where I'm writing

I haven't been blogging as much these days. It's not that life isn't still happening. It is. It's not that I don't have anything to say. I do. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to figure out just one thing to say. But I have been writing in a less-structured sort of way and thought I'd share it for anyone who's interested.

My friend Chad put up this website called Ask Two Questions. It's based on reading through the common lectionary. Every day, there is a brief passage and you're asked to think about what it's saying about God and you. (Sometimes I have a hard time teasing those two questions apart.) It's not overwhelming at all. If you don't get lost in writing like I do, it can take 5-10 minutes to prayerfully think it through. I'm a verbal processor, so it takes me awhile to "talk it out." But if you want to read where I've been writing, check it out. You are welcome to join in the discussion...or not. It has been beneficial to me, though, and if I think something's good, I'm going to share it.

I'll list out for you a few of the topics that I particularly enjoyed as way of providing a sample for you. Maybe some one of you will enjoy it as much as I do. I'm titling them by my summary of what I took from the passage on the left, followed by the site's title for the passage on the right.

My God! Is that alive?! - Treasure in Jars of Clay

That was then, this is now. - God Will Do A New Thing

Not sure even I'm controlling enough for this - Live In Love

I'll just keep that to myself - The Joy of Forgiveness

Feeling labled - Diving Mercy for Ephraim

Getting a free meal - Return to the Lord

The only thing - The Lord is My Light

Martyr 1: The Stoning of Zechariah
Martyr 2: The Stoning of Stephen

The destructive safe place - The Valley of Decision

Advent week 4: Peace

We have spent the last four weeks looking for Christ. Our verse for the time has been: "Keep watch, for you do not know on what day your Lord will come." Matthew 24:42. During this particular Advent season, while feeling called to really look for Jesus, so much not-Jesus has been shoved in our faces. Tragedies of various kinds have affected our country and our congregation. Yet the word is still the same: Keep watch for Jesus. He could show up anywhere, at any time, whether for His second coming or for his visits into our daily lives. We look for Him to come.

So today, we are going to spend some time looking for Jesus's peace to come. Following is a reading of the story of God bringing peace to earth that goes from the Old Testament, through the life of Jesus, and after Jesus left us with His spirit. Through all time, God has been bringing peace on earth.

-----

Isaiah 54:10
Though the mountains be shaken
    and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
    nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

Psalm 34:14
Seek peace and pursue it.

Isaiah 52:8,7
Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices;
    together they shout for joy.
When the Lord returns to Zion,
    they will see it with their own eyes.
How beautiful on the mountains
    are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,

Luke 2:14
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

Isaiah 9:6
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…And He will be called…Prince of Peace.

John 16:33
[Jesus said, “…I]n me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

John 14:27
^“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

John 20:21-22
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

2 Thessalonians 3:16
Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you.

2 Corinthians 13:11
Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

 -----

To these, I would only add a couple of verses that have encouraged me this week as I have been thinking about Peace. 

Isaiah 32
¹⁶ The Lord’s justice will dwell in the desert,
    his righteousness live in the fertile field.
¹⁷ The fruit of that righteousness will be peace;
    its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.

That phrase, "quietness and confidence forever," is what I want to lay hold of. The righteousness of God is what ushers it in. And I can be confident in Him. Who he is replaces the turmoil in our souls with quietness. I can be confident in his unfailing love and can be sure that nothing can take that away form me.

Also over this time of Advent, I have seen those in our midst who have been affected by the darkness of this world letting Christ's light shine through them. I have seen a girl badly wronged turning to Christ for her way forward. I have seen those who mourn claiming Jesus as the center of their joy. These things are great sources of encouragement to me. They help light the way for us all. And so the next verse comes to mind. It brings me peace because I can see the truth of it coming to be right before my eyes as I look around at all us messed up people finding God right where we are.

Philippians 1:6
[I am] confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

And so we know that those of us He has begun forming into His children, He will keep forming until He is finished. That brings me quiet confidence today.

Lastly, let's observe a time of quiet today. After a time of silence, we will have a prayer.

-----

Heavenly Father,
The same God who created peace in the beginning and who has ever since promised its return,
The same God whose gift to a power-hungry, sin-occupied world was a baby
who remained just as innocent as the day He was born,
who promised to share with us His peace.
You are the God we need.

Prince of Peace,
We have been looking for you for a long time.
We love you because you have overcome the troubles in this world.
Thank you for enduring violence to share with us your peace.
We ask you to bring peace to our hearts
and to our land.

Spirit of the Living Christ,
Helper, Comforter.
Live in us.
Help us to find your peace in our world.
Let it grow in our lives.
Give us the beautiful words that proclaim its coming
to a world that needs to hear.

We want to see you with our own eyes.
We want to shout for joy.
We want go running with the news.
Make us beautiful as we shout it from the mountains.
We want to live at peace with each other,
to be fully restored.
In you, we have peace. You yourself are our Peace.
Be with us, Jesus, both now and forever.
 
Amen. 

Advent 2012: Joy

Reading from Psalm 30

LEADER:
Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people;
    praise his holy name.
 For his anger lasts only a moment,
    but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may stay for the night,
    but rejoicing comes in the morning.
To you, Lord, I called;
    to the Lord I cried for mercy:
Hear, Lord, and be merciful to me;
    Lord, be my help.
Weeping may stay for the night,
    but rejoicing comes in the morning.
 For his anger lasts only a moment,
    but his favor lasts a lifetime;
Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people;
    praise his holy name!

READERS 1&2:
You turned my wailing into dancing;
    you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.

READERS 3&4:
You turned my wailing into dancing;
    you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.

ALL:
You turned my wailing into dancing;
    you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
    Lord my God, I will praise you forever.

I am here to talk to you about joy. This week, we have learned about senseless tragedies in our nation and perhaps in our own lives. I know many of us are in the nighttime of sorrow. On this very week when we are to come together to talk about the Joy that comes in the morning, talking about Joy may feel like salt in the wound.

Perhaps the timing for this Advent is off. Or perhaps this is the best time. Because this is a time when we know we need Joy. We need to know that this night won’t last forever. We come empty-handed and asking to be given something we don’t have and can’t make for ourselves. We know the only One around who can give it to us is Christ himself.

Especially during Advent, we look forward to Jesus coming, because we know He’s not the only one who has come into the world. We know we have an enemy who has shown up as well. In John 10:10, Jesus tells us that our enemy “comes to steal and kill and destroy.” We can see joy stolen. We feel robbed. But John 10:10 doesn’t end with the news about our enemy. We don't have to hang on there long. Jesus goes on to say, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” And THAT is the final word on the situation. Jesus came to give us just those things we cannot get or maintain for ourselves: Hope, Love, Joy…Life.

Last week, I spoke about how we oftentimes find whatever it is we’re looking for. I don’t necessarily think we should look for truth on social media, but sometimes it is found even there. A picture was going around the internet yesterday that I had to share then and I think is fitting to share now. It’s a quote from Fred Rogers – Mr. Rogers – who was a pastor before he was a children’s television creator. He said:

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of 'disaster,' I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers - so many caring people in this world."

I’m not trying to be a humanist. It’s not that I think there are more good people in this world than bad. I just don’t know. But God has left us His spirit – in people – and so we can always expect to find helpers. So this morning, we are looking for our Helper. Those around us may be focused on the chaos and the horrible, but in the middle of it all, we are as children in the middle of a disaster, looking only for our Helper. We know for sure we will find Him here. He comes bearing the gift of Joy to people overcome with sadness. 

These are the words Jesus used when He told us why He had come:

Isaiah 61
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
² to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
³     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

If God has called us to be oaks of righteousness, there is nothing that can keep us from becoming who God will make us to be. No ugliness can keep us from displaying His splendor. Our Helper and is coming with just the gift we need! We need joy. And we’re looking for Him. We’re focused on finding Him. We can praise Him right now because He is here. He is the unshakable center of our Joy and nothing and no one can ever take Him away from us. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! 

Shameka encouraged us with a dance to this song by Richard Smallwood. (This page sites the wrong artist.) I wish I had thought to have someone film it, because she has a gift of encouraging others through her dance. But here is the song for those who would want to hear it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPG-EBdVWpU

Advent 2012: Love

 

This year, we are looking at the traditional themes of Advent: Hope, Joy, Love, and Peace. However, to prove once again my imperfection, I accidentally switched the weeks of Joy and Love. Traditionally, Love is the third week of Advent instead of the second, but I'm a rebel like that, so we're going ahead with the second week of our Advent: Love. Our verse for this entire Advent season is: 

"Keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come." from Matthew 24:42.

Our reading for this week is from Psalm 13:

 ^“1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?
                    _  _  _  _  _  _  _ 
                  

⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.

⁶ I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.”

Because the Lord has been good to me,
I will sing His praises.

My heart rejoices in your salvation.
I trust in your unfailing love.

Love
When I was in college, I went through a time of being really disillusioned and disappointed and angry with God. I was out from under the shelter of my parents’ faith and trying to figure out why it seemed the world was such an ugly place to live. Did God really love everyone? It didn’t seem like it. Why did so much evil happen in the world? Was God really going to hide His face forever? The enemy of my soul had triumphed over me for so long that I was trying to switch sides. I wasn’t asking God “How long?” anymore; that seemed too childish. I had moved past that to anger that He hadn’t showed up yet, that He didn’t love as well as I’d hoped, and that injustice seemed to rule the day. I wasn’t looking for Him anymore. I was done with waiting.

So often in life, we find what we’re looking for. I was looking for reasons to blame God for everything wrong. And I found them. I was looking for hate in the world. And I found it. I was looking for hypocrisy in the church. Yes. There it was. I found what I was looking for. I wasn’t really looking for love in the world, but at the same time, I was angry that I wasn’t finding it.

But, happily, Someone Else was doing some looking, too. That Person was named Love. He had always been there, even though I wasn’t really trying and couldn’t see Him. He had been a good listener to all of my angry outbursts during my times alone with Him, and just so I could see it, he put on the flesh of friends in my life to show me His heart towards me. One night, after hours of listening to me accuse God of being unloving, one of them said, “Lezlie, if love doesn’t exist, then what are we doing here?” And so Love had found me.

We can trust in God’s unfailing love. We rely on it. Even when we are fumbling around in the darkness, we can trust that God will find us. This time of year especially, we remember how he put on the flesh of a Friend so we could all see just how far Love will go to pursue us.

I’ve asked the little children of our church to share with us, because the truth of this morning is simple and we should never try to outgrow it: God is Love. We look for Jesus as little children – trusting He is there – or we don’t find Him at all. In this season of Advent, let us set aside the troubles we’ve encountered as we’ve grown older. Not that those troubles aren’t real; they just aren’t as eternal as God’s Love. Let us focus instead on the Light of the World making his Love known to us. “Keep watch, therefore, because you do not know when the Lord will come.”

Today, we can praise God even now because of his Love that never fails. We may fail, but God’s love is perfect. Praise Him, because He is love, though others are not. Praise Him, because He is love no matter whatever else may happen.

The Bible says, “Seek and you will find.” Look around you, because God is everywhere. Look around you, because even though we may live in dark times, God has us living where we do “so that [we] would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’” We are swimming in Love. Look around you and take hope, because God is Love! His love will not fail.

Look around you, because God’s love is still in the business of taking on flesh. If you can’t see Love around you, pray that you will have Him in you.

For those who look – and even, perhaps, for some of us who don’t – we will see Him coming! He is coming for us! Through faith, we can even see it now. See Him coming! There He is – and there – and here. We can all look back or around or ahead and see Love’s presence showing up in our lives. He has not left us. He is here with us now. He will come and rescue us. See Him coming! God is Love!

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
Ephesians 3:17-19

Advent 2012: Hope

I cherish Advent. I get to share this love of the season at my church each week as we observe the season together. Since I have a blog, I thought I'd also share it with you. I am late posting the first week's observance, but it's always better late than never, right? Besides, keeping you waiting was perhaps only a means of reinforcing one of the main ideas of the season. :) Enjoy this time of reflection and meditation.

- Advent means coming.
- We set our minds on Jesus, the light of the world who came into the world to change the world forever.
- We let that change begin with us.
- During Advent, we set aside time to think about what Jesus’s coming means. We think about what it must have been like to wait for the first Advent, when Jesus came as a humble baby. We feel the anticipation ourselves as we look forward to the second advent of Christ. We think about how much our world – and we ourselves -- need Jesus to come right here, right now.
- There are many ways and traditions within the church to observe Advent. This year, we are observing the traditional themes of advent: the light of hope, of love, of joy, and of peace. Each candle around the outside of the Advent wreath represents one of these lights. The reason we are able to have any of these, of course, is Jesus, represented by the Christ candle in the center.
- Our theme verse this year comes from Mt. 24:42: “…Keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” Our Lord is coming; we believe and are looking for Him.
- Let’s start by letting the word wash over us as we begin celebrating the first week of Advent: HOPE.

In service, several people quoted these verses. Read them over several times so their words wash over you.

But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
- Micah 7:7 
But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. - Psalm 39: 7
 

Hope

Often in the Psalms and in the prophets, we read the words of people who see all kinds of darkness in the world around them. They record injustices, troubles of all kinds, their own struggles with sin, the evils of their leaders, the sicknesses of the chosen people of God themselves. I have times like that. Sometimes, I feel like all I see around me is dark. Sometimes, I feel like all I see in ME is dark. I think there’s a lot of truth there – hearts are full of darkness and the world is fallen and broken.

But I love how the writings of the prophets and the psalmists never end there. Because we are not left without hope. Both talk about how the Savior of the world is coming. Writing from a dark place, they talk about the Light that is coming. We can read passages that promise every tear will be wiped away, that the Lord himself will teach us the way of Life, that wars will end, that every sickness will be healed, that justice will be done, that mercy will win, and that all will be made new.

          When Jesus told His disciples about his second Advent, he told them it would be like the coming of a wedding party. 
(From Matthew 25)
“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. ² Five of them were foolish and five were wise. ³ The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. ⁴ The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. ⁵ The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

⁶ “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

⁷ “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. ⁸ The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

⁹ “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

¹⁰ “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

¹¹ “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

¹² “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

¹³ “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

This image of being ready to wait for the One who is coming stuck with me this year. I want to be one who is ready to wait, however long it takes, to see my Savior’s face when he comes. Watching for the coming of the Bridegroom means we, just like the prophets and the psalmists, have to hold out the light of hope.           
            Andrew, our pastor, often talks about how we’re not here to run a sprint; we’re running a marathon, here. If I’m going to make it, I need to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I need to see people carrying the light around me, encouraging me on. We have these things. We even have Jesus’s own Spirit burning inside us.
              Even as we are in the middle of whatever dark circumstances are around us, we know He’s coming. Therefore, since we have hope, we don’t sit around asking, “Are you coming?” If we have hope burning within us, we ask, “How long, O Lord, until you come?” We aren’t looking for anyone else to cure the sin of the world. “How long, O Lord, until YOU come?” Our world has only one Hope. So we wait, looking everywhere to find Him. We do not know exactly when to expect Him, so we look for Him everywhere. We know He is coming; we just don’t know how long He will take. 

You can follow this link if you'd like to listen to the song we covered as a backdrop to a time of meditation. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvO1d3RBSiY&feature=related

miracle monarch

One day, about three weeks ago, I was pulling all the tangled vines out from among the flowers I'm trying to grow in my yard. In one fist-full of vine, I found a little black and yellow caterpillar. I found a second one just a few feet away. Since I had destroyed their home, I brought the caterpillars with some of the leaves they were on to look at them and see if I could figure out how to raise them. When Pat saw them, he said, "Monarch caterpillars!" That was the first thing to know. But since then, I have learned a great deal about these tiny creations that astounds me. I'm sharing with you my list of...

AMAZING THINGS ABOUT MONARCHS
1.) They start out as eggs that can only be laid on milkweed. (Good thing I had let the weeds in my garden go for a little while!)
2.) When the caterpillars hatch out of the eggs, they eat the milkweed, which is what makes them poisonous. (And I thought milkweed only killed out my vegetable plants!)
3.) The caterpillars grow to be pretty big. They have yellow and black stripes and antennae-things coming out both ends.
4.) When you see them hanging upside-down, they're just about to make their chrysalis. They hang and hang and hang and then, suddenly, in the span of half an hour (I know because I missed it happening...) they're encapsuled! Just like that! 
5.) This chrysalis looks a good deal smaller than the caterpillar that went into it. I was perplexed about this and then I saw body parts in the bottom of the container. Turns out, the head or the tail (can't tell which) falls off when they go into hiding. Crazy! It all looked so necessary half an hour before!
6.) The chrysalis starts out jade green with gold (like, metallic-looking) dots on it. How and why do they make these gold dots? I don't know! They're perfectly arranged just-so. Decoration? Maybe. They don't seem to have much to do with the entrance or exit, which was my first guess.
7.) Those dots start out white and yellow, actually. I know because I saw it. I have no idea how they change to gold.
8.) And then...nothing. Mine took 15 days of nothing. Both of them. 15 days.
9.) Then you start to see wing patterns -- swaths of orange, black, and white dots. I held it in my hand, then. It struck me as one of those capsules that turns into a foam animal when put in water. It was a butterfly-capsule! I could tell!
10.) Overnight, the whole thing turned black, minus the orange swaths. It got a bit of a bulge on one side. Even the gold dots turned black on the bottom. How was this happening? Nothing was going into or out of the chrysalis, and yet crazy magic was happening inside.
11.) It explodes. It must be a silent explosion, or at least a very quiet one, because I didn't hear it from the next room. But it's so fast and so much comes out that it has to be an explosion.
12.) And then, there's this monarch. It's got a polka-dotted body. Imagine that!
13.) Most monarchs live 2-6 weeks, laying their eggs and dying. There are three generations like that every spring-fall where we live. This is a lot of extravagance for such brief glory.
14.) Not all monarchs die off that quickly. For some reason, the fourth generation, born in September-October, (i.e. MY monarchs...) live 6-8 months. Why? What process knows to make these bodies sturdier? I'm amazed.
15.) These built-to-last monarchs make a trip all the way to Mexico to winter. This little creature sitting on my table, when I let it go, will fly all the way to Mexico. I am hundreds of times its size and am built to last a hundred times longer, and still I could not do it. How does it know where Mexico is? How does it not just end up lost over the Gulf? How does so much wind pass over its wings without breaking them? How can it weather storms on its way? I don't know.

I am amazed by this creation. So much work gone into this beautiful thing I've watched be born into the cage I have for it. I have nearly seen the entire process (though I admit to missing the precise beginning of the most pivotal moments) and I am left with more questions than I had before that day weeding my garden. Learning often leaves me this way.

 

one of the little caterpillars I found

 

getting ready to build its chrysalis

  

finishing up its chrysalis

  

from the back side, making its chrysalis

the yellow and white turned into the gold in the picture below

 just beginning to see the wings through the chrysalis (yesterday)

 it looked like this, minus seeing the wings, for 14 days

 butterfly capsule an hour before it emerged

 only now I realize this is part of its face looking through the chrysalis

 just coming out, unfolding wings

 curled wings and other things, floppy antennae

 

black and white underside before the wings unfurled to cover it

 first butterfly taking flight

I can see this second butterfly in front of me, hanging and drying its wings beside its empty chrysalis now. I have no idea how this birth just happened. I see it. It looks impossible. There's no way this creature just emerged from something 1/2 its size. I know it's true, but it's kind of unbelievable. It's one of the every-day miracles on this planet. Maybe it's ridiculous to go on this way about a butterfly. This happens all the time, after all. It's not like I've seen something never-before-seen. I could say, "Yes, I've known since The Very Hungry Caterpillar that this is what happens." Or I could watch, mouth gaping, scratching my head and praising whatever Being understands this and made it so. Maybe it's even more amazing that this is so common-place. How in this broken world can miracles like this happen every day? I stand amazed and believing.

Maybe we can all emerge from these cramped conditions stronger, more beautiful beings, taking flight.

unbroken

Though this whole process with Lia's family being united under one roof is far from a done deal, I have to say at least I am greatly encouraged by the progress I know of. Since this is a case currently being heard in the courts, details of who is saying what are just not available, so I wait with just as many unknowns as the rest of you and likely just slightly different set of unknowns than the Frank family is experiencing themselves. I often break off trying to imagine what they must be going through. I can't imagine.

Someone asked, and I don't know the exact timeline, but sometime this summer, God healed Lia. I don't know how it happened. I don't know if the medical community has a way of explaining this or if the healing was just as enigmatic as the entire rest of her life until then. But I know that where there was once hurt, brokenness, and a kind of hopelessness, there is now wholeness and the promise of a much-less-painful future. And I know that it doesn't matter to me whether the medical community has a way of explaining it or not -- this sort of a break-through after so many years searching for one is a great miracle. I am in awe of it. It's the sort of miraculous healing that I doubt I could comprehend, even if it were explained to me by the best medical professional or even an angel.

And this second healing -- of Lia's family -- that we're asking for involves its own hurt, brokenness, and kind of hopelessness. If healing is going to take place for this, it's going to take a miracle. Much will need to happen to bind up this family and Rhys in particular, I'd imagine. It's the sort of thing that calls into question the very core of who a person is. I wince at the thought of anyone calling me into question, much less a person with the authority to tear my loving family apart. Healing from that will take a miracle. It will take God stepping in.

The hope that presents itself is that He is stepping in. When Lia's body was broken, I found hope in the love I could see within her family and in the persistent faith and constant assertion of God's goodness in the middle of it all. Now, I find hope in how I see the Body of Christ sweeping in to protect and support this part that is broken. Somehow, word is getting out and people are being prompted to support. Some have opened their homes. Some have taken to fasting and prayer. Some have given money. Some have given of their time. Others have offered up their skills. It will take all these things -- serious commitment from friends and kindness of strangers and the favor of God over it all. This is the sort of healing we feel we can comprehend, since we understand talk of relationships and money and generosity. One person has this or that and gives it to someone else. But for all of these people and resources and unseen agents being at the right place at the right time to hear and respond...it is and will be a miracle.

That said, the most easily quantifiable sign of hope we have is the money. The money is not what will solve this problem or heal this family, but as it is going to pay for legal representation, it opens up the road ahead of the Frank family. It's an expensive key. They have to pay $12k to their lawyers by Sept. 11. And this without having a source of income (that was lost when Dave had to stop working to be the adult staying with their kids). Many of us have dealt with losing income. I've never had to deal with it at a time when bills like this were mounting. But yesterday I read from Rhys's mom....

Great news! We are now at approximately $11,276 and are within striking distance of our first goal of $12,000!. Thanks to everyone for their generosity. The Lord is good.

and I am reassured that nothing is impossible for God. This is the first goal. I would imagine some of what is to come depends on how hearings go and how long this is expected to be in the courts. But we're almost to the first goal...maybe EARLY! (Wouldn't that be great?!)

I didn't set up the account to raise the funds, so I have no idea who gives and when, but thank you because I'm sure some of you did. Thanks to all who have been praying and praying and doing whatever it is within your power to do. I'm sure it encourages Rhys; I know it encourages me. We serve a God who is limitless and whose love for us remains unbroken. We know and hope and rely on it being so.

on worms and little girls

not my picture, but it seemed a good illustration.

Life seems more full of great (or, you know, not-so-great) moments these days than trains of thought, but there is a very sweet moment I have to share from today.

     Eden and I were walking home and she happened upon a dead worm on the sidewalk. It was hard and flat. And dead. She picked it up, turning its two dimensions around, trying to figure out why it wasn't the way it was supposed to be, I guess. I didn't wait for her to ask.
     "It's dead," I told her.
     "We can put it in the shade," she said, since that's what we do with worms when we dig them up. We bury them in our compost pile. It makes for all kinds of small "good" in the world. I've taught her well.
     "No, don't touch it. You're going to need to wash your hands. It's dead."
     I took her hand to keep walking so she wouldn't stick her dead-worm-toting fingers straight into her mouth. She made some other hopeful sort of suggestion.
     "No, it's DEAD," I said, again. "It's not going to come back alive again. Dead things don't come back alive."
     "But people come back alive," she said in her matter-of-fact way.
     We just finished learning the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the grave. And we talk about Jesus giving us new bodies when these die. And I've made up and taught the kids a song on the verse "All things are possible with God." I guess me saying that dead things don't come back alive sent these recent contradictory snippets running through both our minds. However, it's not generally the way things work. The girl is going to have to know that. But in a way that doesn't cancel out the truth of all those things I've taught her. How is it God works, anyway? I don't really know. What can I say?
     "Well, people only come back alive because Jesus makes them."
     We kept walking. Eden made another effort: "We could put water on it."
     I realized I had two choices. I could proclaim to her that there is never any hope for dead, dried-up things. We could leave the worm there and it would most certainly stay dead. Or we could take the worm back to our yard, stick it in some wet dirt, and let the conversation continue on its own without me having to drill into her the ugly truths about dead worms and dead things in general. I went with Option B.
     We went back to the worm. Eden remembered exactly where it was as I was still searching for it. Looking at it, I had to admit that, though it was completely dried up, it wasn't completely hard and flat. It had one little spot on it that looked like it might bend instead of break if you forced the issue.
     I let her pick it up again and I carried it home in a discarded McDonald's cup. We put it in the peat moss under our apple tree, poured some water on it, and buried it with a thin layer of the watered ground. Water. Shade. That's all we could do. I put the cup we had used to carry it home upside-down over it to mark the spot so we could check on it later. I didn't want the false hope offered by a bird finding it first or something.
     After naptime, I decided to have the first look. I took the cup away and the worm was gone. I dug around and spread out the dirt. Yep. Gone.
     What happened to the worm? I guess I can't say for sure. There's always some chance I'm wrong, but I told Eden it crawled away. (Wouldn't you know she was sad about this, crying that she wanted to keep it?)
     There are plenty of unpleasant things I'm going to have to teach my kids. Plenty of unpleasant things and downright horrible things I've already had to tell them about the world. But on this day, in this moment with my sweet little girl, she has taught me well.

heart mending

This is my friend, Andrea. You may remember Andrea of Abigail fame from about this time last year. Last year, we were raising money for Abigail to have a tumor removed from her leg. The good news is that today, Abigail's check-up revealed a "normal 3-year-old." This is news worth celebrating!

Unfortunately, this wonderfully uneventful visit to the doctor is under the shadow of her sister's extended hospital stay.

This is Shilo, Abigail's sister. She is five months old. All told, I think she has spent something like three of those months in the hospital, mostly in some form of an ICU. This particular stay has lasted since February, brought on by a typical-in-other-people virus. But Shilo is little. And she has a heart defect. The virus required her to go on all kinds of equipment, including a ventilator. After quite a while, it became evident she would not be able to get off the ventilator without undergoing open heart surgery. The surgery was expected...a little on down the road, perhaps, but expected. As it is, though, things keep happening that destabilize Shilo just enough to where they cannot go through with the surgery. The surgery should alleviate all kinds of health issues, so as scary as open heart surgery on an infant sounds, it is welcome. All Shilo needs for the surgery is some stable days in a row -- days free of fevers, with clear lungs. Those have been hard to come by lately.

Could you join us in praying for Shilo and her family? They have been separated from each other for most of the last 8 weeks. That is a long time, and a great percentage of Shilo's life and Abigail's recent memory. Or anyone's recent memory. Even if the surgery goes through quickly, there will be at least a few more weeks apart before Shilo and Abigail can be together in the same house with both of their parents at the same time. Until then, the scene is Andrea and Shilo sitting in a small room full of medical equipment all day without snuggling each other while Jason is at work and Abigail stays with various friends. Therefore, prayers for "in the meantime" are greatly appreciated as well. I'm not going to say that this is a super-family or anything, because I know Andrea would hate that. But their normal days require more stamina than most of our normal days. We trust God's grace can cover us all and each of them even as the answers we wait for are slow in coming. Please join us in entrusting each of them to the care of their Father and asking that He would speedily mend Shilo's heart...and everyone else's.

Good

Earlier I posted snapshots of things that are good about the yard next door. Here are some "snapshots" of things that are good about my kids. These "pictures" were taken today. :)

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First thing this morning, Israel lets us know he figured out to pray for Jesus not to let Satan in anyone's hearts. Two days before, he showed up inches from my face to wake me up: "Mom, I asked Jesus and he got rid of all my sin. I'm not going to sin anymore!" Tonight, it was praying for Jesus to heal everyone who was sick: very sick, not very sick, and in car accidents. He will be so happy for Jesus's second coming. I hope it's not too rough for him in this in-between time.

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Before we could eat breakfast this morning, the kids had to go have blood drawn. (Nothing alarming, just checking cholesterol, since high cholesterol runs in the family.) Israel was frantically trying to talk us out of it: "I'm growing good!" He responded quite like I expect most kids respond, though he calmed down just in time for the needle, a point on which I congratulated him. But not Eden. Eden was happy! Last time she had a doctor's appointment, she stated that getting the flu shot had "made her happy." She liked it! I thought surely such parenting bliss would be short-lived. But, no!
"They're going to take blood out of you and give you a shot. Do you want to climb in the chair by yourself?"
"Yes!" She climbed up and plopped both her arms out in the right place, veins up, like she had done this a million times. (It was her first time for a blood draw like this.) She didn't say anything else.
"Okay." The two nurses (I guess they routinely call for back-up with small children) looked at each other, astonished. I just laughed. "They're going to give you your shot now and we'll see your blood. Do you think it's polka-dotted?"
"No."
"Striped?"
"No."
"Well, we'll see." I sat by her to prop her up and make her tall enough to do this on her own. She watched them stick the needle in and watched the vile fill up. "What color is it?" I asked.
"Pink!" She said, still watching. She did the whole thing without wincing once, hopped down, and said she liked it...again.

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We went to exchange a duplicate birthday present this morning, too. I told Eden she could choose what she wanted to get. In addition to wanting pretty much every greatest-thing-ever they had, she wanted to use some of the money to get a particular airplane for Israel. I let her, admiring her generosity. When we got to the check-out, the total was a few cents over the money we had from the exchange, so I told Israel to give the clerk his quarter. (A nice old stranger had given each of the kids a quarter at the grocery store earlier, which was also pretty cool.) In return, he got two dimes. He was pretty amazed at the apparent 2-for-1 deal. "I'm going to save these for college!" he said.

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Tonight at dinner, the kids both ate really well. Israel asked for one of the two "extra" corn muffins. Pat checked with me. I said I would like to have one of them later. He gave Israel the other.
After dinner, I half-heard Eden say something about wanting another corn muffin, too. I mostly disregarded her, because she never asks for seconds and she wasn't actually talking to any of us, anyway. She went in the kitchen, brought out the last muffin, and put it in front of me. "You can have it," she said.
"Don't you want a muffin?" I asked.
"You can eat it," she said, pointing to it again.
"But don't you want some?"
"We can all have some of it!"
She and I shared the muffin. I can't believe that she was willing to give me all of it when she wanted some, too!

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I love seeing the generous side of my daughter. I love the thoughtful side of my son. I love watching them learn how to interact with the world and with faith. I love when they succeed. Just like me, they often don't, but we celebrate when these things happen.

dreams take flight

We are working on adjusting to the time change we will encounter in Idaho. It feels a little surreal that it's actually going to happen. We're to the final preparations stage. We are almost better -- just a lingering cough for the kids and lingering sinus issues for me. They have a few days to go away. Please pray that they do.

I'm told Zaya is planning a party. There is much to celebrate.

Eden is content knowing Lia and Zaya have toys they will share. The girl has her priorities in line.

Israel is busy finding every scrap of paper he can to cut it to bits and make it into a "collage" for Lia and Zaya. It's his latest invention. Every one of them looks like a small firework stuck to a single piece of clear tape. Every one of them is actually some really specific thing with specific parts to do specific jobs that are dreamt up after the collage is assembled.

So many pieces have come together to make this possible -- anonymous people giving their bits (or chunks!) of money, prayers, and other assistance to make such discussion possible.

After so much blunt honesty with the kids about Lia and her condition, I was initially hesitant to talk with the kids about the trip. For it little while, it seemed Lia might not be around by the time we could visit her. Maybe she would still be in the hospital. Maybe not. But she's home and as well as she's been in quite some time. I was also afraid that perhaps the money might not come in and I knew there was no way we could make up any deficit. Then I realized pieces were coming together to make it work. This bit stuck; that piece landed just so. One bit was a friend asking the kids about the trip before I had told them about it. That was the push I needed to go ahead and let the kids know this is something I believed would happen, but wasn't sure of yet. (I wish we didn't need to teach our kids about faith; it's scary. Ah, well. Someday that won't be necessary.) With the whole thing being assembled, we are now free to dream up exactly what this will be, leaving plenty of room for the artistic freedom of the other dreamers. These days, part of us lives up above the clouds. We talk about what it will be like.

Thank you.