Trip or grip

We all struggle with something, that which is visible to others, or that which is hidden from view but very real.  

 

We can learn from the stories of others, not just how they coped but how they pressed on and lived through the hard stuff.  This summer, I read the memoir of the beloved children's author Beverly Cleary who passed away this past spring at the ripe old age of 104.  She did not just make up stories for kids.  She lived a very real story of her own.

"Make adversity work for you," she wrote in her 1995 memoir My Own Two Feet.  Beverly's life had not been easy.  Having lived through two pandemics, the Great Depression, two world wars, and a host of other personal troubles and mishaps, she approached difficulty with a great deal of creativity.  When hardship arrived, she did not just make the best of it.  She threw herself into it.  When the only job she could find was an assistant librarian in a small town, she learned as much as she could about children's literature, not realizing at the time that this very narrow and humbling experience--not what she would have chosen-- would set her up to eventually become a writer herself.  We know her best as the writer of children's books, her characters including Ramona, Henry Huggins and a mischievous mouse on a motorcycle. Her first book was not published until she was 54 years old.  More than 90 million of her books have been sold. 

Yesterday, as I ran a local trail through the woods, I dreaded the famed Farrell Road section, a sharp hill studded with massive roots strategically placed in the last sweaty mile, seemingly to trip me up.  I have been this way many times before.  And then as I was struggling up this path which I could not avoid, I realized that the meandering roots actually looked like a staircase.  Not to trip me up, but to give me a grip.  I could see this "affliction" differently and navigate it with a fresh vision.  The roots gave me traction. 

The first time I came upon this treacherous stairway of roots, I was dismayed.  But each time I run this hilly route, each time I encounter this hard place, it no longer defeats me, but it strengthens me for yet another challenge. 

"...maybe that's the real secret weapon:  believing that you have another gear," states PhD physicist and runner Alex Hutchinson in his book Endure:  Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance.

And maybe the real secret weapon is knowing it is not in me, but God.  We keep on discovering new dimensions of strength for our journey.  Not mind over matter, but His strength over mine, letting endurance have its perfect work, equipping us for the road ahead, wherever that may be, whatever it entails for our souls, and the story of His faithfulness that God gives us.

How do I approach this hard situation differently?

Blessed are those whose strength is in You,

     in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

As they go through the Valley of Baca

     they make it a place of springs...

They go from strength to strength...

                             Psalm 84. 5-7

More than that,

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.

                    Romans 5. 3-5 

 

Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters,

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

Unexpected Appointment

I am usually out the door early to catch a run before the heat of the day and my excuses catch up with me.  

Except this morning.  For some reason, I lingered after my morning reading.  Even fully dressed, shoes on, water bottle filled, I swept the kitchen floor.  Where did that come from?  I don't know why.  And then I left before the flood of other undone things could grab my attention.  Our sequence of events is not always chronological.....or logical.

It was not that I felt like I was falling behind, but navigating a different time table this morning.  I turned into the park entrance and noticed a number of cars in the parking lot, largely because it was later than I usually arrive.  As I pulled under the big tree to park, suddenly a friend of mine popped out of the car next to mine.  I haven't seen her in a while.

"Wow," I said.  "We couldn't have timed that more perfectly. Are you walking?" I asked her.

"Yes, I am waiting for a friend.  She should have been here by now," she remarked.  And then, my upbeat and outgoing friend uncharacteristically said, "I am not looking forward to this.  The last time I met her, she was overwhelming.  It was hard.  She was so difficult. I am afraid it will happen again."

A large SUV pulled into the remaining parking spot.  It was her friend.

There was no time.  I had no advice.  But I knew what I could do.  In the remaining seconds while her friend approached, I whispered to her, "I'll pray."  My friend introduced us, and then, I took off for my run in an opposite direction.

I chuckled at God's timing which is always perfect.  Those unexpected appointments-- "just happened to run into" moments-- never take God by surprise, but fulfill His eternal purposes, even in ways we may never realize.  For some deep reason, this situation was too strong for my friend, not something she could handle on her own but only by His strength and power and wisdom.  Prayer always brings the supernatural into a situation and produces a radically different path or outcome.

God's divine encounters are never random occurrences.  His faithfulness exceeds circumstances. The pieces do not just fit together in some curious way or another, but designed and engineered with precision, planting a seed, covering a gap, filling an immediate need that far exceeds our vision.

I prayed for my friend while I ran. 

And when I finished, she had already texted me:  "Delightful.  Easy.  Healing." 

An unexpected appointment.  An unexpected result.  The first bold step of reconciliation, the door now open for something new and affirming.

Never hesitate to ask for others to pray. Never hesitate to pray for others. It is part of what fellowship is all about to lift up one another in time of need and support each other in supernatural dimensions.  Something radically different is put into action, God is part of the equation, whether we see it now or not yet.

The prayer of a righteous 

         availeth much.

                  James 5. 16

And What -- If Anything-- Can Come Out of This?

 

Yesterday, my husband and I hiked an obscure trail first established ninety years ago but one that I had not hiked before.   As we proceeded down the rock-studded, root-tangled, and eroded pathway, we surmised that perhaps it had not been maintained in that length of time and obviously not often traveled.   

The trail itself would not win any awards, but the surrounding trees and accompanying creek made up for it.  And as we hiked deeper into the thick green forest, we called out “Hey bear!” and clapped our hands to keep from surprising the residents.  You never know what you’ll find around the next bend.

But fear did not restrict us.  And the wonder of God’s creation beckoned us to go farther.

At one point, within a half mile of our turn-around, an enormous tree had recently fallen across the trail, its leaves still green. A chaos of branches and the massive trunk formed an impenetrable road block.  “Time to turn around and call it a day?”  Bill asked, verbalizing the obvious. But then seconds later, more in character, rising to the occasion, pushing aside some large branches and grabbing hold of a steadfast limb, he suggested,  “Let’s see how we can do this.”

Up and over, we both pulled ourselves, not something I would have ever attempted on my own.  As we continued hiking, I realized that simple incidents, such as this, grant us the courage to face the daunting fallen trees on our daily journeys.  “Let’s see how we can do this” sets in place a different mindset, a creative challenge rather than instantaneous defeat.  God's faithfulness and strength are always discovered there.

Alongside the little clearing where we ate lunch, a thigh-deep rushing creek bounded over rocks and flowed down the slope.  Bill fished, catching far more than he ever expected, and releasing them back into the cool waters.  I sat on a large rock, drinking in the sights and reading Wendell Berry poetry that seemed as perfect lyrics set to the symphony around me.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We began hiking back up the trail towards the trailhead about four miles away, scrambling over the fallen tree which was no longer so daunting.  Bill fished along the way.  And then as the larger creek pulled away from the trail, little rock-hopping tributaries crossed our path.  At one point a stream was the trail.  My shoes became muddy and my socks soaked.  But that didn’t seem to matter any more.

At one dribble of a stream not three feet wide and maybe four inches deep, Bill laughingly dropped his line in the water.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Within seconds, he was no longer laughing, but delighted.  At the end of his line, as fast as he cast it, a beautiful unexpected brook trout appeared.  Who would have ever thought a fish that size could have come out of such a small patch of water?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And what -- if anything -- can come out of this?  This ordinary day, this mundane task, out of our own unnoticed hard work, this difficulty or impossible situation?  The adversary always claims "It doesn't matter," when indeed it does.  But God says, "Now watch what I do with this."

Faithfulness is sown in places that only seem inconsequential.  Fruitfulness sometimes emerges full grown in the most unlikely places.  Nothing is insignificant in God’s economy. No effort that He cannot use.

In our own little dribble of water, may we be amazed at what God is bringing out of the impossible.  Astonished at what God redeems.  Surprised at what God is up to.  And far beyond what we expect.  We rarely grasp what is below the surface.

 

They went out and got into the boat,

but that night they caught nothing.

Just as day was breaking,

Jesus stood on the shore;

yet the disciples did not know

      it was Jesus.

Jesus said to them, “Children,

do you have any fish?”

They answered Him, “No.”

He said to them,

“Cast the net on the right side of the boat,

and you will find some.”

So they cast it,

and now they were not able to haul it in,

because of the quantity of fish.

 

                     John 21. 3-6

School supplies

 

 

The beginning of the new school year always means the gathering of school supplies, for what is needed to navigate through the halls and schedules and lessons.

We send out our children and grandchildren with what is necessary.  Don't forget your lunch.  Where are your shoes?  Do you have your homework?  But amidst the notebooks and pens and devices, one more thing is most needful of all.  

The morning that school started a couple of weeks ago, in the midst of getting ready and leaving for the first day, one of our daughters and her husband gathered their four school-age children in the kitchen and prayed a blessing over them:

It is the LORD

    who goes before you.

He will be with you;

He will not leave you

       or forsake you.

Do not fear

   or be dismayed.

               Deuteronomy 31. 8

We would not think to send forth our kids without their needed supplies, but what about praying a blessing over them?

The Old Testament is filled with blessings spoken over comings and goings.  In our days, we rarely acknowledge with spoken blessings those times of heading into the unknown or facing the known.  How differently would we navigate what is before us if we went forth claiming His blessing in it, over it, and through it, even in what we do not know or expect?

Nothing is more powerful over fear and nervousness than knowing the LORD is with you. 

May we go forth the same into this season, not just claiming a verse, but being blessed by the Word of God.  Not just a reminder of who He is, but the steadfast promise of what His faithfulness means in real life.  God does not say there will be no bumpy places or really hard stuff, because in actuality we live in a broken world. But He is with us. That is truth we can stake our lives on.

We can daily pray this blessing over our children of every generation, big and small, grown and growing, a promise of which cannot be outgrown.

But we too can go forth in the reality of God's blessing.

Don't just recite those verses.

Pray it.

Practice it.

Live it out loud. 

"Do not fear.  I am with you."   What does that look like today?

All the Unrelated Pieces

These same little kindergarten grandsons of ours love to play with their toy magnetic tiles.  Scattered around the floor, they don't seem to make sense, just random pieces of every shape and size.  How in the world do they go together?

But even in that mystery, they play vigorously with the pieces, turn them this way and that, attach and detach, connect and cast aside, imagining great designs, even when patterns are not evident.  They rarely look at the structures suggested in the guidebook.  They know there is a lot more in the segments before them than someone else's pragmatic ideas.

 

The more they play with the pieces, the more they see in them, these hard, seemingly unrelated, strange geometric shapes.  And suddenly, great excitement erupts.  A great tower emerges from pieces that don't look like they would amount to much or don't seem to connect.  Like words that rhyme suddenly, like horizons coming into view after a long uphill climb, like the visible breaking through the invisible, like a big Fed Ex package unexpectedly on the doorstep.

And what of both the ordinary and extreme dimensions in our own lives, which lie far beyond our comprehension?  Those impossible things we just don't get, incidents that don't belong, stuff we'd rather ignore.  What in the world can God do with these strange and often broken pieces that don't appear to make sense in our eyes?

That is what the awe of God is all about.  His glory gets all over it.

In God's sight, there are no leftover pieces that do not fit.  We would be amazed not at what God might do, but how God is already redeeming.  We just need to sit with the pieces, pray over them, work with them, give it time, and try to navigate our way through.  God will direct our hearts.  

We need to remember that God never works in singular outcomes.  An odd jagged element that seems like an outlier may only be the vital piece of different experience, perhaps years from now.  And as with our grandsons, sometimes God takes apart to build something in us even more incredible.  He is not limited by our measly vision.  He is the Creator of the universe.

Sometimes all I can verbalize is "How did You do that?"

God builds upon our experiences to take us to deeper understanding of Him, another dimension of which we were not aware. There are no random words or broken pieces in His eyes, no leftovers or unusual shapes that He cannot use.  We try to get ahead of God, but God engineers everything.  Even what I do not understand, even what I may not see in my lifetime, God connects the dots.  He brings the sense to it.  Someday we will no longer wonder but will know and be astonished, "So that's the reason that incident happened when it did, how it did, and why it did.  So that is what it was for."  The wow of someday.  No random designs after all.  Only what we haven't realized yet.

Even the stuff that doesn't work out right now, even the stuff we mess up, God still redeems all the unrelated pieces.

What He builds in us today is only an equipping for tomorrow.  We are all still in kindergarten in our understanding of God's faithfulness.

 

...Who does great things

           beyond searching out,

and marvelous things

           beyond number.

                     Job 9. 10