In Ways We Cannot See

More than 35 years ago, a deeply grieving young man sitting on an airplane began scratching out some words to describe the deep ache in his heart, the hope to which he was clinging, and contemplating what God had to say about his tragic personal loss.

Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.  Behold, I am doing a new thing;  now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43. 18 

Several years later, someone happened to read what musician Don Moen had jotted down.  In 1990, a song emerged from it, and God poured His Spirit through it.  A month ago, I heard that song for the first time since I was a young mom.  The truth in that song, the hope that it displays, almost slayed me. His lyrics had stuck with me all those years:   God will make a way where there seems to be no way. He works in ways we cannot see. He will make a way for me.  

Composing that song, Moen made God’s faithfulness to be known, not realizing what God would do with it. He just did what God laid before him to do that day.  And that song gave hope decades later to someone he didn’t even know.  And that was me.  God changes hearts.  And He starts with our own.

No one may ever notice what we are doing today.  Or be touched by it.  But God redeems every bit. He knows it all matters.  It matters a lot. Because in God's economy, there is no division between great and small. God has divinely appointed us for this place and time, and for this work that He has placed before us. 

I cannot know if either what I write or do today will last a few minutes, end up deleted, unread, forgotten or ignored.  Or maybe, just maybe, help someone to know Him more.  But I can trust God even in this situation that He is continually working, not just in this day but for eternity.

Sometimes being faithful is sitting in front of a blank laptop screen all morning. 

For the past couple of weeks, I have wrestled with some writing that I started a while ago.  I added some more to it and deleted large portions that didn’t fit.  And by lunchtime, the piece looked like a teenager’s bedroom with little passages scattered all over like discarded clothes.  But then I went for a run through the woods. All the trees waved their hallelujahs above me, and gradually I had more words than I knew what to do with.  Sometimes, we just need to give time and wiggle room to our work, allowing God to sing over us with His Almighty voice, and bringing His glue to it. Even in ways we cannot see.

We ask You, dear Father, that our tiny efforts -- be it composing a song, making a meal, or simply saying a kind word to a child -- will empower someone to make it through the day, or navigate a shadowy passage, or finally walk out of the darkness into Your light, strengthened with a strength that is not their own.  Because You bring something beautiful to our work that we cannot imagine in really hard places where there seems to be no way.  Sing over us, dear Father, a victory song.  Even when we cannot see or hear it yet, we can know that You are with us all the way through and spread Your goodness over it in ways we never realize. But we know that in whatever it may be, You, O God, bring Your glory to it.

So also good works are conspicuous and even those that are not cannot remain hidden.  1 Timothy 5. 25

The fruit of faithfulness has no expiration date.  And it becomes evident in the most unexpected ways.  May God resound through what He has placed before us today. Not just faithful to our work, but faithful to Him. And let God run with it.

Just Start

 A seasoned author recently admitted that sometimes he doesn’t know what he is going to write about until he actually just starts writing.  “And eventually, patterns emerge that I hadn’t even seen before,” he points out. 

In any creative endeavor, as we write, compose, paint or sculpt, we begin to see something different not just someday in a final product, but in the process now.

In the same way, sometimes we don’t know how to pray about a certain situation, but when we just start praying, God changes not just what we see but how we pray.

We are often so narrowly-focused and near-sighted that we “calculate too closely either the limits of the possible or the sneakiness of grace,” says Ted Loder in Guerillas of Grace:  Prayers for the Battle.

In our all-too-finite petitions, we miss His glory in the grander narrative, in how it is really playing out, and how God is unfolding an intricate sacred design, visible only from the other side of eternity. 

It is not a matter of enlarging our field of vision, but trusting God by praying differently.  His response to our prayers extends far beyond an “answer,” and is certainly never confined to a singular outcome of our own creation.

Bible teacher and theologian Nancy Guthrie challenges us to consider what we are praying for in her essay Praying Past Our Preferred Outcomes, published by The Gospel Coalition.  “Scripture provides us with a vocabulary for expanding our prayers for hurting people far beyond our predetermined positive outcomes,” she writes. “Instead of praying only for relief, we begin to pray that the glory of God’s character would be on display in our lives and the lives of those for whom we are praying.”  

When we don’t even know what to ask or how to pray, God whispers to us, “Just start praying.”  And as we pray and seek Him, God opens our hearts, thoughts, and prayers to a universe of which we are not even aware. 

Now to Him who is able
to do far more abundantly
than all that we ask or imagine
          --[or pray]--
according to the power at work
                         within us,
to Him be glory…..
                       Ephesians 3. 20-21

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 

 

 

Today's Special

 

On a recent Saturday morning, one of our daughters was helping out a friend at a farmers' market. The counter in the booth was heavily laden with all manner of luscious baked goods, all of which would rapidly be purchased in just a couple hours.

That particular morning, the special of the day consisted of fragrant loaves of focaccia, one type with potato and thyme, one with fresh tomatoes, and yet another stack with figs and rosemary. Needless to say, the aroma lingered in the marketplace, and no big surprise, the loaves sold out quickly.

My husband and I also just spent the last few days of summer break, helping out with four of our grandkids.  To set the stage for the morning, I asked our ten-year -old granddaughter to decide what was today's special, what was her specialty for the day? Use kind words? Get along with the boys? And she and her brothers started reciting (and singing) the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. 22-23:  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

We don't have to limit ourselves to just one. 

It is not for us to just seek out how to fill the hours before us or how to manage the traffic jam of our responsibilities, but who to be today.  On what can we focus as a through line in this day: to be kind, attentive, or perhaps, faithful in the trenches? We cannot forecast what the day may bring, but we can respond with something different.

Not determining what sensational concoction we can make of this mess, but how to bless others and honor God.  How to seek out and pursue being joyful or loving in these circumstances, attentive to need, or exercising self-control in this situation. What is my specialty today?  

May we go intentionally into the day, ready to pivot around the potholes, be flexible when things don't go as we would want them, creative in the moment, not dwelling on "if I only had this or that," but seizing what we do have to make something beautiful.  Even if  five barley rolls and two fish are all that occupy our proverbial pantry. John 6. 9

There are no ordinary days -- only if we face them that way.  God never intended for us to miss the wonders that He has placed all around us. Or the opportunities. A hard thing may actually be a grace.  Choose this day whom you will serve...as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.  Joshua 24. 15

What should we intentionally infuse into this day that God has graciously given?  Not just what we are going to do, but how we are going to approach and navigate what is before us.  God is not going to demand, "Do this, do that," like an impersonal army commander, but asks us intimately, "What do you see? What do you have here?" Mmmmm, I have a lump of dough, a few potatoes and some thyme. Whatever it may be. 

Not just choosing Today's Special, but realizing Today Is Special, because God created it.  

This is the day which the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.  Psalm 118. 24 

Now watch how God can use us. 

 

To Love and Be Loved

Henri Nouwen was a man with an impressive resume.  He was a Dutch Catholic priest, professor, theologian, and author of 39 books and hundreds of articles.  As a professor, he taught for two decades at schools such as the University of Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard.  His classrooms were distinguished by standing room-only crowds of students and waiting lists to register for his classes, sometimes for years..

But at the height of his career, he left Harvard and chose to work with people who had intellectual and developmental disabilities at the L'Arche Daybreak residential community in Canada.  And it was there--in that unexpected venue-- that he discovered something even more profound about himself.   

In his book In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, compiled three years after his death in 1996, Nouwen details the radical change he experienced his last ten years of life:

"The first thing that struck me when I came to live in a house with mentally handicapped people was that their liking and disliking me had absolutely nothing to do with the many useful things I had done until then. Since nobody could read my books, the books could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction. . . . Not being able to use any of the skills that had proved so practical in the past was a real source of anxiety. I was suddenly faced with my naked self, open for affirmations and rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent simply on how I was perceived at the moment. In a way, it seemed as though I was starting my life all over again. Relationships, connections, reputations could no longer be counted on."

He lived among vulnerable people who had no idea they were labeled as "disabled," some of whom could not speak, get dressed by themselves, or able to wipe their own faces.  He learned how to serve even when unnoticed or pushed away, or without needing any greater accolade than an occasional hug.  Despite being highly applauded in the past, Henri finally realized love is not earned. He was seen, heard, and immeasurably loved just for himself. Henri discovered in their midst something much deeper going on.  He learned the truth of Luke 14.14:  ...and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.

"The experience was and, in many ways, is still the most important experience of my new life, because it forced me to rediscover my true identity. These broken, wounded, and completely unpretentious people forced me to let go of my relevant self — the self that can do things, show things, prove things, build things — and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishments."

 

He had nothing more to offer than to love those around him in practical ways, learn to love, and be loved.  His friends there didn't love him for what he had done, or what he could do for them, but simply because he was, as themselves, a child of God, bearing the same dignity as all those around him there.

 

Our hearts may desire to "do great things for God."  And sometimes our circumstances look far from that.  But as Henri discovered, we can always love others --not just for God--but to Him. And there is no greater calling than that. 

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.  Acts 20. 24

 

Find us faithful, O Lord. 

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.

 

The One That Didn't Get Away

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a long slow morning. No fish in sight, although we knew they were there.  No bites. No hits.

But in the most unexpected places and ordinary days, God surprises us in unsuspecting ways. Perhaps a fish in an unlikely stream. Sometimes a lot more astonishing than that.

God may not give us that big trophy fish we want, but He is generous in what we need ....or what someone else desperately needs.  Even if we may not realize it in that moment.

We go into a situation -- or even this day ahead of us -- with a lot of expectations, or none at all -- of what we will find, what we will do, or even what we think God should do.  But we have only to be faithful in following Him.

God does not call us to abandon our ordinary work or occupations, where He has strategically positioned us, but to see it differently.  God enlarges our vision.  He has rooted us in these places and postures not just for doing something to fill up our time, but by being responsive to the people around us -- ministering, blessing, encouraging, lifting up, bring the name of Jesus to this hard and barren patch of ground, and giving grace the space to grow there.  It is an exercise in "Trust Me in this."

Just an ordinary, mundane day at work, school, or wherever we find ourselves today?  Never.  See it differently:   the care of souls.  

And He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."  Matthew 4. 19

We may not catch anything we can take a picture of.  But stay at it.  And carry a big net.  God is giving us a bigger story. God is blessing people through us -- and for the most part, we are unaware of it.

The fish are there.  We just don't often recognize those opportunities scurrying through the deep.

I can never seem to see fish swimming in the streams.  But one time when my husband was fishing, I meandered over an old bridge, enjoying the view. I looked down below the surface of the water.  "Boy, that is weird how those rocks are all lined up like that," I thought.  And then I realized, those were not rocks, but huge trout lined up like planes on the runway at O'Hare airport. Oh, wow, was all I could say.

At the end of the day, fishing is not just about how many fish we catch, because if it was, there would never be enough. But surrounding us is what God brings into this day.  And that is always more than we can imagine.  Look up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enlarge our vision in this day, O LORD.

Keep us faithful even in the ordinary, even in the drought.

May we embrace deeper things in this day.

And be responsive to You.

Outstanding In The Field Inktober 25 #scarecrow

This week we embraced October by taking my mother-in-law to visit the botanical gardens.  It was like attending a grand gala, the trees and flowers dressed to the hilt against an azure sky.

Each year around Halloween, the gardens sponsor an exhibit of scarecrows, created by various organizations in town, everyone from third grade public school classrooms and girl scout troops to garden clubs.

 

Scattered around the gardens, these large fabrications were not scary at all but provided amusing artwork amidst the colorful foliage.

But scarecrows were not initially fabricated as Halloween decorations or even as autumn decor, but created out of desperation.  Farmers had to find the means of keeping birds from eating and destroying their crops.  This practice goes back as far as ancient Egypt.  Originally workers shooed away the fowls, sometimes even employing children to throw rocks at the birds, but to keep everyone working the land, they discovered that erecting a large human-like presence stuffed with hay in the middle of the field made the birds think twice about scavenging the produce.  These creations literally scared the crows.

It was the presence that changed everything. 

As it still does in our lives, recognizing God's Presence wherever we may be.  He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you will find refuge.  His faithfulness is a shield and buckler.  Psalm 91. 4 

We are not alone.  Do not fear. I am with you. How many times does God have to remind us of the promise of His Presence?

How differently would we walk into our days knowing He is right here with us?  God does not just show up.  He is already here.  We are the ones just now acknowledging His Presence...and not just in time of need.

Seek the LORD and His strength .

Seek His Presence continually.

                1 Chronicles 16. 11 

And that changes everything.

Too Busy Not To Read ---Inktober 17 #journal

This advertisement was part of the Wall Street Journal's #MakeTime campaign in 2015, featuring incredibly busy executives, industry leaders, and cultural activists who make reading WSJ a necessary habit in their schedules.

The sub headline for the campaign is "Read Ambitiously."  In these business leaders' eyes, it is not something they feel forced to do, but they see this daily reading as what equips them to make wise decisions and directs their attention to the most fruitful use of their time.  It gives them perspective.  And it helps them to differentiate between what is important and what is merely sensational.

If a newspaper can have that kind of impact on people in business, how much more does daily Bible reading have for all of us?  It is not words printed on recyclable paper, but the very Word of God.

In my own experience, it enables me to hit "reset" every morning, to refocus on God's bigger picture and the significance of His details in my day. Scripture informs me not just about God but about the world, it shapes who I am and consequently impacts what I do.  It is not some arbitrary ancient writing, but connects, infiltrates and impacts my day, and it affects everyone around me. God's Word gives me a fresh perspective on my day, my life, my work, and my relationships.

There is a direct connection between what I read in God's Word and the day that looms ahead of me.  I can't afford not to read it.  By making God's Word first, He places ideas in my thoughts that change my day, and often, save me from a wild goose chase or heading literally in the wrong direction.  And He changes my heart, so that I know how to respond.

As one of my pastors once said, "Every time I open God's Word, it changes me and everyone around me."

It is not just something else I ought to do.
It directly impacts everything I do.

When I read in the early morning, I write down a verse or even part of a verse that God impresses on my heart through a particular passage. And I take it with me into my day.  Those same words quite often rise to the surface during the day like a reminder to refocus on God's purposes, a reminder to be faithful to Him in all things, even in this.

It is not just another obligation to check off a list.
Intentional daily time in God's Word
                        changes our lives.
It is not a matter of keeping up with a reading plan
or a schedule,
          but marinating in it,
                meditating on it,
           and letting His Word dwell within.


I will not enter my house
or get into my bed,
I will not give sleep to my eyes
or slumber to my eyelids,
until I find a place for the LORD,
a dwelling place for the
           Mighty One of Jacob.

                       Psalm 132 3-5

A place in my day,
in my schedule,
in my heart.

In A Galaxy Far, Far Away....Or Not ---Inktober 12 #remote

When I was working for a homebuilders' magazine way back in the late 1970s, I had an hour and a half commute each way from my apartment in the suburbs to my office cubicle in downtown Chicago. I walked a mile to the bus stop, rode the bus, caught the train, and then trekked another mile across town to the office.

I wrote most of the day not on a screen, but paper scrolled into an electric typewriter.  And then, at the end of the day, I slipped back into my walking shoes (or boots) and reversed my course.

One day I asked my boss, if I could work at home a day or two a week, to get the copy done.  "You want to do what?" he asked incredulously. "In what galaxy do you think people would work from home?"

Needless to say, the term remote working would not enter our vocabulary for many decades later.  I continued to commute.

And then, everything changed radically.  We moved from Chicago to small town Jackson, Tennessee in the early '80s.  The magazine still needed me to write on assignment. And we discovered not if I could write from home, but how.  Federal Express was in its infancy.  As long as I got my floppy disk to the small airport by 8 pm, Fed Ex would deliver my copy to the office by 10 am the next morning.  Imagine that!  And then another decade down the road, the internet anchored my freelancing while we raised four daughters, in several more remote locations.

Remote working, remote learning, TV remotes (no, we didn't have one of those either), and now since covid, even remote tele-doctor appointments.

But there is one thing not remote, never has been, and never will be.

For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.  It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?"  Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?"  But the Word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.     Deuteronomy  30. 11-14

God is not remote.  He has given us His Word on that.

Where Stories Go To Die

Every writer has a file (or a hundred) full of second, third or fiftieth drafts, tales that ran out of gas, amputated poems, stories with a title but no ending, postings never posted, assignments not completed, and great ideas suspended in outer space.

I was recently intrigued by the title of Julia Alvarez’s latest novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories.  What happens when a story isn’t told, when a narrative is hidden, or a chronicle never shared?  Her protagonist had boxes and boxes of untold stories which she attempted to bury or burn. 

It’s a cemetery for stories, the woman replies.  Con su permiso, how does one bury a story?  If a story is never told, where does it go?

Well, I personally know that they exist pretty much in broken down boxes in the upstairs closet and in the subterranean world of my laptop.  The other evening, I found an entire cache of blogs I wrote but never posted, notebooks of poems scratched down in college and train stations, and cartons of paper-clipped short stories silently waiting for a someday that has yet to come. I hadn’t thought of it as a cemetery. But I stand convicted as charged. Is there still life in those words?

If a story is never told, where does it go? 

Many writers get paralyzed by whether it really matters whether we write this story or that, a journal entry, blog posting, a song, an essay, poem, letter, memoir, or novel.  But if we don’t write it or share it, where does it go?

One does not have to be a poet or author to tell one’s story.  We all have stories, and so many languish untold.  We are packed with stories, not just of incidents and adventures but personal chronicles of God’s faithfulness.  The other day my cousin shared a story about a casual conversation that changed the course of her career.  “I never knew that about you.”

How impoverished we would be if David had not written down his psalms, totally unaware that thousands and thousands of years later, we would still cherish and even memorize his heartfelt words.  JRR Tolkien did not have an idea, character, or story, but a language he invented that no one else spoke or understood.  But he took great joy in writing down his great trilogy of stories, treasured, read and reread now for seventy years.

If a story is never told, where does it go?  If we bury those words as in The Cemetery of Untold Stories, if we hide in the ground the coins we have been given, it is more than just a shame.  (Matthew 25. 25)  Because no story is one dimensional, but multiplies exponentially in the lives of those with whom it has been shared, one generation after another. 

What coins have we been given?

What if no one reads it anyway?  But what if they do?

What if no one cares?  But what if it changes someone’s life?

We can never know how our words impact others.   The poet Malcolm Guite recently recounted an incident when someone was deeply touched by a poem of his.  He chuckled, “The poem meant more than I did.”

Whether others read it or not, we can be faithful.  Because even in the midst of writing it down, God changes us through it.  Every time.

We sit.  We write.  The page is not really blank, but waiting.  The late Irish poet Seamus Heaney once encouraged writers to “listen to the music of what happens.”  And by writing it down, we make room for something new to abide in that space, without which we would be so much poorer, so unaware of the music of the spheres that we do not even know to listen for.

God is the master creator of stories.  He started the world with the grandest story of them all:   In the beginning…..  He is the Word.  He connects our lives in such a way that stories couldn’t help but be invented.  We learn about the world. We learn about Him.  We get a better grasp of who we are.

What really matters is responding to God’s nudges, not to be a famous or mediocre writer.  But a faithful one.

And those are the stories that endure, not to be passed over, or die anonymously in a dusty forgotten sepulcher, but to bear even more fruit beyond our imagination. But not beyond His.

Whatever your hand finds to do,

   do it with your might.

             Ecclesiastes 9. 10