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Pausing Between Testaments

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I have a love hate relationship with waiting. I love the anticipation of waiting for something good that I know is coming. I resist waiting with hope in seasons of pain, grief, and isolation.

I just finished the Old Testament, except for a few Psalms and Proverbs, and stared at that stark page announcing the New Testament. An impression came over me that at this moment I needed to slow down for a day and reflect rather than plough on through to the gospels.

While I’m waiting a day to move forward, others before me waited 400 years between their last communication from God and the arrival of Jesus. Even that arrival of Jesus wasn’t well known to the community for decades and many never acknowledged or realized that He was the One that they waited to appear.

What must it be like to wait for God in His silence and anticipate all that seems to be coming while also living occupied and oppressed, holding onto a thread of hope?

I’m not sure but as I paused and reflected on my reading of the Bible thus far, a litany of thoughts and impressions occupied me.

Here’s what I contemplated as I paused between testaments:

humanity is a little like a rotten melon–shouldn’t we be better than we are when you actually look inside?

People are hopelessly messed up and keep doing the same wrong things over and over again. In Egypt, God rescues His people with signs and wonders, news of which spread far and wide striking fear into surrounding nations. But it wasn’t enough to permanently change the people’s hearts to trust God. The kings they wanted couldn’t fix them and actually made things worse. Even those that wanted to do good couldn’t seem to keep themselves from messing up.

2500 + years later I don’t see any evidence that people, on our own, do anything different or better. We still face ourselves in all the same failures and evil related in the Bible thousands of years ago.

God communicated with people…a very lot. The shear massive size of the books of the Old Testament filled with the story of who God is, who people are, what’s wrong with the relationship between God and people, how people feel about God, stories of how myriad people respond to God, and the pervasive humanity of it all…it is quite overwhelming.

Besides Daniel, there’s not really a character in the Bible that comes shining through. They all have very real, very human issues and failures. There’s no hiding reality and many parts are just tough to read. The world has been and is and will be a very difficult place to live because of that first point. And yet, God preserved His communication telling people who He is and inviting them, wooing them, even commanding them to return to Him over and over and over in order to live the full life He offers.

Easter eggs. It gets talked about a lot in reference to Taylor Swift these days. But the Old Testament is just filled with Easter eggs referencing a better future, a resolution of the problems in people and between people and God. They’re thrown in all over the place and, again, a brisk read through makes them even more obvious in my experience.

At some point in the future…things will be so different between people and God and it’s going to be amazing. Abundant harvests, peace, joy, feasts, justice, rest, a place for everyone, many from all nations under God’s favor… and an end to all the horror that exists in the people’s current reality.

More of a real egg than an Easter egg

Glittering passages of expectation and hope scattered through vast fields of sadness, despair, and tragedy…easter eggs.

Hope, expectation, and confusion. That’s what I’m left with as I stare at the title page for the New Testament. That title page represents a 400 year gap between the New and Old.

400 years where, if I were those people in Israel, I’d be thinking…now what?

We came up from Egypt and messed up in the Promised Land, royally messed up God’s plan. We got exiled, justly, and God preserved a remnant like He said He would. We thought we learned our lessons. Keep the Sabbath, follow the law, don’t worship idols, worship God at the one place He says. Then, miracle of all miracles, exactly 70 years later, kings who worshiped all kinds of other gods actually let us come back to Jerusalem, build the temple, build back the wall, settle back in the land.

It was touch and go at first in the whole obedience department. Some went back to the old ways and Nehemiah had to pull some hair but we think we got it this time. We are going to excel at keeping the Sabbath and following the law and not worshiping idols and worship only at the temple this time. When God sees we got that down, we get our King back, the one in the David dynasty, and we’re out from the thumb of all these nations like we were before. We’re back on the world stage, politically powerful and everyone sees that God is Almighty. We win wars again and we have the prosperity like God promised originally. This David-like King is promised to be something really extraordinary!

Being in the waiting period must be like having an outline of the puzzle but not all the pieces fitted yet…kind of exasperating

We just gotta do better and things will get better for us…except 400 years pass and we have no king, no political power, we’re still dominated by other nations, struggling to survive. We’re desperately trying to figure out what detail we’re missing in the law, what is keeping God from delivering us again? When we rebuilt the temple, why did the cloud and the fire not come down like it did at other times? Where is God? Who is this Elijah like person He promises will come in the future? Why is He waiting, when is it going to happen? When will we get that powerful king? When will He at least talk to us again?

And the people wait and anticipate and hope and try to cling to God…or at least His law.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Wrestling with Rest

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Sabbatical started a month ago and to be honest it was a rough start. My husband went down day one with a shoulder strain that took a few weeks to work out. Thankfully it wasn’t worse but we didn’t know the first week if he was headed for a much more intense recovery process or not.

My first wrestling match was with entitlement to this season of rest. Is my time really my own…ever? Or must it always be surrendered to God?

Going from pretty full, active, and social days to longer stretches of time without set plans takes some adjustment. I found myself mentally searching for helpful things to be and do for people more to chase away insecurity than really serving the Lord.

Before long I faced another wrestling match with identity. How much does my vocation define my identity? Well, more than I want and more than I thought.

When I read about Sabbath rest in the Bible, the activities seem to revolve around worship, community, and cessation of activities related to providing for ourselves in some way. It was a time to trust that God provides now and in the future. Sabbath involved lots of fun things like corporate worship and eating good food ideally prepared ahead of time so that no one was really working hard on it on the day of rest. Sabbath was for everyone, men and women, moms and dads, sons and daughters, grandparents, and also those who served.

Rest and sabbath in the Bible is really fascinating. Let’s just say, there was a lot of prescribed rest and partying happening! It wasn’t just priests or pastors or educators that took Sabbatical. Everyone was entitled, actually commanded to take sabbatical every 7th year. Every 49th year Sabbath flowed into the 50th Year of Jubilee in Israel which was also a sabbatical rest.

Wildflowers sprouting all by themselves on my daily walk

Every 7th year, the people of Israel were to give the land a whole year of rest. Every 50th year was an extra year of rest for the land and a year of wiping the debt slate clean, zeroing out any land transfers or debts people made during years of trouble. Each clan got their land back from whoever they had sold (rented really) their land to if they came under hard times. These years were also years when no planting took place.

Two years in a row there was no planting, just eating what grew on its own, trusting that God would bring something up. Trusting that the previous years plants shed some seeds into the Land and God would make them grow. God also promised on year 6 or 48 to provide such abundant crops to provide for the next year or years of sabbath rest.

Trust in God’s provision, then, began the year before the sabbath year. Would he provide double or triple like promised? I imagine I’d be pretty anxiously watching plants grow that 6th year.

The sad reality is that the people, as far as I can tell, never really trusted God enough individually or corporately to take God at His promise and rest themselves or the land. Their failure to Sabbath once a week, one year every 7th year revealed their heart’s true posture towards God. And I sense in myself the testing that comes with resting too. I am pretty sure I’d go with the crowd too.

The battles with entitlement as if I earned rest rather than receive it as a free gift. The battles with identity as if I define my worth through what I accomplish rather than receive my identity and worth as another gift from God.

Then another battle with the posture of my soul during sabbath. So much of sabbath from what I can tell was about indulgence in God and His gifts of community and creation. There’s no way to repay Him by trying in futility to devote every moment to something directly “godly” like reading my Bible or praying. I am realizing that is kind of the point of sabbath too. To receive and rest and contemplate that I cannot and am not required to do anything to earn my way into God’s good favor outside of being with Him.

Noticing God’s creation with photo credits to my oldest son.

I’m sure my thoughts are not completely formed on sabbath and may never reach completion. Sabbath rest never ended for God’s people no matter how old they got. They never reached a place where God felt they didn’t need it. I imagine it was always startling each 7th day, 49th year, 50th year…to contemplate our very real relationship with our Creator God.

On Family Vacations

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Be quiet. Listen.

My boy’s words as we took a short break on our hike yesterday.

What did we hear? Quiet. No sound of machine, car, people, pipes, notifications…just silence.

What a gift to hear only the whisper of wind blowing through trees with leaves hanging on by a thread, waiting for spring to shove them off in favor of the new. The gift of hearing other leaves blowing on the ground, ready to become soil that would grow a new wave of forest.

My boy is one restored by nature and the outdoors and silence in ways others in our family have yet to discover or just aren’t. The other boy is one on the hunt, overturning any rock he can in search of salamanders. Then he looks them up in his classification book astounded over finding one here that only exists…here.

Always ready to go…unless he’s not.

But the quiet one, the one of few words, when he speaks it often gets missed to his frustration. He wants to speak only what needs saying and only once and be…heard. And, sadly, we are a rowdy bunch and often miss what he’s trying to tell us, trying to say. He’s forced to repeat what he wanted to only have to say once, or not at all.

I think he wants us all to learn to read his mind and is disappointed we won’t…not wanting to accept we can’t.

So when he insists we be quiet, that we listen, this time we hear, my husband and I and we do what he says. We fall silent and listen with him and watch as the peace comes over him in a calm place with glorious views. Away from the pressure of AP classes and high school shenanigans he was never young enough in soul to truly enjoy.

A long time ago a mentor advised that I needed to slow down and accept that our family pace needed to include all…even the ones I most wanted to hurry up because they seem to slow. Maybe their pace was God’s gift to me, to us all, and waiting for them was God’s intended way forward for us.

That was at least 10 years ago…

I am not always good at this but over time, I am learning and accepting and seeing that bending to the whole is truly God’s gift to me.

It looks like family vacations where being outside hiking and exploring needs to be central so we all are restored. My intensity, though I’d like to think I’m laid back, is moderated by one foot in front of the other. I am restored as well as I keep a steady pace, putting one foot in front of another…

And another and another.

Pausing to wait for the youngest while another rock is lifted in search of another salamander.

Enjoying the constant, watchful presence of my middle son, an experienced hiker, looking after me, the inexperienced hiker, quietly accompanying me one foot after another. Saying little and much all at the same time.

Enjoying the slow stillness of the outdoors.

What have you learned about yourself and your family on vacations?

Tis the Season

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Well…not that season anymore but there are other seasons right? This month is birthday season for me. All of my three children celebrate birthdays in February within two weeks of each other. Yeah, it’s weird, but in my defense, one of them came three weeks early. If he’d minded his manners we’d have one March birthday.

I was tempted at the mall, but walked away empty handed….

Celebrating each one in their uniqueness is an exciting challenge, especially as they grow and change. Which birthday cake will they want this year? What constitutes a cool party? Do they even want a party? Is there any way to not eat six different birthday cakes and gain ten pounds in February?

And then I need to be mindful to pace myself a little so I don’t hit the third birthday, which comes a day after the second birthday of the month, mind you, and hit a wall. They can always tell when mom hits a wall.

It’s interesting to me that when we say there’s a season, it often means a holiday season. But it can also mean it’s a season of work, like tax season. Or a season of grief when a loved one dies. Or a season of singleness. Or a season of transition.

Like the seasons we observe through our window, they all look different. Some look dead, like grieving seasons. Some seasons look very alive and active like seasons where labor is increased. Some seasons are just kind of weird, like seasons of transition where it’s hard to tell what’s going on out there.

As I entered my 40’s a few years ago, I contemplated what all would happen in my 40’s. Three kids learning how to drive. Three kids graduating high school. Three kids entering college or post-high school futures. By the end of my 40’s, an empty nest loomed as a potential reality. At least one, maybe two possibly choosing to marry.

So where I entered my 40’s with kids all under my roof, in school, riding shotgun in my van. My 40’s would end with potentially all sleeping and living in other situations.

Sniff, sniff. And…hmmm, interesting.

Right now I’m preparing to celebrate one entering a new decade, one becoming an adult, and one getting a learners permit. I’m right in the middle of the season, a season of transition. A slow, decade long movement towards children becoming adults.

It’s way too exciting at times. Teaching three kids to drive? Fretting through all the high school classes and questions of what is next? Navigating teen dating relationships? Applying for colleges? It’s a wild ride.

As a younger mom, a thought impressed me about seasons of motherhood. Each stage or season felt like a proving ground for the next season. If I embraced learning the lessons of sleepless nights and diaper changes, maybe I’d be better prepared for the temper tantrums of the two and three year old and, later on, the teenager. In the same way, this decade of transition contains lessons, or if you’re a gamer, levels to unlock, that I imagine may come in handy later on.

Who knows what lies ahead. But for now, in this birthday season month, I’m thankful I still get to make cakes and see my kids in person on their birthdays. Such may not always be the case, but for now it is a wonderful reality.

I’ll have to remember that when I’m in the middle of a potential teen boy gel blaster battle party at the park. We’re two weeks away and they’re still deciding if that’s the move this year. In this too, I can be present and thankful.

Puzzling Pieces

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 4 Comments

Some people begin puzzles in the middle but that is wrong. True puzzlers know you begin with the edge pieces. My teammate’s 6 year old daughter believes that is baloney and starts with the middle….

Children are so funny.

My husband gave his mom a puzzle last year for her 80th birthday. One thousand pieces, pretty picture, and a good brand of puzzle. What a nice gift, right?

She called a couple months later and expressed her deep frustration with the puzzle. The wording was hard to read and fuzzy. It’s a world map but an old one so many names are different now. She was on the final push to be done and was very ready to finish. When she completed it, she took a photo, printed it and sent it along with the puzzle and a note, “good luck!!!”

The note contained strong tones of sarcasm.

I began the puzzle last Sunday and I empathize with her frustration! Not only is all she said true but more! The map is in two hemispheres so there are quite a few places it says Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic! Not only that but many pieces have fragments of the words “sea” and “ocean” on a nice, light blue background.

It’s a nightmare, really.

But puzzling this week got me thinking about most all conundrums in life and the life lessons it reveals along the way.

Read the following with an understanding that I am feeling a bit, well, funny.

Puzzling Pieces

With box set prominently on the table, the first thing one must do is flip all the pieces over, picture side up of course.

Let me take a moment and add another terrible thing about this puzzle is that the picture on the box is fuzzy! No one side of the box has the puzzle pictured in its entirety or even very clearly!

And isn’t life just like that, we do not know what it will exactly look like but following even a hazy example takes us far further than going it on our own.

The next step is finding all the edge pieces. Contrary to some opinions, this is the correct way to build a puzzle. Finding all the outside pieces is like defining the edges of the problem, figuring out where the boundaries lie. A problem undefined will remain unsolved. A life with no purpose will not be lived to the full.

After finding the edges, stand back and celebrate this wonderful achievement. Perhaps bring a family member or 5 to admire your work. Celebration is crucial in life. Stepping back and seeing all you have accomplished from time to time prevents us from becoming discouraged. It can also set us back on track if our life is stalled out.

Now that the edges are finished and appropriately admired, then move on to a portion that is distinctive. This will aid in finding useful pieces in a pile of 1000 unorganized fragments, much like reaching for easy to agree upon commonalities to a perplexing problem. Maybe this pertains to life direction. If you find that you clearly enjoy math, double down on math, my sister!

But, by all means, don’t start trying to put together the ocean at this point. I tried, and it was hard. Like with any problem, working in the nebulous blue-ish areas too early is only going to increase confusion and make one want to launch all the hard work across the room. It takes faith to know that as you put things together, even the hardest problems may become easier to piece together.

Questions like “who will I marry?” or “how will I face the troubles that life will throw at me?” come together along the way of living the life we have in the present tense. When it’s time to tackle the ocean, we must trust we will have what we need.

Instead of tackling the depths of the ocean prematurely, look for a thread of commonality, like the equator! I pieced the equator together next and spent a happy hour finding barb-wire type lines. My frustration and despair dissipated.

Like any plumb line, or equator, truth grounds us and helps us lay the foundation for further growth.

But then I faced a frustration, I had all these random ocean pieces with fragments of ocean words in the places where oceans would one day be! Alas, the ocean was still a swirling, chaotic mass of intimidation. So, I boldly lifted all the ocean pieces and put them back in gen pop.

Sniff, sniff.

Sometimes, solving a conundrum means you must backtrack, abandoning one effort and knowing you must redo work in the future that ended up failing the first time. Refer to my earlier word about how the depths of the oceans will begin to take care of themselves as we piece other things together.

After abandoning the depths of the ocean, we began working on continents. We! My oldest son now joined my efforts! He is a great puzzler with just the right amount of dedicated focus to really get stuff done. With his help we really got going.

I must mention I also received wonderful help from other members of my family from the beginning, when their help waned, my son was a great boon to my efforts and mood.

Which is another life lesson that can be gained in puzzling, combining forces has many benefits beyond just finishing faster. We enjoyed celebrating each other’s victories and praising the double tap that must accompany a piece well placed. Going through life or solving complex problems is not done best on one’s own, it is too lonely and discouraging.

Though there is pride to be had in completing a difficult puzzle on one’s own all the way to the last double tap, it is far more enjoyable to share in the experience together.

The time is now ticking, the puzzle must be complete by Tuesday at 6pm when my table needs to seat people instead of cardboard. We are close and we will succeed.

Then we will celebrate and feel the satisfaction of our achievement together…the last double tap must always be in the company of ones mates…

…and then we will sweep it all into the box again.

And so it is that life has a strong thread of futility. Why do a puzzle at all? Why live? Why try? If we’re just going to sweep it back into the box?

The thought that comes to mind is that when we puzzle we push the boundaries of our own creation, our identity, all the beautiful that is designed into us…just like when we put ourselves out there to live the life God intended for us.

It’s worth it and not just because of the here and now, but because what we do here echoes in eternity as well.

Who knew that puzzles could illicit such grand, eternal thoughts?!

What I’m reading now…

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You don’t really know me if you don’t know I love to read.

My nightstand is stacked with both fiction and non-fiction books along with a couple Bibles. I read each night before I go to sleep. Fiction, memoir, or biography occupy my bedtime reads. In the morning, it’s the Bible before phone. I don’t always succeed, but there’s a clear link to peace, joy, and a rested soul when I do. Right now I’m reading the New International Version of the Bible.

This post is for those who have asked me for some book recommendations recently. To see some of my other reads, I invite you to reference this post or this page. Speaking of which, I probably need to look at it soon and see if there are any new additions!

For now, I’ll let you in on what I’ve read recently, or am currently reading, along with a few thoughts…

Forgive by Tim Keller

Recommending a book before you’re finished with it is risky but I feel safe with this one. In our current cultural landscape, this book highlights why Christian forgiveness continues to shock every epoch of history. It is, in my opinion, a must read.

For one who doesn’t follow Jesus, it will explain what Christian forgiveness is, why it is central to the faith, and how it has influenced the world whether or not the link is known to those affected.

For the Christ follower, digging deeper into this central topic will strengthen your faith and help engage the world around you with greater humility and love while not leaving justice as some vague, confusing specter in the corner.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

I read this a good year ago and am about to begin it again in preparation for my book club discussion. What an entertaining read that captures the realities of living as a woman in a man’s world in the 50’s. What sticks with me most about the story is the way the main character elevated the vision of other women to greater purpose in the midst of what can be mundane tasks. Read this before watching the miniseries because that’s just the morally correct way with all good books!

The Maid by Nita Prose

This is a pretty twisty murder mystery told from the perspective of a maid who has a rather limited ability to read people. I really enjoyed engaging the story from her perspective and the way I, as a reader, knew more than the narrator. It did provoke quite a bit of discussion in book club which elevated it to a much chewier bit of fiction than I anticipated!

I recently read the second in the series and it was enjoyable but The Maid was superior.

Trust by Herman Diaz

Here’s another book I am currently reading but still recommending! I bought it at Target and then realized it is a Pulitzer Prize winner. I felt quite elevated to be reading a Pulitzer Prize winning book.

Finance is a subject that is a little fascinating and also obscure to me. The world of markets and finance, booms and crashes, market manipulation and economic depression is at the center of this story. This story has three sections following two fictional financial wizards of the early to mid- 1900’s. The first story is that of an almost heartless financial wunderkind. The second is the self-defense of a second financially successful man told almost as a draft. The third section, where I am currently, is the story of an employee of one of them who comes from a family highly critical of free market economies.

The characters in the book are wrestling in different degrees with the morality of Wall Street finance. How do some know how to maneuver and manipulate and profit? Is it moral? What does one do when one amasses wealth beyond anything imaginable? Is it ok to be skilled at playing the market purely for personal gain?

I’m eager to see how the story progresses and what the implications are for our time.

What are you reading these days? I’m always looking for recommendations!

Scorching Heat

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Days and days with no rain. The grass crunches under our feet and the heat keeps us shut inside until the sun slides towards the horizon. Drought sucks the ponds lower and lower with each passing day as we wait. Wait for rain or cooler temperatures or cloud cover to provide relief from the relentless heat.

And it’s all we can talk about here these days…how hot it is, whether the power grid will break, when it will be over, comparing this summer to the scorcher that was 2011 and sparked unprecedented wild fires.

As much as I don’t want my mood to be governed by the weather, I’m fighting to cultivate contentment in this environment. Not ambivalence or dissociation …but true contentment. The attitude that acknowledges the reality of the struggle while also choosing to receive what I need from God to face it without despair or anxious striving.

The Guadalupe, a serene reminder of cool refreshment.

The physical heat is the most obvious and innocuous part of life to practice cultivating contentment. A baby step, a most basic exercise, in learning to trust God. That is where I find myself learning the lessons afresh. The lesson that ripples out into all the other areas as well.

Can I entrust more than my physical comfort to God? Can I place in His hands the unknown future? The worries that wake me up at night? Will He be enough for my kids in the avenues of life they must trod? What will it take for me to lay down my anxious striving to solve problems on my own, without God?

And the heat continues, reminding me day by day to take this life day by day, entrusting myself and others to God. The crisp, brown grass and scorching seatbelts a tangible clue to my desperate need for the spring of living water.

Today, what is reminding you of your need to rely on God?

Resonance

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My son plays cello. No matter that we owned two violas, he wanted to play cello. Over the summer he took lessons because I wanted him to have something to do while his older siblings scampered around to jobs, hiking trips, and places with friends in cars.

Hearing him practice is a delight.

Once, his teacher moved one lesson online and a weird thing happened. While he was playing a scale, hitting the notes just right, the teacher’s cello all the way across town began picking up the sound waves and resonating a note. Through air, wires, chips, internet lines, then back through chips and wires and air that note traveled and replicate itself in the other cello.

When you think about it, that’s pretty incredible. Sound and music is one of the ways its hard for me to get out from under believing in the existence of God.

That resonance is what got me. One note moved through the air from one object and caused movement in another object.

Today I read about Peter at the last supper and then at that fateful campfire where he denied his friend, his teacher, the One he believed was the savior of his people.

It struck me that Peter didn’t know what was in himself. He was so sure that he would be loyal, that he would never… That all others might but not him.

And then he did the thing.

And Jesus turned and looked directly at Peter in that moment. When Peter met His gaze, he remembered what Jesus said would happen, what Peter so confidently denied could ever happen.

We don’t know anything about that look Jesus gave Peter. In my humanity I see raised eyebrows with I-told-you-so vibes because that’s how it works with me. Those moments when something comes true that I warned a kid about it takes everything in me not to raise my brows and waft off a distinct vibe even while I hold back the actual words.

What’s even more interesting is the interchange a few hours before. Jesus says to Peter three astounding things:

  1. Satan asked to mess with all of the disciples to see what will shake out
  2. I (Jesus) personally prayed for Peter that your faith would not fail
  3. I predict you’ll come back

I mean, tons of questions here for me. Did all the disciples get sifted or just Peter? I assume Jesus said ok? Jesus prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail yet Peter did fail.

And! Jesus seems to know that Peter will fail or why else would Jesus tell Peter that “when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers”?

That kind of blows my circuits when I really think about it. Did one of Jesus’ prayers not get answered with a yes? Of course we know that in the end Peter did betray Jesus but he also turned back and strengthened others.

Did Peter’s response right after this affect what happened? Did Peter’s following confident assertion that he was ready to go with Jesus to prison and death reveal that Peter needed to know more about himself without which he would not be ready to strengthen others?

There’s so much we don’t know but so much to know as well.

For me, I hate that so much of ministering to people involves living out of weakness, failure and suffering. Why does it have to be this way? Why is it that to follow Him, I must see and embrace those aspects of me that feel like nothing but failure?

I believe it relates to resonance. That phenomenon where some chord strikes the chord of another.

Could Peter ever lead the way Jesus displayed to him without a colossal failure followed by repentance and then restoration?

I don’t think so. Peter’s failure led him to an experience of restoration that transformed him into the humble servant Christ taught him to be.

And I don’t believe I or anyone can connect with the soul of another without the experience of being fully known in that moment of failure and then fully accepted and forgiven there too.

Those who are forgiven much love much, right?

And so it is that embracing our weakness is the striking chord that resonates in the souls of others who also seek the truth.

Walking the Blind Side

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I posted this almost seven years ago as we navigated my dad’s terminal brain tumor diagnosis. This week   did not permit much time to write. As I perused past posts, and I contemplated the surprising escalation of conflict in Europe too near where my brother and his family live, I felt it eerily appropriate.

We all walk blind in this world and must always learn to follow.

His plate sat there half full of scrambled eggs as he reached for more. I watched as he spooned some more on the right side. Then he ate the right side leaving a line straight up the middle. Eggs on the left. No eggs on the right. I turned the plate and it was like a magic trick.

The brain is fascinating. When signals don’t come from the eyes, it fills in the blanks, interpreting from what it’s learned. My dad doesn’t realize he can’t see his left side. That means walking into walls and furniture, knocking things over.

Now he often needs help on his blind side to prevent a fall or running into things. It’s a lesson in humility, I’m sure. For me it’s a lesson in service.

I’m constantly watching and adjusting on the blind side, learning his limits, walking the fine line between parent and child. Sometimes I tell him like it is, and he follows. Other times there’s no leading him anywhere, only hanging on for the ride. Like when he wanted to do a pre-op snow angel outside the hospital.

Walking the blind side is a privilege, but he’s a man not used to being guided. He’s led where he doesn’t want to go. Like Peter in the Bible.

When you were young , you would tie your belt and walk wherever you wanted. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you and carry you where you don’t want to go. John 21:18

At this point we’re not tying him up. Its a tempting option when he’s home alone and inclined to test limits that are steadily changing.

He’s not the only blind person. I’m as blind as my dad about what’s next. My mom less so, but this is the first brain tumor in our family. We pray it’s the last.

None of us wants to walk this path. We’re learning and we’re taking faltering steps into unknown territory. I’m growing wary of what I can’t see ahead, like my dad.

Follow Me. That’s the big question, bound on this path, will I follow Jesus? Will I go where I don’t want to go, because that’s where He’s going? What does faith look like on this path?

I will walk the blind side again today and tomorrow and for a long time to come. At least, it will feel long. Doctors say it will not be nearly long enough.

God knows the path. Will I follow?

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Climbing Stairs

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ Leave a comment

Our first year overseas we lived in a dark, cold, damp, and generally unpleasant apartment. It occupied the 7th and top floor of a communist style cement block. There was no elevator.

The first few nights my quads felt like boulders. My bootcut jeans began to get snug from the speed skater size thighs I developed.

We got so tired of those stairs that we began taking risks. One time my husband got to the first floor, realized he needed my passport and called up for me to throw it down.

Yes. Throw it down to him.

I didn’t want to go down. He didn’t want to come up and it seemed reasonable to throw down proof of our identity to avoid climbing 7 flights of stairs.

Our cheery apartment block…

I watched it float down. When it got to the 6th floor I realized climbing 7 flights of stairs was much better than spending 10 days trying to get that document and the visa replaced.

The little, blue, very important book graciously avoided a couple awnings and a sewer grate before landing on the pavement.

Phew.

So, when a plum apartment opportunity opened up on the fourth floor, we jumped at the chance to rent it. Climbing four flights with groceries, books, friends… just our bodies… seemed divine.

In those days landlords needed a document giving special permission to rent to a foreigner. The police dispensed this document but it seemed to be taking a long, long time for our landlady to arrange the appointment at the police office.

We waited and waited for her to give us the word to show up at the police station with our documents. We called her many times and always left assured that she did want to rent to us. A divorce seemed to be complicating her ability to rent out the apartment, or so we gathered in our first year level language ability.

As is common in cross cultural situations, we didn’t understand a lot of what was going on at the time. We didn’t understand why we needed the permission from the police, or why she couldn’t get it. We didn’t understand why we were waiting and waiting to go to the police office right down the road.

But she was kind and we felt motivated to keep waiting on her and the apartment she was renting.

Then, one day the call came. She sounded rushed and hurried. She insisted that we show up at the police office that day at a specific time. No flexibility and lots of anxiety resounded in the call. It was strange but we grabbed our papers, skipped classes and met her.

Stamp, stamp, stamp…and the process was over after months of waiting. Finally our rental contract went through and we moved across the apartment complex, closer to friends and only four flights up from the road.

Much later I began to wonder how much I missed in that interchange. Did she bribe someone at the police station? Or just wait for the one police officer that owed her a favor?

Systems of favors and paybacks– social indebtedness or downright financial indebtedness– clouded most of the functioning bureaucracy but it took me a long time to identify early on. Even after more than ten years living in there, it took me a few extra beats to clue in that receiving something from a person could put me into a kind of debt with them.

It took many years for me to realize that I absorbed this cultural influence more than I knew. Accepting gifts or favors of time from people triggers an alert response to begin looking for ways to return the favor and get me out of an uncomfortable feeling of indebtedness.

Sunday I flipped to a passage in the Bible where God is described as a God who doesn’t take bribes. Huh. What does that mean?

I was also reading in Mark about how in Jesus’ day, some people devoted their wealth to God in some kind of ceremony or tradition. Then, because of this devotion, they resended their support of their parents in their old age. The money was going to something more important in their eyes…God’s work.

Funny thing is that in the first passage in Deuteronomy, right after it says God cannot be bribed, it also talks about how He cares for the orphans, widows, and foreigners–the vulnerable.

Devoting wealth to God began to seem to me like a form of bribery, getting into God’s good favor through giving something to Him. But then it missed the whole heart of God because God cannot be bribed.

And! Caring for the vulnerable is pretty important to God apparently. So important that Jesus seemed to say supporting the vulnerable in your family is more important than giving a lot to the church at their expense.

Our second apartment had a dreamy kitchen…one where I didn’t have to rest my forehead against a cabinet in order to do the dishes. Most people weren’t 5’9″

God and money and our soul are such fascinating topics!

Isn’t that how I behave so often with God too? Best behavior, nervous, anxious to please, gaming the system….

Yet, there is nothing more to pay…no more abundant grace to get for those who are in Christ Jesus. It all got settled and paid at the cross. My standing is secure.

It would be pure silliness to try and bribe God like I had any more to add to what He did.

Reflecting on those truths this week…remembering those rich years learning to love like God loves in a country where I did not fit in… and standing a little more secure.

Why try and bribe God? Just delight in this undeserved acceptance.