A thought and a prayer

There are moments in life that transcend, moments where the fog of routine lifts and there is somewhat of a view of the grand plan. As eyes open you are either refreshed or depressed by visions. Things truly valued show fourth and things neglected hang there, forming a pit in the stomach. Oh what a blessing, eyes that can see and ears that can hear the calling of the Savior, and can see the truth of His love in trials. Lord help my unbelief.

“Oh my God you have blessed me. From the moment I was born you sought me out, you pursued my heart. Why you chose me I do not know. You gave me wisdom that was not deserved. You lavished me with a family who loved me wholly.  Then you so tenderly and gently blessed me with trials gradually increasing in weight. As my faith grew, you gave me more but they never truly hurt me, never left an open wound. You let me taste deep sorrow and fear without having to actually swallow…. Until now.”

 I wondered in prayer several weeks ago when He would actually start hurting me to change me. “Lord you have given so much, when will you start taking from me to tend my heart?” The answer was “today my child”. I begged on the floor “I don’t want to learn this way, Jesus I want to learn, but I don’t want to learn this way.” My mother came to the floor with me. She stroked my face and hushed me, “it’s ok, I don’t want this either”. That day left an open wound , a thorn in the flesh that requires me to fall on my knees daily and ask for a bandage, a salve to stop the bleeding for the day or the moment. Sometimes something someone says or does crashes into me and while in the past I was able to brush it off and forgive, the crashing causes my wound to ache and bleed and I have no strength but what God gives me. My knees bend and find the floor more quickly today, now that I have this piercing. I see it at a gash in my side, ever causing me to be hunched over in prayer, applying pressure to stop the flow. No stitches that I place will hold and so it is ever breaking open at the worst moments. Youth fails to understand this pain and the wisdom that comes from it. It is only feared and it confuses but there are few for fellowship, those who have wounds much like mine. They are my nurse maids, them with their own bleeding sides. Their wounds are older, their bandages more neatly laid than mine. They spread salve with their kind, careful words and their working hands. They remind that only Jesus can bind up this kind of wound and heal. They remind that He is making me new. That He is making in me an eternal weight of glory. Weight meaning gravity, importance, glory meaning praise, worship lifting up of the King. Through my trails and my blood, my pain, God is making in me a new heart that has eternal importance. My heart is being made into an instrument of immortal praise of the immortal King and is to be realized and weighed at the beginning of eternity where real life will begin and death will end. Oh my heart, be encouraged by these things, that you are not alone, you have a fellowship of wounded saints and that your souls together will sing a mighty chorus in eternity that will be heard as such a joyful noise to your Love, to your great, high King. What great reward. What great rest we will see.

Disciples and Tinker Bell

This morning I woke up feeling defeated. My back ached from many times of getting up with my seven month old who has a mild ear infection. The day before I was defeated with grief. Reed found me on the floor of our shower cuddled up with a few towels. Sometimes a little comfort from a warm bed or a hot shower is all it takes to break the dams of tears from grief over death and suffering. But I have a hope as a salve for my grief. My husband looked at me this morning as we were both reading our bibles. He had tears in his eyes and said. “ I was just thinking about today, the day between the cross and the resurrection.” I looked back at him and said “the worst day ever”. “What must the disciples felt on this day?” Reed said. Indeed, they must have felt the greatest grief and despair. Not only did they lose their dear, dear friend but also their hope was shattered. To them being the messiah meant that Jesus could not die. They failed to listen when Jesus told them verbatim that he would be dead for three days (Mat12:40). So  the “day in between” was the worst day of their lives. They trusted that this man that they loved was more than just a man but that he had come to abolish death and suffering. They believed that he would conquer all evil and the sin within them. They must have felt so defeated, much more defeat than I have ever felt. Living on this side of the resurrection and the Pentecost, I have a promise fulfilled. Death has been conquered already. That brings so much comfort to so many sorrows. As Reed and I were talking about this I couldn’t help but think about a story from my childhood where I felt quite defeated. I was probably five or six years old. My sister and I were playing Peter Pan with a few other friends and I was elected Tinker Bell. The other kids told me that because I was Tink I could really fly but only if I really believed. I was convinced, I believed. So I climbed up onto the tall five drawer dresser that was in the room, spread my arms out, thought all kinds of happy thoughts and jumped, face first. So you know what happened next. Now that’s nowhere near the level of sadness that the disciples must have felt on the “the day in between” but kind of. Just imagine, being reluctant at first but then seeing Jesus perform miracle after miracle and say things that no one else had ever said and stretching your arms out. Then they witness many prophecies coming true and Jesus asks them to follow Him and they jump, arms wide, face first. Now my faith as Tinker Bell was a little different than theirs in Christ… obviously, but they never actually hit the ground like I did. They jumped with all their hearts and on the day in between they started to feel gravity, they started to fall but at the very last second, when they were in deep fear, when there was no utter chance of hope God came through, the stone rolled away, Jesus won.  Jesus was dead, entombed , laden with sweet smelling herbs to hide the stink of death that was presumed to come ……and he rose. He won the battle with sin and death and that evil being, Satan. He crushed Satan’s head and bruised his own heel. What a God we have who would sent  His only son to be murdered on a cross, nailed to a tree. He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. Grace, just pure pure grace and pardon for us who deserve death and more. God came through not just for the disciples but for all mankind, throughout all time. He rose! He is alive! He is alive! My God, He is alive! And now we wait for His return as the white haired rider with the flaming eyes with his name written on his side, “King of kings and Lord of Lords!”.He will bring a great victory, the final victory. He will come with all our fellow Christians, our passed loved ones, our dead children and dear friends behind him, and us with them too dressed in white as a great army of saints. We will be lead by our great King on a white horse who will end all that is left to be ended and begin His reign in eternity. New heaven and new earth.  Come Lord Jesus come quickly!

Happy Easter

He gives and He takes, Blessed be the name of the Lord!

“Oh my God!” I cupped my hands over my mouth in raw joy, terror, excitement, and unbelief when the ultrasound tech gave me the news. One month and one day before, my dad passed away at 53 years old. He had a one percent chance of loss of life during his surgery to replace a mal-formed heart valve that he was born with. No one expected that this healthy man who we loved so dearly would leave us so soon. He left my mom, his parents, my sixteen year old sister, nineteen year old sister, me and my twenty-eight year old sister with her two little ones asking sweetly, “where papa go?”. The doctor said that they hadn’t lost anyone in this surgery in years. So why my dad?  During the ten days leading up to his funeral there was whaling throughout the day in my mothers house that was built by my fathers hands. Every square inch that we looked at and walked on was dripping with his love for us and His savior. Where there is great love, there is great sorrow in loss. Our lungs could not sound the hurt that filled our body and souls, but still they sang long and low.

 My mother made a choice long ago. My dad was not her god or savior. He was not what she lived for. She lived for Jesus and He is the truest love of her life. So in my fathers death, she surrendered him to Jesus even that very night, I remember. We decided we wanted everything off of him. We wanted him to go to Jesus without tubes or beeping screens, all of us together decided. So the nurses began their undressing of all the plastic and metal that anchored my dad to this earth. Before my mother knew what she was doing, she joined in. Setting him free, giving him up.  She removed monitors, tape, she washed away the dried blood with a damp cloth. We watched him as Jesus called.

The day before my dad died, the doctor said that he expected a full recovery but that he thought it would take a bit longer since they had some trouble putting him on and taking him off of the heart, lung bypass in the original surgery. They said that he would have to stay sedated for two more days than planned. My mind swirled about like a tornado, two more days. I started to weep. In my heart I began to know what the doctor would eventually tell us, that God was calling him home. I left my baby in someone’s arms and ran to the chapel in the hospital. He had been under for one day already. I whispered through sobs, “three days in the tomb, three days. Maybe God wants him to suffer what Jesus did and then he will rise, and then he will rise.”  But deep inside me I knew. I beet my fists on the chapel door and then the floor as I sank. “oh God put death to death!!” Not caring then who heard my honest cries, the cry that my heart aches with every day. “Put death to death Lord”.  Knowing that I would have to wait with nothing to do I busied myself with starting a piece of art. I told myself that my dad would live and that we would want to remember how bad it got, and how God saved us from a great tragedy. I sketched a heart, the valve replacement, the saw they used to open his chest and a clock to represent the time that passed. I arbitrarily chose a time 4:56.

As we waited there in his room for his soul to depart I asked my mother if she had had enough time with him to say goodbye. She said, “Everything I wanted to say to him, I said every day. There was nothing left to say, I said it every day.”  When the sheet that covered his chest started to slip away my mom went to cover him back up. I asked her if I could see. She pulled the sheet away to reveal his hurt. The doctors had left him open in hopes that if they gave his heart enough room to breath, it would have a better chance of recovering.  They had covered the hole that was the size of a dollar bill and the shape of a spade with a clear protective membrane and packed it with a sponge. My mom placed her hand on the crevice and mine followed. “thank you dad” I said. If he had not been brave enough to face this surgery my dad may have died while driving down the road or alone on a job site. Because he was brave, we got to be there, we got to say our goodbyes.  He let someone saw his chest open for that, for the sake of being with us. His soul departed sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 am which was when we left the room. The Doctor chose a time of death, 4:30. A few days later when I was looking at my sketch book  I came across the clock that I drew and I gasped. I showed it to my mom to see if I was really seeing what I thought. We both agreed that it was his true time of death drawn in on the clock before we ever knew he was dying.

His service was packed. It’s only on Easter Sunday that I have seen our church that holds 1500 people that full. My dad was heavy with Jesus and people he touched gravitated to his weight. After the service my family and I did our best to keep from being caught in conversation which was above our capabilities at that moment. I browsed the food tables that were layed out so generously by people who prepared so much food. Nothing looked good to me even though I was hungry, my stomach was upset.  That night at my  moms house, after everyone had left I found myself hanging my head over a toilet. A position that felt all too familiar from when I was pregnant with my son Kent.  I was sure I just had a stomach bug but Reed offered to go get a pregnancy test just so I could know for sure and not have to worry about the idea of being pregnant. It didn’t take thirty seconds for the test to turn positive. I just yelled it, still sitting on the toilet. “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Reed met me with a huge grin as I came out of the bathroom and fell to the floor. I cried and cried from deep sorrow and joy. My previous pregnancy was quite difficult with intense sickness lasting into the third trimester among other things that affected my closeness with my husband and friends. I was scared of facing another difficult pregnancy all the while dealing with deep grief and a six month old baby who would be only just over a year old at the time that this baby would  be born. When I finally composed myself, I stood up and looked over the railing to see my mom and sister, Tessah hugging all cuddled up on the couch. They were smiling with tears on their cheeks.  For them it was all joy.

So what could have been the news one month and one day after dads death that shocked me so much. With my mom holding Kenturion, the ultrasound tech scanned in silence. The only thing on the screen was what looked to be an empty womb. I looked away thinking, this is the moment when she says “I’m so sorry but there is no heartbeat.” I looked at my mom and her face gave away that she was thinking the same thing. My eyes rested on Kent and I said to him “don’t be sad if no one is there”. Then the tech began to speak. “so how far along are you?” “well Dr. Howard scanned me three weeks ago and I was measuring five weeks so I should be about eight now.” I said. “Oh so the Dr. already scanned you?” said the tech, “Yes” “and did she tell you twins?”.  “Oh my God!” I said in raw terror, excitement, fear and joy… sweet joy. My mom was crying and she quickly said “are their two heartbeats?!”  The tech said “yes” and showed us “here is one baby and here is the other one and they both have a little heartbeat you can see”. “Praise God” my mom said with one hand raised in the air, “praise God! Blessings, just blessings”

That day Reed had been away buying  a new camping trailer for our growing family, the family that he did not know how much was actually growing. I decided that if I was going to keep this secret all day until he got home that I was going to have to distance myself from anyone I knew. I swore my mom to secrecy and went home. At the house I was restless so I decided to take a walk with Kent. After the idea of twins sank in a bit I started to feel sad about Kent losing my undivided attention so I thought a walk with just he and I would be nice. We walked the Tickle Creek Trail just down from our house in Sandy. I walked the same trail the day before I went in to labor with Kent. The trail follows shallow trickling waters through mossy, green forests. When we had walked about a mile we stopped by the creek and I sat down on a log to let Kent watch the water. As we sat I breathed. My life was changing with leaps and bounds. It felt like I was at warp speed, growing, growing in every direction possible. It felt as though my family and I were all caught in this place of supernatural spirituality, where nothing was beyond  possibility. I joked with my mom earlier that we were the one percenters. My dad had a one percent chance of dying from his surgery and without fertility drugs and invetro, having twins was a one percent chance as well.  In reality I guess a veil was lifted to see truth. We are always living in a place where anything could happen, anyone could die and anyone could live. As I sat on the log that was mostly decomposed from water, bugs and moss, I started to notice some bugs that were crawling around near me, and one crawled up on my leg. It made me think. I am just like that decomposing log. When I actually breath my last breath I will truly go into the ground but even now, even at twenty-six I am currently going into the grave. My body is just in a suspended state of death and dying. Like the log I was sitting on I am dying. My body is slowly breaking down as I walk in it, as I carry my baby and two new lives form inside. What a miracle. It’s truly magic that God takes this dying flesh and creates with it, creates new life. “From dust we came, to dust we shall return”  

Reed joined me in joy that night. His Cheshire cat grin was bigger than ever as he looked at the ultrasound pictures, silently reading baby “A” and baby “B” and then “We are having twins?!” and then me, “We are having twins!”

Offensive Grace

Just a few years ago I had a strange experience that I hope not many married people get. I moved back into my parents house while my husband was deployed. Among many hard things  I experienced during that time one of them was watching  my parents continue to raise my younger sisters. When I was a kid in their house, there was wrath and consequences for poor decisions made. There was also grace but equal amounts of wrath. When watching my sisters make some poor decisions I used to get so frustrated with my dad at times.  He would respond quietly and rationally to blatant disrespect. I would watch as my sisters pushed the limit verbally with my dad and out of reaction from my child rearing my bottom would actually clench in fear of the remembered consequence that was laid there for my disrespectful outbursts as a child. Instead of witnessing dads wrath upon deserving bottoms I witnessed his grace alone. I would get so frustrated. I wanted wrath for the deserving!  I thirsted for justice to be served up in a lengthy grounding or car being taken away.

Now I find that I do this same thing with my eternal father at times. I see the rebellion of the world, throwing life away at every turn, not even just disregarding it but purposeful killing and torture taking place. I shudder.  Then I see Gods bride at times looking the other way as orphans are abandoned to what are called “lying rooms” where their bodies grow strapped down to a crib and their minds are deprived from development. Man sized babes are the result, crumpled up in an infants crib because it’s all their mind has ever known.  They will never be adoptable or adopted. And I weep.  Then I see myself tearing others down in conversation only for the true frustration that I have with my own resemblance to their flawed image of what we call being a Christ follower. I rage. My appetite grows as I read verses. “Vengeance is mine! I will repay, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly. For the Lord will vindicate His people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone and there is none remaining, bond or free.” (Deut32:35.36 emphasis added)  And yesterday I saw my mom weeping over the death of her husband, her lover, best friend, too young , too soon and I break. “Lord isn’t this all enough?!” I beat my fists on the floor “aren’t you sick of this yet?!” I scream! “ When will your wrath come for me and this fallen world?!” And I know what I should do in this moment………Yield. I try to muster the strength to even whisper it “Lord not my will but yours be done” but I can’t say it. All I can do is beat my fists on the floor and cry “why don’t you come? I’m tired. I want to go home. I want this to be done Lord!” Like a child who can’t understand. And that’s the truth… I can’t understand the grace of God Almighty. I have only lived on this earth for twenty-six years and I am fed up, I’m ready for wrath even if it means that it comes for me and those I love too. My patience is small and my grace is smaller. But oh the vastness of the grace of God. His patience has lasted thousands and thousands of years. It is wider than the morning star and more faithful than the nightly moon. And lets not limit this view by placing our own boundaries on God, you and I can only see the depravity that is right in front of us. God is omnipotent, meaning He is everywhere and sees everything throughout time. He has seen the darkest, the most evil, the most horrid things that you and I cannot fathom …….and He is patient. “rest a little longer” (Rev 6:11) He says.  “ But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2Pet3:8,9)  But He is patient so that ALL should reach repentance. He loves us. He waits as we kill. He weeps as we torture because he wants the murderer to see, He wants the torturer to turn and call Him Father and be called son. Oh the great, immeasurable vastness of the grace of our great King. I will never understand I think, not even in glory how He loves, how He graces us. I can only pray that my mind will focus on His goodness and trust His patience for this world. There will be a day, “Vengeance is mine!” says the Lord. Until then I will yield. I will trust in the goodness of God and is great, great grace.

What I said at my Dads funeral

Dad and I

Thank you for being here to worship Jesus with us as we celebrate my Dad going to heaven. It’s a celebration that hurts but hurt is the greatest offering we have to give to our Lord. I’m going to read you a letter that I wrote to my dad about a month ago when we found out that his surgery was imminent. I was really just using the pen and paper as a way for me to process my own turmoil on the subject but when I was finished what remained was a letter of encouragement to my dad. Here it is.

I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for this phase of life where my parents start getting old and their bodies start fading and failing. I’m sure your not ready for it either. The idea of having a heart valve replacement I’m sure is much scarier for you than it is for me. The hard thing is that if we were living in reality this would not come as a shock. If you and I were living in truth we would be fully expectant of this fact that this “bodies failing” part of life is not a phase at all. We have lived here our whole lives. You and I live in a bubble where very little trouble befalls us. I’m glad to say that your heart valve is the most of my worries. I have no cheating husband or sick child. I myself am healthy, can walk and see and hear. You and I are utterly blessed. But this still sucks. It sucks that this is the best case scenario. In the best outcome you will be put under heavy drugs, your chest will be sawn open, your heart cut in pieces and then everything will be sewn back together with thread and metal. Blood will flow and you will be mended. The best case scenario sucks. So yes I am complaining, complaining about Gods plan. Well really it’s Satans plan that God has re-worked for good, for the good of your heart. Obviously for your physical heart, that one is broken and failing and needs to be fixed or you will die but maybe this is to fix your heart of hearts too…. Maybe this heart valve thing isn’t just to fix your physical heart. Maybe it’s going to fix your soul just a little bit more. Maybe the fear and the pain is going to bring you to your knees in a new way before Jesus and from then on your head will bow a little lower, maybe your prayers will be a little longer and your heart will be just a little bit softer before the King. And maybe when I see you hurt and I’m afraid of losing you my heart will be mended too and my heart will get softer, my head will bow a little lower and my prayers a little longer. Okay so isn’t that worth it? Isn’t that worth any fear or pain or trial? Something that draws us truly a little closer to the heart of Jesus. That how I’m gonna look at this. Heart surgery for you AND me and maybe mom and Tessah and Ab too. Maybe it will be heart surgery for your dad! And God chose you to suffer for this gain. He chose that man of the house, the warrior, the chief. You get to shed the blood and have your bones broken all for our sakes. I hope you take it as a compliment. God thinks your up for the challenge. He is calling you son like he called Jesus son and saying, “no there is no other way to make this gain!” “This cup cannot pass from you!” “For my plan to work, and trust me it’s a good good plan, you have to suffer, you have to bleed.”
So I guess that’s how I’m going to look at this. I’m gonna count on this being heart surgery for me too and for all those who love you. I thought about all of this last night as I sat on the floor in tears. I’m afraid. I don’t want to lose you and I don’t want you to hurt but I want Gods will in both of our lives. So the only words that I prayed as I sobbed were “Lord have your way in my heart…. and in my dads heart too.” And the words of a song came to mind. "Break me open, God in motion, light my world with fire and rain" They make you see that God is all about drawing us near to him. He is not about our comfort or well being or safety. He is about smashing us into a position that we will kneel at his feet and fall so deeply in love. SO let us be broken, let us bleed and hurt for it draws us closer to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
I think that’s all I wanted to say… I guess I will take this opportunity to tell you again what I hope you already know from my countless times of telling. I love you, you are my beloved father and friend. I heard first about Jesus from you. I will be forever grateful. Please let me help with your recovery, not for your sake, for mine.
I thought it was important to read this here because everything I said is still true, no… it’s truer now. Jesus took my dads life in order to carry out his perfect plan in my heart and yours. I can tell you that if my dad was given the choice before surgery to submit or not… this was a purpose that he would have died for and God blessed him with such a warriors death, his chest broken open as an offering to the High King of Heaven and Earth. 

                             Please listen to this beautiful song.. it's the song of my heart of hearts.