Category: Devotions

Advent: this week our focus is on peace. It’s quiet in the house. For empty nesters we have a full house especially today. Two just left for work, one will get up soon and head for school and three are sleeping on the couch: friends passing through. The corn stove is sending out heat and that comforting clicking sound which reminds me it’s still working if the warmth I don’t immediately feel. The outside world I don’t sense. It’s below zero outside. The wind is blowing. I am warm and peaceful because of the protection I have. I love the Puritan prayer. This phrase especially for today: “fill me with peace, that no disquieting worldly gales may ruffle the calm surface of my soul. “.

The plea is for peace that is abiding and gentle yet strong and unyielding. If you watch the winds blow during a storm nothing is safe. Tree limbs, trees, any garbage or trash lying around fly all over. And yet watch a bird sitting on a tree branch. They just sit there while the winds thrash about. God created them with feet that hold on, feathers that deflect the wind and they look rather unruffled! Lord let me show that calm when all in my life blows across the field. Fill me with that peace. That peace that holds on and let’s people see you instead of the storm!

Being lonely is one of the oddest feelings. For some, it’s a relief from the busyness of people. For others it’s a calm amongst the storms that seem to assault one’s heart. Some people are lonely and obvious. Others are lonely and they look like they are having the time of their live. Our heart has a way of being vulnerable to only those we feel will understand.

What I have learned about loneliness is no one really wants to be but few know how to decipher being alone and loneliness. I love being alone. I don’t like to be lonely. Being alone is having your presence be on a higher level than those around you. We can be alone in a crowd. We can be lonely with many people surrounding us.

This past few months I walked with friends as they faced cancer and ultimately death. I spent  being with them so they weren’t alone or lonely. Was I always active and talking? For once, no and I realize some of you find that hard to believe. Was I doing, visiting, bonding and embracing togetherness? No, I was there. Sometimes just being there gives others the option to embrace being alone or avoid being lonely.

I learned many years ago, being a friend to someone gives them the power to use from your heart what they need. Sometimes I need a laughing friend. Other times a quiet friend. Often I need a friend to bounce ideas off their soul. Yet, other times it’s the knowledge that they are there and nothing else matters.  Often we can’t repair the hole in the dike we are all standing beside but just the presence of another helps you handle getting your feet wet and bailing water goes better with another hand to hold a pail.

I have also found it doesn’t matter if you want to be where God places you, when you put your want somewhere because you love people, God makes the rest easier.  Change my life plans? Yes- we have put life on hold in the past month. Was it easy? Yes! Did I like it? Not necessarily did I ever ask myself if I liked what we were going through. Because I could love someone and walk with them, it didn’t matter if I liked it or not. Love is action and being with people is more important than wanting to be. There were many people who should have stepped up who didn’t. They didn’t want to! And then there were people who stepped in the gap and simply lived life alongside the ones going through the valley.

As I debriefed in my brain the past couple days of all we have processed in the past few months, I found myself crying; in Hobby Lobby no less. Why Hobby Lobby? Because they have these neat signs that say things that weren’t just words: they were the actions I had lived out.  I found myself laughing at something that wasn’t funny to normal people. We laughed because in the  midst of struggle, one’s mind does odd things. One makes a goofy comment and the rest dissolve into giggles on the floor. You have all been a part of inside jokes. We have a lot of them. Those who chose to not love in action, just look and wonder. I believe those are God moments. There are moments where God gives a smile because the  heart can’t take anymore sorrow.

The sun came up Friday morning. I looked out the window after a couple hours of sleep in my bed and thought, ‘it’s over’. Actually, it’s just begun. Valley’s we walk through and come out the other side to the meadow.  Beyond the meadow is a beautiful mountain waiting to be climbed.  When one walks with another through life incident, it’s not a stop walking moment because it’s over, but a keep walking together lifestyle. The time is coming, and it will come, that I will have the life-stopping heart moment.  It’s happened in the past. It’s moments like these I look back and see the hands of friends who reached out and kept me putting one foot in front of the other. I see their encouraging notes, read their letters that I saved and remember that it’s not about me, it’s about the life God has given us all to live. “There encourage one another and build each other up” 1 Thess. 5:11.

Sometimes that means sleeping on couches, standing by hospital beds, running errands, eating left over pizza and simply quietly being in the room. Sometimes it means singing, cleaning, cooking, driving, listening or playing cards. This walking through life with each other is an adventure. Looking back at the past two months, I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s right where God asked me to be.  Now, it’s your turn to look around at where you are and where God may be asking you to be. Don’t second guess, don’t think about it: when God says go and love your neighbor, it means action! You will be blessed beyond what you can even imagine.

I am sitting in my daughters living room. There is a hole in her ceiling. It represents many things, one of the things it says is no more leaks. It also says dad was here, water dripping and slightly ugly. The biggest things I can say about the hole is success. The drip is fixed, the water is gone and eventually when dad comes back again in the winter it will be fixed and no one will ever know.

We tend to look at holes in our lives as more than simply damage control. Someone once told me the scars on their body reminds them they lived through it and are alive. Other people see the scars and lament the scars and miss the lesson.

We have a hole in a ceiling of our house. The difference is we are on the other side of it being fixed. They haven’t solved the issue yet. There will be more holes before they get done. How do I handle the holes? Well for one, I left home. Actually we have a wedding, but sometimes we run away when the holes appear. It’s scary, it’s frustrating and in our case very smelly.

God allows holes in our lives to remind us and teach us to depend on him. He reminds us that we are not in control of this life. He reminds us that a hole is not a bad thing. God uses holes and leads us to learn something about ourselves and how much we rely on God.

So look at the holes and see God working. Look at the holes and be thankful God have you a hole for him to repair. Be thankful your hole is not like others holes. We all have our holes and comparing holes just gets our souls in a tizzy. However, I would rather have Addlea’s hole right now because the problem has been fixed. However, I am not home for a few days so therefore I am thankful. Hopefully my sisters house doesn’t have a hole. It’s a wedding weekend for us. But if there was a hole, sometimes God tells us to wait until he has time to fix the hole. I don’t like the thought of waiting four days before the plumbers can come make a plan and then two more weeks before they can solve the problem. But waiting is a part of life and I have friends I can go visit when the smell gets too bad. And we open the windows! And I am sure God is laughing just a bit . Find the humor in holes: it makes them appear innocent and amusing. And we are much happier people when we are laughing at the holes and around them with other people: people help us tolerate our holes much better.

         Worship. An act of placing one’s attention, focus and heart on something important. Worship. A thing to do on Sunday’s. Worship. A preference of music style and/or preaching. Worship. A collection of people who come together in a common bond to put their affection on one focal point.  According to Webster, worship as a noun is the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity. As a verb, worship changes to actively show reverence and adoration for a diety.

      I have sat in worship and I have participated in worship. Sometimes I am not in the normal place or experience. We worship for many reasons and my worship in the past few months have been different.  Sometimes reasons are to be where someone else needs. If we are worshipping God, it shouldn’t matter but when the focus is on who we worship.   Sometimes Jesus did that. Ok, a lot of times Jesus did that.  His focus was on being where he was needed and led. Worship where we want to changes, when it becomes worship because we need to. When we go to worship because it’s a thing to do it satisfies “that” part of our heart. When we worship because we are driven to worship, there is a different part of our soul that is touched.

Yesterday many of Minnesota fans were worshipping.  They were placing their attention and expression of adoration for the Minnesota Vikings. A big reason was because the Vikings won.  Several weeks ago the worship and adoration was missing. It was grumbling, anger and lots of words on twitter.  Today there is a different level of their worship because they had a good experience. That is so much a part of our human mind and heart. We tend to worship when worship satisfies us and yet, why would we worship when something in our heart doesn’t skip a beat in worship? Why would we go worship and seek to fill the hole when where we go is serving empty ladles?  Ritual and routine often replace the meaning worship should have because of the empty ladles. Go to church, sit in the pew, stand for the songs, if they have corporate prayer or read the Bible outloud one may assume the position of reverence but when one leaves it’s not a drive to go out and tell others about the incredible one we worshipped because we leave a bit empty and “oh well- church was nice today”.

I sat in worship the other day as people cried out in prayer, others went and knelt at the alter and others prayed with them while still others stood at their seats in silent prayer.  The music was quality and with depth. The message was Bible based, deep in thought, not amusing, entertaining or with jokes, but with Jesus said, God inspired and how will you respond questions? That kind of worship has kept me worshipping all week.

I drove home yesterday from church thinking about Worship.  I had been challenged in church to be gracious, be humble, be grateful and be serving. It wasn’t exactly a feel good sermon. It was an “ouch, oops, didn’t do that well, but I can do better” moment and the words of the song, “Yet not I but through Christ in me”.   Worship should invade our heart so worship doesn’t end with the Benediction. Worship should be the first thing we thought of when we woke up; yes even with it raining. Worship simply because I have no other reaction to the mighty grace of God that touched my heart and made me worth being around. Worship because through Christ, I have grace that gives me a reason to get up when it’s raining and a reason to smile when a snow storm is coming. Worship because I can do nothing else!

I remember because I will never forget. Our child, oldest to be specific didn’t do new things or leaving mother well. Sunday school, occasional day care, kindergarten, ballet, soccer, new babysitters: trauma. We would assure her she was fine and we would talk through things at home and it was great until mom/dad had to separate and walk away. She knew she was fine, she could communicate that to us but then she would go into hyperventilate freak out stage.

Of course I am Different. On the outside at least I portray a very calm demeanor and nothing can rattle my cage. And then as my friend so eloquently put it, I am paddling frantically like a duck under water.

The new and the unknown is scary. I am sitting at a breakfast nook far from home anticipating the new. Today I walk into the seminary building and begin a on campus portion of a class. This is all new to me. The books are hard. The textual essays make no sense. The writing center shoes me how much I don’t know about academic writing. The comments other people make on the forums I wonder if I am in the same world much less the same class and reading the same book.

Jesus did “new” amazingly well. Except for the fact that he created everything gave him a head start in new, his response to new situations was to think and contemplate and be slow to speak. My response to new situations is to crouch, hide and run if possible. It’s not really a thinking moment. If, perhaps I get caught in the new and need to speak, it’s usually not with thought, contemplation or wise words.

So today, I will try to be more like Jesus than myself. In any day, that is a good solution to what we face when we think we have no clue what we are doing,

When caught in between a rock and a hard place, Jesus talked to the father.

When people were pressing him for answers that were ridiculous, he simply looked at them and was silent. Silence does odd things to people. Of course so does writing in the sand, Jesus had a way of simply taking the stress out of a situation. Awkward moments he takes away the awk and moves it forward. When caught in a struggle, he tells a story.

So today I am walking into the new chapter of my life with seminary, on campus, and I will keep telling myself to be like Jesus. Listen, smile, listen, smile, talk to God and then if I find words, speak. If I feel totally confused, pretend the others do to: they probably are. If I feel a bit left out and not sure, I don’t need to be confidant, I just need to be there. And in the midst of being a bit apprehensive God always does this little sign for me. I know it. It’s happened often enough I get it now. I can smile and say, no worries God. You just returned the rest to stressed. See if you move the letters around in stressed, you get rested and you even have a remainder of 2. God usually does that. He always gives us what we need and then a few leftovers.