Category Archives: Realizations & Ponderings

Self-explanatory

Give Me Jesus

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Have you ever eaten lots of “junk” and sugary stuff to the point that the next time you feel hungry you crave real food – meat and potatoes, home cooked, hot, delicious and nutritious real food?

That’s a pretty good description of how I feel (the feeling seems to have grown in the last few years) when I watch some of the Christmas shows and movies on TV or hear some of the songs that are played over the Muzak at work.  Not bad, not offensive, just no real substance.  There is that one song that for some reason makes me want to shoot the speakers with a BB gun.  You may have heard it, “last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away. This year to save me from tears I’ll give it to someone special…”  It kind of sets my teeth on edge.

For me it’s not enough to say Christmas is about children, snow, cookies, Santa, shopping, giving gifts, or about family, or about being kind, or about helping homeless or needy people.  Those are all good things but there’s so much more.

I feel a suppressed frustration, almost anger, that the meaning of Christmas has been diluted so much by some in our culture.  To cut Jesus out of Christmas for me is like asking me to survive on a diet of nothing but marshmallow fluff. Continue reading →

Are you ready for Christmas?

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“Are you ready for Christmas?” is the question of the week.  I’ve heard it a bazillion times from friends and patients at work and wherever I go – to the gas station, grocery store, church, on Facebook, etc.  Okay, maybe not a bazillion times, but a lot.

Since we’re planning on a simple Christmas, which has always proven to be the most meaningful to us anyway, I’m not sure how to answer people since they’re probably talking about shopping for presents, entertaining, etc.  This afternoon as I was thinking about it some more I realized I’m more than ready.

Am I ready to celebrate the fact that God loves people, including me, and spared nothing to draw us close to Himself?  Yes.  Am I ready to remember and wonder at the mystery of a bigger-than-the-universe God shrunken down into a human girl’s womb?  To be amazed Jesus would willingly be contained in a body like ours knowing those 33 years of life on this planet would end in betrayal and death?  Always.  He came and joined our temporal, earthy experience anyway.  He loved and gave then, loves and gives now.  Am I ready to have my heart centered again, its gaze locked on the beautiful baby King?  To be nestled in peace?  More than ready.  Am I ready to spend time with friends and family, people I love?  Of course!  How about being ready to welcome Jesus to my heart once more, making sure I’ve cleared away and swept clean every space inside so that He can have all the room he wants within me?

Oh yeah.

I’m ready for Christmas!

The people who walked in darkness 
      have seen a great light. 
   They lived in a land of shadows, 
      but now light is shining on them.
 You have given them great joy, Lord; 
      you have made them happy. 
   They rejoice in what you have done…

 A child is born to us! 
      A son is given to us! 
      And he will be our ruler. 
   He will be called, 
         Wonderful Counselor,
         Mighty God, 
         Eternal Father,
         Prince of Peace.  (Isaiah 9:1-9 Good News Translation)

God came near

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I’ve been telling a friend of mine who has some choices to make that God promised he would give us wisdom when we ask, it says so in the Bible, his Word. (James 1:5) So I’ve been praying that way for her and He is answering, bit by bit, and helping her decide.

Throughout the morning some concerns started piling up in my heart and I knew I needed some quiet time, so during my lunch hour I practiced what I’ve read in the Word about praying and laying all my anxieties before God and thanking Him for as much as my little brain can think of.  (Philippians 4:6-7)  I talked with Jesus as I would any friend and opened up my hands, letting go and remembering that everything is under control but not mine, God’s.  I drove back to work feeling lighter and at peace.

God’s Word is truth, I’ve proven it in my life over and over.  It’s living and active, has the power to convince us to change, to surrender, to try, to wait, to believe, to love.

The Bible says that God’s living Word is Jesus and Jesus is our Emmanuel: God with us.

I guess I missed a day in my “Jesus Calling” devotional because I realized today I was reading December 12th when it’s really the 13th.  It was good, though, because what I read was just what I needed today.  “If you could only see how close I am to you and how constantly I work on your behalf, you’d never again doubt that I’m wonderfully caring for you.”

Why do I doubt it?  Why do I forget that God is as close as my breath, and even closer still than that?  I needed a reminder that God came near and that He chose to do so.  My piddly existence is worth something to Him, a mystery I may never understand!

He is near.  He is living and active.  He is Emmanuel, God with me, near me, by my side and on my side.

He came near and stays near, always awake, always faithful, always present.  He doesn’t turn away or leave or abandon.

Be near, O God.  My Savior, Emmanuel!

 

You’re the reason

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With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.  Romans 8:1-2 The Message

Guilt is described as a sense of remorse or responsibility for some offense or wrong-doing, whether real or imagined.   It plaques every one of us at one time or another and can become oppressive causing us to trudge instead of walk freely, to feel low and even worthless.  It’s like wearing a stack of lead aprons, the kind the dentist lays on top of you when you’re about to have an x-ray.

Where does it come from?   From other people?  After all they can be judgmental and have certain expectations of us, or we can value their opinions of us far too much.  Maybe sometimes.  From ourselves?  Each of us is probably our harshest critic and with help from our enemy, the devil, accuse ourselves ruthlessly.  From God?   Continue reading →

What did you say?

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I work in an Ear, Nose & Throat practice which also houses an audiology department, which specializes in helping people hear better.  There is an awful lot of “What did you say??” and “Say that again, please” and “You have to speak up, I can’t hear you” going on every day.  To top that off, I also have radar ears – ears that strain to hear what’s going on around me so I don’t miss anything.  I guess this could also be categorized as nosiness, but I prefer to call it being aware.  Right?

This can cause problems for me because if the person in front of me, the patient, is telling me something and my ears are also listening to the conversation behind me so I know what’s going on with my co-workers, I invariably have to ask the patient to repeat themselves because I lose focus.  I’m not so great at multi-task listening.  There are times, too, when several of us at the front desk are dealing with several hard of hearing people and the noise level grows so that it’s tricky to hear what we need to hear from the patient we’re trying to help.

I need to just keep my ears “turned” toward the person who’s most important in that moment, the patient, and listen intently just to their voice.

I just read from John 10:27 this morning in which Jesus said Continue reading →

One thing at a time

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My mom used to tell me, when I was feeling overwhelmed by too many things to do, to just take one thing and start doing it.  Once I got going, my motivation kicked in, fear and stress bowed out and I was able to knock my way through my to do list bit by bit.  It was the looking at the whole pile of tasks that made me stop in my tracks, thinking it was all too much or wondering how I was going to accomplish everything by the time it needed to be done.

My daughter texted me the other night feeling much the same way about school work.  Her list of assignments/papers/tests was looming over her and had frozen her in one spot feeling inadequate for the job.  I tried to encourage her to do the same thing – “start with one thing, do one thing at a time and you’ll get through it!”

This morning in my devotional, there was a wonderful illustration of how the fog on the path ahead of us in life is actually one of God’s mercies, enabling us to just focus on the step in front of us, the day we are living in right now.  If God were to lift that fog and allow us to see the entire path, with all its twists and turns, mountaintop highs and desperate, painful or lonely lows, we would certainly be overwhelmed and our little feet would probably refuse to move at all.  We would stare with open mouths, knotted stomachs and pounding hearts and think “there’s no way I can do all that or get past all of that” or “How in the world will I know what to do or which way to go?”

Accept God’s merciful, loving gift of not having to see all of the future or all the path ahead of you, take his hand (because He’s right beside you) and take one step.  Then another, as He leads you.  You can live in this day with Him.  You can have peace in not having to figure out all of your future at once.  God will show you.  He will give you all you need to do one thing at a time.

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. – I Corinthians 13:12  The Message

I surrender some?

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All or nothing.  Hot or cold.  One side or the other.  Although I live in a world that prefers middle ground and gray areas over black & white, I follow Jesus who said to come after him without looking back.  He said if we weren’t for Him, we were against Him.  He said the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  He can ask that of us because He’s done that: given all, right down to his very last breath, for our sake.

It will probably be an ongoing battle, as I think it is for each of us to some degree, to surrender all to Jesus.  How easy it is to sing that song “I surrender all” or aspire to deny myself each day, pick up my cross and go after Christ, but infinitely tougher to actually give in and give up every little part of me.

I recognize little ways I indulge myself, like spending on big sodas and extra things for the house that we don’t need, when we’re trying to pay off stuff and save up to fix our van.  I admit there are times I cut pieces of cake or any other yummy dish and want the bigger piece for myself, Continue reading →

Jesus is not your homeboy

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As I was washing dishes this evening I was thinking about respect or lack thereof and what causes someone to not show respect for someone or something else.  This thought process was stirred up after reading a review of a movie just out in theaters that makes jokes out of Jesus, the nativity and so forth.  What I read really bothered me and I thought to myself, “whoever wrote this movie doesn’t realize who they’re mocking.”

Somehow our culture has arrived at a distorted, watered-down image of Jesus.  Even among some people who say they follow Him, that He’s Lord of their life, seem to have not realized who it is they’re following.  I saw some kids at a Christian concert once wearing shirts that said, “Jesus is my homeboy.”  I’m sure whoever made the shirts had harmless intentions, just being funny, but it seems way too familiar a title for Him.

The relationship we can have with God is such a mystery and paradox.  He is Creator, all-powerful, all-knowing, present everywhere, the beginning and the end, King of kings, Ruler of everything, Holy, Just, True.  At the same time He chooses to be Father, Counselor, Deliverer, Guide, and even Friend to us when we put our faith in Him.  How does that work?  It boggles my mind!

All of this brings me to a conclusion that lack of respect for God, for Jesus, comes from Continue reading →

Sometimes the grass is greener in the past

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When Kimmi first went to college, the school advised the students to stay on campus once classes started for at least six weeks before going home for a visit.  The purpose behind that recommendation is that it helps them engage with the other students and the college community as well as cutting ties with home a bit (getting used to being away from home).  I think it’s a great idea and though it was a hard adjustment at first (probably harder for me than for her), it did help Kimmi step into the college phase of her life more on her own.  She began “leaving” the phase of life she had with us at home – an important, necessary step to growing up.

When first away at school it might be easy for kids to keep wanting to go home and be in the familiar, comfortable situation they just came from.  Looking back, the grass might seem greener at home in the past where their high school friends lived, where they were comfortable in a home church and so on.  If they’ll turn around and look forward, however, step out and give it time, they find that independence, new friendships, experiences, possibilities and more can become their new “normal” and be pretty exciting.   They can change and grow, becoming more and more of who they are meant to be.  The world opens up in new ways that they wouldn’t have known if they went back and stayed at home.

I realize that sometimes when I look back the grass looks greener in the past.  This past weekend we went “home” to Indiana to attend our college homecoming weekend, see our college girls, and attend church where we did when we lived there.  We saw many old friends, enjoyed beautiful sunny fall weather, were blessed by a moving, encouraging worship service at church, and spent some really good quality time with our daughters.

John and I both agreed today that a little part of ourselves felt like it would be nice to go back there to stay.  It was comfortable there for us in many ways and we have lots of dear friends there.  We fit in and knew our place.  We have a lot of history there, too, all the way back to before we got married so of course it feels like home.

If I am honest when I look back though, Continue reading →

Pastor Appreciation

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October is typically observed as “Pastor Appreciation Month” in churches across the country, so I thought I’d share a few words of appreciation to the pastors that have made a difference in my life. Continue reading →