My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.
– Martin Luther
Tag: healing
Like the Refreshing Rains
I stood on my deck surrounded by a glorious sun shower. The abundance of light and refreshing cleansing rain seemed like dramatic contrast to the ugliness of hatred in the world today.
This is part of King David’s final prayer before leaving the rule of his country in the hands of his successor:
True God, bestow Your honest judgments upon the king
and anoint the king’s son with Your righteousness.
May he be honest and fair in his judgments over Your people
and offer justice to the burdened and suffering.
Under his reign, may this land of mountains and hills know peace
and experience justice for all the people.
May the king offer justice to the burdened and suffering,
rescue the poor and needy,
and demolish the oppressor!
[May the people fear You] for as long as the sun shines,
as long as the moon rises in the night sky, throughout the generations.
May the king be like the refreshing rains, which fall upon fields of freshly mown grass—
like showers that cool and nourish the earth.
May good and honest people flourish for as long as he reigns,
and may peace fill the land until the moon no longer rises.
(Psalm 72:1-7 The Voice )
Praying David’s prayer. May peace and justice fill the land -like refreshing rain.
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Everyday It’s a Getting Closer
Discouragement has been trying to sneak into my heart lately. I bar the doors and it makes faces at me through the windows. I shut the curtains and it sticks out its tongue on the news reports. I flip through Netflix and see it dressed up as reason or compassion or as humour – in black of course. I shut the TV off and discouragement pops up on my phone. Even in-person conversations take a sudden tilt toward you-think-that’s-bad.
Here’s the thing. You can’t escape discouragement when you’ve allowed it to have a camping spot in your head.
We had a problem with mice in the house once. While we were on vacation they got into the pantry. Screaming may have been involved when I opened the doors. I set traps, cleaned up and stored everything in plastic bins after that, but they would still show up. (More screaming.) We called for help.
The exterminator searched all around and found we had a spilled bag of grass seed in the garden shed near the back door.
“There’s your problem,” he said. “They eat in your garden restaurant then come into the house to keep warm. They only need an opening as big as their nose to squeeze through. Get rid of what they are feeding on and they will go away.”
It was one of those moments when I heard God speaking with the accent of a pest control expert.
Get rid of what they are feeding on and they will go away.
I said this to someone else yesterday and heard God’s voice in my own.
Get rid of what discouragement is feeding on and it will go away.
What’s it feeding on? Words that don’t include His perspective. I call them Helena Handbasket speeches. Sometimes I listen to them and sometimes I make them myself.
“But the situation looks dire, Lord.”
“Come up here and see the big picture,” He says.
“How? I mean really. HOW?”
This morning I woke from a dream about friends who were were shutting down a coffee shop kind of place. Business was too slow. A handicapped person came in looking for someone to talk to, then a shy older woman, then a child who offered to share her candy with the lady. All the while the shop was being readied for closure with chairs stacked on tables being pushed against the wall.
They made one more pot of free coffee for the people who had wandered in. While they set a couple of chairs back at a table more people showed up. They needed more tables and opened another section. More and more people were suddenly there. The thing they all seemed to have in common was loneliness and feeling like they didn’t belong anywhere and were out of place in time. Some even wore clothes from earlier decades.
The child sharing her candy had only meant to give it to one person, but it was passed around in a bowl and like the fish and barley loaves the disciples saw multiply as they passed baskets around, the candy in the dollar store crystal dish never ran out.
I woke up with a song in my head that I never paid much attention to before. I didn’t know more words than I needed to google it. A Buddy Holly song? Seriously?
“Why this one, Lord?”
“You asked for my perspective.”
These Helena Handbasket voices that make dire predictions? Well yes, there is a right and left perspective, neither of which can offer solutions, but there is also an up and down axis. And that is a game changer.
At one point in the dream a man who had been a addict ran out into the street from the now busy cafe and said, “People say change is not possible. I tell you it is! I am free and more people are being set free every day!”
Every. Day.
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With Endurance and Calm
On this day, three years ago,
-I didn’t know where my elderly father was and if he had been evacuated from the senior’s home beside the river,
-my sister-in-law had to wade through water to get to her patients at the hospital,
-my brother, cut off by wash-outs, refused helicopter rescue and stayed to help neighbours whose property was crumbling into the raging Cougar Creek,
-my son’s family’s home and vehicle was under eight feet of water and sewage after the Highwood River changed course and the berms meant to protect the town center redirected water into his neighbourhood 3 kilometers away,
-I was in Edmonton on the other side of the mountains from my husband with washed out bridges and roads between us,
-our daughter’s family couldn’t get back to their home in Alberta for the same reason,
-the familiar landmarks of my childhood in downtown Calgary were submerged,
-and soldiers drove tanks down the Queen E II highway on rescue operations.
That day this verse meant a lot to me: When you face stormy seas I will be there with you with endurance and calm; you will not be engulfed in raging rivers. If it seems like you’re walking through fire with flames licking at your limbs, keep going; you won’t be burned. (Isaiah 43:2 The Voice)
On this day, three years later, I can say God has been with us with endurance and calm. We were not engulfed. I have hope and an even stronger sense that God is good.
Thank you, Lord, that when we are on a difficult or lonely road you have already placed provisions we will need there in advance. We just need to look to you to see the bigger picture.
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Blank
There are no thoughts in my head. Well, none of any significance anyway. I keep a list of blog ideas for days when nothing floats to the surface of the puddle of potential that is my mind. But nothing on the list grabs my attention.
There are no emotions in my soul today either. I don’t feel good, I don’t feel bad. I’m not particularly up, down or sideways.
My body feels tired, but not sick. I’ll get going eventually. The highway is closed due to a commercial truck spill so there’s no use rushing. I’ll take my camera and my music and probably enjoy the day as I drive to Alberta again, but there’s time for another coffee.
Then it dawns on me. A year ago this week my Daddy died. I’ve done okay this first year as an orphan. My heavenly father has indeed been the perfect father for me. My earthly father was old and tired and in pain. He missed my mom and he wanted to be with Jesus. I wanted him to go.
Our Jewish friend told us they mourn a death with rituals for a week, then again at three months and at a year. Then they are done and get on with living. We tend to plow through until we can’t plow anymore.
Perhaps the Lord is telling me I’m under no obligation to be “on” for myself or anyone else- or even for him. It’s okay to just stop here for a while.
I’ll be back.
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I Waited and Waited for God
I waited
and waited
and waited some more;
patiently,
knowing that God would come through for me.
Then, at last, he bent down and listened to my cry.
He stooped down to lift me out of danger,
from the desolate pit I was in,
out of the muddy waters I had fallen into.
Now he’s lifted me up into a firm, secure place,
and steadied me while I walk along his ascending path.
A new song for a new day rises up in me
every time I think about how he breaks through for me!
Ecstatic praise pours out of my mouth until
everyone hears how God has set me free.
Many will see his miracles; they’ll stand in awe of God,
and fall in love with him!
(Psalm 40:1-3 The Passion Translation)
It was no one’s fault. Doctors get sick, equipment breaks, the critical displaces the urgent. It just happened to take a long time between symptoms showing up and getting the results of a biopsy. Months actually. The first time I was told I might have cancer I was sick with worry and too distracted to concentrate on work a lot of the time. This time I was more patient. I’ve had the experience of seeing the Lord come through for me. We went for walks together and talked about something else.
Today I finally got the report. Benign.
I still need healing for an underlying problem that, although I have tried and tried, I can’t fix myself. So even though it has been the source a lot of rejection in my life, I continue to come to God, just as I am. My only plea is that Jesus’ blood was shed for me.
He’s good with that.
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Making Disciples
“Grandma! Come play with us! Come on! There’s room!” said my little grandson.
“What are you playing?”
“Super guys!” said his cousin. “Look! We climb up onto the roof like this then we jump to the other building like this.” He demonstrated by jumping from the bed to an upholstered bench against the wall.
“Grandma doesn’t jump from roof tops as well as she used to, honey.”
“You can do it, Grandma!” shouted the oldest. He could gain remarkable height jumping on that bed.
“No, sweetie. I’ll just watch you.”
“You can do it!” chimed in the younger one, the cape on his superman jammies flying behind him as he too leapt across the gorge.
“Here. We’ll help you.”
Apparently superhero powers are transferable. My two adorable progeny jumped off the bench, put their hands on my arm and my tummy and imparted the super-anointing so I could join them on the top of the building. Who knew it was that easy?
“Okay, now you’re Supergrandma!!”
They climbed back up on the king sized bed, pulled me up with them, and helped me stand there above the city streets on the top of the building. I felt their mighty little steadying hands on my butt, encouraging it to rise higher as well. I didn’t try to leap to the next building when they next took flight, but I did do a a couple of knee bend warm-up bounces as my contribution to saving the world. Give me a minute. I’ll get there.
Later that day my mentors took me on a stealth mission through the dormant lilac grove in the park. We were a dynamic trio, we were. I felt tremendously honoured to be included.
Now as I understand it, the common standard for superhero status requires that one must have a unique super power, something extremely rare instigated by a highly unusual accident or spontaneous mutation of DNA in the hopeful monster sense. I have always assumed superheros are, for that reason, lone stars.
Nay, not so, according to my grandsons. Give them time for a ten second impartation service and you can receive the same abilities they have received and join them in the fight against the evil foe.
I’ve met and read about some people who I consider to be heroes of the faith. Some of them have followed the same path as the disciples of Jesus when he told them, “As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”
My grandmother used to take me to revival meetings where a traveling evangelist (often dressed with flare) stood on a stage and told astonishing stories about how God used him in Africa or Asia or South America or a town in the southern States we had never heard of. The deaf heard, the bent straightened and angels with swords of fire stood guard outside their guest hut. Sometimes these men gave us ample opportunity to support their “Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show” ministries, but you know, I can’t recall any one of those guys offering to support the missions or giftedness of lovers of Jesus in the audience.
Since I was merely a girl no one ever suggested that Jesus would call me to do anything special. (Although one did suggest I should aspire to becoming a pastor’s wife someday. He actually told me which seminaries he thought provided the best hunting grounds for women seeking that position. Apparently job competition details are not usually announced in Christian Classifieds.)
I’ve noticed a change lately. In the past few years I have met a few people who remind me of my little grandsons’ demonstration of encouragement. You won’t find this new breed in TV studios or on platforms or making available slick promotional pamphlets with detachable donation envelopes. You will find them in the check-out line at Walmart, in the seat beside you on the plane, in the ice cream shop, on a beach in California, working in the back of an ambulance, or walking anonymously down main street. They are obeying the Lord with both boldness and stealth.
The reason they remind me of my grandsons is because not only are they using the gifts God gave them to tell people about God’s love and to make new disciples, they encourage others in the Body of Christ to come on up and leap tall buildings with them.
Making disciples -it’s not just for professionals anymore.
Neither is being one.
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:6,7)
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Baptizing Babies in the Birdbath
Baptizing Babies in the Birdbath
We were baptizing babies in the birdbath,
me and Beats,
plastic pouty babies
with hard dimpled bellies
and yes or no eyes.
I baptize thee, Betsy Ann Wetsy
(in my most Godly voice)
I baptize thee
in the name of the Father,
(pouring water over sculpted hair)
and of the Son,
(swishing clicky head in basin)
and of the Holy Ghost,
(pressuring bad bubble spirits out of
off-center hole in bum)
There.
Having fulfilled requirements
for all our grandparent’s denominations
I held Betsy by rigid foot
and rained blessings
on the sidewalk.
Um, said Beats.
Um.
You blasphemed.
You said Holy Ghost.
You committed the unpardonable sin.
Um.
My life for yours, Betsy.
You take that kind of risk sometimes
for babies you love
when you don’t know all the rules.
When I was a child it was easy to believe that God was angry with me for doing something I didn’t know was wrong. I don’t know where the idea came from, but I know that it was strong enough to leave me fearful that come the great judgment day I would be rejected for failing to keep all the rules and having unconfessed sin in my life (because I didn’t know it was a sin.)
This poem seems light-hearted, but it is about a real experience. I was about five-years old. Beatrix and I had just come from enduring another sermon we didn’t understand. (My grandson defines a sermon as “when people talk about God but don’t let you ask questions.”) All we picked up was that there was an “unpardonable sin.”
For years I didn’t have the heart to tell Mom and Dad that all their efforts to send me to Sunday School and Bible clubs and camps were in vain because I was already damned.
It took a long time before I realized that Jesus is the perfect image of the Father. He absolutely loves children – and adults. He doesn’t set them up for failure. He didn’t come to condemn, but to rescue us and restore our relationship with a loving Father.
I needed to let go of the lie that God is angry and capricious and impossible to please before I could see his eyes of love for me. It wasn’t easy; I struggled to let go of the only security I had known – keeping rules and striving to be good enough. But setting out on a journey to search for the real God has been so worth it. He healed my heart, took away my fear, and created in me a place to hold on to his love.
I decided to post this poem today because I know there are others who, for whatever reason, have the same picture of God – and you are tired and depressed and ready to let go. You’ve tried about as hard as you can try. You’ve gone through rituals and attempts to meet man-made requirements but are still afraid it’s not good enough.
I met someone who was old and ill. He was busy “covering all the bases,” going through all sorts of religious rituals and donating to several denominations. I saw in him the same old familiar fear. What if I am too bad for God to accept me?
I told him all God required of him was to let Jesus do what he came to do – love him just as he was. He found it hard, but the last time I visited him he sang, with steady voice, an old Kris Kristofferson song.
Why me Lord what have I ever done
To deserve even one of the pleasures I’ve known
Tell me, Lord, what did I ever do
That was worthy of you or the kindness you’ve shown
Lord help me, Jesus, I’ve wasted it so
Help me Jesus I know what I am
But now that I know that I’ve needed you so
Help me, Jesus, my soul’s in your hand.
I believe Jesus heard him.
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I hear you
I decided to re-post a poem I wrote several years ago. The day I wrote it I was sitting outside writing a letter to God. I couldn’t quite talk to him yet, but I was daring to write down my feelings and mail them to the fireplace. My page was full of angry accusations. In places my pen tore right through the paper. While I was crying a sudden squall blew in. I was so utterly at the end of my rope I didn’t bother moving. It felt like the storm raging in me was now raging around me.
The sun broke through while it was still raining. When the shower stopped I picked up my strewn papers and my wet Bible. It fell open to Psalm 18 where David writes about God wrapping himself in storm clouds on his way to deliver justice to his child. “Wrapped and hidden in the thick-cloud darkness, his thunder-tabernacle surrounding him, he hid himself in mystery-darkness; the dense rain clouds were his garments. Suddenly the brilliance of his presence breaks through...” (The Passion translation) And verse 19 “His love broke open the way.”
I’m publishing this again because this week I’ve read several excellent blogs by people younger than I who ably describe their frustration with church experience that involved competition, consumerism, hypocrisy, political manipulation, performance-oriented faith with impossibly high standards, dogmatic theoretical faith without power, and lack of demonstrations of love.
Yes, I know the saying that you get out of church what you put in, but change means admitting there are things that are not working for everyone. Many people are happy where they are, but there are also a lot of hurting people out there who feel no one hears them. They are expressing their disappointment with their feet. To those young people who are walking away I want to say, I hear you.
I think the largest “mission field” in North America is among those who have known spiritual abuse, from mild coercion to dastardly deeds worthy of criminal charges. I define spiritual abuse as the act of exploiting a vulnerable person’s longing for connection with their Creator for the purposes of acquiring personal power -usually by a person with some degree of authority or responsibility for nurturing them. It is far more prevalent than anyone wants to admit. Repentance means to change the way we think. And we do need to repent. All of us.
The first step toward healing involves admitting there is a problem. If you have been a victim, express your pain, but don’t park there. Keep searching for the God who loves you as you are. He is not disappointed in you because he understands human frailty. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to show you what he is really like. He never expected you to be good enough to earn his love. He is the One who heals our wounded hearts and showers our lives with loving kindness.
We are incapable of loving God until we know his love. When you know you are loved and forgiven you can afford to take your hands off the throats of those who owe you. That’s when the world will know we are Christians – by our love.
Mourning
I cry, Oh God! Oh Christ! Oh Jesus!
Where are you when the ones who say
they speak for you –those who squeeze us,
press in on every side, demand
that we respect authority,
obey their rules, come (cash in hand)
to hear their words, as only they
have got the regulations straight at last?
Where are you when the weak are hurt,
aggrieved and stumbled in your name?
Don’t you see what they have passed?
I sit entangled with the chords
of bitterness around my feet.
A plant blows over on the boards
that fence me off from outside world.
The petals scatter on the grass
and now the gust of wind that swirled
their frail wings in electric air
becomes a greater blast of rage
that showers ashes in my hair.
Flash tears the sky –breath rent apart,
and splits the veil of one who mourns,
with lightning striking to the heart.
Deep groaning rolls across the vale
from craggy peak to worn down ridge
and rains pours down –beats down in hail.
The sun withdraws beneath a cloud.
and saplings hang their weeping heads
as thunder rails against the proud,
who dare to claim the earth their own,
–and in the woods from hill to hill
creation echoes back the moan.
My tears obscure the sky from view.
Oh God! I cry. God! Where are you?
My child, I hear. I weep with you.
(written during the struggle)
Charis: Subject to Change 