Don't Cut Holes in Your Own Blanket!

Hi Friends,

This week I'm working on the chapter of Waiting for Wonder (the Sarah book) that talks about how Sarah treated the pregnant Hagar so badly that Hagar ran away. I'm thinking about how sometimes we do things that messes up our lives. We "cut holes in our own blanket" (see story below!).

I'm thinking about how Sarah didn't go after Hagar. She wasn't able to restore what she broke. But God did go after Hagar, and brought her back. He was able to restore what Sarah broke.

So, as I ponder and write, and ponder some more, I'm considering rewriting the following story from when Joelle was little. This story talks about how God gives us rules to keep up from cutting up our lives. But I'm also thinking about how he doesn't just leave the gaping holes after we've messed up.

The original story is below. I think I'll rewrite it to emphasize how God also repairs the holes we make, and he does it in ways we could never manage on our own.

JOELLE AND THE SCISSORS

I stood there with the blanket in my hands and tears in my eyes.  Light shone through a dozen great, gaping holes in the crocheted blanket.  I had made the blanket for my 3-year-old when I was pregnant with her.  It was to be a special gift, an heirloom, for her to keep into adulthood.  But here it was, filled with holes, with her standing beside me with scissors in her hand.

            “Oh, Joelle, how could you?”

            Her eyes slid away. 

            “You know this is your special blanket.”

            She sniffed and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.  “I didn’t know.”

            I closed my eyes.  She was right.  She didn’t know.  She didn’t understand how special that blanket was, and that I couldn’t replace it, and it would be almost impossible to repair.  She didn’t understand what that blanket meant to me, and would one day mean to her.  There were a lot of things that didn’t know.

            But there were some things she did know.  One was that she wasn’t allowed to get the scissors out of the drawer.  The other was that she wasn’t to play with her blanket.  She didn’t like those rules, didn’t understand them.  But today showed the results of breaking them -- a blanket filled with holes.

            I took the scissors out of her hand and placed them high up on a shelf.  Then, I folded the blanket into a ball. 

            Joelle chewed her lower lip.  “Can you fix it, Mommy?”

            I shook my head.  “I don’t think so, sweetheart.  You did a bad thing when you cut it up with the scissors.”

            She took a big, gulping sob and then ran to her bed and threw herself into the pillow.        

            I stood there and didn’t follow.  Truth was, I didn’t know what to do or what to say.  Nothing could make it all better now.  She would just have to live with the consequences, now and into the future.  That’s just how it would be.

            I went downstairs, spread the blanket on a table, and tried to figure out how I make salvage the mess.  As I did, I thought about her words, “I didn’t know.” 

            How often do I say that same thing to God?  I didn’t know that little white lie would come back to bite me.  I didn’t know that if I just kept stubbornly pushing for my way, I’d end up regretting it.  I didn’t know that if I was rude to that person I would pay for it later.  I didn’t know a lot of things.

            But I did know that God calls me to the truth, all the time.  I knew that God wants me to submit to his will and leadership in my life.  I knew he asks me to be kind to everyone, whether I feel like it or not. 

            As it says in Deuteronomy 4:40 (NIV), “Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the LORD your God gives you for all time.”

            Sometimes, God’s commands seem restrictive and no fun.  But he gives them to me all the same, and the reason he does is because I don’t know – I can’t see how everything will turn out.  So he gives me instructions in His Word so that it will go well with me. 

            And just like Joelle, I can ignore the rules too.  I can get a chair, get into the off-limits drawer, and pull out the forbidden scissors.  I can have great fun . . . for a moment.  But later, there’s going to be tears and things that cannot always be put back the way they were.

            So now when I read about God’s commands in the Bible, I remember that they’re there because I don’t know everything, and he’s just trying to keep me from cutting holes in my own blanket.

LETTING THINGS FALL AWAY...

Hi Friends,

In honor of the first day of Fall this week, here's a story from Bryan about the grace of letting the dead things fall away in your life. I hope you find it helpful and encouraging!


LET THE LEAVES FALL

I remember the smell, and the crinkle, and the varying shades of brown, yellow, and orange.  I remember the crispness of the air, and the scraping of the rake against dry leaves.  I remember a Nebraska autumn and a lawn covered in fall’s leafy quilt and my little brother and I leaping with reckless abandon into piles of musky sweetness.

            I remember a time when raking up the dead and fallen things in our lives meant not sorrow, but joy.  Not regret, not fear, but hope in what was to come.

            If I close my eyes, even now, I can see the sheen of sweat on my dad’s face as he leaned over the rake.  I can hear the sound it made as he pulled it over the dead grass toward him.

            “Bryan, grab the little rake from the garage and help me.”

            “Okay, Dad.”

            I trotted to the garage, pulled down a rake that was bigger than I was and dragged it outside.  Then, I swished the tines across the leaves to gather them into a tiny pile. 

            Dad added more leaves to my pile.

            A moment later, my three-year-old brother toddled out of the house.  He clapped his hands.  “Oh, yay! Can we jump in them yet?”

            Dad shook his head.

            The pile isn’t big enough.  Why don’t you gather some up with your hands and add them to the stack.

            Justin did.  Little by little, the pile grew, with Dad adding great bundles of leaves, me adding small bundles, and Justin adding a few here and there, as much as his little hands could carry.

            Soon, the lawn was clear, the pile a gigantic heap of potential-fun, and the rakes were safely stored.

            Dad sat on the steps and rested while Justin and I squealed and ran and threw ourselves into a mountain of fall colors.  Dad smiled as we played and played and played.  We tossed leaves, we burrowed in leaves, and we laid in leaves while gazing up at the gray sky. 

            And we never, ever wished that the leaves would turn green and go back onto the trees again.  We weren’t afraid of their falling.  We didn’t feel bereft. 

            Instead, we knew that fresh, green leaves would come in the spring, while these dead ones had fallen to bring us joy . . . and a little work.

            So why, all these years later, do I grumble and moan and fear when dead things fall away in my life?  Why do I clench my hands so tightly around things that no longer bring me life? Why don’t I let them fall and bring me a new kind of joy?

            2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV) says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

            When I hear this verse, I usually think about it as if it only means that sometime, way in my past, when I accepted Jesus I became a new creation in Christ.  But as I think of the falling leaves of autumn, I wonder if it doesn’t also mean that Christ continues to make me new, renew me . . . and cause the old, dead things to fall away like autumn leaves.

            And when they do, when the leaves scatter on the dry ground, I don’t need to fret about what I no longer have, what I no longer am.  Instead, I can look forward to new, green leaves in the springtime, and for now, find joy in the crinkly, brown piles in my life. 

            Now, as I gather dried leaves for my own kids, I think about those days long ago when my dad did most of the raking, the piling, the working.  I helped.  My little brother helped.  But I know now that dad did the real work.  And I remind myself that when dead things fall away in my life, it’s my heavenly father who is doing most of the work then too.  I help.  Others may help.  But it is God who is clearing away the crusty brownness of old habits, dead plans, and things that are no longer vital, living. 

            So, when dead things fall away, I want to stop worrying and instead revel in thankfulness for God’s work in my life.  I want to lay on the leaves in a heap, look up, and know that spring is coming.  I want to trust God enough to rake beside him and rejoice when the work is done.

9-11, Faith, and Life's Toppling Towers

Hi Friends,

Today, I think back to where I was on September 11 fourteen years ago, I think of crashing airplanes and toppling towers, I remember the ache of ash and hopes buried in rubble.

It was a day that changed the world. 

And it reminds me of other days, days that changed MY world, or days that changed the world of those close to me. 

Planes still crash into the towers of our lives. There is still aches in ash and buried hope.  There are still moments when all we can do is weep.

But what do we do with those moments? How do we look on them with faith? How do we follow God in a broken world, with our broken lives?

This week, Jayden taught me something about that. With his new T1D diagnosis, there’s been toppling towers and rubbled days (and nights). 

But I’ve seen something in that little boy that shows me what faith really is. 

It happened like this:

Jayden will soon be getting a device to help measure his glucose in a more continuous way. He’ll have to wear the device all the time, inserting it fresh into his skin at least once a week. He’ll have to carry a receiver and ... here’s the good news ... an iPhone so that the data can be sent to up to 5 other phones. I’ll be able to monitor him from a distance! But he’s going to have to wear the pokey device. 

He didn’t want to wear the pokey device.  That is, until we told him he could have his very own iPhone if he agreed to wear the device! That’s all it took to convince him. However, his 10-year-old sister was not so thrilled. She’s been wanting a phone for years. We keep saying no. So, in her frustration, she blurts out, “I wish I had diabetes!”

And then Jayden did an amazing thing.  He didn’t tell her “No you don’t!” or complain about the difficulties of diabetes. He didn’t get mad. He didn’t fuss.  He just looked at her with a bland “don’t be dumb” look and said:  "God gives you diabetes. You don't just give it to yourself!" 

I stopped in my tracks. I might have said, “God didn’t give you diabetes.” But I didn’t say that. I couldn’t. Because Jayden wasn’t blaming God for his diabetes. Instead he was submitting himself to the sovereignty of God is his life. 

God could have prevented his diabetes. God did not. And Jayden accepted that fact without anger or blaming or trying to excuse God in any way. He chose to walk in faith, trusting God in whatever came his way.

And I stood stunned because a little boy said “God gives you diabetes” not in a I'm-mad-at-God way, but in a You-accept-what-God-gives-you sort of way. He's six years old and he was teaching his sister that you take what God gives you in life and you don't whine about it.

I need that kind of faith.

Perhaps it’s best summed up by something a dear friend said to me this week. She’s in the midst of fighting breast cancer and just had her first surgery to remove lumps. She said: 

"I think I'm going through some cycles of grief, as in denial right now, feeling like this can't be happening to me.  Yet, why not?  Why not me?  All of us have struggles...  It's what's been given to us in a fallen world, our vehicles for glorifying God and becoming more like Christ." 

Our toppling towers are what’s given us in a fallen world. They are our vehicles for glorifying Christ. This is what Faith looks like on this anniversary of 9-11.

When Getting What You Want Doesn't Get You What You Want

Hi Friends,

I'm working on the third chapter of my new book, WAITING FOR WONDER, a Transformational Journey through the Life of Sarah (supposed to come out with Abingdon Press in the fall of 2016). This week I'm thinking about how sometimes we "arrive," or we get what we had been praying for, or we finally get "there," and it turns out to be not everything we'd hoped. It isn't the end-all, be-all. Life is still hard, we still struggle, and what we thought would be a place of settling into a better life turns out to just be the beginning of other issues we must face and deal with.

Ever been there? If so, share! I'm hoping this chapter will be a help and encouragement to all of us who find ourselves in this place.

Here's what I have so far for the chapter introduction:

How many times? How many times, Lord, have I thought if only I could get “there,” then all would be well? How many times have I set my hopes on something and believed that all my problems would be solved if only I could achieve that one thing. How many times have I prayed for the thing that I knew would save me, but it has fallen short?

Sometimes arriving isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 

Even the promised land isn’t the answer to all our hopes, our fears, our dreams, our needs. I forget that sometimes. But Sarai reminds me. 

She reminds me to be careful where I place my hope, be careful of where I believe I’ll find my answers. 

She reminds me that the promised land is a poor substitute for the God of Promise.

And here's the thought I'm mulling over for Sarai and for me:

When God gives a promise, the Promise is not a place, it's a Person. It's God Himself.

What do you think? Have you experienced this?

Living with Confidence: Lessons from the First Day of School

Hi Friends,

The kids are back in school (all except Jordyn), and the wonderful staff at Lagunita School has been managing Jayden's diabetes, giving insulin shots, checking blood glucose, and keeping him safe for days! What a blessing they are!

Since Jayden started the first grade, I've been thinking back to his first day of preschool, years ago, and what I learned that day. And as I've been dealing with the hard stuff of life, God has encouraged me by remembering that first day, remembering how to live with confidence when things are new, and scary, and sometimes I'm not so sure.

Jayden taught me how to live with greater joy. Here's his preschool story and how I was changed through it:

Way back when Jayden had his very first day of preschool…

Jayden gripped my hand with small fingers.  He took a deep breath, and I felt him tremble.  He looked up at me.  

I gave him my best smile.  “Are you ready?”  

Together, we turned toward the long hallway to his preschool classroom.  And then, I was the one taking a deep, uncertain breath.  How would he handle this first day of real school? Would he cry?  Would he fuss? Would he fight? Would he wet his pants?

Three-year-old voices splashed out into hall.  “Give me.” “Stop it!” “Mommmmyyyyy!”  “Waaaa...”

Jayden’s fingers tightened.  His shoulders straightened.  “I’m ready.”

I straightened my shoulders too, and we moved toward the triangle of light that fell from the door’s opening.  I’d made this walk many times with his older sisters.  But for him, it was the first time.  The first time he’d squish his hand into the homemade playdough.  The first time he’d sit on the carpet for circle time and hear the story of the big bear. The first time he’d teeter-totter with a classmate, and sip his juice, and hang his sweatshirt on the rack, and obey the teacher when she said to stand on the yellow line.

Was he really ready?

We stepped inside the classroom.  He didn’t cry.  He didn’t fuss.

I wanted to scoop him up and kiss him, but I wouldn’t.  He was a big boy now.  And he was ready.  He truly was.

I let go of his hand and touched his blond hair.  My gaze traveled over his cowboy boots, red t-shirt, and jeans covering his big-boy underwear.  It seemed like just yesterday when he was running around in diapers and onesies.  How had this happened?  How had he grown from a toddler in Pampers to this young man making his way over to the Lego table all by himself?

I thought about it and smiled.  He’d grown day by day, hour by hour, with a lot of instruction, a lot of discipline, and a lot of meals.  And some of it he hadn’t liked one bit.  He wanted to hit his sisters when they took his toys.  We taught him he couldn’t hit.  He wanted to go to church in just a diaper.  We told him he had to keep his pants on.  He didn’t want to eat healthy food.  We gave it to him anyway.  He “no like” going to bed.  We tucked him in and turned out the light all the same.  And he especially didn’t like to use the potty chair.  Going in the diaper was just so much easier.  But we kept at it until he was able to keep his big-boy pants dry all day and all night.

We did it because we knew he couldn’t stay a baby forever.  We knew this day would come, when he’d be going to school where you couldn’t hit, you couldn’t grab, you had to keep your pants on and your underwear dry.  Now, after a lot of work, he was ready.

And he was happy.

As I stood there and watched him play, I wondered if God was using the things I didn’t like in my life to discipline me too, to train me for a new adventure that I didn’t yet know about.  Were the things that didn’t taste so sweet making me strong?  Were the lessons that seemed so hard preparing me for my “first day of preschool” where diapers weren’t allowed?  As Jayden moved to the playdough table, the words of Hebrews 12:5b-6 (NIV) came to mind:  “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves...”

So, even though I prefer the easy life, even though I would rather swallow only things that I enjoy and get my own way, God knows that I have to grow up.  So he trains me, disciplines me, shows me how to grow, so that when I stand in the long, scary hallway leading to a new adventure with him, I can straighten my shoulders, grip his hand in mine, and say with a voice that may tremble just a little, “Yes, I’m ready.”

As I left Jayden’s classroom that morning, I knew that I, too, wanted to be like him.  I wanted to be a “big girl” who could bravely go into new situations and do what’s right.  I wanted to be the type of kid who holds God’s hand, even when I’m shaking, and walks forward.  I want to be ready for every new adventure with God.

The God Who Says NO

Hi Friends,

This week I'm remembering the last thing I said to Bryan before he took Jayden to the doctor, when he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. It went like this:

Me: I sure hope he doesn't have diabetes.
Bryan: Well, that would be awful.

So, as I ponder that short exchange, I've been thinking about what hope looks like, what faith looks like, what honesty looks like when things don't go well, prayers don't make it better, and the very thing I feared would happen, happens.,

Who is God then? And who am I?

As I ponder (and wrestle), I've been going back to the chapter on Jesus' arrest, besting, and sentencing from my book. And I've been reminded of what faith and hope are when my worst fears come true. I've found this excerpt helpful, and I hope you will too.

So, if you're facing a battle today and God's not making it "go away," read on ...

WRESTLING WITH WONDER excerpt

So who is this God who forces us to face our worst fears and refuses to answer our prayers to take this cup from us? Who is he whose will includes a Messiah’s arrest, beating, and horrific death? Who is he who sends a mother to witness the death of her Son?

            This God is the One who ...

            ... takes us where we don’t want to go

            ... to do what we never dreamed possible.

            He is the God who says “Follow me!” in the midst of the worst times in our lives.

Will we say, “Your will be done ... even if it’s this nightmare” as we pray and sweat and bleed?

            Because we are called by this God to face our fears and love anyway, follow anyway, believe anyway.

            Even when prayers are answered with only a resounding “No!”? Even when we pray and things get worse? Even when it seems like God hasn’t heard us at all?

            Yes.

            After all, a lot of people in the Bible didn’t get their prayers answered the way they wanted. But God’s will was done anyway. Here is just a small sampling:

            —Jonah: In Jonah 4:2, Jonah prays to the Lord and says, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish.”

            Jonah wanted his enemies, Israel’s enemies, in the city of Nineveh to be destroyed. He prayed for Israel’s freedom from the horror inflicted on them by the Assyrians (Nineveh was their capital city). Instead, God sent him to preach to them, to warn them what would happen if they didn’t repent. Jonah fled in the opposite direction, toward Tarshish, to avoid the outcome he dreaded—the Ninevites repenting and being saved. But things got worse with a storm at sea, Jonah swallowed by a huge fish, and his being vomited up on land. Jonah went to Nineveh—the last place he ever wanted to go. He preached. They repented. And God did not destroy the city before Jonah’s eyes. His enemies remained. Jonah’s prayers weren’t answered. The worst thing he imagined happened. But God’s will was done.

            —Paul: In 2 Corinthians 12:7-9, Paul says, “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”

            Three times Paul prays, and each time God answers with a resounding, “No!” But God’s will is done. Paul’s character is refined, and God’s power is made perfect in Paul’s weakness.

            —Jesus: In Matthew 26:36-46, we see Jesus praying to his Father. It says, “Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane.... Then he said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death....’ Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’ ... He went away a second time and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.’ ... [He] went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, ‘... Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!’”

            Jesus is barely done praying when the answer comes in the form of the arresting party armed with swords and torches. One of Jesus’s closest friends, Judas, is leading them and will betray him with a sign of love, a kiss. Jesus will then be beaten, mocked, and crucified. God, his Father, essentially says to his Son, “No! My will is not for this cup to pass. I will take you where you don’t want to go, and you will accomplish what no one has thought possible.” He would accomplish the salvation of us all. Because God said no, Jesus went where he didn’t want to go, and faced a nightmare death.

            The reason these men’s prayers weren’t answered in the way they’d hoped was not because God abandoned them, or because God didn’t love them, or because they’d used a wrong prayer formula. It wasn’t because they didn’t have enough faith, or had made God mad, or weren’t worthy.

            Instead, it was because God was accomplishing his will not only for them, but for others around them. God was up to something that required more faith, more trust, more submission to his will. God had another plan. Saying “No!” to their prayers was the only way to accomplish that plan, God’s vision, for them and for us.

            Just like Jonah, Paul, and Jesus, God takes us where we don’t want to go because he is doing something that is meant to glorify him through our lives, meant to bless others through us.  . His vision is bigger than our comfort, more glorious than our need for health, happiness, satisfaction, or even earthly life. He is doing something more, something wondrous, something nearly unimaginable.

Seeing God on the Diabetes Road

Hi Friends,

Well, this has certainly been a tough, life-changing week as my six-year-old son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, an irreversible, unpreventable, and incurable autoimmune disease where his immune system attacks and kills the cells in his pancreas that produce insulin. He now requires careful monitoring of his carb intake, blood sugar (several finger pokes a day), and insulin shots at least 4 times a day. 

And so as I struggle to adjust to this new normal, I’m looking back to the things I believe, to what I so know to be true that I wrote it in Wrestling with Wonder.  At the 2am blood checks when his number drops into the danger zone, when I’m so intent on figuring out his meal that I forget if I’ve eaten mine, when I look to the endless future of insulin and monitoring, when the numbers are too high or the numbers are too low, when I sink in exhaustion and cringe at the whispers of fear, when I look at this path that I never imagined and never would have wanted ...

When God calls me to this journey through my son’s diabetes, I think of Mary, the mother of Jesus. And today, this is what has encouraged me, reminded me that I am not alone. 

And for a moment, I see hope again ...

Chapter 3 Excerpt

         Sometimes we have to travel a path we don’t understand to arrive in the place where God wants us to be.

And as I recall my journey, and Mary’s, they teach me that even through hurt and discomfort, maybe especially in hurt and pain, God is leading to a place where I will glimpse his glory anew. He is saying to me that I must travel the path he has placed before me in order to get to the place he has planned for me since the beginning. 

So, when you’ve surrendered to God’s call and are suddenly thrust onto a road you never imagined and never wanted, remember, he knows the path you take. He travels with you, within you, and you will see him as you never could have before if you just keep going, trust, and persevere.
There, you will see the face of the Messiah. You will meet him in a new way. So, place one foot in front of the other, walk through your life day by day, know that this road, as pointless as it seems, is the only way to his will. 
Jesus must be born in Bethlehem. You must travel the difficult road at the worst time in your life to get there. Keep going, have faith, walk ... and you will get to that new place where you will see him in a new way. The place where you will be changed. Don’t give up. Don’t despair. 

This road leads to Bethlehem ... the place where you will Christ face to face.