Harold at the Door

Harold came to my door again today. Stringy, dirty, hungry, his clothes disheveled as clothes tend to be when they’ve been lived in 24 hours a day, several days a week.

“I haven’t come in a while,” he said, apparently keeping track not to wear out his welcome with the “givers” on his handout route.He pointed to the large pile of boxes on the porch that needed to go to the recycling center. “I can throw this out for you,” he offered, as he looked around for a trash can.

I handed him a bit of money.“That’s okay; you can’t carry them all on your bike. Maybe the next time I’ll have some work for you.” 

The first time Harold showed up at my door, I sent him away. Fear, suspicion, and lack of compassion for a beggar ruled the decision. Harold wasn’t discouraged. A month later, he came again. I gave him some money. The next time he came, my husband talked with him about life, and God, and work. Things Harold said he once had and lost and couldn’t seem to get back.

Over the months my attitude toward Harold has been judgmental, self-righteous, and unsympathetic. But today, I am simply thankful my God is gracious, compassionate, and forgiving. He has shown me much mercy, whether my hard situations were by my own doings or not.

 Later I will go to the Goodwill and buy some warm clothes for the next time Harold comes. If my husband is home, I pray I will have the compassion and the courage to offer Harold a shower and a meal.

Because today I don’t want to reason and rationalize.

I just want the heart to respond to the beggar at my door.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.—2 Cor 1:3-4 (NAS)

What's a Rambler without reverse?

Twice in my life, I owned Ramblers—a vehicle choice I’m sure determined more by economics than style. One, an old Nash Rambler, (immortalized by the Playmates’ song, “Beep Beep”), got me where I needed to go, much to the dismay of every fresh-air, environmentally conscious jogger on the winding hills outside San Francisco.

As long as it was going at a constant speed, it was fine, but when I stepped on the accelerator to climb up through the narrow Redwood canyons, it belched billows of black smoke. Whenever I saw a jogger ahead, I’d start apologizing, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” and duck my head as the black cloud closed in around him thicker than the morning fog.

But it was the other Rambler that demonstrated a point I would discover, forget, and cling to again and again—reverse is a necessary direction. Sometimes you have to go backward to go forward.

One day that Rambler lost its ability to back up. I was poor and single at the time and decided to live with just going forward as long as I could. It wasn’t impossible as long as I remembered to never park face-in at a curb. Some days I’d drive all around town trying to find a spot where I could park and drive straight out. But one morning, my mind distracted with thoughts of spring, I pulled into a space nose-to-nose with the parking meter and turned off the key. My reaction appropriately reflected my pre-Christ state.

A Rambler without reverse was a very limited one indeed.

Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that make us feel as though we’ve gone backward, but can’t go forward. Loss often triggers this perspective. Loss of job, loss of savings, loss of loved ones, loss of identity, and worst of all—loss of hope.

My husband and I are just now coming out from a two-year darkness brought on by a bad decision we made. It cost us a lot. And although we had been following the Lord for many years, there were many days in the pit of depression, when we thought the Lord had shelved us—that the glory of Lord had departed the temple as it so tragically did with the Israelites.

Now, we are slowly beginning to see some buds of fruit from that stripping. We are beginning to understand that the Lord couldn’t put new wine in old skins, and that sometimes you have to go backward in order to go forward.

Of course the ultimate example of this is Christ’s death. What looked like the end of everyone’s hope, three days later, proved to be the supreme triumph, as up from the grave He arose!

I pray if someone reading this is stuck in reverse, the Lord will give you a personal word of hope, a buoy to cling to until you have a reversal of fortune.

 As Paul exhorted the terrified sailors about to be shipwrecked:

                 

“Keep up your courage, men, for I believe God, that it will turn our exactly as I have been told”—Acts 27:25

From calligraphy to computers: the "good" in the "bad"

What I really feel like doing is stocking my quiver with poison-tipped, sure-to-knock- ‘em -dead arrows, strapping on my double-edged sword, and going to battle with all the freedom-hating, God-blind “religious” extremists, political leaders, and ignorant people in the news, who are bent on turning our world upside-down.

I want my moment to rant, and rave, and rattle my saber. That being said, I will set it aside for a while because the recent death of Steve Jobs reminded me of a more edifying perspective. So today and for a few more days, I’m going to focus on seeing through the apparent defeats, reversals, and impossibilities of situations (be they personal or global) to the ultimate triumphs.

Years ago, in an address to Stanford students, Steve Jobs related the importance of certain events in his life, which at the time, may have screamed, “Failure!”, but which led, many years later, to highly successful endeavors.

It would be hard to imagine, especially from a parental perspective, the good that could come from someone’s dropping out of college and replacing a curriculum of job qualifying courses with one in calligraphy.  But that’s what Jobs did, although he was pretty scared about it himself, especially since he couldn’t see “even a hope of any practical application.”

Not for ten long years. Not until he was designing the first Mac and the beauty of the calligraphy came flooding back to mind, consequently launching the Mac in a class of its own with its typefaces and fonts and Steve Jobs into a world of wealth and power.

Another catalytic event for him, he said, was when he was fired from the very company he founded. Talk about adding insult to injury. Again, Jobs admits that the insight wasn’t there at the time, but this negative, potentially devastating event freed him to see things in the fresh perspective of someone starting anew, and he went on to start another company, Pixar, no less.

The subsequent achievements of this man’s life attest not only to his brilliance, but to an attitude that looked for opportunity even in the face of adversity. Nevertheless, Steve Jobs is dead. And contrary to some blog posts, he was not God.  We can hope his ability to look at things differently led him to see the One who is.

Good and bad happen to all of us—the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Many of us will succeed because we have wealth, or genius, or optimistic temperaments, or steady grit and go that keep us marching on through apparent setbacks. Spiritual principles work even for the unspiritual. And sometimes it does “all work out,” as so many people resign themselves to say.

But for those of us who find ourselves in a hope- strapping situation, who don’t feel we have the money, the know-how, the wisdom to find our way out, there is a surety we can hang our confidence on—here and now. A certainty that neither deception, nor disease, nor darkness nor death was ever able, nor ever will be able to thwart.

 Regardless of how much of an impossible situation we seem to be in, how useless our present “calligraphy’ course may seem, we who trust in Jesus have a hope that looks forward because it is grounded in the One with whom all things are possible

Sometimes I have to remind myself He is the SAME God who opened a sea to let his people pass through, who remembered a young man imprisoned for crimes he didn’t commit, who sent a whale to swallow a rebellious messenger, who pacified lions (!) so they wouldn’t rip his man to shreds and who opened barred and guarded prison doors, and who stood in a fiery furnace with three people—humans just like you and me.

Because sometimes I reverse my perspective and forget that this world isn’t the one to cling to, that one day it (the mortal) will be swallowed up by life.—2Cor 5:4 (How many of us get that backwards!)

I pray today, that If someone reading this is in a tough spot, you will know Jesus is able to make a “door of hope”(Hosea 2:14) right there in the midst of your Achor, your place of troubling.(Josh. 7:25).

May you receive the faith not to waver in unbelief, but give glory to God, knowing that what He promises, He is able to perform.—R om. 4:20—knowing in due time, He will lift you up.

The writing spider spells a psalm

I know she’s around here somewhere, and beautiful as she is, I don’t want to inadvertently stumble on her. (Why do those adverbs sound better splitting infinitives?)Her fat, globular body splashed with brilliant yellow and black etchings and her long pincer legs give her a fearful beauty—best observed at a distance. She’s called, among other names, a writing spider.

She had strung a huge translucent web from the patio chair to the grill—a web I would have missed, large as it was, if it wasn’t for the concentrated silky “zipper,” a run of zig-zags right up the middle. A wives’ tale warns if she spells your name you’re dead. I know it’s just a saying, but I did take a closer look at those zigs –MMMMMMMM.

The next day it was all gone. Later I found her hanging out her spanking new silks on the opposite side of the deck. According to Internet info, each night she takes the whole intricate webbing down, eats it actually, and starts “writing” all over again the next day.

 All that precision, beauty, practicality rolled up, erased and rebuilt—each day. Unobserved by anyone (except those of us who have this fearful, but not fatal beauty draped across our porch).

As a writer, I see the illustration. Do it again, and again. Find the right word, the subtle illustration, the right tension that will capture that reader’s heart and understanding.

And as person pursuing the praise of God, but so often looking for it from the mouths of friends, and family (and readers), I see the wondrous beauty crafted in the silence of night, noticed only by the One who created it to be so.

I am reminded of a time I was certain I would be given an honor. Without a doubt, I was the next in line, the one who had worked for it, had seen others honored before me. When the notification was put on my desk, I carefully unfolded the paper, expecting to relish seeing my name.

But it was not my name. There was no word beginning with MMMM. I was stunned. My emotions, like a flooded stream, swirled with anger, resentment, and the injustice of it all! It was supposed to be my time of honor, Lord.

Have you ever had a day like that? When you wanted to hear the praises of men only to have your anticipation suddenly deflate into disappointment?

What a comfort to be able to run to the One who sees, who knows. What a relief to be able to let the hope of the praise of men slide through your fingers and instead be able to say:

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him. My salvation and my honor depend on God; He is my mighty rock, my refuge. (Psalm 62)          

Imagine living life as you claim to believe

In response to a sour-faced man who boasted about his many years as a Christian, comedian Ken Davis quips, “Send a missionary to your face; it hasn’t received the Good News.”  

After I laughed, I realized I too, have been guilty of sporting that same joyless face, of forgetting in the midst of trying circumstances or overwhelming guilt that I belong to the One who knows all my broken pieces and dark places. The One who makes beauty from my ashes. The Shepherd who knows my wayward ways, yet loves me and has redeemed me.

Sometimes I need Sheila Walsh’s reminder that, “peace is the presence of Christ, not the absence of trouble.” And Lucy Swindoll’s admonition to take the fast currents when they occur and not live life in the shallows and miseries. To live a life poured out so that even my “I’m nots” become His “I wills.”

Sometimes I need a time of refreshment like I received at the Women of Faith Imagine conference in Charlotte, soaking in stories of lives restored, redirected and refilled—a weekend of laughs, tender testimonies, and corporate worship of the God in whose presence is fullness of joy.

Not even the ADD woman next to me who squeaked her Styrofoam lunch box and came and went a dozen times could steal the joyful reminders that each of the team brought to life through their stories, song, drama and Word of God.

 I appreciate the transparency and truth that come with being with other women of faith.I began to imagine what I had forgotten--a life lived as it claims to believe.

 Sometimes I just need to be reminded. 

Thank you to the team of Women of Faith who put in long hours and grueling travel schedules to be joy and hope to both those who have forgotten and those who never knew.

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