Two loves meet

I was out in my backyard having carried my little hospice dog, who is blind and deaf, out to the grass to relieve himself. I feel like I am inside a gift box that God fills anew each day as I enter my tiny 20′ x 30′ backyard. Today is sunny and the colors of the flowers blooming all around the perimeter of my yard are vibrant. A couple of weeks ago I noticed raspberry bushes coming up between my lilacs. Those of you who follow me here know that my black raspberry bushes succumbed to a rust a couple of years ago and I replanted red raspberries in their place because they were resistant to the root rot. Last year I had a small harvest of red raspberries, but I really missed the black raspberries I had lost. Wouldn’t you know, the raspberries coming up between my lilac bushes are black raspberries and they are full of buds! God is so good to have some stray seeds (or whatever) cross my lawn and re-establish themselves in an area unaffected by the root rot. I did a glory dance right there.

I left my little dog to be in the warm grass for awhile and when I came back out to take him in, I found him in the middle of the black raspberry bush. He had pawed a nest and was having a gay old time surrounded by the raspberry runners. I gasped. There were not a whole lot of runners and he had firmly packed down and was laying on about 1/3 of them. What is a puppy mom to do? Well, run and get her camera, of course. So here you see Sebastian nesting among the black raspberry runners. My little Lovey-dog was so happy. I didn’t care if I lost black raspberries or not. I had to prioritize my loves and the pup won.

I am so thankful this Multitudes on Monday for

#1165 the artistry of God: the flowers, the trees, the moon in its phases, the constancy and rhythm of days, nights, weeks, months and seasons, the variety of species in my yard alone and the splendor of the Almighty’s color palette.

#1166 the awakening of nature.

#1167 the freshness of youth, the stamina of young adulthood and middle age, the experience in old age.

#1168 the comfort of a Savior when death comes.

#1169 the blessings of good management where I work and the teamwork that results from a well-run organization.

#1170 children who love the Lord and lead others to Him.

#1171 the blessing of good friends.

#1172 the healing of transparency.

#1173 grandchildren excited about missions.

#1174 a healthy mother at age 86.

#1175 young church families that really keep us stepping. Here’s Jody chocking on a kernal of popcorn in the Mother’s Day play. Her daughter is not noticing. What a riot!#1176 a close friend who loves the Names of God Bible I gave her for her birthday and who laughed out loud when I gave her the card we have passed between one another for years!

#1177 4 t-shirts for $1.00 at a church rummage sale yesterday. Apparently it pays to go when they are closing and packing up!

#1178 a peaceful passing for my husband’s cousin with cancer.

#1179 a resolution made during the prayer of Confession in church today and the peace that decision will give.

He is with us,

Dawn

At the trumpet call

I was singing “The Trumpet Shall Sound” from Handel’s Messiah as I mopped the kitchen floor. The words pelted my consciousness as I spread water over the floor boards.

…for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” I Corinthians 15:52

Phil Driscoll’s rendition of “The Trumpet Shall Sound” begins at 5 minutes 30 seconds on the following You Tube video. You will be blessed.

At my Bible Study this past Friday we handed in our prayer requests for the week. All the requests were for change in one way or another-incorruptible change.  Paul tells us we will be changed at the trumpet call of Christ. The dead shall be raised incorruptible. Is there anything more decayed than a dead body and is it not remarkable that we dead ones will be raised incorruptible? Incorruptible: incapable of corruption, incapable of decay: no moral decay, no physical decay. Oh, what a promise and I am waiting for that day. But, until then, I place my hand in the Father’s hand for I am navigating a corrupt world, the allure of which I may not realize. Satan is “more subtle than of any beasts of the field God has made” Genesis 3:1. His temptations so slight that they may be undetectable. His arguments finely skewed that they may not raise red flags in my human conscience. He is so crafty and so sly that I may not realize his hidden agenda until it is too late. This side of heaven I am not immune to corruption. He cannot fool my Father, however. I’m keeping close Him.

He is with us,

Dawn

Birth”right”

Ann Voskamp posted a gripping post on the “right” to life a few weeks ago which really made me start thinking about birth and birth order and rights conferred by virtue of birth. Ann was speaking about life and the sacredness of life, but she downplayed labeling a pro-life stance as “right to life”. Her reason being that God is the purveyor of life and He is in charge of our life because He is the One who created us for a purpose. Those who yield to His authority realize that they live for His glory.

I lift this from Ann’s blog “when we use the language of Right to Life — we inherently and inadvertently think of our life as ours, a right we possess, so we too can determine when and how our lives will end. Life isn’t a right to do with as we want, but a gift from God for Him to do with as He wills.”

I was thinking more about this subject this morning as the lesson in church was from Genesis 29 where Jacob goes to Laban to seek a wife from his father, Isaac’s, family. Here we find Jacob, who through connivery steals his brother’s birthright, linking up with his Uncle Laban and agreeing to work for 7 years for the lovely Rachel, the younger daughter of Laban. In an incredible twist of irony [me thinks] Jacob finds the bride given him at the end of the 7 years is Leah, the older daughter, not Rachel. When he confronts Laban about the switch, Laban replies, “It is not right to marry the younger daughter before the older!” Like, come on, you knew that! Oh, yes, Jacob knows quite well about birth order and the rights of the older. He’s an expert on such matters. Only this time it does not work in his favor…or does it?

What do you think about society’s conferring  extreme power on the first-born? Do you think that was God’s plan or was He just working within cultural bounds? Scripture shows us that He accomplishes His will irregardless of earthly custom. For instance, in the marriage of Jacob and Leah, Leah is despised. She bares Jacob sons, but it is Rachel whom Jacob loves even though Rachel is barren. Leah, however, is the one who bares Judah and mothers him. He is the fourth of her sons and he heads the tribe that becomes the line of the Lion, Jesus Christ, Savior of the world. Leah was faithful even in the face of rejection. God ordained her, not Rachel, to be the matriarch of the Jews. She did not assert her rights; she was an obedient wife and Godly mother. She rests in the God of the universe, names Judah “God be praised,” and history (His-tory) unfolds.

Reading Numbers 1 today, I learned that Joseph, Rachel’s son who saved the Jews from extinction, is not even named in the twelve tribes of Israel. Instead Moses names two tribes after Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manassah. I have been a Christian 50 years and I never thought about this before. Rachel’s first-born is not named in the 12 Tribes and Leah’s 5th son becomes the forerunner of Christ! It just proves Ann Voskamp’s point that God will do what He will do with our lives. We have no rights just because we breathe, we breathe to bring Him glory. It’s only right.

He is with us,

Dawn

“Help me” prayers don’t help

I have been steeped this week in a study on wisdom, understanding and attitude. As I am on day 3 of the study I was stuck by the fact that, “Our decisions shape our lives.” I thought about how many major life intersections I have had to navigate and how when one direction was taken, of necessity, the others were shut down. Every decision forged without input from God lead me away from understanding His ways. Yes, I learned even when wrong choices were made, but I missed walking with Him and experiencing what would have happened had I done it His way.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
    all who follow his precepts have good understanding. Psalm 111:10

Gaining Godly wisdom is experiential. You learn it by doing it. If you aren’t doing it, you aren’t learning. So many wasted years… Andrea Dawn says that “Every happening great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us . . . and the art of life is to get the message.” In today’s vernacular when we understand something we say, “I get it.” God wants us to “get it,” but we won’t unless we situate ourselves to hear Him and learn from Him. Having a heart that is poised toward God is how we situate ourselves to learn from Him.

One of the fastest ways to learn from Him is to decide to walk with Him minute by minute. When I was a much younger woman I was privileged to be a part of a woman’s group lead by Erma Maust. She was a dear woman of the Word and in a retreat setting she shared with us a prayer tip that has helped me ever since she shared it. She said that every time she saw the words “help me” in a prayer, she would substitute the words “I choose”.  The word substitution necessitated that she be proactive; she found she had to get her heart in order to choose aright. Choosing was an action she had to do rather than waiting on God to “do something” for her.

She said, “Many times God could not do anything because I was not situated so that He could.”

She taught me that God was a gentleman and would not force me to do what I did not want to do. He gave me a free will and He hasn’t changed His mind about that privilege. So, rather than say, “Help me study harder or help me love more or help me always seek You before I make decisions”, Erma taught me to pray, “I choose to study harder or I choose to love more or I choose to seek You before I make decisions.” Wow, when I began to pray like that, I discovered that it surely changed the dynamic. I found myself being a lot more thoughtful about what I prayed. If I was telling God I was choosing to do something, that was a whole lot more binding than asking Him to do something for me. Prayer became a starter switch rather than a suggestion box. Using an artist analogy, if I prayed that I had decided to paint a picture, I would begin to think about how to paint it and what supplies I would need to gather to do it. Once I did that, God would bring colors to mind and, perhaps, being someone alongside to teach me the needed brushstrokes. So many times I knew exactly what God wanted me to do, but I didn’t do it because it was difficult. I actually wanted Him to do it so I said, “help me.”. When He didn’t help me it was because I wasn’t doing anything he could help me with. Choosing what I know He wants me to do, He empowers each baby step I make, but I must make the step first. That first step is choosing. This has been revelatory.

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13 (KJV)

He is with us,

Dawn

Thanksgiving from the fire

Number one son was going about life, enormously successful in business. He has a wonderful wife and two young sons. At age 40, he has a home that is paid for, several cars, a minivan and recreational vehicles and club memberships all paid up that would keep several families busy all year. He is active in his church, is asked to lead groups on spiritual principles of good stewardship and more than tithes of his lucrative income. About two years ago he began to lose confidence. A dark, terrifying, unthinkable force would come upon him and he could not cope. My son began to have panic attacks and was so troubled that he no longer wanted to live. He’s been struggling through the maze of treatment options. This past week I sent him Ann Voskamp’s blog because I thought it might speak to him. It did. He said, “Mom, no one understands what this is like unless they go through it themselves. Ann knows what it is like. I know she does or she couldn’t have written this.

Today I was out biking. Harry called me on my cell phone very very excited. I was in the middle of my bike trail. but I stopped to listen to Harry’s story. Harry has a first-grade son, LH (short for Little Harry). LH was at the library with a 4th grader who was reading with him. At the end of the session Harry was there to pick up his son and the 4th grader’s mother was there to pick up her 4th grader. It was then that Harry realized that the mother of the 4th grader was in his small group at church. He started to chit-chat with her and then she said. “Would you please help me? My husband just got out of the hospital. He is out in the car and he is freaking out. He is scaring the kids and I don’t know what to do.” Harry went out to the parking lot of the library and found this man. He couldn’t remember his name, but when he opened the car door to talk to the man, the name came to him. He asked the man what was wrong. He said he had just gotten out of the hospital and needed his medication. Harry asked if his heart was bad or what. The man said, “No, no I just got our to THE hospital, not the hospital. All of a sudden Harry knew the man had just been released from a psychiatric hospital. The man said, “You wouldn’t understand. No one does.” Harry said, “Oh, I understand a lot. Let ME tell YOU how you are feeling. After Harry talked to the man awhile, the man completely calmed down and he said, “You are the first person I’ve talked to about this that understands me.” Harry said, “It’s because I have been there.” The man was incredulous, “But you seem so together. You seem to have the world by the tail.” “And so,” replied Harry, “I’m living proof you can feel better.”

Harry was so very thankful that he could help this man. He knew he was the only one that could at that moment. He said to me, “You know, Mom, only someone who has been through this fire can understand how it feels. Even the professionals only have head knowledge. The only person who can understand this kind of panic is someone who has been there and suffers the same way you do.”

I write this blog today because dear friends have asked me how my son is doing. He’s finding his way to the glory of God. I am a thankful mom.

He is with us,

Dawn

More than bird seed

In the midst of a discussion on Facebook about people committing atrocities and whether or not we’d be capable of such atrocities and how we should be praying for those who can not only commit such atrocities but order others to commit them, also, my son simply posts Mark 4:4

As he scattered it across his field, some of the seed fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate it.

Here it is again, Faithful Readers, that parable of the Sower and the Seed. This is the parable that Jesus said, “If you don’t get this one, you will not get any of the others.” So I pull a Soupy Sales’ line here, “What does He mean by that?”

Facebook friends were leaving comments on the atrocities of the past month in the news: Gosnell and the Philadelphia abortion clinic, the rape of a young girl by football jocks and the Boston Marathon bombings. We must pray for the masterminds of abuse, search our hearts to make sure that ‘we’ indeed are not ‘they’, and we must reach out to abusers as we were/are reached for by Christ. My son merely posted: Mark 4:4. Ah, I am lead right back to the parable of the sower and the seed.

Jesus sows His seed across a field. He warns, He teaches, He entreats. He looks everyone in the eye, even the blindest of them; and some see, but others, not at all. Even in the midst of a miracle only some see, but there are those who see miracles everywhere even in the midst of atrocities. And so I ask myself, “Am I seeing?” He is scattering seed and some of it is falling on a footpath. Am I a footpath? A footpath is hard, the topsoil is worn off and stones are exposed in the most worn parts.  Very little can take root on a footpath because of…, well, the feet and all their activity!  Continuous activity keeps the ground packed, worn and rough. Without floating down into soft soil and covered over, the seed is at the disposal of the elements. In this case, the birds come and dine. What good does it do a bird to have the Seed? It is unable to use it for anything but physical sustenance…and so it does.

Am I a bird feeding on the seed, but never really moving beyond the physical print on the pages. Does the seed pierce my mind and transform my thoughts? Does it give me new eyes and a new heart? Am I plowing up my fallow ground so the seed can grow? If not, the seed, the Word, remains print on page and has nothing to do with my living. I must, by His grace, be good ground. Yes, you may smell manure, but it’s a process, Dear Friends.

He is with us,

Dawn

Warning! Warning!

I was thinking of the robot from the tv series “Lost in Space” when I read this portion of Scripture this morning with my husband. I remember when the robot would wave his roboty arms and cry out in alarm “WARNING! WARNING!” I thought it would have been appropriate for him to have done that just before reading Mark 4 after breakfast. So, if you are old enough to remember the robot and his antics, picture him warning you and read what Jesus said just after He told the parable of the seeds and the sower, a parable about which he said, “If you don’t understand this story, you will not understand all the others I am going to tell you.”

Mark 4:23-25a

Anyone who is willing to hear should listen and understand!

And be sure to pay attention to what you hear.

The more you do this, the more you will understand.

and, even more besides.

To those who are open to my teaching, more understanding will be given.

But to those who are not listening,

even what they have will be taken away from them.

God is with us,

Dawn