An Hour of Friendship

March 13, 2013 by 29 Comments

rbhour

We only have an hour.

Walking single file down the broken sidewalk, we look for the familiar house with gift bags swinging over our arms, our breath swirling in clouds above our heads in the twilight.

“Is this the one,” H asks pointing to the white two-story with dark blue shutters.

I lean across the ivy clad picket fence peering sideways through the glass door, hoping for a glimpse of familiarity inside.  Just in case we picked the wrong house.

“Yes, this is it,” he decides, “see the historical marker and they’re right there inside.”

I’m a curious traveler looking for home, mesmerized by the ambient light of community coming from the end of the narrow hallway.  Unaware that they’re walking to the door to welcome us.

Five summers ago our families lay virgin eyes on Africa together. Sharing bumpy car rides over potholes, wiping dust from our sweaty brows, navigating our collective five through culture shock, cold showers and crabbiness. Mystified by how a country torn by brokenness can be a lesson on hope. And we called it that – Homes of Hope – the fund raising effort we cultivated together for five years helping eighty Rwandan orphans after that mission trip.

We all grew a bit taller in our perspective.

I shed my coat; drape it over a chair in the hall, the scent of rosemary and olive oil enticing me to see what’s brewing in the kitchen. We swirl the smell of communion in stemmed glass; taste resurrection in the children we bore; laugh over events and the passage of time.  Scoop handfuls of roasted nuts and swallow change congregating around the family bar.

Listen to their stories. Of rescued puppies, a new grandson crawling on the floor and their three girls grown into women walking through the front door. And it makes me gasp. The way God grows each of us into what He beheld when we took our first breath.

How a stray heart can be rescued in the warmth of people who know and accept you for who you are.

It only takes an hour, before celebrating your daughter’s seventeenth, for the evensong of community to break bread in belonging.  And discover that everything and nothing stays the same.

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Linking with Jennifer for Tell His Story and Emily for Imperfect Prose.

 

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Begging for Mercy

December 16, 2012 by 10 Comments

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On this third Sunday of Advent I echo Mary’s exclamation, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord,” but my heart beats heavy and I proclaim it through tears. I watch the news, witness innocence slain in the presence of evil and I don’t have to sit across from a mother at her kitchen table to understand her sorrow.

And I don’t want to be one more voice adding to the crowds giving opinion but I will join the collective cry at heaven’s gate, begging for mercy and waiting for His return.  Because we need a Saviour, more than anything else this Christmas. We need a Saviour who bore our sin so that we can live free.

Will you join me in bending our hearts to prayer for the families of the twenty- eight who died on Friday in Newtown, CT? May we rejoice in knowing He is good, even in tragedy.

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Because You Can’t Make Miracles Happen, They Just Do

December 12, 2012 by 31 Comments

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We scooted into the two empty chairs in front of the end cap with Christmas doggy chews and portable dog baths. Under the red furry stocking hanging from the ceiling big enough for a puppy to fit inside. At least that’s what I told my daughter. She said I was rubbing it in, how I wouldn’t let her have another dog.

We were laughing about that when a lady wearing a broach on her  green coat walked by. She asked if we were waiting for our flu shots. “We’re waiting, I said, “but not for flu shots.”

She turned around and asked Murielle where to sign in to see the nurse. We both pointed to the kiosk she passed on the wall at the Minute Clinic.

Hunkered over, she picked up the pen attached to the screen and stared like a foreigner trying to read a Chinese menu.

Murielle got up and stood next to her to help. And a stranger relinquished the pen to my teenage daughter.

While Murielle read every page, showed her how to make selections, the lady fired off sarcastic jokes that made us both giggle. She struggled to remember her address, stood with her eyes slanted toward the ceiling in an uncomfortable pause about her phone number. Somewhere around the tenth question, she turned to Murielle and said, “Can I graduate now,” and sat down.

And throughout her second strep test, probing in her ears, and answering questions about how she felt, every time the nurse turned her back away from Murielle, she mouthed that she was worried about the lady sitting outside the door waiting for her flu shot. Concerned because she didn’t answer all the questions and feared a stranger was lost in the system.

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The next day Murielle came out of her bedroom wearing a black print dress with a belted blue cardigan on her way to school. On the day she would sit on a bus – next to someone in the providence of the alphabet – to a movie field trip. I told her to be careful about how she sits on the bus wearing a dress.

When she calls me after school, I ask her if she liked the movie. “It was good,” she said, “but I sat on the steps in the theater the whole time.”

It was her choice.

The school rents the entire theater but the staff inadvertently let a few elderly people in, leaving six people without seats. When she and a friend notice two teachers leaning next to the wall, they offer to give up their seats because one of them is pregnant.

All I can think about is the way God turns children into adults while their parents sleep. How He cupped His hands over the Light she carries into the world, before a semi snuffed it out.

In my barrenness, the incarnation of Christ came down in the unselfish kindness of my daughter toward others, daring me to believe He is present in the silence. I may be deaf but He is not mute. He withholds no good thing from us.

“You did awesome deeds beyond our highest expectations . . . .” (Isaiah 64:3)

Where is God breaking into your life, daring you to hope?

imperfectprose

 

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What You Don’t Know Can Save Your Life

November 26, 2012 by 24 Comments

As I navigate back into some normalcy after a few days of company and sick kids, I’m re-posting one of my favorite stories. At least that’s what the stats tell me. Hope this Monday on the heels of holiday finds you well.

We have a nightly dinner ritual that makes me feel insecure on most days. No one is aware of it, except for me.  Because admitting it, that would be embarrassing.

My husband was born with an uncanny ability to remember facts. A plethora of facts on just about any subject.  After twenty-two years, I am still in awe, acutely aware of the fact that it is a gift. Even more grateful for the money he saves us because of all the things he knows how to do.

Most evenings, while I scoop food on plates, our kids engage him in conversation. Last night my daughter asked him to do a WWII alphabet list. I have to admit that if she would have asked me, I’m not even sure I would have made it to letter D.

My silence probably clues my kids in to the reality that their mom doesn’t remember most of what she learned in school after fourth grade. Because when you are in charge of your own life, play the role of parent before you know how to drive a car, food and security take priority over the leadership of Hitler and mathematical equations.

What I remember most about school is how safe I felt in the classroom.  That the stiffness of worry I held at home, fell off during those hours seated at a desk among my friends. Truthfully, I didn’t care as much about what the textbook said, than the assurance of a safe place,  just in case I found myself alone or in danger. The fact that I made good grades, that is grace I don’t take for granted.

And after school, it wasn’t milk and cookies, and doing homework around the kitchen table with some help. I walked home to an empty house. Sometimes my mother met me inebriated on the front lawn, to greet my friends.

I can’t remember how to do geometry and I don’t quote facts about history. I would be one of those people we laugh about on Jay Leno, if he met me on the street and asked a random question.

But I can tell you how to hear God in your room at midnight when your house is full of strangers and smells of marijuana and beer.  How to hear him when you need to choose which school to attend, whether you should marry the man who asked you, and how to make a decision when it involves moving across the country to live in a place you have never seen before – three times.

I can help you to identify that still small voice of the One who created you, knew how your life would turn out even through the hardship. That voice wants to tell you how much He loves you now.

I can assure you that you most certainly are not your circumstances; that the power of God who raised Christ from the dead lives in you if you asked Him to.  And that nothing you face today is too difficult for Him.

And when I listen to the conversations about wars, cars and debates over historical facts, I sit with embarrassment about my lack of contribution . . .  with gratitude. Because those three people seated around my kitchen table, they are teaching this Mom and Wife all the things I missed.

They are the beauty of my redemption.

There is no end of the road, closed door, or circumstance too difficult for redemption to do its work. That fact, I know it well.

Linking with Ann today and counting thanks in my girl who continues to recover from a horrible accident less than two weeks ago. The way God is using it to reveal himself to us and to others. For our family who flew in from Ohio on a clear day and sat around a full table of food to give thanks. I’m thankful for antibiotics that make my girl with strep feel better in 24 hours and for my son who makes me laugh on a regular basis. For warm showers, heat in the car on a frosty day and for the way none of us seem to take anything for granted, and find gratitude in the simple things of life.

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What Every Child Longs to Know

November 16, 2012 by 2 Comments

People were already leaning against the walls around the mortuary when we sat down in the last two chairs on the end of the back row. I wasn’t sure where to sit at my brother’s funeral.

My husband leaned over to ask about the people in the old photos scrolling on the screen hanging from the ceiling. He recognized the one of the eight- year- old girl holding her brother in footed pajamas across her lap. I began explaining the crooked arm of my family tree in a whisper, when a friend stood up and waved us over to the front row.

I told her I assumed there wasn’t enough room.

It’s what my father told me on the phone when I asked if I could live with him during my teen years. I’ve been hesitant to assume there is a place for me now.

Will  you join me over at BibleDude.net to read the rest of the story? I want to thank you for following me there last month, my first post at Living the Story was third in the number of views for the website in the month of October. Doing the happy dance over that one! I would be honored to see you over there in the comments again this month.

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When It’s Okay to Let Go of Being An Adult

October 25, 2012 by 17 Comments

I told someone recently that I could’ve written ninety days on the theme of Letting Go instead of thirty-one. Because the greatest thing about writing on this theme is the recognition of how much I hold on to. How much I need to let go.

Yesterday, I joyfully let go of my writing time to cuddle a three month old baby.  And I didn’t freak out about time swirling down the drain before I discovered another pan on the counter.

I looked into her eyes over the bottle and saw the Kingdom in those fairy wing lashes. Found fulfillment in the simplicity of a sloppy smile, devoid of pretense or expectation. Marveled over the grip of tiny fingers around those of a stranger.

As I cradled that new bundle, swaying under the shade of summer’s low hanging fruit, she burns with life inside, sighs surrender in peaceful compliance. And she helps me to remember who I am, how God sees each of us. Unblemished embers of promise waiting to be stoked into flames of influence for the Kingdom.  Despite our circumstance.

All the questions of why and how and when, they fall off my twisted branches. And I understand why He says, “Come to me like a child.” Perhaps I’ll be writing about letting go for awhile.

If you’re reading along this month, how or what have you let go over the past twenty-five days? Let’s encourage one another in the comments.

This is #25 in the series 31 Days of Letting Go. You can read the collective here. If you are a writer, I invite you to link up any post you’ve written on the theme of letting go in the comments here on Friday. Subscribe to receive the series in your inbox or feed by adding your address in the side bar under Follow Redemptions Beauty.

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For the Forlorn, Fractured and Forgotten

October 22, 2012 by 12 Comments

We park in front of the two-story historic, under the maple shaking yellow mosaics on the sidewalk. Stroll past sideway houses with slanting porches of creeping fig. A blue bowl canopy hangs upside down over bursting camellias and mum busts lining steps. I feel like the Calico hunkering on the lawn, squinting in sun’s morning stretch.

My camera rocks into my hip when we turn the corner to a sea of people flocking around teak and tall sails for the wooden boat show. Pass a little girl with smudged face and wispy browns. Turn around to see where she’s going because her smallness all alone, it feels like the Mona Lisa wearing a frown.

“Where are your mommy and daddy,” H calls out to her. She turns around, lifts her shoulders and says she can’t find her Daddy, doesn’t know where he is, and continues toddling away from the crowds.

Two chubby fingers make a V on one hand when H calls out to her again to ask her age. She says her Daddy is a cop in uniform, so we scour the crowds for black and a badge. How can this tiny bit of innocence walk past hundreds of people alone without notice?

We find the cop rushing beside her Daddy dressed in Hawaiian blue. Five minutes later, he pushes past us huffing, “Now I’ve lost the boy. A little blond-haired boy.” And I’m stunned about how a father can lose two small children in a crowd that fast.

It’s what I think about when the pastor tells the story about Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 9), the crippled son of Jonathan, heir to the throne. He’s outcast in Lo Debar, soil of barren wilderness, the badlands for thieves. The place of what should’ve been, how did I get here, and the silence of God.

And just around the corner, David comes for rescue.  Offers a permanent seat at the banquet table because of the covenant he made with Jonathan. A covenant Mephibosheth didn’t know about.

Because sometimes the greatest works of God reveal themselves on the heels of deafening days of saturated silence.

“What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me,” responds Mephibosheth to the kindness of David.

Aren’t we all strays walking heart lame through the world wondering how we got here, where we’re going?

And He’s just around the corner, holding out his hand to take us to the Father. Drips of red on the sidewalk, they lead the way back home.

Do you feel forgotten? I’ve got good news. He will never let go.

Linking with Ann today and counting thanks for fall light and soft breezes. Time on a Saturday with H to meander around boats on shimmering shores.  For pansies and snapdragons and full bird feeders swinging low. And crisp morning air drifting through screens. Warm downy blankets and sweatshirts.

Linking also with Michelle and Laura.

This is #22 in the series 31 Days of Letting Go. You can read the collective here. If you are a writer, I invite you to link up any post you’ve written on the theme of letting go in the comments here on Friday. Subscribe to receive the series in your inbox or feed by adding your address in the side bar under Follow Redemptions Beauty.

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