Not long ago I rode my bike past Nueva Vida (New Life), the Spanish/English bilingual church about a block from our house, and I noticed the fine print on the sign: “Servicio de Adoracion 10:30.” My mind automatically translated. “Adoration Service.”

ADORATION service.

They are synonyms, “adoration” and “worship,” and each has the other word in its definition, but “worship” has come to mean little more than “a time of corporate singing.” We rarely say, “We are WORSHIPPING God.” We say, “Now it’s worship time,” or we critique it: “Worship was good/bad/a little off today.” The word has lost its punch. It has been demoted.

But “adoration”?

It shakes up my idea of church services to think of them as times of “adoration.”

Just the other day I listened to a podcast by John Piper on the supremacy of Christ, and he challenged his listeners. “Don’t just see yourself as Christ ‘followers,'” he said. (I’m paraphrasing.) “You can ‘follow’ anybody. Christ is more than a leader; He’s more than a good teacher. He’s GOD!”

And our proper response is WORSHIP.

Or, if that phrase has become too worn out or mangled for you, ADORATION.

“Jesus, I adore You. Lay my life before You. How I love You.”

I remember singing that song with several Argentine women as we washed dishes in a tiny church kitchen following a community meal. I was there on a two-week mission trip. One of the ladies, Alma, had this expression on her face that drew me out of any contemplation of myself. She really sang that song. Her hands were covered in chicken grease and soap bubbles, her body was firmly planted on feet flattened by age and a hard life, but her soul was somewhere else. She was adoring Jesus, and her face showed it.

In the writing class I take each week, we talk about what makes characters attractive, what makes readers “fall in love” with them. One of the most effective techniques, I think, is when that character is loved by someone else in the novel. If I like a certain character, and that character loves another, then chances are I am drawn to that loved person as well. This can be true even with despicable characters. Every time I’ve watched the musical Oliver, I’ve thought, “There has to be something good about Bill Sykes because wonderful Nancy loves him so much.”

We don’t have that issue with Jesus. He IS loving. He IS good. He IS kind. He IS worthy of our sincere adoration, or–to borrow from dictionary.com–“fervent and devoted love.” So shouldn’t we be able to love Him like that? And shouldn’t our love cause others to fall in love with Him, too?

Quite a few young believers or nonbelievers watch or know me in some up-close-and-personal ways: my children, Jane, Nina, my students, even a couple friends from writing class. What a thrill it would be if they could truly say, “There’s got to be something to this Jesus, because Jen sure loves him.”

Jesus, I want to adore you.

We often joke in our family that the word “oblivious” should have Jake’s name next to it in the dictionary because of the many times we have discussed plans as an entire family only to hear Jake say, “What? What are we doing?”

Well, my good friend Brenda’s youngest child, Ben, could probably fill in as the synonym for “precocious.” He’s smart, charming, and has the ability to leave his parents guessing much of the time. Here are two recent “Ben stories.”

Ben has become a big vampire fan this fall, fixating on the all plastic and blow-up versions people have put in their yards to celebrate Halloween (and for some that “season” seemed to begin in mid-September).

Well, at Brenda’s church a couple Sundays ago, they talked about God as the Creator in Ben’s Sunday School class. For an activity, each child ran, one at a time, up to the teacher, got one M&M from her, and said something God created that was the same color as the M&M.

Ben got red. His teacher, Angela, asked, “What’s something God created that’s red, Ben?”

She had already heard the standard answers; she was expecting something different from Ben.

Ben screwed up his face, raised his eyebrows and growled, “He created BLOOD! Hahaha.”

*********

Brenda and Bob, her husband, have wondered at times if Ben really does have a conscience. (Don’t all parents wonder that? We have–about more than one of our children–during different, awful stages. I remember praying fervently at a mom’s prayer group a couple years ago for Maddie to feel badly about SOMETHING–anything!–mean she did.) The other day Ben got into a little scuffle at school. The first thing he said to his mother when he stepped off the bus was, “Has my teacher called you yet?”

No, she hadn’t, but Ben told his mother all that had happened. By the end he was in tears, collapsed in a small heap on the driveway.

Brenda was amazed. Tears! Real tears! Maybe they were just for the fact that he knew he was in trouble, but, still… TEARS!

She put on a stern face. “Stay right there,” she said, pointing to the driveway. “Don’t move and keep crying. I’ll be right back.”

She ran inside and called her husband. “Bob!”

“What?”

“He’s crying. Ben’s actually crying because he did something wrong! He’s feeling remorse. He may actually have a conscience after all!”

 

Last week PJ told me he had a “car change” during his morning school. “What’s a car change?” I asked.

“What happens when you talk or get in trouble.”

Hmm. Six weeks into school, and I’m just now hearing about this. Pretty good—I hope. I decided to press further.

“What happened?”

“The girl who sits next to me asked me something, and I answered her. She got one, too.” He was very matter-of-fact, no frustration in his tone.

“Well, sometimes that happens. Was that your first car change?”

“No, I got one last week in chapel.”

“Really?” This one I wanted to unpack.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “The music made a really funny noise, and I made this face.” He snort-laughed and twisted up his mouth.

I laughed, too. “Well, that’s not too bad,” I said. “Hmm, just two car changes.”

He shrugged. “It’s okay to get your car changed one spot. My teacher wasn’t mad.”

Then his eyes got big. “But Sammy,” (I’m changing the name—just in case, you know), “he gets car changes all the time—for BIG things.” He frowned. “He’s mean to our teacher.” Clearly this didn’t fly in PJ’s book.

“Why do you think he does that?”

Another shrug.

We had part of our “bully” discussion then. “Maybe he’s going through a hard time at home.” “We could easily act the same way, couldn’t we?” “Who helps us not to?” We ended up with some of the beautiful ways we SEE God’s grace in our lives–from the Holy Spirit’s fruit to the loving (though crazy) family God’s made for us. In a way, I realized, PJ’s “car changes” are one form of grace, reminders that things are not as they should be, possibilities for change.

It was a fun conversation, but it became more meaningful when I realized that God has, in a very concrete way, given me my own “car change” during this busy, stressful time of adjustment.

The other morning I was rushing around, pouring cereal one minute, putting on mascara the next, grabbing clean socks from the basement, finding a missing shoe upstairs, back to the bathroom to brush my teeth, all the while keeping up a running “Let’s go, let’s go. Ten minutes, people.”

At some point Chai (the dog) began following me around. Then she bumped up next to me. She had her tail between her legs and was looking up at me with that scared, “what have I done wrong?” face.

Car change!

“Oh, God,” I prayed. “You just used the dog to let me know I am doing this (or trying to) in my own strength. I’m getting all flustered and busy with silly details instead of looking to YOU!”

Stop! Refocus! Change! The morning became fun again–and we even made it out the door on time.

So my “car change” has four legs, beautiful amber eyes, and a sweet personality, and she really does let me know when my focus is off.

Another gift of grace, this one covered in fur.

It’s homecoming week at Wheaton Academy, with a different theme for each day. This past Saturday we took Jane on her first excursion to St. Vincent Du Paul’s (my all-time favorite thrift store) to find clothes for the week. I got a bright yellow t-shirt with “I HEART Movies” on the front for Color Day (faculty got yellow) and a vest/pant combo for 70s Day, forgetting that, oops, I don’t teach on Thursdays!

So yesterday morning (Monday: color day) I sported the glaring t-shirt, a pair of big neon-yellow earrings borrowed from Emily, and a yellow African scarf around my neck. Still, I was nowhere near the most outlandishly dressed teacher (one of the math teachers wore a banana suit; another wore a yellow tiger costume), and I almost forgot that I wasn’t dressed in normal teaching clothes.

Which is why, I guess, that when I left school after fourth period and went to a meeting with the director of PJ’s preschool, I completely forgot what I looked like. We chatted for a few minutes before I realized. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I said, my hand flying to the garish hoops at my ears, “It’s spirit days at school, and I forgot I had all this stuff on.”

She waved it off. “It’s no big deal.”

Sure, I thought. Now she thinks I’m a freak.

But then she continued. “You should have been here last Friday. It was pajama day!”

You gotta’ love preschool.

**********

Today, Tuesday, was clash day, a spirit week favorite. My first time to “clash” was years ago. I was teaching middle school, just out of college, and afraid to look truly unprofessional. So I dressed for this day a little too conservatively, and I learned: when people tilt their heads to the side when they look at you, trying to decide if you really MEANT to clash or not, you haven’t gotten it.

So today, I clashed–big time! You can see the picture for proof. But when Jake walked into the bathroom this morning, he said, “Looking good, Mom,” and gave me a thumbs-up–and he was completely serious. (If we didn’t already know he is color blind, we would have figured it out today.)

A few minutes later I went to Maddie’s room to wake her. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and then actually saw me. She woke up in a hurry, her eyes wide, wide, wide. “Mom?!”

“It’s okay. It’s clash day at school,” I told her.

“Phew!”

They ARE twins, right?

Oh, and this day I DID remember to change before I went to pick PJ up from school!

Jake’s been thinking about marriage lately—his own. A couple of weeks ago he seemed pensive when I picked him up from school. “What’s wrong, dude?” I asked.

“Dakota broke up with me,” he sighed. “She still likes me, but she doesn’t love me anymore.”

Em was pragmatic (a very different attitude than her approach to her own “love life”). “Well, it’s not like you were going to marry her.”

Jake protested. “I might. I’ve got to start looking now, you know, start preparing.”

Then, over the weekend, Jake reminded us of his children’s names (we’ve had some of this conversation before). “My first boy is going to be named ‘Tucker,’” he said. “Tucker Thomas—the Thomas is for you and me, Dad.”

“What?” Dave asked. “Doesn’t your wife get a say?”

Jake’s face crinkled up like we were missing something obvious. “Not with the boys’ names, Dad. She gets to name the girls.”

“What if you only have boys?” I asked.

He had to think about that one. “Then I guess she gets to name the second boy.”

He didn’t seem too happy about it.

So we’ve been back in West Chicago now for three months, and I am tired, tired, tired and wondering, in odd, fragile moments, why God brought us back here. Don’t get me wrong. I SEE lots of answers to that question, and I am not doubting His leading, but all the obvious answers are stretching me past my limits, using up every bit of energy I have.

 

And I wonder—even while I hear a still, small voice telling me not to wonder about all the “why”s of this move—if this fatigue isn’t actually part of the big-picture reason. God keeps putting verses in my path that speak about my limitations. “My power is made perfect in weakness” showed up on our verse-of-the-day calendar yesterday. Today’s focus verse in Em’s devotional book is “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

 

“Face it,” God seems to telling me. “Stop pretending you CAN do it all and admit you can’t. Be okay with your limitations, with your fatigue. Quit this Superwoman mentality. Only then will you stop trying and let me work. Only then will you see that I DO provide what you need, and you will see the strength I provide as supernatural and miraculous.”

 

Paul said he “boasted” in his weaknesses. He was “content” with hardships and weaknesses (as well as insults and persecutions!). He said that when he was weak (and “okay” with it), then he was strong. God tells me to “draw near to His throne of grace, so (I) can receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” He says that when I do draw near—recognizing my own inability—He will strengthen me with “power through His Spirit in (my) inner being” and I will KNOW (through experience) the love of Christ and the fullness of God.

 

So goodbye, working-mother image. Adios, Supermom. Here’s my shout-out to the world: I cannot do it all. I’m not capable. I’m weak. Did you hear that? I know this flies in the face of everything we’re supposed to tell ourselves, everything the world feeds us, but I’m stepping off the bus, baby.

 

So, do you know what this means? If you see me actually accomplishing my roles, looking like things are running smoothly, if I manage to get enough sleep and be everywhere on time, then guess what?

 

It’s NOT me! It’s God providing the strength, the remembering-power, the organizational skills…

 

It’s God providing what I need every week, every day, every moment…

 

It’s GRACE!

I made calzones last night for dinner and sent the extras in all the kids’ lunches today, forgetting that Jake would have a tooth extracted this morning and be limited to soft foods until evening. So, of course, no calzone for him (though I got him an ice cream cone to eat on the way back to school); it stayed in his lunch box.

When I picked all the kids up after school, Jake’s first question was, “Mom, can I have my horse-zone for dinner tonight?”

Hmm.

Em figured it out. “Oh, he thought it was a ‘cow-zone.'”

“Oh, yeah,” said Jake. “I forgot. So can I have my ‘cow-zone’ for dinner?”

Little kids: check. Middle school and teenage kids: check. Twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties: check. With my in-laws and the head of my teaching department (who keeps reminding the rest of us she’s not as young as we are), I’ve even got the sixties covered.

But I almost never have contact with truly elderly people, men and women whose bodies are clearly on the downward slope, whose wrinkles and age spots remind both themselves and us that the body was not meant to last forever. It’s merely a shell, and it’s breaking down.

In the sophomore English class I teach, we are reading Tuesdays with Morrie, the nonfiction bestseller from a decade ago about a man in his late seventies who died of ALS. Last week we also watched a video made by Jim Harrell, a former WA parent who was diagnosed with ALS several years ago and died in 2010. Though the two men are very different–Morrie is facing death as an agnostic; Jim is a firm believer in his after-life eternity with Christ–they have one very similar message: “Our bodies are approaching death; so are all of yours. What is most important?”

It makes me think that I am not reminded enough of the mortality of humanity. I spend my days with young children and young adults, all full of energy, all focused on TODAY! My 83-year-old father lives too far away for me to visit him regularly. Every time I see him, I have to adjust to the greater slope of his back, to the fact that I can now put my arms around my formerly barrel-chested father, to his conversation being more and more focused on heaven than on earth. I do not live with this every day.

Two weeks ago I had my eyes checked by our new eye doctor, who is near my father’s age. Like my dad, he is sharp-minded and focused. While he examined my eyes, he talked to me about the complexity of the universe, the amazing intricacies of God revealed in the number and scope of the galaxies. It was exhilarating to listen to him talk about a God he knows better than I because of the years upon years he has followed Him.

But as he leaned in close to check the lens in my eye, his bushy white eyebrows brushed my cheek, and one veined, knobby hand grasped the chair arm for balance, and I was reminded that time will do the same to my body. Three days later, as Dave and I drove the family to church, I saw an old man on the sidewalk. His shirt was neatly tucked in, and he was clearly on his way someplace, but his pants were wet with urine, and he walked with his head down as if ashamed. Dave reached over and held my hand. We were both reminded.

I sometimes wish that we had an elderly relative in our home, as families in many cultures do. Perhaps then we could see that life is fleeting, that youth and vitality eventually fade, that we are not immune to decay, that our bodies will cease, and our spirits must go on to something very different. Perhaps then we would see that the “life” Christ referred to so much is not defined by the limitations or abilities of our bodies. It is not defined by the death of the body.

Each Sunday  a group of older women gather at our church. Most have outlived husbands; a couple totter along with walkers; nearly all have glasses. They shift down the hall together, ease into chairs in the fellowship hall, get the youngsters to pick up things they drop on the ground. They are not as “alive,” in one sense, as the five-year-olds that climb and jump in the playroom in the church basement. Yet the life at their table is tremendous. It sparkles from eyes that have seen both heartache and joy; it gleams from mouths that gather in everyone with warm smiles. Their warped old hands grasp the arms of all who pass by. “How are you?” they ask; they really want to know.

Their bodies get noticeably closer to death each year, but their souls have spark, and when you watch them, you get the sense that when those bodies drop away, those women will rise up, fully alive.

It is time, I think, to get more “age” in my life.

 

I am in my 18th year of full- or part-time teaching at the middle-school, high-school, or college level! I just added it up, and it shocked me. I don’t feel as old as that number makes me out to be, and I also feel I should have a better hang of it after 17 years. I’m STILL staying up late several nights a week to prep or grade.

Early in this career that I love (thank You, God, for bringing me back to it), a teacher told me that I should learn more than my students do through my teaching. That’s true—or it should be. If a teacher is no longer learning and growing through the act of teaching, it may be time to quit or at least take a break (though that’s not why I quit three years ago; I was definitely still on a learning curve. In fact, I needed a break from the learning curve.)

So here’s one of my current learning curves: Right now I am finishing up Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress with my seniors. One of the themes that has emerged is that getting your world shaken up, even when it happens through very negative circumstances, helps you to learn, grow and change. The author, Dai Sijie, based this fictional account on his very real experiences during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, during which several million urban youth in China were sent to labor in rural villages. In Balzac the two city youth who are relocated feel completely different from the people they are now living with but by the end, though it is not a tidy nor happy ending, they have discovered more similarities between themselves and their rural neighbors than they would ever have believed when they first arrived.

My students and I talked about the problems and benefits of spending long-term time in a place where we don’t “fit” the norm. I introduced to them the term “third-culture kids,” TCKs, a term that describes young people who have spent part of their formative years in a culture different from their home culture. It’s an important term for them to know. We have 36 international students at Wheaton Academy this year. Each of them is already—or is becoming—a TCK.

I asked my students, “How many of you spend significant time in a culture in which you are not the majority?” Besides the one international student from Liberia, two others raised their hands. They are both African American going to a school that is still pretty white (though becoming less so—yay!).

I challenged the rest of us to do it—find some place or group in which we feel like the cultural minority. Ever since I gave that challenge, God has been opening my eyes to more of the reasons He wanted us back here. I was REALLY comfortable in Sterling, more comfortable than I have EVER felt in suburbia. But “not feeling comfortable” is actually a pretty good thing. It shakes me up some. It reminds me that this world isn’t my true home anyway. It pushes me to make connections with people who are very different than I am, either culturally or spiritually or economically or educationally.

The nature of my day keeps this in mind. In the mornings I drop Patrick off at his morning school. I am one of the few white moms who enter the building. Patrick, with his dark skin, fits right in. Then I run the other kids to Wheaton Christian Grammar, where nearly everyone is white—and many are in a much higher income bracket. I teach my wonderful students for a couple of hours at WA (the place that feels most like “home”), and then I am off to pick up Patrick and deliver him to the Early Learning Center, where every student has some form of learning or developmental difficulty (and Patrick—with his small fine-motor skill issues—is by far the highest functioning student). At night the smell of Nina’s or Jane’s rice and soy sauce mingles with the leftover scents of an American dinner. The sounds of Chinese and Vietnamese have become ordinary to our ears. On Thursday nights I go to a writing class where I am often the only one who would describe herself as a Christ follower.

My world is already a wonderfully mixed up place, but I want to push myself more. I don’t want to avoid places or people just because they look or dress differently or believe differently than I do. I don’t want to avoid deep conversations with my international students or fellow moms or fellow classmates because it’s unknown territory. I want to be okay with being a little uncomfortable. I’m learning that I love comfort more than I ever thought I did, and I am also learning that God doesn’t care a whole lot about my comfort. In fact, I think I think it often gets in the way of what He really desires for me.

On Tuesdays Em, Jake, and Maddie have soccer practice, and I walk a circuit between the playground where Patrick plays with some of my other carpool kids and the fields where the older three

practice. Last week the sun was intense and no clouds covered the sky. As I walked in the shadows under the trees, stray beams of sunlight made me blink, and when I emerged into the open field, the setting rays made me reach for my sunglasses. “Ah, that’s annoying,” I thought, until the Holy Spirit elbowed me and I realized the petty selfishness of my attitude.

Sometime later in the day the Holy Spirit nudged again, and I began to see a familiar passage of Scripture in a whole new light (pun intended!). In John 3:20 Jesus says, “… the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

I think I’ve always felt a bit smug when I’ve read those verses. “Yes, ‘those’ people have to hide in the dark, but me, well, I’m doing pretty good things. I’ll let anybody try to find dirt on me. I’m an open book.” In fact, I can remember the unwelcome shock it was when one of my former-students-become-disipleship-partner told me in her blessedly blunt way, “Well, I know you’re not perfect. By now I certainly know your faults.”

What faults is she talking about? I remember thinking that. I mean, I know I have faults, but none that she should be noticing. They’re small, right, and very inconsequential, particularly compared with other people’s.

I might be exaggerating my egotism, but only a little. My heart is pretty devious, and I will accept things it says in the privacy of my own soul that I would recognize as blatant lies if I heard them out loud.

But last Tuesday, when I shut my eyes against the dappled light of the sun, preferring the shadows, I realized that the “works” of my heart require shadow to be seen as good. When the pure light of God’s goodness invades, MY good deeds are exposed and my “kind” thoughts are revealed—and they are all self-centered. I prefer the shadows. I, too, LOVE the dark because it hides my evil intentions.

But God is placing a different desire in my heart. I find that I want my selfishness to be revealed—in the same way I WANT any cavities in my teeth to be found. Though the light of God’s goodness will show that even my whitest whites are stained completely, His light also transforms. Revealing and transforming; revealing and transforming—on and on I become, bit by bit, more like HIM.

So Father, even though I wince at Your convicting presence like I squint at sudden sunlight, keep breaking through my shadows. Don’t let me stay in half-light, pretending that my “goodness” is far better than others’. Don’t let me become a super-spiritual snob. Show me that I love the dark because it hides my selfish “good” deeds. Carry out TRUE good work in me, full of light.

Please, Lord, shine on.