A duet of three

A new harmony rang out.  The new sound was all the more sweet because of how harried our road had been.  Parenting problems.  Piano logistics problems.  Computer problems.  The list went on and on, and suffice it to say, we were strapped in stress.  My friend stood at the piano, and I sat to play, and somewhere in the mix of our singing, this new harmony blossomed, and we savored it from the very first moment.  Without stopping to acknowledge it, we found nourishment in it and cleansing.  “Lord, I need You, oh I need You.  Every hour I need You.”  How perfectly the lyrics fit our depth of fatigue, and so we sang and sang more and repeated and repeated again.  When the song quit singing, the piano kept playing.  When the piano quit playing, the Spirit still hovered, almost as if my sustain pedal on the piano sustained the Holy Spirit’s presence.  My friend and I stayed motionless and realized our streams and rivers of tears.  Beyond musical pitches, beyond any great set of lyrics, in a different realm our duet had become a trio, and we didn't want the experience to release.  In this flourish of harmony, blessing had entered the air, and we simply delighted to breathe.

God & Vistaprint

Did you know God works with Vistaprint?  You know that website with all the coupons for business cards?  Last night He proofed my order.  Right after I hit the Submit button, I thought twice that I should’ve allowed more margin on the right-hand side.  I ordered some magnets and checked and rechecked the format but then suddenly wondered, “What if the printing machine cuts the cards just a little too close?  Oh, man!”  And I loved the final design with the laid-back green and some soft shades of blue and the Parisian font that I hadn't used before.  In my mind, I was already smiling to hand them to friends and use them as gift tags.  But now the order was already sent.  Trying to change it would be such a hassle.  So I prayed, “Lord, may you oversee the production of these magnets that they would print in whole.  May they have no letters cut off the edges.”  Then before quitting the computer, I checked my email.  What?  Four emails from Vistaprint?  The last one says, “Whilst in the process of reviewing your order placed on September 20, 2013, it was discovered that portions of the text on the Small Magnet had a likely chance of being cut off when the product is printed.  An adjustment was made to the Magnet and it was replaced to ensure that it would be printed perfectly.”  Well, how interesting is that!  How sweet that the Lord would handle my order.  A simple blessing to know He oversees all our happenings and that He's available for the big, the small, and the in-between.  James 1:17 reads, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

It's Egg Day!

It's the simplest of things.  Eggs.  Who eats eggs for breakfast?  Probably the whole world does.  Having 2 fried eggs in the morning would be a huge highlight for my husband.  And for me to cook the eggs would be even more hugely a surprise!  As my sweet friend so casually talked about washing all the breakfast dishes at her house, my heart started to sink.  I asked, “How often do you cook breakfast?”  Answer:  “Every day.”  And I promptly paused.  And I paused still more.  All these years I’ve cooked breakfast such a small percentage of the time.  But now my weekday schedule is different.  Sometimes I have an out-of-town trip and leave in the morning by 4:30 or occasionally 6:00, but often I don’t have a strict timeframe anymore.  Raisin Bran, Mini-Wheats, and Lucky Charms no longer need to predominate our home menu.  And the motivation behind the change is what’s important.  It’s kindness.  In 2 Samuel 9, kindness is no small thing.  King David seeks to offer kindness to anyone in Saul's family.  Soon David meets Mephibosheth, who is Saul's grandson.  David explains he wants to restore land to Mephibosheth and offer him a lifelong invitation to eat at the family table.  David's kindness is abundant, and when considering the fact that Saul tried to kill David repeatedly, the depth of David’s kindness is all the more remarkable.  He demonstrates a kindness that's neither fluffy nor cute nor superficial.  It's kindness with real meat.  Real hearty chunks of character, all for the sake of Jonathan, who was Saul’s son and David’s covenant friend.  Here in the Old Testament, with all its many battles, we see kindness.  God's kindness.  And now in real life for me, I have nothing even close to anybody trying to kill me.  My gesture to cook 2 eggs for breakfast should be comparatively quite simple.  And I'm happy to say our kitchen now serves eggs at least once a week.  It's a slow change, yet the smile on my husband’s face beams across the room.  And I hereby testify to the Lord's ability to transform a very committed non-cook into someone now giddily happy to pull out the old skillet and fry up some eggs.  I gladly pronounce, “It’s Egg Day!”

Battleground: deer, water, bones

My bones hurt.  I'm on edge.  I leave the room because the noise of the TV stirs my stomach.  The other day I was close to crying just driving down the road.  I’ve wondered about arthritis and fibromyalgia, but even more so I’ve considered these aches to evidence the throes of spiritual battle.  Certainly the story of Job shows that faith can lead us to encounter physical pain.  Now in recent weeks I have called on the Lord to carry me through.  And then came last Sunday.  I simply walked into church and heard 3 particular words.  Deer.  Water.  Bones.  Each spoke uniquely to me.  Our pastor talked of his trip to Montana and his view of some deer walking up to the water.  That water, he said, was a fountain of life for these animals.  That water led to a whole experience of replenishment.  Much more than a short sip of anything wet, that water nourished the depth of the animal’s whole existence.  Yet when the pastor initially uttered deer and water in the same sentence, my brain froze because I first thought of a song.  I'd been rehearsing some music with a friend, and one set of our lyrics sings, “As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul longeth after Thee.”  Our road to rehearsing this music had encountered a very steep uphill climb.  It was a battle, it had been painful, pressure was tight, and so this Sunday in church my ears stood desperately attentive.  Next came the pastor saying, “The Lord can be health to our bones.”  And therein sat my third word.  God was using the pastor to speak into the aches of my body that felt more loudly pronounced every day.  All morning I kept hearing people speak words and ideas that I identified with.  River.  Thirst.  Running water that flows even where the land is parched.  With each new mention, I felt refreshed and immensely loved by the Lord that He would speak so specifically into my circumstances and let me know He knew what I was enduring and that He was with me.  This pain I withstood was of a different realm.  A different category.  People tell me I have a high tolerance for pain, yet my usual large doses of ibuprofen wouldn’t touch this.  The tension began to cleanse through my eyes, saturating one Kleenex after another to realize how each new conversation added into the blessing.  Jesus says in John 7:38, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”  This was my real life and my real streams of tears flowing.  And by the time I heard my Spanish friend say the word alfarero, which only a couple days prior I had learned means “potter,” I could picture the Lord molding me at the potter’s wheel, moistening the clay along the way to stretch, reshape, and smooth out my edges.  And as my tears released, my fragility faded.  Though the pain would return later in the week, this Sunday the Lord had relieved and replenished to the depths of my soul.  Where I had struggled for words to explain to my husband, the Lord had reassured that He knew all the ins and outs of every inch of my pain.  Satan could fight all he wanted, but the Lord had given me rest and had held up the fight on my behalf.  To know Him in these moments was sufficient for me.  The Lord is enough.