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.

A storyteller's first step

Follow Jesus?  How do you do that?  This past Friday was key for me.  I’ve held this notion for a long time that my bus stories might be part of some storytelling.  Having once played sound effects on piano for a theater group, I’ve looked forward for years to incorporating piano alongside the bus stories, though still not knowing when.  My bus book has sat atop our piano, and I've reread the stories and jotted down tidbits of thought occasionally, though it's been only theory to this point.  Certainly prayer has been a part.  Then this past Friday afternoon the whole notion of piano resurfaced with a new momentum.  The piano bench compelled me to sit and pull together a set of TV and movie themes to play at the coffeehouse that night.  First it was “Heigh-Ho” from Snow White, then the theme from the game show Jeopardy! and the theme from Mission: Impossible.  The list went on and on, but still with only a loose image in my head of how the tunes might fit together.  The clock hit 7:15, which meant time to drive to the coffeehouse, and my eyes and my heart stood hopeful toward finding the Lord there working the details ahead of me.  We set up sound equipment and proceeded through several songs, but piano wasn't seeming to fit in the lineup.  After about an hour, I said to my husband, “I might play a little piano here.”  Yet even in that moment, I still didn’t know exactly what I would play, though I sat and started talking with the audience.  As conversation led, I inserted some piano tunes.  What developed was a very fun time of people getting to know each other.  Not quite bus stories, but rather a first step toward storytelling.  The show tunes ended up being background for talking about everybody’s workday.  Kind of a way to relax and chuckle and even include the children and the youth and their happenings from school.  Largely unrehearsed, it became sort of an interactive door for our coffeehouse crowd.  The Lord worked a whole bundle of blessings that night through guitar, oboe, and voice, and most certainly through piano.  My job was to trust Him to guide me and keep my feet from slipping, just as Psalm 121 says.  And I did gather a glimpse of how Me and the Lord on the Bus might become part of some future storytelling.  Perhaps this calls for a celebratory white chocolate latte.

Off-stage with the cashier

Last week I walked into a restaurant and heard some disturbing words.  “I’m going to hell,” the cashier laughed.  But I didn’t laugh.  Hell is too terrible a place, and it lasts forever.  I wanted to be sure the cashier knew she had a choice.  Did I take her comment too seriously?  I’ve met people who say “go to hell” so casually, as if the idea is harmless, as if it’s not real.  I’ve met people who don’t recognize the name of Jesus as the one who can save them from hell.  I’ve asked the Lord to give me His love for people that I may genuinely reach out.  For dinner, our waitress placed some scrumptious chicken and cornbread on the table, but nothing swayed me from hoping to talk to the cashier again, and I asked the Lord for an open door.  Time came to pay our bill, and sure enough, I see the same cashier still on duty.  I paid my tab, and lo and behold, I hear my voice aloud, “I kept thinking about what you said when we walked in tonight.  I’m so thankful Jesus saved me.  And because no one has to go to hell [meaning we all have a choice], do you know Jesus? ”  She smiled to answer, “Yes.  I know I shouldn’t be saying what I did.  It’s just that I did something bad.”  And as she spoke, my heart sighed to know that deep down she did know the Lord.  What relief.  And how blessed I always feel to speak the Lord’s name into public air.  Throughout the week the Lord set me in the middle of several similar interactions.  All happening 6 hours from home on a theater trip.  All woven amidst my usual theater nervousness and my usual lack of sleep.  All this impossible if I had chosen not to follow the Lord into this realm of theater that’s new for me.  But when the Lord orchestrates, my attention turns, and my nervousness dissipates.  I love to see Him at work.

Out of theater's nervousness

Theater rehearsals make me nervous.  Shakiness enters my chest.  My focus struggles.  It’s difficult to sit still, and I hardly sleep.  This past Tuesday was no different.  I hopped in the car before 6 AM and drove to my director’s house.  Remembering lines and trying to blend all the critique, I needed just to keep moving.  No time for asking why this or why that.  Just handle the music cues and the props and stay at it.  Rehearsal finished, and as I’d seen our various roles fitting into place, I knew the Lord had been rehearsing right there with me.  In my chest where I used to feel shaky I now felt warmth and fullness.  Yet still a wider door of wonder was about to open.  My mom told me she had prayed for me to find joy in the midst of rehearsal.  Actually her words stunned me a bit.  I had prayed more about the mechanics of rehearsal whereas she had considered the spirit of it all.  And so I pondered with new perspective and quickly smiled to remember our laughter during rehearsal.  The Lord had given me gracious friends who let my brain relax enough to just enjoy everyday life and everyday talk.  He had led the way for this tightly-woven bundle of nerves to loosen and unwind and see Him at work.  I experienced Him walking alongside through another segment of this theater path that seems scary at times, but He faithfully keeps pointing the flashlight to guide my next step.  There’s a lot of on-the-job training in this Christian walk.  But He constantly delivers joy into the lives of those who love Him (Romans 8:28 adapted).

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.

Gecko at the door

This morning I awoke to a gecko dangling at the door.  We have oodles of those little pink guys, and they scurry into even the skinniest crevice.  Somehow this one didn’t quite make it over to the other side.  Used to be that our cat would chase down geckos, but he's 20 now and has long lost his urgency to embark upon too many chases.  This time I was on my own.  This gecko had shimmied into the doorjamb, and I had 2 black beady eyes staring at me, with 2 helpless front legs dangling from about 6 feet high on the door.  I could feel my heart softening for this creature that I normally wouldn’t want anywhere near me.  Was he alive?  If I pulled the door, could he loosen and squirm away?  I peered a bit closer for any signs of life.  He showed slight color in his head, though with salmon-colored skin, a little color is hardly anything.  It was the tremor in one of his legs that led me to want to loosen him from the door.  He was harmless, and though he has plenty of companions who make me squeal sometimes, I didn't want him to suffer needlessly.  I sidestepped behind and grabbed the doorknob and pulled back, and he dropped all the way down.  For a couple of moments, he lay motionless, maybe stunned, and then he ran.  For him having been so helpless a few seconds ago, looking so tortured and desperate, he seemed to regain life and energy in an instant.  Just like us.  One decision can leave us jammed.  Temptation slithers around, and if we consent to it, we might open the door to a huge, long line of consequences, and suddenly we're panicked.  Just one sloppy move.  But I don’t want to go there.  The Lord can surely rescue us, but I don’t want to grieve Him.  I don't enjoy feeling my heart race in fear, and I don’t want to hinder anyone else with that same feeling.  I don’t want to be that gecko jammed in the door.  And I pray to the Lord, who is our greatest protector, that He may free us up and make us ready and willing to move when He calls.  He loves us so completely that my body aches to consider the thought of grieving Him.  First Corinthians 10:13 reads, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.  And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” 

Unwonted invitation

Do you ever hesitate to invite someone in fear they’ll decline?  I mean, how disappointing would it be to invite a new friend for coffee, or how embarrassing could it be to try to gather a group together, but in the end no one comes?  I’m hoping this week’s story encourages you.  A couple of weeks ago, I invited some friends to my house to study.  I hadn’t seen these friends this summer, and I was eager to brew my new pack of Community Coffee and laugh with these girls and seriously study all at the same time.  But one by one, their emails replied no, can’t come, not this time.  The first said, “Sorry, Linda, but I’m going on vacation.”  The next one said, “Yes, I’ll be there,” but in the end she didn’t come because her children were sick.  Still another friend wrote, “I’m intending to come, Linda, but I’m waiting for a certain phone call that will determine whether I can or not,” and evidently her phone call didn’t allow her to come.  All the while, I held to my lesson plan, hoping for even just one friend to be available, as I had prayed before ever emailing the invitation and didn’t want to abandon the date and topic I felt the Lord gave me.  Thursday night I stayed up late to fine-tune some teaching points on 2 Samuel 9.  Friday morning came, it was 10:30, and no one arrived.  The clock hit 11 AM, and still no one.  The house surely felt empty.  My heart felt a little hollow too.  Yet there was no point in sitting around just being sad.  And then around 11:15, an interesting thing happened.  The phone rang, and I noticed it was a friend from church.  Often he asks me to substitute-teach, and so my brain started to race in excitement, though I didn’t want to get too excited too soon.  This friend explained he had been sick with allergies, and would I teach his class on Sunday?  Almost jumping through the phone, I exclaimed, “Yes, I’ll be happy to teach!”  And in reality my heart had already leaped its first tall building in a single bound.  I had this freshly unused lesson so eager to be taught.  I felt the corners of my mouth stretching into the hugest of smiles to realize 2 Samuel had just found its new time and place.  And come Sunday, our lesson proved wonderfully fruitful.  All the way through, the Lord kept giving insightful discussion across the class.   Afterward I pondered the whole sequence of events.  Why did the Lord lead me to invite the Friday group in the first place?  He could have bypassed that invitation, given that none of them attended anyway.  In staring at my calendar, I realized He timed things perfectly to have me stay up late Thursday to study because Friday and Saturday already held music commitments.  Certainly He knew the schedule of things.  Perhaps I invited the Friday group because someone there felt lonely.  Maybe the Lord blessed them through the invitation to know they were thought of and included and loved, even though they couldn't come.  I do know I was blessed in the thrill of seeing the Lord connect multiple dots along a road that seemed to meander here and there.  Isaiah 55 talks about the Lord’s word never returning void, and so all the more reason we have to proceed when He leads us to offer invitations.  Regardless of any outcome visible or invisible to us, He speaks with large-scale purpose, bringing to fruition as He sees fit.