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December 18th, 2011
Seeing God Differently
SEEING GOD DIFFERENTLY… contemplations in the middle of the night as baby Nicholas sees how long he can keep his daddy, mommy, and traumatized chihuahua awake with his loud singing abilities…
My friend’s sister died today. And parts of so many family member’s and friends’ hearts have died, too. Right now there is a lot of shock and grief happening. A lot of struggling with the terrible reality of death. It isn’t OK with us. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We weren’t made for death but for life. And with the curse of sin those thousands of years ago, even though we now have the promise of everlasting life, we now have to face the darkness of death first.
An acute asthma attack was what stole her away. And now she has left behind parents, siblings, an adoring husband, and so many friends. And life will never ever be the same for them. They’ll get through it. But they will never exactly get over it. When you lose someone like that, someone so young – just ripped from you like that… you will always see life differently. You will see reality differently. Earth differently. Heaven differently. God differently.
You’ll see reality differently because your life goes through the blender and tumbles out in a jumble that takes time to put together again. Earth differently in that possessions, time, and being alive all of a sudden seem so fleeting. Heaven because it is just more “for real” than ever before since, in a sense, you have one foot in the world and one foot in Heaven now because someone who was just walking beside you on earth is now really for real there. Really for real with Jesus.
And, you’ll see God differently in that you will come to know Him in a way you never knew Him before and never knew you could know Him. You’ll experience a profound depth of His grace as He carries you on His pillow of strength. A depth of His love and gentleness. A depth of His faithfulness that holds you as you weep.
Or you will come to see Him as an uncaring incapable God, one who has cheated you and failed you.
Almost a decade ago I sat at my church in DC at the funeral of a young woman – 22 or 23 years old – who had been preparing to be married that same month. Her kidneys had suddenly stopped working. But then she seemed to be getting better and we had all been praising God and breathing normally again. She ordered a hamburger at the hospital and was smiling. But then suddenly again she wasn’t OK and, before we could believe it, she was stepping on Heaven’s shores, breathing air celestial. And now in the front of the church spoke her father in the tuxedo he was going to wear to his daughter’s wedding. I cried throughout the funeral as most everyone did. What most struck me was the sister sitting there. I guess because I could relate to her. I knew what it was like to lose a sister suddenly. A sister I thought would always be there and one I thought I needed. I knew the anguish of my sister being killed, her body broken on a muddy sidewalk. So I wept for this sister and now I weep for my friend. Because, although her story is different, I know the anguish and loss.
I question sometimes what God’s up to. Why does He allow excruciating losses? And what is His reasoning? Why does He sometimes give and sometimes not. Sometimes heal and sometimes not. Why did He choose not to heal my friend’s sister. I mean He can do anything. So why didn’t He touch her brain and bring it back to life? He does that sometimes. Why not now? Or why did he choose to give me a child – the child I longed for and pled for and kept dying to my own hopes for – who now rests peacefully in my arms? He answered my tears and prayers and gave me this treasure. But He doesn’t to everyone. And sometimes He gives a pregnancy and then ends it. Why?
It is tempting to try to think of it in human terms, how one might naturally reason something out. But if I do that I come up with woefully inadequate – and sometimes angering or hopeless – answers. Such as, if God does everything for His glory and because He wants to make me more like Himself, was I a particularly bad or dumb girl and that’s why He had to go to extreme measures in order for me to grow to be more like Him? And then the next conclusion would be that He used my sister as a pawn in His plan to finally make me good and so if I hadn’t been a bad one she wouldn’t have had to die. Or maybe God just doesn’t like me or is too weak or doesn’t care. Stupid answers like that are what come to mind if I try to reason God’s ways as if He were a human working only in the natural realm. I can’t do that. What I must do is trust what God’s Word says and also be willing to embrace the mystery of God’s ways. What I mean by this is that, at the end of the day, although I can find a lot of answers in Scripture where I come to understand God’s character and set up my tent stakes deep into the foundation of that reality, I can’t always understand His actions. And that’s when I have to wrestle to rest in God’s character and wrestle to rest in the mystery of His greatness that reigns outside of human thinking and earthly time and earthly consequence. I’m a reasoner. Analytical. Think it througher. And that’s a great strength of studying the discipline of theology. But ultimately even the greatest systematic theology book cannot bring my heart to total rest until I embrace that I cannot understand God’s actions always, but I can – I must or I will die spiritually and emotionally the next time I face sorrow – embrace His character (His goodness, faithfulness, sovereignty, love, etc.) that I know does not change.
God clearly tells us in Scripture that He is all about His glory. And, as He brings glory to Himself it results in our joy as we look to Him. I’m totally on board with that when it comes to moments like when my son was laid on my chest for the first time three weeks ago. I struggle to be on board with that strand of thinking, though, when His glory doesn’t seem to bring about my joy – such as when someone dies.
In pondering this I have to ask what joy is. And I have to ask what God’s goodness is. Joy isn’t the same as happiness. Joy comes from the awesome peace and hope we gain in refocusing into the depths of God’s faithfulness. It is a security profound. An eternal insight in the God of all grandeur who has covenanted His lovingkindness toward His people. It really has nothing to do with our circumstances and actually can be strongest in the midst of sorrow or suffering because those experiences tend to bring us to the end of ourselves so that we run to God in a way that we don’t always do with normal everyday happenings.
And God’s goodness. The Lord of Hosts who rides upon the highest heavens has a good system way larger than my “goodness” equation of happy/ease/comfort = good. He has woven a beautiful tale of redemption for His people starting before the earth began, brought to its height at the cross, will be brought to completeness at the eternal wedding feast. And every second between these events our God is actively engaged in bringing about His grand plan. If we could see all of reality as God sees it we would understand and embrace God’s workings. We would understand how all of His actions result in good. But we can’t obviously. And that’s part of what it means to walk in faith as we place our hope in the Author of Hope, in the trustworthiness of His character that can’t turn against goodness because that’s an essence of who He is.
As He works His goodness in this world broken under the curse of sin, I know that, when He allows experiences of sorrow He is working on multiple levels. God is most concerned in each person’s life with proclaiming His glory and, one way He does that is through sanctifiying them – making them more like Him. This being so, He is working for His good eternal purpose in each person’s life affected by sorrow. No one is a pawn that something bad happens to just to teach another a lesson. Everyone involved has been placed in their exact situation because our loving God has a special plan for what He wants to do in each life.
Another aspect of God’s goodness I must mention… we need to come face to face with the rather non-politically correct statement that God doesn’t exactly owe us anything. He owes us the promise He made to His Son – that we would be joint heirs of Christ and be eternally with Him. But the Proverbs and the many Scriptures (about general life happiness) recorded in Scripture are only the general direction of God’s benevolence toward His children. And, if turning upside down a particular general good (like keeping a sister alive) would bring about greater glory to the Father, and greater eternal joy to His people, then God is going to do that. We may not understand this. That’s when we have to embrace the mystery of God’s greatness and sovereignty in weaving His eternal beautiful plan.
And so when I understand that it frees me a lot. It frees me from trying to put the idea of joy into my happiness stencil, and goodness into my ease/comfort stencil, which ultimately seems like I am not being true to logic, trying to paste on a fakey acceptance of God’s ways when I know deep down that doesn’t add up.
In closing I bring myself to the decision point of whether I accept these truths I have just written. Do I believe God is good? Do I believe He works all things for His glory and, through that, brings about my joy? If I do not, I am ultimately saying God is lying since this is what He has promised to us in Scripture. Choosing not to believe this – to not embrace it intellectually and then, with God’s help, yield my heart and emotions to this reality – would be to deny the whole foundation on which I have based my life while yet still trying to say I’m a Christian. And that would be illogical.
I once heard someone say “God has entrusted you with a very great sorrow.” I like that phrase now, although at first I wasn’t sure about it. It sounded like they were saying it is a gift to have been given that suffering. To see it that way isn’t something we can sum up at all in our own ability. But that’s where God comes in. Again that mystery. The way that, as we fall broken before Him, He upholds. He sustains. He even restores – maybe not with the person, but with Himself in glorious fullness. Indeed it is a profound mystery.
So, yes, suffering causes you to see God differently. And when you say, “God, OK, I’m not OK with this. I am hurting beyond belief right now. But I ask you to help me wrestle through this. Help me see Your ways in this even though I don’t understand Your actions”….that’s when you will come to know Him in a way you never knew Him before and never knew you could know Him. You’ll experience a profound depth of His grace as He carries you on His pillow of strength. A depth of His love and gentleness. A depth of His faithfulness that holds you as you weep.
November 29th, 2011
 A Facebook note I wrote in June. Our baby was born this month  .
For this child we prayed…
For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me
my petition that I made to Him” 1 Samuel 1:17.
Sometimes I am surprised.
Sometimes God’s goodness creeps up on me in such an overwhelming way.
Just out of the blue my life completely turns upside down and begins
a new course, transforming it into never the same again.
…There was that moment that I visited Florida in December 2004 and sat in
my first seminary class. I learned to know God in a way that has been profoundly
beautiful.
And my life has never been the same since.
…And then of course the moment when Nicholas contacted me again several
years after breaking off our original engagement. 7 months later I was married to
the most wonderful man and I’ve never been so happy (we’re still waiting for the
moment people warned us about when we’d wake up and think “I can’t believe
I am married to him/her!” We’ve decided it will never happen.) We’ve never been
so in love and our ardent respect and love for each other only grows as each day passes.
So,
yes,
sometimes the goodness of God creeps up quietly and then overwhelms me
with a shocking joy.
Because I think a special song in my heart has to do with suffering, I
often relate God’s goodness to what He teaches me through suffering.
Because of that, I don’t always expect God to give me a deep happiness –
or at least I think He will take me through a hard journey first.
Terrible to say, I forget that God is a Father who delights in giving good
(and sometimes that just means easy, happy – getting the bread right away
instead of first seeming to get a stone – Matthew 7) gifts to His girls and boys.
Well,
this January I wrote a note titled “Trusting God When I’m Not in the
Mood.” I shared our decision that I quit law school for a year. We had
several sortof reasons why. Saving money for adoption was one of them. I loved
law school and I felt emotionally crushed. But Nicholas felt strongly about
it. He didn’t even know all the reasons why – logically in many ways it
seemed to make sense to keep going – I was loving it and doing well, but
he just felt in his heart that this year I needed to take a break.
He didn’t make me quit. But I knew God led through him and I trusted
him. So I did. And it was really hard at first because it felt as if God just took
away one of my greatest joys.
In February I herniated a disc in my back and was in bed for a month and a
half (and am still healing). During that time I realized that trying to do law school
that semester would have been a disaster. But I didn’t really understand
why I had to go through the pain – what was the point of this?
There seemed to be no reason why. I literally laid still and rested
constantly because that’s all I could do.
Around that time I went through some days of deep discouragement in
seeing our finances being eaten up a little here a little there. Nothing
major – just little frustrations that seemed to be stealing from our adoption
funds.
Such as my little dog jumping on the sofa and, because of a bladder
infection, draining himself onto the sofa. He had never done anything like
that before or since and he had to pick the week I was already discouraged.
I “wasted” 100 dollars getting the sofa clean. When I handed
the upholstery cleaning man the money, I felt so angry. Didn’t God know that
we needed that money for the adoption?
The Lord reminded me that He is the Provider.
HE will provide for a
baby in HIS way and I needed to give it up to Him.
It was at this time that I learned that Hollie, my husband’s sister,
was pregnant. I was sooo happy for her. But it also reminded me of what
several doctors had told me over the years – that I wouldn’t be able to have
children. I stood in my parents-in-laws kitchen and starred into a cabinet
just to give myself something to do.
And I had to make a choice. I would, by God’s grace, rejoice with her. I would
separate my personal pain from the joy of her baby and I would delight in this
pregnancy. And I did. And I delighted in my husband’s brother’s wife being pregnant.
Sometimes I still sat on the bed and cried with Nicholas. Sometimes I
really struggled with resting in God’s plan. But I did rejoice and I made myself go
back to God’s promises of good plans for His children – claiming them with my mind,
making myself sing praises to God, delighting in my family’s joy, even when sometimes
my emotions felt more like pouting or giving in to despair.
It was in February, at my parents-in-laws, that I read a great little book on yielding
(written by a missionary from their home church). And, although I know I had yielded
this issue to the Lord in the past, it was with renewed peace and hope that I really
committed my womb to the Lord… telling Him very childlikely that I knew He was
the God of miracles and He could send us His child for us through adoption or
even put a baby right into my womb.
I really said that , something like: “You can even just put a baby in
there, Lord. I know You can do anything. And if you choose not to, I will praise
You. And if you choose to make adoption take longer than I had hoped, I will
praise You.”
It was a very sweet, broken, time for me. Because of my theology, I don’t
believe this pray “changed God’s mind”… but I believe it was a very
strategic moment of being reminded that God is good and sovereign and
the one in whom I can and must rest. I also happened to read the book
“Hinds Feet on High Places” that a friend just happened to forget when she
had come to visit. Every night I’d read a little and go to sleep thinking on
facets of God’s faithfulness and the vitality of resting in His good plan.
This was such a soulstrengthener to me.
On Saint Patrick’s day (such a good day! St. Patrick – the real St. Patrick
– not the one of myths – was a great follower of Christ), as I was driving to the
back doctor, I had this feeling that I should stop to get a pregnancy test
since taking all this medicine may not be safe for pregnancy. I dismissed that as
a silly thought and remember thinking the drugstore was on the wrong side of the
road anyway.
Well, on the way home I just happened to take a different route and drove
right by the parking lot.
So for some reason I stopped. I felt crazy. I didn’t want Nicholas to
see it… not that I wanted to hide it from him, but I didn’t want him to see
it and think I had thought I was pregnant and then wasn’t and was so
heartbroken, since I didn’t really think I could be pregnant anyway.
But there was one doctor last year that gave us a thread of hope.
It was too fragile a hope for me so I had kept that little thread safely
tucked away in a closet of my heart somewhere. But I pulled out that thread for a
moment and considered it. And I picked up the test. Still, deep down, thinking it
was silly and wasted emotional energy.
On the way home I had to stop at Starbucks to pick
up more coffee beans for Nicholas and there was a line so I decided to take
the test while I waited.
And it was positive.
And my thought was: “well that’s interesting”… rather in shock and disbelieving it.
When I got home I took another and it was still positive… so I just marched into
Nicholas’ office and handed it to him. He told me later he didn’t know what all
those lines on the test meant but figured, if I was handing him a pregnancy test,
there must be a reason.
So we went to the doctor and sat there in total shock. The doctor didn’t even
think at first that we were happy because we looked so serious since we were so stunned! We are completely in awe of God’s goodness in giving us this child!
It came as a total astonishment as we were saving for our adoption and really
had developed a heart for adoption (which maybe will be God’s plan for future children).
Only one of my many doctors – the one my dad at the Hotze Clinic in Houston
my dad read about in an airline magazine last year – had ever thought there was
still a chance for pregnancy. It was so much fun to tell this doctor the news!
favorite response, though, was from a relative… when we said: “We want to tell you
about your new grandchild”, who said in horror: “You got another dog!?!”
At first I was really tempted to feel afraid. It seemed too scary – how could I handle
it if this became a miscarriage?
And, since we didn’t know when I had conceived, the first time we had an ultrasound
the doctor couldn’t see anything and thought it could be a miscarriage.
The next few weeks were emotionally heart wrenching.
Years ago this dream had practically died in my heart – for it to be resurrected
and then taken away… that just seemed too painful.
Nicholas, as well as something a professor at DTS just happened to say in class one
day, taught me to praise God every day for the time I have had with my child
instead of looking ahead in fear not knowing how long I will have with him/her.
The professor (whose daughter almost died when she was 19 and he was faced
with not being sure if God would take her from him)
talked with the class about how God doesn’t exactly “owe” us anything -
He owes us the promise He made to His Son of redemption… but if,
in His providence, what are the normal blessings of life aren’t what God
has for us, then that is the lot God has given us and we are to still rejoice
in His goodness. Instead of demanding through fear that God not take away what
He has given us, we have to realize the privilege it is to have them for however
long He wants us to have them (I didn’t quite write all of that exactly how
he said it, but that was the general idea).
And then that great verse in Matthew that reminds me that I cannot add an hour
to my life (or my baby’s life) through worry – that ministered to me as well.
So every day we committed to praising God for the days He had given us with
our baby… so “thank you God for 8 weeks and 1 day”, etc. That became such a joy-giver
to me.
It allowed me to find so much joy in this special season, while also a deep
confidence in God’s good sovereignty no matter what tomorrow will bring.
I look at the barren women of the Bible… so many… and I have their
stories specially marked on the back page of my Bible. I guess God did bring me
through a season of suffering before He gave me this gift (even before I got
married I had been grieving this issue).
And I think on my prayer over the years as I read those stories in Scripture…
that God would turn my barrenness to joy for His glory – in whatever ways
HE wanted.
And
I think now of what He has done for us… and I’m completely in wonder of
His great kindness – how He has surprised us with this miracle baby.
He didn’t have to give us a baby.
And
He didn’t have to give us one now (He could have waited until later and I could
have faced that struggle of
rejoicing and hurting all those months when my sister-in-law was pregnant).
But he let me be pregnant at the same time!
And
I think about God so clearly leading Nicholas to encourage me to take a
break from law school. No way I could have studied when throwing up the first
trimester (who ever made up the name “morning sickness” didn’t know morning
sickness can be a 24 hour deal!)
And
I’ve wondered if that month and a half of rest is what gave my body the ability
to support the pregnancy at the very beginning.
And
I think of how good God was in showing me to get that test before the medication
could have really affected the baby.
And
I think of that special season of really struggling to trust God – and finding a
renewed joy in His good sovereignty – and how it must have been about that time
that I conceived (from measurements from ultrasounds, the doctor thinks I am
about 16 ½ weeks now).
So here I am.
At the same Starbucks where it all started. Journaling this so that I will
always remember my initial thoughts.
And thinking of how God’s goodness does sometimes tiptoe up on His children
and throw a treasure into their midst in the most surprising way. And I’m still just
trying to absorb that we really are having a baby! (I don’t think it will hit me until we are
holding him or her). And I am reminding myself, yet again, to trust my good Heavenly
Father with this baby and to praise Him for the opportunity to be a parent this
far.
So today I thank you God, for giving us our baby for 16 weeks and 3 days!
February 14th, 2011
From my posts over the years, I know my writing tends to focus on suffering/trust/sorrow/joy/etc. but that’s my thing. That’s where I have seen God meet me. That’s where God continually meets me. Perhaps that’s my special life song – to see the joy in sorrow, God’s love in suffering. So here I am talking on this same thing yet again.
In the basement of my heart, at its foundational structure, there are some fragile concrete panels (lest thou wonder if made up “concrete panels”, I didn’t. I googled: “how is a basement made” and learned that concrete panels can used – supposed to expensive but the best insulation method. I wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about since otherwise I probably would have said, “there are some fragile liquid nails.”). Fragile in that they are so very sweet – almost sacred – that I hardly dare touch them at risk that they may lose some of the holy fragrance of what God taught through them. It is beautiful fragility that is actually more rock solid than anything. They are the concrete panels that turned my walk with Christ into everything it is today.
These panels weren’t just easily padded into my life. God took His knife and cut me to the core, wounding me to give me more of Himself. I know you can point to these places in your life, too.
On the tough journey-race- mountain climb of life, although I’m often tempted to tell God that all I need is Gatorade in my backpack, He has other plans. In giving us the treasure of Himself, He has a special set of tools He uses for each one of us. They look a bit different in each of our lives, but they are have names like “pain”, “violation”, “loss”, “loneliness”, to name a few. And these tools are used to break us, to wound us, and to mar us so that we can run the race, climb the mountain, and plumb the depths of who God is , grow in our walk of sanctification in Him, and bring Him glory.
More times than I can count I have asked God why He allows pain. If I could put my heart into words it would be saying something such as: “I know I know I know, Lord, that you have allowed our pain to draw me close to you. But certain pain still seems so mean, so pointless. I don’t understand. Could You not have rescued me from that one certain thing? That one was just too much! Of course I can pull up a great godly sounding intellectual answer about how You use pain to draw glory to Yourself. But, seriously, did You really have to do THAT?”
But then I discover again and again, that the “one certain thing” whatever that may be, is the specific pathway, the specific thorn, that can bring your and my life into all its radiance. It is suffering that brings His sweet aroma to our spirit. (True sweetness is not weakness, but the aroma of being crushed and finding God as our everything). And, in those thorns, we can find the insights into His Kingdom that we would never otherwise know.
These become the moments and seasons when the theology I have carried intellectually becomes the theology of my heart because I truly have gone from just hearing of God’s greatness to knowing it and dwelling in it.
So I look at those panels of marring in my life. And another way I see them is as little fragile packages. Again, they aren’t fragile like easily broken as if I’m insecure about them or they are filled with too much trauma. But fragile because inside these packages are whispers of God’s grace, the reminder of tears shed and my heart and will finally laid down, monumental moments. The moments that forever changed my life, when the bubble of earthly secure was popped and I eventually found the Author of Security. Sometimes, in the quietness of the night, I take one out and look at it, unwrapping very carefully because inside is the most precious treasure. Or it pours forth out of my soul as I sing Great is Thy Faithfulness in church. It is important to open these treasures up every so often because they remind me that my life is God’s, I can rest in His faithful and sovereign hand, my worth in Him is true, and I must seek passionately to live to know Him more. Remembering what God has done for me in the past also gives me direction for moving forward and living with my eyes on things of eternal worth.
And, although I speak often of these things, and love to share these stories at conferences, I am also very careful with the contents because not everyone understands these. Not everyone understands the all consuming heartbreak and delight of seeing God’s hand turn a life upside down in the blender and then pour out His sweet goodness. To life’s pain, many are apt to give answers that Band-Aid when no Band-Aids are needed. Or they think if a child of God speaks of a past sorrow that means she has never healed from it. But we know that, although certain memories are fraught with marring, we can embrace these memories in all their ugliness and beauty.
God brought me through those deep waters and out of it I found the wells of refreshment, the balm of His character. And that makes me want to sing (my dog has gotten used to my little ditties… poor guy… he hears them all day) and to proclaim His Kingliness over all reality. This is my song. The song God gave me to proclaim so that many shall see it and fear and put their trust in the Lord (Psalm 40:3). You have a song, too.
And we all have these secret places… these places where we saw God so powerfully be our fighter and hope and life and every breath. I don’t know your sorrow. But I encourage you to take out those little fragile packages in your heart, those concrete basement panels, and do some good looking at them.
Jesus, may we embrace the burdens. The marrings. The deserts and rocky cliffs. The icy rain and the storms when we can’t even imagine the next step in such a tempest path. Yes, may our affections and our mind be turned on You as You lead us to Your radiance, as You continue weaving Your tapestry of gold for our lives. Amen.
December 16th, 2010
Another Facebook post slow to be pasted onto my website…
READING THE BIBLE – Part 1
3 December 2010
Recently a friend wrote and asked me about why it is important to read God’s Word. Not that she doubts it is important. But she wants to really own its importance – not just doing something because she always heard in Sunday school that it was the right thing to do – but because she really wants to know that she knows reasons for why it is important for her personally. She knows that’s the real way to become a passionate Bible reader. I’m all about that. Never do anything just because “you always heard it’s the thing to do.” That’s not going to hold you to it during the rough, tough, or just plain “there is something more fun to do” times. In all disciplines in our life we’ve got to wrestle through the reasons we do them and passionately embrace the discipline. She is a wise woman to be thinking on this.
For this post I would love your comments. I’m going to post some reasons for the importance of Bible reading that initially pop into my brain, but I know there are a ton more. Let’s get a great list together!
(Actually, I just read what I wrote below. This post deals with What it’s All About, Developing Your Style, and What to Read. I felt it was important to start with that foundation before moving to her actual question. I’ll have to include the How to Read and the Why to Read next time since I have to go make dinner – one of those boring things about growing up – I am going to ask Nicholas for a fairy godmother for Christmas so that she can do her bippity boppity boo dance and dinner will magically appear every night). But in the meantime, do send along your input. We’ll make a great posting as we collect thoughts.)
WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT
I want to dwell on something for a minute. Reading the Bible is all about a relationship. It’s important to remember that. When we love someone we want to develop that relationship with him. If I love Nicholas I am going to talk with him and get to know Him better. If there was a book he wrote to me, I would read it because I want to know him. Not that an earthly relationship compares to our relationship with our God, but it gives a general idea. When you read the Bible you are personal getting to know the Holy, Awesome, All-Powerful, Author of Love, God of the Universe who chose you as His girl. Never forget that. Reading the Bible is not just a duty one does becomes it makes her look like a good Christian. It is about furthering a relationship with the One who live is all about.
YOUR STYLE
When I was growing up (in the 80s and 90s) I remember hearing godly women talking about their “quiet times.” They’d open up their floral Bible covers and have their quiet times every morning. They just loved getting up at 3am to spend 55 hours reading Ezekiel and then spending some time crying because they loved Jesus so much and He made them cry as they sat there wearing their bathrobe and their foam pink curlers in their hair.
Well… actually I don’t think I ever heard a woman exactly say that. But that’s what I pictured for some weird reason (my mom didn’t do that so it isn’t as if I saw an example – I actually think that I got the idea from the cartoon Duck Tales where a mother duck looked like that… yeah, I know, way weird). And, honestly, it made me feel all uncomfortable and embarrassed. So when I was 12 and decided to try reading the Bible (my pastor had passed out Bible reading plans to all the church members), I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing. I actually hid downstairs and would read it in the basement!
I still get the shivers when I see too much floral. Just the other day Nicholas and I were picking out a Franklin Covey planner for me for next year and floral pages were an option. I about died as I stood there at Office Dept: “NICHOLAS, I CAN’T GET THOSE!!!!!!!!! I DON’T WEAR FOAM CURLERS!” But I also wouldn’t get the “green” pages because the inconvenient truth is that I am rather anti being green. We finally found a style that worked and Nicholas left the store that day knowing to be sure never to broach the subject of foam curlers.
All that to say (sorry about my wacko tangent), realize that reading the Bible is a relationship. And its cool. And you don’t have to try to mold into something or someone you are not. You gotta let this spiritual discipline kinda roll with who you are. You have to make it yours.
Some people find it important to have a specific place where they read their Bible. In bed, in a cozy chair (like my AMAZING craigslist deal! Seriously you must come visit me and meet my green recliner), at Starbucks, in a place where you won’t be distracted by other things to do or people talking, etc. That really isn’t as big a deal for me. But it might be for you. If so, figure out where you will read your Bible.
Find a time that works with you. A lot of godly people say: “Read your Bible early in the morning.” That works grandly for some people. But other people are not morning people and reading the Bible in the morning is hard because we just want to curl up and go back to sleep. I like to cling to the idea that, since in the Hebrew mind the day starts the night before, I am reading my Bible early in the day since I read it at night . Actually I think it helps me sleep better since it is the last thing on my mind at night.
If you aren’t a morning person, or your mornings are so chaotic and you just aren’t finding success reading your Bible in the morning, don’t feel bad! Try reading it at night. The important thing is that you are reading it, not that you are reading at “the most godly time.”
When I was in DC I used to like to go down to the Longworth House Office Building Cafeteria and read my Bible over lunch. In Florida I would read my Bible late into the night because I had adequate time – I could always stay up later and read more (vs. in the morning I had to be at work at a specific time so had to cut it shorter). Now because of Nicholas’ schedule I read a little at night and most in the morning.
What to Read/How to Read/Getting Your Reading Plan Planned. OK, so obviously don’t just randomly flip open your Bible and read whatever. Seriously big no no. That just isn’t developing a good study habit. Plus, how do you get to know how the whole Bible works together? And, you’ll be cheated out of knowing the rest of God’s thoughts! You’d be shocked at what percentage of believers have not read the whole Bible and do this kind of thing. It’s like if I said to Nicholas, “I’m glad I’m in a covenant relationship with you, but I only want to hear you talk about Federal government earmarks again and again. How about you tape everything you want to tell me about them and I’ll just fast forward randomly to a place in the recording and listen to a few sentences every day. We’ll get to know each other great that way!” (NOT)
So, you need to have a plan and you need one that works for you.
How about reading: 1 Proverb a day (there are 31 so you can read the one that corresponds to the day of the month). Or a Psalm a day. Or committing to reading 5 minutes a day. Some people do things like read something such as the same little Pauline epistle (the little New Testament books Paul wrote – Philippians, Colossians, etc.) every day for a month. That way they get to really know a certain book. That can be really cool, too. (Just don’t only read Philippians for the rest of your life lol).
Your commitment to Bible reading doesn’t have to be 12 chapters a day. Just read what works for you. If you want to read the Bible through in a year, you will need to read 3 or 4 chapters a day. There are good Bible reading plans where you can mark off and keep track. Robert Murray McCheyne has a good one (I just googled and found this – http://www.bibleplan.org/). I have a little pamphlet with this plan and it fits neatly into my Bible. I use that one but kindof modify. Some books are harder for me to get excited about or harder to understand (such as Leviticus and Ezekiel) and I know by now which books have longer chapters (which means slower reading) I modify. And I know which ones I LOVE and zip through (so I want to read only a little at a time of those while also reading a harder section). I always read Leviticus first, because I get it done first. I just get bogged down in it otherwise. Sometimes I read a few Old Testament chapters and a chapter of one of the Gospels. You’ll find what works for you.
Try to stick to your commitment. Even skipping it for one day can get you off long-term (because then it is easier the next day to justify not reading…). Try to stay as committed to reading your Bible as you are to brushing your teeth.
You’ll find a balance of how much to read – you don’t want your goals to be too small (a challenge is always great) but you don’t want them too big (it is so discouraging to fail in taking on a challenge – it is better to accomplish something smaller and press on to do more, than always feel behind).
You also don’t want to be trying to read so much that you are just reading to mark it off your to-do list. You want to be reading an amount that allows you to meditate on it – to really think about the words (What does it say about God? What does it say about you?). If you are just flying through your reading (read a chapter and then ask yourself if you know what you just read) you need to slow down. And, sometimes you will run into a chapter that is just so amazing and you’ll want to throw out the normal plan and just read 2 verses for the whole day because it is so rich and you want to not miss thinking on such wonderfulness.
Maybe a Bible study book works for you. Maybe this will help you stay in the Word. They didn’t really work for me because I felt it was so canned looking up the verses the writer told me to look up and filling in the blanks. I’m just not into filling in blanks. But everyone is different. Now I like doing Bible studies as a facet of my Bible reading (but it doesn’t replace it) but I still tend toward ones without “fill in the blanks.” Lol.
If you do work from a Bible study, do not let this take the place of being in the Word. Maybe do a Bible study plus read a Psalm a day. There are a lot of “good” Bible studying helps out there but we can’t let the good keep us from the great. Just like I don’t want to only hear Nicholas’ mom’s interpretation of Nicholas (although I do find out the BEST info about his childhood escapades), I want to hear from Nicholas Himself. The same with reading the Bible – I want to not just hear someone else’s interpretation of God. I want to read it myself from the Word.
More to follow…
December 8th, 2010
I posted this on Facebook last week and thought I’d post it here as well…
3 December 2010
Since I’m stuck on the sofa because of my knee, someone just asked me to write up some thoughts for her as she talks with a friend who struggles with self-image. This was for someone who knows her identity in Christ but just needs some encouragement in it. This is not the best written piece since I just blurted out quickly what was in my brain. But I figured I’d post it anyway for what it is worth since we all struggle with facets of this as times.
Deep down within a girl’s heart she has questions… am I beautiful… am I worth being chosen… am I worthy of delight… and I worth being fought for? Am I likable? These are great questions and we don’t have to be ashamed of them at all – in Christ we find answers to all of these – and in a perfect world the Church and marriage would confirm these answers… but, alas, we’re under the curse and life ain’t quite like that.
Situations in life as we are growing up give “answers” to these questions. Even seemingly small things make gigantic impacts into what we understand the answers to be of these questions… for example, a father’s response to her daughter (even little things like noticing or not noticing a new haircut, commenting on her weight, telling her she is lovely or never telling her that, etc.) and also a father’s response to her mother and other women (comparing the mom with others, showing the mom godly love, praising her character qualities, etc). all play into a girl’s image about herself and about women’s worth in general.
Add culture’s devaluation of women – even as culture says that women should have rights, they are missing the point and ultimately devaluing and objectifying women – making them into sex objects – we see that in the magazine articles at the grocery store lines, movies, clothing styles, ads, etc.
The world takes women’s strengths and needs and twists them to pervert them. For example, women are to be delighted in by men (God made women to be attractive to men), women are nurturers, women are emotional, etc. But the world takes each quality and perverts it. Instead a man taking true delight in his wife’s body (like in a godly marriage) women become the sex objects, etc. Instead of being able to be secure in their femininity, women are told they have to be like men and become masculine, etc. There is a major attack on women in our culture today. (For more on all this I can e-mail you the “book” I wrote which deals more in depth with all this).
Combine this with Satan’s attacks on women – attacking God’s answers to our questions, and attacking women in general (which is a major target for him because the relationship of man and woman is the example of Christ and the Church and is at the core of the Gospel – that is why I would go as far to say that homosexuality, sexual unfaithfulness, etc. are actually forms of blasphemy against the Gospel itself and are such a major spiritual battleground). All this to say, it is tough being a women and it is tough being strong and always on the alert in the battle of our self image. About 2/3 of women really struggle with self-image.
Something that is a key for a woman to know – and not just know intellectually but really in her heart – is that the Lord truly delights in her. That doesn’t mean God loves me because He has to love me because, afterall, Jesus died for me so He better love me. But an actually “Really likes me”, really delights in me. The Lord delights in just the way He made me. I am not a disappointment to Him. He likes the way I wrinkle my nose. He likes my odd quirks. He shaped my toes just the way He wanted them. He loves it when I am happy. He likes my laugh. He delights in showing me how much He loves me throughout the day. He REALLY delights over me. He actually delights over me with singing! (Zeph 3:17) He calls me His treasured crown! (Isaiah 62:3) The God of the universe actually thinks I’m cool! And The God of the universe’s opinion is really the only one that matters because it is the only truly true truth anyway. Sometimes I ask the girls what God would say about her and back that up with Scripture. For example, what does God say specifically about Kathryn (not just generally what God says about people)? “When God thinks of Kathryn what does He think? God says ‘Kathryn, I formed you. You are precious in my sight. I love you. You are chosen. You are mine.’ (All that in just one chapter – Isaiah 43).” Etc.
But how do we constantly walk in that truth when culture and the Enemy seek to destroy our joy?
1. Preaching the truth to ourselves – constantly reminding ourselves of God’s deep covenant love for us and our acceptance in Him. When God looks on us He sees Christ’s righteousness in us. Maybe each day picking a truth of your identity (you can type in something like “Who I am in Christ” on a google search and find listings of verses about this) and camping on it – how about putting a verse that directly applies to it onto a sticky note on your mirror or a 3×5 card you can carry with you (seriously, even in the bathroom you can pull it out and look at it or think about it while driving somewhere or walking to class– these are tons of otherwise lost minutes in the day that you can think on your verse).
2. Constantly taking negative thoughts captive (those subtle or not so subtle lies we have bought – every time someone says something negative about us/we allow the Enemy to feed us an untruth/we tell one to ourselves, we are put in the position where we either “buy it” and it takes root in our soul or we reject it… we have all “bought” a lot of lies in all sorts of areas and we have to ruthlessly find them and kill them) and replacing them with towers of truth – words from the Word.
3. Letting go of past mistakes and looking ahead to the victory we have in Christ – we are already seated in the heavenlies even now – our inheritance is sure (Ephesians 2) and, regardless of our past, God calls us His daughters of purity.
4. Purposefully identifying and guarding yourself from things that personally pull you down (and don’t feel bad if a certain thing causes a struggle for you that isn’t a struggle for someone else – we are all different – like magazines don’t really affect me – they actually make me irritated. But when I don’t do well on an exam it is a struggle for me not to feel stupid – and I have to guard against dwelling on it). Maybe for you it will be not reading magazines that preach trash can thinking, limiting communication with certain people that discourage you, TV shows or movies that fill you with negative thoughts about your identity and worth, etc.
5. Being ruthless. Be ruthless for the truth. Although self-pity, negative self-image can seem like a comforting friend sometimes, it is straight from the pit of Hell. Even silly things can be of help – like in times past when a negative thought has come to me as I am in a store walking around, I actually will step backwards and step again as I think: “That’s not of God. I’m rejecting that and am going to take that step in thinking the truth.”
6. Another thing that is important is that one differentiates the difference between God as her Heavenly Father’s view of her from her earthly father (or other male figure’s) views (or perceived views – a lot of times a guy doesn’t even realize how he has said something that hurt her – such as he was just trying to help her when he said her hair looked better before she got it cut. Not that he doesn’t like it now but he liked it better before. He was just trying to be honest and didn’t even know it hurt her feelings – guys just are sooo different than girls and just don’t get how girls think. They are also “fixers” and want to “fix” the problem – they think that’s what a girl wants because that is what they would want and how they would feel most loved – when girls often are just asking for emotional comfort. My favorite example of this is from my own life – when I was almost arrested for stealing my own car (I had just bought a few minutes before) when I lived in DC and, crying, I called my dad as I freaked out. I wanted some emotional comfort: “Oh, you must feel so scared” but all he did was try to fix the problem “Next time when you buy a car from someone and it is still registered in the other person’s name, you need to have the title with you.” It is one of our favorite stories now, but at the time it was frustrating. Anyway, we must learn to camp on the reality of who God says we are instead of what we feel other men told us about our worth (or anyone for that matter – so that means what the girl who sat next to you in 6th grade said about you having an ugly nose, or the attitudes of the others in your church as they quietly scoff you since they don’t think your shoes are cool) (shock! even at church our identity can be attacked) just are not what your identity is based on and need to be taken out with the garbage.
7. And a major thing - immersing yourself in Scripture. Really know God. Marinate in God’s Word. As it comes alive to you it will all start clicking together and powerfully impact your whole reality. One thing I trump a lot and won’t ever tire of saying, is read the Bible as many times as possible while you are single. That’s when you have the most time and that’s when you need to really come to solid grips with your identity (it will be monumentally beneficially for the rest of your life and all future relationships). Reading only a few verses out of one’s devotional each morning just doesn’t cut it. And, it creates opportunity for taking things out of context (I am sorry to disappoint you, Christian bookstores of America, but “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” just doesn’t really apply to winning a relay race). Busyness is not a good enough excuse. I know the Enemy is going to do all he can to get His daughters and sons out of the Word. But fight it. When I was in DC my mom challenged me to never let a day go by without at least reading a Proverb. That kept me in the Word. Even if I’d initially forget and had gone to bed already, I would get up and make myself read it. Seems like a silly thing but it made me stay committed. The second year I was in DC I decided to read the Bible through twice a year. I have done that since – one year read it four times – and that was one of my busiest years. It is crazy because now when I’m reading a passage that I’ve read a bunch of times already it will just leaps off the page and connects with a totally different book of the Bible and just make so much sense. And yet I know 40 years from now I’ll still be finding wonderful new things as I read. I’ve taken a whole paragraph to talk about this – but I guess it is because I am soooo passionate about this. The more one knows God’s truth the more one knows their God and their identity in Him and how this identity fits into all of history.
December 2nd, 2010
Today I got blood drawn AGAIN. And the nurse said: “You have good veins.” And I made a joke about how that’s my one claim to fame. AGAIN. I wonder how many times I’ve gotten blood drawn the last 11 years and joked about that. Too many to count. This is in such extreme contrast to Nicholas who never goes to the doctor. I think he was there once the day he was born. And probably showed up again for a tetanus shot when he was a kid and had gotten into his latest in the woods injury (“But Dad, I didn’t know you didn’t want me to play with machetes!”) He is so healthy. I used to be healthy, too.
But when I was hit by the car things changed. So a month ago when I was bit by a brown recluse spider I was frustrated, but after awhile the pain went away. But the past two weeks my knee has been terribly infected and we don’t know if it is related to that or possibly to an infection from my bone grafts of years ago. I’ve been in a good amount of pain, stuck on the sofa, and frustrated. I really had wanted to be recovering chairs this week.
I was in a ton of pain at urgent care the morning after Thanksgiving. The doctor had just mentioned that it could be more serious than what we were hoping. A few minutes later I hoped into the bathroom and cried a little. The pain was terrible. I was frustrated. I was feeling sorry for myself. And I was a little scared. I looked into the mirror and remembered looking in a different doctor’s office bathroom mirror years ago. It was when I was in the midst of the doctors and doctors and doctors and doctors who were putting me back together after the car hit me. I had stared in the mirror and told God the pain was just too much. I was tired. I just couldn’t handle it. I needed a powerful reminder that He hadn’t forgotten about me. “God, show me Yourself! Show me You still love me and haven’t forgotten me!” And later that day God strengthened me in the reality that the One who put every star in the sky, who traced the lines of every fingerprint, the one who attached every butterfly wing, is the God who was there holding my hand and very much had NOT forgotten about me but was very powerfully working the nightshift in my life. (That had been a key moment in my life – sortof a mountain of remembrance – one of those pillars of remembrance like it talks about in the Old Testament.) The fruit of that has been profound.
But back to the other day. I think just the idea of the cause of the pain being related to the injuries of years ago had freaked me out. I looked in that mirror and I said: “God, I’m tired. I’m hurting so bad! I’m scared! And I am still very much deep down the girl who looked in the mirror 10 years ago and cried. I am ultimately not any stronger because You alone are my strength.” But this is what came to mind next. “You may still be that girl. But don’t forget that I’m that same God. And, actually I have become greater to you since then (not that He has become any bigger, but I have come to know His greatness more deeply). You know my faithfulness. You have seen my goodness. You have seen my sovereignty.”
I was really encouraged in that. Sometimes it is just cool to walk into a similar moment as in the past and just be shocked back into the reality of all that God has done in the past and what that means for the present and future. God is so good! I don’t know what’s going to happen with my knee. BUT I know God and I know I am His.
Take a moment to remember one of those mountains of remembrance in your life. How God’s profound covenant faithfulness upheld you then. May that give you such confident joy in this same faithful God walking with you today!
PS. George Frederick is growing up so cutely! It is so funny to us because he is growing straight up! A funny gangly little 2 pounds of exuberance who has recently discovered the joy of Christmas wrapping paper and ribbons.
November 15th, 2010
Our new puppy. There actually were no George Fredericks the First or Second, but the Third just seemed to add some extra pizazz to his name . He weighs a pound and a half and is the cutest little thing. We’ve had him for a few weeks now and it has been fun to watch him get used to life. I’ve actually been impressed at how quickly he has caught on to potty training, etc. He’s a smart little guy (although Nicholas laughs and says every dog owner thinks their dog is smart) and he has been invited to attend my Bible study next week. He will probably come with me in my purse . How funny! So different size-wise than the collies with which I grew up.
October 4th, 2010
23 September 2010
Today I’m flying to Lansing, Michigan. My hometown actually. Although I left when I was 5 (although still spent summers there for years after) so there is some question whether that really makes me a Michigander or not. Nicholas says that I seem to use my Michigander status when it is convenient. “Oh, really, I’m from Michigan, too!” But then to the next person I say, “I lived in Washington, DC, too!” “I grew up in Kansas, too!” “I lived in Florida, too!” “Oh, I lived in Russia!” You get the idea. Well, today I’m claiming to be a Michigander. And, much to the disappointment of the flight attendant, no I’m not related to any Ritchies in Louisiana. (Much to Nicholas’ happiness since he thinks Louisiana coffee is rather loser-esque).
But being from somewhere is something different than just having lived somewhere. I loved Florida but I wasn’t a Floridian in my core and I never exactly fit in. And I didn’t really feel the need to fully fit in either since it wasn’t fully me in my core. So some places I have only lived. And some I am from. I am a Michigander. And I am a Kansan (I have little red ruby slippers to prove it, as well as ruby dress shoes and casual shoes as any good Kansas should – you never know when you will need to click them). But anyway.
So I’m on a plane to Michigan but it is actually heading up to Michigan to get staged for Asia. Sometimes this flight goes to Dubai as well. And because of that, I’m riding serious first class. Not just bumped up to a little bit bigger seats like regular first class. But business elite in my own little pod. Not bad. I have decided, Susan Powell., that I do have faith in this airline afterall. It is amazing how one nice trip deletes the bad memories of the 4 previous extreme frustrations on this airline.
I’m heading to Michigan for a conference in Grand Rapids on economic policy. I can hardly wait. I love this organization (Acton) and I love Grand Rapids and every time I see the river there I remember getting too adventurous while feeding ducks and falling in when I was 3 (my first memory of the feeling of embarrassment).
Nicholas and I have been reading up on the topics of this conference and philosophizing about it for months now. Super exciting to be heading there. I’m then heading up to northern Michigan where I’m going to see my very dear relatives. Northern Michigan was my place. It where my family immigrated to after touching American Shore at Ellis Island. And for 64 years my grandparents had a cottage there. It is where I learned to roll over, fish, make minnow paste, shoot, make people out of rocks and acorns, photography, drive, everything. Pretty much all family memories happened here. It was our sanctuary, refuge, escape, happy place. We had to sell it last year to pay for my grandparents’ medical expenses. Soon after that my grandma died (when Nicholas and I were in Venice on our honeymoon). My grandpa is really ill now and is expected to die any day. It is weird to return to my family’s happy place when things have changed so much. I told Nicholas yesterday that I’m not sure if I’m ready to return by myself. It takes a strange amount of courage to return to a land that was my family’s paradise on earth but now many aspects of what made it paradisiacal are gone. I’m not sure if I’m ready to go there. It is a lonely going. But it was already scheduled before Nicholas had to cancel his trip because of work. So I’m going alone.
But when I venture to the north after Grand Rapids, I will be going to family. My wonderful Michigander family. And to see them I can hardly wait! I am asking God to meet me here in a special way. I have been feeling lately as if I really am desperately in need of something. Some serious refueling.
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If you cracked open a core section of your soul you might find an acorn. Or a palm tree. Or an igloo. Or perhaps a wheat field. In everyone’s soul there is a little pocket called “home” and, inside, there rests the pieces of where one grew up. Those things that resonate comfort and identity.
After living half a decade in Florida, not my home, I think the pocket of homeness was starting to get lost in my soul. I was surrounded by people that were palm tree people. In their hearts palm trees and ocean and mangoes comforted them. But that wasn’t in my home pocket. My home pocket has pine trees and lakes and picking blueberries. And, although I grew to love the tropical weather, that wasn’t my home home. And while I absolutely loved the curly tailed lizards of South Florida, squirrels, toads, and minnows were my growing up friends.
This morning I returned home from home. I mean, I returned back to where we are living from where I grew up. I spent a week in Michigan, where I lived when little, the place where I spent my summers at my grandparents’ lake cottage, and the place my ancestors came to from Ellis Island.
At one point I told Nicholas that just hearing the accents was comforting. Those were the original sounds I heard when I was born (not that I remember the day I was born lol, but those are the accents of my childhood) and it just is nice to hear them.
And seeing birch trees! And woods! And acorns!!!!! (Acorns are definitely some of the best little things ever). And hearing seagulls! And Christmas tree farms! And pumpkin patches! And lake water!!!! (I could never understand why someone would want to go to all that work to have a boat on sea water when they could have a canoe on a lake). One evening I walked through some Narnia-like woods. It just filled my soul with the sweetest feeling.
And the greatest treasure of all – spending time with my relatives. Hearing my great aunt and uncle share their stories and seeing their deeply rooted love for each other and the Lord. And spending time with my extended family. Just delighting in good fellowship and God’s faithfulness throughout generations.
The last night I was there we all passed around a box of lovely little scrolls of paper my aunt had written on with her beautiful handwriting and rolled with purple ribbon. We each took one and read the Scripture passage written on it. On mine was written Psalm 100:5: “For the Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.” This week indeed I was reminded of God’s faithfulness to my family over the years.
I really needed this. I needed to be reminded of the worth of my heritage. I feel like it got squashed a bit these past years. Not that many people purposefully tore apart my heritage. But somehow in the livingness of living in a different culture, it got squashed.
There is something about being known. About being around family that remind you of who you are, where you have come from, and how God has been so grand to you and your family in the past, present, and will be in the future. And being strengthened and affirmed in your values. And seeing my covenant God working in the lives of my family from generation to generation. We all need this every so often.
God really met me here this past week. It came at the perfect time. I’m so grateful for God’s tender care! And, I’m grateful that my suitcases made it back to me even with all the plane drama on the way home, because hidden inside are some of the little pieces of my Michigan soul that I can hardly wait to show Nicholas!
August 28th, 2010
Tonight as we drove I asked Nicholas what it is like for a guy to try to understand a woman. His response “At times saying a woman is logical can be like saying a Picasso is Baroque style. I do not doubt the brilliance of a Picasso but I also don’t see order.” After a quite comical pause I burst out laughing (at which Nicholas looked at me quizzically… I’m not sure if he originally intended that comment to be funny). Then we both laughed and laughed. Some of our funniest conversations are when we chat about the differences of men and women.
Well later he said he does of course really know I’m logical (which I never doubted since I know women are very logical even if the males out there wonder at times) it is just that men and women can seem a mystery to each other.
Someday soon I need to drag Nicholas with me to NYC and show him some Picassos. Maybe he will see some logical order in them. Someday Nicholas plans to bring me back to Palazzo (palace) Barberini in Rome in order to see the grand Baroque style. Until then I’m content to be a mystery. And, Nicholas is content to have little golden bees on our bathroom towels in honor of the Barberini crest.
Even if Nicholas comes to fully understand Picassos I know his Picasso wife will still always be somewhat of a mystery to him. Just as he’ll always be a mystery to me. I will never be able to climb into to a guy’s brain even if I have read 1,001 books on male/female differences. And we like it that way. Nicholas will never trade me in for a Baroque painting because being a Picasso is what makes me me. I would never trade him in for a Picasso because being a Baroque type guy is what makes him him. We balance each other so well because of this.
We love God’s creative design of males and females. We love watching how our differences create the perfect “usness.” How two such opposites, yet both created in God’s image, can make such a powerful union of purposeness and joy. HAPPINESS!
August 25th, 2010
In the dark I watched through the window this morning. No lights in the hotel room. The city I’m visiting here in Missouri had turned off the electricity because of the fire. Nicholas had left early and my lunch appointment wasn’t until noon. From my window I could see the fire a few blocks away as it engulfed apartment complexes. For awhile I thought it was calming down. But then it spread to another building. Turns out it went to three buildings. Dozens of homes lost in a matter of minutes. The smoke continued and continued all morning. But the devastation will continue for years.
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I never really appreciated having a place to live until this spring when I lived everywhere and nowhere. Several months of commuting – half the week in S. FL. and half anywhere in Texas as Nicholas worked there. Plus traveling all over for speaking and variousness. More than 100 nights on the road. I remember counting after just the first two months and realizing I’d been in 13 different states. A home now is a dream come true. No more juggling mail at several addresses. No longer that scattered living nowhere feeling. Even though we are still on the road often, at least I know where I live. It’s the best of feelings to live somewhere. It’s the best of feelings to know I am going to wake up and go to sleep in the same place. And, now even when I do still travel (yes, my suitcase is still always halfway packed because we still do travel a lot), I can press “home” on my Garmin and it sends me to my house where I really for real live and where my pretty pink “at home toothbrush” waits for me in its little toothbrush dish. Happiness.
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So I’m thinking today about the hopeless disorientation of those apartment residents that now don’t know where they live. And, I’m thinking about them as they take in the losses of their possessions. Although my things were just in boxes during my few crazy travel months, these peoples’ are gone. Everything gone. For real gone. Gone gone gone. Photo albums. The wedding dress which had hung in the closet. The crafts made by the grandkids. Books their great uncle owned. Favorite pillows. Notes for their dissertation. All those things that maybe no one else fully can appreciate but, to the owner, they mean security and a sense of identity, markers of where they have come from and where they are headed. Insurance payments can never take the place of those things. I can’t imagine the sorrow. And I’m guessing that one of the greatest dangers they face now is discouragement mixed with subtle sickening hopelessness.
So I’m praying for them today. I’m praying for their hope.
Hope is just about tops when it comes to the most important thing we have. OK, I know love is technically the most important thing. Like any good pastor’s kid I had almost memorized 1 Corinthians 13 by the time I had stopped teething. But I passionately will attest that, after love, hope rolls in near the top of the list. Of course not hope in just anything. But Hope in THE Hopegiver, the giver and holder of hopes.
Hope has sorta been a top theme in my mind lately. Bombing, ambush, and torture come in as a close second (because of criminal law class – it has added a bit of pizzazz to my brain’s contemplations these days). How powerful hope is in a person’s life. How as soon as I lose hope, everything goes down. But as long as I don’t lose sight of the reality of my Hopegiver, I’m strong.
It’s a thought that has quite a lot of testing opportunity as Nicholas and I take our initial steps on the journey of adoption and my emotions bounce into sometimes painful areas, stretching into those quiet corners of my heart that are deeply woven with fragile hope. I’ve been grieving no children for a several years now. As I struggle through the conglomeration of emotions that can seem foreign to people that don’t know infertility but are very normal process of the road of infertility, some days I’ve got it together. Afterall, I am firmly confident that God is good and He is a covenant God and adoption is a wonderful thing that God has prepared both Nicholas and my hearts for individually and together. I rejoice in this, while I yet grieve the idea of biological motherhood that may never be. Some moments I just need to cry. Recently I was at a Starbucks when two women joyously entered and sat directly behind me as one told the other all about how she just found out she was pregnant with another child. “And, imagine, I didn’t even know! Pregnancy comes so easy.” No more studying for criminal law for me. I just went out to the car and wept. Those broken moments I look to my Hopegiver and so deeply realize I can’t sum up hope again in myself. But I can pour out my soul to God and allow Him to whisper His truth into my heart. I can actively choose to camp on His truth, marinating in His Word, even when circumstances seem to crush in at me. Psalm 3 means so much, when the enemy rises against me, mocking the hopes of my soul, I turn to it and read: “…Many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God. But YOU, Oh Lord, are the lifter of my head… I cried to the Lord, and He answered me…”
And I look back and think of past hope struggles. When doctors after doctor around the country didn’t know if I would walk again after I was hit by a drunk driver. Going to hospitals again and again for more X-rays and then being told: “We don’t know why your bones aren’t healing. Being put back in my wheelchair and rolled away with disappointment slamming through my soul. I remember struggling ardently to keep hoping in God even though for what I was hoping wasn’t coming to pass. But I learned that I can’t hope in God’s acts – what I think would be good and sensible for God to do, but in who God is.
Then I think of another time just a few years ago. I had just left a nasty dating relationship with a man who had presented himself as godly but then a few months into it informed me that he had only shown one side of himself and now he was going to show me who he really was. It shocked me so much the dream of ever getting married completely snapped. I had already walked in some painful broken engagements (one a week before the wedding when the groom had an emotional breakdown because of his own past sorrow, another being engaged the first time to Nicholas). I escaped out of that relationship. But it just seemed too painful to ever hope again. I still was speaking to girls about being Christ’s Cinderellas. But inside my personal hopes about marriage died. Not just the hopes one sees, but all the way down to the roots. Dead. I walked through a season that fall of feeling deeply barren in heart, body, and soul. It was right around that time I found out I might never have kids. And, I was walking through a dark time at the place where I worked as my understanding of the Church was going through a radical shaking to its core.
I’ve shared with many this story before. But I share it again now. I went to NYC that fall – NYC is my place to heal and think and pray. I was to attend a conference. I flew in early and, as I wander around, ended up buying a beautiful tear drop aquamarine necklace. I felt a little silly and frivolous buying it. But I bought it anyway, and since I didn’t want to lose it, I immediately put it on and subwayed up to the conference. That weekend God met me. Several speakers hit my heart exactly where it was. I had recently been clinging to Romans 4:18-21, where Abraham hoped against hope in God’s promise… “..In hope he believed against hope…no distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised.” Those were just the verses shared at the conference. I think of how, ultimately, Abraham did not hope in what He wanted so much (a son), but in who God is. God’s goodness. God’s love. God’s faithfulness. I allowed myself to just cry as I felt the teardrop necklace around my neck. The Psalms say that God holds our tears in His bottle (Psalm 56:8), and God turns our mourning into joy (Psalm 30:11). I left that conference renewed in my confidence in who I was in Christ as His Cinderella and the absolute fact that I must continue to hold fast to my hope in the Author of hope, the one who restores hope to those who feel only barren.
It was months later that I realized that conference night was the exact night Nicholas wrote my dad and shared his testimony of what God had done in his life the past few years. It was that letter that brought Nicholas and I back together. And it was several months after that when Nicholas gave me matching aquamarine earrings when I graduated with my second masters degree. But even if it hadn’t been in God’s plan for me to marry Nicholas, I know God’s goodness would have been just as real.
So here I am, now waiting at Starbucks across the street since my hotel still has no power. I’m listening to the chatter of the staff and customers as they exclaim over the fiery destruction. I’m still praying for the residents who need comfort from the God of Hope as they face dreams turned into turmoil. And I’m thinking on the dashed or unfulfilled hopes and dreams in my heart – such as my “being a mom” hope. Yes, there will be times I still weep. But even as I weep I will weep triumphantly because my Hopegiver is the God of Triumph. I will continue to wrestle emotionally, not wrestling to win over God, but to come to the point of resting in Him. When, at times, the fire of earth’s brokenness threatens to undue me, and I stand in the smoky remains of what were once dreams, I can and must find God’s grace to keep clinging to the One of Hope. “And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in YOU.” Psalm 39:7
”Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud… For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth He is called… For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you. O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires.” Isaiah 54
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