In Other Words…

This is not a pretty site if you happen to be claustrophobic:

However, if you could only see the rest of picture…

I don’t have to have spiritual tunnel vision; I can safely trust in God’s ultra-wide angle lens.  In other words…

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
    do not depend on your own understanding.
Seek his will in all you do,
    and he will show you which path to take.

Proverbs 3:5,6  Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

 

Tie your own shoes

TO THIS DAY, I still have middle-schoolers walking around with their shoes untied!  Kids!  This is NOT a fashion statement, this is a HEALTH HAZARD!  You trip, then I have to take care of you!

Remember teaching your little ones to tie their shoes?  Some used the bunny ear technique.  In my house, we used the old-fashioned loop/knot design.  It all takes time and practice, but then, of course, my youngest ended up wearing flip-flops to high school in January, so why bother?

The point is that teaching self-sufficiency is a 

M.O.N. (Mean Old Nurse)

Working as a middle school nurse for many (many) years, I’ve come to expect that quite a few—or maybe even more than a few—of the young visitors who come to my office don’t actually want the services I have to offer.  Based on my assessment, they can finish their school day with a cough drop, or a Tylenol.  And, yes, I make loads of phone calls to parents just to inform them that I’ve seen their child and they might want to recheck their child’s temp that evening as, of course, things do progress.  But, for now, I send the student “BTC” (back to class). 

It does not make me popular….

…because it was not the “help” they were hoping for or expecting.  Ah, growing up is hard to do, as I check the child’s throat while fighting back my own migraine, or offering the good old staple of Saltine crackers while hiding my own stash at my desk after taking a couple of Tums that morning myself.  Life is not always as we would want it, kid; let me “help” you start figuring that out now.

Again, not exactly the help they

Up, Up, and Away!

At this writing, Bob and I are waking up in a Portland airport hotel after scooping our kinder from Norway and waiting on the New Yorker to arrive after which we will travel a little more to meet additional loved ones for a week of high fives, and plenty of family-based jocularity.  I missed a really great photo-op as we cruised right past Mount Hood, but here’s a reasonable facsimile:

KOMOnew.com

In typical fashion, being the only early riser in the whole extended clan, (thus the name “Dawn”, I suppose), I am sitting out on some backside patio before the hotel’s breakfast is even ready, listening to the birds compete with the jet planes roaring off in the not-so-far distance.  I’m impressed by the sound of their immense power, with just two puny little humans at the helm.  Wow.

Now, granted, those two puny little humans had to go to school and learn some pretty impressive things, like to properly engage that immense power.  Otherwise, that plane, as pretty as it looks, is just not going anywhere.

Or worse, yet, it might go somewhere it shouldn’t… 

From: my aesthetic @intradasting

“We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves…For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.”

One of the challenges for Christians in my culture (translated: for me) is the misunderstanding of the power that resides within us/me.  I look in the Bible and see things, powerful things, and I have to wonder, “Am I really living all that God has for me?” 

(Oh!  There goes another one into the wild blue yonder!!  Man, those engines are huge.)

Or am I just shaking my head and thinking, “Yep, that’s a nice plane”, but never bothering to go to school and learn to fly for myself?

The thing is, God says the power, His power, the power His Son died for, is already in all of His children.  Fueled up, ready to go.  Many times, however, I stay grounded, not only by ignorance, but also by fear, self-contempt and blame, offense, and the list goes on. 

This doesn’t mean God doesn’t love me any less—no way.  It’s just that He calls me to more.  And He needs me for more.  Others need me for more:

 

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up…”

…or throttles the plane.

2 Corinthians 4:7, 20; Hebrews 12:1 Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Beware of fly-by’s

One thing that can’t be disputed about relationship with God in the Old Testament times—it was messy.  A lot of blood was involved: bulls, goats, pigeons,…prophets.

In one of the most historically and spiritually significant Old Testament sacrifices, Abram (not yet having his name changed to Abraham) slices in half several specimens of the animal kingdom in preparation for a special covenant with this Most High God whom very few people are even aware of any more, much less worship.  This is going to be unlike any other offering Abram has participated in, and I suspect

Silverware, or flatware?

I don’t have a home and hearth “lifestyle” site like my bloggin’ buddy, Lindsey.  Case in point: I grew up calling all eating utensils “silverware, yet I somehow doubt that we ate off of silver.  I have since learned the differentiations between silverware, stainless, and simply flatware.  Now, Lindsey might be able to tell you more precisely what those are are (and how to use them correctly!)  One thing I have learned, however, (Lindsey, dear, please correct me if I’m wrong), is that the more you use silver, the less you have to keep it polished.  Otherwise, just stuffing it away for special occasions means you had better budget a fair amount of time in the preparation of the event for the wearisome task of polishing, cleaning, and wiping. 

For someone who rarely gets around to dusting my furniture, no thanks.

Not that I would allow my granddaughter to dig in the dirt with the silver serving spoon I got as a wedding gift lo, these many years ago, but why stuff that little treasure away just for dipping out the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving?

So I wonder how much I fall prey to that attitude in other areas of my life; that is, putting something away for “safe keeping”, afraid it might get broken, stolen, or at the very least misused or disregarded, instead of using it for

That’s what doorbells are for.

Best dating story: Bob and I were coming home from an evening out.  As I was still in college, I lived with my parents in the summer, and my dad, as a stickler for protecting his family, always had the door locked if I got home late enough and they had gone to bed.  Naturally, I also always had a key to get in when my soon-to-be finance would deposit me at the front step.

The key, however, only fit the main entrance, not the outer screen door…

What happened next was almost something out of Ferris Beuller’s Day Off.  Bob, being the practical science-guy he is, couldn’t understand why I didn’t just ring the door bell, (which, to this day, seems like the most sagacious option), but in deference to my objections, he pulled his little Pinto (remember those?) around to the driveway and helped me go from the big wooden storage box, to the top of his car, and onto the garage roof which led to my own second story window.  Thankfully, I had left the window open, but DRAT!  There was that locked screen window (what is it with screens??) that I had to poke my fingers through to raise, hoping that the family dog wasn’t currently my room ready to sound the intruder alarm.

Having successfully deposited his future bride safely, albeit not conveniently, within her home, Bob took off and I went to bed, thinking I would relate the incident to my folks…someday.  Until I got up that morning and they asked me how I had gotten in last night, as Dad noticed he had locked the screen door, and Mom was wondering what my shoes were doing in the garage.

At what point in a young person’s life does she realize that her parents are not stupid?

Now, Dad is a fixer; property is something that must be improved and/or maintained, so my screen window didn’t stay impaled for long, allowing for mosquitoes, bees, and other pests equal access to my room, (geewhiz, hadn’t thought of that one).  And thankfully, I didn’t dent Bob’s car, pull off the guttering or slip and break my neck scampering up the shingles.  In retrospect (sigh) I should have just rung the doorbell!

Which is kinda the point the writer of Hebrews is making when he says:

“So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”

I wonder how much wasted time, energy, and (gulp!) destruction I have caused by not first coming boldly to my Father’s presence.  What fears have stolen my peace, what anxieties have poked holes in my power, and what kind of hellacious peril I have put myself (and others) in due to my lack of faith in God’s most holy acceptance of me because of His Son!

And he STILL takes me on dates: roses and camo. What more could a girl want??

After all, I’m one of the family.  If I’m feeling locked out, I just have to ring the bell.

Hebrews 4:16  Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

In other words…

 

  The lazy person claims, “There’s a lion on the road! Yes, I’m sure there’s a lion out there!”

Proverbs 26: 13   Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Name that tune

I’m not a true musician, but I dabble around in a few things.  I sort of remember a some notes and symbols from the treble cleft, thanks to my parents’ marvelous attempts to musically educate their young daughter.  So when it came time for our oldest child to enter 5^th grade, I informed her that it wasn’t a matter of whether or not she would be in the band, but simply which instrument would she like to play.

In other words, at least some exposure to

Worriers, unite! (and then go somewhere else.)

Did you know that our upper atmosphere is totally littered with cosmic debris, some of which could break through and wreck havoc at anytime, unannounced by our sophisticated technology?  (Remember Russia a few years ago?) 

Or how about the “definitely-not-Kansas-Toto” freak tornado in China that terrified a schoolyard of children and teachers?

A little closer to home is the New Madrid fault line, where I live here in the Midwest of the USA.  I read this little tidbit this morning: “…earthquakes in this region shake and damage an area approximately 20 times larger than earthquakes in California…”, and that we are about thirty years overdue for a major jiggle. (Bob tried to soothe me when we moved here saying that we would be living on the side of our town a little further away from the crack…)

Making it more personal, I was sitting out on the patio this morning right before sunrise, enjoying the relative cool, the quiet of crickets and waking birds, the serenity of my big black dog and my pot of very black tea.  Deep breath.  Nice.  

Then the sun came up, I turned off the outdoor lights (Bob likes it when I do that) and continued my morning on the porch. After a bit I noticed a big spider web built on the side of my table with (guess what) a big spider in the middle RIGHT NEXT TO MY ELBOW–all morning!  

I relocated quickly.

Closer inspection confirmed the spider was deceased (evidently not his own web?) and after clearing the area of the offending wildlife, my skin stopped creeping as I sat back down.

My thought is that potential dangers (or at best, inconveniences) are all around me, and I’m not even aware of most of them.  Yes, I wear my seatbelt.  Yes, I eat properly, (and sometimes I even exercise.)  Yes, I put on my bike helmet before riding to Walmart for groceries. (Yes, I wear spandex…TMI??) 

But even with the best of all things, other things still happen. Unexpected things. Tragic things. Things that have nothing to do with terrorist attacks or misplaced passions and loyalties belonging only to humankind.  (And we all know, especially these days, that many humans are not kind.)

When Bob’s dad died of a heart attack at a young age, my husband said, 

“God is still on His throne.”

If anyone had reason to worry, it was the Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk.  He came to this conclusion:

I trembled inside when I heard this;
    my lips quivered with fear.
My legs gave way beneath me,
    and I shook in terror.
I will wait quietly for the coming day
    when disaster will strike the people who invade us.
Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,
    and there are no grapes on the vines;
even though the olive crop fails,
    and the fields lie empty and barren;
even though the flocks die in the fields,
    and the cattle barns are empty,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
    I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
The Sovereign Lord is my strength!
    He makes me as surefooted as a deer,
    able to tread upon the heights.

Meteorological interruptions or man-made intrusions, God is still in control.

Time for that Walmart run.  (Helmet on, of course.)

Habakkuk 3:16-19  Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.