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Longing

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I took this last year right about the same time as now--Spring will come, an idea that parallels this post.

I took this last year right about the same time as now–Spring will come, an idea that parallels this post.

Friday morning, as we drove the long curve of the school driveway, we passed a father running on the sidewalk with his young daughter. They held hands, and her pink backpack—nearly as big as she—bounced lightly on her back. They had plenty of time before the late bell, so their running wasn’t forced.

It was joyful.

And it made me smile.

Emily, in the front seat next to me, made it better when she said, softly, “That’s Mr. G——–, Mom—who is now cancer free!”

Tears almost came then. Em and I had prayed several times for this family. In the late fall, requests for prayer were updated almost weekly: his treatments were difficult; his children were shell-shocked; his prognosis wasn’t good. Then there was a period of silence, and I, at least, assumed the worst.

Two hours after I dropped the kids off at school, the image of the father and daughter running together was still hovering in my mind—a spot of bright pink joy.

But underneath it was something else, something less joyful. And I couldn’t figure out what that was, until I heard an interview with Kay Warren on the radio about her book, Choose Joy, released last year. She described our present lives as train tracks of sorrow and joy. Here on earth we travel both—like a railroad car, a wheel on each track. Even in great sorrows, there are flickers of joy and good, but the opposite is also true: even in times of peace and joy, there is sorrow (in some part of our lives and certainly in the world at large).

Then I understood what was haunting my joy.

It was the knowledge that sorrow still exists and can strike at any moment—has already struck so, so many.

“Man is born to trouble,” said Eliphaz to Job, “as surely as the sparks fly upward.” There’ s much that Eliphaz says that is not necessarily correct, but this statement—it’s true!

But we still feel joy when we see/hear things like I did that morning. All moments and stories of restoration bring joy—because when we see them, we hope that maybe, someday, things will be good and right forever. We hope that these snapshot moments of joy will somehow become eternal.

We long for a day when our longing is completely fulfilled.

This is such a strange idea. It’s a mystery, really. We long for what we have never known. In all of human history, there has never been a time of complete, worldwide peace. There has never been a marriage or a family without some kind of dysfunction. Jesus said, “The poor and vulnerable people are always with you”—and it’s true: we still have them. Injustice and abuse: they’ve always been around, along with fatigue, depression, tragedy…

So why do we have a longing for what we have never, ever seen anyone experience? Why do we have a longing that we know will not be fulfilled?

This kind of deferred/unfulfilled longing can make a person sick (Proverbs 13:12).

Who did this to us?

God steps up and says that He did. He put an eternity-sized hole in our hearts that can only be fulfilled with Himself (Eccl. 3:11, Amplified version), and He watches us stuff it with things that simply cannot fill it.

This would be cruel, except that God has made a way to fill this hole.

Christ! He is called “the Hope of Glory!” (Colossians 1:27) the HOPE that all will be glorified, that one day suffering will be NO MORE!

Kay Warren reminded her listeners that if they look down parallel train tracks, they join together in the distance.

Sorrow will be swallowed up in joy.

I don’t have that reality or even that perspective yet, but Christ continually renews my hope that it WILL BE. He has promised that my longing for a never-ending good that I can see and touch WILL be fulfilled.

And in the parallel-track meantime, He opens my eyes to the joy He provides every day, even in the midst of sorrow.

In Isaiah 49, God tells the Israelites that One Day, their longing will be fulfilled. “Then you will know that I am the Lord,” He tells them—because THAT is the answer.

And then He gives them a promise to carry them to the final answer:

“Those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” (emphasis mine)

*I mentioned Kay Warren in this post. A day after I listened to her interview—and wrote the rough draft of this post—her 27-year-old son died. I cannot imagine her pain. Please be praying for hope and joy in the midst of her family’s incredible sorrow in losing their son.

*Following is a C.S. Lewis quote that I’ve been thinking of as I’ve written this.

From “The Weight of Glory” Chapter 1, Paragraph 1:
If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Seeking

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When I lose my phone, I do it in a big way. About a year and a half ago I bought a purple cover for my phone so I wouldn’t “lose it in plain sight,” so it would stand out in my purse or on the kitchen counter.

Two days later, I lost it, never to be found. This past weekend, at my in-laws’ house in Indiana, I lost another one. Dave and I had taken our younger three for a hike in the woods. I put my phone in the pocket of my jacket before we left. We clambered up fallen trees, ran down trails, and crossed streams, and I’m guessing it fell out at some point in our wanderings. I didn’t even miss it until the following day—after it snowed five inches.

But since I discovered its loss, I have been thinking of my phone constantly. I have looked for it in my car, in my purse, under the bed at my in-laws, even in the parking lot outside the woods where we hiked—scraping snow from the blacktop. Even now, when we are back at our house, I find my eyes seeking it in places it really cannot be.

What if I looked for God like that? What if I searched for Him throughout my day? What if He were an undercurrent in my thoughts the same way my phone is right now—never far from the surface of my mind? What if my eyes were always catching glimpses of him—like I caught glimpses of purple when I was looking for my purple-clad phone last year?

‘Cause here’s the thing: unlike my phone, God wants to be found. He delights in being found. He throws parties when He is “found.” He’s the worst hide-and-seek “it” ever, like the small child who calls out from his hiding spot: “I’m over here! Come find me!”

Have you lost sight of Him? Start looking. With all your heart! Search for Him through the pages of His Book, quiet your heart to listen for His gentle whispers, read His glory declared by the skies.

Seek.

He will be found.

 

 

Please, NOT more of myself!

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An hour after I posted last Friday’s blog entry about wanting “more,” I got more.

More of myself!

My brain ran a Negative Thought Matinee all throughout Friday afternoon. “Frustrations, you’re up first. Then we’ll have the Comparisons. And rounding out the program are the Complaints. We have a full show here today, ladies and gentlemen. A full show with not a single positive thought to spoil it!”

“This is more?” I wondered. “When all I see are my faults driving me to find faults in others? I am on self overload! Didn’t I just write and pray that I ‘want to walk like a redeemed person, made new and whole’? What happened to that? Ugh!”

Well, really, what did I expect? That “more” comes easy? That simply wanting it is enough? That a desire for more of Christ wouldn’t bring some spiritual opposition?

But, boy, did I feel like I was resisting the very “more” I wanted! It was yet another illustration of what Paul said in Romans 7: “I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong” (NLT).

Very true. So I struggled, yet again, with my own flesh and its selfish desires.

But in the middle of my battle, God reminded me that last week I had prayed for desperation. After writing about it, I’d asked, “Lord, how do I stay desperate for You when things are going okay–when nothing really big is driving me to my knees?”

Aha! Suddenly I realized that my Negative Thought Matinee was actually an answer to my prayer!

I had forgotten how helpless I really am and needed reminding that even in the “good” times, I am completely inadequate for the tasks set before me. My wily, sinful nature cannot accomplish anything truly good.

And with that understanding I was able to stop battling my negative thoughts and simply cry out “I need you!”

And there it was—the desperation I’d asked for!

God delights in revealing my weakness to me.

This would seem cruel, except that there is MORE. He does NOT do this to make me feel horrible. NO! His purpose is to get me to the place where I cry out for Him. THEN He reminds me that His power is made perfect in my weakness, that when I acknowledge my inability, the power of Christ rests on me.

In Ezekiel 36: 9, God says, “I am concerned for you and will look on you with favor; you will be plowed and sown, and I will cause many people to live on you—yes, all of Israel.” Another version translates the first phrase as “I am for you.”

Please understand I’m taking liberty with the textual application here. God is speaking to the land of Israel itself, but since Christ compared receptive hearts to fruitful soil, I think I can apply it to my own heart. In Ezekiel 36:9, God is essentially saying to me, “I am for you, and I WILL make you fruitful, so I will prepare you to bear fruit. I will plow you and till you and dig deep in you to plant seed. I will cause you discomfort so that you will bear fruit for others.”

If I want and ask for MORE, then I have to understand that I will be plowed. Sometimes that plowing takes the form of outward hardships; sometimes it is simply being forced to face my deep, tangled roots of sin so I will cry out for help.

So, eyes a little wider this time, I say it again: I want MORE!

More of Jesus,

Less of me.

Less of me,

More, more, more of Jesus.

Not-random-at-all acts of Gospel

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Dave and the boys with Papa, Dave's dad. What a cute bunch of guys!

Dave and the boys with Papa, Dave’s dad. What a cute bunch of guys!

When we were together with my husband’s side of the family over Christmas, my father-in-law made an announcement: “For my birthday this year I don’t want you to buy me presents. Instead, I want you to do random acts of kindness during the week leading up to my birthday.”

His birthday is February 1, so last Monday we received our instruction letter, which included suggestions and the number of RAKs (Random Acts of Kindness) for each of us. Each adult was asked to do six RAKs and each child/teen three. The total added up to his age (which I’m not revealing).

I left my house most mornings last week thinking about those RAKs. I prayed about them. I created extra time in my morning routines so that I wouldn’t feel rushed, so I could see opportunities and then engage in them. At night our kids shared their ideas for RAKs with each other and us. They were excited about telling them to Papa at the end of the week. There was something a little different about how we approached each day.

We had a shared mission for the week, and it drove us.

Why is it so hard for us to remember that we are “on mission” as followers of Christ? And not just any mission; we are on the greatest mission of ALL.

When I was a kid, I loved watching shows like Charlie’s Angels, The A-Team, and—my favorite—Scarecrow and Mrs. King. The common element of these was a sense of mission. The heroes in each show were given jobs by a wise boss who knew more than they did, and they pursued them with purpose and a trust in the one who planned them.

We have been told that “good works have been planned in advance for us to do” by the wisest “boss” of all, and these good works are not simply “random” or merely “kind.” They are part of an intricate, grand plan that incorporates even the ones we see as “small” done by the “smallest” of us. They are all part of God’s Gospel plan.

We can begin each day knowing we are agents of God and our days are not random at all. This requires LISTENING. We have a huge advantage over Charlie’s Angels and the Scarecrow. They lived back in the days of landlines and snail mail. Spiritually we are equipped with Bluetooth headgear so advanced it is invisible. We have the Holy Spirit within us. If we LISTEN to Him, we can hear the promptings to draw near (to God and others), to speak (Scripture says we’ll even be given the words to say), to befriend, to let go our agenda for the moment or day, to listen to others, to act, and even (perhaps the hardest work of all) to see mundane tasks as Gospel work.

Not-random-at-all acts of Gospel—all throughout our days.

For further study: Psalm 73:28 (one of OUR good works can be simply telling of the works of God), Matthew 5:16, John 10:32 (Jesus talks of his good works as being “from the Father”), Acts 9:36, Ephesians 2:10, Philippians 2:13, I Timothy 5:25, 6:18, Titus 2:7, 2:14, 3:14, Hebrews 10:24, James 2:14 and 3:13.

This picture actually relates to a piece I posted last week: Crimson Berries, White Snow. A couple days after I wrote that post, we had a fresh snowfall, and I noticed the white snow covering the crimson berries. I couldn't resist--such a beautiful picture of Christ covering us with His righteousness!

This picture actually relates to a piece I posted last week: Crimson Berries, White Snow . A couple days after I wrote that post, we had a fresh snowfall, and I noticed the white snow covering the crimson berries. I couldn’t resist–such a beautiful picture of Christ covering us with His righteousness!

 

 

Suggestions, please

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I am working on another book proposal for the story of Patrick’s adoption. For this latest version, I need a 75-word summary. What I have written below (in italics) is not really a summary, but the guidelines said to think of this as what might go on the back cover of the book, so I am assuming it needs to actually grab attention. If you have a few minutes to read it and then have a suggestion for me, please message me or leave a comment. Thanks so much. Jen

Patrick playing in the snow this past winter. What a dude!

Amazing to think he was once that sick!

A mother dies of AIDS in Uganda, and her 9-pound, 16-month-old son is taken to an orphanage. A teenage girl from Chicago arrives there only days later, takes him in, and nurses him to health. A friend from the States visits and falls in love with the baby, and the friend’s husband, back at home with their three kids, begins praying about adopting this little boy he’s never met. 

The journey to adopt Patrick begins.

Crimson berries, white snow

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I took this today in our front yard. What an amazing blue sky!

I took this last fall. (It’s the same picture, just uncropped, that I used as my new header)

On the tree in the front yard hang the leftover berries from last fall. They were bright before frost, but now they look almost black against the snow. It brings to mind Isaiah 1:18. God says to the Israelites, “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.”

I think of scarlet and crimson as beautiful colors—like the berries before the frost—but God spends 16 verses describing the crimson and scarlet of the His peoples’ sins, and it’s ugly! “You’re rebellious,” He tells them. “I’ve loved you and cared for you, but you have rejected and ignored Me. All your ‘churchiness’ is nothing but show. You’re hypocrites, following an outward religion that has no goodness to it. In fact, you offer sacrifices to Me and then go out and live without love for others, abusing and neglecting the helpless” (my paraphrased summary)

“Do you think that’s what I, the GOOD GOD, want?”

The scarlet and crimson of verse 18, then, are NOT beautiful. These people are as far from the purity of white as they could be. The crimson and scarlet have set into the fabric of their souls, and they are irreparably stained.

We must remind ourselves that we are no different. OUR sins–collectively and individually–are scarlet and crimson. We, too, are irreparably stained.

This takes on deeper meaning when we see the terms “white as snow” and “white as wool” applied to Christ: Daniel 7:9 says, “…the Ancient One sat down to judge. His clothing was as white as snow, his hair like purest wool.” Revelation 1:14 describes Christ’s head and hair as “white like wool, as white as snow.”

Our crimson stains and Christ’s white purity are as unalike as possible. We drip with sin, as if we have been dipped in a vat of it, formed in it (Ps. 51:5). Now let’s look at what is in the vat. It is not simply liquid color—a straightforward red dye. No! To understand how God sees this crimson sin, we must go to another verse in Isaiah: “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isaiah 64:6). The polluted garment is–to be as graphic as Scripture is–like the underclothes a woman would wear during her menstrual cycle. They would be permeated with a bodily fluid that stunk and stained.

THAT is the crimson, the scarlet.

God the Pure One cannot condone and “coexist” with our stench. He would cease to be perfect, sinless God if He said that our disregard for Him and our injustice toward our fellow man was “okay.” Though He longs to hold us in His arms, that is not possible as long as we are stained and dripping with this crimson.

We have tried, over and over through the centuries, to fix this problem ourselves. All religions are simply our efforts to make ourselves fit for communion with God, worthy of his approval. But we cannot do this, though we claim to. But any “god” we can reach through our own efforts must be a god of our own making–and therefore not truly Divine.

So we must be changed, somehow made pure. Some outside agent must be applied to go over our stain. That’s exactly what God did in Christ. Christ, unstained and pure, took on our human flesh, a body that was stained with the effects of sin, that would suffer and age, that had the same bodily functions ours do, with emotions and frailties. He was “in all points like we are…”

“Yet without sin.” That needs an exclamation mark! He had no inner stain and He kept Himself unstained!!! THAT enabled Him to do an amazing thing for us. His death allowed us to be covered with new garments–HIS complete, utter goodness, white as snow.

“Though your sins are like scarlet”–permeating to our very core, as much a part of us as dye becomes part of a garment when the garment is dipped in it–“I will make them as white as snow.”

With the covering of Christ’s purity, our stains—past, present and future (God is not bound by time)—are overwhelmed, and God the Good can draw us near to Himself. His Spirit enters our hearts like a bleaching agent, and begins transforming us from the inside out, a process that will end (oh, Heaven!) with us being LIKE Christ. Selfishness and pride will never again seep from our hearts. We will be pure not only in standing (with Christ’s covering) but in practical actuality.

I am thankful I opened my curtains yesterday and noticed the shriveled, darkened berries and the gleam of snow behind them. I am thankful for this reminder because my gratitude is in direct proportion to my realization of my need for Christ.

Same berries after the frost

Same bush after the frost

“For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV).

Try out “The Well”

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Hi Readers,

I just received word that one of my pieces (it’s an old blog post that I adapted) has just been published at “The Well,” which is Intervarsity’s Web site for women in graduate school. Here’s the link: http://thewell.intervarsity.org/blog/value-hank.

A friend of mine told me about “The Well” and suggested I submit some work to it. I checked it out and found it to be a very encouraging Web site for me. I did submit a piece (obviously), but I’ve continued to regularly visit the site because it has so many good, thoughtful articles, devotionals, and interviews. You might want to check it out for yourself.

One last thing: my apologies for not updating in so long. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks and the flu thing I got (that half of Chicago got, it seems) has hung on for a very long time.

Thanks for reading,

Jen

Bonhoeffer’s words on tragedy born of evil

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I, like most of the nation, have been following the terrible news of the deaths of the children and adults this past Friday. A few minutes ago Dave said, “Listen to this. It’s very fitting for us right now.” He then read to me from a small booklet by Dietrich Bonhoeffer titled “Who Stands Fast?”, an essay written only two years before his death. Bonhoeffer wrote it for his comrades, who stood with him against the Nazi regime. The following quote is under Bonhoeffer’s subtitle: “A Few Articles of Faith on the Sovereignty of God in History.”

“I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything. I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us to resist in all times of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on ourselves and not on him alone. A faith such as this should allay all our fears for the future.”

We have witnessed great evil. I think that requires us to be thoughtful, to be much in prayer, and to be sympathetic and empathetic to those hurting. Perhaps, in these kinds of actions, we will be “mak(ing) the best use” of an act which had no good in it and become part of God’s transformative power.

“Done good to” so we can “do good”

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Do Good!

Let the good that’s been done to you overflow in kind looks, generosity, gestures of love—acknowledgement that all humanity was made in God’s image and has equal value to yourself.

Do Good!

God can and will use this testament to His goodness lavished on us. When people ask Why?, we have a wonderful answer: Because God has been so good—through easy times and oh, so hard times—to me.

We’ve been “done good to!”

So we can Do Good!

DSC_0381

 

Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

Romans 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Galatians 6:9-10 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

II Thessalonians 3:13 And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good.

I Timothy 6:18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.

Hebrews 13:20-21 Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

don’t do this (a “just for fun” post)

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We get conflicting messages about food this time of year. Yummy-looking recipes pop up on one side of my computer screen, and on the other I see dieting tips for “getting through the holidays without gaining a pound.” I don’t really have any advice of my own to add other than this: no matter HOW you choose to approach eating this holiday season, don’t force your approach on someone else.

A long time ago, when I was teaching at a public middle school in a middle-sized town in Indiana, one of my fellow teachers came up with the great idea of having a holiday lunch potluck. We were a somewhat divided set of teachers, with a few very quirky ones in the bunch, and others who were just downright disgruntled much of the time. We didn’t do much all together, except share a lot of gossip in the workroom and fuss about problem students. The teacher with the potluck idea was one of the few cheerful ones, and surprisingly, everyone got on board. (It probably helped that she planned the potluck for a day when we would teach in the morning, send the kids home, and then have an afternoon of on-site meetings. Most probably thought that the potluck would spill over into the meeting time, cutting it short.)

That morning we carried our crockpots and goodies into the library, placing them on a large table where the librarian (they were still called that back then–no “media specialists” yet) had set up a complicated system of heavy -duty extension cords so we could plug all the crockpots in. We perused the table of goodies and looked forward to a delicious lunch.

Surprisingly our local health nut had offered to set up more tables and spread out the offerings just before lunchtime. We thought it was just because she had her last period free.

Um, no.

When we walked in the library at lunchtime, drawing in deep appreciative breaths of the rich smells, we discovered placards in front of each dish. At the top of each placard was the name of the dish–helpful–and at the bottom were listed the calories, fat grams, and serving size of it.

That part was not so great.

Some dishes even had little notes: “Watch out–high calories.” “You’ll want to go lightly with this one.”

This wasn’t New York City. Gourmet cooking had not made many inroads into our town. The tables weren’t covered in salads (unless it was three-bean or potato) but in comfort food.

GOOD comfort food.

Needless to say, this dampened the mood, and our health nut received a lot of dark looks.

SO, over-indulge or hold back this holiday season, that’s YOUR decision.

Just don’t make someone else feel guilty for doing either.