I should be getting my house ready for a big Christmas get-together tonight. I should be wrapping presents as if Christmas is three days away (okay, so it really is three days away...boy have I got work to do...). But instead, I am finally sitting in my favorite chair that's been calling my name for weeks now, with a cozy blanket, propping my feet up and flipping through channels to see what's on TV before I go to bed. And while I'm waiting for the weather man to tell me what kind of day tomorrow will be, I flip to the next channel, where I see "Mama's Boys," apparently the latest "reality" dating TV show. Now let's, just for a second, pretend that I can even stand those TV shows in the first place. I leave the TV on that particular channel, knowing fully well that I'm going to be so disgusted with it in mere minutes that I'm going to remember why I haven't watched night time television in ages.
In case you didn't catch what I think is the season premiere, let me just catch you up to speed. There's three guys and their Moms, and then a good twenty sparkling, jacked-up-on-nine-inch-heels women. I came in right in the middle of a date where dashing young man number 1 has taken out a woman who's shoes are real, but I'm guessing that not much else is. She's terrifyingly shallow and Mom thinks so too. "Huh." I think to myself. For once, there is someone on the show who actually tells the dashing young man that he's lost his blooming mind. Dashing man doesn't agree with Mom, though. And then, before I can change channel in response to realizing I'm wasting valuable sleep time to watch trash, I see another new twist that the TV folks have put onto their dating show. Instead of the traditional meeting of the twenty attention-hungry women and the man and then a brief naming of who gets to live to see another date, I hear the announcer say something that disturbs me to my core. "Ladies, as you know, you each get one cell phone and if one of these three dashing young gentlemen like you, they will text you "yes." If none of the three dashing young gentlemen like you, you will get the text "no."
What?
Getting accepted or dumped by text message?
Seriously? Are you kidding me?!
I know that everything I'm about to say is something you already know. I know that the face of dating is changing every day, but it's shows like this that are changing it for us. It would be one thing if this show was showing something brand new in the ever-growing field of ridiculousness, but the really sad part is that it isn't, and I'm frustrated. Call me old fashioned, but any man who dumps a girl by text message or email isn't a man at all, and that's exactly what I told the man to did that to me once...whoops sorry, this isn't about me, is it?
Well, wait a minute. Maybe this is about me. This is about what I will let our ever-changing culture tell me about how I'm supposed to be living as a single, dating adult. This is about what I will stand for and what I won't. It's about what I believe is godly and right. This is about sitting down and straightening out what I see around me constantly, and what I know, in my heart, to be what dating should really look like. (Bear with me, as this could take a while. I'm pretty riled up. :) )
1. Dating should be about finding someone you are going to spend your life with, not someone you just want to spend the night with, let's just get that one out in the open and out of the way. (mumble grumble.....I'm so sick of seeing.....mumble grumble......happens everywhere I look.....mumble grumble......doesn't anyone have standards anymore?......more grumbling)
2. I think that if a man or woman is going to start seriously considering someone as the afore-mentioned life partner, then both people involved should stop "shopping around." If you are going to tell a person you love them, then that is a committment and it shouldn't be taken so lightly that you can say it to at least three other people in the same week.
3. Men should act like godly men. That means that they don't invite the woman to spend the night with him in an expensive hotel room on that third date and they certainly don't rely on text messages or emails to say something important. A man ought to show enough respect that he can say what he needs to say in person. If he can't tell a woman that he's no longer interested, then he doesn't have enough respect for her or himself to be dating her in the first place. On a date, he should be demonstrating that he is capable and willing to support and protect his wife and kids (should kids enter the picture, that is). He should be showing that he is responsible, good at making decisions and willing to put others before himself. A woman's interest or skill in yachting really shouldn't be a deal breaker.
4. Women should act like godly women. That means that they don't accept that date to the hotel room or accept any disrespectful actions. It also means that she should handle herself with self respect. She should be showing that she is capable and willing to take care of a husband and kids (if they enter the picture). She should be showing that she can make good decisions and is willing to put others before herself. And I realize that physical appearences can play a role in developing chemistry between two people, but ladies, all you are doing when you reveal all but four square inches of your body is revealing that physical appearences are all you have to offer (and that they've been offered more than once.) Asking the man out, paying for your own meals on dates, doing the follow up calls and having to rely on text messages or emails to know where you stand with a man really should be a deal breaker. (You can trust me on this one. I learned it the hard way... More times than I prefer to admit, actually.)
5. You know, I don't really think that rushing right out with "I think you're the one" is really that great of an idea. I think that letting the person you're dating know that you continue to be interested in them is appropriate, even necessary, but rushing into things, in most cases, isn't going to do anything but throw getting-to-know a person into a premature relationship that really hasn't had the chance to develop into a strong bond between two responsible adults.
6. Ever notice how when those people on TV are getting to know one another that they'll ask each other about travel, about music, about food, about skiing - everything except whether or not they share a belief in God? If that conversation itself doesn't come up on the first several dates, then I think that the answers to those sorts of questions should at least be very obvious in the way the person handles him or herself. It should be clear in the stories he tells about himself, or in the way she talks. And if the conversation does come up, then it should be clear that the person lives what he believes and doesn't just talk a good talk. (Learned that one the hard way, too.)
7. I think that a family's opinion of a potential spouse is very important, but I don't think that it belongs in the first date. I think that an adult should be able to make pretty good character decisions without Mom telling him what he needs to be thinking. On the other side of the coin, I also think that you shouldn't date someone if you automatically know that there's no way you'd ever bring that person out to meet your family. If you know you can't "bring them home," then that should be saying something to you, and it should be saying it loud and obnoxiously.
8. While that first date might, bless your heart, have told you to mark another person off the list, it's probably not enough to tell you to seal the deal. I think I've seen the whole love-at-first-sight thing so many times on television and in movies that I've started thinking that I should be feeling that kind of clarity on a first, or second or eleventh date. Instead, what I'm having to reteach myself is that if I'm not feeling that kind of clarity, it doesn't mean that I'm never going to find "the one." What it means is that I'm trying to see every side to a person that he's got before I make a decision that I will live with for the rest of my life. If a person can learn to fly an airplane in less than six months, doesn't it makes sense that choosing a spouse to live with for each and every day of the rest of my life might take a little longer than a television season? Dating should be a process handled with care. Dating should be have its fun and romantic moments, but it should be handled seriously, too. Dating, above all, should be dating-
Not reality television.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Everpresence
Everpresence. Isn’t that a beautiful word? (Okay, so it’s not a really word, but humor me, here!) The sound of it soothes my soul as I sit in the middle of my new living room floor, in my new house, amongst boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of….good grief, who knows what’s in these things…
Moving comes with a mountain of complications that is daunting in and of itself. There’s furniture to disassemble, fingers to smash, boxes to fill up, locating more boxes because the first ones you gathered up aren’t enough, junk you would rather leave behind than have to pack up and move, boxes and furniture to load up in any vehicle that will carry them, boxes and furniture to unload, furniture to reassemble after you finally find all of the parts to it again, boxes to unpack (or leave packed up and forgotten in some closet, in my case), places to find for it all….(deep breath)….services to cancel, services to subscribe to, billing addresses to change…mercy, just thinking about it all makes me just as tired as actually going through it! Now add the complications of trying to fit it all of that in between work and normal day to day activities.
In the words of Shakespeare – “Aye! There’s the rub!”
Because, you see, (in case you haven’t moved in a while), you can’t just move yourself. You have to have help. I can’t connect the phone lines myself, I can’t set up the satellite TV. I can’t just assume that my mailbox will get mail to it tomorrow. I can’t turn on the electricity. I’ve got to have help. And that means that I have to move on somebody else’s 8-5 (or 9-4, for heaven sakes) schedule. Of course, 8-5 is not exactly when I’m able to focus my attention on moving, because I’m at work. So when I’m able to finally think about forwarding addresses and missing parts to doorbells and new heater filters, the rest of the world has gone home. Gone to lunch. Gone to bed. Exactly where I would be if I could find the darned thing.
Obviously, the world is not going to change for my relocation complications, so I accept that I’ve got to change my schedule to fit everyone else’s if I’m going to accomplish anything. So I come to work armed and ready to make quick phone calls in between tasks at work. Well, “quick” is a relative term, of course. What I really meant is that I’m armed to track down a phone number, dial it, and then face a long list of dial menu options. Press one if you wish to subscribe to this service. Press two if you are a service technician trying to install a service. Press three if you already subscribe to this service and have a billing question. Press four if you already subscribe to this service and are experiencing a problem with your service, such as a black or snowy television screen. Press five if you already have gone through this dial menu four times and still are not sure which number you should choose. Press six if you wish to speak with a representative. Duh. Of course I want to speak with a human being, are you kidding me? Of course, the first human being you get is never the right human being, so you get put on hold until the next available human being can help you. And every human being comes at me with more questions than I had for them – can you verify your mailing address? (I would if I could get to the post office to change my address!). What is your present phone number (uh….darned if I know!). Please enter the last four numbers of your social security number for verification purposes. We’re sorry, we do not show that phone number to match that social security number in our records. You need to talk to a different human being. Human being #3 wants to know if I know where my television cables need to be installed and if I have all necessary remote controls still in my possession (uh…..in one of these boxes probably….hopefully…..uh….can I just get new remotes?) and then my phone call with human being #3 is suddenly cut off because I’ve just moved to a house where there is the weakest of cell phone signals and I would have called on a land line if I could get a hold of that office – oh, sorry. You probably got the point a long time ago.
My point is that moving is hard because true, honest to gosh everpresence isn’t what we human beings do (and yes, that includes human being #7 at the phone company who is above human beings 1-6.) Everpresence is something that only God does. There are lots of entities that try to compete, but no one else can pull it off. God’s everpresence is a service that I can subscribe to whether it’s 4:00 in the morning or 7:00 at night. I don’t have to have a working phone number and I don’t have to pay extra fees for voice dial. I don’t have to switch the service over from one person’s name to my own. God doesn’t need a dial menu to sort through requests or complaints or joyous remarks (like “I found the salt and pepper shakers!!! They were in this box way over here!!!”) or questions. He doesn’t require us to wait at home between the specific hours of 8:00 and 12:00 for an appointment to install his everpresence. He’s got technicians everywhere, although you might not know them just by looking at them. His God-Haul trucks can get you where you need to go without breaking your antique dish collection. He doesn’t put anyone on hold, he does the holding himself. Calls to him are free, but they don’t require 800 numbers. His everpresence is in every box I packed up, but it won’t – oh, thank you, God – get lost in one. He’s something that’s unchanging when nothing – and I mean nothing – else is. My call won’t get cut off in the middle of an important conversation and he doesn’t even mind if I ask the same thing four times in a row until I finally understand the answer. There’s not even any deposit to be paid because someone, bless their soul, paid it for me a long time ago. God’s everpresence is an around the clock, no fees, no waiting, no-batteries-included-because-they-aren’t-needed customer service.
Hey that’s a pretty good line. I should write that down – uh… well, I would if I knew where my pens were….
Moving comes with a mountain of complications that is daunting in and of itself. There’s furniture to disassemble, fingers to smash, boxes to fill up, locating more boxes because the first ones you gathered up aren’t enough, junk you would rather leave behind than have to pack up and move, boxes and furniture to load up in any vehicle that will carry them, boxes and furniture to unload, furniture to reassemble after you finally find all of the parts to it again, boxes to unpack (or leave packed up and forgotten in some closet, in my case), places to find for it all….(deep breath)….services to cancel, services to subscribe to, billing addresses to change…mercy, just thinking about it all makes me just as tired as actually going through it! Now add the complications of trying to fit it all of that in between work and normal day to day activities.
In the words of Shakespeare – “Aye! There’s the rub!”
Because, you see, (in case you haven’t moved in a while), you can’t just move yourself. You have to have help. I can’t connect the phone lines myself, I can’t set up the satellite TV. I can’t just assume that my mailbox will get mail to it tomorrow. I can’t turn on the electricity. I’ve got to have help. And that means that I have to move on somebody else’s 8-5 (or 9-4, for heaven sakes) schedule. Of course, 8-5 is not exactly when I’m able to focus my attention on moving, because I’m at work. So when I’m able to finally think about forwarding addresses and missing parts to doorbells and new heater filters, the rest of the world has gone home. Gone to lunch. Gone to bed. Exactly where I would be if I could find the darned thing.
Obviously, the world is not going to change for my relocation complications, so I accept that I’ve got to change my schedule to fit everyone else’s if I’m going to accomplish anything. So I come to work armed and ready to make quick phone calls in between tasks at work. Well, “quick” is a relative term, of course. What I really meant is that I’m armed to track down a phone number, dial it, and then face a long list of dial menu options. Press one if you wish to subscribe to this service. Press two if you are a service technician trying to install a service. Press three if you already subscribe to this service and have a billing question. Press four if you already subscribe to this service and are experiencing a problem with your service, such as a black or snowy television screen. Press five if you already have gone through this dial menu four times and still are not sure which number you should choose. Press six if you wish to speak with a representative. Duh. Of course I want to speak with a human being, are you kidding me? Of course, the first human being you get is never the right human being, so you get put on hold until the next available human being can help you. And every human being comes at me with more questions than I had for them – can you verify your mailing address? (I would if I could get to the post office to change my address!). What is your present phone number (uh….darned if I know!). Please enter the last four numbers of your social security number for verification purposes. We’re sorry, we do not show that phone number to match that social security number in our records. You need to talk to a different human being. Human being #3 wants to know if I know where my television cables need to be installed and if I have all necessary remote controls still in my possession (uh…..in one of these boxes probably….hopefully…..uh….can I just get new remotes?) and then my phone call with human being #3 is suddenly cut off because I’ve just moved to a house where there is the weakest of cell phone signals and I would have called on a land line if I could get a hold of that office – oh, sorry. You probably got the point a long time ago.
My point is that moving is hard because true, honest to gosh everpresence isn’t what we human beings do (and yes, that includes human being #7 at the phone company who is above human beings 1-6.) Everpresence is something that only God does. There are lots of entities that try to compete, but no one else can pull it off. God’s everpresence is a service that I can subscribe to whether it’s 4:00 in the morning or 7:00 at night. I don’t have to have a working phone number and I don’t have to pay extra fees for voice dial. I don’t have to switch the service over from one person’s name to my own. God doesn’t need a dial menu to sort through requests or complaints or joyous remarks (like “I found the salt and pepper shakers!!! They were in this box way over here!!!”) or questions. He doesn’t require us to wait at home between the specific hours of 8:00 and 12:00 for an appointment to install his everpresence. He’s got technicians everywhere, although you might not know them just by looking at them. His God-Haul trucks can get you where you need to go without breaking your antique dish collection. He doesn’t put anyone on hold, he does the holding himself. Calls to him are free, but they don’t require 800 numbers. His everpresence is in every box I packed up, but it won’t – oh, thank you, God – get lost in one. He’s something that’s unchanging when nothing – and I mean nothing – else is. My call won’t get cut off in the middle of an important conversation and he doesn’t even mind if I ask the same thing four times in a row until I finally understand the answer. There’s not even any deposit to be paid because someone, bless their soul, paid it for me a long time ago. God’s everpresence is an around the clock, no fees, no waiting, no-batteries-included-because-they-aren’t-needed customer service.
Hey that’s a pretty good line. I should write that down – uh… well, I would if I knew where my pens were….
“God is our
refuge and strength, and ever-present help in times of
trouble.”
Psalm 46:1
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Front and Center
I just finished watching "Front and Center" a movie about a boy with Terets Syndrome that grew up to be the First Year Year Teacher of the Year for Georgia.
It dealt with the hurdles he had to overcome both as a child and as an adult. The greatest hurdle was the lack of acceptance by others.
As large of a problem as this is, I think that often the lack of acceptance of ourselves is an even larger problem. It often seems as though we put our lives on hold until we can find that one piece of the puzzle we feel is missing. That could be education, signifigant other, new job, more money, etc...
The true fact is that none of those things change the core of who we are. After much growing and learning, I have found that who I am needs to be complete and the people I add to my life need to compliment it. I have found that education can make your life different and give you opportunities that are not open to everyone. Money can also make our lives easier but not necessarily better.
I was talking with a friend who has been married and divorced twice. He called himself a two time loser. I felt like a loser for years, after my divorce, as well. Then I stopped to look at the things that I gained as opposed to the things that I had lost. This is certainly not to say that I don't wish that my marriage hadn't worked out, because I do. It is not how it worked out so I have to move forward.
For many years it was too risky to trust others and to let people in to my world. It was not a good way to live. I missed some great friends that passed through and I wasn't willing to accept for fear that they would reject me later.
How many times do we miss the direction God has planned for us because we are too scared to take a chance? Charles Swindoll asked the question, "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" It has given me a lot of room for thought and some new avenues to explore. What would you do?
It dealt with the hurdles he had to overcome both as a child and as an adult. The greatest hurdle was the lack of acceptance by others.
As large of a problem as this is, I think that often the lack of acceptance of ourselves is an even larger problem. It often seems as though we put our lives on hold until we can find that one piece of the puzzle we feel is missing. That could be education, signifigant other, new job, more money, etc...
The true fact is that none of those things change the core of who we are. After much growing and learning, I have found that who I am needs to be complete and the people I add to my life need to compliment it. I have found that education can make your life different and give you opportunities that are not open to everyone. Money can also make our lives easier but not necessarily better.
I was talking with a friend who has been married and divorced twice. He called himself a two time loser. I felt like a loser for years, after my divorce, as well. Then I stopped to look at the things that I gained as opposed to the things that I had lost. This is certainly not to say that I don't wish that my marriage hadn't worked out, because I do. It is not how it worked out so I have to move forward.
For many years it was too risky to trust others and to let people in to my world. It was not a good way to live. I missed some great friends that passed through and I wasn't willing to accept for fear that they would reject me later.
How many times do we miss the direction God has planned for us because we are too scared to take a chance? Charles Swindoll asked the question, "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" It has given me a lot of room for thought and some new avenues to explore. What would you do?
Sunday, November 23, 2008
The Power to Love: The Power in All of Us
I am a science teacher, so for me to say that I’ve been running a little experiment over the past couple of weeks is not really an earth-shattering, eyebrow raising, revelation inspiring piece of news. The funny thing it that I intended for it to be some small way of maybe changing another person’s life, and what it did was change mine.
Now have I got your eyebrows raised?
There are probably fifteen different ways I could tell you that I got the idea planted in my head, but the long and short of it is that I know this kid who tends to get overlooked a lot. She’s not one of the star students that gets everyone’s attention and she’s not one of those kids that is such a problem in class that every teacher knows the child’s name whether they’ve personally met them or not. No, this is one of those kids who just sits in the back of class, not particularly caring about anything except maybe sleeping. Smart, but not motivated. Friendly enough, but not outgoing enough to really catch a person’s attention. So, like a lot of other kids, (and I hate myself for even saying this), she tends to get put on the back burner of a teacher’s mind. We all know people like that. We all can think of people that we see pretty often, but don’t pay much attention to, all the while knowing that no one else pays attention to them either. It makes us sad and sometimes we go so far as to make a mental note that next time we’ve got a spare minute, we’re going to at least stop and have a conversation with the person or see if they need help with running errands, carrying or buying groceries, etc. And we also know that that spare minute just never really comes, does it?
Here’s where the experiment comes in. I saw that kid in the hallway and I was busy, but I knew that somebody needed to take note of her. She had gone so long without anyone noticing her that she preferred not to even be noticed. So I said “good morning.” (Big step, huh?) Oh, I knew it wasn’t much. But I’ve never gone about trying to change a person’s life before, and hey, I had to start somewhere. The next day, I asked her how she was. The third day, she told me how she was. The fourth day, she stopped by my classroom to say hello. By the fifth day, after four days of asking how her day was going and getting the answer that her day was terrible, I figured I needed to try something else to let this kid know somebody cared about her. So in between classes, I grabbed a scratch piece of paper (funny how you can’t find a fresh notepad when you need one) and I scribbled a quick “Today is going to be a great day!” and signed it. Put it in her locker. That was it. Not much. Nothing earth-shattering.
But the results were. The student didn’t find the note until two days later, but when she did, she came by my room, smiling for the first time in months. The next day, she brought a huge poster she’d drawn just for me, telling me “Today was a GREAT day!” This began a system of back and forth note writing. None of these notes were fancy or had much content. Just lots of smiley faces and polka dots and encouraging reminders. One day, another student saw the first girl bringing a note to me. I might add that this second student is one that is especially hard to reach. She doesn’t have encouragement from home and has such a hardened attitude that she’s another kid who gets put on the back burner. Well, she started bringing me handmade cards too. So I put a note in her locker, a lot like the first girl’s, only this time I wrote a quote about tough spirits, like hers. I got a whole handmade book of quotes from her the very next day, along with a grin and a hug in the hallway. (I might mention that it’s hard to hug someone when your jaw is still lying on the floor.) Their notes of encouragement started, well, encouraging me to invest more of my time (even if it was the few minutes of time between classes) in these kids that no one sees, and I include myself on that list of blind adults. So I thought of another young girl who most of us had given up on as a lost cause. Now, this time, I was a little more afraid to make the leap. This kid had never even spoken to me during the two years I’ve had her as a student and she's been in and out of school so many times that I never really know if I'll have her the next day or not. My efforts with this child could totally flop.
On the next day, still running off of a high from the smiles of the two previous girls, I decided to put a note in the third student’s locker, not expecting to see anything change. I know that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, but I was probably showing something a little more microscopic than that. What I got in return was the third student suddenly participating in class (gasp!!!!) and talking to me between classes about what she was learning (learning?!!! This child?!) and calling out to me from across the lunchroom that I could have her spot in the lunch line.
I have a quote written on a scrap of paper in my classroom by Charles Swindoll that says “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” That quote is so inspiring to me, but it has always scared me a little too. What could I do if I stopped being afraid that my efforts wouldn’t lead to success? What change could I bring to the world if I lived my faith the way I should, with all my mustard seeds in one basket, not fearing that pouring out all of my faith and love will result in running out of faith and love? Just the simple act of telling three girls that I can see them, has resulted in a scribbley chain reaction of quietly showing love that is slowly taking over the school. It’s making me not just a better teacher, but a better person. And the part that keeps shocking me is how easy, how simple it really is. It’s not taking up my feverishly guarded and protected time, but rather making me want to give more and more of my heart and my time to it. It has changed how I look at the world and has changed my priorities. It’s also terrifying, because I look at the lightening fast changes we get from showing love to just one person and then I realize – what if there is someone else, right now, who needs someone to love them? The scary part is - how many people right here in front of me have I not loved? Realizing that you have the power to love is frightening when you realize that it is just as powerful not to love someone. It makes you stop and think. And rethink. Then you start understanding a lot of scripture and you start hearing snippets of them in your head with alarming clarity. This is what God wants me to do with the time He’s given me. This is what life is supposed to be about. If you reap what you sow, why not sow all the mustard seeds you’ve got? The next revelation I’ve had is that here I was in my self absorbed self righteousness, thinking that I’d love one kid and probably wouldn’t see anything in return. How faithless I was! Love comes from God and if I choose to let Him use me as a channel, why on God’s green Earth would God choose for that love to fail? It is His own handiwork – not mine!
2 Peter 1:5 says that “ . . . finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
God is writing revelations on my heart with the handwriting of forgotten children, not only needing to love, but needing to love somebody. What started with a two minute experiment is growing into an ever increasing number of chain reactions that loop and wind back around to places that only God could take them, and that includes my own heart.
Am I changing kids’ lives like I wanted to? I don’t know that I am, but I know that God is.
He’s certainly changing mine.
Have a safe and happy holiday and I ask that you take the time to stop and love someone. You have nothing to lose and you both have everything to gain. Love like it can’t fail. It won’t.
Now have I got your eyebrows raised?
There are probably fifteen different ways I could tell you that I got the idea planted in my head, but the long and short of it is that I know this kid who tends to get overlooked a lot. She’s not one of the star students that gets everyone’s attention and she’s not one of those kids that is such a problem in class that every teacher knows the child’s name whether they’ve personally met them or not. No, this is one of those kids who just sits in the back of class, not particularly caring about anything except maybe sleeping. Smart, but not motivated. Friendly enough, but not outgoing enough to really catch a person’s attention. So, like a lot of other kids, (and I hate myself for even saying this), she tends to get put on the back burner of a teacher’s mind. We all know people like that. We all can think of people that we see pretty often, but don’t pay much attention to, all the while knowing that no one else pays attention to them either. It makes us sad and sometimes we go so far as to make a mental note that next time we’ve got a spare minute, we’re going to at least stop and have a conversation with the person or see if they need help with running errands, carrying or buying groceries, etc. And we also know that that spare minute just never really comes, does it?
Here’s where the experiment comes in. I saw that kid in the hallway and I was busy, but I knew that somebody needed to take note of her. She had gone so long without anyone noticing her that she preferred not to even be noticed. So I said “good morning.” (Big step, huh?) Oh, I knew it wasn’t much. But I’ve never gone about trying to change a person’s life before, and hey, I had to start somewhere. The next day, I asked her how she was. The third day, she told me how she was. The fourth day, she stopped by my classroom to say hello. By the fifth day, after four days of asking how her day was going and getting the answer that her day was terrible, I figured I needed to try something else to let this kid know somebody cared about her. So in between classes, I grabbed a scratch piece of paper (funny how you can’t find a fresh notepad when you need one) and I scribbled a quick “Today is going to be a great day!” and signed it. Put it in her locker. That was it. Not much. Nothing earth-shattering.
But the results were. The student didn’t find the note until two days later, but when she did, she came by my room, smiling for the first time in months. The next day, she brought a huge poster she’d drawn just for me, telling me “Today was a GREAT day!” This began a system of back and forth note writing. None of these notes were fancy or had much content. Just lots of smiley faces and polka dots and encouraging reminders. One day, another student saw the first girl bringing a note to me. I might add that this second student is one that is especially hard to reach. She doesn’t have encouragement from home and has such a hardened attitude that she’s another kid who gets put on the back burner. Well, she started bringing me handmade cards too. So I put a note in her locker, a lot like the first girl’s, only this time I wrote a quote about tough spirits, like hers. I got a whole handmade book of quotes from her the very next day, along with a grin and a hug in the hallway. (I might mention that it’s hard to hug someone when your jaw is still lying on the floor.) Their notes of encouragement started, well, encouraging me to invest more of my time (even if it was the few minutes of time between classes) in these kids that no one sees, and I include myself on that list of blind adults. So I thought of another young girl who most of us had given up on as a lost cause. Now, this time, I was a little more afraid to make the leap. This kid had never even spoken to me during the two years I’ve had her as a student and she's been in and out of school so many times that I never really know if I'll have her the next day or not. My efforts with this child could totally flop.
On the next day, still running off of a high from the smiles of the two previous girls, I decided to put a note in the third student’s locker, not expecting to see anything change. I know that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, but I was probably showing something a little more microscopic than that. What I got in return was the third student suddenly participating in class (gasp!!!!) and talking to me between classes about what she was learning (learning?!!! This child?!) and calling out to me from across the lunchroom that I could have her spot in the lunch line.
I have a quote written on a scrap of paper in my classroom by Charles Swindoll that says “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” That quote is so inspiring to me, but it has always scared me a little too. What could I do if I stopped being afraid that my efforts wouldn’t lead to success? What change could I bring to the world if I lived my faith the way I should, with all my mustard seeds in one basket, not fearing that pouring out all of my faith and love will result in running out of faith and love? Just the simple act of telling three girls that I can see them, has resulted in a scribbley chain reaction of quietly showing love that is slowly taking over the school. It’s making me not just a better teacher, but a better person. And the part that keeps shocking me is how easy, how simple it really is. It’s not taking up my feverishly guarded and protected time, but rather making me want to give more and more of my heart and my time to it. It has changed how I look at the world and has changed my priorities. It’s also terrifying, because I look at the lightening fast changes we get from showing love to just one person and then I realize – what if there is someone else, right now, who needs someone to love them? The scary part is - how many people right here in front of me have I not loved? Realizing that you have the power to love is frightening when you realize that it is just as powerful not to love someone. It makes you stop and think. And rethink. Then you start understanding a lot of scripture and you start hearing snippets of them in your head with alarming clarity. This is what God wants me to do with the time He’s given me. This is what life is supposed to be about. If you reap what you sow, why not sow all the mustard seeds you’ve got? The next revelation I’ve had is that here I was in my self absorbed self righteousness, thinking that I’d love one kid and probably wouldn’t see anything in return. How faithless I was! Love comes from God and if I choose to let Him use me as a channel, why on God’s green Earth would God choose for that love to fail? It is His own handiwork – not mine!
2 Peter 1:5 says that “ . . . finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
God is writing revelations on my heart with the handwriting of forgotten children, not only needing to love, but needing to love somebody. What started with a two minute experiment is growing into an ever increasing number of chain reactions that loop and wind back around to places that only God could take them, and that includes my own heart.
Am I changing kids’ lives like I wanted to? I don’t know that I am, but I know that God is.
He’s certainly changing mine.
Have a safe and happy holiday and I ask that you take the time to stop and love someone. You have nothing to lose and you both have everything to gain. Love like it can’t fail. It won’t.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Blessings
Ezekial 34:26 says, "I will bless them and the places surrounding my hill. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing."
The question is, what will we do with these blessings.
Often times we are is such a big hurry, getting from one place to another, that we completely miss the blessing. Or maybe we find it to be an inconvenience or a bother. Did you feel the blessing of the cooler weather or the hug of a small child on a busy morning.
Perhaps more often, we turn the blessing into a responsibility or a job. I have been blessed with many things in my life, however, when I turn them in to responsibilities they feel more like burdens. I love my second job. It has been such a huge blessing. It has given me a reason to get out of the house while doing something constructive. I have met some amazing people and it has given me a resource that I enjoy using to help others. The problem is that I have stopped seeing the blessings and started looking at the responsibilities that can be overwhelming at times. There is dusting to do, windows to clean, floors to vaccuum, shelves to stock. The fourteen hour days are hard when I forget to look at the blessings and just at the work..
There is nothing I love more than my kids and grandbabies, but when I would forget to look at the blessings, the job of being the sole bread winner, the disciplinarian, the tutor, the maid and all the other jobs that go in to raising children, it would be overwhelming. On those days, God would remind me through a word or deed, just how much the kids added to my list of blessings.
I have served on numerous civic and church boards. Many have been directly related to improving the lives of children. The others have been Church or Single Adult Ministry realted. All three of these areas are very dear to my heart. The problem is that in the process of making decisions for the organization, at times the ones being served are forgotten. At that point, it just becomes another chore that we have to do, another meeting that we have to attend. We lose the blessing in the business of being busy.
Then there is the task of allowing others to bless us. I think especially for single adults, we tend to be so independent that we often don't ask or accept the help that we need. We get so caught up in not being a burden to others that we miss the blessing of friendship. I had a friend tell me once that when I didn't let her help me, that I robbed her of a blessing. That has changed the way I offer help and also the way I receive help.
I hope that as the holiday season approaches, that we will look at the blessings around us. If we don't get to caught up in the shopping and cooking and list of events, we will also see the showers of blessing.
The question is, what will we do with these blessings.
Often times we are is such a big hurry, getting from one place to another, that we completely miss the blessing. Or maybe we find it to be an inconvenience or a bother. Did you feel the blessing of the cooler weather or the hug of a small child on a busy morning.
Perhaps more often, we turn the blessing into a responsibility or a job. I have been blessed with many things in my life, however, when I turn them in to responsibilities they feel more like burdens. I love my second job. It has been such a huge blessing. It has given me a reason to get out of the house while doing something constructive. I have met some amazing people and it has given me a resource that I enjoy using to help others. The problem is that I have stopped seeing the blessings and started looking at the responsibilities that can be overwhelming at times. There is dusting to do, windows to clean, floors to vaccuum, shelves to stock. The fourteen hour days are hard when I forget to look at the blessings and just at the work..
There is nothing I love more than my kids and grandbabies, but when I would forget to look at the blessings, the job of being the sole bread winner, the disciplinarian, the tutor, the maid and all the other jobs that go in to raising children, it would be overwhelming. On those days, God would remind me through a word or deed, just how much the kids added to my list of blessings.
I have served on numerous civic and church boards. Many have been directly related to improving the lives of children. The others have been Church or Single Adult Ministry realted. All three of these areas are very dear to my heart. The problem is that in the process of making decisions for the organization, at times the ones being served are forgotten. At that point, it just becomes another chore that we have to do, another meeting that we have to attend. We lose the blessing in the business of being busy.
Then there is the task of allowing others to bless us. I think especially for single adults, we tend to be so independent that we often don't ask or accept the help that we need. We get so caught up in not being a burden to others that we miss the blessing of friendship. I had a friend tell me once that when I didn't let her help me, that I robbed her of a blessing. That has changed the way I offer help and also the way I receive help.
I hope that as the holiday season approaches, that we will look at the blessings around us. If we don't get to caught up in the shopping and cooking and list of events, we will also see the showers of blessing.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Table for 5
Beginning in January 2009, I would like to start a TABLE FOR 5 in the Abilene area. The way it would work, is that every other week for 10 weeks (5 meetings), 5 people would meet to eat a meal and get to know one another. At the end of the 10 weeks each of the 5 people at the table would start their own TABLE FOR 5.
I would like to have a Table of people either from different congregations or from different towns and/or different demographics within singleness (never married, custodial single parent, non-custodial single parent, widow, etc...)
I would also like to invite anyone else to start a TABLE FOR 5 in their area as well.
Each of the 5 persons would be responsible for planning one meeting. Originally it was designed as a Table for 8 and you rotated homes, but you could certainly meet in restaurants as long as you could spend about an hour getting to know one another.
If anyone is interested in joining my Table - please e-mail me at darlaflatt@hotmail.com or just comment on this blog.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Hope When There Isn't Any
If you’ve been keeping up with us on the blog for the last several weeks, you might sense some frustration. Maybe you’re frustrated, yourself. It would be ridiculous to say that singles don’t feel frustration with, well, being single. Sometimes singles fall through the cracks in the church and sometimes, just when they find their niche, the whole program falls through, for reasons we can’t control. It adds to the frustration that already exists for some of us that we are even single in the first place.
It’s times like this that make me read about people who have this extraordinary faith and hope, who turn to God when times get tough, who know that God has a purpose for their singleness and hard times and sometimes, I am encouraged by that. Other times, it actually just frustrates me more. I start to think that ‘you know, haven’t I been patient for years and years and years? Haven’t I heard the promise that God will answer the door if I come knocking? Haven’t I just about beat the darned door down with some of these prayers I have, only to wait longer and longer without feeling like they’ve been heard at all?’
If it makes you nervous to read this for fear of being struck down, well, imagine how I feel for even thinking any of it, much less saying it! I finally got so frustrated, that I didn’t want to read about those people in the bible with extraordinary faith anymore. They made me feel worse. And then I feel like I’m going to get struck down for feeling that way too. I’m not even comforted by the stories of Job, because all I can think about is how terrible it feels to feel afflicted by unanswered prayers with no understanding for them in sight. It only hurts more to read about Job. Here I am, supposed to be putting my hope in God, and all I can feel is that there’s just no use in getting my hopes up anymore when I’m going to have to come crashing down later.
Maybe you feel that way too. Or maybe it’s just me out here, knowing good and well that I’ve got to straighten up, without knowing how to do that. I’d look for somebody in the bible who felt the same way, but they just aren’t there.
Or are they?
If you’ve never looked at Psalms as more than the spot you get a few of your comforting verses from time to time, I invite you to look at it for what it is. They were written by David, a man who was promised to replace Saul as king of the Israelites. And Saul is none to happy about it, I might add. So here’s David, who’s been told by God that he’s going to soon rule Israel; he’s the one who’s going to save the Israelites. That’s got to be a little exciting, right? To know you’re the person who’s going to save people who need it desperately? How’s that for feeling like you finally know what your purpose is?! If it were me, I’d be loading up my mule and hitting the road, singing hallelujah that God has finally chosen to bless me like He said He would all along!
And then David realizes that Saul isn’t going to just fade into the background. In fact, Saul intends to kill him. Here David should be feasting away, eating and drinking and being merry, and instead, he is forced into hiding. Well, not even just hiding. He’s forced into running. And here is where the Psalms come in. Did you know that a lot of those verses were written from a cave? That’s right. David, future king of the Israelites, savior of a country of lost people, bloodline to Savior of the world, is hiding in a dark, cold and damp cave. No fluffy pillows to lie about on, probably not anything to eat, no one there to even tell him what’s going on at home, no one to let him know if it’s safe to come home or if there’s a band of Saul’s henchmen almost upon him. He’s got a strong faith in God, but even with that, things feel a little frustrating, if not entirely hopeless. Look at Psalms 40:8. “I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” That sounds like how I start a lot of my own prayers. Then he goes on to say that he does God’s work, he has faith in God and always has, he’s spread God’s word and lived just like he’s supposed to, and then David tells God that “troubles without number surround me . . . Be pleased, O Lord, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me. But may all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you . . . Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.” Now I’m starting to sense some of that worrying frustration. But if you can’t see it there, look here: “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?” In Psalm 6, David says he is worn out, his eyes are weak from sorrow, and in Psalm 13, he asks “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?” And if you read through a lot more of the Psalms, you see this theme over and over and over again.
Since I’m already in a good place for getting struck down, I might as well go on and say that in reading some of this, I’d found somebody who gets where I’m at. I’ve prayed a million prayers like these. I prayed a thousand times, “Lord, I’m trying to do everything you’ve asked me to do and I’m so thankful for the blessings you’ve already given me. I know there’s some I probably don’t even know about. But right now, I’m stuck in this awful cave all alone and I want Your will over mine, I really do, but God, I am begging you to save me. I’m begging you, not for patience like I probably should, but that You save me, and quick. I feel like You’ve forgotten me, even though You surely haven’t, but I don’t know what to do anymore and I’m exhausted from sorrow. Save me. I’m past asking for patience and strength and I know that you’ve promised so many blessings for me, but Lord, you’ve put hope for those things in my heart and then it feels like You’re not moving me toward them! I’m putting my trust in You! Can’t You hear me! How long must I be forgotten?”
I know I’m not supposed to be angry at how things have turned out in my life so far. I trust God, I really do. But I’m frustrated to a breaking point and there’s no use lying about it, because God knows what’s in my heart. I’d say that it’s wrong for me to feel this way, and I get frustrated with myself for falling short of what God is hoping I would I be. But I think that this time, God has sent me to open my Bible to read the words of someone who probably felt the same way. Something makes me think that maybe it’s ok to feel what I’m feeling for today. The important thing is that I keep the communication lines to God open in my heart, like David did. The important thing is for me not to let the devil whisper to me that I’ve failed completely and that there’s no hope for me, because there is. David climbed out of that cave eventually and I will too.
For now, we might be frustrated. Maybe even frustrated for being frustrated. Sometimes frustrating things happen to us and there’s just no understanding why. Now isn’t the time to give up on hoping and shut God out. Now isn’t the time to make yourself stop feeling what you’re feeling for fear of getting struck down. Believe me, if anybody was going to get struck down for frustration, I suspect I’d be the one to know about it. J
If you find yourself not knowing what to pray for anymore because of frustration, I suggest reading David’s words: “Put your hope in God . . . I will yet praise him.” (Psalms 42:5) “But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.” (Psalms 39:7) Do you see that David, stuck in that hopelessly isolated cave, follows his frustration with asking the Lord where to look for hope? Do you see that David isn’t able to find that hope on his own anymore? David knew what blessings God had planned in the grand scheme of things for him and he didn’t doubt that God would follow through. He was just frustrated with the fact that he didn’t see how God would follow through. He didn’t want to change God’s timing if it was going to mess up the whole plan, but he needed some kind of a sign that give him hope that things really would be ok again. Asking for a sign doesn’t always mean that someone doubts God or is testing Him. In some cases, asking for a sign is a way of asking God to give you something to hope on, so that you can get through your cave. David did it: “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love.” (Psalms 143:8)
If you feel like you’ve got nothing left to hope for, ask God to send you something to hope on. I did it, and you know something?
He did.
It’s times like this that make me read about people who have this extraordinary faith and hope, who turn to God when times get tough, who know that God has a purpose for their singleness and hard times and sometimes, I am encouraged by that. Other times, it actually just frustrates me more. I start to think that ‘you know, haven’t I been patient for years and years and years? Haven’t I heard the promise that God will answer the door if I come knocking? Haven’t I just about beat the darned door down with some of these prayers I have, only to wait longer and longer without feeling like they’ve been heard at all?’
If it makes you nervous to read this for fear of being struck down, well, imagine how I feel for even thinking any of it, much less saying it! I finally got so frustrated, that I didn’t want to read about those people in the bible with extraordinary faith anymore. They made me feel worse. And then I feel like I’m going to get struck down for feeling that way too. I’m not even comforted by the stories of Job, because all I can think about is how terrible it feels to feel afflicted by unanswered prayers with no understanding for them in sight. It only hurts more to read about Job. Here I am, supposed to be putting my hope in God, and all I can feel is that there’s just no use in getting my hopes up anymore when I’m going to have to come crashing down later.
Maybe you feel that way too. Or maybe it’s just me out here, knowing good and well that I’ve got to straighten up, without knowing how to do that. I’d look for somebody in the bible who felt the same way, but they just aren’t there.
Or are they?
If you’ve never looked at Psalms as more than the spot you get a few of your comforting verses from time to time, I invite you to look at it for what it is. They were written by David, a man who was promised to replace Saul as king of the Israelites. And Saul is none to happy about it, I might add. So here’s David, who’s been told by God that he’s going to soon rule Israel; he’s the one who’s going to save the Israelites. That’s got to be a little exciting, right? To know you’re the person who’s going to save people who need it desperately? How’s that for feeling like you finally know what your purpose is?! If it were me, I’d be loading up my mule and hitting the road, singing hallelujah that God has finally chosen to bless me like He said He would all along!
And then David realizes that Saul isn’t going to just fade into the background. In fact, Saul intends to kill him. Here David should be feasting away, eating and drinking and being merry, and instead, he is forced into hiding. Well, not even just hiding. He’s forced into running. And here is where the Psalms come in. Did you know that a lot of those verses were written from a cave? That’s right. David, future king of the Israelites, savior of a country of lost people, bloodline to Savior of the world, is hiding in a dark, cold and damp cave. No fluffy pillows to lie about on, probably not anything to eat, no one there to even tell him what’s going on at home, no one to let him know if it’s safe to come home or if there’s a band of Saul’s henchmen almost upon him. He’s got a strong faith in God, but even with that, things feel a little frustrating, if not entirely hopeless. Look at Psalms 40:8. “I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” That sounds like how I start a lot of my own prayers. Then he goes on to say that he does God’s work, he has faith in God and always has, he’s spread God’s word and lived just like he’s supposed to, and then David tells God that “troubles without number surround me . . . Be pleased, O Lord, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me. But may all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you . . . Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.” Now I’m starting to sense some of that worrying frustration. But if you can’t see it there, look here: “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?” In Psalm 6, David says he is worn out, his eyes are weak from sorrow, and in Psalm 13, he asks “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?” And if you read through a lot more of the Psalms, you see this theme over and over and over again.
Since I’m already in a good place for getting struck down, I might as well go on and say that in reading some of this, I’d found somebody who gets where I’m at. I’ve prayed a million prayers like these. I prayed a thousand times, “Lord, I’m trying to do everything you’ve asked me to do and I’m so thankful for the blessings you’ve already given me. I know there’s some I probably don’t even know about. But right now, I’m stuck in this awful cave all alone and I want Your will over mine, I really do, but God, I am begging you to save me. I’m begging you, not for patience like I probably should, but that You save me, and quick. I feel like You’ve forgotten me, even though You surely haven’t, but I don’t know what to do anymore and I’m exhausted from sorrow. Save me. I’m past asking for patience and strength and I know that you’ve promised so many blessings for me, but Lord, you’ve put hope for those things in my heart and then it feels like You’re not moving me toward them! I’m putting my trust in You! Can’t You hear me! How long must I be forgotten?”
I know I’m not supposed to be angry at how things have turned out in my life so far. I trust God, I really do. But I’m frustrated to a breaking point and there’s no use lying about it, because God knows what’s in my heart. I’d say that it’s wrong for me to feel this way, and I get frustrated with myself for falling short of what God is hoping I would I be. But I think that this time, God has sent me to open my Bible to read the words of someone who probably felt the same way. Something makes me think that maybe it’s ok to feel what I’m feeling for today. The important thing is that I keep the communication lines to God open in my heart, like David did. The important thing is for me not to let the devil whisper to me that I’ve failed completely and that there’s no hope for me, because there is. David climbed out of that cave eventually and I will too.
For now, we might be frustrated. Maybe even frustrated for being frustrated. Sometimes frustrating things happen to us and there’s just no understanding why. Now isn’t the time to give up on hoping and shut God out. Now isn’t the time to make yourself stop feeling what you’re feeling for fear of getting struck down. Believe me, if anybody was going to get struck down for frustration, I suspect I’d be the one to know about it. J
If you find yourself not knowing what to pray for anymore because of frustration, I suggest reading David’s words: “Put your hope in God . . . I will yet praise him.” (Psalms 42:5) “But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.” (Psalms 39:7) Do you see that David, stuck in that hopelessly isolated cave, follows his frustration with asking the Lord where to look for hope? Do you see that David isn’t able to find that hope on his own anymore? David knew what blessings God had planned in the grand scheme of things for him and he didn’t doubt that God would follow through. He was just frustrated with the fact that he didn’t see how God would follow through. He didn’t want to change God’s timing if it was going to mess up the whole plan, but he needed some kind of a sign that give him hope that things really would be ok again. Asking for a sign doesn’t always mean that someone doubts God or is testing Him. In some cases, asking for a sign is a way of asking God to give you something to hope on, so that you can get through your cave. David did it: “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love.” (Psalms 143:8)
If you feel like you’ve got nothing left to hope for, ask God to send you something to hope on. I did it, and you know something?
He did.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
What is going on?
It seems like more and more I hear about people who are frustrated with the church they are attending. Unfortunately, I mostly hear about unrest in the Methodist Church but I'm pretty sure it is not only within our denomination.
The most disturbing to me is the situation in the Austin District. Their single adult council was a growing ministry. It was making a difference in the lives of the single adults in their area and in the area they went on their mission trips.
While I believe that there is a need for outreach to young adults, I also believe that an outreach is also needed for those over 35 but not yet 60. I agree with the members of the council who are disheartened and frustrated with the Methodist Church as a whole for allowing a handful of people to rob them not only of their ministry but also in their comfort within their lifelong denomination.
The second incident, that stands out, is that of a young pastor who made a decision on moving a patriotic symbol from the sanctuary to a place of importance in the foyer so that it could be passed while entering and exiting the church. This apparently caused one man to loose all composure. His fit in the sanctuary not only reduced the pastor's wife to tears, it also drove a wedge between members in the congregation. There is at least one young family who is considering changing churches because of the man's behavior. The young woman was not raised in church and had been asking questions about baptism and now she is unsure if she wants to be a part of something that proclaims to show love and respect and yet the actions are so completly different.
The actions that we take and the words that we speak have a lot further reach than we realize. We must learn to match our action with our words. If we are going to talk about being loving and kind - then we must do that. If we are going to say that we want to strengthen the Methodist (or any other) denomination - then we must take the necessary steps to accept people at the place they are in their lives. This is not to say that we shouldn't teach and guide but rather that we should do that carefully, without judgement. If we want to grow, perhaps we will have to find new ways to worship and welcome and perhaps we will need to turn loose of some traditions and "always done it that way ideas" and be willing to try something new. Change is not bad - just different.
The most disturbing to me is the situation in the Austin District. Their single adult council was a growing ministry. It was making a difference in the lives of the single adults in their area and in the area they went on their mission trips.
While I believe that there is a need for outreach to young adults, I also believe that an outreach is also needed for those over 35 but not yet 60. I agree with the members of the council who are disheartened and frustrated with the Methodist Church as a whole for allowing a handful of people to rob them not only of their ministry but also in their comfort within their lifelong denomination.
The second incident, that stands out, is that of a young pastor who made a decision on moving a patriotic symbol from the sanctuary to a place of importance in the foyer so that it could be passed while entering and exiting the church. This apparently caused one man to loose all composure. His fit in the sanctuary not only reduced the pastor's wife to tears, it also drove a wedge between members in the congregation. There is at least one young family who is considering changing churches because of the man's behavior. The young woman was not raised in church and had been asking questions about baptism and now she is unsure if she wants to be a part of something that proclaims to show love and respect and yet the actions are so completly different.
The actions that we take and the words that we speak have a lot further reach than we realize. We must learn to match our action with our words. If we are going to talk about being loving and kind - then we must do that. If we are going to say that we want to strengthen the Methodist (or any other) denomination - then we must take the necessary steps to accept people at the place they are in their lives. This is not to say that we shouldn't teach and guide but rather that we should do that carefully, without judgement. If we want to grow, perhaps we will have to find new ways to worship and welcome and perhaps we will need to turn loose of some traditions and "always done it that way ideas" and be willing to try something new. Change is not bad - just different.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Writer's Block
Boy, it’s been a busy several weeks. I’d like to say I had a good excuse for not posting anything all this time, but the truth is that I’ve had an opportunity or two. The truth is that I’ve even put some thought into what the next article ought to be. The truth is that there’s plenty of single Christian topics to discuss, plenty of bible stories to relate to.
And the truth is, I’ve got writer’s block.
I’ve got writer’s block in a lot of different ways, actually. This time it’s more than just not knowing exactly what to write about for a blog. It’s about not knowing what to say to myself and not knowing what to say to God. Did you ever feel like that?
When you are passing through a storm in your life, whether that be an issue that comes up at work, a house payment you don’t know how you’ll make, a relationship or maybe something your child is going through, you know what you want. You know you need out of the problem, you figure out what it takes to get you out and you ask for God’s help and direction. You may not be having a easy time of things, but your prayers come easy and they come often. You’re focused because you are at least sure in the fact that you know you want out. Then God delivers you. Now your know you are blessed and again, your focus and prayers come easy –“ Hallelujah! Thank you, Father!”
Then, sometimes, for reasons I can’t reason out, comes writer’s block. Now the storm is over and there’s the aftermath to clean up. I’m thankful that the worst of the storm is through, I really am. But now what? Now I look around myself and I don’t know what to do next. When I’m at work, I sit and I’m glad that it’s a new week, but for the life of me, I can’t see past the stacks of papers and books and lists of things to do on my desk. I don’t know where to start, or even where I want to go with it all. So I sort through all the possible directions I could go in my mind, and at the end of the day, all I’ve got is the same mess I started with and the overwhelming sense that I don’t know how I’ll face it the next day either. How will I know what to do with this tomorrow if I can’t figure it out today?
When I come home, I see laundry that needs doing, I see work that needs to be done in my yard, I see a sink full of dirty dishes and a growing stack of bills that I need to pay. I don’t know what to do first. I want to enjoy my newfound quiet time and I’m afraid of it at the same time. I want to make a new start on some things in life, but I don’t know how to get there or if I’m even really ready for it. I want to sit and have just a few quiet moments to think and to pray, but when I sit down, the words won’t come.
Writer’s block.
What do you do when you just don’t know what to do anymore? When you want to find your drive again, but you don’t know where you want to go? When you want to say something to God, but you just can’t figure out what to say?
I went to a bookstore once and saw a little box of magnets for sale. Each one had a different word printed on it and the whole thing was being advertised (jokingly) as a cure for writer’s block. It was there for you to take the words and however you wanted to, arrange them on the door of a refrigerator. Hopefully, playing with the words would inspire your mind and open the flood gates again.
You know, Jesus kind of did that for us, too. I think that he must have known that we might come to the point now and then when we wouldn’t know what to say and to help us keep the phone lines open, he gave us a prayer that would help us cover all the bases until we could find our own words again.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven” –
reminding me that God is there, listening and speaking back to my heart with a voice that is calm, strong and solid. God didn't ask us to pray so that he could be reminded that we are out there. He asked us to pray so that we'll remember that He's there.
“Hallowed be thy name.”
I’m not the one in charge here. I’m like Moses on that mountain side with a burning bush. It’s time to take off my sandals - I’m on hallowed ground - and understand I’m not the one who’s calling shots here.
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,”
While I’m taking off my sandals, it’s also time to concede that all my troubles, all my heartaches, all those stacks of paper on my desk, all the problems in the world I can’t solve – none of it is mine. This isn’t actually my mountain side. It’s Gods. This is God’s universe. I don’t have any answers for anything, and I’m not supposed to. God didn’t ask for a substitute teacher, so it’s high time I stopped trying to be one. It’s God’s kingdom and it’s His will that reigns. That’s actually a relief!
“On Earth as it is in Heaven.”
That’s not to say that His will doesn’t include all these little details I’m chasing day in and day out. This prayer says that God’s will will be done on Earth just as it is in Heaven. My idea of God’s will in Heaven includes a mental picture of galaxies and stars and swirls of shiny things I can’t comprehend the sheer size of. Look at the power! Look at the miracle of it all! Why, on God’s green Earth, wouldn’t He use that same power on this planet? Of course His will is going to be at work in my life! I may not can see where He’s going with it, but that doesn’t mean He’s not right here. There is security in realizing that the God of the stars and the moon and the sun is the same God of my desk at work, my flower beds and everything that I need between the two.
Give us this day our daily bread –
Lord, I don’t even know what I need. I don’t even know what I need to be asking for. I don’t know if I need rest or if I need to be surrounding myself with people who care about me. I can’t even say what I want for supper, and I’ve been staring into the refrigerator for thirty minutes. But You know what I need, even when I don’t, and I trust that You’ll take care of me.
And forgive us our trespasses –
It feels like I can’t do a danged thing right, to put it plain and simply. My Shepherd can see me out here in this ravine though, and whether or not I know how He’s going to do it, He’ll always come and look for me. He’s never going to give up on me.
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
I can be as mad as my body will physically let me be, but it is time to finally put the past where it belongs. Behind me.
And lead us not into temptation –
I keep trying to fix my problems myself and you know what? It makes a bigger mess. I keep getting tempted into trying easy fixes, but you know, there’s not anything that is going to make any kind of hurting or anger stop until you finally give God your heart to heal. God, keep me on your straight and narrow path while I try to regain my footing.
But deliver us from evil -
Keep me on safe ground while I figure out where it is You want me to go or what it is You want me to do. Thank you for not letting me fall.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.
This world is God’s. He knows what He’s doing. And one day, I’ll know too.
Amen.
And no case of writer’s block can stand up to that.
And the truth is, I’ve got writer’s block.
I’ve got writer’s block in a lot of different ways, actually. This time it’s more than just not knowing exactly what to write about for a blog. It’s about not knowing what to say to myself and not knowing what to say to God. Did you ever feel like that?
When you are passing through a storm in your life, whether that be an issue that comes up at work, a house payment you don’t know how you’ll make, a relationship or maybe something your child is going through, you know what you want. You know you need out of the problem, you figure out what it takes to get you out and you ask for God’s help and direction. You may not be having a easy time of things, but your prayers come easy and they come often. You’re focused because you are at least sure in the fact that you know you want out. Then God delivers you. Now your know you are blessed and again, your focus and prayers come easy –“ Hallelujah! Thank you, Father!”
Then, sometimes, for reasons I can’t reason out, comes writer’s block. Now the storm is over and there’s the aftermath to clean up. I’m thankful that the worst of the storm is through, I really am. But now what? Now I look around myself and I don’t know what to do next. When I’m at work, I sit and I’m glad that it’s a new week, but for the life of me, I can’t see past the stacks of papers and books and lists of things to do on my desk. I don’t know where to start, or even where I want to go with it all. So I sort through all the possible directions I could go in my mind, and at the end of the day, all I’ve got is the same mess I started with and the overwhelming sense that I don’t know how I’ll face it the next day either. How will I know what to do with this tomorrow if I can’t figure it out today?
When I come home, I see laundry that needs doing, I see work that needs to be done in my yard, I see a sink full of dirty dishes and a growing stack of bills that I need to pay. I don’t know what to do first. I want to enjoy my newfound quiet time and I’m afraid of it at the same time. I want to make a new start on some things in life, but I don’t know how to get there or if I’m even really ready for it. I want to sit and have just a few quiet moments to think and to pray, but when I sit down, the words won’t come.
Writer’s block.
What do you do when you just don’t know what to do anymore? When you want to find your drive again, but you don’t know where you want to go? When you want to say something to God, but you just can’t figure out what to say?
I went to a bookstore once and saw a little box of magnets for sale. Each one had a different word printed on it and the whole thing was being advertised (jokingly) as a cure for writer’s block. It was there for you to take the words and however you wanted to, arrange them on the door of a refrigerator. Hopefully, playing with the words would inspire your mind and open the flood gates again.
You know, Jesus kind of did that for us, too. I think that he must have known that we might come to the point now and then when we wouldn’t know what to say and to help us keep the phone lines open, he gave us a prayer that would help us cover all the bases until we could find our own words again.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven” –
reminding me that God is there, listening and speaking back to my heart with a voice that is calm, strong and solid. God didn't ask us to pray so that he could be reminded that we are out there. He asked us to pray so that we'll remember that He's there.
“Hallowed be thy name.”
I’m not the one in charge here. I’m like Moses on that mountain side with a burning bush. It’s time to take off my sandals - I’m on hallowed ground - and understand I’m not the one who’s calling shots here.
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,”
While I’m taking off my sandals, it’s also time to concede that all my troubles, all my heartaches, all those stacks of paper on my desk, all the problems in the world I can’t solve – none of it is mine. This isn’t actually my mountain side. It’s Gods. This is God’s universe. I don’t have any answers for anything, and I’m not supposed to. God didn’t ask for a substitute teacher, so it’s high time I stopped trying to be one. It’s God’s kingdom and it’s His will that reigns. That’s actually a relief!
“On Earth as it is in Heaven.”
That’s not to say that His will doesn’t include all these little details I’m chasing day in and day out. This prayer says that God’s will will be done on Earth just as it is in Heaven. My idea of God’s will in Heaven includes a mental picture of galaxies and stars and swirls of shiny things I can’t comprehend the sheer size of. Look at the power! Look at the miracle of it all! Why, on God’s green Earth, wouldn’t He use that same power on this planet? Of course His will is going to be at work in my life! I may not can see where He’s going with it, but that doesn’t mean He’s not right here. There is security in realizing that the God of the stars and the moon and the sun is the same God of my desk at work, my flower beds and everything that I need between the two.
Give us this day our daily bread –
Lord, I don’t even know what I need. I don’t even know what I need to be asking for. I don’t know if I need rest or if I need to be surrounding myself with people who care about me. I can’t even say what I want for supper, and I’ve been staring into the refrigerator for thirty minutes. But You know what I need, even when I don’t, and I trust that You’ll take care of me.
And forgive us our trespasses –
It feels like I can’t do a danged thing right, to put it plain and simply. My Shepherd can see me out here in this ravine though, and whether or not I know how He’s going to do it, He’ll always come and look for me. He’s never going to give up on me.
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
I can be as mad as my body will physically let me be, but it is time to finally put the past where it belongs. Behind me.
And lead us not into temptation –
I keep trying to fix my problems myself and you know what? It makes a bigger mess. I keep getting tempted into trying easy fixes, but you know, there’s not anything that is going to make any kind of hurting or anger stop until you finally give God your heart to heal. God, keep me on your straight and narrow path while I try to regain my footing.
But deliver us from evil -
Keep me on safe ground while I figure out where it is You want me to go or what it is You want me to do. Thank you for not letting me fall.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.
This world is God’s. He knows what He’s doing. And one day, I’ll know too.
Amen.
And no case of writer’s block can stand up to that.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Life
It often takes a tragedy to remind us not only what we have but also how precious life is. This week there was an 18 year old girl, from Eula, who was killed in a car accident. I can not even imagine the the pain that this family is feeling.
I know that God will see them through this. I have witnessed God's grace and comfort in these situations as two other of my friends have lost children to tragedies.
As I tried to see where this 18 year old college freshman was in her life, I looked at her My Space page. I was amazed at what I found. It has a place for a quote and hers said "When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you but merely opening your hands to receive something better". Wow! was God telling her that when he took this life as we know it from her grasp he was opening her hands to receive Heaven. Hmmm... I don't know - or was that for us who were left behind.
So going on further down the page, there is a place for how you are feeling. Hers said that she felt adored. How great it must feel to know that you are adored. What a powerful place to be.
So then I moved my gaze to the right had side of the page. At the top she had written "I am the happiest and luckiest girl in the world" below that was a reference to her boyfriend. (She was on her way home from seeing her boyfriend when she died in a car accident.)
No matter what age we are when our time to leave this world - how great would it be to feel as if we were the happiest, luckiest person and that we were adored.
We will miss you Kim but we know that you are home and that you are safe in God's arms.
Kim Ayers a 19 year old 2008 graduate of Eula High School was killed in a car accident on October 9, 2008. Please remember her family in your prayers!
I know that God will see them through this. I have witnessed God's grace and comfort in these situations as two other of my friends have lost children to tragedies.
As I tried to see where this 18 year old college freshman was in her life, I looked at her My Space page. I was amazed at what I found. It has a place for a quote and hers said "When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you but merely opening your hands to receive something better". Wow! was God telling her that when he took this life as we know it from her grasp he was opening her hands to receive Heaven. Hmmm... I don't know - or was that for us who were left behind.
So going on further down the page, there is a place for how you are feeling. Hers said that she felt adored. How great it must feel to know that you are adored. What a powerful place to be.
So then I moved my gaze to the right had side of the page. At the top she had written "I am the happiest and luckiest girl in the world" below that was a reference to her boyfriend. (She was on her way home from seeing her boyfriend when she died in a car accident.)
No matter what age we are when our time to leave this world - how great would it be to feel as if we were the happiest, luckiest person and that we were adored.
We will miss you Kim but we know that you are home and that you are safe in God's arms.
Kim Ayers a 19 year old 2008 graduate of Eula High School was killed in a car accident on October 9, 2008. Please remember her family in your prayers!
Sunday, October 5, 2008
NEW IDEAS
This week has been pretty hectic and yet in the chaos there has come some new insight. I recognize that the Northwest Texas and New Mexico Conferences are geographically limiting in respect to Conference-wide activities. So I have been looking at options that would reach persons throughout the conference. Then I realized that I use my computer on a daily basis. So why not use the internet as a tool.
The blog is just the first step. Kim has done an amazing job of keeping it updated and interesting. I would like to take a new step. I am thinking that we could start an online Bible Study. We could all get the same book or choose a book of the Bible and go through it verse by verse. We could spend a week or a selected number of days on a section and the interaction could be in the form of response to a blog, we could start a Google Group or some other type of interactive group.
Also, beginning in January 2009, I will be implementing a "Table for 5 " where there will be a group of 5 single adults. We will meet every other week for 10 weeks (5 meetings). At the end of the 5 meetings, each of those 5 people will start their own "Table for 5". It can be singles from any status or background. Any denomination. The idea will be to try to make it somewhat diverse in nature so that we can learn from each other.
So let me know if you are interested in either of these activities so that we can get started on the planning and implementation.
I hope each of you has a blessed week!
The blog is just the first step. Kim has done an amazing job of keeping it updated and interesting. I would like to take a new step. I am thinking that we could start an online Bible Study. We could all get the same book or choose a book of the Bible and go through it verse by verse. We could spend a week or a selected number of days on a section and the interaction could be in the form of response to a blog, we could start a Google Group or some other type of interactive group.
Also, beginning in January 2009, I will be implementing a "Table for 5 " where there will be a group of 5 single adults. We will meet every other week for 10 weeks (5 meetings). At the end of the 5 meetings, each of those 5 people will start their own "Table for 5". It can be singles from any status or background. Any denomination. The idea will be to try to make it somewhat diverse in nature so that we can learn from each other.
So let me know if you are interested in either of these activities so that we can get started on the planning and implementation.
I hope each of you has a blessed week!
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
More Wisdom From SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT
Toward the end of the book SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT AS ME, Denver (the homeless man) is talking and he says, "Our limitation is God's opportunity. When you get all the way to the end of your rope and ain't nothin you can do, that's when God takes over".
There have been a lot of things going on in my life. Kids, grandbabies, jobs, meetings, Church, and the list goes on and on. So recently I found myself at the end of my rope. Exhausted, non-motivated, ok - whiney. That's when it happened (that's when it always happens). I found myself defending my "causes", justifying my busyness and ultimately remembering why I have filled my plate with the things that are on it. I think this is how God took over.
I found myself hurt by a friend and I hung on to it and tried to decide if the friendship was even worth the effort. Friendships are worth the effort 99% of the time. So, we will see but I hope that the friendship can be salvaged.
I love my kids and grandkids - they fill my life with sunshine and joy. Spending time with them is always a gift. As is time spent with friends. The work I do with the Family Enrichment Center is important - I have a passion for kids and doing what I can to make their lives easier.
But my real passion is Single Adult Ministry. However, it seems like I continue to run into a brick wall. So I find myself at the end of my rope - I believe that there is a need for this ministry and yet I don't know that anyone else feels that way. Pastors and the Conference office are supportive in conversation but I often wonder how supportive they would be if there was a cost - be it time or money. So I guess the bottom line is are you out there and what do you need this ministry to look like? My plan is to admit I'm at the end of my rope and get out of the way so the God can take over.
There have been a lot of things going on in my life. Kids, grandbabies, jobs, meetings, Church, and the list goes on and on. So recently I found myself at the end of my rope. Exhausted, non-motivated, ok - whiney. That's when it happened (that's when it always happens). I found myself defending my "causes", justifying my busyness and ultimately remembering why I have filled my plate with the things that are on it. I think this is how God took over.
I found myself hurt by a friend and I hung on to it and tried to decide if the friendship was even worth the effort. Friendships are worth the effort 99% of the time. So, we will see but I hope that the friendship can be salvaged.
I love my kids and grandkids - they fill my life with sunshine and joy. Spending time with them is always a gift. As is time spent with friends. The work I do with the Family Enrichment Center is important - I have a passion for kids and doing what I can to make their lives easier.
But my real passion is Single Adult Ministry. However, it seems like I continue to run into a brick wall. So I find myself at the end of my rope - I believe that there is a need for this ministry and yet I don't know that anyone else feels that way. Pastors and the Conference office are supportive in conversation but I often wonder how supportive they would be if there was a cost - be it time or money. So I guess the bottom line is are you out there and what do you need this ministry to look like? My plan is to admit I'm at the end of my rope and get out of the way so the God can take over.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Hi Ho Silver and Bring on the Adventure!
As a single person (actually, this probably isn’t limited to just single people, but that’s beside the point), I keep wishing that the “next step” would happen in my life. I keep thinking that whenever I finally get that next job, or that next relationship, or that next child, that next house, that next etc., then the adventure in my life can begin. I keep thinking that where I am at right now is just a place for waiting for that next-step-thank-you-God-it’s-finally-here adventure to get started. Then the following thought hit me this week: gosh what if I’m thirty before any of those things happen? What if I’m forty? Eighty? What if I wait years and years for adventure to start in my life and in the process, miss all the adventures that could be happening to me now?
We all do it, to a point. We all have watched a movie and wished that all of that adventure could happen to us. The movie I just watched was a Sam Elliott and Tom Selleck western (gosh I love those movies!), full of rushing horses, cleverly timed and placed explosions of dynamite, racing trains, kidnappings, long lost love, a strong willed woman and stubborn but ruggedly handsome men, surprise attacks on enemy camps, canyon hideouts, a desperate battle between good and evil – oh I’m sorry, am I getting carried away? I wish! I wish I was the one being swept off my feet and onto the back of wild, racing horse as I narrowly escape a cattle stampede – oops sorry! I did it again!
Then I look at my own life and of course, none of those adventures are happening to me. (sigh) Where’s my adventure? When does my adventure get to start???
Well, here’s a neat little passage I came across recently –
“Life is now a battle and a journey. This is the truest explanation for what is going on, the only way to rightly understand our experience. Life is not a game of striving and indulgence. It is not a long march of duty and obligation. Life is a desperate quest through dangerous country to a destination that is, beyond all our wildest hopes, indescribably good.”
-John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire
Wait a second – did that guy just tell me that my life is a battle and a journey? A desperate quest through dangerous country? Wild? Really? He must have me confused with someone else! That sounds far too adventurous to be describing me.
Or is it? This week I’m reading in 2 Corinthians and in 2 Corinthians 11, Paul is writing about his life and it starts making me look at my own completely differently. His life was much more physically dangerous and hard and uncomfortable than mine, don’t get me wrong, but bear with me – Paul says he has worked hard, to within an inch of his life, I interpret. Can you relate to that? I can. He says he’s been flogged and near death again and again – have you gone through the same hurtful trial and broken heart beyond hope of repair over and over? I have. He’s been beaten, stoned, left for dead – ever felt abandoned, alone, or attacked? I have. He’s been shipwrecked – ever been lost in life, stranded so far away from where you want to be that you don’t know how to get back? I have. He’s spent a night in the open sea – ever had to wonder or worry about how you were not only going to get through the next day, but wonder how you were even going to get to the next day? I have. He’s been in danger from rivers and bandits – ever felt carried away by a force you can’t stop? He’s been in danger from his countrymen – ever lost trust in a friend? – and strangers. He’s been in danger in the country and in the city – it didn’t make a bit of difference if he lived where there was supposedly a slower pace or a faster one, the result was the same. He’s “labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep” – oh good heavens can I relate to that! He’s known hunger and thirst – my college days come to mind, but this doesn’t have to be a literal hunger and thirst, as you well know. We hunger, even starve for things we can’t get a grocery store. He’s been cold – ever lived in a drafty apartment? Ever had to skip paying a gas bill? And he says that on top of all of that, “I face daily pressure of my concern for the churches.” On top of managing to stay alive day to day, we have additional worries, don’t we? Single parents worry about their kids, some of us worry about something at work, some of us worry about a neighbor or another family member. Some of us worry about how we’re going to meet somebody new. Paul says that once he even escaped harm by being lowered from a window in a basket. God’s provided me with a few proverbial windows to climb out of myself.
Geeze, the more I look at Paul’s life, the more I see quite a bit of adventure reflected in my own. Now the idea of my life being battle makes a little more sense. No, I’m not carrying a sword around and riding about on horseback, but I fight the battle to strengthen the minds and guide the souls of teenagers every day (don’t tell me I don’t do battle!!) I don’t necessarily hide out in canyons from a posse with a vengeance, but I certainly cross gaping canyons in my heart. Surprise attacks? I’ve been subject to a few of those and I’ve probably led quite a few myself. Dangerous country? I will press on! War between good and evil? I will fight for the good! “I will keep on doing what I am doing!” as Paul says. “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.” We demolish doubts. We take captive thoughts and make them obedient to Christ. God gives me his grace and shows his power through us. We stand ready. Good grief, with a life full of so much adventure, I’ve quite forgotten that I was waiting on someone to bring the adventure to me!
We all do it, to a point. We all have watched a movie and wished that all of that adventure could happen to us. The movie I just watched was a Sam Elliott and Tom Selleck western (gosh I love those movies!), full of rushing horses, cleverly timed and placed explosions of dynamite, racing trains, kidnappings, long lost love, a strong willed woman and stubborn but ruggedly handsome men, surprise attacks on enemy camps, canyon hideouts, a desperate battle between good and evil – oh I’m sorry, am I getting carried away? I wish! I wish I was the one being swept off my feet and onto the back of wild, racing horse as I narrowly escape a cattle stampede – oops sorry! I did it again!
Then I look at my own life and of course, none of those adventures are happening to me. (sigh) Where’s my adventure? When does my adventure get to start???
Well, here’s a neat little passage I came across recently –
“Life is now a battle and a journey. This is the truest explanation for what is going on, the only way to rightly understand our experience. Life is not a game of striving and indulgence. It is not a long march of duty and obligation. Life is a desperate quest through dangerous country to a destination that is, beyond all our wildest hopes, indescribably good.”
-John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire
Wait a second – did that guy just tell me that my life is a battle and a journey? A desperate quest through dangerous country? Wild? Really? He must have me confused with someone else! That sounds far too adventurous to be describing me.
Or is it? This week I’m reading in 2 Corinthians and in 2 Corinthians 11, Paul is writing about his life and it starts making me look at my own completely differently. His life was much more physically dangerous and hard and uncomfortable than mine, don’t get me wrong, but bear with me – Paul says he has worked hard, to within an inch of his life, I interpret. Can you relate to that? I can. He says he’s been flogged and near death again and again – have you gone through the same hurtful trial and broken heart beyond hope of repair over and over? I have. He’s been beaten, stoned, left for dead – ever felt abandoned, alone, or attacked? I have. He’s been shipwrecked – ever been lost in life, stranded so far away from where you want to be that you don’t know how to get back? I have. He’s spent a night in the open sea – ever had to wonder or worry about how you were not only going to get through the next day, but wonder how you were even going to get to the next day? I have. He’s been in danger from rivers and bandits – ever felt carried away by a force you can’t stop? He’s been in danger from his countrymen – ever lost trust in a friend? – and strangers. He’s been in danger in the country and in the city – it didn’t make a bit of difference if he lived where there was supposedly a slower pace or a faster one, the result was the same. He’s “labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep” – oh good heavens can I relate to that! He’s known hunger and thirst – my college days come to mind, but this doesn’t have to be a literal hunger and thirst, as you well know. We hunger, even starve for things we can’t get a grocery store. He’s been cold – ever lived in a drafty apartment? Ever had to skip paying a gas bill? And he says that on top of all of that, “I face daily pressure of my concern for the churches.” On top of managing to stay alive day to day, we have additional worries, don’t we? Single parents worry about their kids, some of us worry about something at work, some of us worry about a neighbor or another family member. Some of us worry about how we’re going to meet somebody new. Paul says that once he even escaped harm by being lowered from a window in a basket. God’s provided me with a few proverbial windows to climb out of myself.
Geeze, the more I look at Paul’s life, the more I see quite a bit of adventure reflected in my own. Now the idea of my life being battle makes a little more sense. No, I’m not carrying a sword around and riding about on horseback, but I fight the battle to strengthen the minds and guide the souls of teenagers every day (don’t tell me I don’t do battle!!) I don’t necessarily hide out in canyons from a posse with a vengeance, but I certainly cross gaping canyons in my heart. Surprise attacks? I’ve been subject to a few of those and I’ve probably led quite a few myself. Dangerous country? I will press on! War between good and evil? I will fight for the good! “I will keep on doing what I am doing!” as Paul says. “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.” We demolish doubts. We take captive thoughts and make them obedient to Christ. God gives me his grace and shows his power through us. We stand ready. Good grief, with a life full of so much adventure, I’ve quite forgotten that I was waiting on someone to bring the adventure to me!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Four Wheel Drive
If you pay attention to vehicle ads on television, you know what the ultimate sign of freedom is. "Hey, anybody can get a car - something with four wheels - but not every car will take you where you want to go," they say. But if you really want to live your way, if you really want to go where no one else can go, if you really want freedom you need one thing: four wheel drive.
Four wheel drive can get you places alright. And it can get you stuck in a lot of places you shouldn't have been to in the first place.
There is a story in Numbers that really doesn't get a whole lot of attention, but it's got mine this week and if you think about it, it's got a lot to do with having four wheel drive and using it to make a series of not-so-great decisions, that land a guy in not-such-a-great place.
Numbers 21 lands us in a state of transition between two great leaders (Moses and Joshua) for the Israelites. The Israelites start approaching the territory of an opposing leader named Balak and he's not thrilled about the idea. So Balak sends for a diviner, Balaam (it's easy to get names confused here, so stick with me!), to come and curse the Israelites and thus thwart their advances in Balak's direction. Balaam, being a good Christian sort of fellow, though, says he won't do any such thing. Balak, in turn, offers Balaam quite a sum of money to make this cursing business worth Balaam's while.
And here's where I imagine Balaam's sense of four wheel drive coming in. He probably figures that "you know, here's this money that I need and all I've really got to do is ride along with these fellows and act like I might curse their enemies for them. That really doesn't require any particular act of evil on my part. It's not really compromising my faith," and as simple as that, Balaam takes the money and decides to join the evil posse. I mean, he's got four-wheel drive, he can drive through all that muck and mud and make it out ok, right?
God's got a different opinion.
God makes it clear to Balaam that he's not headed in the right direction. He tells him that he'd better just stay home and keep those four wheels in the garae where they belong.
Balaam saddles up his donkey anyway. God decides that if He's not going to get Balaam's attention, then He'll go after the donkey instead. God puts a fierce angel right in that donkey's way and she, by golly, stops. She's got four-hoof drive alright, but she knows a bad muddy road/fierce angel of death when she sees one and she puts on the brakes. When Balaam figures out what's going on, he probably realized that maybe this whole thing has gone far enough and it's time to turn and head back home.
But he doesn't.
God tells Balaam then, that if he's going to go bailing off down these roads with his almighty four wheel drive, then he'd better do exactly what God tells him to do.
Now isn't that interesting? God coulda struck Balaam down right then and there. Heaven knows Balaam has disobeyed orders multiple times now, is on his way to curse a blessed people, knows that God wants him to stop screwing up and he's going anyway! But God doesn't strike Balaam down. He lets Balaam go off muddin', but now Balaam's got a new job to do. God is about to let Balaam get stuck out there on the road with Balak, and now He's going to get some use out of this predicament.
As the story goes on, Balaam finally gets to Balak and sees what Balak is really up to. Curse the Israelites? Are you kidding? That's serious! Now I imagine Balaam wondering what the heck he's gotten himself into. As Balak drags Balaam to go look at that pesky Israelite army that's assembling itself, Balaam probably realizes that he's just gotten to the end result of a series of sorry decisions. Oh no, he hasn't killed anybody, he hasn't committed any mortal sin, but he knows he's taken a whole lot of steps that he shouldn't have made. But now he's here and he looks at Balak and says "Well, I have come to you now." Now I've done it, he's thinking. Nothing to do but resign and accept my fate. Or is there? Now it's come down to the very moment where Balak is waiting for Balaam to utter those words that will end the Israelites. Oh, the pressure on those four wheels now!
Then Balaam remembers something: "But can I say just anything? I must speak only what God puts in my mouth." Over the course of the next several days, Balak keeps taking Balaam to places that will show him how important it is to stop the Israelites' progress and Balaam continues to bless them instead. With each effort that Balak makes to change Balaam's mind, Balaam becomes more and more resolute in what he must do, now that he's gotten himself here. Balaam, in the end, blesses the Israelites, strengthening them, and in the process, revealing to Balak how powerful God really is.
This story strikes me as important from several directions. Sometimes I feel like I've been blessed with a four wheel drive that gets me through and to all kinds of challenging places that people said I couldn't reach and then when I get there, I'm disheartened that no one else has made it there with me. Balaam's story makes me think that God knows exactly where I am and how I got there and he's going to use my location in this remote place to do some good. Maybe He's going to get me away to a remote place so I'll hear something He has to say. Maybe He's going to get me to a remote place so that I can reveal Him to people who are already there ahead of me by the way I make future decisions.
From a different perspective, sometimes I feel like I've made one choice after another to do things my own way, and not necessarily for the good. I barrel off down these muddy roads simply to show that no one can stop me and then I finally look up and realize that my four wheel drive has gotten me a long ways off from where I might ought to be. It's easy to look at life and think that there's no going back now, no way to undo what's been done and no way to get past it. In this story, God is telling us that just isn't so. He's telling us that yes, we've wound up somewhere he tried to tell us not to go to or yes, we've had the strength to get to some place that not many other people can - and yes, now we're stuck. But - God can use our predicaments, whether it's ourselves or Him that put us there.
We've all got a little bit of four-wheel drive in us that can get us stuck in some pretty remote places. Maybe it's time to stop spinning our tires and listen to what God wants us to do now that we're here.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Same Kind of Different
I have just finished reading The Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. There are some amazing lessons to be learned from this book. It is the story of a homeless man and an upscale art dealer and the difference they made in each others lives.
They were brought together by the faith of the art dealers wife and her faithfulness to the voice of God.
After she lost her battle with cancer, the homeless man (Denver Moore) is talking about how he was scared to get close to people, because everyone he had ever cared about had died. He continues on to say that he was glad that he had broken his own rule and let her be part of his life and how glad that he was the she had stood up to him when he tried to push her away. He then talked about the most important lesson that he thought she had taught him. "Every man should have the courage to stand up and face the enemy, cause ever person that looks like a enemy on the outside ain't necessarily one on the inside. We all has more in common than we think. You stood up with courage and faced me when I was dangerous, and it changed my life. You loved me for who I was on the inside, the person God meant for me to be, the one that had just gotten lost for a while on some ugly roads in life."
What are the ugly roads in life that we travel down that keep us from being the people God wants us to be? What enemies must we find the courage to face in order to change the lives of others?
They were brought together by the faith of the art dealers wife and her faithfulness to the voice of God.
After she lost her battle with cancer, the homeless man (Denver Moore) is talking about how he was scared to get close to people, because everyone he had ever cared about had died. He continues on to say that he was glad that he had broken his own rule and let her be part of his life and how glad that he was the she had stood up to him when he tried to push her away. He then talked about the most important lesson that he thought she had taught him. "Every man should have the courage to stand up and face the enemy, cause ever person that looks like a enemy on the outside ain't necessarily one on the inside. We all has more in common than we think. You stood up with courage and faced me when I was dangerous, and it changed my life. You loved me for who I was on the inside, the person God meant for me to be, the one that had just gotten lost for a while on some ugly roads in life."
What are the ugly roads in life that we travel down that keep us from being the people God wants us to be? What enemies must we find the courage to face in order to change the lives of others?
Sunday, September 7, 2008
The Great Migration
“There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven.”
-Ecclesiastes 3:1
I am always glad to see Fall. I love the cooler days and the cooler nights, the colors, the clear and starry night skies, and the excitement that change is coming. There are some changes that I feel more than others, though – all of the coming and going. I watch birds like Scissortails and Kites stop their aerial acrobatics and head toward warmer pastures. Monarch butterflies start arriving in dogged ones and twos, and finally crowds, all flying wearily south in mystifying migration patterns that I wonder if they are even aware they are a part of. Hawks migrate through, and crows fill their places. Even people that have held dear places in my heart are “migrating” away, and new relationships will be migrating in. All of this migrating, this coming and going, makes a person start to wonder about the big-picture purpose for all of this moving around.
All of this coming and going also makes me marvel at how God sets the stage for the things He is about to do in our lives. Everything God does fits into an incredible plan that includes the most minute details. So as I watch leaves falling from trees and monarchs floating in and out of the falling leaves, I think to myself that it must be exciting to be a part of something so big, so grand, so timeless. Something that has been going on for thousands of years. Then the inevitable question becomes “Where and what is my place in all of this?” What is my purpose?
You and I are not the only ones to ask that question, and this brings me to what I think is my favorite part of the entire Bible. It’s not something that is often quoted in sermons and it’s not anything you see kids memorizing in Sunday school. In fact, it’s probably skimmed over a lot because of how unexciting it looks on the surface. I’m talking about Luke 3:23. It’s a list of Jesus’ ancestors. And it’s long. It takes us all the way back to Adam, in fact. In one person’s name is the representation of God’s favorite creation, the fall of man, and God’s plan to bring his favorite creation back to Him. God had the most grandest, most incredible plan of all time, and He was patiently waiting for the right people to get it set into motion. The list of ancestors advances, generations of men coming and going, from Adam to Noah to Abram. God chooses Abram to begin a journey that would begin a chain of events, as He instructs Abraham to move to Canaan and become the father of nations. Was Abraham going to see the final product of all of his labor? Was he going to see Jesus come and save all souls? Did he even know what God was going to do or how he was going to do it? Well, not exactly. But if Abraham hadn’t fulfilled his purpose, God’s plan would have been dropped to a dead halt. The list of names unfolds further before my eyes– Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Boaz, David, Joshua. And the list doesn’t just represent the men who fathered the next generation of people in each successive step in God’s plan. The list represents countless women (like Esther who found herself in a king’s court with the purpose of saving the Jews, and therefore David’s bloodline), countless children (like Moses’ big sister who played a role in preserving his life as an infant), countless sinners (anybody remember Jacob stealing his brother’s blessing and birthrights?), countless underdogs (Joseph, who was sold as a slave, came to lead Israelites into Egypt, setting the stage for Moses to show God’s strength by delivering them from Egypt), and – you knew I was going to say it – single people (like the two midwives who refused to kill all of the Hebrew baby boys, also preserving the bloodline to Jesus). The list even represents generations of people who didn’t make it to the list. What they all have in common is that every single one of them had a purpose and that was to get Jesus here. Some of them carried his blood, some of them protected the people who would carry his blood, some of them developed the laws that needed to be in place before Jesus could fulfill his purpose, some got people where they needed to be before the next step in God’s plan could happen. Some had to carry people through dark times so that God could use the next generation like a spotlight. There are over 70 generations of people recorded in that list and I love it because I can see God’s big picture, I can see the wheels turning, I see that if any one of those people hadn’t filled their purpose, however great or small, that it would have had the most drastic and terrible impact on me, thousands and thousands of years later.
There is a season for everything, alright. Like those monarchs, God has a purpose for me. He has a purpose for all of us, coming and going, moving and staying in place, planting and harvesting, tearing down and building, crying and laughing, embracing and turning away, being quiet and speaking up – God has a purpose for all of us. We are all part of a great migration – souls flying upward to Heaven – and we’re to bring everyone with us that we can.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Seeing the Inner Camel in Every Cow
I'll be the first to tell you that the last month has been pretty rough and I'm pretty glad it's about over. Having said that, I'll also tell you that every time I think that, I hear my great grandmother saying "You're wishing your life away..." and I know. She's right. But some days are just rough. And some months are rougher. This last week, I ran across a great quote that really hit home:
"For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
That made a whole heck of a lot of sense to me. Of course, by the end of that day, after working with teenagers for eight hours, I was worn out and some of that roughness from the month started seeping back in to my field of view. Here I was, exhausted, and here I was, due at the church to work with more teenagers for bible study. No time for rest right now. I drive up and it's hot and I'm hungry and every child I'm supposed to work with is late. Finally, everyone is there and I begin telling our bible story for the day, about Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai. Moses has been up on that mountain, working out a covenant with God and rules for people who said they'd follow those rules (but are breaking them as Moses speaks). And my kids are squirming, they're throwing things at each other, and I'm constantly telling them to put up their cell phones until we're finished. Oh, I can relate with Moses. Don't these people see the importance of listening right now? Don't they see the work I'm trying to do? The sacrifices I'm making, just for them? I've no sooner come off my proverbial mountain than they're dancing and singing around golden cellular devices. Moses throws the stone tablets. I tell these hooligans put their phones up. Now. When we finally arrive at the end of my story for the day, it's time to illustrate what we learned in our bible journals (we draw pictures of the story of the day and eventually we'll look at the whole bible, in our own pictures, not just words). Half the kids can't be coralled long enough to get anything drawn and I'm about done in. That's when one little boy leans over to me and asks me, amongst the chaos, with great gravity: "Ma'am?... Is it ok if my golden calf looks more like a golden camel?"
Oh, maybe on another day it would have gotten a smile out of me, but on this day, I just about died laughing. That's when I decided we should take a look at our other pictures. Flipping through their journals, I ask them what each pictures represents. There's the drawing of Lot and his family fleeing Gomorrah, and there's Lot's wife drawn, half salt shaker and half human.
There's Noah with his Ark full of animals, including a "zonkey." Half zebra. Half donkey.
On another page, here's Jacob, about to cheat Esau out of his father's blessing with naught but a warm supper. Jacob has a voice bubble saying "Hi Dad!" and there's Isaac responding with a wisdom-filled, loving statement of "Soup!"
Farther back, there's Abraham. I vaguely remember telling the kids months ago that God told Abraham he'd have a son with Sarah. In their doubt, however, Sarah arranges for Abraham to have a child with Hagar. I told the kids that sometimes we try speed God's work along for Him and that's not what faith is about. Now I will forever remember this story as a crayon drawing with stick figures -Abraham standing between two women, looking at Hagar and a big voice bubble covering the page from God saying "No, not that one!"
I believe that God was quietly reminding me if I'm not careful, I'm going to trade a lot of precious moments of happiness for minutes of anger, and I don't have to. He's showing me that yes, sometimes our best laid plans get more confused than a panel interview at the Tower of Babel. He's showing me that yes, God is about loving people that are hard to love, living a life that's not easy to live, and carrying us when we can't walk on our own anymore, but he's also about joy and laughing and looking at faith through the eyes of a child.
Hey. Sometimes you mean to draw a calf and sometimes you get a camel.
Or a zonkey.
"For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
That made a whole heck of a lot of sense to me. Of course, by the end of that day, after working with teenagers for eight hours, I was worn out and some of that roughness from the month started seeping back in to my field of view. Here I was, exhausted, and here I was, due at the church to work with more teenagers for bible study. No time for rest right now. I drive up and it's hot and I'm hungry and every child I'm supposed to work with is late. Finally, everyone is there and I begin telling our bible story for the day, about Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai. Moses has been up on that mountain, working out a covenant with God and rules for people who said they'd follow those rules (but are breaking them as Moses speaks). And my kids are squirming, they're throwing things at each other, and I'm constantly telling them to put up their cell phones until we're finished. Oh, I can relate with Moses. Don't these people see the importance of listening right now? Don't they see the work I'm trying to do? The sacrifices I'm making, just for them? I've no sooner come off my proverbial mountain than they're dancing and singing around golden cellular devices. Moses throws the stone tablets. I tell these hooligans put their phones up. Now. When we finally arrive at the end of my story for the day, it's time to illustrate what we learned in our bible journals (we draw pictures of the story of the day and eventually we'll look at the whole bible, in our own pictures, not just words). Half the kids can't be coralled long enough to get anything drawn and I'm about done in. That's when one little boy leans over to me and asks me, amongst the chaos, with great gravity: "Ma'am?... Is it ok if my golden calf looks more like a golden camel?"
Oh, maybe on another day it would have gotten a smile out of me, but on this day, I just about died laughing. That's when I decided we should take a look at our other pictures. Flipping through their journals, I ask them what each pictures represents. There's the drawing of Lot and his family fleeing Gomorrah, and there's Lot's wife drawn, half salt shaker and half human.
There's Noah with his Ark full of animals, including a "zonkey." Half zebra. Half donkey.
On another page, here's Jacob, about to cheat Esau out of his father's blessing with naught but a warm supper. Jacob has a voice bubble saying "Hi Dad!" and there's Isaac responding with a wisdom-filled, loving statement of "Soup!"
Farther back, there's Abraham. I vaguely remember telling the kids months ago that God told Abraham he'd have a son with Sarah. In their doubt, however, Sarah arranges for Abraham to have a child with Hagar. I told the kids that sometimes we try speed God's work along for Him and that's not what faith is about. Now I will forever remember this story as a crayon drawing with stick figures -Abraham standing between two women, looking at Hagar and a big voice bubble covering the page from God saying "No, not that one!"
I believe that God was quietly reminding me if I'm not careful, I'm going to trade a lot of precious moments of happiness for minutes of anger, and I don't have to. He's showing me that yes, sometimes our best laid plans get more confused than a panel interview at the Tower of Babel. He's showing me that yes, God is about loving people that are hard to love, living a life that's not easy to live, and carrying us when we can't walk on our own anymore, but he's also about joy and laughing and looking at faith through the eyes of a child.
Hey. Sometimes you mean to draw a calf and sometimes you get a camel.
Or a zonkey.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
A Dog's Life
What is it about a dog that endears them to us. I believe it is the fact that they accept us. They don't care what we look like or what kind of mood we are in - they just love us.
The greeters at our churches should be as glad to see the people who come through the doors. Ok, so the jumping and face licking would probably not go over so well, but the sheer joy of seeing you again is amazing.
Even if you have just gone in the other room for a few minutes, they are thrilled when you re-enter the room.
It often feels like we need to act a certain way of live a certain way, in order to be accepted in the church. If we go back to the Bible, Christ accepted people where they were. He didn't heal only the elite and he didn't only associate with the affluent.
One of the first things that we need to do, though is to accept ourselves. We need to know that being single is not a disease. It is the place that we are in our lives. Christ knows us and loves us right where we are today. He knows our desires and our needs. He also knows what plans He has for us and where we need to be in our lives in order best fulfill that role.
We also need to be careful not to judge others. We need to understand that everyone has something that they are struggling with and we need to be sensitive to those hurts and needs. If we want to be accepted by others - we must first learn to accept others.
We need to be more open to showing love and acceptance - maybe we could take some lessons from the dogs.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Other Fish in the Sea
If I've heard it once, I've heard it at least 150 times. I've heard it when someone I liked in high school started dating another girl, I've heard it when there seemed to be no potential relationship on the horizon and I've heard it when one of my own relationships ended. "There are other fish in the sea," someone says, and I know they mean well, I really do, but that doesn't stop me from cringing every time I hear the words. There are other fish in the sea. Sometimes I respond with "if only I liked fish!" and other times I respond with "there are other fish in the sea because I keep throwing them back!" and then my frustration multiplies out of the sheer desperation of it all. Sometimes I think that there may very well be fish in the sea, but I'm fishing from a puddle and sometimes I look at friends around me getting married and think that the fish must be biting, but they're biting something like exquisite cheddar cheese and all I've got is earthworms (and yes, I've seen fish bite cheddar cheese.)
This week I've been reminded about those elusive fish again, but something a little ironic happened shortly after and I can't help but share it.
I recently bought one of Max Lucado's books called "Next Door Savior." It's been sitting on my table for several weeks and I decided it was high time to start reading it. So I open the book, and there, staring me in the face is a story about Peter, the fisherman. That's right, I said fisherman. And I rolled my eyes at that, too. More fish?! As it turns out, that's what Peter was thinking too (see Luke 5:5). Peter had been out on his fishing boat all night long and hadn't caught a thing. Lucado fleshes the story out enough for me to actually see the frustration and relate to it. Peter had been fishing all night long. I mean, the poor man probably saw everybody around him catching fish, taking fish home, and being able to live off of that, but no matter how many times he let out his nets, they came up empty. I imagine that he might have caught an occasional old and lost shoe, clump of seaweed, or yet another toad - oops sorry, that's my story! - and I imagine that he probably about cried after every false alarm. Finally, he gives up, and rows back to shore. Unsuccessful. Nothing to show for those long, cold, frustrating hours. I feel for Peter because I’m in Peter’s boat.
Then, along comes Jesus and he's actually being crowded off of the shore by huge numbers of people that have come to listen to him. Peter's boat happens to be handy. Jesus asks him to row them off the shore a little bit. Peter is bound to be exhausted, but he does as he's asked. Then Jesus looks at Peter and tells him to "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."
I've read this story a number of times in my life, but I had never put much thought into how simple that really wasn't. If I were Peter, the last thing I would want to do is put out my nets again. I would have my heart set on just going home and calling in sick. Peter tells Jesus that he's already tried putting out his nets. He's tried it all night and there's nothing to be had. He's dejected, feels rejected and is broken hearted. Again, I feel for Peter because I know what Peter feels. But Peter does something that must have been incredibly difficult. He tells Jesus he'll do as he's asked and he puts out those nets. And he catches more fish than he can haul into the boat.
Great fishing story. But Peter's not through. Fast forward to John 21. Jesus has been laid to rest and here is Peter out on that lonesome fishing boat again. That morning of catching fish when there shouldn't have been any is a memory from a long time ago. It doesn't even matter anymore, because here is Peter and he's fished all night and he's got nothing to show for it. Again. I feel for Peter, because I'm in that same boat.
Here comes Jesus again, too. This time Peter doesn't even recognize Jesus. This strange man calls out to Peter asking him, hasn't he caught any fish? Peter's probably thinking the same thing I am - "if I hear somebody tell me there are fish in this sea one more time-". Jesus tells Peter to throw his nets over the right side of the boat "and you will find some." Once more, Peter does what makes no sense to him at all. There aren't any fish out there. It's humiliating in itself, do we have to make it harder by getting our hopes up again? But he does as he’s told and catches more fish than he can haul into his boat.
Great fishing story. What I would give to have a fishing story like that.
Just a couple of nights ago, I had those stories in mind, but I was on rock bottom again, frustrated and even angry at my current situation. I opened up my bible and I didn't know where to read or what I even needed to read, so I just flipped through the pages, waiting for "chance" to land me on the right page. Flipping, flipping, flipping - hey wait a minute. Go back to that last page. What was that? I turned back and saw scribbles filling up the side of a page and so I read there. It was the story of Paul and darn it if he wasn't out on the open seas. He's in chains because he is on his way to another trial (he's been through several at this point, see Acts 21-30) and the ship he is on is more or less lost at sea, surrounded by a storm threatening to dash them all to pieces. I feel for Paul. I'm in Paul's boat. Now, here's the odd thing. Paul didn't have to be on this boat. He actually could have gotten off scott free back there with King Agrippa and Festus at the last trial but he told them he wanted to tell his story to Caesar (Acts 26:32). Paul chose to go to trial again. He could have taken the easy way out and gone home, but he chose to go through another trial because it needed to be done. Now he's out here about to be shipwrecked and he tells the crew not to get on the lifeboats. He tells them to cut off the anchors. No use in weighing the boat down in place out there in the storm. Then the boat lands on some sandbar of an island he’s probably never heard of and certainly never planned on going to when he planned out what he wanted for his life. Turns out that the island was a good place for Paul to be (Acts 28).
Do you feel like you’re on these boats too? Do you feel like you just don’t have it in you to cast out your net again? Do you feel chained to a ship lost at stormy seas, moving from trial to trial? Jesus knows you’re tired from fruitlessly fishing all night. He says throw out your net again. Jesus knows you feel shipwrecked. Maybe that’s how he’ll get you to the right island.
People tell me there are other fish in the sea. I don’t particularly care to be out on the sea in my little boat and frankly, I’m tired of fishing. But I think that maybe, the good Lord has put some stories in front of me this week to tell me He knows what boat I’m in and thankfully, I’m not in this boat alone.
This week I've been reminded about those elusive fish again, but something a little ironic happened shortly after and I can't help but share it.
I recently bought one of Max Lucado's books called "Next Door Savior." It's been sitting on my table for several weeks and I decided it was high time to start reading it. So I open the book, and there, staring me in the face is a story about Peter, the fisherman. That's right, I said fisherman. And I rolled my eyes at that, too. More fish?! As it turns out, that's what Peter was thinking too (see Luke 5:5). Peter had been out on his fishing boat all night long and hadn't caught a thing. Lucado fleshes the story out enough for me to actually see the frustration and relate to it. Peter had been fishing all night long. I mean, the poor man probably saw everybody around him catching fish, taking fish home, and being able to live off of that, but no matter how many times he let out his nets, they came up empty. I imagine that he might have caught an occasional old and lost shoe, clump of seaweed, or yet another toad - oops sorry, that's my story! - and I imagine that he probably about cried after every false alarm. Finally, he gives up, and rows back to shore. Unsuccessful. Nothing to show for those long, cold, frustrating hours. I feel for Peter because I’m in Peter’s boat.
Then, along comes Jesus and he's actually being crowded off of the shore by huge numbers of people that have come to listen to him. Peter's boat happens to be handy. Jesus asks him to row them off the shore a little bit. Peter is bound to be exhausted, but he does as he's asked. Then Jesus looks at Peter and tells him to "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."
I've read this story a number of times in my life, but I had never put much thought into how simple that really wasn't. If I were Peter, the last thing I would want to do is put out my nets again. I would have my heart set on just going home and calling in sick. Peter tells Jesus that he's already tried putting out his nets. He's tried it all night and there's nothing to be had. He's dejected, feels rejected and is broken hearted. Again, I feel for Peter because I know what Peter feels. But Peter does something that must have been incredibly difficult. He tells Jesus he'll do as he's asked and he puts out those nets. And he catches more fish than he can haul into the boat.
Great fishing story. But Peter's not through. Fast forward to John 21. Jesus has been laid to rest and here is Peter out on that lonesome fishing boat again. That morning of catching fish when there shouldn't have been any is a memory from a long time ago. It doesn't even matter anymore, because here is Peter and he's fished all night and he's got nothing to show for it. Again. I feel for Peter, because I'm in that same boat.
Here comes Jesus again, too. This time Peter doesn't even recognize Jesus. This strange man calls out to Peter asking him, hasn't he caught any fish? Peter's probably thinking the same thing I am - "if I hear somebody tell me there are fish in this sea one more time-". Jesus tells Peter to throw his nets over the right side of the boat "and you will find some." Once more, Peter does what makes no sense to him at all. There aren't any fish out there. It's humiliating in itself, do we have to make it harder by getting our hopes up again? But he does as he’s told and catches more fish than he can haul into his boat.
Great fishing story. What I would give to have a fishing story like that.
Just a couple of nights ago, I had those stories in mind, but I was on rock bottom again, frustrated and even angry at my current situation. I opened up my bible and I didn't know where to read or what I even needed to read, so I just flipped through the pages, waiting for "chance" to land me on the right page. Flipping, flipping, flipping - hey wait a minute. Go back to that last page. What was that? I turned back and saw scribbles filling up the side of a page and so I read there. It was the story of Paul and darn it if he wasn't out on the open seas. He's in chains because he is on his way to another trial (he's been through several at this point, see Acts 21-30) and the ship he is on is more or less lost at sea, surrounded by a storm threatening to dash them all to pieces. I feel for Paul. I'm in Paul's boat. Now, here's the odd thing. Paul didn't have to be on this boat. He actually could have gotten off scott free back there with King Agrippa and Festus at the last trial but he told them he wanted to tell his story to Caesar (Acts 26:32). Paul chose to go to trial again. He could have taken the easy way out and gone home, but he chose to go through another trial because it needed to be done. Now he's out here about to be shipwrecked and he tells the crew not to get on the lifeboats. He tells them to cut off the anchors. No use in weighing the boat down in place out there in the storm. Then the boat lands on some sandbar of an island he’s probably never heard of and certainly never planned on going to when he planned out what he wanted for his life. Turns out that the island was a good place for Paul to be (Acts 28).
Do you feel like you’re on these boats too? Do you feel like you just don’t have it in you to cast out your net again? Do you feel chained to a ship lost at stormy seas, moving from trial to trial? Jesus knows you’re tired from fruitlessly fishing all night. He says throw out your net again. Jesus knows you feel shipwrecked. Maybe that’s how he’ll get you to the right island.
People tell me there are other fish in the sea. I don’t particularly care to be out on the sea in my little boat and frankly, I’m tired of fishing. But I think that maybe, the good Lord has put some stories in front of me this week to tell me He knows what boat I’m in and thankfully, I’m not in this boat alone.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Time for Reflection
After a lesson or unit, teachers are encouraged to look back on their work, or "reflect," to see how effective their lesson was and how it could be improved upon. It's probably something we all do at one point or another regarding almost any aspect of our lives. For example, that Italian cream cake I made yesterday - was it a keeper recipe? And if the cake has already been devoured, then yes, that was probably a job well done. If the cake was just pushed around on my family's plates and gracefully never mentioned again, well, then I might need to fix something.
So today I am reflecting about this blog. It is coming close to time to talk about this thing at Roundup in Lubbock, and I'd like to have a better idea about how things are going. So once again, if you will look over there to the left, there are a few poll questions I'd like you to answer. The first is just a visitor counter. I have no real way to know to how many people check this website, so you're here, click the little visitor counter for me. Don't worry, I can't track you down, I can't trace who you are or what computer you are clicking from. I just need a head count.
Next, I'd like to know how often you check this website. If this is the first time ever to check it, there's a place for you. If you are a loyal reader and always have been, there's a place for you. If you forget this blog is here more often than not, but you still check it now and then, there's a place for you.
And last, I want to know who is reading. Wait - stop panicking - remember I'm not trying to track you down and eliminate your carefully protected anonymity! I just want to know if you're single or not. This blog was created for singles, of course, but if there are any non-single readers out there (and I think there are), you are most welcome! A lot of these blog posts could actually address needs in any one's life, not just singles'.
So there you have it. I'm reflecting on the usefulness and effectiveness of this creation. As always, feel free to leave comments if you have suggestions or just want to say something. I'm listening.
And, as always, thanks for your cooperation!
So today I am reflecting about this blog. It is coming close to time to talk about this thing at Roundup in Lubbock, and I'd like to have a better idea about how things are going. So once again, if you will look over there to the left, there are a few poll questions I'd like you to answer. The first is just a visitor counter. I have no real way to know to how many people check this website, so you're here, click the little visitor counter for me. Don't worry, I can't track you down, I can't trace who you are or what computer you are clicking from. I just need a head count.
Next, I'd like to know how often you check this website. If this is the first time ever to check it, there's a place for you. If you are a loyal reader and always have been, there's a place for you. If you forget this blog is here more often than not, but you still check it now and then, there's a place for you.
And last, I want to know who is reading. Wait - stop panicking - remember I'm not trying to track you down and eliminate your carefully protected anonymity! I just want to know if you're single or not. This blog was created for singles, of course, but if there are any non-single readers out there (and I think there are), you are most welcome! A lot of these blog posts could actually address needs in any one's life, not just singles'.
So there you have it. I'm reflecting on the usefulness and effectiveness of this creation. As always, feel free to leave comments if you have suggestions or just want to say something. I'm listening.
And, as always, thanks for your cooperation!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The World Needs People Who Stick to Their Guns
Being a single woman in a small town, I've heard my share of advice and suggestions in the department of dating. Being a single Christian woman, I've had my share of frustrations in dating as well. You know, the reactions to a single Christian woman can be interesting. Some people are in awe of a person with any kind of moral standards at all. Some people are encouraging, telling you to "stick to your guns" and that if you'll just keep your standards, one day it will all be worth it (my opinion too). And then there are the people who think you're crazy. Waiting for marriage? Are you crazy? Who does that? Where's the fun in it?, they ask. On my loneliest days, sometimes I've wondered if I was really going about this the right way. By making sacrifices, by not being afraid to stand firm in my faith or let someone know that I drew hard lines where most of society prefers to keep lines nice and blurry, by working in the church several different ways and not being afraid to let people see that side of my life either, well, you might can imagine that the line of young men asking for my number shortens quite dramatically. On those loneliest days, I've had the same conversation with myself, over and over: Strong Christian standards make dating hard, and sometimes it feels darn near impossible. Maybe if I dropped that bible study I've been leading...maybe guys wouldn't be so afraid of me. Maybe...maybe if I did actually go out to the bars with some of my friends and just tried to blend in a little better, flirt a little more....maybe I could actually meet somebody. And for a split second, that sounds pretty feasible.
That is, it sounds feasible until I remember that it's that kind of thought process that makes people turn in their relationship for God to trade it in for some kind of pleasure that will only go with them as far as the grave. I want a man in my life alright, but the kind of man I could end up with as a result of lowering my standards isn't the kind of man I want at all. So then, almost with a broken heart, I realize that it's God's plan, it's God's work that truly matters. It's what I'm on this planet for. Not to suit myself and take all the easy roads. Those easy roads aren't what gets me where I know in my heart I actually want to go. On the loneliest of days, "sticking to your guns" isn't the easy thing to do at all. In fact, sometimes, on the loneliest of days, it feels - let's just be honest - it feels like the very things I do to keep my soul Heaven bound, are the very things that make life downright miserable down here. "Sticking to your guns" isn't easy, that's for certain, and it's even harder when people around me start realizing that sticking to my guns is preventing a few men from putting their names on my dance card. A few well-meaning friends suggested I stop writing for a Christian blog (not gonna name which blog, of course :)). Others thought that maybe if I dressed a little more suggestively and went out to the bars with them then my problems could be solved in a heartbeat.
Surely every Christian single, in any stage of life, has struggled with the same frustrations. It's hard to find encouragement to stay on the less traveled roads we find ourselves on. I know. I'm there.
Lucky for me, today I found some of that much needed encouragement and I thought I'd share it with you, just in case you need it too. Any emphasis you see with italics is mine (there's some other good advice in there too and I didn't want to chop the work to pieces).
"The World Needs People
Who cannot be bought;
Whose word is their bond;
Who put their character above wealth;
Who possess opinions and a will;
Who are larger than their vocations;
Who do not hesitate to take chances;
Who will not lose their individuality in a crowd;
Who will be as honest in small things as in great things;
Who will make no compromise with wrong;
Whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires;
Who will not say they do it "because everybody else does it;:"
Who are true to their friends through good report
and evil report, in adversity as well as prosperity;
Who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning, and hardheadedness
are the best qualities for winning success;
Who are not ashamed or afraid to stand for
the truth when it is unpopular;
Who can say "no" with emphasis,
although all the rest of the world says "yes." "
-Ted W. Engstrom
From Motivation to Last a Lifetime
From Motivation to Last a Lifetime
Here's to sticking to your guns. Hang in there -
Kim
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
When Change is Here to Stay
When school was out for the summer, I thought to msyelf: "Finally! I can catch my breath! I can finally slow down a little and really enjoy myself!" But the very next week, I was working with a museum to collect data on a fossil bone bed, giving a workshop for teachers and beginning plans for a new teacher program for my area. And when that was over, I thought "Okay! Now I can finally catch my breath! Get back to that relaxing non-routine I've been looking forward to all year!" and then I promptly left town for the weekend to see a relative's new baby and when I got back from that, I promptly left the state for a month to study hardcore astronomy (see Moving on Indeed). When I got back from that, I thought "Finally! Now I can catch my breath and relax!" and then that very day I helped move a family member into a new apartment and helped my best friend move out of her house. As I feel my summer slip between my fingers, I start looking at my calendar and do I see that nice relaxing time to just rest? Well, no, not exactly. I see another trip out of the state, I see another couple of workshops to give, family reunions, friends to go see before they move out of state - and then school starting again, with more workshops to give, more conferences to attend, more weekend roadtrips. Suddenly, it doesn't look like things are ever going to get back to normal at all, and it's a little alarming.
I see a lot of people around me going through the same thing, actually. I see parents getting ready to send the last of their kids off to college. I see a lot of my friends moving to new places, getting new jobs far away from the life we have spent together over the last year. I see new Mom's. I see people moving on from ended marraiges and people adjusting to new marraiges. Everywhere I look there are people suddenly coming to the realization that change is here for good.
I keep asking myself how on earth I got to be so busy. At this time last year, I was dying for something to do or someone to talk to. Now I've got so much to do that I can't remember it all and so many people moving in and out of my life that I can't keep in touch with everybody like I should.
Wait a minute. Rewind. Was I just feeling worried because now I have causes to be passionate about? Was I just now feeling bedraggled because of all these people who need a piece of my time? Those are the very things I was praying for!!! Look at that! New things to do and see! New people to love and be loved by! Isn't that wonderful? Maybe I should be looking at all of these changes in my life, not as something that is keeping me from having my "normal" life, but as blessings, as new doors that open to more blessings I couldn't have imagined for myself. Yes, it's a little unsettling to have the very ground beneath me shift to something I don't recognize anymore, but I can't forget that there is one thing that remains unchanged in our lives, and that's God. He knows we are a little uncomfortable with how busy life has gotten, but He's got so many wonderful things that will come from it all, just waiting for us to happen on to. He knows you're broken hearted because of a friend or a child that is moving away, but He's going to carry you through it and get you to a new place where life is just as joyous as you remember it being before everything changed, but joyous in a new way.
And so when I think about that way, things look a little different and I can finally come to terms with the fact that my life is going to be different now. Change is here to stay. And somehow, that's ok.
I see a lot of people around me going through the same thing, actually. I see parents getting ready to send the last of their kids off to college. I see a lot of my friends moving to new places, getting new jobs far away from the life we have spent together over the last year. I see new Mom's. I see people moving on from ended marraiges and people adjusting to new marraiges. Everywhere I look there are people suddenly coming to the realization that change is here for good.
I keep asking myself how on earth I got to be so busy. At this time last year, I was dying for something to do or someone to talk to. Now I've got so much to do that I can't remember it all and so many people moving in and out of my life that I can't keep in touch with everybody like I should.
Wait a minute. Rewind. Was I just feeling worried because now I have causes to be passionate about? Was I just now feeling bedraggled because of all these people who need a piece of my time? Those are the very things I was praying for!!! Look at that! New things to do and see! New people to love and be loved by! Isn't that wonderful? Maybe I should be looking at all of these changes in my life, not as something that is keeping me from having my "normal" life, but as blessings, as new doors that open to more blessings I couldn't have imagined for myself. Yes, it's a little unsettling to have the very ground beneath me shift to something I don't recognize anymore, but I can't forget that there is one thing that remains unchanged in our lives, and that's God. He knows we are a little uncomfortable with how busy life has gotten, but He's got so many wonderful things that will come from it all, just waiting for us to happen on to. He knows you're broken hearted because of a friend or a child that is moving away, but He's going to carry you through it and get you to a new place where life is just as joyous as you remember it being before everything changed, but joyous in a new way.
And so when I think about that way, things look a little different and I can finally come to terms with the fact that my life is going to be different now. Change is here to stay. And somehow, that's ok.
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