Author: marettej

I don’t believe in happenstance. I don’t believe that luck or being In The right place at the right time exists. I believe God does things to meet our needs in the right place, right time and the right way.

It was one of those days, a typical Sunday morning. I put the guitar and the worship order and words in the truck and headed to where I would be leading worship. I was going a bit fast up the oxbow hill, after all it’s a hill, and noticed a sheriff car behind me. Right behind me. Like on my tail behind me. A million thoughts went through my head, one being, I can get pulled over and still have time and not be late. And then, I have only had one ticket in 45 years of driving. I did have a few more thoughts going through as I waited for the lights to pull me over when he suddenly pulled out, passed me and as he did hit the lights. However, he wasn’t slowing down as if he expected me to pull over. He was moving out. I lost sight of him around the Next bend. I found him again in Douglass, right outside the Methodist church where I was pretty sure my aunt and Uncle were sitting. In a matter of seconds, the ambulance was coming toward me. Was it happenstance that someone passed out, ( I got the scoop from my uncle later in the day) to avoid a ticket? Probably not, but perhaps I should be a bit more cautious…my guardian angel doesn’t need to work overtime… In worship, the computer screen went white, and the PowerPoint didn’t work,so I just had them pick up a hymnal and we did the first two songs out of the book before the reboot and words appeared on the screen. Was it luck that the one song I would be singing was in the hymnal and I turned to a song that everyone knew as I picked up the book? Probably not, but as the pastor got up to speak and began talking about guardian angels it did make me think that God probably had a lot more to do with my day than I tend to give him credit for. The Wills of Psalm 91 are many and we sometimes forget that God isn’t as fickle as we are. God will deliver me, will-cover me, will be my shield, and he promises that I will not be afraid of the terrors at night nor the dangers of the day… That includes the bogey man and the imp on my shoulder that tells me something bad might happen.

So was it just luck that after lunch I ran into Savers and was looking through some kids books and found this one sitting right in front…like it wanted me to grab it? I am not sure how and why God put me where he did today, but I have the feeling he wanted me to not just read Psalm 91 but memorize and live it…

It happened the other day. I had been gone for a few weeks. When being picked up from the airport my daughter brought “the dog”. I sat in the backseat with the dog and for the next hour and ten minutes I had to pet, rub, pet, rub, love up, snuggle and pet “the dog”.

It happened again this morning. My thought was to get up and let the dog go to the bathroom and then lie on the couch and sleep a bit longer. Nay. It became a love me, pet me, rub me, pet me, rub me and snuggle me moment. I had the dog all to myself. No one or no other dog was anywhere near to compete for attention. That didn’t seem to matter: it was as if the dog couldn’t get enough love, get close enough or be held long enough.

How would I feel differently if I fought to get as close as humanly possible to God like the puppy was trying to get to me? Would I truly lay down at the end of the couch after a love session exhausted and happy? Would I sleep better knowing that all I had done was all I could do to be loved by God as the puppy had been trying to get every inch of love out of me?

And then, I turn to go into the house and the puppy acts as if he hasn’t had any life for eons,,,, and we start it all over again… what if I desperately sought God like that?

We have been in Germany. It all began when we decided to help others and become foster parents. I, especially, wanted to make a difference in kids lives and felt we had a lot left in the tank to offer. We went through the training and were approved. Our house didn’t make it so well. The windows were 2 inches too short and a few other things. We decided that was too big of a list to try to finagle and we closed the door on that idea… We were at the fair and Jim was talking to someone about corn stoves and I looked across the aisle and there was a foreign exchange group. I walked over and asked if they ever had kids who wanted to ride horse. She told me she could give me 4 names right now. We talked about it later and after thinking about it thought it was worth a try. After all they would be going home when they were done with their year. The person we chose was almost totally based on a photo… a photo of her and her grandfather. The way she looked, if someone loved their grandpa that much they must be wonderful. We were not mistaken. This week I had the honor of meeting Ompa; Gerhart.

That kid that came to us from Germany as a 15 year old kid is now quite the young lady. Baihley has been over here and went on holidays with her, she came back last year for 6 weeks to spend more time with us. Truly a denial by social services turned into a blessing we had no idea was waiting.

We have been in Germany. We have sat at the table, walked through former concentration camps, climbed steeples, laughed until our sides hurt and ate together. When Jesus ate with people it must have been just as much fun for him. Eating together opens the heart. Jesus did that a lot. Walking through their lives tells us so much about ourselves. We are people; created by a wonderful creator who loves to put things together that make people smile. There is no other reason for a giraffe or hippopotamus but to make us giggle.

This week we were thankfully blessed. Their daughter lives with us for 9 months and has become part of our family. Then she returned, as part of our family. Now we, are a part of their life. Oma and Ompa, the castles, picking hollyhocks to take back to Minnesota, talking, laughing; especially laughing and yesterday wandering through a church that was bomber during world war 2, makes several hearts become one heart. We had no clue what we would experience. We found out beer gardens are not what they are in the states, that bratwurst have no buns, that German chocolate cake isn’t German, that most of what we think about is the same regardless of language or culture. Children, parents, friends, sickness and God are a part of people’s lives regardless of the degrees on the longitude and latitude spectrum. We walked more steps than we have ever in a weeks time period, we ate more, sat at a table in the backyard and talked more than we normally ever do. Over here they sit and talk. No television on, no cell phones in people’s noses, although they have them, we drank , laughed and learned what Germany history means to them now. My grandmothers family came from Germany. It’s in my blood but now it’s in my heart.

Jesus spent time with people That’s how he loved people. We have seen that this week. We have felt that this week. We are coming home exhausted but renewed. And we have new family from a place far away. They told us that’s how they felt when they came to America three years ago to get Johanna. We showed them our fun spots, ate picnics in the park, bonfires and laughed…. they saw our world and now we have seen theirs. Maybe there is no deep spiritual meaning. Maybe there is no deep change in someone life when we spend time with them but Jesus simply showed us that eating supper, sharing hollyhock seeds , walking through old castles and laughing is investing in people. Those investments are so much better than any other kind…

Feeling at home… sometimes we do. Sometimes we sit down at another’s home and we forget it’s their place: we feel like we have been there for years. Then there are other times when in the most familiar of circumstances we feel out of place. Psalms 64:3 reminds us: “Blessed are the chosen.” Not everyone will be your best friend. Sometimes that hard for me. I really want people to like me. And as hard as I try it just flops on the floor in a pile of attempted friendship gestures. And then there are times when you sit with others and laugh till your sides hurt… you laugh and feel as if it’s been a part of your life since time began. It’s one of those moments that God has chosen. He chooses both. We need the moments of awkward and the blessings of comfortable. We need to feel like we don’t fit In and we need to feel like it’s home. For the moments we don’t feel we fit in we are reminded this world is not our home. We are just a passing through to the perfect place of feeling at home. And when God gives you those blessed chosen moments, thank Him that he has created laughter and love. Sometimes in life those moments come too few. Praise him for the moments whatever they may be and let both draw you close to his side… either in desperation or thankfulness. We have been in a foreign world, and yet feel so at home. Thankful and blessed.

I am enjoying a different world, and tomorrow will travel to a new place. We will go over an imaginary boundary. That boundary will tell us we are now in Germany. We have discovered boundaries here that have been very carefully planned, designed and developed. They are called canals, or dikes. Because Amsterdam, well most of Holland, is under sea level, there has to be a plan to keep the sea from the land. It has been very well thought out and implemented. If only the boundaries in all of life were that thought out.

Boundaries give us limits. It helps us define what is our area. There are boundaries everywhere. The tram lines here have boundaries. When you reach the end of the boundary, you have to get off and take a different tram. We have lot lines, streets, state lines, the continental divide, and when we were kids there was an imaginary line in the back of the green station wagon that we did not cross… that was the line.

In the Bible there were lines. Psalms 104 God set boundaries for the land and the sea. Ezekiel he divides us the land and sets boundaries so each tribe knew what land was theirs. Exodus 19 , God posted a boundary around the mountain.

We all seem to struggle with boundaries, as there are books written on helping set limits. How do we not allow people to come inside our protected places? Where are our limits? How do we determine how close is too close? When do we say, no you don’t step on my shoes? We need to have boundaries around our heart to protect us. We need to respect the boundaries placed by others. We need not be a bull in a china shop. When we do what we want regardless of where we are, we are weed whipping. If you have never weed whipped you won’t understand. You don’t weed whip without getting stuff all over you. Weed shipping doesn’t respect boundaries. Grass, weeds, or whatever you are whipping flies everywhere. It doesn’t care that you have clean pants or shoes on; if you weed whip you will have crud everywhere. It has no respect or of boundaries.

There are people like that. They do not respect other people’s boundaries. They determine what’s best for others and don’t care if you have other ideas set in place where you have drawn your boundary line. We call those people, well we call them lots of names, but we call them disrespectful, arrogant and dictators. When we don’t respect boundaries, we walk through on people’s hearts. When we don’t respect Gods boundaries we sin. Boundaries help us keep an eye on where we should and should not be. They help us stay in line, just as a queue helps us stay in the boundaries, in our lives lived with people in our community. Stand in queue. Stand in line. Live so that other people see you loving them by respecting the boundaries they have established. And look to be sure that you are living within the boundaries God has set. And to know boundaries, you need to read the map. You need to know the rules. You need to see the big picture. To live, one needs to read the Word, to know what Gods boundaries are and to live by them.

Think about that when you see a boundary, or someones broken heart. How will I live to respect boundaries and other people’s hearts? And how will I place the right kind of boundaries around my life to protect my integrity and build my faith?