Broken Lives and Shortbread Cookies

There are these shortbreads I've been baking for 16 years.  They're not ordinary shortbread cookies. They're whipped.  And by whipped, I mean I put butter, flour and a bit of powdered sugar into my faithful Kitchen-Aid, turn her on high and let her roar for ten straight minutes while I go about my business.  Of all the fussy, truffly, ganachy, decadent treats I make every Christmas, these common cookies are by far my favorite.  In fact, I blame them for at least ten of my extra pounds--I mean really, when the recipe calls for equal parts butter and flour, you know the scale is going to taunt you for the rest of your life.  But the key to these cookies isn't in the ingredients.  That's nothing new.  Anybody can make a shortbread.  The key is in the whipping.  A friend was over the other day, and I force fed her one with a bit of Earl Grey tea (because who in their right mind would have one without that specific tea?).  She said, "These are tricky little cookies.  You put them in your mouth, and then they disappear."  Exactly.  There is so much air in those gloriously golden dollops that they melt instantly on your tongue.  Clouds are made of them.  They grow on trees in heaven.  On the day God rested?  He was eating them.  I know this.  I am certain.
But there is one little problem.
They break.
Every year.
When I attempt to place them in a container, inevitably several of them crack the instant they are lifted from the cookie sheet.
It's because they've been whipped.  Hard.
And sometimes life does that to us.  Whips us.
Leaves us feeling like a batter that's been tossed around the planet mercilessly for too many long, lonely minutes.  And those minutes feel like a lifetime of relentless horror.
I know this because I've been watching it all around me.  Lives of those I love have been caught up in some kind of violent cosmic hurricane and the debris and splinters of their world swirl around us.
Children terminally ill.
Family with cancer.
Wedding vows abandoned.
Suicidal children.
Mothers addicted to drugs.
Depression that doesn't lift with talk or pill.
And these aren't just words; these are the stories of souls.  Precious, hurting souls. Souls I've talked with this very week.
They have names; they live, and they breathe, and they break.
Dear God, they break.
And were I to have a hundred hands, still I could not stitch the shards of their lives back together, still I could not wipe away all the tears, still I could not fix the fractures.
Noah saw this same stuff, was witness to great woe.
God placed him on the ark, told him He would send flooding rain.
And Jesus told us In this world you will have trouble. (John 16:33)
God did send rain.  Though Noah expected it, having never seen it, he didn't know how overwhelming a flooding rain would be. And though we know trouble is promised, we are still stunned by its staggering blows.
Noah sat on that boat, goats bleating, crickets chirping, and a family that no doubt freaked as the waters rose.  Did you ever stop to really think of Noah?
Because I thought I knew everything about the whole ark experience.  The two by two animals, the pretty little brown flannel graph boat that floated like a cruise ship on blue felt waves, and the gorgeous rainbow bookended by cottony clouds.  Mr. Thomas taught me all about it at Faith Baptist Church when I was growing up.
He was a good man.  His stories captivated me as he used strips of felt to create a canvas of biblical times. He taught me well, but the truth is, he left a few details out.  The ones that didn't fit neatly on his 2 by 4 foot flannel graph board and easel.
I've thought about those things lately.  A lot.
If I was Noah's wife, I would have been fine for a little while.  I would have let him build his ark.  I would have even helped him, baked him muffins and brought him coffee.  I would have created feeding charts for the animals and packed an overnight bag 'just in case.'  When the rain came, it would have been a confirmation to me that he wasn't crazy.  I would have made tea and sat by a window to watch that strange phenomenon I'd not yet seen as it poured down in sheets of clear liquid like tears.  But friends, did you ever stop to think of the crowds of people desperately crying out and beating their fists against the cypress wood begging to be let in?
God had already shut the door.  And if y'all want things to get really real, we should just discuss God shutting that door.  Because nobody wants to tackle that topic.  Understanding God isn't easy.  He doesn't fit in a theology book or a Dayspring Card.  He can't be tamed, fully fathomed or simplified into words that completely encompass all of who He is.  He can't.  Anyone who pretends otherwise is dead wrong.  But know this, there is not one single description of God in the Bible that is false.  So when we don't understand or God forbid, we don't agree, we stand on what we know to be true.
For the Lord is good; His love endures forever.  (Psalm 100:5)
So when I think of the reality that Noah could give them no relief, I remember that The Lord is still good in that decision to shut the door even if I don't grasp it.  That right there would have been the end of me.  I'd have climbed out a window, slung out a rope, screamed at Noah to let me help them.  Because who among us can ever sit idly by when another is in trouble?
And this is a rather inconvenient truth.  Our God does allow trouble.
No Sunday School teacher on the planet can make that fit neatly on their flannel graph board.  It's ugly and glaring and uncomfortable.
And still, there is more.  It got way worse.
Did you ever think about the bodies?
Because surely when they looked out the windows of that ark they saw bodies.  Floating and lifeless beings that finally surrendered their fight to survive.  The carcasses of animals and cadavers of their friends and neighbors sloshed about by a deluge so strong that none, not one, single soul survived it.
All broken beyond repair.  I know I'd of wept and wailed, and I am not even going to pretend I would have accepted the decision of a sovereign God.
I
would
have
been
ticked.
I'd have yelled.  I'd have pleaded for Him to show Himself.  To explain Himself.  To give me some understanding.  And where is the yelling and hollering and pleading before God for answers in our churches today?  Does that fit neatly on Sunday morning between Bless the Lord  and Oceans in the worship set?  Because what if we all got just a little more honest and spit up just a wee bit of the truth of our souls?  What would church look like then?
But this is what is worst of all.
After the rain stopped its relentless forty days of pounding, there came a deafening silence.
For 11 months heaven held it's tongue.
Our God was silent.
They floated aimless on an ocean of water with no end.  No idea where they were going.  No idea when or if they would hear from God again.  No idea how long their food rations would hold out.  No idea if they would survive.
And if we're being honest, when you've lost that much, would you even want to survive?
They had nothing left.
All I'm saying is we've seen troubles yes, but we're in good company.
God did not speak.  That we know of, Noah heard nothing from God for over a year.
And how does a sometimes silent God work with our pretty paintings of God as a doting Father?  Is this not perhaps the reason people walk away from the faith?
I'm just asking.
Maybe we were sold a Dixie cup of grape Kool-Aid, and after sipping a little while, we discover, there's more.  It's not all grape.  It's not all sweet.  It's not going down easy.  And we feel jilted, deceived, conned.  We feel stupid for falling for it.  We think we're idiots for drinking the Kool-Aid, and we're out.
Because we've tried to live right, you and I.  Haven't we?  Tried to follow the rules, be good little Christians. God said Noah was righteous and scripture says Noah did all that God commanded him.  Indeed he did.
Obedient, God-fearing men and women can do exactly as God instructs and still bear witness to great sorrow.
I'm talking about the kind of sorrow and confusion that follows your child telling you they are gay.
I'm talking about the kind of pain that follows cancer, stage 4.
I'm talking about the knock out punch that happens when you made a bad investment and your family loses their home.
I'm talking about the stuff we don't want to talk about.  I'm saying, let's have this conversation.
In this world you will have trouble.  Jesus said it because He was willing to have this conversation. Not once did he shy away from the truth of who He is or the questions of a people hungry for a Savior.
So Noah and his family are just about in the middle of what seems like nowhere when we read this:
But God remembered Noah.
God--
our God
the God who was silent,
remembered.
See, that little phrase there is a game changer for me.  It's everything I need.
When He remembered, He sent a wind to dry the land, and He closed the floodgates.
Still though He remembered, He remained silent for over half a year longer.
Why God?
Because I know women whose husbands are dead and children whose mothers are dead, and they've lived through the silence of heaven.
But God remembers.
And this is what we need, is it not?  We need to know that God remembers us.  In Hebrew that phrase means He calls to His memory.
If I'm going to drink from the bitter cup, I want a God who calls me to His memory.  I want a God who doesn't forget I exist.  A God who cares enough to choose to call me to His mind.  Because maybe the Kool-Aid doesn't look right after all, but faith isn't what we see.  It's what we don't see.
Around the seventh month, Noah and his family stopped drifting and landed on solid ground.
Faith is believing solid ground will surface and the boat of our lives will land there because our God will not forget us.
Around the tenth month, Noah and his family could see the tops of the mountains again.  Earth was still there.  It did not give way.
Indeed the earth is established, it cannot be moved.  (Psalm 93: 2)
Then, after 370 days Noah and his family set their feet on soil.
Do you hear me when I say it was a year?  An entire year of their lives they drift and float and wait. Lord knows we drift too, don't we?  And finally, their God speaks.
And when He does?  Do you know that He just picks up the conversation right where He left off?  No Hi, how are you?  It's me, God. Missed you.  How you been?  What did you think of the ark?  How'd the elephants do all cooped up?  
Why?  Because He already knew.  There was no catching up needed; He was always there.
Emmanuel--God with us.
And He is here now in the midst of your story and my story.
Right here.  Right now.  In the middle of the debris.
The Lord is near to all who call out to Him, to all who call on him in truth. (Psalm 145:18)
I will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5)
There's the whole rainbow bit too.  Everybody loves that part, but for me, it's just Him talking to them like He never left.
Because
He
didn't
leave.
He
never
does.
And while we're discussing Him.  God isn't afraid of our questions.  He's not phased by our doubts. He's not offended by our disappointment.
In fact, I think when we get real and honest and quit pretending, that's when we start to really see God.
Not the God of fairy tales.
Not the God that's just sugar and no spice.
But the LIVING GOD.
The God who has His own will and plan.  The God who didn't make us so we could enjoy life, but rather who made us so we could have life.
And by the way, that life we get to have?  It's HIM.  He said, I am the way, the truth, and THE LIFE. (John 10:10)
Romans 8:5,6 says this:  For those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped  by the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their outlook shaped by things of the Spirit.  For the outlook of the flesh is death, but the outlook of the Spirit is life and peace.
Maybe this is the crux of it all.  To survive the flood, we must live according to the Spirit.  And there's only one way to do that.
By faith.
It always comes to this, doesn't it?
Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who approaches God must believe that He exists and the He rewards those who seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)
That same passage says Noah became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
Faith that he exists.
Faith that He rewards those who seek Him.
Faith that if God be for us, who can be against us?  No enemy can stand against the power of His name.
Faith that He will shelter you with his wings, you will find safety under his wings.  His faithfulness is like a shield or a protective wall. (Psalm 91:4)
Faith that our God's love is loyal. (Psalm 92:4)
Faith that though our God is a consuming fire, the Lord is (also) just in all His actions and exhibits love in all He does.  (Psalm 145:7)
Because the outlook of the flesh is death.  And when we're in the midst of a flood, sometimes all we see is the death, but
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
Knowing this doesn't remove the angst of life.  It isn't a promise that our spouse will return, that children won't go hungry, that the stroke won't take his speech or that Alzheimers won't steal her memory.  But knowing it changes our outlook to one of life and peace. It reminds us that beneath the raging waters, solid ground remains.
Cookies crumble.
They just do.
And life?  It stings sometimes.
It just does.
But God remembers.
And that is enough.

A Mug of Boiled Water

I can promise you, I'm not happy.  I have only two habits--one of which is extremely annoying--that have stuck throughout the years.  Playing with my hair (that's the annoying one which leaves both my husband and my brother-in-law cringing and renders my hair perpetually uneven in length due to the breakage caused by said habit) and drinking coffee first thing in the morning.  Rain, shine, spring, fall, 100 degrees or twenty, I.drink.coffee.  Preferably two mugs. Supersized ones.  Period.  I have exchanged vanity for coffee stained teeth, and frankly (because I'm sure you'd like to know this) it prevents me from ever needing to buy Metamucil.  So, that's the redemptive thing behind the habit.

When spring climbs her way into the north Georgia mountains sprinkling her colors, her drops of green and blackberry-foam purple on violets, her salmon and sangria on the tulips, I like to be present.  I do not want to miss one millimeter of growth, of new life exploding as she passes by.  I have a routine.
Wake up.
Look out the window and thank God for another day.
Acknowledge Nathan. (who is already awake no matter how early I rise)
Make coffee. (I'm not telling you how many cups.  I already told you about the Metamucil)
Get the dog leash. (By now, Jango is shoving me out the door)
Pour coffee.
Walk Jango . . . while sipping coffee.
View Spring as she drips and drops about the hills . . . while sipping coffee.
Examine her work closely in my garden . . . while sipping coffee.
That's it.  The rest of the day may not commence until I've done this routine.

So I am sure you will understand my dilemma when I tell you that the first month of my personal SEVEN is food.  (If you're wondering what in the world I'm talking about, read my blog post from a couple days ago.)  And guess what God just insisted I give up first?  Yeah, redundant, I know.  Coffee.
Hence the first sentence of this little post.  I'm in an extremely agitated-would-bite-someones-head-off-if-I-wasn't-also-in-deep-brain-fog-due-to-caffeine-withdrawal state. Did I mention I have a headache?

For seven months I will commit to seven different themes.  The purpose will be in essence a fast with the chief aim being to empty myself that Christ might fill me with His thoughts, His desires, His plans, His goals.  Because I really feel strongly about being characterized by what I do and not what I don't do, I've phrased my list for this first month--The Food Month--in this slant.  These are things that, after some prayer and good old fashioned honesty with myself, (Yes, self, you are indeed a greedy glutton.) I want to commit a month to pursuing.

1. Do eat organic/unprocessed foods (With a budget that lacks wiggle room, the organic part is going to have to be a little flexible, but I will give it a hearty attempt.  Does anyone know if Ramen Noodles come unprocessed and organic?)

2. Do eat only whole grains. (Sadness.  I'm baking fresh  WHITE bread tomorrow for a friend's birthday, and I would normally double the batch and keep a loaf for us.)

3. Do eat fruit/veggie with every meal, and only fruits and veggies for snacks.  (Here I will try to use things from my garden every day.  We are in salad season, so this will help offset some of the organic cost since I keep my garden pretty much organic.)

4. Do walk away from caffeine. (I’m going to die, starting now.)

5. Do walk away from all sweeteners. (This month has nothing to do with dieting for me.  There have been times--like when Cort left a few of his infant pounds in my stomach after he was born--when I needed to kick sugar to the curb from a calorie standpoint.  This is different.  I'm leaving sweetness, period.  I think to live in hunger must be a very bitter thing, and I don't want to sweeten this month artificially, organically, or any other way.  I love sweets.  Have you ever seen my pictures?  My profile picture on facebook was a cake for 2 months for crying out loud! Ignoring that box of Krispy Kremes, the homemade sour cream coffee cake, and the two logs of double chocolate cookie dough in my freezer will be a very...VERY constant reminder of the blessings I have, and the hunger of over 85% of the world.)

6. Do eat before 7PM (I chose 7 PM for obvious reasons—seven. Also, because it gives us time to get late dinners in.  We aren't much of a schedule family so I’m not going to be legalistic about supper. The real reason I'm choosing to do this is because I want to cull the savory snacks I treat myself to when the boys have finally settled under their IKEA comforters for the night.  I hesitated on this particular one because I didn't want it to be about not eating after seven.  You always hear you shouldn't do that if you are dieting.  But this is NOT a diet.  The bottom line is this is a snack I don't need--a luxury--and there are children in the world who don't get snacks period. I want to feel that.  I want to go to bed a little bit hungry.  I want, somehow, in some small, microscopic, way to understand what it means to go without something I want.)

7. Do read either In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto or Animal Vegetable Miracle: A year of Food Life (I did the Omnivore's Dilemma thing and it was great for about the first three chapters.  Then I started falling asleep.  He made his point . . . more than once.  I'm hoping these books will give me a little more understanding of the reality of what we eat and its impact on the world as a whole and on my family's bodies too.)

I also hope to visit or view online a processing plant for meat. And I intend to take one day each week and attempt to eat like the poor of Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala and Ecuador. These are four countries that pinch at my heart.  This part I will do with the boys; we'll go online to learn more about the conditions of these particular nations.  And speaking of the boys, so far, they've been very kind.  I had anticipated them giving me the mom, you are going to slowly torture us for an entire month? look, but they haven't.  Already, they're willing to quit the processed/fast food stuff for the month, though one of them is begging for the remaining Dr. Bob (I know, I'm cheap) that's been sitting on the counter over a week.

Basically, I've chosen to do food for a few reasons.  One--I'm a glutton, and I know it.  Two--every five seconds a child dies from hunger or preventable disease.  I need to get my head wrapped around that from a compassion standpoint.  I also need to process that fact in light of the fact that I just might be able to sponsor a child from Compassion if I am willing to eliminate/drastically reduce consumption of things like coffee.  Three--Jen Hatmaker says in her book Seven that we get to vote every day with our fork.  And we do.  I do.  I'm guilty of supporting some not so great, definitely not ethical (But who cares about animals and the environment...right? Apparently God.) practices when it comes to growing and butchering meat.  When I eat foods laden with high fructose corn syrup, again, I'm voting.  And I need to explore that from a stewardship of my body and the earth standpoint.

I have no idea where I will land, and I'm not making any granola'ish promises that I will become a wild mushroom, poke salad eating vegan.  That's pretty unlikely.  Some of you may think I'm a little off my rocker and others of you may be thinking my SEVEN are pretty lame.  No matter--you don't have to read :-)  I really debated even posting any of this.  Do they even care about this sort of thing?  Do they want to read about my addiction to coffee and sweets?  Does anyone read the blog at all?Probably not.  But, maybe, just maybe there are a few of you out there who understand where I'm coming from.  See for me, food can be my life, and my only concern is that I don't get too fat. (What? I'm being honest.)  So, if I eat what I want, have a jog, and can still fit in my Ann Taylor jeans, then it's all good.  But is it?  Really?  Because for some people in our world, food really is their life.  And they haven't any.  And Jesus said He came that they might have life.  Dare I withhold the very thing Christ came to give?  I stole this Thomas More quote from a friend's facebook page because he says it better than me.  “It's wrong to deprive someone else of a pleasure so that you can enjoy one yourself, but to deprive yourself of a pleasure so that you can add to someone else's enjoyment is an act of humanity by which you always gain more than you lose.”

A theme for me this month will be this verse.

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body,"  (II Cor. 6:19-20)

You are not your own.

Really?  Because I'm afraid I've been eating like I am entirely my own and that I'm entitled to have what I want.  I'm afraid I've eaten from a vain perspective instead of a tending of the frame that God crafted approach.

Therefore honor God with your body.

The choices I make either honor my God or mar His image.  Just because I can get away with eating whatever I want from a physical standpoint doesn't mean I have honored God.  And if what I eat causes another person to have less, than I have in fact, dishonored Him.

So, here I am beginning.  Already today while sipping my boiled water from a Tim Horton's (the best coffee place in the world for my American friends who don't know) mug, I doubted this entire thing.  Why would anyone want to torture themselves?  God allowed me to be born in North America; He must have wanted me to have these things.  At church tonight I had to bring my own supper because I wasn't very confident that their meal would be SEVEN approved.  Someone immediately noticed my organic Greek yogurt and said . . . and I kid you not, "Yogurt? Really?  You live in North America with all these choices and you pick yogurt?"  (She had no idea I was doing this . . . otherwise she'd have been a thousand percent supportive.)  But, it proves my point exactly.

I do live in North America ,and I have so many choices that I no longer understand what it means to live without any choices.  Here we are in what some call Holy Week . . . those sacred days that we've placed on the calendar to remind us of the brokenness of Christ.  Surely Jesus ached with thoughts of what He would face, what He would endure that we might have life. 

 "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."  (II Cor. 8:9) 

He became poor.  Gave up.  Sacrificed.  Relinquished.

That I might gain the riches of eternity.

May I become poor that someone else may gain those same blessings.

Amen.

SEVEN: A New Kind of Fast

     I like to blame things on my parents.  They gave me their genes--wide feet, chubby cheeks (all four), and the-caterpillar-for-eyebrows.  Thanks for that, Mom and Dad.  They nurtured me too.  That meant tea parties with Mom, endless hours soaking sun at the lake (so yeah, that's gonna mean skin cancer), loving food, loving the outcasts and misfits (never a holiday where we didn't sit elbow to elbow with some eclectic conglomeration of people who may not have had any other place to celebrate that year), and loving Jesus.  With Dad it has always been about the underdogs of the world.  His heart is tender; he cries over chickens squashed in cages and about went bankrupt feeding stray cats who I swear migrated from all six other continents when they heard he was filling Rubbermaid bins with food for them.  He is color blind for real, but it wouldn't matter if he could see color correctly.  He still wouldn't see it.  The world, for him, is shaded by justice, inequality/equality, and thinking critically about what we believe to be true.  So, what you are about to read is entirely their fault.  You've been warned.
      I just can't accept status quo.  I can't NOT rock the boat.  Not in my nature.  I think about things. (I explained this in the first paragraph.)  For quite some time now I've been uncomfortable with a few things--namely, I don't go hungry, nor do my children, but starvation manages to murder a child every five seconds, I live in a large, comfortable, 72 degree house while almost 1.5 million (can't even fathom that number) were without shelter in 2011 in the US alone, and a few pesky verses like that one about how religion that's pure and faultless tends to look after widows and orphans, and there are something like 15 million without mother or father in the world. So, while most of us are thinking about where we are taking our annual beach vacay, I'm haunted by the justice gene, the loving of the downtrodden gene, and I can't manage to pull the trigger on all the new GROUPON vacation bargains to viva la Mexico.  Thanks, Mom.  Thanks, Dad.  
      In reality, I'm a tough nut to crack.  God has to peel back the scales that seal my eyes to the truths of His Word and how He intended them to be applied.  If I'm being honest, both spiritually speaking and economically speaking, in comparison with the rest of the world, I'm a saturated sponge.  Completely saturated.  I grew up in church, learned to read using the King James Bible as my primary text, and I've never gone hungry a day in my life.  Never.  So, that puts me in a privileged category.  Privileged and so full, I can't always fathom what it means to need, to want, to hunger, to thirst.  And in a spiritual sense, I've read the red words of Jesus so many times, heard the sermons so many times, sung the songs, that they have become like white noise in the background.  So, God has to peel back these scales, cause a bit of a ruckus until I'm raw, squeeze the sponge until it thirsts again for Living Water.
     Enter a chance post from a dear Canadian friend (Hi, Dani!) that linked me to a random blog that tugged at scales like you tug at a Band-Aid when you're trying to rip it off fast.  Ouch and Wow!  It was here, at Jen Hatmaker's website that I first saw her book Seven: an experimental mutiny against excess.  (Leave me alone grammar police; she didn't capitalize the letters in her title, and she has an editor!  K?)  Jen's premise?  We have far more say in what happens in our world than we realize.  We vote everyday with our wallets, with our forks, with our garbage, with our time.  We are called to love God and love others, and we are doing a shoddy job at best.  She started with herself and decided to commit seven months to purge seven specific areas of excess in her life.
     Her words:  "I started praying about what God wanted; what would move me closer to His agenda and further from mine?  How could this be meaningful, not just narcissistic and futile?  What areas needed the most renovation?  How am I blind and why?  Where have I substituted The American Dream for God's kingdom?  What in my life, in the lives of most westerners, is just too stinking much?

• Food
• Clothes
• Possessions
• Media
• Waste
• Spending
• Stress

     Seven months, seven areas, reduced to seven simple choices.  I'm embarking on a journey of less.  It's time to purge the junk and pare down to what is necessary, what is noble.  7 will be an exercise in simplicity with one goal:  to create space for God's kingdom to break through.
     I approach this project in the spirit of a fast:  an intentional reduction, a deliberate abstinence to summon God's movement in my life.  A fast creates margin for God to move."  (pg. 4)
    How am I blind and why?  Mmmm.  Most people unable to see are aware of their deficiency, but I'm afraid I've been a blind gal thinking she knew where she was going.  And when Jesus said, "Seek Ye first the Kingdom of God," (Matt. 6:33) I'm afraid I understood Him to mean, "As long as you seek me a lot, squeeze in everything else you possibly can, Sarah."
     Where have I substituted the American Dream for God's kingdom?  Okay, I'm reading Radical for the second time through.  This whole American Dream vs. God's kingdom business?  Just.Starting.To.Sink.In.  Just starting.  I don't even know if I should say it's sinking in--remember the saturated sponge problem?  We can spend so much time listening, reading, hearing about God loving us that we become sopping,heavy, wet with love and yet it is that very love that "compels us" (II Cor. 5:14) to motion.  Mary, sweet Mary (I kinda hate her) may have chosen the more excellent thing when she sat, soaking at Jesus' feet, but I can promise you that if she remained at his feet, he would have eventually told her to get up, go pick up her cross, and FOLLOW Him.  Surely He didn't praise her choice because she was sitting; I have to believe it had to do with the fact that she was filling herself up.  But, fellow Americans, our threshold for fullness is broken.  We are so prone to excess we no longer even know how to stop feeding.  We are a engorged people.  I am an engorged woman.
     Follow Me.   "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."  (Luke 9:23)  Jesus called us into action, motion.  And in truth, He modelled it for us, didn't He?  At the cross?  Like dressing the the sun or the moon, Christ clothed his holiness in the cloak of mortality, and walked among wayward, willful, wandering humanity.  And though there were only a few steps up the Golgotha's hill where carried his crucifixion cross, he had carried it his entire earthly life, hadn't he?
     So I'm thinking of His words--the follow me words--and wondering, where?  Where will I follow Him?  When I was young I thought the ultimate test of my willingness to follow would be geographical.  Would I go to Africa?  Would I?  But now I'm not so sure.  It turns out Africa might have been easier for me than denying myself here in the have-it-your-way-right-away culture of North America.  In fact, it turns out, you can run clear across the globe shouting the salvation of Jesus and never once pick up your cross and follow Him. 
     And what, my friends, if that's me?  Plucking at keys and yakking in small groups and I'm only a resounding gong, a clanging symbol whose sound causes Christ to cringe?
     What if when we post Joshua's Words in walnut frames on the walls of our homes, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord..." (Joshua 24:15) we are foolish enough to think that our commitment to go to church on Sunday, maybe teach a Sunday School class, attend a small group, and tithe exactly ten percent reads as a life of solidarity with the man who obeyed God in CRAZY ways (Would you fight a battle by walking around some city walls in silence repeatedly, day after day?)  when in reality we are really hiding behind a modern version of the Mosaic Law?   Solidarity?  I'm thinking not.
     What if I raise my hands in worship on Sunday, but my life is a pair of hands clenched into fists grasping, gripping, groping for my American Dream when the world is hungry for true worship.  The worship of a life lived out of love.  A life of motion.  A life that sacrifices in this life to gain that which cannot be taken in the next life.
     What if I'm a part of a corporate body of Christ that has gone into a sugared-life induced coma and we lay, lifeless, motionless while the world dies?
     What if my two cup of coffee a morning habit is the cause of a Compassion child NOT being sponsored because I say there's no room in the budget.  I mean are you kidding me?  I can't give up coffee in this temporary life so a child will have a chance to live, period? To one day hear of Jesus' love?  I mean don't the rivers flow Columbian brew in heaven?  Could I not wait 'til eternity to continue the habbit? Yeah, what if?
     I read her entire book in a very short amount of time.  (Okay, it may have been a good distraction from the ten million pages of our Family Book Club book, Atlas Shrugged.  Sorry, guys, I'll get back to it, I promise.)  You should too. (Read her book--The verdict's still out on Atlas)  Go here to find out more about SEVEN.  Three words in and I knew I'd have to do this.  Knew I needed to do this.  Knew God brought me to this.  And the timing is perfect.  One week before Easter, I'm a little late for Lent, but maybe I'm right on time to Follow Him into the Garden.  I see Him there, praying.  I see his face, washed red with blood vessels broken--a foreshadowing of what would come.  I see Him there, releasing every single ounce of personal ambition and desire.  My Savior, planting surrender.  My Savior, watering it with drops of bloody sweat so it would grow into a ransom for my muddy mired heart, and not just for mine, but for mankind's.
     I too want that level of surrender, and I wonder if a fasting time might not be the way to train myself.  In her book, Jen Hatmaker says, "After saying "no" to things I wanted for nearly a year, I guess I gained some control over my emotions and impulses.  God used fasting as a tool to curb my appetites and regulate my reactions.  It was a concise realization:  "Something in  me has deeply changed." 
     Perhaps this is why Scripture calls us to the practise of fasting--from food, from greed, from selfishness, from luxuries.  It isn't just the experience; it's the discipline.  It changes us.  Fasting helps us develop mastery over the competing voices in our heads that urge us toward more, toward indulgence, toward emotional volatility.  Like consistent discipline eventually shapes our children's behavior, so it is with us.  Believe it or not, God can still change us.  Not just our habits but our hearts.  Say "no" for a year and see for yourself." (Seven, pg. 219)
     I'm going to see for myself, friends.  Along the way, I hope to share with you what I'm learning, what I'm seeing.  For now, I'm standing aware of the thousands of competing voices demanding I seek them first, but my hands are open, my ears are strained.  I'm listening for the still, small voice.

Pray with me:
Lord, what are my SEVEN? 

Embers--The Lifting of Stooped Shoulders

His lips were reduced to a single slip of pink embroidery thread--a thin line holding back a torrent of tears--when he came. Already, he had thrown the Newton's cradle, a tangled knot of weighted silver balls and fishing line, into the bulging garbage can. In full resignation he announced, "It's broken; we can't fix it this time." Shoulders stooped, his head drooped, and his eyes filled with drips he refused to let flow. Bent over. My boy. And I saw the words, none of them eloquent, all of them embers in the furnace of hope. The Lord...lifts up all who are bent over." (Psalm 145:14) Life bends us over sometimes. It just does. A single slip of hand had sent Cort's hard earned Newton's Cradle soaring through the air where a thousand invisible fingers worked together to tie and tangle the lines so that they were spaghetti, and his heart couldn't bare it all. Holding his rescued wreckage in calloused palms, I thought of my own tangles--the motor in our car that gave up with Christmas around the corner. I thought of the family who saw the soil cover the coffin this week, the neighbor who went from blowing leaves off her deck to immobile in less than a week. I remembered my sister's text telling me a baby where she works died. Another boy overdosed. Life bends, and bends, and bends. My hands held a child's set of knots, but in my heart there grows the knots of a lifetime--a mass of death, divorce, tumors, and billowing bills. Some my own. Some others. All twisting, turning, touching my spirit, whispering, Bend. And that word bend? It means to submit--to bend before a King. And how is it that it is life that causes us to bend when we say we are followers of the King of Kings? How is it that we slump our shoulders and stoop our hearts to the overwhelming flood that gushes when the King of Kings says, "The Lord is near all who cry out to him," (Psalm 145:18) And when did we start crying instead of crying out to the God who is near? Lord, help me to bend to you, that you might lift me up. Show me how to bend to you and not the circumstances. What if we purpose to bend to the King when life demands we bend to it? Daniel danced this waltz--the one where he bends to the one true God. The decree was that no one would pray to any human or God other than King Darius. That was the decree. Bend. Bend to another, not your God. And Daniel bent. He bent to his God offering prayers and thanks. The situation was dire. Surely he knew he risked his body to the shredding of lion's teeth. Yet he bent. He prayed. He thanked. Scripture says, "just as he had been accustomed to do previously."(Daniel 6:11) He was in a familiar pattern where bending to the Sovereign God was his habit. And I think of my own habits. I examine them next to Daniels'. Why, when difficulty bares her jagged teeth do we bend to her when our God remains enthroned? Don't we realize all the raging universe is on a leash? "The Lord has established his throne in heaven; his kingdom extends over everything." Psalm 103:19 Everything. Extends over everything. Extends over the suffocating moment when we know our child is no longer present in their earthly frame. Extends over the moment when husband of twenty years walks out, and we are left murmuring a thousand times, "Don't leave." Extends over the negative bank account, extends over the day when the sun climbs into the sky and you realize you've chased a dollar your entire life and yet have nothing. Extends to the babies in Haiti at the orphanage where they haven't had rice for three days. In His kingdom, His subjects, we are. Even the suffering ones? Even the destitute ones? Yes, even them. And even the bravest of us, the most-determined-to-not-question Him of us all must sometimes admit we want to know. Why? Why then, if we are all His subjects, must we be bent? Why, Oh Great King, do you sit back when children starve? Why do you let young ones die and old ones wither? Why do you allow the wars and the pain? I am just an untangler of human knots, the child-sized spider's webs, not the great universal utterings that together become a theological loftiness beyond the reach of my 67 inches. But still, I hear mankind's murmur--a low mumble at first, and then the fields sway, and the trees flail and I hear them all together--a chorus of questions. "He is the one...who heals all your diseases, who delivers your life from the pit, who crowns you with his loyal love and compassion, who satisfies your life with good things...executes justice for all the oppressed." (Psalm 103:3-6) Now hear me whisper here because I don't mean to tread toes, I only mean to explore our hearts in truth. What if the promise for healing isn't always realized in this parenthesis we call life? What if it comes on an eternal timetable our human minds can't fathom? And what if it isn't our finances He delivers from the pit but our very life--the heart that is freed to make good decisions with the resources we have? What if we still see foreclosure, but our spirit is unchained from the pit of self indulgence and greed, from the sense of entitlement that insisted we needed that mortgage in the first place? What if while our white knuckled hands wring the empty swaddling blanket we sense the Holy Spirit lullaby that soothes our sorrow in His loyal love, in His compassion? What if it still hurts, but He's present? What if justice for the Haitian, the Ecuadorian, the African orphans comes when eternity is revealed? What if pain is sometimes the precursor to joy? What if His ways are higher than ours? What if we bend to the unknown of God's ways? I thought about quitting. That darn Newton's Cradle took me almost an hour to unknot. We waited six weeks on China to ship us that $4.99 desk oddity, and somehow I knew it was more than a proof of Newton's laws. But those embers--The Lord lifting up those who are bent over--they were still burning in my heart. I had to lift the shoulders of my boy because really, when he threw that toy in the garbage and told me it was hopeless, he still had the embers too. He hadn't given up. He'd come to me, hadn't he? He'd hoped. He'd hoped that maybe, just maybe mommy could take the tangles and sort them out, piece by piece. I won't always be able to do that for him. But he'll know, won't he, that I still love him? That day, when the mess is too big, and the circumstances aren't going to be changed by the keyboard clicking pads of mommy's fingertips? On that day, he'll still know he is loved. I'll grieve, and I'll ache, and I'll swallow forkfuls of swollen angst as I watch the day I can't make things better for him. It is somehow the same with God--those who suffer greatest are the most deeply attended by the heart of God. The promise is not that He will fix the Newton's Cradle, not that He will shift the continents of our lives into alignment, but that He supports all who fall, and lifts all who are bent over. Supports ALL. Lifts ALL. Extends over ALL. What, my friends is your ALL? Because there is a decree demanding you bend to that ALL. Can you name it ALL? God gave Adam the chore of naming. We too must name, both the good and the bad. Now can you turn your back on ALL that you have named? Can you turn your eyes upon Jesus? Can you go to Him and bend before His ways, before His goodness, before His mercy, before His compassion, before his purpose? Can you bend to Him? Because if you can, He will lift you up. "Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or imagine...." (Eph. 3:20) "And we know that all things work together for good..."(Romans 8:28) Hope burns not because the world is right, but because the God who made the world remains right. And He will never let go. It has been written and sung more beautifully than I can express. Will you click and listen? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kRaF4DI5Sg&feature=share

Ye Shall Know the Truth

I haven't written in months--not that I haven't wanted to write, but I guess more directly, I haven't had much to say. I've had questions. Lots and lots of questions, lately. I did my time in a Bible school and learned all the right answers, but in recent years, I've had questions based out of real life, not theory. The kind of questions I'm referencing are those that no theology major can answer, no book can satisfy, no degree can squelch, and frankly, they are birthed in the streets of life rather than some textbook with yellowed pages. When first we married, Jeff and I bought a Victorian house that was built in the 1870's and because the laundry was in the unfinished, damp and otherwise unused basement, I was forced to frequent that area of the house. It was there that I could see a few cracks in the foundation. A firm foundation it was, but time had revealed a few spots where no matter how great the builder, there were now small cracks. They weren't of major concern--in fact the house will probably stand until the rapture--but they did exist. And only time had revealed them, and only those with an intimate knowledge of the house would ever understand their presence because from the street, the house looked like any other. Those cracks are much like my questions. They have appeared over time--as life has adjusted and settled and weathered more than one storm. My foundation remains firm, but there are these moments of punctuation where I ask, where I wonder, where I am willing to admit, I just don't get some things. And I've grown to understand that pat answers and the ones that come from cookie cutters are for the faint of heart and true questions are for those who have the courage to stand in the face of culture and tradition and history and say, with all respect, "I see how it is, how it has been for the last century or ten centuries and I'm not sure I agree. I'm not sure it's right. And I need to dig deeper. And I'm okay with that." So, over these last months, I've been asking. I've been wondering. Reading. Thinking. Raising my kids and cooking and cleaning--those elite activities that don't pause for questions. And I have a few answers and a whole lot more questions. It seems a treacherous journey in some respects--dangerous to question, to speculate outside of the box in which I've spent the majority of my Christian life. Most people just aren't comfortable with questions. Like those crazy 11 X 14 photographs you always get free with the package, questions just don't seem to fit neatly into our Christian worlds. A while back I told someone that I was questioning the institution of traditional church, for example, and they offered me a rather blank expression--maybe it was a deer in headlights kind of face--and said, "Yeah, I've read books about things like that." I wanted to say, "Books, huh? Well, I'm living it." The thing is I don't think questions really bothered Jesus. He met with Nicodemus after all. And Job had just a small bit of cud he wanted to chew with his Creator. Of course there was Saint Francis of Assissi, a courageous monk who took the time to think through the corruption that had begun to permeate the monastic order of his day to the extent that he was even imprisoned for a time. And then there was Martin Luther--the very father of reformation and therefore a man unafraid to question. It is good company that I feel I am keeping these days. I can tell you with confidence that questions don't leave me comfortable. What if the answers I find force me to make different life choices? What if the answers I find don't line up with my friends' thoughts? What if they contradict what I have taught my own children? Or God forbid this one, what if the things I come to believe are not the same as my spouse? Ohmygosh! What if???? Yeah. What if? Well, I don't know. But, this I do know. My God remains greater. Greater than the sum of all my questions. Greater indeed. Today, on my walk, I soaked in the ruby leaves of the dogwood and the amber of the poplar trees and then, in my garden, I held the delicate petals of the autumn peas and couldn't help but remember. He's still Creator. This much I know. He's still the one who formed a fish that looks like tin foil and a stingray with polkadots. He's still amazing. He's still the one who gave my eldest an unquenchable thirst for football and books and my youngest a hankering for a sketch pad and pencil. He's still the one who invented the gravity that holds my feet to the ground and He's still the one who tucks the beach in with the blanketing tides. He's still the one who striped the zebra and dotted the dalmation. He remains Creator. He remains Savior. He remains sovereign. And, I think it is in fact, He who invites me to question. Perhaps the truth of the matter is that my questions find their true source in His Truth within me. Perhaps they are his invitation to know not what I believe in, but WHO I believe in. Perhaps the questions are like the crumbs of Hansel and Gretel, left to draw me to The Truth. After all, it was Jesus who said, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32. Read with me: Proverbs 8:14 Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding, I have strength. Pray With Me: Lord, now we see through a glass only partially, but someday, we will see clearly. In the meantime, Father, grant me the courage to seek Your Face, and the wisdom to accept the answers you send. Cause me to know you more. May I not be filled with greater knowledge, but rather emptied of useless knowledge and filled to fullness with Your heart. Amen.