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.

Hurricanes of Santo Domingo

Did I hear her right?  “I can handle hurricanes,” she said.  But is that possible?  I looked back over my shoulder to watch her lips reiterate the words.  In my mind, hurricanes are these ominously powerful things that only God can tame.  Yet my friend explained her childhood in the Dominican Republic.  Pointing midway up on the calf of her leg, she talked about the water level in her house.  Such was common occurrence after hurricanes in her city of Santo Domingo.  She remembers making paper boats with her brother and floating them inside the house, as her parents engaged the children in games to stave off any fear.  And it was at that point in her story that my brain froze because I couldn’t fathom playing games in the midst of a hurricane.  How would the emotions relax enough to actually play a game?  But then the idea translated in my head, and I remembered how the Lord calmed me one day in the midst of a dangerously heated argument.  Witnessing the abusive nature of one particular person, my body began to tremble, yet the Lord directed me and gave presence of mind to lead people away from the danger.  Though I trembled, I didn’t fear.  So perhaps I can imagine games and toys after all.  My friend said hurricanes come with warning, whereas tornadoes may not, and that's why she can “handle” hurricanes.  She's familiar with their approach and the aftermath for those living in concrete houses.  Still for me, I contemplated issues of contentment in this world.  In Philippians 4:12-13, Paul correlates contentment with finding strength in the Lord, regardless of situation, whether hungry or well-fed, whether living in plenty or in want.  Given Paul’s many shipwrecks and imprisonments and all the stones, rods, and lashings he withstood, surely he knows about finding strength in the Lord.  And I ask the Lord to give you peace today, that in contentment we may float paper boats amidst our storms.

Abandoned, but not by God

Wrong again.  Actually glad again.  I’ve had an unusual patch of negativity lately, and I was happy to be dissuaded.  Sundays have been a long-time source of inspiration, yet lately the aura of a certain 2-hour span has infected my thinking to the point of dread.  And directly into the core of this dread on one particular morning, the Lord inserted a wonderful dose of inspiration.  His creativity was in full bloom.  He walked my feet into what’s becoming my favorite breakfast nook, and there sat a friend with whom I hadn’t talked in a while.  My friend mentioned recently praying in a new way for his family, including for his wife who abandoned him.  In his mind, he and his wife are still married, though she took their daughters and has been moving them from house to house, all across town, staying with different people often far away.  My friend’s been exhausted in the constant effort to track them down and stay in touch, and in desperation he threw his hands up, pleading for the Lord to show him what to do.  And blessing did come.  News arrived that his wife had found yet another house, and to his amazement, this one appeared to be longer-term, and it was near him and near the church.  No longer would he drive all the miles that had stretched him even beyond the city limits.  Perhaps no longer would his daughters cry to think of him far away.  In the telling of the story, I witnessed his eyes moistening to talk of the magnitude of the blessing and the depth of his gratitude to the Lord.  The story triggered memories of mountaintop experiences the Lord has graciously granted me, even after I’ve felt on the brink of some deep despair that I stirred up myself.  This Sunday morning, the Lord reminded me to never dread because He can always breathe life into what seems dead and gone.  I ask you as the reader today, “Are you like me?  Do you have something you’re dreading?  Something setting you up for a negative attitude?”  Ephesians 2:4 says, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”  And may you and I both remember to ask Him to lift us out of the muck and mire. 

Pizza & the man alone

Pizza is good.  The buffet at Double Dave’s is craaaaaazy good!  The particular location near us seems to flourish, and it must have something to do with the guy who bakes the cinnamon sticks.  His mix of cinnamon, sugar, and butter ranks way high in my book.  Put that next to Dave’s salad bar, and anytime my husband consents to going, I’m fast into the car.  The salad bar has sunflower seeds, boiled eggs, ham, green peppers, and lots more, and we have all those ingredients at home, but it tastes different at Dave’s and it’s fun.  The cashier asks if we want a certain type of pizza, and with great glee I request the barbecue chicken that quickly appears on the buffet line.  And to top it all off, they post a 2-for-1 coupon where you can buy 2 buffets and 2 drinks for $11 total.  For San Antonio prices, that’s pretty good.  Yet as fabulous as Dave’s is, something I witnessed there a couple of weeks ago bears greater praise than all their good food.  Dave’s hosts lots of baseball parties and all kinds of team events, and on this Saturday a young girls’ team entered.  One of the dads chose an empty table next to ours while most of the girls stayed to themselves.  For maybe 5 minutes, this dad sat alone and quiet until another dad asked, “May I join you here?”  The first dad looked up, seeming refreshed and quite open to the idea of company.  I'd seen the second dad change his mind on where to sit after noticing the first dad sitting solo.  It was a simple gesture yielding the grandest effect, and suddenly a memory triggered for me.  I’ve sat in that same seat of loneliness.  I remember how it can creep in and exhaust and debilitate without warning.  Even today as my husband and I sat at the kitchen table to sort through some papers, we saw an ad for an ice cream social and entertained the idea of attending until we realized we might not know anyone there.  Yet I thought of the dads at Double Dave's and have asked the Lord to lead us as to whether we should go after all to this event and share some ice cream and some conversation.  Perhaps He will connect us with someone in need, just as He has rescued me in my loneliness and desperation many times.  According to 2 Corinthians 1:4, the Lord is the one “who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."

Gosnell & the fallen bird

 

I saw a strange white spot in the front yard grass, and it was an odd shape.  I bent down for a closer look and realized this spot was a bird.  Was he alive?  What could I use to softly nudge him?  I found a gray-and-white feather lying nearby, and it would serve to allow me to check on him gently, yet soon I realized he couldn’t move.  I wondered if he had a sibling anywhere, and a couple of feet away I saw his brother.  Nudging him with the same feather, I was intrigued to see this brother was still alive.  I called my mom because she loves birds and studies them and possibly she’d know what to do, yet she said sometimes there’s not a lot you can do except hope that the parent bird will come.  Years ago I rescued a fallen bird and put him in a box that I tied to a tree branch near his nest, and it seemed that he lived.  My predicament today, though, was different because this bird was younger, and the mountain laurel branches that held his nest looked too flimsy to support a box, and for me to put him back in his actual nest was impossible because it was too high.  I did use a cloth to gently move him into the shade.  I took him a little plastic lid of water and kept trying to touch it to his beak.  One time I stepped away from him and heard the telephone ringing in the house.  It was my husband calling to say the jury in the Gosnell trial had just now declared him guilty of murdering 3 babies and “involuntarily slaughtering” an adult life.  All morning the whole issue of life had been running through my head with these little birds.  Life is precious.  It’s fragile.  And as plainly as the latter verses of Deuteronomy 30 tell us to choose life, somehow our society has come to dispose of it rather flippantly.  This little bird today stretches his neck and squirms with his wings to try and find his way.  He fights to live in a world he can’t even see because he’s too young for his eyes to open.  He doesn’t know why he’s struggling to survive, but his nature is to not quit, even already having suffered the terror of a 10-foot fall from a tree, which especially for a tiny bird is a thought that makes me shudder.  Into the afternoon and now the evening, I’ve kept checking on my little bird, and I tip his plastic lid of water, seeing his mouth open to sample more moisture.  I prayed early on for the life of this young one, yet in the beginning I had to honestly address the issue of how much effort I would put into trying to save him.  I concluded that whether this bird lives minutes, hours, or days, the Lord has used him to illustrate the beauty of life.  Even the youngest have a desire to live that compels them to fight.  How I thank the Lord for giving me a day unconstrained that I would find this bird and work to provide for his life. Yet the question remains:  To what extent do we stand up for life?  We have opportunity daily to encourage our world to uphold it.  Ultimately Jesus Christ is our way and truth for all that lives.

A worldwide bookshelf

Today is introduction day.  In the last month, this blog has hosted visitors from France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Slovakia, Turkey, and the USA.  Most of these are parts of the world to which I’ve never traveled, all in turn making this blog connection extra sweet!  It’s like a worldwide library with all of us walking up to the same bookshelf to check out the same book of stories.  Recently a friend suggested acknowledging the breadth of readership here, and so today I officially welcome you to this blog!  To the readers in all 8 countries this last month, may you take pleasure in knowing each other's company, and I'm so glad you're here!  You are not simply a statistic, nor are you a casual passerby.  You are someone for whom I pray, and you are one whom Jesus Christ loves dearly.  I never know the exact addresses of readers, so don’t worry about privacy issues.  All I know is the name of the country wherein someone’s computer sits.  I think of Mark 16:15, where Jesus is telling the apostles, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”  Each of us today experiences the Lord in our separate parts of the world, yet we come together through Jesus and the Bible and in the reading of this blog.  Your country may send missionaries to my country, and mine may send missionaries to yours.  Yet according to 1 Peter, we are one nation.  As he addresses Believers who are scattered throughout the countries, Peter says in 2:9 that we are a “holy nation, a people belonging to God, that [we] may declare the praises of him who [calls us] out of darkness into his wonderful light.”  I look forward to welcoming next month’s readership too.  How I would be elated as well to hear your stories of the Lord anytime.

Impromptu at the breakfast nook

I had been reluctant.  I hadn’t relished the thought of arriving 2 hours early for my husband to rehearse some music.  Where would I go while he was busy?  The hallways were quiet, and our jovial greeter at the side door was absent this day.  I chose to study at the empty breakfast nook, just for something different.  My notes on Matthew 5 fell open onto the table (and I do mean that literally because all the extra papers I’ve tucked into my Bible have left its seams on the verge of explosion), and so I took a moment to rearrange.  As the morning progressed, hallway traffic picked up speed.  From a distance, I saw a friend to whom we usually offer a ride as he’s walking the road from the bus stop.  I called out as he entered the building, “Hey, we looked for you earlier!  Sorry we didn’t get to give you a ride.”  “That’s all right,” he said, and given that this hallway today was different from where we usually see each other, he stopped to ask what I was doing.  I explained about Matthew 5 and about teaching, and he asked, “Are you nervous?”  “No,” I answered, “I love sharing stories of the Lord, and I love our class.”  And from that point of connection, the Lord proceeded to bless the 2 of us with some wonderful conversation.  And it wasn’t just one blessing, for in the process of all our talk, the Lord gave multiple new insights for teaching that day, even supplying the thrill of seeing Him orchestrate the whole encounter.  Our empty breakfast nook had blossomed into hosting 2 hours that were filled to the brim with joy, and I smiled to see how the thought of “something different” that led me to the nook in the first place was far more than casual notion.  What seems impromptu in our minds, the Lord has known all along.

A plain cardboard job that dazzles

It was an occupation my friend had said she’d never do.  The idea in itself simply never seemed attractive.  Even more unappealing was the fact that my friend’s weird relative who connected her with this new job would become her daily co-worker.  Yet upon asking the Lord to provide, it was this one part-time role in home healthcare that landed in my friend’s lap, and as she explained to me recently the intriguing chain of events, I smiled to listen.  From the onset, she didn’t welcome the notion of surrendering her time with her children.  She had been reluctant too to relinquish her love of homeschooling.  Yet importantly, she allowed room for however the Lord might use her to supplement her family’s finances.  And that’s when the cardboard box arrived at her door.  On the outside, it looked plain and uneventful and even unpleasant.  On the inside, some wonderfully colorful shapes and sizes were about to be unpacked.  In the earliest days, my friend realized half of her on-duty hours would likely include sleep time for her elderly patient, consequently allowing her a little breathing room as she entered this whole environment she’d perceived as unattractive.  She soon saw also that her children could travel with her sometimes to help mow the elderly man’s grass or maybe just freshen his household with a sweet youthful grin.  She continues to witness day to day the gradual unveiling of some fascinating facets of this man’s 80+ years of life.  Evidently he did some designing in New York, and he's lived in various parts of the U.S., and still she's waiting for the right time to ask about this steamboat photo she's curious about and perhaps some elements of European history.  Altogether my friend's recent walk with the Lord has proved to be quite scenic.  All from within that plain cardboard box labeled healthcare that figuratively arrived at her front door, a wide array of colorful blessings continues to pour out.  And as all these parts work together under the umbrella of broadened perspective, my friend has been blessed too by the daily association with her particular family member she no longer considers weird.  All the more how I love the Lord for blessing my friend and for inspiring us all with a fresh look at the grace He offers every day.

Detoured in Target

Roadblocks and detours often frustrate the day.  Last week, actually, I met up with a detour that was amazingly fun.  The meeting place was Target, in particular a Target store situated between my friend’s house and mine.  We live across town from each other, and on this morning we chose to meet in the middle, as she knew this Target had a quaint little cove behind the coffee counter.  And it was wonderful.  Sitting near the big windows, we enjoyed the coziness inside while watching the rain pouring outside.  We sat there for hours, and in the course of lots of topics, we laughed and cried, and the Lord bestowed many blessings.  We opened our Bibles, and we listened and talked, and I didn’t even realize some of the blessings until about 1:30, when I had to leave for the doctor.  Little did I know that my dermatologist would end up biopsying 2 spots, yet I felt no anxiety in the process.  I credit the calmness to all our laughing and crying having cleansed me earlier, leaving no ground for anxiety to build.  But then came another chapter in the story.  That night by phone, my friend told me she stayed at our coffee cove for another hour after I left.  All that morning, there had been a lady sitting near us, and she glanced toward our table occasionally.  In that hour after I left, she came to ask my friend about the Lord and about studying the Bible.  Man, I wanted to jump out of my skin!  My heart leaped into a dance even as I had to stand still to talk on the phone!  That whole morning, the Lord had been guiding our conversation down a wonderful road we didn’t even realize.  The longer I pondered, the better I understood what had happened in the parking lot.  I remember saying goodbye and pointing to my friend at the table and telling her that we would talk soon.  Putting the key in the car, I wondered why I had assumed my friend would stay at the table.  Why didn’t she just walk out with me?  Yet now I knew the Lord held her feet.  Essentially He roadblocked her feet and detoured her to stay and talk to the lady.  The whole scenario showed again how the Lord orchestrates our movements and conversations.  And still today I smile to think how He steered us onto those second and third roads of blessing so effortlessly.  All we knew was joy in the process.

Volleyball & Jesus

What can the Lord do with the game of volleyball?  My friend tells a story that takes the game far beyond spikes, serves, and blocks.  She tells of her husband serving as videographer for their 2 daughters’ club team.  Recently her husband prepared to show the team a video of a past game, but somehow the video wouldn’t work.  Somehow the bells and whistles inside the laptop wouldn’t let the video play, and at that point, I imagine the team dismissing from their huddle in disappointment.  The coach opted for a new plan of action and asked one of my friend’s daughters to select some music from her iPod as background for practice.  And that’s where the fun began.  The only music available on the iPod was Christian music, and so the gym suddenly became witness to the name of Jesus being sung up into the rafters.  Amidst all the voices that called and yelled on the practice court that day, the hallowed name of the Lord weaved in and around them all.  What wonderful testament to the idea of readiness that's mentioned in 1 Peter 3:15, saying, “. . . Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have . . . with gentleness and respect.”  In this case, a young Believer stood ready in the midst of an ordinary volleyball practice, and in the course of answering her coach’s request for music, the name of the Lord was celebrated into the open air.  All those months ahead when my friend asked us to pray about volleyball for her family, never was the issue actually only volleyball.  With the Lord, any single circumstance holds capacity for so much more.  And still now I pray for the words and melodies sung during that volleyball session to continue to stir among the team and their coach and all who would hear.