A random thought came, as God thoughts do

The other day I got myself in such a dither, I had to take a time out.

It was my last chance to make a revision in my manuscript before its final edit. For days I had been agonizing over a change that involved some people I had written about. I scrutinized my motives, examined my heart, and submitted myself to Holy Spirit conviction. Still, I couldn’t come to a decision, mainly because I didn’t want to hurt the primary person involved.

My stomach was in such a knot I plunked myself down in a chaise lounge, set my face toward the sun, and said, “Lord, I give up. You know the situation. I can’t come to a decision, so I’m going to sit here and clear my mind, and expect to know what to do when I get up.”

A random thought came, as God thoughts do. I started thinking about the title of my friend, Lori Roeleveld’s book, Far From the Tree. I had read the first few chapters but didn’t know who the villain was. I toyed with whether he (?) was close to another character, as in “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” or whether he was far removed as in, “the apple fell far from the tree, this time.”

In the midst of my musing, the phone rang. Lo and behold, it was the person in my book I was most concerned about. After chatting a few minutes, I plunged in and asked what they (I know it’s supposed to he or she, but choose to ignore correctness for obscurity) thought about my concern. Their immediate response surprised me.

“I think that’s good. In fact, it’s better.”

Just like that. No issue. No reason for days of angst, anxiety, and anxious thoughts. Then, as though that weren’t reason enough to know God heard my prayer, in the midst of the conversation, my friend said, “Yeah, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Well, I still don’t know who the villain is in Lori’s book, but I do know this: The Lord delights in answering prayer, and sometimes, He just can’t resist topping it with His signature flourish, no matter how random it seems.

Oh why, do I spend days fretting and fuming?

“Return to your rest, O my soul, For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.”—Psalm 116:7

The renovation winds down, the marriage survives, and God redeems a bad decision

Did you ever worry that you made a terrible decision and wondered if God would ever make it right? I did. My last three years read like a synopsis on the fall of woman:

1. Situated nicely—money in the bank, health solid, friends, and fame (well, not so much that). Wanders south to buy a house. (Husband trusts her judgment, lets her go alone.)

2. Beguiled by a blue plastic liner, buys a swimming pool with 100-year-old house attached.

3. Suffers consequences of bad decision: discovers rotten floor boards, broken water pipes, smelly wallpaper, mold and decay. Overwhelmed by magnitude of task, relationship with spouse and only friend within 700 miles strains, health suffers from sleepless nights, renovation consumes finances, jobs elude grasp, Lord does too.

This last renovation nearly did us in. I was big on vision but short on wisdom. (The yellow duct tape holding the front door frames together should have been a clue). Not only had I underestimated the financial costs, but also the emotional and psychological ones as well.

The dreadful realization we were over our heads stared us in the eye at three in the morning; it ate with us on paper plates of take-out; it sucked our joy, our strength and our vision. We didn’t know anyone, had no friends to come over and help carry sheets of plywood, or advise us, or cheer us on. I was known in the neighborhood simply as the lady with the dumpster.

I felt as though the Lord had left me to my mess, and I couldn’t see our way out.

I thought of how His disciples, friends, and family must have despaired to see Him hanging on that cross, to see Him die. The end, the hope, the king is dead. What now? Go home and wonder.

Mournful silence for three days.

Until that morning…God trumps death! He up and leaves the rocky tomb. And He makes a way for us to follow. That’s the great ending to the story: fallen, yes, but then redeemed, restored. Alleluia!

Meanwhile, as we undergo our sanctification, our stripping, and ripping, He sustains us. He reminds us that He is a God of restoration, of hope, and of redeeming bad decisions.

That’s what we had to keep in mind during the days of the Monster Restoration.

One day Bob brought home a bouquet of zinnias. We shook the sheetrock dust off the plastic covering the couch, overturned a box, lit some candles, found a classical music station on the Bose, and decided to reclaim our vision.

“That arch looks great.”

“So do the new ceilings. The wood flooring will be in next week.”

“It’s fifty degrees here; they’re having a blizzard in Vermont.”

“I peeked under the pool cover today. The water’s still blue.”                     

entry before

entry after

                                                   

fireplace wall before

fireplace after

Renovated woman takes down a wall .

That wall had annoyed me since the day we moved in, particularly because it blocked the light from the one large window on the other end of the long, narrow basement room. Every time I went downstairs, I envisioned the wall gone. The problem was, that rated among the bottom fifty projects on my husband’s to-do list. 

Finding myself home alone one weekend, I decided to face my giant. What was the worse that could happen, anyway? Armed with a hammer, I marched into the basement.

For a few moments we stared at each other—the wall and me. Finally, screwing down my courage, I swung. Chunks of sheetrock crumbled and fell. I was committed. Piece by piece I stripped it down to the studs, leaving the ones that had wires running through them for my husband. The rest I dismantled, being fairly certain they weren’t holding up the first floor.

Sunlight flooded into the newly opened space. I realized the main obstacle that had stood between me and a renovation project more complex than paint and wallpaper was fear—fear of the what if’s. What if I messed up? What if I broke something? What if I started and couldn’t finish?  What if my husband got mad?

Now these are certainly things to consider—it especially helps to know the temperament of your spouse— but they are not insurmountable. So what if I screw up? It is my house. Broken things can be fixed. Once free from the paralysis of the what-if’s, I was able to tackle other projects, like tiling the bathroom.

(Granted. Most people don’t mix tile mortar with the kitchen mixer. But when you’ve finally gathered up your courage and given yourself the it’s-my-house-I-can-do-what-I-want pep talk, there’s no turning back—even if you’ve overlooked a few things, like the right tools. But I digress…)

           

Being paralyzed by the what-if’s happens in all kinds of situations. I worry, fret and stew about making the wrong decision, about where to go and what to do, about God’s will for me.

But God says to ask for wisdom and He will give it. He says to seek His face and walk by faith. He says to make plans and He will direct my steps. And if I make a mistake?  Can He not work all things to good?  Are His mercies not new every morning? Can He not hook His rod and His staff around me and set me upright?  Is His arm too short to save?

I had to laugh this morning while reading 1 Kings. Elijah taunts the Baal worshipers for their god’s lack of intervention—“…Either he is missing, or has gone aside on a journey, or he’s asleep…”

But Elijah’s God, and my God, is ever-present. He is my Helper, and by his grace, I will not be afraid to tackle that which is before me.

.

Renovated woman

 You’ve seen them—those Do It Yourself project books and TV shows featuring a perfectly groomed woman mortaring a tile backsplash or painting a wall without a speck of splatter. Let me warn you about the truth behind the camera shot—renovation is messy business.

  

I have to admit though, I have an affinity for fixer-uppers. It’s not that I am intentional about this, but if there are ten houses for sale in a particular area, my internal GPS will go straight to the one in need of repair. 

Perhaps it is because lived-in houses exude a well-worn comfort like soft cotton sheets or old jeans. Perhaps it is because they often occupy pleasant properties—ones with rambling shrubs, lofty trees, and overgrown flower beds. Or perhaps it is simply because I am compelled by a need to restore, to make order, and to make beautiful—God’s little handywoman imitating her Father. 

Fortunately, I am married to a patient and clever man who shares, or at least, bears, my vision. He went along with me when I bought a pink house--pink inside and out, but I almost lost him on this last renovation. This one cost us more than we anticipated, but it did teach me a lot of lessons, which I am happy to pass along. So for the next few blog posts, I'm going to share how to keep your husband, your sanity and your joy in the Lord while being renovated in the process of renovating, because God too, is in the renovation business.

He is making us beautiful. He is making us one with Jesus, the Perfect One so that our hearts reflect Christ’s love, our minds His thoughts, and our characters His character. But this is not always a tidy process, nor is it cheap. It cost the Father the life of His Son. It will cost us the right to our own self-interests. And we don’t give that up easily. The question is—are we willing to surrender ourselves to the Master Carpenter? 

He doesn’t cut corners or patch up old holes. He strips us to the core and builds us anew. Sometimes we get impatient and discouraged as we undergo this life-long process. 

 But slowly and surely, we begin to see the picture of His face on the walls of our house, and as we move from glory to glory we look to that final day when He “will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory . . .” (Philippians 3: 21).

Marching on top of mulberry trees

I consider myself a rather sober sort. Sensible, circumspect, not given to “seeing things.” But one afternoon last summer while lounging by the pool, I heard a rustling in the tops of the trees that line my property. Thinking a sudden wind was tunneling down the riverbank, I looked up and “saw” a troop of large, tall, angelic-size people walking along the treetops.

One turned toward me to speak to her partner. A thrill of fear lodged in my chest as I wondered what they would do if they saw me, but I quickly realized that whatever they were about didn’t concern me. After about a minute, they passed by continuing on their way south.

I have no idea what that was about or why I saw it. But yesterday, in my morning devotions, I came across a passage in 2 Samuel 5:24: “And when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, then bestir yourself for the Lord has gone out before you to smite the Philistines.”

Bestir myself. Not panic. Not run to and fro wondering what to do. But, quicken. Be on the alert to what the Lord is doing.

He goes before us, but we need to follow. 

  

Lord, may I not be dull to your spirit, to what you are doing. Open my eyes to see things unseen, my ears to hear your voice, my heart to feel your heartbeat, and my will to follow.

So just when your kids become responsible, you relax

Back when I was teaching school and looking for ways to dazzle my students, I accumulated an assortment of magnets. I keep them in a plastic lunch box. Short, fat, round, square, wandish. . . . One is really powerful. It will draw a nail right out of the wall (Well, sort of.) My students always delighted in finding ways to play tricks with their magnetic powers—like hiding the most powerful one under their desk and moving items on top of it as some unsuspecting classmate happened by.

When we moved to the South, I put my magnet lunchbox in a trunk of “grandkid” supplies, and forgot about it—for a few years apparently. Recently my six-year-old granddaughter was poking through the trunk. She came downstairs and asked her father to help her separate the mass of magnetized objects she had found.

“Mom! What are you letting your grandkids play with?” he hollered.

“Oh, that’s my magnet collection,” I said.

“Yeah, with rusty nails and staples sticking out all over the place,” he said, holding up a tangle of tetanus producing possibilities.

I had to admit. It looked more like a weapon of destruction than a science experiment for a grandchild. My grand parenting skills apparently need fine tuning. But what I was more impressed about was my son’s reaction.

This is the same person who as a child lived in a tepee on a Vermont mountaintop and as an adult included a position in SWAT on his resume. I was surprised he had such a strong reaction to his daughter’s choice of playthings.

Amazing. We work so hard to make our children see things responsibly, and just when they do, we want to tell them—“relax.”

No divine trick up His sleeve

Recently, a group of us in a writers’ workshop were brainstorming ideas about Jesus’ childhood. Our enthusiastic instructor, Ginger Kolbaba, asked us to imagine Mary’s reaction when her little boy Jesus ran to show her what he could do. Demonstrating the scene, Ginger extended her arms, twisted her fingers as though fiddling with an object, and then exclaimed, “Look. Ma!” as she opened her empty hand.

Can’t you see it? No clumsy shuffling of shekels here. No feigned smile of surprise on the face of Mom. This was the real deal—the doves fluttered and flew, the coin vanished.

Were they both surprised? Mary knew He was special; still, did she chide him to not show off in front of his friends? When did Jesus know who He was and what He could do?

Imagine. The Son of God in short pants and sandals. He grew in wisdom and stature to become Glory in a brown tunic. Both God and man. As God, He could not sin. As man, He was tempted yet did not. Not because He was able to pull a divine trick out of His sleeve, but because He would show us how we could live under the control of His life in us.

Lord, may we know today, in all that befalls us that with You is the fountain of life. In your light, we wish to see light.—Psalm 36:9

Following God through the intersections

  Just follow God. Seems like an easy enough idea, especially if you have  a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night leading you. But all I saw when I looked out my back door this morning was the neighbor's cat slinking up on my bird feeder and the prismatic glints of early light on the thin crystals of dew.

So what does following God look like? If the number of How-to books lining the Christian bookstore shelves are any indication, lots of us are wanting to know. Funny, how we are supposed to be the people with the answer.

Actually, I think Nike is onto something with their slogan: Just Do It. Pastor Cho says it another way: "I pray, and I obey."

Being a type A, doer, controller, I struggle with whether I've done enough on my part and whether I believe God will really do His. I'm beginning to see (Thank you, Lord, may I live long enough to grasp this) that my worries are all wrapped up in me: whether I made the right decisions, whether I planned well enough, whether I am good enough, smart enough, attractive enough . . .But it's not about me--I am the messenger.

It's beginning to sink in--He really has given me (and you) a message, and He really will orchestrate its fulfillment.

Recently, I attended a writers conference. For those attendees with books to sell and futures to plot, this can be an intense experience. You are allowed to sign up for short appointments with agents and editors, but if you can't get an appointment, you can sit with them at their assigned dining table and hope for your moment of attention. Of course, everyone is doing the same thing., trying to get the same ear.

The first morning, my friend and I entered the dining hall prepped like conquerors ready to stalk  and bag our first interviews. Our plan was immediately thwarted. There weren't any names assigned to the tables.

"So what are we going to do?" my friend said. "How are we going to know who to sit with?"

A novel thought came out of my mouth. "I guess we're going to have to leave it up to God."

 And with that, right at the intersection of the salad bar aisle and the coffee pot, I ran smack into the first person I wanted to see.

"Where are you sitting?" he asked.

Three times during the course of the conference, the Lord orchestrated intersections of my life with others whom I had no intention, plan or plot to see. One offered free counsel I didn't even know I needed. Another played a part in continuing the saga (in a previous post) of how I prayed for the jungle captives in Columbia. (A story for another day.) And a third gave me a solid connection I needed.

So what does following God look like to me today now that I'm back with all my "what if's?"

When worry, anxiety, and fear of all the whatevers threaten to make off with my peace, I am going to choose to believe that 1. He is God 2. He knows me. 3. He created me for a purpose. 4. He will accomplish that which concerns me.

I'm going to practice what Jesus summed up so simply, ". . . that you believe in Him whom He has sent."

On the road with the other woman

My husband has another woman in his life. He listens to her. He does what she tells him to. Some days he spends more time with her than with me. Her name is Laurie.

When they are driving together, Laurie warns him of turns ahead. If she tells him to turn left here, he does. But sometimes, I, being all about physical maps, override GPS Laurie and tell my husband to go a different way. At first she gently corrects me, “When you can, turn around and go left.” If we ignore her, she gets insistent, “Turn around. Turn around now.”

Recently I took Laurie with me on a road trip although I had already mapped out my route and didn’t expect to need her. The last forty miles involved several turns on lonely stretches of country roads. It was dark, and I had lost my sense of direction. I decided to see what Laurie had to say about the situation.

When she told me to turn onto roads that weren’t named on my directions, I had to decide whether to follow her or continue to search for my original roads. I decided to trust Laurie. At one point when I had missed a turn, Laurie became adamant, “Turn around, turn around.” It was so dark, I hadn’t noticed that the road ended at a boat landing, and I was about to go down the ramp and into the lake.

Laurie not only succeeded in directing me safely to the writers conference I was going to, but made me rethink my plan about which editors, agents, and workshops I had in my sights. Like many of the eager attendees, I had gone with my plan to conquer, kill, and bag a deal.

Yes, I had prayed and asked the Lord for direction, but Laurie made me think about whether I really intended to listen to and follow Him, or continue full speed ahead on my own.

On Friday, I will let you know what happened at the intersections when I took my cue from Laurie and let go and followed God.

The Year of the Honored Wife

Early in our marriage we fumbled around with figuring out our roles. I, a brand-new Christian was eager to put my wildly independent past behind and become whatever was meant by the submissive wife. We interpreted this to mean, among other things, that I would stay home and husband would go off to work.

After a while, I started noticing little things that needed repair, and so I ordered one of the Readers Digest how-to-fix-anything books. The day the book arrived, I thought I’d surprise my husband by fixing the leaky kitchen faucet.

I’m sure the instructions must have said something about turning the water off, but I either missed that part, or I assumed it meant the faucet. It took me quite awhile to figure out how to even get the thing opened, but once I discovered where the guts where hidden, I triumphantly unscrewed them.

A geyser of water burst out shooting nuts, screws, and gaskets up to the ceiling. Like the boy with his finger in the dike, I tried to stop the torrent with my hands, as I yelled out the window for the neighbors.

For a little while after that episode, we settled back into traditional you-man-with-the-hammer, I- woman-with-the-fry-pan roles, but over the years, our marriage solid, our sex roles defined, my husband became more than happy to see me don my tool apron again.

Still, it was always my husband’s career or call that we followed, even when it meant uprooting our lives and driving to a Mayan village in Guatemala and then later, a tiny town in Vermont.

I trusted God with my dreams and schemes and did my best to be good wife.

Since moving to the South a few years ago, we’ve undergone an identity crisis. Nothing turned out the way we expected. Without the job roles that used to define us, we wandered around in no-man’s land. This was especially hard for my husband, made even harder when good things started falling in place for me, but not for him.

I felt guilty about celebrating my victories. But my husband, lover of God, decided his place of humbling was where he would choose to give honor—the other part of that marital directive.Declaring this The Year of Marcia, he has intentionally looked for ways to honor me and to rejoice with me. I have to say, I’m quite pleased with his new understanding of Husbands love your wives.

It’s taken us a while to come to a place of understanding the give and take, the submit and love, the times and seasons of a marriage, but I can see it growing. We’re like a snowman in the making.

 His foundation is the big ball at the bottom. I’m being fitted for the belly, and one of these days the Lord is going to set the head.

The Quotable Chesterton Review

Every time I picked up Kevin Belmonte’s anthology of G. K. Chesterton, I felt like a child on a beach outing who starts out to gather only the special shells, the particularly colorful or unusually shaped ones, but ends up with a sack full.

The Quotable Chesterton is a veritable treasure trove of sagacious delights. From the pithy aphorism: “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it,” to an orderly reflection on Reasons To Believe; from the humorous: “A knife is never bad except on such rare occasions as that in which it is neatly and scientifically planted in the middle of one’s back,” to the profound: “Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all its conquerors, nothing is off limits for Chesterton.

And Kevin Belmonte has done us the favor of rounding up and setting down an impressive collection of this literary giant’s timeless wit and wisdom. Included throughout the anthology are informative essays that give the reader deeper glimpses into Chesterton’s life.

A wonderful book for the bedside, desktop, bookshelf, or bathroom, regardless if only for a quick stop or a long reflection.

This book was provided for me by the publisher, Thomas Nelson, Inc., through Booksneeze.