Hither By Thy Grace I'm Come

(This is not Ebenezer.)

This has been a year of upheaval. 

Jeff has been at a new job for four months, 
and was recently promoted. 

He spent a couple of months without a job, 
and then from September until February 

working part time for very low wages.

God has been good to us.  

Friends we had not seen or spoken to in over a dozen years 

found us and sent money which miraculously 
always arrived in the nick of time. 

Thousands of dollars were mailed to us, handed to us, 

refunded to us, or snuck into our mailbox. 

Roughly $13,641 over the last year, as best I can tell. 

Food arrived on our doorstep. 

Friends invited us over to gather from their gardens. 

We expected a sparse Christmas. 

But on Christmas day, the tree was surrounded with gifts. 

There was never a surplus, but we had enough. 

Just as the spontaneous gifts dwindled 
(from multiple sources all over the country), 

and the part time work was about to end, 
he got a phone call asking him 
to come to work for a company 
two and a half hours south of our home. 

We had been praying and waiting for some time 
for the Lord to give us direction.

Jeff began this season of commuting, 

living with my sister's family during the week, 
and coming back to us on weekends.  

The day before Jeff began his commuting we had to junk his car, 

so I had no transportation if I stayed in our house.  

The kids and I moved into my parents' house 
so we could finish the work on our house 

and put it on the market. 

The stagnant buyers' market. 

The market no one can sell in. 

One week after we put it on the market, 
our house sold in a bidding war 

(which I might add, my mother, sister, and children were praying for). 

And we got full price. 

Our realtor was stunned. 

(Actually, both our realtors -- we had one down south already 

who hadn't seemed to believe us when we told her 
we would be selling our home shortly 

and wanted to start looking down there.) 

On April 15th, we closed. 

We paid off the mortgage, the home equity loan, 
our auto loan, and everything else in sight.

When we talked to our loan officer and he pulled our credit report, 

we laughed out loud. 

Our credit score was extraordinarily high. 

Higher than we are capable of generating 

in a year where our income was less than half of what we've had 
for many years past. 

Higher than it was when Jeff had a steady job with a regular income.

The bank has decided we are a good risk. 

The love of God is a good risk. 

Our realtor observed that, 

"It's obvious Someone is looking out for you." 

Our loan officer wrote to me, 

"He’s watching over all of this to make sure it’s happening."

About the time that we gave up on finding a livable home 

large enough for us, in our small price range, 

in a location we could bear to live in, 

Jeff noticed a new listing. 

I was not in the area at the time, 
and asked him to photograph it well so I could see it. 

We made an offer via cell phones and email. 

I hadn't seen it yet. 

About the same time we were submitting the offer, 

a dear friend of ours sent Jeff a text 

that referenced the verse we had on the chalkboard 
in our bathroom for a long time. 

It was a verse the Lord used with Jeff in the middle of the night 
when we needed direction. 

I don't think our friend knew its significance to us, 

and I know he was not yet aware that we were offering on the house.

It has four bedrooms. 

Five if you count the one without a closet. 

Two bathrooms (a rarity among old New England homes -- 
the only ones we can afford to buy). 

Curved walls. 

Ceiling fans. 

And a lot of painting and floor replacements in our future. 

And it needs new wiring and a new furnace, 
and replacement windows. 

But it is livable after we mop. 

And it was shockingly priced 
considering the others we have seen in that price range. 

And we have it under contract. 

At lower than the listing price. 

And it will have a craft/guest room off the dining room. 

The BIG dining room.  

And a bay window. 

And lots of closet space. 

And good light. 

And it is within walking distance of two of my sisters. 

We are scheduled to close on it Friday morning.

I think I am going to name it Ebenezer. 

Through the Dark

Beautiful
Beautiful
Jesus is beautiful
And Jesus makes beautiful things of my life
Carefully 
Touching me
Causing my eyes to see
That Jesus makes beautiful things of my life

Fourteen years ago, this is the song our wedding party walked down the aisle to.

In fourteen years, there has been a lot of unbeautiful.
And we have seen the Lord's hand working with ugliness to make it beautiful.
Working in pain to bring joy.
Transforming sickness to healing.
Restoring brokenness into function.
Walking us through the dark in the light of His Son.

Our children are some of those things that were not --
called into being by His mercy and love.
Our two beings joined into four individuals --
each one me, each one him, and none of them alike.
How many different ways He makes the two become one.

So many memories now.
When we married, it was almost all hopes.
Hopes for children and home.
Hopes for experiences together.
And now, here they are... dreams made flesh.
Different than I imagined.

Finding their own joys, and sharing them with us.
Drawing their own pictures of their own hopes.
Walking through their own confusions,
fumbling out their own prayers.

He makes all things beautiful in His time.

Considering Lilies

My husband and I are waiting for a go-ahead.
Some arbitrary person somewhere has our present and our future in their hands,
and it's making me weary waiting for them.
I'm tired.
My husband is tired.
My children are tired.
We want to be a full time family again.
We hate saying goodbye to each other every week.
I hate being a single mother.
Two are better than one.
This morning, I was feeling morose as I prepared for one more goodbye.
I looked out the window, and my eyes fell on the explosion of lilies in bloom right now.
One hundred and eighty degrees of them from where I am sitting.

Lilies.
I cannot tell you how many times I have been comforted
because of the beautiful, practical, poetic ways the Lord has communicated to us in His word.
Consider the lilies of the field.
They don't labor.
They don't spin.
And the Lord clothes them more beautifully than the richest king who ever lived.
Consider the birds of the air.
They do not build barns to store their food supply.
But Your Father feeds them.
You are of more value to Him than these.
Trust Me.

Oh, The Things That Trouble Us

"Mama, why was I the last in the bamily?" Silas asked.
"Because that is where God placed you in the family," I said.
His chin quivered. "But I didn't want to be last," he said.
"Why were they first?" he asked me of his siblings.

Oh, the things that trouble us.

Can He?

My husband  reminded me about Psalm 78 the other day,
and I opened up to it last night.
My eyes fell on verse 19, which among other things says:
"Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
Behold, He struck the rock,
so that waters gushed out,
and the streams overflowed.
Can He give bread also?
Can He provide meat for His people?"
Can He?

In my Bible, I had written, "He can and He does.
Lord, prepare a table for us in this wilderness."
And do you know what?
We have not gone hungry.
We have seen His hand provide in the wilderness.
And our children have seen it.

Asaph said, "He established a testimony in Jacob...
That they should make them known to their children;
that the generation to come might know them,
the children who would be born,
that they may arise and declare them to their children,
that they may set their hope in God, 
and not forget the works of God."

I love when I come across an old prayer after I have seen Him answer it.
Sometimes I do not even remember praying about it, but He does.
He remembers.
Thank You, Father.

"You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup runs over."
~ Psalm 23

Yet I Will Not Forget You

"Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; 
and break out into singing, O mountains; 
for the Lord has comforted His people, 
and will have mercy on His afflicted. 

"But Zion said, Jehovah has forsaken me, 
and my LORD has forgotten me. 

"Can a woman forget her suckling child, 
that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? 

"Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget you.
Behold, I have carved you on the palms of My hands; 
your walls are forever before Me."

~Isaiah 49:13-16

Book Review of Babywise: How 100,000 New Parents Trained Their Babies to Sleep Through the Night the Natural Way, by Gary Ezzo

I've heard this author referred to as a "milk-Nazi", and having read the book, I understand the reference.
"The natural way?"
Hardly.
I've had two tongue-tied boys (that makes for inefficient eaters, unhappy tummies, and frequent feedings).
The advice in this book is harsh and without compassion for children.
I think his response to baby's hunger is in effect answering the cry for food with, "Here: eat this stone, kid."

Jesus had compassion on hungry adults.
God the Father had compassion on the children of Israel.
He pities His children when they cry to Him for help.
Babies are people, and they are not identical.
Some of them are criers, and you have to learn which cries to respond quickly to.
Some of them are not criers, and when they do cry, you know they have a real need.
It's idiotic to make hard and fast rules about how long to let the baby cry.
And if your baby is hungry, feed him, Mom!
That's why God gave you to him and equipped you with breasts.

His Personal Gift

Yesterday I waited in the waiting room of my doctor's office with my children, and a very friendly boy talked incessantly to my kids. But when his little brother came in, he said, "Get out of here."
He informed my kids that his brother was his roommate, and was annoying.
Silas told me today, "That boy who talked to us was nice."
I said, "Yes, he was very friendly. But he was also very rude to his little brother."
"Why?" he asked.
"Sometimes big brothers can be rude to their little brothers when they are thinking they are more important than their little brothers."
Silas thought about that for a minute, and then said, "Isaiah likes me. He plays Hero Factory with me."

Isaiah was quite upset when he accompanied me to the ultrasound appointment in which my third child was declared to be another girl. He was three or four at the time, and cried and cried, yelling, "No! I already have a sister! I want a brother!" He spent two years praying for a brother, and when our fourth was shown to be a boy, he was overjoyed. He still tells people, "I prayed for two years for a brother." He considers Silas to be his personal gift, I think. And it blesses my heart that Silas knows his brother loves him.

Nothing From Outside

I'm going to write about something that may offend churched sensibilities. I might even lose my standing as a Christian mom. Consider yourself warned.

Tonight my son confided something that had been puzzling him for some time. He said that about a  year ago he had been trying to tell two friends at church about the movie Napoleon Dynamite, which he is very amused by. One of the boys asked him, "Does he say s-h-i-t?"
Isaiah said, "No. What is shit?"
At this point in his story, I asked him, "Do you know what that means? Have you ever heard that word before?"
"No." He looked confused.
"The reason you haven't heard that word is because it's a word that we don't use. Most people consider it to be a bad word, and it means 'poop'. So what did they say when you asked that?"
"They didn't tell me what it meant, but one of them went to the teacher and told her, 'Isaiah said "shit".'"
"So what did the teacher do? Did you get in trouble?"
"She said, 'Don't say that!' But I said, 'I don't know what it is.'"
"Isaiah, that is a perfect case of man looking on the outward appearance, and God looking on the heart. Obviously your heart has to be dirty for a dirty word to mean anything, huh?"
He nodded and said, "It made me kind of mad that they told me that word, and I didn't even know that word, and then they..."
"They set a trap for you, didn't they?"
"Yes. And tried to get me in trouble. And I was afraid to ask you what it meant, because I thought you would get mad that someone told me that."
"Who do you think had the dirty heart: the one who tried to get you to say the word, or you for saying the word when you didn't know it?"
"They did. They wanted to talk about it."
"Son, in this world, there will be all kinds of people who try to introduce you to dirty things you don't know anything about. It's gross, and it's wrong, but it's a fact here. You have to learn to tell the difference between those things, and to know what things you should have nothing to do with. And you didn't sin because someone told you that word."

"And calling near all the crowd, He said to them, 
'Listen to Me, every one of you, and understand.
There is nothing from outside a man which entering into him can defile him. 
But the things which come out of him, those are the ones that defile the man.'"
Mark 7:14,15

Not One

This afternoon, my children and I heard a thump on the window and found outside a beautiful gray bird in its last minute or two of life. I picked it up, hoping it was just stunned, and we spoke softly to it, stroking its breast and admiring its beauty. It's been over an hour, and it has grown stiller. I think its neck is broken, and sadly, it won't be flying off again. It lies next to me on a towel in a decorative bird cage as I write this. So seemingly pointless. We weren't sure what it was, so we examined its markings and looked it up. I think it's a tufted titmouse.

I find myself thinking of what Jesus said to His friends:

"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather be afraid of God, who can destroy both body and soul in hell.
For only a penny you can buy two sparrows,
yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's consent.
As for you, even the hairs of your head have all been counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth much more than many sparrows!"
~Matthew 10:28-31

My Father knows the loss of this little bird who enriches no one's life. Who makes no one grieve but us, and only because we knew of it. If he had fallen in the woods, we would not care. Every delicate feather and subtle marking is known by Him, although we have to examine them to recognize his species. And He says not to be afraid -- He's counted our hairs.

"Precious in the sight of Jehovah is the death of his saints."
~Psalm 116:15

By Trusting

"Not by measuring the waves can you prevail;
not by gauging the wind will you grow strong;
to scan the danger may be to fall before it;
to pause at the difficulties, is to have them break above your head.
Lift up your eyes unto the hills, and go forward --
there is no other way.

'Dost thou fear to launch away?
Faith lets go to swim!
Never will He let thee go;
'Tis by trusting thou shalt know
Fellowship with Him.'"

~From Streams in the Desert, June 23

Who Created You

"I am the LORD who created you;
from the time you were born, I have helped you.
Do not be afraid; you are my servant, my chosen people whom I love.
I will give water to the thirsty land
and make streams flow on the dry ground.
I will pour out my spirit on your children
and my blessing on your descendants.
They will thrive like well-watered grass,
 like willows by streams of running water.
One by one, people will say, 'I am the LORD's.'
They will come to join the people of Israel.
They each will mark the name of the LORD on their arms
and call themselves one of God's people."
~Isaiah 44:2-5

My baby brother is a daddy. 
My nephew is the first of his generation.
Not the first grandchild for my parents, but the first to have my father's name.
The name carries on.

Nothing To Commit

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and our Lord Jesus Christ,
who gave Himself for our sins,
that He might deliver us from this present evil age...
I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him...
The gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.

I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries...
being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions...
But when it pleased God... who called me through His grace,
to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles...
they glorified God in me."

~excerpts from Galatians 1

"To attempt to change the gospel has the effect of making it the very opposite of what it really is."

"The gospel shuts out all works."

"The other day a man said to me, 'I want to become a Christian.
I am going to try to be a little better, and if I improve, I am going to become a Christian.'
"I said to him, 'If you improve, you will never become a Christian.  
The only class that God is saving is the ungodly.
The Lord Jesus said He didn't come to call the righteous; He came to call sinners.
There is none righteous, no, not one.
The righteousness of man is as filthy rags in God's sight.
Law condemns us, and it must make us speechless before grace can save us.'"

"The gospel of grace puts us in the dust and makes us beggars before God."

"We have nothing to commit to Him...
You have nothing to commit to Him, my friend.
He wants to commit something to you.
He is the One who died, and He is on the giving end."

~excerpts from Thru The Bible With J. Vernon McGee, on Galatians 1

What stood out to me in pondering Galatians 1 this morning was Himself.  
He is the gospel.  
He is the good news.  
He is the message.  
He is the deliverance.
And He is the One we turn from when we turn from the gospel.

The good news is the work of Christ accomplished for us.
Complete in Him.
Not our advancement beyond our contemporaries in zealousness,
but the revealing of His Son in us through His grace by His will
that we might preach HIM,
that God would be glorified in us.
God is not glorified in our righteousness.
He is glorified in the work of Christ --
the righteousness of Christ.
The deliverance of Christ.

All We Have

My dear friend Conor was speaking at the church I was at today.
He talked about Mark 8:31-35 where Jesus tells His disciples He must suffer,
and be rejected,
and be killed
and rise again after 3 days.
And Peter pulls Him aside to rebuke Him.
You know what Jesus said to him:
"Get behind me, Satan."

My friend focused on Peter's mind being influenced by the things of man,
and not the things of God.
He pointed out that it was the GOSPEL -- the work of Christ on our behalf --
that Peter was trying to correct.
He was speaking the words of Satan when he corrected Jesus.
"Satan is not opposed to going to church, to praying idle prayers.
He's opposed to the gospel."
The work of Christ is central.
"The gospel is all we have! Jesus is all we have!"

I had never thought of it before.
(Peter being opposed to the gospel.)
In a sense it comforts me to see Peter, who was opposed to the gospel,
become one of the foremost instruments of promoting the gospel --
although he had to be corrected again by Paul on the very subject of legalism.

"I want God to take this blurry watercolor of the cross and show it to me in HD," Conor said.

Legalism sucks all the life out of Christianity.
It's like posting the rules of my marriage on the wall:
Eight kisses every day are required, and they must be passionate.
You must bear eight children in order to be considered remotely fruitful.
All meals must be gourmet, and the house spotless at all times.
Two hours of one-on-one conversation must take place every day at the same time.
And sex is scheduled four days a week.