God the Romantic May 30, 2012

It was the longest my husband, Daniel, and I had been apart since we got married—approximately 61 hours (not that I was keeping track). I’d been out of town for work, and although the conference was well worth my while, by the time my coworker dropped me off at my car, I was ready to be heading home.

 

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I looked to my right and saw a guy on a bicycle. Wow, I thought, that looks a lot like Daniel’s bike. I checked to see if the light had changed, then glanced at the cyclist again. Hmm, he’s built a lot like Daniel too. I did a double take. Wait…that IS Daniel!

 

Sure enough, he had ridden the 20 miles from our home just so he could see me at the soonest possible moment. On a pragmatic level, it didn’t make much sense. All that time and energy could have been poured into something more productive, more practical. Something that would have offered a more tangible payoff than merely the look of shock and wonder on my face.

 

Once we got Daniel’s bicycle loaded in the back of my car and the decibel level of my squealing came to a decrescendo, we headed home together. The sun was just starting to set, and we were driving straight toward it. It was one of those skies you’d be hard pressed to describe with definable colors, even with the help of one of those 150-crayon Crayola boxes. The clouds out the passenger window were on fire with iridescent oranges and yellows. Straight ahead, rays of light were bursting through a curtain of purply clouds.

 

And in that moment I was reminded that, like Daniel, our Creator is a romantic. Sure, he made this world operational and scientifically coherent, but I appreciate that he also made it beautiful. Impractically so. He could have made a perfectly functional black-and-white world…one without sunsets and 20,000 varieties of daisies and 339 species of hummingbirds.

 

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
the moon and the stars you set in place—
what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
human beings that you should care for them?
—Psalm 8:3-4

 

I have to wonder if God, too, delights in surprising us. He must figure it’s worth all the effort to create something so breathtaking that we are jolted out of our routine, forced to double-take, compelled to look at him with fresh eyes.

 

That night as our car rolled westward, I found myself amazed that the Creator-God, who could have been doing anything at all in our great big universe, would choose, in that moment, to be with “mere mortals” like us.

 

In the presence of such majesty, we can only join with David in his psalm of praise:

O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

—Psalm 8:9

***

Question: What part of God’s creation causes you to do a double-take?

 

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

 

Songs of Lament May 25, 2012

As I’m reading the Psalms, one of my favorite things is how emotionally honest they are. David and the other psalm writers don’t whitewash their feelings—they put them out there, raw and “unspiritual” though they may be. Some psalms soar in choruses of joy; others pound out refrains of anger. And then there are the ones that are pretty much sobs put to paper.

 

At least 50 of the Psalms fall into that last category. These songs of anguish are frequently referred to as laments—cries of grief intended to go straight to the Lord’s ears. I recently heard this definition of a lament from Gregg DeMey, a pastor in Chicago: “To lament is to tell the difficult truth to someone who loves you in the hope that it will make a difference.”

Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in distress.
Tears blur my eyes.
My body and soul are withering away.
I am dying from grief;
my years are shortened by sadness.
—Psalm 31:9-10

 

How often do I get at least one of the pieces of that definition wrong? Sometimes I’m not transparent with God, and my prayer never gets past the surface to how I’m really feeling. Or maybe at times I tell him the difficult truth, but I don’t really think he cares. Or maybe, if I’m honest, I’m not convinced he can do anything about it.

 

One of the most fascinating aspects of these laments is the way they tend to make an emotional pivot before the psalm wraps up. Despair turns to hope. Fear turns to faith. Doubt turns to praise.

But I am trusting you, O Lord,
saying, “You are my God!”
My future is in your hands.
—Psalm 31:14-15

 

So how do we get to that crucial but? How can we turn the corner from lament to trust? I’m noticing a surprising trend in these laments: while they begin with I, they tend to land closer to we. When I’m hurting, my default is to shrink inward, turtle-like. But if these psalms are any indication, we need community to process pain.

Love the Lord, all you godly ones!…
Be strong and courageous,
all you who put your hope in the Lord!
—Psalm 31:23-24

 

Here’s a challenge for all of us in the week ahead: Let’s tell God the difficult truth. Knowing that he loves us. In the hope that it will make a difference. And let’s not do it alone.

 

***

Question: Which part of lament do you find the trickiest?

The Joy of “Again!” May 22, 2012

“I can’t go to sleep, Daddy,” Lyla said. “My heart is crying.”

My brother and his family were on vacation in Florida, and he’d gone in to check on my three-year-old niece, who was supposed to be napping.

He put his hand on the top of her head. “Why is your heart crying?”

“My heart wants to go in the water. It won’t stop crying until it can go swimming again.”

Never mind the fact that she’d been splashing in the pool all day yesterday, she’d been out the entire morning that day, and tomorrow would be more of the same. Her little heart never tired of this bliss. Again, Daddy!

I have to confess that at this point I’m getting a bit bogged down in my chronological reading. Yes, I love the fact that the psalms are right next to the events that inspired them, and David has enough drama to put Days of Our Lives to shame. The part that’s getting to me is the repetition.

Ever since I hit the book of 2 Samuel, I’ve been getting waves of scriptural déjà vu. About halfway through my daily readings, I find myself stopping to wonder, Didn’t I just read that? And then I realize I’m getting the story a second time, this time from the 1 Chronicles perspective.

I wish I could say I jump at the chance to ingest these truths a second time around, soaking them in over my cup of coffee, but that’s not how things typically pan out. I find myself skimming the repeated sections, my mind wandering toward my ever-lurking to-do list. My sense of efficiency takes offense at such repetition.

 

But my brother’s story stops me short. Is this what it means to have a childlike faith? To be a child, after all, is to love repetition, to be fully present in the moment. To be a child is to beg your father, “Again! Again!”

G. K. Chesterton poses the idea that children may be onto something spiritual in their love of repetition:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, Do it again; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough….It is possible that God says every morning, Do it again, to the sun; and every evening, Do it again, to the moon. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

I just read David’s song of praise twice—once from 2 Samuel and once from the Psalms. But this time when I got to the repeated bits, I tried to approach them like a child—with delight in the repetition.

I will praise you among the nations;
I will sing praises to your name. . . .
You show unfailing love to your anointed,
to David and all his descendants forever.
—2 Samuel 22:50-51

I will praise you among the nations;
I will sing praises to your name. . . .
You show unfailing love to your anointed,
to David and all his descendants forever.
—Psalm 18:49-50

May I take my cue from little Lyla: Again, Daddy! Again!

***

 

Question: What do the little people in your life teach you about childlike faith?

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

Four Feet Off the Ground May 18, 2012

My first summer job as a teenager was as a gymnastics coach at the YMCA. I was in charge of the Beginners class, which ranged from four-year-olds in pint-sized leotards to junior high girls who had watched the Summer Olympics and been inspired by the likes of Shannon Miller and Kerri Strug.

Invariably the girls were enamored with the tumbling mats and the uneven bars. They loved somersaulting and cartwheeling to their hearts’ content, and they delighted in swinging on the bars. But there was a consistent nemesis for these budding gymnasts: the balance beam.

I couldn’t blame them. Here they were supposed to walk on a four-inch slab of wood four feet off the ground—and most of their heads didn’t even reach the top of the beam! But the fact remained: if they were going to pass the class and advance to the next level, they’d have to make it from one end of the beam to the other. All by themselves.

I’ll never forget the five-year-old twins in my class: tow-headed girls named Zoe and Chloe. Chloe had successfully completed each requisite for the class and had her certificate proudly in hand, marking her promotion to Advanced Beginners. But her blue eyes got big when a realization struck: her sister hadn’t walked the beam yet.

My progression for teaching this particular skill went like this: first, I’d have the girls walk on a line on the floor to show them that four inches was wider than they thought. Then when each girl got up on the beam, I’d keep pace alongside her, holding her hand each step of the way. When I was confident the gymnast was ready, I’d send her on her first solo attempt.

Zoe had the skills to conquer the balance beam, and she knew exactly what she needed to do. But she was facing an obstacle more daunting than the four-foot apparatus in front of her: a mental one. As soon as I’d let go of her hand, she’d look at the ground below, and all she could think about was how far she had to fall. But here’s the thing about walking four feet above the ground: if you want to make it to your destination, you have to keep your eyes up. Otherwise you’ll lose balance, perspective. And that’s when you’re destined to fall.

Reading the account of David’s affair with Bathsheba is a bit like watching those Olympic gymnasts on the balance beam. You hold your breath, knowing a misstep could result in the catastrophic loss of everything they’d worked so hard to achieve.

Perhaps the worst part about David’s story is how oblivious he was to his fall at first. Despite his status as a man after God’s own heart, he didn’t confess straight away—not after Bathsheba turned up pregnant, not after he received word that Uriah had been killed on the front lines of battle. It wasn’t until the prophet Nathan confronted him, boldly calling him on his sin (2 Samuel 12), that he finally broke down and repented.

His heartbreaking cry for mercy is recorded in Psalm 51:

Have mercy on me, O God,
because of your unfailing love.
Because of your great compassion,
blot out the stain of my sins.
Wash me clean from my guilt.
Purify me from my sin.
—Psalm 51:1-2

As humans we have a tendency to embrace a cheap imitation of grace, interpreting it as an excuse to brush off sin or downplay its consequences. But Scripture presents a clear pattern: repentance and godly sorrow first, then mercy.

On the last day of the gymnastics class, I looked at Zoe. “Okay, kiddo,” I said. “Today is your day.”

She got onto the beam, her little knees knocking. Then, instead of standing beside her, I went to the far end of the balance beam. “Keep your head up,” I told her. “Just look at me.” Step by step she inched forward, her eyes never leaving mine.

There are times we need friends who will walk beside us and urge us along. But there are other times we need a coach who will boldly tell us to lift our eyes off the ground so we can walk the straight and narrow. Sometimes the most grace-invoking thing a friend can do is confront us.

In this precarious walk called life, we all need a Nathan.

***

 

Question: Do you have a Nathan? If not, who can you invite to be your Nathan?

 

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

 

Eating with the Enemy May 15, 2012

One of the stories my family likes to tell on me is the Crotchety Old Man on the Bike Path incident. You might hear various renditions and or embellishments depending on the source, but the basic version goes like this:

 

The five of us were taking a family bike ride along the Mississippi River, with our 70-pound dog in tow in the baby Burley. (I realize this is not normal.) About halfway into our ride, we approached a clearing that looked like the perfect spot to skip rocks and let the dog out for a swim. There were houses on one side of the bike path, which we steered clear of, but the land on the river-side of the path appeared to be common property.

 

That’s where we were dreadfully wrong.

 

As soon as we hopped off our bikes and headed toward the river, an older man came storming out of his house. “Git off my property!” he shouted. He laid into us, one by one, ranting about trespassers and threatening to call the police. Then he got right up in my face. “If I came over to your house and started walking on your lawn,” he shouted, “what would you do?”

 

I blinked and, without thinking, replied, “Well, we’d probably invite you over for dinner.”

 

I’m not sure who was more surprised—Mr. Crotchety Old Man or me. But all at once, the anger spewing out of him dissipated. On his way back to the house, he looked over his shoulder. “There’s a park thatta way,” he said, pointing.

 

One of the most surprising things about grace, I’m learning, is its reciprocal nature. When you’ve been graced yourself, that grace has a tendency to overflow onto someone else.

 

David had experienced truckloads of unwarranted favor from God over the course of his life. He started out as a nobody—a poor shepherd with no future to speak of. Yet he was the one God chose to anoint as king; his was the family God chose for the lineage of the Messiah.

 

For all his royalty and stardom, David never forgot where he came from. Here’s his response to the covenant promise the Lord made to him:

Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And now, Sovereign Lord, in addition to everything else, you speak of giving your servant a lasting dynasty!
—2 Samuel 7:18-19

It doesn’t seem coincidental that just a couple of chapters later we see David taking the grace that was poured out on him and sharing it with the one person everyone else thought should have received his wrath.

The former king, Saul, had spent much of his reign been trying to kill David, running him out of the country, and generally making his life miserable. Yet after Saul died, David went out of his way to find his enemy’s one living descendant—not to seek revenge, but to show him kindness for the sake of his friend Jonathan.

From that time on, Mephibosheth ate regularly at David’s table, like one of the king’s own sons.
—2 Samuel 9:11

David showed Saul’s grandson Mephibosheth the ultimate grace: he invited him to dinner.

May there always be room at our table for the grandsons of our enemies. And for crotchety old men.

 

***

Question: Who do you need to invite over for dinner today?

 

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

Graceful Remembering May 11, 2012

At a conference I attended recently, I heard a firsthand account of graceful remembering. An author named Margot Starbuck told the story of her childhood and her quest for the Father-love she never had from her earthly fathers.

Margot experienced the double whammy of abandonment early in her life, having been given up for adoption as a baby and then having her stepfather succumb to alcoholism and leave the family when she was a young girl. These abandonments from the very people who were meant to reflect the parental love of God sent her on a desperate search for the true nature of God’s love, which she chronicles in her memoir, The Girl in the Orange Dress.

What struck me most when I read Margot’s story wasn’t so much the tragic nature of her memories, but what she left out.

She never shies away from the truth or the pain of what she went through, and she doesn’t excuse her father and her stepfather for their absence. But the focus in her remembering is on the way she grew from her losses and the mysterious good God brought out of them. She offers both men the kind of forgiveness and grace they don’t deserve. But then again, that’s what grace, by its very definition, is all about.

I was equally amazed when I read the funeral song David wrote for his nemesis, King Saul. David had been nothing but faithful to Saul all his life, fighting for him, defending his honor, protecting him against assassination attempts. By way of thanks, Saul tried to kill and him and then drove him out of the country.

And yet this is how David remembered Saul after his death: 

How beloved and gracious were Saul and Jonathan!
They were together in life and in death. . . .
Oh, how the mighty heroes have fallen!
—2 Samuel 1:23, 25

I imagine David hadn’t forgotten all the evil Saul had inflicted on him when he was alive. But when it came to his final reckoning, David chose to remember with grace rather than bitterness.

Just as Margot did.

Surprisingly, Margot told us that her book has served as a reconciliation tool of sorts between her and her dad. Her father, the very one she wrote about abandoning her, now gives her book to just about everyone he meets.

How beloved and gracious, indeed.

 

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

God’s Tear Jar May 8, 2012

My husband, Daniel, has given me many gifts in the nine months we’ve been married, but one of the most gracious is the way he handles my tears.

Over the years I’ve prided myself in my ability to handle things pretty stoically, at least to all watching eyes. But somehow since saying, “I do,” I’ve found I’m much leakier than I used to be—perhaps because I’ve found in Daniel such a safe place.

One of my favorite images in the Psalms is the picture David paints in Psalm 56 of God collecting all our tears in a bottle. David was no stranger to sadness. For all that his life was charmed—what with giant killing and a promotion from shepherd to king—he still had plenty to feel down about along the way.

It seems significant that David wrote about God’s tear jar when he did: just after being rejected by two communities. First, by King Saul, whom David had served faithfully, both with his music and in battle, risking his very life only to be repaid with a spear aimed at his head. On the heels of that rejection came another one: this time from the Philistines, whom David had been fighting with side-by-side since his exile. It was in that moment of feeling alone that he cried out to God:

You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.
—Psalm 56:8

When I picture heaven, I envision one room that’s filled with shelf after shelf of jars—jars of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Each one is labeled with a name, and on the inside are all the tears that person sheds during his or her time on earth.

Something I love about the tear jar image is what it says about God’s view of our suffering. He doesn’t tell us to suck it up; he doesn’t instruct us to plaster a fake smile on our faces; he doesn’t wag his finger and rebuke us for being babies. He tenderly collects every tear, validating each stab of pain we feel. No teardrop is too bitter. No sorrow too small. Each one is lovingly guided into the jar.

When Daniel and I first got married, I found myself frequently apologizing for my tears. Especially when they felt weak or unnecessary or just plain silly. But each time Daniel would put his arms around me and find the nearest napkin or paper towel or sleeve to wipe my runny mascara. Then he’d say, “You don’t have to be sorry. The Daniel-and-Stephanie team is okay with tears.”

God’s team, gratefully, is the same. The jars in heaven with your name on it is proof.

“Where there are tears, we should pay attention.”
—Frederick Buechner

 

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

Inconvenient Friends May 5, 2012

Someone once told me there are three types of friends: Christmas Card Friends (the ones you’d like to see a photo of each year but that’s sufficient), 7-11 Friends (the ones who are convenient but you probably won’t call them at 2 a.m.), and Kidney Donor Friends (the ones you’d give one of your kidneys to, if need be).

 

The year I turned 25, I realized how much I needed those Kidney Donor Friends. Even though my kidneys were functioning just fine, thank you.

 

Within the span of a few months, my two best friends got married and so did my little brother, and my baby sister packed her bags and headed off to college. Making matters worse in my litany of first-world single-girl problems, one of the friends who had gotten hitched was my former roommate. Which meant I was living alone, for the first time in my life.

 

***

 

If anyone was in need of a faithful, kidney-level friend, it was David. He’d had his share of successes—killing a giant, notching some significant battle victories, and being anointed the future king. But now the current king, Saul, was trying to kill him, and he was forced to flee the very country he was supposed to rule someday.

 

Strangely, it was Saul’s son—the heir apparent—who showed David true friendship. On more than one occasion, and at great risk to himself, Jonathan saved his friend’s life, effectively handing over the crown that should have been his.

 

***

 

After a few weeks of general moping and ringing up astronomical electric bills trying to scare away would-be boogeymen, I decided something needed to change. And in my experience, change feels so much more novel if it comes in the form of a movement…or better yet, a campaign. So I dubbed my little program the ALC: the Anti-Loneliness Campaign.

 

The premise was simple: I knew that anytime I was feeling low, I would get a case of emotional amnesia, and I’d forget all the people who loved me. So I put a list on my refrigerator with names on it—people who agreed to let me call them anytime, night or day, in a crisis or for no reason at all. I even asked these people to sign my refrigerator covenant (yes, I have forebearing friends). That way whenever I heard the whispers that I was utterly alone, that no one loved me, those signatures could tell me otherwise.

 

Jonathan made David reaffirm his vow of friendship again, for Jonathan loved David as he loved himself.

—1 Samuel 20:17

 

If David had had a refrigerator, I have no doubt he would have posted his vow of friendship there.

 

***

One of the unexpected perks of the ALC, aside from discovering that I really did have Kidney Donor Friends, was the way their faithfulness reminded me of God’s faithfulness. The same seemed to be true for David. After he and Jonathan said their good-byes, David fled from Saul and hid in a cave. From there he wrote a heart-wrenching psalm about the enemies who had set a trap for him and how weary he was. But shortly thereafter his psalm turns a corner:

My heart is confident in you, O God;

my heart is confident.

No wonder I can sing your praises!

—Psalm 57:6-7

 

Scripture doesn’t specifically say this, but I have to wonder if it was Jonathan’s friendship, at least in part, that helped David believe God hadn’t left him after all.

 

I have since taken the ALC papers off the fridge, and I hope I never need to call in a kidney favor from one of my friends. But I’m grateful to know that I am never truly alone. Like David, my heart can be confident in my God.

 

***

 

Question: Do you have a Kidney Donor Friend?

 

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

Waiting and Other Acts of Heroism May 1, 2012

At this point in my chronological Bible reading, heroes abound: Samson, the muscle man who famously took down the Philistine temple with his bare hands. Gideon, the army commander who led a band of ragtag soldiers to defeat a daunting enemy. Ehud, the leftie who plunged his dagger into the gut of the opposing king.

But it wasn’t until I hit 1 Samuel that I discovered someone truly heroic: an unassuming woman named Hannah. She had no battle victories under her belt, no enemy kills, no feats of physical strength. Her claim to fame: she was a good waiter.

Hannah longed desperately for a baby, but month after month, year after year, nothing changed. She was raw with the waiting, aching over the silence that met her request each time. She didn’t try to hide the hurt of her unanswered prayers. When she went to the Tabernacle to cry out to God, Scripture says she “was in deep anguish, crying bitterly as she prayed to the LORD” (1 Samuel 1:10).

Yet even in the face of her anguish, she didn’t give up hope. In my book, that takes more courage than any battlefield heroics.

My friend Heather has been aching for a baby for six long years. After several miscarriages and unsuccessful medical interventions, she and her husband have ventured onto the roller coaster of domestic adoption. I’ve watched their hopes soar and plummet with each new possibility, each phone call.

After carefully filling out form after form in what Heather refers to as a “paper pregnancy,” going through a battery of interviews and tests, and writing an extensive profile complete with photos and essays, Heather and Rick figured the only thing left to do was wait.

They just never imagined they’d be waiting this long.

One birth mother agreed to have them adopt her little girl, but near the end of her pregnancy she decided she wanted siblings for the baby and went with another family instead. A teenage girl they’d connected with miscarried late term. Another woman changed her mind and decided to raise her child on her own.

Right now Heather and Rick find themselves in the position of waiting yet again. They were scheduled to meet with another birth mother last week, but she canceled at the last minute, saying she needed more time to think.

Like Hannah, there are days when Heather grieves and cries out in anguish to her God. Yet she keeps hoping, even when it means putting her heart out there to get hurt again. She keeps praying, even when it feels like her prayers are met with haunting silence. And through it all, she keeps holding on to the very God who heard Hannah’s cries.

The part of Hannah’s story that I find most inspiring is the timing of her heart change. I guess I’d always assumed her grieving stopped after her miracle baby was born. But as I look more closely at the story, I realize that’s not quite the chronology:

“In that case,” Eli [the priest] said, “go in peace! May the God of Israel grant the request you have asked of him.”

 

“Oh, thank you, sir!” she exclaimed. Then she went back and began to eat again, and she was no longer sad.

—1 Samuel 1:17-18

The joy came first, then the answer.

Hannah’s joy didn’t depend on having the miracle in hand. It was enough that God heard her plea.

Someday, by God’s grace, I hope I’ll be able to wait with that kind of joy. Like my heroes, Hannah and Heather.

***

Question: What are you waiting for right now?

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.