Big BUTS

And  I’m not talking about the kind hauling off to the gym this week. Nor about the ones uttered by plaintive, excuse-making people.

The ones I’m thinking about are the buts that plant themselves squarely in the interface between curl up-and-die and stand- arms outstretched- and immovable.

These buts, which don’t deny they are in a pickle in this visible reality, can see through to the world beyond—the world shaped by and anchored in a belief in God’s word, truth, and being.

Many people I have talked to say they are happy to put 2011 behind them. It was a difficult year for jobs, security, health, and all things familiar. For me, 2011 was bookended by loss—the death of my father in January and the death of my mom in December.

In between, the Lord blossomed a book and set it on a journey of its own. I marvel at what He has done and will do with my ignorant foray into the land of publishing.

Now, as I hold my new red leather journal, spanking clean pages awaiting forms of lessons learned and life observed, I contemplate the months ahead—a pivotal country election, a position as “matriarch” (oh my) of my family, uncertainty in all things financial and secure, nuclear potential in the hands of enemies, and isolation for a country once considered “friend.”

It looks kind of scary.

BUT . . .

Then there’s God. GOD with whom all things are possible. I am determined to fix my face on the reality His presence and possibility this year—in all things, large and small.

An email received this morning reminded me that there are many women entering the Women of Faith Writing Contest right now, women who hope their story of faith and God’s faithfulness will make its way to publication.

And I think about Ann Voskamp—mother of six, hog farmer’s wife, washer of dishes and swiper of noses. A friend challenges her to find a thousand things to be thankful for. Her pursuit not only puts her on the New York Times Best seller list, but draws her deep into the heart of God.

Who knows what God will do with our offerings? With our fears? And our confusion between rocks and hard places?

The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted.—Prov. 29:25

And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. . . . –Gen. 50:20

And the waters returned and covered the chariots and horsemen and even Pharaoh’s entire army . . .But the sons of Israel walked on dry land through the midst of the sea,-- Exod 14:29  

Even in the face of death: And . . . they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead.—Acts 13:29

Yes, there are some big buts we can cling to. May the Lord encourage you with the triumph of these three small words—But with God . .

Smears, Smudges and Masterpieces

Not all women of faith are on the frontlines of rescue missions in danger-ridden countries. Many spend their days washing dishes, changing diapers, and wondering if anything they do even qualifies them as a woman of faith.

In recognition of these women manning the homefront, some of whom will gather in Charlotte at the WOF conference next weekend, I have reposted this essay by Cristina Slattery, a mother who finds that the daily “teachable moments” are not always for the kids.

As the kids watched, I took out four blank canvases, a new set of paints and a myriad of brushes, looked at my four children and said, “Paint.” 

One was pensive, trying to figure out just what to paint.  Another flew right into it, making what she lovingly called a “messed up rainbow.” Another adamantly opposed the idea and walked away.  I knew he would do it when he felt ready and not forced. The last one took a pencil and began to draw.  Parts of his picture were intricate. I told him I was concerned the paint would spread in those areas. He was not at all concerned. He wanted to do it his way. 

My sweet tempered child who finds beauty in most everything she sees finished first. She was thrilled with her creation. “Mommy, don’t you love it?” Of course I did. It was exactly like her, a rainbow of color covering the entire canvas. 

My sulky one still refused to paint. My pensive one finally and slowly began to work on his. 
But my most detailed child started to cry. To be more precise, scream. He was furious. On his perfect white canvas were smudges.  He immediately began to blame everyone but himself. His sister had been too loud, singing while she painted, so he couldn’t concentrate.  His brother was hogging up the green he wanted. Lastly, he took his anger out on me. It was all mom’s fault. “The painting is ruined and it’s your fault because you made me do it in the first place.”

After unsuccessfully trying to rationalize with him, I sent him to his room for yelling at me. Twenty minutes later he came back downstairs and apologized. I decided to talk to him, using an example of something that had happened in the past.

 “Once you asked me to take a picture of you and Lucy. I took the picture, but it didn’t turn out quite right. Now let’s pretend I took that camera, threw it down and blamed you for the bad picture because you asked me to take it. Is that fair?”

 He understood, but suddenly became angry and defensive. I realized his apology was truly not one of the heart.

 I showed him his painting and said there were still many wonderful things he could do with it. The dirty smudges could become trees. The black spots could become birds. The smears in the grass could be painted blue and become a beautiful winding river. As I spoke, he started to smile. He began to see all the possibilities he could create if only he had taken the time to see his picture in a different light.  If only he had been willing to let go of his first concept and be willing to embrace another. 

I thought about how many times I have done the same thing.  How many times I have been angry at the God who placed me on a certain path because the road was not as I had anticipated?  How many times God taken the time to point out the pitfalls, only for me to ignore him?

How easy it is to blame those around us only to realize we were blaming the One who planted us there to begin with. How easy it is to go with a half hearted apology, only to rise in anger again when we feel the need to defend ourselves. 

Yet how many times in my life have those smudges become blessings? The black spots that have marred my soul have often ended up giving me wings to fly somewhere else on this journey of life.  The dirty smudges have become strong reminders of mistakes made that have allowed me to grow and develop in ways I had never expected.  The smears of life have led to rivers of blessings which have winded through this life of mine. 

Until I was willing to let go of the perfect picture I had imagined and accept change, I was never able to enjoy those blessings to the fullest.  One of those blessings was this same child that vexed me to the point of anger with his art, only to show me how so often I am just like him, holding on to a blank canvas with the perfect picture etched in my mind and unwilling to accept the changes that come.

Today, a beautiful picture of a flowery meadow with a winding river, blue skies and a few soaring black birds holds a center spot in our home, a constant reminder of how we can trust God to make all things beautiful in his time, even our messes.

Beatings and bananas: bitterness or blessing?

If someone promises that you will dwell in safety with Him, yet you are lying in a cold, filthy, bug-infested prison cell awaiting your next interrogation by beating, is he who promised still faithful?

Although never having been subjected to such tortures, I’m afraid I’ve been guilty of the terrible-tantrum response when things have not turned out the way I expected, or, worse—when the Lord seemed to be a distant, disinterested observer of my plight. Yet I KNOW none of that is true and I KNOW I do not have days enough to indulge in those unfaithful thoughts.

I believe the time to throw off our fat and start strengthening our spiritual muscles is fast upon us. Each time I read about another country’s abandoning Israel, I fear our own country’s betrayal, and I see that in spite of how horrendously the near future events may play out, the need to stand on the promise that God will never leave Israel, that he will deliver her, is imperative. 

That God is faithful and true; that he loves, cares and graces; that he will never leave his children—easy truths to proclaim in good times and absolute necessary ones to believe in bad.

Darlene Deibler Rose (1917-2004) is another inspiring example of a woman of faith, who in spite of horrific experiences that some would use as proof her God had abandoned her, chose to stand on his promises and see “evidence not seen.”

As a young bride, she went to work with her husband in the unchartered regions of New Guinea, but their work was brought to an unexpected halt by the Japanese invasion of their island. Separated from her husband, Darlene was imprisoned in a jungle camp with other women and young children, some who survived and many who didn’t the mud, cold, wet, forced labor, beatings and mental, as well as physical, degradations.

As I read the accounts of beatings at the hand and cane of the camp leader, Mr. Yamaji, anger welled up in me. I imagined standing up to him and delivering the fruit of my own retributive hate.

Oh, for the grace of God. On the day Darlene was told that her husband had died three months earlier in the men’s camp, she was invited into Yamaji’s office.There she shared the hope that enabled her to bear life’s sorrows. There in the office of that despicable man, she shared the love of Jesus.

Another of the many poignant instances of the presence of God in the midst of the tragic that stuck in my mind was when she, accused of being a spy, was awaiting her death sentence in a prison.

Thin, weak, beaten, she hoisted up to the peer out over the door transom where she could see the others allowed in the outside yard. She watched as one woman slipped up to the fence and grabbed some bananas that were thrust though the thick vine covering, and hid them under her skirt. Although happy for her the success of her fellow prisoner, Darlene was overcome with the insatiable desire for a banana.

But she knew there was no one, no way—not even for God—to get her any.

The next morning, hearing the approach of feet, she expected her executioners, but when the door opened, there stood Mr. Yamaji. He asked how she was and if she had a message for the others back at camp. Shorty after he left, the guard returned, opened her cell door and handed her a bunch of bananas, a gift from Mr. Yamaji—not one, but ninety-two bananas!

Ashamed she ever doubted, she fell to her knees in thankfulness for the One with whom nothing is impossible.

Many years later, Darlene heard that Mr. Yamaji shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the Japanese people over the radio.

                                

                               When darkness veils His lovely face,

                                I rest on His unchanging grace;

                                In every high and stormy gale,

                                My anchor holds within the veil.—On Christ the solid Rock I stand

Rose, Darlene Deibler. Evidence Not Seen. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988.

picture from website darlenerose.org

Can God use me on this ordinary day with the dog snoring in the chair?

Have you ever thought you live such an ordinary life that the possibility of achieving anything of note is even less likely than seeing a man from Publisher’s Clearing House on your porch extending a big, fat check?

Or that the God of the Bible is just that—a hope caught between precious pages?

I think the reason I enjoy reading other people’s stories of faith is because they encourage me on those days when the dog is snoring in the chair, and I’m trying to pull some thought of wisdom out of my head, and nothing’s wrong except an undercurrent of discontent that I am not doing enough for God and I am certainly not being enough for Him. (I know—He’s not about that, but my defective agitation is.)

And then I read about another “ordinary” person whose “ordinary” outlook was changed in an instant by the reality of His presence. And I am reminded He is the same God then and now; for her and for me, with Whom all things are possible.

One of my women of faith heroes is Amy Carmichael, the young Irish woman who ended up in India rescuing children sold into sex slavery for the temples.

In her book, the Gold Cord, Amy said her life changed in an instant on an otherwise uneventful Sunday afternoon when she and her mother and siblings were walking home from church. They came upon a ragged woman carrying a heavy burden. The Carmichaels, who were a respectable Irish Protestant family, but “not at all exalted Christians,” offered to help.

Amy and her siblings were, in fact, mortified to be doing so. She said they plodded along, “the wet wind blowing the rags of that poor woman till she seemed like a bundle of feathers, and we unhappily mixed up with them.”

And then, in the middle of that adolescent embarrassment, on that ordinary Sunday afternoon, as they passed by a fountain, she suddenly saw a phrase emblazoned through the drizzle:

                 

                “Gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble…if any man’s work abide”

As she turned around, the voice, the flash, the words disappeared, and all she saw was the drizzle, the fountain and the people. But that moment, that outburst of God into her life changed her forever and she knew “nothing could ever matter again but the things that were eternal.”

Although in the fifty years she lived in India, she rescued thousands of children, a feat we would deem mighty, she actually had trouble getting people to help initially because many missionaries wanted to do “God’s work” rather than nursemaid children.

One day while she was working in her room, a toddler picked up a book and grinning, as though he greatly approved, held it straight out. She had to laugh at the humorous truth. The title—Practical Christianity!

We all may not be as Amy Carmichael and get to experience an instantaneous Holy Spirit, life-changing Eureka, and we may not all go to far shores and do great and noble things, but we all can press into Him with our heart, mind, and body and be faithful to what He has given us this moment because we don’t know what the next moment holds. We have no idea what He can do tomorrow with our little faithfulnesses of today, with our seemingly insignificant days of practical Christianity.

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.

Carmichael, Amy. Gold Cord: The story of a fellowship.Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: Christian Literature Crusade, 1992.

 

               

               

When God doesn't favor the straightest line between two points

“This was not the life I had pictured for myself.”—Gladys Alyward, on becoming a mule handler and foot inspector in China. 

 

Ha! Hardly the outcome a young missionary would have envisioned for herself, and for some of us, not the life we had expected either.

Don’t you love the possibilities with God? When He says His thoughts are not our thoughts, He means it. One of the things I delight in about His ways is not only are they full of promise, but they are often full of unusual surprises.

I’ve enjoyed re-reading some of the stories of extraordinary women such as Biddy Chambers, Gladys Alyward, and Amy Carmichael who dared to follow God even when the “doors shut” and the path lead over uncertain ground.

Gladys Alyward (1902-1970) wanted to be a stage actress, but after giving her life to Christ at a church meeting one night, she turned her passion toward the unsaved. When she heard about an elderly woman who had packed up and gone to China on her own because she couldn’t find anyone to go with  her, Gladys knew that was where she belonged.

She enrolled in a mission society college but after three months was dismissed on grounds that she was “unqualified.” Here she was, a young woman burning with a desire to go on the mission field and tell people about Christ, but who had just flunked out of mission school.

Man may affect our plans, but what appears as detours and barricades to us, are possibilities and pathways in the hands of the Lord. He was not finished with His plans for Gladys.

The school chairman recommended Gladys take a job caring for some retired missionaries. From them, she learned an important lesson—to wait and trust God with her dream. Her question was one we labor over in each of our lives: “How will I know when and where to go?” she asked.

The missionary couple’s answer was simple, “He will show you.”

I suspect we often want God to give us the answer all at once in a nice, tidy, clear way. We think waiting for His specific direction means just that—waiting without moving until it is all mapped out. But a moving object is easier to direct than a stationary one. And sometimes, oftentimes, we just have to do the next thing.

While reading from Nehemiah one night, Gladys realized that although Nehemiah was just a butler, he went and did the task the burned his heart.

She felt the Lord ask her, “Is Nehemiah’s God your God? Then go.”

 “I am not Nehemiah,” she countered.

“No, but assuredly I am his God.”

And that is, in the purest, most simple form, what we all need to remember when all else is complicated and cloudy. When others say we aren’t and we can’t.

He is God.

  

The issue resolved, with about two cents to her name, Gladys Alyward, a young woman in her twenties, moved to London and  began saving money for her passage to China.

To be continued

Alyward, Gladys.The Little Woman as told to Christine Hunter. Chicago: Moody Press, 1970.

Benge, Janet and Geoff. Gladys Alyward: The Adventure of a Lifetime. Seattle: YWAM Publishing, 1998.