interrupt me

Lately I have been struck by the way God enters our world and interrupts life.

Going about our daily tasks especially when routines are not in play like summertime, it's easy to forget God orchestrates our steps.

Some areas of my life are perplexing. I examine them and think this is not the way I thought things would turn out. I'm learning to let go of what I had planned even sometimes what I had hoped in order to grasp what God wants.

So much is packed into those words. Easy to write, hard to live.

The truth is that I am promised nothing on this earth save this moment and God's availability to me in it. And that is everything that I need. My flesh pulls me different directions and says I "need" this or that. But all I really need is God's Spirit in the here and now.

A million times a day I look anxiously about to either the past or future. When I do that, I lose my peace. My access to that peace is in this moment and I trust that He is enough.

Today, like almost every day, as soon as Sam woke up, he joined me on the patio. He asked me, "Do I have swim practice today? Do I have tutoring? Do we have church?" I picked up my phone and showed him the iCal. Two very important words were at the bottom of the screen. "NO EVENTS."

We both took a deep breath and laughed. How will we see God in a day like today? Chip Dodd says that mystery is walking in faith that God is big enough to be in control, and that God doesn't require our help to get the job done.

I can't wait to find out how mystery and "no events" play out in today.

unseen

I’m writing this post with a precious 7-year-old head resting on my shoulder. We are lounging on the couch. Sam’s body is covered by a UT snuggie. (Side Note: two things I would never have dreamed could be in my life: UT orange and a snuggie.) Cartoon Network blares in the background. A softer sound emits from my iPhone: the sound of hold music from Apple. My iPhone 5 is smarter than I am. I need help conquering it. 

Every now and then Sam fires a toy gun with an annoying electrical bullet sound. He could be a Storm Trooper. It also has a sound for cocking as well as firing.

Occasionally my phone gets a text. Mama had surgery yesterday. I am staying connected to her by some thin phone wires and cyber stuff that I cannot understand.

So much stimuli. 

Sam has a stomach virus, hopefully the 24-hour variety. Yesterday he swam his first ever IM in the swim meet. The IM is the Iron Man but it actually stands for Individual Medley and consists of all four strokes. It is a rite of passage and I’ve seen many young swimmers exit the pool in tears from exertion and exhaustion. He won’t let me out of his sight.

Here I sit tethered by a computer cord and an invisible but just as real umbilical cord. Mothers sit by their sick children with bowls and cold wet rags. We mop foreheads and kiss fearlessly praying that we won’t get the bug.

This morning as I sat on my patio and watched the sun rise along with the temperature, I read familiar words. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. II Corinthians 4:18

My reading this morning shifted my focus from the seen to the unseen. The seen, it says, is temporary. The unseen is eternal. Why do we do this? Verse 16 says it: so that we do not lose heart. 

I read that and in about 10 seconds my focus is right back on the now and the things jangling for my attention. I need to come back to it again and again throughout a day. What is unseen?

Our souls, our spirits. Relationships. The forces in spiritual realms. As we live like this, grace reaches more and more people. Thanksgiving overflows. And we start all over agin. Unseen. Grace. I’m not losing heart. I see it. Unseen. Thanksgiving. Grace.

way back

There’s nothing like a blow to the head to cure a case of writer’s block. Sunday a simple bike ride along the path of the Harpeth River turned into a near death experience. 

As I napped in and out on the couch, Joshua interrupted me and asked if I would like to go on a bike ride with he and his daddy. Ok, I sleepily agreed. 

Forty minutes later (the bikes needed some repair), we zipped in and out of trees and roots along the river near our neighborhood. I fell once as I underestimated a steep incline. My feet touched down just in time to be overpowered by the bike in backward motion. My confidence dipped just a notch. 

Later I heard Joshua holler, “Look out for this curve!” 

I saw the curve. I prepared for the curve. I underestimated the curve. In a nanosecond I went over the handle bars as my front wheel left the path for a steep riverbank covered in weeds. Joshua called out: “Are you ok?”

“No, I think I’ve broken my neck.” I assessed the damages mentally. I may have broken my wrist. I think I heard my neck pop. I hit the fool out of my head. 

Then behind me I heard a loud rustling of weeds. A snake! With lightening speed, I climbed the vertical river bank. Matt and Joshua helped me over the edge gasping with laughter. 

I sat down on the dirt path only to realize my skin was on fire. The weeds had peppered me with toxins and my arms and legs bubbled up with red splotches. 

“I’m going for the river!” I shouted. 

Matt yelled, “Are you crazy?” 

“I’m on fire!” I answered. I waded out like I expected to be baptized. The waters of salvation quieted my burning skin a little. All along my arms and legs rivers of bubbles continued to form by the second. 

Matt left in a blur headed to get the car. Finally, I waded out delivered from the deadly weeds. At home I took two Benedryl and through a haze I lead our youngest boys in a celebration of Father’s Day.

Believe it or not, my body shows hardly any repercussions of the accident. I do, however, have something to write about. For six weeks, I have been quiet. Frankly, May ate my lunch. Anybody? I have been wanting to dive back in the blog but haven’t had words. I’m thankful that this little forray on Sunday provided me a way back.

I haven’t felt like myself. I have been struggling. I have felt unmoored. Friends, prayer, help from others, a blow to the head: these things have helped me find my way back. As I have floundered around, I have found it difficult to trust. This morning this verse reminds me why I trust.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11.

I am held. I am wanted. I am loved. I am a child of the King.

love like that

Even though it’s been 5 years since the photo above, I can tell you what is happening there. I caught Sam in the act of copying his daddy. What a moment! But Sam won’t look at the camera. I have several shots with his back to me. And so this photo displays beautifully two things. 1. We copy our parents and learn. 2. We humans are stubborn. 

This verse in Ephesians sums up our marching orders. Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. (Ephesians 5:1-2 The Message)

Sounds easy. Lives hard. 

I have examples of my kids learning not so proper behavior from me. Once we noticed a child of ours using a phrase “oh my gosh” frequently. We worked with him pointing out when he used it. We asked him to replace it with something else. Then, I started realizing he learned it from me. I said that phrase constantly. Guess who had to break the habit?

Emulating Jesus is much less confusing. When I read the gospels, I am fascinated by what Jesus did and how he responded to people. He bent to write in the dirt when the Pharisees brought him a woman caught in adultery. He acted like he was journeying farther with the men on the road to Emmaus. He retreated to a private place by the lake. 

His love was not cautious but extravagant. I’m pretty sure mine is often calculating and quid pro quo. The more I reflect on his behavior and his responses, the more I fall in love with him. It’s that love that will change my behavior. 

I want to love like that. 

my keeper

A week ago Matt trimmed our bushes in the front yard under a blue sky. As he worked on a tall holly, he discovered a bird’s nest. Quickly he got away from it in hopes the mother would not smell human. Mother birds will abandon a nest if she thinks there is danger.  As he showed us the nest from a distance, we realized that one of the baby birds had fallen out of the nest. The scrawny, featherless bird hung upside down snagged on a limb. His beak moved open and shut as if to cry for help.

Matt tried using a rake to “catch” the bird and push him up to the nest. We finally left him there hoping the mother would return and pick up the bird with her beak and put him back in the nest. 

Today we realized the abandoned dead bird was still hanging there in the holly bush. His brothers and sisters chirped in the nest right beside him awaiting their next meal. 

It’s really a horrifying picture of this dog-eat-dog world. Is there a more dreadful picture of frayed humanity (avianity) than a mother abandoning her child/ren?

If I’m honest, this speaks to a core fear I have of God. Often in the midst of confusion, trials or hardship, I wonder where He is. Has He abandoned me? Will He? When will He?

And yet we have these promises in His Word. Hebrews 13:5 says, “Don't be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, ‘I'll never let you down, never walk off and leave you.’”

It’s interesting to juxtapose this promise with the warning. Don’t be obsessed in getting more things, He says. Because when we are afraid, we grasp and grab and search about for guarantees. 

And so in the dark, as I honestly confess my fear, I reach for His hand. And it is there.