faith is...

Can you see the discussion? Here the questions? Should we JUMP?

Today Matt and I will board an airplane and fly across the Atlantic Ocean to Rome, Italy in celebration of our 20th wedding anniversary. All the jitters of a new bride have been at work in me these past weeks in preparation. 

I will walk in and sit down on thousands of pounds of fiberglass, metal and who knows what else. Then that large craft will climb thousands of feet in the air. Do I understand how? No! Will that lack of understanding stop me from “trusting” it enough to get on board? No!

I am not missing the analogy of this and faith. Now, I can study aerodynamics and the physics of flying and perhaps understand why the airplane stays in the sky. The analogy breaks down because I will NEVER study enough and understand how God works. 

A friend was telling me about her recent struggles yesterday. Literally the chaos of life this side of the garden is threatening to take her down. Well, really, it has taken her down. She is floundering. With tears in her eyes, she said, “I cannot find the logic.” In other words, “Why, God?!”

I get that. I have uttered those words. I have pounded my fist. I am lucky she did not hit me because I said, “You will never find logic. And you will drive yourself crazy looking.”

We spoke of how God engineers our stories so that we circle back around on ourselves and the pains we have buried are resurrected. This is our chance to bring them back to Our Father. And if we don’t believe in His healing for ourselves, we cannot with authenticity believe it for our children.

I don’t want to circumvent the process of asking WHY! These little and big why question marks are the very breadcrumbs that lead us home. We must pick up each and every breadcrumb and own the question. God already knows they reside in our souls. And they take us to surrender, home. 

Even though I don’t understand and, frankly, will never understand, why God does what He does; I will get on the plane and in faith believe that He is taking me somewhere. And that it is GOOD. And that is the strength and hope I share.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

what mothers do

Friday Matthew arrives home from UT. I hug him while chastising him for not returning my phone call. The old iPhone bad battery story silences my objections. Turns out he had a blow-out on I-40, changed to the spare, drove over to buy a tire. Changed that tire and headed home. A whole lifetime lived in one day. This, of course, justifies a mother’s worry when the phone battery dying and the tire blowing out coincide in one afternoon. I jot down a to do list topped with “buy car phone charger.”

As I pluck the 50-pound laundry basket from his arms, I see the faded blue IGBOK sweatshirt and make a mental note to lift it and take it to Italy with me. 

The next morning as Sam watches cartoons and I slice apples, Matthew gave me a blow by blow of the chick flick he and his girlfriend, Lily, watched the night before. Since I NEVER get to watch Chick Flicks, he spoils the plot for me right then and there. While I scoop out peanut butter into bowls, he captures the plot in eight words: Love and fame cannot live in same place.

Joshua bursts through the back door and demands a snack. “I’m working on it!” I say.

Then Matthew describes precisely the moment when the main character decides to take her own life. He googles the theme song stuck in his head and plays it for me right then and there. I don’t think to marvel at his astuteness until now because Sam hollers from the den, “another one!” This means he wants me to put another cartoon from the On Demand menu. To be a child again!

I chase Sam outside because who wants to watch tv on a gorgeous Tennessee morning?

These are the moments of motherhood that weave together and make a beautiful story.

And there are the other moments...

Matt and I sit in fold-up chairs on the sideline watching our third soccer game of the day. Joshua grabs at his hair after watching the ball land in the opponent’s goal. He turns and walks away from the goal toward center field as our goalie throws in the ball. I scream a little too loudly and harshly, “JOSHUA, WATCH THE BALL!” Matt points out not so gently that the ball is not live. The goalie is just returning the ball to mid-field for the kick-off. 

I cope with being exposed as one of THOSE parents by taking out my iPhone and studying my Twitter account. 

I’m at one of those crossroads as a mother when you begin to focus less on the ways your own parents harmed you. With maturity comes the realization that I will undoubtedly inflict pain upon my own children. An important rite of passage, this transition adjusts my vision much like the reading glasses I am needing recently.

 I am human. I will likely hurt my children. My mother was human. Even the wounds, perhaps ESPECIALLY the wounds I carry glorify my Heavenly Father.

Can I trust Him with my own humanness? Will I let go of the idol of Perfectionism? Will I live full out and acknowledge my ability to hurt or harm my children while giving everything I have to the task?

I will relish every moment of this journey and run fast to the one I have harmed to ask for forgiveness. And sit quietly and enjoy the one who is talking. And give myself space to be able to love from an overflowing heart. 

Today I thank God for my story. I give the stories of my children over to the Story Teller and admit that He knows better than I. 

mamas offer refuge

Photo of my high school graduation. I'm on the left, Mama in the middle. My sister Jere is on the right.

Mama. What a beautiful word. Nurture. Encourage. Invest. 

When I was little, my Mama would comfort me by letting me crawl under her arm and lie down beside her. She would say, “Come and get under my wing.” My sisters and I would run in after a bad dream or a disappointment at school and find refuge under her “wing.”

Psalm 91:4 says “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.” Mama may not have known it at the time, but she was teaching me about the faithfulness and protection of God.

Beginning with the womb, mothers offer refuge. A safe place. A place to be yourself. A place to learn who you are.

The story goes that my mom got her name, Joy, because of the overflowing gratitude her parents felt at the time of her birth. Mom’s older sister had died as an infant from a heart defect. The grief left my grandparents empty in heart and arms. What else could they name their next baby girl but JOY?

My mother personifies the word.

She lives with an incomparable zest for life. When she is in a room, not one inch of space is left untouched. Her quick wit and creativity splash the space with JOY. She likes to laugh and her laugh is as infectious as it is healing. I am thankful for that laughter as it was a frequent balm during my childhood.

Perhaps the most admirable quality in my mother is her courage. She faced overwhelming hardship in the deterioration of her marriage when I was 12 years old. She did not hide her hurt but her courage shone as she grieved and picked up pieces and built something beautiful. With her courage, she breathed something into me.

From my mother, I learned to value intelligence, a good book and a beautifully decorated table. She taught me to play tennis, to water ski, to snow ski and to stand up for what is right. I admire her ability to find adventure in picking a sunflower on the side of the road or to be astonished by some small bit of nature. I inherited from her a love of oceans, an eye for beauty, and compassion for the downtrodden.

In one week, I will board a plane and travel to a country I have dreamt of visiting most of my life. Italy. Mama will come and care for my children. They will be better for having spent a week with their grandmother so aptly named JOY. And so her investment continues. 

Leave a comment on how your mother invested in you.

to hope takes guts

This is Junior. Now 8. He lives with wonderful foster parents in Honduras. He is a delight. And I miss him times one hundred million.

Not everyone understands how you can spin two lassos at the same time, one of hope and one of grief. Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts

To hope takes guts. 

Hope deferred makes the heart sick. When we hope, we risk heart sickness. The vultures of disappointment surely have eaten more than once of our flesh. 

My family had hoped…

To remain in Honduras to love the children at Rancho Ebenezer

To build an addition to the school there

To be there until Edgar graduated high school

To hope is to join Adam and Eve again in the garden. A desire fulfilled is a tree of life. The phrase “tree of life” takes us back to Eden. The tree was in the middle of the garden. Next to it grew the other tree. The forbidden tree. We ate. We died. And we have struggled with hope ever since. 

But it also calls us to remember the end. We, as overcomers, will feast on the tree of life in the paradise of God (Rev. 2:7). The leaves of the tree will be for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22:2).

On the wall in our den in Honduras, I painted a tree. To me the tree represented life. The reality is that often our hearts are sickened here on the other side of the Garden.

Every day people make brutal choices. I know what it is like when the rubble of life overwhelms and you have to make a devastating choice.. A day came when we had to walk away. We placed our precious Honduran children back in the arms of the Shepherd who loved them before we had even seen their smiles. 

The grief that followed threatened to take my very breath away. 

My grief is not over. Grief doesn’t end because it honors the loss as precious. It evolves and blends and changes. It changes you. The things I grieve are far too precious for the grief to one day be “done.” Gradually, I am trusting God with my pain and my sons in Honduras. Over time, He is showing me that He is the Defender of the Weak. And He shows me that the Weak is mainly me. I can trust Him with the Weak – my Honduran sons – more when I can trust Him with the weak in me.

Faith has grown in my heart where I have allowed the Father to hold me in the pain. 

Today I am buoyed by hope. The path of suffering has sewn a few things into my soul. Hope. Faith. Perseverance. Strength. The end result is that I know my Savior better. I trust Him more. These things would not be there had not the VineDresser pruned me back to a nub. 

This week God has given me the chance to talk with a grieving mother. I listened as she gave voice to her pain. I shared with her my Hope and Strength birthed through suffering. When two believers can share their stories and burdens, the Holy Spirit consoles both of them.

 It is right to grieve. It is right to hope.

When a desire is fulfilled, it is the hors d’oeuvre for the feast of heaven. 

Until then, we have hope.

We must so hunger for a different tomorrow that we risk losing today to gain it. Dan Allender

Update on 05.7.2011 by gigi

Shortly after I posted this, I learned that the "wonderful foster parents" I referred to above don't live at the Ranch anymore. I do not know who Junior is living with at the moment. I am investigating this and will keep you posted. This I know and this I find comfort in: God is a Defender of the Weak. He has Junior. 

i want to see

I live in a garden. This garden, while beautiful, is ravaged by the Fall. The thunder outside reminds me that danger is imminent. I am not safe. Children in this garden get brain cancer and die. Adolescents are plagued by eating disorders. Some take their own lives. Mamas get breast cancer. Daddies drink themselves into an early grave. Danger is everywhere. The effects of the Fall, of the day when the Woman took the apple because she did not trust her God, are evident every moment in this garden.

I live in a garden. This garden holds the possibility of rebirth. Every spring astounding beauty is birthed. Blooms like banners of a million colors crawl out of green balls. New life is everywhere. The rain feeds these buds. The green in the grass sings to my eyes of a Creator. I connect to a Mama in trouble. I offer her my hand because she has offered me hers a few years ago. I offer her companionship on this treacherous and breath-taking path called life. My heart swells when my love picks up his son and dwarfs him in big arms cradling him in LOVE. Smiles the sizes of watermelons speak to me of wonder and mystery. Laughter fills my halls and I know that LIFE is more powerful than destruction. Hope lives in this garden.

I live in a garden. We groan for new life. The flowers and the rocks and me and the Mamas in trouble, we ache and we groan. We beg God to have mercy. We beseech Him for new LIFE, for grace, for help. We ask for eyes to see His Presence in this garden.

I live in a garden: in the now and the not yet. He is RISEN. Victory is mine, ours. Yet I struggle, fumble and fall. One day pain will end. One day death will be defeated. One day sin will not afflict my body. But that day has not yet come. Yet it has. The knowledge that Jesus won by losing fills my bones and my lungs with a scent of the promise. 

He has paid the ransom. I am free. I can live free. Laughter is the music of hope. Hope is more abundant than despair in this garden. 

Today I can choose to see Him. If I need to, I can ask a friend to help me see Him. I want to see HOPE.