Take this cup

The gift that God gave to His only begotten Son was to crush Him. The gift that God may be offering to you in His loving hands may be a thorn--something about which you cannot imagine why God is doing this. Yet He is saying, "Will you love Me? Will you trust Me? Will you praise Me?" The Bible tells us in Romans 8:17 that we are heirs with Him if we suffer with Him. We become co-heirs. He wants us to be with Him in our sufferings. He wants us to understand the sufferings that He went through for us. Of course, we can never understand it. Of course, it is beyond any of our wildest imaginings. But we know that because of that shameful cross you and I receive redemption. I don't know what the gift may be that God is handing to you today, but there may be bitterness in the cup. There may be a thorn. Now when you and I begin to feel sorrow for ourselves and we think, "Poor little me. Why does God do this to me? I don't understand why God is allowing this to happen to me," go back to Isaiah 53:10. It was the Lord's will to crush Jesus Christ, His Son, and to cause Him to suffer. Why? "Though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering, He will see His offspring and prolong His days; and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand because He poured out His life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors. He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors." ~Elisabeth Elliot

I found some of the most succinct and truth-filled words on suffering today at the blog of a fellow Christian who just died of cancer yesterday. He states that Christians going through great suffering must first "focus on being still and developing our relationship with God. Second, we can focus on ministering to others through the pain." (from Zac Smith's blog of his last days - well worth the read) Finally, he focuses on how to survive suffering well - concluding that we can

1. Focus on our eternal destiny in heaven & the relief it will bring
2. Focus on the surprises God has planned out along the way, and let your frustration go
3. Be obedient and live in the moment God has you in: do not lose sight of today because you are focusing exclusively on the future

I would say that these three ideas are great ideas, but they are also extremely difficult to live out in real life! Focusing on eternity and the relief it brings almost always make the bittersweet grow ever more bitter, at least for me. I get distracted thinking about all that I will lose touch with once I die. I start thinking about the ensuing pain that will have to occur before I die (cancer isn't an easy way to go, especially if you are young and your body has a lot of "fight" left in it). Zac's second point, to focus on the surprises, can be a great distraction from frustration and pain. But sometimes the surprises are not what you'd hoped, and you wallow on in ever worsening disappointment as there is sometimes little or nothing to rejoice in the situation, and your rejoicing must simply be because of God. Because He is and was and ever will be, and you can rejoice because you know Him. Which brings me to Zac's third and final point. This, I think, is the heart of how to suffer for Christ rather than just because of Christ. By bowing to His plan, and finding out how to serve Him in the moment, we can be the hosts of His glory, as His sovereignty, grace and extravagance shines out from our pain.

Aaron and I were recently counseled that God must be trying to get our attention through all of the suffering and health issues we've had as a family in the past two years. We believe, wholeheartedly, that this is true: the initial cancer diagnosis definitely served as a wake-up call to both of us. Zac Smith talks about the same process for him and his wife: get cancer, be woken up, realign yourself with God, get cured, get busy planning for the future. BUT sometimes you do all that, and cancer comes back. Other trials crop up. Then you are faced with a situation like Acts 28: Paul, the thorn still in his side even after fervent prayer for healing, is busy healing others. Rather than focusing inward as a family, trying to determine what God is trying to do in our lives, Aaron and I both feel this is the time to focus outward - to minister to others through our suffering.

Echo in a dark valley

There is no end to this story

No final tragedy or glory

Love came here and never left

Now that my heart is open

It can't be closed or broken

Love came here and never left

Now I'll have to live with loving you forever

There's nothing here to throw away

I came to you in the light of day

and Love came here and never left

Christ-ones see echoes of Christ in the ashes everywhere. This song by the dark, beautiful, belated Lhasa de Sela would be my song to my Savior. She speaks elsewhere of le Diable j'ai choisi le plus (the Devil I have chosen, "La Confession") and Je n'ai pas peur de dire que tu me fais peur avec ton espoir et ton grand sens de l'honneur ("I am not afraid to tell you that you scare me with your Hope and your huge sense of honor").

Road trips to and from Rochester provided lots of time to listen to music - and lots of time to ponder what to listen to when children listen along. I grew up on a steady diet of jazz, classical, and sacred hymns, and infused that mix myself with everything secular I could get my hands on by middle school. Believe it or not, Christian music was worse in the 1990's than it is now. There are few musicians - even today - who play contemplative, jazz-infused music, with the possible (and notable) exception of J.J. Heller, who is overplayed because of her unique offering. Her music is similar to the strangely laissez faire but sunshine-infused Indie soundtrack of Juno. A young pastor reflects on the plethora of poor quality Christian music releases and ultimately quotes Madeleine L'Engle:

If it's bad art, it's bad religion, no matter how pious the subject.

Ultimately, God assures us that, if Christians are silent and void of praise, even the rocks will cry out! Is it too difficult to draw connections, then, between the lyrics of secular artists and the great Truth of the universe? So, what makes the mix at our home? There is a lot of the blues, a lot of jazz, some country, even some metal and rap. Who knew that Bible verses are paraphrased by Linkin Park ("I will never be anything 'til I break away from me"), Pearl Jam works faith out on their knees, and former-rebel Sinead O'Connor is now putting Psalms to melody?

Where do you hear the echoes of God's Word? What blasphemy do you deny access to your home, the ears of your children? Do you have a favorite radio station or music mix? Those who listen to secular music may appreciate the Glimpses of God column from Christianity Today as a place to start discovering hidden sheaves of wheat among the tares of the music scene.

Using equals bruising

I never noticed before how trees "bleed" when they send out little ones - branches or volunteers - from their trunks. As I photographed the sap blood sparkling down the vein in this old oak's bark, I thought about the blood my children are drawing from me - the energy expended on them, the resources poured into them, the lessening of my own wants and needs for their benefit. Fruit of our loins draws from us blood, sweat, tears. I hear a constant cultural refrain to be careful how many of my own resources I allocate to them - to conserve my energy and emotion so that I survive - neigh, thrive - through these difficult years of early motherhood. I say that's probably a bad investment of my self. After all, this self won't last forever, and it is investment in our offspring, as well as our communities, that has fueled exponential growth and success throughout human history.

...and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
Isaiah 58:10-11

I was reminded of the lesson, a deeper strain of it, while dusting my piano. I use the term "dusting" loosely, as I actually scrubbed two rags full of dirt off the piano using an all-purpose cleaner. I laughed to myself as I did this task (which I do every two weeks or so, incidentally). Most pianists I know would cringe to think of dirty - actually dirty, not just dusty! - piano keys. Yet to me it is a sign of the growing love of music I hope to foster in all my children. Experimentation with music at an early age is so key to eventual joy in music. It embeds music in the very fiber of their being, tying the sounds to experiences and memories throughout their lifetime.

Using equals bruising. Touching equals dirtying. Playing with equals eventual wearing out or using up.

This applies to my understanding of God as well. God could have set us on a shelf as objects of perfection, devoid of free will. Instead, He lets us "use" it. That involves consequences, bruises, tears, dirt. A lot of the "dirt" that we see - suffering, inane consequences that seem unrelated to individual actions - that's just a whole lot of free will banging around in this world. And personally, I think it's more fun that way. I know God has a plan for free will, for consequences, for pain and suffering, for the tree that bleeds when she sends out her branches. For the mother who tires as she grows the branches, her children.

God His own doth tend and nourish,
In His holy courts they flourish;
Like a Father kind He spares them,
In His loving arms He bears them.

What He takes or what He gives us
shows the Father's love, so precious.
We may trust His purpose wholly,
'Tis His children's welfare solely.
~ More Secure Is No One Ever, Lina Sandell Berg, 1868

A pair of lupines

The crisp, yellow seed is warmed by the spring soil, drinks the April rain. Cracking, bursting, to the final explosion. The husk is rent and torn by increments over the days as it ripens and germinates. The sprig of new life reaches up toward the sun, slowly parting the molecules of dirt until it breaches the hard crust of topsoil. Feeding on nutrients from the dead leaves of last autumn, it sends out buds, and finally flowers. Beauty surrounds. And is brought humble again by small hands picking lupines and laying them like offerings of nature in the chick box at Grandpa's.

Future "me": flower in full bloom. Present "me": seed in warm soil. There is a lot of tearing, rending, ripping, cracking, bursting and exploding going on in the deepest compartments of the soul. I weather the pain by focusing on the parts of the cycle still to come.

He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. ~ Psalm 126:6

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I'm calling,
Lord, you catch me when I'm falling,
And you've told me who I am.
I am yours.
~ Who Am I, Casting Crowns

Using broken things

We sometimes imagine that God must eventually "sit us down" and "explain" his mysterious ways to our satisfaction. Let us suppose we have never seen a skyscraper. We discover a whole city block surrounded by a board fence. Finding a knothole, we peer inside. Huge earth movers are at work; hundreds of men in hard hats are busy at mysterious tasks; cranes are being moved into place; truckloads of pipes and cement are being unloaded. What on earth is happening? There is nobody around to answer our questions. If we wait long enough, nobody will need to. When we see the finished building, all the incomprehensible activity becomes comprehensible. "Oh! So this is what that was for." (Elisabeth Elliot, A Lamp for My Feet)

...when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness. Psalm 17:15



The requisite after-Easter ham and bean soup. An ordinary day. An extraordinary object lesson sprang to life for me from the ashes of the day. Cleaning up the remains of supper, scrubbing beans off the table and packing up left-overs for lunches on the morrow. I looked down at this cracked bean pot. It is gray and blue and tan, not really my style. It is hand-potted, and has a rough finish that makes a grating sound when you scoop with the ladle from the bottom of the pot. The ladle is made of the same material, by the same hand. So why use a cracked pot with a rough finish that I don't really like? Because I love it. I don't like it, but I love it. You see, my mother made it. Back in her potting days in college. I suppose I could set it gingerly on a shelf for display somewhere. But putting a cracked bean pot on display seems a little...well, cracked to me! So I use it, and hope it will withstand many more years of steaming hot soup at our busy supper table.

I am the cracked pot with the rough finish. Why does God choose me? Why put me through more tests, when He knows exactly how fragile I am? Why, to use me of course! Because even if He sometimes doesn't like what I'm doing, He loves me. Because His father made me.

Dirt under the nails

Being a mom isn't all cuddling with a freshly bathed little cutie pie, or sweet little baby clothes, or perfect pigtails and braids. There are a lot of moments...for me, at least...when mothering is dirt under the nails, and stinky diapers, and cereal crumbs on the kitchen floor. That's part of what my writing reflects: real, true life servitude, life where the rubber meets the road. I don't want to pretend to have everything under control, and I don't want to gloss over the hard and messy details of living, because I think there is where God speaks. In my weakness, He speaks strength; when I sink, He walks on water; when I am groaning, He is silently carrying me. If I pretend to be stronger than I really am, what purpose does that serve?

Yet one can go too far the opposite direction, too. I am not spinning out of control, or hanging on by a thread, or fighting tooth and nail to survive. My story is mediocrity, it is ordinary. There are days when you would think I had lost control entirely if you stepped through my front door: laundry in various stages of folding and washing; crumbs still on the floor from breakfast; dirty dishes piled up and toys strewn everywhere. There are moments when I do literally throw my hands in the air and holler! But they are just moments. There are also gales of laughter, and rolling on the floor playing with the kids, and quiet half hours spent reading or writing, or simply contemplating the view out my front window.

God gives us each what we can handle. I am a person who thrives on chaos, on ups and downs. I learn in moments when I'm taken far beyond myself. I excel when I am driven to it, pushed beyond my normal limits and my brain explodes out of the little box it's been painted into by the hum and lull of everyday living. God has me, therefore, perpetually on the edge: four kids in four years, graduate school, a large house with many bathrooms to clean, a whole circle of friends I dearly love and desire to spend time with, a heart for adoption, and church ministry, and music, and hosting. Big parties and bonfires, sewing slings and calligraphing wedding invitation envelopes, cloth diapering and drying clothes on the line, photography and maple syruping, a million hobbies and desires and dreams and callings. It all adds up to too little time and too much to do!

Yet on the edge, accomplishing more than I dreamed possible, God teaches me so much. He teaches me to balance. To say no. To say yes. To have impossible conversations at the most difficult moments. To put something down so I can pick something else up. To trust Him for strength and wisdom when I am scatter-brained and overextended. To pray. To revel. To worship when there is cacophany surrounding me. To worship in the dead of night when there is only silence and darkness in reply. To run to Him when I am afraid. To run to Him when I am tired. To run to Him when I celebrate. To run to Him when I sorrow.

And that's what you'll keep reading here. Dirt under the nails, songs from the heart, laments from the edge, desperate cries when there is too little time and too much to do. A life in fast forward sounds a little screechy sometimes!

I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you
I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go

~ Hanging By a Moment, Lifehouse

Peace defeats rage

"He fixed thee mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed."
(Robert Browning, from Rabbi Ben Ezra)

Before I left for my latest scan, I was upstairs, sorting through old hat boxes from high school. The old, scented dust rose from crackled remains of dried rose petals, photos with edges curled, a few award plaques, a hat or two from my extensive and eccentric collection amassed at yard sales and flea markets in the early 1990's. I found some treasure, as one always does in old boxes: long-lost baby photos of my sweet brother Benjamin; a packet of letters from a friend recently reunited with; a list of goals I wrote as a senior, mostly fulfilled by this (young) age of 30. I found this poem among the scraps of paper saved. I penned it in the awkward script of fourteen. Posted it on my bedroom door for years, a talisman against self doubt and the inherent rage-against-the-machine of figuring out your purpose in life as a teen in a self-absorbed culture.

How fitting, still...these lines. "This Present," I "forsooth, wouldst fain arrest". For still I am not sufficiently impressed. Still being broken, remolded, reshaped in an image far greater than that which I would naturally grow into. I want to die in 60 years or so, much more than the sum of my wrinkles and white hairs.

I am pleased as punch to be in a place where I can finally say, "I have learned to wait. I have learned to rest. I have learned the discipline of being a soul at peace amid turmoil." I don't think I've perfected it - don't get me wrong. But how much better I am at these quiet arts than I was a year ago! Another scrap of paper is pasted to my window sill near my kitchen sink, a talisman against self doubt and the regrettable rage-against-the-machine of figuring out that your purpose in life is still subject to an invisible, unknowable God - not to mention a world of other humans struggling along with free will.

"Do not fret or have anxiety about anything,
but in every circumstance & in everything,
by prayer & petition (DEFINITE REQUESTS), with thanksgiving,
continue to make your wants known to God.
And God's peace shall be yours,
that tranquil state of a soul assured of it's salvation
through Christ, & so fearing nothing from God &
BEING CONTENT WITH IT'S EARTHLY LOT OF WHATEVER SORT THAT IS,
that peace which transcends all understanding
shall garrison & mount guard over your hearts & minds in Christ Jesus...
I am READY FOR ANYTHING & equal to anything through Christ
WHO INFUSES INNER STRENGTH INTO ME."
(Phil. 4:6,7,14, emphasis mine)

He gave my voice back, USE IT WISELY! 6.29.2008

Seaglass

"The biblical call to repentance and faith is nothing if not a call to rediscover who we really are, made in God's image, designed to glorify him. But the Bible doesn't just focus on this underlying intrinsic (and quite slippery) sense of self, many of the biblical writers also engage in identity construction; for example Peter in his first epistle takes time to lay out the identity of those he writes to before giving moral instruction hinging on 2:11 'Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.'

For Peter identity is a conscious and deliberate basis for behaviour, and perhaps our Christian faith enables precisely that; open eyes to percieve our real nature and freedom from sin to shape ourselves and our world accordingly." Anna blogs at Something

These irregular ovals with worn corners have sat on my windowsill since my honeymoon, collected in $1 glass containers found in a shop on Orcas Island. Of what value were those hours spent combing beaches for golds, and grays, and blues, and yellows? Green and white seaglass is easy to come by anywhere waves crash and tides flow. But those unique colors...the rare ones, tossed up reluctantly from the sea where they were so seldom cast. Aaron and I, bent at the waist, walking away from each other and silent. Those hours were as golden as the rounded shards we stooped to cherish. Hours of graceful silence, unfettered peace, acquaintance between souls.

Conscious and deliberate. Constructing an identity for a lifetime of oneness. For us, what is important was old, of little monetary value, even of questionable beauty to many. Pieces of glass cast from the sea, worn by the passage of time and the pounding of surf, without even a glisten left to call it's own. These three jars are the similitude of what we envisioned for life.

And here is cancer, and treatments, and separation. I yearn for those early days of hunting seaglass out of Puget Sound, finding agates on the lonely beaches of Lake Superior, or stooping to scoop rocks out of rivers in Vermont. The passage of time is still a source of heartache for me. Yet how much comfort I take from that early identity we wrought in our marriage: for now I am that seaglass, a sharp piece dulled by the tossing of life's waves, and cloudy after the tumult. I don't have the same sparkle I had then, but I am at peace knowing that glimmer was never what caught my beloved's eye. I won't be thrown back into the sea because of my wear.