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

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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

Home

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

 

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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

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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

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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

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Letting Go

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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