Simply, B.C.

               “[She] rarely had a twenty-four hour period in which it appeared she

                 had accomplished something great for God. But the total of her days added

                 up to a towering achievement of published works and human kindness.”

I started out reading Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God by David McCasland, expecting to learn about Chambers, which I did, but what impressed me even more was the story of his wife, Biddy. Her life is an encouraging reminder of what God can do with the dreams, the tragedies, and the triumphs of a life surrendered to Him.

I know the devil is not omniscient, but his persistence in thwarting the spunk of this woman makes you wonder if he knew just how much God was going to use her.

Many of us are familiar with her husband, Oswald Chambers, whose name appears on his books, but few know that, according to McCasland, “without her work, his words would never have existed on paper or in published form.

Man makes plans but the Lord directs his steps When health issues caused her to withdraw from school, Biddy studied shorthand and typing at home with such determination that she learned to take dictation faster than most people could talk. She dreamed of being the secretary to the Prime Minister of England.

Years later, she and Oswald married. They were passionate about God, each other and life. Instead of taking dictation from the Prime Minister, Biddy used her shorthand to capture her zealous husband’s teachings. Together they dreamed of using their speaking, literary, and transcribing skills to spread God’s word through publications. Little did they suspect the way this would come to be—he in the grave—she with her copious shorthand notes.

God’s ways are not our ways In 1917, they were living in Egypt where Oswald was ministering to the troops. When he became sick from a ruptured appendix no one imagined this passionate, robust man would not recover. Even Biddy believed God told her the sickness was not unto death. When he died she was shocked. A bride of seven years, now a widow with a four-year-old daughter. She had no means of income and no idea what would happen.

Eventually she moved to England where she ran a lodging house for students. Over the years, she had copied many of Oswald’s talks from her notes and published them. Now she had the idea to make a collection of his teachings arranged as daily readings. She copied, compiled, edited, arranged distributed, and paid for the first edition of what was to become one of the most popular devotionals of all time: My Utmost for His Highest.

Apart from the quiet initials, B. C., in the foreword to My Utmost for His Highest, her name is not mentioned.

Talk about finding joy in your purpose without needing acclaim from others.

A life of joy and trust Impressive as they were, Biddy’s triumphs didn’t lie in her accomplishments. Hers was a life so anchored in God that neither dried-up dreams, death, nor disease could place a root of bitterness into her soul. Her trust in the Lord and joy of life are evidenced in the following anecdotes reported by McCasland.

When she received the devastating news that 40,000 books had been lost in a German incendiary attack on the warehouse, she calmly responded, “We’ll wait and see what God will do now.”

Now there’s an example for us now in these times of economic uncertainty.

And when some overly stuffy seminary students came to dinner, Biddy lightened the evening by asking her then thirty-five-year-old daughter if she could still spit a cherry pit to the ceiling. Kathleen promptly obliged, challenging the men to outspit her.Who says you have to be stuffy to be a godly woman!

Biddy Chambers. She’s my Proverbs 31 woman hero.

McCasland, David. Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God. Grand Rapids: Discovery House Publishers, 1993.

The Clout of Doubt

You would think on a hundred-degree day, somebody—something— would be moving on the lake. That’s the thought that dampened our previous enthusiasm and turned our fanciful dreams of buying a lake house into suspicions we were standing on the fishing pier of the Fifth Dimension.

We had decided to explore a nearby lake where, someone told us, there was a pleasant restaurant. A quick online map search gave me the general location. It looked simple enough to find. But after driving for an hour through unpopulated countryside, and not seeing one sign indicating nearby water, we finally found a lone soul outside a post office who redirected us back down the road. “Watch for the turn just past the Mini Mart,” she said.

We turned down a narrow road, otherwise unmarked except for a tiny Lake Dr sign. For the next hour, like kids on a scavenger hunt, we explored unoccupied houses, camps, and lakefront property whose For Sale signs begged us to peer in windows and fantasize what we would do if we owned the place.

“It’s so quiet,” Bob kept repeating, no matter which cove or dock we stood on.
Making our way around to the other shore, we found the shiny, aluminum, public fishing pier jutting out from an empty parking lot. Except for a woman in a bathing suit, who stood at the edge of the water and threw stones and muttered to herself, nothing stirred. Not a boat, not a splashing kid or stick-fetching dog or crumb-seeking duck in sight.

“It’s so quiet,” Bob said again. This time suspicion replaced his previously contented observation. “Something’s weird. Where can you go on a lake in July and not see people in the water?”

I looked down the lake. Scenes from Deliverance tainted my idyllic vision. Like a soap bubble on a blade grass, it burst.

Doubt now determined the course of our conversation on the way home.

“It’s probably really shallow. Looks like leach haven.”

“It’s so remote. Doesn’t take long to get hokey around here.”

When we got home, I looked at an aerial map of the area. Actually, it was quite populated and not so very remote after all. But the damage was done. I had allowed doubt to steal my sense of peace and beauty. And all it took was a seed of suspicion.

“Guard your hearts and minds,” we are told. Doubt is a powerful weapon. The tiniest drop eats at faith like acid.

“Why did you doubt?” The One who made the sun and the stars asked his fearful friend (Matt. 14:31).

Good question. Why do we become so easily sidetracked by doubt when He is—

The Lord [our] God who churns up the sea so that the waves roar. The Lord Almighty is his name. . . who set the heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the earth, and who says . . . ‘You are my people’(Isa. 51:15-16).

Let’s continue the conversation next time. If you experienced a time that faith triumphed over doubt, please join in.

Writers Show and Tell:The Smell of Home

I love to see people get excited about the stories only they can tell. Whether through fiction, film, music or nonfiction, I believe it is important for Christians to promote their worldview in the marketplace. We truly can be in the world but not of it. But if we are not the storytellers for the next generation, then who is?

After teaching a couple of writing workshops at our church, I decided to offer the opportunity to new writers to post on "Show and Tell" day on my blog. My last post on how smells are related to memories triggered a memory in one of my workshop attendees.

Glynda Caddell ran a home for boys who had been removed from their family situations. She has many poignant stories to tell, but today she is sharing one on the importance of smells.

His name was Sam, and he spat it out like a bullet while clutching several paper sacks filled with odds and ends of seven years of life. Rescued from a drug haven,he was unceremoniously dumped into our group home.

Not knowing the grade he spent the past year in, we sent him to the on-campus teacher for evaluation.Reports flowed down within the hour–“uncooperative, sullen, physically aggressive if approached too closely”.

Sam’s hard shell cover was firmly in place and his salty language progressed to even more personal attacks. By noon the therapist had been called to help.Later, we sent Sam back to his cottage, hopefully to rest and rein in his aggression. A short-lived expectation.

The panic button sounded and several of us rushed to help. Sam was destroying his room, his belongings and anything else his legs and arms could slam into.

“For no good reason”, reported the house parent.

Hot angry tears flowed down his face as Sam screamed, “You washed my blanket, you #&@*”!

“I washed all your stuff; it was dirty and it smelled”, answered the house parent.

With his little face flattened into a tattered piece of Dollar Store blanket, Sam whispered,“But it don’t smell like home anymore”.
*****
Lord, in our efforts to clean others up, we often overlook the things that are important. Help us to be more sensitive.And open our eyes to ways we can be a part of a good memory in another's life.

Jude 1:22 And on some have compassion, making a difference…

The reason I remember Toni

What are five things most people don’t know about you? That’s the question my friend Keiki asks authors she features over at The Vessel Project. The question sent me rooting about in the place of long-forgotten memories, and I was surprised at some of the things that surfaced.

Toni perms.

I don’t know if any of you ever heard of one. The first thing that pops up on a Google search is “Why did they stop making Toni home perms?” One answer claims it was because they burned, but I know the real reason. They stunk.

Apparently my mother thought tight little ringlets looked better than my stringy, straggly hair. Whenever I saw a box of that stuff come into the house, I fled. One time I stood on the front porch and screamed my head off in a full-fledge Toni tantrum. But Mom and Toni prevailed.

I remember going to school the next day, aware of the cloud of stink floating around my head. I was in second grade, and the love of my young life, David Bartholomew sat behind me in class. Sure enough. He tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “I smell something.”

My lie slid out smoother than a bowling ball on a waxed lane. “I do too. I saw a skunk out on the playground.”

Whether Toni went undercover after that, or my mother relinquished her dreams of my being a girlie girl, I don’t know, but that was the end of Mom’s home perms.

Our sense of smell, studies show, is closely related to memory. What memories surface in your mind when you think of things like lilies, pine needles, ozone, after shave, baby lotion, Prell shampoo, Christmas trees, spring grass, the ocean, or gasoline(Yes, before we knew anything about sniffing dangerous fumes, I liked the whiff of the gas cap.)

When we lived in Guatemala, one of the teenagers I tutored would pick any shirt or sweater I’d left around, and bury her head in it, absorbing my smell. Not having any fancy perfume up in those mountains, I worried about what she was inhaling.

I hope it left a pleasing memory.

The lover in the Song of Solomon says her beloved sends forth his fragrance over her. This is the fragrance I pray that would linger long after I have left—the fragrance of my Beloved.

For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing—2 Cor.2:15

P.S. I discovered a Facebook page for adult children of Toni perms! I guess it left a permanent impression on a lot of people!

My spot between George Bush and Sarah Palin: Bob's bookshelf

Yep, if you look closely you will see that's my Call of a Coward wedged there in between Sarah Palin and George Bush, a placement that suggests two things about my husband: he honors me, and, he doesn't read many memoirs. (I think the two fictions are included just to distance from the hard core Bible study books that line the rest of his selves.)

As proud as I am to have my book published, I certainly don't put my achievements in the class of my bookshelf company. I do, however, boast that my God can make do with little as well as with a lot. All He asks is that we trust Him.

The Bible is full of examples of  people who were "the least" and yet God was able to do mighty things through them. I love the confidence Jonathan has in God when he says to his armor bearer, "Let's go over to the Philistines; it may be the Lord will work for us, for there is nothing to prevent Him from saving by many or by few."

To each of us is given a purpose and a gift, all ultimately to the glory of God. Some may accomplish great things that affect many, but most will live quiet lives of unacclaimed faithfulness. Helen Keller captured the sentiment of many a heart with her observation, "I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."

It only matters that we do that which God has purposed for us. First to love Him. And to know however lofty or little we may feel our impact is, we can proclaim as did King Asa, "It makes no difference if those you help are mighty or powerless--You are God alone."

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy my sliver of a spot on Bob's bookshelf, and I will pray that the telling of God's faithfulness in my life brings glory to Him, and encourages any of you who read it.






        

               

A rumor I will gladly spread: Flag-Folding

After witnessing the folding of the flag at my father’s burial service recently, I realized I had no knowledge of meaning behind the thirteen folds it took to produce the triangular pillow handed over to my mother.

Snopes.com, one of the Internet rumor police, was quick to say, contrary to popular opinion, each fold did not have a significant meaning, but rather was done so as to “provide a dignified ceremonial touch that distinguishes folding a flag from folding an ordinary object such as a bedsheet.”

Truthorfiction.com was a bit more gracious in saying the meaning of the folds was “not without importance, but is not official and not required.”

Nevertheless, the following meaning became a part of military funerals, I believe because it represents the truths we hold dear and upon which this country was founded.Although other meanings have been attached to this somber and significant ceremony, the one that evokes that quiet pride in our hearts at each turn of the red, white, and blue is the one that represents  honor for life, freedom, country, and God. 

May God bless America.

The Thirteen Folds

The first fold of our flag is a symbol of life.

The second fold is a symbol of our belief in the eternal life.

The third fold is made in honor and remembrance of the veteran departing our ranks

who gave a portion of life for the defense of our country to attain a peace throughout the world.

The fourth fold represents our weaker nature, for as American citizens trusting in God, it is to Him we turn in times of peace as well as in times of war for His divine guidance.

The fifth fold is a tribute to our country, for in the words of Stephen Decatur, "Our country, in dealing with other countries, may she always be right; but it is still our country, right or wrong."

The sixth fold is for where our hearts lie. It is with our heart that we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The seventh fold is a tribute to our Armed Forces, for it is through the Armed Forces that we protect our country and our flag against all her enemies, whether they be found within or without the boundaries of our republic.

The eighth fold is a tribute to the one who entered in to the valley of the shadow of death, that we might see the light of day, and to honor mother, for whom it flies on mother's day.

The ninth fold is a tribute to womanhood; for it has been through their faith, love, loyalty and devotion that the character of the men and women who have made this country great have been molded.

The tenth fold is a tribute to father, for he, too, has given his sons and daughters for the defense of our country since they were first born.

The eleventh fold, in the eyes of a Hebrew citizen, represents the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon, and glorifies, in their eyes, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The twelfth fold, in the eyes of a Christian citizen, represents an emblem of eternity and glorifies, in their eyes, God the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost.

When the flag is completely folded, the stars are uppermost, reminding us of our national motto, "In God we Trust."

After the flag is completely folded and tucked in, it takes on the appearance of a cocked hat, ever reminding us of the soldiers who served under General George Washington and the sailors and marines who served under Captain John Paul Jones who were followed by their comrades and shipmates in the Armed Forces of the United States, preserving for us the rights, privileges, and freedoms we enjoy today.

May My Lasting Impression Not Be One of a VW Bug

The birthing center anchors the entrance to the town; a veteran’s cemetery marks its end. Dunkin Donuts, a market, bar, pizzeria, and smattering of other enterprises sustain the ebb and flow of life between. 

We snagged the only beds around—a quintessential country B&B with printed wallpaper, eclectic furnishings, and hearty breakfasts that brought new meaning to “stick to your ribs,” and everywhere else to boot.

I had been quick to secure the one bedroom with its own bath, (although my brother delighted in saying I stole it from under him—he having to share the other bath with the guests in the next room—his sons.) I had no qualms in pulling rank. And he had none in short-sheeting my bed. Having never experienced this age-old camp trick, we were totally baffled when we pulled back the blankets. Surely our innkeepers knew how to make a bed. Bill’s triumphant giggles on the other side of the door were a dead give-away.

We had come to this tiny spot on the Vermont map, wedged in between lush hillsides and Interstate 89, to celebrate a man’s life and death, and to reacquaint ourselves with family and friends long ago scattered, like a rack of pool balls, in different directions.

I was curious about the images my brain released in response to the oft asked question, “Remember me?”  In an instant, the white-haired woman facing me morphed into a teenager urging me to buy my mother a parakeet to match the one she was buying for her mother. The gregarious woman dishing out generous portions of food and picking the dog hairs off my sweater informed me I was her godmother (Lord forgive me for my delinquency in spiritual motherhood).  The lanky woman in jeans stirred sad memories of a trio of best friends broken by a family move.

A solid, towering man reminded me he was indeed the young cousin boy who worked for my father one summer. He, in turn, remembered two things about me:  I was a skinny, beaded hippie, and I had a 1964 blue Volkswagen.  Since I don’t have a cool mini cooper, or any other car of note, and I’m not decked out in beads or tattoos, this got me thinking about the impressions I make on people.

Whether we like it or not, our days are numbered. Soon my car will be at the head of the train. When it’s time for me to get off, how will I be remembered? Funerals and family gatherings remind me I have been careless with my time, my friendships, and family. There’s not much I can do about what’s behind, but I can affect what’s ahead.

[Lord] teach us to number our days, that we may present to Thee a heart of wisdom . Let Thy work appear to Thy servants, and Thy majesty to their children. And let the favor of the Lord our  God be upon us; and do confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands.—Ps 90:12-17

I suspect the life I have lived in between the birthing center and the burial plot will be remembered along with tepees, and other assorted adventures, but in the end, I pray it will be saluted as one lived in the faith and joy of the Lord.

These afternoon storms sure pack a punch—and so does the Lord

I was so mesmerized by the black swirling rain that obliterated my view of the pool fifteen feet away, that I didn’t even think “tornado’ until it had moved its trail of havoc down the street.  Not that I know what I would have done if it were, but I probably wouldn’t keep standing in front of the patio doors.

After the tempest passed, I surveyed the damage. Apart from some of those nasty sweet gum trees losing their heads, all was well. One lawn chair floated upside down in the pool and yet the other was undisturbed. Same chairs, same place. One gone, the other left.  It reminded me of Luke’s warning—“ two will be in a bed, one will be taken the other not; two women will be grinding, one will be taken the other left”  (Luke 17:34-35).

This was just a sudden violent storm, not a tornado, earthquake, or tsunami, still it pressed its point—all man’s might comes to naught in a few furious seconds.

The fallen tree had wiped out the fence, leaving a gap which I was sure the pooch would be happy to notice. We have a cute little electric chain saw that works great when there is electricity, but is as useful as a flashlight full of dead batteries when there’s not.  My husband left for work, saying he would come back to cut the tree out of the fence as soon as the electric came on.

I thought I’d lighten his load and surprise him by chopping all the bushy branches from the main trunk. Hoping a sweaty, filthy woman who was attacking a fallen sweet gum tree with a pair of lopping shears wasn’t worthy of the evening news, I kept my face turned away from the helicopter that hovered overhead.

As I worked, I prayed for a friend who had called. Although she lives elsewhere and wasn’t affected by my weather, she was experiencing her own emotional storm. I wanted to intercede for her and hoped the Lord would accept my prayers even as I lopped branches, but I worried whether I should be on my knees in undistracted petition.

At some point in my sweaty labor, I wondered if any of the spectators out ogling the aftermath would stop and offer to help. For some reason, I was certain if someone did, I would know the Lord heard my prayers of intercession for my friend.

A mother and daughter stopped to chat and then passed by. Two boys taking advantage of the tree- blocked street zipped by on skateboards. A tired man stopped to say he’d lost his barn. Electric trucks, road crews…slowed to look and continued on.

I chopped and prayed. Two hours passed.

A teenage boy walked by, stopped, exchanged news of ruined roofs and missing trampolines. And then, there it was. God’s sweet assurance in the storms. The boy surveyed my mess.

  

“Do you need some help?”

A skunk with a can on its head is reason to freeze

  There are those times when fear nails you to the spot, clips your lips shut, and freezes all your otherwise honorable actions. Sometimes these reactions are justified. Like the time my parents left me to the skunk.

One night my family was visiting friends; the adults chatted on the porch; we kids romped the yard, spun each other silly on the tire swing, and chased after fireflies with our mason jars. I was barefoot, as usual, but the dewy night grass was cold on my feet, so I went to the car where I found a pair of my father’s shoes (Why his and not mine? I have no idea).

I remember the moment well. It was dark; I could see the adults across the lawn, silhouetted against the porch. Just as I started clunking across the grass, I heard a rattling noise coming straight toward me. Apparently, my mother noticed it also because she yelled at me to get out of the shoes and run. A skunk with a tin can stuck on its head was careening wildly about six feet away from me.

  

I froze, as did everyone else. No one moved. Not an adult. Not a sibling.

 Finally, I started running as best as I could. My mother kept yelling for me to ditch the shoes, and the skunk, just trying to free his head, chased behind, banging and rattling. At some point, my father snatched me up as the skunk disappeared into the woods.

Well, I never held this against my parents, never needed therapy or anything, because I know all too well how easy it is to freeze while your brain weighs all its options. So many times, I’ve felt like a coward about saying the right thing, or standing up for someone, even the Lord.  I know it doesn’t do any good to berate myself when I wish I had responded differently, but I do use the moment to remind myself the next time I will have more courage.

I worry about the times we are living in. You can’t say “Amen” at a graduation. The National Anthem is too violent to be sung, and the military burns Bibles in Middle Eastern countries, because they offend, but handles the Koran with the demanded reverence.

G.K. Chesterton said, (years ago), “These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.”

Right now, my lines have fallen in pleasant places, and for that I am thankful. I don’t have much stress or persecution. My life isn’t demanded of me because I am a woman or a Christian.

But I am praying now, in these good times, that I will live each day with courage to say and do what is good, right, true, and life-giving—wherever I am. I’m praying that I would practice integrity in the daily little things, so that should I be given a moment “for such a time as this,” I will take courage and fear not, for I know my God is with me.—Maybe even courage enough to risk the consequences and pull that can off a skunk’s head, should I ever meet up with one again!

Deleting the alphabet. In the end, the “Rs”remain

 Back in the days when we didn’t know any better, my siblings and I stuck our tongues out at each other and hurled childish names designed to inflict pain. Our little barbs were usually countered by the retort, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”   

Older, wiser, and more properly civilized, I now know that is not, and was not, true. Names do hurt. Words, although invisible to the eye and intangible to the hand do pierce and cut.

I’m not supporting name-calling, but I think our newly found super sensitivity to language is askew. Perhaps it’s the product of trying to have good without God.

We don’t say the “N” word (unless we happen to be speaking to each other) nor the “R” word, and not several of the “G” words—one because it slurs a nationality, the other because it acknowledges Deity. But, we tolerate the “F” word; even allowing it in the books almost every kid in public school reads as part of his/her literature program. Go figure.

I personally don’t like the “D” words. Whenever I feel niggled, I tell my husband I have the “Ds.”—Despair, depression, dismay, dejection, distress, disruption, destroy, disease, diet, death.

But then there are the other “R’ words. They are the best. They are the words of life, of hope, of healing. They represent the most numerous motifs of the Bible: Reform, restoration, rebirth, redemption, reunion, reconciliation, reward, reversal, and return.

The “R” words belong to those of us who know no matter how many of our rights, our words, our liberties get deleted, no matter how much we suffer the “D” words, we know we are the “people who can have tragedy in [our] heart and comedy in [our]head”* because no man can take the “Rs” away.

We live in a fall, but we will Rise.

“And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. And at last He will take his stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh, I shall see God.—Job 19:25

*G.K. Chesterton

A half-pound Phoebe takes over—again

Okay, so we’re not talking a multimillion dollar standoff between a rare worm and an oil pipeline, or a fly and a building complex, cases in which I landed on the side of progress, but the takeover of my poolside gazebo by an eight-ounce bird that screams “phee-bee” has me in a conundrum.

At first I was delighted the Phoebes had chosen to build their nest in the rafters of our gazebo. They flitted around the spacious enclosure as though it were their very own castle. But when they started pooping on the patio chairs, I began to think less favorably about our up-close-and-personal National Geographic happening.

Still, in deference to motherhood, we let them enjoy their takeover while their babies were nesting.  We avoided sitting in the gazebo for any length of time because I worried about the eggs going cold, or babies missing a meal. Finally, they took flight (a departure hastened when I tried to get a picture of them hovering on the rim of their nest).

Happy to hear them calling in the nearby trees, we moved back into the gazebo with our pool paraphernalia. The phoebes, however, knew a good thing when they had it, and they weren’t giving it up so easily.  Lo and behold, a few weeks later, there they were, staking their claim once again. Annoyed with our presence, they’d fly in close or perch nearby scolding and threatening.

I admit; I am amused at the gutsy stance of these tiny keepers of the castle. And I am humored by their apparent enjoyment of their find—a spacious, roofed, open-sided dwelling on the edge of insect -rich woods. 

They dwell securely, unaware that it is by my grace. And that is a reminder I would do well to contemplate. I too, dwell securely by the grace of God.

My phoebes are a living picture of the message the psalmist proclaims when he likens the birds that build nests in the Lord’s house and seek protection at His altars to the person who trusts in the lord.

  

Psalm 84—“Yes the sparrow has found a house and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even Your altars, O lord…happy is the man who trusts in you.’

As I, once again, move my chaise lounge out onto the deck and await the next flight.