Day by Day

When sad, awful things happen to people, it's hard to understand why. It's hard for me to just get a grip. This hymn makes me feel better sometimes. I pray it's words for the people who are going through sad things, that they will have such peace and trust. I pray that I would be able to say and mean these words when my time comes to go through something like that.

Day by day and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in the Father's wise bestowment,
I've no cause for worry or for fear.
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day as He deems best--
Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.

Every day, the Lord Himself is near me
With a special blessing for each hour;
All my cares He fain would bear and cheer me,
He whose name is Counselor and Power.
The protection of His child and treasure
Is a charge that on Himself He laid;
"As your days, your strength shall be in measure,"
This the pledge to me He made.

Help me then in every tribulation
So to trust Thy promises, O Lord,
That I lose not faith's sweet consolation
Offered me within Thy holy Word.
Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,
E're to take, as from a father's hand,
One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,
Till I reach the promised land.

~by Caroline Sandell Berg, 1865

what I think

These are the categories that most occupy my thoughts these days, and this is what I am thinking about them all right at the moment.

Music/Culture: Certain songs on the radio make me want to run, not because they're stupid or lame, even though lots of them make me want to run for that reason. But some make me want to run because they have an ugly spirit that sort of jumps out at me and hates me. I can't think of any specific example because don't keep track of them. Figuring this out is sometimes not very high on my list.

Countries/Travel: I miss London, and the countryside around it. I really want to go back there and spend a long time. And I love remembering Paris. Having been to Paris really does change your life!

Languages: Studying Latin is a fascinating new activity I've discovered. It's history is so interesting. Spanish is fun and easy compared with German and French, and it makes me feel good in the hot summer.

Passions: Having a burden for the lost is not the most fun sometimes, but things happen to build your faith.

Me: I like being tan and having glow-y white, sparkly fingernails to go with my lovely diamond ring and my Juicy Couture charm bracelet. I'm missing the thing in my brain that's supposed to get rhythm and translate it into my body. Still wondering what to do about that, as I practice and practice dancing.

Piano: I like sight reading Chopin nocturnes, now that I can. Practicing doesn't really scare me anymore. That's a relief. I can play jazz now. I work very hard at the rhythm, but the chords finally come more naturally.

Food: I want sushi, and to go to the Tipperary soon.

Family: We are all getting together soon.

Friends: I am about to take a break for a while.

Husband: We are so happy and finally unstressed!

Theology: Reading a lot, as always. Realizing that you can only learn from someone if you trust and respect them, and it takes a long time to find a preacher, writer, philosopher,theologian, etc. who can be trusted and respected.

God: He is faithful. All the time. He comes through. His Word means what it says to me.

Christians who hate Christians

Three or four times throughout my life, I have met Christians who think that the vast majority of other Christians are judgmental, nasty, prideful people who take every opportunity to be ugly to non-Christians and Christians who they think are "fallen" or something.

Maybe these few peoples' opinions don't really matter, but I find them upsetting. They haunt me, each of these Christian people I've known who feel they need to be defensive against Christians. I cannot figure them out. They are usually sensitive and nice, and seemingly knowledgeable about the Bible, but when you come to defining who Christians are, you find that these people almost hate them, and think we'd all be better of without them, even though they share their fundamental beliefs.

Maybe someone, or some church, has been mean to them or someone that they love. Maybe they wish Christianity were something that it's not. Also, they usually have a strong dislike for tradition. I guess Christianity has traditions, because it is so old, but tradition is not wholly bad. It should not obscure the real thing though, the reason for it, and maybe sometimes it does.

I don't know. I don't understand. I would think you would love meeting and being with people who love the Lord and can understand what he has done for them. I think the sort of people I am talking about--the Christians who hate Christians--really do love to be with others who believe like they do, but when they think of the church in general, they think of the kind of people who do not really know that they need grace, and so are prideful and like to judge.

My question about that is, how can the latter even be defined as Christian? Isn't a Christian someone who knows that they are unacceptable to God except by his own mercy and sacrifice? So then why do these "Christian haters" think that Christians are so awful? Why don't they know that who they are really hating are people who think they're Christians, but don't understand anything about it at all?

It's just that churches today are so full of such a mixture--and that's fine, I hope some of the mixture gets saved--but so many of these churches are without strong biblical teaching, and so many pastors are afraid to speak the truth that's in the Bible, that "Christian" has become a whole mass of people who everyone can define however they want: nice people, harmless people, judgmental people, abortion-doctor-shooting people, family-ruining people, gay-hating people.

The Bible does not use any of that to define a follower of Christ. Christians, of all people, should recognize other Christians by the biblical definition, and not be distracted and confused by all of today's random cultural definitions. I just did not know Christians could be that confused about one another, and it makes me sad. I always knew that non-believers think who knows what about us, but if some Christians cannot even recognize the difference between real Christians and culturally labeled "Christians," what do we do?

Healing in the Ruling

A friend asks me, "Who are we to look at someone who is deeply hurting and tell them that they're wrong?" I think it is the wrong question, because of course, we are nobody. God is the one who does that. If He chooses to do it through a Christian, that is His business.

But does that mean that we should not defend what the Bible says? However distasteful it is to our present culture, God's Word is still His Word, in every arena of our little cosmos. This friend says that "Our weapons are not against flesh and blood" so maybe we shouldn't have a military. She will apply that to our government, but when it comes to verses about gay marriage, she'd rather not apply it to politics, which I think is a little inconsistent. There may be a strong case out there for Christian pacifism, even though I don't agree, but there's not really a case for gay marriage being okay. Not from the Bible anyway. If I could find one, and tell all those hurting, confused people to go ahead and make themselves happy, I would. I would love to. But as a Christian, I can't.

And who are Christians? We are people who were hurting, broken and confused before we found God's mercy and His plan. We would still be hurting and broken, if it weren't for Jesus. Sometimes, we're pretty darn messed up but, as another friend of mine often says, perfection is not required of us. What is required is repentance, and faith. To trust and obey. And we aren't allowed to make the rules.

How can someone want to tell people about Jesus, but not want to tell them that they need Him, or why they need Him? The telling of why is the looking-into-their-hurting-eyes-and-telling-them-they're-wrong part. We don't always do just that, but if the Lord is working in someone's heart, they eventually come to that conclusion. Our need for Jesus is not because of our pain, confusion, or messed up lives. Our need lies in the fact that we are sinful and God is holy.

God has mercy: His mercy wakes us up to the fact that we need Him. His mercy makes us able to repent. His mercy forgives us. His mercy made a way for us to be counted righteous by faith in the One who was sacrificed for us. His mercy heals us. The people who were healed physically and/or spiritually in the Bible had to have the faith to ask Jesus to heal them, and to realize that they needed Him first.

It is the same with us. The message of salvation is not, "Come and be healed," it is "Come and be ruled." But healing is a part of it. There's healing in the ruling. There is healing only when one repents and submits to Gods design.

thoughts on an imperfect Easter

Easter weekend. Thinking about reading my Bible, which I left in the car and some point this week and have not brought into the house yet. Avoiding getting too close to Steve's face because he has had a fever since Wednesday night. He might be getting better today though. (I was trying to type "getting better" and I typed "gettering" instead. Getting + better = gettering!) Anyway, I miss getting close to his face. I am sure that if he did not feel so bad, he would enjoy the break, because I touch his face a little too often for him, but he has learned to bear it well. He comes from a family where they have this strange thing called "personal space." I'm not sure I entirely understand it.

We were going to have our own little Good Friday service last night, but for some reason we never got around to it. I feel that Easter weekend is a time to reflect. On the cross, on His mercy, on how to tell people about it. Not that I don't reflect on that every single day, at least a little bit. Gratefully, incredulously, happily. At some point, every day, I am over-awed by the mercy of God sending Jesus. But I have a notion that on Good Friday, Easter, and the Saturday in between, my reflecting should be specific. On purpose. And I feel that to sit and reflect purposefully, I have to have the whole house all clean, and nothing distracting me, except maybe a cup of tea, and I can't be in my pajamas. I can't be sitting on the couch, on a bed of sheets and blankets with my Eeyore and my pillow, eating muffins while the coffee table is covered with glasses and cups of tea and sprite from yesterday.

The Lord doesn't mind all that, I think, but since I do, I'd like to get up and do something about it. Instead, I rest, lazily on the couch, since I have a headache, and I fear (from much past experience) that, because I am tired and there is sickness around, any extra exertion, be it working out or just cleaning the kitchen, will land me in bed with a fever and antibiotics for the better part of two weeks. Not cleaning up, just wishing to. Not making my yummy menus, just thinking about them. Not reflecting on the cross, just thinking about reflecting.

I've slowly come to a realization–one not just for today, but any day when I let perfection (or the absence of it) dictate what I do–that the Lord puts us in our physical circumstances, on purpose, so we can learn, but I don't learn, I just use circumstance as an excuse sometimes. Now I think of Corrie ten Boom, in a gross, disgusting, really sad concentration camp, infinitely worse than my cozy, messy house, and how she could have thought, "Worship? Read the Bible? Not here, this isn't the place, this isn't the time." That sounds really silly, but when I think about it, that's what I do all the time.

Now, not to advocate leaving one's house or self an awful mess and only considering spiritual matters, because God gave us the physical world as well, and bodies and houses are important, and always will be. But He is more important, and those things only matter because of Him.

desperation

I have a rather brilliant piano student in about 6th grade or so. I once played the piano at her grandfather's birthday party, and it seems that over the years, I have met her whole family, grandparents, mother, father, sister, aunt, etc., many times. More than one usually meets one's students' families.

This child has an Aunt, Emily, who has also taken lessons from me in the past. Off and on, since adults are usually so busy. Emily used to have brain cancer years ago. It recently came back. She has tried everything, many times, and there does not seem to be too much hope left for a cure. Her doctor says that when her current treatment ceases to be effective, she will have a year, more or less.

This lovely, kind, normal family seemingly has no idea of God. Maybe they believe he's around somewhere, I'm not sure, but in the e-mail updates from Emily's mother, there seems to be nothing but a grasping at whatever medical hope still remains, and an acknowledgment that they are all sad and depressed and dreading the end, but doing all they can to keep happy and enjoy life now.

These e-mails have put to rest the doubts that I had about assuming that they have no idea that God is there, in charge, and that He cares. If they had any hope in the Lord, it would have come through. So I am left to suddenly, shakily, whether I want to or not, realize that there is a reason that I know them. An inescapable reason. The same reason I know anybody who doesn't know Jesus. There really are no accidental meetings. I pray for all my students, that they will know the Lord someday. I tell them if I can who He is and what He has done for me. I pray for Emily, for her healing, of course, but what would a few more years on earth be if eternity were not addressed? Mostly I pray that the Lord would prepare her heart for whatever He might say to her, through me, or any other Christian who might be a part of her life.

I am a little nervous to know that I absolutely have to go and tell Emily the Truth, but I am so glad that I can. I am so glad that I know Him, that He died for us and covers us with His righteousness, and that He will be there when we die, just as He is here now. I cannot think of the words I'll say, or how one brings up the afterlife to a person who is most likely dying and trying not to think about it. But the Lord will give me words when the time comes, I know. It's a desperate situation. I am not especially close to Emily. I was her piano teacher for a couple of years. I have never had a life-threatening illness, so who am I to speak to her about it? I don't know about all the pieces to the puzzle of this girl's life. But I have the one that matters, and I know that sometime soon, I have to tell her.

I think about visiting her, and hate the thought of bringing up the topic of death, but it's really about LIFE. Eternal life, eternal beautiful trees, eternal worship, eternal music and singing. Perhaps not eternal sunsets, I suppose, since there will be neither sun nor moon there, (Revelation 21?) but I'm sure the sky will be lovely colors anyway. I want her to know what I know. Who I know. I have never lived a day in which I thought that death would be the end. I cannot imagine how sad I would be if I thought that, every time I enjoy or love something or someone, to think it will all be over one day! I have never seen a sunset or heard a symphony, or taken a breath with the sadness that must come with not knowing that you will spend eternity alive, and with the source of beauty, and music, and truth, and life. Life. This is not about death at all.

But if you think of it, pray. That Emily will have an open heart and be able to hear the Word of God. That I will be bold, and that the Lord will give me the words to say. I know He will, because He knows that I am absolutely counting on Him for that part, because every time I go through what I might say in my head, I cannot even bring it up properly or coherently. Pray against the enemy, who hates this. And pray that the Lord will open her eyes. I pray these things so desperately. I don't know why, since He knows what I will ask before I ask it, but I do.

Christmas and Victory

As I read through Revelation again, I always hear my dad's voice at every word, because he read it to us so often as children. Every verse is familiar and expected and comforting because of that. And it puts me into my memories, dad reading by the closet light coming through the open closet door in Kristin's and my room as we went to sleep. Or being sick, and sleeping on the old couch on our old sun-porch, now the dining room, and having dad read to me then. And the time we read it backwards. Not literally backwards, but starting with chapter 22 and ending with chapter 1. Daddy reading Revelation was one of my favorite things ever.

I know Revelation is not typically one of the traditional Christmas readings, but reading it this time around, right when the Christmas season is coming, I have just been thinking about the connection. Christmas is about Jesus. Revelation is about the end times. Or sometime when the tribulation is or was, depending on your point of view and what kind of "-millenialist" you are. I have tired of trying to figure that out.

But Revelation has such a full description of Jesus. A physical description. Jesus came at Christmas as a baby, and I love that and all that it means and why He came. But we do not get to know what He looked like then. I guess that was not the point. Certainly not. But I am so, so glad that, for some reason, He chose to allow John to see Him and write down what He looked like in Revelation 1.

"...one like the son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength." (v. 13-16)

That He was "like the son of man" means that He looked human at that point, so that John could see Him, maybe? I am not sure. And with a weapon, the sharp sword. And eyes like flames, and feet looking strong and brilliant: a warrior. He sounds like a warrior to me. Not someone meek and mild, as the world sometimes thinks of Him. I know that He is meek, and that He is a lamb, the Lamb of God, but this is a picture of a strong warrior with a cause to fight for. I have not thought carefully through His meekness and strength going together since a long time ago when we studied it together at home. But I know they do. His power and authority and His ultimate victory over wickedness and all that is not true cannot contradict His meekness and patience and love.

But I am so very glad, in the face of all that is evil in our world, that He is strong. That He has a sword! He is our Shepherd, but He is a fighting, Warrior-Shepherd-King. I love that! A baby, at Christmas time, would grow up to be this for us. I have never thought of it quite like this before, but we cannot have Christmas without Easter. The Word became flesh, and He had to become a baby, so in that sense of course we celebrate the birth aspect of it, but if He had not grown up to be our King and Hero and Savior, all that would not matter.

So, as I am getting prepared for Christmas, and thinking about the greatest gift of all, I am in awe and just speechless at how beautiful it is that He follows through. That He is not just a baby, or a pacifist sort of shepherd-figure, but a Warrior-King who will be a Shepherd to His people. He is the one true knight in shining armour.

"Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems..." Rev. 19:11 &12

"He will tend His flock like a Shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young." Isaiah 40:11

And we know that He will win, because God says to Him, "I will make your enemies a footstool for your feet." Ps 110:1 & Heb. 1