Add A Little Pop

I typically avoid black and white combos just because, 

for so many years, it was all that I wore.  

Or grey.  Or brown.  My wardrobe was devoid of color.

So these days, black and white's gonna be one of the last things I do.

Unless I happen to realize that the oldest g'baby also has black rain boots and a black and white top and then it's just as if I've added a little pop of sunshine!

That little pop of red in her hair, by the way, was entirely her idea. For real.

(Excluding my jeans) we're representing $5 worth of wardrobe here.

Like A Stone

I remember waaaaay back in the thick of my drinking days being in a club one night when my friend nodded over toward another girl and told me that the girl's boyfriend had killed himself.  And that it was the girl's fault.

Even intoxicated, I felt deep compassion for the girl.  I wondered for the rest of that night and for a long time after what it must be like to be the girl whose boyfriend kills himself.  To be the girl that people only sideways glance at and call the certain killer.  To be the one who must certainly feel some level of responsibility no matter how it actually happened.  What must it be like to live with that?

And then I found out.

This is not a review of those events.*  I did my time, did the stages of grief, all that. God brought me through and I've already told all that I'm going to tell about that time for now.

That time did, as anyone should reasonably conclude, roll itself into the person that I am today.  In ways, I have discovered and claimed more confidently the person that I know I was created to be.  I am compassionate and observant and strong and capable (particularly in times of trouble.)  I tend to live apart from fear of judgement by others, apart from fear of crossing over the great divide, apart from fear pretty much in general...

With one, debilitating exception.

Where compassion and strength of will compel me to sometimes head straight into the trouble at hand and at other times compel me to walk away from it, that burdensome, bludgeoning fear of feeling to blame for someone else's end of it - that fear stops me in my tracks, clouds my vision, chills my bones.

This must be how it was for that girl from so long ago...it's like a stone that you can never heave away ~ that knowing that it can happen.  That you could be present. That you could be blamed.  You can work it out and come to truth about it in the aftermath but you never, ever want to have to do that again.




*Why I Believe In God

Game Show Gurus

Our church has just begun a marriage series and at the latest service, my husband and I were called on - without any warning - to be "game show" contestants.   The goal was to determine how well we really know each other.

We each were asked,

What is the husband's idea of an ideal date night?

The answer choices were,

A) a tv movie and pizza rolls
B) roughing it in the wilderness, gazing up at the stars
C) dinner and a movie in Destin
D) car repairs in the garage while listening to the Beatles

I answered (B); he answered (C).
We giggled, rolled our eyes at each other, and sat down.

It might appear that we don't actually know each other all that well but the opposite is actually true.  See, I know that my husband loves to be in the woods and that he'd be perfectly happy for us to spend entire weekends tromping through the wilderness.  And my husband knows that while I'm willing to be anywhere that he is, dirt and weeds and bugs are not really my thing.  So his logic is that an ideal date for him is one that makes me happy.

[However, to carry on from here without claiming the win (for myself), even if on technicality, would be against everything that is within me.  Some of you know that I just can't do it.]

Moving on...

I can give a better example of just how well we know each other.

Honey comes home from a loooooong day of work
only to find the egg pan soaking in the sink
even though the dishwasher is full of dirty dishes.
I know this will probably spoil his afternoon, make him a little fruity, even,
because his number one love language is acts of service.1

And so he will respond to the egg pan in what seems most reasonable a fashion -
that is to huff and frown until he eventually has an opportunity to say,
"You know this spoils my afternoon, makes me a little fruity, even."
This is his return to me: to notice this instead of that I did do the litter box...
because my number two love language is words of affirmation.1

For whatever reason (or comic relief for who knows Whom), our love languages are fairly opposite.  I could care less if the sink is full of dishes so long as honey and I are together.  (Quality time is my number one.)  Conversely, he can't really do the quality time thing if the house is a mess.  Ha.  Ha, ha ha.

I certainly do not claim any kind of authority on "perfect marriage."  I wake up most days and wonder how in the world it is that I am married - how he puts up with my pan-blind, dust-tolerant ways.

Seriously, though.  We have some woes - some of them serious - like most folks do, I think.  We work.  We have kids (and grand-kids.)  We breathe.  It's hard to get through this life unscathed, especially when it comes to relationships and our marriage should be the most important and most beneficial relationship that we have (second only to the relationship we have with Jesus.)

Here, let me say...my mentor told me once that I probably shouldn't be too specific about certain past experiences because it can create an everlasting image...so let me just say that I have a lot of experience with bad relationships.  I have that kind of (ancient) history.  And I'm pointing to it only because I want you to know that I know that not all situations are the same.  Not all people are perfect or lovely. There's some awful, rotten stuff out there. 
I know.

I just happen to know some good things too.  Things that can make a marriage better than it is, can move it toward what God has in mind for it to be.

Philippians 2:1-4 says, 

"Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." 

Look back at our game show answers.






He would choose for my benefit.

And I would do the same for him.








And then, if you re-consider the sink/sad thing, we obviously have further to go.

You wanna know what helps me, personally, to keep going?  Some people might like to torque themselves around a man who doesn't notice every single good thing but has a word about the fault.

I know better.
While I have a thousand excuses for leaving it in the sink, I know better.
Bottom. Line.

And.

I try not to miss that "loooooong day of work" bit either.
That's him speaking his number one love language.

It's such a small thing, really, to put a pan in the dishwasher, and when I do, he's so much more likely to tell me how lovely a job I did with the litter box.
Next time, maybe we'll even do it together!



1  There's a book, a website, and a test on this subject.  We haven't taken the test but we will (though I'm pretty confident that we already know.)  For your consideration, 5LoveLanguages.com

As Good As It Gets

I asked my daughter if I looked okay

and she said,

"Ummmm, well, okay for you."

And that's pretty much as good a compliment as I ever get from any of them.

"It looks good - for you."

"It looks normal - for you."

And then there's the photography.

Is this not the worst you've seen so far?!
 

You can't even tell I'm wearing a cool hat!

 

I think this is pretty much it, though.

This must be the best we're gonna do.

 

And I couldn't care less about any of that because...

It doesn't
get
any better
than
this
right
here.



So This Is Christmas

And what have I done?
Another year's over
And a new one's just begun.

And so this is Christmas
I hope you had fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young.

A very merry Christmas
And a happy new year!
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear.*

I'm grateful for this year past with all its blessings and its trials and looking with hope to the coming year.  Jesus came that we may all find our everlasting hope in Him.  I pray that each of you may know Him and His peace through this season and all those to come.  Merry, blessed Christmas and Joyful New Year!





So This Is Christmas, John Lennon, slightly modified

Untitled

It's just two days later.  Two days after the event that should have stopped the world.  She, my oldest granddaughter*, is about to sing on stage at church for the second time in her young life.

I keep remembering Thursday afternoon, how she and I practiced her song, watching other kids perform the same one via youtube videos.

Thursday night, how I woke up all through the night feeling afflicted with worry for the coming grandson.  "Why? Why can't I stop worrying about the child," I asked Him in the wee, bleak hours.

Friday morning when she rearranged the nativity, leaving Jesus alone in the manger, turning away the momma and daddy and shepherd and wise men.  At my inquiry, she told me that they were all watching the tv.  Two hours later, I heard the news.

The news that should have stopped the world.

I have not the vocabulary to express the pain and grief I feel.  I'll borrow Leonard Cohen's "it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah."  Mine is a broken hallelujah.

With deep gratitude to these who can compose themselves, I share:

Advent: Prepare, Jay Kim "Our words do little good and our greatest efforts to comfort fall so far short. But we must give what we can. We must send our love and pray our prayers, from up close and afar, because this is what we have to give and to not give it would be to coalesce into the destructive powers of apathy."

Anger, grief, and love. Feelings (not thoughts!) on a tragedy, Margaret Felice  "I love you, amazing, broken world, and lament that I cannot love you back into wholeness."

The Truth About Sandy Hook: Where Is God When Bad Things Happen?, Ann Voskamp  "Could we sit in hushed silence, hold hands in this vigil, hang together in this suffering solidarity? What if we wordlessly groaned this prayer that Cain would stop killing Abel, that Rachel wouldn’t refuse comfort, Rachel in Ramah, weeping for her children here no more."

When Parents Have Nightmares, Lisa-Jo Baker  "We are the Sunday morning, eyes still swolen from weeping people."

It's Sunday morning
and this baby is supposed to sing
and I am prickly with my old fear.
 
What if something happens to her?

It has required my vigilance, my obedience, my reliance on everything He is in order to push through these last two days.
  
His presence. 
His strength. 
His promise of the peace that is to come.

There was an interlude on the way to the church when she, out of the blue, decided that she didn't want to be on stage.  At this, I had to call her momma.  Her momma had to be the strength in that moment, convincing the baby that she did, in fact, want to be on stage, and convincing the meemee that everything would, in fact, be okay.

It is some deep part of me that wishes the world could stop, would stop, even if but for a moment.  I want the world to look at Newtown, to see every baby's face, to hear every hero's name.  If but only for a moment, I wish that every one of us could carry, would carry, the unimaginable burden of grief felt by those left behind.

But the world does not stop, cannot stop.





And so this child,
she leads me on.

 












*I am grateful for both of my granddaughters and my coming grandson and for all the ways that I am blessed and taught by each of them.

Faith Without Works

As I told it in A Watery Grave, I had to start with a new Bible some time back.  The Book that is gone from me had so many things that seemed to matter so much:  notes from loved ones, dried flowers, pictures.  But what I might have missed the most, at least for a while, were my highlights and personal notes about the Scriptures themselves.

It was so much easier when I could just flip quickly through my pages and come to precisely the verse I wanted ~ because I'd already done the work.  The highlighting, the underlining work, that is.

But this Book is organic and its work is never done.  It lives and breathes and has the power to speak something different to us each time we read it.  "For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Hebrews 4:12 (NIV)

As I have been reading the book of James again, it's difficult to imagine that I hadn't highlighted all of James in my previous Bible.  However, while it's all so penetrating and I could as easily highlight the whole thing, particularly as I've come to the "faith without works" passage, there are but two words that have pierced me this morning.

Don't ya know?

That's how I've known the verse all these years...'Don't ya know that faith without works is dead?' (my paraphrase.)

But that's not what it says.

That's certainly not what it said to me this morning.

James 2:20 says,
"But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?" (NKJ)

Don't ya want to know?
Don't ya want to seek until you find it?
Don't ya want to work until you grasp it?

Obviously, I could have written an entire treatise about the message and meaning of "faith without works," but, before I can understand any of what He's saying to me, I have to want to understand. 




Thank You, Lord, for speaking to me this morning.  I pray that I will always want to hear You.  And I pray the same for any who read these words.