Beaded & buttoned for life

Before I left the house last Wednesday, I was reminded to take a towel to cushion my knees.  I scanned the bedroom shelf for my little orange Gideons Bible and tucked it in my red bag, for it seemed my instruction was to kneel and to read Scripture.  Already in the bag was my usual tube of sunscreen, and I dug around to double-check for a pen, my ID, and my phone.  And now I headed to the car.  My bag sat on the passenger seat for the next 30 minutes, and each time I glanced at it, I smiled to think of my daughter who handed it down to me.  This cloth bag is covered with fun black and white beads and buttons sewn in alternating patterns, and its whole combination of threads and stitched mirrored pieces is just plain sweet.  Wearing this bag today brought a welcomed whimsicality to an occasion that can be quite heavy and serious and literally life-threatening for many, and I welcomed the Lord encouraging me with simple pleasures toward staying the course.  In Romans 14:11, I read that one day every knee in all creation will bow before the Lord, and so there must be worthwhile reason for our kneeling.  This Wednesday, I trusted the Lord had specific reason.  This particular abortion center is surrounded by much activity, including the busyness of cars and buses and interestingly a pediatric clinic, and so I am watchful in the midst of prayer.  While walking, I read from my Bible, finding strength in seeing and hearing the Psalms.  My folded towel proves to be a wonderful cushion for my knees, though eventually I stand to walk again.  Upon kneeling a second time, I notice another lady kneeling to pray.  Later still, I see a third lady kneeling, and I am humbled to realize the Lord’s instruction to me was not for only me.  My role as a kneeling pray-er was playing a small part in a larger chord of pray-ers.  The size of the blessing felt huge yet humbling at the same time.  I pondered for a while that crucial point where obedience serves as a crossroads of blessing beyond ourselves, where its effect ripples outward many times over.  The blessings had been multiplied for me, and I was not even the main focus of the prayer.  The primary intent was to pray for the many who are connected with the abortion center, yet how gracious was the Lord in the way He led me to the sidewalk.  He encouraged me at home in reminding me about the towel and my little Gideons Bible and in showing me the beaded and buttoned bag that makes me smile.

Along a Certain Road

Think for a minute:  Who is your favorite person to call?  Who do you celebrate with?  Who listens when you cry deep?  This week I studied the word call in Greek, particularly the verb used in John 10:3, which says, “. . . He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”  My dictionary offered a new tinge on the word PHONEO, which is the verb in this particular verse, saying that it implies a pleasure in the calling of each individual name.  It’s not a dutiful calling in anger like “Go clean your room!”  Neither is it a calling to reprimand for having done harm.  Here it is the sounding of a call that’s spoken with delight.  Sometimes I try to imagine hearing the Lord utter my name, and then I realize I have heard Him speak it already.  He has garnered my attention and conveyed different messages for different tasks, yet I don’t remember His pronunciation of the English spelling of L-i-n-d-a.  He understands my English when I pray, yet certainly at His disposal are ways for calling me outside the English language.  The point here is that He takes pleasure in calling us, and however it is that He pronounces our names, we can hear and choose to listen with pleasure as well.  In work, and in rest, and in intrigue and wonder, I worship Him in my decision to follow.  Today I share with you a video I created upon the Lord’s prompting.  I hope it testifies to the blessings of wanting to make my desires secondary to His.  He calls us to travel along His certain road, and I pray you know first-hand the blessings of letting Him lead.  Click Along a Certain Road or search it on YouTube.

Raised, furled, & awkwardly employed

That look of bewilderment.  I’ve been on the receiving end of it lately.  I’ve witnessed the occasional furled upper lip and definitely the awkward pause inserted into conversation.  My lack of a full-time job has seemed to be culprit for causing these puzzled reactions.  Maybe more accurately the problem has been my lack of automatic desire for full-time work.  Recently I discussed with someone about different types of work.  Unintentionally my half of our conversation centered on volunteering, and by the time we finally talked about my new employment at the community college, I heard her words spoken almost in exasperation, “Do they pay you for that?”  I noticed the tilt of her head and the near-snarl of her lip and wondered if she really meant, “Surely you bring in some kind of income, don’t you?”  On another occasion with a different person, I caught the ogling eye that politely insinuated, “How can you be satisfied with volunteering and unpaid roles?”  Maybe in this case she more pointedly meant, “Why would you want to be satisfied with unpaid roles?”  When I began teaching piano at home, I asked the Lord if I should charge a lesson fee, and if so, how much.  Such joy comes in the teaching of music, yet fees can run $25 for a 30-minute slot easily, and consequently lessons for many become an impossibility.  When I told a friend I charged $15 per lesson, she responded, “Why?  You know you can charge more, don’t you?”  All I know is that I prayed and felt inclined toward $15.  I do realize I fit neither the career mold nor the stay-at-home mold.  Honestly I want only the follow-the-Lord mold, and that’s one that has many different appearances.  All across the years of my variety of jobs, whether full-time pay, part-time pay, or no pay at all, the Lord has provided abundantly for my family the necessities of living.  Yet my friends’ recent facial expressions have reminded me that we’re strangers in this world (1 Peter 2:11).  Occasionally we’re strangers among our fellow Christians, though we love them all the same.  And actually, when we pause and rethink why we do what we do, it can be a good thing—raised eyebrows and all.

Silenced at an Italian eatery

I love hidden treasures.  A couple of weeks ago, I loved finding this quaint little Italian restaurant here in San Antonio.  It’s a place now high on our list of favorites, due in part to its beef lasagna and scrumptious chicken parmigiana.  The initial draw for us was the dinner theater they host there once a month.  Once we arrived and realized their family-style placement of tables in long rows, we very much enjoyed sharing the company of our assigned table-mates for the evening.  Our immediate group bridged an age span of probably 40 years, and quite remarkably we loved the conversation.  All kinds of discussions of jobs, schools, family, and hobbies, yet interestingly there was one particular point that caused our table to fall silent.  One of the men asked me how I came to work in theater, and I answered, “God called me there.” And suddenly everything halted.  No more words spoken, no more smiles, no more laughter.   I don’t know why exactly, but our section of the table sat motionless at that point.  I’ve wondered about it since then and have thought of several possible reasons, though I’ll never know for certain.  I imagine I could’ve answered the man's question by saying my husband suggested theater to me or that my friend called me about a theater job opening, and maybe the reaction of the table wouldn’t have brought silence.  But somehow the 3 words God called me threw a hiccup into the conversation.  Yet the idea of the Lord speaking to us is a very real thing.  I read again this morning in John 10 about Jesus our Shepherd calling to us.  We are His sheep, and our relationship with Him through listening and speaking certainly runs two-way.  In the days following that Friday night, I continued to pray for the Lord to bless our table companions.  For whatever reason the silence came, may He stir their curiosity, may He give them understanding, and may they know the depths of His love.

Musically bridged for Valentine's Day

My violinist friend called a couple of weeks ago.  Hearing her voice always makes me happy, and on this particular morning she inquired, “Can you play oboe at an assisted living center on Valentine’s Day?”  The timing of her request was quite curious to me, and my brain instantly retraced some recent steps.  The prior week, I had opened my oboe case for the first time in 2 months.  It took me several days to act on the idea, probably because reacquainting after an absence usually involves some pain.  The mouth muscles need time to regain their groove and find rhythm with the breathing and the fingers.  Really I don’t dissect the problem each time, but suffice it to say that playing after an absence can easily find something feeling out of sync.  Yet interestingly this occasion was different.  My embouchure didn’t experience the expected muscle strains.  The breathing felt comfortable, and there was a fluidity of motion seemingly already reset.  Even my somewhat careless choice of reed didn’t inhibit, as I rather randomly pulled from the pile.  Playing brought fun and pleasure to the afternoon, and I was amazed at how the Lord had bridged the gap on my account.  And when answering my friend’s call, ordinarily I might have doubted that my embouchure would be strong enough to play for a 2-hour event, but the Lord had already shown that my chops would be ready.  He had guided the whole process, so that I could respond to my friend with a resounding “Yes!”  And on that Valentine’s Day, as we played our event, I loved every minute of meeting new people and recognizing some familiar smiles.  It was a wonderful ceremony that celebrated more than 700 years of marriage in total.  It was a display of wedding photos and even a bridal gown from many decades back.  Indeed it was a blessing of the Lord that just happened to include oboe, for which He so carefully prepared me, even while I sat unaware.

Narrowly & theatrically timed

Last week I witnessed an amazing feat.  Still today I shake my head to recount how close I came to performing a new theater script without any semblance of rehearsal.  Our group had met all kinds of complications.  We encountered a medical emergency, a legal emergency, and somehow a variety of non-emergencies that kept disallowing all 3 of us to meet.  The circumstances didn’t even make sense sometimes, yet they kept happening.  Put it all together, and we were in a tight spot.  Actually I was in a tight spot.  My fellow actresses had been performing this script for lots of years, and they knew every inch of it very well.  I was the only newbie.  I felt certain all along that the Lord would provide, but anxiety crept in as I didn’t know how He would provide.  If all my lines fell perfectly in place, it would be by His provision.  If I fell on my face and loused up everything, I felt the Lord would somehow use that for His glory as well.  Still I read the Bible because I wanted to hear the Lord's voice and sit in His company.  Certain emails seemed so wonderfully comforting and perfectly tailored for my situation.  And I kept hearing encouraging songs on KLOVE that spoke into my circumstances.  Each time my heart raced in panic, the Lord gave me new calm, and I loved many family and friends for praying.  Finally our days were running out.  Weeks of interferences had left us with only a narrow window of possibility.  It was less than 24 hours before our performances, and amazingly all 3 of us could rehearse.  Such timeframe could appear last-minute to us humans, but if God put our rehearsal on His calendar for that Thursday afternoon, then it wasn’t last-minute at all.  And when our director told me we could finally rehearse, I sat motionless for a while.  I held utmost amazement for the Lord because only He had known the depth of my anxiety, and only He could make possible what had been impossible for weeks.  To say I was immensely thankful would be an understatement.  Actually I need to underscore the word immensely and draw it in bright colors with curlicues and stars and add the shiniest glitter on top.  The message in our play had touched on character traits and obedience, and here I was in the middle of living out my obedience to the Lord.  Just because the winds blow strong in life doesn’t mean I automatically abandon ship.  Right there in my anguish, the Lord swooped in for the rescue.  As He says in Matthew 28:20, He is with us always.  And that notion of falling on my face did come true, for in my desperation, He led me wonderfully to fall into prayer.

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.

Jesus in the kitchen

Think fishing.  Imagine water and people and boats and nets.  I’ve fished from a boat in a lake and a boat in the ocean.  I’ve fished off a pier and also from the shore.  And there are some constants among the people in all the places.  They ask, “You catchin’ anything?”  Almost invariably, “Where’d you catch ’em?” and “What are you using for bait?”  Interestingly there’s a story of Jesus that just last week struck me differently in its setting by the sea.  Jesus stands at the shore and calls to the disciples in the boat about a hundred yards out.  He asks essentially, “You catchin’ anything?”  He tells them the best place to fish, and sure enough, they catch 153 without one tear in their net.  They come to shore and see that Jesus has a fire ready, and He’s offering up fish and bread for breakfast.  And man, what a deal!  The times I’ve been fishing, I come home windblown and hungry, and I would love for a hot meal to be ready!  And that’s what struck me so refreshingly last week when I heard someone refer to this story.  Jesus was such a regular guy here.  He walked this earth and looked after His buddies who’d been out all night and had not even one fish to their name.  Certainly a huge catch and a hot plate of food would encourage them, as it would me.  Now I'm not sure He donned a floppy chef’s hat and a gingham apron, but why not imagine Him with a big spatula or a long-handled fork?  He can create all kinds of tools and all kinds of circumstances, and He swoops in to our aid with whatever we need.  He’s an engineer, He’s a navigator, He’s whatever, and that includes operating the bait shop at the shore that provides the perfect morsel for our next hook.  Grilling at the riverside or at the stove in my kitchen, He enters our everyday situations and serves up what nourishes.  If Jesus is cooking, I don’t want to be late.  I hope you'll read John 21 as well to see what insights the Lord gives uniquely to you.

Into heaven, my gracious friend

Today I celebrate.  Today I love the life of my friend who battled an ailing liver.  Again and again I look at her photo in my kitchen and replay her video on the computer, and I catch myself standing motionless for long moments, relishing all the memories.  I remember days of studying the Bible in our houses, and I still have handwritten notes from the day we studied at Chick-fil-A.  I remember the time she read over the mic at the coffeehouse a story she wrote, and I remember she loved the tortilla soup at the Mexican restaurant down the street.  I remember driving her to the infusion clinic and sitting with her and being so happy that she could enjoy Cracker Barrel on the way home.  When she needed the coziness of her favorite blankets, we prayed at her house.  Among her many rooms in the hospital, we prayed too, though sometimes her medications caused her to fade, but I still held her hand.  She traveled the hospital from the regular rooms to the wound care area, to the telemetry section, and to the many different floors that I don’t remember exactly.  So outwardly grateful she was for her doctors and nurses, and she entertained the thought of gathering her hospital friends for a cookout and a time of music and worship one day, once they would all be home.  After enduring a terribly persistent infection one time, she told me how the Lord gave an amazing peace that led her through, and so I took some pointy party hats to her room for us to celebrate.  More recently, her faint voice could hardly convey over the phone.  My last hospital visit, she was not in her room, so on her bed tray I left a card with a picture of a cat that looked like her black-and-white Ziggy.  Since she passed on Sunday morning, I have cried in joy for having known such a wonderful witness for the Lord.  She had hoped for a liver transplant that never happened.  Yet now she is free from pain.  The Lord has wiped all the tears from her eyes, and she dwells with Him now in a new way.  Revelation 21 speaks of heaven and the Holy City of gold, where there will be no darkness because the Lord’s glory will shine always.  All will be new.  My sweet friend now experiences eternally the grandest party of all, and I thank the Lord for sharing His sweet child and inspiring me through her.

Overrun by cedar

In South Texas, in December and January, cedar is a bad word.  When people hear cedar and allergy in the same sentence, an instant friendship of sympathy takes hold.  I know of no other words that conjure quite the same horrifying tales of human misery.  The itchiness and the sneezing seem endless, and your eyes can hardly see straight.  And a week ago, I fell victim to it all.  In the prime of this year’s cedar crop, my brain could hardly function.  I wished my sore throat could have screamed.  Yet the misery did lessen and finally disappear, and along the way, the question arose, “What was the point?”  Do we simply say sickness is part of being human?  Or rather, if God can bring good out of anything, can He use sickness for somebody’s good?  In this case, the Lord reminded me to pray.  And He wasn’t meaning just cursory prayer when I have some empty moments.  I think of one friend who awaits a liver transplant.  I think of another friend who endures fibromyalgia.  My friend who lives with Crohn’s disease, and another friend who undergoes dialysis 3 times weekly—they both have days and months that are majorly painful.  And still there are friends who live amidst all the treatments and procedures of cancer, and I have cried over them and for what they withstand.  There will be a day when all the nations gather at Jesus’ throne, and He will separate us one by one, parting some to the right and some to the left.  According to Matthew 25, among those on His right will be the ones who looked after the sick.  They will inherit eternal life and will have been blessed in their earthly living to have loved and served amidst sickness.   One day last week, I caught a squinted glimpse in the bathroom mirror of my uncombed hair, my red nose and dry skin, and my same gray sweatpants I’d been wearing all week.  I saw the sea of Kleenex surrounding the recliner where I’d camped for all the days.  I realized in retrospect how sickness had swallowed me whole.  I had become lost in it, and I easily envisioned how those with long-term sicknesses could become angry and depressed.  Yet right there in that very difficult mix of emotions, may the Lord lead us to love.  May we not simply know that someone is sick, but may we actually look after them.  May we call them on the phone.  May we drive them to the doctor.  May we visit them in the hospitals.  May we sit next to their bed that they would not feel lonely.  And certainly may we pray.  With full intent, in high priority, extending from our love of the Lord and a love of people, may we look after those who are sick.  Out of some crazy cedar allergies, the Lord gave me fresh perspective that was good.