Dancing a Jig Over the News

It was a long time in the making, a steady pace in the praying, but suddenly last week, a huge answer to prayer came strolling in the front door.

And the sound of rejoicing was heard from afar.  A precious friend texted me this morning, “Just dancing a jig over all the good news.”

At the very first meeting of a Bible study two years ago, amidst a group of women I did not know, I raised my hand in the back of the room when prayer requests were being taken.  “Please pray for my daughter who is looking for full time work,” I said.  Women jotted it down in their notebooks.   I wondered at the time how many of them actually prayed.  And now, I wish I could tell them.

God always answers prayer, sometimes in ways we cannot ever expect.  When our oldest daughter was still just a little girl, she told us, when we pray, God answers our prayers like a traffic light.  Sometimes God says “stop,” sometimes He says “go,” and sometimes He says, “wait a minute.”

Just after our youngest daughter graduated from college and moved to a new city, she plunged into a job market that had deflated like an old inner tube, limp and lifeless.  And so in the midst of that stagnant economy, while seeking a full time job, she set about learning everything she could about her field by working as an independent contractor, freelancing as a production assistant for commercials, television, movies, and music videos. She faithfully worked hard, learning her trade from the bottom up.  It meant sometimes twenty hour days that included everything from the mundane to the absurd.   She worked with excellence in everything she did, and, more often than not, without thanks or recognition.   And our family’s DNA of stubbornness, once again, transferred itself into perseverance.

A couple of weeks ago, she heard word from a friend about an opening.  A few days later, she was offered a full time job in her field, building on those skills that she had learned over the course of two years.  It happened that fast.  She started last week.

Waiting in our culture implies that someone is late.  But God’s timing is always perfect.  His timing is not our own.   Sometimes, admittedly, our hearts aren’t quite ready for the answer.  We aren’t equipped yet for our next assignment.  We haven’t completed basic training.

And quite frankly, it is in the waiting that we finally recognize the hand of God.  Whatever is quick and easy tends to fuel our own pride.  “Look what I have done, look how good I am.”  And in the waiting, there is great learning, strengthening, turning and realizing God is really the One in charge here.  When it came down to it in my daughter’s situation, there was no question in anyone’s mind Who provided her job.  Even in the waiting, it is not a matter of IF God will answer our prayers, but HOW He will do it.

There is always tremendous purpose in the waiting. 

Never stop praying.  There are always deeper dimensions to prayer than an “answer.”  And through the process and the provision, God makes evident to you and to everyone around you what hope in Him looks like.

For not by their own sword

           did they win the land,

nor did their own arm give them victory,

but Your right hand,

and Your arm,

and the light of Your countenance,

              for You delighted in them.

                           Psalm 44.3

Not Quite Fully

My culinary adventures continue, somewhat side-railed this summer by the vast amounts of fresh cold watermelon we have been consuming.

Last week one of my daughters was visiting for the day.  Whenever we are together and time has allowed, our motto has always been, "Let's make something," which was quickly amended that day by "Let's make something with chocolate chips."  As she had a large amount of work to accomplish, the actual making fell to me.

On the Ghirardelli chocolate website, I found a recipe for chocolate truffle cookies.  I had all the ingredients in the pantry, except for the Ghirardelli 60 percent cacao chips that the recipe called for.  I had a bag of Hershey dark chocolate chips instead..

"Oh, those will do."  That comment should have sent up red flags waving.  That is where we trip up in our obeying.  I have often said, "Satan's greatest deceit is always 'It won't matter.'"

I followed the recipe carefully, knowing very well that my daughter -- the appointed family BAKER-- was in the next room.  I measured precisely, stirred rigorously, and baked them to the minute.  But even as they emerged from the hot oven, I could tell something was wrong.  "These don't look like the picture in the recipe," I said.  Instead of puffy morsels with a crackling across the top, my cookies were flat and appeared to have just melted onto the parchment paper.  They just weren't the same.

And so in our lives.  Obedience to God is not an adherence to a set of rules, it is an attitude. It is trusting Him all the way.  It is realizing that God knows what He is doing.  And when I question Him -- or insert my own ingredients into the mix -- well, the outcome is never quite the same.  There is a reason for it, whether I understand it at the time or not. 

What went wrong?  It was not a matter of following a formula, but following Him.

Has the LORD as great delight
    in burnt offerentings and sacrifices,
    as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
Behold,
            to obey is better than sacrifice,
      and to hearken than the fat of rams.

                       1 Samuel 15.22 

A Little Tweaking

September is a month of new beginnings.  I have always considered it the start of the new year.  Schedules resume, classes commence, and activities change along with the season.  And while resolutions are usually saved for January, a little tweaking in September can go a long way.

At the beginning of each school year, our family tried to troubleshoot the problems we faced the previous year.  With four school-aged daughters, we found school mornings bordering on the hectic and not a great way to start the day.  A little tweaking took care of some of the wrinkles.  Shoes, jackets and backpacks were lined up by the door.  Homework was completed, books tucked inside the backpacks, and permission slips signed and ready to go.  Lunches were made the night before, ready to grab.  Those little tweaks avoided a lot of angst in the morning.  It didn’t solve all our early morning glitches, but it helped us to avoid the obvious potholes.

I thought about tweaking this morning when my husband told me about his buddy Byron who owns a local fishing shop.  When Byron traveled this summer, he carefully observed what other fishing stores were doing well and what worked for them.  When he returned to his own shop, he made one singular change.  He moved the fishing rods from the loft to the main floor.  With that one little tweaking, his shop just had its biggest month ever.

What single little tweak do I need to make this fall? 

Most of the elements we need to make our lives more fruitful are within our reach.  We just need to make them more accessible, like Byron’s fishing rods.  If we need to eat healthier, keep a bowl of fruit on the counter.  If we want to read more (or our kids to read more), keep a basket of library books current and right by the couch.  It is not that we necessarily need to eliminate things, or jam even more into an already tight schedule, but make our priorities easier to grasp.

Make first things first.  And remember, anxiety is not one of them.

What does God's Word have to say about it?

Seek first His kingdom

        and His righteousness,

and all these things shall be yours as well.

                           Matthew 6.23

Still Running After All These Years

Yesterday, I ran my favorite loop with one of my daughters and her baby son who came along for the ride in a jogging stroller.  Running is one of the things that I enjoy doing with her.  We made that connection now almost fourteen years ago.  She was running on the high school cross country team at the time.  I needed to instill some exercise into my schedule.  What could this non-athlete do?  Kat encouraged me by setting my watch to beep every two minutes.  I would jog for two minutes, and walk two minutes, and then jog again.  It wasn’t much.  But it caught hold.

We forged a connection – something we could do together – and we are still running after all these years. 

If you are a parent, or a grandparent, or you are just trying to connect with someone to mentor, find something, find a connection, a mutual interest that you can build on.  As our girls were growing up, often that “something” changed from year to year as they grew.  But it is a precious place.  And it doesn’t just happen or emerge.  It is an intentional bonding.  I took a risk with many activities, from running to cooking to writing this blog.  Once I even joined a choir to make that connection, fearful that someone would realize I could not really sing.

My husband and I even read many of the same books that our girls were assigned in school or reading on their own.  That mutual activity introduced us to new authors, increased our literary knowledge, provided a great source of conversation, and allowed us to be more connected with what they were thinking about or learning in school.

Through the years, all those connections, those activities and adventures, shared experiences and talks along the way, those became the building blocks of strong abiding relationships.  When (not if), you go through shaky times in those relationships, you still have something to hold onto, until the storm passes.  And in good times, well, all the better. 

It’s never too late.

Letting In The Marauders

As a writer, a vivid imagination can be as valuable as the ability to type on a keyboard -- unless it descends in the middle of the night.  When all is dark and quiet -- or not so quiet -- one's imagination can play a stiff game of "what ifs?"  I woke up at 3.20 last night, wide awake and listening for the creaks and groans of the house.  "What was that?"  And my imagination opened the door to an army of "what if" marauders, dancing to old tunes and creating new fears.   "What if" opens the door to illusory fears of the unknown.

The Bible also speaks of a different kind of "what if," equally destructive.  Its other name is "murmuring."  That "what if" takes residence when we allow discontent to walk in our front door in all its many forms, such as "if only I was here -- or there --, if only I had a different job, spouse, child, figure, _______(fill in the blank), THEN I would be happy."  God delivered the Israelites from their Egyptian oppressors, parted the Red Sea for them, and within days, they were complaining, "Why, oh, why, did we leave Egypt where we had it so good?!?"

But my favorite "what if," opens up the world of possibility.  We have four daughters, all equally creative in different ways.  When they were growing up and confronted with problems, or limited resources, or a free afternoon like a box of Legos without instructions, they thrived in coming up with solutions.  "What if" was a game to them, no matter if it meant creatively combining ingredients for a recipe, or making up their own musical in the basement, or sewing together costumes from scraps of material.  "What if" became a freedom to them to reach beyond the ordinary, a contentment in what God can do.

And perhaps, that is what God intends for all of us.  What do I have here...?  God gives us new vision for what is right in front of us.

Now to Him
who by the power at work within us
is able to do far more abundantly
than all we ask or imagine...

                     Ephesians 3.20