When You Are Desperate For An Answer

January 28, 2013 by 30 Comments

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I brush my daughter’s arm with my hand while we’re sitting in church, our eyes meet and she knows what I’m saying without words. Stop playing with your hair, its distracting me from the sermon.

I’m hanging on to every word he says because I’m feeling desperate for a phrase, a word, a song, a paragraph, a comet to land and split the roof open. Anything to help me understand why I’m here. And just when I’m doing the self-talk, wondering if I should just let her be herself, braid her damp hair in church, the pastor says it.

God is silent in the bible more than He speaks. While He is silent, He is never still.

Journals stack full of conversations with Him on my desk. Whispers of hope and purpose and future all written down in black and blue. I’m re-reading them, quite a lot lately. Because when He speaks, it changes me.

But right now, it feels like I’m stuck among a five-lane pile-up during rush hour in Los Angeles. I’ve been sitting in the hot car so long; I forgot where I’m going. And He’s in one of his more familiar moods – not very talkative. It doesn’t mean He has nothing to say.

Then the pastor, he reminds me that God usually speaks when we least expect it.

Levi met Jesus in the line behind his desk spread out with ledgers, calculators and a moneybox. Instead of talking taxes, Jesus leans over, looks him in the eyes and says, “Follow Me.” And Levi, he did.  He folded up all his books in his brief case and left those people standing in line. (Luke 5:27)

God told Abraham to leave everything: the family home, all the ancestors parked on the lawn for a family cookout, the acres of land beyond them dotted cows and sheep. I can’t imagine that, but Abraham, he did it. (Genesis 12)

While Moses walks heavy with guilt about killing that Egyptian, God shows up in a burning bush and tells him to lead five million Israelites out of Egypt for forty years. And after Moses airs all his self-doubt, his reasons why he isn’t the guy for the job, he does it. (Exodus 3)

Because contact with God, it changes us, transforms us into the people we can’t imagine.

I know this isn’t exactly how each of these stories pans out, but my contemporary version, it helps wash away the despair and hopelessness that falls in the cracks sometimes and tries to grow there. I’m Moses with all the reasons why, desperate to see with binocular vision.

Following Jesus at a moment’s notice must’ve gone well for Levi. He threw Jesus a dinner party and included every sinner he knew on the guest list. And all those church people at the party? They had a fit about it. And Jesus’ response?

“Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting outsiders, not insiders—an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out.” Luke 5:31, MSG

I’m reciting the benediction in a whisper through the lump in my throat now.  He’s here in the room for me, an outsider with a broken heart.  And just like the silent exchange between my daughter and me over her hair twirling, we don’t need words to know He speaks.

Whenever he chooses to talk to me, I’m saying yes.

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A repost from July 2012.

Counting gifts with Ann today and linking with Michelle and Laura.thousand gifts

For the Surrendering Sabbath Society and the way we are encouraging each other to rest.

For long walks that help me see Him differently in the same places.

Crock pots and leftovers on Sunday.

The way I’m seeing a group of ladies learn how to dream and pray expectant.

Coffee dates with friends.

Confirmation of calling, over and over again.

A new website almost ready to launch. Yipee!

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When the Question You Fear Most Gets Answered

December 3, 2012 by 90 Comments

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I’ve often wondered how I would handle tragedy, trauma, life threatening circumstances if they blindsided me. Have you?

Would I curl up into a ball of darkness and seep into the wallpaper, or respond from the deep well of faith, finding joy and thankfulness amidst the struggle? And perhaps that is the question I’m asking myself. How deep is my faith, really?

Last night I screwed in one of those spiral light bulbs into my bedside lamp and it made me realize how much I take for granted. It was actually the first time I’d done it, used one of those. My husband takes good care of me, doing mundane things around the house like updating my phone, putting lamps on timers, and replacing light bulbs when they go out.

He’s out of town. It took me three days of twisting the nob on the lamp without result, to go to the closet and get a new bulb.

He was out of town the night my forehead stuck to the steering wheel while the flashing glow of emergency vehicles bounced off the windshield and the ambulance drove off with my daughter. Alone to handle many decisions in the midst of a nightmare every mother hopes she won’t have.

Breathing deeply, scrolling through my cerebral files looking for someone to call at 1:30am for help. In those moments, I heard God, like a father talks to his child:

You often feel like you need someone else to handle the hard stuff, the stuff that overwhelms you, that you don’t think you are capable of doing on your own. You think other people are more equipped than you. And I’m showing you right now, that you can do this. Because I’m with you and I’m enough.

I inhaled deep, exhaled the self-doubt and turned the key to start the engine. I chose to believe him. Because he’s never wrong.

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I stared at the fireman pushing bits of metal and plastic from the front end of my daughter’s car into the median with his broom, mustering up courage for the journey. This drive to the trauma center, I knew it was about more than just doing what any parent would do for their daughter in the wee hours of the morning under the canopy of trauma.

He was giving me opportunity to screw in the new light bulb on my faith in order to see myself more clearly.  Not just for this moment, but for the fulfillment of His future plans for me.

Sometimes we just have to say yes. Yes to pushing past fear, the unknowns, the what- if’s, the self-doubt and the inexperience.  Because uttering the holy yes illuminates the path to destiny, allows the train of His robe to fill the temple of who we are, and push our comfortable stranglehold on life right out of the way.

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When I walked into the quiet hospital room void of color, her body lying still and strapped motionless, I grew into my adult self. Unafraid of tripping on the oversize pant legs of my indecision.

Death costs nothing and life costs us everything. He revealed her value the night  He chose to spare her. And I’m a bit undone over the miracle of it all.

He shows you how valuable you are too. When He gave up everything for you.

When she walks across the room to hug me for the third time today, I notice she looks at me differently. The way I hoped she would when I held her for the first time.

We all seem to notice the new light bulbs shining from the bedside lamp of our soul. And I don’t worry about the way I’ll respond to what blindsides me anymore. I have Jesus with me. And He’s enough.

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Linking with Ann, thankful for the gift of life, the way it costs us everything, and the way He gave His life for mine. For that light bulb going out and the realization of how much of what my husband does for us is taken for granted.

With my friends Michelle, Laura, Jen, and Eileen.

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When You Let Go of the Right to Be Loved

October 15, 2012 by 29 Comments

It’s early morning on the island, when the light casts shadow on marsh grass and egrets stand stick footed, frozen in stillness. We walk side-by-side, father and daughter down the causeway before applying suntan lotion on sandy beach towels.

We’ve only done this once before, had this time together alone at the beach and I can tell by the pace he keeps, the smile on his face, there is joy to do this with me. We’ve never settled into being comfortable with this kind of being alone. Circumstances separate us when I am just three years old. How do you get to know your father in just one week over the summer?

I’ve never escaped the grief of what divorce does to a family. Maybe I never will.

As we talk about kids and work, his hobbies, thoughts about retirement, he says he probably should’ve never been a father, that he isn’t very good at it. And maybe for him, that was an apology of sorts for not being there for me in the way he could’ve been if things were different.

But when he said it, what I heard was this: You should have never been born because your presence makes me feel like a failure. And I opened my fist full of rights to be loved by a father that day and let those seeds blow into the wind and scatter on the sticky mud.  Because I don’t want to be a reminder of failure to anyone.

There are different types of failures. The first isn’t necessarily the sin-type of failure. Rather, this is when we fail to live up to some expectation we have of the way things ought to be  . . . .  the thing about this type of failure, whether real or perceived, is that it reminds me of my own limits and takes me to a place of recognizing I can’t make this life work the way I want, no matter how noble or worthy or good my intentions. ~Emily Freeman, Grace for the Good Girl

And being a daughter to a father that says he never should’ve been one, feels like pushing a broken down car on a hot day. It takes effort and time to get to the town of relationship and sometimes you just give up and walk away because the distance seems overwhelming.

That doesn’t mean your heart stops beating love in trying to make it work, you just let go of the expectation that it’s going to be something other than what it is.

It turns out Jesus, he stood there holding the key outstretched in his scarred hand the whole time. He walked on the road that day with my father and I. Stood in the place between my expectations and reality, the wounded, empty place that neither one of us can fill for each other.

The hard shell of entitlement to be loved by a parent, it cracked off me and washed away in the tide that drifted in to fill the empty places full. And just like that water coming in and going out, His love is steady and sure, isn’t limited or shifted by our failures or good intentions as a father and daughter.

The disparity between expectation and reality, it’s Jesus.

This is a repost, inspired by Emily P. Freeman’s book, Grace for the Good Girl, Chapter 16 entitled Safe Even in Failure.

Counting gifts with Ann and thankful for cool weather, a saved hard drive, candlelight, time to garden, the color and texture of Fall spread around the house, my husbands sermon, a day for all of us in Charleston, time with a book on my back porch, candy corn and cozy blankets.

Also linking with friends Michelle and Laura.

This is #15 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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Don’t Tell Me, Show Me

April 16, 2012 by 80 Comments

Grace is born in furrowed brow and wondering hearts and show me signs of love. In the holes in His feet and palms outstretched so I can see them with Thomas. Scars revealed on his side when he pulls up his shirt  and says, “Put your finger here,” so we might believe. (John 20:27)

He rises from the dead and I need signs like Thomas, to believe He loves me this way of grace. Because you can’t know grace when she seals silent in a jar under the mattress of childhood, when love depends on how good you were that day and moods change like a cool breeze on a sticky day.

Tell me you love me and I hear it. Show me you love me and I understand it. And I was told, until the grafting of illustrated grace happened the day I said I do. I’m still trying to receive it.

“I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.” Thomas and I, we say it together. (John 20:25)

I walk on shore of sandy beach under spring’s sunny canopy of surprise. Gritty toes around carnage of flattened jellyfish and wads of stringy lime seaweed, shells that sparkle golden, and birds scurrying stick footed along the lap of shallow roar.  Sitting down on splintered wood of time, I listen to the sea tell her story. Her crashing waves of life, a chorus of joy leaping high in frothy sea spray.

And I hear Him whisper, “I made this for you.”

It’s like someone told me I was walking around with my zipper undone, I can hardly look at the blue-green swells vacant of horizon. The foamy rolls of churning sea beat hard against rocks, push back into the deep and this endless beauty, it’s for me?

Thomas and I, we don’t need to put our finger in the hole in his side anymore. He shows us and we exclaim it together, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)

Because sometimes understanding grace doesn’t require repentance for our unbelief, or letting go of the guilt about needing signs, we just accept it. Receive it looking at the vastness of the seas and the holes in his hands, knowing He did it all for the love of you and me.

When my mind wearies from the wondering about fine lines, the silence of parents, voices of the future  and the wrecklessness of others, his voice is silent. He stands beside me pointing to the sea and I breathe deep from the wind of understanding.

What is He showing you about grace?

Counting gifts with Ann today, because really, they’re endless joy aren’t they?

for my girl who does the dishes, just because.

making a new recipe together that she picked out.

a quiet walk on the beach with the wind and a camera.

meet-ups after work with friends at the place that makes us feel like we’re in Europe.

a good book and a cup of tea on a quiet porch.

digging in soil, planting new flowers.

the way he smiles after spending time with friends.

words of friend that speak His grace so eloquently.

a few days closer to our trip to England/Scotland for the 22nd year of illustrated grace.

And this, oh my this: Just as I finish this post inspired by my husband’s sermon, I learn that the devotion my daughter read today for her mission’s team meeting, the title is Show, Don’t Tell. Goose bumps here.

Linking with Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday, Playdates with God, Miscellany Monday, Just Write, Soli Deo Gloria, On Your Heart Tuesday.

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What Do You Really Want?

February 20, 2012 by 55 Comments

His question startles me from daydreams over the patterned carpet in the sanctuary and  ducks waddling under heavy rain just outside the low window. I sit on the padded seats in the front row between my kids, when H asks the audience, “What do you really want?”

As if on cue, a rumble of thunder shakes the building in the pause. Rain sounds like sand dumping slow crescendo on roof.

He refers to the way Elijah asks Elisha, “Tell me what I can do for you,” before he leaves the earth in a fiery whirlwind. (II Kings 2:1-12)

I think about that question, glance over at my son. Our linked shoulders create a bridge between cerebral space and I assume to know what he wants. The video editing equipment he orders on Amazon two days ago, so he can create masterpieces.

As I caress the arm of my daughter, I remember the boards she creates on Pinterest last night, with clothes she wants for her sweet sixteen in just a few weeks.  Is this how they would answer his question?

Solomon answers wisdom and I want to rip out all the carpet in my house and enjoy wood floors, paint the family room and go to Europe yesterday. But when I think about what I really want, I remember a night decades ago.

How my heart beats like mallet on a bass drum, shaking the bed where I lay in rhythm of metronome. I am just twelve years old, tucked under blankets alone in a house deep in the wooded pitch of night, when I hear the intruder break in to the basement. Hear footsteps squeak on the cold, clammy dungeon of cement, creak up each wooden step, turn the rusty knob to open latched door.

It was then that I realized what I want. It changed my view of want forever. When I called out to God to rescue me, protect me from the evil lurking just steps away from my bedroom.

I want to know the presence of God. Know that He loves me, stands at the foot of shaking bed to hear my cries for help, watch protective over me, rejoice when I sigh relief, shed tears in sorrow of loneliness.

I want to know the presence of God more than I want things, control, or status.

And maybe it takes a brush with terror, the heartbreak of loss, the emptiness of poverty for the heart to understand that what we want lies behind the eyes of the one who sees us true.

When Elisha answers Elijah’s question – what do you want – he replies, “Let me inherit a double share of your spirit and become your successor.” Maybe this seems a bit greedy to you, wanting to have twice as much as the one who speaks rain into existence and fire to fall from heaven.

But really, when he requests a double portion, he refers to the inheritance of the first-born child who rightfully receives more than the others do. In essence, Elisha asks to be Elijah’s rightful heir to the mantel of prophecy. Not because of all the signs and wonders he will proclaim, but because he hopes, it is what God wants.

At the depths of the soul wanting, do we want what God wants? To be an authentic heir, to belong, to have our name carved into the bloodline of the mystery. Want this more than anything else?

We stand among the crowd holding umbrellas and jackets above their heads, ready to brave the sheets of wet that fall from the sky. Ask the kids if they want to go out for breakfast and they shrug their shoulders, grey clouds casting ambivalence.

Later, as we sit over plates painted yellow egg and caramel sticky, we laugh about not being hungry when we stood on the cold tile of indecision and I don’t think I’m hungry, just minutes before.

Maybe the question isn’t, what do I want; rather, what do you want, God.

Can you trust Him when He answers?

As we continue the Joy Dare with Ann, thanking him for three things a day, 1000 in 2012, will you kindly share a bit of gratitude in the comments today. Let’s link hands through cyberspace to celebrate His goodness as we approach the season of Lent.

  • The way my kids order coffee at breakfast and widen the eyes of the waitress.
  • How my son eats his waffle, her sausage and half of my crab benedict after he said he wouldn’t order anything because he isn’t hungry.
  • The list of food items my kids say they just won’t order off a menu anymore because the way I cook them is always so much better.
  • A dim room and all of us under blanketed couches and chairs to watch Downton Abbey.
  • Today, a day off for all of us.

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Because There is a Cost to Fulfillment

January 30, 2012 by 42 Comments

My husband and I listen as the newlyweds lay out their plans for the future. How they want to be in ministry, have children, attend higher schools of learning. A three-year plan for blissful happiness detailing the month and year when each of their children will enter the world.

And though the breathe of our experience as a couple fell under ten years at the time of that coffee conversation, I couldn’t help but chuckle on the inside. Because following Christ and finding fulfillment isn’t really about our well- laid plans written in our daily planner. 

In my experience, it has been just the opposite.

It starts with a niggle. The town crier ringing the bell of my heart, declaring change is coming. Prepare! Then he reveals hints to the plot and the mystery, spoken in the romance of detail, turning each page that is my story. The unfolding love story between my Savior and me.  A story that grows in the soil of intimate conversation, cultivates a readiness to change.

And this kind of love, it opens the heart wide to accept the cost. The cost to follow Jesus. Because there is a cost, you know?

Jesus spells it out on the journey to Jerusalem (Luke 9:57-62), walking through hostile Samaria where his reputation isn’t exactly one of a rock star.  When he encounters a man that declares, I will follow you wherever you go, Jesus sheds light on what that entails.

He lets him know they won’t sleep in five-star hotels, eat eggs benedict for breakfast, or be welcomed by strangers. In fact, they may not sleep in a bed at all.

We never hear of that man again.

Meanwhile, when Jesus asks another to follow Him along the road, the man agrees  . . . with conditions.

That man? We never hear of him again either.

Then a third stranger along the road declares his allegiance to follow, right after he checks off his to-do list.  The grocery lists, house cleaning, meal preparation, volunteer commitments.

Jesus keeps walking, no looking back. He leaves those guys with good intentions in the dust he kicks up from the sandals on his feet. Let’s them attend to their agendas and routines, while He continues to make imprints along the dusty road to destiny, thinking about what He will do for us all along the way.

And when I think about how I justify my own spiritual journey, the way I spend my time,  I learn that the word justify means to show oneself righteous as he wishes to be and I feel naked. Like I want to crawl under a table and hide or lay prostrate asking Him to forgive me.

The faces of those strangers Jesus met on the road, they look like mine.

Jesus holds the map to our journey, knows the best way to get there. Highlights the road, the best places to stay, decides how long we stay in each place, who he wants us to meet,  and what we will do while we stay there.

And when the trip is a success, we see fruit in relationships, find our place in community, feel the joy of transformation, receive favor among the noble voices, He reminds us of who we are. That fulfillment in life doesn’t come from what we do – our place in society, the well-checked list, the neighborhood garden of hospitality that feeds longing souls – it lies simply in who we are in Christ.

The best laid plans to reach fulfillment? They’re in the whisper of His voice leading from the map in His hands, with the giant heading at the top: Follow Me!  

What keeps you from following Him?

Today’s post inspired by the book Tell it Slant by Eugene Peterson and cultivated by teaching and conversation among a small group of women seeking to follow Jesus.

Counting gifts with Ann, won’t you join me by leaving a celebration of thanks today in the comment box?

  • This warm weather, that makes the heart sing like spring.
  • Blooms early on the Lenten rose, a promise of renewal after winter’s chill.
  • Early morning sun illuminating foliage.
  • Words of transformation and comfort in the comment box like a whisper from God, yes, you did hear me when you wrote that.
  • The promise of an anniversary trip to England.
  • Satisying dinner and hearty conversation with H, time out for just the two of us.
  • Chatty conversations and laughter with my girl.
  • Divine appointments, yes they’re the best.

Linking with Jen and Shanda on Tuesday! 

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Because If You Don’t Say it, Who Will?

January 16, 2012 by 36 Comments

My eyes widen when I see her name in my inbox. Laura, a childhood friend I haven’t heard from in days adding up to years now.  A couple of moves across state lines, the absence of Christmas cards years consecutive, busy lives creating a passage of silence between us.

As I read her words, the same sweetness we knew as teenage friends sitting cross- legged on the shag carpet of her bedroom remains steady today. She apologizes for the time lapse in conversation, offers updates on some news from our hometown. The place we share, but see through different lenses.

And when she tells me her Dad lives with pancreatic cancer a year now. That he handles the illness with grace, how he is weak but in good spirits, I recall this Knight in Shining Armor. The way he rescued me that day when I stood all of fifteen. And I think with a smile, that he wouldn’t tackle this challenge any other way.

I ask her for his address because I need to tell him. Send him a card to remind him how he saved my life  while time remains generous.

Because if we don’t tell people how God used them to impact our lives, how will they know?

I knew him as Harry Eaton, the undertaker, my best friend’s Dad, the one who takes me to school so I don’t have to ride the bus. The man who arrives in a pick-up wearing jeans one day to move me into his house so I won’t be in danger anymore.

Because when your mother decides to move to another state, leaves you in the care of strangers who aren’t who they seem, God answers worried, heart pounding prayers of the night in the form of your best friend’s Dad. To rescue, provide a way of escape from the evil.

Harry, he wears kindness and loyalty like a necklace.  His footprints of favor and reputation etch deep in the soil where he treads.  Proverbs 3:3

He moves my furniture into their spare bedroom and three months later, I board a Greyhound bus to Tulsa. Move away to live with an aunt and leave that white, 1970’s bedroom furniture behind.

Twenty-two years later, before our high school reunion, I tour Laura’s house in Kansas, meet her kids. When we enter the bedroom of her twin girls, she asks me if I notice anything familiar and when I look around, there it is. My white bedroom furniture holding the memories of a time and place long forgotten .  

And while time remains open-handed to Harry, I just want him to know that the way he wears kindness, well, it’s beautiful. It changes lives.

It changed mine.

Has someone made an impact on you? Have you told them lately? Send a card, it just might change someone’s life.

Linking with Ann today to count thanks. Add yours in the comment box here or on Facebook if you are joining us to count to 1000 this year.

  • For the dark times, because they reveal grace.
  • Kindness beyond obligation from the heart of a parent toward a child that isn’t their own.
  • Longevity in friendships, the ones God created to remain deep, grow wide, even in absence.
  • For the privilege of praying for many people in Houston last week, even on an elevator.
  • Laughter late into the night in a hotel conference room with old and new friends.
  • Worship that makes you feel like you are sitting at His feet seeing the glory.
  • Safe flights.
  • Sleep in my own bed.
  • “I can’t wait to hug you” kind of hugs from kids at the door after a long day of travel.

 Linking with Shanda and Jen on Tuesday!

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