Lamb Eats Crow

     After a happy, but harried week of herding kindergartners through Vacation Bible School, I needed to stop at the bank and store on my way home. I usually go to a small drive up branch, but I do not actually use the drive through. I park and go to the three window walk in area. The reason--the drive through line was driving me crazy. Drive up transactions should go like this:

   1.  Greet teller
   2.  Insert check or deposit in the container, put in tube, push send.
   3.  Teller verifies what you want to do, completes transaction and sends container back.
   4.  Remove contents, say thank you, leave.

However, this is seldom the process for the drivers in front of me. By the length of their transactions and the number of times the container goes back and forth, I can only conclude the other drivers are unfamiliar with English, math, or playing some sort of ping pong with the teller using the plastic container. While speculating on possible reasons for the delay is interesting, actual waiting is frustrating, so I skip the drive through and go inside. Since there are only six parking spots, the line cannot be very long and, if some customer has a lengthy transaction, at least I can overhear the reason.
     But, as I said, that branch has only six parking spaces and one of those is for handicapped.  So when I pulled up Friday there were no empty spots but, almost immediately, a woman came out of the bank and got in her car. I waited for her to back out. Waited. Waited. And waited. Apparently she was using one of those five precious spots to balance her bank statement, check phone messages, or give herself a manicure. But that was no problem because another woman came out of the bank and got in her car. She could not possibly fail to notice my car hovering there waiting for a parking spot, but she also decided to day camp in her car. I couldn't honk. The Lord won't allow me to have a working car horn because He knows my husband would use it to blow his testimony. Frustrated, I decided to buy groceries first and return to the bank afterwards. How could those drivers be so clueless?
    I was still mulling over the injustice of it all, and had almost reached the door at Super One, when I realized I didn't have my car keys. I was afraid in my distraction I had locked them inside the car. When I went back to check, my keys were in the ignition, which is where they should be when the car is running. I had forgotten to shut off my car. How could I be so clueless? Call it instant karma or a humility lesson. I call it--Lamb eats crow.

Has Bean

     I have been trying to build up a tolerance to coffee, as if it was poison because, at my age, what I lack in energy, I need to make up in caffeine, but it was just too bitter. Back when doctors considered coffee drinking a health hazard--bad breath, warts, tumors, etc. were all caused by coffee (unlike pregnancy, which is caused by alcohol)--I felt virtuous about my coffee intolerance. Why should I force myself to drink something that's not good for me anyway? But now the same doctors say all those problems are caused by not drinking enough coffee. Three cups a day is optimal. It is truly a bitter pill to swallow. I like frozen, blended coffee drinks like frappes, but they are more like coffee bisque, like a barista waved  a coffee bean over the mixture and then threw it away, or fed it to the real coffee drinkers. Eventually, I drank enough frappes to qualify for "perks" at a nearby City Brew coffee shop. That's when the experimentation began. I moved from frappes to the hard stuff--granitas, a frappe without the milk. I had established a liphold on cold drinks, but I knew true coffee drinkers like it hot.
     Then one day I got a text from my City Brew pusher offering a half priced Cafe Bianco and, in a fit of frugality, my cheapness overcame my coffobia and I ordered one. Bianco means white, the white in this case, meaning cream. Lots of cream. I discovered I liked it. Then I discovered that when it is not half price, it costs $4.35. I don't have enough green for that much white. It is like staying at a luxury resort. Nice place to visit, but you can't live there.
     Right now I am visiting Portland while my husband is here for work. We are staying at a Hampton Inn that offers 24 hour Royal Cup coffee. On a whim (and because it was free) I tried it, and discovered that with enough half and half and a shot of creamer, it is not bitter. It is also not commercially available, so my non-bitter end will be check out time tomorrow. But I have also heard that real, from Columbia, coffee is not bitter and that they sell it at Trader Joe's. All I know about the store is that when Montana friends see a Trader Joe's bag, they get excited, even envious. I would like to be he object of bag envy, so I bought a bag and even found some coffee to go in it. All their coffee is whole bean, and I obviously do not own a grinder, but they had one at the store. Getting to use their coffee grinder, made the experience even more fun, like a kid playing with a new toy. I'll have to wait till I get back home to taste the coffee because the room coffee maker only uses odd sized packets, but who knows where this may end. I may become a coffee drinker and finally feel like a grown up. My grandparents, who regarded refusing coffee as a breach of manners, would have been so proud. This never was/has been almost has bean.

Late Check Out

     One of the perks we get because Reed travels for business is hotel points. We have silver status at Hilton hotels and gold status with Marriott. And one of the perks of having hotel points is priority for a late check out. Most hotels require you to check out by 11 or 12, but occasionally Reed's schedule doesn't fit that time frame, and I shamelessly flaunt our points status to push our departure out until 1 p.m. That's just the kind of power pointers we are.
     Segue to my day's Bible study of Job chapter 14. Verse five says, "Man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed." Admittedly, Job's life has been a comfortless catastrophe when he lists our lifespan in months, but the teaching that God determines the length of our lives is Bible wide. Moses called it number our days, Hebrews calls it an appointment, David says all the days ordained for me, but the idea is the same--God decides.
     That is hard to accept in a culture that believes we control our lifespan by our lifestyle choices.  There is nothing wrong with Christians following food or exercise fads or making a living will, unless we believe that by doing so we are changing the length of our lives. Believing that means you've hopped from the Hubris to the Heresy Hotel. Would we even want the power to alter God's eternal purposes with kale and/or cardio? We depart this life at the precise moment God has appointed. Not one minute before, not ten seconds after. No matter how many points we think we have earned in our long-term stay on Earth, we do not have the option of a late check out.

Here's Mud in Your Eye

    The other day when I was at the grocery store, I was unable to enter a parking row and another driver was unable to exit it because an older woman had parked behind two other parked, but thankfully empty, cars in that row. Since my only other choice was exiting the parking lot and starting over, I waited for her to finish whatever she was doing there and leave. As our cars passed, she turned to me and said, "Don't give ME your dirty looks!" They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, apparently dirty is also. I could not have given her the stink eye, even had I wanted to, because the sun had darkened my transitions lenses. The only portion of my face capable of looking unhappy was my mouth, which was wearing the same half smile I gave any stranger in passing. Since sagging jowls make us menopause mamas look frowny, I have to smile a little just to break even. Unless my earlobes looked angry, the dirty look she saw was coming from inside her eyes, not the outside.
     It is true that I was not impressed with her driving ability, but people tend to see what they expect to.  Liars think people are lying to them. Dishonest people think others are ripping them off. I assume she was the kind of person who gives dirty looks and makes rude comments. I appreciate her willingness to spare me the effort of coming up with my own dirty look, but it is hard to be a good testimony for Christ when even my rare moments of good behavior are interpreted through dirty lenses.
     I had the same problem in high school as a new Christian. Two of the girls I sat with at lunch time not only loved to talk crudely, but were giving a vulgar spin to my most innocent comments. Through them I understood Titus 1:15 which says, "To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. Both their minds and consciences are corrupted." Through this experience I also learned about prayer. I couldn't just sit with another group of friends, I didn't have that many, but I wanted to maintain a good testimony, so I prayed about the situation. Shortly thereafter one of the girls moved and the other changed schools. This was my first answered prayer as a new believer.
     I try to pray for those who see life through self inflicted dirty looks, but I'm sure they would misinterpret that also. Believers are unbelievable to people with "mud in their eye".
    

Allow Me

     In human reasoning, there is a dichotomy between what God allows and what God causes to happen in our lives. God's Sovereignty + Satan's Schemes + human choice is an equation as irreconcilable as my last bank statement. The book of Job gives us a peek behind the curtain at the God vs. Satan part of a very human drama. Some see this as proof that God is in charge of good things that happen and Satan is in charge of bad. Example:  good harvest--God, earthquake--Satan.  As R. C. Sproul explained, if that were the case, you should probably worship Satan because he is the one who wants to hurt you. Because Satan asked permission to harm Job, I think sometimes we view God as a nagged parent who eventually gives in, against his better judgment, to Satan's requests. We forget that singling out Job was God's idea. (Job 1:8)  And that Satan's claim that Job only loved God because of the blessings he had been given, was also Job's fear. "What I have feared has come upon me." (Job 3:25)
     Job's comforters erred because they thought what was happening was about sin. Job erred because he thought it was about fairness. We err when we try to reduce God's sovereignty into concepts we can understand--like Good God/ bad god. God had a purpose in those trials for Job, Job's wife, his fickle friends, and all those through the ages who have read the book, as well as giving Satan his comeuppance. In the final chapters God does not explain himself to Job, He merely points out why Job is not qualified to demand or understand an explanation. Neither are we. Whether God causes or allows bad things to happen to good people is splitting hairs--human hairs.
    Studying Revelation has shown me that even the terrible, final judgments on the inhabitants of the earth are within strict boundaries. No one is punished accidentally or capriciously. If the price of defending God's character is lessening his sovereignty, allow me to abstain.

Mother Matters

    Now that my mother is dead, I no longer have the bittersweet feelings I used to toward Mother's Day. It was hard to celebrate being a mom without feeling the loss of that relationship with my schizophrenic mother. With my youngest child now 29, I guess what I really want to know from my grown children is, did I make a difference?

Did it make a difference in their lives that I was there to take them to school in the morning, pick them up in the afternoon? Or stay at school all day as a volunteer?
Did it matter that I came on their field trips? Brought treats for their birthdays? Planned parties?
Did they care that there were homemade cookies in the cookie jar? Home cooked meals? That I packed their lunches?
Do they remember the funny stories I read them at bedtime? And that sometimes I laughed so hard, Reed had to take over for me? That we prayed together when I tucked them in? That, when they were little, I sang them lullabies? Or sang doing housework? Or in the car?
Do they remember the games we played in the car while traveling? I Spy, or guess the theme song, 20 questions? That we built forts in the living room? Or pretended a blanket on the floor was a magic carpet?
Did the traditions I created matter? The doughnuts on pumpkin carving day? Christmas Eve fondue? Decorating the seasonal sugar cookies? The special plates I used for Sunday morning breakfast?
Did it make a difference that I took them to the library storytime? The free summer concerts in the park? Do they even remember going to the drive-in movies in their pajamas?
Were they glad the house was always clean enough to have guests over, even though I made them pick up their stuff? That there was always enough food for their last minute dinner guests?
Did it make a difference in their lives that when they said, "Watch me." I was there to do it? That I could love them in the ways I longed for growing up?

    I hope it mattered to them, because I know it mattered to me. It still matters to me, because motherhood is the highest calling God has ever given me and I wanted, and still want, to do it well. What I want for Mother's Day is not flowers, or cards or gifts, but that the children I'm so proud of remember something I did that made a difference, if only because, it makes them smile.

Dispense With That

    In the past, it was widely accepted that the distinction of worst television series ever went to "My Mother the Car", whose name says it all. Of course, that was before reality tv. Such reincarnation is ridiculous, however, I am married to a discouragement dispenser. My husband is by nature and nurture a pessimist. I am an optimist. I took a long, hard look at that incompatibility before we got married. Since we have been married almost 39 years now, I obviously learned to make peace with it. When my husband throws out some pessimistic pronouncement, I usually splash some positivity over it and go my merry way.
    However in the dark times, like our family is going through now, I cannot even find my merry way. When I am at the end of my rope, I can count on my husband to be there to try to jerk it out of my hands. He does not mean to be the devil's advocate, he is just saying what he is thinking. But I know it is not all he is thinking because, when I point out the positives, he says he already thought of that. I suggested that, for my sake, instead of saying the bad things and thinking the good, he might try saying the good things and thinking the bad. He has seldom brought up a negative that I failed to consider, I just chose not to dwell on it.
    Pessimists usually consider themselves "realists", but they only think that because they are pessimists. They look for the dark cloud instead of the silver lining. Our nature may be wired to either rose-colored or dark glasses, but believers are called to see through Christ clear lenses. To be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. We must see the evil in the world to guard against it, but are to focus on things that are pure, lovely, admirable and praiseworthy. People who display hope and inner peace naturally attract others to Christ. When I worked at the hospital, I could tell which rooms Christians were in before we even spoke by the atmosphere of peace. It is hard to be a peaceful pessimist.
     I have accepted that my home won't be one where seldom is heard a discouraging word and God has been faithful to provide me with other sources of encouragement, especially through His Word--the doubt dispeller.