Author: lorisprayercloset

Like Peas and Carrots

Elaine and Me

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend…….Proverbs 27:17 NLT

My best friend will never brag about herself. In fact, you have to dig deep to find out all the different things she has done in her life. I have written about them all before, but today I just want to give her a shout out because she inspires me so.

I like to describe her faith as living and active. She doesn’t lock herself in her room in pray, she prays on her feet, running to the next task. You hardly ever see her sitting down.

She has a built in radar for people in need. In fact, they seem to gravitate toward her. Yesterday, as usual, I was adrift in my own thoughts as we all filed out of church when I almost stumbled over Elaine bending down to talk to the woman sitting next to her who still hadn’t gotten up. The closing music was loud, and she had to bend get right in the woman’s ear to hear what she was saying.

It turns out the woman had injured herself and was in pain. Through tears she thanked her and assured her she was okay. We watched from the back as she got up and walked toward the front of the church to greet someone.

I can’t tell you how many times this kind of thing has happened when we’ve been together. In grocery store parking lots, she won’t leave if she sees an elderly person who looks lost.

She has paid for the person behind her at Sonic more times than I can count and has slipped twenty dollars bills to people in need, also more times than I can count.

She asks me Bible questions because tells me jokingly, “I don’t have to read it, I have you.” But she reads it, I know she does. Because she lives it. She walks the Jesus walk. She sees the broken, the lonely, the down and out because she has been there herself. She has no illusions about how much she needs a Savior.

Her Bible hero is John the Baptist and her favorite song is “Take up your Cross” by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir and I have watched her live that song over the years.

Yesterday at the Care Home she noticed that her Mom’s room hadn’t been swept since last time. Instead of making a scene, she just quietly went over to where the broom and dust pan were kept and did it herself in full sight of the aides. She made her point and the room got swept.

She has been known to break out into a dance in store aisles. She always says, “Sometimes you just gotta give it a little dance.”

One of the things I most admire about her character is that I truly think it would cause her physical pain to tell a lie. And even if she did, it would show on her face, like the character Jim Carrey played in “Liar, Liar” her eyes reveal everything. She could never play poker.

She reflects the joy of the Lord and it is a privilege to go anywhere with her because I love to see how she interacts with strangers. She is quick to laugh and is fond of saying to me, “I am your entertainment” which is true because she’s a natural comic who loves to joke around. She truly loves to see people smile, and I think everyone she works with will attest to that.

I don’t think we ever spend time together without laughing. We laugh at things other people might just skip right over and invariably we see it at the same time. The other day we watched a commercial and perfectly in sync, belted out the same song. It was totally unrelated to the commercial except that it said something about flowers.

I think we compliment each other like peas and carrots.

One of my favorite memories is a vacation we took in Monterey. I had told her I was getting the Abalone no matter how much it cost. I had waited for years to go back to this restaurant just to get it. Anytime the menu says, “Market Value” you need to be careful. And it did. When it came it was nothing like I remembered, also much more expensive than I remember.

On my plate were three scrawny shells. I think they were baby Abalone. It was delicious, but nowhere near worth the price. I told her I was going to at least keep the shells so I wiped them off, wrapped them in a napkin and stuck them in my purse. Oh, did she get a kick out of that. She said, “I can’t wait to see the waiter’s face when he comes back. I am going to tell him you ate the shells too.” She didn’t.

She loves telling that story.

Our relationship is such a blessing in my life and I thank God for her every day.

It is altogether rare to have a friendship like we have and I know it. To me it is a beautiful illustration of how we are all different and unique as believers and yet when we all join together the pattern we make is like one big beautiful quilt, God’s crazy quilt.

It will be quite a finished product when He’s all done.

Kingdom Work is whatever we do

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“Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.” Colossians 3:23

I make my way down the stairs, heavy bag slipping off my shoulders and cast myself into the sea of voices. I dodge bleary eyed people like myself intent on one of two things, coffee or food. The great migration of mammals to those canisters filled with magic to wake the senses, spark the brain to life.

I pause by the fruit bins, the fresh offerings they give us to entice us to eat better, to be healthier so we can feel better so we can work harder. I pause, my phone at the ready, wanting to capture it all, this teeming life that flows down around my ears right now.

I hear the opening strains of Billy Joel’s “River of Dreams” and for just one moment, with the backdrop of voices and back slapping and greeting, I feel like life is pulsating around me. And though it’s so close, I feel I am standing on the shore. Not quite in. Not quite out. What would it feel like to feel fully in? Here.

All in like poker.

I wander, looking at angles, how I would photograph the fruit bins, the sign hand scrawled suggestions. The cafe workers, everyone else. This wondering and wandering is part of what makes me, me. All I want is to go back to my station and write……..of this life.

I make my way to the coffee and wonder why it is that donuts always look so much better than fruit. I window shop and watch plates sailing by. Breakfast burritos, pastries, plate piled high with eggs, bacon and English muffins. I take nothing, remembering the banana I brought and the cottage cheese waiting in the sack I so hastily threw together this morning.

Still, I watch, I observe. I wonder.

How it would feel to be fully engaged? Here. 

If I were here to take pictures, or talk about writing or my faith how easy it would be. Oh, I am engaged. I am here, I am early, I am ready to work. People on the other end of the phone tell me they am glad I am here. I sense their confidence in me………Still.

To be fully engaged is: eyes wide open, pulse quickening, fully focused, doing the thing God created you to do engaged.

For 18 years I have been less than fully engaged and that makes me wonder who or what I have robbed.

When I was back home I said, “I wonder what kind of world it would be if everyone loved their jobs?” My Dad said, “I wonder how it would be if people just wanted to work?” Maybe he’s right. People didn’t think about liking their jobs in his day. They just got up and went to work no matter what, to support their families.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe I think too much. Maybe we all do.

And yet, at this job at which I am less than fully engaged, there are people God has wanted me to impact, and people God wanted to impact me. Lives colliding not by accident but by Divine Appointment. He has held me here for a purpose, that I know. And this job has stretched me in ways nothing else could.

It has thrown me out of my comfort zone over and over again, so that I had no choice but to depend on Him.

And in these 18 years of twelve hour days I have carved out a livelihood, a gift God has set before me. And in those 12 hours of each day I get two hours to do what I want. Who else has that?

And somewhere, sometime, God will show me what my real job was here. And it will have nothing to do with building computer chips. It will have everything to do with contributing to people and building a kingdom.

His.

When you’re nursing a hurt

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You’re walking around in your day minding your own business. Maybe it’s even a good day and you have had some things happen that can only be described as a “God touching you on the shoulder” moment. Something happened that you just know was God arranged.

Basking in the glow of that light you can almost still feel warming your shoulders,  you are blindsided by something you never saw coming. Oh how it hurts, I know, I have been there. I have asked the questions right along with you:

Why me, why this, why now? And in the silence, the hurt you find yourself in the middle of searches for a safe place to go.

It feels like you have been through enough already. Didn’t all those tears you cried in the dark of night, didn’t those add up to something? David’s couch swam with tears too, even he wasn’t exempt, but somehow that doesn’t make right now any better.

When the wound is raw, it is tempting to ignore that good thing that happened in the wake of the pain that threatens to swallow it up. You’re not sure whether to sit in a corner and lick your wounds, or pour it out to anyone who will listen. And though it’s tempting to dump out hurtful words to the one who hurt you, don’t do it.

Because wounding them doesn’t take your own away, it only multiplies your own pain.

But don’t you hear me God?  I’m your child. The injustice of it all. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, but it happened. And now?

There is something you need to do. You need to let Him be your justice. He can’t work on anyone else’s heart unless you release yours. You be amazed what happens once you do this. Our God is so big and generous that He not only wants to heal you, He wants to heal that other person too.

And when the Bible says that He binds up the brokenhearted? Friend, that is for right now, not some vague time in the hereafter, it is here…..now…….as well as after.

Who doesn’t have pain? Who doesn’t have sorrow. This is a universal fact. What follows that there can only be a universal answer:

It’s found in the person of Jesus. He is the only one who can actually do something about it. In fact, He already did. That dead old thing was wadded up, crumpled in a ball and tossed into the fire long ago.

This is what we can know as believers. He can meet that ache right this moment by the power of the Holy Spirit who is your comforter. Right now……He can reach in and put His hand into your heart where it stings the most. Don’t doubt that He sees you.

He sees your every effort to focus on the positive, to keep moving forward even when it hurts. And He will reward it.

He had to do that once, you know.  And with you in mind, He did it.

He could never forget you. You are in His thoughts day and night.

And there’s nothing that happens to you or to me that’s too big for Him to handle. That is the hope I hold out to you today. The world needs love, but more than love it needs hope.

Visit to Aunt Mag’s

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Every so often, I post a memory from the life of my best friend, Elaine, (as told to me by her.) A disclaimer for her family members: the events happened, but at times it’s tricky getting inside someone else’s mind, even someone I know as well as I know her. Some things may not be exactly how you remember, but how she remembers once it gets spit out of my mind and gets to the page.

Once a summer we would all pile into the car at the hottest time of the year and drive from California to Texas to see some relative or another. It was always hot and sticky in the back seat and I was always sandwiched between my brothers, one of which I loved, one of which was just plain mean. Invariably, he would do something that would get the wrath of our parents crashing down on all of us. My Mom would grab whatever was nearest her and aimed for anyone she could reach.

In my Dad’s world, stopping the car for any reason was considered an unsuccessful road trip. His idea of a rest stop was peeing by the side of the road. He thought anything less than straight through constituted failure, and if we were the cause of the stopping, we got the belt, usually the buckle end, and as any self-respecting Texan knows, unless you have  a belt buckle as big as a hubcap, it doesn’t count for much.

There was a motel along Route 66 that had places that looked like real tee pees you could stay in. I was enamored of it and every summer I begged to stay there. I didn’t cry because my Mom had told me that tears and emotion were useless so I knew that would never work.

My memory is foggy at this point because something makes me think we did, but we could have just stopped and looked. A likely scenario was that maybe my Dad relented just once and the experience was so awful he used that ever after as excuse to keep on driving.

This particular trip one of the stops we made was my Mom’s Aunt Mag’s house. It was an old farmhouse just like you’d see in the movies. Aunt Mag prided herself on her cleanliness and her house was always swept clean.

Bobby and I were transfixed by a nest of dirt dobbers near the front porch and we exclaimed out loud, “What are those?” My Mom hissed, “Ssshhhh. Your Aunt Mag would be horrified if she saw that.” Neither she nor my Uncle could see very well. She threatened us within an inch of our lives if we got into any trouble.

That was no problem, we stationed ourselves near the front porch where we sat transfixed for the duration.  We were amazed that each time the door opened, those things flew out of the nest and into the house and when it opened again they came back out. In and out, in and out, we sat and watched. We were easily amused.

Aunt Mag was impressed. She didn’t know what we were watching. She exclaimed, “Well, aren’t these two just the most well-behaved children, where’s the other one?”

That would be our other brother, the one who must not be named. He was most certainly somewhere kicking a dog, pulling wings of a butterfly or stepping on frogs.

Another thing I remember about that farmhouse was that there was an old spigot of water out back. It had been there for years with a constant drip. The water had carved the rock below into a perfect conical shape, like an inverted volcano. No body had disturbed it all those years. Our Mom warned us to leave it where it was. Our brother who must not be named  took it, of course.

Last time I saw it, it was in his possession.

picture credit: Mindy Georges, some rights reserved, flickr creative commons.

If I could reach behind those prison walls……

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“This is what God the Lord says—
the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out,
who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,
who gives breath to its people,
and life to those who walk on it:
 “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
to open eyes that are blind,
    to free captives from prison
    and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”

Isaiah 42:6,7

I don’t know what you did to get you where you are, in prison or jail. And it really doesn’t matter. I’m not here to debate your guilt or innocence today. Just share hope. I am here to tell you that the playing field is equal at the foot of the cross. That, my friends is good news. It’s the good news the early Church was so excited about. And it’s what I am excited about today. You’re in good company. Just about every hero of the Bible was in prison at one time or another. Back then, being a believer got you prison or death. In some parts of the world it still does.

They felt the weight of the iron chains and they heard the same slam of those iron bars. I never have and I never want to. But I want to tell you that if you have heard them, and that’s where you are right now, hope is not out of your grasp.

You might have thought it was over when you entered that cell. And let me tell you, most people will applaud the fact that you are there. They might even want you there for good or dead. And if you have done something to deserve it, then I don’t feel bad you are there either. But I do feel very bad about the prison your soul is in if you don’t know Christ.

But I do feel bad for your eternal state if you have never felt the love His redemption brings.

All is not lost. The hope that the early church had can be yours too. None of us is too far out of the reach of His love. His love is like the sun, it’s everywhere. The hope that modern-day believers have even as they are facing prison or death in China, In Indonesia, and many other parts of the world can be yours too. They have hope because burning in their hearts is the knowledge that they know this prison is temporary. They have something worth sharing. And they won’t stop, even it means loss of their physical freedom here on earth.

You say, well I don’t want to be here at all. I want to be out there. I want to be free. There is only one person who can truly make us free.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. Romans 8:1,2

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:11

Listen, there are all kinds of prisons in this world, prisons of illness, prisons in our minds, prisons of addiction. Everyday I see people walking around in the free light of day, imprisoned. I can see it in their faces, they have no hope. Jesus saw it too and moved with compassion, He said, “they are like sheep without a shepherd.”

But I am here to tell you that the most dangerous prison in the world is the one you don’t know you’re in. You can’t ignore yours, they can. I can.

There are many people living the good life, flying here and there, surrounding themselves with the best this life has to offer. And you might want what they have, sometimes I  do too, but don’t. Their prison might look a lot better than the one you’re in, but the bars are just as solid. And if they have never taken that step of faith that God requires, they need deliverance just as much as you.

I am not saying prison is easy or admirable, or good. I am sure it’s terrible.

But much more terrible is the eternal sentence we face without Jesus’ pardon. It’s something we all have to decide.

My prayers are with you. My hope is that you will listen to the people who come in with the Good Word. Don’t close your ears. Don’t scoff. Don’t make others feel weak if they go to those meetings. I know they have them there.

It’s freedom they’ve found.

And you can find it too.

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Rejoicing in my freedom today.

Photo credit flickr: Some rights reserved, by Janrito Karamazov

It’s God who gave the nod

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I was going to say something about how time is washed away like the water washes the sand back out to sea but that was just too Hallmark. Nothing against Hallmark mind you,  I love the movies, the stores and the cards. However, now that I have planted that seed, I will let the picture do a much better job than my words could anyway.

What can I say? It’s my Birthday and I liked the picture.

My day dawned happy. I already had Facebook posts and cards at 4:30 AM and a best friend who got up bleary eyed just to wish me a happy day and give me a Birthday hug. How cool is that? The cats just wanted food, but I gave them hugs too and asked if they had their party hats ready for tonight. I think they rolled their eyes.

And even though the freeway detour put me late to work. I sensed the Lord smiling on me as the sky sped past above my moonroof. It looked like Rafael was painting from Heaven.

On that detour I saw things I wouldn’t have ordinarily seen; a man walking his dog, stumbling in the dark. I saw country houses still asleep and I was grateful for the detour signs which were clear.  I am one of those directionally challenged people for whom everything presents itself in a dramatically different way in the dark.

My heart was fairly bursting with the joy of the Lord and this was my overwhelming thought:

That it wasn’t just my parents who brought me here to this place, it was God who gave the nod. It’s God who packaged my particular brand of DNA and yours too. I am here because He wanted me.

How can I not feel overwhelming gratitude?

This past year has had a fair amount of sadness and stress, like every year, but the joys have far outweighed it. People in our life have met eternity, and some have moved and found new homes. Old things were sold to make way for new lives, new starts. New hopes and dreams.

I was able to help my best friend through some very difficult moments and celebrate victories and sit on the beach once again and eat seafood until we couldn’t hold anymore. And in the backdrop of most every moment we were able to laugh.

There were several hospital trips and I was there to feed my brother ice-chips and rub his feet on two occasions, and I was there when he collapsed in the emergency room. God worked that out. I think back to when we were in our teens and I think how everything changes once you get older. You become people to each other. Friends instead of siblings.

I spent cherished time walking around the lake with my Dad and I was able sit and hold my Mom’s hand as we watched TV on the couch. I got to see Lauryn start another year of school.

I am thankful today that they are all together this weekend at home and not in hospitals.

Today, I think of the time I have spent and the time I have left. I have been given a little snippet of time here on earth and etenity stretches before me and it’s more real now than ever.

And even if I never get to see all the wonderful places I want to see on this earth, I have eternity in my back pocket. And that is something I never take for granted.

I get a little goofy about Birthdays, I admit. But that’s something about me that will never change, no matter what.

It’s because I have been given a gift, we all have. And one more year is another year of gratitude for what He’s done for me. And if I am breathing and living, I owe something to Jesus.

And when it all comes down to it, it’s people that matter. Every vacation, every emergency, everyday, it’s the memory of the time spent together that makes it all worthwhile.

So enjoy my day, my friends. Treasure it and tomorrow too.

And keep those you love close.

 

 

What I love about Pinterest

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I wish I would have thought of Pinterest. I wish I would have thought of a lot of things that are currently reaping tons of revenue. Actually I did have a form of Pinterest in my head long ago. Let me tell you about it. It’s my blog, after all, I can do that.

It was one of those days when I was thoroughly discontented with my job. I was talking to Elaine, who was also working at Intel at the time. We were standing at the workstation and I was bordering on tears. We were the new kids on the block just having transferred from New Mexico to Arizona. It wasn’t a warm and fuzzy group. They gossiped, they lied, they fought amongst themselves.

They had the social skills of a pack of hyenas surrounding a frightened rabbit.

I was wishing myself far, far away. We talked of Yosemite National Park, one of my happy places. Then I said, “People need something like a virtual vacation, where they can just get away, right at their desk.” Kind of like a virtual Calgon moment. For those who don’t remember the commercials, Calgon is a brand of bubble bath guaranteed to melt away stress, marketed toward Moms and career women alike.

Now I ask you, what does that sound like? Feel free to think of me as the Mother of Pinterest. Hey, Al Gore can say he invented the Internet, so I don’t think this is much of a stretch.

It’s my new addiction. Here is why I like it SO much.

It relaxes me. It makes me feel as serene as this statue. For someone like me who loves organization and likes everything neat and tidy, this is a dream come true for me. I can organize, re-pin, delete boards, change covers to my hearts content. And the best part?

It’s free!

I really wanted to get involved in scrapbooking, but the cost of all those pages and stickers and books put me off. I saw an endless money pit. Plus it’s hard for me to make a decision. I have literally stood in that aisle for 30 solid minutes trying to find just the right set of stickers on my few feeble attempts. This is just like virtual scrapbooking! And again, it’s free!

Used to, people got together and had quilting bees or knitting circles, and in some places I am sure they still do. Now we have Pinterest parties. I have never actually been to one but I am sure it’s fun. Anything that gets people together in a positive setting in the spirit of community is a good thing. It also works well as a solitary activity, which is good for those on the reclusive side like me.

Another reason I like Pinterest is because I am at heart, a dreamer. I can lose myself in boards and pins like Alice lost herself down the rabbit hole. And no, it’s not a waste of time, thank you very much. Well, maybe a little. But I personally think we could all use a little more dream time. Beside, we all know that American lags far behind in the vacation department. The whole of Europe sleeps and goes away for the whole summer. I think I can afford a little Pinterest luxury.

And for those of us who blog, it’s another way to share our writing and further inspire and encourage others. Pinterest is another way we can draw people in to our world and they can draw us into theirs. It’s another way we can outreach, another way to commune with others.  Another way we can share our faith. And that’s always a good thing.

In this big wide world, Pinterest is yet another way we can throw out our nets a little wider in hopes that in the exchange of information we can know each other a little more, fear each other a little less. Make the world a friendlier place. We need that.

So whoever you are who invented this new social media thing, thank you.

And also, you stole my idea.

Now I have to go organize my boards. And of course, feel free to pin this post, I did!

Never need an appointment to meet with Jesus

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What do you do when you find yourself at a crossroads? You go to the cross.

It’s so tempting to try to figure everything out with our minds, but what about when you feel you can’t trust your mind? Try as we might, there are times when we can’t take it apart and put it all back together in any kind of order. And when the heart and emotions get involved we might as well throw anything rational out the window.

When the heart gets involved, thought and logic whirl around inside your head and beat the sides of your brain like a tennis shoe in a spin dryer until nothing is clear.

When I entered prayer this past Tuesday, I took no hope of feeling better, no expectation of much of anything.  It was simply all I knew how to do. There are times you enter prayer that way.

I got a call from Mom on Monday evening. My Dad was on his way to the ER for irregular heartbeat. My Mom sounded okay, but I could hear the panic undertow in her voice. She said he hadn’t felt good for a couple of days. They ran some tests and released him, and he was back in his own bed by 2:30 Tuesday morning.

I thought of that old Lewis Grizzard line: “Elvis is dead and I don’t feel so good myself.” Now, my Mom, my Dad and my brother are all on medication for heart issues. And I don’t feel so good myself. Actually, I feel fine, but the stress of all this might kill me.

I want to swoop down and fix it all for them. I want to go take over and do what they can’t.

When it’s hard for me to open a jar, I feel bad because if it is hard for me, how much harder for my Mom? It’s little things like that I think of. I toss and turn in the night and wonder when the next call will come. First, Dad’s eyes and now his heart. I realize I am going through a kind of grief. A grief of knowing someday they really won’t be here.

So Tuesday morning I really needed my prayer time. I even lit three candles instead of one. I needed Father Son and Holy Ghost all hands on deck prayer.

And kneeling there by my chair in the silence, I felt the weight of importance in each and every moment we have here on earth. This life is but a breath, a vapor. A little while and then we are gone……

Eternity stretches before us like a shimmering cord that reaches to Heaven and it’s tethered to the cross. I know if I cling to Jesus, somehow I can always find my way back home. I just have to trust Him with this little speck of time that is my life.

No matter what the heartache. No matter how bleak the future might have looked 30 minutes ago, I now find that a few moments at the foot of a blood soaked cross, a light switch has been thrown. All of a sudden, just for this moment my future is as bright as the noonday sun. And that one moment is enough.

And oh what relief it is to find at times when the soul has been swept bare and black as night that Jesus has not left, that He’s there holding out a candle to light my way.

I long for the times before vandals, when the churches were open and the light was always on and the pastor or priest was always “In.” I long for the little country parish when the minister made house calls and offered a cup of tea. When you could just show up without an appointment.

I may not have Father Tim, but I have Jesus.

And He is always “In”

The bridge between Heaven and earth

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The sky splashed a brilliant pink and KBAQ was playing a Bach concerto as I rolled to a stop between the white lines in the parking lot at 5:30. The scene in the sky turned my thoughts toward Heaven and I thought of the conversation my Mom and I had when I was back home just recently.

We were scanning the obits, and she was lamenting the latest passing of one of her friends. That got us to talking about people who have passed on, and her Dad, my Grandpa. I told her that he is one of the first people I want to meet in Heaven. Besides Jesus.

He held me in his arms and called me his blond angel in German. I wonder if he was thinking of his little Annie who was only about four when she died. He had left the shotgun out and a foster child who was staying with them shot her dead. He ran away after that and they never found him, though they searched. My Grandmother had to watch her little girl die and my Grandpa had to live with that guilt all his life.

I love him, though I never knew him. He went to see Annie when he was in his sixties after a battle with stomach cancer. Shortly before he died, he said the only thing he wanted to do one more time was see Yosemite. Each year he drove the family there, he watching everything but the road and my Grandmother, terrified of going over the cliff would promptly put herself to sleep in the passenger seat.

My Mom says that when she and my Aunt reached their teens they were secretly mortified because they knew as soon as they set up camp he would be over introducing himself and Jesus to the neighbors. He had no problem sharing His faith. He wanted others to know the reason for his hope and the joy of the Savior.

I wish I could be more like him.

Shortly before my sister-in-law died, also of cancer, she said she saw my Grandfather and that they talked of roses. He told her he liked white ones. I don’t doubt what she said. I believe people close to death see many different things on that fringe of eternity.

This being a blog centered around Christian belief and thought, I guess from time to time I feel a need to explain in a simple way what we actually believe and why for those who may not know.

The thing that makes the Christian faith different from any other religion on earth is that we have a living Savior. It’s God reaching down to us, not us reaching up to Him. It’s Him making the first move.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

God gives us a future and a hope. We never have to worry about death as long as we know Jesus. He only asks us to do one thing, to acknowledge that we can’t save ourselves. That whatever we’ve done on our own is not good enough. God expects perfection, and the only perfect person who ever lived was Jesus.

With three little words, the doorway to Heaven was blown open:

“It is finished.”

Everyone has to die once, then face the consequences. Christ’s death was also a one-time event, but it was a sacrifice that took care of sins forever. And so, when he next appears, the outcome for those eager to greet him is, precisely, salvation. Hebrews 9:27,28 The Message

I don’t know about you, but I am not doing this life again. I am going to meet my Grandpa.

God’s love reaches what you can’t fix

Convicted

I fretted, I worried, I prayed. Then I asked others to pray. Then I flew back with a speech all prepared in my heart, hoping God would hollow out the perfect time. You know, how you wish it would work. At just the right time, the clouds part and the sun would beam down upon my heart and before me on the wall would be brandished the words:

Now is the time.

Maybe it happened and maybe I missed it. But God taught me something anyway. You can’t fix everything or even anything but you can always love. Things happen, life gets in the way, sometimes people get sick or they’re not emotionally available. Or maybe you aren’t. But that doesn’t mean God isn’t in it. Love is still present. God is still working behind the scenes. He is just that big.  And maybe sometimes just loving and being there is all God wants us to do. Maybe it’s the most important thing any of us can do.

Love is patient, love is kind. But sometimes it hurts like hell. 

In the Doctor’s office with my Dad, I gave just as big a sigh of relief as he did when he learned that he had a reprieve from a shot in his eye. It seems the treatments are doing what they are supposed to so it was a good appointment. I was thankful I could be there.

Tyler, the dog everyone shares is getting older too. He has his playful moments and his bark is fearsome if you don’t know him, but he no longer hops into the car. His hips are stiff and he hesitates at the door. He’s my walking buddy in the mornings at my brother’s house. He still bounds ahead of me, and if I cross the street to the orchard, he waits at the end of the driveway faithfully until I get back.

One morning my Mom opened the paper and found that another friend and school-mate had died. That led to talking of others who had gone on before. In your eighties Heaven must seem close. We talked of who we wanted to see there first, besides Jesus of course.

And always, time to leave presses up against the present.

The day before I left, a little girl was already worried about when “Nori goes home.” She is ten but she still struggles with “L’s.” And when we left her at school, we didn’t mention it. They dealt with the emotion when they picked her up at school. Separation anxiety.

I think we all have it.

Deep down, we know we’ve all been separated from our forever home, the one we were meant to have. We know something is not quite right. And we spend all our lives trying to get back there.

Thank you Jesus, for being that one way.

No more goodbyes ever again. And though it takes the sting out of the goodbyes here and now, I still felt it as I looked back once more through tears as they drove off dabbing their own eyes.

In all of our comings and goings, and behind the hope and dream of every trip home and every trip back, He remains.  And more importantly, He is big enough to fix what I never could anyway.

Prayer this morning: “Lord I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Amen