Wonder in the Middle

Wonderstruck book club series: Chapters 002,003

It was a question that knocked me off kilter.”Why is God doing this to me?” her eyes were imploring and pain-filled and my words felt puny and unconvincing. “God is not doing anything to you,” I insisted, “He doesn’t work like that.” But my answer felt ineffectual and echoed back hollow.

Sometimes it seems as soon as you are just starting to get relief in one area, something else happens and you’re right back where you started.

The truth is, when you are in pain, it does feel like God’s punishing you. Even if you know deep down He’s really not.

Just about everyone in my circle is rolling in the tide of suffering from one thing or another right now and I feel helpless.

And yesterday, the weather mirrored how I felt, it was stormy and windy all day. The sky was thick with dust and outside was no place you wanted to be. I felt fatigued, restless and burdened. Flagpoles bending, windchimes clanging, rugs blown across driveways, everything askew.

There was a sliver of grace in the day. In one of our favorite spots E and I settled for some breakfast and tea. I told her I felt useless for not being able to answer her question the night before. “Oh,” she said, waving her hand across her face. “I didn’t expect you to really have an answer, I just needed to vent.” So we talked and laughed and sighed and watched people and drank 3 glasses of tea. But I know her, I can see the pain below the surface.

On and on, the wind howled. Dirt and dust collected and banked in the corners of the house like brown snow, and leaves and debris were everywhere, but there were clouds coming in. Back inside, I walked from window to window. I tried to read but nothing held my interest.

I dozed off thinking about wonder, and how to find it in a day like today. Sandwiched in between so much other stuff.

As afternoon turned into dusk, I heard the unmistakable ping of rain on the roof. I turned off all the lights and sat in my chair by the open window. I heard more drops. I went outside and stood in it…..It was grace, this rain. His grace, I knew it. It really started to come down and I felt myself smiling.

I went back to the chair as the healing drops fell, more and more they came like mercy from the sky. Sydney jumped up on my lap and together in the dark, we watched and listened and felt the wonder spilling down from the sky, and my tears fell along with it.

And I thought, that is just like God, showering wonder in the middle of the dirt and dust and chaos of life

And that is how it happens, in the midst of an ordinary day. When we live in realm and possibility of wonder, we recognize it when it shows up even in the midst of heartache. Maybe especially in the midst of heartache.

We sat and sat. I prayed, “More, God, More, God, I want more.” He answered me with a distant rumble of thunder.

Does it surprise you that He would answer that way? We are talking about a God who loves us so much that there is nothing He wouldn’t do for us, so I don’t think a little rumble of thunder is too big of a stretch.

I said, “thank you thank you thank you.”

And here is another wonder, I had just been thinking of a certain Bible verse:

“And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire, a still small voice.” 1 Kings 19:11-12

I was thinking of my own version, except adding dust to the mix and then ending with rain. I walked out to the kitchen and looked at the verse on the calendar, which I hadn’t turned over yet…..you guessed it, it was the verse from 1 Kings.

I looked at my phone and there was a text from my dear friend in Seattle and it said: “Hey, the sky finally came out and it made me think of you, love you, goodnight xoxox.”

I sent one back that said, ‘That is so funny, Sydney and I were just sitting in the dark listening to the healing rain and I thought of you, I love you.”

He send us His wonder in the midst of an ordinary day, sometimes He disguises Himself in people.

Sometimes He shows up Himself.

Sometimes He sends rain.

But He still comes, and there is wonder in that.

How we can rise again and again

It was just a little wedding arbor up in front of the church, the plain wooden kind, unadorned, flowerless and simple. We wondered at its presence, but later on in the service we watched it take on significance as that humble little wooden arbor become a portal into another world.

We watched living souls walk through that little arbor clutching their signed death certificates, the ones that were on all of our seats, walk through that humble wooden portal from death to life in just a few steps all the way to Jesus. It was a victory walk they were doing, and we watched, witnesses to their commitment as we clutched our own certificates and renewed our own vows.

As the invitational song was sung, I had my eyes closed praying when Elaine elbowed me. I saw tears pooled in her eyes. She pointed left and then tears sprang to my own eyes as I saw a throng of people, as it turned out over 200 in our service alone. I expected several, but to be honest I was not prepared to see that many. I thought maybe there was a hidden door somewhere, because I didn’t know where all the people were coming from. The last one over the threshold was an old man, alone. Everyone clapped as he walked through.

My faith was in turn chastened, restored and staggered by seeing the redemptive power of the cross in action. And out of the land of shadows we all came, right along with them.

And then when Pastor Kevin said, “And if you want to get Baptized right after the service we have clothes you can change into, I will be there waiting.” That just set our hearts in motion even more. Watching people take that leap of faith in front of God and everyone never gets old.

After that we talked with our new neighbors and met their dogs, then later we took a short drive in the Motorhome which has been somewhat neglected due to so much time taken up with E’s care-taking duties. Soon after we got home there was a phone call from her Dad’s nursing home asking her whether to admit him to the hospital. He was thrashing around and crying out.

She left and walked into halls where death always seems to be waiting. Crouching on the sidelines.

Bus isn’t it always in this life? And Easter Day it seems, is no exception.

The day after Easter we are faced with the challenge of rising up right along with Him, of living out our faith story victoriously. We can only do that one way, and that’s by fixing our eyes and our faith on Jesus. Each and every day……we……must……choose……life.

Watching someone suffer and arrive ever closer to death who has not chosen the path of life is heartbreaking, and no one is more heartbroken than God Himself.

Who sees what could have been in each of us.

We are all waiting in the wings between life and death. But because of the cross and the empty tomb, we can rest there victorious, hopeful and fully alive. And if you love someone who is still living in the land of the shadows, never give up. Where there is breath, there is always room for hope.

The day we call Easter has come and gone, but the power of the resurrection raises us up again and again. Until that day when we see Him face to face.

And oh what a day that will be.

I brought my death certificate home and stuck it in my Bible to remind myself of what I decided long ago and where I am going after I leave this place. It rests there now.

Hope between the pages.

Taking “It is finished” to heart

Tonight, I didn’t read. I didn’t grab my IPad and hit Facebook to check in with my buddies. I just crawled into bed in the dark and the silence and thought about the day and waht it means. I thought about Jesus on the cross and how He said it was finished. And it really was. Every bit of it. Every thing we have ever struggled with…..

Every addiction, every grief, every heartache……finished right there. We don’t have to wrestle anymore.

But I still was.

Then I visualized Jesus holding me as a parent holds a child who needs calming. He drew me into an all-encompassing hug, and I drifted into sleep typing words into my phone. This morning I awoke I rolled over on my phone, and remembered.

When He said, it is finished, He meant it.

Instant access to a bankroll of power that we so often forget we have access to.

We are still boxing the air, long after our opponent has left the ring. Wrestling like Jacob all night long. We stagger away, weak.

The only decision you need to make is right now today. “Can you trust me?” He says.

He carried me through the day today. It was quite possibly the worst day at work we have had since my training in this new area. Even my trainer was confused. And yet I felt Him carrying me all through the day. We both even laughed at how things were happening that had never happened before.

And yet…..a sprinking of Saints throughout the day, which for many reasons was difficult.

Made all the difference.

He said that it was finished…..

And I believe Him.

Even the sun hid her face

At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock.

That day, even the sun refused to show her face.

Then at three o’clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”

Right then, He tasted hell so we wouldn’t have to.

Then Jesus uttered another loud cry and breathed his last.

And it was finished once and for all.

And the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

That day, even the ground gave up her dead.

When the Roman officer who stood facing himsaw how he had died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!”

And when they saw even the elements quake, they fell silent……

That day, even the sun hid her face.

But not for long……She knew Sunday was right around the corner.

Passages not italicized taken from the Book of Mark

The Suffering Servant

Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;

He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
He was despised and forsaken of men,

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Isaiah 53:1-3

700 years before Jesus walked the earth…..

Images: Google, me, and Laurence Olivier playing the role of Nicodemus in Jesus of Nazareth directed by Franco Zeffirelli circa 1977

Thankful for the thorns

I felt the panic rise and the riptide of the day starting as I awoke. I tamped it back down as it beat against me, my heartbeat quickening as I glanced at the clock which read 3:40. I layed back down and willed the clock back 8 hours or so. I sliced at it with the sword of the Word kept in my heart.

My cat sensed my stirrings and came up to nestle and I put my face in his fur and felt his purr, silly as it was it calmed me. The thought came: I should be over this kind of thing. But do we ever get totally at ease and comfortable in this life? And if so, then what do I need Him for?

You’d think I would be over this by now, this fear about meeting the day, but it still happens from time to time and I have the feeling I am not the only one.

We are bound to this earth until such time as these cords are cut and we fly back to our maker. Our real home. The one that every day I seem to glimpse a little more of. I think if we could catch one true glimpse of that life, we would never fear again, but God has given us the gift of faith which pulls us through and fills us with hope.

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

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness'” a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time….Titus 1:1,2

Paul called his sufferings light and momentary afflictions.

He was beaten, thrown over-board, bitten by snakes, thrown in prison…….

Yeah, I can do this.

As the words to the song fill my car, my hands gripped the wheel as I counted the years in my head that Jesus has been walking with me……40 years with Jesus now, and shouldn’t I have this down pat?

But the answer came: Will there ever be a time to stop trusting, to stop learning, to stop leaning?

I hope that time never comes this side of Heaven.

Thankful for the thorn of my weakness today. Because every day it draws me closer. Nearer.

The treasure that remains

Stepping off a wonderful vacation and back into reality is tough, and yet something within us knows it can never last. Even at the edges of a dream we can always sense reality just hovering, nipping at our heels.

I was thinking about that today in prayer time as I was letting the memories, sounds and sights wash over me. I used to have a terrible time coming down off a good vacation. I would rebel against going home, starting work or school. I would keep comparing the beautiful place I had just been to where I came back to.

But kicking and screaming on the inside is so tiring, and no way to live.

With passing years, God has taught me how to be okay with it. One of the things I value most about my faith is knowing that my reality is steeped in the Presence of a loving God who has promised to never leave me or forsake me.

And as beautiful as it was, the beauty was only the backdrop. The part that is captured and held in the grip of eternity was the time spent with someone we love, hearing their voice and seeing every expression….things that email, phone and text can never do.

I remember how we talked and laughed and cried. The beauty of the coast and the trees and the mountains will fade away someday but pouring our hearts as an offering to each other, talking about hopes, fears, dreams and God……. That’s the treasure that remains.

I think about all three of our lives, and how we are all a miracle. And it’s a miracle how God brought us back together after so many years. I smile, because I know He jotted it all down in His book when we talked about Him right there in that coffee shop. We had church.

He was listening as we exchanged survivor’s stories about how He saved our shipwrecked lives.

And now that He’s brought us back, I know it’s just the beginning of a friendship that will last until we do.

Then those whose lives honored God got together and talked it over. God saw what they were doing and listened in. A book was opened in God’s presence and minutes were taken of the meeting, with the names of the God-fearers written down, all the names of those who honored God’s name. Malachi 3:16

Choosing the Scars

If you asked me for proof of whether God exists and whether He works in the lives of people, I would ask you to peer into my life; for I believe its in the story of our lives where He does His best work. If you could have been watching, you would have seen a girl kneeling by her bed, the one with the ruffly pink chenille bedspread, the one our dog always peed on when it was fresh from the laundry, knowing even then that God was listening.

God has His fingerprint on us from the start, and either we are born with someone in our lives who confirms that or denies it. One thing I know, throughout our lives God keeps tapping us on the shoulder, trying to remind us He’s still there.

My life has been shot through with miracle after miracle, and so has yours. I was born 3 months early in a time when that was a real emergency. If we hadn’t been visiting my Aunt, who lived very close to Stanford Hospital when my Mom went into labor, I may have been returned to sender even before I took a breath.

Flash forward to aged 12 where I sat in the dermatologist office for the first time, a curtain of hair hanging in front of a face marred with early onset adult cystic acne. Around that same time, I walked down the church aisle and gave my life to the Lord, because I knew I needed saving in more ways than one.

If you took a slice out of my life during the ensuing years, you would see many good times doing things together as a family, but you would also see hard days when my Dad hated his job, and mornings when my Mom had to literally pray me out the door before the onslaught of the school day.

And even all these years later I can still feel her hand in mine and hear her voice when she prayed those prayers in the mornings by the light of the fire.

Those prayers carried me through High School where I so much wanted to belong but remained locked inside myself because I didn’t know how to be friends with myself let alone anyone else. Every now and then the acne was not as bad, and I almost felt free, but then it would come back and I would retreat again, inside my music and the dark scrawling in the notebook I carried wherever I went.

All those years the Spirit held me close, but those years also left scars that I didn’t let Him heal and because the mirror I used to view myself was a distorted one, I never saw the beauty that others saw, I just saw the scars.

Then, I went on a diet and lost a few pounds and got a few compliments. I became intoxicated with something I could actually control and I found that when I refused food that I really liked I felt a power I had never felt before.

I became my own superhero and 83 pounds was still not thin enough.

But God still held me fast. He heard the tearful prayers of my parents. One night I had a dream that was suffused with a golden light and when I awoke the next morning I knew that the demon had lost and God had won. I ate forbidden scrambled eggs and then the real work started.

In the dark mornings, God and I would get up and run when no one else could see me. Later, my Dad and I (and God) ran together. Rain or shine, we were out there. In the eighties, I joined the throng of women wearing “Flashdance” sweatshirts and leg warmers and traded one addiction for another.

And all these years later when I hear that song on the radio? I smile and remember those days when I got my health back and felt beautiful for the first time in my life ever.

And knowing God was with me all along.

Today, if you’ve ever wondered if there was a God I challenge you to look at your own life and count up all the things you’ve come through.

You are here friend, because He wanted you here.

Right now today where you stand, wherever you stand, He loves you. He has already partnered with you, all you have to do is accept His invitation to partner with Him. Years later, when you are looking back at your life the way I am looking at mine now, and trust me on this, it is the one thing you will never, ever regret.

And if my scars made the difference between knowing Him and not knowing Him? I would choose the scars every single time.

Broken for You

I was rifling through the CD rack when I happened on one from my old church. The one I still miss so much. We caught a golden wave during those years when we worshipped there. It has changed. We have gone back several times and always felt like we were rushed out. It felt like a drive through service. Oh, it was slick and it was smooth and perfect.

No room for the Holy Spirit.

Still, I wasn’t prepared for my own reaction when the first song came on.

One minute I was standing, and the next I was on my knees on the cold laminate floor, hands in the air. With tears streaming, I remembered.

I had forgotten how anointed music sounds, how it affects you. And once again, all those years were back. All those feelings washed over me and something broke apart in my heart. Something inside me broke and I don’t want to be cold and unbroken anymore. I had forgotten how it felt to lose track of time just praising God and it felt……..so……..good.

I remembered how it felt to want to run down in front of the church again, that feeling of surrender.

I remembered how we would lay hands on those around us if they had a need, and how the Spirit felt like waves across the church. Holy……Holy……Holy.

No one should ever leave the church still holding onto a burden, but so often we do just that because we aren’t given the option, or we don’t take it upon ourselves to seek it out.

Yesterday, I needed out of control praise in my own living room. We have had to be too much in control too long, and it was time to let go. I needed the kind of praise I imagine the woman gave Jesus, the one caught in adultery. I imagine how she felt as she waited for the first stone to strike. Wondering how long it would take to die that way.

I imagine her relief as she heard a thud in the dirt instead and then a gentle hand on her shoulder, and an even gentler voice.

I really don’t think as He helped her up she just shook His hand and said, thank you Sir. I think she fell back to the ground and worshipped at His feet. I imagine she slobbered and wiped her tears and clutched at His robe that was dragging in the dust. I have a feeling she cried and prayed loud sobbing wet tears and wiped her nose on the hem of His garment.

And then maybe He helped her up again and smiled and gave her a rag to wipe her nose. And then I think she might have done a crazy dance like King David did all the way home, waving her hands in the air as her heart tasted forgiveness for the very first time.

I did both of those things in my living room yesterday morning, and it felt good. I want this rock inside me to break apart and stay apart. I want to throw the fish in the pan and let it cook itself and stay here forever like Mary, choosing the better part.

I realize we can’t always walk around a broken up mess, but I wonder why I don’t much more often.

Thank you, Lord. Your timing is perfect as usual.

Filling in the blanks

There are scattered clouds over the Superstition mountains this morning, a bit like my header picture, and the moon is still up shining through the window where I sit reminding me as it always does that God is near. I think He gave us the moon not so much for its light, but because it’s really hard to deny God when you stare at the moon. And you can’t very well stare at the sun.

When I see the moon, I see the light of His face shining back at me, His tangible way of saying, “I am still here, and it’s gonna be okay.”

I needed that assurance today. This morning was one of those mornings when I didn’t have many words for God, I felt silence was best. Some prayer times are like that, and it’s okay. I just held the names softly in my heart for Him to see.

This morning my mind got caught up in the game of what if. Every now and then I go down that old path, rethinking my steps away from my hometown, away from my family all those years ago. I wonder how things would have been different if we had opted to stay behind when the company moved. That kind of thinking is never constructive, and I don’t believe it’s a path God wants any of us to go down unless it leads to some positive change for right now.

It also ignores every good step in between, and there have been a lot of those. Steps that were important. Steps that lead us to where we are right now. And where we are now is good.

Besides, that kind of regretful thinking is a little bit like putting myself on the throne instead of God.

Sometimes the mind insists going on rabbit trails that lead to dark empty holes.

I reel my mind back in as I turn my gaze back to the fading moon and know that long after it fades from my view, it is still there. Just like God. Every day we have a choice………..we can either give Him His rightful place on the throne or replace Him with someone or something else. Today I will put Him back where He belongs. And I take comfort in the fact that He can restore lost years and change the hearts that need changing.

Right now, I will open the Psalms to the highlighted yellow, verses that never fail to bring God near and fill in all those empty places of uncertainty with His comfort. The Psalms are great for filling in the blanks on the page, and in the heart.

Selah…..(I don’t know what that means but it sounded good here)

Psalms 9:8-9 “The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, A refuge in times of trouble. And those who know Your name will put their trust in You; for You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You.” Psalm 9:8,9

Psalms 37:23 “The steps of a good man (or woman) are ordered by The Lord, And He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For The Lord upholds him with His hand. Psalms 37:23

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

Belief