Her-Part 2

Scroll down to read Her-Part 1 first.


"Can I help you?" The guy doing lock-up asks it, and  I guess it's a fair question.  She did just sort of barge right in.  Whatever she hoped she might find inside that building had left a good twenty minutes earlier.  We are the stragglers busy discussing our plans for the day--the movies, a hike. 
She grips the cottony-white envelope, holds it up.  "I just wondered if somebody could help me . . ." she hesitates, but only for a second.  Her voice, though.  It's laced with some kind of anguish that comes from below your gut where things are raw and red and real.  " . . . my power bill.  They're gonna shut it off in the morning.  We won't have heat."
We've been under some kind of arctic system, haven't had a night above freezing in at least a week, maybe two. Pipes  everywhere are popping open like overfilled balloons, bursting when they thaw in the daytime.  People complaining about buying more propane.  Me threatening to buy a wood stove to save money.  But I have money in the bank.  More than enough to pay the power bill. 
There are feet shuffling and eyes darting, eyes averting, no one really knowing what to do.  And the man locking up scurries off to find a number. 
The number of the guy that handles these things.
We have a guy for this stuff.
A couple actually.
I know their name, and I know their number is in my husband's phone.  I'm wanting to take my four-inch, high heal and kick him in the shin.  Instead I kick him with my eyes.  "Honey, you've got his number in your phone, don't you?"
I want him to pull out his wallet, not his phone.
She's just standing there, now.
We're all just standing.
So, I start the interrogation.  I always talk when I'm nervous.  If I can just get her story, find out what's going on.  If I can glimpse the baby's face under the thick, blanket.  It keeps slipping off. The woman keeps fumbling with it, trying to hold things together.  She's shielding her little one from the cold.
That's why she's there.  At a church.
At our church after the service is over and the people parted in paths to Kentucky Fried Chicken and Fatz Café. 
She's trying to shield her children from the cold to come.
I remember one time a man showed up at my house.  He couldn't look me in the eye, so I knew something was wrong.  He kept calling me ma'mm saying he was sorry to have to stop by like this.  The kids were home, hunkered around the hem of my jeans.  He said I needed to pay by the close of business or they'd turn the power off.  It was bitter cold that day too.  I still remember this feeling of nausea that came up from my feet and flipped and flopped in my stomach until I wanted to sit down.
I rang the people at the head office immediately.
They had made a mistake.
But I never forgot that feeling. 
So I asked questions, but I really just wanted to hold her in my arms.  Take her home.  Make her tea.
"Are you from around here?'
"A trailer park nearby."
"Do you have a job?"  I'm such an idiot.  She just had a baby.
"Not since the baby."
"Do you have a husband?  Someone helping you?"
"Yes, but he is out of work right now too."  Her brown hair hung in a low pony tail down her back, pulled away from her face.  Her face is the kind of tight that a face is when it is a dam holding everything back and if one single, solitary muscle is moved, all the pain of a thousand years will come flooding out. 
And I just cannot stand it.  I am moving.  I'm beside her, and my arm is reaching around her shoulders. Her hurt, her humiliation, her need? They flow in tears. Just a few, quiet, dignified tears.
I don't know what else I say.  Other people talk too.  Someone offers a prayer.
And prayers are good. 
The prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
So that is a good thing.
But gosh, I'm a doer.
And when that woman in the Bible thought if she just touched the hem of Jesus' garment she would be healed?  Wasn't that the same as this woman thinking if she could just get to the door of our church, she'd find help?
And maybe we are the hem of His garment, we the body, His power coursing through us.
We had swallowed Styrofoam wafers embossed with crosses on them and sipped grape juice just that morning.  To remember.  Remember that His body was broken for us. 
This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.
To remember He was broken.
The body that was broken for others.
And now we are His body.  We the people.  So shouldn't we break too?  For others?  For her?
So, we break open wallets.
We say goodbye and wish well. 
Give the couple's number.
Give the place where she can get clothes.  The place where she can get food.
Give what we have on us at the time.
But it isn't enough.
And of all the questions I could have asked, I don't know her name.

Her-Part 1

A sunny Sunday and we're all chirping and chattering.  I'm savoring a stolen 2 or 3 minutes with my beloved girlfriend with the perfect, lemony locks who I rarely get more than 2 unfinished sentences with, like. ever.  And the precious few I get?  I don't want to share them cause she reads my heart and ignores the craziness of my mind, and I love her.  So I won't lie, I didn't notice the other woman.  Our kids were running around all pink-cheeked and sweater-clad in the wispy, happy wind.  Our husbands were probably resolving the Super Bowl-in-an-open-arena-and-the-weather's-calling-for-snow dilemma.  And she made it all the way across an empty parking lot, a toddler in tow, and an infant car seat hanging heavy from her arm--all the way across.  Right up to the double doors.  Not just to the double doors, but pushed her way through the doors as the last deacon was leaving the building. 
Light's out folks.
Show's over.
We're closed.
Except she pushed through the door, so we couldn't be closed.
And who was she?
Not one of us. I knew that much just by the jeans. 
And where'd she come from?
Then I see the car--an older sedan--across the lot.
I see the envelope in her one free hand.  I've seen them before.  Every month actually.
And the guy locking up is as befuddled as we are.  I mean you can't just march into an empty church uninvited.  It's not like the Hallmark movies where people wander into church buildings, and some priest is roaming around dusting candlesticks and refilling holy water.
We may be interdenominational, but we're practically Baptist.
We lock our doors, for goodness sake.
She was late.  But she didn't care.  She just pushed her way through.


And I remember this:
When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed."

That woman, the one with the blood issue--the taboo one, she was late too.  She came up to Jesus at the back of the crowd.  If she could just get the tips of her fingers to the fraying fringe of his frock, then she knew she'd be healed. It wasn't the frock that held the hope, though.  It was His power that moved through the frock to the fingers. And He did heal her.  He said her faith healed her.

Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.

And didn't this mother of two have faith?  Faith that in a church she could find hope.  Find help.
Because you've got to be pretty rock-bottom, pretty much out of luck, out of hope, out of options to show up with your power bill in one hand and your babies in the other, when surely you know the services are over, and ask for help.

Desperate, maybe.
Determined, yes.
In the right place?
Dear, God, I hope so.

A People in Constant Motion Yet Unmoved

I'm a runner--of sorts.  Not the half-marathon-constantly-training-cool-running-shoes-kinda runner.  I'm more of the sleep-in-my-sports-bra-roll-out-of-bed-shove-on-my-shoes-jog-for-thirty-minutes-come-back-drink-coffee-kinda runner.  I do it because I need exercise.  I try to run five days a week.  On the sixth day, I try to take a walk, and on the seventh day, I rest.  Recently, though, I've read several articles and even listened to my doctor discuss the current research that suggests running every day may not be the best thing for your body.  And part of me is like, "Really, ya think?"  A pulled hamstring, a pulled oblique muscle, grouchy knees and strained tendons this year are just a few of the reasons why I have a sneaking suspicion there's probably some validity to the idea that daily pounding the pavement may not be what our bodies were designed for.  (And for all you veteran runners out there.  Shut your pie holes.  I know you're supposed to stretch, wear good shoes, etc.  I'm gonna start that tomorrow!) But in truth, sometimes I feel like my entire world is the same--constantly pounding the pavement.  And I can't help but wonder if we have a few pulled muscles, a few strained tendons because of it.

It is like we are a train at full tilt, an airplane careening through the heavens, a full on battle charge complete with war whoops, galloping horses and the pounding of hooves.  Always pounding hooves. My husband's, my children's, my own.  The constant cacophony of crazed feet keeping time to an even crazier schedule.  Whatever I liken our life to, it must be in constant full-throttle motion to be even remotely accurate.  We are a family on the move.  And I know we aren't unique.  In fact, I think we probably appear to be in slow motion in comparison to other families.  Just the other day, I overheard a conversation where one mom admitted to another mom that she hadn't looked at her daughter's homework in weeks because they had been so busy with other activities and responsibilities that she simply hadn't had the time.  I wanted to whisper in her ear, "I feel your pain, Momma.  I feel your pain!" 

I wonder though, if motion is one of Satan's greatest allies in disabling a follower of Jesus--not just any motion, but motion without a refined, focused purpose.  After all Jesus did call us to be 'doers of the word and not hearers only.'  So motion itself isn't wrong, and that's good since I'm perpetually moving.  But what seems to happen is that we buy into a mindset that insists activity and entertainment are our divine purpose and right. We have this notion that good parents enroll their children in everything.  If our kids are interested, give them the chance to explore it fully.  And it doesn't sound wrong even as I type it, does it?  And for goodness sakes, we mustn't forget that good kids are busy kids, so we arrange sleepovers, parties, and play dates.  Our youth ministries are overrun with game nights and lock-ins because we need to keep our kids out of trouble, right? (Yet apparently almost 90% of them will leave church within their first year of college.  So how's that working for us?) It's the motion movement we've bought into; yet we're all limping along with pulls and strains; and man alive are we ever thirsty.  So are our children.  Thirsty for the Living God.

"Why do you search for the living among the dead?"

It was a question the men at the tomb asked the women who came to treat Christ's dead body with spices.  See, they were behind the eight ball.  They came to treat a dead body.  It wasn't until the men asked the women that question that scripture says the ladies remembered what Jesus had told them about His purpose.  He would fall into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise again the third day.  He was done with the dying and onto the rising.  Jesus had a focused plan, and he stuck to it (Luke 24).  But we aren't aware of His plan, or like the women, we've forgotten it. The result is that we too are searching for the living among the dead.
And I'm left to ask not "What is my plan," but . . .

What is God's plan for our family? 
What is God's plan for our sports-loving-book-inhaling-thirteen-year-old? 
What is God's plan for our tree-climbing-animal-adoring-ten-year-old? 

We say we "just want the very best for our kids," but I wonder if we really mean it.  Because isn't the very best synonymous with God's plan?  And if we're really wanting to cut to the chase, aren't we a little too busy pursuing the very best to stop and ask God what His plans are for our children?

Wasn't Francis Chan onto something when he said, “Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.” 

In the end, maybe daily running on the treadmill of a society that is convinced that more is more, that bigger is better, that lessons and sports and clubs and involvement equal success, is causing more damage than good. 

Could it be that we're missing God's plan while we act like hamsters in a cosmic cage? 
Could it be our children don't need to be entertained, rather they need to be enlightened? 
Could it be they need to know they weren't placed on earth to get great grades, go to great colleges, embark on promising careers, marry, make babies, buy a house and live happily ever after? (And don't misunderstand me here, I'm not saying those things won't happen along the way.  I'm just asking if it is possible that we missed the main point?)
Could it be?
Could it be we ourselves need the same enlightening?

Because there is an entire world out there in desperate need of our assistance, and if we are busy balancing a life on a blasted treadmill, we can't help them.  We're incapable of doing both.

So while we run . . .
While we race . . .
While we entertain . . .
While we keep busy . . .
While we give our children opportunities . . .

Almost half a million children in the US live in foster care. 100,000 of them cannot return home. Ever.
More than 150 MILLION children have lost one or both parents to AIDS, disease, poverty, etc.
At least 3.5 MILLION children die each year because of malnutrition related diseases.
55 million unborn children are killed every year via abortion, 105 per minute. 3 per minute in the US.
Approximately 15 people die per minute due to nutrition related illness.
209 MILLION people do not have any scripture in their language.

 . . . people die, and they don't know God.

But, in the meantime, our kids got into the right University because they had a great transcript, lots of activities, and high SAT scores. 
We're busy chasing the proverbial American Dream and teaching our children to do the same.  In short, we're the guy in Jesus' parable of the talents that buried his in the field.  We're burying the greatest resource God has given us--our lives--under a mound of worldy pursuits and earthly treasures.  But it is never enough.  We're never satisfied.  We hunger and thirst for more.

"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.(John 4:34)

Are we hungry and thirsty because we aren't eating the right food?
And just what is the will of him who sent Jesus?  Really? 

We have come to know love by this:  that Jesus laid down his life for us; thus we ought to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians.  But whoever has the world's possessions and sees his fellow Christian in need and shuts off his compassion against him, how can the love of God reside in such a person?  Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue but in deed and truth. (I John 3:16-18)

We have come to know love by this:  that Jesus laid down his life for us; thus we ought to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians. 

And for whom have I laid down my life?  For whom have I said, I'll forgo what I want so they can have what they need?  For whom?  Because if I'm gonna be honest, there's a part of me that doesn't want to raise my hand and volunteer as a foster parent.  I'd rather not go back to diapers and diaper bags, bottles and burps.  I'm finally past that.  And what if they have problems?  What if they're disturbed because of what they've been through?  It could get messy, could get inconvenient.

Carrying the cross wasn't convenient for Jesus, and yet . . .

But whoever has the world's possessions and sees his fellow Christian in need and shuts off his compassion against him, how can the love of God reside in such a person? 

And for whom have I surrendered my possessions?  I wonder what inheritance Jesus left for his siblings to divide?  I'm kinda guessing none.  Yet isn't that the thing that concerns us if we're being truthful?  We want to amass some little something here on earth so we can leave it for our wee ones.  We want to save enough to go on trips, to travel the world . . . or at least to Florida.  We want to add a pool, pave the driveway, buy, consume, take, hold for ourselves. 

Storing up treasure in heaven means surrendering earthly treasures . . .

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue but in deed and truth.(I John 3:18)

And isn't this the crux of it all?  The answer to the  motion problem?  It isn't that God has told us to remain inert.  Indeed, He called us to action.  But the focus, the purpose of that action? 
Should not our strides be specifically aimed?  Should not our motion be in the direction of Love? 

Love won't leave us with pulled muscles, in fact it will expand our muscles, expand our hearts.
Love won't leave us with strained tendons; it will be a balm to the strains of others.
Love won't leave us with aching knees; it will lift a world brought to their knees by a life apart from God, to their feet.

Love walks.
Love runs.
Love prays.
Love builds.
Love gives.
Love feeds.
Love refrains.
Love pays fairly.
Love mends.
Love translates.
Love sacrifices.
Love lays down one's own life.

I wonder about those two bombers in Boston.  I wonder if they ever came in contact with love.  I wonder if there was a free camp like the one here in the mountains where my family is privileged to help during the month of July--a place where children come and experience the unconditional love of God--would it have made a difference?  Had one person brought LOVE to them, could it have changed everything?

Because in a world where people are constantly running, love moves too.  Moves hearts.  Moves lives.  Moves people to step off the treadmill of American Dreams and into the reality of lives lived for eternity.  One accomplishes nothing that will last.  The other accomplishes things imperishable.

Once, Joseph and Mary lost Jesus as a youth.  When they found Him, He spoke the now infamous line:  "Don't you know I'm to be about my Father's business?" (Luke 2:49)

Our Father's business is The World.  And He deals in only one currency.  Love.

Father, help me to move in your wake, to move in focused, purposeful ways.  Help our family to have the sole goal of being about your business.  Redirect, guide,hem us in, and strengthen our limbs for the journey.  Amen.

The Mothering Chronicles 9: Beyond Picket Fences

Of course I've thought it myself, but others have let the word form on their lips, in their raised eyebrows, in their silence. Craziness.

To sell the home that hands and hearts hinged together nail by nail, surely that's madness. To walk away from that place you built together with friends and planned on remaining forever, surely that's insane.
There's no other place like that in the county. In the country, for that matter.
Crazy.

But the moments are few, and this home, she drinks them like there has been a drought insisting on having more than her fair share. Insists on sending a Father to work over 85 hours a week to quench her thirst for months and long, long months. Insists on demanding this homeschooling momma work two other part time jobs. She's gotten greedy, this home.

And we've walked many miles in these shoes. Our souls are thinning.

Just because we can afford, does that mean we should afford? And maybe the 2.2 children and one lovely white picket fence thing is a little overrated when there is a world beyond that fence and millions of children with no fence, and no bed, hearts and bellies hungry for real food, real love. And really? They're out there, and I'm cutting my kentucky blue grass, clinging to an American dream? Who's clinging to them?

And where is God in homes and finances and godly people just trying to make their ends come together? Godly people obeying the directions their Father gave. Where is God's heart when Daddy is working another double and Momma's back is to her children, working again? Where is God when we cling to bricks and mortar, and our children's frames stretch for the sky, and the number of years they will remain with us is now fewer than the number of years we've already shared?

Because they do grow up.
And we don't have them forever.
And when all is said and done, what is truly the important thing in life?
What truly matters?
What is the best thing we can give to our children?
Are not these children the first stewardship we have?

And who can have a marriage who doesn't have time to share with their beloved?

And is home really this moon-yellow colonial farm house, or is it the place where we four gather?
And is the view from living room windows that I love best really the dusty-red dogwoods in early October or the dyed red hair of a 12 year old and the nappy long locks of a 10 year old while they conquer an invisible world when school's done? And if home and view are the latter, then don't they exist wherever we are?

Don't they?

And wouldn't it be crazier to stay? To eek it out when we could have taken less of this world to gain more of the things that truly matter?

What message do we send, when we hold to the temporary, insisting to our children that it is of some great value?
Because what they value is our eye contact, our heart contact, our time. Us with them. Daddy home. Mommy undistracted. Daddy and Mommy together, hands tangled, hearts twined, mouths laughing. Football in the backyard, full contact solitaire in the loft, Little Men on rain soaked afternoons.

Do we confuse them when we quote, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal . . . " (Matthew 9:16) and then turn around and continue to work at storing up, holding on, clinging to these earthly treasures?

And what did He say about the man who wants to serve two masters?

No man can serve two masters.

And what did He say about the church that tried to have it both ways?

Luke warm.

And what did He say about the man who asks God for wisdom, but doesn't take that wisdom and live by it?

Double minded. Tossed about like a wave of the sea.

And sometimes it is just dadgum hard not to have it both ways, if you want to know the truth. That's the truth.
The truth of how I feel, but feelings change, and if my truth is based on my feelings, than my truth is not constant. But then, I know The Truth.

And He--The Truth--says, "I am the way . . . I am the life. What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Yet I know how those disciples felt, the ones that said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" I know how they felt when they turned and walked the other way. The broad way.

A path well trod is easy on feeble feet, but it takes faith to place feet in foamy waves and trust that, keeping your eyes fixed on Him, you will not falter.

Could less really be more?
Could we live that out and see it to fruition?
Could we look the Jones Family square in the face and tell them, you win. We're not racing anymore. We're satisfied with loving each other and our children instead.
Could we lead the charge that insists status quo is not good enough, and picket fences may mean cages, and freedom may be found in letting go of them and clinging to Christ.

Is faith really the substance of things hoped for, the evidence not seen?

Because our forever home is sold, and we are two weeks away from a closing with no other sure thing on the horizon.

Evidence NOT seen.
Faith.

When you step into the water, leaving the safety of the boat--the safety of a home you know and love, a life you're comfortable with--you better believe He is good. Better have that Truth to place timid, tentative toes upon.

And I do.
Believe He is good.
Believe He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Believe He is able to keep us from falling.
Believe He never leaves, never forsakes.
Believe He is a strong tower.
Believe He knows the plans He has for us, that they are good, hope-filled.
Believe He will keep in perfect peace him--little me--whose mind is steadfast on Him.
Believe He will give peace that passes understanding as a sentinel to guard this frightened heart.
Believe He has never, not one single time, let me down.

Believe me,
I do.


Pray with me: Father, you are the one who is able to keep us from falling. You are the God who promised that 'in our hearts we would plan our course, but YOU would determine our steps.' You are the substance of our faith. Determine our steps, Father. May we have your heart, your priorities. May you be our gain. May you be our home. May you be our forever. Amen.

The Great Gain

The wind sucked and swished my hair around like a vacuum first then a twister.  "35 miles per hour winds, Sarah," my neighbor admonished.  "Should we cover our plants?  The temperature's gonna drop."  It did drop.  And soccer practice went long on the one night when the temperature plummeted, and the wind raged her fury.  I was cold.  We walked--my son, his friend and I--to keep warm.  Nate shared his too-small-for-me black fuzzy gloves, and I gladly accepted the woolen warmth of his giving heart.

Still chilled in our bones with the kind of cold that doesn't give you goose bumps, but leaves  you stiff, corpsish even, we elbowed our way through the entrance to our home.  Our 70 degree home.  The temperature was set.  I had keyed in 70 degrees earlier in the day thinking what was the use in freezing to death when I didn't have to.  I have that choice.

I thought of pouring a steaming bubble bath and using some of my 9 year old green-tea bath salts my sister gave me after Cort was born.  I hoard them for special moments because they smell like spring and heaven and grass and rivers, and I want to have them for as long as I live.  We keep our thermostat for hot water set HOT.  I like hot water.  Tepid water doesn't clean, doesn't warm, doesn't refresh.  I have that choice.

Taking the red kettle mom gave me for my birthday, I filled it with a steady stream of water from our tap.  I turned the storm-grey knob on our gas stove and watched as flames licked the belly of the kettle.  A mug of clear, hot water blanketed me from the inside out.  I had that choice.

Dinner hour had long since slipped away.  Suppertime too had slipped beyond the grasp of our busy Monday schedule.  We were all hungry.  We'd agreed ahead of time on the menu for the week.  All of us had said we were in, but when the moment came . . . we may have regretted our zeal.  Beans and rice.  One small scoop of each at supper.  For the week.  It's true, chicken, sausage, beef roast, ground chuck, fish, hot dogs, pork chops, bacon, and a myriad of other choices clogged my cavernous freezer.  We had that choice.

I told the boys to chew slowly.  Don't rush, there are no seconds tonight.  And I looked in my eldest's eyes.  Disappointment.  He knew he wouldn't be full.  I knew he wouldn't be full.  You don't have to do this; you know I know your heart.  I don't expect this from you.  He wanted to.  But his face showed what his lips refused to speak:  shock at the reality of hunger.  The first night in his life he will have gone to bed hungry.  He had that choice.

But not everyone does.  Have that choice.  Have a home with temperature set just so.  Have clean water to drink much less pour lavishly into an antique claw-foot tub.  Even have beans.  Even have rice.  Not everyone has that choice.
My first month of SEVEN is winding down.  I've chosen to focus this month on food in an attempt to wrap my senses around world hunger, around the reality that 18,000 people die every day just from hunger, and that's not including those who die from lack of clean drinking water.  Some will call me crazy, and I'm okay with that.  What I can't seem to be okay with, though, is the reality that while I've cushioned my backside with a pantry three feet deep and then gone out and bought bigger pants to contain my greed, children were dying every five seconds.  I needed a radical realignment.  This month has been a good beginning.  A good beginning.

Not having my usual comfortable foods has forced me to remember the faces of children I've never met--children who have never had a single comfort.  It's caused me to think of the anguish that must swallow their mothers' and fathers' hearts in single gulps when they look into hungry, pained eyes and can do nothing to help them.  I want to be a part of their hope.

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in . . .I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' "  Matthew 25:3,40

Did it for Him.  The nameless children of hundreds of destitute regions are not just someones children.  They're God's creation, His masterpieces.  He formed them in their mother's wombs, knows the number of hairs on their sweet heads, and you know what?  Forget the number of hairs on their heads.  He numbers the ones that flitter and flutter to the ground as their scalps bald from malnourishment.  They're His babies, and he planned for them to be a part of this wonderful world He worded into existence.  When I withhold, hoard, keep for myself, I keep from Him.  And when I open palms and purse, release plans and purpose, I do it unto Him.  And wasn't it He who specifically said, "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."  (II Corinthians 10:31)  All of it. For His glory?
And while Marie Antoinette cries out, "Let them have cake . . ."  am I just the same as she?  A Christian bellowing in holy tones, "Let them have Jesus."  Let me not insist all they need is Jesus and ignore their bellies bulging with starvation and mud cookies made with oil and water. Jesus himself did not ignore the physical needs of the people He loved.  What of manna, and fish and loaves multiplied?  He made us physical beings.  Dare I ignore His sacred creation's needs under the shiny-cellophane packaging of "purely sharing the gospel and leaving their physical needs to some other organization?"  We are that organization.  We.  The Church.  Me.  I'm broken, undone by that reality.  I'm just one person; we're just one small family.  Could we actually make any difference?  A dent in all this suffering?
In the early moments of day's breaking, before school lessons and ringing phones, emails and music lessons,  I read from I Timothy 6.  "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. ^"
If we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. With just that? 
Are you, Sarah?
Am I, God?

Because godliness with contentment is great gain, and the Greek meaning of this word gain is the best thing you can procure for yourself.  It must be important. 

I hear of people's investments yielding great gains, but what if we have missed it?  What if while we build our fortunes and pad our retirement funds we have missed The Great Gain?  Is it possible in our haste to be financially responsible citizens, in our hurry to build comfortable, seeker friendly churches with pleasing, paved parking lots, in our fervor to give our children every opportunity, we have somehow missed our purpose?  What if our comfort costs someone else's life? 

What if The Great Gain is discovering the sufficient nature of a God who promised to supply all our NEEDS according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus, and realizing He Is Enough?

And if the best thing I can get in this life is godliness with contentment, then this, THIS is The Great Gain:  That we cease to search for the next best high and realize The High lives within us.  We have all we need pertaining to life, to godliness.  We have HIM.  In HIM is life.  In HIM is satisfaction.  In HIM is contentment.  "And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." (II Corinthians 9:8)

And when we gain this contentment it is for a purpose--so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.  We are not blessed to spend on ourselves but to abound in every good work.  Every.  In all things.  At all times.
I can't help but think about Timothy's words again.  Content with food and clothing.  Is that how you define Paul's words, having all that you need?

Just food?  Just clothing?
Which food? Rice and beans?  Every day?  Surely not.  We've been given all things to enjoy.  Haven't we?  Where is the cap?  Where do we stop?  When do we say we have given enough?  Can we really ever say, "This much is for you God, and no more.  The rest is for me."?  Can we?  Do we all go out and buy 1990's-hunter-green-water-proof-Ozark-Trail tents from Walmart, sell our homes and find a field to squat in, giving the rest to Haiti or Africa?  Is this what we do? 

These are the questions that wash ashore in my mind like waves on the Atlantic coastline.  They've repeated themselves a thousand times a day this month, and I don't yet have answers.  This I know, Jesus said the path is narrow and few will choose it.  Speaking of sacrifice doesn't sit well with me.  I'd like to cut a check for ten percent and call it a day.  The rest I can find plenty of good uses for.  I've got a bucket list, plans for a fifteenth wedding anniversary romantic getaway.  And could I say, if I dared, that perhaps we who call ourselves Christians have created some form of Jesus-following that doesn't really follow Him at all?  Are we not really just white-washed, sweet-speaking selfish hearts?  Some of us?  Me?  (I don't dare say it.  Sorry I  mentioned it.)
Too though, I know this.  Jesus came to freely give us that thing we lost in Eden--that abundant life.  That walking in the garden with God in the cool of the evenings.  That unlimited access to all the splendor of His creation without fear, without sickness, without pain.  In Him we get that abundance.  I haven't suffered this month.  Not once.  Giving up coffee had to be like losing my right arm--maybe even both arms.  And sugar?  On dear Lord, please restore to my the joy of my sugar . . . I mean salvation. (Ps. 51.  It's in there.)  What I have seen is that I miss the abundance of God because I'm too busy feeding myself.  And not just with food do I fill.  It's television, computer, people, activities, events, projects, things . . . oh dear things.  So many possessions.  And this filling creates a numbness.  I don't feel my great need of God, nor do I feel my great blessings of God.  I miss The Abundance.  The Great Gain. 
It is a beautiful journey--this walking with God--and I'm too distracted by the choices I have to notice it.
Tonight at bedtime, my eldest prayed, "Lord, thank you that we can feel what it is like for the starving children.  Please help the ones in Haiti and Africa . . ."  Thank you for hunger?  Yes, I too am thankful.  Somehow the hunger awakens my sleeping senses to the heart of God.  I'm still searching for answers.  We're ambling, embarking, seeking, learning, and stumbling through.  But for now, at least we are glimpsing some of The Great Gain.

Pray with me:  Jesus, you are life.  YOU are life.  Teach me to seek fullness in YOU.  Align me to your heart.  I'm sorry I miss the way when it is YOU who IS the way.  Help me to see YOU are the GAIN.  Help me to hunger not for more stuff, more food, more places to go, more mountains to conquer, but for the person of YOU.  Fill me.  Amen.

The Chreestmas Boys--When Less Becomes More

Little shades of brown in itchy blue oxfords wiggling, squirming, inching and us--almond milk skin, hair any shade we choose, and clothes any style that suits. We make small talk among ourselves and grin-gaze across the room at khaki pants and collars colored sky. We wait. Somebody's doing paperwork, and it seems like we're waiting an hour. They eye us cautiously, but familiar. They've done this before. We eye them, giddy. We're all thinking the same thoughts. Which one is ours? Which sweet thing do we get to take home and love on?

And maybe they were thinking too. Will I have a bed tonight or will I sleep on a pallet? Will I share or have my own? What will they feed me? Will the house be too worm? Will it be too cold? Are there dogs at the new home? I'm afraid of dogs. Will their children be nice to me? And it's me that finally asks because it doesn't seem natural for us to sit and stare--they're humans after all, not puppies. Can we talk to them?

Then there's an explosion of bodies, mixing, asking, helloing, and we're all on the floor with them--red and yellow, black and white. Hands shaking hands, ears straining to understand accents not native, and all of us smiling to tell them in the universal language that we are kind, we are safe, we will love them.

A few weeks prior, I asked him if we could host two boys from Children of the World. (http://www.worldhelp.net/cotw/) He's my husband; he knows my heart has rooms for a thousand more children. He knew it would impact us. It did. How can you invite two children from impoverished circumstances into your lives for a few days and NOT expect your hearts to be sliced just a little? We would give them the boys' beds; we would skip school on Monday, spend the day spoiling these little lives. We did that. We are still bleeding.

The man in charge enters the room, papers in fist--a list of rules--all of them designed for the children's comfort and protection.

Don't ask about their past.

But I want to know. I want to know just what it is they will return to. I want to know if they will make it into adulthood. I want to know if they have a mother waiting for them. Is she burying face in pillow at night crying out the raw loss of giving up her little boy for ten whole months? Is she praying he'll learn English well enough to give him a better chance in life? Is she wondering about him while I carry his suitcase--a Jenson containing everything he has in the entire world--to my hybrid? I look at night sky and tell her--heart speaking to heart--I'll be good to him. I understand he's precious cargo. And I long to hold her too, that sweet mother born in a world where her options were so few that separation from the child she grew within would be the sacrifice demanded of her.

Maybe it is me the rules are made to protect. Perhaps my heart would crush beneath the weight of the truth.

They travel the United States for the flipping of ten calendar pages and sing--a choir of needs and hopes in children's frames--to promote awareness, to get sponsors. They sing for their lives.

Water you turned into wine...

They sing these words--they that come from a world with no water, while mine flows freely from 7 different taps at any temperature I desire.

Open the Eyes of the blind.

And it is me that is blind--blind to the needs of the world. Blinded by my own wants, by a country whose God is their stomach, by a media that insists I need everything on sale on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and my online shopping carts are filled. My stomach is engorged, and I am blind. Open my eyes.

They are hungry. They are thirsty, and they sing about the God who is greater, the God that turns water--that precious thing they walk three hours one way for--into wine for wedding feasts.

God, you are higher than any other.

They sing and I wonder if they understand.

But they do. They understand more than I do. It is I who will learn this week.

If our God is for us, than who could ever stop us?

And If our God is with us, than what could stand against?

I wonder if it is I, a part of North American selfishness, that has stood against what God wanted to do. Could He have used me to share. Did I stand against these sweet children while I filled my closets and my stomach. Were they stumbling over dusty paths with parched tongues like double sided tape while I quenched my thirst with the flick of an oil rubbed bronze tap?

We travel home; the conversation is hard. I don't know what to ask--me, the girl who always has something to say. They respond with "yes" to everything leaving me aching for their true thoughts, their true opinions. My own boys know exactly where they want to eat, and the olive and the black skinned children are just 'yessing' me no matter what I suggest. Yes to ice cream. Yes to McDonald's. Yes to eating at the house. Yes to rice. Yes to juice. Yes to water. Yes to chocolate milk. Yes. Yes. Yes. And then, I hear it--a gasp in word form. The olive skinned one with buzz cut says, "The lights. I love the lights!" His exclamation was a whisper unused to expressing itself.

This one likes the Christmas lights. He thinks. He feels.

And he sings for his life. For the life of others and probably doesn't know the luxury of expressing his own opinions and ideas. But He likes lights; I heard the gasp. Without hesitation, I start driving to town Square where our tree is lit up, lighted holly and poinsettias dangle from lampposts. I drive by every single house I know of that is lit all the way home. He utters and exclaims, and I point left, and my own boys point right, and we are all in awe of the light.

Jesus says, I am their light. These that know the greatest darkness receive The Light readily because they're not blinded by the gaudy light of the world like I am. They see Him. They exclaim over Him.

Christmas music seeps from the speakers into the car, and I sing a bar--a note here and there to fill the empty spaces. They are timid; I hurt at their silent moments. Are they afraid to speak? Do they know the lady whose car in which they ride would keep them forever if she could? Do they understand that she is suffocating sobs because she knows what it is to love a boy, and there are two who just might need that loving bumping shoulders in her back seat? Do they know that were they to cry she would hold them until the night ended? The music is throbbing from the speakers and Drummer Boy begins. I turn the volume up and palm flat I bang the beat onto the console, "Uganda, do you know this one? It's perfect for you! It's the Drummer Boy! Can you hear the drum?" He hears it. He begins the rhythm with me. My boys join in. And we are an international percussion section united by a rhythm we all understand. Shall I play for you pah rum puh pum pum beats air and our hands are bang bang banging on any surface we can find. I wonder which is louder, the beating of my hand or the beating of my heart.

The song ends and we are happy, laughing. Their smiles are electricity; my boys are feeling the shock. We want them to smile enough for a lifetime. Can we give them enough to last? Away In a Manger begins. They recognize it, tell me it is their carol. They sing it. The tune is a little different. We laugh when we all mess it up. But there was no crib for his bed and I wonder what bed they will return to. When the second verse begins I am dumbstruck. Bless all the dear children in thy tender care. Where has that line been my entire life? How many times have I sung those lyrics and not prayed them, not understood I was asking Jesus to bless ALL the children? All of them, in his tender care. All of them. Even these. These two that for forty-eight ridiculously short hours will be mine to give smiles, laughter, joy. The remainder of their lives will be in his tender care. Can I accept His tender care as sufficient?

And how can I sing the words, ask Him to bless, but turn my own eyes away when they leave? What if it is through me He wants to bless them? What if it is through you? http://www.worldhelp.net/cotw/sponsor/

But what if it is me He wants to bless through them? It is He who turned water into wine. He doesn't need my pennies to drill wells and deliver rice. They don't need me--their God is greater--it is I who needs them. I need their need in order to be freed. It is I who needs to be freed from the American Dream--the I-can-have-it-all mentality of North America. Because you can have it all, and have nothing at all.

As they vie for nomination, the republicans debate the status of a country where once an immigrant could cross crashing cloudy seas to make his fortune. They insist we should return to our great economic state, but I mourn the reality that we are among the world's wealthiest ten percent and yet we want more, better, faster, mightier. And children are hungry. My heart knows there is no answer a President can bring, that true change doesn't occur from the top down, but from within to without. From within my heart, my children's hearts. From selfish to selfless to Christ-filled to hungry children filled.

I remember James' words, Grieve and mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. (James 4:9) I understand him. Be broken, he said. See things for what they really are. See them in light of Jesus' heart. The New Living Translation says, "Let there be sadness for what you have done...." Yes, let there be sadness for a life of selfishness, and let their be an anchoring of my soul this day. Let me be pierced deeply enough to leave a scar. Let me bleed a while that I might be left with weakness for those who have less.

Words we mulled on after dinner during memory time pulse in my spirit. Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But accumulate for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. I wonder if it is possible to have both? It isn't wrong to have possessions, is it? But the ones that I choose to store--meaning to keep for the future--should not be physical. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And I want my heart hunger to be eternal, not temporal. But the catalogues come in the mail. There is a new cell phone out that would make my life easier. There is a better gaming system that would surely mean family fun. And our BBQ is now 13 years old; is not that old enough to merit a new one for Christmas? The eye is the lamp of the body. So, the things I see then, the things I choose to see, to focus on will cast light for my entire body, my life. If then your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be full of darkness. And mine has diseases that cause blindness. Our nation too, needs bifocals. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:10-24 There it is in black and white--we can't serve both. We may have both, but we cannot serve both. We will be a house divided. We will eventually collapse under the pressure of two lords. But perhaps what I want is less that I may gain more. And if I left the grill to sit with all the other BBQ's at Home Depot and bought 3 goats instead http://goh.worldhelp.net/goats/ then 3 families would have milk--nutrition, and an income. And wouldn't that be more for me too? More for my children too? Wouldn't the nourishing of 3 families who have never owned a BBQ and cook their rice three times a day over an open fire with scraps of garbage as fuel become food for my family's soul?

My oldest is working on writing his life's purpose statement. He lamented to me, "Mom, sometimes I've been thinking about my life's purpose, and I see that a lot of things don't line up with it."

"It's hard, isn't it?" I look into his creek-water eyes and wish I could raise a boy to live the easy life, a boy that could take the road more traveled.

"Yes, it's the broken life." We've talked about this--broken living. It's the better way to take communion, we believe. There is a time for the wafers and juice, but we find that we remember Jesus better by breaking ourselves--stepping outside of what is comfortable. Giving up a meal, feeding homeless families, hugging powdery seniors' necks at nursing homes--things not comfortable for raggedy, rough boys--are a part of our family communions.

"Remember Jesus? It had to be hard for him watching his brothers and sisters growing up doing their own thing while He knew He would be breaking loaves and fishes, walking amongst the poor, the diseased, hanging from a cross. He lived to redeem. Lived broken so we could be whole."

"Yes. He probably didn't always enjoy that." My son relates to the idea of Jesus as a boy.

"When we give up here, we gain later. Those who live poor in spirit inherit the Kingdom of heaven."

"But we'll be rich in a better way in heaven, mom. That's what it means about storing up treasures in heaven. We'll have that in eternity." He knows. He gets it. He holds my hand and I look deep into his riverbed eyes--the pupils water smoothed pebbles--and love him.

The Ugandan and Philippine boy slept the last two nights in another host home, but they were with us still. We carry them now. We carry their people, their families, their thirst. A Christmas tree towers over ten feet tall in my living room--the room that only weeks ago I lamented being too small to host the homeschool mom's Christmas party, the room that when they entered, they exclaimed It is so big, Auntie! I had thought they would enjoy seeing the shiny decorations. Playfully, I wrapped one in strands of crimson wooden cranberries. "I'm a Chreestmas boy, Auntie! A Chreestmas boy," he had exclaimed.

Indeed, he is a Christ-boy. In his face I see a hundred thousand faces--hunger, pain, thirst, need, loneliness. Those were the real reasons Christ came, weren't they? The real reasons for all our merry making this time of year are about what we can give, not what we will receive.

Open my eyes, Father. Leave me bleeding a while longer. Let them linger in my heart--The Chreestmas boys. Amen.

http://www.worldhelp.net/ http://www.compassion.ca/