remembering Honduras

On the day we left our home of four years, the gravel crunched beneath our feet and I felt as if the Earth may fall away. The children lined up on the road at Rancho Ebenezer snailing their way to school on the first day back. We rounded the first bend in the steep dirt road to be greeted by two oxen pulling a cart and a Honduran man with a staff mumbling out commands only oxen understand. The man tipped his hat at us as the oxen seemed to imitate him with their horns. They saluted us goodbye. 

I memorized the road. The house with the geranium in a coffee tin stood as a reminder of my first trip down this mountain some 6 years earlier. The Honduran people had impacted me, changed me, with their easy smiles, gentle demeanor and determined generosity. On that trip we had inched down the road in a pick-up truck. Hondurans give pick-up a whole new meaning. When our load maxed out at around 20 people hanging off the sides and packed inside, we stopped and picked up four more walkers. The Hondurans smiled, scooched over and never uttered a word of complaint. The geranium house came to symbolize this people for me. They can do a lot with a little and smile the whole while. 

I swallowed hard and nodded goodbye to the pulpería (a small “corner” market) and the tears fell as my heart filled up with love. The soccer field across the street served as a local gathering spot. Just down the mountain, the health clinic and middle school buzzed with activity. We reached our top speed of 25 and hit the pavement a short while later. A fog of pollution and smoke hung over the city. I scanned the skyline and begged my brain to take it all in.

The crowded airport air hung around us like robes. Typical of the culture, the pseudo-line had dissolved into complete chaos. A short man with a belt-buckle the size of Texas pressed against my back. His breath on my neck was hotter than the sun. We held onto our boys and I tried not to wail out loud. My fingers read their faces like Braille. 

The crowd swallowed us up like a giant ameba and we had to let them go. The grief I felt was far heavier than Samuel in my arms.

The crowd pressed into a semi-circle around one doorway. Someone started shouting for us to let a disabled woman through. I remember looking on in a daze as the allegedly handicapped woman walked closely behind a man waving a walker over his head. 

Someone near me, an official I think, began yelling that I was getting high blood pressure and had a baby and needed passage. I might faint, he said, if they did not let me through. The crowd parted like so much Red Sea. Pressing forward in a stupor, I crossed the threshold of the security door with Sam (9 months) and Joshua (5). Matt and Matthew stayed with the crowd and the carry-on luggage. I located the correct gate and bee-lined it to the nearest window. I could not silence nor soften the sobs that wracked through my body. My forehead rested on the floor-to-ceiling-glass pane that separated me from the country I had grown to love and from my children. Desperately, I searched the parking lot below. I wanted one last glimpse of them. 

I felt a presence beside me. It was the woman of the walker. However, now she leaned on it and invaded my personal space. I was too emotional to notice and before I knew what hit me she enfolded me in some of the largest, warmest, most welcome arms I have ever been hugged by. I blubbered out some of my story and she comforted me with words I do not now remember. It had something to do with God’s timing and His sovereignty. Truth. I recognized it. Her words were right and healing and spoken with such kind compassion they did not sound cliché. She held me for a while – me and Sam with Joshua close by. I needed the words but mostly the arms. Finally, I looked up to see Matt and Matthew struggling like beasts of burden to the gate. He joined me at the window and we scanned to and fro. No sight of our boys. We boarded the plane and began our long journey away from Honduras and the children we loved.

While my family and I waited at the baggage carousel in Miami, I spotted the supposed handicapped angel. As I looked on incredulously, she heaved a giant trunk off the conveyor belt with the apparent ease of a wrestler. Was she handicapped? Had she experienced a miraculous healing? Was she a fraud? Was she a mirage? I do not know. All I know is that she was God’s perfect provision at the perfect time. 

Four years later to the day, I sit in profound awe of how He has provided perfectly for us. Often, I have questioned his timing. Lord, now? Or you want me to do what? Why? At times, the darkness of grief has enveloped me and I wondered if God was with me. On this side of it, four years later, I can say that He is true to His word. He never left me nor forsook me. 

I am grateful for the way Honduras changed me. I learned many lessons at the feet of Hondurans. One is the relevance of time. Another is the value of relationships. How to greet someone. How to hug. How to pray. How to serve. How to love. 

I went to Honduras to love Hondurans and yet their love profoundly changed me. 

a tribute to my grandmother

Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances. Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear.  Proverbs 25:11-12

In this verse the wise reprover is a person who gives practical advice based on divine revelation and her own experience and observation. The word can refer to the skillfulness of artisans which explains the analogy to jewelry. This is my inheritance from my grandmother. 

I’d like to honor her today by telling you of a time she, the wise reprover, blessed me like a skilled artisan. This story is just one interaction over the course of a long life. The story represents her life.

The apples of gold are delivered in just the right circumstances. There was a day in my life when everything changed. It was a critical juncture. The choices I had been making had been disappointing many. And I had a choice to make about my future. I was lost, disoriented. The entire map of my future lay crumpled on the floor in a heap. 

I called Momice to tell her of my circumstances. I don’t remember the exact words she gave me but one phrase sticks in my mind. She said, “You have never disappointed me.” Through those words and others I have forgotten, she breathed life-giving oxygen into my deflated soul. She spoke words of blessing when I really least deserved them.

Momice’s words pointed me to the path ahead. In so many words she said, “Remember who you are.” I don’t exaggerate when I say that the conversation changed me forever. It marked me and 19 years later I draw strength from it. At a point when I thought all was lost - when I was exposed, naked, and vulnerable - she spoke words of tenderness and kindness. She spoke words of eternity. Her gentleness was and is a compass for me.

The message resonated with my soul because she had spoken it to me all my life – in words, actions, in silent acceptance. She loved me without condition. That was her life. For those of us lucky enough to be loved by her – that was her investment. And she is honored today by us as she lives on through us. 

Her investment in my life is best portrayed by this conversation. Think about it. How many times have you received a rebuke or correction that marked your life or that picked you up off of a path of destruction and set you back on the path of life? Not many. Maybe not even one. A rebuke is best delivered with a lightness of heart, a twinkle in the eye and a soft snicker of hope for the future. I think that is how Momice lived her life. 

Momice gave me a taste of redemption. It left me hungry for more. She showed me that true redemption is when you are struck dumb by the enormity of your failure but struck even dumber by the enormity of God’s heart to cancel our debt. When you experience that, you are grateful. And this gratitude frees the heart to dole out to others what has been freely given to you. 

Zelda means “woman warrior.” Bernice adds some spice meaning “brings victory.” I did not find this out until later on in the year that she died. The meaning of it has hit me like waves over time. That is what she leant to us – the ones she loved. She taught us to fight. She taught us to win. Femininity was not lost on her because her victories were sweet without violence. Her gentleness was a compass to us. But make no mistake; she was a warrior for her family. 

The love Momice had for me enlarged my heart. 

I wrote about the conversation I had with Momice in my journal the week before she died. It is a privilege for me to honor her today and to share her golden apples in settings of silver with you. They are my inheritance.

unbound

Unbind

1.to release from bonds or restraint, as a prisoner; free.

2.to unfasten or loose, as a bond or tie.

Unravel

1.to separate or disentangle the threads of (a woven or knitted fabric, a rope, etc.).

2.to free from complication or difficulty; make plain or clear; solve: to unravel a situation; to unravel a mystery.

3.to take apart; undo; destroy (a plan, agreement, or arrangement).

 Looking at the two definitions, it makes sense that the unraveling would occur first. Before you can unbind, you would need to unravel. And the unraveling is in a sense an unbinding. 

When the unraveling begins in my life, I only think of the third definition. Undo. Destroy. I don’t typically see that God is at work underneath the fabric separating, disentangling, freeing me from complications or difficulties. I can’t see that He wants to clear up or solve my addictions and idols. I grasp for faith that He is indeed unraveling a mystery in order to show me more plainly His Face.

In the past 10 weeks, I have had a bit of an unraveling. Again. 

I started working 2-3 days a week. With a busy family of three boys and a husband working also, the change was overwhelming if only taken from a logistics standpoint. Soon I began to nosedive: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. This does not mean that work was not good. I am aware of many blessings, gifts in returning to work. I enjoy my work. I can use an education and a language (Spanish), both gifts from God. This unexpected blessing is a provision financially for our family. And on and on. 

I hold both things: the blessing and the difficulties.

My tendency in the unraveling is to hunker down and hold on. To survive it. I grip the loose threads and try to knit them back together. I grasp for the unraveling fabric and attempt to hide behind it. Nothing in me wants to spread wide my arms and let go. Freedom? This does not feel like freedom.

I need time to be quiet. I need time to process. But life is coming so fast I cannot seem to get it all done. I really am demanding to UNDERSTAND. But God seems to be asking me to TRUST. I want to be the one to unravel the mystery. God wants me to just BE in his PRESENCE. And to worship the Mystery.

The unbinding, even the unraveling, is His work.

let there be light

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. Genesis 1:2-4

Today I mused the light. 

The first words uttered in the Bible are what? Let there be light. Imagine the power necessary to move the darkness out of the way for the light. 

At church we celebrated the baptism of three new believers. God spoke over their lives… Let there be light. And He separated the darkness and the light. We rejoice in their conversion from darkness to light.

How many times has He spoken over my life: Let there be light? I recall one time of great darkness when it seemed that He had turned out the lights altogether. As I groped around in the dark, I realized that He had shone a spotlight on evil. And healing came to me when I thought about the awesome power God exerted when He shone His light on that evil and I saw it. When I think about that healing power, I see the picture of God’s Spirit hovering over the surface of the deep getting ready to create the Universe. I cannot comprehend that kind of power. I am thankful that the power is directed toward separating light from darkness in me. He is safe. 

When life is turned upside down and all I can see is shadow, I rest in that safety and that goodness. In His wisdom, He is shaking things up. Some things will sink. Some will rise to the surface. 

God's wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don't find it lying around on the surface. It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest - what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene. But you’ve seen and heard it because God by His Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you. The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along. 1 Corinthians 2:7, 10

The miracle is that God’s Spirit hovers over the deep darkness in our souls. He waits until just the right time. And He dives into deep darkness and brings it out into the light. He has placed within us a spirit that can commune with His. Spirit can be known only by spirit - God's Spirit and our spirits in open communion. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

He placed this spirit within us when He kissed us into life not that long after He had created light. 

He reveals mysteries from the darkness and brings the deep darkness into light. Job 12:22

God's presence in confusion

Confusion happens when mystery is an enemy and we feel we must solve it to master our destinies. Gerald May

We were flying down the road on the way to freedom. I said to my friend, “we are safe.” In that moment, I realized I had left a child at McDonalds. We had been eating a Happy Meal when 15 or so enormous men with gargantuan guns  entered. In fear, we snuck out. One problem. A child was left behind. Upon realizing I had left him, I turned around u-turn style no braking. Then realized I was in reverse and traveling backwards. Then came the dead-ends. I did not remember my way back to McDonalds. Then I saw the tanks and more big men with big guns. I was frantic, screaming. I took out on foot. I sprinted through alleyways, houses, shrubs. Finally, I started up some stairs that ended in a room with insulation and naked people of all ages hiding there in the insulation. 

Even as I cleared the sleep from my eyes, the details of this dream sharply stung my mind. Since we returned from Honduras, I have had varying scenarios with the same theme: a lost child I cannot get to. 

God’s “no’s” are about our protection. Whose protection? In this scene, God (if He is sovereign and I believe He IS) separates mother and father from children. Brothers are separated. Four children are left behind. In another country. Ruins. Wounds. Weeping. Devastation. 

Where is God? Why did He say NO to this? How can He rebuild? Redeem?

Yesterday Lloyd taught on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God placed it in the garden (a limit, a no) along with the Tree of Life. His plan was for us not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We got to eat freely of the Tree of Life securing our immortality. Once we ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil we were cut off from both trees. And chased from the Garden. From that moment on we would grope, fight and chant our way back to God’s Presence.

Abundant Life flows freely from God’s Presence. So now I don’t need the Trees. I have Christ. His Life paved the way for me to know God’s Presence, Desires, Influence, Healing in my life NOW. If we were created to be priests in the garden cultivating and keeping His Presence in the Holy of Holies, I can return to that role at any point. My TASK is to live with that as priority numero uno. I am a Levitical priest in the Holy of Holies robes a swinging, bell a jingling, incense burning.

So even when the circumstances paint only a picture of CONFUSION. What is God doing? Where is He? I don’t see Him. I can’t find Him. I rest in MYSTERY. 

He is at work. He is sovereign. He is the Father to the fatherless. He is I AM. I am not.

I go to my Holy Place where He ALWAYS is. And I bow my knee to Him. I shake my bell. I burn my incense. I chant the Holy Scriptures about the Truth of who my God is. 

I believe.