Week of Prayer

‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ (Jeremiah 33:3 NKJV)

As the excess and expectations of the Christmas season in the world overwhelm me in December, there is always a quiet yearning in my spirit for the week that right now lies before us. Not because I have New Year's resolutions; I learned long ago I will not keep them. No, it's because of 17 years of the Week of Prayer at my church.

We "tithe" the first week of the year to the Lord by fasting and gathering each night to pray for an hour as a church family. We usually have a banner verse or theme that frames the week: this year it is Jeremiah 33:3, above. We start out the first night humbling ourselves in corporate repentance, asking for His fresh forgiveness and a new start. The rest of the nights are focused on things like church needs, personal needs, healing for our sick, and praying over our leadership. One of the nights we come to the front of the church with our families for special prayer over them. And we never fail to pray for Israel.

We also, together as a church, start fresh in our Bibles reading in the book of Matthew. We are a Bible-reading, Bible-believing church, and our pastor exhorts us to read an hour a day, every day...more on that in tomorrow's blog!

This is the sweetest week of my year, and I know most of my MVCF friends would agree. There is something cleansing physically (as we fast together), emotionally (as we laugh and cry together), mentally (as we read our Bibles together) and spiritually (as we pray together) about this week that not only brings personal but also corporate renewal as we begin another year together.

Are you an MVCF-er? Then I will see you there. Not an MVCF-er? Then I invite you to come join us. If you aren't local, you can join us by reading in your Bible, starting in Matthew, an hour a day...praying daily...perhaps even fasting. Call to God! He will answer you, and show you great and mighty things you do not know.

Hope

Hope.

"All is calm, all is bright"

There's something about Christmas Eve that is just..."magical". It isn't about the gifts; I've had Christmases where there was plenty,and Christmases where there wasn't even one present under the tree. It isn't about circumstances; I've had Christmases where everything was going perfect, and Christmases where things were very difficult. It's just about the "magic" of hope.

"Long lay the world, in sin and error pining
Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth"

We know we are incapable of saving ourselves. Everyone on the face of earth knows, in his/her heart, that he/she is a sinner. We know the faces we put on for other people...coworkers, acquaintances, even family. We know the messes we've made...even if no one else does. We know that we are yucked-up in places inside where smiles and casual talk can never reach. We know. And we know we need Someone bigger than ourselves.

This isn't a post to rationalize all the "but how do you know Your God is THE God?" talk. That's just foolish babble. Painting? Painter. Design? Designer. Creation? Creator. All the babble is just ways we, as those yucked-up mess faces we are, find to bat away submitting to the absolute Truth that ultimately we know is there. Babble doesn't change Truth. I can argue all day long that I don't believe in electricity, but my belief doesn't change the fact that when I flip the light switch, it's there. So I'm not going there. It has no place in the magic of Christmas Eve.

So, back to magic. God sent His Son, in fulfillment of over 300 specific prophecies (the fulfillment of just 6 is the odds of covering Texas deep in sand, painting one granule red, and asking a person to pick the one red grain out with the first try), to be the at-one-ment for our sin, our fake faces, our yuck, our messes. And as much as we, even as those who have believed on Him and given over our lives to Him, fall and fail for 364 days, Christmas Eve reminds us of new hope and we are minded anew that He saves. Completes. Fixes. Leads. Holds. Loves with an everlasting love.

And so...magic.

"And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21

Jesus. What a wonderful name.

Quiet

Life is loud.

I live in a big city, in a small house, with a lot of people. My home is busy at both ends of the day and every hour in between. Because we are a homeschooling family, our young ones are underfoot all day; and because the economy is difficult, our older ones, though both working and in school, are still with us.

I also live in a society that is electronically manic. Cell phones are portable computers seldom further than our pockets or purses. Facebook is a constant background of friends whose daily life details constantly run around in our heads. We are so easily distracted. I am sure there is a study that shows that our attention spans are significantly smaller than they were 10 years ago. We can't listen or watch anything for more than a few minutes without needing to be doing something else.

Put my busy house and my e-mania together and you can just about see the cacophony inside my brain. Yet I am also a disciple of the Lord Jesus. I have been called to a ministry of intercession for my family, my church, our youth. I don't see any biblical precedent for e-mania, first century edition. Even though Jesus was constantly surrounded by crowds who pressed so close He jumped into a boat to prevent them from crushing Him, He still had a constant connection going with heaven.

Each May (the prayer moms' anniversary), I ask God to give me a theme for the year ahead. For two years He spoke to us about e-distractions. One year the theme was "Hide, Abide, Revive, F5"--as in, spend regular quiet time with Him in order to become a mighty F5 (like a tornado) spiritual force. The next year it was "Shut off, shut up, shut down, and listen!"--a bit more firmness in His voice as we sought to really get this thing right. We did a lot of talking about how disjointed our prayer lives become when we are e-manic. We decided to take a day a week and unplug; never a perfect process, as we are all married, moms (duh), and either work full time outside or inside our homes. We stay off the internet and turn off our phones when possible. And we recharge...reset...refresh our connections with our Lord so as to remember our calling as intercessors.

I love my unplugged day. Sometimes my life calendar is busy that day, but I can feel the depressurization even in the midst of that as my computer and phone stay quiet. Sometimes I have to have my phone on, but I set alarms for each hour to prompt me to pray for different aspects of our church and youth ministry. The important thing is to purposefully draw away from the e-distractions and closer to Jesus. I choose Saturdays as my unplugged day, and find that it helps me prepare my mind and heart for worship and Bible study the next day; I go to Sunday services clear-headed and ready to hear from God through the Word through my pastor.

I feel like this is a theme for the church today...it's not just for a group of busy moms in one corner of a busy city. The church is so distracted we have a hard time hearing God. More on this topic will find way onto this blog, because it is something God has pressed so on me for the past few years. But for today's post, this suffices. I encourage you, dear reader, to pray and ask God what YOUR unplugging could look like. Then do it. Faithfully. And watch Him sweep your head clear and your heart clean.

Because life is loud, and His voice often is still and small. We need to hear it.

Jesus took the wheel, pretty much!

Have you ever heard God speak audibly to you? I have heard Him many times activate His Word to me, through the Holy Spirit; I've heard Him in my dreams; and I've heard Him speak through my pastors or through womens' ministry teachers. But I have heard him audibly speak to me on just a handful of occasions. It's not like a voice outside my head, like in a conversation...this is like His voice inside my head.

The first time was a topic for another blog, another day. Let me tell you about the second time.

August 9, 1993. We'd left our San Diego home the evening before, driving two cars and accompanied by a friend, bound for a new life chapter in Colorado Springs where my husband had been promised a good job at an automotive dealership. Doug was 3 years old and Nick had turned 3 months old the previous day. He was colicky and I was exhausted.

After making it only as far as the state line in Nevada the night before due to a late start, we knew we had to make up a lot of travel time this day to make it to our hotel in Grand Junction, Colorado. We had driven all day. I am not good at driving for more than a few hours at a stretch even when well-rested; by 10pm I was foggy headed. We stopped at a coffee shop somewhere in eastern Utah for a late dinner and I fed and diapered Nick. We were headed into the home stretch; just a couple hours lay between us and Grand Junction. As we left the restaurant, it was raining.

I can't tell you exactly where we were. I remember the name Green River. I remember the sign that said "50 miles no services" shortly after we got back on the road and thinking, that's ok, our stomachs and gas tanks are full. Alan was driving in the lead, in his white Toyota pick up truck with no windshield wipers, Doug in the carseat chattering along, I'm sure. I was in the middle in our Toyota 4Runner, Nick in his carseat in the back. Our friend Chuck brought up the rear in his Ford Bronco.

However, soon the light rain became a thunderstorm. More than that. Suddenly it was pouring sheets of rain and lighting was flashing around us. Suddenly I realized there were no other cars on this stretch of highway. There was no shoulder to speak of before the drop off. Nowhere to pull over to let this heavy rain cell pass. Suddenly, I was terrified. What exactly did a flash flood look like? It was so dark--would water just start washing over the road?

No cell phones to communicate with my husband or our friend. No way to tell them I simply couldn't drive through this, that I felt so afraid. I could only concentrate on Alan's brake lights in front of me and Chuck's headlights behind...and I could barely see either because of the driving rain. I kept waiting for the cell to pass...this is just a heavy few minutes, right? Wrong. We found out later we were in the middle of an extremely heavy storm, so heavy it had caused problems all along that corridor of country and had even delayed the moving truck with all our stuff (it actually arrived after we did at our new home).

So, time goes on and with each moment I am more afraid, paralyzed but with no option but to keep driving b/c there was nowhere to stop even if I wanted to.

Then, I cannot explain this except to explain it: I felt Jesus come through the roof of the truck :-), into the passenger seat, and say to me, "Be still and know that I am God." Now, I didn't know that that was Psalm 46:10. I wasn't a born-again believer who knew her Word then. I went to Mass, but not Bible studies...I had not heard that verse ever before. Then, Jesus was very practical--He said, turn off the radio. I did. Instantly, peace. The rain didn't stop. No exit or rest stop appeared. But the fear just went away.

I'd like to say Jesus and I hung out, talked about my life, what needed changing about it and why He was best qualified to do it. Nope. I just knew He was there, and I just drove in peace. When we saw the exit for Grand Junction, the rain let up and just as I had felt Him enter the truck, I felt Him leave. It was ok. The danger was past.

Ok, I can hear you skeptics saying. It was a figment of my imagination. I was freakishly tired and spun out and just created this to pacify myself so I didn't fall apart. Well hear this: just last year (so, what, 18 years later) my mom and I were talking during her recovery from cancer surgery. We got on the subject of that night. She told me that that night, she had been pressed with an urgent sense to pray for me; that I was afraid, that wherever I was on the road (they knew our rough itinerary) it was raining and that I was in danger. She began to pray, and asked Jesus to please help me. After awhile she felt it was ok to stop praying. After all these years, to learn that the Holy Spirit had warned her of the danger and Jesus had answered her prayers so miraculously, gave me chills.

I didn't turn my life over to Jesus that night. It was two years later, after that move had failed and life had pressed in at every turn and my father was dying from cancer, that I finally found the relationship with Him for which I had so hungered. And the first time I read Psalm 46:10, you can bet I had a "oh yes I KNOW YOU ARE GOD!" moment. He spoke to me on that dark scary night, and I will tell it to anyone who wants to hear the story for the rest of my days.

After the storm

Here in Southern California, we have pretty amazing weather. We get a miserable hot month or so in late summer, but from our house it is about 10 miles to relief at the ocean shore. We get some chilly days and nights, but chilly is relative: I start shivering in the high 50s, and my brother in Oregon laughs. We also get some rain, but it usually passes quickly through--a day or two and then sunshine returns. Pretty blessed.

We are in the midst of a storm track right now so we have been getting a rainy day or two, a couple days of clearing, and then another storm (again, pretty relative term) arrives. The other morning I read this verse in my Bible:

"When the storm passes through, the wicked are swept away, but the righteous are an everlasting foundation." Proverbs 10:25

I walked outside with the dogs, coffee in hand. The rain which had fallen overnight had ended, and the air was fresh and clean. The sky was blue (well, becoming so--it was pretty early). I meditated on that verse for a few minutes while the dogs ran around.

Jesus said the rain will beat against the houses of both rock and sand.

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” Matthew 7:24-27

A storm clears polluted air, sweeps away dirt and dust accumulated on our streets and stuff, and often takes with it loose tree limbs or even roof tiles. It has a way of sweeping away stuff that isn't secure. What's left standing and refreshed are those things which are enduring...a well-planted garden, an iceplant-rooted backyard bank, a solid oak tree.

Spiritual storms often involve spiritual enemies. We hunker down and seek God through prayer and the Word...keep our minds focused on Him through worship music, Scripture memorization..maybe fast. When the storm is over, we are standing, b/c we are built on bedrock. We are refreshed. But our enemies will be swept away.

"When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him and put him to flight [for He will come like a rushing stream which the breath of the Lord drives]." Isaiah 59:19b, AMP

"Hear the thunder of the mighty forces as they rush forward like thundering waves. But though they thunder like breakers on a beach, God will silence them, and they will run away. They will flee like chaff scattered by the wind,like a tumbleweed whirling before a storm." Isaiah 17:12b-13 NLT

Build on the Rock. Put your roots down deep and abide in Him. When the storms come, hang on tight. Rest assured that when the storm passes through, you'll be an everlasting foundation.

Better than a hallelujah

There's a woman in my life who I call my "better than a hallelujah friend," after the Amy Grant song. Her mom and stepdad used to live across the street and up a few doors from us. They had lived, let's say, a colorful life, definitely not prim and proper and according to the law--in fact, her mom was infamous...a neighborhood legend. I loved her mom. She always used to come to our door at Christmastime and offer to help pay for the electricity to run the cross my husband set up on our roof; she would be near tears and would tell me how much it meant to her to see it light up the sky at night. She also used to love Noah, who would draw her pictures that always had a God theme or Scripture on them. Well, she died the night of the Easter earthquake a few years ago (husband had passed a year or so previously) and at that time, my soon-to-be-friend was living there with her boyfriend, both of them trying to get back on their feet after a season of their own colorful stuff.

I went to the memorial service, which was held at the house. It was filled with colorful people whose lives this woman had touched through her work with a job assistance program. They reminded me of the years I had spent working with the homeless and recovering. I asked God to please let me be a part of this woman's daughter's life, b/c I could see the young woman was absolutely broken by her mom's death at such a vulnerable time in her own life. And God grew a friendship. And she loved the cross. And she loved Noah, who would draw her the same kinds of pictures he drew for her mom.

I took her to a womens' outreach one night, yes even though she "had" to drink a few to have the courage to go. The testimony was by a woman with almost a carbon copy life. My friend cried and hugged all over me, kissing me over and over, saved before the altar call was given. Yet she went home to an abusive boyfriend and a house full of colorful people, drugs and drama.

People lived transiently in the house with them. The cops were there frequently, marshals or narcotics officers even raiding it a few times. There were loud violent fights. She would come to my door for talk and prayer with alcohol on her breath. She would confess her sins and I would tell her Jesus already paid for them. I gave her a Bible and she lost it. I took her to church and she smoked on the way. My favorite, favorite memory is when we were talking on the porch one day and her boyfriend called from jail; he asked her how to spell "felony" or some such word that indicated he was in big trouble. She spelled it for him and then said, honey, you're embarrassing me, I'm talking to the church lady.

The house went into foreclosure and she and boyfriend had to move. I lost track of her.

She showed up at my door a week ago. She told me she just broke up with another boyfriend, but that while she had lived with him she'd been going to a well-known, healthy church in North County. She'd been going every week. She was now living in another temporary arrangement and couldn't go anymore. I fed her. We loved on her. I told her you are always welcome here. She said I love you, so much. And off she went again.

Maybe some readers here will say, well if she was genuinely saved she would quit all that. Perhaps that is true, and I certainly have sat in that seat of judgment myself where others are concerned. Lord forgive us. I look at the tidal wave of life events that continually overwhelm her. I look at her heart that wants to seek Him when she can, that wants to do the right thing even though she is drowning in chaotic circumstances. I listen to her laugh at her failures and say things like, "I blew it, but Jesus still loves me, right?" I see her reach for grace over and over...and see Him keep a flame alive in her with its fuel.

I hope someday she will "quit all that." Maybe God hopes someday I will "quit all that"...my own recurring struggles. Maybe God hopes the same for you. Maybe you've already done so. But for now, I simply believe that her faith, clouded by colorful people and drama and shady living arrangements and failures, is better than a hallelujah to the One who loved her and washed her in His own blood.

Book series I LOVE

I love love love a book series I plowed my way through last year--The Yada Yada Prayer Group by Neta Jackson. There are seven books in the series, which is about the spiritual learning curve of a group of very diverse women. They meet at a weekend prayer conference and are thrown together to pray through a crisis which occurs in the family of one of the women during that weekend. They realize something special has happened among them as they stormed heaven together for their new friend, and decide to begin praying together every other Sunday night. For seven books, the women journey through individual differences and rocky life circumstances to emerge a strongly bonded unit of intercessors. They are of different denominations, each of which are highlighted during the series. They are are also in various stages of spiritual maturity. The Yada Yadas confront issues like pride, forgiveness, prejudice, spiritual warfare, and unplanned pregnancy as they weave through their very different-looking lives. I found myself devouring these books and finding the characters so real that, I told a prayer mom friend, "I'm so ready to invite the Yada Yadas to our next fellowship night!"

Luke's strange career

Dying insects and animals seem to throw themselves at the small city plot that is our home and yard. They seem magnetically attracted to....my youngest son. They must know that he will tenderly care for them until they die and then give them a funeral worthy of anything at Arlington. He's provided hospice care for a snake, a grasshopper, and most recently, a three-legged lizard. When this lizard passed away, my son took half a day preparing for the funeral and then very soberly called Noah and me to assemble for the ceremony.

I don't know where he got all the information on funeral protocol, but he must have paid close attention to it. I was trying SO hard not to giggle--really wanted to respect the deceased--but it was just impossible. He began with a (toy) gun salute (thank goodness he didn't know there were supposed to be 21) and I had to hide my smile. He called to our attention the lizard's loyal companionship in his last 24 hours and his tender last moments. Luke dubbed him, "Luke the Lazy" ("LAZY?!" I shrieked, with tears of hysterical laughter now running down my face, "He was LAME!"). He shrugged off my disruption and continued with his eulogy, bemoaning this life lost too soon. He sweetly placed the shoebox in the grave and invited us to shovel dirt on top of it. He asked me, the prayer mom, to say the final prayer. Oh Lord forgive me for praying a thinking-of-how-it-would-play-on-a-sitcom prayer rather than seriously blessing this young reptile's life and asking Your comfort for his family. It gets more hilarious. The day after this lizard was laid to his eternal rest, Luke felt the need to relocate his grave. He prepared a new, better place in our front yard and then exhumed and moved the body. Of course, ceremony now demanded a new memorial service. This time a headstone was added and a cross erected. Luke the Lazy would have been so humbled that his life has been so honored. Me? I am a little nervous as to what's going to crawl, fly, or slither its ebbing body onto this half-acre next....but I know one thing--I better keep that black dress at the ready.

Ordinary women--extraordinary GOD!

I have the privilege of praying with THE most amazing group of women ever! For eight and a half years, the "Prayer Moms" have prayed every week for the youth ministry at our church. Although our group has numbered as many as 17 women, we've had a solid group of less than 10 for the last few years. We collect prayer requests from our youth kids and maintain a Facebook page for their prayer needs and those of our church and community as well. We each pray for a couple of youth leaders/student leaders (switching it up every month by drawing names) so as to be personal encouragers to them in the work of the ministry. We help with special events and participate in camps as well. While the story behind this crazy, precious ministry is another post entirely, today I just want to write about the ladies I get to pray with. First of all, we are just plain FUN. We can get to laughing so hard we cry. The jokes that can run through 8 years of the kind of connectedness prayer brings are just simply lifelong joys. Ask any of us about the moms who have been "parking lot pick-ups": two moms, several years apart, thought they were just dropping their kids off for another routine Tuesday night, but before they left the parking lot they had floundered their way into the ministry and simply have never been the same! Ask us why we call ourselves "hoopties." Ask us about one mom's blundered Thanksgiving prayer that still has us wiping the hysterical tears out of our eyes and will likely go down in prayer history. Ask us about the mom who called from a Mexico summer camp, hopping from one side of the road to the other to maintain cell reception long enough to tell us a youth leader had split his head open, kids were breaking out in red bumps, sand flies were eating them alive and could we PLEASE PRAY HARDER?! And there are a million more laughs. They are just treasures to me. Secondly, we are passionate about what we do. We love our youth and our youth leaders, and we love to pray. We have prayed through tears for the families of young people who have ended their lives. We have prayed "angrily" against the enemy when kids have been so ripped off by his lies that they have really hurt those around them. We have prayed determinedly the "bust-em" prayer for kids who are needing some good ol' discipline, by God and parents. We have prayed pleadingly for youth leaders who need jobs, or apartments, or healing. We have prayed boldly for spiritual protection for those under attack. And lastly, we are all growing together in the Lord. Being in this ministry requires lots of time in the Word, in fellowship, and (DUH) in prayer, all of which grow our faith. There is plenty of room for growth--personal and spiritual--in this ministry. No requirements for spiritual gianthood...none of us would have met them. Just a willingness to be teachable as our knees get scraped and our pride gets stomped and our cars break down and our bodies get sick and our spirits get weary and...as, ultimately, the dross burns off. It's kinda like a special forces team, I guess...when I look around the room at these precious faces of my fellow intercessors, I think of the spiritual realm we spend so much time in and how it marks us with a certain je-ne-sais-quoi (see Mom, I really do remember some French!). I love these ladies. I love to laugh with them, pray with them, grow with them. They are such jewels in my heart and I thank God for them over and over and over. However, as special as they are in my life, we are all really just ordinary women. If you saw us walking through the mall or sitting in Starbucks, we wouldn't stick out. We are sinners saved by grace. We don't have any special qualifications to be intercessors. However, we have an EXTRAORDINARY GOD who has called us, taught us, protected us, provided for us, and grown us in this ministry. And that is the best part of the whole story.

Boy mom

I have a husband and four sons. I am the only woman in the house. I do not know why I never had a little girl. Perhaps it was that meltdown moment late in my first pregnancy when I called my husband, crying hysterically something about being terrified the baby would be a girl, because I wouldn't know how to put bows in her hair. God probably shrieked and put me on the NO DAUGHTERS EVER list. Two of my sons are now adults at 22 and 19, but they still live at home. Number three will be a teenager later this month, and number four, who has perhaps more testosterone than all other three combined, just turned nine. I have emergency-roomed through split lips, smashed foreheads, concussions (mostly #1 son), probably 100 stitches, football injuries, car soap consumption and a broken bone (I know, only one--weird, right?!). Journeyed through Sesame Street, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Barney, Handy Manny, and Bob the Builder. Stepped on GI Joes, Legos, plastic guns, blocks, balls, jacks, Furbees, Nano-pets, and remote control cars/planes/trucks/boats. I have never put bows in a little girl's hair--although three of the four boys went through a Jedi braid phase and would line up each morning asking, "Mom, can you do my braid?" Now, braids I could do. I've never painted a pink wall, put up frilly curtains, or been a cry-on-shoulder-about-a-boyfriend-watch-a-Lifetime-movie-eat-chocolate-ice-cream companion. Never had the "now you're a woman" talk. Sometimes thinking about all this makes me sad; I feel like I've missed some vital part of passing on who I am to a mini-me. Contrarily,sometimes I'm really grateful I never to face the mini-me (I was a pretty terrible mess of hormone-emotions around junior high and completely deserve to have had several of me as payback). I deal with my sad moments by jokingly proclaiming that my household should breathe a huge sigh of relief that there's only one set of female emotions to deal with. I frequently and sagely nod to young mothers that boys are so easy--throw them in the shower and give them a big plate of food, and the world is right again. I am usually hailed as deserving of some special award for being a mom of many sons, but the truth is there is always this little niggle of---I wonder what it would have been like to have a little girl. I do wait for daughters-in-law and granddaughters. I guess there will be something "completing" in that for my life. Maybe I'll even get that hair bow thing right! The truth is, I HAVE loved being a boy mom. There is something about a little guy's (and eventually, a big guy's) love for his mom that is pretty special. I have had a blast being in the midst of noise and dirt and mad and yeah, it really is easier than drama and PMS. I have loved Legos (ok, except maybe at 3am in a dark room)and muscle-man tackles and dirty socks and the ridiculousness of how some of those ER injuries happened. Here's to my boys---and, perhaps, to someday watching a Lifetime movie and sharing a gallon of chocolate ice cream with one of their daughters.

"Are you my mother forever?"

My nine-year-old is about as comedically eccentric as you can get. His entire verbal life, he has spouted random humor that leaves us in stitches. His timing is impeccable, his insight sharp. Today the random question was (not out of frustration but with a mischievous eye-twinkle) "Are you my mother forever?" When I assured him I was, he opined, "DARN it!" My oldest son, 22 and the foreshadower of this one's comedic life, responded, "Yeah, like your adult teeth." Little son was dramatically tragic in reaction. Families are imperfect. I was recently praying for someone who said, "My family's not normal." I assured that person that in 20 years of working in the fields of psychiatry and social services, I had yet to find one that was. We are flawed, and there is none perfect but our Redeemer. Yet God is all about families, to whatever degree we are imperfect. Families were His idea! As we walk through the weave of relationships down here in our homes and extended families, we learn about our own faults and vulnerabilities even as we, hopefully, learn to bear gracefully with those of the others with whom we share our most intimate selves. Sometimes we are good, sometimes we are bad, and sometimes we are ugly. We learn about unconditional love (sometimes from its occasional presence among us, and perhaps often from its absence) and the only One who loves us perfectly ALL the time. I figure that is part of His idea. Sometimes families break and fall apart. Sometimes they are mended; sometimes they morph into new families--yet she who was our mother, or sister or cousin--or he who is our father, or brother or uncle, will always be marked as that in our lives. We need family. We need people to whom we can safely bare all, who we know will be our mother/father/sister/brother/etc forever, even in the ugly. Family can be an instrument to remind us of our desperate need for connection, ultimately with the One who is truly the only constant as He brings us from this life into eternity. I am so thankful for my own family...and no, we are not "normal" or "perfect". We have much flawed about us. I am thankful for what I learn about myself, about them, about my Lord as I walk through this life with them. I am thankful that through good, bad, and ugly times, we belong to each other forever.

Simple country faith

Jennijen...what does that mean? Well, it is what my mom always used to call me when I was a little girl :-) My mom was born on the plains of Colorado a few years before the Great Depression. She was the youngest of five and the only girl. Their family moved around Colorado frequently so my grandpa could make ends meet (I think they ran out of town a few times when the creditors were on their tail, too!). She is a country farm girl who spent many lonely days with the household pets while her parents and brothers were out in the fields. She has always told me that during those long days, she would talk to the pets...and to Jesus. Although her family didn't attend church regularly (if ever), she knew who Jesus was with the simple faith of a child; and that same simple faith echoed from her on a warm day last June when in the car coming home from a mastectomy at age 84: I told her, "Mom, you are such a strong woman." (Who else has a mastectomy on an outpatient basis?!) She pointed to the sky--Jesus makes me strong. The next day, seated on her couch pointing to scrapbook photos and telling us family stories (who spends the day after a mastectomy sitting up telling stories for hours on end?), she told me quietly, "God is my beginning. He is my end. And He is my in between." Then, her characteristic laugh as she looked at me, knowing we would share tears of understanding and a smile of agreement. justwantJesus...what does that mean? When I was maybe first or second grade I had a prayer book I carried everywhere. I can still feel the texture of it in my mind. It was small and white, with a rough exterior and a strap that fastened it closed with a snap. I wanted so much to connect with Jesus. One day in our kitchen I was in some state of little-girl spiritual yearning and, clutching that prayer book to my chest I told my mom, "Mom, I just want JESUS!" Oh, to feel that He and I had a connection, to feel His arms around my heart, to be consumed in His love...it was this overwhelming, passionate cry of my soul. Although my mom lives a state away and I seldom get up to see her (one income and several mouths to feed makes the trip difficult to afford--although the Lord got us up there three times during the year she was fighting cancer!), I can often hear her in my head. I think of the faith with which she raised me--the simple faith of The Greatest Generation ("right is right and wrong is wrong, just like it has been all along" as Steven Curtis Chapman tells us). I can hear her say, "Jennijen" in that high singsong voice. And I sure wish I was sitting next to her on the couch this evening, looking at family pictures and hearing stories. And although my own faith doesn't always seem so yearning and passionate anymore in the storms and dry seasons that complicate the walk of a seasoned Christian (maybe it does to those around me, but I know myself better than they do), I still just want JESUS. The road seems so circuitous and rocky the longer I walk with Him, and we usually seem to be heading uphill against hurricane force winds, but He is still the single thread of desire in my soul. I want at the end of my life to say that He has been my beginning, my end, and my in between. Jennijen just wants Jesus!