Goodness and Mercy Follow Me {30 Days of Gratitude, In the Middle, FOR the Middle}

(The original, or a print of this piece is available here)

As much as I'd like to believe that I am one who follows through on my every task and committment, when I read the fine print of my days, I see much left unfinished. Another unpleasant characteristic of being "in the middle" is that everything you've left undone sort of sits and stares at you.

In point of fact, I could write a book, all of it in fine print, about things I've left undone - let's don't even include things I've done wrong! I've made messes, big and small, some as a result of my doing, others a result of leaving important things undone.

All my messes require clean-up. So do all of yours.

Some years ago, back when my nest was completely full, I was patrolling the house before leaving for church. Everyone else had left, so I was the last to dash out the door, and lock up.

Since someone usually ended up coming home from church with us, I wanted to make sure, for about the third time, that various rooms were as charming and trash-free as I had left them the last time I had checked them,  a mere half an hour before.

To my distinct displeasure, I found a plate with crumbleys all over it, a glass with a half inch of milk in the bottom, and...of all things....an empty soda bottle. Where did it all come from, and who did it, and how did it materialize so quickly? I fell upon the mess, as a warrior to the battle.

"In the Zone" does not begin to describe me, when I am intent on straightening up things. I'll automatically pour out Tim's tea before he is through, and put the glass in the dishwasher. I'll sweep around the feet of my family, while I dust the coffee table with the other hand, and put a stray book away with my toes. Honestly, all this is mostly mindless, and done without the first complaint. Ask any of my kids. I do it without realizing I am "working". I am almost always "working", and since that is the case, it is rather nice that 99% of it is hard-wired into my psyche, and thus doesn't bother me. I couldn't "not do it" if I tried.

This particular morning, however, I heard myself grumbling out loud to myself. I said, "I am so tired of following behind people in this house, cleaning up their mess."

It was then I experienced one of God's "suddenlies". Suddenly, He spoke. When He speaks suddenly, it cuts through the static. It arrests my attention.

He said: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life."

No exaggeration, I hit my knees, right by the kitchen sink, and tears flowed in an instant. (How lovely to have been alone, just then, because I think I couldn't have NOT worshipped. Such divine wisdom, such understanding and love displayed to me could not have gone unacknowleged. I was late to church that day.)

I hadn't even realized that I'd been subconsciously toting a heavy load of "undone's" and "not-done-right's". I had left what I felt to be a few messes behind, figuratively speaking. I was in desperate need of a Father who loved me so much, He was willing to allow His goodness and mercy to come behind me and clean up. What is the mercy of God for, if it is not at the point of my need, the place of My Mess?

I wanted a God who was that good, but I almost dared not believe it. That is a God too good to be true, in my graceless mind. A God so good to me, that sometimes He would not even be upset at me for a mess. Surely, He said,  His goodness and mercy would follow me, and simply clean it up.

Oh, how many times had that already happened, and I didn't even realize it? Just as, I promise you,  not one member of my family realized that I cleaned up a mess for him or her that morning.

I certainly don't want to associate the beautiful, scandalous cross of Christ with a few breakfast crumbs. But facts are, the blood of Jesus covers it ALL - the large and the small messes. The cross is the only clean-up, the only solution. A mess is a mess is a mess, and small messes become life altering if left to accumulate.

Thank you, Jesus, for your goodness and mercy, following this mess called "Me"....all the days of my life. How I need You!

Re-Post From the Archives {30 Days of Gratitude - In the Middle, FOR the Middle}

Why a post from my archives, in what is supposed to be 30 days of fresh material (on the heels of 31 days of fresh material)?

I promise, it isn't because I am running out of ideas.  Not even close.

I am doing this because of the perspective this post offers.  I wrote it about this same time - about mid-November - 5 years ago.  I re-read it tonight, and my eyes got so misty  I bawled like a (grand)baby.

5 years.

Just 5 years ago.  Nothing whatsoever is the same today as it was a mere 5 years ago, except the house I live in, and even it is not the same...I ditched all the autumnal wall colors, thank God.  (They no longer do it for me...I need light and airy...)

Tonight, I just got back from attending small group at my son-in-law and daughter's house.  The ones who live next door.  big Barney Fife ::sniff::  How blessed am I?

(She wasn't even married 5 years ago, much less did I have a grandchild next door.  And another son-in-law and daughter and grand-girl who live a mile away.  I could easily walk there.  I hardly ever drop by - that just isn't me - but I could...every. single. day.  The Lord hath been so mindful of me, and blessed me so much!)

Everyone still lived at home just 5 years ago.  Tonight, my Preacher and I are happy empty nesters.  In this post, I saw it coming.  I am so glad I stopped long enough to savor.

This is the perspective:  GRATITUDE

Truly, you do not know what changes lie in store for you in the one year ahead, much less in five years. Hold your family closely and dearly in the coming weeks.

Ah.  If I could save time in a bottle...

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Come on into my diningroom. Have a seat, because we still have a bit of leftover dinner.

You see above, our empty table. I took the photograph of it exactly as it sits - a modern day still life. That table was full, just an hour ago. Now it sits empty.  That is a metaphor for what will one day be our whole nest. But for now....ah, for now, there are those few evenings in a week when syncronicity happens, and we are all home for dinner. Such was this evening. I had spent the better part of an afternoon making sausage and lentil soup, with a home made chicken stock as a base. Added to this was some easy to make bread, and a Caesar salad, home made dressing.

::perky little sniff::

EEEEE-yeah. It was a labor of love. Well received.

We ate, and we laughed. Somehow, the conversation landed on each of us remembering as many lines as we could from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. ("Come back, and I will taunt you a second time!" ) Our puppy begged for scraps, and daddy indulged him, as usual. A common, every day sight we were...just a family around the table.

But not-so-common. In coming years, it will be a sight that is not-so-every-day. They say you can't get back a moment, once it passes. But I believe, if you blog it, you can have it back again - just in a different way.

Gentle reader, you might yawn at the picture of our now-empty dinner table. You might wonder at a whole post about something so mundane. Can I tell you? It is imperative that you take some pictures of your own, and journal your ordinary life, because you are significant, and your family is unique in all the earth. If you share your link with me, I will visit. I'll read. Record the moments - it is the only way to get them back, when the day comes that your life is suddenly entirely unfamiliar, and nothing looks the same as it once was, those captured moments, digitally or otherwise frozen in time, will bless you.

This blog is an ecclectic mix of things spiritual and things common. I really do see sermons in stones - that is why my blog can run the gamut from Bible teaching, to thoughts on dinner, to a celebration of married love. I came to believe, early on in my adult life, that all of life is spiritual. There is nothing fragmented about me. I don't put ministry in one box, and having dinner with my family in another. All of it is God's life in me. I do not feel compelled to justify a single blog post with a Bible verse. A blog on dinner, and just dinner, delights the heart of God!

Jehovah Raphah has made me a whole person - He has caused me to understand that washing dishes can be worship, and the inspiration to write about washing dishes as worship is a ministry much to be envied. I feel blessed. My life counts, if I never went to a foreign land, or never strapped on another microphone, or stood behind another music stand or fancy podium to teach with my mouth....because teaching with my life is far more impactful and significant.

I cannot save time in a bottle. But I can save it in a blog. I appreciate each of you who visit me here, more than you know. Thank you for putting up with such an unpredictable writer as I.

Oh, family of mine! There never does seem to be enough time to do the things I want to do. And, just like the song says, I have looked around enough to know, ya'll are the ones I want to go through time with! "If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I'd like to do, is to spend every day till eternity passes away, I would spend them with you"....with each of you: my Tim, and Hannah, Sarah, Josiah, and Isaac.

Gratitude for Miracles {30 Days of Gratitude, In the Middle, FOR the Middle}

(find necklace here)

Maybe the concept of miracles has fallen out of favor - a casualty of  well-meaning but false Benny Hinn spirituality.  "Expect a miracle."  It sounds like something someone with big hair says on television before they ask you to send money.

I want you to hear it as defined by Webster's:  "evidence of Divine power in human affairs".

Better yet, consider this definition:  "a need that meets a solution".

Have we forgotten that this is a broken, fallen world where nothing is really supposed to go right at all?  If anything does go right - it is a miracle.  When a need meets a solution - that is a miracle.  If you are breathing - if you made it home safe and sound from work every day this past week, that is a miracle. When you begin to see miracles this way, you discover that "if grace is an ocean, we're all sinking."

We have been blessed with every good thing we have not earned and do not deserve.

Rhythms of Grace {30 Days of Gratitude, In the Middle, FOR the Middle}

There are, traditionally, three phases of a woman's life:  maiden, mother, and grandmother.  As a woman, times and seasons are etched into my entire awareness.  Biologically, spiritually, and emotionally I am inalterably tethered to cycles and periods and terms and generations of time.

I believe this cyclical nature of mine, though difficult, puts me at a distinct advantage.  My feminine vessel may be "weaker", but the treasure inside is infinitely beautiful.  There is a wisdom gained from distilled years of the courage and stamina that only comes from accepting the waxing and waning of weakness and vigor.  These are the gifts of my femininity, gathered through every cycle, every nine month term,  every birth, and multiplied into my spirit as cycles upheave, falter, flow, and then eventually diminish.

Whether or not we physically bear children, we serve as gatekeeper to the generations.  One way or another, in our bodies we are made perennially aware of life, and the fact that it is brief and precious.

Daughter of God, you are exquisite at every stage of life.  So, so fearfully and wonderfully made.  You carry eternity in your awareness in a way that a man does not.  I long to see women embrace our rhythms instead of resenting them as biological botherments.  Nowhere is it more true that in our weakness, He is made strong.

Gratitude for Boxes {30 Days of Gratitude, In the Middle, FOR the Middle}

One thing for sure characterizes mid-life:  unresolved issues.  The ability to have presence and poise in the midst of the unresolved problems requires a few sturdy boxes.

I'll explain that.

2 Corinthians 4:8 says, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair..."

2 Corinthians 6:10 takes it even further, "...(we are) sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything..."

In short, every believer in Christ has to learn to coexist with the unresolved - with patience and grace and even (dare I say) joy.  The alternative means that we will only be truly happy when everything is practically nearly perfect.  Even the so-called simple questions rarely have instant answers.  We will be continually confronted with that which is less-than-ideal in life - and sometimes, the less-than-ideal situation can become very, very serious and complicated.  

The only way to get past mere coexisting with the Unresolved - the only way to truly live and thrive in spite of the Unresolved, is to learn to box it up.  Box it all up - large and small.  Put the big stuff into a big box, and put the little stuff into a little box.

Middle-messes must have boxes to keep them from migrating into all areas of your life.  Boxing up an issue means emotionally isolating and containing it, so that it does not negatively affect other precious parts of life.  For example:  one can experience deep disappointment in a prodigal child, without allowing the grief of it to make them lash out at a friend or leave their church or get a divorce.  

A few good sturdy boxes will insure that when three or thirty things are going wildly wrong, those things will not contaminate the one hundred things that are going right.

It's an art.  Boxing things up is a learned skill that becomes an art form.  It can sometimes be the only thing that creates beauty and order, when all of life seems chaos.

I remember, not that long ago, talking to the Preacher.  The conversation was beyond casual.  We were in his truck, headed to Costco for grandbaby snacks and birdseed.  Nothing profound was being said.  Though I should have been able, by then, to have discussed the subject casually,  the topic had a  painful and sensitive background.  I thought I was past a lot of the pain.  Nevertheless...tears, unexpected and unbidden, began to seep from my eyes.  Looking back, I think it was just one of those days.

My Preacher looked at me, truly compassionately, and said, "You need to get in the presence of God and let Him help you get to the bottom of where all this is coming from."  

My answer to him was just this:  "No.  No, I don't.  I need to put all this back in the box, close it up, and write on the box, "GOD KNOWETH".  I don't need to examine and process this.  I need to give it to God - and give it to Him radically.  Someday, I will be able to get this box off the shelf, open it, and I will find that what is in it no longer hurts."

So yeah.  I would make a horrible therapist.  But I can tell you - this is the only thing I can do that actually does require a true faith-response from me.   For me, a capable and compulsive fixer, a mother, a problem-solver...boxing it all up takes audacious faith.  Therefore, it pleases God.  I know it does.

Boxing up your crap may not work for you.  But it works wonders for me.  I believe God is at work on those boxes of mine, bringing healing and freedom and blessing on levels unconscious to me.  I don't have to tend to those unresolved emotions.  I don't have to dissect them or even understand them.  I can simply box them up and let God have them.  Inner healing can happen in those boxes, while I am making art and grilling chicken and loving on grandchildren.  I believe that.

I am grateful for boxes.  They enable me to live my life as a cohesive whole, when otherwise I would be obsessing over some nagging piece of unresolved dilemma.  I can stop thinking about the unresolved parts, and read a book or take a walk or make love or laugh and be happy.  Sometimes boxing up our crap is the only responsible thing to do - the only thing that gives us emotional availability to our lives, and those we love.

Say it with me:  boxes are good.  Boxes are necessary.  Thank you, God, for boxes.

How to Harvest Your Blessings {30 Days of Gratitude, In the Middle, FOR the Middle}

Everywhere I look these days, I see evidence of a great "gathering in".  Piles of pumpkins, heaps of gourds, fragrant apples everywhere.  Even the squirrels in my back yard are fat with the blessing of the harvest, having gathered the acorns that fall in abundance from my neighbor's oak tree.  Three hydrangea bushes are waiting for me to harvest their scores of dried, billowy blossoms for use in my holiday decorating.

But how do you harvest the heart-crop that flowered, then fruited in the unseen inside of you?  How do you gather in what was grown in the soil of the soul?

You harvest with gratitude.  Gratitude is the threshing machine of all things spiritual - it is the mechanism by which we extract both our blessings, and the seed for our next harvest.

Gratitude plucks the great, round gourds of harvested promise.  Gratitude heaps the blessings into piles and piles of joy.  Gratitude gathers the grasses into great bundles, and looks wonderingly across the fields, mound after mound after mound of all God has given...

...in this way, too, "the harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few."  We each one have been abundantly blessed, but we won't know until we gather the blessings in, through the labor of conscious gratitude.

That Day I Was Brave {30 Days of Gratitude, In the Middle, FOR the Middle}

"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."


One thing you must know about me:  I am loyal as an old hound dog.  I have no frame of reference for short term relationships.  All my close friendships have been intact all my adult life, and the new friends I have made...well, something in me refuses to imagine them not being my friends forever.  That is how I am wired.


So that day I stood up to my friends, that day I was brave, was no small thing.  It meant losing their friendship.  Somehow, I instinctively knew that and so did my Preacher.  


Nevertheless, I am filled with gratitude for that day I was brave, because it made me who I am today.  

When my Preacher revisited the doctrines of grace almost 5 years ago, believe it or not, he was very nearly a lone voice, at least in our circles.  No one we knew was preaching it quite like he did.  He boldly contrasted living under the law with living under grace.  He asserted, with the great apostle Paul, that the law has been made obsolete, and was no longer a source of blessing or favor.  He called the New Covenant "the bringing of a better hope"...


...the nerve of him, teaching that Scripture at face value.


Then he exposited Galatians, and it was on like Donkey Kong.  


And I picked up my sword (which is the message that the Old Covenant forever points to Christ in the New Covenant, which is the message of the cross, the Finished Work of Christ, who is the Word - the sword - made flesh) and stepped up to the front lines with him.

I said it.  I was brave.  I wrote it just like he preached it.  And what I had to say offended friends - people who called themselves, and we considered them, some of our closest friends.  But my Preacher and I are the dearest of all close friends to each other.  We have never not been a package deal, my Preacher and I.


Obviously, it was far more than just one day that I was brave.  It was a series of days, weeks, and months.  But it began with one day.  It began with one decision to say what I needed to say - to speak the words that brought the "Amen" to the message of the scandalous grace of God.


My story is nothing compared to the stories of Christians around the world, who are living out being brave every single day, at the cost of more than just a cherished friendship.  They confess Christ at the cost of their freedom, their family, and some give their life to the glory of God.  I know that my bravery is cowardice in comparison.


I know that.


But being brave has to start somewhere.  For me, it started with bringing the "Amen" to the Gospel, in the only way I knew how, using the only tools I had.  My words.


I am so vastly...incredibly...profoundly...abundantly...hugely grateful that I was brave.  Not many get the chance like I did, to put what felt like so, so much  - to put it dead on the line, all for the love of Christ Jesus.


I want to see you be brave...