Never need an appointment to meet with Jesus

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

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

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

The Traveler’s Prayer

Thank you Lord for going before me.

Thank you for being there through security, and all the hassle that brings.

Thank you for being there as I sit on the plane, as I close my eyes right before that time my heart quickens just for a moment when I think of all the things that might possibly go wrong when I am high up in the air.

Thank you for being there when the squeak of the tires hit the tarmac and everyone scrambles to get bags……..

to be the first off the plane……to rush to the next thing.

Help me to cherish every single moment when I first see their faces.

Because it’s never just another trip.

It is a chance to love them again, while we are all still here.

Fill in the gaps Lord, with your Holy Spirit and let peace fill all places in between.

Bind us all together and help us let go of all the small irritants that sometimes get in the way like unwelcome static on the radio.

Help this time be valuable.

Open lines of communication as only You can do.

And help me to remember above all, love.

And that sometimes love means action,

sometimes it means the right words.

Sometimes it just means being there.

Give me the courage and wisdom to know what to do when.

Because, as you know, I am good at getting them all mixed up and out of order.

Thank you God,

Your girl down here.

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

Psalm 139:1-6

The Eeensy Weensy Spider

I almost saw it too late. I had just waved my hand under the faucet sensor and the water ran in a stream and almost washed it down the drain. And I don’t know why, but I didn’t want it to die.

I wanted to save it.

Another day I might have washed it down the drain without a thought. Not this day.

Maybe it was the video of the train wreck in Spain that I had seen earlier that made me sensitive to seeing anything else die, even this lowly spider.

Everyone knows how I detest them. And maybe it was the collective guilt of all its relatives I had mercilessly killed over the years that caused this small pardon.

This gesture of benevolence.

It was all balled up with its legs folded underneath it and I thought maybe it had drowned. I felt a pang of remorse as I grabbed a towel and scooped it out.

I blew gently as if I were God blowing life back into me.

Determined now, I could only see no other conclusion but life at the end of this drama.

Still balled up, and tiny as a speck, and yet I knew if I put it under a microscope that it would be a marvelous thing of wonder and even beauty if I allowed myself to look past my fear of what it was.

I blew some more, and smiled as I saw it bravely scramble to life as I transferred him from one towel to another, jostling purse, drink, backpack and gently folded towel with microscopic passenger……

I headed out to the patio where there is green, he surprised me when he refused to leave the towel and scrambled toward my hand.

I smiled again as I set him on the leaf.

Onto his new eden.

When it’s easier to bask in God’s love than love others

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8

I have that line in a song and sometimes when I am not loving the way I should, which is most of the time, it sounds like a taunt. Like there should be a sing-song, “neener, neener, neener” behind it. For those of you unfamiliar with the term “neener” here is the Wikipedia answer:

A childish taunt or jeer pronounced with a nasal sneer, for lack of a more intelligent retort to someone else’s jeer or taunt, usually from a peer. Sometimes sung to the tune of “Ring-Around-the-Rosey” for really driving the point home.

I have found that it is much easier to bask in the warmth of God’s love than actually go out there in the world and love His people. But that is what God says is the proof of our love for Him. How we love each other.

It’s much easier to sit on the sidelines and write about people than actually go out there and love them. It’s much for comfortable, especially for someone like me who is a bit on the reclusive side. However, it is not nearly as rewarding.

The truth is, sometimes I hide behind my writing, and if I had to be really honest? Far too often people irritate me.

Oh, I can do a pretty good job with the ones in my corner, the ones I choose to love. I lavish love and affection on those who love me, my friends……my family. But loving others just plain wears me out. I find loving on my animals is much easier. I give them a little food and affection and they are at the door to greet me when I come home.

I have heard it said, “The more I am around people, the better I like my (dog, cat….etc.) you get the point.

The more I am around people, the more I know I need work, and the more I am aware of how much grace God has extended to me.

If there is anything I want to be remembered for, it’s not now bright I was, or how rich, or how funny, or anything else, but for how I loved.

Sometimes I convince myself I am doing an okay job, but then I withhold my love in tame but mean little ways, by making assumptions about others, or putting them in a category by how they dress or what they drive.

And I wonder sometimes if how I am loving others is indicative of how I am loving myself.

Sometimes love means extending the same grace to others that we would want them to extend to us. I was reminded of this the other night on the way home. E and I were just about to turn onto the last stretch of road before home when a big red truck screamed by and pulled in front of us. Then he slowed down. Way down. When we tried to change lanes he changed too and blocked us in.

I said….”I can’t believe this. Here……now? Almost home after driving 5 hours?” We were just minding our own business driving down the road after all.

In a shiny new Black Camaro.

With grey racing stripes.

Of course, it was dark and the other driver couldn’t see us. I am sure they must have assumed that behind the wheel was a young guy looking for a race. Instead he got two fifty something women who only wanted to get home. I think that maybe he would have felt bad if he had seen us for who we were.

And he was wrong in his assumption that we wanted to race.

It made me wonder what would make someone do that. It also made me wonder about how many times I have misjudged people or situations.

As unbelievable as it is when you consider what evils people have done to each other all throughout history, the truth is this:

Every single person who has ever been born has the breath of the living God in their nostrils. That alone makes them worthy of love, impossible as it sometimes seems.

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end it is between you and God. It never was between you and them anyway.” Quote from Mother Theresa

She always humbles me. That is all I have for today.

Faith when things feel flat

When I crept out to my prayer room this morning, the world looked washed out. It was mirroring what I felt on the inside.

Even the sunrise, always my favorite time of day, seemed dull and unspectacular. There is a fine coat of dust everywhere from recent storms that makes everyone want to run for their blowers or hoses. I am burned out at work………I am in one of my ready to quit and move to the coast and open up a used bookstore moods.

If you have been a Christian longer than a year or so, there will be days like this. Days you don’t feel like praying. But you do it anyway. There will be days when you don’t see the burning bush behind every bloom, the resurrection in every sunrise. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t so. There will be times you get up and do it anyway because you know that even though you don’t feel it? It’s still there.

He’s still there.

That’s the point when you’re faith becomes something real. When faith comes before feeling.

Today is one of those days for me and it’s okay. I have lived long enough to see and feel many miracles, and I know they are unfolding right now even as I write this. I have learned to be grateful for these times because it lets me know that what I believe is not based on feeling but on fact.

And another thing I have learned is that gratitude is the quickest way I know to let the light flood back in. And not just hollow thanks, mind you……thankfulness born out of knowledge of what He’s already done, doing right now, and doing in the future.

But as it is written: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9

That’s where I am today. A little bit in the clouds.

A little bit flat. And it’s okay, because I know my God and I know that when He says He’s preparing something? That doesn’t only mean the distant future.

It may mean in the next five minutes.

So I wait hopeful and sure.

Because I know my God and I know He always has another miracle in store. For you, for me.

He can’t help it, it’s just what He does.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen……..Hebrews 11:1

Letting Go

It’s been about 49 years and I can tell it is still one of his most cherished memories of our time together. It’s one of mine too.

As I called him last night, his Birthday night, he told me he loved the post I wrote and then he paused, thoughtful and said, “There is so much more…..” I said, “Yes, you could never fit all those memories into one post.”

And sounding younger even as he said it, “I still have that picture…..of you climbing Half Dome, and the other one, of me running behind you when I was teaching you how to ride a bike.”

And just like that……

All the years between now and then vanished and I was 6 again. I was hearing me say, “Dad……are you still holding on?” Gripping the bars, fighting my fear, afraid to fall, and doubting he had me.

And all these years later I heard “Yes, I am……I’ve got you Lori, you’re doing great!”

And this morning as I remembered, I fled to the bathroom squeezing my eyes shut, trying to staunch the tears that threatened to overflow. The whole memory has left me an emotional mess.

Because I know that even as he said he had me?

He had let go……even though he was afraid too.

The hardest thing about loving is letting go. And letting someone let go.

I think of the times my Father has told me the same thing……..”I’ve got you Lori, you’re doing great.” And the tears don’t seem to want to stop flowing here at my desk today.

His love is deep, His love is wide, and it covers us, His love is fierce, His love is strong, and it is furious………”Furious” lyrics by Jeremy Riddle

photo by carfreedays, flickr some rights reserved: carfreedays.com

Happy Birthday Dad!

I thank my God every time I remember you.In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:3-6

How blessed I am to have my earliest memories of you Dad, be only of love. I remember that whenever you would leave me in the car to run an errand, you would always bring me back a bag of M&M’s or Planter’s peanuts.

And we were movie buddies too. I saw every James Bond movie made with Sean Connery when I was around 5 or 6. I remember the darkened theater and getting a tube of Flicks, not much else. Most importantly we were together.

And you thought it was more important to learn about nature than go to Disneyland, so every summer we went to Yosemite, and I am grateful for that. It’s one of the most powerful bonds we have together.

You filled our home with music…….all different kinds, and art.

I remember paints and brushes and Mom saying you were almost never satisfied with any of them, but you were good. Really good.

You worked hard all your life, and still do. You worked construction and put up with a lot of crap from bad bosses and idiots who knocked down the stop sign you put up the day before.

You held onto your dignity by pouring knowledge into your mind and spirit by delving into books and learning. You stayed fit, you took night classes and joined team sports, and became a volunteer fireman.

I remember how you used to love it when the alarm rang out in the middle of the night.

You became a Master Sergeant in the Army National Guard and one of the highlights of that whole time was going to Alaska in February. You loved every minute of it.

You dove into life and yet we always remained your first priority. You always had time for us (still do) and even though for many years you suffered from depression, you never once refused us kids when we wanted to do something.

You met Jesus when you were older, and became smitten with our Savior.

Mom always had to separate us in church because we always got in trouble for laughing. That’s another bond we share. I remember shaking in the pew at something we would invariably always see or hear at the exact same time.

I know I have told you all this before Dad, but I wanted you to hear it again. Because we all need to be reminded.

I hope, at least just for today, you will know how much we love you.

And how much God loves you.

I know life has had you burdened lately, but I hope and pray

just for today at least, that you would pause and reflect

on everything you have done right.

And not what you’ve done wrong.

Know that in your Father’s eyes you are perfect.

In Jesus.

So today, pretend you are sitting on the edge of that sunny meadow in the place we all love.

Soaking it all in.

Feeling peace flood your soul.

It’s a day that God has prepared just for you.

So drink it in and give thanks.

For a happy and proud 85. Not many do that as successfully as you.

You’re still be a handsome dude, always on the trail ahead of us.

Love, Me

A Pinterest Lesson

I wasn’t calm last night on Pinterest. Not calm at all. And I usually am. It’s my new favorite thing, but last night it all went sour. Sitting at the computer in the dark, I was glad my Mom couldn’t see me, because it would have confirmed her belief that computers and all things that are spawned from computers are straight from the pit of hell.

I was obsessed, you see. With that little empty board on the left that is the first thing I see when I open my Pinterest page. It’s the one that says, “Create a board.” And I don’t want it there. I want the first thing I see to be all my beautiful boards, not that sad empty one. It mars the landscape. And last night, I sat there frazzled, already beyond tired.

I couldn’t even move it down to the bottom.

It……was…..something……I……couldn’t……control.

The worst thing was that on every single profile I looked at? They didn’t have it. Their pages were all nice and pretty. Only their wonderful pins were there. What did they know, that I didn’t know? That is what was mocking me.

And the truth was, that was the real problem. I felt like I was alone. Like I was the only one in the world of Pinterest that didn’t know.

I felt like I was back in first grade and I could see myself sitting at my desk, struggling with math, as usual. It seemed everyone got it but me. I can still remember it, that day a classmate sauntered by. I can still see her face as she shook her head at me as she went up to hand her finished paper in.

I can still remember the day I had to stay after, again with math problems. Again in first grade. A classmate’s sixth grade sister came by and she was mad that I was crying, mad at the teacher for making me stay after.

That’s how I felt last night at the computer. Alone. And the devil taunted me, everyone knows but you. Everyone has the answer but you. As I crept off to bed, unsuccessful in my endeavors, Elaine snickered at me. “I am the only one that has it….” my voice trailed away and she smiled and shook her head. She knows how weird I am.

This morning I woke up groggy, not a very happy camper. I felt kind like this guy:

I found him on Pinterest, of course.

Carrying my lifeblood cup of coffee back into my room, I opened my devotional for today and God brought me to tears through it. This is what it said:

July 18th, by Sarah Young”

I AM NEARER than you think, richly present in all your moments. you are connected to Me by Love-bonds that nothing can sever. however, you may sometimes feel alone, because your union with Me is invisible. Ask Me to open your eyes, so that you can find Me everywhere. The more aware you are of My Presence, the safer you feel. This is not some sort of escape from reality; it is tuning in to ultimate reality. I am far more real than the world you can see, hear, and touch. Faith is the confirmation of things we do not see and conviction of their reality, perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses.”

And then? When I got to work I had a co-worker pull up her Pinterest profile and she had the empty pin too. And I didn’t feel so alone anymore.

You see, the problem, or what I perceived to be a problem was still there, it was just that now I had someone to share the burden. To make me feel less alone.

Even enjoyable things can be marred sometimes because all we see is the thing we don’t like. Not the hundred things of wonder all around us.

Pinterest learned me.

And even if the empty board taunts me until Kingdom come. I will be okay with it. I will.

I think.

Lori's Prayer Closet

"And when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done is secret, will reward you……"Matthew 6:6

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