My Basket of Bread.

We were discussing the context of Nehemiah -- the desecration of Jerusalem, the ruins in piles, the remanent generations removed, the man God burdened with the rebuilding.  I prodded further, digging into application, and the difference of zeal verses common leadership.  We remarked on the power of passion in leadership, listing those burning with a cause, an ideal, a person, a mission.  Names from Abraham Lincoln to Mother Teresa to Martin Luther, all embodying an intensity for their calling, catalyist for change in lives and human history.

Coming closer to home, I paused, remarking on the "normal", the everyday, the people who impact, touch, imprint our own lives, simply in their day to day.  The friends, the teachers, the mentors, the neighbors; the significance none too small.  The touch of what may be "normal" but to one, but the heart, the hug, the voice, the difference in the day, or eternity.

Then she said softly, "I always think of the mother, the one who packed the bread and the fish in the basket for the boy."

Something in me stopped, inwardly clung to that line in her words.  Yes!  The seemly minuet act of the love and service of the mother, who one morning, packed two fish and five loaves of bread for her son, folded it in cloth in his basket, and sent him on his way, which would take him to Jesus, to the miracle.  That woman, that moment, that service, that love.

I sometimes wrestle these days, with my place, my calling, my gifts and where they are placed and purposed in the hours of the day.  For years I dreamed this vision, this life for which I now fully at home.  Yet for years I taught, I traveled, I friended, I wrote, I read, I lived in a way that displayed, exhausted, and clarified so many of my other gifts.  Sometimes in the quiet of the hours at home, I wonder who I was, who I am, and if the two can ever meet again.

My mom's group leader always says, "You can have it all; you just can't have it all at the same time." And she reminds us of the significance of seasons in life, and the pause and purpose in this season of Home.

Hearing the gentle words about the mother folding the bread in the basket for the boy, for Jesus, for the masses, for God's miracle, was just a little heaven-sent reminder of my place today.  Teaching Women's Bible Study, soft friendships, and nurturing life and learning and love in my home is this season.  And it is still important; it is still a place of leadership, of gifting, of passion and zeal.   Of miracles.

[She Will Be] Great In His Kingdom.

I walked into Home Club that Friday morning, shoulders slumped, tears filling my eyes and tensed exhaustion leaking from my soul.  I looked from Sharon to Emily to Lee Anne and spouted in weary frustration, "I'm done being a mom today. I'm just done!"

Lee Anne looked me straight in the eye, from her crouched position, with great confidence and gusto, her words knifing the lies with intesity and strength:

"You are a good mom,

And she will be great in His Kingdom!"

Her words stopped me in strict halt, the force like a blunt blow, sharp; with such clear, discerning, distinct assurance, shocking the energy in my tirade.

Speaking the Truth of God slaps Satan.  His word is referenced as "alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing the soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart"  (Hebrews 4: 12)

When Lee Anne spoke those words, it was as if she was using the armor of God to attack Satan's lies in my motherhood, my view of my daughter, my role in the Kingdom.  She carried and handed me the "belt of truth and sword of the spirit" (Ephesians 6) and armed me with gospel-vision, concrete hope, and God's eyes for my daughter.

So often I see my daughter as "so much."  Which entails: so much -- so much energy, so much force, so much consuming, so much passion, so much crazy, just SO MUCH!  Sometimes this "so much" is beautiful, joyous and full of radiant, bright-eyed curiosity and naked, toddling, running butt cheeks scampering away with jolly giggles.  But, I confess, "so much" also translates justifying my frustration with her constant inertia, squeezing need, relentless spirit, grueling focus, and ravaging personhood.

But when Lee Ann called the gospel-eyes, Christ-life, kingdom-focus words over her, the vision of who my daughter is in Christ, cleared away the hazed, suffocating fog of the world, of Satan, of comparison away, and let me see her for the radiance of the image of God he created her to be:  Great in his Kingdom!

The scales fell from my eyes with those words, and I saw her for who she was, and what her role will be in His Kingdom.   Only with this renewed vision, resurrected hope, and restored gospel perspective, can I see the greater whole, the eternal glory that God creates with each hour, with each training choice, with each moment of mothering I cling to Christ for with my Camilla.

Her passion may billow into fearless leadership, strong-willed confidence, and unwavering faith.  Her sense of adventure, curiosity, and ravenous energy may just propel her to be a woman who is defiant against injustice, firm in the Truth, and and strengthening the weary.

Strong, focused, determined little children can grow up to be mighty, forceful, bold leaders for the sake of Christ, justice, and humanity. People like William Wilberforce, Billy Graham, Biblical Deborah, David Livingstone, Hudson Taylor, Jim Elliot, and the Apostle Paul were all zealous creatures, strong-willed and firm in their faith as well as forceful in their actions, but the "zeal of His house consumed" them (Psalm 69:9 John 2:17) and they did great things for the Kingdom.

These are the prayers I have for my daughter.  That God uses her sparked passion, her lust for learning, her diligence in task, her sharp focus, her abounding personality to strenghthen His kingdom.

May the words of Proverbs 31 be true of her: "She is clothed with strength and dignity, she has no fear of the future."  May the Lord redeem me, and use her, to be great in his Kingdom.  Amen.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

** Truth noted: a quiet and gentle spirit can also be great in His Kingdom, but that is not the focus of what the Lord was redeeming for me and teaching me here.

Speak the Truth [in Love].

It was her birthday, her special lunch, and yet she debated and waned when asked to choose a restaurant.  Her mother waited, letting the teenager pick her preference.  Yet the girl sighed indecisive, leaving them both hungry and grumpy, angst to make a choice.  Then her mother, in wisdom, spoke: "Speak the truth in love."  In quick, confident reply, the daughter named a restaurant and off to enjoy the day they went.

Speak the truth in love.  I hear this phrase and think: confrontation, conflict, conversations; big daunting episodes, tactful words spent hours composing, and mustered courage in the face of hard.  I picture it in the context of elders and pastors, or a friend boldly fearful to a friend, both in angst mixed with bravery, the outcome a paralyzed unknown.

But perhaps, sometimes, its much simpler than that.  Perhaps it is freeing in the smaller context, in the miniscle decisions and chatter of everyday.  Perhaps it is life-giving in those, for it releases forward motion, vision, commitment, confidence.  It takes out the wariness of indecision and lends to belief, fulfillment and action.

I think of it in the context of food.  How many times don't Mark and I wrestle with where to go for Saturday lunch?  Both afraid to make a decision, worried it may not be what the other desires, we simultaneously circle options as time ticks, until either we are frustrated or don't care where we go, and still end up unsure if the other is happy in the end.  Slightly ridiculous, right?  But what if one of us just spoke up and said, "I'd like Qudoba" and away we went, skipping the whole ordeal.  We'd both be much happier, the relationship would have no worry, and seriously, in the end, food is food, right?

Or think about friendships and all those little decisions that require a final answer, yet neither party commits to one in fear of being overbearing, too forward, a burden, or falsely selfish.  Like: coffee or tea? my place or yours?  Friday or Sunday? talk or play? pizza or burgers? Sometimes, what if instead of being fearful to ask for that cup of French Press coffee or swing kids at Freedom Park or eat lunch at Poppy's, we just spoke the truth of what we wanted, and perhaps in speaking that truth, it releases love.

We often fear to speak the truth in worry of being selfish.  In Christian subculture, the aversion to selfishness is Biblical, and humility is honored.  This is good, yet perhaps we've swung too far.  The pendulum lending instead to weak-minded, timid, and uncommitted.  But, remember oh Christ-followers, that "God did not give us a spirit of timidity but of power of love and of a sound mind." II Timothy 1:7

The contrast in Ephesians 4 shows the opposite, relating the ambiguous and indecisive to infants, helpless, needy, and weak.  It continues exposing such as "tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people..." (v14).  It concludes that without truth, without backbone, one is lent to "futility of the mind" and indulgence, and even can give the devil a foothold!

Now, rest assured, speaking the truth in love does not give allowance for bluntness, unfiltered wisdom, or sharp words.  For the rest of Ephesians 4 billows into a framework for what Paul signifies as signs of mature believers --   sanctified of slander, bitterness, and greed and bearing instead compassion, forgiveness, and the attitude of Christ.

Coming back to the small things  --  the daily practices of speaking truth in love.  Perhaps committing to these these little decisions, these mundane choices, these tiny preferences, not only free us in the moment but set us up to make the bigger commitments, the weightier decisions, the imperative  outcomes in the long run.

Music Box.

Twinkling and turning, spinning and sweet, the music box opens, she dances, it plays.  Purple and pink, with ribbons like kites, this box is a treasure, to touch or to hear.  Harmonies and melodies all snuggled inside, a mystery kept special for those inside.

A metaphor can catch what descriptions and words and graphics cannot, and within an instant, give light in prisms to everything words and thoughts and feelings couldn't describe.  And with its use, all becomes perfectly clear, that idea in a vision, with use of metaphor now captures and symbolize the context of the whole.  Like an epiphany, a lyrical breakthrough, a release to the known.

A music box with its sacred secrets, is this relationship, Camilla and I.  And so much of that, is what makes it special.  It's our secrets, our treasure, our intimate mixture of notes and sharps and flats that only she and I know.  The simile speaks so strongly, it makes me feel the sounds and whispers and sighs and screams, the moments of crescendo or chorusing symphony. There is something so intricate, so intimate, that it captures this quiet glory, this treasured mundane, this soft sparkle that fills up my days.

One other person may hold the box -- Mark, her daddy, my love.  He has the key, the shelf, the access, to see, to ask, to hear our sounds.  It's private contents revealed to him, a glimmer of his girls inside. With gentleness too, he cranks it, churning the music, giving courage and life to what's inside.  Even still, what he holds is only part of the whole, for really, only she and I know...

Others beg entry at times, in spaces.  We bare little music to public display, but personal eyes may gingerly peer, given moments in story, pictures, or hours of the day.  Yet careful, mindful, of protecting the music, I intentionally compose each note; for the best music is kept hidden, as only she and I know.

Like soft music or dancing diddles, we rainbow the air, we pause in the rest.  This little treasure, this music box, is a sacred gift from Heaven to us.

 "And Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

** My friend Amy and I had a beautiful conversation during engagement about marraige and hedges, and growing a secret garden in it.  This has flowered for me through the years as I grow borders and encase my marraige, my family, my home, with boundaries.  Like a secret garden, at times others can peer in, enjoy, and be part of the green spaces, but without the hedges and tall vines of protection, it gives way to weeds and thorns and strangers unwelcomed.  Growing these hedges gives love by boundaries, providing safety and romance and time in that space.  That's what the garden, what marraige, was meant for.   As this expands with Camilla and our home and family, the music box seems to capture the same concept, eclipsing protection and intimacy and joy and peace for the privacy and personhood of the people designed for this space, in concrete and illusive ways.

** Contrasting enough, even as writing these words, I started sharing our moments, our secret mundane... Then paused, re-read, re-wrote, and took out our secrets....  We know we danced like two old lovers, quiet but the hum of my voice on her chest; her leaned in, sweaty with burnt hands and tears, and I held in gentle and long-loving sway....  We know those conversations over turkey and avacado, the tickling things we say and do all day....  We know the silliness of swimming in shorts, and poking puddles in the rain....  We know the smell of morning coffee and the way to make a scrunchie face....  But these secrets, to her and I, they remain....  

Shepherding My Sheep.

"How do I shepherd that!?"  my friend remarked, referring her daughters' smiley confidence, whimsey, and fearless approach to life. This phrase nestled in me, sitting so perfectly in its context.  

I picture sheep: soft, fluffy, white.  Spotless and calm.  Slowly meandering the hillside.  Add lush green grasses and lightly streaming sunlight and the picturesque vision is set.  

Or recall Jesus in the artistic, Renaissance to modern portrayals, him holding and caressing the docile creatures.  The lamb are cuddled in his arms or submissive at his heels, peaceful smiles snuggling from their lips.  Gingerly tended, eloquently displayed, and all is at rest.

Yet the images of the ages are warped, skewed.  The role of the Shepherd downplayed and the behavior of sheep distorted.  The relationship between the shepherd and the sheep discrepant.

To shepherd does not mean to quiet; doesn't ask for serene.  It isn't a formula to mellow, a desire for docile, or a wish for waning sunsets over serene pastures.   Its instead an eclipse of endurance and energy, guidance and boundaries, closely held and loosely free.

A few months ago we watched an episode of Amazing Race where contestants had to corral sheep.  We laughed hysterically watching these crazy, running sheep darting here and there, and anywhere but near.  They frolicked and jumped, scattered and skittered, bounced and boinged in all directions like scurrying, startling kittens or fat men on po-go sticks.  It was hilarious, crazy, and eye-opening all at the same time.

As I watched those sheep, and as I chewed my lips about it hours later,  I thought about the artform and sermon portrayls of shepherding and the juxtaposition of that which I had now seen.  I thought about Christ, the Bible, shepherds and sheep.  I thought of Jesus, and his words and actions, depicting shepherding as a constant pursuit of sheep, always finding the scampered and tending to His flock.  

Then I thought about my Camilla-Bear, and my friends words:  "How do I shepherd that?!" and God's use of shepherding as a parable, a model, and a reference made so much more sense.  She's the boingy, frolicking, flitting, scampering sheep.  She's pep, pizzaz, vitality; surging curiosity and sparkling zeal.  She is zest and joy and this bounding lamb that loves life. Constant motion, always jostling for the next adventure, and protesting, steering clear of corrals or anything that might contain her energy.  

Shepherding this spunky little blue-eyed lamb looks differently than tranquil, artistic images.  Just as the Good Shepherd knows me, tends to me, and guides me, so I care for my little lamb.  I chase after her, guide her, and train her steps.  I give her boundaries but allow room to roam.  My role isn't to squash, to squander, to squelch, to scowl at her energy, but to set boundaries with room to roam.  It's to allow hamlets of safe pasture, with mountains to adventure, and waters to dip in.  It's to encourage her curiosity while setting borders; to keep guard for danger while herding forward.  It demands my attention, persistence, patience.  It requires courage, strength, and endurance.  Yet this is the joy, the calling, of Shepherding my Sheep.

"He tends his flock like a Shepherd.  He gathers the lambs in his arms 

and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."  Isaiah 40:11

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Amazing Race Recap 

Amazing Race Episode Season 25; Episode 3 (start at 25 for the whole sheep segment, or at 31 to get a second viewing; it goes til almost the end of the episode)  -

Verses on Sheep from the Bible 

You're Not Done.

Stark gray chairs lined the building; all centered around the minimalist platform, hanging screens dark above.  He buttoned black, of course, and preached to the masses, each bending forward, hungry and curious with a listening ear.  Different words, phrases, churned within the chorus' of those sitting, peering, listening to this church, this pastor, this emerging.

Then, he made them stand.  Stand and be honored, revered; proudly risen.  The retired.  The grayed, the balding, the sun tanned, color-dying; each sixty-plus individual halted and honored before the crowd.  Ready to hear their pat-on-the-back from this young pastor, this blooming crowd.

But instead, his words called out like a chime, a command, a calling, a clear purpose, as he challenged the aged:  "You're not done!  We need you!"

The air felt stiff with surprised; his forward words catching many off guard.  They had stood to be acknowledge for a life of work, of values, of now-earned reward, but instead were challenged to press on, to persevere, to keep purposing forward.

He spoke about the needs; their gifts, their time, their purpose.  He begged them to continue, to offer themselves to the church, the orphan, the organizations.  

I sat there, roughly eight years ago, among them and burned inside.  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  We need you!  I felt the strength of the burden burn within my soul, lists of needs piling one-by-one, all scrambled, unfiltered. The church needed them.  The schools needed them.  The urban kids needed them.  The young mothers needed them.  The tradesmen needed them.  The nursery homes needed them.  The squatter villages needed them.  We all needed them!

Retirement is portrayed in American society as golf carts and plane tickets and book clubs and fishing poles.  These are good things; very good.  And earned!  Very earned!

But that is not the whole story.  That is bubbles that fill the void.

Many look at retirement as a badge to be worn, a paycheck to be complete, a labor to be final.  It is a date, a marking line, a hurdle.  To some, sweetly dreamed of, like licking cool ice cream on a steamy, weary day.  To others, greatly feared, like blank black space, fiercely shouting emptiness and void.  Like Columbus and the ocean; the end of the map, the falling of the sea.

But perhaps there is a different worldview, a perspective not from society but from the Bible as a whole.  Perhaps there is a plan from Genesis to Revelation that says God wastes nothing, from beginning to end.  Like the newness of Genesis to the completeness of Revelation, everything has a purpose, a meaning, a reason, a season.  So too then, perhaps each life from infancy to mortality, God designed with something to offer, to steward, to grow from start to finish, beginning to end.

I've had the privilege of watching my grandparents grow old.  And when I say "grow old" it is with vagueness, for their years do not detract from their youthfulness, their purpose-ness, their fullness of days.  I've watched with take-for-granted eyes, learning eyes, with reverence eyes, with challenged eyes.  I've lived under their roof and taken notes from their days, grace from their table, and freshness from their spirit.  Silver lining shines more hopeful than silver hair.

I started noting their lives, gathering tid-bits and time slots like pearls on a string. As years rippled into years their days stood set-apart, a contrast to other grandparents I started to meet.  Their hours were filled, from dawn to dusk, with purpose and people, fulfillment in giving life and aid to the needs that they'd meet. In the years of nursery and Sunday School and grandchildren to oversee, they mixed in  disaster relief trips - kitchen duty and construction sites and week-long labor for the least of these.  To the elderly, they delivered meals and offered rides to church. With Marv, the giving continues, caring for refugees, babysitting at MOPS, tutoring at an elementary, and befriending the special needs through Friendship -- every week for 30 years!  At 84 and 86, respectively, they are still the warm home that opens when I travel, and their legacy, their years of "retirement", blooms with purpose and peace, a proud heritage for me.

These years after "work", after the books close, the children raised, the final hammer stroke, still billow with Biblical purpose, with bounty, with command to a life of calling.

There is a burden, a blessing, a benediction in retirement.  The reaping of decades of planting, seeds sewn in deliberation, now harvested anew.  Years of toil and labor crescendo with wisdom and skills and relationships, all set to bloom in fresh colors. This beautiful arrangement of purposed time, stewarded gifts, and fostered humanity lends to a fulfillment all creation calls out for. 

So enjoy grandchildren.  Sew a new quilt.  Play another round of 18.  But just remember, Philippians 1:6 -- "Being confident of this: that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  

God is not done.  You are not done.  God is not done with you.

Take On The World.

War raging. Cancer child. School shooting. Celebrity Split.  Baby sick. Gunned toddler. Car crash. Lonely day...

The hurting is everywhere.  The pain endless.  The horrors or humblings often told.  From CNN to newsfeed posts.  Burdens.  Broken.  Broadcasted.

Twitter. Instagram. Blogs. Facebook. NewsTV. Gossip. Viral Fame.

Instantly share experience, instantly share empathy.  Horrifying shock to heartbreaking story.

I was talking with a friend last week, noting our tension with having or using or removing our Facebook account (I know, same story...)  But our conversation took an unusual turn.  We started talking less about our need for connection or use of viral community or perception of so-called "friends" - the usual banter that revolves around this media.  And moreso, noted how much heavy is shared...  There's a posting about a couple who lost a baby, or a child who has luekiemia.  About prayers for a strangers story, or a school child home with the flu...  Every burden is noted, every personal heartbreak now a social situation.

It reminded me of a conversation a couple months ago where a friend was reading a stranger's blog and had drawn up an entire conclusion as well as burden from holes and innuendoes that were written.  And, she had taken on the weight of it.  Worried, prayed, distressed, agnoized.  Over someone's life that was far removed and not intertwined with her own. Yet she had taken on the load of it to her core.

There is something to ponder here -- this sharing of emotion, personal turned public news, and the burdens that it heaves on life as created creatures.

As the Church existed under Bible times and until the last century, people knew only what was in their circles.  Only what they could do something about.  Now, with constant social media and twentyfour hour worldwide news, we stay up-to-date with humans and hardships multiple times removed from our daily life.  Surely as finite beings, we weren't made nor meant to take on all the world's hurt and hardships.

Colossians 3:13 and Ephesians 4:2 both implore "bear with each other..."  The epistles are full of passages, markings, and experiences of the First Church stepping in to help their fellows in need.  I have to pause and wonder what then, as finite beings, we were made for in this conversation of community as well as burden-sharing.  And I resolve that we can, and are called to, walk with those in our circle, in our sphere of impact, and then leave the majority of the weight of others to those who can carry their load too.

If we carry our own burdens but let no one walk with us, the weight of that cross is crushing.  If we try to compel ourselves carry everyone's burdens, the weight of that cross crushes us all too.  Perhaps instead, if we share the weight of our own community, they lighten our load and we lighten theirs in a way that spreads the weight healthily.  Sara Grove's has a song based on a Rwandan proverb, the chorus writes: "Every burden I have carried, Every joy -- its understood.  Life with you is half as hard, And twice as good."  Perhaps this is the picture of shared experience, shared joy, we are all looking for.  (wrote about this in previous blog: The Cot).

Perhaps instead of broadcast news, in lei of posting instant status', or in place of reading another filtered blog, we should refocus our needs and energies, our burdens and blessings in our own homes and human hearts around us.  Perhaps we would all feel a little less heavy, a little less guilty, a little less lonely, and a little more connected, a little more fulfilled, a little more loved, if our empathy, sympathy, and energy were cultivated and contained in a smaller community, within a circle we could help carry and care for.

Now I know enough to step back and note that there is a fine space between knowledge and emotion, between ignorance and apathy.  There's broad gray areas where cutting off all concern for people outside of your community is hardened, ignorant, and can be selfish.  But perhaps pausing to filter where and why we gather information can help lessen the fog.  For there is a space where information impacts innocence to bring important insight, but that can either instigate change and a call to community, or leave a trail of chosen ignorance or elusive grief. Herein lies the question to filter: is the purpose of inputting knowledge and gaining information to evoke justice, change, and community, or to burden, weigh, and rumor?

For, this noted, we should be attune to starvation, to orphans, to genocide, to widows.  We should support organizations and people who are on the ground floor to step into the lives of those hurting.  

But we cannot all do it. We cannot all lessen every burden, we cannot all tend to every sickness, we cannot all hear every horror, we cannot all mend every heartache.  We cannot all take on the world. 

Only He could do it.  Only He can take on the world.  Only He is strong enough to carry all the burdens.  Only He knows the empathy of each heart ache.  Only He is at the side of every hurting human.  Christ.  He is the Christ.  He is the suffering servant who knows the weight of glory and the cross and all human pain.  Only He can take on the world.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

** This is not to write or make statements against helping a broader world in need.  It is not an argument to turn a blind eye to widows or orphans, or genocides or starving.  It is not prose against media as a whole.  It is, instead, simply to start thinking and filtering how we manage our own emotions and abilities and measure the weight of what we are created to carry and Who is the ultimate carrier.