Category: Uncategorized

Recently I’ve realized there’s more than one awkward phase in life, or at least that’s the way it seems to me. Maybe it’s more of an evolving than even the first one was. When they become pre-teens and then teens, we know our children will go through that time, because we went through it, when they have to struggle with who they are. Where do they fit in…and even a larger question. “Why don’t I fit in? What’s wrong with me?”

I was a teen in the late 60’s and early 70’s and I finally had to realize that coming from a poor white family transplanted from the urban to the very rural part of the Midwest following the death of MLK, it was too late for me to fit in.  I had been transported to basketball country. I had no athletic ability and didn’t understand or enjoy the game. Add to that, I couldn’t take part in after-school activities or bring friends home after school because our family had secrets. The secret of incest and child molestation.  My father didn’t hold a job very long so we moved often,  constantly changing schools, so developing friendships was often a poor investment because we wouldn’t be there long enough to cultivate them.

But then I outgrew most of those things and once I got away from home and into various work places over the next couple of decades, I kept my secrets, met a wider variety of people from a more diverse culture and found things I was good at. Eventually I turned my secrets over to the Lord and He brought grace and healing from the molestation.

Finally I fit in, at least in the culture where I lived.

I met a man during my 40’s who didn’t. He was a man of short stature in a workplace full of sports enthusiasts with much greater height. They either played golf or racquetball. He didn’t enjoy either. He was a quiet man. He was a brilliant man with an analytical mind. If he heard a joke, he was the last to laugh because his mind was taking apart the scenario. He was a man socially awkward but was valued for his engineering abilities. He was just left out of the “inner circle”. It took a few years working with him before I realized he didn’t care. Engineer by day, he rushed home at night to a wife who didn’t understand his mind, but saw him as her superhero. His children were his biggest fans. He was popular with his children’s friends because he would spend time with them exploring science secrets, often times blowing things up, and he was the secret weapon behind all their science fair projects.

Once he told me his hidden passion. Something about himself that wasn’t known to many. He had a hobby. Quite a profitable one as it turned out.  This man created violins. He sold them internationally. He only finished two or three a year because after they were created, if he didn’t like the sound they produced, he started over. It was then I realized that man wasn’t a “misfit”. He had a unique set of gifts and he had found his own place. He was a wonderful husband, a loving and beloved father, and a master craftsman of violins. He was a man blessed by God and he knew it. He was content to walk in his life as it was, without the need for others’ approval.

What a valuable place to be.

After decades of fitting in, my seasons have changed. My husband passed. My youngest is in college and comes home as it fits in with her process of becoming independent. I am no longer in the workplace. So my identity as wife, caregiver, mom extraordinaire and valued employee are gone. I live alone for the most part with a black Lab and a rough-coat Collie, temporary caregiver for my daughter’s dogs because never has there been a college dorm that can accommodate them, even if they were permitted.

I’m of that age where I can now mentor the younger women in their own journey to grow in God’s grace and purpose while I  attempt to achieve the dignity of the aged Godly women. By the grace and power of my Lord Jesus Christ, I have survived and recovered from two strokes in the past year. He is my fortress, my constant Companion and my closest Friend. I am convinced He laughs both with me and at me. As I look around during those times when it seems no one thinks like I do any more. as I realize there is less of my life in front of me than there is behind me, as I acknowledge that I speak more bluntly than most people are comfortable with, I have come to a conclusion.

In this evolving, I may no longer fit in with cliques of people. But in Him, there are no misfits. He knows me and yet loves me unconditionally. He knows me and still takes pleasure in me. He knows my past mistakes and has forgiven them all. He knows every stupid choice I’ve ever made, but I have learned that even when I gave Him occasion to roll His eyes, He has pulled me closer to Him, as close to Him as I will let Him.

During this season when I see myself as a misfit to culture, even Christian culture sometimes, as I endeavor to find my place again, I have come to the knowledge that in Him, I fit in. I am His. You are, too, if you want to be.

What a valuable place to be.

 

For Mrs Noah, it was crunch time. Everything was placed on board. The final details were coming to a close. Mrs had said her farewells and both her heart and her back may have been feeling the strain. I can not even imagine the stress Mrs was under. Even though it had been talked about for decades, she had no ability to picture what was about to happen when the rains came. She had never seen rain, never heard the sound of it on her roof or never rejoiced when the rains came after a long dry spell.

To think the earth would be destroyed was unthinkable. We don’t know how often she went back over her lists…her ‘to do’ list and her ‘people I will never see again’ list. What we do know is that Noah accomplished what God told him to do and he didn’t do it alone.

I have to wonder if Mrs questioned God. I have to believe she would have wanted to bring more people. Scripture doesn’t say there was an alternative to the entire population being destroyed. I can’t fathom that Mrs didn’t plead with God to change His mind. “But God, they are my brothers. They are the children of my sisters. My friend, Lord, she’s been my friend since we were infants.”

Do you suppose Mrs ever got angry with God and asked “How can a loving God do this?” We don’t know. We can only wonder. We can only know that between then and now there was a rainbow and God’s promise that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood.

And since then there was a Savior sent. God Himself came as a man. As humans none of us are any better than the people Mrs loved that got left behind. This time, though, God came to earth Himself. All man and all God in the body of Jesus. So no one ever has to be left behind to drown in our own sin again. Instead of destroying the earth and all in it, God sent His son, not to condemn the world, but to save everyone in it who will believe on Him. John 3:16,17.

In the body of Jesus, redemption from sin, sickness, poverty, and lack of peace was purchased. Blood was shed. Punishment was poured out. The power of the enemy was broken.  Because of our Lord becoming our sin substitute and bearing the punishment in His own body, we no longer need to wonder how a loving God can “do this”.  He doesn’t. The price was paid. The enemy has been defeated. 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that death is the final enemy to be defeated. There’s coming a day of no more separation. What a promise! 2 Corinthians 1:20 tells us that in Jesus, every promise God made is “Yes”.

Resurrection morning is coming. We celebrate the new covenant God made with us through the body, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, who became a curse for us. We are no longer cursed to be destroyed, but free to receive all that He has provided. Only believe. He has done all things well.

Noah walked with God. Genesis 6:9

As Mrs sat making the list of things to take, things to do, and things to remember, she heard a movement and looked up. Her daughters-in-law were standing in front of her.  Seeing from their expressions that something was obviously on their minds, she invited them to sit. One of them seemed to be the spokeswoman. Nervously she asked, “Do you think this is really going to happen?” She wrung her hands as she went on in a trembling voice. “The neighbors are laughing at us. Our husbands are telling u these things and they don’t make any sense. We don’t understand. Even if these things are true, why were we chosen to be the lucky ones? Why are our families going to be destroyed yet we will be saved?”

Mrs talked softly to them. Some things were hard to understand and even harder to explain. How do you explain your confidence in a God they could not see? Mrs had at first struggled with the same questions.

*****

How do we do those hard things and answer the hard questions? Whether or not Mrs had that conversation, we can be assured of one thing. If we are a parent, at some point we will have a conversation of that sort. So how do we do it?

We live every day in a way that makes us trustworthy and believable to our children. When we mess up, and we will, we apologize…to God and our children. Although we may, and should, get our children involved in church groups and youth activities, that is not the end of our responsibility. While others are good teachers, God has given us the responsibility to teach our children about Him.

From the time they see their first flower, it’s a simple thing. “Look how God made this.” When they see their first rainbow, tell them why it’s there. When someone hurts their feelings or stops being their friend, tell them Jesus understands because He, too, was betrayed.

When they score a goal, or make a touchdown, or a home run, tell them how well they did with the skills God put in them. Tell them He will help them succeed at whatever they do if they will make the effort. When they get good grades or win an award, remind them where their gifts come from. (Ultimately, it’s not from our DNA.)

Make God a part of every important conversation you have. Always tell your children the truth. Ask God for wisdom to have the discussion. I’m reminded of the story of the child who asked her mother where she came from. Her mother, sighing and thinking she wasn’t ready for this talk, gave the entire speech on where babies come from. When she finished, her daughter looked at her and said, “Thanks, Mom, but I just wanted to know if I was born in Ohio. My friend Jenny was born there.” God’s wisdom would have made that conversation easier on both mom and daughter.

Let your children hear you pray. Let your prayers begin with your gratitude toward a loving God who is powerful, compassionate, and merciful, even during the times things look dark and confusing.

Whatever choices your children ultimately make, seeing their parents walk with God will leave a lasting impact that they will not forget.

Noah walked with God and his sons had grown up knowing that. They were delivered from destruction as a result.

Mrs Noah was a woman. Women like to know what we’re up against. We like to schedule and plan and figure things out.  Now that she knew what was coming, Mrs wanted to know what her new home was going to look like, because she wanted her nest to reflect her. She wanted her home, for however long it was going to be her home, to be efficient and comfortable.

She watched it go up.  Every night, four adult men, working all day on the same project, came to dinner and talked about the days’ work. Suppose one night Ham came in and said, “We could have gotten that side done today except Shem doesn’t know how to measure. He cut everything too short.”

Mrs thought quickly. “Noah, do you think you could make a coffee table out of that wood Shem messed up?” Well, Noah, surrounded by men and therefore not in his right min, tired from the labor and the bickering and the sun, responded, “Are you serious? That wood is going to be used for the aardvark cages. We don’t need a coffee table, wife.”

Then Noah may have heard the words that still, thousands of years later, have the power to make men cringe.

His wife, embarrassed and hurt, softly spoke. “Well, fine.”

Suddenly the dinner sounds stopped. Silverware doesn’t clatter. Dishes are still. Glasses don’t make sound as they are placed back on the table. The daughters-in-law are looking at their husbands wide-eyed. Noah’s sons are holding their breath. In the silence, Noah had a sudden premonition and an idea. Maybe there should be twin beds in the ark.

*****

Maybe Mrs didn’t react that way. Maybe she took the time to think, unlike me sometimes, before she spoke. Maybe she thought of Noah spending the entire day with no escape from his task, or his sons’ bickering, and maybe she realized Noah needed time to wind down before she made any requests.  Maybe she took the time to remember Noah’s goodness, his dedication to his family and the task set before him. And maybe Mrs kept silent and determination set in to ask him later, in private, without putting him on the spot.

Maybe Mrs counted to ten and was then able to react outside her disappointment and hurt. We don’t always do that well. At least, I don’t always do that well.  Then I say things that really need to be unsaid, but as my husband used to say, “How do you unring a bell?”

At those times, the result is increased hurt, added to remorse, and a nearly one hundred percent result of increased, prolonged tensions.

Sometimes, at least for a few deep breaths work of time, we need to keep silent.  God is honored when we show grace to our mates, and our relationships are not battered in the process of doing so.

Tomorrow…”How’d WE get so lucky?”

I don’t know what “the facilities” were on the ark but let’s imagine they involved a seat that raised and lowered…

Mrs wakes up. It is 2 AM. She throws back the cover and makes the silent trip to the little room she’s been visiting in the middle of the night for a few years now. She closes the door after entering, without turning on the lantern. Mrs is familiar with the routine, the room and knows where the throne is. No lighting of the lantern is necessary. A couple of clothing adjustments and she’s on her way to getting this trip over with while the rest of the household is still sleeping.

Then it happens. As she slumps further than she ever intended, too late to defy gravity, she realizes Noah has done it again. Rising and fuming, and taking the time to light the lantern, Mrs turns and stares at the evidence. He’s left the seat up. She fixes her clothes, outs the lantern and spends the next two hours rehearsing what she’s going to say to Noah in the morning.

*****

It’s happened to us all of us at least once. That sudden, cold, wet feeling we get in the dark of night when we share a bathroom with people of the opposite gender.  Have you ever wanted to scream with the frustration? Ever wondered how men can rule the world and can’t manage that one small task of putting that seat down? Ever thought how inconsiderate “he” is?

Brace yourself. He likely isn’t being inconsiderate. Men don’t seek revenge or fight battles using the up seat as weapon. Most likely, his thoughts are moving ahead to the next task and he’s not remembering (apparently) that you’ve had this conversation a gazillion times before.

It seems like such a simple thing, doesn’t it? Ask yourself this question. Is it any less inconsiderate of us requiring that men put the seat down than it would be of them requiring us to leave the seat up? The seemingly important toilet seat debate can tell us something about ourselves.  It says, all things and all abilities being equal, that we want our way. In the scheme of eternity, the position of the seat has no value. It only obtains value when we make it about us. There’s an enemy that would like to destroy Godly marriages, and he ain’t above using a plastic hinged seat to do it.

When we place such importance on small issues, we can lean toward getting our focus off the larger issues. Is our husband a good provider, a good father, a man of integrity who attempts to lead his family ? Those things have eternal value. These things notably will influence the generation you both are attempting to bring up together to live lives pleasing to God and bring them to a place of personal independence and success.

So focus on the big issues. Loving each other. Being kind to one another. Serving one another in the roles in which God has placed us is far more important than whether he leaves the seat up. After all, there are results of the seat being left down that we don’t like either…

Tomorrow…”You Expect Me to WHAT?”

Walk in Him and be blessed.

Back to Noah and his Mrs…

Once Mrs accepted the truth, that whenever the ark was completed change would come, she had a lot to think about and a hundred plus years to prepare. She’d had friendships for centuries. There were friends and children of friends she may have watched grow up. There were memories. There was the midwife who had delivered her sons, the friend who she had known as long as she could remember. Undoubtedly there was a circle of loved and not so much loved acquaintances.

Now Mrs was faced with the knowledge that whenever the time came, she would be separated from them all. She wasn’t just moving away, but the separation would be permanent and deadly. As Mrs was occupied with taking care of her family and supporting Noah in this monumental task, she had the knowledge beforehand that only she and Noah, their sons and their wives would be alive when the door of the ark opened once it was shut.

I wonder if Mrs thought about that every day. As she visited her friends, laughed alongside them, walked and worked with them, in the back of her mind, Mrs knew. I wonder if she grieved beforehand, if she used the time she had thinking of the future and not enjoying the moment.

Sometimes we are like that. We get so focused on thinking of our children’s future or our parents’ future demise, or our friend’s bad diagnosis, that our time with them isn’t about the now. The stresses on relationships and responsibilities can, if we aren’t careful, be the thief of our today.

I hope Mrs was patient as her friends laughed at her husband’s project, was kind as she spent time with them, showed them love every moment she had with them. She was the wife of the man God said was perfect in his generations, so I like to think Mrs was all of those things.

Let’s examine our own heart and our own behavior toward those who gave us life,  those to whom we gave life, to our mates and those we work around every day. Let’s not let pettiness or a need to be right at the expense of peace, or our responsibilities of tomorrow, steal our “today, this moment” because unlike Mrs, we don’t have the foreknowledge of our futures or those we love. Let’s love beyond our assumptions of a tomorrow. As Godly women, let’s make a daily commitment to those in our lives. Let’s love like there’s no tomorrow. May the only thing we leave out of our today be anything that will steal the joy of  the people we encounter or embrace. Let’s not grieve beforehand. Let’s fill lives with showing love, embracing the present, and leaving a legacy of joy.

Source: Developing an attitude of faith!  Hannah and the beanstalk…

The modern. fictional version. Have you ever thought about the wife of the man God told to build an ark where there was no water? I wonder about her.  We don’t even know her name but I think about how Mrs Noah might have reacted to her circumstances and events had she been a “Modern” woman.  For the next several days, I hope you’ll go with me as we look backward, sometimes humorously, and always honestly, imagining how it might have been if we combined their situation on their “ark journey” with our modern attitudes. Maybe we can learn some things about them…and ourselves.

“So It begins”

Noah strolled in to where the Mrs was making bread.  “Well, Dear,” Noah said, “I was talking to God and He told me something that is pretty interesting, to say the least.  I’m not quite sure how to tell you.”

Mrs responded. “Just tell me.” She never stopped kneading. She had a bad feeling about this already. After living with him so long, Mrs knew that when Noah was hesitating, something unpleasant usually followed.

Noah was hesitating because he knew Mrs. He knew that his wife was not going to like what he had to tell her because Mrs didn’t much care for things that upset her routine.

“Well, God told me to build an ark because He’s tired of the evil in the world and He’s going to destroy the earth and everyone in it except for you, me, our sons and their wives. He’s going to bring a flood.”

Noah’s speech was met with silence. Dead, lingering silence. When Mrs did loosen her hold on the bread dough and turn to look at him, Noah saw abject confusion on the face of his wife.

“Noah” the Mrs asked, “Have you been in the sun too long? Do you need a drink, a washcloth? What is an ark? What is a flood? Are you sure that was God? Are you really sure? I know the neighbors are heathen, but are you positive God said that He is going to kill everyone but us?”

Mrs may have been like some of us. When our husbands tell us they’ve heard from God and we haven’t heard anything like what our husbands are saying, and if what our husbands are saying will bring change, do we wonder if he’s truly heard God? Do we wonder if maybe it’s a heat stroke instead?

For Mrs Noah, the journey began that may have left her, if she were like us, asking God “Is there another option?”

Tomorrow… “Impending Separation”

God has always valued women. In Old Testament history, great women were used to win battles or be judges, a prostitute was used to hide God’s spies and that resulted in deliverance for more than herself, a wife was used to set aside a king’s anger against her husband. In New Testament history, a woman was Paul’s first convert, women were great tools of the Lord in His ministry and in the ministry to the apostles later. The Bible, God’s ‘history and promise’ Word, is full of the amazing feats of women. Lest we forget, it was the body of a young woman that brought ‘peace on earth, good will to men’ in the form of a Baby, our Savior, Jesus Christ. An unmarried, upstanding morally upright Jewish girl who was so surrendered to God’s will that she didn’t balk at what she knew her culture would assume about her when she was found to be pregnant. She could have been stoned until death, for that was the punishment of that culture for women who were pregnant outside of marriage. It is to her fiance, Joseph’s ,credit that he listened to the angel God sent to tell Joseph that Mary’s child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. God’s greatest Gift was sent through a woman. God loves women. Those women that ‘society’ deems unfit, God used. Those women ‘society’ deemed as good, God used. That Samaritan woman we read about in John 4 likely wasn’t at the well at lunchtime in the heat of the day because she had slept in. No, more likely she was there to avoid the ‘good’ women, because she has been married five times and was living with a man she wasn’t married to. Yet, it was this woman Jesus felt compelled to go into the town to see. Out of that meeting, that woman went and said, “Come see a man who told me all I’ve done.” The city was saved. By a woman ‘society’ deemed to be less than fit. There’s no woman God does not love, no woman by whom God will not deliver.

I find it amazing and fascinating that God, knowing everything, EVERYTHING, looked at Adam one day and said, “This is not good. Adam should not be alone. I will make him a helper.” Why is that amazing? Because God knew beforehand that the woman he would create would be the instrument that ultimately gave sin an entry into the perfection of the world He created. The question arises, “What was God thinking to make a woman when He knew what she would do?” The answer has to be “He thought she was worth it.” God had, from the foundations of the world, according to the Word, known He would have to send a Savior. If that need came about by Eve, so be it.  Women were created by God, for His pleasure and for His glory. From the first one, to the last one, whenever that last one is, God Himself has placed value on women. There is nothing that can separate us from His love for us. The only hindrance is if we don’t know that.

There are women in many cultures who have never heard of their value. There are women who have never believed they have value. My hope is that every woman will utter these words from Ephesians which I have paraphrased and made personal here. “God, show me how much you love me.”