Belief

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.

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

When God says the story isn’t quite finished

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This story started with someone who dared to do something brave. Something for himself but mostly something for Him because sometimes we need more than words to express our love, our devotion to the One who has given us life. When I hung the painting I could see it from the kitchen and it always made me smile because I remember the conversation (via text) we had about what verse to put on it. Read the account “here.”

Over and over again, my eye would travel back to that yellow in the corner, and somehow I knew I wanted to bring that out. I had seen a floating frame, one specifically used for framed canvases that I really loved. It made a canvas stand out, almost like 3D and I loved the depth of that. I wanted it. Elaine was getting nervous because she knows once I get something in her head, I never let it go. After a few visits to frame shops she said, “I will make it, how hard could it be?”

She had never made a frame before, but anyone who knows my best friend knows that not ever having done something only spurs her on to further action. She’s a problem solver, a fixer of the broken, a restorer. She is one who never likes to see anything wasted.

In the meantime, last weekend I decided to clean out my dressers. I emptied every drawer……I sifted, I cleaned, I vacuumed out. And it was then that I found it. An old painting my Dad had done when he decided to paint again after a long dry spell. I found it in one of his tablets on one of my visits back home. It had paint marks all along the side of it, like he was testing colors……brush strokes. I don’t even remember asking him if I could have it, I just took it. I was afraid he would throw it away.

The final painting, the one he deemed good enough, was presented to my Sister-in-law one Christmas, back before she went to Heaven.

It was only after I had lifted it out of the pile of papers, that I noticed. I took it over and held it next to the painting that Duane did. I gasped and called Elaine over. “Look,” I said excitedly, “The yellow he used, it’s the very same one!” How could that happen? That two artists, years and miles apart would use that same shade of yellow? But they did. And then I started to think that maybe God was at work here.

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And when I called my Dad last night, he was depressed. But then I told him the whole story and I could hear him smile across the phone lines. “So you took my “mistake” and hung it on the wall?”

“Yes,” I said, “I did.” He paused thoughtfully and then said, “That’s just the kind of thing God does, but you must have your eyes open enough to see it.” What he saw as flawed, I saw as perfection, because he did it.

So now, on my wall I see more than art, more than paintings. I see friendship, and a father. I see love.

I see God bringing people together through what they create. I see something like the Trinity during Creation.

Now when I look at my wall, I see more than just art.

I see a person who refuses to say, “It can’t be done.”

I see another who tried something new and God blessed it.

I see another who overcame fear to resurrect a talent long after they thought it was dead and gone.

And I see someone who brought new life to something left in the scrap heap.

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I see what God has done for each one of us………brought us all out of the reject pile and made us into something new.

Commuter Psalm

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Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. Psalm 5:1-3

Thank you God, for this day.

This light that colors the sky, Your light.

Everything I see here is a reflection of You, Lord.

All these people driving these cars, all the people who built these cars….who fashioned all the parts together, they were just imitating You. You were the first creator, the first artist.

No one can take that title away, that’s Yours forever.

All the souls zooming by me…..are they thinking of You too right now? I know you are thinking of them. I get thoughts while I am driving and I can’t capture them so I just send them to You, knowing that if they are meant to be captured, you will see to it.

You never waste a word, Lord. And speaking of words, Lord. Thank you for yours for that’s how I know you. If I never pick it up, how will I really know you? You will be something I dreamed up in my head, my own idea of what I think you should be, and that’s not the one I want.

Your Words are precious to me, for through them I know how much You love me.

Please Lord, let me be a reflection of Your love to others. If people don’t see your love in me, then I need to ask myself if I really know you as well as I think I do.

I think this is what you want us to be:

Little mirrors walking around reflecting your love, your light.

That’s all.

Anything else gets too complicated.

And if anyone wants to see true goodness, they only need to look to You.

And P.S. God? Thank you for helping me get all the way to work this morning without road rage. Amen

But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield. Psalm 5:11,12

I dreamed a dream

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I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go fill in one more blank on my sermon notes. I couldn’t listen to one more sermon. Not this Sunday. I felt full to the brim of being edified, pumped up, praised up. I thought……what if. What if I devoted that hour to going out and asking God who He wanted me to help that day. Who he wanted me to pray for.

What if I gave Him full permission, power, control. What if I gave Him his authority, his Lordship. His rightful place in my life. I wonder how different my walk with Him would look?

I dreamed of  what would happen if I stopped doing church and took the church out to the world. I dreamed of thousands of people spilling out onto the streets.  Churches set up in parks feeding the homeless, and places where the lost and lonely gather.

I dreamed a dream of empty pews.

And then I dreamed of people streaming back into church with new purpose. Remembering why they were there. I dreamed that churches would look more like hospitals and a place where you could always feel welcomed, loved, accepted.

I remembered how Jesus sent them out two by two. I imagine how excited they all must have been, buoyed up by a fresh dose of Holy Spirit power, looking forward to doing and seeing wondrous things, miracles.  I wondered at Jesus’ timing when after he got done instructing them He added this dire footnote:

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

“Wow, Lord…..I can’t wait to go now!” Jesus can be a little scary. And honestly? A bit of a wet blanket at times. But He’s also never boring. Following Jesus is anything but boring. And follow is just what He asks of us. No matter where that road leads.

There’s a time for everything in its season, and sometimes you need to go to church and be built back up after the world has used you for its punching bag, I know,  I’ve been there. There is a time for being mended, and I have had holes in my heart mended in church more times than I can count. But then I get comfortable. I get complacent. And I sense Jesus tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Now that I have mended you, go mend someone else.”

Sometimes the best way to stay afloat yourself is by helping someone else.

I think if the gospels and Jesus are not just a little disturbing then I wonder if you have really grasped the full message. If Jesus is not just a little unsettling then I wonder if I really know what he requires of me. Follow Me. Follow me even though you are afraid of where I might take you. 

That is scary for a clinging to the side of the pool person like me.

But Jesus is a God of His word. He said He’d never leave me and I believe Him. And in a way, I am thankful for my fear for it keeps me close to Him.

I dreamed a dream. But I think it may happen.

I have been reading about what it really means to follow Jesus in the book Follow Me by David Platt. I highly recommend it. Not very comfortable reading but sometimes we need that.

Follow Me

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“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”

“We’ve all made our mistakes, and dwelling in the past can destroy us. The solution is to make the most of the time we have left on this earth.” Francis Chan

For the Christian, how should that look? What does making the most of the time mean in the context of what Jesus requires of us? David Platt answers these questions by holding a light up to what the Bible (and Jesus) actually say. Sometimes it is painful to stare hard into the light of the truth of Scripture. It’s much easier to accept what many of our modern churches tell us.

“All you have to do is repeat this prayer after me.”

Jesus said we needed to lose our life in order to save it.

“Just believe in your heart, and you will be saved.”

Jesus said we needed to pick up our cross and follow him.

I checked this book out at the library, but I am turning it in and buying a copy on Amazon instead. I am already wanting to get out my highlighter and mark it up. And I am only on page 18.

That’s about all I have to say today, but I am sure as I delve into this book I will have much more…….

How we can lose our fear

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Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand. Isaiah 41:10

He didn’t know it, but when he said he was selling that first painting, I went and looked at my walls for a space. I loved the message…..”You are enough.” So simple and yet so powerful, as if God was speaking from Heaven drawing the eye toward that light, with a message for all the world.  And then he said it was sold, but that he would paint one for me. I caught my breath. He did he know? Maybe it was all those “likes” on Facebook. I don’t remember saying I wanted one. But I did.

And it’s anointed, I know that.  Because whenever God joins up with us to create something, the message always reaches more than who it’s originally intended for.

In between stammering and searching for words I told him that my Dad painted watercolor and how it was growing up with paints around. How he would put a black “X” through a painting we all thought was perfect but he didn’t.

I told him about how I have always battled fear, always been unsure of my own abilities, always looking for confirmation.  But maybe I should be grateful, it’s the one thing that has kept me close to my Father’s side.

When we settled on the quote, I knew it was right. Isaiah is one of my favorite books in all the Bible.

Last night, Elaine stood in the kitchen overwhelmed because so much was over and she was afraid of relaxing;  of not knowing where or when the emotion would finally release itself. I said, “At some point when you finally settle down and relax, you will wonder how you ever got through it all.” She said, “Yes, that’s what I’m worried about, that’s when it will hit.” 

No more school, no more double duty rest home visits between runs. No more sleeping out on the porch listening to motorcycles cut through the night at all hours, screaming off to who knows where. No more sleeping with ice packs because it’s still 100 degrees and your Mom doesn’t even realize she is sleeping in your old room. No more battles over showers. No more watching her Dad lose his grip on this life and pass into the next.

No more. And it scares her to death. Because now it feels like she just dove off a cliff and forgot her parachute.

Yes, this message is for more than just me. It is for her too, as well as the artist who painted it. Really, it’s a message God wants all of us to get. It’s an open invitation to be inspired to leave our fears behind.

Inspiration, when it starts with God, spreads outward like ripples in a lake. When we create something with our own hands, it’s like He is inviting us into His personal sanctuary. To our surprise, we discover that the transubstantiation that takes place during the creative process actually has the power to give life. Whatever we make then becomes glory for Him.  

“Do not fear, for I am with you.” Like a voice in the wilderness it beckons.

Thank you Duane for using your talent for His glory, and thank you Jessica for encouraging this, a little bird told me you did.

When God sounds like a Jewish mother

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Days like today it seems like praying amounts to throwing a cup of water into the ocean. All around me, everyone I am close to is in some kind of crisis mode. I don’t mean things like your car wouldn’t start or you didn’t get the grade you thought you deserved on that test. I mean big things. Life altering things. Problems so big they actually swallow everything else up and leave you reeling, trying to catch your breath and recalculate the direction of your life.

Problems that eclipse all the regular normal day-to-day life as you know it.

Right now, if my heart could make a sound, it would be like that dove I hear crying right at this very moment outside this window.

I am in here right now, in my prayer closet. My little shed where so much happens. My back is having some kind of a spasm today and after trying to sit unsuccessfully in this chair, I grasp the table and stagger to my feet.

Suddenly I hear God sounding very much like a Jewish mother in my head. “So quit complaining, already. You just finished saying how great the need was, so you can still kneel right? Is there anything wrong with your knees? Are they broken? Oy vey….these kids I have to deal with.”  

This alone proves how much of a healthy sense of humor God has. He had me there.

It’s not that I know much about Jewish mothers mind you, but I have my own Mom who never fails to remind me how good I have it and how others don’t when she catches a whiff of anything close to me feeling sorry for myself.

I glimpse the globe which for a reason that will soon be apparent, didn’t make it to storage. I slid it up to where I was kneeling so I could see it, this world that God so loves. I touched that globe, and then God revealed to me what it was there for in the knot of tears that formed around my throat and threatened to spill over.

Sometimes God uses props. I layed both hands on it then, and I prayed for everyone in my life, and then the world too.

I thought of Moses and his staff, Jeremiah and his linen belt. Me with my forehead now resting on the globe, in this little prayer shed, in this town, on this planet. And then I felt just a little bit like God must feel when He looks down on this earth, knowing He could change it all in an instant, waiting for us to do what we expect Him to. He has given us everything we need to help, to heal the ocean of pain, but too often we look to Him because it’s so much easier to blame someone else.

God is an easy target.

Sometimes I think we read the verse about how He so loved the world and we leave it right there in that past tense. The truth is, He is actively loving it still. He never stopped.

Each and every day when the sun comes up He proves it all over again.

All these things have to play out in each of our lives. Next year it may be something entirely different, but God will still be the same.

He is after all, the God of yesterday, today and forever.

And even if it sometimes feels useless to pray? It never is.

Because He hears every one.

And sometimes He uses props to prove His point.

Diary of a mad shift worker

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Glad god can’t sleep and that’s good because that makes it really handy for when I need Him (which is pretty much all the time.)
 
Awake at three I stare at the dark ceiling and wonder what I should do with a full hour. An hour of precious sleep makes my mind rebel against doing anything else but. I could pray but……
 
Can I pray with one half of my mind when the other half is sleep obsessed?
 
I could get up and read the Psalms or Wonderstruck but I lie awake and see if I get drowsy.
 
Now that I am awake the cats walk in circles like hawks around me.
 
I decide god can hear the praying half.  With that one half I pray for the Jumping Tandem retreat, and for Elaine, Diane, my family, Dawn’s Uncle. Pat. 

I thank Him for yesterday today and forever.  

I don’t pray because I am a good person, I pray because I need Him and so does everyone else. And because hard things are going on down here.

But thankfully, a lot of good is happening too. Now is always a good time to Praise.
 
I could get up and eat green jello.
 
I think for the hundredth time that unless there is a conversion experience, people pretty much die how they have lived. Either peacefully or kicking and screaming and making it inconvenient and difficult for everyone right up to the end,

Or with a measure of peace and grace knowing they have done the best they good with God’s help and joy knowing they are going home.

And for one last request, for my prayer request to happen soon. You know what it is, God.

Because you are up all night and nothing gets past You. And I am so glad.

Indeed, he who watches over Israel (and me) will neither slumber nor sleep. Psalm 121:4

photo credit: Google images