Mother's Day

My Mother. 

Like the persistent widow, for months

seeks doctor’s answers, searches webMD.

This test, that test; all scans mere inches too low

to see the threatening tumor, invading bone, 

holding spinal cord 

in deathly chokehold. 

My Mother. 

Calmness, peace, courage, good cheer. 

Knowing that some don’t wake, says,

 “Don’t cry, Richard.

To live is Christ; to die is gain.”

Five hours under, prone, as surgeon

works to wrest control 

back from cancer.

My Mother. 

Laughter, wit, free conversation. 

Getting a word in edgewise, for once.

“If you’re about to die, why would you fear man?” 

Excited to be a witness, to make a difference, 

to shine Jesus from every pore

in a dark room. 

My Mother. 

The doctor has measured up this woman. 

Here is one Ready either way. 

If the worst should come, she will be 

taking care of you, he says, seeing how

she sets the tone for us already.

In every word, in every look, leading us 

in faith, in hope, in love. 

My beloved Mother. 

Reflections of a Drama Director

"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow." (1 Corinthians 3:6-7)

Once I was eleven years old, making my stage debut. Now I am thirty, helping other kids make theirs. For the fourth time in the last five years (and fifth time overall), I have spent my spring in directorial efforts, and the first week of May is when we see the fruits. This year it was "It's Cool in the Furnace," a fun musical about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

I love the kids in my church. I love drama and what it did for my own development as a youth and what I see it do in others. I love telling good stories;  I am passionate about this ministry. This blog has multiple posts about the benefits of drama for kids in the church family. But this post is about the benefit of drama for me as a director.

Most people only see the finished product: the kids on stage last night, smiles on their faces, singing their hearts out, telling a great story to an appreciative audience. And that is as it should be. We work so that they can see the polished product. But behind the scenes there is the long effort of the kids, week after week, as they memorize their lines and songs, overcome their insecurities and inhibitions, work through rough relationships and frustrations and discouragement, tedium and weariness. Behind the scenes are kids struggling through problems their frazzled and limited director can't fix because she can't keep track of them all and watch everyone at once.

Behind the scenes is a director who wants to be so much better at her job than she is. Who feels weak, inadequate, helpless. Who sheds WAY too many tears and dreams way too many bad dreams and who gets overwhelmed by the whole instead of just doing the next thing. (Also, who complains far too much during the process...)

I'm telling you more than I want to tell you. I want you to see me as a grown-up woman who has it all under control. And from the way people kindly praise me after a play, it seems that perhaps I sometimes succeed in making you see me that way. (My husband, parents, and small group aside!) But let me tell you - it is not "cool in the furnace" of my heart under the pressure of a play production. My idols of control and competence and yes, praise of men, are threatened - and the fruit is usually ugly.

Directing plays breaks me down. Shows me my weakness in clearer relief than almost any other aspect of my life. Perhaps this is why God makes me do it over and over again. It's possible that I've gotten better over the years...there are no 12-day migraines any more like I had during my first two directing jobs. But no, I haven't really gotten better. The only thing that changes is that every time I grow a little--a LITTLE--more in understanding that I am weak, but God is strong.

And that's why I'm sharing this with you. Because God says to me, year after year, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." And I am saying, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses...in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Those of you who enjoyed the play last night -- I am so glad. I hope you were blessed by the message that our God is for us, that he will never leave us or forsake us, even in the fiery furnace. I hope you were inspired to say "No, no, no!" to idols and "yes, yes, yes!" to the one true God. But I want you to know: what you saw last night was not my work. It wasn't even the kids' work. That was the work of God. At most, I planted a seed and watered it. (In reality, I think maybe I got a few shovelfulls of dirt turned over, and that is all.) But when I saw the kids focused, concentrated, giving their all last night in a way that never happened during any rehearsal - I knew it wasn't me, it wasn't them, it was God. We planted; we watered; but God made it grow. To him be the glory.

Praise the Lord in the holy place;
Praise him in the firmament.
Praise the Lord for his mighty acts;
Praise him for excellence. 

The Little Things: Spring Edition

The little things that make life beautiful on a late April Friday...

ONE | Birdsong

TWO | [the need for] Sunscreen

THREE | Garden boots

FOUR | Playing with dirt

Not pictured: FIVE | Sitting outside reading aloud to my husband over the phone on our lunch break.

Pondering Singleness

A few days ago I was looking at my blog software and saw that I had 636 posts, but only 635 of them were published. When I clicked on the lone "draft" I discovered this post that I wrote on August 9, 2009. (Bizarrely, that was a few days after I met Jeremiah.) I'm not sure why I didn't post it at the time. I think it felt too vulnerable, too raw; I really was trying to "face the facts," which is hard. I am posting it now in the hopes that it may encourage some of my friends who are in the same place I was then. Also, I think it applies not only to those who are wrestling with singleness. It could apply to anyone waiting for something good, when the waiting gets hard. A baby? A new job? A home? Et cetera.

_____________________________

I've been thinking quite a lot about marriage in recent months, most likely because I am now, according to my sister, "pushing 30," ha ha. :) I'm getting lots of contradictory advice about what I should "do" to find myself a husband. (They tell me that supposedly there's no hope in our current culture that a man will do the finding.) Sometimes I feel that all the panicky talk begs the question - do we actually believe that God is sovereign, or not? I am perfectly ready to accept that our sovereign God works through means, and that our faith in his ordaining power isn't the same thing as stoic, hands-folded piety. I'm aware that I may even have responsibilities in this area...but the problem is I'm not sure what they are, other than a general understanding that I can't play the hermit and expect to meet people.

So far my approach has been three-fold:

1. Pray. In the past I have always felt rather guilty about praying for a husband. I was prone to feel that a desire for marriage and children must mean that I was being discontented with my circumstances, but I have come to see that it is possible to have a desire for a good thing and yet be content in my situation. So I pray, "thy will be done."

2. Trust. This is the God who has the universe in the palm of his hand. He's the master storyteller. His work, as my brother has put it, "doesn't depend on the odds." I don't know how my life story plays out, but he does. And I trust that he's the greatest Author ever and he will do what's best.

3. Live. As a single young woman, I am not in some "holding pattern" waiting for "real life" to begin. I'm living a life full of purpose - to glorify God, enjoy him, and serve his Bride. There is a lot to invest in: my church, my students, my nephews and nieces, my job. If I am not called, at this time, to be a helpmeet to a particular man, I'm certainly called to be a helpmeet to Christ's church.

The question I've been asking myself recently, is whether I am willing to submit myself to this three-step "plan of action" indefinitely. I know many godly women in their 30s and 40s who have never been married. God's promises do not guarantee me a husband and children. Am I ready to "wait patiently on the Lord"...perhaps for the rest of my life? Ah, that's a hard one.

[2013: I am cutting out some lengthy quotes from a Christianity Today article that focused on the "bad odds" for Christian marriages--i.e., a greater number of serious Christian young women than serious Christian young men. While the article had a point, I feel that it was unnecessarily discouraging. As I said above...God doesn't care about the odds.]

So perhaps one thing I need to "do" is to prepare myself for being the odd woman out, while still praying in faith to the God who knows a little bit about camels and needles' eyes.

Baseball and Bearing the Cross

This week's sermon on Matthew 16 was on having a cross-bearing identity: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

In our small group discussion on Sunday evening, we were pondering many of the places in which we are tempted to find our identity: our looks, our family heritage, our location, brand names, jobs, friends, etc. And we discussed several ways in which we can better see our identity in Christ.

On Saturday night, I went to the movie 42 with my brother and his wife. It turned out that the movie provided an analogy that we found helpful in our small group discussion.

The story goes this way: Pee Wee Reese, shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers, was from Kentucky. When the Dodgers visited Cincinnati, Ohio, many of Reese's friends and family came up for the game. In an extraordinary moment before the game, Reese crossed the infield and put his arm around Jackie (to the surprise and consternation of many of his racist family and friends). He said, "Thank you, Jackie." Jackie was understandably confused as to why he was being thanked. "I have a lot of family out there, and you've given me an opportunity to show them what kind of man I really am."

We saw two lessons in this episode:

First, Pee Wee Reese was able to escape the strong bonds of family and cultural identity by joining a nobler cause. While all around him shouted racial epithets, he found a call above them and above himself to follow.

The movie provided a scene to set up this powerful moment: Reese received a letter in advance of the Cincinnati trip that berated him for playing with a black man and called him a "carpetbagger" among other less polite terms. He was understandably upset, and took this letter to Mr. Rickey, the Dodgers general manager. Rickey responded to his complaint by pulling several thick files full of letters out of a drawer and slamming them down on the desk. Reese picked some up and began to read the vitriolic letters that had been sent to Jackie Robinson--threatening, in the most disgusting language, not only his own life, but that of his wife and son.

At that moment, Reese saw the bigger picture, beyond his own suffering. He entered into the suffering of another, identified with the sufferer, and was changed. It was that moment that led to his brave show of solidarity with Jackie on the diamond in Cincinnati.

And that was our second lesson: Isn't this what happens when we identify with Christ? When we see the bigger picture of God's work through his son and take up our cross--share in his sufferings--and follow him? We are no longer beaten down by our own trials. We are no longer cowed by the voices of our enemies. We are no longer afraid to put our arm around the outcast. We are no longer afraid to be the outcast. Our hearts are joined to the noble cause of our Savior and we are no longer obsessed with our here-and-now pain, but our eyes are fixed on the glory that is to come.

Pee Wee saw a coming glory as well. In the movie he said, "Maybe tomorrow we'll all wear 42. That way they won't tell us apart." Watch this gif set to see what has happened since (and happens every April 15th). A tiny victory against evil, that heralds a much greater victory to come.

(PS. Something really extraordinary happened at our showing of 42, when the audience burst into spontaneous applause in the middle of the movie. Visit Brian's blog to read about it.)

You are a soul. And you are a body.

This picture makes me laugh. Yes, indeed, Abe, that is the problem with quotes on the Internet!

There is a particular quote that I see bandied about often, attributed to C.S. Lewis:

I totally understand why this quote is popular. The cultural current tells that we are nothing more than bundled atoms, firing synapses; nothing more than the "survival machine" for our genes, according to Richard Dawkins. The oracles of our age like to give us the heartwarming knowledge that

“You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” - Francis Crick, discoverer of the Double Helix

As a response to that dehumanizing worldview, I do indeed see why people want to cling to the reminder that they are not just body, but soul as well.

And yet...every time I see it (which is frequently on Pinterest, where it is a perennial favorite), I wonder how Lewis could possibly have said such a thing. Lewis was all about reminding us of the human soul (remember, "You have never talked to a mere mortal"), but the quote seems to dismiss the body as something irrelevant to our identity. It seems to elevate the soul over the body in such a way that seems extremely unlike Lewis.

In all my reading and study of Lewis, I have seen nothing but a tenacious antagonism toward gnosticism, the idea that true spirituality should transcend the "gross material". This is the author who, in imagining heaven, conceived of the idea that human beings are like ghosts compared to the real, shining, solid bodies of the resurrected righteous. The author who, in his most terrifying novel, That Hideous Strength, had the very, very bad guys advocate that humanity should cultivate the Mind to the point where we no longer needed organic bodies.

In pondering this, I pulled his book Miracles off the shelf for the first time in many years. I thought it might contain something to clarify, and I was right. This is the Lewis I know, commenting on the remark that "Heaven is a state of mind." :

The implication is that if Heaven is a state of mind--or, more correctly, of the spirit--then it must be only a state of the spirit, or at least that anything else, if added to that state of spirit, would be irrelevant. That is what every great religion except Christianity would say. [...] By teaching the resurrection of the body it teaches that Heaven is not merely a state of the spirit but a state of the body as well: and therefore a state of Nature as a whole. Christ, it is true, told His hearers that the Kingdom of Heaven was 'within' or 'among' them. But His hearers were not merely in 'a state of mind.' The planet He had created was beneath their feet, His sun above their heads; blood and lungs and guts were working in the bodies He had invented, photons and sound waves of His devising were blessing them with the sight of His human face and the sound of His voice. We are never merely in a state of mind. [...] From this factor of environment Christianity does not teach us to desire a total release. We desire, like St. Paul, not to be un-clothed but to be re-clothed...

Lewis calls for a rejection of what he calls "negative spirituality," the idea that to be "spiritual" we must distance ourselves from our here-and-now life in our physical bodies. Here is his glorious conclusion:

The thought at the back of all this negative spirituality is really one forbidden to Christians. They, of all men, must not conceive spiritual joy and worth as things that need to be rescued or tenderly protected from time and place and matter and the senses. Their God is the God of corn and oil and wine. He is the glad Creator. He has become Himself incarnate. The sacraments have been instituted. Certain spiritual gifts are offered us only on condition that we perform certain bodily acts. After that we cannot really be in doubt of His intention. To shrink back from all that can be called Nature into negative spirituality is as if we ran away from horses instead of learning to ride. There is in our present pilgrim condition plenty of room (more room than most of us like) for abstinence and renunciation and mortifying our natural desires. But behind all asceticism the thought should be, 'Who will trust us with the true wealth if we cannot be trusted even with the wealth that perishes?' Who will trust me with a spiritual body if I cannot control even an earthly body? These small and perishable bodies we now have were given to us as ponies are given to schoolboys. We must learn to manage: not that we may some day be free of horses altogether but that some day we may ride bare-back, confident and rejoicing, those greater mounts, those winged, shining and world-shaking horses which perhaps even now expect us with impatience, pawing and snorting in the King's stables. Not that the gallop would be of any value unless it were a gallop with the King; but how else--since He has retained His own charger--should we accompany Him?

Ah well, I guess those quotes are a little too long for a Pinterest image. :)

(Oh, and by the way, I did google the quote and found convincing evidence that "Abe" was right once again: Lewis never said it.)

A Thought About Eternity

It's a busy wedding season in the life of our church--two in the past two weekends, and four more to come in the next four months! Lots of joy and celebration, lots of serious, life-long vows, lots of opportunity to reflect on marriage as we listen to great wedding sermons from our pastors. (My favorite from two weeks ago: "Look to Jesus and know his mercy. Look to Jesus and show his mercy.")

Of course, as I tell Jeremiah about the weddings, we are easily led into reflection and fond remembrance of our own wedding. We talk about the progression of our relationship through courtship and engagement and wedding...and we marvel at how much better we know and love each other now than we did on our wedding day, a mere 7.5 months ago.

I told Jer that I am constantly experiencing the "I thought I loved you then" syndrome. You may have heard the beautiful song by Brad Paisley that expresses deep growth in knowledge, love, and intimacy over the course of a relationship:

I can just see you with a baby on the way
I can just see you when your hair is turning gray
What I can't see is how I'm ever gonna to love you more
But I've said that before. 

And I'm finally getting to the point of this post. As we talked about the "I thought I loved you then" feeling, Jer said one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. He said, "I think that is what Eternity is going to be like. We will grow in love, knowledge, and intimacy with God forever and will constantly be going deeper in relationship with him--without end."

Wow, am I looking forward to that. God is infinite, so there is infinite opportunity to know and love him more and more. We think we love him now--wait until our hearts are no longer corrupted by sin. We think we'll love him on the day he returns and makes us new--wait until we know him better...and better...and better...world without end, Amen.

Of course, even more amazing is that as we learn to love him more for eternity, his love for us will not change. He already loves us to the absolute fullest extent of his perfect and holy being. Wow.