I was reading in the Scriptures this morning and came across these words in Psalm 78:
4 We will recount to generations to come
the praiseworthy deeds and the power of the Lord,
and the wonderful works he has done.
There is something powerful in the simplicity and strength of this statement. For me, it felt a little bit like marching orders for the people of God.
It was not just their calling to live their lives in constant awareness of God's goodness and mercy, and to respond to God in faith, but also to show their love for him and their place in his story by faithfully living out their commitment to him by sharing what God had done in their lives and in the world with the next generations.
Live in God's presence.
Respond to his grace and mercy.
Be thankful at all times.
Praise him for all he is and all he has done.
Praise him in front of your children, and your children's children.
Teach the next generations about who he is and what he has done! For you, for the world!
That is what I am hearing today, on a morning when I woke up tired (as always) and was asking the Lord for my "marching orders." I do that a lot these days, for the shape of my days look different than they used to. I have days when just getting through a few things that need to be done is all I can manage before it's time to topple over again, still exhausted. I have days where I think small, remembering my many limitations. I think things like "all I can do today is stay upright, do a little housework, pay a few bills, teach a bit of school to my daughter, write a page or two, handle my medical appointments, try to eat..." (and many days, it's just a couple of the things on that list not all of them). I could add other mundane but important things to that list too...refill a medication, write a thank you note, send an update to my extended family, handle a load of laundry.
And of course, all of those things are necessary, they need to be done. On the most challenging days, I try to remember why I am doing small things, why I am continuing to battle for health and life (with the Lord's strength and in his rest). I am trying to plod along doing the small stuff, but I don't want to forget the big stuff, the overarching vision. Not just for my life, but for all our lives. I need to remember kingdom vision.
And what does that look like? Well, one facet of the kingdom is surely this.
We will recount to generations to come
the praiseworthy deeds and the power of the Lord,
and the wonderful works he has done.
(Psalm 78:4, BCP)
Or as Peterson puts is in the Message, "we're not keeping this to ourselves." God's goodness is meant to be shared!
Showing posts with label praise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label praise. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Monday, April 17, 2017
Jesus, the First and Last Word
So today we enter the Easter season...the festal season that lasts for fifty days, but is often seen as one long feast day. Joy!
Like many other Lenten and Easter journeys, Michael Card's songs have been playing through my mind and heart (and sometimes literally playing via CD or digitally). During different years, different ones come to mind most often. This morning, I woke up with "Final Word" spinning on my heart's turntable:
You and me we use so very many clumsy words.
The noise of what we often say is not worth being heard.
When the Father's wisdom wanted to communicate His love,
He spoke it in one final perfect Word.
He spoke the incarnation, and then so was born a Son.
His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.
Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine.
And so was born a baby who would die to make it mine.
And so the Father's fondest thought became flesh and blood.
He spoke the living luminous word, at once His will was done.
And so the transformation that in man had been unheard,
Took place in God the Father as he spoke that final Word.
And so the Light became alive and manna became Man.
Eternity stepped into time so we could understand.
(~Michael Card)
I think this song, like many others, eventually moved onto his recording "The Life," which collected many of the songs that he wrote about the life of Jesus over the years. And I think I have typically thought of it as belonging more to his Advent and Christmas collection than Lent and Easter, since it speaks primarily of the incarnation.
But as my precious daughter pointed out so wisely this Lenten season, as she reflected on her feelings about both seasons, you can't have one without the other. Had Jesus not been born, he never would have experienced death.
In other words, had Jesus never taken on "flesh and blood," had manna not become Man, then there would have been no entry into Jerusalem, no upper room, no death on the cross, no third day and wondrous resurrection!
The song playing in my head yesterday was, not unexpectedly, Charles Wesley's "Christ the Lord is Risen Today." The verse that kept really speaking to me was this one:
Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won. Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids him rise; Alleluia!
Christ has opened paradise. Alleluia!
(~Charles Wesley)
What the Scriptures emphasize for us, over and over, is that Jesus, the incarnate Word, is truth and reality from first to last, from A to Z, Alpha to Omega. He is there from eternity ("He was with God, was God") and he spoke the first word ("Without him was not anything made that was made"). But he also spoke the last word. "It is finished." Which means, "Love's redeeming work is done. Alleluia!"
And yet...isn't it amazing that even after that ultimate, final word on the cross, he spoke again when he rose again in power? The decisive blow had been struck with great finality, and yet what it brought to fruition was a new world order, a new kind of life, a total newness of life that only Jesus could bring. Everything ended, and yet everything began again in a way that would never end.
Why Card can speak of Jesus himself being the "final word" is that no other word was needed. Old Simon in the temple knew it as soon as he saw the baby Jesus. He could finally die in peace because he had seen what he has spent his whole life waiting for: God had sent the promised deliverer into the world.
And Jesus would speak through his whole life, from his first baby cries to the many words he spoke to those he ministered to and mentored, to the last words on the cross. And yes, to the post-resurrection words he spoke to his followers, promising them the Holy Spirit, giving them their charge to go into the world and make disciples. But all those words he spoke were just part and parcel of the reality that he himself WAS the Word, from first to last. The initiating word that spoke the world into being, ("Let there be light!") -- that brought into existence things that were not, to the ending word that brought life where death tried to reign, that made it clear he was the master of death as well as life.
This is the Word we are invited to embrace, to love, to sing, from our own first day to our last. It is so wonderful to know that it is Jesus the Word who has written our lives, created our stories, and breathed his Spirit into us so that we can become living letters, walking-around-epistles, for others.
Sometimes I think of us not just as letters (messages) but as actual letters, as in the letters of the alphabet. I imagine Jesus writing each one of us in beautiful calligraphic lettering, in the alphabets of every tribe and nation. I imagine how God the Father, the author and finisher of our faith, puts together all the millions and millions of individual letters to create words, sentences, stories that make sense, that reflect the true Story, that at their Spirit-soaked best can become miniature loving versions of his Son, the Word from all eternity. The Word of life and power. The Word who became flesh and dwelt among us and helped those who could not speak to speak anew. The Word that spoke at the very beginning and whose words have continued to keep and hold the world in being. The Word who has already spoken the decisive final word on the cross, in the moment when he died, who spoke again when he came out of the tomb, and will speak again at the end when he comes in power and glory to bring his eternal kingdom to total and complete fullness. One day we will see him face to face, and we will know the Story from beginning to end. And we will sing his praises forever.
Like many other Lenten and Easter journeys, Michael Card's songs have been playing through my mind and heart (and sometimes literally playing via CD or digitally). During different years, different ones come to mind most often. This morning, I woke up with "Final Word" spinning on my heart's turntable:
You and me we use so very many clumsy words.
The noise of what we often say is not worth being heard.
When the Father's wisdom wanted to communicate His love,
He spoke it in one final perfect Word.
He spoke the incarnation, and then so was born a Son.
His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.
Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine.
And so was born a baby who would die to make it mine.
And so the Father's fondest thought became flesh and blood.
He spoke the living luminous word, at once His will was done.
And so the transformation that in man had been unheard,
Took place in God the Father as he spoke that final Word.
And so the Light became alive and manna became Man.
Eternity stepped into time so we could understand.
(~Michael Card)
I think this song, like many others, eventually moved onto his recording "The Life," which collected many of the songs that he wrote about the life of Jesus over the years. And I think I have typically thought of it as belonging more to his Advent and Christmas collection than Lent and Easter, since it speaks primarily of the incarnation.
But as my precious daughter pointed out so wisely this Lenten season, as she reflected on her feelings about both seasons, you can't have one without the other. Had Jesus not been born, he never would have experienced death.
In other words, had Jesus never taken on "flesh and blood," had manna not become Man, then there would have been no entry into Jerusalem, no upper room, no death on the cross, no third day and wondrous resurrection!
The song playing in my head yesterday was, not unexpectedly, Charles Wesley's "Christ the Lord is Risen Today." The verse that kept really speaking to me was this one:
Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won. Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids him rise; Alleluia!
Christ has opened paradise. Alleluia!
(~Charles Wesley)
What the Scriptures emphasize for us, over and over, is that Jesus, the incarnate Word, is truth and reality from first to last, from A to Z, Alpha to Omega. He is there from eternity ("He was with God, was God") and he spoke the first word ("Without him was not anything made that was made"). But he also spoke the last word. "It is finished." Which means, "Love's redeeming work is done. Alleluia!"
And yet...isn't it amazing that even after that ultimate, final word on the cross, he spoke again when he rose again in power? The decisive blow had been struck with great finality, and yet what it brought to fruition was a new world order, a new kind of life, a total newness of life that only Jesus could bring. Everything ended, and yet everything began again in a way that would never end.
Why Card can speak of Jesus himself being the "final word" is that no other word was needed. Old Simon in the temple knew it as soon as he saw the baby Jesus. He could finally die in peace because he had seen what he has spent his whole life waiting for: God had sent the promised deliverer into the world.
And Jesus would speak through his whole life, from his first baby cries to the many words he spoke to those he ministered to and mentored, to the last words on the cross. And yes, to the post-resurrection words he spoke to his followers, promising them the Holy Spirit, giving them their charge to go into the world and make disciples. But all those words he spoke were just part and parcel of the reality that he himself WAS the Word, from first to last. The initiating word that spoke the world into being, ("Let there be light!") -- that brought into existence things that were not, to the ending word that brought life where death tried to reign, that made it clear he was the master of death as well as life.
This is the Word we are invited to embrace, to love, to sing, from our own first day to our last. It is so wonderful to know that it is Jesus the Word who has written our lives, created our stories, and breathed his Spirit into us so that we can become living letters, walking-around-epistles, for others.
Sometimes I think of us not just as letters (messages) but as actual letters, as in the letters of the alphabet. I imagine Jesus writing each one of us in beautiful calligraphic lettering, in the alphabets of every tribe and nation. I imagine how God the Father, the author and finisher of our faith, puts together all the millions and millions of individual letters to create words, sentences, stories that make sense, that reflect the true Story, that at their Spirit-soaked best can become miniature loving versions of his Son, the Word from all eternity. The Word of life and power. The Word who became flesh and dwelt among us and helped those who could not speak to speak anew. The Word that spoke at the very beginning and whose words have continued to keep and hold the world in being. The Word who has already spoken the decisive final word on the cross, in the moment when he died, who spoke again when he came out of the tomb, and will speak again at the end when he comes in power and glory to bring his eternal kingdom to total and complete fullness. One day we will see him face to face, and we will know the Story from beginning to end. And we will sing his praises forever.
Friday, December 02, 2016
John Donne's "Annunciation" (Advent Reading)
One of the many Advent meditation sites I'm enjoying this year online is The Advent Project created by Biola University. It combines Scripture, music, art, poetry, and devotional reflections each day. A winning combination.
Today's poem on the site was John Donne's "Annunciation." I had almost forgotten how much I dearly love this poem. Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb -- one of those lines that comes back to me, year after year, sometimes unexpectedly, springing on me with the great joy and deep love of the God who willingly descended to be one of us, to be with us, to love us back home to the Father.
Annunciation
by John Donne
Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son and Brother;
Whom thou conceivst, conceived; yea thou art now
Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother;
Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.
Today's poem on the site was John Donne's "Annunciation." I had almost forgotten how much I dearly love this poem. Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb -- one of those lines that comes back to me, year after year, sometimes unexpectedly, springing on me with the great joy and deep love of the God who willingly descended to be one of us, to be with us, to love us back home to the Father.
Annunciation
by John Donne
Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son and Brother;
Whom thou conceivst, conceived; yea thou art now
Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother;
Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
"With Nothing on My Tongue But Hallelujah"
I haven't posted anything here on my blog for almost a month. That's because it's been a very difficult month.
The cancer I have been battling since my diagnosis in February took an unexpected turn we had not ever foreseen. It decided to move to my brain. The terrible headaches I was experiencing for a few weeks, along with the memory issues, were a result of that. They discovered it in an MRI on October 17 (just a couple of days after my last post). I was immediately checked into the hospital and I had brain surgery on the 20th. The amazing neurosurgeon was able to get it all, and thank the Lord, there were no repercussions affecting my speech or my memory (which was my biggest fear).
This year has been the most exhausting road I've ever walked. It started with my mother's unexpected death last December, and it's moved along since then with every exhausting twist and turn you could imagine. My original symptoms and hospital visits in late January. My initial bladder surgery and my late stage/metastasized cancer diagnosis in February. The pain in my bone (where the cancer first moved) for months and months. My radiation and intensive chemo treatments in February, March, and April. Immunotherapy since May, still ongoing every two to three weeks. The neuropathy that began in my hands and feet in June and has gotten worse since. The good news in August that the cancer in the original site was gone, and that it had decreased -- miraculously -- in the bone by 20-30 percent, and that there was even some unexpected new bone growth (and yes, even good news of this magnitude can be exhausting in a different way...there are just so many emotions one goes through on a journey of this kind). The beginning of the headaches and other issues in the fall. The realization that our building was being sold and that we would need to move from the apartments where we've lived for nearly twenty years. A hunt for a house we could rent and move into that we could actually afford. Fundraising my family has done for us, which has blessed us so much. The diagnosis of the brain cancer and the surgery to remove it in October. The beginning of our packing and moving in the past two weeks. The painful national election and its even more painful aftermath so far.
Even typing the list of what I've gone through makes me tired, but I don't think the words can easily convey how hard this all has been.
But words do help me through it. Words from the Scriptures that speak the Lord's heart to me. Words from friends who send love and encouragement. Words I use to process the pain. Words from poetry, songs, and stories that mean so much to me and help me find some order in the midst of disorder. Words from my old journals (which I've been looking through late in the night when I can't sleep) which show me ways in which God was preparing me for this walk, even years ago.
The song that's been making the rounds on social media this week is "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, the poetic song writer who died last Monday at the age of 82. It's a song I've heard before, of course, but I find myself listening to it with new ears. Today I just spent some time crying my way through it, especially the final verse:
"I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool ya
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah"
I think what gets me about this stanza is the idea that even when it seems as though everything has gone wrong, when we are spent and broken and exhausted, we can still stand before the Lord of Song (what a wonderful name for God) and offer praise. That's what I hope to do...today, tomorrow, for the rest of my life, however long it may be, and for eternity.
I have scans again tomorrow, on the original areas of the cancer (bladder and bone). These will be the first ones since August. It's been nine months since my diagnosis. Nine months feels significant to me, maybe because I'm a mama who remembers carrying my daughter for nine months as she was knit together. I am praying for signs of healing tomorrow, healing and new life. But no matter what the scans reveal, even if they all go wrong, "I'll stand before the Lord of Song/With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah."
The cancer I have been battling since my diagnosis in February took an unexpected turn we had not ever foreseen. It decided to move to my brain. The terrible headaches I was experiencing for a few weeks, along with the memory issues, were a result of that. They discovered it in an MRI on October 17 (just a couple of days after my last post). I was immediately checked into the hospital and I had brain surgery on the 20th. The amazing neurosurgeon was able to get it all, and thank the Lord, there were no repercussions affecting my speech or my memory (which was my biggest fear).
This year has been the most exhausting road I've ever walked. It started with my mother's unexpected death last December, and it's moved along since then with every exhausting twist and turn you could imagine. My original symptoms and hospital visits in late January. My initial bladder surgery and my late stage/metastasized cancer diagnosis in February. The pain in my bone (where the cancer first moved) for months and months. My radiation and intensive chemo treatments in February, March, and April. Immunotherapy since May, still ongoing every two to three weeks. The neuropathy that began in my hands and feet in June and has gotten worse since. The good news in August that the cancer in the original site was gone, and that it had decreased -- miraculously -- in the bone by 20-30 percent, and that there was even some unexpected new bone growth (and yes, even good news of this magnitude can be exhausting in a different way...there are just so many emotions one goes through on a journey of this kind). The beginning of the headaches and other issues in the fall. The realization that our building was being sold and that we would need to move from the apartments where we've lived for nearly twenty years. A hunt for a house we could rent and move into that we could actually afford. Fundraising my family has done for us, which has blessed us so much. The diagnosis of the brain cancer and the surgery to remove it in October. The beginning of our packing and moving in the past two weeks. The painful national election and its even more painful aftermath so far.
Even typing the list of what I've gone through makes me tired, but I don't think the words can easily convey how hard this all has been.
But words do help me through it. Words from the Scriptures that speak the Lord's heart to me. Words from friends who send love and encouragement. Words I use to process the pain. Words from poetry, songs, and stories that mean so much to me and help me find some order in the midst of disorder. Words from my old journals (which I've been looking through late in the night when I can't sleep) which show me ways in which God was preparing me for this walk, even years ago.
The song that's been making the rounds on social media this week is "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, the poetic song writer who died last Monday at the age of 82. It's a song I've heard before, of course, but I find myself listening to it with new ears. Today I just spent some time crying my way through it, especially the final verse:
"I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool ya
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah"
I think what gets me about this stanza is the idea that even when it seems as though everything has gone wrong, when we are spent and broken and exhausted, we can still stand before the Lord of Song (what a wonderful name for God) and offer praise. That's what I hope to do...today, tomorrow, for the rest of my life, however long it may be, and for eternity.
I have scans again tomorrow, on the original areas of the cancer (bladder and bone). These will be the first ones since August. It's been nine months since my diagnosis. Nine months feels significant to me, maybe because I'm a mama who remembers carrying my daughter for nine months as she was knit together. I am praying for signs of healing tomorrow, healing and new life. But no matter what the scans reveal, even if they all go wrong, "I'll stand before the Lord of Song/With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah."
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
He Did Not Weaken in Faith When He Considered...
I love Abraham. The Scriptures tell us that he believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
I think we have a tendency -- at least I do -- to think of our heroes and saints in the faith as people to whom believing must have come naturally, or at least more easily than it comes for us. So I love that Romans chapter 4 tells us more of Abraham's believing story.
18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”
He believed in God and God's promise, in spite of all the evidence that would seem to pull him away from belief. It wasn't that he didn't realize how dire his situation was, how impossible. He considered his own body, which was as good as dead -- I love how Paul doesn't mince words here. He considered the fact that Sarah was barren. Put those two facts together, and it must have felt nigh unto impossible to believe that the two of them could ever conceive a baby, let alone become the patriarch and matriarch of a people more numerous than the stars in the sky.
It wasn't that unbelief was not an option. It was. Unbelief must have been in the very air he breathed, a very real temptation. Strong evidence he could see with his eyes and consider with his mind pointed him to the impossibility of God being able to keep his promise. Unbelief was there. But it did not make him waver. And look at what Paul tells us next: he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
He grew strong in his faith AS HE GAVE GLORY TO GOD. As he praised God for who he was and what he had done, his faith grew stronger. It grew stronger despite the depressing facts that seemed to surround him and his good as dead body (and yes, I am drawn to that line more than I ever have been, in the wake of my cancer diagnosis). He gave glory to God because he knew who God was. Look back at verses 16 and 17:
16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring -- not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations" -- in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
Abraham intimately knew God, and he knew that God could do amazing things. He knew that God had the power to give life to the dead (so his as good as dead body was no obstacle) and that he calls into existence the things that do not exist (so his wife's barrenness was no obstacle). How precisely Abraham knew all these things about God we don't know....God must have revealed them to him.
We know these same things because God has revealed them to us in the Scriptures. We see God act in creation to call things into existence that never existed before. We see also how he gives life to the dead (or those as good as dead!), from his rescue of Isaac with the ram in the thicket to the raising of the widow's son through Elijah, through Jonah being rescued from the belly of the whale on through Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones taking on flesh. We see it in Jesus' raising of Jairus' daughter, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus of Bethany, and ultimately God's power manifested in a whole new way with the resurrection of Jesus himself.
Whatever pictures and words God used to share who he was with Abraham, it was enough and more than enough, because Abraham knew God. He knew him and he believed him, and through faith, he was able to hold onto the promise that otherwise seemed impossible. He gave God glory; God strengthened his faith, and ultimately, the promise came true.
And -- oh beautiful beyond imagining -- but Abraham's faith can be ours, because Abraham's God is ours. Jump ahead to verses 23-25:
23 But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
As Abraham's descendants, we are children of faith, people of the promise. We can believe in God and God's promises even as we consider the facts around us, which sometimes seem to do nothing but point us to despair and unbelief. We can consider the facts and acknowledge that unbelief is there, a tempting option sometimes because it feels so easy to fall into.
But unbelief does not need to make us waver. The remedy for unbelief is to give God glory and to allow him to strengthen our faith. He will help us hold on, and he will do it through our praise and thanksgiving for who he is and what he has done.
I think we have a tendency -- at least I do -- to think of our heroes and saints in the faith as people to whom believing must have come naturally, or at least more easily than it comes for us. So I love that Romans chapter 4 tells us more of Abraham's believing story.
18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”
He believed in God and God's promise, in spite of all the evidence that would seem to pull him away from belief. It wasn't that he didn't realize how dire his situation was, how impossible. He considered his own body, which was as good as dead -- I love how Paul doesn't mince words here. He considered the fact that Sarah was barren. Put those two facts together, and it must have felt nigh unto impossible to believe that the two of them could ever conceive a baby, let alone become the patriarch and matriarch of a people more numerous than the stars in the sky.
It wasn't that unbelief was not an option. It was. Unbelief must have been in the very air he breathed, a very real temptation. Strong evidence he could see with his eyes and consider with his mind pointed him to the impossibility of God being able to keep his promise. Unbelief was there. But it did not make him waver. And look at what Paul tells us next: he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
He grew strong in his faith AS HE GAVE GLORY TO GOD. As he praised God for who he was and what he had done, his faith grew stronger. It grew stronger despite the depressing facts that seemed to surround him and his good as dead body (and yes, I am drawn to that line more than I ever have been, in the wake of my cancer diagnosis). He gave glory to God because he knew who God was. Look back at verses 16 and 17:
16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring -- not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations" -- in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
Abraham intimately knew God, and he knew that God could do amazing things. He knew that God had the power to give life to the dead (so his as good as dead body was no obstacle) and that he calls into existence the things that do not exist (so his wife's barrenness was no obstacle). How precisely Abraham knew all these things about God we don't know....God must have revealed them to him.
We know these same things because God has revealed them to us in the Scriptures. We see God act in creation to call things into existence that never existed before. We see also how he gives life to the dead (or those as good as dead!), from his rescue of Isaac with the ram in the thicket to the raising of the widow's son through Elijah, through Jonah being rescued from the belly of the whale on through Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones taking on flesh. We see it in Jesus' raising of Jairus' daughter, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus of Bethany, and ultimately God's power manifested in a whole new way with the resurrection of Jesus himself.
Whatever pictures and words God used to share who he was with Abraham, it was enough and more than enough, because Abraham knew God. He knew him and he believed him, and through faith, he was able to hold onto the promise that otherwise seemed impossible. He gave God glory; God strengthened his faith, and ultimately, the promise came true.
And -- oh beautiful beyond imagining -- but Abraham's faith can be ours, because Abraham's God is ours. Jump ahead to verses 23-25:
23 But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
As Abraham's descendants, we are children of faith, people of the promise. We can believe in God and God's promises even as we consider the facts around us, which sometimes seem to do nothing but point us to despair and unbelief. We can consider the facts and acknowledge that unbelief is there, a tempting option sometimes because it feels so easy to fall into.
But unbelief does not need to make us waver. The remedy for unbelief is to give God glory and to allow him to strengthen our faith. He will help us hold on, and he will do it through our praise and thanksgiving for who he is and what he has done.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
I've Started Singing Again
One of the things I've missed so much since getting sick is singing. I am used to singing most days -- not formally, but just as I go about the day. I've always loved to sing and dance while cooking or cleaning. I've always loved to sing at church.
I've been too exhausted for months to sing. My throat and mouth have been bone dry (literally) from the chemo, and even if I had wanted to sing, it would have come out like a frog croaking. I've held onto praise inwardly -- sometimes with a very tight grip -- but everything has been very inward for a long time as I've just clung to Jesus and hung on.
Yesterday I was playing some music and I suddenly started to sing aloud. And later I was trying to remember a song and sang part of it. And then today I've had some time alone and I started playing some favorite videos and I started to sing again. I can't say it sounds beautiful (I'm still pretty croaky) but it FEELS beautiful, because it feels like my spirit is waking up like a flower after a bitter winter. I may be stiff and broken (and bald) but my hands are starting to lift heavenward. "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, the earth is yours!" (I sing along with Gungor...)
Dancing, of course, has been out of the question. The pain and stiffness in my leg make it hard to walk, much less dance. I'm not there yet, but I can tell that my body is wanting to dance again too. I sit in my chair at the kitchen table and my hands rise and wave and my feet start to tap. And I pray it is just a matter of time.
I've been too exhausted for months to sing. My throat and mouth have been bone dry (literally) from the chemo, and even if I had wanted to sing, it would have come out like a frog croaking. I've held onto praise inwardly -- sometimes with a very tight grip -- but everything has been very inward for a long time as I've just clung to Jesus and hung on.
Yesterday I was playing some music and I suddenly started to sing aloud. And later I was trying to remember a song and sang part of it. And then today I've had some time alone and I started playing some favorite videos and I started to sing again. I can't say it sounds beautiful (I'm still pretty croaky) but it FEELS beautiful, because it feels like my spirit is waking up like a flower after a bitter winter. I may be stiff and broken (and bald) but my hands are starting to lift heavenward. "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, the earth is yours!" (I sing along with Gungor...)
Dancing, of course, has been out of the question. The pain and stiffness in my leg make it hard to walk, much less dance. I'm not there yet, but I can tell that my body is wanting to dance again too. I sit in my chair at the kitchen table and my hands rise and wave and my feet start to tap. And I pray it is just a matter of time.
Friday, December 25, 2015
Sing All Ye Citizens of Heaven Above!
My last post was written a week ago, but it feels so much longer. In that time, we've finished the Advent season and moved into Christmas. And my mother has entered into glory.
At 83, my precious, wonderful mother was feeling better than she had in a long, long time. We loved our visit with her on Thanksgiving. She was telling stories....lots of them. In fact, I wrote in my journal at the time that she seemed to be putting together the pieces of her life like a jigsaw puzzle. She lingered long over stories about her childhood, youth, and adulthood, especially about her journey of faith. She and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner together. She loved watching Sarah do her Irish dancing on the backyard patio. I remember her hearing the neighbors on the other side of the fence and hurrying over to chat with them (chatting with neighbors being something she loved doing more than almost anything!). She'd only recovered from hip surgery a few months before, but she was scrambling up on tiptoes and pulling herself up so she could call over the fence.
I had no idea that less than a month later, she would be gone from this earth and in the presence of Jesus.
The sudden and unexpected heart attack she had on Sunday was all the more unexpected because of how well she'd been feeling. She had no history of heart disease. She took incredibly good care of herself (and my dad took wonderful care of her during her hip recovery and her bout of cellulitis). She always believed a merry heart was the best medicine. Her doctors often told her how strong she was constitutionally. Her own mother lived to be 92; her maternal grandfather lived to be 100. I truly thought she had lots of time left.
But the Lord called her home this Christmas, and when the Lord calls, you answer. My mother answered with peace. She was one of the most active people I know, and yet when the time came, God gave her the serenity to simply surrender into his arms with assurance and peace. She taught me so much in her life, and even in her death, she continues to teach me.
I have so many stories I could tell about the grace filled moments of the past few days. Maybe I will soon. But on this day, Christmas day, I am simply rejoicing that Mama is home with Jesus....and simply missing her so much I ache all over.
At 83, my precious, wonderful mother was feeling better than she had in a long, long time. We loved our visit with her on Thanksgiving. She was telling stories....lots of them. In fact, I wrote in my journal at the time that she seemed to be putting together the pieces of her life like a jigsaw puzzle. She lingered long over stories about her childhood, youth, and adulthood, especially about her journey of faith. She and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner together. She loved watching Sarah do her Irish dancing on the backyard patio. I remember her hearing the neighbors on the other side of the fence and hurrying over to chat with them (chatting with neighbors being something she loved doing more than almost anything!). She'd only recovered from hip surgery a few months before, but she was scrambling up on tiptoes and pulling herself up so she could call over the fence.
I had no idea that less than a month later, she would be gone from this earth and in the presence of Jesus.
The sudden and unexpected heart attack she had on Sunday was all the more unexpected because of how well she'd been feeling. She had no history of heart disease. She took incredibly good care of herself (and my dad took wonderful care of her during her hip recovery and her bout of cellulitis). She always believed a merry heart was the best medicine. Her doctors often told her how strong she was constitutionally. Her own mother lived to be 92; her maternal grandfather lived to be 100. I truly thought she had lots of time left.
But the Lord called her home this Christmas, and when the Lord calls, you answer. My mother answered with peace. She was one of the most active people I know, and yet when the time came, God gave her the serenity to simply surrender into his arms with assurance and peace. She taught me so much in her life, and even in her death, she continues to teach me.
I have so many stories I could tell about the grace filled moments of the past few days. Maybe I will soon. But on this day, Christmas day, I am simply rejoicing that Mama is home with Jesus....and simply missing her so much I ache all over.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Everything We Have Comes From Him
I'm in the midst of a several day slog through a lot of work deadlines, which in actuality is part of a longer series of months where I've been pushing at a pace I know I can't keep up much longer.
My mind is tired. I am running out of creative ideas (both teaching and writing). I am running out of energy and hours.
My heart is tired. We have friends going through the unfathomable sadness of accompanying one of their children through terrible illness that looks as though it will end soon in death. I have turned twice to news reports in recent days about the persecution and killing of Christian brothers and sisters in other parts of the world.
My mind and heart are also bursting with love and gospel goodness, which in the midst of all the heartbreak and heartache feels ever more precious each day. We have been loving our nearly teenage daughter through a ton of very hard questions about God, life, Jesus, the Bible, and the world -- incredible questions that come faster than we can possibly answer (her mind works at such an amazing pace sometimes). I spent part of the morning trying my best to answer questions from a seven year old who told me he really wants to see God.
Tonight I was glad to come across these words from the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 1 in The Message:
"Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”
What a rich treasure God has given us -- all of us who weren't much when we were called, but who by God's grace have been given everything we need, including a clean slate and fresh start.
My mind is tired. I am running out of creative ideas (both teaching and writing). I am running out of energy and hours.
My heart is tired. We have friends going through the unfathomable sadness of accompanying one of their children through terrible illness that looks as though it will end soon in death. I have turned twice to news reports in recent days about the persecution and killing of Christian brothers and sisters in other parts of the world.
My mind and heart are also bursting with love and gospel goodness, which in the midst of all the heartbreak and heartache feels ever more precious each day. We have been loving our nearly teenage daughter through a ton of very hard questions about God, life, Jesus, the Bible, and the world -- incredible questions that come faster than we can possibly answer (her mind works at such an amazing pace sometimes). I spent part of the morning trying my best to answer questions from a seven year old who told me he really wants to see God.
Tonight I was glad to come across these words from the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 1 in The Message:
"Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”
What a rich treasure God has given us -- all of us who weren't much when we were called, but who by God's grace have been given everything we need, including a clean slate and fresh start.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
The World is Almost Too Beautiful
The world is almost too beautiful. The variegated petals of
a tulip, the wisps of straw fluttering from the open door of the white
birdhouse where sparrows are once again busy setting up housekeeping, the way the light looks on a
late March afternoon when you’re not yet used to the lingering softness of the
light. It is almost too beautiful, almost, until you remember, your throat
aching with mingled joy and sorrow, the echoing beauties of redemption,
forgiveness, release, and deep, deep peace. And you recall the beauty of the Author
of it all, beauty past recounting, rhyme or reason, beauty that can only make
you stutter in worship and fall down in praise.
(Just a little prose poem on this Palm Sunday.)
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Thankful for the Apostle Paul (and Romans 5:1-11, and the Scriptures, and Grace)
I'm home on this Ash Wednesday evening, working on writing a lesson plan for Romans 5:1-11. This is part of the freelance curriculum writing job I've had since late fall, a job for which I continue to be so thankful, in part because it's such a joy to be able to spend time in the Scriptures, thinking and writing about them for youth and their teachers.
This is my fifth project for the publisher, and only my second New Testament lesson. It's also the first time I've had to tackle Paul for this curriculum. I use the word "tackle" on purpose, because as usual, I find Paul a challenge for my mind and heart.
In general, my story-loving self finds it ever so much easier to write lesson plans and activity guides for narrative or poetic/prophetic passages. Narratives give us characters we can hang our hats on, and poetry gives us concrete visual images. To be fair, Paul sometimes gives us both of those things -- he loves to re-tell Old Testament stories (often with a new twist) and he sometimes provides rich imagery ("clanging cymbal" and the parts of the body talking to one another come to mind right away). But sometimes he's the Paul I tend to think of when his name comes to mind: the pastoral, teaching Paul whose complex sentences can pack what feels like dozens of deeply rich theological words into a very, very small space.
These eleven verses I've been sitting with for the past couple of weeks contain a lot of the biggies: reconciliation, justification, grace, hope, peace, faith, endurance, suffering, rejoicing, wrath. They're all there, and the first few times I read through the passage, as I thought about trying to help teachers unpack it for youth, I found myself wanting to bite my nails. It was hard to pick one over-arching "big idea" because, quite frankly, every single idea in it is big.
So I just kept reading. I'd pick it up at odd moments and read it again. I read it in the ESV (my study Bible of choice these days), in the NIV along with some commentary notes, in the NRSV (which is the translation I need to use for my work). I read it in the Message (thank you, Eugene) and in the wonderfully expanded Amplified version, which interestingly enough, really helped me this time, because with its parenthetical comments expanding on some of those big theological words, it somehow captured the exuberance of Paul.
I think that's what I was missing for a while, as I read the passage with my mind (not a bad thing to do, of course, and needed) trying to understand the import of what Paul was saying well enough to begin to put it into simpler and more concrete terms for kids. I needed to read it with my heart too, to hear the excitement in Paul's voice as he builds and builds and repeats himself...and he does...about the amazing love of God. A love poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. A love shown to us through the death of Jesus on the cross, a death he died while we were yet sinners. While we were a helpless mess and could do nothing on our behalf, reminds Paul, God did it all.
And we who have been reconciled through that act have hope. Real, living, true, confident hope that will never disappoint us, no matter what kind of suffering may come our way. Hope that allows us to rejoice no matter what comes, because HE HAS DONE IT. When we turn to him in trust, when we put our hope in this great good news, he makes us new and sets us right, forever healing our relationship to God which was once so irrevocably broken.
All the big words Paul uses? He's not using them to impress or confuse, he's using them because they're the only ones he can come up with that are rich and deep and brilliant enough to capture at least a little bit of the truth he's trying to sing for us here, preaching it so it can sink deep down into our bones and enflame our hearts and remind us anew of who God is and what he has done.
I am so thankful for the apostle Paul, so thankful for these words and the gift of the Scriptures.
This is my fifth project for the publisher, and only my second New Testament lesson. It's also the first time I've had to tackle Paul for this curriculum. I use the word "tackle" on purpose, because as usual, I find Paul a challenge for my mind and heart.
In general, my story-loving self finds it ever so much easier to write lesson plans and activity guides for narrative or poetic/prophetic passages. Narratives give us characters we can hang our hats on, and poetry gives us concrete visual images. To be fair, Paul sometimes gives us both of those things -- he loves to re-tell Old Testament stories (often with a new twist) and he sometimes provides rich imagery ("clanging cymbal" and the parts of the body talking to one another come to mind right away). But sometimes he's the Paul I tend to think of when his name comes to mind: the pastoral, teaching Paul whose complex sentences can pack what feels like dozens of deeply rich theological words into a very, very small space.
These eleven verses I've been sitting with for the past couple of weeks contain a lot of the biggies: reconciliation, justification, grace, hope, peace, faith, endurance, suffering, rejoicing, wrath. They're all there, and the first few times I read through the passage, as I thought about trying to help teachers unpack it for youth, I found myself wanting to bite my nails. It was hard to pick one over-arching "big idea" because, quite frankly, every single idea in it is big.
So I just kept reading. I'd pick it up at odd moments and read it again. I read it in the ESV (my study Bible of choice these days), in the NIV along with some commentary notes, in the NRSV (which is the translation I need to use for my work). I read it in the Message (thank you, Eugene) and in the wonderfully expanded Amplified version, which interestingly enough, really helped me this time, because with its parenthetical comments expanding on some of those big theological words, it somehow captured the exuberance of Paul.
I think that's what I was missing for a while, as I read the passage with my mind (not a bad thing to do, of course, and needed) trying to understand the import of what Paul was saying well enough to begin to put it into simpler and more concrete terms for kids. I needed to read it with my heart too, to hear the excitement in Paul's voice as he builds and builds and repeats himself...and he does...about the amazing love of God. A love poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. A love shown to us through the death of Jesus on the cross, a death he died while we were yet sinners. While we were a helpless mess and could do nothing on our behalf, reminds Paul, God did it all.
And we who have been reconciled through that act have hope. Real, living, true, confident hope that will never disappoint us, no matter what kind of suffering may come our way. Hope that allows us to rejoice no matter what comes, because HE HAS DONE IT. When we turn to him in trust, when we put our hope in this great good news, he makes us new and sets us right, forever healing our relationship to God which was once so irrevocably broken.
All the big words Paul uses? He's not using them to impress or confuse, he's using them because they're the only ones he can come up with that are rich and deep and brilliant enough to capture at least a little bit of the truth he's trying to sing for us here, preaching it so it can sink deep down into our bones and enflame our hearts and remind us anew of who God is and what he has done.
I am so thankful for the apostle Paul, so thankful for these words and the gift of the Scriptures.
Friday, November 07, 2014
Daybook: J.I. Packer ("Mercy from first to last")
Just came across this quote I jotted in my journal a couple of months ago, and thought I would take a page out of the daybook to share it here:
"Even when (the Christian) cannot see the why and wherefore of God's dealings, he knows that there is love in and behind them and so he can rejoice always; even when, humanly speaking, things are going wrong, he knows that the true story of his life, when known, will prove to be 'mercy from first to last' -- and he is content." ~J.I.Packer
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Why I'm So Glad Christmas is a Season
As I pondered writing about this today, it dawned on me that I wrote some reflections two years ago that never found their way here. These reflections are part of others I've written over the years that may (or may not) make it into my Advent and Christmas poetry collection one day.
I wrote this back on St. Stephen's Day (December 26) in 2011, hence some of the dated references. I hope you'll find something here worth pondering on this blessed seventh day of Christmas in 2013.
***********
I wrote this back on St. Stephen's Day (December 26) in 2011, hence some of the dated references. I hope you'll find something here worth pondering on this blessed seventh day of Christmas in 2013.
***********
This morning I took the trash out – two big bags worth, detritus
leftover from yesterday’s Christmas celebration. Although this year I did not
pile the wrapping paper scraps into the trash. My environmentally conscious
nine year old, bless her, made me put it all in a box to take the borough paper
recycling dumpster later.
Since we live over a warehouse in a building that belongs to
the lumber yard next door, our trash dumpster is also in the lumber yard. Among
other things, this means I get serenaded every time I take the trash out by the
PA system that blares radio music left on for the lumber yard workers to hear
while they pile wood and confer with customers and drive fork lifts.
The lumber yard was open this morning, though almost deserted.
Either the workers were all inside having one more Monday morning after the
holiday cup of coffee, or some of them had taken the day off. Certainly no
customers were in sight, and no trucks moving about. But the office and store
lights were on and the gate was open, so I shouldered my plastic bags like
Santa and hoisted them into the dumpster.
The music on the PA system brought me up sharply. During
most of the year, what plays on the radio doesn’t register with me when I take
the trash out, especially if it’s advertising. I’m forty-three; I’ve gotten
very good at tuning out commercials, one of the biggest wastes of brain energy
ever encountered. Usually I am working out a story or musing on a poem or
looking at the sky – or on more prosaic days (and they happen) – planning what
to cook for dinner or thinking through my next language arts lesson with my
daughter. I only pay attention to the sounds of the radio station if they’re
playing music, and then often only if they’re playing a song I know and
particularly like.
The couple of weeks or so before Christmas are different.
The lumber yard tunes to one of the “oldies” stations that plays Christmas
music all the time up until and through Christmas day. During cold, dark
December days, I get used to trudging to the dumpster to tunes like “There’s No
Place Like Home for the Holidays” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
or (if I’m really blessed) “The First Noel.” (Yes, our oldies station will
occasionally still throw an actual Christmas carol onto the playlist.)
So today I went trudging into the lumber yard, December 26,
the second day of Christmas – and what do I hear? An old rock song from the
80’s. Not a Christmas carol. Not even a so-called secular Christmas anthem.
Nothing Christmassy at all. And it slams home to me once more how the culture
really doesn’t get Christmas.
It happens every year, but every year I forget it.
Decorations come down swiftly, the stores sweep a few Christmas items onto
sales shelves prelude to decking for Valentine’s Day, the radios stop playing Christmas
music, even the bland songs that hardly feel like Christmas but at least pay
minor lip-service to the time of year. People get back to work, most of them
tired from staying up too late, some of them secretly glad the whole crazy
holiday time is just “over” for another year. And I want to say “People?
Seriously? We’re just getting started!”
There’s a reason there’s a whole Christmas season. The
church, in its wisdom, has given us twelve whole wondrous days to celebrate the
birth of Jesus – and we pack that calendar full of other celebrations and
commemorations while we’re at it. On the 26th (today) we get the
feast day of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, on the 27th we
celebrate St. John,
the apostle and evangelist, on the 28th we remember the Holy
Innocents who died at the hand of Herod. On January 1 we celebrate Holy Name
day, remembering the day Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple to be
circumcised and named (and were met by prophet Simeon and prophetess Anna, who
sang and spoke over the holy child). And of course on the 6th,
traditionally known as 12th night, it all culminates in Epiphany,
when we remember the Wise Men who came from the East, following the star, and
how they worshipped the young child who they knew to be the King of the Jews.
It makes such perfect sense that we continue to celebrate
the unfolding story – not just of Jesus’ birth and the events that took place
in the days and months after it – but the unfolding story of those who would
follow after him in years to come. If this birth is what we say it is – the
birth that changed everything, the birth of the only one who could come to save
and rescue us, the coming of Almighty God into the world of space and time and
skin – then everything changes. It’s not something we can sing about and shout
about for one day, and then just sweep it all away and go back to business as
usual. This birth changes everything.
I wonder sometimes if even people who really don’t have an
understanding of the season – who aren’t sure why they celebrate Christmas
except that it seems to be a culturally acceptable time to give and receive
gifts and go to parties and take time off work (and listen to Christmas themed
songs on the radio) – don’t feel the acute disappointment and strangeness of
the swiftness of the workaday, everyday world’s return following the
celebration. Even in dim culturally bound echoes, the Christmas season can burn
so brightly. The festive foods, the time spent with family that you might not
see any other time of year, the chance to give help to people who are truly in
need, the brightly wrapped gifts, the lights on the trees (or the streetlamps
or town gazebos). The scent of evergreen and ginger, plastic nativity scenes on
lawns, bright flags flapping on porches, scarlet poinsettia plants gracing
front halls. Even in dim echoes, the
celebration can sometimes stun us with beauty and moments of heart-rending
heartache, like we’re seeing something out of the corner of our eye that takes
our breath and calls us home.
I wonder too if we can’t take a clue from our ordinary,
lived experience – the kind of ordinary, everyday, lived experience that God
entered and forever hallowed in Jesus – and look at how we celebrate “ordinary”
human birth and feel its aftermath. If you’ve ever given birth to a child, or
welcomed a child into your family by adoption, you know how it feels in the
weeks and months leading up to the grand event. You know the exhaustion and
exhilaration of hard labor to bring that child into the world, or the anxious
waiting to welcome that little one into your arms. You know that the day that
baby is born, or brought home, is one of the most memorable, mountain-top
experiences of your life. You could never, ever forget the way it feels. But
you also come to know, through days, weeks, months, and years of parenting and
learning to be a family, that the day was just the beginning. It stands out
like a shining crystal, never to be forgotten, but it was just the beginning,
the start of something beautiful and deep, a whole journey of learning to love
that little person and make them part of your life.
Would it make sense to give birth to a baby, celebrate the
fact giddily and gratefully for twenty-four hours, then say “Wow, that was great!
Let’s do it again next year?” and go on living just the way you did before the
baby was born, as though the event never happened? To not care for, cherish,
and nourish the new life we’ve been given, to enfold that life and its rhythms
and the way it shapes us into our ordinary everyday?
Of course not. Nor does it make any sense to prepare for
weeks leading up to Christmas, celebrate it in giddy joy for twenty-four hours,
then cart all the leftover detritus to the dumpster to workaday music and try
to get back to being just who you were before the grand event.
Not if the event means what we say it means. Because every
year we celebrate Christ’s birth, his coming into the world, we remind
ourselves that because he has come, our lives are forever changed. Because he
has come, he still comes – every day, in new ways, in the hearts and lives of
those who know him as Savior and Lord. And he is coming again, one day, in
great glory and power and majesty, to judge the living and the dead and to make
all things brand new. So brand new that even the brightest, most sincerely
beautiful and reverent of Christmas celebrations, or even that mountain-top moment
you held your precious baby in your arms for the first time – are going to pale
in comparison to the amazing glory that will be revealed.
O Come, Let Us Adore Him is not just a call for one day of
the year. Really each Christmas prepares
us just a little bit more for the celebration of forever living in his
presence. And we’re being prepared not
just for a season of love, but an eternity of it. A time when the glorious
music that sings his praise will never fade, and the candles that echo his vast
and glorious light will never be put out.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Glorify the Lord, Ye Snow
Glorify the Lord, O
chill and cold,
drops of dew and
flakes of snow.
Frost and cold, ice
and sleet, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly
exalt him for ever.
(~From the Book of Common Prayer)
Wilson“Snowflake” Bentley is one of my artist/scientist heroes. He spent a lifetime
paying attention to something hardly anyone else ever paid attention to –
snowflakes. (He was also fascinated with other tiny bits of creation, like
raindrops and dew.) He spent years developing a technique to photograph
snowflakes, in a day and age when that seemed impossibly hard. His creativity
and patience seemed to know no bounds.
So when I see something like this article, posted by two of
my dear nieces on FB, I find myself smiling with gratitude but also
recognition. The work of this photographer, Alexy Kljatov, is beautiful and
amazing, and clearly still takes innovation and patience (see his blog post,
here, on his photographic techniques) but you realize too how much easier it is
using the photographic equipment we have today, and how much he stands on the
shoulders of a pioneering giant like Bentley. Perhaps that’s truer than we know
for most artistic and scientific endeavor, though we don’t always remember it.
I also smiled over the opening line from the commentator who
posted the pictures of Kljatov’s work, calling attention to the “impossibly
perfect” design of snowflakes. She writes: “One of the true wonders of the
world are snowflakes, tiny designs made of ice that are so individually unique,
so detailed, and so spectacular it's hard to comprehend that they happen
naturally and aren't pulled from the depths of our own imaginations.”
Uh-huh. Might it not indicate, perhaps, that the depths of
our own imaginations, wonderful as they are, are themselves the creation of
someone whose imagination is far deeper and vaster than our own? I love that
God creates snowflakes, which in our puny understanding don’t need to be so
incredibly beautiful (considering their size and transience) and yet just are. They are stunning, unique,
intricately pattered. They are clearly exercises in artistic delight. And they
appear to “happen naturally” (you’ve got to smile over the hint of casualness
the word “happen” evokes) because he has placed this kind of beauty into the
very ordinary unfolding fabric of the world. Praise Him!
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Praising Him For Pine Needles
We've been studying plant cells this week. Our own microscope revealed wonders to us at the kitchen table. The membrane of an onion really is a marvel of beauty when you look at its inner structure.
Then we turned to some micrographs online. And this one blew me away.
It's the cross section of a pine needle.
Let me say that again, just so you can marvel over it with me one more time: it's the cross section of a pine needle.
Is it any wonder that the world is so beautiful? This is the secret, inner life of a pine needle, the kind of needle lying by thousands on the forest floor, here today and gone tomorrow. This is the beauty of the inner structure that no one sees, unless they really go looking, with intention and attention.
And who puts that desire in us to look? And who puts the desire in us to create beautiful designs? And where does our drive and ability to create such intricate, lovely designs (think Celtic knotwork, Tiffany stained glass, Van Gogh poplars) come from? From the one who makes pine needles look like this. Praise Him!
Then we turned to some micrographs online. And this one blew me away.
Let me say that again, just so you can marvel over it with me one more time: it's the cross section of a pine needle.
Is it any wonder that the world is so beautiful? This is the secret, inner life of a pine needle, the kind of needle lying by thousands on the forest floor, here today and gone tomorrow. This is the beauty of the inner structure that no one sees, unless they really go looking, with intention and attention.
And who puts that desire in us to look? And who puts the desire in us to create beautiful designs? And where does our drive and ability to create such intricate, lovely designs (think Celtic knotwork, Tiffany stained glass, Van Gogh poplars) come from? From the one who makes pine needles look like this. Praise Him!
Monday, March 18, 2013
Praise Break
There are days when almost nothing on my to-do list seems to get done, and yet I look back and say "That was a rich learning day. Thank you, God."
Today has been one of those, and I am feeling tremendously grateful that sometimes, I have just enough wisdom to get out of my own way, scrap my agenda, and let the Lord do what he wants to do in me.
This praise break brought to you by the heart of a humble, grateful woman.
Today has been one of those, and I am feeling tremendously grateful that sometimes, I have just enough wisdom to get out of my own way, scrap my agenda, and let the Lord do what he wants to do in me.
This praise break brought to you by the heart of a humble, grateful woman.
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Brick by Brick...
I've not meant to disappear from my blog. I miss writing here, but the past several weeks have been a rather long slog of stress and exhaustion on so many levels.
In the midst of all that, however, there has been blessing. Lots of it. So much of it that I should probably do a big gratitude post (which I'm way overdue to write anyway). But for now I just have to share one lovely thing.
My dad finished laying the bricks on the back patio today. This is at my parents' home in Virginia, the house where I grew up. They've always had a small red brick patio. A few years ago they had to have some work done on their sewage lines or something and a lot of the patio had to be dug up. My dad, always the craftsman and hard worker, set out to lay the bricks back himself. He was in the midst of the project in April 2010 when he went into the hospital with congestive heart failure.
It's strange sometimes how something can become so symbolic. For my dad, that patio seemed to represent something big that was left undone. As he lay in the hospital, very ill (with doctors telling us he might not live more than another couple of months) he fretted about the patio. He wanted to finish it. It became both a struggle in his mind (you could see that sometimes) and also a tangible project that he needed to hold onto with both hands as he determined to get better.
All during the following months -- eighteen of them -- as mom has lovingly cared for dad and as dad has astounded us all by his amazing recovery, dad has worked on the patio. A little at a time. Brick by brick. Five minutes here. Ten minutes there. Longer if he could manage it, sometimes driving my mother crazy because he would stay out too long and his blood pressure would drop through the floor. As he began to regain some strength, he began to do other things too, like paint my mom's portrait. (He really is amazing.) But he was determined to get that patio done.
Today Mom emailed all of her children with the news. The last brick was laid, she said. And she called it a doxology moment. Indeed. I felt like singing the doxology. So I did.
I'm so proud of my daddy I could burst. I'm proud of my mom too, who has had to learn a whole new way of encouraging and caretaking in these months.
It hurts my heart a little bit to think that we will not likely make it down to Virginia for thanksgiving this year -- our usual annual trek is likely to be off because of our continuing financial stress. I would so love to see that patio. But mostly I want to hug my dad and mom while seeing that patio! Sometimes my homesickness for them and for that little back yard in Virginia just grows acute.
But heartaches aside, today I am just smiling. Because my dad did it. Brick by brick.
In the midst of all that, however, there has been blessing. Lots of it. So much of it that I should probably do a big gratitude post (which I'm way overdue to write anyway). But for now I just have to share one lovely thing.
My dad finished laying the bricks on the back patio today. This is at my parents' home in Virginia, the house where I grew up. They've always had a small red brick patio. A few years ago they had to have some work done on their sewage lines or something and a lot of the patio had to be dug up. My dad, always the craftsman and hard worker, set out to lay the bricks back himself. He was in the midst of the project in April 2010 when he went into the hospital with congestive heart failure.
It's strange sometimes how something can become so symbolic. For my dad, that patio seemed to represent something big that was left undone. As he lay in the hospital, very ill (with doctors telling us he might not live more than another couple of months) he fretted about the patio. He wanted to finish it. It became both a struggle in his mind (you could see that sometimes) and also a tangible project that he needed to hold onto with both hands as he determined to get better.
All during the following months -- eighteen of them -- as mom has lovingly cared for dad and as dad has astounded us all by his amazing recovery, dad has worked on the patio. A little at a time. Brick by brick. Five minutes here. Ten minutes there. Longer if he could manage it, sometimes driving my mother crazy because he would stay out too long and his blood pressure would drop through the floor. As he began to regain some strength, he began to do other things too, like paint my mom's portrait. (He really is amazing.) But he was determined to get that patio done.
Today Mom emailed all of her children with the news. The last brick was laid, she said. And she called it a doxology moment. Indeed. I felt like singing the doxology. So I did.
I'm so proud of my daddy I could burst. I'm proud of my mom too, who has had to learn a whole new way of encouraging and caretaking in these months.
It hurts my heart a little bit to think that we will not likely make it down to Virginia for thanksgiving this year -- our usual annual trek is likely to be off because of our continuing financial stress. I would so love to see that patio. But mostly I want to hug my dad and mom while seeing that patio! Sometimes my homesickness for them and for that little back yard in Virginia just grows acute.
But heartaches aside, today I am just smiling. Because my dad did it. Brick by brick.
Monday, May 16, 2011
"And Then God Showed Up..."
There are certain catch-phrases bandied about by Christians that drive my theological sensibilities a bit batty. "And then God showed up..." has always been near the top of the list.
I think it drives me crazy because it assumes that there are times when God is not around. I'm not trying to deny, of course, that we all go through seasons of time when we can feel as though God is absent. Sometimes this may be due to our own sin or apathy ("prone to wander, Lord, I feel it...") Sometimes we may be going through a time when the Lord may choose, in his gentle wisdom, to not speak too loudly -- (unlike the "megaphone" times in our lives) -- perhaps because he wants us to seek him more deeply.
Whatever the reasons may be, there are plenty of wilderness times in our lives when we may feel as though the Lord is not very active or present in our lives. Small wonder then that we marvel when we do suddenly sense his presence, when we find ourselves saying "and then God showed up!" like it's a shock.
As I said, what's bothered me most about the phrase is that, lurking in the background, there's this element of surprise. As though God took a walk somewhere, wandered off, got lost, then happened to make it back. A little late, but hey, at least he bothered to show up. Maybe I'm being over-sensitive, but there's something that smacks a little bit here of the vision of the deist watchmaker God, who sets things in motion and then leaves us all to muddle on as best as we can. But he pops in from time to time, just to check on how things are going.
But lately I've been gaining more empathy for the statement, or at least seeing it in a new light. Maybe because I've been floundering a bit in the wilderness lately, and the times when...oh, okay, I'll say it...the times when God has showed up, clearly and obviously, have provided such deep and meaningful refreshment for my weary heart and soul.
Still, I don't want to forget the pervasiveness of God's presence. He is there, in the hard times as well as the beautiful, in the dry times as well as the garden blooming wild with fruit times. He is there. We may forget it. We may not always sense it. We may forget to walk in the truth of it. But he is there. He is the one who sustains us, every breath, every moment, every mercifully new morning. He is there.
So here's what I think: when we say "And then God showed up..." this is what we just might mean:
We mean to say, like Jacob, "God was here, in this place (this very ordinary, hard-ground, rock-littered place!) and I DID NOT KNOW IT!"
We mean to say, like the Israelites celebrating on the other side of the Red Sea, "there was no hope, there was no way out, there was no way through, and then the most amazing thing happened...God showed up! He rescued us from death!"
We mean to say, from the depths of our heart, "I was once far off, but now I have been brought near, and amazing grace, God is here!"
We mean to say, like Jack Lewis, "God walks everywhere incognito. And the real challenge for us is to come awake."
So maybe we mean to say...today, this moment, this now, I have come awake. The Prince of Peace has bestowed the kiss of life. I have come alive to the presence of God (always here, always sustaining) in ways that have surprised and stunned me. That have made me realize anew that hallelujah, HE IS HERE.
I think it drives me crazy because it assumes that there are times when God is not around. I'm not trying to deny, of course, that we all go through seasons of time when we can feel as though God is absent. Sometimes this may be due to our own sin or apathy ("prone to wander, Lord, I feel it...") Sometimes we may be going through a time when the Lord may choose, in his gentle wisdom, to not speak too loudly -- (unlike the "megaphone" times in our lives) -- perhaps because he wants us to seek him more deeply.
Whatever the reasons may be, there are plenty of wilderness times in our lives when we may feel as though the Lord is not very active or present in our lives. Small wonder then that we marvel when we do suddenly sense his presence, when we find ourselves saying "and then God showed up!" like it's a shock.
As I said, what's bothered me most about the phrase is that, lurking in the background, there's this element of surprise. As though God took a walk somewhere, wandered off, got lost, then happened to make it back. A little late, but hey, at least he bothered to show up. Maybe I'm being over-sensitive, but there's something that smacks a little bit here of the vision of the deist watchmaker God, who sets things in motion and then leaves us all to muddle on as best as we can. But he pops in from time to time, just to check on how things are going.
But lately I've been gaining more empathy for the statement, or at least seeing it in a new light. Maybe because I've been floundering a bit in the wilderness lately, and the times when...oh, okay, I'll say it...the times when God has showed up, clearly and obviously, have provided such deep and meaningful refreshment for my weary heart and soul.
Still, I don't want to forget the pervasiveness of God's presence. He is there, in the hard times as well as the beautiful, in the dry times as well as the garden blooming wild with fruit times. He is there. We may forget it. We may not always sense it. We may forget to walk in the truth of it. But he is there. He is the one who sustains us, every breath, every moment, every mercifully new morning. He is there.
So here's what I think: when we say "And then God showed up..." this is what we just might mean:
We mean to say, like Jacob, "God was here, in this place (this very ordinary, hard-ground, rock-littered place!) and I DID NOT KNOW IT!"
We mean to say, like the Israelites celebrating on the other side of the Red Sea, "there was no hope, there was no way out, there was no way through, and then the most amazing thing happened...God showed up! He rescued us from death!"
We mean to say, from the depths of our heart, "I was once far off, but now I have been brought near, and amazing grace, God is here!"
We mean to say, like Jack Lewis, "God walks everywhere incognito. And the real challenge for us is to come awake."
So maybe we mean to say...today, this moment, this now, I have come awake. The Prince of Peace has bestowed the kiss of life. I have come alive to the presence of God (always here, always sustaining) in ways that have surprised and stunned me. That have made me realize anew that hallelujah, HE IS HERE.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Giver of the Green
My mourning for our little bit of grass got to swirling around in my mind last evening. It collided with some words from C.S. Lewis that I had happened to read yesterday morning.
Lewis was writing (in A Grief Observed) about the "right ordering" of our praise. So many good things we love are deserving of praise, but our highest praise is reserved for the Giver of those good things.
"Praise in due order...up from the garden to the Gardener, from the sword to the Smith. To the life-giving Life and the Beauty that makes beautiful."
I love these lines. It seems to me that Lewis is saying our best loves, our deepest admiration, what we value most, should cause us to look up, even higher, to the Giver behind all those things. His capitalization of Gardener, Smith, Life and Beauty leaves no doubt that he is referring to the Giver in all those wonderful terms. It is God who makes the garden beautiful, refines the silver, gives life, and whose Beauty is reflected in all that's beautiful.
It's even more poignant when you reflect that Lewis here is thinking about his relationship with his late wife, Joy. All the good in her, all that he loved (and still loved) in her, ultimately made him look up in joy and thanksgiving to the One who made her, even in the midst of his grief.
Somehow it makes my sadness over the loss of a small patch of grass seem both less significant and more significant at the same time.
All these thoughts tumbled into this prayer-poem I wrote last night.
Giver of Green
Praise for the grass
and the tiny creatures
who shelter in the
forest of its stems
Praise for the rootlets
of wildflowers and
the clover heads thick
with tempting scent
that beckons to the bees
Praise for the morning dew
and the tracings of frost
like shining jewels
flung at our undeserving feet
But most of all
Praise to the Giver of Green
who grows my life with gladness.
~EMP 8/09
Lewis was writing (in A Grief Observed) about the "right ordering" of our praise. So many good things we love are deserving of praise, but our highest praise is reserved for the Giver of those good things.
"Praise in due order...up from the garden to the Gardener, from the sword to the Smith. To the life-giving Life and the Beauty that makes beautiful."
I love these lines. It seems to me that Lewis is saying our best loves, our deepest admiration, what we value most, should cause us to look up, even higher, to the Giver behind all those things. His capitalization of Gardener, Smith, Life and Beauty leaves no doubt that he is referring to the Giver in all those wonderful terms. It is God who makes the garden beautiful, refines the silver, gives life, and whose Beauty is reflected in all that's beautiful.
It's even more poignant when you reflect that Lewis here is thinking about his relationship with his late wife, Joy. All the good in her, all that he loved (and still loved) in her, ultimately made him look up in joy and thanksgiving to the One who made her, even in the midst of his grief.
Somehow it makes my sadness over the loss of a small patch of grass seem both less significant and more significant at the same time.
All these thoughts tumbled into this prayer-poem I wrote last night.
Giver of Green
Praise for the grass
and the tiny creatures
who shelter in the
forest of its stems
Praise for the rootlets
of wildflowers and
the clover heads thick
with tempting scent
that beckons to the bees
Praise for the morning dew
and the tracings of frost
like shining jewels
flung at our undeserving feet
But most of all
Praise to the Giver of Green
who grows my life with gladness.
~EMP 8/09
Friday, March 21, 2008
Good Friday
Jesus, name above all names,
Beautiful Saviour, glorious Lord;
Emmanuel, God is with us,
Blessed Redeemer, Living Word.
Beautiful Saviour, glorious Lord;
Emmanuel, God is with us,
Blessed Redeemer, Living Word.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
"How Deep the Father's Love For Us"
This morning we had eight baptisms at church, including the sons of two families in our fellowship group, and one new family in our church that was baptized all together... four children, both parents.
There are moments when a basement sanctuary and a bathtub draped in cloth become such tangible places of grace and mercy and hope that it brings tears. God can take such ordinary stuff, such ordinary lives, and use them for his glory. Nothing, in his economy, is ever plain or throw-away or not worth loving. I am deeply grateful for that.
This was the hymn we sang at close of service:
How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory
Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished
I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom
(lyrics by Stuart Townend)
There are moments when a basement sanctuary and a bathtub draped in cloth become such tangible places of grace and mercy and hope that it brings tears. God can take such ordinary stuff, such ordinary lives, and use them for his glory. Nothing, in his economy, is ever plain or throw-away or not worth loving. I am deeply grateful for that.
This was the hymn we sang at close of service:
How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory
Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished
I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom
(lyrics by Stuart Townend)
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