Boldly from a wheelchair

“Does anybody have praises to tell about?”  The lady at my table smiled to tell the whole room, “It’s Wednesday, and I’m happy to come to church!”  Refreshingly, and very simply, she was right.  Her gentle voice matched a unique contentment in her eyes, both seeming to reach far beyond the circumstances of her wheelchair.  And her words had given me reason to pause.  This week has been different.  Kind of quiet, in fact.  A phone call to a friend with Crohn’s disease set me in a pensive mode.  A phone call to a friend dealing with dialysis set me pensive again.  Prior to those calls, I had sat with a friend at an infusion center downtown, my eyes being opened for a closer look at the processes of blood replacement and liver transplantation.  Each moment held its own reason to ponder and be thankful, and I loved the availability the Lord had given me to serve—waiting for my friend and being so glad for her to regain some energy, entertaining the little boy at the clinic who loved to eat Skittles while waiting for his grandpa, talking with the lady making a cross-stitch bib while waiting for her son, and overall being thankful for the many who donate blood in order for all these to receive.  All in all, life has appeared more fragile lately.  I look forward to some friends coming for dinner on Saturday, realizing they too have dealt with fragility in the form of cancer.  It’s a Psalm 46:10 week.  I can sit still and know God.  As my table-mate reminded me last night . . . it’s Thursday, and I’m happy to have come to know the Lord!

The book of Job + $1.10

In San Antonio, $1.10 buys a seat on the bus.  Yesterday I wanted to meet my husband close to where he works across town, and then we’d drive together to church.  I paid my $1.10 on the 648, chose a seat near the front, and began reading the book of Job.  Poor Job is having a hard time, and actually that’s a huge understatement because Satan is afflicting him intensely.  I’m reading where Job is losing his livestock, his servants, and his family, and suddenly I hear a man’s voice and look up to acknowledge him taking the seat behind me.  He had recognized my Bible’s columnar pages and smiled to say he enjoyed reading too.  Genesis was the book that really made him think, he said.  He elaborated a bit, and all the while he spoke, my heart was leaping to realize this was no ordinary bus ride.  I was sitting in the midst of the Lord at work.  He was transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary.  As an orchestra conductor might cue the clarinets alongside the violas, the Lord had cued my new neighbor and me to meet on the bus that afternoon.  Only the Lord’s orchestra is exponentially more vast.  He brought joy into the hearts of 2 people who until recently had lived in distant parts of the world.  Yet never is the Lord far from His children, nor is a day with Him ever humdrum.  Especially in those occasions like Job’s when the afflictions of Satan excruciate, we find peace in knowing the Lord is near.

Rubbing elbows in the trenches

“You’re Everywhere”—it’s one of my favorite songs.  YouTube hosts several Third Day renditions, in case you’d like to listen. The lyrics correlate with what happened this past weekend.  We sat in our living room with friends, taking turns telling stories of God.  Conversation ran deep from the start, as our friends had been enduring the throes of death and how it can change the landscape of a family's personality.  It was tearful and gut-wrenching, yet joyous at the same time.  It seemed the deeper the pit, the sweeter was the Lord’s deliverance.  My husband told the story of how the Lord one morning washed away his deep, deep anger.  I told of the multitude of blessings the Lord bestowed when I lost a job.  In the midst of physical ailment that sent me to the doctor and a wounded pride that didn’t let me sleep at night, the Lord let me know His presence, even blessing me all the way through to my daughter, whose college scholarships we saw Him increase to compensate for my lack of a job.  Little did we know that our stories in the living room on Saturday would become part of our friend’s sermon on Sunday.  Midway on his drive to San Antonio, he had realized he’d forgotten his preaching notes.  Now the Lord was using our stories to fill some gaps for his sermon.  It was two for one—a two-fer, you might say.  Storytelling wasn’t simply storytelling.  The song lyrics say, “My God, You are everywhere from the lowest depths to the heavens.”  According to 1 Corinthians 3:9, we are God’s fellow workers.  When He’s not carrying us, He's working alongside, rubbing elbows with us in the trenches. 

Guitar crossover

I’ve been resisting it.  Learning guitar hasn’t been my idea of fun lately.  I am fully aware that enormous blessings have come my way through things I didn’t choose myself, yet somehow I’ve resisted.  Yesterday was good, though.  I dived in with chords G, C, and D.  Thought I’d try them on “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High,” thinking maybe a familiar tune with lots of voices would prevail over my inexperienced hands straining across the strings.  And actually it was fun.  A refreshing memory came to mind as well.  My husband and I used to study with a friend who would bring his guitar to start our Friday evenings with a few songs.  Each Friday, he invariably fumbled some chords, and I loved it.  His fingers hit crosswise, and I always smiled in my heart and maybe on my face too.  The fumbled chords brought a reality to our worship.  Real life has fumbled chords, so to say.  We hit rough spots and need to bounce back.  Just as our friend double-checked his chord chart to replay, we regain our footing with the Lord and step back on track.  Yesterday, sitting on the couch with the guitar on my knee, this memory did lighten the task and bring joy to this new endeavor.  My crossovers from oboe to piano and then piano to voice have stretched me indeed, and sometimes I haven’t understood how it would all work together, but it did.  May the Lord continue to overpower my selfish heart and give joy for the new road. 

An earful of blessing

Listening can be good.  Listening, rather than always talking, that is.  It takes me out of the driver’s seat, presenting opportunity to see into the life of another, offering the reminder that little ol’ me isn’t really at the center of things.  This week I visited 2 friends in the hospital—one who awaits a liver transplant, and another who’s enduring kidney transplant complications.  They’ve both dealt with all kinds of hardships and excruciating pain, yet to hear them talk, it’s their love of the Lord at the forefront.  Seeing Him in their gentle, gracious ways inspires me and has caused me to sit and ponder a number of things.  Not too long ago, I was inspired through another friend as well.  I’d been praying for him to find a job, but somehow we had never talked about houses or apartments or anything.  I had no idea he lived at the Salvation Army shelter.  I’d never heard him complain about living arrangements, and indeed how I admired his mindset to press on and look forward.  In my neighborhood, I've found a wonderful joy in the form of a German shepherd down the street.  Hearing him bark and seeing him wag his tail to greet his master sets my heart afloat.  It takes a few seconds to slow down, listen, and watch this dog, but his utter joy is contagious.  James 1 says we should all be quick to listen and slow to speak.  Some say that’s why the Lord gave us 2 ears and only 1 mouth.  May we seek Him for how to listen today—with the neighbor who's lonely, perhaps with the aunt who so readily criticizes or the guy in the office with the insanely crazy clothes, yet certainly still affording ourselves time to listen for the voice of the Lord himself.  Whether two minutes or twenty or more, blessing lies within.