Backfire!

Rose Jackson © 9/1/2009

(A family tradition is to write our names in sparkler. No name in this one, but maybe that's because it was meant for you, and your name is hidden in the fire!)

How to get this implosion of understanding onto paper in all of the power with which it came upon me this morning? No beautifully crafted words this morning. No, the imperative of this sudden insight compel me to get it down and out to you who hear the flames crackling and cringe from the heat pressing against you.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Isaiah 43:1-3

Walking through this fiery trial, I am not burned up. In fact, more and more I am enveloped in times of glorious joy and confidence, love and power, as I was this morning out walking the dogs. How can this be, except that God, the Holy Spirit, dunamis, (dynamite!) sets a backfire by his presence and power within me that sweeps over and burns out the blaze the enemy has set in my life and marriage? “Oh, my gosh!” I exclaimed with sudden recognition within myself. “This is exactly what firefighters do to put out brush fires and forest fires: extinguish them by removing their fuel, fighting fire with fire!”

Like the burning bush that was not consumed – I suspect like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walking around in the fiery furnace with and surrounded by the holy, protecting fire of the fourth figure (Jesus himself?!) who looked “like a son of the gods” - I can feel the ring of the Spirit’s holy fire around me, protecting me from the ravenous flames of Satan. My enemy’s plans for me and my husband will backfire because of the BACKFIRE of the Spirit of God surrounding his throne, where I stand!

“For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” (Deut. 4:24)

“. . . and among the lampstands was someone ‘like a son of man,’ dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.” (Rev. 1:12-15)

How many stories have I heard of missionaries whose lives were preserved by cordons of flaming beings or rings of fire, visible to their enemies? Flames and fire are not metaphors for God; he is that fire, and somehow a fire that preserves his beloved while it destroys his enemies! A backfire of jealous love!

He, the unquenchable holy fire, fills his children! “Come be the fire inside of me; come be the flame upon my heart.” From the song “You Won’t Relent,” sung by Kim Walker and Chris Quilala. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLNlnf80nXo

“But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.“ Matthew 3:11

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit . . . . “ Acts 2:2-3

No wonder I can stand more and more often in rapturous joy, tears streaming down my face in absolute delight! Now wonder I dance in the face of betrayal and hopelessness. I am surrounded by hope that protects and preserves my heart!

Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here! So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. Daniel 3: 26-27

. . . And when this is over, I won’t be consumed. You won’t either, dear one! The enemy's plans against us are bound to backfire! There won’t be so much as the hint of a s’more-making campfire upon us! On the contrary, we will pour out the fragrance of our beloved, our God and Savior Jesus!

Conformity? Really? Really!

Rose Jackson © 8/27/2009

(caveat: I am not suggesting anyone endure physical or emotional abuse. Be safe and get help, please!)

The photo is the front door of the little house with the screen door out back; these front steps are filled with love.

Love that keeps on coming. Love that gets slapped down and gets up again to keep loving. Love that refuses to quit.

I used to read the verse, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18) and other verses like it (1 Cor. 15:49, Romans 8:29) that talk about being like Christ, and I’d think, “Oh, yes, God, that’s what I want to be!”

Did I? Did I want to be the one who’s betrayed and comes back, bleeding, but loving still? Did I really want to be the one who endures accusations, condemnation and lies, and looks beyond the sin to see the wounding of the sinner and to forgive? Is that what I really wanted? I never looked that deeply into what it cost God to bring us to him, because that’s the reality of being like Jesus: love that never turns away, never gives up! Love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (I Cor. 13: 7)

In frustration I often cry out, “God, why don’t you . . . why aren't you . . . .?” My real question - as Philip Yancey writes in his book "Disappointment with God" - should be, “God, why do you bother to . . . . What is it that drives you to love me still in the face of my anger, my accusations, my condemnation, my apathy, my lies about your motives and your heart? Why don't you give up on me?”

My real question should be why Jesus had to die to prove God’s love for us. Yes, I know Jesus' blood atones for us. But God isn't bloodthirsty., so why did it require that? I wonder – is it in part because our sixth love language (beyond affirming words, loving touch, giving gifts, acts of service, and quality time) , the bottom line we humans all understand, the one we all hold out for and perhaps even demand as proof of love, is blood: sacrificing your own life for mine? That we understand - maybe, until some circumstance or event that doesn't go according to our plans causes us to question God's heart. I'm not condemning you, my readers; I've done that myself, and I know it comes out of pain and confusion.

Even after Jesus shed his own blood and God sacrificed his beloved Son, we don’t believe God loves us! Is it that perhaps some stubborn, self-preserving pride drives us to deny such love?

“No, my circumstances tell me . . . . " "But I don’t feel your love, God . . . ." Perversely somehow we'd rather think we're right that God doesn't love us than come to him in humbled recognition that there’s no reason on earth that God should love us – no reason besides WHO GOD IS himself: completely LOVE!

"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19
"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." 1 John 3:16

I can hardly read the computer screen through the tears flooding from my recognition of the extravagant, unjustified, unrelenting love of God. My tears come, too, from the knowledge that I had to endure betrayal – and that I had to recognize the lies I had held onto, also, that kept me from loving unrelentingly – to finally get it in my gut that God IS love, nothing but love, purely and unceasingly love.

This conforming business hurts – but rather than resent God for the pain, I see and now hunger to press in to the truth that Jesus bore, and bears joyfully, even deeper pain to love me. In the scariest valley of my life, I am rejoicing and reveling like a glutton in the passionate, unrelenting love God has for me - so I can get up and love again, and again, and again.

Why won’t you come through the screen door into arms waiting to embrace you? What circumstances in your life are big enough to outweigh the relentless, extravagant love of God in Jesus? What are you holding out for?

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Why won’t you love with his love? Who won’t you love with his love?

A “ . . . but . . . “ to pray: God, ABBA Father, Daddy, maybe not in my mind, but in my heart I have denied your love for me over and over again, BUT who are you, what kind of love can this be that loves in the face of pain, again and again and again? I want that love for me and in me. Maybe I’m still too scared to truly want it through me, BUT because you love me, I am willing to love this one who keeps denying and rejecting my love. Hold my hand and hold my heart as I keep loving, and please give me joy along the way so I can persist and pursue and bear your likeness in me.

Your own “. . . but . . .” to pay: Father God, Jesus, lover of my soul, I have denied your love for me because _________________________________ BUT I lay that down in the face of your relentless love, and I say to you now _____________________. I've been hurt so badly that I don't want to keep loving ________________, BUT ___________________.

Lost and Found

Oooh, bad family photo of us all from about 1968, with my Dad and his sister Francine in center.

You may have noticed my posts are distinctly lacking in the “God is in the flowers and rainbows” flavor. In fact, more of my posts are about trials I face or disappointments in myself. This no doubt comes from the fact that, while I am every bit female, I‘ve never been a “girly” girl. I look like death warmed over in pink, I simply look silly in ruffles, and though I love jewelry, the beautiful blingy cocktail rings my sweet friend Patty has given me are a glaring contradiction on my thin, veiny hands. And frankly, my life has been so challenge-filled since 1995 that I find little comfort in stress-busting devotionals that advise me to take a bubble bath or have my nails done. God IS in the flowers and rainbows, and probably in bubbles, too, but I need a God who is there to be found IN my pain, loss, anxiety, disappointments, grief, and frustrations. If He isn’t to be encountered and experienced there, then what hope do any of us have?

After I take the bubble bath and have my nails done, what has changed? Have those admittedly fun exercises changed my circumstances? If they haven’t changed my situation, have they changed me? No. And while I love bubble baths, I need something more substantial in my life. The most effective stress-buster to me is seeing God’s hand moving to transform me in the middle of the messes my life seems to step into again and again like the ubiquitous gum on a summer day in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

I long to dance in the rain - not because I’m a pessimist, but because I know rain will come. I need a God who isn’t afraid to get wet, who can transcend, transfigure, translate and transform, as the lyrics in John Mark McMillan’s moving, anointed song, “How He Loves” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chx6s3qXKt4&feature=related powerfully declare: “When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.” I need a God of grit and guts and glory. That’s who I’m encountering in this deepest trial of my life – a God of incredible, deep compassion and love – and that’s who I pray you find within these thoughts and discoveries of mine.

This post is about my father, but Bill and Susan Miller, this one is for you. I love you!

Rose Jackson ©7/24/2009

“Uuuuhhhh . . . uuuhh . . . .” Dad’s mouth opened as he tried to speak. His eyes still held that “deer in the headlights” look of incomprehension so typical of Alzheimer’s patients, but I caught a spark of – what – hope? Thanks? Love? Mom, Bonnie and I were gathered around him holding his hand, once so strong and steady as he guided wood through the saw blade, but now so forceless and weak, and touching his now thin shoulders. We’d come to say good-bye.

Dad had developed pneumonia and seemed to recover from that, but now he had stopped eating. This Monday morning, the day before Dad’s 75th birthday, a nurse in the Alzheimer’s unit of the nursing home had called my Mom to tell her to come quickly, as this might be Dad’s last day. I’d thrown the car into gear and flown to Mom’s house to pick her up and quickly dash up to the home. “Oh, Rosie!” was all she could get out through her sobbing. The past five years of grieving as we watched Dad steadily decline still hadn’t prepared our hearts for this day.

Surprisingly, when Mom and I arrived, Dad actually looked pretty good. He was sitting up in a chair looking apparently healthy and pretty much like he usually did. Mom and I chatted to him while the nurses worked around us. “To him” was all we could do, because Dad hadn’t been able to speak for the past two years; in fact, he hadn’t even uttered so much as a syllable on the many Sundays when my husband, our ten-year-old son and I stopped in to see him after church. Ethan had never really known Grandpa when he was well, this man who made wagons and pedal fire trucks and doll houses and so many treasures for his grandchildren before dementia robbed him of his considerable talents.

But he was still Grandpa, still my Dad, and I thought back to treasured evenings in our back yard sitting on his telescope mount as he twirled me around the stars, or standing beside him in the garage redolent with the fragrance of newly sawn pine as he showed me how to drive a nail and drill a hole in a scrap of lumber. He was still the man I loved and respected, somewhere inside there. I dared to believe that, fought to hope it was true. Mom and I stepped aside to let the nurse take Dad’s vitals. The door opened and my sister Bonnie walked into the room. The nurse gave a slight gasp as my Dad’s vital signs shot up. Bonnie hadn’t seen Dad in two years, not since he moved from his home into this skilled nursing facility. She did live quite a distance away, but it was just too painful for her to see Dad in his continually deteriorating condition. I understood completely. Bonnie had always been there for Dad and Mom over the years, and she still helped Mom every way she could.

Dad hadn’t seen her in two years, yet something in him rose up in recognition of a face he loved, and rose up so powerfully that his heart rate and respiration increased immediately!

“Should we pray with him? Should we tell him . . .?” I honestly don’t remember now which one of us voiced what we all were thinking: should we give Dad permission to go home to Jesus? Should we give him our blessing and love? Wordlessly we all agreed, gathered around Dad, and began to pray. “Thank you so much, Father, for our father, for his love, for the faith he shared so freely . . . . “

Then we said it, every eye awash in tears that flowed to the nurses in the room, too. “Dad, if you’re ready to go, we give you our blessing to go home to Heaven.” That’s when it happened: Dad tried to speak! He looked directly into our faces and said, “Uuuhhh . . . uuuhhhhhh.” Those might have been babbled syllables to anyone else, but to the tree of us, they were the voice of a beloved husband and father, struck dumb by a disease advancing brain cell by brain cell for five years, but the man still alive and vital inside, somewhere, somehow!

One by one we bent down and kissed him, hugged him, squeezed his feeble hand, and left, fairly confident that his healthy appearance meant this might be a false alarm. Two days later he died, sweetly and quietly and I believe liberated to leave the prison of his disease and go meet his fellow carpenter.

Some people might understandable dismiss this as coincidence to which we attributed too much significance. I might, too, had it not been for a comment from one of the nurses after Dad died, and the same scene repeated exactly four weeks later over the bed of Dad’s sister, my Aunt Cine. Francine developed Alzheimer’s two years before Dad exhibited signs of the disease. She had been bedridden, fallen away to 80 pounds, unable to walk or speak, at death’s door for over a year. Mom and I went to see her on her birthday. We took her some balloons.

“Should we tell her?” Mom asked, and I agreed. “Should we tell her that her brother died?”

“Yes,” I concurred without hesitation.

Cine was in much worse shape than Dad had been, but the day Dad died, one of the nurses on Dad’s floor at his nursing home had said to me, ‘Your father was such a sweet, wonderful man. We enjoyed him so much.” How had she known that? How can you know that about someone who can’t communicate . . . unless Dad’s spirit had been able to break out of his silence and communicate somehow, quite apart from words?

So my mother and I bent down on either side of Dad’s sister, took her hands, and I softly said, “Aunt Cine, we want you to know your brother has gone on ahead of you. He’s waiting for you with Jesus. If you’re ready to go, we give you our permission and blessing to go home.”

“Uuuhhh . . . . uuuhhhh.” Her face turned up to mine, her wild yet shallow eyes looking directly into mine, and I knew she was there. She saw me. We kissed her and went home. So did Cine, the very next day.

I never gave much credence to the notion that sometimes people need permission from their loved ones to leave. I always thought your body had the deciding voice in when you die. Now I’m certain that is not always the case.

Two intelligent, resourceful, achieving, loving people, struck down by a disease so heinous and hideous that it strikes terror in the hearts of most people. Any way but that one! What could possible be the sliver lining in my father’s and my aunt’s deaths? Simply and profoundly this: no matter what disease does to our bodies or our brains, God’s Spirit never leaves our spirit. We remain, whole, intact, filled with all the life and love we’ve known and given away, whether the outside world can access it or not. And is that a meager comfort in the face of such deep loss and pain? No, even though my sister, brother and I know we live in the shadow of DNA that may spell the same end for us, especially now that our mother has vascular dementia from numerous small strokes. It is somehow a great comfort and source of hope.

Yes, I pray researchers will home in quickly on what causes and what can cure and prevent Alzheimer’s, BUT while I wait, I rest in the knowledge that who I truly am, who we truly are, endures above and beyond all else. Count that as an incredible, joyful, overcoming blessing!

Today, honestly, I am prayed out, simply resting in Jesus. I let you lift your own prayer in whatever you are facing:

God, this __________________ seems insurmountable, impossible, impassable, life-threatening, BUT you ______________________________________________. Amen!

Fire in the Ashes

Rose Jackson © 8/3/2009

Some journeys take you to unexpected discoveries in familiar places. Right now I’m walking through the most difficult time of my life through the smoking ruins of a destroyed relationship. Recently my friend Sharon’s daughter, Charity, told me she wanted to take me on a journey through “the Father’s house,” a spiritual journey into Jesus that had given her a breakthrough in a challenging time in her own life. Hungry to experience God’s presence more deeply, I sat with her in Sharon’s bedroom two weeks ago and lifted my sanctified imagination to the Holy Spirit’s voice.

“Please, God, I don’t want to conjure this out of my own imagination,” I silently cried out. Long ago I had sat beside my then boyfriend in a “spiritual” Sunday evening church service, the hair standing up on my arms, my spirit filled with the suspicion that the “spirit guide” the pastor was listening to absolutely was NOT Jesus. I wanted nothing to do with that kind of experience ever again! But I know Sharon’s and Charity’s heart and faith, and my own as well, so this day I could sit in confidence believing that Jesus guarded my thoughts and nothing of the Enemy could enter. So I set off in my mind’s eye up a long driveway. We talked about what we were “seeing,” and my friend described a beautiful mansion in vivid detail. I was having some trouble, my analytical brain questioning whether what I was sensing was me or the Lord, but I pressed on in faith, believing God truly did want to speak something to my heart. Crossing polished hardwood floors, walking into large rooms whose vague details disappeared as I tried to focus on them, I just wasn’t getting anything. The idea is to “walk” through God’s house to find Jesus. My friend’s words were awash in love and amazement as she narrated her journey.

Hmmm . . . . No such experience for me. Why was I getting nowhere? After much mental wandering, I decided to follow the tug on my heart to go “out back,” and I pushed open a worn screen door and smelled my Grandmother’s apple tree. As my friend saw glorious flowers and a beautiful river filled with gems, I sat on the old wooden tree swing and felt someone pushing me. Ah, could I dare to believe this was Jesus? So natural, so common, so familiar, so ordinary . . . so wonderful! What I was experiencing wasn’t at all like the things Charity had seen in her own walk, wasn’t like the things her friend who’d first shared the journey with her had seen on her own walk, wasn’t like the splendor my friend was seeing now. So simple. So free.

Now Jesus and I sat in the grass on the edge of my Grandmother’s garden, and I smelled dill and rich, warm earth. “What does Jesus want to give you?” Charity asked.

“That’s a good question!” I thought. Nothing was coming into my vision as my hands dug beside Jesus’ hands in Grandma’s deep brown, moist soil. Ha! My hand playfully put a smudge of black dirt on Jesus’ left cheek, and I sensed -or maybe dared to believe - it pleased him. This wasn’t the grand spiritual adventure, the overwhelming breaking in of the Holy Spirit that I had hoped to receive. This wasn’t Acts 2 in the upper room. This was sitting on the grass with my hands in dirt, my hands beside another set of hands, feeling completely at peace and joyfully loved. This was awfully ordinary for a powerful spiritual encounter.

“Jesus wants to give you something. What is it? Ask him,” Charity gently encouraged. Vaguely I sensed something like a gold brooch in an extended hand, sensed rather than saw, and I got the impression the gold setting held an opal. He was holding it against my chest. “Ask him what it means,” Charity offered.

“Uumm . . . . ,” I was determined NOT to attach any meaning that wasn’t absolutely of God onto this experience. The still small voice of God was so quiet, more a trickle of understanding seeping into my mind. Sharon wasn’t sure what opals looked like. I know many precious stones are mentioned in Revelation 21 where John describes the foundations of the walls of the New Jerusalem, but I wasn’t at all sure opals were among those stones. “Opals – really pure, beautiful opals – are fiery,” I recounted. “Maybe – maybe Jesus is saying, ‘Don’t let the fire go out in your heart.’ Or maybe, ‘I won’t let the fire go out.’”

Tears erupted from my eyes. My heart is under siege – has been for the past three months. This wasn’t the encounter I wanted with the splendor of God, but a sweet communion with the passionately loving heart of Jesus, and if he wanted to run under me on my Grandma’s swing and wear a smudge of dirt from my hand, that was more than fine by me. He was telling me there was no place he’d rather be than here in my heart.

Wow! Sharon and Charity may have been a bit puzzled and underwhelmed, but I was overcome. I remembered I have a small opal pin at home. I checked both my jewelry box and my concordance as soon as I got home. Yep, there was the pin with four small opals, though the tiny white stones in it aren’t very fiery, and nope, opals aren’t mentioned in the Bible. Did that mean my experience had come solely out of my own imagination? I left a message asking about the significance of opals with a friend who’d spoken a year or so ago about gems in scripture to ask her about opals. When she returned my call, Amy said nope, it was a mystery to her, too. The Bible doesn’t mention opals. She did go on to explain some information she’d found on opals, and my heart soared as God’s assurance settled deeply in. This information wasn’t in any of the geology books we had at home:

Opals are semiprecious stones treasured for their fire and light. Very fragile, opals deteriorate in heat and cold. They contain water, but lose water easily in dry air and become brittle, so opals need to be worn next to flesh so the oils from the body can seal in their moisture. To clean an opal, you must wash it in pure water. Left to dry, an opal will crack and lose its brilliance and beauty.

There it was, God’s word to me: my heart is like an opal, and just as fragile. He washed and cleansed my heart in pure water, the Living Water of Jesus. My heart is meant to be – God WANTS me to be - filled with Jesus, my heart pressed close to his so it doesn’t dry out and lose its fire, brilliance, and beauty. There is absolutely nothing common or ordinary in that truth!

In this dry, hope-sucking valley of the shadow of death that I’m walking through where the Enemy is working to destroy my heart (are you walking that valley too?), God wants above all else for my heart (yours, too!) to be whole, beautiful, and filled with his fire, pressed against his chest in a place of safety, sustaining, and love.

I clasped my opal pin on the chain of a necklace I haven’t worn in over 30 years. The pendant on the chain is a gold-colored, jagged-edged half circle inscribed with these words from Song of Songs 2:16: “I am my Beloved’s.” Surprisingly, when the opal pin hangs on the chain, it looks like a cross . . . .

A " . . . BUT . . . " to pray: Oh, Abba Father God, my heart feels crushed, ground into the dust, broken, BUT your word says, "All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you." (SOS 4:7) and you promise I can count on your love and power as "(I) wait in hope for the LORD; he is (my) help and (my) shield. In him (my) heart rejoices, for (I) trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon (me), O LORD, even as (I) put my hope in you." (Psalm 33:20-22) Restore the lustre, beauty, fire, and water to my heart even in the driest place with the Living Water of your love, Jesus. Thank you that my heart is precious to you and you hold my heart close to yours! Amen!

Your own" . . . BUT . . . " Abba, Father, Beloved, my heart is weighed down with ________________________ BUT I know you desire to restore my heart, so I give you ______________________________________________ and I receive your _________________________________________________. Take me to that place where your heart resides in me. Amen!

Spin Me Around the Stars

Rose Jackson ©4/29/2009

(This is a slight departure from my usual style of post, but I'm so moved today by the sense that so many people, me included, truly need to feel God's love for them individually. I hope you get a glimpse of the godly man my Dad was, and I hope you have your own fun with God through this post!)

Crickets chirped in the warm summer night as I looked upward, expectantly waiting for my father to do what I’d longingly waited for. He lifted the long black tube of his hand-built telescope off its mount and set it delicately down in the soft grass. Darkness draped over us like a shawl, made lacy with the bright and faint punctuations of myriads of stars. Stars and planets were the awe of the evening, but my delight was in what sometimes happened next. My father swooped down, scooped me up, planted me gently on the flat mount atop his tripod, and spun me around. I looked up at the heavens in complete bliss as the stars whirled around me, covered with wonder and embraced in my father’s love.

I don’t think Dad ever knew how much what to him must have seemed just spontaneous silliness meant to me. He must have enjoyed it, though, because he did it many times. My father wasn’t a man given to horseplay, merriment, or even much conversation. He surely must have said it while I was young – I think – but I don’t remember hearing him say the words “I love you” until I was nearly 30. I knew his love when I stood beside him at his bench in the garage as he helped me hammer nails into a board or click the Morse code key of his radio, or when I sat in his lap as he read the Sunday funnies to me. But I felt his love when he spun me around the stars.

Today, flat on my face on the floor, crying out to experience, to feel, the love of my heavenly Father, this whisper of a memory came to me. In the vastness of the throne room of Heaven, surrounded by angelic hosts, bathed in the unapproachable light of the glory of God, knowing full well it’s only because of Jesus, I have the audacity to ask God for what I’d love: for my Father to step down, scoop me up, plant me atop the mount of his hand-made “telescope” – which is probably his very own hand - and spin me around the stars, covered with wonder and embraced in my Father’s love.

I know, I know; we ought to have a holy reverential fear of God, and I do. But I have to wonder, does it delight God when his child longs for and has the faith to ask for a simple moment of a Father’s daddy-ness? When his children delight simply in him, in who he is, in his love? Delight pops up in many verses of scripture - so why do I feel guilty when I long to look for God's love to delight me? I know my earthly Dad didn't take offense when I wanted to enjoy something special and Dad-daughter with him. Hmmm . . .

". . . the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love." Psalm 147:11

"The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17

"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4

Some people are privileged to know an outpouring of fatherly love from their earthly fathers. Many more don’t. But I don’t think we need to fear taking to our heavenly Father that empty spot in our hearts that needs the embrace of a daddy’s spontaneous "silliness"/joy. I understand that the writer of Hebrews was talking about our weakness and temptation when he wrote, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need,” (Heb. 4:16) but I dare to trust that we can approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we can receive the lavish mercy of a Father's delighted love.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1

For now it’s a metaphor that brings me (and you too, I pray) peace and encouragement to ask God for experiences with him that delight my soul, but I also look forward expectantly to the day God my Father really does spin me around the stars!

A “. . . but . . .” to pray:

Father God, sometimes I feel so far from your love, and I think often it’s my earthly perception of love based on flawed experience, coupled with lingering “God of judgment” attitudes about you, that hold me back from truly knowing your love. BUT I dare to believe you meant it when you told the apostle Paul that nothing - not even my flawed attitudes - can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 38-39) So I have the faith-based audacity today to ask you to delight me with your love, show me some spontaneous fatherly ”silliness” that will mean the world to me, and help me delight, just purely delight, in you.

Your own “. . . but . . .” to pray:

Father God, I’ve been afraid sometimes to ask for an embrace from your love. Sometimes I’ve doubted you are willing to do that, BUT today I’m going to trust that _____________________.

Simply a Saturday Miracle

Rose Jackson © 3/25/2009

Prani breathlessly opened the pool gate and called, “Does anybody here know anyone with B-negative blood?”

That’s the last question you expect to hear the assistant manager of a guest house in Thailand ask tourist families splashing in the pool and licking ice cream treats on a warm Saturday afternoon.

Startled, Monica rose up on her arm from her towel on the pool deck next to me and quizzically replied, “Emma does.”

“Oh, my gosh!” I exclaimed. I didn’t know that, and I’m her mother-in-law.

Monica, a nurse, turned to me with a panicked “Where is she?” look as she shot back to Prani, “What happened?”

“A tourist who just came here last night was in an accident and needs blood so the doctors can do emergency surgery. He’s B-negative.”

I must have still looked confused as Monica and I both scrambled to our feet, because Monica hastily explained, “Asians don’t have the Rh-negative factor in their blood. Where’s Emma?”

Like a beautifully painted scroll unrolling, the full implication of this emergency spun through my mind. A couple thrown into crisis on their first day in a strange, foreign city. Doctors tell the wife surgery is urgent to save her husband’s life, but they have no compatible blood, nor does the other hospital in town. Panic must grip her. Is there a foreigner in town with compatible blood, and how could they possibly track that person down? Where could they even begin to look? Hotels certainly don’t have that information. What are the odds?

Rushing past Prani, I blurt, “Emma’s on her way here with the children. I’ll find her!” Prani replies, “I’ll call the hospital.”

What a wonder: this is the one Saturday of our stay when we didn’t plan any tours or shopping trips. Emma stops, children in hand, as I rush toward her down the path, panting. “It’s an emergency. Someone needs B-negative blood.” We scoop up the children and dash back to their room, hand the kids off with a fleeting explanation to a puzzled Rick, toss on T-shirts and jeans, and run through the dappled shade on the driveway toward the guest house office, the laughter of children swinging and sliding on the playground an other-worldly contrast to our anxious hearts.

As Emma gives information to Prani, the pieces of this puzzle fly together to reveal a picture nothing short of a miracle. Piece one: Prani used to be a nurse, and she “happens” to know the nurse overseeing foreigners at this hospital. Piece two: the injured man “happens” to be taken to this particular hospital. Piece three: Emma has B-negative blood. Piece four: Emma “happens” to be in this particular town at this particular time. Piece five: Emma and Rick “happen” to be staying at the guest house Prani manages. Piece six: Monica, a colleague of Emma and Rick, “happens” to know Emma’s blood type. Piece seven: Monica “happens” to be at the pool with her children when Prani comes, hoping against hope to find a blood donor. If even one piece were missing, this man would die.

Like a jasmine-laden breeze, a peaceful calm enfolded us as attendants quickly bustled Emma into the ambulance that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Mouths open in wonder, we looked at each other across the cots. What’s the proper protocol when you realize you’re caught up by the hand of God in a miracle? Nothing seemed better to do than pray for this man, his doctors, and his wife, and pray that Emma would be able to give the blood he desperately needed.

“I know, I have small veins,” Emma apologized to the hospital technicians who speedily and skillfully descended upon her as soon as we arrived. Though their English was halting, it was obvious they were thankful Emma was willing to give her blood. Two attempts, two veins, and several embarrassed giggles and apologies in Thai later, a phlebotomist sped off with the pint of blood that meant life to someone we would never meet. Wanting to offer some comfort and hope, we asked if we could speak to the man’s wife. Privacy rules made that impossible, so we prayed again that the surgery would go smoothly and healing would come quickly.

How surreal! On vacation in between conferences, here we were in Thailand in a hospital on a Saturday afternoon, Emma with bandages on both of her arms, and me still wearing a bathing suit under my shirt and jeans! Is that what a miracle is supposed to look like? To the rest of the bustling city, it was simply Saturday. Shouldn’t the heavens open, or an angel appear, or something supernatural happen to let you know you’re in the middle of the miraculous?

Evidently not, or at least not always. Sometimes – probably most frequently, I expect – miracles come in quite ordinary packages, via quite ordinary “happen-ings,” pieced together extraordinarily and placed in the praying hands of people who helplessly hope for them. Do they wonder, and will that couple ever know, their miracle is named Emma? Perhaps some Saturday quite simply, when and where you least expect it, someone’s miracle will be named you!

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

Today, TWO ". . . but . . ."s to pray: Most amazing Father, sometimes I've looked for heaven-rending miracles and passed off as coincidence so many of the "ordinary" miracles you've done for me. I need one now and don't see how it can happen, BUT I know you will and do position your resources and your children to provide wondrous help to supply my deepest needs. Too often I'm focused on receiving a miracle, BUT it's just awesome to be an instrument in your hand in delivering a miracle for someone else! I give you permission to - in fact, I pray you will - use me in extraordinary ways in "ordinary", "simply Saturday" miracles to bless the world around me.

Your own ". . . but . . ." to pray:
God of miracles and my Father in Heaven, I've been so busy looking for ____________________ and I haven't recognized the amazing things you are doing for and through me, BUT I believe you can __________________________________ . I am in awe to know you can and will move your people around the world to meet my needs, and I have faith to ask you to use me to _______________________________________ Amen!

God's Goodness - A Greater Miracle: to be part of one

Heart pounding, I leaped up from the sofa, ran down the hall to my bedroom, and anxiously searched through my jewelry box. Where was it? I didn’t even remember the last time I’d worn it. Could I find it? Now was the moment, the divine instant. There in the corner, under pearls, gold earrings and an opal necklace, was a tiny, flat gray piece of barbed wire – now the most priceless jewelry I owned. Grasping it tightly I ran back to the living room. Leana looked at me with wonder that bordered on alarm. We’d met just nine days earlier. “She must be thinking ‘This is one crazy woman,’” I laughed to myself as I opened my hand and placed the small pin in hers.

“This is yours,” I said, and my mind flew back over fifteen years as I began to explain to the confused young woman why I had flown from the room in the middle of her story. In my memory I could still clearly see the unimposing figure, a courageous man who carried Bibles into the Soviet Union. We listened with humility and admiration as he related how difficult life was for Christians living under the threat of persecution. For some reason I didn’t understand, his words kindled a passion in my heart for that land, and I bought a tiny barbed wire pin and wore it to remind me to pray for those people. Years passed, and as so often happens, I didn’t wear the pin as frequently. Eventually it drifted to the bottom of my jewelry box, but that didn’t quell the prompting I sensed from time to time to pray for someone. I didn’t know for whom I was praying, but I prayed God would protect, guide, bless, and be very real to her or him.

Leana was one of four Russian girls our church was supporting in a college in the Midwest. Because the dorms were closed for two weeks over the Christmas break, the girls needed a place to stay. Tom, the youth director at our church, asked for host homes from the teens in the youth group. A year earlier our older son and a dozen youth had gone to Russia with Tom, taking medical supplies and an incubator to two hospitals in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Since our son loved his adventure in Russia, and since we had an extra bedroom, and even though we didn’t have a girl in the family, my husband, our two boys and I thought it would be fun to share our home and holidays with one of the Russian girls.

Tom chose Leana for us, and her addition to our family made the holiday magical as we experienced our traditions anew through her eyes. With all four girls we went Christmas caroling up and down neighborhood streets, freely singing our faith. One Saturday Leana perched on bleachers beside our younger son and tasted her first cotton candy while flower-strewn floats and marching bands passed by in the first non-military parade she had ever seen. At the zoo she laughed delightedly as she swayed on her first camel ride. On Christmas Eve the candlelight flickered on her young face, reflecting the hope we felt rise more powerfully than ever with the strains of “Silent Night.” Our extended family showered her with gifts on Christmas Day, and Leana gave us beautiful gifts from her homeland.

There had been so much activity that Leana and I hadn’t had much time to simply talk, so I seized the opportunity for some girl time with her while my husband and the boys were out one afternoon. Side-by-side on the sofa, I asked Leana about college, about her career dreams, about her family and her life in Russia, and about how she met Tom.

“My parents aren’t Christians,” she said, relating the years of wondering and longing that drew her to ask questions about God as she grew up. “I wanted to know the truth about Jesus. Then I heard Tom speak at . . .," she continued, and I didn’t hear another word. The quiet voice I heard in my heart drowned out Leana’s words:

“Do you remember that person you prayed for in Russia, the one you didn’t know?”

“Yes, God.”

“Well . . . there she sits.”

That was it, simply matter-of-fact, but this sudden recognition launched my heart so jubilantly that I had to leap up and find the tiny pin. Now I knew whose it was.

“This is yours, Leana. I’ve prayed for you for fifteen years, even though I didn't know I was praying for you. God put you in my heart long ago!” Tears brimmed in her eyes and mingled with mine as we embraced and cried together.

How is it possible to love someone you’ve never met? How is it possible to hear a child’s heart-cry and add your prayers to hers? How much more improbable is it to find yourself one day, in your own home, looking into the face of that same person? How breathtaking is it to be part of a miracle?

I don’t think my prayers were the only ones God prompted for Leana, but how incredible it is to have played even a small role in the answer to her prayers! That to me is miraculous, and now I know it’s true that to be part of delivering a miracle for someone else is as astounding and life-changing as receiving a miracle of your own – perhaps even more so!



"My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; on behalf of a man he pleads with God as a man pleads for his friend." Job 16:20-21

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him." 1 John 5:14-15

A ". . . but . . ." to pray: Glroious God, I've prayed and sometimes not seen an answer to my prayers. It's tempting at those times to think you don't hear me, BUT I know you do, because Jesus told his disciples (and all of us, me included) to pray. You wouldn't tell me to do pray if you didn't passionately want to speak to me, hear from me, and move divinely in response to my prayers. Thank you that you inspire me to pray for others. I may never see or hear the results of my prayers, BUT I believe they will accomplish much more than I know. How wonderful if I could someday meet the one those prayers are for, BUT even if I can't, thank you for giving my life incredible impact by making me part of a miracle, and thank you for moving someone I don't know to pray for my needs.





Your own ". . . but . . ." to pray: God, sometimes I think my prayers go no higher than the ceiling because I don't see the answers, or because the answers are so long in coming, BUT I am willing to believe that ______________________________. Thank you for inspiring me to pray today for someone who needs a miracle.