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?

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!

On the night He was betrayed

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Routine and habit can make me insensitive, lacking in ability to feel or notice. They also make it possible to fill up otherwise wasted moments of my day with meaning and the chance to receive.

  • La Jolla, California July 2023

I don’t know why it stuck out to me so particularly on a Sunday morning a few months ago, “on the night He was betrayed…”, as our church family practiced communion. It is a routine, the first Sunday of the month. A habit, if you believe, you are welcome to participate in this strange, millennia old sacrament begun by Jesus Christ. Your soul can be connected as you physically partake…or it can be disconnected, insensate, dull.

That morning, after decades of ritual and habit, the words hit different, as the youth say these days. On the night He was betrayed. Maybe it is because I am noticing afresh my lack of love at times. Sure I’ve grown over many years in being loved and being a conduit of love. But it is still there, the lack of love.

It is no small comfort that what Jesus’ follower John honed in on as he grew older was love. Love being at the center of all. And not the weak, self-serving, conditional, self-indulgent love of today but the true love of Jesus that sacrifices without thought of what can be paid back or received by Himself.

So maybe that’s why on the night He was betrayed is stuck in my mind and soul these days. Because on the night Jesus gave Himself on our behalf, His whole physical and spiritual self, He was betrayed. Not only that, He knew His followers were going to betray Him. This isn’t an after the fact realization He had–that He would give Himself and then find out His followers failed Him. He knew before and as He sacrificed Himself that it would be a lonely, thankless, necessary, and willing task to give up His life for unworthy people like Peter, John, me…and you.

The whole subject of communion and its meaning is one that fills entire books and shelves and rooms, I’m sure. For me, right now, it is enough to reflect on one aspect of His communion with us, His followers.

That He gave Himself willingly, in love, even as those closest to Him, who saw in person the universe altering gift, betrayed Him.

I often wonder who I would embody in the times Jesus walked the earth. Would I be a moralist Pharisee offended as Jesus blocked my desires to earn my way? Would I be the crowd that was just there for the easy food, after all I love giveaways? Would I be the woman forgiven who walks away completely changed?

It’s worth pondering as I seek to know Jesus and myself more deeply that I may be like Him because the tendency is to think we’d be faithful. We would recognize His deity if He walked the earth in front of us. We would rise above all that moralism and materialism that kept people from Jesus. But would we?

Probably not, because Jesus was betrayed by most everyone on the night He was to give us His greatest gift. How could I think I’d be different?

I would betray, have betrayed, will continue to betray Him in my selfishness and lack of love, but my hope is also in this truth. Because on the night He was betrayed, He still gave Himself.

And the hope is deeper and the love deeper as I realize this truth more deeply.

Beckoning

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The call to shove away the endless to-do list for a few minutes and indulge my writer self has grown over the past few weeks so today I did it. I seized a moment!

Recently I listened to a podcast about what’s saving the podcaster, Emily P. Freeman’s, life. Hmmm.

It got me thinking, what’s saving my life right now? In the day to day sense, what’s bringing me small joys?

So here they are reader, my top 4…

#1: Aveda

Each morning and evening I enjoy the scent, feel, and experience of washing away the grime of the day or night with a new skincare regime. I bought the whole thing a couple weeks ago. It helped that it was on sale and they gave me other free things when I ordered it. I love a deal.

I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much! But each time I breathe in the spa like scents and spray (yes, spray!) my face with the indulgent toner, a little of the drama and struggle of the day passed or the day to come lessens. I’m transported just a little.

And that’s what I love about the small joys in life…they take me out of the mundane, the overwhelming, and engage me in a simple pleasure, a gift from God. Because isn’t that one aspect of our senses? To experience the fullness of God’s creation?

#2: Tennis with my son

Anyone who really knows me knows I am not athletic. I exercise because I want my clothes to fit or fit better. Sweating is not my jam. I’ve never been good at any sport. Wah, wah.

But lately, swinging a racquet with my youngest kid is defying some of my image of myself as a clumsy dweeb. Often I can serve the ball into the right square. So surprising! Sometimes I return a zinger right into the back corner! Nice!

A couple nights ago we weren’t experiencing such moments of transcendence. I was tired, he was off his game and frustrated. He began to hit homeruns on the tennis court…well, off the tennis court to be exact. Not in a happy way. But every one brought this joy to my heart. Look at that ball fly!

So I began to try it out. Wham! And can I tell you, the exhilaration of whacking the snot out of a little yellow ball on a too humid November night in Texas was huge. We spent the last crate of balls hitting as hard and as long as we could and it was….fun.

He loosened up as the pressure of the white lines faded and all Hades broke loose on our court.

#3: Journaling

This is no new habit of mine, journaling. My brother and I talked about it a few weekends ago and I made my wish known that any journals found upon my passing should be burned and not read. Not because there’s anything especially salacious in them, but because any comment made can have no hope of being talked over and resolved if I’m, well, dead.

So if you find any, just burn them, folks.

Ok, now on to why it’s saving my life.

Journaling is my place to spill my unformed thoughts and worries to God. All that stuff that hangs out rent free in my mind, which is pretty active, gets out and on paper. Somehow that act of thinking it, moving my fingers to put it down in time and space, and then closing the book removes some of my mental clutter.

It’s a physical way of laying some burden, distress, or joy down before God in a way that resonates with more than just my headspace.

Is it prayer? Yes, I guess it is. And probably worship too.

And those things save me in the sense that they rescue me from trying to deal with everything myself.

I also love those sweet Moleskine journals, they make journaling better.

#4: Sport Mode

Not sports like tennis but sports like sports car. A few months back we traded in my husband’s very sensible sedan for a used convertible. It’s a lovely shade of blue, it’s a manual shift, and it had half the miles of the sensible sedan so… we made our mid-life dreams come true.

And I like to drive it like it’s a sports car, because it is. I think it gets worse gas mileage than our van the way we drive it but it is mega fun. We made a pact to drive it with the top down as much as humanly possible. So far so good.

It helps that we all enjoy it. Our youngest thinks his hair looks better after riding in the Miata. Our middle kid leans back, closes his eyes and enjoys the sun and wind on his face. And I enjoy getting hugged by the seat when I accelerate which is often and aggressive as long as it is safe.

Don’t worry, we don’t speed as a habit. We just get up to speed in the funnest way possible.

It’s making most every commute fun except the ones where I end up next to a Texas-sized truck muffler.

But, on the whole, net gain and daily joy are our companions when we tool around in our Blue Bullet.

As you’ll notice, not all of these joys are overtly spiritual. Personally that’s where I think I often land in peril in matters of enjoying the gift of the life God gave me. Seeing these small joys leads me into thanks and gratitude for a God who made a beautiful multi-sensory world and delights that we experience our life here in communion with Him. Whereas a narrow view of what counts, or should count, steals a bit of the joy.

I can’t find communion with Him in many things in this world. There is so much that only seeks to divide us from His love and presence. But there’s so much that can beckon us to come to Him, all us who are weary and burdened, and find rest with Him.

So, what are your small joys that beckon you to look up and enjoy God in your everyday?

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.

Climbing Stairs

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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.

The Power of A Gentle Lead

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Lily is a lunger. I stopped walking her for a week because a back muscle spasm left me doubtful I possessed the strength to control her without incapacitating myself. Its embarrassing really, an indictment on our dog parenting skills, to have such an ill-behaved dog.

She seems ferocious with her heavy chain collar we bought to walk her. Don’t judge y’all.

It helped a little but didn’t keep her from pulling when she approached the big Collie she dislikes. Some dogs she likes and some she can’t stand. She can’t stand that glorious Collie. It’s hard to know how she judges or what they’re saying to her that sets her off. We just walk past, heads hung, sheepish smiles of apology on our faces as our dog barks her face off.

Our neighbors wouldn’t know she spends most of the time in our home sacked out on a couch or bed, completely docile. She behaves like an attack dog in public. I’m sure we’ve avoided a break in just due to her behavior on walks in our neighborhood.

We went to the pet store to look at lizards, my son’s absolute favorite category of the animal kingdom. We wandered into the leash aisle and browsed a bit before spotting a box with an idyllic picture of a cute dog on a walk.

What must that be like I wondered?

We agreed it was a lot to spend for a thin cord contraption but I’d seen other dog parents using it. Their dogs did what I wanted Lily to do. They walked beside their owner and generally behaved themselves. I admired their behavior and thought I’d like to walk my dog in a similar, calm fashion. My son convinced me the purchase was inevitable.

So, I bought the new lead and wondered what would happen when we put it on Lily. Could this little cord really hold back 35 pounds of dog torque? Ok, you’re laughing but it’s a lot when she she sees a deer and imagines the kill.

Here’s an example of what brings out the killer instinct in our dog…Bambi.

I was doubtful. I saved the receipt and my son and I expressed gratitude that the box wasn’t one of those contraptions that needed a box cutter to open. We opened it without losing a finger and raised our eyebrows. It was small and thin for what it claimed it could accomplish.

We finally figured out how to put it on Lily and everything changed.

Immediately.

She went wherever I led her. A new problem emerged, our leash dragged on the ground and got under her paws. Trucks went by, she hardly noticed. Bunnies jumped and she just glanced at them. We walked by the yard of her arch nemesis, Cujo we call him, and she reacted not a bit.

Lily was a new dog.

A tiny bridle-like leash brought her to submission in an instant. She’s going to get more walks now. She will make new friends. People might break into our house but at least we can show our faces in the neighborhood without folks checking to make sure she’s up to date on her rabies vaccine.

I’m going to look like a queen with my medium sized dog walking right beside me.

Being a city girl…ok, a suburb girl…I never saw the power of a bridle quite so clearly until now. And, of course, it reminds me of more than just controlling animals.

Small things can control big things. Small things can turn powerful things. Small things can do big things. James, Jesus’ brother, connected this phenomena to our personal lives. Our tongues. Our speech.

It wreaks havoc in our lives, sets things on fire. The only way out, the only way to bring it in check is to submit our whole selves to Jesus Christ’s gentle lead.

This year I can’t believe some of the things said by people I used to respect. Insults that were off limits in the past got plastered across social media. I grieved the evidence of what lay in the hearts of so many. It became evident we couldn’t control much and tongues wagged, set things on fire and burned relationships to the ground.

I can’t believe things I’ve said in my life, things I deeply regret and needed forgiven. When I begin to see the power of my words it is sobering. How can I have such power to speak words that hurt so deeply? Yet I do, we all do.

It became so common place to breathe out angry words, it was held up as being brave and honest. I think, in reality, it was just a power play, a stab at controlling…something.

Now here we are, divided, suspicious, and scared because we did not put on that bridle and submit ourselves to God who gives the power to resist those forces that tempt us to try and control what we never could control.

I know the arguments.

What if He leads us on a way we don’t want to go? What if it hurts, what He wants us to do for Him? What if we suffer? What if we’re not the winners in this world but we look more like losers.

Jesus told His follower, Peter, what to do under such circumstances…you must follow Me.

Peter, you follow Me and you will lose earthly power and reputation, you won’t even get to dress yourself or decide the next place you sleep.

And Peter submitted to Jesus but somehow I sense we forget. I know I forget.

I forget that life with Christ was never about power but about sacrifice. It was never about my way, but His Way. The call to follow Jesus was never about being in control and it was always about making disciples.

So if I submit to Him, maybe my tongues will stop lunging at other people and I’ll look like Jesus a little more. He’ll seem a little more like who He is because I display who He is a little more accurately.

At least, that’s what I hope for myself. I’m not sure I’ll ever get comfortable with the bridle this side of heaven but I know I need it…desperately…and I know I’m not alone.

Death by Paper Cut

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Wearing a mask. Answering another Covid screening question. Missing life milestones. Not getting to chaperone that school trip. Another zoom meeting.

These are just a few of the thousand little things that are piling up right now in this season of immense change and suffering.

I hope you enjoy this post from a few years ago. It seemed relevant in this age of radical upheaval…

One of the most difficult things about life anywhere, and life lived across cultures for sure, is that often it’s no one big thing that slays me…at least not yet.

It’s all the small things that add up and threaten to take me down.

Taken alone, each cut seems relatively minor and superficial, like a paper cut, but they sting. Each and every cut stings and there’s no time to put on a Band-Aid before the next cut comes.

Talking about what hurts seems silly.  It’s just a paper cut, why am I so upset about a paper cut? I minimize and compare. I don’t want to complain. I don’t suffer like that other person who really stood up for their faith in a stressful situation of direct confrontation.

No one really hurt me, right? I’m still alive, aren’t I? I discount the cut and fail to treat it.

Again and again the cuts come. Forgetting my passport. The person who cut me off again just this morning. The man who makes me re-park my car so that the nose faces out warning me that I am breaking the law if I don’t. He doesn’t understand that at least 5 people on the road endangered my very life and parking my car in a “cultured” way is the least important thing to worry about now. The lady at the store who will not even try my credit card even though I know it works. I did not bring cash. Smog.

Here in Asia it’s called “eating bitterness” these paper cuts. It’s an old saying about the difficulties of life and just taking it. It results in kick the dog syndrome, though. People just lose it for no clear or sufficient reason.  But I know why they lose it because I lose it too.

Unseen cuts cover us all and then someone pours salt on the wound. The salt without the wound is nothing but with the cuts…it brings sudden pain and I react.

Kick the dog syndrome spreads like a contagion. A woman picks up a brick on the street to throw at a man. I’ve seen that. A family fights in the apartment above us. Furniture shakes and screams keep me awake.  I’ve heard that too.

I wish for a formula to combat the paper cut plague but it doesn’t exist. I know more now to look at the cut and say it hurts…to cry even if it seems silly to cry over a paper cut. I know that real life seems more death by paper cut than death by some brave act of martyrdom though those stories also move me to tears.  DSC_0064

Death by paper cut is not as futile as it seems when I count the Lord’s view of suffering. He calls me to die to myself as He died for me…even in the smallest things. He calls me to persevere and endure and even do it joyfully because He gives me resources I just cannot muster myself.

As I contemplate more on this concept and acknowledge the cuts, I do find more joy because I find grace and mercy. I still kick dogs some days…not real dogs but proverbial dogs. I do a lot of apologizing. It is coming easier to apologize because I get a lot of practice.

But His grace and mercy, this is the salve that allows my soul to lay down and rest.

Open Your Mouth Wide

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ Leave a comment

School begins in a couple weeks…maybe. Who knows in all this uncertainty? The one thing I’m told to accept in this season is change. So. Much. Change.

I cannot think of many things that are certain besides what we will have for dinner…if the grocery store has all the ingredients, of course.

I wish this what I made for dinner but we can’t be happy ALL the time, can we?

As the pandemic continues my tolerance of change is wearing thin. I want to know things. I want to be sure of something. I want to be able to tell my kids a piece of information I’m certain will not change.

Right now, I want to do something normal. I want to buy school supplies. I want there to be a list and I want to buy everything new, neatly packaged and put it in a backpack because it feels normal.

But I don’t need all the things on the list. I don’t know if my kids will darken a school door in a historically “normal” way. But I don’t really care.

I want the order to calm the storm that is happening around us.

When I check the news or social media, it provides mostly grief. We are all trying to latch onto something certain like desperate people drowning at sea.

Maybe its a politician, a plan, an ideology, or conspiracy theory…but we want a life preserver.

And when we think it will save us, we latch on hard. So hard.

One phrase in my readings of the Bible comes to mind often when I feel so much want that I don’t know what to do with it. Where do I go with these impossible longings for a life that looks different than our current reality?

Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

God wasn’t just talking about food. He is talking about total reliance on Him to fulfill our needs, wants, and desires. In the context of this verse, God’s people are going to many, many other people for stability.

It’s worth noting who they were going to:

Spiritual leaders who promised peace when God was promising captivity.

Political leaders who promised power when God’s power was with other nations.

Foreign leaders who promised alliance when God said rely on Him.

Material objects that promised fulfillment when God said only He could fulfill.

And nothing has changed, has it? I still want to go to these things and claim a place of power, of agency over my circumstances. More than many other turbulent times in my life, this era is unique in its universalism.

The whole world is scrambling.

The whole world is longing for the same things. But will we go to the One who is truly capable of providing for us?

I don’t know. I hope so. I labor towards that end.

And I open my soul mouth wide, naming all my hungers, and I wait and trust that God will feed me.

Somehow. In some way. Because He promised He would.

I don’t know how He will do it, but I am eager to see.