What Am I Waiting For?

     The last few days have been stressful. My niece, Amanda, who is in college in Nampa, ID, has felt unwell since she returned from Christmas break. After her second visit to the campus physician, he referred her for blood work which showed low platelets and low white blood cells. Sunday they hospitalized her and Monday they drew bone marrow. When I looked up the combined symptoms of feeling faint, vomiting, drenching (supercharged night sweats) and low blood levels, none of the diagnoses were good. Amanda is in her first year of college. In all the uncertainties she had about her future, attending Northwest Nazarene was her one clear beacon. She thinks she might become a teacher and knows she wants to be a wife and mother. Blood cancer, although much more treatable than in the past, would jeopardize all that.
     I prayed. But I also worried. So I asked the Lord what He would say to me when my heart was afraid. He said, "Wait". I didn't know if that meant wait because good news was coming or wait because there would be plenty of time to worry after the diagnosis. (Sometimes we worry as if it was a limited time offer.) So every time my mind wandered in the what if direction, the Spirit said, "Wait". Fortunately, I do not need to understand what God means, I only need to obey.
     By divine coincidence, today's BSF notes had much to say about waiting. David waited 15 years to become king. Waiting is not passive, while we wait we actively seek God in prayer and scripture. Waiting is not a waste of time. God would not command us to do that. And waiting is not about missing out on what we want, but being content with what we have. The hospital said it would take five days after the biopsy to get results, but my sister texted this afternoon, one day after the procedure, with the good news that it is not leukemia.   Of course, they still need to do blood work and find what caused the problem, but Amanda can do that as an outpatient.
     That news must be what I was waiting for because my heart is no longer fearful. I cannot help but think of our son's dog, Odin, who Tracy trained not to eat the treat balanced on his nose while he says"Wait!". After Odin obeys the wait command, Tracy says "Okay" and Odin eats the treat before it even hits the floor. This means, after 46 years as a Christian, I am almost as obedient as the dog. But then, the dog knows exactly what he is waiting for, it is laying on his nose. I may not know what I am waiting for, but I know who I am listening to--my Master's voice.

Be Witched

    I recently heard a speaker talking about her concerns about her five and six year old daughters being exposed to the "Harry Potter" series. The actual lecture was about Saul going to the witch at Endor to summon Samuel, so she made clear that this was just her opinion (no charge) and that the fact that her daughters were too young to discern the difference between truth and fiction was a major factor in her decision not to let them see the movies. My kids were older than that when the Harry Potter series came out. My boys did not read anything not required for school and my daughter was a teenager. I admit to being a little relieved not to see Britten reading the books--it saved me the effort of Christian due diligence to see if they were appropriate. But I know she watched the movies later and so have I. If my kids were as young as the speaker's, I'm sure I would have made the same decision, but it reminded me of a similar situation many years ago.
     When I was a teenager, "Bewitched" was a long running television series, and it was not uncommon for Christian speakers to warn that watching it would lure impressionable young people into occult practices. The premise of the actual program, however, was that people were either born witches, or warlocks depending on gender (of which there were only two at that time), or they were mortals. Same for the Harry Potter series, but mortals are called muggles. Neither series supported the idea that you could cross from being a mere human to supernaturally empowered. I did not know anyone attracted to witchcraft, much less attracted by the sitcom Bewitched. I know lots of kids who like Harry Potter, but none interested in sorcery. By the way, I liked the series "I Dream of Jeannie" as a child, but never heard a speaker claiming it lured children into wanting to be a genie.
     I am relieved that my children are grown and make their own decisions about what they are exposed to and will support their standards for my grandchild, and any future grandchildren. But I sometimes think we Christian parents worry about all the wrong things. The surface instead of the soul. As the Bible says, we "strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel". We protect our kids from secret subliminal messages in media and demonstrate blatant, unbiblical attitudes openly in our homes. The soft sins of greed, gluttony and workaholism will never be the subject of a Sunday sermon. We preach against and practice gossip almost in the same breath. What often attracts young people to the occult is that they feel unheard, unloved and powerless at home. And strict, controlling Christian parents have much more influence in that area than Harry Potter ever could.
     When I think back on the "Bewitched" series, the wrong message I most remember was about alcohol--that bad news should be accompanied by a drink, or reacted to by getting drunk. Worldly attitudes have the power to bewitch those who would never consider watching movies about magic. The most lasting and dangerous influence on our children is US.

Picking Fruit

     It happened again. A Christian friend in a health trial requesting that no one pray for patience for her because, as we all know, the trying of your faith produces patience. I have a standard answer to that, unsympathetic as it seems--patience is a fruit of the Spirit and He will work to develop it in you whether you want Him to or not. We get to pick the fruit we want in a grocery store, not in our spiritual lives. There are no optional fruits of the Spirit. And if you think patience is the only fruit grown in the hothouse of trial, I have more bad news--they all are. Love grows when we are forced to deal with unlovable people. Joy ripens through times that force us to look beyond joyless circumstances to God. Peace wafts its fragrance into our hearts through times of fear and strife. Abraham was faithful before he was asked to sacrifice Isaac, but it was that test that assured an eternal harvest. All the sweet things God desires to produce in us grow through the searing, stinky and stormy seasons of life.
     Whether we are a believer or unbeliever, trials are inevitable. Since we don't have the pass or play option, we might as well cultivate the best crop of Christian character we can. Not only will this make us better prepared for the next trial and encourage fellow believers, but it is a powerful witness for Christ. My friend must have picked up on that because this week she rescinded her request regarding patience. We can pick a guitar, use a hair pick, pick a scab, even pick our nose, but let's leave the fruit picking to the Spirit. Why should we fear the choices of the Source of infinite love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?

Unseen

    When I was pregnant with my third child, my 2 year old asked, "Is there really a baby in your tummy?" When I said yes, he said, "Pull it out." He wasn't trying to kill his brother--that would come later. He just wanted to see what was happening with the baby. Truth be told, I did too, but as a grown up, I knew that wasn't possible. We women are privileged to carry a baby inside us for nine months and, although we now have the technology to know how the baby develops, the womb has no windows. How God is weaving our little wonders together in the darkness of our womb is unseen. We just have to trust God to do what is best for our child.
     I thought of that in our mothers of prodigals prayer group the other night. When it comes to God's spiritual development of our children, we want Him to "pull it out". We not only want to see what He is doing, we want to supervise. Worry can convince us that if we cannot see any spiritual growth, nothing is happening. Our prayers for them are not working. The truth is, God's is not obligated to use our timeline or methods for reaching our loved ones. Our proper goals for our children's spiritual growth are also tainted by our selfish desire to control the outcome.
    Right now we are seeing "Son"ward growth in our son. But in those seemingly, spiritually stagnant times, I try to remind myself of the hundreds of things God used in my 16 year journey toward Christ. No one but God knew how or when that spiritual gestation would result in my new birth. We must patiently trust the God who has been pursuing prodigals since Eden to know the best way to reach our wayward big wonders. Spiritual birth, like physical birth, is the culmination of processes, for the most part, unseen.

Tell Peanut Hi From Grandma

   Before Christmas there was a special segment on our local news called, "Gone Too Soon". It was about babies that had died before, or shortly after, birth. Reed told me it was hard to watch, though he didn't know why. But I knew. It was because of Peanut. Brie is our firstborn grandchild, but she is not the first one conceived. That place belongs to Peanut, an unplanned pregnancy in Tracy and Amanda's already troubled relationship, but no less loved.  They announced the news at Christmas when their gift to me was an ultrasound picture of my grandchild. For the first time in a long time, they seemed truly happy. A couple weeks later, while we were in Texas, Tracy called in tears to tell us Amanda lost the baby. He was between the second and third month when we lost him, no bigger than a peanut, and that is how I have referred to him/her ever since. It was a hard loss. Peanut died, Tracy and Amanda broke up, and we could no longer be grandparents to Amanda's daughter, MacKenzie.
    For months I kept Peanut's ultrasound on my night stand, then in it. Eventually, I was able to move his picture to the cedar chest. I have asked the Lord to let Peanut be the first one to greet me in heaven. I see no reason He would not, since He has granted so many lesser requests. So if my last word on earth is "Peanut", I am not asking for food. I know the child is in heaven, but I don't know how these tiny ones develop. The Bible does not say. I do not base my theology on movies, but in "Heaven Is For Real" the child who went to heaven met a sister he didn't know he had. She had miscarried before he was born, but was the age she would have been on earth. Since it seems rather unlike God to keep the preborn in their unfinished state perpetually, I assume Peanut, who would have been born July of 2015, is 3 1/2. It is a comfort to know he is in heaven and a comfort to have Brie to fill the arms that did not get to hold him. I know he is happy and does not need my prayers, so all I ask when I think of him is that the Lord give him a message--tell Peanut hi, from Grandma.