As Simple as it Gets

I can't embellish or add anything flowery to this morning's understanding and post. I was so crushed yesterday, and I recognize my deepest grief is the contradiction between what I know and read of God from the Word and what I see in my circumstances - which is nothing of God's promises at all for over 18 months. A grand and hideous silence and contradiction. This morning it even hurt too much to let God's word in and listen to any of my favorite Bible teachers. That contradiction slapped in my face again was more than I could bear.

"When your words came to me, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty. . . . Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? Will you be to me like a deceptive (intermittent) brook, like a spring that fails?" (Jeremiah 15:16, 18)

So, the question to me on my morning dog walk was simply which side of this razor's edge I'm going to fall on. Do I believe my circumstances reveal the character of God, or do I believe somehow, against all the grief within me, that God's character gives meaning to my circumstances? Oh, believe me, I want with every fiber of my being for God to change my circumstances, BUT . . .

I love, I hope, I'm crushed - I rise in love, I hope, I'm crushed - I crawl back up to my feet in love . . . . Death would be easier than this life. BUT . . . it all comes down to the cross, that cross from which some days I hear a mocking laugh. Real, raw honesty here today, friends, but I don't doubt for a minute that there is someone who will read this and identify exactly with my feelings. Keep reading!

It all comes down to the cross. For love, Jesus emptied himself of all his majesty and rights as Deity and took our betrayal and rejection of him, even my imploring questions now. He loved, he hoped, he was crushed, he rose up in love. What could it have meant to Jesus to be stripped - willingly, but stripped nonetheless - from all that incomprehensible union with pure joy and love and oneness? Whatever it meant, it meant winning me.

No, I'm not at all equating myself and my suffering with Jesus. It's just that now I begin to understand the ferocious depth of his love for me. He IS love. I don't BEGIN to grasp how much, but I desperately want to soak myself in him.

Sorry - words water down the impact of this truth.

Aaugh . . . as much as this still - hurts isn't strong enough a word - grinds me to dust emotionally, I will not let my circumstances and the horrifying choices someone else is making inform me about the nature and love of my Jesus. Whatever meaning comes out of this in the end, it will be the meaning LOVE incarnate gives to me.

BUT "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose . . . . If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also graciously give us all things? . . . For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8: 28, 31, 38-39)

God of My Steps and Missteps

(entering the cave before descending to Mooney Falls, Havasu Canyon)

“Who would have thought,” I mused, “that parking at the wrong end of the mall would turn out to be so much fun?” What a morning of mistakes and missteps! They started when I read the wrong appointment card for my hand surgeon and missed a day of work, cutting our dogs’ walk short by 20 minutes so I could fly out the door, leap into the car, and speed to what I thought was a 9:00 am appointment. The puzzled look in the receptionist’s eyes morphed into a bemused grin of “Oh, this poor confused old lady” as she sadly informed me that my appointment wasn’t until four that afternoon. Wrinkles from too many hiking trips move younger people to see senility instead of a love for the outdoors in my appearance!

“Oh, crumb!” I chided myself. “I must have read the ‘4’ I wrote as a ‘9’!” Quickly shrugging off the $72 I had just lost in missed pay, I opted to make the best of the situation and save gas by popping over to the quick-fix jeweler in the nearby mall to get two bent prongs on my engagement ring repaired.

June in Arizona marks the beginning of the season when one is willing to walk from the farthest spot in the parking lot as long as it’s under a tree or even a healthy bush offering a spotty patch of shade, so I rejoiced in finding a parking space not only close to a mall entrance, but also beneath a leafy canopy of shade. Imagine my consternation to discover that the store whose entrance I parked near didn’t open for another hour! Grumbling at misstep number 2, I tramped back to my car and drove around to the northeast side of the mall, where surely the generic mall entrance MUST be open at 9:00 a.m. And true enough, it was.

Misjudgment number 3: the jewelry repair shop was in the northwest corner of the mall, so I had to walk the entire length of the mall!

“I needed the exercise anyway,” I philosophized, still leaning into optimism – or at least leaning away from mounting frustration. That meant I had to hike the length of the mall again at 10:00 when my ring was fixed, running the gauntlet of the now-open kiosks that flanked the food court.

“Have you heard of Dead Sea Minerals?” a young man called as I attempted to zip by.

“Yes- are you Ahava?” I shot back breezily, hoping to brush him off.

“No, we aren’t . . . ," he replied.

“Oh, what the heck?” I thought, “I might as well get the nails on one hand buffed.” That’s fully what, and all, I expected to happen. Twenty minutes later, though, I wonderingly waved good-bye to Avi and Elan after chatting with them a bit, sharing what I recently learned of the meaning of the Hebrew letters Yud, Heh, Vav, Heh (the hand of grace nailed in grace), Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our transgressions . . . ,” and praying for the success of their little stand and for peace in Israel.

Elan was genuinely touched that I would pray for them. Yes, I walked away with a nail care kit, too, but I walked away with an awed joy that Jesus continues to use me, even in my brokenness, to touch other people’s lives with his love. After the person you’ve trusted the most tells you that you are worthless, hearing from Jesus that you are precious enough for him to speak through absolutely rains down worth, dignity, value and a joy that sets your heart dancing!

Oh, those blessed missteps that led me to a God encounter! Abba, can I dare to believe that even this trek through a valley of shadows deeper than death is, in fact, a pilgrimage under light I simply can’t see – a journey to a victory more beautiful than I can imagine?

Some days - days of mistakes and missteps – my heart dares to trust this is, in fact, the truth I can hang my heart on!

Ruth's Blessing

(The photos are my Grandma Miner, aka Ruth, with two of her five daughters, Helen and Bonnie, and Ruth and Bram with 24 of their grandchildren circa 1965. This post references last summer's post The Beauty of the Opal, but this take on that experience is a further revelation to me, to be followed by yet one more! I pray this blesses all the Grandmas in the blogosphere!)

Rose Jackson © 5/20/2010

Here it comes again!

“Hi, Ruth . . . er- I mean Rose.”

“I want to introduce you to Ru . . . er– Rose.”

“Nice to meet you, Ruth . . . oops, Rose.”

I hear it from friends and from strangers: people consistently call me Ruth instead of Rose. I understand the mistake from women at our church - our director of ministry to women is named Ruth – but from total strangers? It used to frustrate me. Didn’t I speak clearly enough? Were others just not paying attention when they met me? I couldn’t fault casual acquaintances too much. I have enough trouble of my own remembering the names of people I’ve just met unless I say their name over and over in our first conversation, but this was happening so often that I started wondering what the problem was!

My internal dialogue went something like this: “Granted, my grandmother’s name was Ruth.”

“No one on this end of the continent knows that, though.”

“Grandma died 25 years ago, and now that I’m a grandmother myself, surely no one who knew her knows me.”

“No one outside of my family, anyway. So what’s the deal? Why is this happening so frequently that it’s almost laughable?”

Then last year life plunged me into the darkest days I’ve ever known. Knowing this, my friend Charity gently touched my hand one morning and said, “I want to take you on a journey through ‘The Father’s House’. It’s a spiritual journey into God’s heart, looking for Jesus there. A friend of mine took me through this when my marriage was in trouble, and I found such a breakthrough for my own heart. Let me know when you’re ready.” Tears glistening in Charity’s eyes told me she was speaking from the reality of a powerful encounter with God in her own life. Searching for light, hope, and meaning from the tragedy threatened to overwhelm all my identity, I eagerly took up her offer.

Two weeks later I sat beside Charity and her mother Sharon, one of my best friends. “Please, God, I don’t want to conjure this out of my own imagination,” I silently cried, trying to remain aloof from the influence of my own presuppositions. Sharon and I voiced what we were envisioning; she described a beautiful mansion in vivid detail. I was having some trouble, my analytical brain questioning whether what I was sensing was me or God. Sharon’s words were awash in love and amazement as she narrated her journey across marble floors through gilded rooms.

All I sensed was a deep desire to go “out back,” and in a flicker of faint remembrance (in my imagination surrendered to the Holy Spirit) I caught the musty but somehow secure odor of an ancient porch. My hand felt worn wood as I pushed open a shabby screen door and was enveloped in the pungent sweetness of my Grandmother’s apple tree. I hadn’t smelled that in over forty-three years! As Sharon envisioned glorious flowers ablaze in color and a river filled with sparkling gems, I sat on the smooth board swing beneath green apples and leaves that cast dappled spots of shadow and light, and felt someone pushing me. Could I dare to believe this was Jesus? Was that his laugh I “heard” as I sensed someone pushing me high, running under the swing? So natural, so common, so ordinary . . . so wonderful!

Then I sensed Jesus beside me as I sat in the grass edging Grandma Ruth’s garden. The whole town agreed she could plant a stick and get a gladiola! Fragrant lilac, fresh dill and mustard scents and rich, warm earth mingled with the redolence of green growing things. A thought flashed into my mind, “Jesus – am I getting this right? You liked cucumbers?” I couldn’t suppress a chuckle. Grandma Ruth made the best bread and butter pickles in town, if not in all of Indiana. I heard the breathy, soft “squeaky toy” giggle of my Grandma. What simple joy and pure, rich faith she had, and how much love for all of her 35 grandkids! I can still hear her gentle, low voice calling me “Rosie.”

“Oh Lord!” A sudden flash of realization swept over me. “When I’m called Ruth, it’s Grandma’s blessing coming down to me!”

I marveled at my heart so drawn to hers across six decades, even though I saw Grandma only five more times after we moved across the country when I was six! Such is the enduring power of a grandmother’s love: a legacy of blessing, belonging, and delight, all of who she was, so treasured even by God that he used my Grandma’s laugh and garden sixty years later to touch my heart when it was breaking.

Can I be that for my grandchildren? Oh, I hope so! The two I have, now three and six years old, live literally on the other side of the world. I visited them for one month three years ago and one month this year, and had the exquisite joy of them home for ten months two years ago, but it will be another three years before they can come home again. Till then I treasure Friday night voice-over-Internet games of Battleship with my grandson Evan and chuckle as my granddaughter Elsa wonders how I can read the picture book in her lap over the computer (we both two copies of several books).

I treasure and I worry: will they feel how very much I love them? Will they recall our carousel rides here and elephant rides over there? Will they remember making grape and cheese-triangle sailboats on the trays of their highchairs here, and making homemade tortillas (with the five-pound bag of corn flour I carried in my suitcase) together over there? Is that moment I so clearly remember with Evan - holding him cheek-to-cheek on his first birthday as he growled his new word “Wow” and I growled right back – safely secured in his memory for the day he’ll need to know he’s amazing and “wow”? Will they know who I am? Will that matter? Will I make a difference for them?

And then I remember Grandma Ruth, an ordinary, uncelebrated woman, her life and self still so much a part of the fiber of mine even after I moved away. The sweet, green and growing aroma of Grandma Ruth wafts into my heart whenever anyone “mistakenly” calls me by her name. Now I know it’s no mistake; it’s her blessing!

Will Elsa ever be mistakenly called Rose? I doubt it; Evan certainly won’t! But I pray who I am and how I love will be a lingering aroma in their lives that takes them by surprise some day to a remembered place of delight, security, and joy – a place like my grandmother’s garden, accessed through that old screen door of the ordinary times we’ve spent together. I hope their days will be graced with joy, not sorrow, but if they find themselves in a “dark night of the soul,” I hope my prayers today will draw their hearts to a place where Jesus meets them with his healing love.

For all of us Grandmas, Grannys, Grams, Nanas, Mimis, or whoever we are called, Ruth’s blessing is the truth that, no matter how small our grandchildren are, where they live, or how infrequently we may see them, the fragrance of who we are will leave a legacy of blessing that transcends distance, circumstance, and decades.

So blessed!

Not my usual post, but another note from Thailand. I wish I'd brought my cable to connect my camera so you could see here a photo of my left foot with about 35 hungry fish nibbling the dry skin! That is one experience to take off my bucket list! Believe it or not, the one who coaxed me into this weirdness is the doctor for the Austin team here to do childcare!! Ignoring all academic questions about the cleanliness of fish mouths, not to mention the water they were swimming in in the front window of "Jimmy's Travel and Fish Spa", Doctor Debbie asked, "Please, will you do it if I pay for it?" That was right before she screamed and squealed as the first voracious and overly enthusiastic fish targeted her instep . . . . .

All lunacy aside, I am even more smitten by these kids and their families than I was two years ago. Wow, when I hear the stories of what "normal" life is like for them, I am so humbled and privileged to be sharing these past ten days with true saints. The passion of living out their calling! The real-life stresses, weaknesses, and challenges we all face, amplified times ten in a foreign culture. We have our own little "Model UN" just in our class of 5 and 6-year-olds, with my grandson translating our English (and Texan to boot) instructions into Chinese so "Sam" can translate them into Korean for "Anna," and the Swedish nanny translating into Finnish for her two small charges. Thank you, thank you, all of you who helped me come! You are blessing so many families here.

Our card-making workshop last Saturday was a huge success - whole families came.The Finnish mom was so thrilled to have the first girl time" she'd had with her daughter in many, many months, the Koreans were grateful to get to make get-well cards for folks in their churches back home, and many a hubby was glad to have a last-minute opportunity to make a Valentine card for his wife. No greeting cards in China! Can you imagine how much such a simple thing means? Hands and fingers hungrily flew in a burst of creativity and fun, and you should have heard the happy chatter! Thanks again friends for creating a memorable blessing.

There will be many tears tomorrow when everyone leaves for parts north and far away, and the Texas team heads home. Hey, they want me to come back in the fall to speak at a women's retreat - and boy, will I love that as God provides. And any of you teachers or administrators looking for a job working with amazing people and helping a wonderful cause, they need lots (like 36!!!!) of both in the SIL EAG!