Where else could I go?

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It was 2:42 a.m. and I was getting up once again (third time) to see what my girls were up to.  Kaitlin almost always goes to bed at a decent hour, that blessed child.  Krissy was finally in bed but had fallen asleep with her lights on.  I turned them off and closed her door.  I was tempted to hug her while she lay there sleeping.  If I can’t get hugs from her when she’s awake maybe I can steal some.  I didn’t.  Kimmi was finally home but was doing laundry and taking things to her car!  Today, she and her sister are moving to their apartment for the summer.   Why is it a mom can’t sleep unless she knows all the girls are settled and resting?  It wears me out!  I laid back down unable to go back to sleep, my mind racing through concerns, thoughts, questions, frustrations, more questions, and just plain exhaustion.  Fatigue always intensifies emotion for me, too.

When I’m tired, the lying voice of the enemy is so much harder to ignore.  My heart strained to hear God’s voice instead.  I called out through quiet tears for some peace, some relief from hurt, a sense of His love.  The room seemed completely empty.  I felt empty, my stomach still tight in a knot.  I laid on my side looking at the clock.  3:51 a.m.  Continue reading →

Faith Hero #2 – Jonah

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“One day long ago, God’s Word came to Jonah, Amittai’s son: ‘Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.’ But Jonah got up and went the other direction…”  Jonah 1:1-3  The Msg

When I think of the word “hero”, I don’t typically think of Jonah.  The poor guy gets a bum rap, but he brought that on himself.  He was human, like us, after all.  He faced his share of disappointments, a number of which we can read about in the book named after him in the Bible.

When we first meet him, he has just heard a message from God, the Creator of everything that exists, the Almighty Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  “Go to Nineveh and tell them they better turn from their wicked ways or it’s ‘hasta la vista baby’ to their entire existence.”  Disappointment #1:  Jonah is given a task he doesn’t like.  Maybe he was hoping God would send him to minister in the luxurious coastal towns of good repute where the people were kind and pleasant.   The Bible tells us that he immediately got up and started walking in the opposite direction from Nineveh. Continue reading →

Strength Training

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Have you never heard?
Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
He gives power to the weak
and strength to the powerless.
Even youths will become weak and tired,
and young men will fall in exhaustion.
But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.  Isaiah 40:28-31 NLT

I enjoy working out.  Seriously!  I don’t enjoy running so much, but I like weight training, walking, and most recently Zumba which is basically dancing your rear-end off with friends for an hour at a time to fun, bass pumping music.  Over the years I’ve learned that strength is gained not only in jumping, running, or even necessarily repeating a motion over and over.  Sometimes it’s gained by assuming a position and holding it for a long time, completely still.  Well, almost completely still.  Continue reading →

Faith Hero #1: Joseph

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The story of Joseph has been one of my favorites for a long time, but especially lately.  If you are lacking faith or need encouragement about having to wait on God, dealing with the unfairness of life sometimes, trusting even when it seems God has left, even reconciling family relationships, you should read his story (Genesis 37-50).

I read his story again this morning and was moved several times to tears.  As I read, I tried to imagine his emotions, the surroundings, the events and life that happened in between the lines of Genesis.   Having heard the story so many times as I grew up, I read it in The Message version today.  I really took my time to think as I followed him from being born to a joyful and relieved mother and father who had waited a long time for his arrival, to growing strong and handsome as the favored son, to being betrayed and disposed of by jealous brothers, to success then unjust imprisonment, to being forgotten and waiting years for change, to success again and eventually restoration of his relationship with his family.

Can you hear his voice yelling up to his brothers, who sat calmly by eating their dinner, as he yelled for them to pull him up out of the cistern?  Continue reading →

Time to Study some Faith Heroes

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In Hebrews chapter 12 of the Bible, we read the description of an inspiring scene:

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!    (Hebrews 12:1-3  The Message)

Picture the race we’re running with Jesus.  The narrow way is lined with all sorts of people who have already finished and cheer us on!  They’re not just enthusiastic observers, they ran the race before we did and finished.  They’ve been where we are and have persevered.  They are role models for us, people who dealt with this frustrating battle with sinful nature, doubt, disappointment, fatigue and more.  I like the way The Message puts it when talking about the chief role model, about learning from Jesus and how he ran the race, “study how he did it….go over that story again, item by item…”  I think it also helps to remember the heroes of faith told about in the Bible and how they lived, as well.  That’s why God wanted us to know about them in His word, right?  There’s so much to be learned from the stories of their lives.  I want to think about some of them in the next few posts and how they dealt with disappointment.

Everyone faces disappointment.  I guess it can be a weight that slows us down in our race if we dwell on it, push it down inside, or let it pile up with other disappointments until they all blend together turning into bitterness and resentment.

Some disappointments from the past year or so, maybe longer, have begun to prick the inside of my heart, showing me that I haven’t really dealt with them or thrown them off so that I can run better.  I’d much rather sprint lightly with airy freedom than slog along with heavy feet.  Time to study up on some faith heroes.  Care to join me?  Stay tuned.

Sometimes video games imitate life

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I don’t know about you but I can really get worked up playing video games.  Whether it’s frustration over dying for the 372nd time or tension over getting through a tough level or even fear in facing a threatening enemy, my emotions are definitely involved.  This even happened when I was playing Atari as a teenager and my character was simply a square moving about a grid that was supposed to be a castle.  I suppose my vivid imagination doesn’t help.

You may think it’s crazy, but I realize that as far as I’m concerned, video games tend to imitate life – or at least my style of participation in life.  When faced with a task that looks incredible and impossible, I actually can get a faster heartbeat and have to sit on the edge of my seat while I give it a try.  This anticipation or fear can actually make it harder to accomplish the task at hand because I’m not thinking as clearly – I’m reacting – actually I’m flailing around hoping that by some miracle my crazed movements will accidentally slice or pop or defeat my foe.  Continue reading →

Faithful One

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I find no hope within to call my own
For I am frail of heart, my strength is gone
But deep within my soul is rising up a song
Here in the comfort of the faithful one…

(“Faithful One” by Selah, Duets album ©2006)

I found myself identifying so much with these words as I drove home from work, my iPod earbuds serving their purpose of pumping music into my heart and soul.   Music is one of my most favorite things God created.  Sometimes when I’m tired or when “stuff” has pressed me down I forget and don’t put my iPod on or listen to the radio – I’m glad I thought to listen yesterday. Continue reading →

Loving Mr. Johnson

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I’d seen him working in his yard or heading to his truck, almost always dressed in camo, fishing rod in hand.  He never smiled and barely looked up.  I saw his wife even less often.  A little reclusive, these neighbors of ours.  They were obviously retired.  We had moved in a few months ago and I was looking for an opportunity to say “hi” and extend a neighborly hand of friendship.

One afternoon I saw him out back.  They lived right next door and he was repairing his fence that stood between our two backyards.  I ventured outside, my doggy Sunny following me, and walked over to where he stood with his back to me, hammering away on the old planks of the fence.  Continue reading →

Good Pain

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One of the odd things about my breast cancer, when I discovered it almost 7 years ago, was that I had no symptoms other than the tiny lump I had found by pressing with my hand one morning.  I told my surgeon, puzzled, “But I don’t feel sick, I haven’t had any other problems.”  He said, “You wouldn’t at this point.  Cancer is simply new cell growth in a place where it’s not supposed to be.  So unless it had grown very large you wouldn’t otherwise know it was there.”  What a sneaky disease.  I’m so thankful I found it when I did.

No one wants to live with ongoing pain, although some unfortunately do.  It’s a bother.  It hurts.  It disrupts our usual way of life and keep us from doing the things we need to or want to do.  I believe it would actually be worse to live without it.  Continue reading →