Open My Hands

I believe in a blessing I don't understand
I’ve seen rain fall on wicked and the just
Rain is no measure of his faithfulness
He withholds no good thing from us
No good thing from us, no good thing from us

I believe in a peace that flows deeper than pain
That broken find healing in love
Pain is no measure of his faithfulness
He withholds no good thing from us
No good thing from us, no good thing from us

I will open my hands, will open my heart
I will open my hands, will open my heart
I am nodding my head an emphatic yes
To all that You have for me

I believe in a fountain that will never dry
Though I've thirsted and didn't have enough
Thirst is no measure of his faithfulness
He withholds no good thing from us
No good thing from us, no good thing from us

I will open my hands, will open my heart
I will open my hands, will open my heart
I am nodding my head an emphatic yes
To all that You have for me

No good thing from us
No good thing from us
He withholds no good thing from us

I will open my hands, will open my heart
I will open my hands, will open my heart
I am nodding my head an emphatic yes
To all that You have for me

Written by Alli Rogers, Sara Groves • Copyright © Music Services, Inc

Five Thankful Things

1) The way the earth tilts, and us knowing about it. We can look at the autumn sky and think, "The sun is so different now than in summer, and that is because our part of the world is tilted away from it." I love thinking about stuff like that.

2) How we can see inside our own bodies with x-rays and ultrasounds and MRIs. A few years back one of my kids broke her elbow. Looking at the x-ray, I felt overwhelmed at the beautiful perfection of her bones (except in that one place, of course). Isn't it amazing that we are put together so exquisitely? Just think if we were put together in random ways. Now, that would be weird.

3) Number patterns. For instance, the way that 9x2=18 and 1+8=9 and 1 is one less than 2... 9x3=27 and 2+7=9 and 2 is one less than 3... that pattern keeps going through the 9 times table all the way to 9 (9x9= 81, 8+1=9, and 8 is one less than 9). Or the Fibonacci sequence, found throughout nature, in which the next number is found by adding together the previous two numbers in the sequence-- nature as a gorgeous afghan of numbers knotted together, woven through, and laced with color. Isn't the world wonderful?

4) How much there is to know. No matter how deep we go, there is something else to learn. Knowledge (like Shrek) is an onion. ;) In ancient times someone thought there must be molecules. Eventually, we discovered them. But that wasn't the end of the subject, because atoms. And after we found atoms, we learned to split them. What next? We are making strides in neuroscience, correcting errors in understanding the human brain, but also discovering the vast unknown that is the world of thought. And what about nutrition? Twenty years ago, although we understood that veggies are good for you, we knew nothing of micronutrients. More and more, I agree with Charles Kingsley-- man is simply playing with colored shells on the edge of a vast sea of knowledge. We will never know it all.

5) The Creator. I am amazed at the one who formed this world. He put it together and knows all about how it works. He knows the hidden health of breastmilk. He knows beyond a doubt what causes cancer. He knows of the worlds hidden in and out of our universe, what lies beyond life here on earth. And He is good. What if He had not been good? Whether our lives are good or bad, we do not understand Him. But He understands us, and he has created things for us we know nothing of. When the kids were smaller, we read a story about a little dragonfly grub that lived in a pond. His friends and relatives thought the pond was all there was to life. But the little dragonfly baby longed for more, to see the world that shone through the murky water above. He drove his friends distracted with his questions, research and speculations. Then one day he swam to the surface and opened himself to the upper world. They never saw him again in the water. He unfurled his wings and flew into the sky. Lovely. I say with Hamlet, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Resurrection

I read recently that forgiveness is a death, and the biggest forgiveness of all is Jesus's death on the cross. 

And I just want to say that before a person can forgive, that person has to grieve the loss of whatever it is-- a relationship, a dream, a position, a place. Maybe that is what the Man of Sorrows did here on earth with all his loving of us and healing of us and chastising of us, and with his praying in the Garden of Gethsemane when his friends couldn't even stay awake with him in his grief. They never understood his mission until after his resurrection, and they chastised people who did understand, for being wasteful and bothering the Master. The people closest to him for the most part were just like Job's miserable comforters. 

And I just want to say that grieving is a process and forgiveness is a process, and the greatest example of that process is Christ on the cross. He loved them, he shook his head, he kept dropping hints for those who had ears to hear, and, finally, he spread forth his hands, and he died. He also arose, and God will give us beauty for ashes if we wait long enough. He gave Job more than he had in the beginning, he gave Jesus ALL his people, and he will give us blessings, too. 

Wherever you are in the process, be comforted-- blessings in good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, will he give us.

Anxiety and Jesus

There is this amazing set of devotions in Reflections for Ragamuffins that speaks directly to the way Jesus dealt with anxiety and fear while he lived here. It feels strangely heretical to think of him as resisting fear and anxiety. But he was tempted in the desert with power, security, and sensation. The garden of Gethsemane demonstrated his resistance to anxiety and fear, and the strong hold he kept on his identity as Son-Servant-Beloved of his Father in the face of agonizing temptation.

I write that off, Lord forgive me. I write that off. He is God. How can he understand temptation the way a mere mortal does? But the writer of Hebrews says he is touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

(Interesting that it says he is touched with the feeling of our infirmities and not just that he understands them. He feels them. He sits inside them with us. He doesn't stand outside and say, “Wow, that's bad. You should... At least... Band-aid?” He absorbs them, he lives them with us. He lives with us in our messy, chaotic stuff that is bigger than some people's stuff and smaller than other people's stuff. He sits in there with us and GETS it. He's the ultimate empathizer.)

And Hebrews says the reason he knows our desert and garden temptations is because he had his own. He was tempted just as we are, yet without sin. When I get to this part, I always think, “Okay, yes. But He was God. That's different.”

Hebrews says it's not different. I can't fathom it, but somehow he is 100% human as well as 100% God. He did have temptations. He could have given in. But he didn't.

(That is amazing when you think of the enormity of his mission and the smallness of his physical goods and obscurity of his person. What poor, obscure, plain person wouldn't have jumped at the chance to have all worldly power, especially when his mission was to save humanity from itself and from the powers of evil in the world? Boromir demonstrated the seduction of this temptation when he succumbed to it in LoTR.)

It took gargantuan trust in the Father to stay true to his identity and not fall into the trap of worldly power, sensation, security. He identified with God and the topsy-turvy plan they made before the world began, and stayed with the downtrodden and discouraged-- the anxious and fearful people. He stayed true to his Self and his mission here on earth.

He spoke such gentle words to Martha, who was troubled about many things. He endorsed Mary's unusual, even counter-cultural choice to sit at his feet and soak in the supernatural comfort of his spirit and word-- even if that meant less physical ease for himself and others in the house. He allowed virtue and energy to go from himself to others in need. He depleted himself. In his humanity, he took intervals to refresh himself. He needed those intervals because he was 100% human.

100% human and 100% God. Is there a mathematical formula to explain this? That Jesus is all human, completely all human, suffered as a human being here on Earth (He suffered on the cross more than any other human being) and yet is all God, 100% God, fully God.

He gave up His divinity and took on flesh and blood. He could not have saved us without that component. I don't know why. Why did it have to be that way, Lord? Why couldn't You have just demanded Death give up its hold on us? There is some formula here. You followed some mysterious equation-- C.S. Lewis called it magic from before the dawn of time. There is some set of rules that needs be satisfied in order for us to righteously live with him in complete fellowship, and we are terrible at obedience. We couldn't do it. Jesus fulfilled it when he came as a man, lived as a man in the messy, beautiful, chaotic, ugly, fallen world, resisted so many agonizing temptations-- HE KEPT THE RULES when we wouldn't and couldn't-- and finally gave his life in the ultimate sacrifice of Self for those who did not deserve it.

Oh Lord. Oh Lord. What a Savior. How did he do that? And how can I dismiss his humanity because of his divinity? The Bible states clearly that he was tempted in all points just as we are. Somehow he experienced full humanity, including the anxiety and fear that comes with not knowing whether things will be okay, although he was at the same time God and knew the end from the beginning. How in the world did that work? I don't know. I trust it is true, but if I get an opportunity to ask him some things in Heaven, I hope I remember to ask him that question. 

Psalm 146

Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, oh my soul! While I live I will praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. 

 Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man [human beings] in whom there is no help. 

 His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. 

 Happy is he who hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose help is in the Lord his God! Which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is; which keepeth truth forever! Which executeth judgement for the oppressed, which giveth food to the hungry. 

 The Lord looseth the prisoners! 

 The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind! 

 The Lord raiseth them that are bowed down; the Lord loveth the righteous; the Lord preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and the widow. 

 But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. 

 The Lord shall reign forever! Even thy God, O Zion! Unto all generations! 

 Praise ye the Lord!

Christ and Perfection

When I read the Bible, I sometimes get frustrated at the Israelites and the Apostles. I mean, the Israelites walked away from God over and over again. Throughout their long history, they get close to God, receive blessings, forget God, go into slavery, remember God, beseech Him to rescue them, are rescued, and the cycle begins again. Over and over this happens. And I think, “Come on, Israelites. Haven't you read your own history? Look at the pattern!” It's easy for me to think this because I'm reading what they lived. They lived it slow and messy, but I read it quick and tidy-- in a book.

The Apostles walked with God-on-Earth. Jesus, the Lord Incarnate. They admire him and love him and are in awe of him... and they think he is here to set the Romans straight, put them in their place. One more rescue from the God who is there. Jesus continually tells them they are on the wrong track, but they never get it until they see him rise from the dead. It takes him dying himself-- destroying their dreams of earthly power-- for them to realize something bigger is at work here.

Perhaps when Peter told the people, “You have with wicked hands crucified the Christ,” he was also thinking a little of himself-- how his expectations of Jesus had been so low. He wanted earthly justice, but Christ brought love. After he betrayed the Lord, watched him killed and saw him rise, he finally understood Jesus's perspective. This world is not our home. Then Peter stood fearless and meek-- can we be both?-- although persecuted and eventually killed by his earthly enemies. Because it's not about earthly control. It's about God's love.

This life's problems can seem so big. We don't have God's perspective. If there's one thing I've seen in the Bible, it's that life is complicated and messy and requires a God to put in order. Most of the time, that order is not revealed until later, that's why He says to trust Him and do good. As best you can, do good and love and live at peace with others, even if it seems like it won't “work”. What you think is the solution may not be what God intends at all. His ways are not our ways. They sure aren't. I would totally have gone after the Romans. But that was the wrong thing.

Remember this when you mess up. God doesn't expect us to live to perfection. That's what he was showing us with the Israelites-- he gave an entire nation so many opportunities to get things right, and they went in circles. None of us are any better. None of us. Some sin one way, and some another. If you think you are doing a pretty good job staying within the lines, be wary. The law is a continuum with sin on one side, and sin on the other, and a teeny little sweet spot of perfection in the center. And that's why Christ came. Christ is our perfection. We love him, and good comes of it. But it's all Him. Remember.

Wisdom and Joy in Trials (from James 1:2-6)

Lord Father in heaven, I try to be joyful, even when I am tempted.

I try to remember that when my faith is tried, I'm developing patience.

But many times I get upset, thinking it is a punishment to have to go through trials and temptations.

I am not like Psyche in _Til We Have Faces_. She faced her trials with calm curiosity and industry.

I want to be like that, Lord.  Help me be like that?

Give me wisdom, Lord. You are a God who loves to be asked.  I am asking for wisdom.  I need lots and lots of it. I need action-oriented wisdom and wisdom that knows when not to act.

I believe You will give it to me.  The only doubt I have is regarding my accepting of it.  Lord, please help me to want what You want.  Help my desires to match Yours.  If You say it, I go along.  

What is better than being in the center of Your will?  

What is worse than being outside of it?  

Shout Your will to me; etch it in stone; carve it in my heart, so I cannot ignore it.

Make me strong for you, Lord.  Make me strong and patient and wise for You.

In Jesus's Name,

Amen

From Ephesians 4

Lord Father in Heaven, I pray that you would guide me and all of us to walk worthy of our vocation as your children.

Help us to deal patiently with troubling situations and people, to be restrained in our responses. I pray you would keep us all quiet, gentle and humble.

Let us each walk according to the gifts you have given us, and use them wisely. Help us to edify your children and glorify you with our gifts until we all agree in faith and understand true doctrine and grow more fully into Christ.

Lord, please forgive me for walking in my own vanity, for thinking I can figure everything out.

Open our hearts to your wisdom and help us to accept and act upon it. Save us from the temptations of this world, from perversions and unclean things. Save us from people who would tempt us to those things. Protect our hearts and minds from the things we see every day that would lead us into lust and greed.

I pray Lord that you would renew our minds and give us your new righteous and holy Spirit.

Give us peace and wisdom regarding financial things.

Help us be honest. Help us to be slow to anger and quick to forgive. Help us identify the devil and put him behind us. Show us useful work we can do to help ourselves and others, and give us gumption to do it. Control our tongues, that we only speak words that build up and edify the hearers. Keep from us bitterness, wrath, anger, confusion.

Lord, help us to please you and not to grieve you.

Help us to be like you who love us for your own Son's sake-- kind, tenderhearted, forgiving.

And Lord, please especially guide me today and every day, that I would not place a stumbling-block in front of any of your children.

In Jesus's Name,

Amen

Psalm 127

Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

This is the kind of teacher I want to be.

(h/t Ann Voskamp)

Narration: Colossians 1:9-15

9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

We are praying hard for you ever since we heard of your brotherly love in the Lord.  We are begging Him to make his will plainly and abundantly known to you from all sides, and to guide you spiritually;

10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

To help you to improve your walk with Him, to grow in your knowledge of Him and His ways, and please Him in everything you do;

 11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;

And so you will feel confirmed by His soundness, authority, and might, which will make you steadfast, constant, and joyful in each and every situation; 

12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

Full of thanksgiving to Him who sacrificed His own Son that we might be a part of His family and receive the beginning of our inheritance here on Earth;

14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

Blessed, beautiful Jesus, who redeemed us with His own blood and suffered for our sins as His own:

 15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

Who helps us to comprehend, to apprehend God here on Earth.  

Sara Groves-- Hello Lord

I don't doubt your sovereignty
I doubt my own ability to
Hear what you're saying
And to do the right thing
And I desperately want to do the right thing
But right now I don't hear so well
And I was wondering if you could speak up

Why It Matters (Sara Groves)

I have listened to this song many times
without really processing the words.  

But they are profound and so important.  

This Youtube video highlights the lyrics of this song by Sara Groves.

What On Earth are We Missing?*

Last night I ran out to Walmart to pick up some coffee and milk for the morning.  We had been watching an old 60s movie with lots of driving in it.  As I drove home in the dark, I noticed in the vehicles coming toward me the unnatural glow of cell phones reflected into downturned faces.

(Thankfully, all these people were passengers. Although driving while texting is terribly, tragically common around here.  You show me a person driving down the highway twenty miles under the speed limit, and I'll show you a person texting while driving... or maybe a farmer from the north part of the county who lives at a slower pace than we suburban- and urban-ites, and perhaps we could learn something from him...  But that is a post for another day.)

Anyway, passengers with cell phones.

(I remember the first time we took a road trip with devices.  It was such a lonely experience for the driver, namely, me.  No one to visit or sing with.  I finally rebelled.  No one is happy when Mama ain't happy.  The family was surprised, but they humored me.  The next trip, my husband read aloud from The Count of Monte Cristo as we crossed California, Arizona, New Mexico.  That was much better.)

Evidently I have many blog posts to write on this and related topics.

But back to driving with cell phones.  I noticed on the 60s movie that drivers and passengers dressed nicely, sat up straight, and paid attention to one another.  Probably the driver of one of the cars wished that his backseat passenger-- a backseat driver, really-- had some kind of device to take her mind off criticizing him!  It was a movie and obviously not reality, but it got me thinking.  What else has changed that we don't even notice now?  How much are we missing because of our devices?  (Ironically, people check for updates because they are afraid of missing something in the virtual world.)

There have always been three worlds-- the physical, the mental, the spiritual.  Now we have a fourth-- the virtual world.  It increasingly disrupts activity in the physical world, sometimes with immediate and horrible results.  Is the virtual world part of the physical, mental or spiritual?  Or is it its own place?  And what are we missing by engaging in it?  What desires are we feeding by entering it?

(Yes, I see the irony of writing this in a blog post.)

I'm not sure where I am going with this, but I will go ahead and publish now.  I hope to continue thinking out loud on this topic later.

*Title taken from this book by Philip Yancey

Gracious Words

A paraphrase of Proverbs 15:1-3, based on information found here:

A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. Express your knowledge prudently and gracefully. A gentle tongue brings life, but perverse speech wounds the spirit.

Anxiety the Note of the Transition Stage*

(Title and quotes taken from CM Volume 3 Page 27)

I have often recalled CM's idea that anxiety is the note of a transition stage-- I always thought it meant that the presence of anxiety may reveal that the person is in some kind of transition.  I liked the sound of it.  It rung true.  And I took it and let it echo in my mind, free of context.

This morning I was thinking about my family's various transitions, and there it was again-- "anxiety is the note of the transition stage".  While I have never actually used this statement as license for anxiety (there is that whole "be careful for nothing" scripture in the Bible, after all), it does appear in my head when fear enters my heart-- well, anxiety is the note of the transition stage. What did I expect? To be exempt?

Strange how our minds work.

I was thinking about praising God in the hallway, and there it was, right on schedule.  But this time I wondered, what exactly did she mean by that?  So I went and looked it up.  It is in a chapter on masterly inactivity.

Every new power, whether mechanical or spiritual, requires adjustment before it can be used to the full... to perceive that there is much which we ought to do and not to know exactly what it is, nor how to do it, does not add to the pleasure of life or to ease in living. We become worried, restless, anxious; and in the transition stage between the development of this new power and the adjustment which comes with time and experience, the fuller life, which is certainly ours, fails to make us either happier or more useful.

She is talking about a transition into better habits.  She is revealing that tendency to indulge in restless action when we perceive that our previous efforts have been lacking.  And she is encouraging us to exercise wise passiveness, to be gentle with ourselves (and our children!) as we change:

We ought to do so much for our children, and are able to do so much for them, that we begin to think everything rests with us and that we should never intermit for a moment our conscious action on the young minds and hearts about us... We may take heart. We have the qualities, and all that is wanted is adjustment; to this we must give our time and attention.

 She is really talking about the development of a new power in a human being, not the deliverance of God in the midst of circumstances.  Not every transition in our lives is the result of us making a move toward better habits.  I have been misapplying this idea!

I wonder how many other idea fragments float around in my head, prepared to leap out and be misapplied at a moment's notice.

Anxiety is the note of transition from a worse habit to a better one.  And, rather than anxiously nitpicking every little thing that has to do with a new habit, Miss Mason recommends we rest ourselves in Sphynx-like repose, keeping on the alert without being fussy, and trust that the new habit will develop with time.

What does this have to do with praising God in the hallway as we wait for him to open doors?  Well, in some cases we need to work and wait, asking Him what we should do. (It is often not what we want to do.)  In others we need to wait without work, accepting that there is nothing we can do, and refrain from complaining. (This is often harder than doing what the Lord tells us to do!)  But always we should ask the Lord to redeem our feeble efforts.

I'm praising God in the hallway and in the doorway and fully in the room this morning.  I pray He will direct my steps, redeem my efforts, and still my murmuring thoughts.

Many Things

I don't know how to trust God.  My screensaver bounces with the words, "Trust God, Trust God".  I put that up months ago, hoping it would somehow seep into me, perhaps by spiritual osmosis.  I think in some ways it has, but not really.  It HAS.  But it also hasn't.  I mean, there's a long way to go.

It's silly to trust someone if you don't talk with the person.  I want to pray, but then I think He knows everything already, and He knows what is happening with me.  He knows my secret thoughts and motivations that I don't even understand and couldn't express to Him.  Why do I have to pray? He already knows.

Then I hear C.S. Lewis, in the voice of a Narnian horse, "He likes to be asked."  Well, really.  He likes to be asked.

And I know He doesn't have to help me.  I haven't done anything to be worthy of help.  I believe He chose me and saved me and I am safely in His eternal care, and if He never did anything else for me, He has still done way more than I deserve.  Why would He do more? He saved me from eternal torment, didn't he?

But He DOES help me.  Even when I forget to pray, He still helps.  I feel Him reminding me that I am His child, and He loves me, and will do for me, and when things are so hard, so hard, He is there and why don't I talk to Him?

I don't want Him to hear the angry things.  Why do people have to deal with so much pain, why is there so much cruelty, and it goes on for so long?  Why doesn't He just take us to Heaven right now?  Why doesn't He get my life in line with my expectations?  Always short something, always unsure what will happen next, always wondering.  Why does He love such a self-absorbed me?

And I'm so silly.  Does He really want me to pray about the worn carpet, or the disheveled flowerbeds, or the broken vacuum cleaner and lawn mower?  How I feel alone in a room full of people, with my own family even, and how I hate and love our screens and devices that bring so much to us and take so much away?  Or my feeling that I may dehydrate and shrivel up if I don't get my coffee obsession under control?

How embarrassing it is to need help.  We're supposed to be self-sufficient, right?  Well, I am not.  My life overwhelms me.  And he helps.  He really does.  Right now I could name at least ten providential mercies that have occurred in my life in the last six months, even when my prayers were apologetic struggles... Lord, sorry, but I'm not keeping it together.  I need You AGAIN.  I really want to keep it together so You can help the people being martyred for loving You, and the people perishing in floods and tornadoes, and the people dying with terminal diseases.  And all the terrible stuff happening in Washington.

Oh goodness.  I'm limiting God.  Like He can't do it all.  I know what it says in the Bible, and I believe it, but I don't really believe it. I know it is there, and obviously it is true, but I don't feel the truth of it.

You know what's funny?  I do not think He can do all the work set out for him in the world, and yet I think I ought to be able to take care of every thing that passes in front of me, and I want to rally my troops to take care of every thing that passes in front of us because then God will have more time to deal with the important stuff, like martyrs and cancer victims.

But sometimes just mowing the lawn or getting started on schoolwork feels like an inhuman struggle to me, and I am so ashamed of that.

And you know, He doesn't fix everything.  He leaves some things as-is for whatever reason.  He could leave me and my life as-is, but so far He hasn't, even when I can't pray.  He is merciful to me.  And yet I worry and do not trust Him.  Maybe He will decide not to be merciful next time.   And what if He does?  See the paragraph above regarding His eternal care.  Or maybe my idea of mercy is not the same as His.  Maybe His thoughts are not my thoughts.  Let the unrighteous woman forsake her thoughts.  Let her return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on her.

The key to this is to focus on Him and not on me.  I am not sure how to do that.  I am so self-centered. Who will teach me this focus, to keep turning myself back to Him when I realize (almost every moment of every day) that I am focused on me?

With all this failure, I know He still loves me and will love me forever.  That is such a miracle.  Why does He love me?  He is a good God and loves His children, even though they don't deserve it.  Can I accept something I don't feel I deserve?  If I can't, then why not? Must be pride.

How does one practice simply trusting God and accepting His gifts?  That nagging guilt, that ugly lie of Satan, "You should not have this.  You have not worked for it." It needs to be silenced.  Go away, devil! My God says I may have it, and therefore it is okay.  It is a beautiful, sacred thing that He has given me because He loves me.  Love isn't about work and earning things.  It is mine, and He is mine, and you are a liar.  I can relish His good gifts and and trust Him, and rest from guilt and shame.  There is no condemnation.  Have you read Romans 8?  I am free from the law of sin and death.

Oh, that I could live in the Spirit!  Lord God, give me that.  That's what I want.  Lord Jesus, I can put up with the lawn mower and the schoolwork, and the questions about good and evil, but teach me to live always in the Spirit!

Compassion and Condemnation and the Sinner

There is a chapter in the book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in which Francie and Neeley get vaccinated in order to attend school.  In the hours beforehand, Neeley gets nervous, so Francie consoles him with making mud pies.  Of course, they get incredibly dirty.  At the appointed time, a neighbor leans out the window to remind them of their appointment, and, without washing, Francie and Neeley go to the clinic.

At the clinic, the doctor sighs and complains to the nurse of their dirtiness, assuming it is a byproduct of poverty and ignorance.  He is a Harvard man with a socially prominent fiance who thinks of his service at the clinic as time in Purgatory.  The nurse is from Francie's neighborhood and has worked hard to leave it behind.

Little Francie, stunned by the doctor's cruel complaint, expects the nurse to say something loving and kind, like:

"Maybe this little girl's mother works and didn't have time to wash her good this morning."

OR

"You know how it is, Doctor.  Children will play in dirt."

But the nurse fails.  She says, "I know.  Isn't it terrible?  I sympathize with you, Doctor.  There is no excuse for these people living in filth."

These people.

Betty Smith writes:

A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the bootstrap route has two choices.  Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel up climb.

I've been thinking about this in relation to sin and being a sinner.  The analogy is not perfect, but sometimes I think we are so scared we might revert back to old ways, or be identified with sinful practices, that, like the nurse, we fail to have compassion for others.  And by we I mean me.

Here I Raise My Ebenezer: Part 1

Here I raise my Ebenezer,
Hither by Thy help I've come
And I hope by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home.

Our oldest is a senior this year.  She turned eighteen in September.  She is a legal adult.  She owns her car outright, works a part-time job, and voted in the Presidential election.  She has applied to colleges and been accepted.  Scholarships (and applications for more scholarships) are arriving.  The order of the day is excitement, anticipation and essay writing.  Lots of essay writing.

In the midst of her success, I am thinking back over the last fifteen years or so, how the Lord's provision has blessed her to thrive with a home education.  Many times over the years I have wondered, "Lord, how are we going to do THIS?"

Embarking on a venture never undertaken by family or friends will bring you to your knees in prayer!

The Lord has always answered the question in His own time.  This always surprises me, though I don't know why it should.  He delights in giving good gifts to His children.  Every time it happens, I think, "Wow, He still wants to work with us on this!"

So I plan to write a series of posts on how the Lord has provided through our homeschool journey thus far.  I hope the posts are an encouragement to you.

Someone once advised us to work as if it were all up to us, and pray as if it were all up to God.  We try to do this, although my dad would tell you I often "worry as if it were all up to me."  I try not to worry.  It is a sin, as my dad says.  The best thing for worry is to pray to God, and keep praying when you find you have that worry back in your mind.

My dad was a huge reason we decided to homeschool.  The Warrior Poet and I would never have considered it.  We don't even have college degrees!  But in his travels, Dad met homeschooled students and appreciated their maturity and thoughtfulness.  In his inimitable way, he began working on us, using logic and statistics, as well as constant gentle nudging, until we said we would give it a try.

We honestly did not think we would be successful, but Aravis was young (age 3 1/2) and we had time to put her in school if I failed at teaching her to read.

She was reading the KJV Bible by age 4, so I was stuck.  ;o)

Far Too Easily Pleased

Now I am thinking about this:

If you asked twenty good men to-day

what they thought 

the highest of the virtues, 

nineteen of them would reply, 

Unselfishness. 

But if you asked almost any 

of the great Christians of old 

he would have replied, 

Love. 

You see what has happened? 

A negative term 

has been substituted for a positive, 

and this is of more than philological importance. 

The negative ideal of Unselfishness 

carries with it the suggestion 

not primarily of securing good things for others, 

but of going without them ourselves, 

as if our abstinence 

and not their happiness 

was the important point.

I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. 

The New Testament has lots to say 

about self-denial,

but not about self-denial as an end in itself.

We are told to deny ourselves 

and to take up our crosses 

in order that we may follow Christ; 

and nearly every description 

of what we shall ultimately find if we do so

contains an appeal to desire. 

If there lurks in most modern minds 

the notion that to desire our own good 

and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it 

is a bad thing, 

I submit that this notion has crept in 

from Kant and the Stoics 

and is no part of the Christian faith. 

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward 

and the staggering nature of the rewards 

promised in the Gospels, 

it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, 

not too strong, 

but too weak. 

We are half-hearted creatures,

fooling about with drink and sex and ambition 

when infinite joy is offered us,

like an ignorant child 

who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum 

because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer

of a holiday at the sea.

We are far too easily pleased.

C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory