Peregrination and inspiration

All I Have is All He Is

2011-05-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

The Word in the middle of silence. The Word in uncertainty and no clear path. The Word in pain and grief. I hate to admit it, but so many times I have cried out to God that I need more than scripture; I need a visible sign of his hand at work in my battle. But there have been no signs. Oh, there have been apparent breakthroughs that turned into closed doors, promise stolen, and plenty of those. Friends see visions, have dreams, receive miracles . . . but not me. All I have is God’s Word from verses that have leaped out to me.

Is that enough to sustain me/you in the deadliest battle and hurricane-strength storm? Maybe that’s what I’m here to learn. I don’t know for certain, but maybe why I’m here is to tell someone else going through Heck that God’s Word IS enough. Right now I’m listening to a live worship CD “Let Your Healing Flow” with an inspired prophetic song/word from Andre Ashby: “My word is sure, and it will stand forever and evermore. My word is sure and it will not return void unto me, for I am a faithful God and I see your need. And I’m drawing near to you, I’m drawing near to you to touch you, to heal you, to make you whole. My word will stand forever. Come boldly unto me, come boldly to my throne of grace, for my grace is sufficient for all you need. Come boldly unto me, come boldly, for I will prove myself to you, I am a great big God. There’s nothing too hard for me, there’s nothing that I cannot do. I am all you need, and I’m here for you.”

And he’s all I have. I have no power to change my husband’s choices, his stubborn selfishness and hard heart, his rebellion against God, newest betrayal and full-speed-ahead hardened will to divorce. All I have is God’s Word that I have been praying and confessing over communion every morning for the past year. BUT I know that Jesus is the Living Word, that he is his word – who he is IS his Word - that God watches over his Word to perform it:

The LORD said to me, ‘”You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.” Jeremiah 1:12

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth . . . so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Isaiah 55: 10-11

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the LORD more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. Psalm 130: 5-6

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

Almost every moment of every day, as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, I am aware of my complete helplessness to change my circumstances and the heart and mind and will of my beloved husband. BUT I am not falling into the void, even though I feel like it many times. Even though the word some days seems like the thinnest thread I cling to on the edge of a bottomless abyss and I can feel the winds of destruction swirling up from the depths, YET my life is not determined by my husband’s choices, so says my God’s word:

The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. BUT the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. Psalm 33: 11

I am God, and there is no other . . . I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. Isaiah 46:10

Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Isaiah 46:4

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1

And the word tells me this much of God’s will for sure: rejoice in the LORD always and in everything give thanks. He promises to be my shield and sword (Genesis 15: 1 and Deuteronomy 33: 29) and he will fight the battle for me (Exodus 14:14 and 2 Chronicles 20: 15,17)

Not much from me, but much from the Word today. All I have to give you is all I have to live, hope, trust and rejoice in: God’s Word is God himself, and he cannot and will not deny it, no matter what my circumstances look like and no matter who wars against me. God is love, his love endures, and the purposes of his heart will bring me victory somehow, some day, some way, for sure.

So I will bless my enemy and pray for the one who bitterly abuses me, because God’s word tells me to, and I know the Spirit will pour out upon my husband every spiritual blessing and weapon against deception from the coals of the altar of Heaven, where Jesus lives as the great high priest to speak and decree and make intercession and send his living word for him, and for me, too.

Does that give you something to cling to? I hope so. My greatest praise to God and the greatest work of my life may just be trusting in his Word and living in the peace, hope and victory it brings, and encouraging some other grieving heart to do the same. Whoever you are, I love you, and I pray for victory for you, too.

A " . . . BUT . . ." to move: Jesus, all I hear is silence, all I see are closed doors and looming defeat, BUT you are your Word, and you promise to deliver on your Word when I confess it and cling to it. Because I know you don't lie and you don't dishonor your Word or your people who believe it, I will hang onto this thread knowing that your Word is stronger and more powerful than hammered steel. I will trust you, even when it doesn't look like I should, and I will rejoice in all you are. Amen!

You own " . . . But . . . " to move: Jesus, I feel desperate, lost, without hope, BUT I trust that you _________________________

Breathless from Relentless Love

2011-05-04T15:14:00.000-07:00

How intimately our Father knows us! And oh, how he surprises me on a regular basis. Just when you think you have God’s intentions tracked and figured out . . .

Back on January 6, 2011, I thought I had been waiting in the dark and cold on January 1st on “A” Mountain for an unexpected appointment with Jessica to bless her with connection to City of Grace and our prayer team. Just three weeks ago I felt a prompting to call Jessica. I hadn’t seen her at church for a long time, wondered how she was doing, and really, really wanted her visionary prayers for my ongoing and seemingly headed for defeat battle for my husband’s faith and our marriage. Honestly, I have plunged into bouts of the deepest pain and despair I never imagined I could endure. So much for trusting God ruthlessly, as Brennan Manning writes in his book I read on my way to Chiang Mai in 2008. Had I only known then how I would need the ruthless love of Jesus one year later . . .

And that is exactly what showed up on “A” Mountain, though I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t know it till April 13, on a day I was flat on the floor feeling totally abandoned and devastated by yet another sign that this war in and for my husband and our marriage is advancing ruthlessly on toward defeat. Prayer, prayer and guidance – “Oh, GOD,”- let’s be honest, I screamed - “show me your will! I need to hear you!” I reeled to the phone and dialed, forcing my voice to be calm.

“Hi, Jessica, it’s Rose. How are you?”

“Rose, I’ve been thinking about you for weeks, but I though you were probably too busy . . . .” (Note to me: NEVER assume anyone is too busy for me to call if the Spirit puts her/him on my mind!)

And thus began the conversation and prayer that totally changed my understanding of New Year’s Day. In our initial catching up Jessica revealed that she’s moved back across the valley and is attending our former church. “Hmmm . . . ., “my brain started churning, “Then what was January 1st about?”

Prayer followed catching up, and out of Jessica’s prayer for me poured visions of my husband, visions of our younger son, and visions for me, including “I see you in God's arms. He cherishes you!”

How I wish I had a pencil and paper with me that afternoon to record her words accurately! To say I was blown away is to understate the lifting that was going on in my heart. What I do remember precisely was her momentary pause, then this instruction: “God wants to give you a new outfit . . . . He wants you to go buy a new outfit.”

How funny, how unexpected, and how I suddenly recognized that back on January 1, 2011, Jesus knew I would need Jessica’s insight and prayers on April 13! I though I was there for her, but Jesus placed her there on that cold rock for me! I know this; I know how many times God has maneuvered and moved me literally across the world to meet other people’s very pointed and specific needs at pointed, specific times.

He’s positioned me to carry his word and love for someone else, and what a jazzed juice that is for me to be part of what God Almighty is doing! But to experience him doing that for me – how humbling, how powerful, what a profound sense of his loving and knowing and being more than able!

Now this is what the LORD says – he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep, and my sheep know me . . . . “ John 10:14

Oh, to be known by the Creator of the Universe – to be called HIS! Treasured, cherished, known!

So what did I do? Given the financial vise our joint checking account is in, I couldn’t afford to splurge on a new dress, but on April 14th after a doctor appointment, I went to Savers, a local thrift store chain, and found a spectacular ruddy crimson, gauzy, ankle-length dress embroidered with gold thread and gold sequins for – drum roll please - $6.99. I wore it last weekend while I presented the Sunday morning devotional message at a women’s retreat, testimony to the truth that our Father knows us uniquely as individuals and CARES PASSIONATELY about us, uniquely, as individuals, as his one-in-a-billion beloved child. That dress restored broken hearts! Thank you, thank you again, Father!

He showed up for me the next week at the fountain at the Forest of Uco at the Zoo, where I was waiting for a very late high school tour group to show up for their rainforest tour. Many people passed me heading up the trail, but one woman with her husband stopped and turned to me. “Rose . . . mary . . . Rose?” Fourteen years since I’ve seen her, but I recognized Jan immediately! She’s moved out of the valley and lives about 100 miles north now. Amazed and joyful reunion! We had a wonderful time of reconnecting and prayer right there in the middle of traffic, and to top it off, she and her husband are great friends of the brother of our counselor, who lives in the same town they do.

What are the odds? Spot on when Jesus is at work loving and knowing me. What does this mean for you? He knows you, truly knows you, and is already at work to meet your deepest heart needs with his ruthless, relentless, mighty, able, and more-than-willing love.

Yes, I believe in miracles . . . .

More Steps

2011-01-06T18:10:00.000-08:00

Rose Jackson© 1/6/2011

If the LORD delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm (the steps of a righteous man are ordered by the LORD); though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand. Psalm 37: 23-24.

I seem to stumble into God’s purposes more often than I intentionally, clearly see and follow. But it’s comforting to know that I can’t accidentally fall off the path of God’s plans and purposes involving me – and what fun it is to find yourself in the right place at just the right time!

Time almost caused me to miss a God-appointment on January 1.

A few days before, I received an e-mail from Bridge Builders about Mountaintop Prayer throughout Arizona on New Year’s Day and thought it sounded nice to watch the sun rise and ring in what I fervently pray is a year of victory and blessing with a bunch of other people praying on a high place. There are LOTS of mountains in and around the valley that is Metro Phoenix. Two venues in the e-mail caught my attention: one just four miles from my house, and one about 12 miles away on “A” Mountain in Tempe, overlooking Arizona State University.

I filed the thought as “act on later.” Life was too hectic with Winter Camp in full swing at the Zoo to make firm plans in advance. So December 3oth found me firing off a quick phone call to the leader of one hike. I leaned toward the “save time/save gas” option, but “A” Mountain still beckoned me. I met my husband at ASU, and it seemed somehow fitting to pray overlooking the place we met, the place we lived, the place he gave me his Aunt’s garnet ring, the place where our life together began. I wanted to take back territory lost!

But doggone it, I’d picked up the bug going around our office (my boss had strep), and after a week of raising my voice over 19 kindergarteners going in 16 different directions at once, Wednesday in one day of cold and constant rain and Thursday in bitter cold, I’d awakened at 1:25 am on the 31st feeling like someone ripped my throat out and shoved a piece of rebar in my left ear. Stay home? Go anyway? I e-mailed the leader of the “A” Mountain hike and got the map and details, just in case I felt better on New Year’s Day: park somewhere close to the trailhead at 6:30, hike to the top, meet the group, bring a flashlight. Just in case, and just in case, I went to bed in my long underwear, turtleneck top and wool socks.

I woke up just before 5 a.m. still feeling miserable, knowing it was still hovering around the freezing mark, and “sensibly” talked myself into going back to sleep. But I awoke again at 6:05 and thought (very spiritually) “Oh, what the heck!” Panic leaped out of bed with me, because at the very least I needed to feed the dogs and let them out and back in, throw on jeans and a sweater, hiking boots, and a heavy coat, hat, scarf, and gloves, and drive 12 miles to Tempe – yes, I chose “A” Mountain - in 25 minutes! Cursing my waffling, I slammed down some orange juice and gave up on breakfast, splashed some water on my face and gave up on makeup (it would be dark anyway) and brushing my hair (it would be under a hat), gave up on leisurely hiking to the peak, and sped off into the frigid darkness.

My quick look at the map the day before showed nebulous parking lots, but several approaches to the trail. Where in the world was the closest trailhead? I passed up a parking lot, only to find I couldn’t turn left at the next one. U turn at the light, back to the lot, but where was the trail? “Fortunately” a young woman pulled into the lot at the same time I did, and though she wasn’t part of the prayer group, she did point me in the general direction of the trail. Shoot – no flashlight! I gratefully thanked God for the low-sodium city glow that sort of illuminated the path. Clock ticking, I chugged up the trail, turning at what seemed to be the right spot to head higher up the hill. Nose running, throat aching, breath heaving, I made it to steps that aimed me toward a black outcropping of rock just beneath microwave tower.

No one was there. Rats! Had the bitter cold kept everyone at home – where I should have been if I’d had any sense? I saw movement as dark figures ascended on the trail below. I didn’t know any of these people, not Pastor Yoo, none of the young people with him, no one else. I scaled the boulder and found a rough depression in the rock on the top. Positioning my backside in the icy-cold natural bowl, I sighed and set my thoughts to singing and praising God and calling forth victory, even as I felt sick and sorrowing over all the promise of love lost. Husky early morning voices, more fervor than melody, but we praised!

Pastor Yoo asked us to get in groups of two or three to pray. A woman about my age was perched in the cleft in the boulder opposite me. I asked her if she’d like to join me, and she crawled up to a little ledge just down from my bowl. After we shared our individual concerns, we prayed for the city, university, students, state, nation, and the world. Funny how quickly you can feel connection with another believer!

I told her why I’d come to this particular peak, and she told me of miracles she’s seen in the hearts of some very hardened people. I prayed for her to find greater intimacy with God. Our prayer wound down, and I asked her if she’d been to the big Bridge Builders events at my church, City of Grace. Even in the dim morning light I cold see her eyes widen.

“Yes. I’ve been praying for City of Grace since last summer, and three months ago the Lord told me to start attending there at the first of the year!”

Ha! Jesus did it – got my less-than-willing body out of bed, directed me to the right mountain, and plopped my keester on a cold rock where he had a meeting scheduled for Jessica and me. As of last Sunday and yesterday, she’s already plugged into the prayer ministry at City of Grace.

Today I went to the gym after work – not the one with the nice hot tub where I wanted to go, but the one closest to my work - asked a simple question about discounts for Zoo employees, and BAM ran smack into another God-incidence with a remarkable young man, trainer, and Christian brother named Rob. Wow, this meting holds potential blessings for both of us in the incredible purposes of God.

Last Saturday it was, “Oh, heck.” Today it was, “Oh, well.” I make a seemingly insignificant choice and fall into the hands and plans of the Living God. Stumbling and defaulting, I find somehow I’ve been on the path of God’s desires and purposes, unknowingly, all along. What an awesome Father, Redeemer, and Guide we have! As much as I fear making huge mistakes in this painful pre-dawn journey I’m on, how reassuring it is to know that there is a loving hand that guides me into remarkable goodness. And that reassuring truth gives me reason to hope yet, still, that the sunrise miracle is coming.

Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73: 23-26

As Simple as it Gets

2010-08-31T08:01:00.000-07:00

I can't embellish or add anything flowery to this morning's understanding and post. I was so crushed yesterday, and I recognize my deepest grief is the contradiction between what I know and read of God from the Word and what I see in my circumstances - which is nothing of God's promises at all for over 18 months. A grand and hideous silence and contradiction. This morning it even hurt too much to let God's word in and listen to any of my favorite Bible teachers. That contradiction slapped in my face again was more than I could bear.

"When your words came to me, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty. . . . Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? Will you be to me like a deceptive (intermittent) brook, like a spring that fails?" (Jeremiah 15:16, 18)

So, the question to me on my morning dog walk was simply which side of this razor's edge I'm going to fall on. Do I believe my circumstances reveal the character of God, or do I believe somehow, against all the grief within me, that God's character gives meaning to my circumstances? Oh, believe me, I want with every fiber of my being for God to change my circumstances, BUT . . .

I love, I hope, I'm crushed - I rise in love, I hope, I'm crushed - I crawl back up to my feet in love . . . . Death would be easier than this life. BUT . . . it all comes down to the cross, that cross from which some days I hear a mocking laugh. Real, raw honesty here today, friends, but I don't doubt for a minute that there is someone who will read this and identify exactly with my feelings. Keep reading!

It all comes down to the cross. For love, Jesus emptied himself of all his majesty and rights as Deity and took our betrayal and rejection of him, even my imploring questions now. He loved, he hoped, he was crushed, he rose up in love. What could it have meant to Jesus to be stripped - willingly, but stripped nonetheless - from all that incomprehensible union with pure joy and love and oneness? Whatever it meant, it meant winning me.

No, I'm not at all equating myself and my suffering with Jesus. It's just that now I begin to understand the ferocious depth of his love for me. He IS love. I don't BEGIN to grasp how much, but I desperately want to soak myself in him.

Sorry - words water down the impact of this truth.

Aaugh . . . as much as this still - hurts isn't strong enough a word - grinds me to dust emotionally, I will not let my circumstances and the horrifying choices someone else is making inform me about the nature and love of my Jesus. Whatever meaning comes out of this in the end, it will be the meaning LOVE incarnate gives to me.

BUT "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose . . . . If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also graciously give us all things? . . . For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8: 28, 31, 38-39)

God of My Steps and Missteps

2010-08-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

(entering the cave before descending to Mooney Falls, Havasu Canyon)

“Who would have thought,” I mused, “that parking at the wrong end of the mall would turn out to be so much fun?” What a morning of mistakes and missteps! They started when I read the wrong appointment card for my hand surgeon and missed a day of work, cutting our dogs’ walk short by 20 minutes so I could fly out the door, leap into the car, and speed to what I thought was a 9:00 am appointment. The puzzled look in the receptionist’s eyes morphed into a bemused grin of “Oh, this poor confused old lady” as she sadly informed me that my appointment wasn’t until four that afternoon. Wrinkles from too many hiking trips move younger people to see senility instead of a love for the outdoors in my appearance!

“Oh, crumb!” I chided myself. “I must have read the ‘4’ I wrote as a ‘9’!” Quickly shrugging off the $72 I had just lost in missed pay, I opted to make the best of the situation and save gas by popping over to the quick-fix jeweler in the nearby mall to get two bent prongs on my engagement ring repaired.

June in Arizona marks the beginning of the season when one is willing to walk from the farthest spot in the parking lot as long as it’s under a tree or even a healthy bush offering a spotty patch of shade, so I rejoiced in finding a parking space not only close to a mall entrance, but also beneath a leafy canopy of shade. Imagine my consternation to discover that the store whose entrance I parked near didn’t open for another hour! Grumbling at misstep number 2, I tramped back to my car and drove around to the northeast side of the mall, where surely the generic mall entrance MUST be open at 9:00 a.m. And true enough, it was.

Misjudgment number 3: the jewelry repair shop was in the northwest corner of the mall, so I had to walk the entire length of the mall!

“I needed the exercise anyway,” I philosophized, still leaning into optimism – or at least leaning away from mounting frustration. That meant I had to hike the length of the mall again at 10:00 when my ring was fixed, running the gauntlet of the now-open kiosks that flanked the food court.

“Have you heard of Dead Sea Minerals?” a young man called as I attempted to zip by.

“Yes- are you Ahava?” I shot back breezily, hoping to brush him off.

“No, we aren’t . . . ," he replied.

“Oh, what the heck?” I thought, “I might as well get the nails on one hand buffed.” That’s fully what, and all, I expected to happen. Twenty minutes later, though, I wonderingly waved good-bye to Avi and Elan after chatting with them a bit, sharing what I recently learned of the meaning of the Hebrew letters Yud, Heh, Vav, Heh (the hand of grace nailed in grace), Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our transgressions . . . ,” and praying for the success of their little stand and for peace in Israel.

Elan was genuinely touched that I would pray for them. Yes, I walked away with a nail care kit, too, but I walked away with an awed joy that Jesus continues to use me, even in my brokenness, to touch other people’s lives with his love. After the person you’ve trusted the most tells you that you are worthless, hearing from Jesus that you are precious enough for him to speak through absolutely rains down worth, dignity, value and a joy that sets your heart dancing!

Oh, those blessed missteps that led me to a God encounter! Abba, can I dare to believe that even this trek through a valley of shadows deeper than death is, in fact, a pilgrimage under light I simply can’t see – a journey to a victory more beautiful than I can imagine?

Some days - days of mistakes and missteps – my heart dares to trust this is, in fact, the truth I can hang my heart on!

Ruth's Blessing

2010-05-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

(The photos are my Grandma Miner, aka Ruth, with two of her five daughters, Helen and Bonnie, and Ruth and Bram with 24 of their grandchildren circa 1965. This post references last summer's post The Beauty of the Opal, but this take on that experience is a further revelation to me, to be followed by yet one more! I pray this blesses all the Grandmas in the blogosphere!)

Rose Jackson © 5/20/2010

Here it comes again!

“Hi, Ruth . . . er- I mean Rose.”

“I want to introduce you to Ru . . . er– Rose.”

“Nice to meet you, Ruth . . . oops, Rose.”

I hear it from friends and from strangers: people consistently call me Ruth instead of Rose. I understand the mistake from women at our church - our director of ministry to women is named Ruth – but from total strangers? It used to frustrate me. Didn’t I speak clearly enough? Were others just not paying attention when they met me? I couldn’t fault casual acquaintances too much. I have enough trouble of my own remembering the names of people I’ve just met unless I say their name over and over in our first conversation, but this was happening so often that I started wondering what the problem was!

My internal dialogue went something like this: “Granted, my grandmother’s name was Ruth.”

“No one on this end of the continent knows that, though.”

“Grandma died 25 years ago, and now that I’m a grandmother myself, surely no one who knew her knows me.”

“No one outside of my family, anyway. So what’s the deal? Why is this happening so frequently that it’s almost laughable?”

Then last year life plunged me into the darkest days I’ve ever known. Knowing this, my friend Charity gently touched my hand one morning and said, “I want to take you on a journey through ‘The Father’s House’. It’s a spiritual journey into God’s heart, looking for Jesus there. A friend of mine took me through this when my marriage was in trouble, and I found such a breakthrough for my own heart. Let me know when you’re ready.” Tears glistening in Charity’s eyes told me she was speaking from the reality of a powerful encounter with God in her own life. Searching for light, hope, and meaning from the tragedy threatened to overwhelm all my identity, I eagerly took up her offer.

Two weeks later I sat beside Charity and her mother Sharon, one of my best friends. “Please, God, I don’t want to conjure this out of my own imagination,” I silently cried, trying to remain aloof from the influence of my own presuppositions. Sharon and I voiced what we were envisioning; she described a beautiful mansion in vivid detail. I was having some trouble, my analytical brain questioning whether what I was sensing was me or God. Sharon’s words were awash in love and amazement as she narrated her journey across marble floors through gilded rooms.

All I sensed was a deep desire to go “out back,” and in a flicker of faint remembrance (in my imagination surrendered to the Holy Spirit) I caught the musty but somehow secure odor of an ancient porch. My hand felt worn wood as I pushed open a shabby screen door and was enveloped in the pungent sweetness of my Grandmother’s apple tree. I hadn’t smelled that in over forty-three years! As Sharon envisioned glorious flowers ablaze in color and a river filled with sparkling gems, I sat on the smooth board swing beneath green apples and leaves that cast dappled spots of shadow and light, and felt someone pushing me. Could I dare to believe this was Jesus? Was that his laugh I “heard” as I sensed someone pushing me high, running under the swing? So natural, so common, so ordinary . . . so wonderful!

Then I sensed Jesus beside me as I sat in the grass edging Grandma Ruth’s garden. The whole town agreed she could plant a stick and get a gladiola! Fragrant lilac, fresh dill and mustard scents and rich, warm earth mingled with the redolence of green growing things. A thought flashed into my mind, “Jesus – am I getting this right? You liked cucumbers?” I couldn’t suppress a chuckle. Grandma Ruth made the best bread and butter pickles in town, if not in all of Indiana. I heard the breathy, soft “squeaky toy” giggle of my Grandma. What simple joy and pure, rich faith she had, and how much love for all of her 35 grandkids! I can still hear her gentle, low voice calling me “Rosie.”

“Oh Lord!” A sudden flash of realization swept over me. “When I’m called Ruth, it’s Grandma’s blessing coming down to me!”

I marveled at my heart so drawn to hers across six decades, even though I saw Grandma only five more times after we moved across the country when I was six! Such is the enduring power of a grandmother’s love: a legacy of blessing, belonging, and delight, all of who she was, so treasured even by God that he used my Grandma’s laugh and garden sixty years later to touch my heart when it was breaking.

Can I be that for my grandchildren? Oh, I hope so! The two I have, now three and six years old, live literally on the other side of the world. I visited them for one month three years ago and one month this year, and had the exquisite joy of them home for ten months two years ago, but it will be another three years before they can come home again. Till then I treasure Friday night voice-over-Internet games of Battleship with my grandson Evan and chuckle as my granddaughter Elsa wonders how I can read the picture book in her lap over the computer (we both two copies of several books).

I treasure and I worry: will they feel how very much I love them? Will they recall our carousel rides here and elephant rides over there? Will they remember making grape and cheese-triangle sailboats on the trays of their highchairs here, and making homemade tortillas (with the five-pound bag of corn flour I carried in my suitcase) together over there? Is that moment I so clearly remember with Evan - holding him cheek-to-cheek on his first birthday as he growled his new word “Wow” and I growled right back – safely secured in his memory for the day he’ll need to know he’s amazing and “wow”? Will they know who I am? Will that matter? Will I make a difference for them?

And then I remember Grandma Ruth, an ordinary, uncelebrated woman, her life and self still so much a part of the fiber of mine even after I moved away. The sweet, green and growing aroma of Grandma Ruth wafts into my heart whenever anyone “mistakenly” calls me by her name. Now I know it’s no mistake; it’s her blessing!

Will Elsa ever be mistakenly called Rose? I doubt it; Evan certainly won’t! But I pray who I am and how I love will be a lingering aroma in their lives that takes them by surprise some day to a remembered place of delight, security, and joy – a place like my grandmother’s garden, accessed through that old screen door of the ordinary times we’ve spent together. I hope their days will be graced with joy, not sorrow, but if they find themselves in a “dark night of the soul,” I hope my prayers today will draw their hearts to a place where Jesus meets them with his healing love.

For all of us Grandmas, Grannys, Grams, Nanas, Mimis, or whoever we are called, Ruth’s blessing is the truth that, no matter how small our grandchildren are, where they live, or how infrequently we may see them, the fragrance of who we are will leave a legacy of blessing that transcends distance, circumstance, and decades.

So blessed!

2010-02-19T05:55:00.000-08:00

Not my usual post, but another note from Thailand. I wish I'd brought my cable to connect my camera so you could see here a photo of my left foot with about 35 hungry fish nibbling the dry skin! That is one experience to take off my bucket list! Believe it or not, the one who coaxed me into this weirdness is the doctor for the Austin team here to do childcare!! Ignoring all academic questions about the cleanliness of fish mouths, not to mention the water they were swimming in in the front window of "Jimmy's Travel and Fish Spa", Doctor Debbie asked, "Please, will you do it if I pay for it?" That was right before she screamed and squealed as the first voracious and overly enthusiastic fish targeted her instep . . . . .

All lunacy aside, I am even more smitten by these kids and their families than I was two years ago. Wow, when I hear the stories of what "normal" life is like for them, I am so humbled and privileged to be sharing these past ten days with true saints. The passion of living out their calling! The real-life stresses, weaknesses, and challenges we all face, amplified times ten in a foreign culture. We have our own little "Model UN" just in our class of 5 and 6-year-olds, with my grandson translating our English (and Texan to boot) instructions into Chinese so "Sam" can translate them into Korean for "Anna," and the Swedish nanny translating into Finnish for her two small charges. Thank you, thank you, all of you who helped me come! You are blessing so many families here.

Our card-making workshop last Saturday was a huge success - whole families came.The Finnish mom was so thrilled to have the first girl time" she'd had with her daughter in many, many months, the Koreans were grateful to get to make get-well cards for folks in their churches back home, and many a hubby was glad to have a last-minute opportunity to make a Valentine card for his wife. No greeting cards in China! Can you imagine how much such a simple thing means? Hands and fingers hungrily flew in a burst of creativity and fun, and you should have heard the happy chatter! Thanks again friends for creating a memorable blessing.

There will be many tears tomorrow when everyone leaves for parts north and far away, and the Texas team heads home. Hey, they want me to come back in the fall to speak at a women's retreat - and boy, will I love that as God provides. And any of you teachers or administrators looking for a job working with amazing people and helping a wonderful cause, they need lots (like 36!!!!) of both in the SIL EAG!

The Greatest of These is Love

2009-12-18T13:36:00.000-08:00

Many times in the past two months my heart has been bursting to set these words down, but as many times it has been cast down by anxiety and fear and I couldn’t bear to write through the pain. The deepest betrayal of my life has brought me perhaps the greatest blessing: the absolute certainty and powerful experience of God’s unrelenting, un-soundably deep love for me. If when Samuel Clemens stood on the riverboat, he took a measure of the depth of God’s love instead of the Mississippi River, his pen name would have been “By the Mark, Fathomless” – and Mark Fathomless wouldn’t have rolled off the tongue or stood out on the book cover like Mark Twain. But how overjoyed I am to cry out, “Mark, Fathomless! Relentless! Flood stage!” Will Mark Fathomless turn this blog into a book? Editors, take note . . . .

Can you see between the lines to my leaping heart, and do you wonder how betrayal can turn into dancing? Two things have become the floor under me: the power of forgiveness and the power of God’s love. From the outset of this crisis, I determined that I would forgive, come Hell or high water, for my own sake and for Jesus’ sake as much as for my betrayers. Forgiveness alone couldn’t support me, couldn’t keep me standing through the torrent that threatens to tear down the foundation of 37 years of my life, and I sensed immediately that I needed God’s love working through me to restore my heart and give me brand new love for my betrayer. I never dreamed that love would come through knowing how deeply I am loved by God, but now I see THAT is the bedrock of my life, and so it was meant to be for all of us.

I hang on to a verse in Jeremiah when I’ve felt the sting of rejection over the past seven months. I remember the “address” to this verse by thinking of it (with only a joke in the waist department and slight exaggeration in the hips) as my measurements: “They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after me. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them . . . . I will rejoice in doing them good . . . . “(Jeremiah 32: 38-41)

Joy I never felt before spills over in me in unexpected places and moments. So many small miracles, seemingly unrelated to the calamity I’m facing, nevertheless tell me that God hears me and delights, absolutely rejoices, in doing me good because he LOVES me! From meeting Robin Mark, a singer whose music on my iPod reduces me to tears and praise on my daily dog walks, to the many times I’ve been a channel of blessing to someone who needed encouragement, to connections with women walking the same road with me, to an outpouring of provision for my upcoming mission trip to Thailand, to sweet conversations with Jesus whispered in my spirit, God’s hand surrounds me, guides me, provides for me, surprises me, gives me “warm fuzzies” and downright belly laughs. I have dared - yes, I do fear and reverance God, BUT I have dared to leap into my Abba's lap, bury my head in chest, and know he loves it. That childlike confidence in our Father's love is ALSO, and perhaps truly, to fear and reverence the LORD.

My latest chuckle came yesterday as I ate a grilled salmon taco with mango salsa, and suddenly I sensed Jesus telling me how much he enjoyed eating grilled fish there by the Sea of Galilee. Wow, I was transported to his side, fire crackling, fish sizzling, and I ate the rest of my taco with Jesus beside me in the Taqueria. Do you bristle with religious indignation or with disbelief that I would dare to see myself sitting beside Jesus on the shore as I sit in Tia Rosa's? My unabashed boldness and embrace of every sweet moment with him comes from knowing in the deepest places within me that Jesus is nothing but love, and he did – and does – all he did and does for me out of love for me. Now I see it as an affront to the cross to question his love for me.

Beloved of the Lord, that love birthed new love, faith, and forgiveness in me, a passion for the one who wronged me that burns through rejection and hopelessness like the fire that consumed the drenched wood and soggy sacrifice on the altar when Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal and Asherah (1 Kings 18:16-39) I know in the depths of my soul that the God who answers by fire – the fire of passionate, forgiving, overcoming-the-Gates-of-Hell love – he is God, and he loves me.

I don’t know the end of this journey yet, but I feel like Merry and Pippin in the movie version of Lord of the Rings when they sat in the branches of Treebeard as the rushing waters of the Rive Isen swept away the evil of Isengard. I sit on the shoulders of my beloved bridegroom Jesus, the true Oak of Righteousness, who says to me, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD, your God. The Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” (Isaiah 41: 2-3)

I reply to him, as King David did: "When I said, 'My foot is slipping, your love, O LORD, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.’” (Psalm 94: 18-19)

I see now and more importantly know the bedrock truth of 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Love has a power greater than even great faith and steadfast hope: knowing how much you are loved heals and transforms and empowers amazing new love within you. Beloved, I don’t know the river sweeping over you or the fire blazing all around you, but you are unceasingly loved by Jesus, and his love will renew your heart and carry you through to love those you never thought you could love, with his own heart.

“And we have come to know and have believed the love that God has for us.” (1 John 4:16)

By the Mark, Fathomless!

A "BUT . . ." to pray: Almighty God, my ABBA,sometimes when I look at the circumstances of my life I just don't feel your love. Honestly, I've wondered if it's true. How that must grieve you! Okay, Father . . . I see my failures, I hurt because of ________________________ in my life, BUT you say that you love me, and you don't lie! I may not feel it this instant, BUT I know that when I ask you to draw me in to your love, you won't turn away from me; you will embrace me joyfully. Father, ready or not (whether I'm ready or not, because YOU always are), here I come!Help me today to KNOW your love for me!

If this blog has blessed you and you would like to contribute to my October 2010 mission trip to speak at a women's leadership conference in China, you can send a check made out to Outreach - City of Grace, with Rose Jackson China on the memo line, and mail it to:

City of Grace, 655 East University Drive, Mesa, AZ 85203

Check my posts of January and February 2008 to read about my first trip.

Trophy Bride

2009-09-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

(Please do read this, even if you are male, and substitute friend for bride if you can't get past the feminine nature of the word bride.)

Rose Jackson © 9/22/09

How ironic that the answer to the cry of my heart came out of utter destruction. Over a year ago I prayed to really experience God’s love for me, to move knowledge from my head to reality in my gut. So many of my friends seemed to slip so easily into his heart for them, like stepping into a beautiful ball gown (the sanguine friends) or sliding into a soft, voluminous cashmere sweater (my fellow melancholies).

Maybe I’m so analytical that it took this much agony to override my analysis. Whatever the reason, unless you have found yourself a crumpled shell in the desolate, burned-out crater of the loss of all you once loved or of all you hoped for, you probably can’t comprehend an utter emptiness that is deeper than death – and the resulting desperate longing that compels you directly into the flame of the blazing, ardent, passionate, jealous love God has for you.

I found my answer, and how poetic that it came during the Fourth of July weekend – a celebration of freedom.

Again and again in my daily reading in June I came upon verses containing the word “shield.” “Blessed are you, O Israel, a people saved by the LORD. He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword.” (Deuteronomy 33:29) “Okay, nice metaphor,” I asked God, “but painful things are hitting me like flaming arrows. What does it really mean that you are my shield?”

Then over the July 4th weekend I house-sat for some friends of mine for four days, partly to help their home look "lived in" while they were away, and partly to get away from the relentless stress I’m under at home. Sitting on their front porch that Sunday morning, listening to birds chirp in the mulberry trees and delighting in the crisp white picket fence bordering their lawn, I opened my Bible for my devotional reading and it fell open to Song of Songs - a place I never go for inspiration. There it was, nonetheless, Song of Songs 3:1: "Come out you daughters of Zion, and look at King Solomon wearing the crown, the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, the day his heart rejoiced."

Hmmmm . . . okay. And then my eye crossed the page to 4:7

"All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you."

Tears streamed from my eyes. In my spirit I sensed the Holy Spirit telling me (and you, too!) that the Father put a crown on Jesus the day I (and you) came to salvation and became his, our "wedding" day with him. On that day Jesus' heart rejoiced! He sees me as absolutely ravishing, with no flaw at all, thanks to his righteousness which robes me.

Caveat here – I don’t get visions or dreams from God. How I wish I did, but the way he seems to speak to me is by pouring sudden understanding like a heap of treasure into my mind and heart. I dig into the pile, pulling up sparkling strands of thoughts and images that come together in beautiful clarity, though frequently the thoughts take the shape of analogies from unusual places. That morning the first strand I pulled up was a scene from the movie “Cleopatra” (not at all a spiritual motion picture!), specifically to a scene of a triumphal procession into Rome. Almost instantly 2 Corinthians 2: 14 came up in my other “hand”: “Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ,” entangled with Ephesians 4:8 “When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.” I could hear trumpets and drums, but it wasn’t Cleopatra and her retinue marching in; the captives Jesus led into the throne room of Heaven, including me, including you, are not the conquered, but the rescued and ransomed! Aha! I saw myself standing on the steps of the throne of God, alongside the victor, Jesus, who holds his sword and shield . . . .

Two days later at our weekly Bible study, our church outreach director spoke on Ephesians 6 and the armor of God. Trumpets up again in my memory, God poured another armful on the pile of my understanding. Ephesians 6:12-13 reads: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm, then . . . . ” In quick succession, two friends in the study who didn’t know what I am going through shared these verses:
Genesis 15:1 "Do not be afraid, I am your shield, your very great reward."

Exodus 14:14 "The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."

Wait a minute! Christ holds his sword in his left hand, so if he is my shield and glorious sword . . . that means I am on Jesus' left side, sheltered behind HIS shield! If I am on his left, and he is at the right hand of God, then the Father is on my left side, and I stand sheltered between them both.

Aha! I sensed that my warfare now is simply standing, and where I stand in this battle is on the steps of the throne of God at Jesus' left side, his shield (that's his faithfulness) in his left hand covering and shielding my heart, mind and spirit, and his right hand (his promises and his sovereign power) fighting the battle for me. My job is to stay out of the way of his sword-swinging right hand and simply cheer him on with my shout, “Yes, Jesus, do all you plan and purpose and desire!”

The chains of my captivity to the effects of betrayal, fear, and anger lie thrown down on the steps of the throne of God as a trophy of Jesus’ victory in my life on the day I took him as my savior and he took me as his own beloved. I am a trophy of Jesus' triumph. I am a TROPHY BRIDE! I am FREE (no matter what is going on in my life), and I am ecstatic to be in Christ’s embrace as he lifts me upon his shoulder and shows the hosts of heaven, "This is one I have set my love upon!"

I know Song of Songs can be seen as a metaphor for the love God has for us, the Bride of Christ, the Church (not the institution, but the individuals who comprise the Church), so I believe the "extrapolation" God gave me to us as individuals is not heretical. I sensed the Holy Spirit affirming (to you, too, even if you are a guy!) that the Father put a crown on Jesus the day I (and you) came to salvation and became his.

He rejoices in you, his trophy and prize, the one he fought for, the beloved one whose salvation is a crown upon his head! In the middle of whatever battle you are facing, even if you feel you are chained to your past or sitting in the smoking ashes of your hopes, dreams, health, relationships, security, and future, REJOICE in the truth that Jesus ended all of your captivity and fights now for you! Stand and rejoice in whose you are and where you stand!

“You Raise Me Up”
Brendon Joseph Graham, Rolf U. Loevland

When I am down, and oh, my soul so weary,
When troubles come and my heart burdened be,
Then I am still and wait here in the silence
Until you come and sit a while with me.

You raise me up so I can stand on mountains,
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.
I am strong when I am on your shoulders,
You raise me up to more than I can be.

Backfire!

2009-09-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

Rose Jackson © 9/1/2009

(A family tradition is to write our names in sparkler. No name in this one, but maybe that's because it was meant for you, and your name is hidden in the fire!)

How to get this implosion of understanding onto paper in all of the power with which it came upon me this morning? No beautifully crafted words this morning. No, the imperative of this sudden insight compel me to get it down and out to you who hear the flames crackling and cringe from the heat pressing against you.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Isaiah 43:1-3

Walking through this fiery trial, I am not burned up. In fact, more and more I am enveloped in times of glorious joy and confidence, love and power, as I was this morning out walking the dogs. How can this be, except that God, the Holy Spirit, dunamis, (dynamite!) sets a backfire by his presence and power within me that sweeps over and burns out the blaze the enemy has set in my life and marriage? “Oh, my gosh!” I exclaimed with sudden recognition within myself. “This is exactly what firefighters do to put out brush fires and forest fires: extinguish them by removing their fuel, fighting fire with fire!”

Like the burning bush that was not consumed – I suspect like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walking around in the fiery furnace with and surrounded by the holy, protecting fire of the fourth figure (Jesus himself?!) who looked “like a son of the gods” - I can feel the ring of the Spirit’s holy fire around me, protecting me from the ravenous flames of Satan. My enemy’s plans for me and my husband will backfire because of the BACKFIRE of the Spirit of God surrounding his throne, where I stand!

“For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” (Deut. 4:24)

“. . . and among the lampstands was someone ‘like a son of man,’ dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.” (Rev. 1:12-15)

How many stories have I heard of missionaries whose lives were preserved by cordons of flaming beings or rings of fire, visible to their enemies? Flames and fire are not metaphors for God; he is that fire, and somehow a fire that preserves his beloved while it destroys his enemies! A backfire of jealous love!

He, the unquenchable holy fire, fills his children! “Come be the fire inside of me; come be the flame upon my heart.” From the song “You Won’t Relent,” sung by Kim Walker and Chris Quilala. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLNlnf80nXo

“But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.“ Matthew 3:11

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit . . . . “ Acts 2:2-3

No wonder I can stand more and more often in rapturous joy, tears streaming down my face in absolute delight! Now wonder I dance in the face of betrayal and hopelessness. I am surrounded by hope that protects and preserves my heart!

Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here! So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. Daniel 3: 26-27

. . . And when this is over, I won’t be consumed. You won’t either, dear one! The enemy's plans against us are bound to backfire! There won’t be so much as the hint of a s’more-making campfire upon us! On the contrary, we will pour out the fragrance of our beloved, our God and Savior Jesus!

Conformity? Really? Really!

2009-08-27T07:50:00.000-07:00

Rose Jackson © 8/27/2009

(caveat: I am not suggesting anyone endure physical or emotional abuse. Be safe and get help, please!)

The photo is the front door of the little house with the screen door out back; these front steps are filled with love.

Love that keeps on coming. Love that gets slapped down and gets up again to keep loving. Love that refuses to quit.

I used to read the verse, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18) and other verses like it (1 Cor. 15:49, Romans 8:29) that talk about being like Christ, and I’d think, “Oh, yes, God, that’s what I want to be!”

Did I? Did I want to be the one who’s betrayed and comes back, bleeding, but loving still? Did I really want to be the one who endures accusations, condemnation and lies, and looks beyond the sin to see the wounding of the sinner and to forgive? Is that what I really wanted? I never looked that deeply into what it cost God to bring us to him, because that’s the reality of being like Jesus: love that never turns away, never gives up! Love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (I Cor. 13: 7)

In frustration I often cry out, “God, why don’t you . . . why aren't you . . . .?” My real question - as Philip Yancey writes in his book "Disappointment with God" - should be, “God, why do you bother to . . . . What is it that drives you to love me still in the face of my anger, my accusations, my condemnation, my apathy, my lies about your motives and your heart? Why don't you give up on me?”

My real question should be why Jesus had to die to prove God’s love for us. Yes, I know Jesus' blood atones for us. But God isn't bloodthirsty., so why did it require that? I wonder – is it in part because our sixth love language (beyond affirming words, loving touch, giving gifts, acts of service, and quality time) , the bottom line we humans all understand, the one we all hold out for and perhaps even demand as proof of love, is blood: sacrificing your own life for mine? That we understand - maybe, until some circumstance or event that doesn't go according to our plans causes us to question God's heart. I'm not condemning you, my readers; I've done that myself, and I know it comes out of pain and confusion.

Even after Jesus shed his own blood and God sacrificed his beloved Son, we don’t believe God loves us! Is it that perhaps some stubborn, self-preserving pride drives us to deny such love?

“No, my circumstances tell me . . . . " "But I don’t feel your love, God . . . ." Perversely somehow we'd rather think we're right that God doesn't love us than come to him in humbled recognition that there’s no reason on earth that God should love us – no reason besides WHO GOD IS himself: completely LOVE!

"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19
"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." 1 John 3:16

I can hardly read the computer screen through the tears flooding from my recognition of the extravagant, unjustified, unrelenting love of God. My tears come, too, from the knowledge that I had to endure betrayal – and that I had to recognize the lies I had held onto, also, that kept me from loving unrelentingly – to finally get it in my gut that God IS love, nothing but love, purely and unceasingly love.

This conforming business hurts – but rather than resent God for the pain, I see and now hunger to press in to the truth that Jesus bore, and bears joyfully, even deeper pain to love me. In the scariest valley of my life, I am rejoicing and reveling like a glutton in the passionate, unrelenting love God has for me - so I can get up and love again, and again, and again.

Why won’t you come through the screen door into arms waiting to embrace you? What circumstances in your life are big enough to outweigh the relentless, extravagant love of God in Jesus? What are you holding out for?

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Why won’t you love with his love? Who won’t you love with his love?

A “ . . . but . . . “ to pray: God, ABBA Father, Daddy, maybe not in my mind, but in my heart I have denied your love for me over and over again, BUT who are you, what kind of love can this be that loves in the face of pain, again and again and again? I want that love for me and in me. Maybe I’m still too scared to truly want it through me, BUT because you love me, I am willing to love this one who keeps denying and rejecting my love. Hold my hand and hold my heart as I keep loving, and please give me joy along the way so I can persist and pursue and bear your likeness in me.

Your own “. . . but . . .” to pay: Father God, Jesus, lover of my soul, I have denied your love for me because _________________________________ BUT I lay that down in the face of your relentless love, and I say to you now _____________________. I've been hurt so badly that I don't want to keep loving ________________, BUT ___________________.

Lost and Found

2009-08-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

Oooh, bad family photo of us all from about 1968, with my Dad and his sister Francine in center.

You may have noticed my posts are distinctly lacking in the “God is in the flowers and rainbows” flavor. In fact, more of my posts are about trials I face or disappointments in myself. This no doubt comes from the fact that, while I am every bit female, I‘ve never been a “girly” girl. I look like death warmed over in pink, I simply look silly in ruffles, and though I love jewelry, the beautiful blingy cocktail rings my sweet friend Patty has given me are a glaring contradiction on my thin, veiny hands. And frankly, my life has been so challenge-filled since 1995 that I find little comfort in stress-busting devotionals that advise me to take a bubble bath or have my nails done. God IS in the flowers and rainbows, and probably in bubbles, too, but I need a God who is there to be found IN my pain, loss, anxiety, disappointments, grief, and frustrations. If He isn’t to be encountered and experienced there, then what hope do any of us have?

After I take the bubble bath and have my nails done, what has changed? Have those admittedly fun exercises changed my circumstances? If they haven’t changed my situation, have they changed me? No. And while I love bubble baths, I need something more substantial in my life. The most effective stress-buster to me is seeing God’s hand moving to transform me in the middle of the messes my life seems to step into again and again like the ubiquitous gum on a summer day in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

I long to dance in the rain - not because I’m a pessimist, but because I know rain will come. I need a God who isn’t afraid to get wet, who can transcend, transfigure, translate and transform, as the lyrics in John Mark McMillan’s moving, anointed song, “How He Loves” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chx6s3qXKt4&feature=related powerfully declare: “When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.” I need a God of grit and guts and glory. That’s who I’m encountering in this deepest trial of my life – a God of incredible, deep compassion and love – and that’s who I pray you find within these thoughts and discoveries of mine.

This post is about my father, but Bill and Susan Miller, this one is for you. I love you!

Rose Jackson ©7/24/2009

“Uuuuhhhh . . . uuuhh . . . .” Dad’s mouth opened as he tried to speak. His eyes still held that “deer in the headlights” look of incomprehension so typical of Alzheimer’s patients, but I caught a spark of – what – hope? Thanks? Love? Mom, Bonnie and I were gathered around him holding his hand, once so strong and steady as he guided wood through the saw blade, but now so forceless and weak, and touching his now thin shoulders. We’d come to say good-bye.

Dad had developed pneumonia and seemed to recover from that, but now he had stopped eating. This Monday morning, the day before Dad’s 75th birthday, a nurse in the Alzheimer’s unit of the nursing home had called my Mom to tell her to come quickly, as this might be Dad’s last day. I’d thrown the car into gear and flown to Mom’s house to pick her up and quickly dash up to the home. “Oh, Rosie!” was all she could get out through her sobbing. The past five years of grieving as we watched Dad steadily decline still hadn’t prepared our hearts for this day.

Surprisingly, when Mom and I arrived, Dad actually looked pretty good. He was sitting up in a chair looking apparently healthy and pretty much like he usually did. Mom and I chatted to him while the nurses worked around us. “To him” was all we could do, because Dad hadn’t been able to speak for the past two years; in fact, he hadn’t even uttered so much as a syllable on the many Sundays when my husband, our ten-year-old son and I stopped in to see him after church. Ethan had never really known Grandpa when he was well, this man who made wagons and pedal fire trucks and doll houses and so many treasures for his grandchildren before dementia robbed him of his considerable talents.

But he was still Grandpa, still my Dad, and I thought back to treasured evenings in our back yard sitting on his telescope mount as he twirled me around the stars, or standing beside him in the garage redolent with the fragrance of newly sawn pine as he showed me how to drive a nail and drill a hole in a scrap of lumber. He was still the man I loved and respected, somewhere inside there. I dared to believe that, fought to hope it was true. Mom and I stepped aside to let the nurse take Dad’s vitals. The door opened and my sister Bonnie walked into the room. The nurse gave a slight gasp as my Dad’s vital signs shot up. Bonnie hadn’t seen Dad in two years, not since he moved from his home into this skilled nursing facility. She did live quite a distance away, but it was just too painful for her to see Dad in his continually deteriorating condition. I understood completely. Bonnie had always been there for Dad and Mom over the years, and she still helped Mom every way she could.

Dad hadn’t seen her in two years, yet something in him rose up in recognition of a face he loved, and rose up so powerfully that his heart rate and respiration increased immediately!

“Should we pray with him? Should we tell him . . .?” I honestly don’t remember now which one of us voiced what we all were thinking: should we give Dad permission to go home to Jesus? Should we give him our blessing and love? Wordlessly we all agreed, gathered around Dad, and began to pray. “Thank you so much, Father, for our father, for his love, for the faith he shared so freely . . . . “

Then we said it, every eye awash in tears that flowed to the nurses in the room, too. “Dad, if you’re ready to go, we give you our blessing to go home to Heaven.” That’s when it happened: Dad tried to speak! He looked directly into our faces and said, “Uuuhhh . . . uuuhhhhhh.” Those might have been babbled syllables to anyone else, but to the tree of us, they were the voice of a beloved husband and father, struck dumb by a disease advancing brain cell by brain cell for five years, but the man still alive and vital inside, somewhere, somehow!

One by one we bent down and kissed him, hugged him, squeezed his feeble hand, and left, fairly confident that his healthy appearance meant this might be a false alarm. Two days later he died, sweetly and quietly and I believe liberated to leave the prison of his disease and go meet his fellow carpenter.

Some people might understandable dismiss this as coincidence to which we attributed too much significance. I might, too, had it not been for a comment from one of the nurses after Dad died, and the same scene repeated exactly four weeks later over the bed of Dad’s sister, my Aunt Cine. Francine developed Alzheimer’s two years before Dad exhibited signs of the disease. She had been bedridden, fallen away to 80 pounds, unable to walk or speak, at death’s door for over a year. Mom and I went to see her on her birthday. We took her some balloons.

“Should we tell her?” Mom asked, and I agreed. “Should we tell her that her brother died?”

“Yes,” I concurred without hesitation.

Cine was in much worse shape than Dad had been, but the day Dad died, one of the nurses on Dad’s floor at his nursing home had said to me, ‘Your father was such a sweet, wonderful man. We enjoyed him so much.” How had she known that? How can you know that about someone who can’t communicate . . . unless Dad’s spirit had been able to break out of his silence and communicate somehow, quite apart from words?

So my mother and I bent down on either side of Dad’s sister, took her hands, and I softly said, “Aunt Cine, we want you to know your brother has gone on ahead of you. He’s waiting for you with Jesus. If you’re ready to go, we give you our permission and blessing to go home.”

“Uuuhhh . . . . uuuhhhh.” Her face turned up to mine, her wild yet shallow eyes looking directly into mine, and I knew she was there. She saw me. We kissed her and went home. So did Cine, the very next day.

I never gave much credence to the notion that sometimes people need permission from their loved ones to leave. I always thought your body had the deciding voice in when you die. Now I’m certain that is not always the case.

Two intelligent, resourceful, achieving, loving people, struck down by a disease so heinous and hideous that it strikes terror in the hearts of most people. Any way but that one! What could possible be the sliver lining in my father’s and my aunt’s deaths? Simply and profoundly this: no matter what disease does to our bodies or our brains, God’s Spirit never leaves our spirit. We remain, whole, intact, filled with all the life and love we’ve known and given away, whether the outside world can access it or not. And is that a meager comfort in the face of such deep loss and pain? No, even though my sister, brother and I know we live in the shadow of DNA that may spell the same end for us, especially now that our mother has vascular dementia from numerous small strokes. It is somehow a great comfort and source of hope.

Yes, I pray researchers will home in quickly on what causes and what can cure and prevent Alzheimer’s, BUT while I wait, I rest in the knowledge that who I truly am, who we truly are, endures above and beyond all else. Count that as an incredible, joyful, overcoming blessing!

Today, honestly, I am prayed out, simply resting in Jesus. I let you lift your own prayer in whatever you are facing:

God, this __________________ seems insurmountable, impossible, impassable, life-threatening, BUT you ______________________________________________. Amen!

Fire in the Ashes

2009-08-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

Rose Jackson © 8/3/2009

Some journeys take you to unexpected discoveries in familiar places. Right now I’m walking through the most difficult time of my life through the smoking ruins of a destroyed relationship. Recently my friend Sharon’s daughter, Charity, told me she wanted to take me on a journey through “the Father’s house,” a spiritual journey into Jesus that had given her a breakthrough in a challenging time in her own life. Hungry to experience God’s presence more deeply, I sat with her in Sharon’s bedroom two weeks ago and lifted my sanctified imagination to the Holy Spirit’s voice.

“Please, God, I don’t want to conjure this out of my own imagination,” I silently cried out. Long ago I had sat beside my then boyfriend in a “spiritual” Sunday evening church service, the hair standing up on my arms, my spirit filled with the suspicion that the “spirit guide” the pastor was listening to absolutely was NOT Jesus. I wanted nothing to do with that kind of experience ever again! But I know Sharon’s and Charity’s heart and faith, and my own as well, so this day I could sit in confidence believing that Jesus guarded my thoughts and nothing of the Enemy could enter. So I set off in my mind’s eye up a long driveway. We talked about what we were “seeing,” and my friend described a beautiful mansion in vivid detail. I was having some trouble, my analytical brain questioning whether what I was sensing was me or the Lord, but I pressed on in faith, believing God truly did want to speak something to my heart. Crossing polished hardwood floors, walking into large rooms whose vague details disappeared as I tried to focus on them, I just wasn’t getting anything. The idea is to “walk” through God’s house to find Jesus. My friend’s words were awash in love and amazement as she narrated her journey.

Hmmm . . . . No such experience for me. Why was I getting nowhere? After much mental wandering, I decided to follow the tug on my heart to go “out back,” and I pushed open a worn screen door and smelled my Grandmother’s apple tree. As my friend saw glorious flowers and a beautiful river filled with gems, I sat on the old wooden tree swing and felt someone pushing me. Ah, could I dare to believe this was Jesus? So natural, so common, so familiar, so ordinary . . . so wonderful! What I was experiencing wasn’t at all like the things Charity had seen in her own walk, wasn’t like the things her friend who’d first shared the journey with her had seen on her own walk, wasn’t like the splendor my friend was seeing now. So simple. So free.

Now Jesus and I sat in the grass on the edge of my Grandmother’s garden, and I smelled dill and rich, warm earth. “What does Jesus want to give you?” Charity asked.

“That’s a good question!” I thought. Nothing was coming into my vision as my hands dug beside Jesus’ hands in Grandma’s deep brown, moist soil. Ha! My hand playfully put a smudge of black dirt on Jesus’ left cheek, and I sensed -or maybe dared to believe - it pleased him. This wasn’t the grand spiritual adventure, the overwhelming breaking in of the Holy Spirit that I had hoped to receive. This wasn’t Acts 2 in the upper room. This was sitting on the grass with my hands in dirt, my hands beside another set of hands, feeling completely at peace and joyfully loved. This was awfully ordinary for a powerful spiritual encounter.

“Jesus wants to give you something. What is it? Ask him,” Charity gently encouraged. Vaguely I sensed something like a gold brooch in an extended hand, sensed rather than saw, and I got the impression the gold setting held an opal. He was holding it against my chest. “Ask him what it means,” Charity offered.

“Uumm . . . . ,” I was determined NOT to attach any meaning that wasn’t absolutely of God onto this experience. The still small voice of God was so quiet, more a trickle of understanding seeping into my mind. Sharon wasn’t sure what opals looked like. I know many precious stones are mentioned in Revelation 21 where John describes the foundations of the walls of the New Jerusalem, but I wasn’t at all sure opals were among those stones. “Opals – really pure, beautiful opals – are fiery,” I recounted. “Maybe – maybe Jesus is saying, ‘Don’t let the fire go out in your heart.’ Or maybe, ‘I won’t let the fire go out.’”

Tears erupted from my eyes. My heart is under siege – has been for the past three months. This wasn’t the encounter I wanted with the splendor of God, but a sweet communion with the passionately loving heart of Jesus, and if he wanted to run under me on my Grandma’s swing and wear a smudge of dirt from my hand, that was more than fine by me. He was telling me there was no place he’d rather be than here in my heart.

Wow! Sharon and Charity may have been a bit puzzled and underwhelmed, but I was overcome. I remembered I have a small opal pin at home. I checked both my jewelry box and my concordance as soon as I got home. Yep, there was the pin with four small opals, though the tiny white stones in it aren’t very fiery, and nope, opals aren’t mentioned in the Bible. Did that mean my experience had come solely out of my own imagination? I left a message asking about the significance of opals with a friend who’d spoken a year or so ago about gems in scripture to ask her about opals. When she returned my call, Amy said nope, it was a mystery to her, too. The Bible doesn’t mention opals. She did go on to explain some information she’d found on opals, and my heart soared as God’s assurance settled deeply in. This information wasn’t in any of the geology books we had at home:

Opals are semiprecious stones treasured for their fire and light. Very fragile, opals deteriorate in heat and cold. They contain water, but lose water easily in dry air and become brittle, so opals need to be worn next to flesh so the oils from the body can seal in their moisture. To clean an opal, you must wash it in pure water. Left to dry, an opal will crack and lose its brilliance and beauty.

There it was, God’s word to me: my heart is like an opal, and just as fragile. He washed and cleansed my heart in pure water, the Living Water of Jesus. My heart is meant to be – God WANTS me to be - filled with Jesus, my heart pressed close to his so it doesn’t dry out and lose its fire, brilliance, and beauty. There is absolutely nothing common or ordinary in that truth!

In this dry, hope-sucking valley of the shadow of death that I’m walking through where the Enemy is working to destroy my heart (are you walking that valley too?), God wants above all else for my heart (yours, too!) to be whole, beautiful, and filled with his fire, pressed against his chest in a place of safety, sustaining, and love.

I clasped my opal pin on the chain of a necklace I haven’t worn in over 30 years. The pendant on the chain is a gold-colored, jagged-edged half circle inscribed with these words from Song of Songs 2:16: “I am my Beloved’s.” Surprisingly, when the opal pin hangs on the chain, it looks like a cross . . . .

A " . . . BUT . . . " to pray: Oh, Abba Father God, my heart feels crushed, ground into the dust, broken, BUT your word says, "All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you." (SOS 4:7) and you promise I can count on your love and power as "(I) wait in hope for the LORD; he is (my) help and (my) shield. In him (my) heart rejoices, for (I) trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon (me), O LORD, even as (I) put my hope in you." (Psalm 33:20-22) Restore the lustre, beauty, fire, and water to my heart even in the driest place with the Living Water of your love, Jesus. Thank you that my heart is precious to you and you hold my heart close to yours! Amen!

Your own" . . . BUT . . . " Abba, Father, Beloved, my heart is weighed down with ________________________ BUT I know you desire to restore my heart, so I give you ______________________________________________ and I receive your _________________________________________________. Take me to that place where your heart resides in me. Amen!

Spin Me Around the Stars

2009-04-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

Rose Jackson ©4/29/2009

(This is a slight departure from my usual style of post, but I'm so moved today by the sense that so many people, me included, truly need to feel God's love for them individually. I hope you get a glimpse of the godly man my Dad was, and I hope you have your own fun with God through this post!)

Crickets chirped in the warm summer night as I looked upward, expectantly waiting for my father to do what I’d longingly waited for. He lifted the long black tube of his hand-built telescope off its mount and set it delicately down in the soft grass. Darkness draped over us like a shawl, made lacy with the bright and faint punctuations of myriads of stars. Stars and planets were the awe of the evening, but my delight was in what sometimes happened next. My father swooped down, scooped me up, planted me gently on the flat mount atop his tripod, and spun me around. I looked up at the heavens in complete bliss as the stars whirled around me, covered with wonder and embraced in my father’s love.

I don’t think Dad ever knew how much what to him must have seemed just spontaneous silliness meant to me. He must have enjoyed it, though, because he did it many times. My father wasn’t a man given to horseplay, merriment, or even much conversation. He surely must have said it while I was young – I think – but I don’t remember hearing him say the words “I love you” until I was nearly 30. I knew his love when I stood beside him at his bench in the garage as he helped me hammer nails into a board or click the Morse code key of his radio, or when I sat in his lap as he read the Sunday funnies to me. But I felt his love when he spun me around the stars.

Today, flat on my face on the floor, crying out to experience, to feel, the love of my heavenly Father, this whisper of a memory came to me. In the vastness of the throne room of Heaven, surrounded by angelic hosts, bathed in the unapproachable light of the glory of God, knowing full well it’s only because of Jesus, I have the audacity to ask God for what I’d love: for my Father to step down, scoop me up, plant me atop the mount of his hand-made “telescope” – which is probably his very own hand - and spin me around the stars, covered with wonder and embraced in my Father’s love.

I know, I know; we ought to have a holy reverential fear of God, and I do. But I have to wonder, does it delight God when his child longs for and has the faith to ask for a simple moment of a Father’s daddy-ness? When his children delight simply in him, in who he is, in his love? Delight pops up in many verses of scripture - so why do I feel guilty when I long to look for God's love to delight me? I know my earthly Dad didn't take offense when I wanted to enjoy something special and Dad-daughter with him. Hmmm . . .

". . . the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love." Psalm 147:11

"The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17

"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4

Some people are privileged to know an outpouring of fatherly love from their earthly fathers. Many more don’t. But I don’t think we need to fear taking to our heavenly Father that empty spot in our hearts that needs the embrace of a daddy’s spontaneous "silliness"/joy. I understand that the writer of Hebrews was talking about our weakness and temptation when he wrote, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need,” (Heb. 4:16) but I dare to trust that we can approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we can receive the lavish mercy of a Father's delighted love.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1

For now it’s a metaphor that brings me (and you too, I pray) peace and encouragement to ask God for experiences with him that delight my soul, but I also look forward expectantly to the day God my Father really does spin me around the stars!

A “. . . but . . .” to pray:

Father God, sometimes I feel so far from your love, and I think often it’s my earthly perception of love based on flawed experience, coupled with lingering “God of judgment” attitudes about you, that hold me back from truly knowing your love. BUT I dare to believe you meant it when you told the apostle Paul that nothing - not even my flawed attitudes - can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 38-39) So I have the faith-based audacity today to ask you to delight me with your love, show me some spontaneous fatherly ”silliness” that will mean the world to me, and help me delight, just purely delight, in you.

Your own “. . . but . . .” to pray:

Father God, I’ve been afraid sometimes to ask for an embrace from your love. Sometimes I’ve doubted you are willing to do that, BUT today I’m going to trust that _____________________.

Simply a Saturday Miracle

2009-03-31T17:14:00.000-07:00

Rose Jackson © 3/25/2009

Prani breathlessly opened the pool gate and called, “Does anybody here know anyone with B-negative blood?”

That’s the last question you expect to hear the assistant manager of a guest house in Thailand ask tourist families splashing in the pool and licking ice cream treats on a warm Saturday afternoon.

Startled, Monica rose up on her arm from her towel on the pool deck next to me and quizzically replied, “Emma does.”

“Oh, my gosh!” I exclaimed. I didn’t know that, and I’m her mother-in-law.

Monica, a nurse, turned to me with a panicked “Where is she?” look as she shot back to Prani, “What happened?”

“A tourist who just came here last night was in an accident and needs blood so the doctors can do emergency surgery. He’s B-negative.”

I must have still looked confused as Monica and I both scrambled to our feet, because Monica hastily explained, “Asians don’t have the Rh-negative factor in their blood. Where’s Emma?”

Like a beautifully painted scroll unrolling, the full implication of this emergency spun through my mind. A couple thrown into crisis on their first day in a strange, foreign city. Doctors tell the wife surgery is urgent to save her husband’s life, but they have no compatible blood, nor does the other hospital in town. Panic must grip her. Is there a foreigner in town with compatible blood, and how could they possibly track that person down? Where could they even begin to look? Hotels certainly don’t have that information. What are the odds?

Rushing past Prani, I blurt, “Emma’s on her way here with the children. I’ll find her!” Prani replies, “I’ll call the hospital.”

What a wonder: this is the one Saturday of our stay when we didn’t plan any tours or shopping trips. Emma stops, children in hand, as I rush toward her down the path, panting. “It’s an emergency. Someone needs B-negative blood.” We scoop up the children and dash back to their room, hand the kids off with a fleeting explanation to a puzzled Rick, toss on T-shirts and jeans, and run through the dappled shade on the driveway toward the guest house office, the laughter of children swinging and sliding on the playground an other-worldly contrast to our anxious hearts.

As Emma gives information to Prani, the pieces of this puzzle fly together to reveal a picture nothing short of a miracle. Piece one: Prani used to be a nurse, and she “happens” to know the nurse overseeing foreigners at this hospital. Piece two: the injured man “happens” to be taken to this particular hospital. Piece three: Emma has B-negative blood. Piece four: Emma “happens” to be in this particular town at this particular time. Piece five: Emma and Rick “happen” to be staying at the guest house Prani manages. Piece six: Monica, a colleague of Emma and Rick, “happens” to know Emma’s blood type. Piece seven: Monica “happens” to be at the pool with her children when Prani comes, hoping against hope to find a blood donor. If even one piece were missing, this man would die.

Like a jasmine-laden breeze, a peaceful calm enfolded us as attendants quickly bustled Emma into the ambulance that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Mouths open in wonder, we looked at each other across the cots. What’s the proper protocol when you realize you’re caught up by the hand of God in a miracle? Nothing seemed better to do than pray for this man, his doctors, and his wife, and pray that Emma would be able to give the blood he desperately needed.

“I know, I have small veins,” Emma apologized to the hospital technicians who speedily and skillfully descended upon her as soon as we arrived. Though their English was halting, it was obvious they were thankful Emma was willing to give her blood. Two attempts, two veins, and several embarrassed giggles and apologies in Thai later, a phlebotomist sped off with the pint of blood that meant life to someone we would never meet. Wanting to offer some comfort and hope, we asked if we could speak to the man’s wife. Privacy rules made that impossible, so we prayed again that the surgery would go smoothly and healing would come quickly.

How surreal! On vacation in between conferences, here we were in Thailand in a hospital on a Saturday afternoon, Emma with bandages on both of her arms, and me still wearing a bathing suit under my shirt and jeans! Is that what a miracle is supposed to look like? To the rest of the bustling city, it was simply Saturday. Shouldn’t the heavens open, or an angel appear, or something supernatural happen to let you know you’re in the middle of the miraculous?

Evidently not, or at least not always. Sometimes – probably most frequently, I expect – miracles come in quite ordinary packages, via quite ordinary “happen-ings,” pieced together extraordinarily and placed in the praying hands of people who helplessly hope for them. Do they wonder, and will that couple ever know, their miracle is named Emma? Perhaps some Saturday quite simply, when and where you least expect it, someone’s miracle will be named you!

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

Today, TWO ". . . but . . ."s to pray: Most amazing Father, sometimes I've looked for heaven-rending miracles and passed off as coincidence so many of the "ordinary" miracles you've done for me. I need one now and don't see how it can happen, BUT I know you will and do position your resources and your children to provide wondrous help to supply my deepest needs. Too often I'm focused on receiving a miracle, BUT it's just awesome to be an instrument in your hand in delivering a miracle for someone else! I give you permission to - in fact, I pray you will - use me in extraordinary ways in "ordinary", "simply Saturday" miracles to bless the world around me.

Your own ". . . but . . ." to pray:
God of miracles and my Father in Heaven, I've been so busy looking for ____________________ and I haven't recognized the amazing things you are doing for and through me, BUT I believe you can __________________________________ . I am in awe to know you can and will move your people around the world to meet my needs, and I have faith to ask you to use me to _______________________________________ Amen!

God's Goodness - A Greater Miracle: to be part of one

2009-03-14T20:13:00.000-07:00

Heart pounding, I leaped up from the sofa, ran down the hall to my bedroom, and anxiously searched through my jewelry box. Where was it? I didn’t even remember the last time I’d worn it. Could I find it? Now was the moment, the divine instant. There in the corner, under pearls, gold earrings and an opal necklace, was a tiny, flat gray piece of barbed wire – now the most priceless jewelry I owned. Grasping it tightly I ran back to the living room. Leana looked at me with wonder that bordered on alarm. We’d met just nine days earlier. “She must be thinking ‘This is one crazy woman,’” I laughed to myself as I opened my hand and placed the small pin in hers.

“This is yours,” I said, and my mind flew back over fifteen years as I began to explain to the confused young woman why I had flown from the room in the middle of her story. In my memory I could still clearly see the unimposing figure, a courageous man who carried Bibles into the Soviet Union. We listened with humility and admiration as he related how difficult life was for Christians living under the threat of persecution. For some reason I didn’t understand, his words kindled a passion in my heart for that land, and I bought a tiny barbed wire pin and wore it to remind me to pray for those people. Years passed, and as so often happens, I didn’t wear the pin as frequently. Eventually it drifted to the bottom of my jewelry box, but that didn’t quell the prompting I sensed from time to time to pray for someone. I didn’t know for whom I was praying, but I prayed God would protect, guide, bless, and be very real to her or him.

Leana was one of four Russian girls our church was supporting in a college in the Midwest. Because the dorms were closed for two weeks over the Christmas break, the girls needed a place to stay. Tom, the youth director at our church, asked for host homes from the teens in the youth group. A year earlier our older son and a dozen youth had gone to Russia with Tom, taking medical supplies and an incubator to two hospitals in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Since our son loved his adventure in Russia, and since we had an extra bedroom, and even though we didn’t have a girl in the family, my husband, our two boys and I thought it would be fun to share our home and holidays with one of the Russian girls.

Tom chose Leana for us, and her addition to our family made the holiday magical as we experienced our traditions anew through her eyes. With all four girls we went Christmas caroling up and down neighborhood streets, freely singing our faith. One Saturday Leana perched on bleachers beside our younger son and tasted her first cotton candy while flower-strewn floats and marching bands passed by in the first non-military parade she had ever seen. At the zoo she laughed delightedly as she swayed on her first camel ride. On Christmas Eve the candlelight flickered on her young face, reflecting the hope we felt rise more powerfully than ever with the strains of “Silent Night.” Our extended family showered her with gifts on Christmas Day, and Leana gave us beautiful gifts from her homeland.

There had been so much activity that Leana and I hadn’t had much time to simply talk, so I seized the opportunity for some girl time with her while my husband and the boys were out one afternoon. Side-by-side on the sofa, I asked Leana about college, about her career dreams, about her family and her life in Russia, and about how she met Tom.

“My parents aren’t Christians,” she said, relating the years of wondering and longing that drew her to ask questions about God as she grew up. “I wanted to know the truth about Jesus. Then I heard Tom speak at . . .," she continued, and I didn’t hear another word. The quiet voice I heard in my heart drowned out Leana’s words:

“Do you remember that person you prayed for in Russia, the one you didn’t know?”

“Yes, God.”

“Well . . . there she sits.”

That was it, simply matter-of-fact, but this sudden recognition launched my heart so jubilantly that I had to leap up and find the tiny pin. Now I knew whose it was.

“This is yours, Leana. I’ve prayed for you for fifteen years, even though I didn't know I was praying for you. God put you in my heart long ago!” Tears brimmed in her eyes and mingled with mine as we embraced and cried together.

How is it possible to love someone you’ve never met? How is it possible to hear a child’s heart-cry and add your prayers to hers? How much more improbable is it to find yourself one day, in your own home, looking into the face of that same person? How breathtaking is it to be part of a miracle?

I don’t think my prayers were the only ones God prompted for Leana, but how incredible it is to have played even a small role in the answer to her prayers! That to me is miraculous, and now I know it’s true that to be part of delivering a miracle for someone else is as astounding and life-changing as receiving a miracle of your own – perhaps even more so!

"My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; on behalf of a man he pleads with God as a man pleads for his friend." Job 16:20-21

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him." 1 John 5:14-15

A ". . . but . . ." to pray: Glroious God, I've prayed and sometimes not seen an answer to my prayers. It's tempting at those times to think you don't hear me, BUT I know you do, because Jesus told his disciples (and all of us, me included) to pray. You wouldn't tell me to do pray if you didn't passionately want to speak to me, hear from me, and move divinely in response to my prayers. Thank you that you inspire me to pray for others. I may never see or hear the results of my prayers, BUT I believe they will accomplish much more than I know. How wonderful if I could someday meet the one those prayers are for, BUT even if I can't, thank you for giving my life incredible impact by making me part of a miracle, and thank you for moving someone I don't know to pray for my needs.

Your own ". . . but . . ." to pray: God, sometimes I think my prayers go no higher than the ceiling because I don't see the answers, or because the answers are so long in coming, BUT I am willing to believe that ______________________________. Thank you for inspiring me to pray today for someone who needs a miracle.

God's Goodness: The Power of Purpose

2009-03-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

(In the photo are 28 of the many-more blessings God gave us in this place)

It was an unlikely spot for a miracle to begin: the curb of a Howard Johnson’s parking lot on a Friday night. I huddled on the cold concrete, oblivious to the flaming glory of autumn leaves above me, my husband inside the hotel oblivious to my desolate grief. My chest heaved with sobs as I cried out from an abyss of desperation, “Did you bring me here to abandon me?”

So much had gone wrong in the six weeks since the September morning I’d said good-bye to our older son and his fiancée, our family, our home of 28 years, our friends, and a dynamic church - aside from my husband and our younger son, everyone and everything that mattered to me. My husband’s new job took us 2,000 miles across the country. Our house sold in two hours – a hopeful balm to the loss I felt - and I considered the lightning-quick sale confirmation that God’s hand was guiding our move.

But was it? The 40 houses we’d looked at were at least $100,000 more than we had, and each one disappointing in some major way. The first house we saw had no closets, and things only got worse from there. We had signed a contract on one house and purchased new appliances to upgrade the kitchen, but a week later the owner decided not to sell and backed out of the contract. That left us with $5000 worth of appliances sitting in storage with no house to put them into... My husband’s new company rented us a house for one month, but what they didn’t realize was the owner of the house had rented it every weekend to “leaf peepers.” Friday nights we packed up and moved back to the hotel; on Sunday nights we moved back to the rental, where I washed dirty dishes, sheets and towels, cleaned the bathroom, and vacuumed before we could even unpack.

With no permanent address, we couldn’t enroll our son in school. I didn’t want to start him in one school, then move him to another in weeks or months. He felt uprooted enough! Then my husband found a condo we could rent in November in the town where we hoped to settle, so I met with the principal to convince him to let our son start school. We’d moved from a metropolitan area where our son’s school was ethically diverse to a tiny pocket of rural New England. A friend from our home church glowingly described their new home in Connecticut as a “Leave It to Beaver” neighborhood, and I drank in the hope that our new town would be the same. But during the first week in his new school, a girl in our son’s class announced, “You’re from somewhere else. That makes you different, so we aren’t going to be your friends.” And that’s how the school year went. Our son, the befriender of the outsider, the compassionate kid who made hurting children feel accepted, was now an outcast and devastated. Every day I drove him to the small school nestled in the lovely valley, and every day he battled rejection and tried to make a friend.

So I sat rocking on that cold curb, anticipating mountains of cleaning on Sunday night, everything I loved stripped away from me, every hope for happiness seemingly strangled, and wept bitterly. Through sobs I looked up and cried, “God, I can’t do this! Please send us back home!”

“If only . . . .” I whispered, “If I could see a purpose . . . . I could live with all of this if there was a reason.”

At our 10,000-member home church I wrote books with the senior pastor and led groups in a vibrant women’s ministry; our son loved the lively, creative Sunday School program. Now we were looking for any Bible-believing church. Earlier that week I’d called the pastor of yet another congregation to get directions to his church. “No,” he replied to my questions, “we don’t have a women’s ministry or a youth group. My sons and one other boy are the only children in the church older than preschoolers.” Most of the church’s 60 members were college students.

“Oh, great,” I thought ruefully as I picked myself up off the curb in the gathering dark and my mounting gloom, “I told him we’d visit. Now we’ll have to go through with it just out of courtesy.”

Sunday we took our seats on folding chairs at a local library. An older couple behind us tapped our shoulders, introduced themselves, and said, “We’d love for you to come to our house for lunch after church.” Our son’s eyes met mine, silently pleading, “Please, no – can’t we go to MacDonald’s?” But we accepted. It couldn’t hurt to meet people who were friendly!

Loretta and Dana were gracious and genuine. Over lunch in their kitchen, my husband mentioned that he worked for a Japanese-owned firm. Loretta said their son had worked in Japan. Thinking for a moment, she added, “I know a Japanese woman here who’d like to be in a Bible study, but she’s uncomfortable with her English. Her husband works here, so she comes for three months, then returns to Japan for three months. I think,” she added, "they live in the town where you’ll be living next month. Would you be willing to have a Bible study with her?” At least it would give me something constructive to do, so I took the woman’s phone number.

I had no idea I was poised on the brink of a miracle.

“Coincidentally” this woman lived in the complex we’d soon move into. In fact, Hiroko lived two buildings down, and her husband was president of the company my husband worked for! “Coincidentally” we’d visited the church I wanted no part of, in front of the couple who could connect me with Hiroko and my miracle of purpose. Hope rushed in as a door opened for me into new understanding. Now I knew why the contract fell through on the house we bought appliances for! I knew why we were renting a too-small condo. I knew we had a church home. I knew God had a purpose for me and meaning for this move!

Incredibly, God moved us across the country to answer the prayer of a woman from the other side of the world. Hard as it was for our son and me, we were answers to prayer. God’s hand was in every detail of this move, and if that was true, his goodness was there for our family.

This foreign land for both Hiroko and me became a place of miracles. The next year our son made good friends at the regional junior high who didn’t know he was from “somewhere else.” We found a house with closets. I helped start a women’s ministry with precious friends who became like family.

God’s miraculous answer to my anguished cry on the curb of the Howard Johnson's was not to send me home, but to plant my heart in the purpose he had for me in a new home. This, too, is God's character: he gives our lives meaning that gives our lives joy, no matter who or where or in what circumstance we are. Not all miracles of healing involve your body. Some miracles – perhaps the most powerful and lasting - heal your heart. That healing is God's heart for you today.

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

A " . . . but . . ." to pray:

God, I've misjudged you when I have only seen difficult circumstances, not the potential for meaning, purpose and miracles even in difficult situations. Sometimes you are hard to discern, BUT I believe and delight that you love to make me an answer to prayer and give my life meaning and purpose that make even hard places and circumstances become places of blessing. You are great, and you are good! Amen!

Your own " . . . but . . ." to move:

God, I look around me and see _____________________ in my life, not goodness, BUT I know you long to use me to answer the cry of someone's heart, and I know in being that answer, I'll __________________________ and you'll fill and strengthen my heart, too.

A Miracle-working God

2009-02-19T13:47:00.000-08:00

Rose Jackson© 1/2009

The miracles began to unfold when the problem became a crisis. I got the phone call on Monday afternoon. “Mom, Emily’s bleeding. They’re evacuating her to Hong Kong.” He paused, the anguish breaking Eric’s voice,” I don’t know if Evan and I will be able to go with her.” A cold jolt ran down my back and momentarily paralyzed my breathing. “I’m on my way,” I exhaled, my thoughts speeding off in dozens of directions. How? Where? Who could help?

Emily and Eric were working and studying Asia. Expecting their second child, our daughter-in-law was 29 weeks into the pregnancy. After episodes of spotting in her first trimester, things had been going fine. Until now.

Emily had started spotting again on Sunday, so she and Eric went to the hospital while their three-year-old son Evan stayed with friends. Things took a drastic turn on Monday, and the hospital staff told Emily and Eric they weren’t equipped to handle such a premature birth. Both the baby and Emily could die. The closest hospitals equipped for premature births were 350 miles away in Hong Kong. How could they get there in time to save the baby’s life? At this point of desperation, when none of us could do anything but pray, God delivered miracles.

Looking back on them now, it’s almost like peering over God’s shoulder as he marked off a checklist:

Make a corporate jet “coincidentally” available and close enough to fly in.
Make the jet big enough for Eric and Evan to go along.
Connect a colleague in Hong Kong quickly with an ambulance to meet them there.

Getting to Hong Kong was just the tip of the iceberg of impossibilities. Which hospital? Was there a hospital with a bed available and staff available for whatever might happen? Where could Eric and Evan stay indefinitely on their meager resources? Who would take care of Evan?

On the other side of the world, I bought an airline ticket while my mind whirled with my own questions. How could we afford this? What about local currency? A miracle itself, my passport had just come back in record time the week before, but did I need a visa to get into Hong Kong? Where would Eric and Evan be? How could I find them?

“Call Julia” flashed through my mind. We’d met Julia six years earlier when we lived briefly on the East Coast. She was from Hong Kong. Her parents still lived there. Could one of them possibly meet me at the airport? Was Julia even home? I was set to fly out at five in the morning. Making a connection would take a miracle. God’s checklist:

Move us to New England in 1997 so we meet Julia.
Be sure Julia is at home on Monday night.
Ensure Julia’s mother is available and willing to meet me at the airport.
Provide a phone number where Julia’s mother can contact Eric and find out where he is.
Send Emily to the hospital with the best neonatal intensive care unit in all of East Asia.
Provide an affordable apartment in Hong Kong for four weeks.

“What-if’s” swirled through my thoughts. How would I recognize Julia’s mother Linda, whom I’d met only once? I tucked Julia’s wedding photo in my carry-on, held my husband close, and tried to get a few hours of fitful sleep. Thirty-four hours later across the Pacific Ocean, I saw a small hand waving a sign that read “Rose.” Amid a sea of people I thankfully hugged Linda, who had taken a taxi, bus and subway across two islands far out of her way to meet me. One hour later I leaped out of a taxi to embrace Evan and Eric in the middle of a narrow, dark street between canyons of buildings. Eric smiled and said, “Welcome to Hong Kong . . . Grandma!”

Born by emergency C-section, little Elsa weighed two pounds fifteen ounces. Doctors guardedly told Eric and Emily to expect Elsa to be in the NICU until her original due date, even if she didn’t develop complications. Now our needs were less critical, but real, nonetheless. After the first four weeks, where could we stay that would be close enough to allow Emily and Eric to make twice-daily breast milk runs to the hospital? How could they afford rent when Eric already had paid the hospital thousands of dollars? How could Eric and Emily continue their studies without their books? The miracles continued:

Connect Eric and Emily’s Hong Kong colleague with a friend who worked for an elder in a local church.
Through that that church provide an apartment, rent-free, for Eric and Emily for two weeks.
Make another apartment available rent-free for six weeks beyond that.
Bring friends through Hong Kong with Eric and Emily’s books and some of Evan’s best-loved toys.
Protect Elsa and keep her infection- and complication-free.

Three weeks passed, and we had so much to be thankful for at Thanksgiving that we weren’t too disappointed by our oven that didn’t work and the turkey dinner we couldn’t afford at a local restaurant. We were content to find turkey sandwiches at a nearby deli, but God, who had pulled off huge miracles for us already, had two small, delightful ones still on his list. At the church we attended the Sunday before Thanksgiving, a genial woman with twinkling eyes turned around to offer, “Would you like to come to our apartment for Thanksgiving dinner? It will only be chicken, but I have a can of cranberry sauce!” Astonished, we delightedly accepted. After church, one of the members told this woman she’d bring over a complete turkey dinner from the outrageously-priced restaurant, where she worked! God must have winked as he checked off:

Provide a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, down to pumpkin pie.
Supply for free a small Christmas tree complete with lights and ornaments.

The most amazing miracle left the NICU two weeks later, and one week after that, one month ahead of schedule, little Elsa Faith was released from the hospital, well on her way to becoming the bright, beautiful, unstoppable toddler she is today.

Is it a miracle when friends drop their own agendas to make critically needed things happen that you can’t arrange or do for yourself? Is it a miracle when strangers go out of their way to meet your needs, both the desperate and the simply encouraging ones? Is it a miracle when you’re moved across the country to meet someone who will fill a unique need in years to come? Is it a miracle when the cells of a tiny body grow healthy and strong despite being thrust suddenly into a hostile environment?

Technically these extraordinary, ordinary provisions - even taken together - may not be miracles, but they certainly felt like miracles to Emily, Eric, Evan and me! This much I do know: when my loved ones or I am in formidable, urgent, grave need that’s beyond our capacity to fill, I’ll take my miracles any way God wants to conceive, create, and deliver them!

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. . . . For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. . . . your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Psalm 139: 9, 13, 16-17

A ". . . but . . ." to pray: Loving Father, so often when trouble strikes, my first reaction is to cry out to you, "Why are you allowing this?" and fly into panic mode, BUT again and again you have proved yourself faithful and mighty to provide everything my loved ones and I need. The world is not too large, no emergency is too difficult, AND no heart-cry is too insignificant for you to care, provide, heal, and bring victory. I will remember that in the needs I face today. In Jesus' name, Amen!

Your own ". . . but . . ." to move/pray: Loving and living Father, I fear that ___________________, BUT I choose to put my confidence in your compassion and your power. trusting you will _________________________. Thanks that you will meet all my needs in amazing ways - and I surrender my expectations to your greater wisdom and limitless love. Amen!

Two Brown Shoes, Take Three: God's goodness

2009-02-17T19:53:00.000-08:00

Rose Jackson © 2/ 2009

(see first post "Two Brown Shoes Don't Make a Pair" to read about my brown boot goof)

What I believe about God’s character is the third application of my “two brown shoes” mistake – and I’m preaching to myself today, swimming in the same sea of difficult circumstances that many of you are struggling to stay afloat in. Looking at those two mismatched shoes, I realized that circumstances tempt me to believe lies about God’s character and intent toward me and my loved ones:

“Why are you dashing our son’s dreams?”
“Have you abandoned us?”
“You gave my friend success, but not me. You must love her more than you love me.”
“I pray for others, and they receive miracles of healing – but you must not want me healed.”

Do you hear in these an echo of your own perplexed, hurting heart? When I take a closer look at my outbursts, I recognize what I’m really saying is, “God, you don’t love me/us. Your love is inconstant. You show partiality. You withhold your goodness. Your word can’t be trusted.”

My image of God in hard times bears striking differences to what I believe about God when my life is going smoothly. In prosperous, healthier, joyful times I gladly agree with the biblical writers who rejoiced in God's character:

By you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. (Ps. 86:15)

He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he. (Deut. 32:4)

For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. (Ps 100:5)

Taste and see that the LORD is good. . . . (Ps 34:8)

Taste and see . . . . I think of my neighbor’s Crawfish Etoufeé. Many years ago, after eating a disgusting, multi-legged slice of a marine invertebrate during a trip to Asia, I made a resolution never to eat anything with less than two or more than four legs, so when my neighbor recently brought over a steaming bowl of her signature Louisiana chowder, I cringed. I knew it couldn’t possibly taste good. Too many legs!

Since our neighbor had gone to so much trouble to make it, though, what could I do but set it on the table and partake of her hospitality? I carefully tipped all but two crawfish off the spoon and back into the dish before ladling a serving onto my plate. Tentatively I bit into one, and . . . it actually didn’t taste bad. It didn’t taste wonderful, either – it’s the crawfish’s art-gum eraser texture that throws me - but the non-crawfish part of the chowder was quite tasty. My husband and our son enjoyed the crawfish, though, and happily ate the rest of my share, which proves two things: first, one man’s gastronomic challenge is another man’s gusto, and second, there is goodness in things outside of my definition of “good.” To put it another way, God’s goodness may not always taste the way I think it should, but it still is goodness.

Looking back through my journals to so many of the troubling times when I couldn’t see any sign of God’s goodness, again and again I find good. We wanted two children, and timing them four years apart so we wouldn’t have two kids in college at the same time just made good economic sense to me. However, it took seven years for me to conceive our second child: seven years of prayers and hope repeatedly dashed, till I almost gave up hoping, before Ethan came along. Our sons were born eleven years apart – and in the year our younger son graduated from high school, our older son received his Ph.D. God answered my prayer with a yes; I just hadn’t realized that eleven years would fit the timetable of my request perfectly! After Ethan’s birth, I also realized that any other child we might have conceived would not have been Ethan - a creative, compassionate, intelligent, honest, giving, loving, loyal, hard-working young man of faith and vision. go through the boy Scout Oath, and that's Ethan. God had a specific purpose for that specific combination of DNA that is Ethan. That is goodness; that is love; that is faithfulness. The seven-year heartache that became a spoonful of goodness is the empathy I now have for women struggling with infertility.

Again and again I remember crises and wrenching situations that became avenues of blessing on down the road: a treasured necklace lost, a lost diamond found, and acknowledging that the God who was good when I found the one was the same good God when I didn’t find the other. My husband laid off and out of work for six months - and a loving God who connected him with a job better than he applied for. A cross-country move I didn’t want to make away from everyone and everything I cherished – and through that frustrating move when I thought he had abandoned me, God twice met desperate needs my kids and I would have years later. That’s goodness. That’s faithfulness. That’s love.

I think back to those evidences of God’s faithful, loving goodness even while I wonder as my emotions struggle with our retirment funds cut in half with retirement just on the horizon and this week’s discouraging news for Ethan's dream job . . . is it God who is inconstant, or my emotions and my thinking that don’t line up with truth and can’t be trusted? I open my Bible to Psalm 89, to the words of another Ethan, “the Ezrahite,” and I stand on this “. . . BUT . . .” for me and for our own Ethan:

“I will sing of the LORD’s great love forever . . . . I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you established your faithfulness in heaven itself . . . . Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, O LORD. . . . For you are their glory and strength . . . . ”

Today I make a choice to believe God’s character, not the economy, not my arthritis, not the circumstances around us, and I will walk in those two matching shoes BELIEVING God’s love, kindness, compassion, and power till I get to the place where I can turn and see we’ve been surrounded by his goodness all the while.

A “. . . but . . . “ to pray: Loving Father, I look at all the problems, discouraging news, financial losses, and uncertainties ahead of me, BUT I trust that you love us, you never forsake me, your will is for our good, and you are faithfully working out blessing even when I can’t see you. Thank you that I’ll look back in a few days, weeks, or years and rejoice in what you are doing to work all of this "chowder" together for my good through your steadfast, mighty wisdom, provision, and love. I WILL taste and see your goodness! Amen!

Your own “. . . but . . .”: Loving Father, I’m so confused when I see ___________ in my life today, BUT I choose to believe you are _____________ and you love me faithfully. "I am confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living." (Psalm 27:13) I will wait for you, LORD; I will be strong and take heart and wait for you, LORD. (Ps 27:14)

Two Brown Shoes, Take Two

2009-01-29T13:12:00.000-08:00

I intimated that I found three applications for what I learned from my non-matching brown shoes escapade. Read the previous entry for the gory details of my shoe-buying goof. Suffice it here to say that I accidentally ended up purchasing two different brown short lace-up boots, but didn't recognize my mistake till I'd worn them for roughly one month!

Beyond "no lie is of the truth" and the importance of making sure my thoughts line up with the whole truth, I recognized almost immediately that all too often my "walk" doesn't line up with that of Jesus. I may do the kinds of actions you'd expect from a "What would Jesus do?" good-deed-doing person . . . but that doesn't mean my life is even close to a match with His.

Case in point (and isn't there always a recent one handy?) is last spring's battle with weeds in our front yard. I remember this life lesson afresh, as January rains have brought their usual crop of weeds springing up in otherwise rock-hard, "desert landscaped" aka rock-covered ground. Our neighbors just never seem to get around to weeding along our mutual property line. In their defense, they both work full-time - a thought that did not escape me as I surveyed the two-feet-tall sprouts going to seed on their side of the line last spring. I'd just spent an hour weeding our side of the front yards, with the beginnings of a stiff neck to show for it, and as I sat doing neck rolls on my side of the line, I realized that all my weeding was for naught as soon as one gentle breeze spread those seeds our direction.

What to do? GET RID OF THOSE WEEDS! "They certainly aren't going to," I muttered as I unkinked my way upright and strode over to their side. I began pulling up the sinister spikes, which turned out to be easier than I expected, given the good length of stem on which to get a solid purchase. Down from their fence, around the parked car, under the parked car, out to the sidewalk . . . . To the casual observer, I was doing a good deed weeding my neighbor's yard. I heard the "Ahem . . ." about the time I reached under the front bumper of the car to grab a handful of plant, thinking, "They could spend an occasional weekend working in the yard instead of off riding their ATV's. . . ." Grumbling intercepted, I recognized the voice: that still, small voice of the Holy Spirit that intrudes upon my ruminations. "What you're doing is fine . . . but your motivation is anything but God-honoring and neighbor-blessing."

Of course I realized that was completely true, and no matter how it might have looked even to the neighbors, I wasn't doing them a favor out of love. It was pretty ugly weed-pulling. As awful as I sound in these self-revelations on this blog, I really do want a heart more like Jesus, and it was to that desire that I turned my attitude. "But they . . . " gave way to,"Transplant your love in me, Jesus. No matter how they choose to spend their time, I'm going to secretly bless them. They may not even notice the weeds are gone, but that doesn't matter." The great encouragement is that God wants this transformation in me even more than I do, and he promises to make it happen:

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.: Ezekiel 36:26-27

That passage goes on to enumerate blessings and provision God promises his people. Oh, do I want the blessing of a warm and beating "heart of flesh" walking out of love for everyone whose life mine intersects! Wouldn't that be wonderful? Admit it - you do, too, and let out a big sigh of longing and gratitude.

I get to choose: will I do the right things out of the wrong heart, souring my own day in the process and doing Heaven-knows-what to my brain chemistry, or will I do the right thing out of the right heart, Jesus' heart, protecting my own heart in the process?

There they are in the yard again this spring . . . . Where will my heart be?

A " . . . but . . . " for you to pray: Jesus, I don't like the difference I feel when my heart is in the wrong place. I fight this battle so often, BUT thank you that you promise to give me a new heard and your own Spirit! Thank you that you are SO patient with me when I wear the wrong "shoe", loving enough to point out the differences I don't see, forgiving me, and enabling me to have a blessing heart in all I do. Amen!

Your own " . . . but . . . " : Jesus, I see that I'm not walking like you when I _______________, BUT I believe your promise to change my heart and I know I'll see your change in ________________________________________. Amen!

Two Brown Shoes Don't Always Make a Pair

2009-01-07T15:40:00.000-08:00

Rose Jackson © 1/2009

The first of three reflections on my shoe goof. Ah, the subtle but critical differences there can be between reality and our perception of reality! (and I'm preaching to myself even as I post this) I sense how important spotting those differences is now that so many of us face extremely difficult circumstances. This post in no way minimizes the losses many of you have endured and now deal with. On the contrary, I hope/pray it can help you find your way through these times.

My heart raced as my feet leaped over piles of shoes and my mind leaped over “to-do’s” on my mental list. It was the typical hectic December Saturday - the day of the company Christmas party - and we had three places to be at the same time, on opposite sides of town. We had early morning appointments at our chiropractor's office twenty-five miles on the other side of town, so I calculated that, if I was quick about it, I could hit two shopping centers on the way home, squeezing boot and jacket shopping in between our appointments, feeding the family lunch, and running an afternoon errand. Besides, I had my husband with me to help bag the quarry. I tried to maximize my shopping time and enlisted my reluctant husband in hunting for brown ankle-high, pointed toe boots –that seemed straight-forward enough, and leather boots afforded the appearance of a more manly pursuit - while I searched the racks of the crowded bargain basement for a jacket to wear with my dress for the Christmas party. The jacket was a necessity because the dress I was going to wear that evening (which my husband picked out) revealed more than I wanted his boss and co-workers to know about me!

First store, no luck on either count: one pair of boots, too small, no jacket. The clock was ticking. Next store, the outlet-outlet-outlet called Last Chance, because they don't exchange or refund anything, and again we split up. I untied my tennis shoes to save time, just in case my husband found anything. I scan the racks and come up empty, but my husband spots a pair of boots. I whip off my shoes and shove the boots on, lacing them just far enough up to be sure they fit. Got it! We zipped (relatively speaking, given the holiday crowds) through the checkout and on to another store for our remaining target, the elusive jacket. My husband’s grimace cried out that his heart was no longer in the pursuit. I quickly spotted a jacket the right shade of midnight blue, whipped it off the rack, flung it over my sweater to check that it fit, disregarded the fact that it was short-sleeved and I would still be chilly for the sake of being adequately covered, and we both called it a successful hunt.

It wasn't until several weeks later, after I'd worn the boots repeatedly, that I noticed the left didn't feel as comfortable as the right one. Something about the cuff bothered my left ankle, but I ignored the discomfort till I got home. As I took off my right shoe, then bent over to untie the left, I made a startling discovery.

They weren't the same shoe! Oh, the boots were the same size, the color was the same rusty brown, the pointed toes were the same, the heels were the same height, and the round laces were the same, but there the similarity ended – and obviously. The right shoe was top-stitched with a single row of stitching outside the eyelets. The left was top-stitched with a double row inside the eyelets. The right had a cuff, which was what I'd wanted, but the left had a padded top like a hiking boot. Good grief! My husband didn't notice that when he picked them up, and, even more unbelievably, I hadn't noticed the differences when I tried them on!

How could I have been so oblivious when I bought them, and how could I have worn them several times without noticing? I felt ridiculous. How many people had noticed me wearing two different shoes? I couldn't return them, so I was stuck with two boots that now would embarrass me every time I wore them! I wondered (as I do anymore when something really weird happens to me) what lesson I could glean from this incident, and it came to me quite clearly: my perceptions aren't necessarily the same as reality, or, ". . . no lie comes from the truth" (1 John 2:21). A lie may resemble the truth, it may feel reasonably close or even comfortable, but it's not the same thing as the truth.

I recognized an application right away because of the turmoil in the lives of three of my friends dealing with depression, and the chaos in my own life because of a struggle with incredible stress that fall. We were all listening to and buying into lies that sounded like truth. I easily saw my friends’ errors. They were saying things like "There's no reason to go on living. I'll lose my job. I'll never work again. My friends will leave me. God listens to other people's prayers, but not to mine." My own lies, like deer in a shadow-dappled thicket, were harder to spot against the background of my own stresses and time-pressured circumstances: lies like, "I can't handle all these responsibilities. If one more person needs me for anything, I'm going to explode. This pressure is going to give me a nervous breakdown.” After a particularly hectic day substitute teaching, I snarled a lie to my husband and children: “I don’t have the energy to be ‘nice’ to one more person today, so back off.”

As I compared the two “shoes” of reality and my friends' and my perceptions, the truths common to both were that life was difficult and we all did have limitations. The color and the toe of the shoes of reality and our perceptions were the same, so to speak, but there all accurate resemblance between perception and reality ended. What was the reality? What was true? My friends and I all had loved ones, co-workers and friends who cared about us and wouldn’t abandon us just because we were struggling - that was true. My friend who feared she’d lose her job because of her health issues was bright, capable, and highly skilled in her profession, someone any employer would value - true. She would get well and work again - true. And she did! We needed to line our perceptions up with these truths in our lives, too.

Even though our issues were different, my friends and I alike needed friends, family members, and honest counselors who would love us enough to speak and uncover these truths in our lives. Our part in the hunt for honest reality was to compare the truth to what we were telling ourselves, accept the whole truth, and stop telling ourselves lies. I also found truths like these in the Bible that encouraged me to handle my personal stresses in healthier, honest ways:

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity and fawning fear – but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of a calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control. (2 Timothy 1:7, The Amplified New Testament)

I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13)

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you." (Jeremiah 29:11-12)

Like the discomfort of my mismatched boots, I realize my own level of mental and emotional agitation , and more often the level I can see in my loved ones, are fairly good indicators of a discrepancy between the whole truth of my circumstances and what I'm perceiving/believing about them. I see, too, that fear obscures truth and generates many of the lies I've believed. In his book "Ruthless Trust," author Brennan Manning writes, "As long as we withhold internal consent to these varied faces of fear, they are no cause for alarm, because they are not voluntary . . . we can overpower them with a simple and deliberate act of trust." I need to trust God's truth.

Since the brown shoes episode, I’m trying to do better at spotting lies in my thinking – or at least to listen objectively when my husband points out inconsistencies – so I don’t wear lies too long. That proved essential to my mental health when my husband was laid off and out of work for six months. (More about that in a future post.) Since my husband and I are soon facing the anxiety of retirement in an uncertain economy, an empty nest, separation from a beloved part of our family who live on the other side of the globe, and since I recently learned that depression runs in my mother’s family, I’m on a campaign to intentionally, proactively ferret out fear, lies and negativity in my attitudes and mental dialog. My perspective matters tremendously. I don’t need to make the real challenges of the coming months and years more difficult by what seems like, but isn’t, reality-based truth-filled thinking.

I bought new brown boots and made sure the left one matched the right, but in case you’re wondering, I did keep my mismatched pair as a humorous reminder to look for and believe the whole truth. Much to my amazement and relief as I’ve shared my shoe gaff over the years, I hear others say they’ve done the same thing. I suspect that, particularly in stressful or difficult times like these, we all need to take a closer, truthful look at both our shoes and our suppositions!

A " . . . but . . ." for you to pray: God, I look at the times ahead and feel fears of financial trouble, health problems, and loss. That's what the world is saying, too, BUT you promise you have plans to prosper me, to give me a future and a hope. Help me examine my perceptions, expose the lies I've believed, and choose to line my perceptions up with truth.

Your own ". . . but . . ." Father, right now I fear ____________________________, but I know that you __________________________________________.

DO do what you need to do in me

2008-09-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

Rose Jackson © 9-11-2008

(This is my final post in the mind category. Can you tell what I struggle with most? Pictured are the two sources of my consternation/inspiration in this morning's word from God to me - no, not my husband and our son!)

I’m just not the bling and frou-frou kind of girl. I do like to get dressed up, and I enjoy wearing jewelry and perfume, but I’m just not a ruffles and matching purse/matching shoes/matching nail polish/matching bling woman. I’m not even sure I’d feel comfortable doing that if I could afford to (which I can’t). I hear from God in analogies, and while I admire other speakers who get to deliver the pretty boxes with ribbons and bows kinds of messages, God never seems to speak to me through pretty, girlie things. I “hear” him through tent stakes, roller coasters, and cheese burgers. Nevertheless, I was surprised this morning by what God used to teach me something: dog doo-doo.

All I intended to do in the yard this morning was take advantage of rain-dampened ground to pull pesky spurge, the bane of my gardening, from the back yard. Weeding is unpleasant enough, but as I crouched down working my way beyond the orange tree, I came to a huge patch of spurge smack in the middle of a field of doggie doo. Aargh! I don’t dislike dogs, but when our son wanted a pet ten years ago, I voted for a hamster – they only live a couple of years, and they don’t shed all over the house. My husband staunchly vetoed my vote, asserting, “If we’re going to get a pet, it’s only going to be a dog.” This is the otherwise intelligent man who innocently remarked, “Gosh, honey, I didn’t stop to think you’d be the one home with the dog all day,” when we were housebreaking our adorable Springer Spaniel puppy Katie.

Flash forward through ten years of me brushing, feeding, medicine giving, ear cleaning, ball throwing, bone cooking, daily walking, hair vacuuming, and doo-doo picking up. Yes, our son used to do some of the walking and picking up, but he moved away to college four years ago. Yes, my husband occasionally cleans up the back yard and walks the two dogs (we now have our older son’s dog also) maybe two evenings a week and sometimes on Sunday mornings, and yes, he’s the one who works to buy the dog chow and pay the vet bills, but this morning, as usual, I’m the one whose nose is eighteen inches away from the recycled dog chow covering the back yard, and I’m not happy about it.

Two thoughts, “We could hire someone to do the yard work but no, we can’t afford it,” and my habitual complaint, “Why does it have to be me picking up the poo? He has time in the evenings to do a little bit if he really cared. I’m not the one who wanted a dog!” had only briefly, sarcastically flashed through my miffed mind when, on their heels like Katie after a pigeon, came the thought, "Even if you hired someone to pull the weeds AND pick up the doo-doo, it wouldn’t take care of the real issue. What stinks the most is not the doo-doo in the yard, but the. . . .” I knew that idea didn't come from me! God patiently humors me a lot, and I recognized his heart in the thought. Hiring someone to clean the yard would still leave me with doo-doo in my heart, and a stinky attitude is not what God wants for me, or what I really want myself.

“Okay, I’ve tried the positive thinking thing before," I countered. "Cleaning up the dog doo is a way to show our son I love him, because he loves the dog. That gets me through three minutes of picking up, maybe. Jesus, I need you to really get hold of my heart in this. This morning I need more than just a cheerful veneer, because I want this change to be lasting. I don’t want weekly deposits of resentment in my heart. I want a clean heart more than I want a weed-free, poo-free yard."

God gave me the thought, "Bless your husband as you pick up the poo. Yes, I know you've tried before, but this morning make it not just words of dry obedience, but truly bless him out of what is unpleasant for you." So I did. As I looked up from my hands, I saw opportunity all around me for plenty of blessing for his hands! I prayed, “I don't like what my hands are in right now, but bless the work of his hands today. He works so hard for us. Give him satisfying work to do with his hands, because I know how stressed he feels doing nothing but paperwork. I know I've made some stinky choices he has had to 'pick up.' This mess reminds me that he hangs in there with me when I'm not so pleasant to deal with.”

I honestly felt a shift in my attitude. That shouldn't have surprised me, because the Bible is filled with exhortaton like this in 1 Peter 3: 9 to bless others:

"Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. "

God moved through my willing-to-change heart. If I bless my husband's hands as mine are doing something I don’t want to do, then this doo-doo can become a springboard (a Springer board?) for God's healing change in me.

Can you guess what I heard from my husband that evening? "I had a great day today! I actually got to sit in the cockpit and play with the radio. Maybe next week I'll get a ride to check things out!" My gosh, God blessed him even as I was praying. Retrospectively, that made the doo-doo duty . . . while not pleasant, even something better: rewarding. I could almost hear the laughter in Heaven. Gosh, God is fun! Why don't I remember that in the middle of my messes?

Has someone else made choices that leave you with doo-doo to deal with? Gosh, how often do I repay not evil, but just plain annoyance, with evil thoughts and insult?

Please don’t hear what I’m not saying! I’m not promoting co-dependent behavior or cleaning up other people’s messes and removing consequences of poor choices from them. I'm talking about my heart, your heart - how we handle the fallout of choices other people make that impact our lives in burdensome, frustrating, irritating, even painful ways. Society often tells us the answer is to get rid of the doo-dropping person. Sometimes, and in cases of abuse, that is the safe and appropriate thing to do. For most of the messes we deal with, though, that isn't a good, healthy, or effective solution, and it doesn't deal with the heart issues that are left behind. Sometimes you can’t change what you have to deal with or get around it: you just have to pick up the doo-doo. But you can choose to bless, which can change you as well.

I can’t get rid of Katie; our son would be crushed, and I’d actually miss her, too. As God revealed to me this morning, though, Katie isn’t the critical issue. It’s my heart that matters to him, and thank God it does! My husband and I can work out the clean-up schedule . . . or I can keep blessing him as Katie drops me reminders!

I write this to share hope and faith with one of you who needs God’s transforming power to turn something stinky in your life into an avenue of blessing and healing for your heart attitude today. I’m confident no women’s ministry director will ever ask me to speak on this topic . . . so this is the only place you'll hear it.

Maybe one of these days yet God will give me a message through a pretty box with ribbons, or jewelry, or nail polish?

A “ . . . but . . . ” to move: Father, as much as I want to, I don’t have the persistent commitment in myself to change my stinky attitudes - and I admit that sometimes I don't even want to. I’m quick to spot the doo-doo from other people’s choices and often blind to the messes in my heart, BUT you are kind enough to both reveal them and set me on the path to healing and peace IN mind. I don't want to live in denial of what's going on in my life; I want your sound mind and wholesome, positive attitude in everything and with everyone I deal with, even when those things and people don't change.Thank you that you DO do in me all it takes to transform _________ and ME into an avenue of blessing!

Your own “ . . . but . . . ” to move: Tender Father, I struggle so with a bad attitude over ___________________________ BUT I trust you, and I know you will __________________.

Roller Coster Mama

2008-08-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

(The photo isn't me on a coaster, but I already used that one on my earlier "move your . . . but . . . " post. The Tower of Terror ride behind us is thrilling, though!)

Somewhere between the floor falling away and my body spinning in 360 degree loops as if I were a towel in a clothes dryer, I heard God saying, “This is like your life, isn’t it?” I had to agree. My father’s death from Alzheimer’s, followed in rapid succession by my aunt dying of the same disease, my mother’s unexpected cancer surgery, and our sudden move across the country – yes, my life was a roller coaster. My thoughts flashed back 30 years to the night my husband and I were riding the “Wild Mouse,” a short, fast, jarring little roller coaster, at a local amusement park. The ride operator, a friend of my husband, kept sending us around the ride again and again.

Then it was funny. “But, God, that is like my life now,” I acknowledged, “and now it’s not funny.”
Instantly I realized it wasn’t these major problems that were keeping me in a constant state of turmoil; it was my reaction to the smaller, daily stresses in my life. Can anyone else identify? Take a typical day:

It’s 7:40, and I need to drive Ethan to school by 7:50, then get 45 miles across town to take my mother grocery shopping, run errands along the way to make it worth the time and gas involved, start home before 2:30 so I can use the carpool lane on the freeway, make dinner, and get to Bible study that evening with a dessert to share. But this is the day the garage door opener won’t open. No panic yet. Between the two of us, Ethan and I manage to shove it open. Mental note: drive back home to call garage door company before hitting the freeway. Pray with son and kiss him goodbye. Drive back home, make phone call, and leave a message for Chip to let him know what’s going on. Remember to stop by store I don’t usually frequent to get almond butter and rice milk that Mom can’t get on the west side of town. Hit the freeway. Make it intact to Mom’s, to learn that her medical monitor just arrived and she can’t understand the directions. Help her put on the monitor, run test recording, call the monitoring company, re-write directions for Mom so she can do this on her own, take her to lunch, as it’s now noon, take her to store. Realize it’s next to impossible to start home by 2:30, so kiss carpool lane goodbye, gird my loins for battle, and kiss Mom goodbye. Drive to discount store for errand, find what I need, discover they only have two checkout lanes open and lines a mile long. Look at watch and remember that son did not take house key, so he can’t get into the house if he gets home before I do. Madly put everything back (what would Jesus do?) and dash out of store, into the freeway frenzy, to hopefully get home before son does.

And so on . . . . Have you been on that ride lately?

Meanwhile, careening through the "heartline rolls" on the real roller coaster, I cringed in double conviction, knowing that for a Christian, how I handle stress impacts my discipleship and my witness as well as my body. I took a deep breath as we plunged toward the ground on the aptly-named “Mind Eraser.” Hope filled my mind as breath filled my lungs. I already knew how to manage the stress of riding real roller coasters. Could these same skills apply, as God’s question to me seemed to suggest, to coping with stress in everyday life?

Learning to handle thrill rides was essential for me because our younger son Ethan wanted to become a roller coaster designer – and he was serious about it. That meant we rode a lot of roller coasters. The problem, though, was that age, neck problems, and – I admit it – fear displaced my joy in riding roller coasters long before Ethan was born. I sincerely want to participate in what means so much to my child, so I have been forced to look for personal “survival skills” to help me endure these stresses with peace instead of panic.

Five principles that help me manage my stress on roller coasters have proved to be effective with stress in everyday life, too, and I firmly believe they can reduce the negative impact stress has on our minds, relationships, and bodies, as well as on the reflection of our faith. In the interests of blog space, I'll quickly summarize what I usually speak for an hour on, hoping you'll see the connections without lengthy explanation:

• Secure yourself in the restraints

God designed restraints to keep us safe and secure through the stresses and curves of life. Like the ride designers, God has built simplicity into his safety systems.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. Mark 12: 30-31

Did you ever think of this command as a two-point safety system to protect your life and your relationships? Think for a minute about what your life would look like if you just “buckled up” with these two do’s: love God and love others. Living outside of love in resentment, anger, judgment and bitterness is just like ignoring the seat belt and standing up on a thrill ride: it sets us up for accidents when stress loops our lives. Lives and relationships could be saved from injury or destruction if we keep our words and actions inside the vehicle of a loving attitude at all times, even when we're stressed.

• Brace your feet or cross your ankles

When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul. Psalm 94: 18-19

Part of either the fun or fear (depending on your outlook) on a roller coaster comes from experiencing negative G’s and the feelings of instability and insecurity that send adrenaline coursing through your brain and body. The heart-in-your-throat first drop of “Superman – Ride of Steel” is 221feet (67.4 meters) that seems to plunge more than vertically down. On drops like this, I press my feet into the floor. It doesn’t make the ride safer or shorter, but it helps me feel more stable and keeps me in the seat!

If I’m riding a suspended roller coaster where there is no floor to begin with (ah, the Mind Eraser), or if the floor will at some point drop away beneath me (oy, the Medusa), I cross my ankles so my legs don’t whip around uncomfortably on the loops and snap turns. Have you noticed how frequently your foot ends up “in your mouth” when you’re stressed, or how often your bad attitude “kicks” the person next to you? Pressing into solid support gives us accountability and stability that strengthen self-control, peace, and patience within us. Ideally, family members support each other in stressful times, but sometimes family members cause the corkscrews! I know I’ve created stress for the people I love. Christians have the supporting “floor” of God’s Spirit, but we also need a network of people who will love us enough to push back with truth, with kind correction, with encouragement when we need it, and with practical help, too.

•Center your focus

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

Focus is one way my approach to thrill rides differs radically from that of my husband and son, who ride coasters with analytical minds and cast-iron stomachs. They enjoy keeping their eyes open to anticipate the next snap, loop or dive. For me, anticipation produces anxiety, and my eyes looping all over everywhere set my head spinning. To keep my stomach from churning, I focus on one spot directly in front of me, the way a skater focuses when doing spins - even if that spot is my white knuckles gripping the safety bar, or on the tip of my nose if my eyes are closed. Looking steadily into the distance towards the horizon in the direction in which you are moving – looking toward an unchanging spot - helps to reconcile the confusing signals, re-orient your perception and restore your sense of balance.

“God is good. God is good . . .” is the spot I center on again and again when my life starts spinning. God’s goodness is unchanging, no matter how confusing the signals we’re receiving seem to us.

•Be mindful of the truth

Much of the stress I feel in any given situation comes from what I’m thinking about. To reduce my stress level on roller coasters, I tell myself positive truths when I ride. "Thrill ride designers do factor in gravity, material strength, and limitations of human anatomy when they design rides. The theme park owners do not want me to be injured or die. They work to prevent this. The biggest drop on this coaster only lasts 2.8 seconds. I can be at peace for 2.8 seconds." Somewhere back in the far corners of my brain I do understand this, but that knowledge has a hard time influencing my emotions and my stomach unless I choose to think about it. I have to remind myself of the positive truth.

When I’m stressed, most facts that immediately come to mind are negative, but there are always at least one or two points of positive truth I can think about. I may be powerless to control my circumstances, but I always have power to direct my thoughts.

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32

• Choose your rides carefully

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength . Philippians 4:13

I ride what I think I can reasonably handle. I try to discern when to ride, when not to ride, and how to say “no” without guilt. Sometimes you have no choice. Sickness or disaster or job loss or someone else’s bad choice drops you onto a thrill ride you weren’t standing in line for, but I don’t have to create thrill rides for myself or my family by trying to reason with a tired two-year-old, proving to my husband that I’m right, walking in the store just to check what’s on sale when our budget is tight, or accomplishing one more thing in the five minutes I have before I need to leave for an appointment.

A " . . . but . . . " to pray:

Jesus , your limitless love and power give me contentment and strength for every ride, so Lord, let me be a roller coaster mama! I'm sure this week life will take me on a thrill ride, BUT with your help I won’t panic, hyperventilate, or scream. I’ll buckle into love for you and others – even the ones who put me on the roller coasters. I’ll press into a supporting floor and brace my feet at the foot of the cross. I’ll choose positive truth and center my focus on you. When it is within my power to choose what I get involved in, I will be wise about my choices. When it isn’t within my power to choose, I’ll trust in Jesus’ limitless power to strengthen me, and by faith I believe I’ll even enjoy the ride!
Amen!

Your own " . . . but . . . " to move:

God, I'm stressed today over ___________________, BUT I know you __________________________________. As I press into you, help me enjoy the ride!

The Sea Glass War

2008-07-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

Rose Jackson © 7/15/2008

The rocket attack came from out of the blue. My husband and I were standing in the long line in front of the auditorium the night of our younger son’s final high school chorus concert, when Ethan called on my cell phone to ask if he could borrow some money so a fellow singer who hadn’t had dinner could get something to eat before the show. Phone in hand, I turned and explained the situation to my husband. I asked him if that would be okay, and he angrily fired off, “He’s your son!” Whoa – where did that come from?

Shell-shocked, I couldn’t imagine what provoked his angry attack or even what his comment meant. I didn’t know we were at war! Our son came out to get the money and told me it was for a good friend from church. I started to explain to my husband who the friend was, thinking an explanation would help, and he snapped, “Don’t tell me that. I don’t need to know!” Two rounds fired! This was no accidental friendly fire shooting! Instantly my defensive shields went up. I felt angry and confused, but I couldn’t lob any verbal grenades back at my husband because the women’s ministry director of our church was standing three people ahead of me. Trapped! I was pinned down, unable to defend myself.

Usually I’d launch a retaliatory strike, or at least set the launch codes and fire later when I had the opportunity. I didn’t want to cause a scene in line or ruin the evening, but I also didn’t think it would be healthy for our relationship to let the incident go and pretend this conflict never happened. What to do? In an unusual step for me back from the brink of mutual annihilation, I quickly asked Jesus to help me know how to handle my anger, and I held my fire.

I didn’t say anything when we got home that night, but the next morning I asked Jesus to help me find a positive way to express my feelings that would also bring a healthy resolution to the issue for both my husband and me. He did just that. At the breakfast table I told my husband I felt his words had been intentionally hurtful, and then I asked if he would speak to people at work the way he did to me the night before. He said no, but he didn’t think his words had been hurtful. Inside I was thinking, “Oh, come on,” but I asked him again if he would speak to other people that way, and he replied that he wouldn’t, because no one at work would speak to him the way I did. Puzzled because I hadn’t said anything nasty to him, but feeling a peace that surely came from God, I replied, “Your comment indicates that you do realize the words were hurtful.” I calmly, honestly stated that I couldn’t think of anything I’d said the previous night to merit hostile words. Amazingly, my husband’s demeanor changed and he acknowledged that he had been angry and intentionally used those hostile words. At that point we were able to identify what he had been angry about, discuss the situation, and come to a healthy resolution.

"Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret – it leads only to evil. . . . Turn from evil and do good; then you will always live securely. For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones." Psalm 37: 7-8, 27

Jesus turned what could have been explosive and damaging into something healing. Because it was unexpectedly healing, and because Jesus enabled me to uncharacteristically say something that maintained my dignity and still respected my husband, to me it was profoundly beautiful. Years ago for a book on prayer, I wrote an analogy comparing anger to broken glass on a playground. Broken glass is shiny and attractive, but you’d warn your child not to pick it up because, attractive as it looks, broken glass easily cuts anyone who handles it. Anger likewise cuts and wounds relationships. If she or he picked up a piece of broken glass, you’d immediately ask your child to either drop it or carefully hand it to you, so you could take care of it safely and properly. In the analogy, I wrote that the proper thing to do with anger is hand it to Jesus so he can dispose of it safely.

After our “chorus line” battle, though, I realized Jesus can do more than just dispose of our anger: if we let him (there’s the best battle plan), his hands can change it and transform our anger into something precious. Shards of broken anger can become beautiful like rounded sea glass. At www.americancraftworks.com/TheStoryofSeaglass.html I found a description of the process that turns trashed broken glass into beautiful sea glass:

“Sea glass, Beach glass or Mermaid tears, whatever you care to call them there’s no denying that the mighty ocean turns unwanted glass bottles into colorful glistening jewels of the sea. The ocean’s saltwater and sand combined with the various tides act like a giant rock tumbler & (sic) eventually turn sharp broken glass into beautifully rounded frosted jewels that wash up on the shoreline. . . . The Blues, Reds, lavenders & Sea Foam Green’s & Blues often fetch hefty prices in the jewelry market and some people and companies are making their own Sea Glass by ‘tumbling’ and passing them off as the real thing!”

I want the real thing, the crown jewels from a victory won. My battle is not “ . . . against flesh and blood, but against the . . . powers of this dark world." (Ephesians 6:12)That’s another way to say that in interpersonal conflict, my worst enemy is my natural (sinful, there, I used the "S" word)instinct to retaliate. And oh, it is a battle! “Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city." ( Prov. 16:32) When we’re angry and defensive, it takes a warrior’s discipline and courage not to pull the pin and toss a grenade at whomever is in the next foxhole, but to pray and wait for God’s wisdom instead.

That day on my battlefield I handed Jesus the broken glass of my anger and asked his help in dealing positively with it. Jesus took it in his wounded hands and, through his tears and love, returned it to me transformed into a healthy response, something beautiful to be valued and prized, a trophy of a war won.

Dear Jesus, I have been wounded by other people’s anger and harsh, thoughtless words, BUT I surrender my own angry, defensive feelings to you, believing and expectantly waiting for you to show me how to respond in a way that’s upright, respectful, and healing for me and for the other person. I know that regardless of how the other person responds, what you do in me and for this relationship will be precious and beautiful.

YOUR OWN “BUT” Dear Jesus, I was wounded when ______________________ BUT I surrender my angry feelings to you, believing you ____________________________________.

Take Your Mind for a Walk

2008-06-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

Take Your Mind for a Walk: Sit – Forward - Heel
Rose Jackson ©2/9/2005

I had to laugh. We were going to be studying Joyce Meyer’s Battlefield of the Mind in our weekly women’s Bible study, and the coordinator had just asked if I’d teach the chapter “When Is My Mind Normal?” God has such a sense of humor. I’d been wrestling with anxiety, scatter-brained thinking, and then self-condemnation for LETTING myself think anxious, six-directions-at-once thoughts. I was completely unqualified – or was it ruefully, totally qualified – to teach anyone else about healthy thinking. So of course I said yes.

In the mornings I have my quiet time with God while I’m walking our two dogs, Katie and Jenga. There I go, multi-tasking meditation, but it works because I only need to use a superficial fraction of my brain to monitor the dogs. That’s the part that’s usually noisy and intrusive when I try to pray anyhow, so walking the dogs keeps it occupied with “mind-less” busy work while the rest of my brain tries to center and focus on hearing God.

So there I was the next morning, one “eye” on leashes and business ends and the “eye of my heart” crying out to see what God wanted to say through me, when it dawned on me: the normal state of my mind is like Katie (a Springer Spaniel) and Jenga (a “Chug”, Chihuahua-Pug mix) on a morning walk, running off in different directions at different speeds (my morning stretch), generally with conflicting purposes, and getting hopelessly tangled in the process.

That’s the normal state of my mind, but is that “normal?” Melancholy personality that I am, as soon as I got home and put away tangled leashes and harnesses and put some ice on my nearly-dislocated shoulder, I looked up definitions for “normal” and discovered that normal can mean:

(1) Conforming to or consisting of a pattern, process, or standard regarded as usual or typical.
(2) Well-adjusted, without marked or persistent mental aberrations.
(3) Not exposed to infection; healthy.

What is the typical, usual thinking pattern for our culture (I suspect that includes you)? Kathleen A. Hall says, “’People in this country live such fast lives of habituation . . . . We live from the outside in, not the inside out.’ Running through life has become the societal norm. ‘We have trained our brains for knee-jerk reactions.’”[1] In other words, our brains are constantly playing the pizza parlor game “Whack a Mole.” Or for you tech-savvy people, we live our days with multiple windows open. Not sure it’s true? Well . . . when you’re driving, have you ever ended up someplace other than your intended destination and not known how you got there? I have, and it scared me!

That’s typical-normal for us stress-bombarded, multi-tasking, time-challenged people, but it’s not well-adjusted, healthy normal, and I don’t think it’s what God wants for us. It's definitely not what I want for me. What I do want in my thinking is this:

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened” (Ephesians 1:18)
“And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best . . . “ (Philippians 1:9-10)
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27)

Not so deep down, I realize that a “healthy normal” mind is peaceful, alert, disciplined, trusting God, and that’s what I cry out for in the middle of my multi-tasking days. But how can I be “transformed by the renewing of your mind . . . able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will,” (Romans 12:2) if I think “from the outside in” with Whack-a-Mole scattered, knee-jerk attention?

Back to Katie and Jenga and their tangled leashes. Katie at least had obedience training – just a short course, but enough to learn to respond to a few commands: halt, sit, forward, heel. When Katie is under my control (that’s why it’s called obedience training) there’s no chaos; we move forward and get where we’re going with no strangled dogs or dislocated shoulders (mine).

God freely gives us his Spirit. Jesus promised, “If you love me, you will obey what I command (sounds like what I want from Katie for her own good). And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth.” (John 14:15-17)

Joyce Meyer writes, “The Holy Spirit gives information from God to the person’s spirit, and if his spirit and mind are aiding one another, then he can walk in divine wisdom and revelation.”[2] There it is: God’s Spirit (commanding, or if you prefer, guiding) through my spirit (obeying, cooperating) can aid my mind so I walk in divine wisdom and revelation. And do I desperately want that! So I take the commands I give Katie and apply them to myself:

“SIT” gets me to stop running and return to my voice command, to listen to God’s Spirit.

“FORWARD” reorients me by a choice of my will and gets me moving in the direction Jesus is going. “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Paul, First Century behavior modification expert) Phil. 3:14

“HEEL” reminds me to stay close to Jesus and keep pace with the Holy Spirit. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us . . . We have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:12, 16

Silly as it sounds, I actually tell myself those commands (well, usually, and more frequently now) when I find my attention fragmented, my thoughts wandering, and my mindset anxious or negative. I pray I always respond willingly and with a renewed mind when I hear my Master ask me, “Want to go for a walk?”

Here's a BUT for you to move today:
Dear Father and Master, I know that I “normally” respond more to circumstances and time pressures than to your voice. That’s not what I want for my brain chemistry or my life and the people I cherish, BUT your Spirit lives in me, so you give me the power to rein in my scattered thoughts and think “healthy normally,” clearly, alertly, peacefully, trusting you.

And room for your own BUT: God, I know I _______________________________ BUT you have ______________________________________________________

[1] Carrie White, “The Passion Connection,” East Valley Tribune 2/3/2005
[2] Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Mind,” Time Warner Book Group, New York, 1995, p. 80

Church lady or Disciple?

2008-06-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

(In the next few blogs I’ll continue to focus on truth and our mind)

I always get picked. Whenever we go to the Renaissance Festival or any stage show that involves audience participation, there must be a sign over my head that says “Pick This One.” With horror I watch the performer’s smile grow as his/her finger points my way, and I try to duck, but it never works. The next thing I know, I’m up on stage as “Sister Helena Handbasket” or - worse yet - “The Church Lady.”

I cringe most recalling Old Tucson, the gray medicine wagon, and “Professor Magillicutty’s Astounding Transfiction Show. “ That’s where I became and confronted "The Church Lady." I still cringe because I felt so incredibly uncomfortable, far beyond the normal and expected embarrassment at being the object of poked fun. Embarrassment I could have handled. Conviction was another story. Why was I squirming inside? It was that word: TransFiction.

There I was, chosen and branded probably because I looked inoffensive, good-natured, a bit gullible and easily embarrass-able: The Church Lady. I looked sweet on the outside, but that was fiction. My watching family knew all too well who I was inside, and the truth was that the inside didn’t always match the appearance, tambourine or not. I don’t remember specifically, but I’d probably just let a loved one have it with both barrels of my quick wit and my righteousness before the professor’s assistant singled me out of the crowd. Tambourine rattling in my hand, in my head I heard clearly, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” 1Cor. 13:1

For me to stop sweating when I’m the local comedic color, for my inside to match my outside and TransFiction to become true transformation, I know need not a miracle elixir like Professor Magillicutty’s snake oil (advertised in the sign on his wagon in the photo above to “Restore Your Love, Generate Good Health, and Improve Your Mental Processes), but something truly effective. I need the mind of Christ. And I realize to have the mind of Christ, I need to have the heart of Christ Jesus. In my heart is where fiction becomes conformation, and conformation to Jesus’ heart brings transformation.

In her book Battlefield of the Mind, Joyce Meyer says “We would make tremendous progress simply by learning how to discern life and death.” (P. 162) Oh, THAT’S easy! Sometimes the poison flies out of my mouth disguised as correction before I realize I’m spitting destruction (and yes, sometimes I’ve thought about it). Would that I COULD discern life and death before I let fly!

Astoundingly, though, you and I have hope and assurance that we can, and that we can be transformed from “Church Ladies” (or Men) to disciples. God promises:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you . . . . Ezekiel 36:26-27

But Christ has blessed you with the Holy Spirit. Now the Spirit stays in you . . . . The Spirit is truthful and teaches you everything. So stay one in your heart with Christ, just as the Spirit has taught you to do. 1 John 2:27 (CEV)

The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. Romans 8:6

God’s Spirit in us is the difference between death and life, Church Lady and disciple; I want to be a disciple.

“A disciple, or apprentice, is simply someone who has decided to be with another person, under appropriate conditions, in order to become capable of doing what that person does or to become what that person is. . . I am not necessarily learning to do everything he (Jesus) did, but I am learning how to do everything I do in the manner that he did all that he did. Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 282-283

Apprentices learn techniques, but being Jesus’ apprentice/disciple isn’t about learning technique, or about swallowing a magic elixir - it’s about having his heart and learning to love with his love. In my prayer time over the past year as I’ve asked Jesus to show me what’s on his heart for people in my life, and as I’ve focused on personal repentance to get ready for Reign Down USA this past April, Jesus has done and is doing a work of real transformation in me. Love is coming to life in my heart in places I feared were beyond love’s resurrection. I’m even catching hurtful words in the thought stage and taking those thoughts captive to make them obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5

Gosh, what a relief – no, what a victory - to know that what I think doesn’t HAVE to come out of my mouth and wound others’ spirits! No more Church Lady! The sign on Professor Magillicutty’s medicine wagon can become truth, not fiction, for all of us. With his own Spirit and his “heart of flesh,” Jesus will restore our love, generate good health, and as a special bonus, even improve our mental processes!

Here’s a “BUT” for you to move today, and room for you to ask Jesus to reveal another "BUT" to you:

God, I know sometimes and in some places and relationships my “Christ-likeness” has been fiction, not truth, BUT I know and believe you can and will transform me because your word promises that you will take away heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh, Jesus very own heart, and put your Spirit in me. I give you freedom to show me where I need to repent and whom I need to love with your love. Thank you that from today forward I will not live a life of “Astounding TransFiction,” but real transformation! In Jesus’ name, Amen!

Your own BUT:

Move Your ". . . but . . ."

2008-05-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

(Roller coasters make me queasy, but I can and do have fun on this one. Can you find Ethan and me?)

Yet another post on the power of truth. This is more or less my signature message.

"Yes, Mom, but . . . "
"I will, Dad, but . . ."

Every parent knows these phrases are actually kid-speak for "No." " Yes, . . . but . . . " is camouflage meant to disguise, "I don't want to, and this is why. . . ." or "I won’t, and this is why. . . .” The little word “but” is a simple conjunction and a powerful word we use to negate and contrast. Significantly and subliminally, it shapes our thoughts and attitudes, raises our emotional fists for a fight, and rationalizes our bad behavior. More dangerously, "but" can place a gate in the way of God's blessings and our intimacy with him. " . . . but . . . " dismisses whatever comes before it and zeros in our emphasis and focus on what comes after it. Our “but-s” become our priority and overshadow everything else. Our “but –s” get in the way of our peace and contentment and even living faith-full lives.

Though I knew this intuitively as a parent, I never recognized the power of this little word in my own life until one day when I was complain – I mean, explaining to the Lord why I was feeling so unhappy with my circumstances:“Yes, we have friends here, BUT all the other people I care about are all the way across the country.” No thunderous voice rang out from the heavens, but I heard distinctly in my mind a soft “Ahem,” followed by a firm, “You need to move your but.” Startled, I instinctively cried out loud, "What? What did you say? Was . . . was that you, God?"

A settled spot in my spirit told me it was God's Spirit speaking to me. Once I recovered from my initial shock and confusion, I slowly realized that both halves of my complaint were true, but I was focusing on the second phrase and disregarding the first. Where I put my “. . . but . . . ” profoundly influenced my attitude. It determined whether I would be grateful or miserable, agitated or at peace, doubting or believing. I understood that I had a choice to make. I had the liberty to choose where I would put my “. . . but . . .,” my focus, my attitude, and, as a result, my faith.

All that truth bundled itself up in one simple shift: “You need to move your but . . . ” !

Examine my complaint again and see the difference one small shift makes: “All the other people I care about are clear across the country, but we have good friends here.”

In any circumstance, usually more than one thing is true. Even in the worst of circumstances, one of those truths is always God’s positive truth. Changing what comes after my “but” to God’s truth - to what is in my situation working for good - puts my focus on what I have, rather than on what I lack. It shows me God’s faithfulness when things aren’t going the way I expect or want. It makes my priority what is eternally true, rather than what’s of fleeting value. Maybe you can identify with one of my examples:

From: I know you’re doing good things in my friend’s life to show her you love her, BUT she doesn’t recognize them.
To: I know my friend doesn’t recognize them, BUT I know you’re doing good things in her life to show her you love her.

From: I know I should and can respond with love, BUT he always talks to me so sarcastically.
To: He talks to me so sarcastically, BUT I should and can respond with love.

From: We do have a roof over our heads, BUT it’s one repair after another lately.
To: It’s one repair after another lately, BUT we do have a roof over our heads.

From: I know you have a plan for good, God, BUT I certainly don’t understand how this fits in that plan.
To: I don’t understand how this fits in your plan, God, BUT I know you have a plan for good.

Do you see the difference? If I move my BUT in front of what’s true and positive, my focus will follow. Think that semantic shift doesn’t really change anything? Oh, yes, it powerfully does! That move re-directs my thoughts and attitudes, and my thoughts and attitudes influence how I live out my day.

“Okay,” you say, “that’s great, but (there's a . . . but . . . ) you don't understand how bad my situation is. What if the only truth I have is negative? What if I don’t have anything positive to move my BUT in front of?" Hey, I have some pretty stinky things going on in my life, so I understand where you're coming from. The truth is, life is sometimes downright awful, BUT the truth is also that we always have a true and positive ". . . but . . ." to make our priority and focus. I just learned I have no cartilage and such bad arthritis and bone spurs in my right wrist that I need hand surgery, and my left wrist will soon follow suit. Genetics strikes again! BUT my doctor and physical therapist are amazed that I have such mobility and strength in my right hand. Do you think it matters to my attitude and in my daily walk where I put that . . . but . . . ?

If you think there can't possibly be a positive . . . but . . . in what you're facing, just look at these BUT’s in the Bible:

“. . . BUT you are a shield around me, O Lord, my Glorious One, who lifts up my head.”
Psalm 3:3

“. . . BUT the needy will not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish.”
Psalm 9: 18

“. . . BUT those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.”
Isaiah 40: 31

“. . . BUT I (Jesus) will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”
John 16: 22

“. . . BUT take heart! I (Jesus) have overcome the world.”
John 16:33

What I hear Jesus saying when he contrasts and asserts, “You have heard it said . . . but I tell you . . . .” is, “Life may seem like this, but with me in the picture, it’s actually like this . . . .” Jesus -all he means and does and is - is the positive truth that’s always in every circumstance and relationship in my life!

Feel free to appropriate any of these but-s for your own life today! Try a little experiment. First, think about something that's bugging you or putting a negative focus on your life. Look for a positive truth there, too, and flip those two truths in that circumstance in your life. Next, dare to claim one of Jesus' . . . but . . . 's for what seems impossible or unlivable:

It's true that __________________________, but _______________________________.

Jesus, you know that ____________ is ______________ in my life today, BUT I know that you promise ___________________

Oh, my family would tell you what a pain I have frequently been in my "but-s" and their lives. The great news is that we can stop being pains in and creating pains from our "but-s." Once we see this truth and are willing to move in a faith-affirming direction, the Holy Spirit can remind us to move our "but-s" away from negative, destructive thoughts and attitudes that hold us in bondage,and move our "but-s" in front of God' unchanging truth. I know God wants that peace, liberty,and joy for all of us. Ask him today to show you where you need to move your "but," then expect and experience a liberating change!

Heavenly Father, I see I've been focusing on ________________ instead of on all that you are, all that you do for me, and all that you promise to do in me. Show me your truth and promise in this area of my life, too. I want to live in liberty,hope, faith, victory, compassion, passion, and love. Thank you for helping me move my "but" in your direction today! In Jesus' name, Amen!

And nothing but the truth?

2008-05-22T11:05:00.000-07:00

“But it’s the truth . . . ." After God's gentle "Ahem . . . " this morning, I realize that, just because something is true about another person, I don’t need to “dwell on” it. I’ve been repenting of harboring resentment against my husband (and thanking God for bringing up those things I need to repent of) and this morning the Holy Spirit reminded me of Philippians 4:8 : “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, pure, lovely, of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.”

In inspiring Paul, God didn’t stop at “Whatever is true . . . think on these things,” because focusing our thoughts on something and justifying our dwelling there only because it is true, can be a hurtful, harmful thing. Do I want God to remember what is true about me? Yes, but . . . not the truth that I can be resentful, not the truth that I thought uncharitably about my neighbor yesterday, not the truth that I have been overly concerned about my gray hair . . . . I want God to dwell on the truth that I am his, saved by grace, the righteousness of God because of Jesus. I’m sure that’s why God told me (us) to press on beyond just the true to think of what is lovely, honorable, pure, and right about other people.

Case in point (and isn't God good to give me a fresh example of what he's telling me): this morning Chip asked why I put a yard sale sticker on the red ice chest that he’s commented has very user-unfriendly handles. He asserted, “I hope you aren’t getting rid of it just because I said I don’t like it, and then you’ll complain that I was the reason you got rid of something you use.” I replied that I could use our better ice chest, so selling this one was fine. Lurking in my thoughts, of course, was the truth that years ago he’d basically given away my Aunt’s white cast iron patio chair, table and love seat without so much as a questioning glance my way, just because he thought it “wouldn’t survive our move.”

That is true. It is also true that he was thoughtless: he didn't give a thought to my feelings or desires. We’ve covered that ground and he apologized, sort of (or so it sounded to me!) and I forgave him (sort of? Did I truly?). But it’s also something he did that he can’t undo no matter how hard he wished he could. It is true, and I could have brought it up in reply (retort?), but focusing on that truth would have condemned him all over again and started an argument, dragging a past conflict in to spoil today. There are other truths about him that I could and would do better to dwell on: he moved back here because of me, he painted the kitchen while I was in Hong Kong last year and remodeled the laundry room while I was in Thailand this year, he thinks about me every day, he bought me roses for our anniversary, he’s generous to others, he’s a creative problem-solver . . . . lots of positive, pure, honorable, excellent, praise-worthy truths I could think on.

This fits hand-in-glove with “. . . love keeps no record of wrongs. “ (1 Corinthians 13:5). Wrongs other people have done to me are facts, that’s true - at least assuming I didn't mis-take their intentions. But those wrongs aren’t the whole truth about anyone. A record is something that can be written, but in “ancient times” three decades ago, a record was also a flat vinyl disc with grooves cut into it which created sound by transmitting vibration with amplification. A record was something you played over and over again because you liked the sound it produced - "Groovy!" But how many times do I replay a record of another person’s wrongs simply because, for some perverse reason, I enjoy the sound? Not groovy - grievous,and I'm sure it grieves the Holy Spirit when I/we do.

I desperately need to relate to others out of more than "nothing but the truth." Do you, too? I suspect God is just waiting for us to ask him to show us more than what is true about the people we know and love. Here's a request you might like to ask God along with me:

Jesus, help me today. Cut new grooves in the vinyl of my mind with truths that are true AND pure, honorable, right, lovely, excellent, and praise-worthy, and help me to replay those things so I build others up rather than tear them down, destroying precious relationships and lives in the process. Thank you that you're moving me in healthy directions to bring healing, restoration, and goodness to the lives I touch. Thank you, Jesus, for touching me with your true, pure, honorable, lovely, excellent, praise-worthy love. Amen!

copyright Rose Jackson 5/22/08 You may share this with others, but you may not reproduce or quote this without permission of the author. Same goes for all previous posts - share, just don't use for profit.

Here's the photo

2008-02-16T08:52:00.001-08:00

Here we are at the border of Thailand and Myanmar

Burma, Bugs, Bee Mine, and Blood

2008-02-16T07:34:00.000-08:00

What a week - has it just been one week?! On Monday we drove up to Burma (Myanmar) with a couple from Ireland to renew our Thai tourist visas. It's a 4-hour drive from here through some beautiful mountain scenery and past gazillions of rice paddies. We stopped at some hot springs on the way up and saw something I've never seen or even imagined at hot springs in the US: enterprising Thais selling eggs hard boiled in the hot springs! At Mae Sai we walked across the border, and I don't mind telling you it made me feel a bit edgy when we crossed over to have to leave my passport on the Burma side with officials of your friendly neighborhood military junta. they give you a photo copy of your passport, then you reclaim your passport when you exit the country. The differences between Burma and Thailand remind me of the differences between El Paso and Juarez - that obvious - so I spent most of the 15 minutes or so we were there p-ing for the people and country.

The bugs in this week's title refer to the one Ev caught last week and the one Er is down with. Kids in particular have passed around something not as bad as the flu, but it produces fever, vomiting and coughing. Several have ear infections. Er has a cough, runny nose and laryngitis - an opportunistic bug that took advantage of the food poisoning Er picked up last Sunday night from what we suspect was an undercooked hamburger. We ate in a good restaurant, so it surprised us all. something you also never see in the States: a parrot and a Shitzu (belonging to customers) in a restaurant! We'd appreciate your thoughts for good health for everyone before the next conference begins on Monday.

El has a runny nose and slight fever, we think from the tooth she's cutting. Her poor little face looks like she's played pro football with no helmet - kind of matches the knees of most every child here - because she fell twice this week: once off steps and once just falling on the sidewalk. This week also saw the arrival of a new baby, who made her public debut yesterday at dinner. The ex-pat community at this guest house is a bit like an extended family. It's quite common to see people babysitting or caring for other people's children, and the kids kind of regard the other adults here as "aunties" and "uncles."

Not in the title - Em and I attended a Thai cooking class this week, an early part of her birthday presents. It was great fun, not only the spunky, funny woman who teaches the class, and not only the easy and tasty food we learned to cook, but also the fun people who took the class with us: two guys from the UK, a young German couple, a woman from Japan, and a colleague (and her mother) of Er and Em's. I'll have to make a trip to LiLi's when I get home to pick up ingredients for pad Thai and sticky rice with coconut cream and mango!

Bee Mine was the message on the bee valentines Ev made during our "Bug Week" four weeks ago. He, Em and I made v-alien-tines for his friends here, too. Get it - alien ?!? Ev certainly shares his daddy's interest in things space and NASA. We also launched, er, sent aloft, paper lanterns lifted by what amounts to a sterno ring for Chinese New Year - something else we'd NEVER do in Arizona!

Blood figured in today (Saturday). I was at the pool waiting for Em, Er, Ev and El to arrive when the assistant manager here came to the gate to ask if anyone knew anyone here with B- blood. A tourist who'd been here just one day was evidently in an accident and needed blood for his surgery. Rh- is nonexistent among Asians. Well, "as it happens" (though we know it was no coincidence) Em's friend Monica ws at the pool and knew Em is B-, so I went with Em via ambulance to the hospital. Bless her heart (and both her arms) it took two tries to get a good vein, but Em donated a pint of blood(plus the half pint they couldn't use after her first vein collapsed), enabling the man's surgery. We don't know his or his wife's name, but DAD does, so please lift them both up. How much had to work together to make this amazing connection: the assistant manager being a nurse and knowing the nurse overseeing foreigners at the hospital, Em being here, Monica being at the pool at the right time and knowing Em's blood type . . . ! Just in case you think ABBA doesn't know and care about each one of YOU!

And on that note - tomorrow we move over to the next conference and hotel, where we'll be for the next two weeks. I'll be helping in the nursery, so the little ones AND I could use your thoughts, too - particularly because both El and her slightly younger buddy Chloe LOVE to walk, but Chloe can't yet and needs an adult to do laps, and I do mean LAPS, around the room with her! Much love and many thoughts your way -

Around The World At The Juniper Tree

2008-02-09T05:31:00.000-08:00

Gosh, time is flying by here, but so is the world. We've met people from all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia and New Zealand, both in terms of their homes of origin and where they live and work now. I can't share their stories online, but I'll be coming home with many, many practical ways to pray for these people, and I hope some of you may hear the call to someday help at conferences and hear incredible stories and meet amazing people yourselves.

We've spent our week just here in Chiang Mai: me, playing with Ev and El and quite a few of the other children here (see the photo taken in the dining room here for a few of them), and Er and Em catching up on e-mail (their in-box often has upwards of 800 e-mails) and personal business. I learned this week that it is possible to exchange a purchase here - even got pointers from the resort staff on the most acceptable way to phrase it. One of the directors here wrote it out for me in Thai, thank goodness. My tailor-made jacket now fits well enough that I CAN take a breath, though I'll never be able to broadly use my hands and arms if I'm wearing it when I speak. Today I made my first venture out without the kids as guides (but with one woman from Gilbert!!! and another from Finland) and didn't get lost in the day market building - amazing, and I'm sorry I don't have a photo of the day market on this computer so you could be suitably impressed.

Yesterday we did a tour (Em arranged it) of some handicraft factories. It was the first - and no doubt last - time I had an emerald and diamond ring on my finger. Some handicrafts! Besides the gem factory, we did see how Thai silk is spun and woven, right from the moths laying eggs all the way to the finished product, and we visited an umbrella-making factory (though factory is hardly the right word to use - it's all open-air and done by hand) where I got a butterfly painted on my jeans, Ev got an elephant on his shorts, and El got a spectacular butterfly painted on her shirt - which she was not wearing at the time, due to concerns about wet paint and her busy little hands. You'll soon see umbrellas from this factory in your local Pier 1 store. The Thai people are quite artistic and music lovers. Our guide/driver spent his time waiting on us to tour the factories by playing a stringed instrument he keeps in the bed of his pickup truck when he takes people around. He was quite good and we enjoyed a short "concert."

This week we attended a kantoke dinner, too, with traditional Thai dancing and food. Monday we go to Burma to get new Thai visas, so next week I'll report on that adventure. I"m off now to call my hubby, so y'all be blessed.

Am I Jane or the Swiss Family Robinson?

2008-02-02T05:39:00.000-08:00

For the past two days we've been living in what seem much like tree houses at The Juniper Tree "resort" here in Chiang Mai, our home for two weeks between conferences. I'm living in a teak house that seems very much like ship's quarters inside. Check out www.juniper-tree.org for a peek. At every meal besides breakfasts, we sit with different families from all over the world. Aside from the one thing we all have in common, the common denominator here is children! Em calculated tonight that we adults are seriously outnumbered! You should hear the commotion from the play platform in the dinning room after about 20 minutes into every meal- something like preschool meets family reunion meets chaos. Ev and El love it!

Today we checked out the spider webs, butterflies, and bananas behind their house, then the LARGE red ants crawling up and down a tree (and our legs!) behind us. Yikes and ouch! Our other adventure today was our tuk-tuk driver getting confused as we tried to get back here from an errand up in the north of town. Well . . . it was a nice day for a drive, especially after the non-stop rain and cold yesterday. Our rooms don't have any heat - why would you need a heater in the tropics???? - so last night was quite nippy. We figured it was the storm that blanketed much of China in snow, so we were glad it was just rain down here.

My adventure this past week was getting a jacket made by a seamstress in the day market. Tuesday will tell whether my and Em's gestures and scribbles in a pattern (sort of ) book really communicated what I wanted! Phooey - it's costing me almost as much for a rayon jacket (I couldn't find the right color in raw silk) as it would have for a ready-made silk one - though the silk one was a tight fit. I've never had anything made to my measurements, so this is a new experience on several levels.

So is meeting all the folks here at the Juniper Tree and hearing the stories of their work and challenges. Suffice it to say they regularly deal with things you and I would find "impossible" or downright terrifying. What love and commitment is in their hearts! I'll share details when I get home - in the meantime, please think about them as you talk to the Lord.

Well, the bird (?) monkey(?) is calling outside, so I'd better close for this evening. Much love!

Just like Adventureland

2008-01-26T06:08:00.000-08:00

January 24 -Week two in Thailand – and sometimes I have to “pinch myself” to realize I’m really here. Most of my weekdays are spent between our two hotel rooms, but a few steps outside the hotel and it’s Asia for sure just crossing the street to the other hotel where the kids’ conference is and where we all eat lunch together. I got a real reminder of where we are tonight as I walked around the corner and down the street with Eric and the “we hope she falls asleep on this walk” Elsa: Eric pointed out the elephant across the street standing on the sidewalk in between motor scooters! The elephant drivers, called (I’m probably butchering the spelling) “mahouts,” put red lights on the rear of the elephants so other traffic can spot them at night on city streets.

Actually we don’t see that many in town. Last Saturday was a different story when we toured an elephant camp. Part of the package was a one-hour elephant ride, followed by a one-hour raft ride on the river, then a bull cart ride to the resort where we ate lunch. Er and Ev rode one elephant, and Em and Elsa and I rode another. Picture yourself perched about 12 feet off the ground atop a moving, swaying conveyance with nothing but a rope tied across the front of the seat to keep you from slipping out. Now take away the use of one hand (Em holding Elsa, me holding an umbrella over Elsa while she ate and then slept in Em’s arms) and try to find a place to grip with your other hand that will allow you to sort of keep from sliding forward right under said rope as the elephant heads downhill! Did I mention there’s no good place on the elephant’s back to put your feet to help brace yourself? I think you get the picture – and see the photo illustrating our plight. Our mahout kindly took the low road in a couple of places (still involved quite a bit of downhill) after he saw our predicament.

I had to laugh at – and you can understand why I couldn’t get to my camera to photograph – the Coke “billboard” on the side of a raised hut about 50 yards from another raised hut selling soft drinks for the elephant riders. Coke, hand-woven hats, bags, bracelets – the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in the “wilds” of Thailand! Women and children stand in the river trying to sell their handmade items, and we saw a guy standing in the river selling cold drinks from a floating ice chest (again, I couldn’t get to my camera in time and thought it might be rude anyway to take a picture). We also visited an orchid farm – incredibly beautiful - and (by popular vote of the linguists on the bus who did NOT want to get back in time to add another seminar to their day) an elephant dung paper manufacturing facility. Yes, you heard me right. The paper is beautiful, by the way.

On to the inspiration in this peregrination. One part of every morning has been an hour or two with Ev and Elsa and four other Third Culture Kids and their caregiver over at a playground at a hotel on the next street. Two days ago I was talking with the nearly ten-year old girl in the group about their family’s plans after this conference. She said they were going to try to have a few days of vacation. Their planned vacation last June was cancelled when her mother contracted typhoid and dengue (sp?)fever and had to go to the hospital. A second trip got axed when they ran into visa problems. She rattled off all their problems quite casually. Are these the kinds of hassles you dream of having to deal with, or more appropriately, ever have nightmares about? This is just part of the reality for families like our “kids”, a cost they assume in doing the work they’re called to. That’s why I came here: to lighten the load a bit for Er and Em and their colleagues at these conferences, or at least to give them one less concern to deal with.

So if/as you think of it, please lift up the folks who are now traveling after the first conference, either to home assignment (wherever home is) or back to their workplaces.

I’d also appreciate a lift-up for my arthritis in my neck issues (I’ve had almost daily headaches here in Thailand) and my peanut sensitivity. Peanuts or peanut oil are nearly impossible to avoid in food here, and my hands and feet have been itching like crazy for the past week despite me giving up eggs in the morning and stir-fried everything.

Third point to lift up: the language survey Er and Em hope to do in early March is waiting on approval from the local language commission, and with Chinese New Year looming, the final decision may be delayed till just a few days before they need to leave. They also need to find housing in the smaller town from which they’ll be doing the survey.

Lastly, if you’d ever like your own adventure – the February conference coming up is an annual event with about 100 kids needing care while their parents attend . . . . Next year YOU on an elephant?

Sawasdee kaaaaaa

2008-01-18T07:01:00.000-08:00

Hi, Friends,

Since I don’t know how to spell the Thai greeting for hello – just plain hello. End of week two in Asia, week one in Thailand. The people here are so friendly – of course part of that may be the charming Ev__ at my side and the adorable El__ I’m carrying in a sling or trying to push in a stroller over the uneven or non-existent sidewalks here. You’d bite your nails if you saw the traffic we negotiate on our daily walks, made necessary by El__’s severe “cabin fever” in our hotel room, aka “Camp Grandma.” The Thai people are gracious and very cordial, making this a big tourist spot for people from all points of the globe.

I have had headache trouble here, so I popped up the street for a Thai massage on Tuesday night – that’s massage, otherwise know as Thai torture! The stretching I didn’t mind (one arm wrapped around an appendage and a foot pressing into the point where it attaches to get the maximum stretch), but Holy Cow, I’ve never experienced thumbs and elbows pressed into every muscle and nerve ending before! I was ready to confess that I’d stolen the Crown Jewels before the hour was over! Tonight (Friday) Er__ and I tried a half-hour back and neck massage in “Lazy Boys” at a stand set up on the sidewalk down at the night market, and that will be my stress relief of choice from now on.

On a “why I’m really here” note – it’s NOT just to visit my family – it’s absolutely wonderful to meet and listen to the kid’s colleagues (why I’m giving no names) from many nations, all here for the same heart reason. What amazing people they are, accepting challenges that would send most people packing in short order. How funny that their common language is often Chinese! Er and Em are in seminars from 8 am till 5 pm every day, and there’s no way they could both attend as they need to if someone wasn’t here to watch Ev and El. Someone just happens to be Grandma, who now knows what it feels like to be functionally illiterate and so respects even more the literacy work these folks are doing. In several weeks I’ll be helping in the nursery for their big two-week annual group conference.

Points to “think” about:

Energy for all of us adults, as the grandkids seem to have a superabundance and the seminars take lots of mental energy, and good health for us all (El is teething).

Safety as we walk and travel around the city.

A good, duty-free conclusion to shipping problems we’ve had.

A quick return for Er’s renewed passport.

Anointing and fresh inspiration for all the people here for the seminars.

Here is a shot of local flavor from this beautiful place. Much love to you all, and thanks again for your love and support

Three Days and Counting

2007-12-30T19:07:00.001-08:00

I wanted to take time in the middle of my packing to thank all of you one more time for your prayers and support, and to let you know that I won't be able to post anything until we get to Thailand. Eric mentioned this weekend that they can't access blogspot from where they live. I'll need to be a bit circumspect in what I write, but I trust you'll be able to get the gist of what's happening. My big immediate prayer request, aside from safety for me flying, for Eric coming on the overnight bus the night of the 3rd to meet me at the airport early on the 4th, and for Chip and Ethan while I'm away, is for all my luggage to get there with me intact with all the contents in good shape and to get through customs easily. One suitcase is nothing but "stuff" for "Camp Grandma" and items like Ghiardelli chocolate, spaghetti sauce mix, Cheerios, twizzlers, an Easter egg coloring kit, valentines, and Spray n' wash sticks! Gosh, what we take for granted!Love and blessing to all of you!

Thank all of you SO much

2007-11-28T17:19:00.000-08:00

I had to close last night before saying a huge thank you and God bless you to all of you who've come alongside me on this journey through your prayers and giving. You have no idea how humbled I am, and with what gratitude and respect I carry YOU along with me! To borrow Neil Armstrong's phrasing, it's one small m- trip for me, one giant leap in bringing the _ _ _ d to the nations,and you are a significant part of that leap.

I'll keep you posted as often as I am able; there MUST be a Starbucks in the towns I'll be in! 35 days and counting . . .

What in tarnation?

2007-11-27T20:29:00.000-08:00

Allison, you suggested, and I responded to your very good idea to blog my upcoming travels (which is what a peregrination is, by the way). Hopefully inspiration will spill over from my/our adventures. Pending photos from the actual trip, here's one of me and my favorite trolley buddy from last year to start this journal off from the appropriate continent, anyway.