Attention: Shoppers

How do you feel about giving gifts?  For me, it’s something I love.  It's also something that stresses me out.  Two weeks ago my husband and I stared down the task of preparing 16 gifts.  Though part of our family draws names for Christmas so that each adult gives only one gift, we still had a slew of birthdays to celebrate.  So I prayed, “Lord, show me through.  Lead me in this.”  After all, Christ tells us to not worry about our life and what we will eat, drink, and wear.  In Matthew 6:33, He says, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  In case my family reads this, I won't give names of stores, but here’s the gist of what happened after I prayed.  On a Wednesday in the course of my usual day at a hospital, I stopped at a small shop.  To my surprise, I found 3 gifts.  The next day en route to visiting some pediatric patients, I came upon another small shop and happily found 2 more gifts.  Friday evening on a shopping trip with my husband, we found still 3 more, plus we ordered 1 from a bookstore due to a recent email ad I consider divinely inspired.  Then Saturday we found the remaining 7, all conveniently located in 1 store.  Add everything together, and within 4 days the Lord had pointed us to 16 gifts with very little effort outside the regular day.  Especially for anyone who stresses over gift-buying, this is an astonishing feat.  I kept hearing my own voice rattling in the air because it’s difficult to keep quiet when every bone in your body is utterly amazed.  In awe I stood and sat and knelt to pray, practically fidgety and unable to contain the joy.  It's an experience I love to relive, and so I pray for you too.  May the Lord give you His almost inexplicable joy for experiencing His presence.

Girls Like Us

How do you respond when something peculiar happens?  Do you slough it off and say “Oh, well”?  Do you just move on?  Or do you smirk and get mad and beleaguer the circumstances because they just don’t make sense?  In my case, I kind of shook my head and wondered.  I never imagined 4 years ago how the Lord would use a book I read.  My friend handed me Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale.  I read it and took notes, pondering later, “Why did I do that?  I set out to read, not write.  Why did I spend extra time taking notes as if I were going to teach this book?”  I couldn’t remember consciously making the decision, yet it happened, and then over years I forgot about it.  Fast forward to 2017, and I’m praying for the Lord to guide the selection of a new teaching resource for a class.  So far no book titles seem to fit.  None seems to bring peace to my heart, until I sort through my teaching bag another time and find Girls Like Us.  And there my old notes call out, “Yes, teach!”  Of course, the Lord in His omniscience knew 4 years ago that I’d be working today with precious women who have endured abuse.  He in His infinite wisdom had prepared me while I was unaware.  Jeremiah 29:11 says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”  And yet as I've seen Him provide for my future repeatedly, I'm amazed each time.  We pray to be in His will and follow Him for the day, yet a day can affect unto years.

To Voskamp's thousand

“You can’t handle the truth!”  That was Jack’s line, with the burning glare and that unrelenting arrogance.  Today I revise Jack’s words on account of something Ann Voskamp says.  In Chapter 1 of One Thousand Gifts, she talks about the sin of ingratitude.  God told Adam he was free to eat from any tree in the garden, except for one.  And Adam chose that one.  So we wonder, why did he allow himself to be lured to the forbidden?  With an abundance that pleased the eye and also the health of the body, why?  It’s like the time I had a shoulder ache.  The pain worsened and worsened and eventually preoccupied my every thought, and I pleaded for the Lord to take it away.  Then one day it was gone.  And with it also disappeared my fervency of prayer.  The Lord had illustrated for me how He brings good from bad and how without the bad pain, I wandered away.  Generally people don’t handle the good very well.  Jack would say, “You can’t handle the good!”  Our provisions are set, our worries should be none, yet we carelessly wander away from the Lord, so He sometimes allows a point of pain to re-center our need of Him.  Our eyes reopen to the realization of our nakedness, our insufficiency on our own, our personal lack.  Hence the importance to be thankful.  Let us not slide away.  May we not require the Lord to illustrate again with pain.  How many times do we relive the fall of Genesis 3?

My Hindu friend

Ever want to share your favorite thing with somebody, but they’re not interested?  When it’s your favorite flavor of ice cream, the disinterest isn’t earth-shattering.  When it’s trust in Jesus as Savior, the disinterest hits hard.  We’re talking an eternity of effect here.  There’s a lady I’ve prayed for, a lady I love, a lady I hope will ask Jesus to be her Savior one day.  Right now she professes Hinduism.  I want her to know the love of Christ, and I’ve asked the Lord to use me for her sake.  Yet He has shown me to wait on Him for timing.  So eager to share one morning, I walked to her desk, only to see her reading a book.  Not just any book, but a book by a Christian author who writes about Christian living in contemporary terms.  And suddenly my eagerness withdrew.  How gentle a gesture for the Lord to show me He had it covered.  He wouldn’t need my services that day; at least He wouldn’t be employing my lips right then to speak of Him for the sake of my friend.  And so no words did I utter.  Rather, I just grinned to witness Him at work.  Really He is miles ahead of us all the time, orchestrating the seconds and minutes of every hour.  And though my friend has not yet claimed Christianity, the Lord led her to a bookshelf where her fingers selected a Christian title.  My job is to pray and be ready, and I ask the Lord to spill His words from me at the perfect time.  Psalm 40 begins, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.”  Verse 5 says, “Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done.  The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.”  And on this day, the act of waiting actually posed pleasure.  To not be ashamed of the Gospel—yes, of course, be willing to share the name of Jesus.  But seek Him first.  Be content in His timing.

Inspired like Fahrenheit

I’d been ignoring Him.  At least I didn’t want to deal with this one thing.  My time with theater had shown I could actually memorize a monologue I once viewed nearly impossible.  And the notion had repeated in my head that I needed to memorize more than just theater lines.  Memorization of Scripture would be priority.  One day I visited patients in the hospital, and a lady asked me to write down Scripture for her family.  Suddenly my mind went blank.  No verses from Hebrews.  No verses from Psalms.  Nothing I’d memorized long ago was coming to mind, and the emptiness hit hard.  How reliant I had become on a concordance and having a hard-copy Bible at hand.  Yet this emptiness and depth of sorrow set me on a very determined road.  First I prayed, “Lord, don’t let this family here in the hospital be devoid of Scripture due to my neglect.”  The Lord pointed me to a hard-copy Bible, so I copied verses, humbly handed them to the family, and proceeded home to begin memorizing Romans 5.  Aside from the Bible, one of my all-time favorite books is Fahrenheit 451, in which the firemen take the backwards role of igniting fires.  Bradbury makes us think.  Toward the end, he introduces us to the bearded men who memorize books.  These men memorize to keep their knowledge safe and intact and out of the hands of the firemen.  Their minds are libraries.  Today, in real life, I need the wisdom of the Bible safe and intact in me.  The task of memorization has led me to meditate and more closely appreciate the love of God.  How immensely I am pleased to now answer the Lord’s prompt to memorize.  I’ve experienced anew the words of 1 Corinthians 13:4 – “Love is patient, love is kind.”  Will you choose to memorize as well?     

My lost Nehemiah book

Jesus came to this earth to save the lost, and usually we’re talking about people.  Me, you, and everyone.  But just as the parable in Luke 15 mentions a lost coin, this past Sunday my lost item was my Nehemiah book.  I asked the Lord to reveal it in order for me to teach from it.  Days passed, I didn’t know where it was, and I began to wonder if indeed the Lord was leading me to teach about Nehemiah, then perhaps I didn’t need this same book because He would supply me new perspective.  The next day I remembered this particular Nehemiah study was part of a 3-section book.  The following day I remembered it was one of the smaller-sized Precept books.  This past Sunday I thought to look again on the bedroom shelves.  We drove home from church, and there it was.  Bit by bit, the Lord had revealed my book.  To paraphrase Luke 15:9, I say now, “Rejoice with me; I found my lost book!”  And may the Lord bless you today in whatever way you’re feeling something’s lost.  The title of my Nehemiah book is Overcoming Fear and Discouragement.  Certainly the Lord offers encouragement for us all.

Parachutes & paracaidas

Parachutes and Bibles.  How do they relate?  It’s an exciting story.  In March, I attended a Voice of the Martyrs event that told about Bibles being delivered into Colombian jungles via parachute.  I came home to research the idea a bit and came across info for crafting these parachutes.  Matthew 28 and Mark 16 both talk about us taking the Gospel to all nations, the latter giving the words of Jesus in verse 15, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”  That includes the guerrillas in the Colombian jungles.  That’s why we’re talking parachutes, because sometimes you can hardly reach an area by any other means.  And in this case, there happens to be a tangible way for us all to help in the effort.  A kit of materials for making 10 parachutes is available from VOM, and this past Friday our church group was immensely blessed to construct our first set of 10.  Even for people like me who aren’t too craftsy, it’s quite a manageable task, and having the camaraderie of friends makes it altogether fun.  A pilot named Russell drops these parachutes from his airplane, and each parachute carries a Bible and other Christian literature and a solar-powered radio that tunes to either of 2 Christian stations, one being music and the other being the spoken word.  If the parachute catches in the trees on the way down, a station on the radio will trigger, and the sound will attract the people.  The canopy on these paracaidas (Spanish for parachutes) reads “Dios es amor,” which translates “God is love.”  Perhaps Russell will speak at a Voice of the Martyrs event near you; maybe check the speaker schedule at persecution.com.  Thank you, Lord, for giving the ingenuity to devise these paracaidas, and may Your light shine through them.

Halfway Herbert & the lady at New Life

“Do you know if Brady Boyd’s new book is out?”  I replied to her, “I’m sorry I don’t.”  My husband and I had entered New Life that Sunday as visitors.  Not knowing exactly what was behind any of the many doors from the parking lot, we found ourselves at the church bookstore.  The word discount on a sign pulled me across the room, and 10 minutes of extra time allowed me to start scanning the front table.  The lady who asked about the book explained that Brady Boyd is a pastor who walked alongside New Life in their years of healing from scandal.  I thought of the shootings in Columbine and Aurora and last year’s grass fires and a whole depth of injury that Colorado has endured.  She asked, “Where are you from?”  “San Antonio,” I said.  I spent a minute sharing about blessings that have come in visiting churches and witnessing the Lord at work away from home.  In fact, a large part of today’s blessings came through this new friend at the book table.  She was my first acquaintance with New Life and the welcoming voice of the church for me.  She was the personal connection that stepped out from the large congregation.  Her casual conversation spoke of real-life Christianity that let me see again how Jesus-followers are scattered all throughout our world, and the Lord uses us to encourage each other.  Yet many yearn for a church home, and I think of friends who've become disenchanted by the imperfections of the people inside the churches, and I pondered what it is actually we seek on Sunday mornings.  If we don’t identify with the pastor, that’s not necessarily bad.  If we don’t connect with every song, that doesn’t have to be reason to leave.  Maybe there’s a book table where we’re supposed to stand and talk with visitors about Christ and how He delivers us from the trials of everyday life.  I didn't sense the role of the book lady was even a formal role, as she simply was a book scanner like me, yet she was ready to share life with whomever.  This Sunday the teaching from the pulpit proved to be thought-provoking and wonderful, as did the music, though it was through the gentle manner of my friend at the table that the Lord first ushered blessing.  The fact that I had fun in finding a half-price copy of Halfway Herbert for my nephew was a bonus.  May the Lord give us joy for the circumstances He creates.

A misfit Pebbles

This old Pebbles doll.  She has a mysterious spot of white paint on her forehead.  Her whole face really could use a good washing.  She’s missing many tufts of her original red hair from having been picked up by that straight-up ponytail she always wore, and the bit of hair she still has would certainly benefit from some patient combing.  Her shirt sleeves are too big.  Her pant legs almost fall off.  You can see she landed in some clothes from another doll who's only vaguely near her same size.  This Pebbles has seen some years and some decades, and she looks a bit disheveled.  Maybe even misfit.  And that’s actually why I love her.  When the Lord first led me to teach high school choir, my music experience had been primarily band and orchestra, and the choir idea didn't seem to be a perfect fit.  When the Lord called me to ride the city buses, I didn’t know how the bus system worked.  When the Lord led my husband and me to study the Bible on Sundays, we were one of the few married couples in a much larger class called Singles.  When the Lord led us to our Spanish congregation, I didn’t speak too much Spanish.  When He called me to write a book, I was not a confident writer.  Somewhere along the way in all these situations, I felt like I didn't fit.  And when He called me to theater a year and a half ago, I arrived at the audition entirely inexperienced, braced for the worst, hopeful for the best, altogether really uncertain of what would happen.  A few hours later, I returned home with two small acting parts and a look of complete shock when giving report to my husband.  But it was actually a good shock.  It was a case of “Oh, wow, this ride is crazy, and actually it’s fun, but I honestly don’t know where this theater thing is going!”  According to Hebrews 2:10, God saw fit to make Jesus perfect through suffering.  Verse 2:14 talks about Jesus sharing in our humanity.  So if Jesus suffered in stepping out to share in people’s lives, and if I aim to follow Jesus, then I too can expect to encounter some suffering.  Whether nervous stomach or mental pressure, it's uncomfortable, and it's suffering nonetheless.  It's circumstances we wouldn't have chosen on our own, all for the greater purposes the Lord lays out.  And so I want to be willing to be uncomfortable.  I want to be willing to feel misfit, for He will at some point supply a joy that leaps the highest hurdle, and therein lies my peace.  He reveals the perfect fit for all us misfits.  Even a painted smile on an old Pebbles doll can remind of the joy the Lord gives.

As the Video Turns

Is it dangerous to tell a story without having finished the book?  Yes, maybe. Could the plot change toward the end? Certainly yes. Yet today I attest to the thrill of knowing the Lord in the moment. However the story pans out, I account here for the joy He gives along the way. Last week, a couple of things happened that caught my attention. First, I sensed the Lord shedding some light on a video idea. On Tuesday it seemed the video text was starting to take form, at least enough to begin a Windows Movie Maker file. On Wednesday, as I played a new tune on the piano, I realized with a giddy glee that this tune would fit nicely as background for the video.  These were two occasions I considered answers to prayer, for as this video idea had recurred for months, I had wondered and prayed about the particulars of it.  All the more intriguing is the fact that I had found this tune called “Hungarian Song” at a library book sale just last month.  The tune sits on page 26 of a little book by John W. Schaum, which was probably unsuspecting to many, given an absence of bright colors on the cover that dons a mere 25-cent price sticker from Half Price Books.  Still this plain little book held such immense thrill for me.  Put together the developing video text and the fun piano piece, add the family Christmas video I’d made the previous day that set me in the mode for producing videos again, add my husband into the picture for the Lord nudging him to delve into the software for recording the piano part, and suddenly this video that had been nondescript for months was now taking shape.  And I don’t pretend to know how the video will finish, yet I hereby testify with great excitement as to how the Lord leads us along a path and fills in the blanks for what He calls into being.  Really the lineage of all this reaches even further back into the summer when the Lord connected me with a young friend whose love for classical music was my reason for looking for music books at the library sale in the first place.  Also the Lord used my family to suggest we drive to the book sale, and He used an occasion with church one year ago to prompt me into teaching piano at home, which thereby caused me to realize my lack of classical piano music, as most of my classical pieces had been for oboe.  On an even larger scale, actually our whole lives the Lord is connecting people and events all around us.  And I pray we always find thrill in knowing His presence.  

            

A glimpse of Hinds' Feet on High Places

My bones hurt.  I consider it a blessed anxiety, actually.  The pain puts me on edge, but it’s a trembling built upon rightful things.  The gamut of emotions kicked in on Sunday when my husband and I decided to discontinue a particular music role with church.  While I feel quite certain it’s the right thing to do, the decision to depart was arduous and sentimental.  On Monday, we felt accomplished in another way to finally enroll at a nearby gym, but the first day’s leg lunges put my thighs in knots.  At first I thought the excruciating pain made me sad, but later I realized more accurately the pain made me mad because I’d finally been gung-ho with the gym idea, and in one day’s time I was nearly paralyzed in pain.  On Tuesday, a new music rehearsal brought some internal fidgeting, testing my composure to wait and observe when ordinarily I would’ve already dived in.  On Wednesday, I determined that a portion of my strain was due to an added role associated with prayer near a local abortion center, yet a deep breath and a skyward glance did refresh me for the task.  As each event fell into the week, I prayed.  My physical pain intensified, as also heaping into the mix was the immense joy of seeing a friend translate a first chapter of my bus book into Spanish.  And that idea of translation, coupled with a wonderful event associated with this blog, opened some new and exciting doors of conversation with family and friends.  Joy wanted to explode through my bones, yet my body ached to know how that could happen.  I awoke yesterday to the thought of Hinds’ Feet on High Places.  It’s a story based on Habakkuk 3, illustrating how the Lord takes us across the thresholds of fear and anxiety and frees us to climb the slopes toward an almost intoxicatingly joyful view of life.  It’s like Malachi 3, where the Lord throws open the floodgates of heaven to pour blessing so huge that we can't contain it.  Indeed my frail frame this week has felt the weight of merely a glimpse of that enormous blessing He offers through His son Jesus Christ.

God, my banker

Have you ever sensed God speaking to you through someone else?  This week I was inspired through the voice of a particular man.  From the moment I met him, I felt blessed.  We had talked probably 5 minutes, and suddenly he threw in a zinger.  “Let God be your banker,” he uttered.  I had mentioned nothing to him about the dollar signs dancing in my head.  Ideas about books, and music, and coffeehouses, and questions of how financially they could all work together had felt cluttered in my brain.  This man’s words zeroed right in to quell any worry.  In a sort of teaching mode while he spoke, his forefinger pointed in the air and then at me, so I was sure to hear.  And what set the whole stage for me to keenly listen was his earlier comment on planting seeds and watering them and scattering stones.  At first I thought of 1 Corinthians 3, but the part about scattering stones I had recently read in Ecclesiastes.  Interestingly I had taught on those exact verses a couple of Sundays ago, so my attention was certainly drawn, as if looking up to find myself sitting in the Lord’s classroom with Him personally teaching me in the moment.  Simply I had entered the doors of the hospital that day, unaware of how the Lord would connect me in conversation.  Forever He is weaving His goodness amongst and within.

Spanish — SMTWTFS

When the Lord led me to a Spanish congregation, I had little idea what would lie ahead.  I was curious and excited, though also uncertain, because all those years ago I had dropped out of high school Spanish when we were assigned Lluvia Roja.  I could conjugate verbs and pass vocabulary quizzes, but reading a whole book in Spanish?  No way.  I took one hall pass to the counselor’s office and transferred out.  Yet now with my new congregation, I was facing whole conversations and whole sermons in Spanish, and what would happen?  Would my limited textbook Spanish work at all with the real-life Mexican vocabulary, or the Tex-Mex, or the Puerto Rican?  They had advertised for a guitar player, and soon we changed from our English congregation, bringing my husband to carry his guitar down the hall to the Spanish group.  They were different rooms in the same building.  Different languages with the same purpose.  And I loved it very quickly.  Each week they patiently lent me new words, and even when I asked “¿Cómo se dice…?” for the thousandth time, they flinched not once to translate me yet another word into Spanish.  They spoke some English, yet Spanish was comfortable and close to their heart, as was English for me.  I soon studied the Bible in Spanish on Wednesdays and brought a friend from Puerto Rico.  When a small group on Sundays prayed in Spanish, they graciously allowed me room to pray in English.  I soon found myself singing “Rey de Justicia” during the week at work and realized the Lord was touching my heart deeply.  I experienced over and over the Lord’s presence without my fully knowing the spoken language.  A host of blessings far outweighed my occasions of feeling like I couldn’t learn Spanish fast enough.  Yet still now, in these most recent months, I’ve realized more.  The Lord has positioned me to speak Spanish on the streets when I’ve prayed in front of an abortion center.  He has supplied me words in Spanish for visiting patients in the hospital.  He has given me enough Spanish to welcome Spanish-speakers to our English study group.  He has used my endeavors toward Spanish to inspire the same interest in some of my English-speaking friends who want me to toss them some new Spanish words just for fun.  When I ride the city buses, I can now converse more in both languages.  The two have seemed to mix around in lots of directions.  And only after I asked to announce to the Spanish congregation about 40 Days for Life, did I realize I hadn’t been nervous about formally speaking in Spanish.  All this to say I love how the Lord takes us down unknown roads.  Unknown only to us, that is, though we’re entirely secure in His hands.  He comforts us along the way.  He supplies us—7 days a week—SMTWTFS.  He encourages and enlightens with each step.

Guidance . . . why wait? (Part 2)

The Lord had given me Psalm 25 to memorize.  I did start the process from the first verse onward.  Some months later, my principal advised that the school would not renew my teaching contract.  Suddenly I felt bruised and shaky.  My head whirled fast like a tornado was crashing everything inside.  Sometimes I couldn’t sleep at night, and still too I felt sorry for my principal, who had clearly been through a wrestling match himself in preparing to deliver me the news.  Looking at my span of teaching years, I was going from Teacher of the Year at one school to losing my job at another.  Yet soon I began to see the beauty of the Lord’s guidance.  One sleepless night, He reminded me that no one whose hope is in Him will ever be put to shame.  In the midst of my wounds and weakness, He was showing me verse 3 of Psalm 25 all over again.  He knew I would need to rely on those words, and He enabled me to recite that psalm, even amidst the agonizing pain that had swallowed me whole.  I kept asking the Lord to lead me through, and I sensed Him saying to keep in mind these two words: honesty and respect.  And indeed the two words held crucial in dealing with bitterness among students and fellow teachers for all kinds of reasons in the remaining weeks of school.  One weekend, my daughter was checking her financial account online for college, and she asked, “Hey, Mom, what’s all this new money doing in my account?”  I cry still today to realize how the Lord increased her scholarships to compensate for the fact that I wouldn’t be teaching the next year.  And at school I had multiple opportunities to tell my students how the Lord was providing for my family and that He would provide for them too.  The Lord’s blessings were abundant, pouring through words of kindness from many directions.  I pondered whether the Lord could call someone to lose their job, and I knew the answer was ‘yes.’  He calls people to lose their lives sometimes, and certainly He could call someone to testify in losing their job.  Mine was a painstaking experience that is now a favorite story.  The Lord had guided me all along—before the storm and through it as well.

Guidance . . . why wait? (Part 1)

Give and receive.  Speak and listen.  They are components of conversation.  They can also be components of relationship.  Author John Ortberg discusses the issue of people wanting God’s guidance.  When is it that we seek Him?  In Chapter 9 of his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted, Ortberg suggests we ask ourselves the question, “How often do I seek God’s guidance when I’m not facing trouble or a difficult decision?”  Do we consult the Lord only when our angst hits its hilt?  And how do we recognize His guidance anyway?  Ortberg encourages us to seek God before a crisis hits.  Don’t wait for a storm.  Ask the Lord to grow us internally to know His truth and joy now, to fortify us before the pressures swell.  Certainly the apostle Paul endured many storms.  He was shipwrecked, stoned, and beaten with rods.  He withstood hunger, thirst, and lack of sleep.  Yet he recognized the Lord’s provision of an angel, as told in Acts 27.  Paul heeded the angel’s message and found courage also for the sake of his shipmates.  The Lord did guide Paul.  And today the Lord desires to relate to us, to converse, to speak and listen, to give and receive—and guide throughout.  Lord, may we recognize Your voice and find joy in following Your hand. 

Creativity's life

Margaret Feinberg wrote Discovering Joy in Your Creativity, in which she talks about monarch butterflies as miniature works of art.  Sometimes in San Antonio, I encounter a cloud of butterflies fluttering across a road, and it’s hard not to be intrigued.  I ponder the fact that some live only a year or less, which seems so short.  Plenty of museums spend big money to preserve works of art for years beyond the lifetime of the artist.  Yet God, the master artist, knew these butterflies would wither so quickly, and He still created them.  He imposed their design, having no constraints on their creation.  He had purpose for their short life.  Hence the question, would I spend time creating something if I knew it wouldn’t last long?  I do know that contemplating a complicated dinner recipe can exhaust my brain, usually leading me to opt for something simple.  And I do know after hearing my mom talk about the delicate measures of her cheesecake recipe, which might be my favorite in the world, I’d much rather eat her cheesecake than make it myself.  However, I’ve immensely enjoyed playing with kids and lots of wooden blocks and building them into whole cities and stacking them into tall towers that I knew would soon tumble to the ground.  And I look back to my school-teaching days, specifically to one year I lost a job.  Great strides in learning took place, both academically and spiritually, with many fun ideas incorporated into class, yet the door closed.  It was the culmination of many wonderful experiences that were clearly well worth the effort.  Would I have spent all those long hours "creating" if I’d known ahead I’d be there only a short time?  I’ll never know.  Who’s to say a longer time is always better?

Tattooed with compassion

The words of Gregory Boyle have gathered my interest.  A friend pointed me to Boyle's book Tattoos on the Heart: the Power of Boundless Compassion, which wonderfully carries forth the notion that no single life matters less than another.  While some would contend that of course we’re all on equal footing and for anyone to think otherwise is ludicrous, even when media news blasts tend to be quite partial, Boyle’s stories still make me think.  He tells of his experiences as a Jesuit priest stationed within Los Angeles’s heaviest gang territory.  He tells of a boy called George, whose ceremony of baptism contained an especially difficult component in that immediately afterward Boyle would need to tell George about his brother’s death in the streets.  Yet the occasion presented a wonderful view of the Lord at work.  Whereas reaction to death there had always included rage and promises to avenge, this time 17-year-old George appeared different.  Boyle says George’s grief more resembled the heartbreak of God, in that George’s previously hardened gang posture had changed into quiet sobs and tender weeping clutched in his open palms.  Here I see the love of Jesus pouring through a priest whose compassion had room for everybody—gangster and nongangster alike.  Matthew 9:36 says Jesus had compassion on those who were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  That's all of us.