it has been the case that we would have loved to do something about the uncut lawn or the pencil murals on the walls or the laundry piled to the ceiling under the stairs.  We know that in order to step in and take care of all of the things left undone, we would have to say no to people. 

                Most days the people that we would have to say “no” to would be about 6 years old.  Yes, I could scrub and paint, caulk and wash, but the book would never be read, the conversation would never be entered into, and the tender hugs and kisses would be missed. 

                 We have young children at home, Chris works two jobs, and we educate at home.  Those things would be grounds for pulling the shades and placing a padlock on the door for sure!  But those are also the very reasons why we don’t. People need to see the real “us”.  Hiding our warts and wrinkles, be they unwashed dishes or our struggling attitudes, keeps people from getting to know who we really, truly are. 

             We have done our best to train, schedule, and teach our children to care for the home and to work hard, contributing to the welfare of the family.  But, we still have a pen mural in almost every room, every switch plate within four feet of the ground is gone, and I know of at least five gaping holes in our walls.  And no, Chris and I were not redecorating.

              Our children help to ensure our humility.  It’s hard to hide a six inch hole at the top of your stairs, or to ignore what is in the hole. We have to be who we are.  And this is good.  God is after the authentic, not the pretentious.  So, we find ourselves living with holes. 

              Just as Chris and I know the value of our walls, we know the value of time with our children.   I have often said that time is worth more to me than gold.  I mean it.  To have great amounts of time with those that I love is incredibly precious to me.  

                And so if time is a commodity, then we all must choose how and when to spend it.  King Solomon offered some words of wisdom about time.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

 a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

 a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

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

 a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

 a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

 What gain has the worker from his toil?  I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.  He has made everything beautiful in its time. Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

            Our season in life right now is a time that is bursting full with life.  It is a time to teach and disciple.  The time to patch holes will come.  Our days and nights are quite full and we are beyond tired when we close our eyes at night.  Not so much time for handy man work around the house.  A lot of stuff breaks, becomes lost, or spills.  Many days I do feel like I go from putting out one fire just to turn around and do it again.  And so it was no wonder that my husband asked me where all the holes came from?

              I understood what he was saying.  We would have never even dreamed of putting holes in the walls of our childhood homes.  Why did our house keep taking such a hit? And so I told him my thoughts.

             Our home is our hub.  Everything we do begins at home and ends at home.  We eat most of our meals at home.  We are home every day, all day, and so we dirty up the kitchen and the bathroom and the yard.  We school our children at home as well.  And so instead of pulling the fire alarm at school or leaving butterscotch pudding in their lockers for a year, our children loose shoes in our marsh and make holes in our walls.  And this is why our house takes a beating, because we live here.

              I told him it was because he was a good father and husband.  The holes represent time spent on us.  And so in this season of life, we are living with holes.

             My hope is that others feel more at home because they can see our battle weary house.  The evidence of life is everywhere, and sometimes life ain't all that pretty.  I pray that the jelly smeared on the table and the boots in the yard help people to relax a little.  We aren't perfect, and neither are you, so come on in.

~ Your Fellow Sojourner

Jesus Loves Me

Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak, but He is strong.

Jesus loves me! This I know,
As He loved so long ago,
Taking children on His knee,
Saying, “Let them come to Me.”

Jesus loves me still today,
Walking with me on my way,
Wanting as a friend to give
Light and love to all who live.

Jesus loves me! He who died
Heaven’s gate to open wide;
He will wash away my sin,
Let His little child come in.

Jesus loves me! He will stay
Close beside me all the way;
Thou hast bled and died for me,
I will henceforth live for Thee.

By Anna B. Warner

Talipes Equinovarus

       I don't like being needy.  But we need to be needed.  It is the way we learn to care for one another.  And, it is what keeps us humble.  Neediness is what allows us to step out to serve and to be served. 

     When I am vulnerable, others have to do things for me that I cannot do on my own.  It causes me to go to someone else, ask for help, wait for them, and allow them to do things the way they would do them.  
     There is good in vulnerability for me.  While others have to do for me, I have to wait and relinquish control.  In this letting go, I am able to heal.

      You see, I have had pain far too long. Pain that I have pushed through when all along I really needed help from other people.  In putting off this slowing down of my life, I have put off the restoration I need. I have needed to come off of the front lines, to go back to base for a shower and a hot meal and for some clean clothes while someone else takes my place.  

     I was born with a foot that needed correcting.  If my congenital deformity, talipes equinovarus, more commonly known as a clubbed foot, had not been corrected, I would not be walking very well. I remember seeing a young man walking along a side walk one day with a limp, going slowly, walking with difficulty, almost on his ankle.  That would have been me.

      Thankfully, medicine has come a long way and this condition can be easily corrected through serial casting, minor surgeries, and braces.  I had very little of these interventions.  Prayer is what really healed me as a child.  My son, who was born with the same thing, had the works.  His was more severe.  He is doing well now.   

     Pain in my foot has demanded my attention.  I could not go further without other’s help.  I had become too weak to walk on my own.  C.S. Lewis has said, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” 

     I have been made more vulnerable so that I could be made stronger in the end.  I will be like Bill the bird for a little while.

     The kids found a Robin fledgling a week ago and named him Bill.  We warned them that he would need constant care and probably wouldn't live long. But, they were insistent.  The kids fed him, carried him around, made a comfortable box for him, and generally doted on the little bird.  One thing that amazed us was how other birds reacted to him.  When Bill was outside on our porch in his box, a       Flycatcher who was nesting nearby would come and feed it as well.  Our resident Bluebird came and checked Bill out too.  Everyone slowed down to care for the little bird. 
     We have all slowed down a little more because of my foot.  And that is ok, because in my weakness I am made stronger.  How can this be?  It is another great paradox of life.

      When I am weak in an area of my life I must rely on someone else; thereby necessitating that my life must get bigger because my circle has widened. I have to let someone else in and they have to let me in.  I have to increase my strength in places where I am weak and so I must learn from someone stronger than me.  It takes humility and quieting myself to listen and watch and learn.  It means that I must trust someone else.  Becoming vulnerable means taking a risk.  It goes against my desire to do all I can on my own in order to avoid any possibility of pain. But pain is really an indicator that we need help beyond ourselves.

     There is a story in the Bible about a man who waited by a pool for help.  He had tried to do what he could to help himself, but to no avail.  He needed a savior. 

“Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.” John 5:2-9

        The man at the pool of Bethesda had to wait.  He could not even get to the place of healing on his own, he needed another, he needed the Healer.  But if he had been able to procure his own healing, he never would have met the Savior, he never would have received complete healing.  It was worth the wait, it was worth the vulnerability.  Thank God for his vulnerability, his need, for in his need he came into a healing like none other he had ever known.  One that would go beyond the restoration of his body, one that would bring his soul rest.
        When the wearing of the walking cast, and taking steroids, and the making of my new orthotic shoes is over with, I will be able to tackle those things I was doing in pain with strength.  And I am thankful for the pain. My pain has brought me into a deeper awareness of my own finiteness.  It has caused me to notice people who walk with more difficulty than most.  It has made me see how I take much of the grace and many of the blessings in my life for granted.  I have learned that I must walk with more wisdom.  Every step counts and has more meaning.  And so I am learning to “keep in step with the Spirit”.  I have even contemplated running.  But even if I never run a 5k or even one mile, I want to run my life without fear of what may come.  I want to run without the things that weigh me down and hold me back.  And for that, there is only one place to run.  Like David, “I will not merely walk, but run the way of Your commandments, when You give me a heart that is willing. Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I will keep it to the end steadfastly. Give me understanding, that I may keep Your law; yes, I will observe it with my whole heart. Make me go in the path of Your commandments, for in them do I delight.” Amp. Psalm 119:32-35.   

~Your Fellow Sojourner

I have to end with this scene.

  

Does Jesus Love Me?

     One of the children’s most devious cut downs in our home is the phrase, “You’re not a Christian.”  This comment is used as a derogatory phrase when someone’s behavior is not Christ like.  The irony in all of this is that telling someone they are not a Christian in a mean and spiteful way is also not Christ like.  So, it is a mess all the way around. 

      Chris and I have to point out the lack of love the other child is also displaying.  We have to expose the disease that infects all of us, sin.  Like Mr. Legality in Pilgrim’s Progress, the offended child is looking for the keeping of the law. Show me your righteous deeds and I shall pronounce you Christian!  Like the older son in the parable of the prodigal son, they desire to show their own righteousness to earn favor and grace.  They do not want to see the prodigal restored, they want to see him turned out.

     We cannot escape it.  It pervades all of our souls.  Sin, our utter inability to do anything righteous on our own.  One of my daughter’s first memory verses was “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.”  She pulls it out with pride whenever anyone wants to know what James 2:10 says.  It states the problem we all have.  And it makes us think of the accounting that is inevitable.

      The end game is what changes our life now.  What do we think will happen to us at the end of our life?  The end is coming for us all – with fear or with hope. 

      My son loves Bible prophecy.  All of the “gloom and doom” passages in Scripture are his favorite.  And yes, Revelation is at the top of his list.  When he was about 6 or 7, he would regularly predict that Earth had five years left before her destruction.  Forget 2012 Mayan predictions and numerology, five years that was it.  The predictions became as common as, “pass the potatoes please”.  We just came to ignore it.  But that little boy was in earnest.  He saw the sin of the world around him and even as a child, he knew what the Bible said about sinners. He just put the two together and said, “Five good years guys, that’s it!”

     We have now survived those five years, and we have not stoned our son for his wrong prediction.  He has softened in his end of the world prophecies.  He sees that he is just like everyone else.  He trusts in the mercy of God.

      All of my children must come to a reckoning in our home at some point because we speak so often of God as Creator, of Jesus as Savior, and of man as a sinner.  They know they need to get something right, but what and how?  And so, Chris and I apply the healing anecdote of the gospel whenever questions about salvation, judgment, and eternity come. These moments can be big or little.  They can even come while singing a lullaby.

     “Sing me a song Mommy, I am afraid of the dark,” he said with tears streaming down his face.  After three attempts at finding the right good night song he said, “sing me Jesus, Mommy, sing my Jesus”.  And so, I sang him “Jesus Loves Me”, and his tears stopped. He calmed down and looked at my eyes while I sang that old children’s hymn, like a prayer.  May he know that Jesus loves him, enough to die for him.  May he know this, not because of a feeling, or because he is in a Christian home and attends church, but because the Bible tells him so.  May the fear of the dark cause him to be drawn to the light.                                   

     I need to know that Jesus loves me too.  And when I ask, Do you love me Jesus?, He takes me to where He died.  The place of my unbelief, my love of sin and this world, is the same place where He said, I must die for you or you will never come.  I too grew up in a Christian home, and attended church as a child.  But, He knew I would need to understand His love for me apart from me “doing the right thing”.   

     When I wonder if His love for me is real, I see myself standing before the cross, covered in my own filth, “all my righteousness deeds are like a polluted garment”. His blood runs down the wooden beams, the perfect man, gasping and heaving over and over even while my name is on His lips.  And I want to leave, I want to hide.  But like Peter, I hear my spirit say, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” I know that it was my sin that held Him there. And then the words come, “It is finished.”   The great exchange has taken place.  “My life is hidden with Christ in God.” He fulfilled every law of God that I could not.  He atoned for every sin that I could not.  He made me come to Him when I could not.  He drew me with cords of love and tightly bound me to him.  His life is entwined with mine.   There is no love like this on earth.  I know that Jesus loves me.

      I identify with my children’s struggle of knowing whether or not Jesus loves them.  I need to breathe the prayer, “O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee” to “shake off my guilty fears”.  O what a rest sublime for the weary soul that comes to Him!  May you find a place of rest for your burdened soul in Him today.

 ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go

1. O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

2. O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

3. O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

4. O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

Words by George Matheson

Starving Jackson

       I would like to think that I feed my family well.  Judging by the hours I spend in the kitchen, I don’t think I do too badly.  I admit, it can become monotonous to cook, clean, and serve, just to do it all over again.  So, I am grateful for my family’s cooking endeavors.

       My older children are beginning to get into the kitchen more.  Bella has acquired some basic cooking skills and is always looking for an excuse to cook for us.  Most of her results are pretty good.  Jackson however…  Well, this story is about him.  And it is also about me.  This is a story about feeding Jackson.

      One Saturday morning I had the rare pleasure of sleeping in.  The rest of my family had been in the kitchen for a good while before I came downstairs. I entered the kitchen wrapped in my fleece robe, looking for some coffee.  As my sleepy eyes glanced up, they beheld a scene of carnage.  My son was holding a plate filled with a pancake like substance, and he had the look of one who intended to eat it.  I gasped.  I opened my mouth, but nothing would come out.  It was a pancake massacre.  I turned and walked out of the room. 

      When I found the courage to enter the kitchen again, I walked passed my son, who was attempting to stomach his “pancakes”, and looked at the griddle – ground zero for the pancakes.  I put my hand over my mouth and realized something.  This was much bigger than poorly made pancakes.  This was near starvation.

  

      A scene of my son, maybe two or three years down the road, repeating this pancake incident over and over again came into my mind.  This was not in someone else’s kitchen, this was in my own.  It was real.  He knew how to “cook” two things that I knew of, “pancakes” and “kettle corn”.  This was serious.  I had to do something.  My son could starve. 

      My son was in danger.  The possibility of starvation was there.  Grabbing for what he could find was his first thought.  He needed help.   He needed to learn how to feed himself.  He could not rely on others to feed him.  One day, Momma would not be there anymore.  It was time to learn to cook. 

      We have often heard the phrase, you are what you eat.  What goes in will eventually bear fruit of some kind.  And we all know that we can tell a tree by its fruit.  No mother wants to raise a son who bears the fruit of bitterness, anger, selfishness, or unbelief.   The loving mother will do what she can to help tend that young sapling.  To help it bear the sweetest fruit she can. She will tend to the feeding and care of his soul.

      I know in the back of my mind that I could and should be doing more to help my son with his desire for more of God and His Word.  I would console myself with the sight of his Bible off of the shelf or when he would tell me that he read his Bible today.  Ok, well at least he is getting some Bible reading in.  But, how can I help him to want to read Scripture, to love the Word, to know his God?

      My father in law is a chef.  He makes, no creates, wonderful food.  He is very particular in how he cooks and for whom he cooks.  To get an invitation to his table is a real treat.  He has one standard that he judges most food by, was it made with love? He says that if you love the person you are cooking for, you will put your heart into it. 

      And so, because I love my son, I put love into what he eats.  But his soul needs to be fed just as his body needs to be fed.  His soul, as well as mine, can only be satisfied with one thing, God and His Word.  As the Psalmist tells us, “he would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”  And if words were food, then my son would be a glutton.

      My son loves to read.  I mean loves to read.  He gets into ketchup bottle labels.  I mean, who does that?!  When I talk about a book I am reading or an author that I like, he wants to know about it himself.  One evening, we had a young man in our home who was talking about John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress.  The very next morning, my son was sitting on the couch with a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress that he had found on our shelf.  The fly was drawn to the honey.

      How sweet are the Scriptures to me?  Do I savor them and speak of their sweetness?  Am I offering my son a taste of the Words that are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb? 

      I need to draw Jackson into my own story, into my own interaction with the Word.  I need to tell Him about my own sweet encounters with the Bible.  I need to tell him that even though we have no money, we can come and buy food and drink.  I need to tell him that we can come to Jesus poor and naked and have nothing to give, and yet be filled with all the fullness of God.  I need to tell him that the Bible is not just a vitamin that we take once a day to ward off sickness.  God’s Word is meant to be savored and enjoyed, like a good pancake. 

      So, I think tomorrow morning I will make blueberry pancakes, and I will have an assistant.    I think I know what we will be talking about while we flip those beautiful blueberry pancakes.  It will be sweeter than honey and more satisfying than any feast.    It will fill our souls and we will be fed.

                      ~Your Fellow Sojourner

“Your words were found, and I ate them,

and your words became to me a joy

and the delight of my heart,” Jeremiah 15:16

The Camilla

         The spring after my daughter was born, I decided to plant a Camilla.  I wanted a unique shrub that I could plant outside my front window, something that would be the first to bloom after the winter.  I chose the Camilla because it was somewhat risky for me.  I do not have a very good track record with keeping plants alive.  But I was so struck by the Camilla.  I needed to try.

            The shrub promised rose like blooms with beautiful dark green leaves that would come out in early spring.  There were warnings of how far north the Camilla would grow, and of watching for disease. My local nursery assured me that with the right conditions, it would grow and live for years to come.  So, I took the chosen Camilla home and planned its exact location, taking into consideration the conditions it would need in order to thrive.  My husband made some measurements and we waited for a day that was not too cool and not too hot. 

              The day came when my Camilla went into the ground.  I began waiting to see what would happen.  The plant grew right along with my daughter, both of them cute and spunky.  It was looking good.

            I knew it would take time to see what would happen.  I watered correctly and took off any diseased looking leaves that threatened its blossoms.  It grew very little at first, but it was holding its own.

            Then one day, it bloomed, beautiful blooms that welcomed spring.  I was overjoyed. 

Then disease came.  The dampness was too much for it. I became concerned.  I knew it might not make it.  But it did not die and I had hope that it would become all that  I envisioned it could be.

            Four years later, we planned our big demolition and move.  The Camilla would have to move or it would be bulldozed down.  It saddened me.  Where could I put it?  I eyed a spot at the edge of our property that would be out of the way of construction, and there it was planted again.

            I was anticipating birth as my husband dug up the shrub and transplanted it for me.  The twins would be born the next spring and there was much to do.  I would have to leave the Camilla.  It would have to make it without me. 

            Whenever we would go by the property to see how the construction of the new home was coming, I would walk over to the Camilla.  I would apologize to it.  I hoped it would not die. 

            When we moved back, the Camilla was barely alive.  The stress of the transplant and the and the harsh sun caused some serious damage.  It looked bad, very bad.  I lamented the loss of my dream.  The beautiful shrub that was to bring me years and years of enjoyment was not going to make it.  The shrub that was to overcome the odds, would never grow.  And so, I gave up and said good-bye. 

            Years passed and I became preoccupied with other plants and projects in and around our home.  One day, as I walked over to view the daffodils near the transplanted Camilla, I saw healthy leaves.  There was still life.  I was surprised.  I thought well maybe it will be alright.  But, the leaves were all that came.  No blossoms and no more growth.

            I decided last year to pull it up.  It was getting in the way of the other plantings nearby.  Who wants to see a shrub that never blooms, blocking the view of other spring perennials?  Not me.  I had started to get angry, even cynical.  I asked my husband to pull it out for me.  I didn't want the reminder of what it could have been. 

            But, he never dug it out and I became preoccupied again.   Eleven years passed since its inaugural planting.  Life continued on while the Camilla struggled.

             One day, I was feeling especially weighed down by life.  And for some reason, the Camilla caught my eye.  I wanted to go to it.  I wanted to face it.  It was like I needed something tangible to reflect my hopelessness.  As I walked over to the Camilla plant, I was overwhelmed with a heaviness, a hopelessness - that I will never change, that other people will never change.  My beloved Camilla plant that never bloomed and never thrived seemed to epitomize how I felt.  I wished it had just died rather than persist. Every time I looked out my kitchen window, it mocked me.  You see, change is hard to come by.  Very, very hard to come by.  Nothing seems to ever give.  Nothing seems to ever show real change.

               But as I walked over to the Camilla, I just about fell down.  Big healthy blossoms were emerging all over it.  It was going to bloom after all!  I was overcome.  The most tangible example of a static life was proving me wrong.  I could almost feel hope grab me by the chest and pick me up.  The Camilla was coming around.  I would come around.  All of those people and situations that were pressing in on me would come around.   I ran into the house and told my husband. 

            “I know.” He said.  He knew? Really?  “I thought that plant was dead, I wanted it gone a year ago.  I can’t believe it.”, I told him.  He smiled.  “You had given up on it, but I never did.  I would go and talk to it every now and then.  Check up on it.”  I was silent.  My husband’s faith was far deeper and longsuffering compared to my own.  I wanted it gone, while he wanted it to stay.  He believed it could live, I did not.

            Now, after at least six years, it is beginning to bloom again.  And yes, I am talking to it now and picking off the few diseased leaves that appear now and then.  It is doing well.  It has a good place and it could live a very long time there.

            The Camilla evoked much from deep inside of me.  It helped to bring some deep seated things to the surface.   
             I have been increasingly overcome by the great love that God has loved me with.   I do not deserve a love with endless forgiveness and kindness.  My actions and thoughts do not merit the incomprehensible love of God.  He does this for me, in spite of me.  So, I have been increasingly feeling the great weight of what this means.  It is difficult to express this kind of love with mere words.  And I have my moments when I do not trust in His love for me, but spurn it.  But then, He woos me back.  And I rest in His love for me again.  I am the prodigal returned and restored and loved.

            And so, I want to love what He loves.  He loves me, and if He loves me, He loves many many more.  He loves people, souls.  I too am learning to love people.  But, people are messy.  They never do what you think they will.  They never behave. 

              I expect people to grow, to change, and to blossom as they are fed and cared for.  I look for what can happen in people who are planted in the rich soil of the truth about God and what He has done.  While I can help create a good  gospel environment, I cannot change the plant.  The plant will do what the plant will do.  All I can do is give it a chance to live.  All I can do is watch, and pray.

            I still feel the pain of lives shattered, broken, mistreated, and forgotten.  Who would care for someone that spurns the love they are given, who throws away friendship after friendship, who subsists on lies and theft?  Not many.  But, these are who God loves. 

            Who would have wanted my scraggly looking Camilla, burning in the sun, far past its time?  Who would continue to love something so unlovable?  But we know that we love because of the great love with which He loved us.  And if His love is great enough for me, my friend, it is great enough for you.

           ~Your Fellow Sojourner

Because I have been given much

Because I have been given much I too must give

Because of Your great bounty Lord each day I live

I shall divide my gifts from You

With ev’ry other that I view

Who has the need of help from me

Because I have been sheltered fed by Your good care

I cannot see another's lack and I not share

My glowing fire my loaf of bread

My roof's safe shelter overhead

That someone may be comforted

Because love has been lavished so upon me Lord

A wealth I know that was not meant for me to hoard

I shall give love to those in need

Shall show that love by word and deed

Until my thanks be thanks indeed

 By Grace Noll Crowell

We All Fall Down

                     Falling down is part of life.  No one makes it very long without falling.  We don’t want to fall, but we do.  Some falls are harder than others. 

            My son fell today, and it was a hard fall; hard enough to earn a trip to the Emergency Room.  The back of his head needed stitches.  In his case, it was staples.  Apparently the staple method is preferred over the old fashioned needle and thread when there is a lot of hair involved.  They like to leave peoples’ “dos” alone.  I was personally hoping for a free haircut, oh well.  And yes, he is now the “cool kid” in the house because we can all see the staples in the back of his head.  And I am fighting the urge to call him Frankenstein. 

            Much of my son’s confidence throughout the ordeal came from being with me.  As long as he could come to me to hold my hand, ask a question, or look me in the eye, he was brave.  When I asked him if I could leave the ER room to take his brother to the bathroom, his eyes pleaded with me not to go.  We waited.  I understood his need for my presence. 

            As children of God we have incredible access to Him.  All of God’s children have the privilege of calling Him Abba.  And we all need our Abba, Daddy, because all of us fall.  We fall short, far too short.  Only our Abba can lift us up.  We fall into pits full of the muck and mire of sin.  But some never get out.  Some never reach for God. 

            When I was about as old as my daughter is now, I was in need of a new bike.  But when I went with my Father to pick out my new ride, visions of a cute pink and white Strawberry Shortcake themed bicycle died.  I was too tall.  I needed an adult bike.  I was crestfallen.  The blue turquoise colored bicycle that came home with me seemed twenty feet high.  I felt that I would crash and fall every time I got on to ride.  But, my Father reassured me that yes, I could ride it, and that He would be there to make sure I was ok.  So, I agreed.

            I remember the day that we walked the bike over to the empty cement slab at the end of the woods behind our house.  I remember feeling my heart in my throat as I struggled to get up into the bicycle seat.  My feet found the peddles and I started to ride.  I wobbled for a few yards and then, crash.  I hit the pavement.  But, Dad was there.  He wouldn't let me give up.  He coached me through those first few times that I road that towering blue bike.  He did not leave until he knew I could get back up.  He stayed as long as I needed Him.  He couldn't keep me from the fall, but He could encourage me to push past the fear of falling. 

            That day, I found a new friend.  I loved that bike.  I rode it everywhere in that neighborhood, far into my early adult years.  What I feared in the beginning became something that I loved.  Those early falls were overcome and confidence was instilled.

            When we put our full trust in God’s grace, He catches us. There are still bad things in our lives, like falling on cement stairs.  But He is able to keep us from ever falling too far.  Our safety is guaranteed.  We may have a skinned up knee for a little while or end up with a scar that never quite fades away.  But those things are only evidences of healing; reminders that He has done great things.

 There is nothing that can snatch us out of His hand.  My sin cannot bar His steadying hand from securing my soul for eternity. He fell in my place.

 There is not a single sin in all the world that He cannot save us from.  There is not a single experience in all of humanity that would exclude us from Him.  There is no power that can undo what has been done on our behalf.  It is finished.  Never again will He bear my blame.  Once was enough for me, for you.  I am my Beloved’s and He is mine, and He is the lifter of my head.

~Your Fellow Sojourner

My little dare devil.

          Have you not known? Have you not heard?

       The Lord is the everlasting God,

           the Creator of the ends of the earth.

         He does not faint or grow weary;

             his understanding is unsearchable.

       He gives power to the faint,

           and to him who has no might he increases strength.

        Even youths shall faint and be weary,

          and young men shall fall exhausted;

              but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

          they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

    they shall run and not be weary;

   they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31, ESV

            

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.