Author: Stephanie Rollins

In that day, A vineyard of wine, sing of it!  I, the Lord, am its keeper; I water it every moment. So that no one will damage it, I guard it night and day. I am not angry. Should it give me briars and thorns, then I would fight against it, trample it, and burn it to the ground. Or let it take hold of My strength; Let it make peace with Me– Make peace with Me. In days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will blossom and bloom, and fill the whole world with fruit. Isaiah 27:2-6

I struggle with loving people. Of course I love my family and friends, and I love people who are hurting. I can cry with the best of them at an underdog’s story, or with someone willing to be vulnerable with me about a difficult time. But love for all people? For the person who cut me off in traffic? The person who constantly complains and refuses to see a bright side? The person who’s mad at the world on social media? The person who deeply offends me?

It’s an ugly truth. And yet, I can’t help my initial, unloving gut reaction. My judgmental, presumptive, shallow thoughts that throw a wall up between ME and THEM in a matter of seconds. And if I am really honest with myself, those people from my “love” column– my own family even– can find themselves on the wrong side of this wall. Eventually I may reason my way through into a more Christian place, but why isn’t that where I start?

I recently listened to a four-part podcast series on the topic of Envy. It discussed how we live in a culture of the “Offended Self,” in which the Self is idolized and worshipped: MY rights, and MY wrongs. A place where we tear down that which threatens our position; a place where we actually treasure our offenses like beloved pets because when others wrong us it convinces us of our rightness. A place where we seek to elevate ourselves by diminishing others.

I’d like to think that the minute I believed in Christ, I died to Self. But if that were true, why do I still spend so much time wrestling with myself? I’m dizzy from running back and forth between episodes of pride and shame. From “Hey, look God!  I’m doing the thing You asked me to do!  Pretty great, huh?” to “I should be better than this,” in a matter of minutes. Resentment, insecurity, anxiety, unforgiveness, and a lack of love all tangled up in a big knot of Self.

In Chase, Jennie Allen writes: “As long as I am looking into myself for my identity, I will either be self-righteous about how great I am, which would be inaccurate, or distraught by the reality of the wreck I actually am… We don’t stand on our accomplishments and personality and performance.  We stand securely on the nature of an infinite, loving God…  The work of Christ steals all shame, but it also steals all of our pride.”  

True humility, true love, true friendship, true service— all of these— are on the other side of death to Self. Death must come first for the resurrection power of Christ to be complete.  As George Macdonald wrote: “The self is given to us that we may sacrifice it; that we, like Christ, may have something to offer.”  Or, like Arya Stark tried to learn in Game of Thrones: A girl is no one.

Christ’s love for His people transcended any human love. It wasn’t ever deserved, or earned, or reciprocated. It was never resentful, boastful or proud. And before He left earth, He clearly felt accountable to the Lord for the kind of friend He’d been in life. He offered up a beautiful, heart-wrenching prayer, squaring up with God just before He died.  He said:

 “Father, the hour has come…I have revealed Your name to the men You gave Me from the world.  They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word… I pray for them… Holy Father, protect them… While I was with them, I was protecting them… I guarded them, and not one of them is lost…”   John 17

The men You gave Me. Not the ones He chose. Not those with important jobs, or good families, or well-behaved kids. Not the ones who had it all figured out, and whom He found serving the poor and schooling the scholarly.  Not those who voted the same way, or who could clearly identify the issues. Just the flawed, broken, normal folk that God gave Him during His days.   

This summer I’ve asked myself a lot of questions, like: Can I listen to the person right in front of me, no matter who they are or what they’re saying, and treat them as though they are Jesus himself, or an angel in disguise? Can I bless another’s gifting without the slightest tinge of bitterness or comparison?  Can I serve, without putting that service on like a robe of glory?  Can I receive a hard lesson without finding fault in the teacher?  Can I rejoice at the prodigal son’s return, despite his foolishness, and truly believe there’s room for both of us? Can someone offend me without me even taking notice, without stopping to entertain it, or respond to it, or give it a collar and a pet name?  Can I honor the incredibly unjust, unfair, wildly generous economy of God’s kingdom, that lavishly dishes out goodness, sometimes to people I don’t like?

Can I honestly say that with all the people God has given me, I have safeguarded their hearts, and pointed them to Christ? Without judgment or criticism, without self-loathing or embarrassment?  Without wondering whether or not I was good in it, or whether or not they thanked me for it? Without taking up an offense? Without a bad attitude, or gossip, malice, envy, or strife?  Without any ME in it at all?

“A vineyard of wine, sing of it!” He says. 

A vineyard of wine. Not a vineyard of individual grapes.  Not a collection of special, single orbs— each one retaining its shape, its boundaries and thick skin, its own juice, separate and apart from another’s.

I have to let Him press me down, pour me out, and warp, twist and stomp on my ego.  Until there isn’t any ME left.  Until I am my Beloved’s, and He is Mine.

Until, having taken every thought captive, I can honor with my life every other human I encounter– the valuable, God-breathed, God-imaged, eternal beings He loves so completely. Until His love renders obsolete the division of where I end and they begin.

If I could sit with anyone from the past to discuss this, I would choose Jesus’ mother, Mary. A young, unwed virgin from a small town, who was told in a single conversation that her life as she knew it was over: her fiance would think her a whore, her town would whisper behind her back, her dream of a quiet life was dead. Instead, she would suffer rejection, marry quietly, give birth in a barn, run in fear for her life to Egypt, and spend the rest of her days loving a misunderstood son, publicly ridiculed and condemned, a sword piercing her heart. Poured out for the Lord. And then without asking for time to get the right attitude, and without first walking through the seven stages of grief, she simply responded, right there in the moment: “Behold, the servant of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.” Just a young, uneducated girl with humble prospects going about her ordinary life.

A girl who was no one.

 

 

I remember hobbling along the maternity ward corridor, one hand on the railing and the other on Derek’s arm, in the hours after Ellie’s birth.  We slowly took laps around the floor.  Relief overwhelmed any pain or discomfort; I was happy to be up, to be past the dreaded surgery, to be in the clear.  

The best part of the lap was pausing at the nursery window to look in on Ellie.  I delighted in seeing her there, even though every time her face was twisted up into a deep and wrinkly pout.  Through her frown, I could see that she was mine.  She looked a great deal like us, like Camden had looked in those first days.  And she was right there, and healthy, and all was right in the world.

I have a photo I snapped of Derek holding her in his arms in our hospital room, his face radiating that tired, proud smile I remembered on him from when Camden was born. 

I remember, too, when the neonatologist came to check on her, and the way the doctor murmured to himself, almost inaudibly, that she might have Down Syndrome.  Surely he hadn’t been serious, was that really what he said?  But it was what he’d said, just as he might say he was thinking of having a bologna sandwich for lunch.  He turned her palms and feet over in his hands.  He couldn’t be sure, he said, but she showed lots of signs.  He would order testing and she’d have blood drawn and we’d find out in a few weeks time.  

I remember the joy being ripped out of the room in one gush— a cold void, a thousand questions, a wave of dread replacing it.  I remember, after he left, pulling my legs up into a ball and sobbing into my pillow.  I remember being so terribly angry.  Angry at how he’d said it, angry at how it seemed to spoil everything, angry at the possibility that it was true. 

It ruined her homecoming.  That quiet drive home was so awkward, as were those first few days making small talk with family who tried to assure us it couldn’t be true.  I remember our little family of four passing days silently together in our house, trying to act normally when nothing felt normal at all.  

I remember taking her for bloodwork and standing out in the hall because I didn’t want to watch her writhe and wail, I didn’t want to watch as they repeatedly poked at her trying to get a sample.  I remember feeling so angry I wanted to rip the needle from the nurse— whom I was sure had never drawn blood before— and throw it against the wall.  I remember feeling so irrationally angry.   And then the phone call that they’d broken the vial, and could we come in and do it all again?  

I remember the way Derek looked at Ellie after that.  No longer with joy or pride, it seemed to me, but with suspicion.  Looking at her for signs, looking at her with fear and uncertainty.  I remember feeling so hurt on her behalf that one day I stormed away from our breakfast table yelling that she deserved to be loved anyway, no matter what.  I remember feeling strongly that I could rip someone’s throat out if they so much as thought of loving her any less.  

And I remember taking her to her nursery and rocking her in my arms with tears in my eyes, wondering what it was that God had in store for her.  For us.  

But it didn’t matter, I told her.  It didn’t matter, I told myself.  And I told God the same.  I said that it didn’t matter— over and over.  That I was grateful, and I was proud, and I was overjoyed.  That she was here, and mine, and exactly what He said she was.  And I sang to her a song: 

You’re my baby.  You’re my baby.  God gave you to me. 

You’re my baby.  You’re my baby.  God gave you to me. 

So I said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you for this little one.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this little one. 

And all that You have done, and all that You will do. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

And for some reason, even though I don’t write or sing songs, I was able to repeat that one.  And I sang it over and over and over again.  And every time I picked her up to feed her, I sang it again, let it fall over my heart, over His ears, like oil. 

The phone call to tell us she was healthy came anticlimactically.  It’s not that we weren’t relieved and grateful— because we were— but by then so much had happened already.  So much making peace and making war.  We’d fought inner battles, and cried, and grown tired, and somehow grown both apart and together.  I’d learned something of what fear and grief and uncertainty can do to a person, to a marriage, to a house.  I’d only tasted it, but I’d tasted enough.  

Enough to feel deep compassion for marriages that fall apart in the wake of a sick child, or a death.  Enough to feel tears sting my eyes when I see a child with Down Syndrome.  Enough to feel like I narrowly escaped what could have been a completely different life story.  For her and for us.  

For so many years I wished that it had never happened.  Wished for the perfect photos of a perfect homecoming to put in the pages in her baby book.  But over time, I became grateful for that strange chapter in our lives.  Grateful for what it gave me.  Grateful that because of how it ended, I can look back at those few brief weeks and then put them back on the shelf, realizing how fortunate we are as a family to have known nothing worse.  

And it was one more step in my faith journey with the Lord.  One more time I watched the power of gratitude and praise transform the quiet, fearful spaces where we sometimes live.  It was a time I remember Him literally inhabiting my song, like the Bible says He does, coming to sit with me as I sang to Him, tucking all my pain under a blanket of peace.

That song— Ellie’s song— remains.  It is still the song she wants me to sing to her before bed.  And so most nights I lie beside her and brush the hair from her forehead, scratch her back or her arm, and sing softly into her ear those same words I did when she was a baby.  And its tune gently rocks us both, weaves together her story and mine into one simple lullaby.  

Tomorrow is her birthday.  Like we do for each child’s birthday, we will cover her door in balloons, and make her favorite meals, and sing her “Happy Birthday.”  But for Ellie, I will sing one more.  One that to her is as commonplace as her health, but to me is a sweet and special reminder of the so-much-living we did together, as a family, in those her first few weeks.  

 

 

 

The Rio Grande Valley where I was born and raised is a lush landscape filled with palm trees, tropical plants, and exotic birds.  You could take a native and disorient them– plop them down in any unrecognizable place in the Valley–  and they will know they are still home because of the way it feels on their skin.  They can see, and hear, and smell it.

Of all the exotic species, for me one stands out above all the others: the green parrot.

South Texas is home to both the red-crested green parrot, and the smaller Mexican green parakeet.  They make a different sound, and while the words “parrot” and “parakeet” are generally interchangeable, the parrot is larger than the parakeet.  Everyone I know calls them all “parrots,” and for the purposes of this post, I make no distinction between the two.

I lived in Brownsville until I left for college, and I returned as soon as I was done with school.  It was home for my first real job, my new marriage, and my first two children.

It all began simply with the fact that the native parrots thrilled me.  Everything about them: the way they flew, the noise they made, their brilliant color.  Like efficient fighter pilots, they raced low and fast across the sky, delivering a loud, screeching war cry as they went.  When gathered in large numbers in the trees, they painted it electric green, and joined their voices in a cacophony of noise like a victorious, chanting tribe, unapologetic and proud.

They are magnificent.

So every time I saw one, I thanked God.

Then, when I lived on Robins Lane, I’d be in my yard gardening, or playing with my kids, or lying in my baby pool– yes, I did that, often– and I’d end up talking to God about this or that, or telling Him I loved Him, or thanking Him for all of it, and a parrot would buzz me in a fly-by.  And so it became a conversation between us.  I just knew as certainly as I drew breath that when a parrot came to me, it was Him saying, “I love you, too.”

There were days it was so perfectly timed, it could be nothing else.  A God-wink, a nudge, a small, sincere love note, the picking-up-where-we-left-off-with-each-other from one day to the next.

Then one day, after many years in Brownsville, my husband and I decided it was time to leave the Valley.

The decision was right, but still there were many things about it that hurt a lot.  It required many conversations with the Lord: times I confided in Him my fear of the unknown, and how much I’d miss my family, my home, my parrots.

But I trusted God.  I trusted the story He was writing.  I trusted my husband.  And I was excited, at the same time, for the next chapter in our lives.

The day we moved to Austin, the Texas skies were stormy.  I cried, and prayed, and sang my way up IH-35.  When we arrived at our tiny rental house in Hyde Park, we pulled up beneath the largest, most magnificent rainbow I’ve ever seen.  We were unpacking our many things in load after load into that 800-square-foot cottage, when Derek stopped in the doorway and called to me.  “Babe, come look at this.”  So I did.  I stepped outside into that new air, a different air– a sweet sage, hill country kind of air– and looked up in the direction of his pointed finger.  And there, above my head, sat a row of seven, green parrots on the line.

“You’re home,” God was saying.

I’ve lived in Austin now for four years, and that was the only day I’ve seen my green parrots.  But that was enough.  I’m in a new chapter now.

Most lovers have a language– a dance– of their own.  Nicknames, inside jokes, and games that only they play.  It bonds and sets apart, defines and holds sacred, that relationship above all others.

Well, God does, too.

Listen to me, my babies, if you do nothing else in life, do fall in love with God.  Spend your life growing your own love language with Him: your secret winks and private delights.  Then if all else falls apart and every expectation shatters, if I’m not there to hold your hand or witness your deepest joys and sorrows, your walk will be softer and sweeter and richer.  Nothing else you do will compare with the feeling of resting in the unconditional, never-ending, deep and certain kind of true love that you enjoy with your Creator.

Sometimes I like to imagine getting to heaven.  I picture what it’s like to see Jesus, to fall at His feet overcome with gratitude for all He did to make a way for me where there wasn’t one.  And then I picture Him pulling me up off the floor into a bear hug, and insisting that I go and see all that He’s prepared just for me.  I’m a little fuzzy on some details, like whether my Bernese Mountain Dogs come barreling toward me, or whether my house is more Pacific Northwest-y or Mexico-y.  But with one detail I’m pretty certain: my backyard will have parrots.

 

 

“Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.” Hebrews 4:1

 

There I was, minding my own business, skipping along, tackling my substantial 2019 to-do list, whistling while I worked.  When all of a sudden from out of nowhere, this guy came up, grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me.  Then, with this crazed look in his eyes and an urgency in his voice, he insisted that I do everything— EVERYTHING— in my power to hold fast and enter God’s rest.

He was the book of Hebrews.  

Hebrews was a letter of warning to Jewish Christians facing persecution. The audience knew the Law well, revered Moses and the prophets, held the old ways in high regard, and had come to find and accept Jesus.  But despite their being well positioned from a theological standpoint, the writer believed them to be seriously at risk.

I’m a planner.  And a doer.  I love lists.  I am so preoccupied with my agenda that daily time with the Lord is, in my mind’s eye, asterisked.  It’s the item that’s not really an item.  It’s a squishy item.  It’s in the “Self Care” column, in the category “Intangible Benefits.” 

And it isn’t a task I ever cross off.  Which I find very unsatisfying.  It’s not ever done.  It’s still on the list tomorrow.  Which means that if I don’t do it today then, oh well, it will still be there when I wake up. 

I usually read that particular item on my list and think “if the other tasks get done,” “if there’s time,” or “if I need to get off my feet for a minute.”  Just think how much better I’ll feel in my bed tonight if I knock off some real, concrete, un-asterisked items?  Won’t that be restful?

I’m pretty happy with my ratio of spinning plates to shattered plates.  Besides, the plate that spins the best is my God plate.  I’m a believer.   I encourage others.  I’m in Bible study.  And God talks to me.  He and I, we’re good. 

(Did you believe that?)  

Because when Hebrews listened to my spiel, it gave me a thumbs down and didn’t buy it for a minute.

See, the Israelites of the Exodus knew God, too.  God talked to them, and they heard Him.   They also saw His many miracles.  He fed them with manna from heaven, and personally led them around.  

Believing He existed and that He was very powerful was never at issue.  And yet, they all dropped dead in the wilderness, and none of them entered His rest.  Even Moses— God’s chosen leader and prophet, the receiver of the Law, the one “faithful in all God’s house as a servant,” the one who talked with God, face to face, like a friend— didn’t enter it. 

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:

Now I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, and all were baptized with Moses in the the cloud and in the sea.  They all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.  For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.  But God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the wilderness. 

Not pleased with most of them.  With those baptized, who ate and drank spiritual food, sourced in Christ.  NOT pleased.

As to what they did wrong, 1 Corinthians goes on to say that the Israelites desired evil things.  Some of them became idolaters.  They ate and drank, and played.  Some of them committed sexual immorality.  Some of them tested Christ.  And some of them complained.  Psalms 78 called them all stubborn and rebellious, with unloyal hearts and an unfaithful spirit.  Psalms 95 said they went astray in their hearts, and did not know God’s ways.  Meanwhile, Hebrews called their collective sin by three names: disobedience, hardness of heart, and unbelief.    

But it wasn’t the kind of unbelief that we think of as unbelief.  Their sin wasn’t an outright rejection of God.  Rather it was something much more subtle and sneaky, something they tried on one day, and then again the next, and then continued to put on.  It infected an entire generation, and it went on for forty years.  It was an ingrained, practiced sin.  It poked at God, provoked and tested Him.

It was neglect.  Each day, they picked something else over Him.  They quarrelled before they considered.  They grumbled rather than hoped.  They played rather than listened.  They preferred the here-and-now over the promise.  If He took too long to answer, they fashioned something else to worship.  They clung to the past, rather than fought for the future.  They easily recognized their hardships, but didn’t easily recognize His dominion over those hardships.  They took the easier path, the grooves of fear well worn and deep, rather than carving out a new one in faith.  Their memory of what He’d already done for them never really influenced what they thought He’d do next.     

It cost them rest.  

The rest wasn’t the same as salvation, though there is a salvation rest.  And it wasn’t the same as heaven, though there is an eternal rest.  And it wasn’t just about settling into the Promised Land, though that was certainly a type of rest.  It was another, more transcendent rest— it was God’s Sabbath rest.  

The kind He established by example at the very beginning, at creation.  The kind for which we must intentionally set apart, practice, fight, and preserve.  The kind that can, once it’s honored, become routine and habitual, an act of worship.  The kind that can’t live alonside us struggling in our own strength.  The kind that, when entered into, feels like lying down in a green pasture beside a Shepherd who will fight your every battle, provide for every meal and every thirst, and speak to you in a kind voice to tell you that everything besides Him is meaningless.  The kind we enter into when we really, truly, let God have it all.  It is the kind that dumps upon us the full benefits of anchoring in Him, pressed down and shaken together.  The kind that makes us the head and not the tail, that stills our inner turmoil and shifts the trembling onto our enemies.

1.  But ironically, we must work to rest.  

Hebrews 4:11 says, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest.”  When God offered the Israelites the Promised Land, He still required that they fight their way into it.  And Jesus, our Promised Land, requires that we move: “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28). And the Sabbath Day is a commandment. Something we do, we prioritize; it isn’t done for us.

2.  And we must do it Today.  

The timing is crucial.  Hebrews urges, “While it is still called today (3:13),” “Today, if you hear His voice,” (3:7), and again, “He specified a certain day— today” (4:7). 

The warning has not changed.  It was the same one, just as urgent, delivered to the Israelites those many years ago: “Look, today I have set before you a blessing and a curse… choose life, and hold fast to Him” (Deut 30:15-20).  And again, “Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you don’t forget the things your eyes have seen and so that they don’t slip from your mind as long as you live.” (Deut 4:9). 

They lost their moment.  Their Today became Yesterday, and it happened while they were on the clock. They fell short. 

We— us— have only Today. 

3. It’s done not just once, but every day. 

A continued work.  Committed to over and over again. We are to “hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start” (Hebrews 3:14), and to “run with endurance the race that is set before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2).   

4. It’s not accomplished alone. 

We “encourage each other daily” (Hebrews 3:13), we are “united with those who heard it in faith” (Hebrews 4:2), and we remain “concerned about one another in order to promote love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24), spurring one another on.  Not “staying away” (Hebrews 10:25) from one another, but joining in.

Thousands of years ago He called us an assembly.  He still does Today. 

5.  Worship is a good place to start.

“Come, let us shout joyfully to the Lord, shout triumphantly to the rock of our salvation!  Let us enter His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout triumphantly to Him in song… Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, the sheep under His care.  Today, if you hear His voice: Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah…” (Psalms 95).

6. The Word is the only thing that can reveal our self deceit. 

Not the one-verse-a-day, flowery and inspirational kind of Word that we get when we let our daily bread be nothing more than a spoonful dosed out by someone else, but the Word in its context, studied and meditated on, sought after and hungered for, with a heart laid bare. 

“For the Word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow.  It is able to judge the ideas and thoughts of the heart.  No creature is hidden from Him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.” (Hebrews 4:12).

This verse, the one we have memorized and out of context, is the one that follows, “Let us strive, therefore, to enter that rest.” It is meant to be the answer to how we avoid a pattern of disobedience.

7.  It’s all about Jesus. 

Not just the book of Hebrews, but all of it.  It’s Him or bust. 

I may put Him in my “Intangible Benefits” column, but He is the only tangible benefit.  Anything else is a lie. And I may consider my un-asterisked items to be the path to rest. But He is the only true rest.  Anything else is a lie.

So whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall. 1 Corinthians 10:12.

We have one go at this.  It’s Today.  And it’s Jesus.  Our confidence and our hope.  Our salvation. Our rest. It is not enough to receive, acknowledge, agree with, or even support. In His words, we must hold fast, be careful, pay closer attention to, and love with all our mind and all our heart and all our soul.

When…you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and all your soul by doing everything I am giving you today, then He will restore your fortunes, have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you… This command that I give you today is certainly not too difficult or beyond your reach.  It is not in heaven so that you have to ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven, get it for us, and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?’ And it is not across the sea so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea, get it for us, and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?’ But the message is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may follow it.

Deuteronomy 30:1-4, 12-14

Meribah means “strife.” It was the place where Moses fell short of God’s rest.

In that moment, the people were thirsty and complaining. And God asked Moses to talk to the rock to get water. But instead of talking to it, he struck it, like he’d done the last time he was in a similar situation. And this time he did it twice. And then he yelled to the people, “Must we bring water from this rock for you?”

Was it falling back on the past, relying on what worked before? Was it self-reliance, giving himself too much credit? I don’t know. But it was strife, and it was sin, and God said, “Because you did not trust Me to show my holiness in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land I have given them.”

And a private wink didn’t follow it. Moses died, and was gathered to his fathers short of the finish line, having only looked out from a desert mountaintop into a place of promise, filled with milk and honey he’d never taste.

Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts. Psalms 90:12

 

 

“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.” 1 Peter 5:6

Right now— at this stage of life— I have a lot of everything.  Except, of course, time and money.  But in all else, I feel overwhelmed.

For example, I have LOTS of time with my children.  So. Much. Time.  So why, Lord, can’t I reserve a handful of these 2 A.M. snuggles for my sixty-year-old self who undoubtedly will yearn for and miss these tiny hugs?

And I now have more than enough self-assuredness. So why, Lord, can’t I scoop some of this self-confidence up and heap it onto my tweens, teens and twenties when I didn’t have enough of it?

I have an over-abundance of demands on my time: home projects, volunteer activities, things to learn, places to go.  So why can’t I give one here and one there, to the slower season of my life that’s surely around the corner, or to my college self that sat around for hours on end?

What was God thinking when He designed it this way?  

I spent childhood wishing myself into the next stage of life.  If only I was in high school.  If only I was in college.  It was a pursuit of “arriving,” a life somewhat unsettled as it anticipated the future.  The roller coaster click, click, clicking toward the crest.  It hadn’t really started yet.  

Near the top, I made some huge life choices that set my course— I chose a job, a person, a city.  We made a baby.  And for a split second, I looked around from the roller coaster’s peak and thought: huh, so this is the view from here?  And then my life— so much time spent waiting, longing, click, click, clicking— fell out from under me.

Suddenly I was in it.  A wild ride.  Baby to babies.  Vanishing sleep, disappearing youthfulness.  Competing priorities.  Trying to hold close what matters most, while simultaneously flying through life.  Years feeling like months, months feeling more and more like just days, and days feeling like dreams.  And I expect it to slow down just as abruptly– maybe as an empty nester in fifteen years– leaving me to wonder, “what the hell just happened?”

My current life stage often feels a lot like damage-control.  Clutching my bag and keeping my sunglasses from flying out of the ride.  Cluttered cabinets, a messy garage, desperate landscaping, dirty dishes, endless laundry, so many toys, and a cup that runneth over.  Oh how it runneth.

From “when am I gonna get there?” to “was that it?” in the blink of an eye.  

But Ecclesiastes chapter 3 assures us: “God has made everything beautiful in its time.”  Everything. Beautiful. In its time.

The word “beautiful” here is the Hebrew word YAPAH, a craftsfman’s term for carefully and precisely fitting different pieces of material together, like placing a jewel perfectly in its setting, to create a feeling of intense pleasure and satisfaction.  So this verse means, “He has made everything to fit precisely together to create a sense of intense pleasure and satisfaction in its time.”  Everything.  Beautiful.  In its time. 

This messy, overflowing cup— year thirty-seven— with its stretch marks, and tiredness, and new gray hairs, and noise— is entirely, precisely, fit and crafted for beauty in its time.

If I trust Him and His words, then the question “Why is it this way?” is answered.  Each life stage, to give pleasure and satisfaction, as is.  

The question then becomes “Can I see it His way?” 

That verse continues, “He has also put eternity in their hearts, but man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end.”  A sense of eternity in my heart, but an inability to see the whole big, beautiful Story. He built into it a mystery.  He purposed the questions.  And He requires that we trust Him.  That we rest in the assurance that there is a bigger Story, and it is beautiful from beginning to end, just as it should be, crafted for intense pleasure and satisfaction.

In the book of Philippians Paul, from a prison cell in Rome, wrote:

“I know both how to have a little, and I know how to have a lot.  In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content— whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need.”  (4:12)

What a HUGE statement. What a huge accomplishment.

So what is his secret?

Paul writes that the answer is to do it all “through Him who strengthens me.”  (v. 13)

The answer to the great mystery of contentment is to do it all through Him.    The good and the bad, the ordered and the chaotic, the too much and the too little, the “I’m not there yet,” and the “where did the time go?” Not just for Him, but through Him.

We read throughout the book that Paul was entirely resolved to do God’s will, not caring whether he lived or died, whether he kept serving or went on to be with Jesus, whether he was appreciated or not, whether he was in or out of jail. Completely committed to bring Jesus glory. Indeed, he had figured out how to trust the Storyteller.

Which takes me back to the Hebrew definition of “beautiful.”  That intense pleasure, and that deep satisfaction.

It doesn’t belong to the thing. It belongs to the Craftsman.  The One who sets the jewel.  The One who fashions the piece.  The One who writes the Story.  It isn’t about our contentment, it’s about His. It isn’t about my great pleasure, but His.

This is the great paradox, the wheel within the wheel.  The profound irony of Paul’s secret is that his personal contentment— the eternal kind that he knew how to have in all times, in all circumstances, in all places— was found on the other side of laying his contentment down.  Losing his life for Jesus, only to find it again. Humbling himself, only to be exalted. Letting go of what he expected it to look like, so God could do what He pleased.

As David writes in Psalms 119:

“My soul cleaves to the dust; revive me according to Your word…

Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, and revive me in Your ways…

This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me…

Your hands made me and fashioned me…

in faithfulness You have afflicted me…

Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations; You established the earth, and it stands firm. They stand today in accordance with Your judgments, for all things are Your servants.”

In affliction, His. In the dust, His. Despite our vanity, His. Whichever generation, at whichever point in the Story, His. The Author. Because He said so. His very word causing all to stand. His is the first word, and the last.

His Story takes the chapter in which we find ourselves– however messy, however seemingly fragile, unfair, poorly timed, or poorly measured– and says, regardless of what we see in it: “Everything beautiful in its time.” At age 17, and 37, and 87.

So, in the words of Paul Simon, “Who am I to blow against the wind?”

I can cling to my version of it, wallow in how it feels, in how I’d change it and make this season more like that one, or how I’d take from here to give to there. Or, I can cry out, “Turn my eyes from looking at vanity,” and revive myself according to His word. A word that declares it is — all of it– beautiful, in its time.

And be content.

 

I’m talking specifically to you.  Yes, you.  One of you, out there right now.  

Have you seen the movie The Neverending Story?  If not, you should watch it.  My kids recently saw it for the first time.  A classic 1980’s fantasy film, it takes me straight back to childhood.  The music still gives me goosebumps. 

In it, a boy named Bastian finds an adventure book about a young warrior, Atreyu.  Atreyu is on a quest for a cure to save his empress, but he can only save her if he enlists the help of the boy who is reading their story.  Atreyu and the empress tell Bastian, through the book, that Bastian is that boy.  That until Bastian gives the empress a new name, Atreyu’s world and the empress herself will die.  But even though Atreyu and the empress describe Bastian, he refuses to believe that he is a part of the story.  He simply doesn’t realize that he himself is the answer. 

Finally, the empress perishing, the kingdom disappearing into the Nothing, the empress explains, “He simply can’t imagine that one little boy could be that important,” and then she pleads with him:

“Bastian!  Why don’t you do what you dreamed, Bastian?  Call my name!  Bastian, please!  Save us!”

 Bastian, overcome, runs to the window and screams her name into the night.  When he returns to the book, he finds out he has saved her and the kingdom.  

  And that’s you.

You’ve been reading this blog along with me.  And you’ve realized that you don’t know the God I’m describing.  Maybe you have believed Him to be religion.  Or you have believed Him to be His Christians, people who have let you down.  Or maybe He’s the One you’ve blamed for everything wrong.  All the injustice and all the suffering.  Or maybe He’s been more of an idea, someone you intellectually believe in, but not a real Person you intimately know. 

You’ve not yet met the One who offers love instead of condemnation.  Who loves you like a perfect Dad would, down to the smallest of your details.  The One who gave us His life while we were still sinners.  The One who made us, and is in love with us, and who offers us His everything if we’ll have Him.  

You know I’m talking about YOU.  

Your heart is beating faster.  There’s a voice that tells you you’re crazy.  You have excuses, this very moment.  Things you are terrified to give up or lay down.  You have your pride.  What will others think?  And you have all the reasons.  Why you think He can’t possibly love you.   Or forgive you.  Like Bastian, you just don’t believe you’re a part of the story.  

YOU ARE.  

You ARE the story.  

And this is your next step:

Accept His invitation.  That’s it.  Right now, where you are.  Right this moment.  It is no more complicated than that.  “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  Romans 10:13. 

The answer is simply recognizing that Jesus is the answer— the One whose sacrifice allows us to once again draw near to God.  He paid the price for our sin.  He died so that we can live.  

We aren’t here accidentally, and neither is our world.  Each piece was artfully designed, crafted by a God who sees us not just as creations, but as children.  He could have made us to be slaves, but He wanted us to have free will.  To be able to reject Him if we wanted.  And for that freedom He was willing to die.  All we do in return is acknowledge the sacrifice.  Not with our head, but with our heart.        

That He wrote it this way is beyond us to fully comprehend.

It’s unthinkable really, that Jesus would lower Himself to the form of man and walk around in skin like ours.  Feeling hungry or sick, or vomiting or urinating.  And then to use that life not to be a celebrity, rich and famous.  Not to pass his days stuffing his face at feasts, or enjoying women, or conquering the world.  But to devote it— every second of it— to serving.  To saving whom He could, and healing who would ask.  Knowing all the while that it wouldn’t earn him praise, but contempt. 

Most towns kicked him out, and hated his work.  He spent his time, up until the end, with friends who constantly fell short: they often failed to understand what he was saying, or failed to hold to their faith in the face of fear, or even to stay awake with Him when He was scared.  But oh, how He loved them!  Despite it all.  He was so sad to leave them behind, even on His very last night.  He thought of them until the end.  And then, to be rejected, spit upon, beaten, belittled, and persecuted.  Denied by His own people, hung up on a cross to die while onlookers mocked and misjudged Him.  And He didn’t call the whole thing off just to show them who was Boss.  But died playing the fool.  With a heart of love, with us in mind, He bore it all.  

And it’s crazy unthinkable, that God the Father would send a tiny, perfect baby– His very own– into our twisted world.  Letting imperfect humans keep his charge.  That He’d look on lovingly as that child blossomed into a holy, obedient, impressive young man, loving His Father and loving the world.  That God would let Himself feel so much love for that kid that His heart would swell with pride at the sight of him, at his words and his choices– his every breath being God’s very own heartbeat.  And then, after letting Himself love him so deeply, that God would be faithful to ask him– the one who had done it all perfectly, His pride and joy, the apple of His eye– to die.  Even as that boy begged to find another way, even as he sweated blood.  That God sent him as a lamb to the slaughter, and stood by.  Watched as they broke his bones, and broke God’s heart.  And yet He purposefully did nothing.  When His son needed Him most, when he cried out in pain, He turned His face away.  That baby whose birth He watched over so meticulously, whose first breath He witnessed and ordained, He let him draw His final breaths alone, feeling His Father’s rejection.  A price they both were willing to pay.  The cost of sin.

All for YOU.  All for us.     

Because He saw the end from the beginning. He saw not just that moment, but all of eternity.  He saw not just that one perfect baby He loved, but all of them.  You— sitting where you are today in sin and death.  And He wanted to rescue you whatever it took.  To scoop You up in His arms and call you by name.  And spend a lifetime loving you, and you loving Him. 

But He wanted it to be your choice.  Not forced.  But real, true love.  A real-life, always and forever, never-ending Story.  

But you have to call out His name.  You have to imagine that one little boy or girl could be that important.  And you have to call out His name.  

Please, Bastian.  

Please.  

“What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this dying body?”    The Apostle Paul, Romans 7:24

I’ve been hateful lately.  A hypocrite and slanderer.  Annoyed with the people I’m meant to love.  Easily offended, impatient, and unkind.  Judgmental, and happy to tell you all about it.  I’ve felt “at capacity.”  

It’s a tricky season.  On the one hand, merriment and festivity.  On the other, extra stuff.  Extra traffic.  Extra busy-ness.  Extra family.  And sometimes extra disappointment when the holidays don’t look like they do in the movies.  Unless the movie is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, in which case, when it DOES look like the movies. 

I have known the Lord for thirty-three years, so I have learned that when I behave this way, it means I haven’t spent enough time with Him.  As the preacher Ivan Tait says, “you smell like the place you dwell.”  

Intellectually, I recognized my problem.  It wasn’t hard to diagnose.  And so, over the past few weeks I’ve made a point to check in with the Lord.  To let Him know that I messed up, and I needed help.  I also listened to sermons about love and patience.  And I talked with other Christians about my problem.  

But it didn’t fix it.  

So I committed a day to it.  I got the kids off to school, and then I stopped the clock.  I gathered my worship playlist and my Bible, and I got quiet.  Right at first, a flood of tasks came to mind, reasons to get up and get busy.  But I was in dire need of change, so I didn’t give in.  I committed to sit until I had dealt with me.  And in that quiet place, I played “Clear the Stage” by Jimmy Needham.  That song gets me every time.  I went all in.   

Now, in my years of parenting, I’ve observed that there are three levels to discipline.   (1)  At the lowest end, and arguably not discipline at all, is “the quick fix.”  This is the moment Mitchell brings me his sticky hand, or a dirty diaper, and points to the issue like, “Fix this, so I can get back to what I was doing.”  This requires minor intervention on my part, and very little from the child.  (2)  The next level, “correction,” is the moment I point out a child’s error with the expectation that the child change his behavior.  Depending on where we are, or what the error is, this may be all that is required.  (3)  But then there is a next level— the highest level— what I call the “breaking point.”  

The breaking point is very easy to get wrong.  To start with, parents can misjudge when it’s necessary, either not thinking it’s needed when it is, or thinking it’s needed when it isn’t.  Secondly, parents can bring too heavy a hand to bear on it, hoping to force it, or speed it up.  This strips away the child’s ability to arrive at it on their own, which in turn plants seeds of rebellion rather than repentance.  This does more harm than good.  Thirdly— and the most tricky— parents can misread a breaking point.  They think they’re seeing one because the child cries or shows signs of remorse, but really the child’s heart is far from it.  Or, the parent can want it to be one, and so they call it one, when really it is the parent who is at her breaking point.  And so, the parent hoists the white flag over the whole thing, and calls it a win.  This is the worst possible outcome.  I’ve learned that children smell fear in leadership, and will exploit it.  Tiny Napoleons, they will come again to attack tomorrow at the weak point in the gate.    

But the breaking point— when it is right— is the sweet spot of parenting.  It is when the child truly regrets their action, and in that moment, a child’s heart is open and tender.  They are soft toward their parent.  They don’t just invite you into their vulnerability, they crave you to join them there.  They want to hear your words of love, acceptance, and wisdom applied like a balm over their wounds.  They are humbled, and in that intimacy, their character is forged, as is their relationship to you.  For certain sins, the breaking point is the only way through.  

I realized, in my quiet place, that this was what was missing in my own life.  Sitting there with Jesus, I understood that all these weeks I’d been going to Him like Mitchell with a sticky hand.  “Fix this,” I’d say.  But I never really brought him my open, broken heart.  I’d been telling Him what was wrong, but I’d not invited Him to tell me anything in return.

The holidays, for Christians, are all about Jesus, aren’t they?  We donate, give, bake, serve, share, sing, and attend church.  We are so busy about Him.  But I can’t help but think of Isaiah chapter 1, when God calls out to His rebellious children, “Who demands this trampling of My courts?”  

They easily could have answered, “You do!” and been right.  He had ordered the sacrifices, festivals, offerings, and assemblies.  And clearly, by His own admission, they were doing all of it, as asked, and lifting their hands in “countless prayers.”  But God saw that behind it all, their heart was very, very sick.  They needed a breaking point.  

In two thousand years, not much has changed.  We are still too busy–too “at capacity”– unable to really make room for Him.  There’s often no space in our day-to-day for the hard, messy business of deliverance. Or like Martha, we’ve invited Him into our home, laid out the red carpet, and made Him a meal, but we can’t seem to sit still long enough to really shut out the distractions and listen.  But if at any point, I am once again busy about Jesus— sermons, fellowship, charity— but can’t remember the last time He brought me to my knees, I need to S T O P.  

Get alone, and worship, until the act of worshipping brings humility.  Rest in that humility, until I am truly repentant, until the Spirit shows me every lie, and every idol, and every sin.  Repent, and let Him speak into every one of my wounds, offenses, and unforgiveness, until I hit my breaking point.  Until I remember beyond any doubt that He loves me, and you, more than His own life, and couldn’t be any closer to me than He is in that moment.  Until He gives me His heart, the deep and vast and infinite resource of love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Until I am reminded of how it is He loves me, so ugly, vile and cruel, and how then in turn I might love even the ugliest of others.  

What a beautiful irony He wrote, when He decided salvation couldn’t be arrived at intellectually.  And that it couldn’t be earned with good works.  When He decided it didn’t get you anywhere to be powerful, or rich, or talented.  When He determined it wasn’t going to be easy.  When He sent a tender, crying baby into a cold, dark night– into a cold, dark world– to a people that had no more space for Him then than now, and asked that we make room.  He asked the kings to come from afar, and the shepherds to come from the fields.  And to un-busy ourselves.  Get quiet.  And listen, willing to break.      

    

 

 

A few months ago I posted about the Bible’s Old Testament books.  Here is the post I promised for the New Testament.

Included is a cheat sheet listing the books, summarizing them, and describing the hand motions we came up with to help us memorize: Books of New Testament.

In case my descriptions need a little help, here’s a video of my girls going through the books with the hand motions: Girls Recite NT Books.

We had a lot of fun with these.  My original hand motion for the book of Acts was one hand on top of your head, fingers extended upward and waving, like the flames of a fire.  This was meant to represent the Holy Spirit falling on the disciples in the Upper Room, and appearing as tongues of fire on their heads.  The girls, in hysteria, kept shouting “chicken!” when we got to this one, because to them it looked like a rooster.  So we had to change it.  A memory I’ll keep for life.

Praying you and yours find it every bit as fun and meaningful.

 

 

 

I have a confession.  It’s been days since my last post, and the reason is that I have spent these days binge-watching Poldark.  

When I say “binge-watch,” I wish I meant something only slightly off-balance and mostly self-controlled, like a responsible adult would mean.  I don’t. 

I neglected basic household chores.  I reduced my mothering objectives from “teach them books of the Bible” to “keep them alive.”  I cooked only once, and even then it was a shepherd’s pie to enjoy while in 1790’s Cornwall.  And, as embarrassing as this is to admit, I became so obsessed that I consumed the first three seasons in not many more days.  Then, when I ran out of episodes but my heart was still in England, I started Downton Abbey again from the beginning.  It’s how I’ve been easing back to normal.     

I got a bit lost; I can’t deny it.  Which reminded me of the Mirror of Erised.  In the movie Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, Harry found a magical mirror that reflected one’s deepest desire.  When Harry looked into it, he saw his dead parents lovingly beside him, and he began to spend too much time tucked away in front of the mirror.  Finally, Professor Dumbledore intervened and warned Harry: “This mirror gives us neither knowledge nor truth.  Men have wasted away in front of it… It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live.” 

It is easy for me to wrap myself up in a make-believe world while forgetting my own.  And yet, as I come back to center, God is kind to remind me that there is nothing more powerful than our everyday lives.  No matter how ordinary or insignificant they may seem. 

Many years ago I read and loved a book called Waking the Dead.  The author John Eldredge wrote that the reason we feel connected to great stories is because they all borrow from God’s original Story in which good and evil fight over our hearts.  When we feel moved watching a young Luke train as a Jedi, or watching Arya Stark take up her sword, Eldredge wrote, “deep is calling unto deep”— our spirits are responding to a very real calling as warriors and royal heirs in a global war.  He argued that waking up to this spiritual reality is crucial for us to live our fullest, most glorious lives:  

“Either we wake to tackle our ‘to do’ list, get things done, guided by our morals and whatever clarity we may at the moment have…Or we wake in the midst of a dangerous Story, as God’s intimate ally, following him into the unknown.”

It is very easy to dismiss our small, everyday encounters with each other as inconvenient, rather than as divine appointments.  To consider our chores void of eternal consequence.  To focus so much on our current annoyance, that we lose sight of our true purpose as prayer-warriors, change-bringers, good-news-tellers, encouragers and friends.  

In 2 Kings 6, the prophet Elisha and his servant found themselves surrounded on all sides by a powerful army.  The servant began to panic, and asked Elisha what they should do.  But Elisha told him not to fear.  He said, “For those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”  He then prayed, and asked the Lord to open the servant’s eyes to the unseen.  God answered, and the servant looked around to find the mountain covered in angel armies— horses and chariots of fire— fighting with them.  

As far from everyday life as it may seem, if we truly believe the Bible— if we see the unseen— then we are the Creator’s allies in a daily world war.  There is a very real enemy prowling around to kidnap our children and our loved ones as prisoners-of-war, and there are real angel armies at our side.  There is a great cloud of witnesses seated in the stadium of heaven to watch us run the race, and the game is played for keeps.  

Certainly, we can choose to waste away in fantasies and distractions, or to believe the lie that our own stories aren’t nearly as grand as all that.  Or like King Saul, we can hide ourselves in the supplies closet and pretend we aren’t being tapped to play.  But it doesn’t change the truth that our story— no matter who we are— is better than any story ever told.  Better even than that of Ross Poldark, or the gladiator Maximus.  It is the true one, the one playing out right now, in which we are the protagonists. 

The glory of our lives, and that of our loved ones, hangs in the balance.  There are hostages waiting for us to realize our destinies, and there are plot conflicts waiting for us to resolve them: will forgiveness be extended?  Will the relationship make it?  Will the time be invested?  Will the moment be lost?  And only we decide how it goes.  

I love to picture it.  Me turning down a grocery store aisle only to realize someone I know is at the other end.  Someone from the past, someone who reminds me of things I’d rather forget.  And I look like a mess, and this isn’t good timing, and so I have every inclination to cast my eyes down and turn around.  But wait.  What if this was all arranged?  What if I am here, now, for such a time as this?  What if it has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with God?  What if I set down my vanity or insecurity, and took up His banner and His war cry?  And then as I think it, a great crowd draws and holds its breath, and an archangel beside me steadies his horse and waits for my command.  Nana, my grandmother, seated somewhere in the stands, leans forward a bit in her chair and studies my face, and then, as I take a step forward her eyes squint into a warm smile.  My grandfather whom I never met reaches over and squeezes her hand, and as I walk toward the person at the other end of the aisle, the horse beside me keeps my pace and his rider draws his sword.  

And the crowd goes wild. 

 

It is five in the morning and I can’t sleep.  I thought I’d have a cup of coffee and write.  Both are proving difficult because my giant bear of a dog, Penny, keeps knocking my elbows with her nose.  She wants love.  If you’re up, I’m up, so let’s be together, she seems to say.  

Our Penny, or Penelope Mae, is a Bernese Mountain Dog— a hundred-pound Swiss working dog with a long, tri-color coat in black, white and brown.  Her breed is the shaggy mascot of many a vacuum or allergen medication commercial, or of Christmas in the Alps.  For the latter, they are often pictured pulling a red sleigh or a freshly-cut Christmas tree through the snow, usually on a greeting card or dish towel or coffee mug. 

Occasionally, I endure criticism about my choice of dog.  For one thing, our Alpine farm hand lives in Austin, Texas.  For another, she sheds.  A lot.  I work very hard at sweeping and mopping our floors, and I never win.  Thirdly, everything she does is BIG.  How does she greet someone at the door?  She knocks them over.  How does she jump into a chair?  She moves it back four feet.  How many doggy waste bags should you take when you walk her?  You get the idea.

And yes, I see all of these well-reasoned points against my dog.  But I made my choice of dog knowing these things, and I chose her anyway.  Twice.  

My first Berner, Bree, was Derek’s and my first love.  She was our pre-baby pet, and the object of all the overflow of our newlywed hearts.  In my early career days when I was green at the courthouse, she calmed my pre-trial nerves every Sunday night.  On days Derek travelled for work, she filled his spot in bed.  On days I returned home deflated, she met me at the door with tail wagging, bringing with her hope and healing.  She saw the lives of Camden and Ellie enter and fill our family, and she turned three different houses in two different cities into our “home.”  The day she died, a warm light left our house, and a dark hole replaced it.  

Until Penny.  Who every day diminishes the darkness, bit by bit, and steadily heals our family by being unapologetically her own dog, worthy of our whole hearts in this our next chapter of life.

You’d think when we got our second one, most people would realize we were serious about Berners.  I mean, we’d done the entire life span of one, and signed up for the second.  But no.  Still they say, “Goodness, I don’t know how you deal with all that ____ (cost).” 

My college roommate used to say, “You make time for those things you truly want,” on her way out the door to the gym.  And from the couch over my bowl of Easy Mac, this struck me as wise.  For the purposes of this post I might adapt it slightly to say: “You make allowances for those things you truly love.”  And there’s the deeper magic that the critic misses and the dog owner knows.  The critic can’t possibly assess the cost-benefit ratio.  They aren’t in love with this dog.  You can measure the dog hair in the dust pan, but you can’t measure the joy and love in the home. 

We as people love to question each other’s choices.  We think things like, “why does that parent continue to do what they do for that child, because (cost, cost, cost).”  But isn’t the answer to “why that price?” always, “Yes but, love.” 

I know for me, when asked why I brought Bree home all those years ago knowing I’d lose her nine or ten years later, my answer is “yes, but I loved her.”  And when asked why, knowing how badly it hurt to lose her, I brought Penny home with all the same costs and requirements, my answer is “yes, but I love her.”  

This must be true for God, too.  If you asked Him whether or not He really cares about you, or whether or not you matter to this expansive world, or whether every mess you’ve made finally does mean that you cost too much, I am certain I know His answer.  He made his choice about you knowing the end from the beginning, and every moment in between, and made the choice anyway.  Twice.  

The sun is rising now.  My dog is still at my side.  And God loves us anyway, despite the cost.  It makes me want to nudge Him on the elbow and say: You’re up, so I’m up.  Let’s be together.