Passings

I read today that an old friend is in the last stages of his life; the family is keeping vigil and friends are praying him into God’s arms.  It makes me think of all the people that pass through my life.  This friend was kind to me, made me laugh, gave good hugs and wonderful shoulder rubs when my muscles were screaming after hours and hours of playing my guitar and leading worship music.  

It’s interesting to think of the different communities and circles of friends – those that stay with you for a shorter time and those that stay with you longer.  Life is so transient, so full of change and redirection.  All that change leads to changes in circles of friends.  I’m not really sure why that is; I’ve never been good at letting friends go, at saying goodbye.  I’m like Peter on the mount of transfiguration; I want to make this permanent, hold on to it!  But Larry touched my life for a period of time and I’m sad that he’s leaving the earth but happy for him that he’s going home to Jesus.  I pray for the Lord to welcome him home; that Larry will hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” and that he’ll know the glory of total and perfect healing.  

Should I have stayed in touch better?  We weren’t that kind of friends – just stayed in touch through Facebook. So many levels of friendship, of sharing; and yet we still have these circles where we touch each other’s life and heart and make a difference.  The shared memories, the conversations, the laughter, etc. all are a gift for however long we have them.

So, God bless Larry.  Comfort his family and friends that are keeping watch as he passes into your arms.  Let him know I’m thinking about him if that makes a smile in his heart and thank him for me – for his friendship and kindness in those wonderful seasons with Cursillo.  He blessed me and I pray I was a blessing to him.  Give him a big hug from me; and Lord, would you rub his shoulders and tell him I said “thanks”?

The Unchanging One

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.  (Hebrews 13:8)

How thankful I am for the truth and reality of that verse.  Maybe it's because I'm getting older but I can't recall another time in my life when I've experienced as much change in one year's time.  It's astounding!  Friends have come and gone, major illness has struck
my family, major life changes are happening all around me - some very, very good and some not so good.  I sometimes feel I can hardly catch my breath from one event when something else rolls through and leaves me spinning.  How could I possibly continue with any degree of sanity and faith without knowing that our Lord is the ever-present, ever-faithful, ever-constant, loving, strong presence in this life?

In two conversations yesterday, I was reminded that it's the presence of God that we must seek first and foremost.  All the striving to do the "right" thing, the good thing, pales in comparison to being in the presence of the Lord.  I know how much I need that solid, unchanging presence of God. The awareness of his nearness, his direction, his strength and comfort is what enables me to keep on putting one foot in front of the other in the midst of all these unsettled days.  

Most mornings I wake up with a song playing in my mind. I have no idea where that comes from, but it's a rare morning that it doesn't happen.  A couple of weeks ago, during an especially difficult and spiritually dry time, the tune playing in my head was "As the Deer".  Two of my devotional readings for that day included the psalm that tune is based on, Psalm 42.  The first two verses reflected the state of my soul so well:  

As a deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, 

for the living God.

I think the Lord was gently pointing out the obvious to me.  It took the three different encounters with these words for me to recognize my own need - to put words to my unsettled feelings.  How sweet God is to nudge us, to call us into his sweet presence, to invite us to come and be still and sit with him a while, spend time in the presence of the One who is always the same, always IS.

God is calling us to choose.  Do we choose to follow him, to draw close to him, listen for his direction, his guidance, his loving words?  Or do we choose to follow the world's ways, to struggle through under our own power, striving to do what is expected and perhaps feeling like we don't quite measure up?  How long do we have to struggle along, feeling spent and exhausted before we answer the call to Be still and know that I am God?

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.  Thanks be to our God!

Going to the Rock

Does this ever happen to you?  Waking up in the middle of the night, you find your mind whirring with thoughts and worries that won't go away and you lie there unable to go back to sleep for all the fretting going on in your head.  I call it the midnight crazies and I hate when it happens.  Last night was one of those nights - where do these thoughts come from?  The same things can be reasonably handled in the light of day but in the wee hours of the morning, they're catastrophic.  It took me a long time, many nights of the midnight crazies to finally work out a solution:  prayer.  duh.  There's a wonderful prayer from the service of Compline in the Book of Common Prayer and after many consecutive nights of sleeplessness, this prayer came to mind and I prayed it over and over until I realized when I woke up the next morning that, as usual, prayer works.  Here's the prayer (I change the pronouns to make it personal):  Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping that awake we may watch with Christ and asleep we may rest in peace.  

Reading my Bible readings appointed for this morning, my favorite psalm was in the list:  Psalm 91.  I didn't get very far in the psalm before these words jumped out at me:  'My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.'  As familiar as this psalm is to me, I had to stop and linger over those words.  God IS my refuge and my fortress.  He is the one I run to during the midnight crazies, during the stresses of the day, the worries over friends and loved ones.  I truly have no one else to turn to with the same degree of trust and assurance.  1 Peter 5:7 exhorts us to cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.  He cares about us and he cares for us - seeing to our needs, our concerns, our joys, our every need.  He is our rock - that strong and solid place of security and rest; he is our fortress - that place of protection from the things that can harm us; he is our Shepherd - he knows each one of his sheep by name and tends lovingly and gently to each one of us.  

The Gospel of John recounts the story of the followers of Jesus turning away because of his teaching that became so hard to understand.  Jesus asks his twelve disciples if they, too, are leaving him and Peter replies:  Lord to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God."  It truly is through walking out this life, day by day, worry by worry, prayer by prayer, that we come to know that we, like Peter and the disciples, have no one else to turn to; we come to KNOW in the deepest part of us that Jesus is, indeed, exactly who he says he is.  When we come to that realization we know Jesus is our Refuge, our Fortress, our very present help in times of trouble (Ps. 42).  He is the Rock of our salvation.

I pray that no matter how difficult things may be in your life right now, or how easy they are, that you will come to know without a shadow of a doubt who Jesus is - how very real he is; that you will come to see him and know him as your Refuge, Rock, and Fortress.

Caring and Surviving

I'm learning a lot about what it means to be a caregiver.  I'm learning, hopefully, how to reach out to people in similar circumstances.  The strangest thing about it for me is that I don't know what to ask for when people ask how they can help.  Part of that may be because the little child in me wants somebody to make this all go away while the adult in me knows I have to keep on putting one foot in front of the other.  I'm learning things about myself that aren't so pretty but I'm finding traits emerging that I didn't know I had.  All these things point to God's hand at work in my life in the midst of this horrible trial. I long for the day when I can enjoy the blessing of hindsight, the gift of looking back and seeing what God has done - how this looks on the other side.  

I feel so guilty when I find myself sighing from fatigue as I walk into that hospital again and make the hike up to my husband's room.  At least I'm going home to my own bed while he has to stay in the hospital and deal with the struggles of recovery, depression, discouragement.  I deal with those same things, too, but have the advantage of seeing the many signs of a miraculous recovery.  While I inwardly sigh about making this walk on day 31 of this journey, I can rejoice that God has and is indeed healing my husband in miraculous ways.  I hear his nurses using this "M-word" and know that God is being glorified, that the power of prayer is witnessing to the power of God's presence in our lives in a personal, intimate way.  Healing is real.  God is real.  Doctors, with all their knowledge, training and expertise owe their skill to the Giver of this knowledge.  I was so blessed and will never forget hearing my husband's doctor ask for prayers on our long night of waiting 31 days ago.  God is being glorified.

There's a passage in Scripture that always makes me shudder a little bit when I read it.  For me, it's one of those "good-for-you" things that you'd rather not have to deal with or be reminded of:  (from Romans 5:3-5) Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.  The transforming power of God is perfect, good and loving but it is most definitely not always easy.  Yes, there are times when it seems he miraculously transforms us; but it seems to me that most of my transformation has been the kind that I think of when I read the verse above; the transforming that is accomplished by the Lord's loving and necessary pruning of my unfruitful "branches".  I do know, however, that on the other side of this journey I will be able to look back and give thanks for the fruit that was produced by all this pruning.  

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

"And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

Storms and Peace

I've been away from my blog for quite a while.  I've missed the time writing and the little nudges from the Scriptures when I read my Bible in the morning -- those verses that jump off the page and send me off on my rabbit trails that end up on my blog.  Instead, my life has been in a major upheaval.  No matter the outcome, my life has changed completely.  And, I suspect, my faith is on the same roller-coaster of change.  

My husband has been in ICU for 3 weeks following a scheduled surgery that ended up with major complications which almost resulted in death.  Throughout the night of the surgery (long, long 18-hour vigil) I was texting urgent prayer requests which were being passed along to our prayer team and our intercessors.  The surgeon requested prayer, the family and friends sitting in the waiting room were praying, the chaplain came and prayed with us; the whole long night was being bathed in prayer.  And he pulled through.  

I've asked questions, the what-ifs, wondered what I would do if the worst happened.  I've been surrounded and cared for by my dear friends and family.  I've had daily times of completely falling apart.  I've ranted and raved at God.  Typical grief responses.  I've walked into the ICU room on one day and been so encouraged by what I'd see only to go back another time and think something else.  Exhausted, numb, frustrated, comforted, loved, deeply aware of God's peace, angry at God . . . the roller coaster ride so many of us have been on when there's a crisis in our life.  

I wish I could say that my response to all this has been to fall into God's arms, to reach for my Bible and sit in my special chair to hear from the Lord and be in his presence.  But I've been so much on some auto-pilot way of functioning that it seems all I can do is go to the hospital and try to function around the house and take care of 3 dogs.  And have a meltdown now and then.  But my sweet Lord has been so very near and present even when I felt nothing of his presence.  I've seen him in the faces of the people that have showed up, called, texted, prayed; in the face of my sister who has listened to me go on and on about how hard this is and has shown up to bring me a meal, take care of the dogs and let me rest; in the face of my son who has flown home to help out; and I've felt his peace break through my tears and rants and calm me in the midst of this storm.

So many times, I've exhorted others on the importance of Christian community:  "There's no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian."  My relationship with the Lord is so incredibly, deeply personal and intimate; and it's so incredibly about my community and how the love of Jesus shines forth through these dear people God has placed in my life.  My son, who is a "baby" Christian of a little more than 3 months has encouraged my 30+ years of walking with the Lord with his reminders of God's sovereignty.  My friends and family have rallied round in ways that I'll never forget.

The storm is still going on but the waves are calmer, my meltdowns have stopped (for now); I'm still moving one day at the time but am feeling myself emerge out of a dense fog more aware of God's hand at work in the life of my husband and in my life.  "The Power of Prayer" is the banner that should be hanging over that bed in ICU; in the heavenly realms, I suspect that it is.  The nurses are calling Jerry, "Mr. Miracle".  And, speaking of those nurses, I hope there is a special mansion in heaven prepared for those dear women who have hugged me, celebrated with us, prayed for Jerry and encouraged all of us.

In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” 

(John 16:33)

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. (John 14:27)

The Power of God

... so that your faith may not rest in the wisdom of man but in the power of God. 
1 Corinthians 2:5

Today I read the story about Peter and John healing the lame man (Acts 3:1-10).  He was asking for help - financial help.  Peter directed his gaze intently at him (Acts 3:4 AMP).  What was he seeing?  What was he thinking?  Was he listening prayerfully to his Lord?  Peter directed his gaze intently at him.  Apparently, the man was not looking at them.  Were his eyes downcast in shame?  

He was a beggar, dependent on others for everything; including his way of getting to the gate where he could beg for alms; his whole life must have felt driven by begging.  As he sat by the gate, all he'd see were the legs of those passing by.  It would have been physically uncomfortable, even painful, to continually look up all day long into faces going by; it was much easier to keep his head and eyes down. What a pitiful, shame-filled life he must have lived with.  No wonder he didn't meet their eyes!  I can't even begin to imagine how he must have felt, how isolated, lonely, even invisible.  It would seem everyone was so used to his presence and cries for alms, that they just paid no attention to this daily ritual.  This man, physically lame and emotionally crippled, must have had no sense of belonging, of being loved and cared for, of even being heard or seen - until Peter and John came by.

The wisdom of man, the power of God:  the wisdom of man is familiar, feels safe, more immediate and present; the power of God is mysterious, beyond ourselves, on its own timetable, beyond our control.  The wisdom of man would say that the life of the lame beggar was the best he could hope for.  The power of God said, "rise up and walk!"  The power of God looked and saw this invisible man, restored him, restored his identity, his person-hood.

Peter said to the man, "Look at us."  Eye contact with another for perhaps the first time in who knows how long?  Peter took him by the hand - the power of touch, human contact, fellowship.  Immediately the use of his legs is restored; no, not restored, created!  The man had been lame from birth.  Suddenly, he was able to walk, to leap; and, perhaps for the first time, he was able to enter the temple with friends walking and leaping and praising God (Acts 3:8).  What a beautiful picture!  This once isolated, ignored, avoided, crippled man is entering the temple with his new found brothers, praising the God who never overlooks anyone.

The wisdom of man is a gift from God but is limited and, in our fallen state, imperfect and flawed.  The power of God is limitless, perfect, pure.  Trusting in the wisdom of man can leave us anxious, fearful, uncertain, even misdirected.  Waiting on and trusting in the power of God brings life, light and far more abundantly than all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

We, like the man in Acts, are all crippled to some extent; we can feel bound by circumstances that seem beyond our control.  May we trust in God more and more, wait patiently for him, be willing to step out of God's way and watch him work.  As in this story, the more dire the circumstances, the greater the opportunity for God to be glorified.  We can trust him.  We can loosen our grip on the things or circumstances that have us the most anxious or fearful.

O Israel, trust in the Lord!

He is their help and their shield.

O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord!

He is their help and their shield.

You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord!

He is their help and their shield.

The Lord has remembered us; he will bless us;

he will bless the house of Israel;

he will bless the house of Aaron;

he will bless those who fear the Lord,

both the small and the great.

Psalm 115:9-13

Mountains

I came across this devotional that I wrote several years ago. It really spoke to me today so I decided to add it to my blog.  It's always amazing how God is at work in my heart teaching, preparing and guiding me long before I actually need the very thing he's teaching.


After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. Matthew 17:1-2

When I read this passage, the words that caught my eye were “high mountain”. The three disciples followed Jesus “up a high mountain”. How high? How rugged? How long did it take for them to hike to the top? How strenuous was the hike? For the first time I focused on what was going on before the transfiguration.

How many times have we prayed, “Lord move this mountain”? We’re faced with an uphill struggle in life – something that feels insurmountable – and our response is to avoid it, go around it, or simply have it “disappear”. Perhaps the mountain is part of the journey – part of the lesson God is teaching us. Unless we follow Jesus up that mountain we won’t see his glory.

As Christians, we talk about wonderful “mountain-top experiences”: times of great worship, fellowship, or special times of celebration. It’s as if we expect to be supernaturally transported to the top of that mountain. And sometimes that’s true. We attend a great conference, concert or event and bask in the spiritual “high”. But other times, Jesus invites us to follow him up a hard path – a long, difficult path. But, oh, the view at the top! The disciples with Jesus that day heard the voice of the Father, saw Moses and Elijah, and saw Jesus in his transfigured glory. That would have been worth whatever it took to get to the top of that mountain!

It could be that the next mountain in your way was put there by God. He may be inviting you to follow him and see his glory. The passage says that Jesus led the disciples; he will lead us as well. We won’t get lost if we keep our eyes on him. If we stumble on our climb, he’s there to catch us and put us back on our feet. He knows when the climb is getting too strenuous and when we need to rest. And, best of all, he knows the view at the top of the mountain and wants to share it with us.