The other Mother's Day gift

It's not too late.
You still have the time,
for that which you can't afford
                                 not to do.
The sweetest sound
           in a mama's ears,
"Just callin'
for no reason at all."

The other day, I overheard a young woman
in the park, saying,
     "...I just wanted to call my mom."
Me too.
My mom passed to the other side of life
      now eleven years ago.
I would love to call my mom,
                       just because,
just wondering
                   what's up?
And know I love you
        in case you forgot.

Call,
Call,
Call your mom,
while she is still with you,
while you can,
when you can.
For nothin' at all,
         for everything.

I have no idea your relationship with your mom.
But as I have become older,
          I see my own mom in a different light.
She was imperfect.
She did what she thought was
          the right thing to do at the time
     which often didn't look like it, then or now,
those things I could not understand,
               but God has redeemed.

I have a lot more grace for her these days,
as I realize even more my own glaring imperfections,
my obvious mistakes,
my regrets,
my own misunderstood words and actions.

Your mama
          is always your mama.
No matter what.
And perhaps that is why God said,
"Honor your father and your mother,"
not because that changes her
      but ultimately, changes me
and how I love others.
       We are all imperfect, but forgiven.
Forgiving is laying down the baggage,
   letting go of the bitterness,
   not moving on and leaving behind,
                   but moving toward,
even when there is no response,
or no one picks up.
Those little calls
those little seeds of grace
work to change lives
                for generations
        because God changes you through it.

Mother's Day was created to say
           "I love you, mom."
The rest of the year is designed
                   to show her.

Call her often,
on the everydays
       that are not so ordinary after all,
not for what she can do for you,
              but because you can,
while you can. 

After my mother passed away,
I began calling my dad
at a certain time every morning,
    when he was so alone in his apartment,
    right before he ate lunch.
Often his news was the same
                 as the day before.
But no matter,
             it mattered.
             It mattered more than I could know.
     God used those calls
     to stitch up our relationship
and banish the silence between us.

It didn't just change his day.
                    It changed me,
an investment I can see now,
     in the lives of those who come after me.

Honor your father and mother
--which is the first commandment
                    with a promise --
so that it may go well with you
and that you may enjoy
            long life on the earth.

                   Ephesians 6. 1-3
                   Exodus 20.12
                   Deuteronomy 5. 16

Dog-eared pages

"We cannot all argue,
       but we can all pray;
we cannot all be leaders,
       but we can all be pleaders;
we cannot all be mighty in rhetoric,
but we can all be prevalent in prayer."

               -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon
                   1834-1892

Just keeping on

There are times in life,
seasons in being,
days when I am not quite sure where I am heading,
even what I am doing
       of any significance
       if at all.
But I can be assured
    that God works much deeper
   than what appears on the surface,
        beyond my own myopic eyes.

When I follow God just one little step,
what He places in front of me
         or that which sneaks into my heart,
He takes care of the outcome.
Take one little step of obedience,
    and the next step rises to the surface.

I read in the Wall Street Journal yesterday morning
about 85 year old Ed Whitlock who runs
and sets incredible records in his races,
faster than I could ever dream of running.

His training secret?
"Small loops for hours on end,"
             he revealed.

Endurance is established
           in our own lives,
God's strength in us,
through small obediences day by day,
sometimes a delight,
sometimes as Whitlock admits about training,
"...kind of a drudge."

But God uses
   even those drudge days.
God redeems
even what we cannot yet understand.

Faithfulness to God
       always bears fruit,
and through it,
God increases strength.

It is not the big events,
the marathons,
the crowds,
that bring Him glory,
but the small loops of faithfulness
      for hours on end.

There are no ordinary days
        in His sight.

And the LORD
    made His people very fruitful,
and made them stronger
               than their foes.

                        Psalm 105. 24

The God who is here

I was walking from the fridge to the kitchen table early this morning, from one task to another, the brightness of the day streaming through the back window.  And there on the counter top, which appeared to be clean, was the evidence of little visitors from two days ago.  With the new day's light shining on it and from this other angle, fingerprints covered one entire section of the surface.

On Monday, my husband and I enjoyed the day with two of our grandchildren, ages three and eighteen months. It didn't require Sherlock Holmes to reveal the proof.  Fingerprints revealed where our three year old grandson had eaten lunch, and later, a popcorn snack.  That evidence was not apparent to me until I saw it from a different perspective.

As I climbed the stairs to the playroom, I chuckled at the imprints on the carpet of what looked like a pace of sixty footprints an hour.  A stream of small toys were scattered in patterns across the room.  There was no question about who had been here. 

And I thought of God's designs even in this past week, so many ways that I have seen His hand on my life and in hearing the extraordinary stories of those around me.

God's fingerprints reveal His Presence.  His footprints show me the next right step. God is all over this.  And even though I might not realize it at the time, God is doing something incredibly good even in this.  I may not ever know the outcome, nor the end result, but I can know He is working.  God is not silent.  I am surrounded by His evidence and the reality of Who He is.

Things don't just happen in some kind of random lottery.
Things don't just happen for an aimless reason.
Things don't "just happen."
God brings His purposes with great design,
with intention,
     and always in His goodness,
no matter if we can see His purposes
                                                      YET.

And someday
      we may see these things from His perspective,
His fingerprints intersecting
                all over our lives,
His footprints like a network of paths
              all over our stories.
And sometimes we may never know
     until we get to the other side of life,
grasping not just the present,
but all that came before,
      and dimensions yet to come.

A friend just texted me to pray, "needing God to show Himself all over!"

Already a done deal.  God does not just exist.  God is.

His fingerprints are designed to show us that reality, not just the working out of a situation, answer to a question, or solution to a problem, but..."that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name." (Isaiah 45.3)

My daughter and son-in-law spark conversation at the supper table every evening by asking their young children three questions:  "What was good today?"  "What was hard (or bad)?"  And "how did you see God in your day?"

The children are ready with the stories of their day.  Because they are looking for Him and the evidence of His faithfulness, not just in the crises or "big events," but in the everydayness of life, personally inscribed with His name and theirs.  Look for His handiwork.  Watch for His footprints.

God grants great vision
         in the smallest details.
And even in mystery itself, 
  He allows His Presence to be known,
  in the substance of what is visible
and overwhelmingly by
         "the evidence of things not seen."
 (Hebrews 11.1)

Like so many little indications,
I can know the unmistakable evidence
                that yet He is here,
our mighty God at work.


Your way was through the sea,
Your path through the great waters,
yet Your footprints were unseen.

                          Psalm 77. 19

The Reluctant Camper

I rejoiced at every stoplight last Friday evening, because it was one more delay in getting there.  I was headed to a nearby YMCA camp for our church's women's retreat.  I didn't want to go.  Nothing new.  I had a history of not wanting to go on retreats.  And as usual, in anything I know I should do, I conjured up an impressive list of significant and pressing excuses to give me a valid reason why to not go.

Except this time, this year, not one of those very imaginative excuses held any water at all.

My husband encouraged me, my good friend signed me up for her cabin, there were no family emergencies, and the weekend was open.  Oh, nuts.

I pulled into the line of cars in the parking lot, prayed for guidance, and put on my big girl shoes.  As I carried my sleeping bag and duffel bag across the gravel, God impressed on my heart, "Did it occur to you that this may not be about you at all?"

Reluctance is not trusting God in this.

Obedience is never insignificant.  It spills out over everything and impacts everyone around you.  I just need to follow the next right step.

Indeed, to know the outcome just spoils the surprises God has designed.

The teaching of Scripture was deep, the fellowship rich, discussions triggered open new spaces in my heart, and I realized what I almost missed.

I lived out in the flesh what I tell our grandchildren, "When you disobey, you don't get your way, you are just the one who misses out."

At one point, I followed a new friend up the tower at the camp.  I was latched onto the zip line before I even really thought about it. Looking down to the ground below, every fear I have ever had was jeering at me.  "I can't do this," I said to this young woman.

"Yes, you can," she nodded.  "You are strapped on.  It will be fun. We'll race.  1 2 3... let's go!"

And I stepped off my insecurities into a new dimension of God's faithfulness. And on the ride, no fear at all, just the fresh breeze filling my heart.

I didn't die. I learned that is what trusting God is like.  In impossible places. In improbable ways.

And as God told timid Gideon, an unlikely candidate for a prophet, "But I will be with you." (Judges 6. 15-16)

It is not that I should trust God in this.  I CAN trust God in this.  He is faithful.  He is always faithful.

It is not what I took away from the weekend.
It is that God changed me through it.

Oh, what I would have missed.
And I have a feeling,
     I have seen nothing yet.