Even Then

Even my needs
       bring me closer to Him.
Even my pain
My desperation
Even the mysteries
    those things so far above
      and beyond the grasp
     of my finite mind
        and my myopic vision
Even my homesickness
      my longings
     my yearning that will only be fully satisfied
              on the Other Side of life
Even what appears to me
        so bleak
        so lonely
        so much "I don't get it"
Even in leaving everything
              everyone
          my comfort
                and call
Even in heavy rain
      winding roads
  and "remind me again,
         what are we doing here?"
Something more is going on
Something so much bigger
Something deeper
         beyond belief
         soaked in grace
He is preparing
     equipping
   revealing the incredible
           step by step by step
Just follow Me 

Even then
Even now.


Surely the LORD is in this place,
and I did not know it.

                      Genesis 28.16

Second Guessing and the Art of Auto-Correction

My grandmother, born in the wilds of Kentucky, traveled by covered wagon as a little girl when her family moved to the sun-parched plains of Texas.   As a young widow, she pulled up her roots and moved to New York to help my mom who had launched a career as a performer for a fledgling new technology called “television.”  Just a few months before she passed away, my grandmother sat with me in front of our own tv and watched Neil Armstrong take one giant leap for mankind.  “Imagine that,” she remarked, “from stage coach to walking on the moon.”

Even in my own lifetime, I have gone from pounding away on a manual typewriter to sending messages wirelessly from my phone.  I have already found myself explaining to young people about what it was like before cell phones.  Imagine that.

But technology has also made me cautious.  While I can text a message on my phone or even compose an email, technology threatens to push me aside, as if the software knows better what I am going to say.  It actually finishes my sentences for me, second guessing what I plan to write.  And while there have been a few close calls, the editor in me always checks what I have written.  Once when I sent a quick message to a friend about the used book sale at the library, my phone’s auto-corrected text read instead, “Are you going to be bi-polar today?”  It almost always changes Justin, my patriotic son-in-law, into either “justice” or “liberty.”  It capitalizes everything from Fourth of July, locations, people’s names, even Target automatically.

All except God

.

No matter how many times I type God’s holy name, no matter how many times I override and correct the technology, the worldview of my phone insists on lowercase “god.”  Everyone gets to be capitalized but God Himself. 

Imagine that.

Let them know that You alone,

         whose name is the LORD,

are the Most High over all the earth.

                         Psalm 83.18

Because It's There

In this purpose-driven culture in which we live, all efforts without a defined outcome are scorned as a waste of time. And so, one does not just go out for a run; one is training.  One does not just sit on a porch;  we ought to be be doing something - conversing, writing, or reading with intent in mind.  In one of my last conversations with my dad, his eyes were closed as I entered his room.  "Are you sleeping?" I asked him.  "No," he replied with his eyes still shut. "I'm thinking."

And so, with no grandiose objective in mind, my husband and I went for a little hike yesterday in the mountains.  The last time we had ascended Gregory's Bald, I had deemed the grueling route "the Death March."   But here was a different trail to the summit that we had never trekked before.  It can't be as bad as last time, I thought.  Famous last words.

It was an adventure just getting to the trailhead, literally off the beaten path, driving from an asphalt road, to a gravel road, and finally turning onto a narrow dirt passage.  We were greeted by a congregation of massive trees that appeared to touch the edge of heaven.  We moved deeper and deeper into the forest, navigating a path just wide enough for the car.  Enormous potholes took up residence where what was civilized had been washed away.

We parked the car in a clearing, donned our hiking shoes and poles, and headed into what appeared a different dimension.  The trail rose slightly.  No problem, I thought.  I can do this.  Within the first 1/4 mile, we passed a group of four young women on their way down.  "A little muddy," one of them advised.  I looked down at the trail.  Not too bad at all, I thought.

A little further, the trail steeper, and the mud, well, it was bad.

As we ascended, we ceased talking, just to keep breathing, the hill rising continually before us.  The mud had progressed into the status of a miry bog.  At one point, the mud was so deep it attempted to swallow my shoe in a single gulp.  But if I lifted up my eyes, the beauty of the trees was astonishing, forming a canopy of green over us.  At one point, we passed through a tunnel comprised entirely of rhododendrons, their blooms like the huge hairbows worn by little girls in the South.  All we could hear was an orchestra of birds and the slurping sound of our boots in the mud.

I knew that the trail was 4.5 miles to the top, but as we climbed I had no conception of time nor pace.  I dared not ask how much further.  I didn't want to know.  Each bend of the trail revealed another rise, moving deeper and deeper, steeper and steeper.    Almost there.  Almost there, I lied to myself.

And as I have experienced so many times in life, when I am moving along a mysterious trail of  "what am I doing here?"  God pulls out a surprise.   Quite suddenly, the trail turned, and there was a meadow on the top of this mountain crowned by flaming orange azalea bushes as far as I could see.

Our two-year-old grandson Howie is continually asking, "What dat called?"  And all I could think was the splendor of God.

We were motivated to head back down the trail by the rumble of an impending thunderstorm.  Downhill always promises to be easier, but it is in our comfort that we are most at risk of falling.  A steep ascent is always followed by a treacherous descent.  I know.  I once had a bruise on my hip the size of Nebraska to prove it.  We crept down the trail, our hiking poles kept our balance, the mud thick and sticky, as if reluctant to let us go.  We trudged onward through streams and navigated around tree roots that reached out to trip us.

I suddenly noticed that the songs of the birds had been replaced by the sound of applause, rain hitting the thick canopy above us.  As the rain became heavier and louder, we stopped only long enough to slip on our rain jackets.  Bill leaned down to look at something on the trail.  The rain was puddling in a very distinct pawprint of a bear.  Another twenty feet down the trail, I saw two more fresh prints.  And somehow, I gained new energy to pick up the pace.

The parking lot appeared in the midst of the downpour.  We made it.  Nine miles of mud.  We shed our muddy hiking shoes in the back and headed out.  Before we could reach a main road back to civilization, we stopped and bathed our muddy feet and legs in the chilly waters of a creek.

Few ever see this kind of grace.

In 1923, as George Mallory was preparing for his third and final expedition to Everest, a journalist queried why he would want to climb Mt. Everest.  Mallory responded, "Because it's there."

And why would we again trudge up the muddy side of this mountain -- or any such peak?

There is something in physical exertion, in stepping beyond complacence, to stand in the middle of creation surrounded only by the sky and birds, that gives my brain room to breathe, and my soul the space to stretch out and get a glimpse of the enormity of God.  It fills my lungs with fresh air and my heart with hope.

Why?  "Because He's there."

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From whence does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.

                          Psalm 121.1-2

On the Underside of Heaven

On my long slow trek to the neighborhood playground last week with our grandchildren, strong leafy trees created a checkerboard of shadows on the sidewalk.  As two-year-old Howie pushed along on his red garage-sale scooter, moving from sunlight  into the shade, he would announce in a loud voice, “DARK,” wondering what happened to the intense afternoon sun. 

“Howie,” I explained, “it is just the shade of the tree that makes it appear darker.”  His three-year-old big sister Maggie pulled up beside us on her training-wheeled bicycle.  “And it is so beautiful,” she declared.  I looked up.  We were literally covered by a quilt of leaves in every tone of green.  The pavement was grey, cracked, and broken.   Above us appeared the artistry of God on the underside of heaven.

I almost missed it.

I thought about that incident this hot summer afternoon as I ran alongside a swiftly moving creek through a fellowship of towering trees.  God did not just create the world, but embedded in us the ability to grasp what beauty looks like.  I do not have to teach “this is beautiful,” like I instruct our grandchildren “this is red,” or “this is the number 3.”   A small child inherently possesses the capacity to be moved by it.   Even those who do not believe in God, stand in awe of what He has done, that which is a mere fingerprint of who He is.

I have a friend who worked years ago in the photography department of a renowned architectural firm.  She once related to me an incident when she was reviewing the work of one of their photographers.  He had taken dramatic pictures of many of their award-winning structures, awesome in scale and stature.  But at the end of his portfolio, she discovered images he had taken of a magnificent tree.  The man-made buildings, she said, paled in the light of this creation of God. There was no comparison.   And the tree, a single tree, is what took her breath away. 

All of creation exalts His name.  And as the old hymn says, "His power throughout the universe displayed."

Let them praise the name of the LORD,

For His name alone is exalted;

His glory is above earth and heaven.

                              Psalm 148.13

Dog-Eared Pages

One by one, He pulled Scripture passages out of the storehouse of my memory, to remind me that they had been hidden there for just such a time as this.

                          Evidence Not Seen
                          Darlene Deibler Rose
                          page 173

(This quote is from one of my favorite books.
I am encouraged each time I read this memoir
of God's faithfulness.)