You Know You're in Adversity

     Your know you're in adversity when:

• You watch a movie about a man marooned on Mars and think--What's HE got to complain about?
• You exercise to slow down your heart rate.
• Your blood pressure registers on a seismograph--in California.
• To cheer up, you watch a horror film.
• A migraine seems like a welcome diversion.
• You go to your happy place and it's a cemetery.
• Having a good day means things went from worse to bad.
• Your brain feels like a balloon that will either pop or come loose and shoot around the room.
• You get your daily affirmation from the obituary page.
• You're rejected as a organ donor because your heart is broken.                        

 
      But that is also when:

• God is near.     Ps. 34:18
• We learn patience.    James 1:3
• We long, as we should, for Christ's appearing.   2 Tim. 4:8
• We grow in humility, knowing that we are dust.      Ps. 103:14
• We live in godly interdependence.      Gal. 6:21
• Faith grows.     1 Jn. 5:4
• Our perseverance builds character and hope.   Rom 5:3,4
• We learn how to comfort others.   2 Cor. 1:4
• God encourages us in unexpected ways.           
• Our testimony is loudest in adversity. No eloquent four-point presentation of the gospel is as compelling as a Christian’s inarticulate gasp when pain and confusion and trust and hope all mix together.  Inexplicable peace amidst adversity, that is the thunder of our faith.

Mastering Maynard

    There are cats and there is Maynard. Maynard is anatomically a cat, but has the personality of a stoner and the spirituality of a zen master. If Maynard wasn't covered by fur, he would be walking around in his underwear, perfectly content, at one with the world. He is not, however, at one with dogs. Slow, harmless dogs like our old Garth or the annoying, inactive dog we wound up giving away, or even Tracy's mellow Malamute pup are okay, but spunky ones like his Husky mix are not. Odin loves everyone, but is terrifyingly enthusiastic in his pursuit of friends. Odin has chased Maynard who, despite being a stoner, has a good memory.  So Maynard won't come around when Odin is visiting and our granddogs visit a lot.  Maynard also avoided our son for years based on cat spinning experiments when they were both younger. We tried to convince Maynard our home was now spin-free, but you can't reason with a cat.
     This created a serious problem two years ago when we were out of town during a subzero weekend and Tracy was housesitting. Maynard refused to come in the house. This should not have a posed a big problem because Maynard is also a two-timer. He has another "mom" two houses down. We discovered this through travel incidents like the one above. When Maynard sauntered in days after our return, well fed and groomed, we knew he was cheating on us. Since there is no "Cheaters" program for cats, we put a collar and tag on him. Sure enough, two days later a neighbor called to find out why we put a collar on the cat she had for two years. We said, "Because we've had Maynard for five." Since you can't confine a free-spirited feline like Maynard to the house, especially since Margo had been feeding him canned food, shared custody was the only option. Margo couldn't let him in because her house cat violently objected, so Mayn hung out on her deck. However, the deck was not warm enough during the aforementioned blizzard and, with the set-in-his-ways habit of a middle aged man, Maynard refused to enter the new shelter she had made for him. She tried to coax him into the box, but you can't reason with a cat. So we did the only thing we could do from hundreds of miles away, we prayed to his Master and ours to keep him safe. He did.
     When we got home, we put a cat door in the garage so the cats could go in and out as they please. Sola, our emergency back-up cat, eventually realized she could use it to get in the house and Maynard learned he could use it to get out, but they were not sharing that knowledge with each other, and both preferred to have their servants/us escort them out in the wee hours. Using the cat door as they pleased meant using our services instead. Tutoring cats by carrying them through the crowded garage and shoving them through the cat door was harder than being their doormen and you can't reason with a cat, so we just had to wait till they learned the door swung both ways.
     That fixed the inclement weather problem, but Maynard still wouldn't come in the house, even while Odin was in the backyard. You know you miss your cat when the thought of him leaving mouse livers or bird parts on someone else's doormat bothers you. We missed our Maynard, but you can't reason with a cat, so we told the one who speaks all languages, human and animal. Maynard came home. He still spends lots of time at Margo's but has discovered there are many Odin free zones in our house. That answered prayer encouraged us for the other "unreasonable" situations in our life. Great or small, creation or creature, we all answer to the same Master. And He answers back.

Hall Pass

     Our current house has a very short hallway, if you could even call it that. Actually, it takes longer to say the word "hallway" than to walk ours. Ours is more like a, "huh" This is no great loss because a hallway is not my favorite part of a house. But there are times I miss having one. Most houses have bathrooms down the hall, whereas ours is across from the stairwell. We placed the back of our piano against the half wall of that same stairwell because of the acoustic benefit. Unfortunately, it has the same effect with the bathroom sounds from across the hall.  Reed and I have the option of using our pretentiously named master bath, which is actually smaller than this font, but nonetheless private.
     Guests, however, would draw more attention to themselves by requesting our private privy than by using the regular one. Maybe. Most of the time, the only thing of notice is the wide variety of bladder capacities. However, one guest had the misfortune of producing a long, flatulent whistle in our chamber of echoes. The rest of us pretended we could not hear, but it is hard to make small talk against a background of intestinal forte. That memory made me self conscious about what noises I may be making when company and nature call at the same time. That is the problem of needing a hall pass, but having no hall.

Too Big, Too Small

      I think the reason we have such a hard time recognizing what God is doing in our world is that it is both too big and too small. On an individual level, He is performing microsurgery, the kind for which doctors wear magnifying loupes. He is transplanting hearts, rewiring brains. On a global level, He is transplanting believers, overthrowing nations, and using myriad situations I can't begin to understand. The barrage of news available today can tell us what man is doing, but men, even the wisest Christians, cannot tell us what God is doing. His plan is too big, our minds are too small, .
     So we see God's hand in our circumstances in brief glimpses, blurred by our own preconceptions. We are trying to watch surgery through a telescope, world events through a microscope. No wonder we misunderstand. God always does what is right, but we can only see that when the conditions are just right. God's loving hand versus our Goldilocks vision, nothing too big, nothing too small. He has written history, but it is also a mystery. God interweaves fallen humanity, Satan's profanity and His own sovereignty into one seamless saga, but the end of the story is easy to understand--we live happily ever after.

One Holy Thought

     Recently I had a rare experience, an instant answer to prayer. As I contemplated the attributes of God, I became envious. I thought how wonderful it would be to have a mind free from the sinful, selfish thoughts that constantly fill mine. I wanted just a few Connie-free moments, just one holy thought. Then as I was praying, I was filled with a feeling of love for God. I have loved God for decades, but most of that time it has been just knowledge tucked away in the back of my mind. Something I knew but seldom felt. Humans may long for God to exist, but loving the God of the Bible is as foreign to human nature as loving disease.                  
     So I knew the love I felt was the answer to my prayer. There is nothing sinful or selfish in loving God. He had given me what I longed for--one holy thought.

One Foe at a Time

     I have noticed in the armor of God, we have a shield to block the fiery darts of the enemy, but we do not have bows or arrows. Apparently we are meant for hand to hand combat. That is certainly how it feels when I am fighting temptation. Christ has won the war, and when we are with him we will enjoy the spoils. Meanwhile we battle our Enemy, the sin in the world, and the sin in us. We are not alone, we are part of the army that is the church. We know a battle rages around us--the clash of two great forces, but we cannot concern ourselves with that. We must focus only on the foe in front of us.
     One of the problems is that our attackers are like those in video games, the sins we think we have conquered spring back to life. The good news is, so do we. Our defeats are only temporary. And if they leave us exhausted from the effort, we are also better prepared for the next attack. Christian soldiers do not get to fire arrows from safety behind a wall, as if we could eradicate sin all at once.  We fight hand to hand, sin by sin, one foe at a time.

New Perspective

     On our last trip to Missoula it really bothered me that my car was so dirty. This is winter in Montana--snow melts, slush splashes on your car, if you wash it, it will get splashed again when you leave the car wash--and your doors might freeze shut. However, I was more worried about hitting a deer on our way home, since my husband had hit one the week before. Technically, the deer hit him, but his car couldn't tell the difference. So I insisted on an early departure from Missoula to lessen the likelihood of deer dents, although most of the dead deer I saw on the way there were between Kalispell and Lakeside. So we left Missoula in time to get most of the way home before sunset. We even had time to stop in Polson for dinner. While I was at the salad bar, I heard a woman say "gold Impala". We drive a gold Impala, I knew she did not have good news.
    Actually it was mixed news, she had backed into our car--that was bad, but she came to find us instead of driving off--that was good, she offered to pay for the damage--also good, but she didn't want to go through insurance--that was scary. I understand the feeling of being an insurance hostage.  We pay for auto insurance for decades, but are afraid to use it lest they make the price to not use it even higher. We were sympathetic, but not stupid. There is a big difference between admitting the damage and writing the check. So my husband took pictures of the damage, had her write a statement admitting responsibility, and had the restaurant manager sign as witness.
     It's funny how your perspective changes. Suddenly it no longer mattered that my car was dirty. I told Reed he might as well hit a deer. He did drive over one that had already been hit, but managed to straddle it so there were no deer parts mixed with the dirt on our car. The damage was fixed in a week, her check arrived days before the paint dried. My Impala looked not only undamaged, but shiny and new. Then more snow melted. Now it is dirty. No big deal. New perspective.