C. S. Lewis observed that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.
– Philip Yancey
“Why am I the one who has to think of everything?” a young mother asked. “My husband’s idea of preparing for a trip is carrying the suitcases out to the car.”
I smiled. I remembered this. One day my father-in-law announced he was taking us to the fair. We would be gone all day. His intent was for us to stay late and watch the fireworks. After telling us to hurry up he put on his baseball cap, grabbed his keys and went out to the car.
Eventually he came back in to see what was taking so long. I happened to be feeding and dressing three little kids (two still in diapers), gathering supplies for the day and putting them in backpacks and diaper bags. My mind was whirling as I made preparations that necessitated asking myself the question, “What could go wrong?” so I would know what to bring.
Dad was going out of his way to do something kind for us. He was a natural optimist and couldn’t understand why I was fretting. This was supposed to be fun.
There is something about being responsible for others that turns many of us into worriers. Perhaps it is because we feel like we have to think of everything or we could find ourselves caught in a blizzard in a swim suit and flip flops and fresh out of diaper rash cream for the baby. Maybe that’s how I got in the habit of starting my day with thinking about what could go horribly wrong. Thinking about what could go amazingly right is postponed for a later hour after lists are made and items checked off. Sometimes I never get around to that thought until I tumble, exhausted, into bed at night.
I’m trying to change.
Now, before I get out of bed, I intentionally direct my thoughts to thanking God for answered prayer and the potential of the next day. I intend to not allow negativity to squash my joy before the day even begins. Then I lay my plans before him and let him know they are subject to change as he leads.
It’s often a mental wrestling match on the level of those grunting men of massive girth who throw chairs and put headlocks on referees. Change, real change, deep down heart change, doesn’t come easily for someone like me.
Early yesterday morning, I drove home from a doctor’s appointment in another city. It’s an eleven hour trip there and back. Instead of “trying to think of everything” in preparation for surgery next week I decided to focus on the goodness of God and how he has brought me safe thus far. I put on some good music and sang along.
One of the things I am thankful for is that my commute is through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. The glowing sun rose over my shoulder to the east, lit a winter field at rest to the north and touched the mountain peaks to the west with gentle pink light. The air was frigid, but inside my little subcompact cocoon the heater hummed away and kept me warm. I put iPod music on shuffle and watched the day come to life.
Then a song from a new album I bought before I left home began to play. “You’re going to be okay,” the singer assured me. I heard God’s voice in the music.
I have no idea how this is going to go. But I am going to be okay. The Lover of my soul thinks of everything.
At each and every sunrise you will hear my voice
As I prepare my sacrifice of prayer to you.
Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on the altar
And wait for your fire to fall upon my heart.
(Psalm 5:3 TPT)
My grandson was showing me photos he had done for school when I saw the light change outside on the snowy lawn in my peripheral vision. I checked the sky.
“Grab your camera!” I said. “And your boots and jacket. Let’s go.”
A strong wind resisted our efforts to open the front door.
“Where is the closest open field?” I asked him when he got in the car.
He took me there. This is the result.
Chinook arch at sunset in Alberta.
I grew up in Calgary. I knew what an arch of clouds in the sky coming from the mountains in the west meant. It meant a break in the weather. It meant sudden unseasonably warm days right in the middle of winter.
To some weather-sensitive people chinook winds bring changes in barometric pressure that provoke migraines and achy knees, to some they create a mess of melting show and piles of slush on the road, but as a child I knew they brought streams in the gutter to sail our clothespin boats, the ability to run around outside without a hat or scarf or sometimes even a jacket and a sense of profound unexpected positive change.
I was able to visit Calgary this week. The purpose of the trip was not a thrilling one; I had to see a team of medical specialists at the hospital who debated the best next course of action in treating a resistant condition. That part wasn’t fun, although I was amazed and impressed by the efficiency of the system. My doctor referred me on Thursday, I was given an appointment on Friday and by Tuesday I was shlepping around from the exam room to the labs to the consultation room. I am so appreciative of good medical treatment. I thought of my grandmother and how much things have changed since she died at 42 because the family didn’t have money for an operation, and of my son who is still waiting for OR time for his surgery.
But the other part of the story is that the tests were not pleasant, every treatment offered comes with risks and side-effects and the prospect of more pain and recovery time on the couch, and there is no clear advantage of one over the other so the decision is up to me.
When my husband and I walked out to the parking lot I realized I didn’t need my hat, or mittens or my jacket. It was one of those southern Alberta miracle days after a chinook blew in and raised the temperature to sunny spring day levels. It was a break from the expectations of January weather in Canada.
I think the Lord breaks up the heaviness of praying for situations that weigh on our hearts with moments of unexpected fulfillment of promises ahead of time. It’s like the finger of God poking through. Moments of the manifestation of the Kingdom of heaven on earth. Yes. It exists. Here. Now. In this moment. But someday this warm sunlight will not be an occasional thing. It will be the norm.
We have hope, therefore we can sing, “To God be the glory for the things he has done.”
I picked up a nasty case of the flu this week. My health has improved so much in the last few years that I am rather impatient with illness now. I’m reminded of what life used to be like when I just accepted sickness as “God’s will for my life,” never considering that maybe it wasn’t.
I used to take pride in myself as an overcomer, pushing through pain to accomplish something greater than expected – under the circumstances. Then one day, after someone asked what it would cost me to be well, I realized an overcomer needs things to overcome to preserve their reputation. I was subconsciously creating a place for chronic sickness as part of my identity. Quite frankly, I enjoyed a lifestyle that drafted caretakers and gave me an excuse to remain uncommitted to future projects. I was insulted by the question, but oh, it was a good one. That was a humbling moment.
Am I a healthy person now? Healthier, yes, but I still wait on the Lord for a number of things that are still disordered. But I’ve passed the postulated sell-by dates more than once and have seen some chronic conditions go away. In November hearing loss in my left ear was restored after kind people prayed for me. (Thank you, Lord!) Now it’s wonky again because of a block of mucous that feels like it takes up more space in my head than my brain, but this too shall pass.
I was thinking about set-backs and the number of dear people I know who have felt the disappointment of set-backs in all sorts of areas in this past year, or even this past month. Then I decided to come against the woe-is-me stuff in a different spirit. I started thinking about gains for which to be thankful.
Here’s one. I just checked. Since December 21st the valley has gained 9.13 more minutes of sunlight a day. For me that’s like the Dow Jones surging upwards for ten days straight.
I’m recycling a photo today because I haven’t been outside for a while. But hey, the sun is coming back, and I rejoice in hope.
All is well all is well
Angels and men rejoice
For tonight darkness fell
Into the dawn of love’s light.
(From All is Well by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Michael W. Smith)
When I’m walking on ice I keep my head down. A broken arm and a broken leg taught me the wisdom of minding my step. My legs and ankles tense up as I carefully find the least slippery route, often on the edge of the path where dead thorn bushes poke through the snow.
One day I was walking through a shadowy part of the forest on an ice-covered trail when I caught a glimpse of the sky in a tiny puddle. I had been concentrating so hard on not falling that I lost sight of the rest of my surroundings. The reflection reminded me to look up.
When Moses asked to see God he was permitted to see only a glimpse from inside a cleft of a rock. The aspect of himself God chose to show was his goodness, and only a fraction of that lest Moses be overwhelmed.
Sometimes seeing a glimpse of God’s goodness, or grasping a few words from the love song he sings over us in the night, or hearing his voice in nature or scripture or right out loud, causes us to feel amazed – and then frustrated that we can’t hear more.
Those who have had encounters with who God really is are often wrecked for trudging through a cold, grey, sinful, sorrowful world with an it-is-what-it-is attitude. Now they long for more – because they have had a glimpse of more.
Frustration is a sign that God is about to increase our capacity to receive more. We wonder why we feel so uncomfortable. We can walk away at that point, or we can look up, preparing for the enlarging aspect of himself he intends to show us next. It may not be the one people around us may seem to be experiencing though. He knows who we really are too.
Isaac Watts, who wrote Joy to the World, understood.
Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing…
There is more.
Anxiety occurs when the things we worry about become more important than the things we are grateful for.
– John Paul Jackson
Think long; think hard.
When you are angry, don’t let it carry you into sin.
When night comes, in calm be silent.
From this day forward,
offer to God the right sacrifice
from a heart made right by God.
Entrust yourself to the Eternal.
(Psalm 4:4,5 The Voice)
Morning slunk into my bedroom with half-hearted grey clouds and a feeble effort at rain. The moisture in the air was thicker than fog, but lighter than a shower. I guess, like me, it felt ambivalent about working up the effort for a good cry.
I planned to take photos near Steamboat Hill when I got up. I even set the alarm. When there is no wind and the water is very cold in the early morning reflections of golden trees in the misty river can be stunning this time of year.
If the light is right.
It wasn’t.
The sound of wind-blown branches scratching against my window hinted that the water would be rough and the leaves could be skittering across the ground by now anyway.
I rolled over and checked out Facebook on my iPhone. People again alternately exalted and slimed each other and their chosen candidates in another country, the way they have for the past few months, only this time with more fear and desperation in their posts. I put it down and went back to sleep.
I’m not depressed. Just tired. Lately, I seem to have more than the usual number of challenges parked in the waiting room of my mind. Not being able to do anything – or, more accurately, not knowing what to do until more information is available – can be exhausting.
I waited impatiently for Wisdom to show up, but when she did she only said, “Wait.”
I remember long trips across the prairies in the back seat of my father’s Oldsmobile. We had sung all the songs, played all the games, eaten all the snacks, and still telephone poles filed past the rain-streaked window in an endless procession of minutes. No use asking Dad if we were there yet. He just turned his head and answered over his shoulder, “If you have to ask you have not arrived. Just wait. This will be good.”
So I wait.
By ten I was dressed in a warm sweater pulled from the back of the closet where I optimistically stashed winter clothes one glorious day in the spring. Warming my hands with my third cup of coffee I went out on the deck to see if the flowers in big clay pots in the corner succumbed to the cold yet. Amazingly they still bloomed under the old blankets I throw over them at night. I pulled the covers back and they sprang back up.
The sky hung low and dull, but I noticed a patch of blue in the northeastern corner on the horizon. I decided to grab the camera and go. I needed to get out of the house. I headed toward the light.
Some place in this current spiritual landscape there is joy, there is peace, there is hope. I know it’s there, but sometimes I forget to look for it. I asked the Lord to help me find it.
The light began to shine through in sporadic rays sometime after I passed the appropriately named Bummer’s Flats. By the time I reached the bird sanctuary colours brightened.
At the rest stop on the other side of the bridge tourists marveled at sights I, as a local, have taken for granted. A young German couple parked their bicycles and spread their paper-wrapped bread and cheese feast on a picnic table. They sat facing the mountain ridge silently drinking cups of steaming coffee from a thermos as if they were absorbing a scene into mutual memory with every sip. Perhaps they plan on calling it up over the breakfast table when they have been married forty four years like us. An older couple stood on the bank of the river and reminded each other that these colours did not exist back home. I looked again with their eyes and saw joy.
I stopped by the lake and there was my peace. It rested on the still water in the form of a dock. In the summer it rocks and slaps the water as children dive from it. I can still hear their calls echoing in the hot summer sun. Now their diving platform floated steadfast in stillness under stormy skies.
You know you’re an introvert when your idea of a good time is when nobody else shows up for the party. The Lord and I had the entire beach to ourselves. The sun warmed my face, my hair, my hands. We walked along the shoreline.
Canada geese overhead were teaching their young how to fly in formation. Birds born this last year have no idea of how long the trip ahead of them will take, they only know they have the urge to prepare for something more than they have thus far known.
I waited and waited for God. He turned and he heard me. He said, “Wait. This is going to be good.”
In the meantime I choose to be thankful for joy found in sojourners’ eyes, for peace found in mountain lakes, and hope in the wings of young geese eager to see the world.
I was terrified of the pain of childbirth. I suppose, in the way people in the medical field are aware of everything that could possibly go wrong with a “simple procedure” I also knew. I overheard the rehearsal of a horror story of labour and delivery since I was a young child. My mother did have a complicated birth experience and besides permanent physical consequences I think it left her with some PTSD. But listening to the story of my traumatic birth being told over and over also left me with a lot of fear of having children.
Fear magnifies pain. Fear teaches us to watch for the first signs of pain, like we are keeping an eye on the street for an expected, but unwelcome guest to arrive. Fear motivates us to prepare defensive tactics in our heads for attacks that may never occur. Fear teaches us to see pain as a monster that cannot be contained by any device at our disposal. The only thing we can do is evade it or outrun it – or try to.
Here’s the thing. I had never asked myself, “If the pain of childbirth is so overwhelming, why do women intentionally have a second or third or even more children?”
What I didn’t know about pain was that I could have a kind of peace in the middle of it. I was working. I was accomplishing something magnificent. When I had my second son there was no time for epidurals or any form of medication like the first time. All of a sudden it hit me that pain was not my master. I hated it, but I could defy it. I growled and pushed right into the center of it it knowing that joy was about to burst forth. Joy was set before me.
When I held my son in my arms I was filled with a golden euphoria of joy on the other side like I had never known before.
I hate to see anyone suffer. I am a sensitive mercy-motivated person. I feel other people’s pain. If someone near to me injures a leg, I limp. I would rather trade places than see one of my children or grandchildren in pain, and yet I will fail them if I don’t tell them that they are stronger than both physical and mental pain. Learning to push through opens a pathway to more richness of experience than we have known before.
One of the passages of scripture that continues to free me from the fear of unpleasant circumstances, from the dentist’s needles to opening my heart to weep with those who grieve deeply, is this one:
The Lord is ever present with us. Don’t be anxious about things; instead, pray. Pray about everything. He longs to hear your requests, so talk to God about your needs and be thankful for what has come. And know that the peace of God (a peace that is beyond any and all of our human understanding) will stand watch over your hearts and minds in Jesus, the Anointed One. (Philippians 4:5b-7 The Voice)
The peace of God is, like God, wholy other, supernatural, beyond expected human experience. His peace is not dependent on living a life free of discomfort. His peace is beyond human understanding – which means we can give up the need to try to understand it.
When you realize that you live in his love as his much-adored child you don’t need to cry out and demand that every negative situation be immediately relieved. When you hear the voice of your Lord say, “I will never leave you,” you can choose to walk deliberately into the storm before you.
Jesus says, “I’ve got this. Trust me,” and somehow, even though it is not logical, you do.
Whether the storm is a chance for him to demonstrate divine healing or deliverance through a miracle or to first prove to you that you are more capable of relying on his strength than you thought, remembering and thanking him for grace that has brought you safe thus far will continue to bring you through to the gold on the other side.
Even my mother chose to have another baby.
My fourth grade teacher, who taught me the beauty of songs of lament, sang this one for me. I have never forgotten how it touched my heart.
Walk on with hope in your heart and you’ll never walk alone.
Charis: Subject to Change 