Letting the rain speak

I was presented with a gift this morning, it was the pitter patter of rain on my little tin roof. I thought I should give God the respect to stop and listen instead of opening my windbag of prayer requests right away, so I settled back and did just that. Thank you God, for letting me hear You in it this morning. Rain is somewhat of a miraculous thing in the desert. It makes the news. We go outside and gaze at the clouds to see what direction they’re moving to see if we will get more. And Arizona is the only place I have ever experienced the curious phenomena of rain in the front yard and blue skies in the back.

The thought of rain can incite different things when you are in a tent. Fear and dread. Of course the sound of rain on canvas has its own kind of magic, but it’s never a good feeling when you realize you forgot the plastic tarp.

After I thanked God for the gift of the rain, I brought a few before the Throne. For me there is always a readjustment of sorts when I pray, a pulling back, thinking who do I think I am anyway, to enter into that Holy of Holies? Then I remember that when He looks at me He sees me just as I am, but He also sees His Son superimposed in my heart. He tells me that I should come boldly before the Throne, so I do.

Once again I run like a kid into my Daddy’s office where He’s working and though sometimes I think He has every right to shoo me away impatiently He never does. He grabs me……and hugs me, and in His eyes I see nothing but love.

Today in my Bible reading plan, one of the Chapters was Matthew 10. I wondered how it applied to me, here in my comfortable chair, here in my place of peace. I will probably never be flogged in any synagogue, or be brought before any governing authority and be questioned about my faith. I haven’t cured anyone of leprosy lately, or of anything else for that matter.

But this is what I love about Jesus. He spoke to me in those verses anyway. And just when I was feeling like I was less than anyone I read about in Scripture, He assured me that He loves me very much. And as He spoke to my heart, He told me the most important thing I could do here in my corner of the world is to be a conduit for His love, and to not let those things like anger, bitterness, impatience crop up so that the gifts of His Holy Spirit can’t come through.

And He also told me that this little blog can be a perfectly good testimony for Him because in it, I tell others what wonderful things He does in my life, every single day.

Thanks, God. You just have a way of reminding me everyday of just how wonderfully you love me.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:22-25

Why Bach made me cry this morning

I heard the announcement for the Brandenburg concerto before it came on and I was glad. I was on my way to work, with all the people I care about swirling around in my head. Some of my best talks with God are on the way to work. I see the Ford F-150 I see everyday and I pray for my brother because that’s what He drives. I pray for my Mom and Dad who despite their advancing years, have little down time for themselves and so I pray for them too.

And I was praying for Elaine too. Today she has to deal yet again with the director of the care home her Mom will hopefully be going into soon. The truth came out yesterday after he hemmed and hawed and he said, “Well, I don’t really agree with the caseworkers’ Level 1 assessment…..and I really don’t deal with her anyway, I have my own……and actually we get less money from the state for Level 1 care…..” Really.

“Unless,” he said, “the family is willing to contribute monetarily.” So it seems it’s mainly about the money not the care, and that’s disheartening. And when I think of how much stress she is under already, I don’t know why she should have to put up with this as well.

The first strains of music started playing and I wasn’t prepared for the tears when they came. Mascara liquefied as I tried to staunch the flow. All of a sudden, I was 18 again. It was the fall after I had purchased my first stereo, bought with my own money. When I got a real job, it was the first thing on my list. It cost me either $179.00 or $79.00, the years and inflation have skewed my memory on that one.

It took up my whole closet with big tower speakers placed strategically apart on either side of the room. My first classical music album was borrowed from the public library. It was Vivaldi, but one of my first actual purchases was the Brandenburg concertos by Bach. That fall I listened to them over and over.

I would gaze out my bedroom window and watch the gold leaves fluttering in the wind as I listened to that music fill the room and those moments solidified in my mind. Anytime I remember fall back then that’s what I think of.

Right along with cracking walnuts on the garage floor, Halloween, crackling fires, flannel shirts and coconut rolls from the bakery on the corner.

My Mom would tell me to turn it off because it made her nervous. The fast parts anyway. And the slow parts she said made her sad. I think that was what sparked the tears this morning, thinking of her. And my tears fill all over again at my desk just now, because I love her and she is much too close to Heaven for my comfort level and so is my Dad.

And I just want to tell everyone I care about right now, how I wish everything could be easier and I wish I could make it that way for them. And just when I was feeling like one of those silly sentimental people who cry at the drop of a hat I looked across the street and the silly fountain on the corner seemed to be squirting right in time to the music.

It was a Grace moment.

I have learned that God does those things all the time. We just don’t notice all the time. But today I did. He always seems to find a way to make me smile, God does.

“Jesus, your words are troubling me again.”

Jesus, your words trouble me. Just started a new Bible reading plan and ran into my first major speed bump on day 7. I have read these words so many times and yet when I read them today I had to close my Bible and have a conversation with God.

It’s funny how I breezed through all the other verses so easily. It was all black and white, all so right, that is until I got to this verse:

^“But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also.”

It is one of those many troubling things that Jesus said, and I could not seem to sail over it as easily as I did all the others.

It’s because when I read it, I kept thinking of an incident that happened just recently in my hometown. A 91-year-old lady was beaten within an inch of her life, one very well-known in the community and known to my family, when two thugs broke in to her home. She had just come in from watching a bicycle race that was going by her house when they followed her in.

I think they got a TV but that’s about it.

Her husband was home at the time but out in the back doing work in their orchard when it happened. She managed to live through the terrible ordeal after spending weeks in intensive care.

I am having a hard time reconciling the events I hear about each and every day with this verse. I hear about someone breaking into a store and I want to cheer when I hear the shopkeeper had a gun and they used it. I want to defend what is mine, what I have worked for. And I want others to have the right to do the same.

I am struggling with this hard saying today, because I look at all the evil in our society and I think that they are taking over and we have to take it back.

I think of places in my childhood that used to be safe and they aren’t anymore and that’s sad; so many places taken over by thugs and gangs and drugs.

And what if, God forbid, something should happen to my own folks like what happened to Mrs. Kezsler? Could I truly forgive?

No doubt the Israelites struggled with what Jesus said too. After all, they were an oppressed people, ruled over by an evil empire for hundreds of years up until then. They thought He would free them, and He did, but not how they were expecting, but with love, forgiveness, the cross.

And today I guess He came how I wasn’t expecting either.

I realize again, that all battles start and end in the heart, and I only have to look as far as the cross for my answer.

I didn’t plan for this message today, but it seems fitting, the day we celebrate Martin Luther King’s life and legacy. His message still rings clear after all these years:

” Hatred paralyzes life; Love releases it. Hatred confuses life; Love harmonizes it; Hatred darkens life; Love illuminates it “

Join me at the foot of the cross today, in prayer for our nation. I am thankful that no matter who is in the White House, my God is still on the Throne.

Minimizing regret

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14

If there is one thing that pain and loss and life have taught me it’s that if I live each day with the goal of wanting to please God more in thought word and deed, I greatly minimize the things I regret.

I never seem to regret doing the right thing in hindsight, only the wrong things.

Anger, resentment, worry, selfishness…..all those petty little things I let come between myself and others mean nothing in light of eternity. And now, when time and God have mellowed and aged me, well, more like knocked me upside the head, I would give anything to have those years back.

Time that should have been cherished is forever tainted and that can’t be changed, but I can do something about the time I have right now.

I can cherish it. So today I will gather my loved ones close around me like a precious bouquet. I will inhale deeply, appreciating the sweetness they bring to my life while I still have them. And if they are not near, I will remember to write or call.

Dwelling on the past is never healthy, and yet not all looking back is bad, because it can inspire us to change how we live now. Though my heart aches with scar tissue memory of words I never should have said and things I never should have done, I don’t waste my time punishing myself because there is too much love to give now.

And there is no time to waste. Because time is precious and years have wings.

When you need to find your way home

Sometimes it is very easy to get lost amidst all the traffic online. Being engaged in social media can be a good thing, but it can also make you feel lost in a crowd. You look around and all of a sudden you are in a dark forest full of words and soup and you feel like yours disappear as soon as you hit.

Publish.

You remember when there was light on the path, sunlight filtering through the trees. You were encased in warmth of community, of comfort. You were there once, but you aren’t so much now and you are not even sure how it happened.

You didn’t notice at first just when the sun went behind the clouds. It all got to be confusing and noisy and you noticed less and less peace and more and more pressure.

But there is always a way to get home.

As a writer, as a person, as a believer.

To me, that is the best thing about what we believe. With God, there is always another chance to get home. Every moment, every day. We just need to be reminded how easy it is. How easy to remember that we are already wearing the ruby slippers.

My three taps……..

Getting alone with God in a quiet place.

Remembering who I am writing for, and why I am writing.

Open the pages of the Words He wrote to light the path again.

And really, the truth is, we are all daily prodigals aren’t we? Every day we confess our failings and once more He cleanses our hearts, clears the way for progress, and we get strong enough to go on.

He is just over there in fact, standing right beyond that thick stand of trees you can’t see around. It’s amazing just how close He was all along. “God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Acts 17:28

When I lift my gratitude and focus back to Him, I realize that, like Dorothy, I had everything I needed all along. All I had to do was remember.

And just like that……. I am on a hillside sitting in the Narnian sun with my arm around my Aslan.

Home once more.

Spirituality versus Religion

There was a song by Aaron Tippin called, “You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.” I was thinking of these lyrics the other day when I heard about the study done just recently in England. The study was done on people who readily identified themselves as “Spiritual” as opposed to those affiliated with an established “Religious framework.” This one concluding statement encapsulates the results of their findings:

“People who have a spiritual understanding of life in the absence of a religious framework are vulnerable to mental disorder.”

I usually take studies with a grain of salt. I think we take too many studies that mean nothing. We waste money we don’t have on studies that most people will never know about. However, this one I found interesting because in the last 10 or 20 years I have noticed that “spiritual” demographic growing. I couldn’t count the many times I have heard it in conversation. It is somehow okay and permissible to be “spiritual” but not okay to be “religious” and especially not Christian. That stirs all kinds of moral and ethical questions we would rather not deal with. So being spiritual is for many a good alternative.

But there is a problem with being just “spiritual.” There is no one definition or set of values associated with it. Or is there? I have noticed some things about people who embrace spirituality but not any form of organized religion or belief system. They usually say that all religions are the same. Or they reject it altogether.

They also say that there are many paths to God and that all religions lead there. And if they are not religious at all, they will say that as long as they follow what they define as right they will be okay in the end. So if they follow some golden rule of ethics and rules of conduct they will measure up to God’s standards. But they are not really sure who God is either. They reject the idea of the God of the Bible, because what they have heard or read about that God seems mean, vengeful and outdated.

Their God is better. He is more manageable, more palatable. He doesn’t expect them to do anything except be themselves. He is a big, fluffy fuzzball of love. And being Spiritual doesn’t cost them a thing. And the thing is, I can understand why they have arrived there.

I am afraid for this group. I know some people in it. Too many people. And far too many of our young people. Sorry to say, many of them have watched their parents who have been lifelong churchgoers. They have seen a cheap and easy grace and a faith that makes little or no impact on how they live their lives.

Yesterday sitting in church, I felt just a little bit like Paul felt. My heart ached for those without roots. Those who think they are so solid in their belief system they convince others to go down the same shaky path. They are seeking the peace and rest that only Jesus can provide. I want to tell them their desire to be spiritual is right. It has been grafted into all of our hearts like a seed, planted by none other than God himself.

But Jesus is the only one who can make it grow.

I want to tell them how incredibly good it is to love God. And how nothing in this world compares to the joy of knowing He loves me and there is nothing He wouldn’t do to reach them……. just like He has reached me.

I want to tell them not to hang their whole eternal destination on a false definition of Christianity, on what they perceive about Christians.

Because one glimpse of Jesus is all they need. One glimpse of God on a cross silences any argument we could ever have about whether or not God loves us.

The roots of the cross go deeper than anything this world has to offer.

Meet me today at the foot of it with Jesus.

We can heal together.

The grace to keep walking

“For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Matthew 23:12

Another step was taken down this lonely road we have been walking for the past 2 years. The social worker came to perform an assessment on Elaine’s Mom to determine what kind of facility she can quality for. It was a big step and one taken after much prayer and I will say, agony on the part of a daughter.

And no matter what anyone says and no matter how much the other family members support you? The decision still feels like a sack of cement on your shoulders. Yours and no one else’s. It is overwhelming. It’s a lonely place when you feel like fingers are all pointing at you.

The caseworker was late. And I was not being very understanding. “It’s not like they don’t know what kind of havoc this causes.” I said, not very graciously. Elaine had to be back at work at 1 and she was supposed to be there between 11 and 12. It was now 12:15. And Joyce was perturbed. She asked what time “the warden” was coming. We had to laugh a little at that.

I made myself scarce when she did show up. It is painful enough to have two people listen to how you can’t remember the answers to simple questions, let alone 3. So I bowed out as gracefully as I could, still being available if needed.

She asked all the usual questions….”Do you know your address, do you know whose house this is, do you know what date it is, what day of the week it is”……and over and over again. It was fail, fail, fail.

And haven’t I said over and over again since we started this that I felt a failure myself? A failure at patience, a failure at loving, a failure at showing enough kindness, extending enough grace?

From the other room, fiddling with my phone, I heard snatches of this and that, and I know that she looked to Elaine for the answers, and that she was prompted not to answer for her. They needed an honest assessment.

And it’s there I need to stop when I think of how tragic it all is, to end up where she is right now, and how terribly sad. I wonder how would it be to have strangers ask you questions that will determine where you go for the remainder of your life? Plumbing the depths of a mind that has become cloudy and knowing the answers aren’t there?

Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes has a way of bringing it all home.

And yet it is the best thing, the only thing. It is no longer safe to leave her alone. And it is the best thing for a daughter, who is bending under the strain……who has almost forgotten how it is not to live under a dark cloud.

It has brought me to my knees over and over again, and Elaine much more than I. She has had tremendous grace through it all. She has treated her Mom with the kindness and nurturing that she herself was never given, even as a child. Now that’s what I call true grace. Jesus grace.

And really, unless we grasp firmly onto the Grace that Jesus offers, we are all sunk. So again and again, I can only thank God for giving us the hope that will never fail.

And for each new day, which comes with its own supply of fresh manna grace. I had to learn it again when I found out the case worker, bless her heart, has her own tale of heartache, which spilled out while she and Elaine were talking out in front of the house.

I feel the loving reprimand of God once more.

Grace, more grace, I pray.

Bible verses that make you go……Hmmm.

Have you ever been sailing along, happily reading through Scripture, when you get snagged on a verse? You read it over and over, and yeah, by golly it still says the same thing. I was in my prayer room this morning happily flipping through different passages when this happened to me. Here is what I read:

Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. Hebrews 10:32-35

Do you see it? The line jumped out at me, in fact it was like one of those speed bumps in the parking lot you sail over when you’re not really paying attention. “Joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property.” I don’t know about you, but if anyone came to confiscate my property I would not be joyful about it. I would be shrieking, “Mine, mine, mine!” like a three-year old fighting over a toy. Well, maybe not out loud, but in my heart, that’s what I would be saying.

Basically, I want to keep what’s mine unless I have some control about who gets it. And I think I have a pretty healthy perspective on things and their value. I believe in being a good steward of what God has given me and I work hard to not live above my means.

I, or I should say we, since I am a co-owner, made a decision about 8 years ago to downsize drastically and get out of debt. I think it was one of the best decisions we ever made. We went from a nice home on a corner lot, to a manufactured home in a 55 plus community. No, I wasn’t 55 when I moved in, but if you are 45 or so they will make concessions, especially if you have cash in hand and one of you is 55 or close to it. And right after our home sold? The real estate market crashed. We got the most money for our home that anyone will ever get. It was God’s timing.

And I love this place, it’s home. A little oasis in the desert. A place of peace carved out in the here and now.

Having said all that, I still struggle with that line in the verse.

I know I still clutch too tightly to things. I want to keep my iPhone and my iPad, thank you. I can do some good with those. I am American and I have lived 53 years with the idea of the American Dream. When an ideology has shaped how you think and live, it is not an easy thing to turn loose of. The early church didn’t live with that dream, however. They had a living breathing Messiah that they would have followed to the ends of the earth. And so do we.

One thing I do know, that if I had everything taken away today? If my world, everyone and everything in it picked clean like Job’s was? I would hate it, but I would still be okay somehow because God would bring me through it.

Because the hope the early church had is mine too.

Because I have learned that Jesus is my everything and nothing this world has to offer could ever compare with Him.

Because the true treasures of this life are people and not things, and I know that if they were all gone today, it would be only a little while before I would see them again in Heaven.

That’s what the early church had.

That’s what you and I have too.

Of a Saturday…….

I left the parking lot at work this past Saturday, needing to return two books from the library, that is, the right library. I threw the wrong one in my local library bin and had to have them fetch it back. That’s what comes from being a card holder at two public libraries.

After I did that, I felt the need for a little drive. Sometimes I do this on my hour break, because when you work on Saturdays sometimes it feels like everyone else on earth is off enjoying life except for you. Sometimes you want a piece of leisure, even if it’s only a little slice borrowed from someone else.

I rolled the windows down and the sun poured in with a light breeze along with it. In order to do proper observation, you really need sights and sounds both. I drove along in my sunny yellow bug and I drank in what I saw.

I saw people enjoying time off and in watching them, part of the blessing fell on me. With the sun on my face, I saw one man rollerblading down the street, and then another walking his dog.

I drove past the little house that has all the goats, and saw them all gathered close by the fence around a woman who might have been feeding them. Several had babies and I wanted to go talk to her and pet the goats but I couldn’t make a u turn from there so I drove on.

I drove around the back of the school and saw instructors giving tennis lessons at the school courts, a big group was practicing their swings and serves, slicing the air with their racquets.

Another large group had a basketball game going. They moved like a school of fish, back and forth across the courts…..punctuated with shouts and the tap of the ball on the concrete.

It was good, watching them all. I felt just a trace of what God must feel watching us all, the people he created. As a detached observer, it was easy to feel the love He has for all of us all a little bit more. I felt the weight of the truth, that we really are just one big earthly family. Dysfunctional as all get out, but here.

Striving, trying, hoping, wishing…..living life and taking time out when we can; savoring those moments of time carved out from work, responsibility.

We lift the lid to that time capsule just for a moment and breathe deep…….we remember how it felt to live like a child with nothing but the here and now.

For a moment, we forget all the grown up junk that is weighing us down.

And it feels good.

And yet, because we are human, we look ahead to where yesterday lives and tomorrow lurks, worried and pressed down and shaken together about things that happened in the past or may happen in the future.

As I head back into the building, I hear a bird call and it was so sweet that it made me want to cry. I remembered a time when the pool of grief was so deep that I couldn’t believe the birds had the nerve to sing, and yet somewhere I was grateful they were. So now when I hear birds I am reminded of all God brought me through. Birds and I have a special bond because now I hear them as the miracles they are. God makes both of us sing.

He has taught me the most important lesson of all, that no matter what goes on in this life, JOY is mine forever because of Him.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3: 14-19

This One Day

Wherever we are, it’s just a little season…..

In 1 or 5 or ten years, it will be only a memory.

Even one you may have to conjure up to remember all the details…….

Someday, we will be standing on the edge of an eternity without end.

And all these little moments will be nothing but little blips on a very small screen,

but then,

we will realize just how much they all mattered.

But God says, “Pay attention to this one day, and in it, you will find eternity in Me.”

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own………..Jesus

I have lost my footing as of late. I have forgotten where I came from and where I started. Why I live and why I write. Worry and stress had swallowed it whole. But I found my footing again today.

And really, isn’t that what it’s all about? Getting back on the trail?

Today, I am picking up my walking stick and with eyes up, I look with anticipation at what lies ahead.

You come too.

Lori's Prayer Closet

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

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