Oh Bleep!

     I have been a Christian for a long time and seldom use even the minced oaths acceptable in Christian  circles, even when in traffic with sadists, or when the person ahead of me in the bank drive through is taking so long I can only assume it is their first time handling money, or the shopper I am behind at the checkstand wants to pay for their groceries with a two party, out-of-state check. Such are the foibles of human existence, not worth fussing about. So please insert an acceptable Christian word for the bleep. As I mentioned in my "Giving Up" blog, understanding who Jesus is is a very inconvenient truth. Unspiritual as it sounds, that can be an oh bleep moment. Spiritual warming requires complete reorientation of our lives and unlike one politician's "Inconvenient Truth", God's truth cannot be half baked.
     But my oh bleep times happen when God reveals some service He wants me to do for Him and I don't want to do it. Early in my Christian life I thought such decisions were up to me, so my primary considerations when asked to do something in my church or community were my natural abilities, schedule and comfort.  Then, through my Bible study, I learned God is not concerned about any of those things. He rarely calls us into areas of our natural ability because then we are less likely to depend on Him and, since God equips those He calls, our abilities are not needed. God also adjusts the schedules of those He calls so our current schedule is of no concern. I experienced this time expansion aspect of serving God often when I led a prayer group that I was sure I did not have time for. We are concerned with comfort, God is concerned with obedience. Obedience brings a joy more satisfying than comfort.
     One of my vivid oh bleep moments was when I was called into BSF leadership--for the third time. The first two times I was asked to pray about leadership, I survived unscathed. The third time I had barely begun praying when I could tell by the pounding of my heart and unwelcome certainty in my mind that I was supposed to say yes. Oh bleep! I was not a natural leader, not even an unnatural one. God did not care. The same thing happened when I was asked to speak at a ladies' retreat. I knew I was supposed to say yes despite having no idea, beyond a general topic, what I would say. God supplied all the ideas, I was not nervous and actually enjoyed the experience.
     I do not agree to serve God because I am spiritual, I obey because I have learned resistance is futile.  I am spiritual enough to know when God is calling me, but unspiritual enough for it to feel like the clammy hand of death has grabbed me. Getting an assignment from God feels less like being touched by an angel, than being tazered by the Spirit, a startling sensation that can make even a seasoned saint say "Oh bleep!"                         
    

The Promise and the Pit

     One of the questions in our Bible study of Genesis 37 was, "Why do you think God gave these dreams to Joseph?" They certainly did not help his relationship with his family. They even precipitated his brothers' betrayal. And the contrast between the dreams of exaltation and the reality of the pit must have been bitter to bear. I believe God gave Joseph the dreams so he would have something to cling to in the dark times to come. The dreams strengthened the hatred his brothers already felt toward Joseph, but Jacob had been fueling that fire for a long time. When circumstance took everything from Joseph, the dream remained.
     I, too, have had those pinnacle to pit experiences, times when the Spirit has directed me, not through the soft illumination of his word or the subtle nudging of circumstance, but a personal message, just for me, impressed into my mind, foreign and unflinching. The first of these came after a women's Bible study I attended as a young mom. The message was that God had something new in store for me. I was excited and afraid. I thought maybe God would call us to the mission field. Instead He called me to three and a half years of depression. During that time I got a lot of bad information both secular and Christian, doubted and was doubted by others, but I knew one thing. I did not fall into that pit by my own deficiencies. Depression was the something new that God had promised me. It resulted, among other things, in a deeper walk with Christ, but I learned that walk during years spent in a dark, lonely pit.
     Another incident happened five years ago when our spare son Lance was still with us. He had violated his parole, but was released on bond to stay with us until time to serve his sentence. When Lance had come to us two years earlier, God's guidance for me to help him was as clear as if He had pried the roof off the house and dropped Lance into my arms. Still I wondered how I would know when I had accomplished my part of what would be a lifelong reclamation project. When I came home from my first week of BSF of the year, I got my answer. God thundered into my heart for several hours, the knowledge that I had finished the part God wanted me to play in Lance's life. God would take it from here. Lance would be okay. I did not know at the time, that when Lance left that Thanksgiving I would not hear from him again. That was five years ago. God gave His promise to sustain me in the years to come. By then I recognized the pattern of the promise and the pit.
     A personal promise from God is too obvious to ignore and too precious to dread, but when there is a promise, it will be followed by a pit. By God's grace, He gives us the promise first. By grace also, He gives the pit.

Giving Up

     I heard an interview yesterday on Christian radio of a journalist who had come to faith in Christ through  researching a story on the Bible. The host congratulated her on the courage it took to believe when she and all of her friends were leftist liberals. She said it didn't feel like courage, it felt like giving up. It made me laugh because that is what it felt like for me. I heard a preacher say that God is a gentleman, He doesn't go where He isn't wanted. I doubt Paul would agree with that, in that he was knocked both off and on his ass, and gentlemanly reticence certainly wasn't my experience. The Holy Spirit beat me to a pulp every Sunday during the invitation with the knowledge that I needed to be saved or I was going to hell. Week after week as we stood for the invitation hymn, I gripped the pew in front of me until my knuckles were white, heart pounding, resisting going forward. Resisting God. I was not a leftist liberal. I was a quiet, studious girl who wasn't doing anything a good Baptist would be ashamed of. Nevertheless, I did not want to relinquish control over my life (at that time I still believed I had it) even to someone as loving as Jesus. The battle lasted a year. I lost. God won.
     Even though for many years I wanted to be the Holy Spirit, at least to my husband and family, I have no doubt whatsoever of the Spirit's ability to convict people of what they need to do. He doesn't need my help. My goal is to speak the truth in love and shut up, even with my husband, especially with my children. I have had my teaching time with them, now I need to do the same thing Jesus did with his own disciples, trust the Holy Spirit to drive in the truth, beat them up, if necessary. The only way to win when slugging it out with the Spirit is by giving up.
    
      

Worth the Wait

     Had I known we were being prophetic when we named our first son, I would not have named him Will. Les would have been easier to live with.  It's not so much that Will was headstrong, but that he was headed his own way and it was not necessarily where the rest of the family was going, proving the saying--Where there's a Will there's a way.  I was confident I could out stubborn him, I had decades of practice, but I was afraid one day he would start heading his own way and just keep walking. When Will left home, I began the emotional equivalent of holding my breath. Waiting for Will.
     I felt like I was standing still and silent by the open door, trying to coax a wild creature into the house.  It was not that Will never entered our home, he lived a few miles away, we saw him often, but not for holiday meals or any of the expected times. Will came and went on his own schedule, unbound by social conventions, uncomfortable in large gatherings.  A wild creature.
     When I gave birth to our first child, I was overwhelmed by both the fierceness with which I loved her and the crushing vulnerability of knowing my own happiness was forever linked to hers. That vulnerability is even worse when the helpless baby grows into an independent child with a will of his own. I worked throughout his childhood to earn Will's respect because respect, unlike duty and guilt, is the basis of friendship between an adult child and his parents. Nothing worth having comes easy, but I knew he was worth of effort and now, in his late twenties, Will lives with us on school breaks, appreciates all we do for him and is finally willing to accept our help. He calls weekly, just as I do my own dad. What began as parenting ended as friendship. Worth the wait.
    

Out of Control

     There are two reasons I am skeptical of health trends. The first is that I have seen diets, diseases, preventions and cures come and go through the years. Caffeine has gone from bane to beneficial in a decade. The same chocolate that was once empty calories is now an antioxidant. Hypoglycemia gave way to yeast intolerance, which paved the way for the current cootie--gluten intolerance. I am not saying people don't really have these conditions, but even diseases become fads and can be over and/or self diagnosed. Vitamin C has been upstaged by vitamin D, cranberry juice by acai, etc. I have ridden the exer(cise)cycle from isometrics to aerobics to cardio, pilates and, currently, circuit training. If I tried to incorporate only those exercises that claimed to be the most important or effective, it would still take three hours a day. My same old fitness routine may be dated, but it also daily, which is probably more important.
     The second reason I put little credence in health fads is because they promote the illusion that we can control both the length and health of our lives. Jesus spent a large portion of his ministry healing people, but I know of only two health references and neither of them would be found in the wellness section of a bookstore.
     1) Mark 7:15-19 (My condensed paraphrase) Nothing we eat makes us unclean. It is only passing through.  Mark inserts that this declared all foods clean. Welcome back bacon.
     2) Matt. 6:27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (NIV)  That sucks the go right out of the goji. We spend time and money trying to guarantee a longer, healthier life and the only guarantee Christ gives is that it won't work.
     Today I was one of hundreds of mourners at the funeral of a godly, healthy 61 year old man who died of a massive brain hemorrhage. Nothing could have prevented or cured his condition. The only thing the family could control was their testimony in mourning.  If I'm already floundering to control my body (hard), tongue (harder), thoughts (hardest), I am not adding health to the list. The healthy thing about being out of control, is the rest I get from knowing who is.
   

Walk a Mile in My Knees

    God and I are seldom on the same schedule. Take my knees. . .if only you could. Because I am relatively young for a knee replacement, because I knew physical therapy is important after knee surgery and because I have exercised all my life, I thought that my diligent efforts would be rewarded by faster healing. It made me feel in control of my recovery. My knees were not aware that I was in control, they thought they were. Exercise has helped me regain strength and range of motion but stability comes on its own schedule. I should have clued in when the skin around my incision turned red and tender, and when the stitches designed to dissolve under the skin decided to fester their way topside instead. I was not in control when both knees sent messages to my brain stem to "give out" at random moments, necessitating the cane I call Qwai Chung--a television reference meaningful only to boomers. I cannot control either the occurrence of damp weather or the accompanying stiffness that invades all my arthritic joints, including the new knee.
     There are some things you have to be wearing the knee to figure out. For instance, the new hardware is hooked to the old software, and some of that still hurts. It is possible to stand up and even start walking before your knees know what you are doing, it takes them a few steps to figure it out. As someone who, even at my most coordinated, had all the grace of a wounded water buffalo, those first few steps aren't pretty. I also learned to put function first, then form. It is better to take a stable step flat footed than try to roll from heel to toe and fall down. My knees are in control, I am just along for the ungainly ride. Actually, God is in control. He has decided it is going to be a long ride. I need to accept that. I cannot help having stiff knees, but I can choose not to be stiff necked.

Fatal Foods

     Descarte said, "I think, therefore I am." Whereas I have the internet, therefore I don't have to think. And because I am on the internet, I am bombarded with health advice. Because we are bombarded, health advice keeps upping the ante with increasingly alarming labels. The same food that used to be simply good for you has become food that prevents cancer. By contrast, other foods are practically considered toxic. It is a sign of the politicized times we live in. In the 60's it was enough to tolerate differences, affirmation is now demanded. For instance, anyone who doesn't affirm that the homosexual lifestyle is equally valid with heterosexuality, is said to be guilty of hate. I think that is why food has gone from being healthy vs. everyday to lifesaving vs. fatal.
     I try to eat well to be a good steward of my body, but tune out authors who claim the human body is not designed to digest ordinary foods like milk, wheat or sugar. I believe God made our bodies able to thrive in the diverse foods, climates, and cultures He knew we would encounter throughout the ages. If Christians are not to live in fear of Satan, who hates us and actively works against us, I will not live in fear of the food provided by a God who loves us and actively seeks to bless us. Bon apetit!

Toy Story 3

     Today, as I attended the funeral of an elderly friend from a former church, I found myself thinking about "Toy Story 3". Though I know the real heart of Art now resides in heaven, there is something poignant about seeing a life of 92 years condensed into an obituary on a piece of paper you hold during the service and then throw away.  Parting is painful. That's why I cried at "Toy Story 3", though I seldom cry at funerals. There are three scenes in the movie that move me to tears. In the first, the little boy of the original movie, owner of the toys, has grown up and is ready to head off to college. His mother walks into his nearly empty room, wordlessly places her hand on her chest and just stands there. Her child is leaving. Her heart is breaking. Been there, done that. The parting is not permanent, but it is definitive. A line has been crossed, the parent/ child relationship has changed, for the better, but it has changed and change is painful. Tears.
     In another scene, the toys are sliding down a conveyor belt toward an incinerator. When, despite all their efforts, they realize there is nothing they can do to save their lives, they reach out to hold hands/paws/appendages. If they cannot change their fate, they can at least face it together. Of course, in the movie the beloved toys are rescued at the last moment by conjoined triplet aliens, but their silent solidarity in the face of doom seems a beautiful analogy of the human condition. We can face the worst life has to offer, as long as we have a hand to hold. Tears.
     At the end of the movie, the young man delivers his rescued toys to a girl who wants, and needs, them. One at a time, he introduces her to the toys and, before he leaves, he plays with each one, one last time--a gesture of respect to those he is leaving behind. Tears. I could draw all kinds of spiritual analogies from "Toy Story 3", but the important thing for Christians to remember when we face the painful parting of death, is that at the last moment, we are rescued by the most alien being in the universe, the coexistent, triune God/Man--Jesus Christ.

Hanging Out

     I spent Wednesday afternoon with my niece and nephew hanging out at the pool at Meadow Lake. Hanging out, in my case, being an apt description. There was less Connie to contend with 10 years ago when I instituted the tradition of "Aunt Connie Day". At that time, my sister's family had just moved to Kalispell to start a business. It was the first time we had family nearby since early in our marriage.  Especially wonderful was that her children were toddlers while my own kids were teenagers, aka tall toddlers. I knew how to make preschoolers happy because I liked the same things they did. But teenagers? Even when they were happy, they refused to let it show, on principle.
     When Alex and Amanda were preschoolers, I would bring them home with me every Tuesday after Bible study, we would spend the afternoon having fun together, and their dad would pick them up on his way home from work. Once they were in school, we altered the schedule, I met them after school and we walked back to my house. Sometimes we would go to a matinee, sometimes, like last week, we went to the swimming pool. But there was also plenty of entertainment to be had closer to home, like our walks to the island or building forts in the living room. As they got older, we had to schedule Aunt Connie Day around piano lessons, dance and/or basketball. Now they are teenagers, with even more demands on their time and Aunt Connie Day has gone from a weekly tradition to an occasional suggestion.
     This year has been particularly difficult to schedule because I have had two knee surgeries followed by business travel with Reed. It is April and we just had our first Aunt Connie Day of the school year. Even though Alex is in the grip of growth spurt dementia and only dimly aware of his own existence, I think they both had a good time. I know I did. Someday they will have neither time for, nor interest in, Aunt Connie Day, but food and gravity are doing their best to make sure some part of me will always be there to hang out.