How to Meditate Like a Preschooler

     Everything I know about meditation, I learned in the children's program. In the BSF preschool program to be precise. Sometime after the Bible story and the muscle activities to get the wiggles out, every class has Quiet Time. They remind the children of truths about God they learned in the Bible story, then they have them lie quietly for a few minutes, supposedly thinking about God. The children's biggest challenges are energetic, wiggly bodies. Mine is a lethargic, unfocused mind. So I am taking baby steps toward meditation by the same method. After my daily study, I focus on the main truth I learned about God, and then lay quietly for a few minutes. Quiet body. Quiet mind. Thinking about God. If my study raised a question, that is the time I listen for the answer.
     Lately I have been studying Revelation and meditating on grace. One idea that came to me from the sealing of the 144,000 in chapter 7 is that--Grace is not what is leftover after the judgment has passed, it is the foundation of it. That sounded impressively deep and spiritual but I wondered, was it accurate? So I thought my way through the Bible:

• God chose Noah before the flood. It would have derailed His plan for the continuation of man and the plan of redemption to have thought about Noah after the flood.
• God rescues Lot before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
• God positioned Joseph in Egypt before the famine, though that is never listed as a judgment.
• God preserved a faithful remnant before the exile.
• God is saving an exact number of Gentiles before completing the redemption of the Jews.
• God will seal 144,000 witnesses before the tribulation judgments.

      In the plan of God grace precedes judgment. The judgment would not achieve its intended purpose without God's grace in preserving a family of faith. Admittedly, sometimes my meditation leads to a few minutes of sleep, but what beautiful thoughts to sleep on.

The Other Four Days

     I have heard for years that there are 365 verses in the Bible telling us not to be afraid, one for each day of the year. But according to Strong's online concordance, there are actually 361. What about the other four days? Are we ever commanded to be afraid? Actually, we are--four times. I began this curious quest after I noticed a command in Romans 11:20 referring to the Gentiles being grafted into the plan of salvation,
   "Granted. they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid."

     That began a brief (because I am lazy) search for other references to be afraid. I found one a few chapter away in Romans 13. In that passage, Paul is teaching believers submission to the governing authorities. Verse 4 says,
    "For he is God's servant to do you good. but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the
 sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer."

     I will spare the reader (I probably have one) my comments on how American Christians seemed to have forgotten the above concept, and go on to Matthew 10, where Jesus has been warning the disciples he is sending out to expect betrayal and persecution, mostly he is telling them not to be afraid, but in verse 28 he says,
   "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One
 who can destroy both soul and body in hell."
   That means it is okay to have a healthy fear of Satan.

     Admittedly, this last reference may be cheating because God is not directly telling his people to be afraid. In Jeremiah 2, God's message is a lament of the fickle faith of his chosen and lavishly loved  people. In verse 12, He commands,

   "Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror," declares the Lord.

     For one thing, He uses the word appalled instead of afraid and the command is to creation, not man. But if the heavens, who are entirely innocent of the fickle faith thing, are supposed to be appalled, it would probably be a good idea for God's people, who are prone to wander, to be fairly fearful also.
     So now you know what to do with your time off from the command to fear not. It is okay to be fearful the other four days. Just make sure you are fearing the right thing.

Alternate Reality

     Television shows love to do alternate reality themes. It allows the characters to step out of their usual roles, good guys become bad guys, strait laced become free spirits, etc. Then the whole thing turns out to be a dream, hallucination or near death experience, unless it is a sci-fi show where alternate reality is a given. Mentally ill people often live in an alternate reality of their own making, if not choosing. But since my son's accident, I have had an alternate reality sub-script running through my mind. While we were driving back to Montana and figuring out what steps we needed to take to get his injuries checked, legal help etc., my alternate reality was planning his funeral. Working out details like--where would we have it since he didn't attend our church? Even after we got home and could see he was okay, I was imagining driving to the hospital daily to deal with my son's head injury. Both of those alternate realities were more likely outcomes than his miraculous survival given the severity of the crash.
     Even now I consider how empty and joyless this Christmas would have been if I had lost my son in September. I am so thankful it didn't happen to us, but I am also very aware that there are some of my friends living that painful reality. I pray for them often and try to let them know that. Though their loved ones live on in the heavenly reality we cannot see, the pain of loss is intensified at holidays and there is no alternate reality to escape to, nor dream to wake up from. The grace that spared my son is the same grace that would have sustained us through losing him and the grace that helps those grieving now. But the reality of grace is that it doesn't let us escape the hard times, it lets us endure them.

The Lord or the Latte

     I have been thinking lately about my water bottle. I'm one of the few people I know who actually like drinking water. We have well water, so it tastes good besides being good for you, and I drink a lot more water when I have a bottle handy than I ever did out of a glass. When I drink out of a glass, I tend to sip a little and dump the rest. With the bottle, I take a sip here and a sip there until it's all gone. Until--I can't believe I drank the whole thing. So what's the problem? With a water bottle always at hand, I never know the discomfort of thirst. Being a middle-aged American, comfort is my middle name. I live in a comfortable house, sleep in a comfortable bed, drive a comfortable car and can afford almost anything I want in order to be even more comfortable. But it is not God's plan for his children to be comfortable, often is it just the opposite. Look at the tempting job offer Jesus made Paul in Acts 9, with special emphasis on the word suffer.
     I don't enjoy suffering, and I seldom have to, but maybe I need to. Maybe having all my wants and needs supplied is making me too soft to be a soldier. Not that I'm complaining. After all, it was not my idea to be born in a place and time of plenty. God chose this land of hot showers and lattes for me. I just don't want to find myself loving the Lord less than the lattes. I have never belonged to a church that practices giving up something for Lent, although as a Mormon child I fasted the first Sunday of every month. Ironically, the church in which I was saved had a potluck the first Sunday of the month, a dietary demonstration of the contrast between law and grace.  But I have friends who talk about giving up chocolate (ouch!) or all sugar (gasp!) for Lent, and I wonder if  I should set aside a time to deliberately deny myself some comfort. Could I even survive a month without chai?
     I still carry a water bottle with me, but am trying to leave it in the car when I go to church and BSF. How thirsty can I get in two hours anyway?  And some days I practice the "Poor Woman's Diet", which differs from the "Pioneer Woman's Diet" in that instead of eating foods only available to pioneer women, I eat as if I didn't have money to dine out or buy a frappe. In other words, the diet I followed of necessity while we were trying to raise a family on one income. This may be only a token step toward self denial, but it is a reminder to get off Connie's Continual Comfort Channel where it's always ME Time and pursue the mind of Christ, one small sip at a time.
    

3 Visitors

     I have written previously about my annual holiday visits from the Ghost of Christmas past, sad feelings from childhood Christmases with my mentally ill mother. But this year, like Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol", I have three visitors. The Ghost of Christmas Past is still my mother, though those thoughts come later every year. The Ghost of Christmas Present is the granddaughter I had for two years and lost when her mother and my son broke up. I have not seen her since April, except in my memories. The Ghost of Christmas Future is the baby the two of them announced last Christmas, but lost in January. We never got to meet on earth, but I look forward to meeting him/her in the future. I gave a donation to Hope Pregnancy Center in my grandchild's honor. Where the form asked for a name, I wrote "Peanut", which was all I ever called him. On the line for address, I put "Heaven".
     I used to long for unclouded memories of Christmas, but if I must be visited by those I cannot reach, at least my ghosts are not unwelcome. As with Scrooge, through them my life was changed. Deepened, broadened, opened. Christmas is better when shared with loved ones, even those no longer with us--or with us only in spirit.

I'm Not Finished Yet

     Despite my desire to praise God for miraculously sparing my son's life, I am still unable to say much about his accident, both for his sake, and for legal reasons because his case is pending. What I can say is that the accident was not the wake up call I had hoped it would be in his life and I was desperately disappointed. That is what I would have used if I were God. So I asked for wisdom, for some hint of what God was doing and the only thought I heard in my mind was, "I'm not finished yet." I wasn't sure the message was from the Holy Spirit because, frankly, it didn't sound very spiritual. No thees and thous or quotes from scripture. Just ordinary words. But I have double checked with the Lord and the message has not changed. He has a plan. He is working in my son's life, but He is not finished yet.
     That is the main thing I have been getting from the study of Revelation in BSF this year. God has a plan and what God has planned always happens. In spite of a world that seems out of control and Satanic opposition that we cannot see or imagine, history has been written. Gods knows exactly how many Gentiles will be saved, how many believers will be martyred, the redemption of the Jews is right on schedule. But it is not my schedule. God is not on my schedule and ultimately, I don't want him to be, because everything God has given me is greater that what I wanted for myself. I want good things for my son. God wants better things, and only He knows how to make that happen.
     The Bible is full of examples of God working out his plan in spite of our misunderstanding it  (Abraham & Hagar), refusing to cooperate with it (Jonah), and flat out opposing it (Pharaoh), but in the midst of those situations, they looked absolutely hopeless. If I don't close a book halfway through, or leave a movie before the end, I should trust the Author and Director of the reality show "Life" to come up with the perfect ending. I just need to remember--He's not finished yet.
    

A Word of Encouragement

    When life is flowing smoothly, it is enough for me to have the Holy Spirit as a quiet presence in the background, somewhere between a default setting and a screen saver, but when trouble comes, I need more. I need God to be as solid as the things I can see and touch. So in the rapids we have gone through recently, I asked God for encouragement and He sent me a letter. It was actually written by a young man we considered one of our "spare sons", though he never lived in our home. Jason was in jail when he called us looking for another "spare" and we wound up talking and then writing one another. The only time we met in person was when he was in pre-release in Great Falls. We bought him a bike so he could get to work. I knew from the newspaper that Jason re-offended after getting back to Kalispell and went back to jail. I had not heard from him for years before his letter came from the state prison in Deer Lodge. Jason apologized for not getting in touch and assured me that what we had done for him made a difference in his life.
    His letter came at a time of discouragement, when I wondered if all the years of love and instruction we had poured into our son made any difference. We had barely brushed up against Jason's life and yet, years later, he still felt the impact of our love. He encouraged me not to stop trying to help others, regardless of the outcome. Sooner or later, good would come of it. I knew when the spares left me that I might not hear from any of them, even Lance, whom I lived like a son. When he left, God asked me if I could love them like He did, for years at a time, without getting anything in return. I told Him I could. I planted God's truth in each of them like a time bomb and trusted that God would explode it when it was needed. I had no regrets about helping my spares, but I feared for my son.
     I needed real words of encouragement from God and he sent them through Jason. And this time, when I needed encouragement, He restored my ability to write, my way to cope and be comforted. And I hope this post can be God's word of encouragement to someone else.

When We Had Wings

     I lost my words for a time, and most of the humor that has sustained me through life. I nearly lost my son in September and, somehow, my ability to write also. My feelings were bigger than my words. But I had one more farewell left in me for McKenzie, the granddaughter I lost when my son and her mother broke up. I wrote it in October and finally I am ready to post it. Perhaps this is the last.

   When We Had Wings

When the spring was raw and new

and, like today, the cool winds blew,

my granddaughter and I

watched birds that wheeled across the sky,

wondering what makes them flee

capriciously from tree to tree.

We had wings and time did not,

or so I thought.

Now fall has come and turning leaves

ride like birds upon the breeze.

From the comfort of my home

I view the circling birds alone.

The trees we watched across the road

     still gladly bear their lively load,

as I would, could she come to me—

my MacKenzie.

Unstoppable as wind, thief-time

eventually takes all that’s mine.

But it cannot steal from me

the comfort of your memory.

When your mother went away

I had no power to let you stay.

I watch the birds and think of springs

when we had wings.

For All the Good It'll Do

    On September 10th as my husband and I were returning from a trip to Oregon, our son's boss called to tell us he had just received a 3 a.m. text from our son saying he had rolled his pickup and was bleeding. After several phone calls we discovered he had been to the hospital and was now at the jail. It was not a coincidence that the accident happened after I had days of extra prayer time for him. It was not a coincidence that the Lord had provided 10 days of rest and relaxation before beginning this ordeal. Nor was it coincidence that we didn't find out until 7 a.m., after having a good night of sleep.
    While we were driving home from Coeur d'Alene, Will sent pictures of the wrecked pickup that he got from the neighbor who investigated the accident and we realized that the problem was not the DUI or the truck, but that our son was nearly killed. It was no coincidence that he survived, even walked away from, the accident. It was a miracle. The other problems would need to be dealt with, but he was alive to do so. That was all that mattered.
   While we were waiting for his 7 p.m. release time, I decided to do my daily Bible study which, at that point was a chapter a day of Psalms. I couldn't see how Psalms could possibly speak to the situation our family was going through, but decided to read it anyway, for all the good it'll do. It was no coincidence that the passage for that day was Psalm 38, written by David, who was suffering justly for his sin, but still calling for God's help and mercy. It was exactly what I needed to hear. The next day's psalm was similar, David trying to suffer in silence for his sin but ending with a plea for mercy. The next two day's psalms also fit my needs perfectly.
   I turned in my time of need to a book written thousands of years ago, to read a chapter out of habit, not desire, for all the good it would do and I found God's word, speaking to my desperate heart, for a situation I had no idea I would be facing. That, also, was no coincidence.