The Whole Enchilada

"It's not what I want," my granddaughter said about the colorful rug her mom purchased for her new room. 

Her family had just moved into a different house the day before. Nothing but nothing felt familiar. She hadn't known any place else as home.  And this strange room certainly didn't feel like it at all, even with a new rug.  Even if it was pretty with pink and blue and various shades of green.

"I don't like it at all."

The rest of the room was a collection of half-opened corrugated cartons, a partially-assembled bed leaning against the wall, the precious stuff of her life looking like a jig saw puzzle that exploded.  

"What if you wait until your other stuff comes out of the boxes, like your bedspread and lamp? Think of the whole meal."

"Not gonna matter. Not gonna change my mind."

But later that night, her mom texted me, "She loves it."  Even the curtains left by the previous owner somehow coordinated.  Just took a little while for the other pieces to blend together.

So many things land in our lives that, well, like a strange new rug, we don't exactly like.  The biggest question is what we do with it.  Immediate rejection?  Or trust God for His sovereignty? And give God the elbow room to bring it all together.  Not as an unfamiliar piece to trip over, but something profound that God uses in our lives or for the well-being of others.  

"Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you react to it," once remarked pastor and author Chuck Swindoll. 

And to riff on Karen Swallow Prior's new book You Have A Calling:  God's calling on our lives may not be what we are good at, passionate about, or even like doing.  But it may be just part of the whole enchilada of God's purposes in our lives. What appears as a pitiful little piece often becomes what is vital, life-changing, and eternal.

I almost didn't accept my first job in journalism.  It was, as in the words of my granddaughter, not what I expected or wanted, writing about new products for a residential construction magazine for homebuilders.  I daydreamed of jobs in publishing in New York.  But God kept me where I was, writing about heat pumps, housing developments, and eventually publishing a book about solar energy.

I didn't care for that entry-level position.  But the things I learned about writing still impact me now, decades later.   I saw it as a job.  God intended it as a training ground.  The connections still emerge.

The strange and ill-fitting is not just a wrinkle to ignore or a problem to get over, but perhaps to embrace a new opportunity or direction or attitude.

 As a child, at every pothole or dead end, my mom recited, "If you have a lemon, make a lemonade." That's what kept her going in the many hard places in her life and greatly impacted the course of her life as a musician.  Trust Me in this.

How many times in life are we presented with that proverbial rug that we think we could do without?  An unexpected job change,  the mean teacher nobody likes, a move to a place we never would have chosen? What was God thinking?  Well, a whole lot more than us.

And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Colossians 1. 17 

And then....well, surprise, God works it out anyway.  He continues to reveal to us how they fit together in His overall story for us.  Some of the stuff we despised takes on a different hue in the rear view mirror.  We may not like it, but God still uses it powerfully anyway-- in our lives or a hundred other people around us.  How in the world does this odd-ball situation connect to anything else?  We may catch a glimpse of His purposes, but we just haven't grasped it yet as part of a complete meal or in God's eternal bigger picture.

This one ill-fitting or unpleasant piece, no thank you, I'll pass. God does not expect us to just grudgingly put up with it, but follow Him into it and watch how little disparate parts fit perfectly as into a Lego masterpiece, one tiny plastic brick upon another.

When making personal choices, the Iroquois culture mindfully considered how current decisions impact not only their own lives but to the seventh generation to come.  In Biblical terms, how we walk with God radically changes one generation to the next.  That ill-suited situation we encounter --or rug-- may become a family heirloom, an epic story, or perhaps a physical reminder of God's provision and faithfulness.  

We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD and His might, and the wonders that He has done....to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God.  Psalm 78. 4-6 

God does not promise that we will ever like particular situations, or understand why, but He calls us to be faithful in it.  Nothing random here.  What we encounter and how we pivot is never just about us but resounds for generations.

What we experience is not just a singular random event, or a matter of whether we like or don't like it, but part of the whole.  What is God putting together?  Not what this situation is doing to us, but what God is forming in us through this.  The furniture in our hearts may have to be moved around for Christlikeness to fit.

"I don't like it. I don't want to be here," we cry to God.  "But I want you to," He replies. "I need you to." We just can't see how it fits in. That doesn't mean it won't. Far below the surface of our whining, God's got a lot more profound stuff up His sleeve.  We're gonna need it someday. Remember, the whole picture.   

All things hold together. Even the hard stuff fulfills a purpose, deepens our breathing, confirms a direction, or keeps us faithful right where we are.  "I don't want it. I don't like it," is not the point of the equation, but watching to see God's masterpiece emerging from the mess.  The book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament starts with For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.  Habakkuk 1. 5

That verse does not promise glory, fame, and a house with a pool.  It is not our letting God into this, but letting God invite us in.  It is not that God will fulfill, but that He is already fulfilling in ways we may not ever expect.  God is a lot deeper than that.  He knows what He is doing. Imagine that.

And we just don't see it coming.  The rug actually fits perfectly. 

Habakkuk concludes two chapters later not with everything to our liking, not something less, but with resounding hope, on which we can stake our lives.

Though the fig tree should not blossom, 

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

GOD, the Lord is my strength;

He makes my feet like the deer's;

He makes me tread on my high places.

                 Habakkuk 3. 17-19 

 

 

Even Dropping The R

 

A couple months ago, I wrote about how God brings us through. But as we pray about our situations, we can drop the R.  Because God does not just carry us through. God carries us even though.

The word through implies movement in time, space or experience, from one definable point to another. The word though seems like we are stuck with what we didn't expect or want, or that something did not happen at all. 

Sometimes we are holding too tight to our own ideas about what should happen, gripping an idol, or (gasp) telling God what to do, when and how. But all along when we confront a rather jarring though, God is not restricting us, but radically enlarging our circumstances, our abilities, or our hearts.  God is using us for something deeper in His purposes.

After my first several years in journalism, at a weekly editorial meeting, the staff all knew that a promotion was going to be announced that morning.  I had been working hard and seemingly the next in line to move up a notch on the masthead. Then without warning, an associate's name was announced. And he received the honor. I was devastated.  I cried all the way home.

But little did I realize at that moment how profoundly God was ingrained in what looked to me as being bypassed for promotion.  Because God was making my path straight in a different direction.  In the next couple of years, God opened an even bigger door that I didn't see coming.  Not getting that promotion made it easier to leave the company when our family was relocating out-of-state.  And then, I was asked to write and produce projects as a freelance writer, ironically for the same boss.  Suddenly finding myself with three babies at the time in a remote location (and one more daughter to come), I was making more money working part-time at home than I did as a full-time editor.

Even though, because that, nevertheless, while in order to, so even..... Though is not an end in itself, as I discovered, but relates to a situation backwards and forwards.  As I learned in this circumstance, and numerous others in life:  "but little did I realize."

We are standing in the middle of the meanwhiles.  The story is not over yet.  The reality of God's Presence is not contingent on how we happen to feel that day.  Or what appears before us.  Even in what looks like is standing in our way.

Because we forget that God redeems the most impossible, inconceivable, unbelievable situations for our good and the well-being of countless others.  Not just redeeming sometime in the future, but in present tense. And not just about ourselves. When the outcome is not what we expect, God still redeems in one way or a million.  No matter what we see, no matter what unfolds, no matter if we understand or not, we can trust Him even though.

God sees us.  God hears us.  God is carrying us.

Though is a word of trust. No matter what.

Though is a promise of hope. God is redeeming. 

Though is a word of commitment.  I can stake my life on Him, even in this.

God is bringing greater good, even in what we see, even in what is completed far beyond our lifetimes.

Though is a word of Presence. "Do not fear. I am with you still."

God is with us. God is working. God loves us, despite the forecast, even so, nevertheless, and in spite of everything.

As we pray through our experiences, we can drop the R. God is true and faithful in bringing us through, but also in the thoughs of life.

In the through and in the though, we are changed by God, not defeated or lost or paralyzed, but stronger in unexpected ways and in uncharted territory.  We are not just enduring confusion or pain. God has not abandoned us. But God is binding ourselves to Himself, even more, even in this.

Though the fig tree should not blossom, 

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail,

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold, 

and there be no herd in the stalls,

     yet I will rejoice in the LORD. 

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.  

God, the Lord, is my strength. 

He makes my feet like the deer's. 

He makes me tread on my high places. 

                            Habakkuk 3. 17-19

 
Even though. And all the way through.

 

Because Of The Yet In It

It is in those long fallow periods of time when nothing seems to happen, God brings to the surface His mighty work.  We just haven't quite gotten to the yet.

Just a week or so ago, emerging from a patch of dirt and old mulch on the side of the house, a little bit of green began to appear.  And each day, just a little bit more.   The irises are coming back, I said out loud. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I sent the picture to our former neighbor up north, a nurturer of flowers of every kind.  But as she responded, "Ours look nothing like that!"  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She is still abiding in the yet of things.  Hers will emerge when the weather warms up, but not yet. We live in different parts of the country, and it appears, different seasons. 

It is coming, perhaps still not visible, His goodness growing under the surface, but it is coming.  Redemption comes in unexpected moments and seasons different for each of us.  God's favor appears in unlikely ways, not to surprise us, but for us to learn to trust Him.

Yet is not a word of wishful thinking, but of hope. Yet appears in the Bible 424 times --what is coming, what is waited for, and in Whom we can stake our lives.  No matter what is on the surface, God goes deeper than that.

I may see only barren ground, but God sees a garden still in the yet -- already growing, forming something new and strong and beautiful in us for His glory.  Even in the hard stuff, His favor covers us, even multiplying what is yet invisible to us.

That patch of dirt conveys not His absence, but His deeper Presence.

Plants that are called annuals last only for a few months.  But the perennials keep reappearing. In the deep of winter when the ground is hard as a rock, and it seems all color has disappeared, we can have hope, because of the yet in it.  Even then, God appoints His steadfast love to watch over us. Every day is a story of His faithfulness.  And as I heard an archeologist gleefully reply the other day, "Every day, a surprise." She knows the profound is still hidden.

Because of the yet in it, the flowers bloom every spring. The delight and suddenness should not take me by surprise. Because almost a hundred years ago in 1929, an elderly aunt on a fluke or by intention, transplanted a clump of mature irises from her garden to my mother's house when my mom was just ten years old. It is possible that was all this old woman had to share -- a gift of hope at the beginning of what would become widespread economic hardship. But a simple kindness is never a wasted effort.  We can never know how God will powerfully use those acts of grace.  Nor how it may encourage someone in time of hidden need.  Even a hundred years hence.

Those transplanted irises took root, spreading by growing thick underground stems called rhizomes, each shoot and root all connected, and forming new plants.  These plants increase so rapidly that the key to flourishing is to divide and share.

From that time on as my mom grew up, every time she moved, she dug up a clump of those irises out of her garden bed and transplanted them into a new location.  When my mom and dad grew old and finally moved to a condo, we dug up some of those thick roots. And in all of our moves, we too left behind a gift of ancient irises and planted anew. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And when they flower every year, no matter the storms, rocky soil, or drought, they remind me of the yet in our own lives.  Even when things look bleak, God is doing a mighty work, a thousand blossoms ready to burst into view.  Even then. Even in this. 

The blossoms don't last but a few weeks.  But they leave behind a promise of yet again.

What is God forming in me right now?  Maybe it is not yet a time of revealing.  Not just waiting. Not just watching.  But of growing in relationship with Him.  

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

   and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

   and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet

     I will rejoice in the LORD.

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

GOD, the Lord, is my strength.

He makes my feet like the deer's.

He makes me tread on my high places.

                Habakkuk 3. 17-19

 

On The Road Again -- Inktober 10 #nomadic

 
We moved a lot while our girls were growing up.  Our family was more like a nomadic tribe, transferring to a strange land for a few years and moving on to the next.  A friend once confided to me that I had totally messed up her address book with all our changes of residence.

My husband and I are now in our tenth location.  Many times I thought that surely this move or that would be the last. But God freed me from that myth a few moves ago.  My final destination is heaven. Anything in between, well, is just a rest area on the highway.

Years ago and just about every move between, God used a particular verse to change my heart and my mindset.

Not that I complain of want,
for I have learned,
in whatever state I am,
               to be content.

                 Philippians 4. 11

I chuckle, because written in the margin now some 40 years and nine moves ago, I had scribbled "even Tennessee."  At the time, I was a young lonely mom from Chicago with a two year old and a newborn in the Deep South in a house surrounded by cotton fields.  It was our first major move.  And I felt like a stranger in a foreign land.

Little did I know, not just the hardships yet to come, but the extreme joys, the deepening of our lives in Christ, over all those many moves and all those new places.  God taught me quite literally "in whatever state I am," to learn His secret of contentment.

Because whether it was Tennessee or Illinois or Ohio or Kansas or Iowa, I could dwell in Him.  He has strategically appointed me in that exact house, that particular block, that specific neighborhood, that city for deeper purposes than I will ever know, for His glory.

...the place where the LORD will choose, to make His name dwell there.  Deuteronomy 16.2 

And through the years with each bend in the road and huge changes, God brought me to observe that I have seen too much to question God in this.

The amusing part of "even Tennessee" is that's where we live now, our third location in that same state.

Contentment is not a secret joy,
      nor dependent on situation or location.
It is a learned state of heart
    that not just prevails over circumstances
but flourishes in them.

God's deliverance may not be in plucking us out of a difficult spot in life, but engraving His joy into our hearts in whatever state we are.

When I look back
on all those places now,
    there is not one
    that I would have wanted to miss.

The Grand Unfolding

 Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.  And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD…  Isaiah 37. 14

Not telling God an acceptable solution, or determining a particular answer, but spreading it before Him and seeking God in this.

When we lay it out all the pieces before the LORD, when we seek Him, God opens not just our eyes to opportunities that were not yet on our radar, He opens our hearts to His.  Not just “this is the way,” but walk with Me.  And in the walking, God unfolds something much larger.

When I began to write this posting, I had something very different in mind.  Great story, but I kept tripping up on it.  It just didn’t work.  My point felt forced. 

I scratched out what I thought, opened not just a new blank page to start over, but I opened my heart and listened.  You know, the parts of praying we all too often forget:  listening and responding.

Hezekiah put into words his despair, fear and worries about his distressing situation to the LORD.  God even worked on Hezekiah’s heart as he prayed.  By the end of his prayer, the only particular thing he asked was that God would be glorified “…that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone are the LORD.”  Isaiah 37. 20

That kind of praying begins to align our hearts with His.  And sometimes when it all plays out, that even we would know that above all else, He is God and we are not.  His glory does that.

It does not mean sit back, do nothing, let God do all the heavy lifting, and lay something on the doorstep like an Amazon order.  But follow Me into this.

Because you have prayed to Me…. Isaiah 37. 21 Everything is different now.  No matter the outcome.

How much do we miss in our experience of praying because we are seeking specific answers, and not necessarily God Himself?

In one season in our lives, when Bill was looking for work, as the weeks became months, our prayers radically changed from trying to find the right answer to seeking God in the process. We began to pray differently and to trust Him more.

 And that made all the difference in how we saw God, how we navigated our circumstances, how we saw others, and how we saw ourselves.  And how we saw His fingerprints all over what seemed like a million interviews, and rejections, and finally, a surprise at the end of that chapter, something we would not have even considered had we determined our own path.

God tweaked our hearts.  We were totally surprised by how He revealed Himself.  And continued to be blessed even in what we did not expect, even in unlikely places.  God never works in singular outcomes. We still experience new layers of His redeeming, now twenty years ago, paths we could not have ever imagined.

In the midst of that long, long year, I heard a sermon on the Minor Prophets in which the pastor’s “practical application” was, When you get to the end of this, you will have a story of God’s faithfulness.

Oh wow.  I wrote down those words on an index card as a promise and reminder of God’s redeeming.  The next morning, our twelve-year-old daughter came down to breakfast.  She hesitated by the card as she read it.  What a witness those words will be to her young heart, I thought.

She turned to me and said, “But Mom, that’s not true.  Every day is a story of God’s faithfulness.”

I clung to those words through that very hard season.  After all these years, I can still hear her voice, saying those words.

Praying helps us to understand that, no matter if we ever see an outcome, He is with us. His narrative is so much bigger than we can even wrap our prayers around.

Prayer is about our relationship with Him, not just seeing His hand, but seeking Him.

Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!  You have said, “Seek My face.”  My heart says to you, “Your face do I seek.”  Psalm 27. 7-8

The Box Means Nothing

 

 

I was nearing the end of wrapping Christmas presents, when I realized that once again, I was short not on wrapping paper, but on boxes.  In a galaxy far, far away, stores actually used to provide a gift box for your purchase. 

As our girls were growing up, they soon comprehended the reality of the dearth of boxes.  In absence of a gift box, I'd find some kind of package in which to wrap the gift.  As they pulled the decorative paper from the neatly wrapped packages, they rarely could guess the contents.  They would comment, "The box means nothing."   Whatever was printed on the outside of the box usually did not give a clue to its contents.  Surprises lurked within.  A shoe box might contain a long-wanted sweater.  A large carton might bear a small joy that was never so small.  

Don't judge the treasure by the box it is in.

At a recent gathering, I met a new neighbor who had moved into the neighborhood shortly before the unanticipated covid lockdown.  And in the midst of it, all the challenges of a new location and strange surroundings.  Lockdown meant her job radically transitioned, and quite suddenly, as for many of us, her work became remote.  Their guestroom became her office.  Her three daughters were also confined to home as schools were shut down. 

Eighteen months later, her girls returned to in-person schools.  But her work is still based at home until the offices are finally and fully reopened.

As one who has worked remotely much of my career, I always like to ask, "How do you like working from home?"

She hesitated for less than a moment.  "It was a gift," she replied.

She described the logistics of managing a large department of a national company from a small bedroom, continual zoom meetings, phone calls and messages that demanded her immediate attention.

"And it was a gift," she repeated.  For the first time in her long career, she was so proximate to her family.  Even long hours, hard work, and busy days did not often preclude her from having lunch together during her daughters' break from online school.  Her girls often just peeked their heads into her room and waved, or snuck in for a quick hug.  There was no arduous commute or long business trips to endure.  She found a blessing in what appeared on the outside as disastrous circumstances.

A very odd box was delivered to her doorstep.  Something she had not looked for....or ordered...not anything she thought she needed or wanted.  But when she opened it, God surprised her. 

What touched me was not just her attitude, but her heart set.  She looked for the gift.  Not for "maybe someday" or what was next.  But in the now.  She did not miss it for what appeared on the outside.  

And I thought, what if I considered this affliction of my own, this momentary suffering, this unknown path, this difficulty as a gift?  We all struggle with something.  And there is always something more that comes with it.

The box means nothing.  Look for the treasure within.  God packs blessings in unexpected packages, in unlikely places, and impossible situations.  Sometimes we recognize the blessing at first sight.  Surprise! But sometimes we question God.  This is not what I signed up for.  Wrong person, God.  Wrong address.  Return to sender.  But as it is accepted and grows, we discover a new strength emerging or resources we never knew we needed, custom-fit, right when we need it most. A surprise as well.  And always, God's faithfulness.

May we realize something different in this situation.  His Presence.  And that makes the significant perceived alteration of what appears on the outside and revealed within.

"Trust Me in this" in whatever strange box lands on your doorstep.  You will be amazed at what God brings to it.  

Count it as a gift in unexpected packaging.  See it redemptively. 

 

Now to Him

who is able to do far more abundantly

than all that we ask or imagine...

                Ephesians 3. 20

That Which Lingers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the early fall of 1929, a beloved aunt dug up some bulbs of her majestic purple and gold irises, and transplanted them in my grandmother's tiny yard in Fort Worth, Texas.  My mother was just ten years old.

People did things like that, back then.  They shared the practical cup of sugar with a needy neighbor, but they also shared beauty and joy.

Just weeks after those beautiful perennials were welcomed into the small garden, the stock market crashed, and the entire country was thrown into the throes of the Great Depression.  But all through those desperate years the irises continued to grow, blooming like a flag of hope every spring, gradually taking over that small plot of dirt.  And of course, without saying, in turn, the irises were divided again and again, and passed on to others as a defiant act of restoration, despite the hardships no one expected: the withering economy, the desperation of no work, the long sickness that took my grandfather's life when my mom was still a teenager, and then, the shocking jolt of another world war. 

In 1951, my widowed grandmother uprooted her own life -- and the irises-- and moved cross-country to help care for our family.  And then, par to course, every time we moved, some of the irises were left behind, and others were dug up and transplanted in our new location.

When my parents finally moved to Florida in the 1990s, my husband and I dug up a box or two of the iris bulbs, out of their overgrown yard. Despite our own many moves, we planted them wherever we lived, left some behind at the house and with neighbors when we transferred to yet another city, and brought along some of the beauty.  God uses us for more than practical purposes, but also, and maybe even more importantly through our actions, to bring beauty, hope and restoration.  God invented beauty, because He knew how much we needed it in this broken world.  And He knew perennials grow without ceasing.

And so, this morning, I spotted the first irises of this season, blooming with all abandon, their deep royal purple flowers calling attention to spring.  I feel like we are coming out of the dark tunnel of the pandemic, as if spring never happened last year.  We have no idea what is ahead in the months to come, but God does.  And He provides the beauty to sustain us, glimpses of Himself, day after day, season after season.

That aunt, so long ago we don't remember her name, had no idea what joy she was sowing and what beauty still beheld now almost a hundred years later.  We are so caught up in what we think matters, we miss that which lingers far beyond our lifetimes, even that which proclaims the faithfulness of God to those yet unborn.  And keeps on growing.

What am I planting today?  What will linger?

What's In Your Pocket?

My grandmother always carried with her, on her person, hidden away from sight, not concealed weapons, but resources in a way that no one would know, until a moment of need came to the surface. 

I was often the recipient of what she had saved up, kept secret, and made ready.  Small surprises appeared suddenly at the right moment, a homemade cookie seemingly out of thin air on a weary journey or a discouraging day, Chicklets or a crayon or two out of her pocket in the middle of a way-too-long sermon, or from the vast depths of her little sewing closet, a tiny trinket or card game.  Little treasures were waiting, patiently waiting, packed up, ready to go, just below the surface, and always, it seemed, just in time.

When my grandmother passed away, quite suddenly of a heart attack, it was not like she just disappeared, but her passing gave every appearance that she had departed for a long-anticipated party.  “You know where I’m going, and I’m not going to be hurting anymore,” she often reminded me. 

She was a stay-at-home grandmother, living with our family through my first sixteen years.  She was mostly restricted to our house due to her 45-year stint with rheumatoid arthritis.  She would laugh out loud –and reprimand me even now --at the thought of “limitations.”  She knew no boundaries.  Out of a few cans in the pantry, she created feasts for the family or unexpected guests.  Wherever we moved, barren soil laden with weeds and large rocks were simply her palette for a garden, resplendent with color.  She rejoiced over a few scraps of material, a worn out dress or an outgrown pair of slacks, nothing but nothing went to waste.  Nothing was insignificant in her eyes.  No one was insignificant in her heart. No one.

Even me.

No matter what she was doing, how busy her day, she always made time for me.  After all these decades later, that is still a treasure in my heart.  I would creep in and sit on the small chaise lounge in the corner of her bedroom.  Sometimes we talked, mostly I listened, but always we just enjoyed being together in those little pockets of time. She had a joy about her that had nothing at all to do with circumstances, either favorable or difficult, but on hope in God on whom she had staked her life. 

Of all people, she knew full well the definition of difficult.  But her creativity thrived on the impossible.  What can I do with that?  Even intense arthritic pain that kept her from sleeping didn’t sway her.  I often awoke in the middle of the night to the smell of brownies baking in the oven, or to the hum of her sewing machine.  “No sense wasting time just lying there awake,” she would say. Sometimes I thought, even then, the harder things became, only deepened God’s strength in her.

When she passed away, my mom began tearing apart my grandmother’s old woolen coats.  I was not surprised.  I knew what she was doing, but I thought I was the only one who knew. My grandmother had sewn in the hems of her coats, out of sight, a five or ten dollar bill, “for car fare,” she told me, “if I ever need it, just in case I am ever stuck somewhere…or my purse is taken.”

As far as I know, she never needed it for such an occasion, but she was prepared.  And as I suspect now, that money wasn’t about her after all.  She was equipped to help someone else in time of need.  I wouldn’t put that past her.  She saw life differently, she saw others differently, she saw needs of which no one was ever aware, and she was ready to do something about them.

It was not just a few dollar bills stashed away, sewn in hems and pinned in pockets, but her generous and loving heart, quietly changing with the love of God, her little corner of the universe. 

Nothing insignificant at all.

 

…and find grace to help

        in time of need.

 

                Hebrews 4. 16

Driver picks the tunes

While driving with our large family, there was often disagreement about what music to play:   the radio station, the CD, even the genre.  To break the logjam, my husband always commented, "Driver picks the tunes."

And as I found, quite literally in the car, in our home, in our relationships with impossible people, I have a responsibility as a mom to set the tone.  I can't expect stellar behaviors in others when I am the one with what we used to call a "bad-itude."

What tune have I chosen?  What demeanor am I playing?  How am I responding to what is swirling around me?  Have I listened to what I just said?

It may not be everyone else who is out of sorts, out of tune, not with the program.
But me.

We moved a lot as a family.  We are currently living in our eleventh location since we were married 38 years ago.  Particularly with moving school-age children, I realized that my attitude and outlook had a tremendous impact on our daughters.  These moves were hard -- and I acknowledged those feelings -- but I also knew that I could blend in a sweet attitude into it.  New friends, a new room, a new neighborhood -- all things that could be daunting were also a fresh opportunity.  I could let my own fears and "bad-itude" flavor the move, or I could a different spin on it.

Whether a new destination
        or an unexpected direction,
   every day, God leads us to a different place.
I don't want my own selfishness
      -- ok, call it sin --
to take me down a wrong path.
Words are non-returnable.
And kindness is never random.

All these memories and feelings swept over me as I read this verse this morning (which I also posted on my blog www.worddujour.blogspot.com.)

I hold back my feet
    from every evil way,
in order to keep Your Word.

                            Psalm 119. 101

In thought,
  in word,
  in deed,
    and particularly in attitude.
Beware the two red warning flags:
    when I justify how I am acting,
    and when others are the problem.

God's Word changes my heart.
And through Him,
   He grants me the power to compose
     a fresh tone, a new tune,
                   and a very different tempo.
     Even in this.
The literal translation of
                "Don't go there,"
  means exactly that.

Do I realize the impact of my heart on so many others around me?

Can I practice grace today
        in my very own impossible situation?

God gives me a different song of His faithfulness.
     Is that the one I choose to sing into this day?

Bringing hope and compassion and grace.
A fresh tone,
a new tune,
and a very different tempo.
              

From here to there and even now

In the margins of my Bible are written dates and places and names, when I have claimed a verse or two for someone, for a impossible situation, for a seeking of God in this.  Sometimes I have seen how God has answered, sometimes I have not yet.  Some things now, some things later, some things belong to eternity.

This morning as I noticed a number of dates next to a particular verse in Jeremiah.  It was like a parade of our many moves as a nomadic family, a variety of dates and places.

But what stood out to me was not the memory of moving yet again, but God's faithfulness, even in what we could not understand at the time, even into what only appeared as wilderness, even then, even there.  His steps were revealed in unexpected ways and in the most unlikely of places.  And God changed us through them.

I cannot know what is ahead, even today, but I can know Who is with me.  Be not afraid. Don't miss out on the wonder.  God is faithful.  I can stake my life on that.

...that the LORD your God
       may show us the way we should go,
and the thing that we should do.
         
                                Jeremiah 42. 3

Am I willing to follow God into this?
Am I listening for Him,
    am I listening to Him?
Never ignore
        the power of the supernatural.
God is at work in you
    and extraordinarily around you,
His purposes deeper

                than you can ever know.

           

And wouldn't THAT be incredible?

A week ago, we were dog-sitting our daughter's dog Lo.  At one point that afternoon, she dashed out the back door into our fenced yard to "greet" the neighbor's pair of golden retrievers.  A great barking festival ensued, each dog trying to out-bark the other.  When Lo totally ignored my pleas to "come," I ventured into the yard to get her attention.  Together we ran back and forth along the fence as if playing tag, until the other dogs went back into their house.

About an hour later, just minutes before our small group arrived for supper, I noticed in the mirror that one of my earrings was missing.  I scoured the floor inside the house, glanced over the boards on the deck, and reluctantly realized that my little loop earring must be hiding somewhere in the grass.  I looked in the area where I was chasing the dog, but I could not find it.

In the seven days since, it has rained several times, and the lawn has been mowed.  But this morning when I opened the back door, I ventured again into the yard with the wild idea:  "Wouldn't that be incredible if I were to find it now?" I thought.  "It would be so evident of God's hand if I suddenly spotted it in the grass -- something amazing that only God could do."

Even as I looked closely, my hand moving back and forth across the deep shaggy carpet of green and searching between the blades, I was thinking about what a great story that would be, if it suddenly appeared before me.

And as I searched, I thought about many other times when I tried to write a script for God, prescribing what would bring God glory, if He were to fulfill my great idea. "What if God did this...?"

I remembered one particular time long ago in a different season of life and a different city, remarking to Bill when we were on the brink of yet another corporate relocation, "That would definitely be of God, if He moved us there,"  I said, specifying a familiar place.

We were driving in our minivan with three young daughters in the back, and I was pregnant with our fourth.  Even after all this time, I can pinpoint exactly where we were on that winding road, because God nudged me, "And wouldn't it STILL be from Me if I didn't move you there?"

God had greater adventures in mind than I could have ever imagined, most often in places I would have never chosen and in what appeared impossible ways.  What we would have missed is staggering.

Over and over, it was not what I knew, but what I didn't know that proved God's faithfulness and His inconceivable purposes, divine appointments, and strategic encounters -- even in what I cannot yet see, even in what I may never recognize, even what looks like a failure, a huge loss, a bad mistake, or a big fat unresolved mystery, even if it doesn't make for a grand story, even if the earring remains buried in the yard.  All of the above.

"Trust Me."

And wouldn't THAT be incredible?

Now to Him
who by the power at work within us
is able
   to do far more abundantly
than all that we ask or think,
to Him be glory...

                 Ephesians 3. 20-21

Shelter in place

...in the place which the LORD will choose,
to make His name dwell there.

                      Deuteronomy 16. 2

As I contemplated the day before me, and sought the LORD in His Word early this morning, this verse popped out to me in the first couple of sentences I read.  A good reminder, I thought. Where should I go today?  What should I do?

I had underlined those words before. As we were raising our family, we were like a nomadic tribe as my husband was transferred to many places for his job.  There were dates jotted down in the margin.  One date from 1987 had the words next to it "news of another move."  I remember that place. At that time, I could not wait to get to the next location.  I guess I had claimed this verse in anticipation of pulling up our stakes yet again.  A new place?  Sure, LORD, when do we go?  I'm ready.  Get out the moving boxes.

As I thought about that date, I realized that in real time, we did not move for another two years from then.  I was ready to go, but God was not.  He had other purposes in mind.

And this morning, as I continued to read the chapters in front of me, I read the same words again and again and again, as if God was making sure that I didn't miss them.  Indeed, the same phrase appeared nine times in two chapters. 

A Bible teacher once pointed out to me that when the same word or phrase is repeated two or three times in a short passage, God means to highlight these words:  Don't miss this.  But repeated NINE times?   Did I get what God was saying yet?

As I wrote out the verse in my journal this morning to engrave it into my mind and my day, I thought about where God wanted me to go and where He was leading me, "the place where He will choose."

And the thought stopped me cold, "Why do I always think that is someplace else?"

I am thinking about going.  God is talking about dwelling.

"Shelter in place" is a term that is used in light of danger and disasters, such as finding a refuge in the face of an impending storm or tornado.  Don't go anywhere.  Stay right where you are.  Stop focusing on another place, the next thing, that other pasture, what someone else is doing.

Dwell here. Not just in my physical location, but in my mind, my heart, my attitudes, my vision.  And wherever I find myself today, as Henri Nouwen once wrote, "Bring the name of Jesus there."

God has deep purposes right where I am, His faithfulness all over it.

O LORD,
help me not be distracted from the present
by what is yet to come.
Fulfill your plans for me
              right where I am today.

Shelter in place.

A different landscape we could not see

Twenty-three years ago, we moved to Kansas City into a newly built subdivision, the houses lined up like so many cookies cut from the same mold, one after another, the same neutral colors, the same sod struggling to take root, the same spindly trees that barely met the builder's shaky promise of "fully landscaped:" a single sapling in the same position out front and a few fledgling boxwood bushes.  All the same, house after house.

The most outstanding feature of our backyard was a large hill of dirt and rocks leftover from the foundations of the houses around us.  Behind that mountain was an empty unsold stretch of land, so dry and barren that even native prairie grass and weeds struggled to survive, as desperate and bleak as the lone Kansas frontier.

I was reluctant to sign the paperwork.  I didn't want to be here.  And at the closing, I felt like God was saying, "Trust Me in this."

From the front elevation and the back, our view was unobstructed from one end of the block to the other, largely devoid of vegetation. The small trees we planted were visible only by the stakes holding them up, casting nary a shadow and bearing but a few leaves at all, sad, forlorn and out of place as a new kid in a junior high school cafeteria. I could see from our backyard all the way up to the school, a dozen houses away.  In the eyes of the neighborhood children, this was a paradise with no visible boundaries.  They roamed and played in what they saw as one huge yard. 

We lived there for just three years and worked with what we had, planting a perennial garden by the garage, nurturing a thick row of hostas to outline the front bed, and coaxing the sod to take root in that arid soil.

We made friends, volunteered at the elementary school, became involved in a church plant that rented space in a local school, and we proactively planted more trees to replace those that looked like they were already on life-support.  

Then, like a nomadic tribe, we moved again to another state.

Now, suddenly as in a time warp, twenty years and five more locations have passed.

A few weeks ago, my husband Bill and I drove to Kansas City to attend the wedding of a sweet friend.  One evening while we were there, we intentionally headed to our old neighborhood. We turned onto our old street, counting down the houses. When we arrived at our old address, it was like seeing something vaguely familiar in a dream, the outlines the same, the colors unaltered, a season of our lives long past.

We slowly passed by the house, turned around, and inched past it again.  But then, we stopped the car suddenly in the middle of the street.  We caught a glimpse between the houses into the backyard. The view took my breath away.  A virtual canopy of green shaded the yard, not quite a forest yet, but a far different landscape that we could not have even imagined in our wildest dreams, a rich oasis in full color.

God redeems the hard places.  God gives the growth.

...and He will make her wilderness like Eden,
her desert like the garden of the LORD.
                                              Isaiah 51. 3

Fruitfulness takes time.  Trust is what I cannot yet see.

You too may be wondering "What kind of wasteland is this?  What am I doing here?"  What we plant may not not be for us at all, but bearing fruit for people we may never even know.

I see a barren place.  God sees a forest.

Blessed is the man
     who trusts in the LORD,
     whose trust is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out is roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.

                               Jeremiah 17. 7-8


God has placed you
   strategically for His Kingdom.
You may not be able to see it yet,
but you can know,
God is altering the landscape
                      even here,
                      even in this.
  

My favorite place to live

We moved a lot while our girls were growing up.  Our family was more like a nomadic tribe, transferring to a strange land for a few years and moving on to the next.  A friend once confided to me that I had totally messed up her address book with all our changes of residence.

My husband and I are now in our tenth location.  Many times I thought that surely this move or that would be the last. But God freed me from that myth a few moves ago.  My final destination is heaven. Anything in between, well, is just a rest area on the highway.

Often, people ask me where was my favorite place to dwell.

The center of God's will.

I have realized through many experiences and locations that the center of God's will is not restricted to a certain geographic place, but my relationship with Him.

Years ago and every year between, God has used a particular verse to change my heart and my mindset.

Not that I complain of want,
for I have learned,
in whatever state I am,
               to be content.

                 Philippians 4. 11

I chuckle, because written in the margin now some 32 years and nine moves ago, I had scribbled "even Tennessee."  At the time, I was a young lonely mom from Chicago with a two year old and a newborn in the Deep South in a house surrounded by cotton fields.  It was our first major move.  And I felt like a stranger in a foreign land.

But little did I know, not just the hardships yet to come, but the extreme joys, the deepening of our lives in Christ, over all those many moves and all those new places.  God taught me quite literally "in whatever state I am," to learn His secret of contentment.

Because whether it was Tennessee or Illinois or Ohio or Kansas or Iowa, I could dwell in Him.  He has strategically appointed me in that exact house, that particular block, that specific neighborhood, that city for deeper purposes than I will ever know for His glory.

And through the years with each bend in the road and huge changes, God brought me to observe that I have seen too much to question God in this.

The amusing part of "even Tennessee" is that is the state where we moved again last year.

Contentment is not a secret joy,
      nor dependent on circumstances.
It is a learned state of heart
    that not just prevails over circumstances
but flourishes in them.

God's deliverance may not be in plucking you out of a difficult spot in life, but engraving His joy into your heart in whatever state you are.

When I look back
on all those places now,
    there is not one
    that I would have wanted to miss.