Grace Dispensers

Linking up with Duane Scott and Shelly Miller today, join me there too?

We sat outside on the front porch of the carehome, she, her Mom and I. Another lady in a wheelchair came out for a smoke. E. helped her find her lighter. We were commenting on different cars that came by, talking about nothing in particular. The lady in the wheelchair was punctuating our last words with, “Uh huh…..and Yes.”

A cement truck went by and E. told the lady next to us that she used to drive one, in her words, “When I was young and too stupid to be scared.” Her Mom, ever the harbinger of goodwill and bolsterer of egos says, “Now you’re old and stupid.” I blew out a breath……The verbal assaults and barbs she always had at the ready never failed to shock me. I guess a lifetime of negativity doesn’t die easily, even with Alzheimer’s.

It was the one thing that was most difficult when her Mom lived with us.

Ever the contradiction in terms, this was the same Mom who cried after she read the story I had written about her own daughter’s years driving a cement mixer. How she gained the trust of the men by applying herself to being the best driver there was, even so far as having contractors request her for the most difficult jobs.

I snuck the words out under my breath, “This would be almost bearable after a couple of Coronas.” She snorted a laugh.

After that, we went to see her Dad. As I witnessed her attending to him, I couldn’t help remembering the paranoia and the padlocked doors, the way he threatened his own daughter with violence. Things I won’t even talk about here.

And even though you know it’s the dementia talking, it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

That was also the same man who went with us when we put E’s 18-year-old cat down. He cried harder than any of us.

Day in and day out, for years I have watched her be a dispenser of mercy and grace to parents who were never there for her. And each day she refills her cup from a Holy fountain that never runs dry. She shoulders her grief and sadness courageously and I know she doesn’t tell me everything. Because then the dam would break and run over and she couldn’t continue to do what she does.

This is the kind of living lesson you could never get sitting in church, it’s only in the deep trenches where God meets you at the bottom, when He smiles and hands you a shovel.

One day not too long ago, her Dad said he wanted his beard shaved. (He doesn’t trust the aides to do it). I honestly don’t know if I could have put my Jesus sandals on for that one, but she did. It was as she finished that he said the five words she quite possibly had never heard before.

“You are a good daughter.”

And sometimes when you’re at your weakest, God sends His confirmation that He is paying attention. That He approves.

One day it was love letters in the parking lot of the nursing home. And yesterday it was two snow-white doves that landed on each side of her school bus.

The driver behind her was incredulous. He had never seen anything like it. He told her they landed, one on each side right before they all took off for the morning run.

And if that weren’t enough confirmation?

As she pulled in the driveway yesterday there was another one, also snow-white. We have scads of doves around here, but never have I seen one while one let alone three.

No one can convince me that the Holy Spirit wasn’t masquerading as those white doves. I know it.

Help me Lord to be more like my friend who keeps on refilling her cup and offering it back to the One who is worthy, even if it hurts. Each day looking to You for a fresh supply. Because it isn’t just a one time thing.

Along the way I discovered a facet of faith I never noticed before, the truth that forgiveness is not an action as much as a discipline. A solo acknowledgment of absolution or single act of disentanglement from the situation wasn’t enough. Margaret Feinberg.

All around us there are living lessons to be learned. But we can’t learn the lessons God has for us we are so caught up in rights and wrongs and who is deserving and who is not. We lose sight of the Grace that He continues to pour out on us every day.

Help me be a Grace dispenser Lord.

Fearfully and wonderfully made

As I sit in prayer I listen to birds sing the day in and not for the first time I think, they have it right. I pour my coffee and I wonder how many in the world are doing the same thing right now, but they never taste it. They sip but don’t savor and then on to the next thing.

I suppose I am one of the lucky ones. When you have lost suddenly in your life it tends to change your perspective. You know just how fast it can all be gone so you grab each day with both hands, you grab grace because you know it’s because of grace we’re all here at all.

And you also learn how to see and embrace the wonder in each new day. The fact that God is in it is all the reason you need. Just take one aspect of your body, or one aspect of creation. Just think what a symphony of coordination has to happen between your brain and your legs to get up and cross the room. Or for your eye to work properly. How can this not be enough to agree along with the Psalmist that we are FEARFULLY and WONDERFULLY made?

As Margaret Feinberg says so succinctly in her wonder-filled book, Wonderstruck:

God extends endless invitations to encounter him, yet too often we sleep straight through. Unconscious of the life God wants for us, we slumber in the presence of the sacred and snore in the company of the divine. We remain asleep while God roosts in our midst.

Just Saturday, I attended a memorial service for a dear friend’s husband. He was only 6 years older than me. As the pictures flashed on the screen, snippets of his life, it was obvious that he was one of those for whom the world held much wonder, his was a life not wasted. Sad as it was for the ones left behind, they have the comfort of knowing that. And knowing that now, He sits in the presence of wonder we can scarely imagine, at the feet of Jesus. That is the most precious thing we can leave our loved ones.

I want to give others that gift. I want to give God that gift. I want Him to know how grateful I am for every moment He gives me. I think that’s one of the best ways we can honor God and be a blessing to those around us. When we open each other’s eyes to that wonder all around us, we are doing the work of the Kingdom.

Each and every day, God is telling us to look up, look out. Nature is one of the biggests ways He waves His hands to get our attention.

Just now, almost to prove my point, a hummingbird hovers in mid-air, and I see the way he catches the light. That little heart beating at an improbable 1,260 beats per minute I wonder how such a small little creature can teach such a big lesson.

If just we open our eyes long enough to see it.

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

Angels on the Hood

As I was writing my post from this past Wednesday, all that reminiscing put me in mind of the afternoon Elaine got baptized. There is a little state park where the Mokelumne River meanders through in California, and that’s where church members and assorted others drove on a warm summer day in July.

We sang songs on the shore in the glow of the afternoon sun, graced by the slanting shadows of the trees and listened to Pastor Ken’s short message as he stood thigh deep in the water with his big black Bible opened, as the faithful waded in.

Elaine’s folks were there wandering around not sure what to do, clearly out of their comfort zone but there nonetheless and that’s what mattered. Her Mom couldn’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would get “in that nasty dirty water.”

Baptism never fails to move me, especially when adults take that step. You can almost see all the junk in their lives in past tense in their eyes right before they go under. They’ve made the decision and they have counted the cost and put themselves in a pretty vulnerable place. On top of that, everyone else is standing around dry and you are about to get soaking wet in public with clothes on. That seems a bit unnatural all by itself.

The day of her baptism I gave her a little Bible inscribed with the date and her name. And when her truck was stolen a few years ago she was more upset about losing that than anything else.

That little Bible represented a lot.

She likes to rib me about being baptised in a warm baptismal where my Pastor wore fishing waders. She thinks hers is somehow better because that’s the way John the Baptist did it and also because she braved the cold water. He is her favorite Bible character after all.

But when she gets serious and talks about that day you don’t have to wonder about what it meant and still means to her. She gets a certain light in her eyes and a softness in her voice. It was the starting of a life newly filled with hope. Filled with Jesus.

But I digress.

It was getting dark by the time we headed home. I was driving her 1990 Dodge Caravan. She was riding shotgun and my Mom and Dad were in the back. Suddenly I see something that almost looked like a very tall person lying crossways in the lane directly ahead of me. It was, in fact, a large roll of carpet.

With traffic on both sides zooming by there was absolutely nowhere to go.

She must have seen the panic on my face and the desire to slam on the brakes. “Hang onto the wheel and keep going!” She said. So I did. I gripped the wheel and sailed over it. In the rear view mirror I saw my Mom and Dad’s heads pop up simultaneously and hit the ceiling.

Now the carpet was caught in the undercarriage of the van and we were dragging it.

And no one would let me off the freeway.

Elaine said, “Just put your blinker on and get over, they’ll move.” I did and they did.

By the time we pulled off the freeway the carpet was smoldering and we could see flames. Now, my friend is one of those who can assess a situation and know exactly what needs to be done, as well as successfully delegating others, all while remaining calm and in control. Unlike me.

In seconds she had my Dad in the driver’s seat waiting for direction as to when to hit the gas and my Mom and I bouncing the backend of the car while she kept a firm hold on the carpet.

When we finally dislodged it my Dad said, “I can’t believe I just obeyed those orders without question, I’m a Master Sergeant, I am used to giving orders not taking them.”

We all took a few deep breaths, thanked God, and stood around for a few minutes and marveled at how disastrous it could have been.

But I know why it wasn’t.

It was those hood angels riding on top of the van.

photo credit: google images, Caswell State Park

Accompanied by Grace

We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps. Proverbs 16:9

This morning the moon led me to work, almost all the way in, and it was like watching a poem. It was one of those big yellow moons. The kind that always take my breath away. I greeted it and then I greeted God.

Sometimes I think He is hiding His face behind it. I can always find the face right away and know which direction he is looking, up down or sideways. This morning he was looking down and to the side, gazing on earth, gazing at me.

If the moon could flirt, he was.

He played peek a boo with me, peering between the big cement beams when I was going under the new overpass. Man can build his buildings but only God can keep this big yellow moon up in the sky. Just then, the London Philharmonic was playing a beautiful rendition in strings of a song I have heard before.

The thought occurred to me that this might be one of those moments I will always remember. The morning the moon and the music and God all worked together to serenade me.

I thought: Remember this right now, because right now the people you love are here, but there will come a time when they are not, and you will think of this moment when the moon and the music and God all worked together.

Yesterday, I called my Mom and Dad just to tell them I loved them. It’s only once you get older that you begin to see the sacrifices they made to raise you….to give you not only what you needed, but many times what you wanted.

While they went without.

As God and the moon dipped below the San Tan mountains I did a little intake of breath. I didn’t think it was possible to get any more beautiful but just then he, she, it did.

Right then she looked like an elegant lady taking her leave in a sequined gown of gold.

Goodbye moon, and thank you for accompanying me on this grace journey today.

I will miss you, but I know you have others to captivate.

Photo credit: google images.

God sized opportunities

We get our pizza and start to eat when I mention my Mom’s tooth problem which in turn leads her to saying she needs to get her front tooth redone before she starts looking like Nanny McPhee. I laugh and mention how crowded my bottom teeth are and that I think it may be pushing a crown out of whack.

She says, “Maybe they should just pull one and they would straighten out.” I say, “With my luck the gap wouldn’t close and I would be left with one tooth missing in front like Si from Duck Dynasty.” That mental image gets me laughing so hard I am afraid to take a drink. It’s the times we laugh like that over nothing that I see something like God-light in her eyes.

It’s a pure and holy laughter and it flows like living water when two people of like mind gather.

Sitting there at the Pizza place, I thought of how our lives intersected all those years ago and how it was all so arranged by God. We were to be rescuers to each other yet at the time we didn’t know it. We were too busy each carrying our separate loads of super-sized grief.

She had just courageously left behind the only life she had ever known. It was either that or die. She was searching for life, and hope. And I was busy trying to convince everyone and myself that I didn’t need anyone. The only friend I wanted was my husband and he had died.

At night I would sit alone and write letters to him that he would never see, except from Heaven.

One of the first things that struck me about her was her contagious laugh. And even though she was hurting she still tried to open the door to friendship.

And I did my level best to keep that door shut.

But there was something she saw in me that made her keep trying.

Somehow enough of Jesus shined through my dysfunction and sadness because she wondered where I got my peace.

And when I finally let down the wall and invited her in, it was almost like we were getting reaquainted after a long absence instead of starting a new friendship. And then she met Jesus and it only got better.

And 22 years later all I can see is the joy and laughter and wonder I would have missed out on had she not opened that door, had I not walked through it.

How many people have I dismissed that I should have embraced? How many sparks of life have I extinguished rather than rekindled? How many times have I refused the invitation to join God in his supernatural work? Margaret Feinberg

What draws us together is a mystery and a wonder. What makes total strangers click and feel they’ve known each other all their lives? It’s a connection that can’t be fully explained but that’s part of the beauty of it. What I do know is that it’s what God wants for us and what He made us for.

He calls us friends first and Disciples second, and I believe He sees not only the person we are, but the person we will become.

When we connect here in this place, I don’t see Bloggers, or Facebookers. I see friends. I see brothers and sisters. I see family.

And I am thankful for every one of you and what you bring to my life.

When we have real communion

As I sit here the birds are in chorus across the street and the suns rays are glorious across my back. I can barely see the screen in the light, but I have to be out here. I don’t want to ignore God’s beautiful morning.

In prayer just an hour ago, my insides felt as flat as a gray stone. I whispered, “How is it that I can sit here, knowing the God of the Universe is here listening to my prayer and I can feel so emotionally flat? How is that possible?”

I don’t let it out, I don’t talk to Him because it sounds too much like whining. It’s better to keep it stuffed behind the barrier. But then I do start sharing it all, and as it spills out something wonderful happens. Distant, Holy, Immovable, Omnipotent God becomes my Abba Father again. And it’s warmer than the sun on my back how He loves me. And once again it surprises me how He really does want to hear it all.

The wine becomes the blood, and the wafer becomes the body and it’s something real, something we can see, hear taste and touch in Him and each other. And it’s bigger than anything else in this life. And when our tears become like the wine and we pour out our hearts to each other? This is the gift exchange God really wants. Freely we have received, freely we give.

This kind of Holy transubstantiation is what He gives us first so that in turn, we can give it to others.

Inside me the rock cracks open and tears come when I realize that what has just happened is something Holy, something of a miracle.

The doves coo and the birds continue their serenade and Elaine honks as she goes by in her school bus. She sees that the umbrella is up and I am out here. The kids will be glad to have her back today. I don’t think the substitute driver sings with them or compliments them on their outfits, or loves them enough to not let them get away with everything. She never looks through them, she always sees them and they know it. And since Jesus is in her, He is on that bus too.

And I know He is smiling while she is doing His work with those kids.

The sun beats down, warmer now, and I revel in its glow.

Because I never have to play that daisy game with God, because I know it’s always the same answer, “He loves me.”

When God stops teaching you, you better worry

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–Ephesians 2:8

This is a repost from February of 2012 but the lesson hasn’t changed. The man I spoke of here is now with Jesus, he passed from death to life on Easter weekend of this year and no telling just how many he talked to are there in Heaven with him now too……

Driving home from work last night I breathed a prayer…….”thank you Lord for getting me through the day.” And then another thought, right on the heels of that. Is getting through enough? Is it not diminishing the capacity of wonder in a day to pray that kind of prayer? I do understand it……I fully understand that sometimes it is a real accomplishment to do just that, but too often I don’t set my sights high enough. I catch myself settling for less, when God wants to give me more.

I had to apologize. Then I started to count the beauty moments, the grace moments in the day. I remembered a conversation I had with a brother believer, and in those moments that we sat and shared at the cafe, a window of Heaven was opened. He reminded me that everything we do, everywhere we are can be a ministry. A moment of opportunity. You see, each month he flies to Houston for his cancer treatments, and though he wouldn’t have chosen his present circumstances, he shared how so many times God has placed someone in the seat beside him that needed to hear about what God is doing in his life.

Eternity moments. Reflected in each of our days, each one precious, a gift.

How can I pray to just get through the day when I know that almost certainly, the sky wasn’t just this color yesterday? How can I pray to just get through the day when there is someone waiting to hear what God is doing in my life, what He could do in theirs?

Every conversation has the possibility in it of changing someone’s life, someone’s eternity. Of opening a window of Heaven and letting the light spill out. I do believe that when you are suffering, getting through the day in one piece is quite an accomplishment, but that wasn’t the case with me yesterday.

Thank you God, for reminding me of this. For loving me enough to teach me yet another lesson. Thank you for the grace that I walk in each and every day.

Random Saturday Thoughts

I like the church i go to now but I am wondering why I don’t cry there. I cried at my old church all the time.

My Grandma used to call my Dad a Yankee like it was a bad thing. I wonder how she even knew what a Yankee was, her family immigrated from Russia and she lived in California?

If you have never heard of a guy named Lewis Grizzard, go google some of his quotes. One of my favorites is “Elvis is dead and I don’t feel so good myself.”

I just found out today that Internet sensation Grumpy cat lives about 50 miles from me. It actually brightened my day that it might be possible to meet she and her owners. She really isn’t grumpy either, her owner says she is a very happy cat.

Another funny thing about my Grandmother is that she had probably the first ever vibrating chair. It weighed two tons and shook the whole house. That was back in the late sixties/early seventies. She was also the only person I know who wore out the plastic rotary dial on her phone. She would have been great at texting.

I don’t know why but it always makes me feel better when I feed the birds.

God is totally in control even when events and circumstances lead you to believe otherwise. It’s only a test.

I know that I know that I know that prayer works and love never ever fails.

That’s about all I have today, it’s been a crazy day.

At close of day

There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans

forgets his plans, and acts if he had no plans at all.

There must be a time of day when the man who has

to speak falls very silent.

And his mind forms no more propositions, and he asks himself:

Did they have a meaning?

There must be a time when the man who prays goes to pray

as if it were the first time in his life

he had ever prayed,

when the man of resolutions puts his

resolutions aside

as if they had all been broken,

and he learns a different wisdom:

Distinguishing the sun from the moon,

the stars from the darkness,

the sea from dry land,

and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill.

Thomas Merton

No Man is an Island

Heaven and Earth were finished, down to the last detail. By the seventh day God had finished his work. On the seventh day he rested from all his work. God blessed the seventh day. He made it a Holy Day because on that day he rested from his work, all the creating God had done. This is the story of how it all started, of Heaven and Earth when they were created. Genesis 2:2-4

Bringing eternity into the here and now

Join Shelly Miller and Duane Scott today for the Wonderstruck Book Club!

There are times when you need to get away and you need it as bad as you need air.

When E’s Mom was living at the house, I took mini-Sabbaths often at Wal-Mart amidst the patio furniture. It’s a far cry from a pine forest or waves lapping against your feet, but hey, sometimes you have to take what’s readily available. At work I go outside just to hear the birds and maybe throw them some bread from my sandwich. Or I take a short walk and gaze up at the clouds to remind myself that it’s all still there. I find those times are crucial for my emotional and mental well-being.

I have always been attracted to the idea of praying the hours, the idea of taking a set time each day for prayer. To me, the morning and the evening are Holy and I feel I have missed something if I don’t get to see the sunrise or see His grand artwork in the sky at the close of day. When I first started having a regular prayer time, it usually went pretty much the same. I would start with praise, thanking Him for anything and everything that came to mind, then I would pray for specific needs of people for myself or others.

Now, I try to follow His leading more. Sometimes I ramble on and sometimes I sit in silence. Sometimes I just breathe and meditate on God’s goodness, and that is a prayer too. Sometimes I use my prayer language and sometimes, like Margaret, I use just a few words…..peace, or hope or sometimes just help! (I use that one a lot)

When I willingly get off the merry-go-round even for a moment, and get in tune with God’s rhythm I have found that something within me expands…….the world gets smaller and He gets bigger.

If I can, I extend my prayer time by a morning walk. I have always been a nature girl with my ear to the ground waiting to learn the secrets God reveals through what He has made. The desert captures you slowly. You resist at first seeing only the thorny plants, the relentless heat, but then the desert blooms and the lightning strikes and wonder abounds.

It speaks to those who listen. All of nature does. It holds mysteries that only God knows the answers to. How the Cactus wren can land and live in the giant Saguaros without getting impaled is beyond me. Each time I see them land, I almost want to close my eyes. But God has shown them just how to do it.

These quail babies at 4 days old are totally out of the nest and on their feet following Mama……I have seen as many as eight!

And this mourning dove I saw when I took my walk early one morning, safely nesting between the barbs of this cactus, God knows she will be safe there from predators. She looked out at me calmly serene in her surroundings, at peace as I strolled on by.

Observing the wonder of God’s creation is one way we can honor Him and in order to properly do that, we need to slow down long enough to see it. I love how Margaret Feinberg puts it:

Making time to pause isn’t just a holy opportunity but a divine command. Pg. 67

And when we follow God’s leading by making one day different from all the rest, we enter into His rest and then we see why it’s so important. We no longer think of the things we can’t do but the things we gain by taking a Sabbath. God wants it for us because it’s for our good. I am so grateful for Wonderstruck, because it has reminded me that living a life of wonder is really the only way to live.

Wonder is a way we can bring eternity right into the here and now.

Sometimes you have to slow to a stop and reset before you can experience divine presence, my hunger to know God increased as I learned how to develop a healthy rhythm in life and rediscovered the wonder of rest. Margaret Feinberg

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