All Is Calm - Maybe

On the Friday and Saturday before Christmas, we drove up to Randy’s folks. Smells of Mom’s cooking met us at the door when we arrived and teased us until supper time. We gathered around the table, gave thanks to God, and started filling plates. Six-year-old Laura sat at the table and sighed contentedly. “Ham . . . green beans . . . rolls . . . . . I’ve always been waiting for a meal like this.” Just busted us all up.

Saturday noon the cousins came over and the eight kids under twelve had a blast exchanging gifts and chasing and playing all over the property, occasionally running past the dessert table and grabbing another tidbit. It was a day when we followed the parenting principle of benevolent neglect. That evening as we were packing up the car, eight-year-old John started fussing that he didn’t feel well. He was overheated and sugared up, so we packed a couple gallon Ziploc bags for the three hour home trip, just in case. After a couple hours’ drive we pulled into an Arni’s to give our oldest son a turn driving. All the girls were in dire need of a pit stop. Being the Good Mom that I am, I let Laura go first. Of course there’s only one bathroom, one stool. Laura was thoughtfully contemplating whether or not she was done. I finally told her to switch me places; she could think standing up for a minute. Meanwhile older sister Katherine kept banging the door every 20 seconds. I started to get annoyed. “Just a minute, willya!” “It’s John. He’s sick.” And I heard him wailing “Daaaddy” but Daddy was in the car, wondering what’s taking us so long.

So I quickly got myself presentable enough to open the door for him. Laura being modest reached for her ankles to pull up her wind pants. CRACK! She hit her forehead on the corner of the sink. “Oh honey, that had to hurt! Are you okay?” I asked. She straightened up and took her hand away from her eye; there was blood all over the place. It was all so interesting, John forgot he was sick. I folded some paper towels into a cold compress to stop the bleeding quickly, and sent Katherine for Randy, who dug out the Children’s Advil I’d had the foresight to pack. The cut could have used a stitch, but it was in her brow, where in time the scar wouldn’t show that much. I decided that with the children’s Christmas program at church the following morning, the trauma of a late evening ER visit wouldn’t have been worth it. “Laura, I think you’re just going to be a shepherd with a shiner.”

Back into the car and on the road again! At least for another 20 minutes. As Dan idled the van at a stop sign, John started hurling. I ordered Dan to pull into the lot at the garage across the street, where we all threw open the doors and jumped out into some fresh air. I took John back into a muddy alley between the buildings so we’d at least be out of the wind. After a while he settled down. “You all done?” He looked at his Ziploc bag and thought a minute. Then he cricked up one corner of his mouth, looked at me and said, “I’ve always been waiting for a meal like this.” I just about collapsed. I had to lean against the building I was laughing so hard.

After that the rest of the holiday was pretty calm. We drove the last half hour home, tucked everyone in and had a cup of hot tea. It’s not the holiday memory we expected to make, but we’re smiling just the same.

Bare Branches

November is the ugliest month. The brilliant fall colors are gone and the days are growing shorter. The sky is gray; the fields are gray. Even my mood turn gray, so I bundle up and, as Grandma would say, “go out and get the stink blowed off.”

Walking the lane in October, I am encouraged by the parallels between our lives and the changing seasons. God gives us spiritual springtimes, full of hope and promise and newness. He gives us summers when we are ripe with fruit, and seasons of victory when our lives reflect God’s presence with all the glory of sugar maples in autumn.

But what about November? The trees drop their leaves and bear no fruit. What beauty can we find in barrenness?

When we brave the gloom to venture outdoors, we discover the essence of a tree. We crane our necks to look up into the mighty trunk and branches of a majestic white oak, so strong and steadfast. Then we let our gaze drop to linger on the limbs of a dogwood growing beneath it, twining gracefully and quietly in dappled half-shadows. We see the smooth, silvery bark on a beech growing beside a shaggy hickory and even gray becomes beautiful. But these bare branches would die and fall to the ground to rot, except for one reason:

They abide.

When the air about them is cold and dry, they abide. When the wind is bitter and rough, they abide. The trees stretch their roots down beneath the dust and dead grass to the source of life, and even if a storm should tear off a branch, the wood beneath is still green. Though there be no fruit, no leaves, still there is life. There is the beauty of promise.

Novembers reveal the essence of the believer. All else is stripped away until we see the trunk and branches of trust. Roots reach beneath the despair and fear to seek the Life that sustains, and the believer abides. “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial.” (James 1:12)

The psalmist and the chronicler call us to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. To be holy is to be set apart for a special purpose. When we set ourselves apart to God, when we entrust ourselves fully to Him in our barren times, our bare trusting branches become a thing of beauty, and we need not fear November.

Worship

“Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down.”

Well, I’m here. I can at least say that much. But God, I don’t feel much like worshiping. I have a terrible headache and the music makes it pound. I’m tired and I don’t want to stand. I’m grumpy and I’d rather just stay home. I’m worried and discouraged and overwhelmed by my circumstances. How can I think of worshiping when there’s so much on my mind? Over there stands one who has offended me; I don’t want to join with her. Can we just go right to the sermon and get out of here, please?

“Here I am to say that You’re my God. You’re altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me”

God, how much are you worth to me? I’m looking at my struggles and my hurts. Can I tear my eyes from these and turn them to you? Look at your faithfulness to me. Look at your mercy on me. Look at your provision for me. Look at your love for me. Your goodness. Your kindness. Your mighty hand. Do these mean more to me than my struggles? Can I proclaim your worth in the hard times? Am I willing?

“And I’ll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross.”

Instead of worshiping you, they spit in your face. Will I spit in your face by refusing to worship? Will worshiping you this day cost me more than my sins cost you? Will I add to your cost with my stubbornness and pride?

“Here I am to worship.”

Oh God . . . oh, my Lord God . . .

(Song lyrics by Tim Hughes)

He Knows

The next time you’re with a half dozen women - at lunch with some coworkers or swinging the kids at the park - take a good look at them. In all likelihood, one or two of them carry a memory of a time when they were assaulted. In a typical congregation this may be true for 35 or 40 women.

Scripture tells us in Isaiah 53:3 that Jesus bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. But how can He make that claim? What does He know about being a woman? He came to earth as a man, in society that treated women like property.

According to the gospel of Matthew, after Jesus was sentenced to crucifixion, the soldiers guarding Him gathered the entire battalion to watch as they stripped Him, slapped Him around and made sport of Him. They didn’t humiliate Him secretly in some hidden place, but publicly. They did it for kicks, because the power they had over Him made them feel strong. Jesus knows the shame.

He was also heartbreakingly vulnerable. No sin had ever come between Him and the Father. He was more innocent than any little child ever was, but He allowed sin - our sin - to rob Him of His innocence. He knows that pain.

But our sin does not diminish His holiness. God does not look at Jesus and see Him used and stained with sin. Hebrews 7:26 describes the risen Christ as “holy, innocent, undefiled.” In the same manner, we who are alive to God in Christ Jesus, walk in newness of life, and His blood is like Scotchguard for our souls: sin’s stain does not penetrate, and we are precious and holy and pure in His sight.

If so many women carry such memories, then so do the men who abused them. Christ felt their shame and dishonor and reproach when He bore it for them on the cross. He put away their sin by the sacrifice of Himself. In Christ, each man now can be a man of “honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.”

Although He was God’s Son, Jesus learned obedience from the things which He suffered. He knew that His persecutors had been created in the image of God to do good works. Grieved at their hardness of heart, He responded with love and righteous anger, yet without sin. The Man who taught other to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them, looked on the faces of His abusers and prayed, “Father, forgive them, for the know not what they do.” As God gave Him grace, Jesus bore the painful consequence of their sin, and rose up victorious over it.

God loves all His children and gives them all things freely. What He did for our Brother Jesus, He will do for us. If we ask Him, He can enable us to see our abusers not as they are, but as He meant them to be. He shows us how we can be angry, yet without sin. By His strength we can endure the pain, and by His grace, we can forgive. He may do all these things for us in a single moment, or He may allow us to work through them over a period of time. Either way, the result is the same: The Lord heals the brokenhearted, and binds up our wounds; He has risen over the past things, and He raises us in triumph with Him.

Scriptures

Romans 6:11
Romans 6:4
Psalm 69:19
Hebrews 9:28
1Timothy 2:21
Hebrews 5:8
Matthew 5:44
Luke 23:34
Mark 3:5
Ephesians 4:29
Romans 8:32
Psalm 147:3
Colossians 2:12, 15
Colossians 3:3

Everything In Its Place

I like an orderly house, one with lots of nooks and corners, one that has a comfortable niche for each thing within its walls. Nothing is strewn about; each item reposes in its own quiet abode, like robin eggs clustered in a nest.

We take our meals at a custom-built table that, when fully extended, stretches like a vast plain across the dining room. Off to the south in the breakfast nook stands a smaller table where no one dares to dine. Sunshine streams in the windows and illumines the reason why: the table is too crowded with projects to share space with a plate. A sewing machine and patterns pieces cut from blue and yellow calico have laid claim to much of the table top, but they compete with two bean plants, part of a science project. One plant is daily making a valiant effort to conquer more of the territory surrounding its quart mason jar. The second plant, sequestered in an up-ended shoebox to demonstrate its need for light, is not faring so well. The sewing basket in the center of the table fights for turf with a chunk of wasps’ nest that our littlest one found blown down from a tree. At the back of the table, a finger painting in blues and purples dries on a disposable surgical tray propped against an unopened jigsaw puzzle. Lurking on the periphery of it all is a lone bottle of glass cleaner, abandoned when someone was interrupted at her window washing.

As much as I like order, this clutter doesn’t bother me. It may look chaotic, but it is a controlled chaos. As one project is completed and another fulfills its purpose, I put things away or throw them out, and wipe the table clean. A few days later the cycle starts fresh again.

My life is a lot like my table. I prefer it to be neat and orderly and I want to organize and arrange every aspect. Seldom though does the unfolding day first consult my charts. The essential fabric – faith, family and friends – does claim the biggest portion of my life. But while some tendrils of my life thrive and grow, others languish. Unexpected happenings blow in from nowhere, and oftentimes my plans are interrupted. In Christ I’ve received all the pieces, but I haven’t put them all together yet. And though God sometimes draws a brush of new understanding across my life, the paint takes time to dry.

My circumstances may seem chaotic, but when the dust threatens to get too thick, there is One who is in control. He sorts through my life, putting the important things in their places, throwing out those which have served their purpose, and bringing His light to the shoots that are in darkness. He clears the way before me, and I can move on.

Bored In Church

I had been sitting on a folding chair in the second row for forty-five minutes. Paul squirmed on my lap while Dan fidgeted on the seat between Randy and me. I was beginning to get restless myself. I wasn’t getting much out of the visiting pastor’s message, which was not unusual. You see, we were sitting in the Khmer Church of Harrisburg, and the guest pastor preached in Khmai, his native language. I only knew a few words in Khmai, so the message I heard was “chatterchatterchatter pra ang (okay, that was God) chatterchatterchatterchatter srawline (okay, that’s love) chatterchatterchatter sy kdei (that’s forever). After a while I was exhausted, trying to pick out words that I recognized, so that’s when I looked over at Mrs. Kim.

Mrs. Kim had attended a solid evangelical church in the area, made a profession of faith and was baptized. When a friend told her about the little church where the English language sermons were translated into Khmai, she decided to check it out.

Our small congregation was made of Cambodian refugees who, with the exception of a couple teachers, came from the lowest class of their society. They were subsistence farmers who plowed their rice paddies with water buffaloes. Many of them had received only enough schooling to read and write. But Mrs. Kim was different. Her late husband had been an important judge in the Cambodian court system. She was a “high-high” lady; in fact, when Phnom Penh was about to fall, the Americans airlifted her out of the city. She was spared the killing fields, though seven of her eleven children died there. Now she was living in subsidized housing, raising her grandson and trying to stretch her public assistance check to make ends meet. Even so, the other members of the congregation were shy around her. But that soon changed.

Mrs. Kim had been coming to church for perhaps six weeks when I heard a great commotion in the adult class. Stepping out of the children’s classroom and into the hall, I peered through the glass pane by the door. Everyone was excited and noisy, but smiling, so I shrugged and shooed my charges back into their room. Later I learned that, in the middle of the lesson, Mrs. Kim had popped up her head and exclaimed something in Khmai. The interpreter answered her enthusiastically and everyone else started chattering with excitement. The teacher, Bill, went nuts trying to find out what was happening. Finally the translator calmed down enough to explain, “She said, ‘OH! Is THAT what it means!’” Later, as Mrs. Kim shared the testimony I would read at her re-baptism, she told me more. “I’d heard about Jesus before,” she explained, “but I didn’t really understand until I heard it in my own language.”

In the years that followed, I could never really make up my mind if Mrs. Kim was a pastor’s greatest dream or a pastor’s greatest challenge. She sat front and center at every service, her eyes riveted on him. When he proclaimed truth, she beamed and nodded. When he asked a rhetorical question, she answered him aloud. If he said something she didn’t understand, she interrupted him and discussed the matter until she had a clear picture of what he meant. And when all the Khmai started running together in my head and I started to feel restless, I could look over at her and content myself, knowing that she was getting it.

Sometimes when I stand in the worship service, we sing a hymn that I think might put me into a coma before we get to the fourth verse. That’s when I need to look at the faces of the saints who’ve grown up on that hymn, who hold it dear to their hearts. I can see the steadfastness and peace on their countenances and thank God that He speaks their heart language. Or maybe a praise song has me wishing for a volume knob that’s just not within my reach. I can look at the kids, many of whom come to church on their own, without their parents bringing them. I can see the joy on their faces, and thank God that they’re getting it. I can be content, knowing I serve a God who loves us enough to speak all our languages, and I can thank Him that He chose to speak mine.

Raising Chickens to Adore God

I wanted to raise a flock of laying hens, but before I ordered my chicks, I needed to read up on the subject. A friend in the poultry business recommended a couple books, and as I scrolled through the county library’s online catalog, I came across the above title. “What on earth?” I asked myself. The idea of raising chickens to the glory of God, by managing the flock well, I could understand. But teaching a chicken to adore God? I had to take a closer look at this. That’s when I realized that I had left the alphabetized list of books on raising chickens and moved into the books on raising children.

Much has been made, and should be made, of our responsibility, described in Deuteronomy 6, to teach our children diligently as we sit in our homes and walk by the way and lie down and rise up. We are the ones who know and understand our children best; they learn from us whenever they are with us.

We stand at the window watching a summer storm and marvel with our children at a God big enough to command the thunder and lightning. The grass dries; evening falls; and we delight together in a God who also spoke forth fireflies, little reminders of the storm that passed. Countless times during the week we draw their attention to a God worthy of praise, but one day in seven they learn something we can’t impart to them snuggled beside us on the sofa. On the Sabbath, our children learn by our side as we gather with other believers in the sanctuary.

Both the Old and New Testaments describe children involved in corporate worship. As the people of Israel prepared to first enter the Promised Land, Moses commanded them, “You shall read this law in front of all Israel . . . the men and the women and children . . . and their children, who have not known, will hear and learn to fear the Lord your God.” (Deut 31.) Years later the Hebrews were taken into Babylonian captivity. When the prophet Ezra led them back to Jerusalem, he went to the temple to pray. “Now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly, men, women and children, gathered to him from Israel, for the people wept bitterly.” (Ezra 10.) When children hear the word of God, it touches and cleanses their hearts.

Children were among the multitudes flocking to Jesus near the Sea of Galilee. One of these sacrificed the lunch, five barley loaves and two fish, that Jesus blessed. From this one small gift, more than 5000 men were fed, aside from women and children. (Jn 6, Mt 14.) God receives the offerings of little hands.

A week before Passover, the moneychangers sat in the temple in Jerusalem, trading the faithful’s Roman coins for Jewish coins to pay the temple tax, and requiring a healthy surcharge for their service. (Mt 21.) Into their midst strode Jesus, turning over their tables and driving them out, then healing the blind and the lame who gathered there. The chief priest and scribes were furious but helpless to protest. Finally they vented their anger, not at Jesus but at the children who were shouting and singing in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” In response to such top-level indignation, Jesus defended the children, saying, “Have you not read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes Thou hast prepared praise for Thyself’?” God receives the adoration of little voices.

Our little ones take in more than we realize during the worship service. When our oldest was two he always requested a “pretty song” at bedtime. One night Randy was stumped as to what song it was. “Teng teng,” was all the child could tell him. Finally I started singing a Cambodian Scripture song that ended “trang trung tome teng nah.” The little guy beamed; it was the song he wanted. Our pediatrician, when she heard the story, could not get over her astonishment. “But he hears it every week,” I explained. “This is what’s normal for him. He doesn’t know it’s another language.” So it is when our children worship with us. They experience praise and adoration of God as a normal part of life.

The new babe cradled in his mother’s arms as she sings to the Lord experiences the joy of the Spirit. We hold our toddlers and tell them, “This is a happy song about Jesus’ love . . . and this song tells that Jesus is always good,” and our joy becomes theirs. They look at the countenances of the adults surrounding them and they learn that the Jesus in their Bibles is different that the characters in their storybooks. They understand that this Jesus is real, and He likes it when we sing to Him.

During silent prayers we can take our preschoolers on our lap and whisper in their ears, “Right now we’re all praying to Jesus on the inside and telling Him we’re sorry for disobeying Him.” As we move into corporate intercession, we can paraphrase the prayers. “Miss Ellen has a very bad cold; make her well, Jesus . . . Mr. Mitchell’s son is a soldier; Jesus, keep him safe.” When Miss Ellen is released from the hospital, or the Mitchell boy is back from duty, we remind the children, “You prayed for her. Jesus made her well . . . See how Jesus kept him safe.” Our small ones will know that God hears their prayers.

When the rural postal carrier delivers my day-old chicks, I will try to raise them well. I want them to mature into healthy, productive creatures with the strength to escape predators’ attacks. We want no less for our children. By including them in worship, teaching them that they are valuable to God, we can strengthen their young wings for the day when they take flight.