In The Multitude of My Anxieties

"Unless the Lord had been my help,
my soul would soon have settled in silence.
If I say, 'My foot slips,'
Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up.
In the multitude of my anxieties within me,
Your comforts delight my soul."
~Psalm 94:17-19

As a child, I loved flying.
In fact, I loved it until September 11, 2001.
My anxiety increased with each trip taken after that.
In 2010 I stopped flying
when the Obama administration
instituted its new security measures against even innocent American citizens.
Since then, I have taken some long car drives,
and even a long train trip (which I recommend heartily).

But earlier this month, we were asked to come out
and be introduced to the church.
It was an internal wrestling match for me.
I intended to send my husband alone, and stay behind.
I am that courageous.

Some of you fly without anxiety, I suppose.
Perhaps being irradiated in the name of security doesn't bother you.
Perhaps being pulled out for additional screening
every time you've flown (save one) since 2003 doesn't disturb you.
But it has disturbed me.
Maybe you don't mind surly blue-shirts who question your clothing choices,
look suspiciously at your glasses,
yell at you for not knowing where to stand,
and make your children cry.
But I have minded.

I suppose the turmoil was because I felt I ought to do it,
and had no intention of doing it, regardless.
But I love Jesus, and I want to please Him.
In distress, I prayed about it in spite of my determination.
And after praying about it,
I opened up my Chequebook of Faith devotional and read this:

"'Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, 
and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out' 
(Deuteronomy 28:6)
...I have a good deal of work to do within my own soul; 
oh for a blessing upon it all, 
the blessing of the Lord Jesus, who has promised to abide with me.
I must also go out.
Timidity makes me wish that I could stay within doors, 
and never go into the sinful world again.
But I must go out in my calling,
and I must go out that I may be helpful to my brethren,
and useful to the ungodly...
Oh for a blessing upon my going out this day!
Lord, let me go where Thou leadest,
on Thy errands, under Thy command,
and in the power of Thy Spirit."

I flipped through a book by Oswald Chambers that same day,
one I had not looked at in years.
Its title?
So Send I You.
"The stamp of the saint 
is that you can waive your own rights and obey the Lord Jesus."
I told my husband I would go with him.
Knowing me as he does, he had not insisted.

These anxieties are thorns to me.
Painful, irritating limitations.
Messengers of Satan to torment me.
They slow me, and hurt me.
Handicap me.
And as with Paul, who begged the Lord to remove his thorn,
the Lord answers,
"My grace is all you need.
My power works best in weakness."
They hold me down, and make me weak,
but when I lean on Him to walk through them,
they give me power.

Having opted for a pat down instead of being scanned,
and having encountered a very polite and respectful agent
who did not yell at me or act irritated with me,
I walked through the airport toward our gate.
We weren't in a hurry.

As I looked around,
my eyes fell to rest on a display set up on the way to my gate.
"The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in."
(Psalm 121:8)
There was a Bible open in the display case.
Two verses were highlighted in it.
They happen to be significant ones to me.
"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord,
'He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him will I trust.'"
(Psalm 91:1,2)

And He did preserve our going out and our coming in.
Thank You, Father:
in the multitude of my anxieties within me,
Your comforts delight my soul.

Therefore I Have Hope

I opened my Facebook this morning
and saw one of those things
posted by Christian friends with good intentions,
hoping to stir up in you the perfect parent
and thus lead your family into a state of unmatched perfect outcomes,
never yet seen in the world.
That was how it felt, anyway.

Don't forget: everything depends on you.
If you fail to be perfect in parenting,
husbanding,
wife-ing,
and general citizenry,
all is lost,
and your children will lead the next pagan revival.

Honestly I didn't even read the post.
I have enough anxiety about my performance,
and the results of my performance
without reading it.
Maybe it was a truly helpful post.
But its title looked unbearably guilt-trippy and depressing to me.

And when a child in my house informed me this morning
that I 'was bearing false witness against them!' 
by requesting that the pan cupboard be straightened up,
knowing that particular child
had shoved everything into it topsy-turvy in a haze of daydreaming,
I lost my temper.

The bickering between this one and one other has worn me down.
I am tired of hearing pointless arguments
and contradictions without cause.
And snotty little comments made to provoke tears.
And denials of reality when reality is that the child is a space cadet,
and walks around putting things in odd places,
whether the places and actions are remembered or not.
And it was the last straw.

I did not bake some cookies to correct the misinformed little soul.
I failed to keep my cool.
And probably ruined all future hope of happiness and prosperity for the child.
Maybe of Christianity, too.
Although I did apologize,
and the child apologized,
and we hugged one another and forgave one another.

It says that if your brother has something against you,
go to him and be reconciled.
It doesn't say,
"If your brother has something against you,
you are obviously damned
because Christians never do wrong by each other,
and don't need to ask forgiveness of each other."

It isn't our perfection that sharpens one another, I think.
I think that where it says,
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another,"
it's more about friction than lubrication.
Sometimes I wish there was less to sharpen in me.

My husband texted me, "Broken people beget broken people.
If it wasn't for the Lord, what would we do?
He is strong.
He will hold us up."

Feeling like a jerk, I sat down and looked over a few blogs,
hoping to glean a little grace.
And my eyes fell on one of my favorites,
which was quoting a Scripture yesterday:
"This I recall to my mind,
therefore I have hope:
The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness."

And it's from Lamentations -- a bit of grace in itself.
'Compassions' are multiple.
'Lovingkindnesses' are multiple.
Unfailing.
Unceasing.
New every morning.
And strangely enough, though I am a Christian,
I need them again today.
Maybe you do, too.

There is reason to hope.
Though my lovingkindnesses stopped with six words said to me,
and my compassion probably didn't even get out of bed this morning,
His was new again, as ever.
And His faithfulness is great.

Have mercy on us sinners, Lord,
and sanctify our dirt-born lives.

Those Things Which He Lacks

This morning I was praying for my son,
and thanking the Lord for the gift that he is.
Asking for help in nurturing him:
that we would strengthen his weaknesses,
and encourage his strengths.
I was thinking about the way he sees things
and understands ridiculously complex concepts,
while struggling to form written sentences on paper.
And before I knew what I was saying, I prayed,
"Lord, thank you that his brilliant mind is handicapped.
Please cause him to lean on You in trust
for those things which he lacks.
You are good, and You do good."

And it hit home.
"Lord, I also lack much that I need to excel.
In me, I cannot find all that I need."
Ah, but I remembered:
In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
"In You, I can do valiantly.
Help me, Lord.
Thank You for my lack.
In my helplessness, You make me trust You."

I was thinking about David's prayer,
when he said the Lord had made him to trust
while he was at his mother's breast.
A breastfeeding infant is a powerless person.
But for David it was a place of trust.
Later in his life, he said the Lord had trained his hands for battle,
and taught him to leap walls.
It was the same person who did both:
laid there, helplessly nourished by his mother --
and fought Goliath and lions and bears.
A helpless infant, and a mighty warrior.
A fleeing refugee, and a conquering king.
A cave dweller, and a palace owner.
A hotheaded man bent on revenge,
and a man showing mercy to his enemies.

Broken and Gilded

We took our children to the Museum of Fine Arts on Saturday,
where there was much to wonder at.
In the Asian arts section, a strange shape across the room caught my eye,
and I walked over to look at it.
It was unusually shaped, glazed and gilded pottery of some kind.
I read the plaque explaining about it.
The artist (Yee Sookyung) had collected potters' discarded fragments --
so many pieces that were broken and tossed out
by those who knew what they were doing.
Professionals with tasks at hand had done their work,
and when a piece did not measure up, sent it to the trash pile.

But an artist had a plan.
Collecting these useless broken pieces,
she set out to use an ancient technique for pottery repair.
Gluing each piece together carefully,
she formed a misshapen vase out of those pieces rejected by their owners.
But she wasn't finished when she glued them.
Each broken edge, glued to other broken edges,
made one by her skill, was gilded.
All the breaks were painted with gold.

The finished piece
was certainly not what any potter would have set out to form.
But an artist did.
It is called a "Translated Vase".
And while the pots those professionals made
were probably sold in shops to be used in households,
the artist's work is displayed in an art museum.
Every day, hundreds of people walk past it,
and they look at the gilded edges of broken discarded trash
and they read the name of the artist.

God, being rich in mercy, 
for his great love wherewith he loved us, 
even when we were dead through our trespasses, 
made us alive together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved), 
and raised us up with him, 
and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus: 
that in the ages to come 
he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus: 
for by grace have ye been saved through faith; 
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 
not of works, that no man should glory. 
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, 
which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.
~Ephesians 2:5-10

Keep Close, My Soul

I am a day behind in my One Year Bible reading, if today is September third.
Note my lack of confidence even in the date.
I am reading the New Testament readings, and the Psalms and Proverbs.
Today, Paul described his ministry --
and I felt like he described my lack.

"We live in such a way that no one will stumble because of us, 
and no one will find fault with our ministry...
We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind...
We prove ourselves by our purity, 
our understanding, 
our patience, 
our kindness, 
by the Holy Spirit within us, 
and by our sincere love...
We serve God whether people honor us or despise us, 
whether they slander us or praise us...
Our hearts ache, but we always have joy."

I don't know about you, but even without anyone else's help,
I can find fault with my ministry.
My endurance is weak.
My understanding is severely limited.
My patience is more than it was, and not near what it should be.
My kindness is small.
Sometimes I wonder, "Lord, is Your Holy Spirit in me at all? 
Do I imagine Your leading?"
And when my heart aches, it aches.
I grieve easily.
How can I ever live up?

Somewhat downcast from this passage,
I opened up my Chequebook of the Bank of Faith and read this
(also a day behind):

"Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord" (Hosea 6:3)

Not all at once, but by degrees shall we attain to holy knowledge, 
and our business is to persevere and learn little by little. 
We need not despair, though our progress may be slow, 
for we shall yet know.
The Lord, who has become our teacher, 
will not give us up, however slow of understanding we may be; 
for it is not for His honor 
that any degree of human folly should baffle His skill. 
The Lord delights to make the simple wise.

Our duty is to keep to our main topic, 
and follow on to know, not this particular doctrine or that, 
but Jehovah Himself. 
To know Father, Son, and Spirit, the Triune God, 
this is life eternal: let us keep to this, 
for in this way we shall gain complete instruction. 
By following on to know the Lord, 
we learn healing after being torn, 
binding up after smiting, 
and life after death. 
Experience has its perfect work 
when the heart follows the trackway of the Almighty Lord.

My soul, keep thou close to Jesus, 
follow on to know God in Jesus, 
and so shalt thou come to the knowledge of Christ, 
which is the most excellent of all the sciences. 
The Holy Ghost will lead thee into all truth. 
Is this not His gracious office? 
Rely upon Him to fulfill it.

~Charles Spurgeon

On Sunday, my brother-in-law said this:
"Lay down your apprehensions and pray,
'Lord, what would You have me to do?'"

Every Stone In A Wall

I am a member of AAA.
Our first year of marriage, we locked ourselves out of our car three times,
and have mostly maintained membership since.
As a member, I receive AAA Northern New England Journey magazine.
They often have articles that interest me.
But two days ago, I sat down to read one about New England's rock walls.
I love our rock walls.
In fact, I engineered one myself several years ago.
In the AAA article, it mentioned a workshop two men were giving
to pass the craft on.
It's a skill that could be lost, if it isn't taught.

The article explained some of the principles behind building one.
For stability, the wall cannot be plumb.
It tapers in a gentle A shape, the weight at the bottom.
But this really caught my attention:
"When mortar isn't involved, just two things hold a wall together: 
gravity and friction...
Always maximize the contact between stones; the friction is important. 
When a stone is placed correctly, 
it's almost a visceral  sensation, according to Headrick.
'You can feel that stone serving a purpose 
when it clicks into place and fills a void,' he said.
And yet, as he and MacMartin acknowledged, it is rare to find a perfect stone.
'Every stone is going to have a virtue and create a problem, 
and the key is to create a problem with a solution,' said MacMartin. 
'It's like chess or Tetris. You always have to think ahead.'
One solution that appeared to take some students by surprise 
was the use of so-called hearting stone, 
angular wedge-shaped pieces 
measuring anywhere from three to five inches in diameter. 
Those stones comprise the heart of the wall, 
shimming the spaces between the larger stones 
that present the wall's public face.
Unlike pea gravel, hearting stone prevents the components of a wall from shifting.
And it brings another benefit as well. 
'There's a source of pride 
knowing we placed every stone in a wall,' Headrick said."
(article written by Peter Crabtree)

The Scripture speaks of us as living stones being placed together.
I have long had a mental image of a long line of Christians from the ages,
coming one by one to lay down in the wall,
each one carrying the implements of his martyrdom --
and following behind our Lord Jesus Christ with His cross on His shoulder.

He is the master builder, and each one of us presents Him with a problem,
being imperfect, and not exactly suited to our positions.
But we are each of us a solution, too, in His hands.
He places us where gravity pulls us inward and downward,
and where friction rubs us against each other, in perhaps uncomfortable ways.
But that gravity and that friction give us stability, and hold us together.
They show His skill in building something to last.
The public faces of His building are not the strength of it.
It is the small stones at the heart of it
that allow friction and gravity to be evenly shared throughout the wall.
We bear each other's burdens through our placement,
each one of us essential in the integrity of the structure.
Each one carefully considered for its faults and its virtues:
used to strengthen the whole, and to compensate for someone else's weakness,
while also being perfected by the stones placed to hold us up.

Come to the Lord, the living stone rejected by people as worthless 
but chosen by God as valuable. 
Come as living stones, 
and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple, 
where you will serve as holy priests 
to offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ. 
~1 Peter 2:4,5

As We Actually Are

"He had always managed, somehow, to follow a canonized saint when he was called to a parish, someone who had worn a halo and been surrounded by seraphim, even when walking to the corner for a newspaper.
   In his first parish, it had taken a full year to be forgiven his green innocence in the wake of a priest who, mellowed by age, was wise and all-knowing, not to mention full of truth and light.
   Though he was again and again the leading choice among the candidates, the frost inevitably came as his congregations sized him up.
   One parish had chosen him because he was unmarried but later wished he were married with children.
   Another liked him because he was unaffected but decided he needed more charisma.
   One search committee thought that being slightly under five feet nine inches in his sock feet was a characteristic that lent spiritual humility but changed their minds and wished he were taller."

My husband recently accepted a request to pastor a church far from where we live. I read this in one of the Mitford books last night, and it made me laugh. If you could build the perfect pastor, complete with every quality you ever liked in a human being, I am sure the result would not be whatever you actually got in a pastor. I mean, really: we don't even get to choose every quality we want in our spouse. My list would be so long, that no living man could fulfill it. It would include many things that would disqualify the father of my children. And I also would not meet every item on his list. We don't get to cherry-pick our children's beings, our spouse's, our sibling's, or our fellow church member's. And yet:

The Scripture tells us to love one another with a fervent love,
to forgive one another,
to bear with one another.
None of those things have to be instructed
when we are complete in perfection.
We don't have to forgive those who are never offensive.
We don't have to bear with those who don't annoy.
And no one has to tell us to love those who are lovable beyond all measure.
One of the things I appreciate so much about God's Word
is that it acknowledges us as we actually are -- not just what we should be.

Not Everything

I don't really have a green thumb.
For all the tomato plants I have grown every year,
I haven't had much to show.
I try to start seedlings indoors,
but I start them too soon or too late,
or I forget to water them.
I threw out a whole tray of seedlings that didn't make it this spring.
I had an empty planter box, and on a whim,
I started throwing veggie scraps into it to compost.
That's where the seedling failures went.
And one day, I looked in the compost pile, and saw a happy little plant.
I didn't know what it was until I came upon some roadside plants for sale,
and saw the label on a cucumber plant.
Sure enough, I have been harvesting cucumbers lately from my discard pile.
And I was just sitting here thinking about the things we throw away.
The people we write off.
The ones we assume will never have any fruit.
Maybe it's you you've given up hope on.
But keep watering.
Not everything that looks dead is.
And seed comes to life when it's watered.

On Our Faces: Strength and Peace

I read Psalm 29 this morning.
It's a call to honor the Lord for His glory and strength.
It is full of the roaring of the sea,
and thunder,
and power,
and the splitting of cedars, and their shattering,
and mountains skipping and leaping,
and bolts of lightning,
and earthquake,
and twisting oak trees,
and forests stripped bare,
And floodwaters that the Lord rules over.
"The Lord reigns as king forever."

I like to visit the ocean during storm --
but I don't get too close.
I love thunder, but it scares me, too.
I remember a long few nights when that ice storm
knocked out the constant buzz of the power,
and the only sounds we heard
were the sounds of trees splitting in the woods and crashing
over and over again.
We'd look out the window in the dark
and hope the ones that fell
were not the ones that shadowed the house.
I've ridden out earthquakes,
and they leave my knees quaking.
One time my husband and I
were standing in our kitchen during a lightning storm,
and lightning struck our driveway,
about twenty feet from our kitchen window.
Instinct threw us both on our faces to the ground.
It isn't a power you stand up to.
As a child, I walked through a burned out forest during a tornado warning,
and its atmosphere imprinted in my mind.

This chaos shows me small and weak.
They all overpower me.
They make me catch my breath
and fall on my face,
and stand back at a safe distance,
and shelter under doorways.

But the last verse -- it really amazes me.
"The Lord gives His people strength. The Lord blesses them with peace."

The Making of a Mother

I am not a natural mother.
I am pregnant with my fifth child, and I don't bake cookies.
At least not often.
I do not delight in meal planning.
I usually don't have a plan.
Thankfully, I grew up in a home where basic kitchen competence was instilled.
But I have never delighted in cooking.
Dishes were torment to me for many years.

Our first child was a miracle.
(What child is not a miracle, really?)
We went to a doctor to get some results --
to explain why three and one half years into our marriage,
we hadn't conceived.
"You're going to have a very hard time getting pregnant," they told us.
"Maybe ten years down the road," I thought. 
"Maybe never."
We cried ourselves to sleep for days.
We had hoped for a year of childlessness after we married.
We didn't want forever.

It was one week to the day after our bad news
that I took a pregnancy test in the middle of the night.
I shook my husband awake and showed him.
I had been pregnant when we had the tests done.
It was like the whole thing was orchestrated
so we knew it was a gift, and a miracle,
and not an accomplishment.

His birth took a long time.
Sixty-five hours from the first contraction.
Twenty-six of them were hard labor.
Three hours of pushing,
an hour and a half of that with a vacuum.
No pain meds.

Breastfeeding was not the instinctive harmony that it should have been.
I did it, and I did not quit.
But I wanted to.
When he was six weeks old, I had emergency surgery.
His short frenulum had done irreversible damage,
and after the surgery, I had a visiting nurse.
The wound packing went on until he was four months and one week old.
The nurse did one every morning,
and my husband did one every evening.
This was in addition to having a newborn who did not sleep.
We also did not sleep.
I am surprised I healed at all.

When he was nine months old,
(and still not sleeping -- although he was running),
I got pregnant again.
We did not know we could, and we were exhausted,
and we had moved twice already since his birth,
and my husband did not have a job yet in a new city.
I did not feel overjoyed.
I felt tired.

It took a long time into that pregnancy before I was reconciled to it.
I wanted more children,
but I was still not recovered from my first.
Labor began with my membranes rupturing.
I hardly felt like it was labor until I was eight and a half centimeters dilated.
She also required three hours of pushing, and a vacuum.
Like her brother, she came out face up --
with her cord wrapped around her neck, under her shoulder,
and tied in a knot.
Another miracle.

She was the nicest baby I ever met.
Her brother still woke up every night, hungry.
But she slept six hours, then eight,
and by three months old slept twelve hours.
It did not hurt to nurse her.
She was satisfied after every feeding.
And she wanted to be put down
so she could watch her brother run from the corner of the room.
She did vomit on everything -- constantly -- but  was otherwise a dream baby.
Her cry was soft and reluctant.
She was inclined toward contentment.

Somewhere in their early years, I accepted that I am a mother.
Not a woman who has had children,
and will someday have her real life --
when they are out of the way.
But a mother.
It's who I am, and it's what I do.
Maybe that sounds stupid, but it was a revelation to me.
My entire being was designed for this.
I had a womb while I was in the womb.
It is the most important work of my life --
and the dirtiest,
and the most intimately painful,
and it has permanently scarred me.
These living beings came through me,
and fed from me,
and left their DNA behind in me.

And I can't help but think of my Redeemer,
who came to do His Father's will.
He came perfect.
Unblemished.
Fulfilling His life's work left Him pierced through,
and striped,
and bruised,
and marred beyond recognition as a man.
He is still known as a Lamb, having been slain.
His work is permanently wedded to Himself.
He came to be wounded,
and to give life through Himself.
He stooped low, lower than any of us.
And His name is exalted above all other names.

The Victorious Lame

"'I will save her that halteth'
(Zephaniah 3:19)

"There are plenty of these lame ones, both male and female. 
You may meet 'her that halteth' twenty times in an hour. 
They are on the right road, 
and exceedingly anxious to run in it with diligence, 
but they are lame, and make a sorry walk of it. 
On the heavenly road there are many cripples. 
It may be that they say in their hearts -- What will become of us? 
Sin will overtake us, Satan will throw us down. 
Ready-to-halt is our name and our nature; 
the Lord can never make good soldiers of us, 
nor even nimble messengers to go on His errands. 
Well, well! He will save us, and that is no small thing. 
He says, 'I will save her that halteth.' 
In saving us, He will greatly glorify Himself. 
Everybody will ask -- 
How came this lame woman to run the race and win the crown? 
And then all praise will be given to almighty grace.

"Lord, though I halt in faith, in prayer, in praise, 
in service, and in patience, save me, I beseech Thee! 
Only Thou canst save such a cripple as I am. 
Lord, let me not perish because I am among the hindmost, 
but gather up by Thy grace the slowest of Thy pilgrims -- even me. 
Behold He hath said it shall be so, 
and therefore, like Jacob, prevailing in prayer, 
I go forward though my sinew be shrunk."

~ July 16, Chequebook of the Bank of Faith, Daily Readings by C.H. Spurgeon

Oh, it would be a miracle if this lame woman ran the race and won the crown.
But it gives me courage to think of Jacob limping forward to his crown.

Best Where It Breaks

I washed fresh basil from my garden,
and broke off leaves and added them to the quartered cherry tomatoes.
My husband picked up a stem and breathed it in.
"Why does it always smell the best where it breaks?" he said.
"Because that's where the oil is released," I said, absentmindedly.
"Just like in real life," he answered.

Such Common Things

Master, Thou workest with such common things--
Low souls, weak hearts, I mean-- and hast to use,
Therefore, such common means and rescuings,
That hard we find it, as we sit and muse,
To think Thou workest in us verily:
Bad sea-boats we, and manned with wretched crews--
That doubt the Captain, watch the storm-spray flee.
 (~George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul, July Four)

I read that days ago, and read it again this morning.
We are so common.
Such low souls, with such weak hearts.
Bad sea-boats with wretched crews.
In spite of our wretched state,
our doubtful watching of storms,
and fleeing hearts,
God works in us verily.
Truly.
In a real way, though it be by common means and rescuings.

Probably the most common thing on earth is dirt.
But dirt, in His hands, lives and breathes, and learns to speak His language.
He formed man out of dirt, in His own image.
He is all glorious, and He decided to copy Himself into dirt.
Does that puzzle you like it does me?
When men decide to have an image of themselves made,
they choose marble, or gold, or any noble material.
Something that lasts.
Something that is valuable before they even form it.
Not mud.
But our Father in heaven can form the eternal out of meltable mud.
What gives us value is the work He puts into us.
His hands forming us, and His breath breathing into us.

Thank You, Lord, for stooping to write with Your fingers in the dirt.

I Am Transformed

Fruit carries DNA.
Human, animal, and even plant fruit
all carries code from mom and dad.
Which means that my son, while human, and male,
and sharing certain features with your son,
is uniquely mine.
He has me stamped in every cell.
He is a combination (and a unique one)
of his father and myself.
He has siblings, but each one of them is unique.
Carrying code from mom, and code from dad,
they are the fruit of union.

It fascinates me that a father's body is not altered by reproduction.
But mine is.
40% more blood.
Digestion is changed.
Hormones bathe every cell,
altering its function to nourish the baby.
And it doesn't end at birth.
Those babies -- that fruit --
leave cells circulating in our bloodstreams forever.
(And, on an interesting note, in mothers who have heart attacks,
cells from their babies have been found rushing to the heart to repair it.)
They leave cells circulating in our spirits, too.

Where my body has had to stretch to accommodate that baby,
I am permanently marked as their mother.
An internal exam by a competent doctor shouts,
"This one has had children!"
My brain has undergone change.
Every pregnancy further alters a woman's brain.
In gestating them and birthing them, I am transformed.

My heart pumps more blood.
It holds more.
Human breast tissue only matures upon nursing an infant.
I read a sad interview with a modern sex symbol
who said she really wanted to breastfeed,
but wouldn't because of how it would change her breasts.
It does change them.
It promotes health for them, and for the baby.
Breastfeeding reduces breast cancer and heart disease for women.
It's good for our hearts to nourish fruit.

I can't help but wonder how union with Christ,
and fruit of the Spirit works in me,
changing me for eternity:
repairing my damaged mind and heart;
reducing the morbidity of life in this world.
More mystery to ponder.

Fruitful Little Plants

I am not a great gardener.
But several things I planted this year have met with some success.
My peas are bearing.
And we have been pulling radishes and eating them.
I brought a bowl of fresh peas to my sister's house today,
where several of the children and she and I
savored opening each pod and eating them raw.
As I opened each one, I thought about the one pea
I planted in the ground for each plant,
and wondered how many peas each one turns out on average.
Thirty fold? Sixty fold? A hundred fold?
These are fruitful little plants.
Worthwhile.
Seemingly more so than any of the tomatoes I have ever nurtured.
One dry pea, planted alone.
And these are they who are sown on good ground; 
such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit,
 some thirty-fold, some sixty, and some a hundred.
~Mark 4:20 

In Union With Us

My mind is preoccupied lately with thoughts of reproduction.
Of intimate connection that results in living beings.
Jesus said, "Abide in Me, and you will bear much fruit."
He said, "I am the Vine, and you are the branches..."
We bear no fruit apart from Him,
but He also has His fruit in union with us.

Human fruitfulness, too, depends on physical union.
Union without barriers.
My children are equally his and mine.
They bear both our DNA.

In a fruitful marriage, this is not a one-time occurrence.
It is conceived,
and gestated,
and birthed,
and washed,
and nurtured,
and matured,
and fed,
and clothed,
and taught.
And there may be multiple fruits
in various stages of maturity
being looked after simultaneously.

Bearing fruit is the work of the physically mature.
But its preparation begins at conception.
At birth, that immature child's equipment is already there,
waiting for growth and transformation and union.
It is mind-boggling to think that my body
has had stored in it for more than thirty-five years
half the child whose heart beats now inside me.

I read about a couple who consulted a fertility specialist
a number of years ago.
They had been married for some time, and wanted children very much.
But there were no children.
There were some tests done, and extensive, invasive questions asked.
And finally, the doctor got to the bottom of the problem.
These people had never had intercourse.
All the working equipment in the world
doesn't produce fruit without union.

Afraid to Eat

Satan is an abusive father.
When we move from darkness to light,
being translated by God's Holy Spirit,
and adopted as sons into His household,
many of us continue to cringe at meals;
to be afraid of our baths.

We're afraid to eat;
afraid to sleep;
afraid to play;
and afraid to be alone with our new Father.
We're afraid to open His gifts.

But our Father in heaven is kind.
He wants to feed us good food.
To give us rest; to afford us pleasure.
To clothe us in glory.
To make us brothers and cared-for children.

We're afraid, but not with reasonable fear.
We fear abuse and neglect and hurt and duty.
We're afraid of being spoken to,
and afraid silence is brooding cruelness.
We are wary of the very One we most ought to trust.

"Who remembered us in our lowly state,
for His mercy endures forever;
and rescued us from our enemies,
for His mercy endures forever...
Oh, give thanks to the God of heaven!
For His mercy endures forever."
~From Psalm 136

Makes Rich

We took our youngest in for oral surgery
to remove a lump that should not have been there.
I've undergone several surgeries myself,
and my anxiety over him being anesthetized was shaking me badly.
Weak knees, heart palpitations, shortness of breath.
With all my attention focused in prayer on him,
I heard a Scripture in my head that did not seem to apply.

"The blessing of the Lord makes rich, 
and He adds no sorrow with it."
I didn't even know where it was.
Were the words right?
Yes, they were.
Could they be for me?
I set that on the shelf in my heart and wondered.
I had been setting a few things there over the last few weeks,
like lost property whose owner was unknown --
and hoping I could claim them.

I begged the Lord to speak to me about him,
whether I should cancel the surgery or not.
The day before the surgery, my guts twisted with angst, I heard that Scripture.
It confused me.
What blessing?
I read, "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; 
and He knows those that trust in Him."
And, "God is our refuge and strength, 
a very present help in trouble."

On surgery day, I read this:
"In my distress, I prayed to the Lord, 
and the Lord answered me and set me free.
The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear: 
what can mere people do to me?
Yes, the Lord is for me; He will help me.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in people.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.
The Lord is my strength and my song; He has given me victory.
Songs of joy and victory are sung in the camp of the godly.
The strong right arm of the Lord has done glorious things!
The strong right arm of the Lord is raised in triumph.
I will not die; instead I will live to tell what the Lord has done."
And, "The path of life leads upward for the wise; 
they leave the grave behind."

The surgery went well.
I am certain the office staff labeled me a nutcase,
because I called them up the day before
and demanded to know if the support staff
were trained in advanced life support techniques.
Were they equipped for airway obstructions?
Did they know he was small for his age?
And yes, I did tell them I was concerned they were going to overdose him.
They assured me they were competent 'in all codes',
and they weighed him again in my presence before dosing him.
I was so relieved, and thanking the Lord for my baby
when we took him from the office walking;
but kind of holding my breath still.

Later, after the surgery, I found the verse in Proverbs,
and looked more closely at it.
"Berâkâh: benediction; 
by implication prosperity: 
blessing, liberal, pool, present."
That was the definition of 'blessing' in the verse.
It wasn't just a newspaper fact, it was a promise to me while I was in distress.
I read from a devotional written by George Mueller.
Titled More Grace, he said he wanted to encourage younger believers
"to expect greater things from the Lord, who delights in giving abundantly...
Let us look out for it, for God delights to give more grace...
It is the joy and delight of His heart to give more and more and more."

If it was the Lord speaking it to me,
I was certain He was telling me I was pregnant.
I was afraid to get my hopes up,
that the Lord intended to bless us, and to keep Silas, too.
That it was time to stop bracing myself for loss and hurt.
That there was a sea change already in progress.

I wanted this blessing.
I wanted this promise.
I didn't plan it, and I didn't seek it, but I wanted it hungrily.
Because this was His will, His favor, His blessing --
and He was offering it to me?
Riches? Abundant prosperity?
Without sorrow?!
It was like hope: living, and breathing, and growing, given as a token.
Mercy offered to me, and to my children.
Yes.
Yes, please.
Please let me have this.

I looked through baby names for meanings that suited that verse.
Using a website, I looked them up by meanings.
A first and middle name from a list of name combinations we liked
that I made years ago surfaced.
If this all turned out to be true,
I wanted to be ready with a name that would remember it.
The first name came up in more than one place.
One of its meanings was 'a standing pool'.
It was connected with riches.

I wrote in my journal, "I have been waiting for the next blow for six years, I think.
Six years of hyper-vigilance, fear, and expectation of no good thing.
I want to walk in hope.
I want to walk in the light of Your grace."

We bought a pregnancy test and a bottle of prenatal vitamins.
I was afraid to take it when I got home, because if this was all in my head,
I was afraid I would plunge into depression.
This hope felt like a promise, and the loss of it would feel like a curse.
I took the test.
It was positive.

Jeff read to us from the Psalms that night, the day after Silas's surgery:
"He turns a wilderness into pools of water, 
and dry lands into watersprings...
He also blesses them and they multiply greatly...
When they are diminished 
and brought low through oppression, affliction, and sorrow, 
He pours contempt on princes, 
and causes them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way; 
yet He sets the poor on high, far from affliction, 
and makes their families like a flock.
The righteous see it and rejoice, and all iniquity stops its mouth.
Whoever is wise will observe these things, 
and they will understand the lovingkindness of the Lord."

If the name that keeps cropping up is any indication, this is a girl.
And I will be graduating from a multipara
to a grand multipara of advanced maternal age.
We saw our baby's heartbeat yesterday. 
I already get to be a grand multigravida.

Caught

Early the next morning he went back to the Temple. 
All the people gathered around him, 
and he sat down and began to teach them. 
The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees brought in a woman 
who had been caught committing adultery, 
and they made her stand before them all. 
"Teacher," they said to Jesus, 
"this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 
In our Law Moses commanded 
that such a woman must be stoned to death. 
Now, what do you say?" 
They said this to trap Jesus, so that they could accuse him. 
But he bent over and wrote on the ground with his finger. 
As they stood there asking him questions, 
he straightened up and said to them, 
"Whichever one of you has committed no sin 
may throw the first stone at her." 
Then he bent over again and wrote on the ground. 
When they heard this, they all left, one by one, the older ones first. 
Jesus was left alone, with the woman still standing there. 
He straightened up and said to her, 
"Where are they? Is there no one left to condemn you?" 
"No one, sir," she answered. 
"Well, then," Jesus said, "I do not condemn you either. 
Go, but do not sin again."
~John 8:2-11

I was reading about this woman this morning.
It's revealing to me of His heart that,
although He did assent to the 'justice' of her death sentence,
He, the Only Just Judge, remained inactive in her judgement,
stooping down with His hands on the dirt, and not on the stones. 
Refusing to condemn.
We are told to be like our Father in heaven,
who sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.
Raining mercy: indiscriminate blessings.

But also, that woman walked away knowing two things:
she was guilty as charged, and deserving of death,
but uncondemned, and given instruction
by the only One who could justly sentence her to stop it.
Stop this wickedness.
And doesn't it stun you that He works life and liberty out of such material?
That He speaks righteousness into the unrighteous?
That He makes of those who are not, something real and living?
His words have the power to rearrange our chaos into order.
To give life to the dead, and power to the powerless.
To make sons out of slaves, and foreign ones, at that.

We Sing In The Dark

I was awakened from a sound sleep at 4:17 this morning.
I lay there listening, wondering why I was awake.
Softly, softly, I heard a tinkling sound, far away and indistinct.
It puzzled me.
What was it?
Maybe the wind chimes... Was it windy out?
I couldn't hear any wind.
But since it didn't stop, I got up and opened the door to the hall.
I listened, and it was still there, musical and mysterious.
I walked quietly down the stairs, trying to hear it above my footsteps.
I opened the door to the living room:
the cat looked curiously up at me from the couch.
Stopping and listening again, I recognized a chorus of birds,
singing to the unrisen sun.
It made me smile.
"Don't you know it's four seventeen?" I thought.

I thought about the birds, singing in the dark, while I fell asleep again.
About Jesus saying, '"But when these things begin to come to pass,
look up, and lift up your heads;
because your redemption draweth nigh."
And He spake to them a parable:
Behold the fig tree, and all the trees:
when they now shoot forth, ye see it
and know of your own selves that the summer is now nigh.
Even so ye also, when ye see these things coming to pass,
know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh."'
He said it to them in reference to terrors.
To things that made them want to faint in fear.

Like the birds, we sing in the dark.
We look forward to the Sonrise, the breaking of the Day.
And though we sing in the dark,
we sing of the return of the Light:
of summer; the budding of leaves;
the fruit on its way;
and the Kingdom of God.
Perhaps our singing will awaken a sleeper.

In Short-Sleeved Words

I speak normally to my children.
I don't change my words to baby talk,
and I didn't do too much baby talk even when they were babies.
Because of this, they often make me laugh
with the old-fashioned vocabulary they use.
A child used the word 'omit' properly in speaking with me the other day.
My daughter told me
that what she wanted in her new shorts was 'spacious pockets'.

Silas interrupts me to ask what things mean
when I have said something too advanced for him.
"What is a dinghy?"
"A little boat."
And the next day, hearing it again in his read aloud,
he repeated the question.
And again, I said, "A little boat."
Learning new things takes repetition.
My daughter Elisa, many years ago,
dubbed high-brow vocabulary 'long-sleeved words'.

Sometimes, I realize that what I have been reading in the Scripture
has been beyond my comprehension my whole life.
That's why I appreciate reading different translations on occasion.
This morning I came across this short-sleeved version:

"It was also written," Jesus said, 
"that this message should be proclaimed 
in the authority of His name to all the nations, 
beginning in Jerusalem:
'There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.'" 

Its simplicity moves me.

My Helper

While I listened to Friday's news,
with shooting in the streets of Boston
between the marathon bombers and the authorities,
and the city locked down,
a reporter offered this advice for parents to comfort children with
who were being exposed to terror in this week's news cycle:
Look for the helpers.
It is Mr. Rogers' advice, and I saw it passed around on Facebook, too.
It seems not much comfort
in the light of people bleeding in the streets, their legs gone,
and parents powerless to save their children.
In the face of horrendous evil, brave kindness seems small:
the courage of those heroes who run to explosions,
who drench themselves in the blood of strangers,
trying to tie in their lifeflow.

But in the face of that bloody fear,
He gives real comfort:
He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you, nor forsake you.'
So that we may boldly say, 'The Lord is my Helper, I will not fear. 
What can man do to me?' (Hebrews 13:5,6)
Maybe that seems like a foolish question after a bombing.
Obviously men can do us harm.
Jesus said, "I tell you, my friends, 
do not be afraid of those who kill the body 
but cannot afterward do anything worse. 
I will show you whom to fear: 
fear God, who, after killing, has the authority to throw into hell. 
Believe me, He is the one you must fear! 
Aren't five sparrows sold for two pennies? 
Yet not one sparrow is forgotten by God. 
Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. 
So do not be afraid;
 you are worth much more than many sparrows!"
(Luke 12:4-7)

Be anxious for nothing, 
but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, 
let your requests be made known to God; 
and the peace of God, which surpasses understanding,
will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

A terrorist can separate you from your body,
but cannot separate you from His love.
Our Lord is risen, and He will raise us.
He has conquered sin and death, and in Him, we are also conquerors.
In His Light, we see Light, though we see the darkness, too.

Faith Begs God

And He spoke a parable to them to this end, 
that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; 
Saying, There was in a city a judge, 
who feared not God, neither regarded man. 
And there was a widow in that city; 
and she came to him, saying, Avenge me of my adversary. 
And he would not for a while: 
but afterward he said within himself, 
Though I fear not God, nor regard man; 
Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, 
lest by her continual coming she weary me. 
And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. 
And will not God avenge His own elect, 
who cry day and night to Him, 
though He beareth long with them? 
I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. 
Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, 
will He find faith on the earth?
~Luke 18:1-8

In the version I read this morning, the widow's plea was,
"Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy!"
Give me justice.
Don't we long for it?
Jesus wants us to persist in asking God for it.
That was the point of His story.
Keep asking.
Keep coming.
Because justice has not yet been served
in this dispute with our enemy.
He continues his unjust ways,
and the world continues to suffer for it.

But God is just.
And He is the Judge.
And if an unjust judge would give justice for sheer annoyance,
surely our Father in heaven will deal justice
on behalf of the innocent suddenly.

When He comes, will there still be any here asking for justice?
Believing in His judgement?
Or will we have abandoned the pursuit
because we lost heart at all the injustice?

Jesus said, "Don't you think God will surely give justice to His chosen people
who cry out to Him day and night?
Will He keep putting them off?
I tell you, He will grant justice to them quickly."

There is no reason to cry out day and night for justice
if all is just and right.
And there is no reason to cry out day and night for justice
if there is no Judge.
Faith begs God for what it knows is right,
though what it sees is wrong.
Because faith knows He is just, and He will judge.

O Lord, give us justice in this dispute with our enemy.

From the Deeps

April, Ten and Eleven

Might I but scatter interfering things--
Questions and doubts, distrusts and anxious pride,
And in Thy garment, as under gathering wings,
Nestle obedient to Thy loving side,
Easy it were to love Thee. But when Thou
Send'st me me to think and labor from Thee wide,
Love falls to asking many a why and how.

Easier it were, but poorer were the love.
Lord, I would have me love Thee from the deeps--
Of troubled thought, of pain, of weariness.
Through seething wastes below, billows above,
My soul should rise in eager, hungering leaps;
Through thorny thicks, through sands unstable press--
Out of my dream to Him who slumbers not nor sleeps.

~ George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul

It's so beautiful, I hardly know what to add.
But it resonates, does it not?

We want so much for our service
to be without doubts, distrusts, anxieties of any kind.
We want it to be there,
close enough to hear His heartbeat,
reclining at His table,
clean and fed.

We don't want to stand,
having lost our outer garment,
at the foot of the cross with the weepers.
But the words of the vows echo in our hearts:
in sickness and in health;
for better or for worse;
richer or poorer...

Loving Him from the deeps
of troubled thoughts and pain and weariness,
of seething wastes and tossing waves,
of thorny thickets and quick sands.

O Lord...
That we would love You as You love us.
You sweat blood
and suffered hunger and sleeplessness.
You intercede for us when You're out of sight,
and touch our wounds to heal when You're near.
From depths we can't even comprehend You have loved us.
From the cup You shuddered to drink,
and the nails You stretched Your hands to,
and the thorns pounded into Your brow.
From nakedness and sorrow You loved us.
From homelessness and rejection.
From thirst and mockery.

From Father to Father

"And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, 
'As for Me, behold, My covenant is with thee, 
and thou shalt be a father of many nations. 
Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, 
but thy name shall be Abraham; 
for a father of many nations have I made thee. 
And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful, 
and I will make nations of thee; 
and kings shall proceed from thee...'"
~Genesis 17:3-6

Ninety-nine years old, and called by the same name all his life.
Exalted father.
Who names their baby that?
For ninety-nine years, he has been introduced as a father.
How many children do you have, exalted father?

I read a book to my children recently
which takes place in the Middle East,
and the father of sons bears his name proudly.
But the father of daughters is a bit of a loser.
Everyone pities him at his introduction.
Ah, yes.
You are the one who sires nothing but girls.
How sad.

But here is Abram, exalted father of no one.
And the very name he has worn all these years,
given to him in hope, I am sure,
has mocked him.
Your marriage is fruitless.
Your riches will pass out of your house.
You are not a father.
The goal of his life was given to him at his birth,
and all his work had come to nothing.
He had a wife legendary for her beauty,
and barren as the desert.

God changed his name, but not as we might have.
He exalted him from a father to the father of a multitude.
And Sarai's name -- changed, too.
She went from my princess to princess.
In both cases, He confirmed their identity,
but seemed to make it His own work.
Not the inheritance of their father,
but the certain work of God.

A Mind Full of Empty Nets

On the shore of the Sea of Galilee,
which I remember from Capernaum,
He borrowed a boat from Simon.
A little way from the beach, He taught them.
The day I visited was calm,
and it was a pleasant place to sit.

I wonder what it was
that made Him turn His attention to fishing after He taught.
Maybe He saw Simon distracted,
politely letting Him use his boat,
and moving it to where He requested,
but his mind full of his empty nets,
of the day getting away from him,
of the tired disappointment of the night's labor.
Maybe he wondered what his wife would say about there being no fish.
I've got things to do.

Maybe, when Jesus was finished saying eternal things,
He cared that Simon was obsessed with the temporal,
and wanted to help him see.
He didn't rebuke him for inattention,
or shame him for impatience.
He did something in the temporal
that shocked Simon into seeing the eternal.

Let's catch some fish, Simon.
Still polite, Simon obliged Him,
even though he knew his business better, he thought.
And now his nets were breaking;
his boat nearly sinking;
his partners' boat nearly sinking.
In the face of this blessing, he was afraid.
It brought him to his knees,
and in mind of his sins.

"Please leave me -- I'm too much of a sinner to be around You!"
And Jesus, now the center of these working men's attention,
as He had not been before,
said, "Don't be afraid! You'll catch men, now."
And these fishermen,
these entrepreneurs,
these distracted margin-listeners --
left it all and followed Him.

If You Didn't Put the Pepper in it...

The people are to take some of the blood 
and put it on the doorposts and above the doors of the houses 
in which the animals are to be eaten.
That night the meat is to be roasted, 
and eaten with bitter herbs and with bread made without yeast.  
~Exodus 12:7,8

My brother-in-law introduced me to tea
made from fresh ginger and black pepper.
I was skeptical.
I was not a big ginger fan,
and adding black pepper to it really lowered its appeal to me.
But I felt miserable the day he offered it to me,
and he said how much it soothed his muscles,
lessened his aches, and opened up his airways.
I found it helps me immensely.

My little Silas has been coughing.
He told me his throat hurt,
and he likes "the regular kind of cough better,
the kind that doesn't hurt right here," he said, with his hand on his chest.
I poured him some ginger and black pepper tea.

"Mom... if you didn't put the pepper in it, I would like it," he said.
"I know, honey. But the pepper is part of the medicine of it.
You have to drink it all."
He sat at the table, taking a sip, grimacing,
and measuring the tea level with a ruler.
"The pepper makes my tongue spicy."

Don't we all wish He would not add the pepper?
That we could eat the sweet without the bitter?
As we eat the bitter, though, we must say,
"Praised are you, Adonai our God, 
Ruler of the universe, 
who makes us holy through Your commandments, 
and commands us to eat bitter herbs."

This Reminds Me of Summer

We walked out of the house this morning,
and my New England-acclimated daughter said,
"This reminds me of summer!"
The sun was shining, the snow banks were receding (a little),
and a phoebe was calling out her name.
We got in the van and drove south.

In a town founded in 1623, we found a cemetery.
(Which was a 'dormitory' to the early church -- I like that.)
The cemetery was in full sunlight, and on a hill.
We parked the car and got out to walk.
Yes, we like to bring our children to graveyards to play.
The children ran, but I walked.
Away from the others, I walked in silence,
looking at the Polish and Italian and Irish surnames on the stones,
and at the words Rest In Peace,
and enjoying the feel of the sun warming my back.

I looked at the rhododendron buds awaiting resurrection,
and up at the bare branches of a deciduous tree with small buds formed,
awaiting resurrection,
and at the snow-covered ground hiding all those dead bones.
I thought about my own grave.

Elisa came and walked with me, and pointed at evergreen trees
someone had planted over a tombstone.
"Don't plant those over my grave," I said,
"and don't put fake flowers by my grave, either."
I told her I wanted them to plant bulbs over my grave.
"Every year they will die back,
but every spring they will bloom,
and you can remember that there is a resurrection."
"That is what I was planning to do!" she said.
And I could not help but look out over all those stones
and think about the men and women who have lived and died
and will live again.

I will join them: uncurling myself in the warmth of the Son,
and stretching out the stiffness of the long winter,
and no longer unadorned and bare of glory.

Who's Wasting Now?

And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, 
as He sat at meat, there came a woman 
having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; 
and she brake the box, and poured it on His head. 
And there were some that had indignation within themselves, 
and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? 
For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, 
and have been given to the poor. 
And they murmured against her. 
And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? 
she hath wrought a good work on Me. 
For ye have the poor with you always, 
and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: 
but Me ye have not always. 
She hath done what she could: 
she is come aforehand to anoint My body to the burying. 
Verily I say unto you, 
Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached 
throughout the whole world, 
this also that she hath done 
shall be spoken of for a memorial of her. 
And Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, 
went unto the chief priests, to betray Him unto them. 
And when they heard it, they were glad, 
and promised to give him money. 
And he sought how he might conveniently betray Him.
~Mark 14:3-11

Indignation.
"Why waste such expensive perfume?!
It could have been sold for a year's wages
and the money given to the poor!"
The economic value they placed on worship --
it was of far more value than that.

Here is a woman who, like the widow and her half penny,
gave of her substance.
She gave what cost her to give.
Her worship took tangible and fragrant form.
Spiritual worship poured out in material goods.
And not poured out in a way that could be benefited from physically.
This was no meat sacrificed and then served to all as a feast.
It was just dumped on Him to complete 'waste'.
She didn't even have an IRS form
that would let her claim the loss against her taxes.

The indignant ones were angry that they didn't get to control the largesse.
They didn't get to be the distributors of someone else's generosity.
So they berated her 'wastefulness'.

Is it possible to waste any good thing given to Him?
He notices widows who give half pennies.
He rewards cups of water that cost so little to share.
Alms come up as a memorial to Him.
He eavesdrops on the words of those who love Him,
and has them recorded in a book of remembrance.
He keeps a diary of words of love and worship.
Collects our tears in a bottle.
Counts our hairs.
Keeps track of sparrows who fall, and clothes lilies.
He waits anxiously for the prodigal,
ready to throw a lavish party at the return of the waster.
Killing the fatted calf over him -- to feed the wasted son.
Pouring out His own life to redeem thieves and murderers.
Talk about excess.
A year's wages is nothing to Him.
But He weighs the heart in the gift.
And hers poured it all out on Him.

Judas's response to this?
To sell Jesus for silver.
This woman 'wastes' a year's wages on Him.
Judas sells Him for thirty pieces of silver.
Four months' wages for a skilled laborer.
Who's wasting now?

The Day the Kings Shut Their Mouths

Behold, My Servant shall rule well; 
He shall be exalted and extolled, 
and be very high. 
Just as many were astonished at You 
(so much was the disfigurement from man, 
His appearance and His form from the sons of mankind); 
so He sprinkles from many nations; 
the kings shall shut their mouths at Him; 
for they will see that which was not told to them; 
yea, what they had not heard, nor understood.
~Isaiah 52:13-15

It will be at the sight of Him;
at the sprinkling of many nations;
at His rule, and His exaltation.

That at the name of Jesus 
every knee should bow, of things in heaven, 
and things in earth, 
and things under the earth; 
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father.
~Philippians 2:10,11

First silence, and then truth from the rulers of the earth.
I am looking forward to it.

In Ceasing Activity

I read an article about the effects of sleep deprivation on physical health.
I was wondering what the body does while it's sleeping.
I've noticed over the last few years
that I have a lot of pain in surgical sites that grows when I am tired,
and it fades when I am rested.
As I get older and acquire more history (medically speaking),
sleep feels more and more restorative to me.
And the lack thereof feels more destructive.

The body corrects chemical imbalances while we sleep.
It regulates blood sugar, cleans up its memory files.
In ceasing activity, it maintains memory.
Without sleep, we become a danger to ourselves and others.
Daily maintenance and healing occurs in deep sleep.
If we don't go through enough REM cycles, healing won't take place.
(Night nurses, take notice.)
Pain is intensified by lack of sleep.
It weakens the immune system.
Healthy young men have blood sugar levels
that resemble those of diabetics
after only six nights of reduced sleep.
It spikes cortisol levels -- cortisol is a stress hormone.
That leads to hypertension.
And obesity.
They grow old before they are old.

While we think we are being more productive,
the reality is that death is setting in.
Our relationships suffer,
our memory fails,
and we become chemically imbalanced.

And then there is the effect of light.
Natural light directs the body's sleep cycles.

But artificial light interferes with human health.
It makes us wakeful when we should sleep.
And we stop healing, and remembering what we ought to,
and maintenance of the body fails.
And then we sleep when we ought to wake.

"The body sets its own natural clock by comparing itself to light,
be it the sun or now artificial light from light bulbs.
As a result, the body can get confused
as to when it is supposed to perform the actions necessary during sleep.
Before the invention of electricity,
the body and brain could easily set their own rhythm,
maintaining themselves and warding off
the now apparent physical effects of too little sleep." 

As I read, I marveled.
In quietness and rest, we gain strength.
In standing still, we see the Lord's work accomplished.
Repairing the damage from life here on earth,
restoring the mind, and organizing its learning.
The Lord gives sleep to His beloved.

Furious activity is made possible by artificial light,
but we ought to be walking in His Light.
Measuring ourselves by Him,
and sleeping to be restored;
sleeping to remember.
"I am the Light of the world," He said.
Walking in the Light, and sleeping, and healing;
and blocking out the artificial light that undermines our spiritual health.

In Among the Ruined

Main Street, Beit Shean

 

Wherever He went --

in villages, cities, or the countryside --

they brought the sick out to the marketplaces.

They begged Him to let the sick

touch at the least the fringe of His robe,

and all who touched Him were healed.

~ From Mark 6

It's a true story.

But Jesus told another about a man who'd been accosted 

and left bleeding on a road. 

On a road with plenty of space 

for the 'holy' men to cross to the other side 

before they became unclean with the touch of bleeding death.

Unlike those men, our Jesus waded in among the ruined.

He let His clothes and Himself be grasped at by the desperate;

by the ones dragged and carried to Him;

the ones who limped to Him;

and the ones who crawled along the way,

trying to stay out from under the trampling feet of the healthy.

There were, I am sure, those who had earned their misery.

They had done what ought not to have been done,

and were suffering in themselves the due penalty for their sins.

And there were those who had been sinned against by others,

or failed in some way by those who ought to have been more careful.

He was a magnet for them all.

For the broken and the damaged.

The ones forbidden from the sanctuary.

The ones forbidden from society.

The fringe of His robe would be where the dirt collected.

Where the dust of His feet was kicked up in a cloud.

Maybe I can touch some of the dirt that touched Him. 

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,

and He turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the pit of despair,

out of the mud and the mire.

He set my feet on solid ground

and steadied me as I walked along.

He has given me a new song to sing,

a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see what He has done and be amazed. 

They will put their trust in the Lord.

~From Psalm 40

I was so foolish and ignorant;

I was like a beast before You.

Nevertheless I am continually with You;

You hold me by my right hand.

You will guide me with Your counsel,

and afterward receive me to glory.

~ From Psalm 73