Month: September 2014

Glimpses from the first week of September

Calendar pageI don’t think of myself as a Monday through Friday kind of person, but I must be. When a Monday holiday happens like it did this week with Labor Day, it really throws me for a loop the rest of the week. I am disoriented about what day it actually is. To make this week even more off kilter, I was sick on Wednesday and out of the office on Thursday at a conference. So I am just trying to think about what happened in the past Monday through Friday cycle. Amazingly enough, there were sweet glimpses of the kingdom that came in the most disconnected of places!

Through email, I have been in contact with my first grade teacher, then known as Sr. Mary Amy, and now reintroduced to me as Sr. Joyce Rupp, a prolific and profound author who has blessed many with her poems, books, retreats and spiritual intercessions. I can only offer gratitude to God for this amazing gift. I ordered two of her books, one of which is a daily devotional about the names of God called “Fragments of Your Ancient Name.” The reading for September 4 (yesterday) sums up the glimpses of the kingdom I have had this week:

Irresistible Beauty (Wisdom 7:29)

You have overpowered my heart
In moments of unsuspecting prayer
By slipping into my fat distractions
And quietly closing my mind-door.
You have abruptly stunned me
In those moments with creation
When a look, a sound, a touch
Of the ordinariness before me
Breathed its adoration of you.
How blessed I am, how blessed.

Today: I find you in the ordinary beauty I behold.

At a women’s conference with my co-workers just yesterday, I found my nugget of the kingdom in a video about a handful of rice. Have you seen this? Have you heard of this? Amazing! You should watch it here:

http://vimeo.com/16288195

The poorest of the poor in Mizoram, India, giving from what little they have back to the kingdom. They don’t come to church as consumers seeking to be entertained, to be taught, to receive services like weddings or funerals. They come out of gratitude and in thanksgiving to the one who meets all their needs: Give us today the bread that doesn’t run out.

At a retirement ceremony for a man I have come to know at church and call a friend, I experienced the love that others have for him. How I know Jeff is how others know him as well: a man with a deep commitment to those who have served, a heart of compassion for those he works with and those he works for, a wicked sense of humor, a way that invites everyone in and keeps no one out. A man who follows the greatest commandment to love the Lord with all his heart, soul, mind and strength and the one just like it, to love his neighbor as himself.

I have watched parents this week find their prodigal son and receive him into their arms as he left a jail cell, and then proceed to drive him miles from home to take up residence in a place where he can get the help he needs.

I have sat with another mother whose son has just lost a friend in a very avoidable way. And I pray for that young man’s family in their loss, and for all of his friends who will learn a hard lesson about life: our choices do matter. There are consequences and they are hard. But we have spaces to grieve together and God joins us there.

I have welcomed my brother home from his adventure of a lifetime in the desert of Nevada and know that he has participated in something that his heart and soul thirsted for that could only be found in that dry land.

I have seen another sister off with her beloved and their antique tractors to drive across a bridge in a state 1500 miles from where they live to pay homage to a more innocent time in our country, when we didn’t take simple pleasures for granted but celebrated them.

I have been loved by a husband who works hard all day and then comes home to listen to all this pour out of my head and heart. And even when it doesn’t make sense to anyone but me, still listens and shares the words I need to hear: “I love you, Julie. You’re not crazy. You have a big heart.”

“The ordinariness before me.” Indeed.

Thy kingdom come. Monday through Friday. Sunday and Saturday, too. Every day. In everything. Always and forever. Amen.

Stress and Security

The Solid RockToday started with a trip to see my dermatologist. I just love her. She always has a smile for me and looks me directly in the eyes, her gaze never moving from mine: “How’s it going today, Julie?” She seriously wants to know. She knows that my alopecia causes me alarm when those spots of baldness start as small dime-sized circles on my scalp and then converge into dollar-sized circles; not the current quarter-sized dollar coins, but the old much larger silver dollar size.

It’s been happening again. The hair falls out and leaves those patches. I ask Steve to check them for me and he does. He tells me there are lots of new hairs coming in! But all I see is scalp. So I went to see Dr. Finnegan today.

She said the same thing. “There are lots of new hairs coming in! They are white so it appears that all you are seeing is scalp. There is one new active patch. What would you like me to do?” Calmly. Professionally. She is concerned for my well-being and I just love her for it. I said, “Please give me the steroid injections!” Never in my growing up years would I have volunteered to get a shot of anything, for anything, but my vanity about my hair says, “Bring it on!”

Before we get to the shots, she asks me about my stress. Do I have any? I never really know how to answer this because I don’t think I feel stress. Every-day life is what I call it.

There is caring for Jana and meeting her needs. (She had a seizure on Sunday morning and fell. I am sure another is coming because they seem to come in pairs. Please say a prayer for her continued safety.) But she and I have walked this journey for 31 years together.

There is our ongoing search at church for a new senior pastor –and boss – for me. I really have stopped worrying about that. It will happen in God’s timing and I am really enjoying Rich, our interim. He and I have arrived at a place of friendship and love. Fourteen months ago I was stressed about this, but not now.

My sisters are stressed about my upcoming travel back to Lebanon and Syria. I wish I could relieve them of that, but I can’t. I did have a wonderful conversation with Rich today about the trip and what is going on there currently. He said he would hate to see me on the news… You had to be there. It was warm, funny and heartfelt.

I am feeling stress about the pace of the addition to the house for Jana. There is nothing I can do about it, however. I don’t know how to erect framing or put up drywall, install windows, run cables, or anything else that would help. I am the accounting side, not the construction side. So I try to be patient and cheer at every advance we make. We’ve got a foundation! We’ve got framed walls and roof (mostly)! Let’s see what happened today!

So I got my injections and left knowing that the hair will grow back. It always has, in its time. And it will probably fall out again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

And now this afternoon those things are making me reflect on our staff bible study, which today was chapter 6 of the book of Revelation. The verses about the four horsemen of the apocalypse: no stress there. War! Famine! Pestilence! Death! The ongoing, historical repetitive results of not learning from what happened before. (Will we ever get this?)

The question we were asked to begin was, “Where do you find your security?” And some answers were “the gun I keep in my home” and “the neighborhood watch” and “my bank account.”

But what came to my mind was what Marilyn tells us when we travel and what Barbara always emphasizes on those trips: The safest place to be is in the will of God. And I have really come to believe that.

All my life I’ve been striving to do the right thing, say the right words in prayer, keep the right attitude, as if that was what my father wanted. All he wants is my obedience: love him with all my heart, my soul, my mind and my strength, and that I love my neighbor as myself. It’s taken me so long to learn that lesson.

And out of that flows just one big “thank you” for the stress, the burden, the weight that is lifted from my back in the process. I sing out in worship on Sundays because I belong to that one and I am so grateful to be called child of God.

And that is the only place I find security. And then I offer a prayer, “Thy will be done,” and hope that I am in the flow of that will that is not my own.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”  Matthew 7:24-27

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness, goes the old hymn. And that is where my hope is. That is where my faith is. And that is where my love comes from. And because of that my stress is relieved, indeed, it is lifted from me. And it is the only place where I find security. Not in guns, not in armies, not in my bank account, not in the riches of this world or the promises of people.

“I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.” That is a solid rock!

And so my security is walking with my Lord in his way, not mine.