What I Want

Sometimes I know exactly what I want.

Or do I?

Yesterday morning, I looked at the brilliant glass bluebird of happiness sitting on the chest of drawers that I’d just finished and Jay had put together. The plain wooden knobs seemed boring to me, so I’d decided that I’d put something fun on them instead.

I looked at the little bluebird of happiness with wings spread and thought, “Blue glass knobs would be perfect.” And so, at the end of school, we stopped by Hobby Lobby and unbelievably they had exactly the knob…exactly the right color of blue…that I wanted. AND, they were 50% off! How perfect is that?

Then we took them home.

Garish is a senior vocabulary word. For some reason I rarely have the need to use the word. I think it’s kind of a cool word—as far as words go, but garish just doesn’t usually fit into my vocabulary.

It did yesterday.

The Sadlier vocabulary book defines garish as “glaring; tastelessly showy or overdecorated in a vulgar or offensive way; gaudy, flashy.”

Jay and I stared at the knobs on the chest. We glanced at each other when the other wasn’t looking. We attempted to read each other’s minds. “What do you think?”  “They are very bright.”

“If that’s what you want,” he said. “They look a little,” I hesitated, “garish.”

Sometimes, I think I know exactly what I want, but that isn’t it at all.

Really, in the end of things I’m glad that life doesn’t always turn out the way I’d planned. I am learning to just wait. Often it isn’t easy. But, to take life the way God hands it to us is just the right approach to living.

And, those bright blue drawer knobs in the truck—to be returned today for a subtle, soft ceramic blue is a good reminder. I’m still hoping for something fun, but just not garish.

For who can know the mind of God? Who can fathom His ways? They are not random; they are filled with purpose—purpose to drive us into His Hand. 

 Shouldn’t that be what I really want?

Be Still

Dear Christa—

“Be still and know that I am God,” I read as I stared down at the bookmark.

“Be still and know that I am God.”

“Do I even know what that means?” I asked myself as I stood with all the other mothers at the front of the church.

Be still—

Psalm 46:10 is placed toward the end of a chapter that declares, “God is our refuge and strength,” not to fear “though the earth give way” and “come and see the works of the Lord.” Amidst calamity and despair, God says, “Be still.”

According to the notes in my study Bible, the Hebrew for that phrase means “Stop!” or enough already. What calamity shakes your world today? It could be a million things.

But, stop.

Stop and know that God is God.

And verse 10 flows right into the conclusion of verse 11: “The Lord Almighty is with us.”

This verse has stuck with me this week. How many times have I recited to myself—“Be still and know that I am God”?

“Be still” beseeches me to wait, be patient, to rest and not fret—to know that something will unfold; and when it does, it will be from the very hand of God.

God is powerful and He is our fortress.

It’s been good for me to ponder the power and presence of God in Psalm 46.

God Was Silent

Saul was desperate and God was silent.

Terrified

Alone

Confused

Where do you go when God seems far away?

When the bottom falls out?

When your soul feels so parched that all it tastes is gravel?

Maybe we do what we’ve always done—

We either keep walking away

Or we walk back in.

Back into prayer—

Back into the Word—

Into the fold of friends who hold us tight.

Saul walked away and found death.

But, regardless of the past, we can walk back in,

Back into the Words of Life.

Be a Witness

Dear Christa—

In the movie Shall We Dance? the wife tells the private investigator whom she’s hired, that people get married because “they want a witness,” someone who will take note of them in this all too short breath of life. I don’t know who wrote the script for the movie, but that line settled on me. I’ve heard all kinds of reasons for getting married—some reasonable, some stupid—but I think that one holds a lot of truth.

Was that what Adam was lacking in a perfect garden, in a perfect world, among all creation—before Eve? Is that the aloneness amidst the crowds? The pain of rolling over in bed when no one’s there? A witness?

It does not matter what season of life we’re in. All seasons find us busy. Babies and little children—teenagers and college students—careers and ministries—and before we know it, we can live wanting when everything we crave is before our eyes. We just don’t see it.

Have you taken note lately? In doing all the things you’re supposed to do, have you forgotten to be a witness? It’s so easy to do. Believe me, I know. I have felt the pain. I’ve been guilty. Haven’t you?

If we desire to live intentionally—if we crave to live our breath of life with purpose, we must be the witness in the life of the one we’re coveted to. And, if each stands as a witness to the other, we will feel like our seemingly insignificant role in the grand story of the ages is significant after all.

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Eph. 2:10

No Light Matter

Dear Christa—

As the book of 2 Kings trips through one king after another, pacing through the history of Israel’s divided kingdoms, it is recorded how many years or months each king reigned, whether or not he followed God, and often who his mother was.

In that epoch, to be the queen mother was a powerful position. I think the listing of these names had more significance than simply clarifying which woman of the harem had birthed the newly crowned king. To be a mother was no light matter.

As these father kings were waging wars and tending to a plethora of wives, it seems to me it was on the knees of these mothers where the future kings were probably most influenced. And, apparently most of them didn’t do a very good job. King after king worshiped idols in the high places, some even sacrificing their children.

So powerful were these women that one, Athaliah (2 Kings 11), when her son died, proceeded to attempt to kill all her grandchildren in order to rule the nation, which she managed to do for six years.

And, except for just a very few, evil parents begot evil children, seeking power, prestige, and self indulgence—generation to generation until God had His fill and eventually both kingdoms were taken over by powerful, conquering nations.

Often mothers will delay their own ambitions to train a child. It seemed to me that with the birth of each child, some activity that I’d done was set aside. There simply wasn’t time. Some of those things I’ve taken back up; some I haven’t, but it had to be.

There is so much more to raising kids than providing for them and sharing the joys and sorrows. There’s the conscious teaching—teaching them Whom to worship.

To be a mother is no light matter.

He Speaks Your Name

Dear Christa—

We just finished The Poisonwood Bible in my Advanced Placement class, and today—literally within the hour before the bombings in Boston—we were talking about the diverse ways people walk through grief. At times tragedy becomes a public grievance; but more often, we grieve alone—in small family clusters, as my cousin’s family does today in the death of a young family member—just 23 years old, the result of a fishing accident.

In class, Tom said that “when we’re grieving, it seems like it should rain or something, but the sun just keeps shining.” It seemed an appropriate way to express the aloneness in grief. I suppose everyone must walk her own way out.

Death’s first sting is more a bewilderment—a wonder—a disbelief. And like the mother in the book, we feel like we just have to keep moving. So close here from Good Friday’s reflections, that is how I picture the women who followed Jesus—women who grieved. They gathered the spices for his body; they went to the tomb; they just kept going. And Mary Magdalene went so far as to beg whom she mistook for the gardener to tell her where he’d put the body, and she’d get it herself.

Who is to say what is the right way to walk through tragedy? And though we can feel alone, we aren’t alone. And when Mary was suppliant to the gardener, she was really looking at the healer of her greatest hurt. And little did she know that in her desperate aloneness, Jesus was literally the closest one to her. And in her utter despair, He spoke her name—Mary.

Today, He still speaks our name.

The Breath of Life

Dear Christa—

“And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’”  (Jn. 20:22a).

As the disciples sat fearful behind locked doors, Jesus came to them. No longer hindered by material structures such as walls and doors, he came.

Last week—Easter Sunday—as Mark preached on this passage, I couldn’t help but think of another time that God breathed on man—way back at the beginning—before Adam laid eyes on the tree of life, before he gazed up into the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, before he ever knew fear, “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7).

How awesome is that?

The breath of God breathes life—life so unique, life so precious, so wonderful.

And after Adam put away life, Jesus put away death—and walked right through walls to fearful people, and He breathed on them.

He breathed life—life beyond walls and fear and the whole physical world.

In this world of fear, we still need His breath—the salvation that brings the Holy Spirit within our very being to dwell within us. I cannot fathom such a thing.

To set aside fear—

To put away walls—

To breathe—

Everyday, breathing life everlasting—

And Jesus told them, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

Oh, to take a breath and see the plan He has for us this day!