PAIN

    

    The megaphone was loud, amplifying the message I could not seem to hear without the pain that made me still and weak.    I always cry out to God when pain inflicts it's narrowed focus and helpless fear.  I sing, I pace, I wonder and sometimes rail, but always to Him.  He is often the only one listening in the darkness of night.  And that is when I resolve to obey, to redeem my pain free time for Him and when I see my sinful clutter most clearly.  But often at the break of day and the dull of pain, I forget the deal I made, my resolve weakens, and sinful clutter is blurry.  But this night was different.  I have resolved and I have found relief from pain without forgetting.  The appetites I had indulged in these weeks of stress and confusion seem clear and ugly still. 

     I could use the excuse of spiritual warfare and unending needs weighing down my spirit and wearing out my body,  for those are real in this particular season of life.  But I know that He has heard these before and does not accept any substitutes for His own word, His grace, his own people  and His ever listening ear to ease those burdens.  Because He knows the places to which I run, will only captivate and cover up and never free me to serve.  I could once again resolve without confession to do better and climb out of the pit on my own.  But I know He designed me weak enough to need others to hold up my weak  hands and mind after confession and resolve begin to wane.  But laying it out there to those who may think less, retreat, or accuse later is terrifying to this proud and independent heart.   After the triumphant cries of Easter, this fleshly struggle plummets my thoughts back to the reality of dying with Him and what it looks like this side of incorruptible and immortal.  IF He had not shown me through similar cycles that this battle is necessary and common to those who chose to follow, I would lose resolve and think myself still dead in Spirit.  But He reminds me that the battle, with wins and losses, is proof of the life that struggles to overcome flesh in His Spirit power. 

     One day He will not have to lift the megaphone of pain to clear my vision and strip me of independent thinking, for He will have given me a heart of flesh and clarify the mind of Christ .   Pain's purpose will be no more when he dries our eyes and fixes our heart permanently on Himself.  No more need of excuse, no more night to force us to look up and no more losses,  for the victory will be real and constant.   But for now, I struggle though not alone.

Romans 8:18  For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

RING DAY

     Eleven gathered around the "Waltons" table for 8, lovingly hewn by a proud and nurturing father from trees once tall and shady outside.  They towered over fort builders, bug collectors, flower pickers and giggling wrestlers and now horizontally host family dinners, and cover feet and dogs and sometimes hide and seek places. We celebrate life, my life of 53 rings, some spaced narrow through leanness of soul, and mind, but  most wide abundant years of joy and hope, laughter and hugs. Six of our spirited trees sit laughing, smiling, thinking; seedlings  or nutlings :) of  we,  the  knotted gnarled parents. Six holy mysteries growing in number and in strength, 31 years of sowing, growing, bending, impeding and pruning.  Not by parent trees alone but by Him who makes it all come together in a sapling grown  and growing to a tree of His own engineering.  His plan somehow included our fighting and agreeing, loving and wrestling, hating and endearing, parting and uniting in our wooden home in the pines. Soulless trees surround our sanctuary each knotted individually,  towering over the eternal seedlings  grown and growing in their enclosure.  The Vine Tender's formula too complicated to reproduce,  sprinkled redemption and grace, discipline and love, consequence and merit,  rejection and acceptance , nurture and famine perfectly.  These six trees have rings too. Rings,  evidence of mind, spirit,  and desires in famine or in flood. Somehow my rings and theirs correspond, but these are "things too high for me..." to understand.  Not enough time to spend on that, when there is more watering, tree hugging and admiring to be done.  The brown topped blue spruce  in our  window remind me time is short, rings are being fitted for fingers , for trees who will continue to grow in our place, souls growing here in the Green Street ring  of soulless pines.   

Ps 131:1b,2 Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me.2Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.…

2013

ONE TWO THREES

   I do not  often find satisfaction in my daily chores.  I know I am doing God's will in the dish pan and in the sauce pan, but it does not fulfill my sense of service.  Bigger , outside, people things must be more.  More holy, more rewarding, more fruitful , more satisfying, just more.  I teach and read that home is most, home is holy and home service is surely pleasing to God.  But when my hands are in the soapy dishwater, or gripping the toilet brush, it does not seem true.  No words spoken in dish washing, no relationships built  in swishing broom and so, it  seems, no  spiritual victory.  The trumpet sound is replaced with the clatter of dish and swish of water going into the ground outside.  I doubt what I teach while believing what I feel. 

        The greater thrill is opening the word and sharing what I've learned and prompting questions and thought in other precious home keepers.  The reward is their tears, their openness , His power seen.  I can see His outcome, feel His power and know He is in it.  But here in this outside work the resistance is home and people who keep me from my study.  Why  do the two seem opposed with the same God to ordain and glorify  both?  Is it my 1,2,3 mind that needs to know which is first and keep it there all the time?  It is easier than discerning hour to hour where my service lies. Do the kitchen and the classroom seem opposed because I live by instant gratification and have not learned to wait for the "Well done.." ?   This is the struggle that keeps me running back to His word for deeper clearer instruction. And so, it too is His  holy plan. 

     Other Marthas feel the tension between the calls, but few will share.  It sounds weak and faithless to struggle at all with what is best.  But weak describes me best  and faithless describes me sometimes when I am near sighted.  To look and think beyond the pan and the bowl to His work in me now and His plan for those who benefit from the clean and the food, is difficult.  Seeing my priority,  not  in every season as clear as the spotless mirror I've shined today, but sometimes blurred like the tarnished neglected  silver , brings me to seek more light from His words.    And when I do, he shows me that the 123's of heart and not schedule, are the only mystery here.  Must I feel and see to obey?  Must I always do large work and never small?  Must the outside people be always last to duties of  mother and wife to keep my choice  of service immovably clear?   The sinful woman  did not see only the feet and the oil,  she saw a Savior above those feet.   No one encouraged her act of love but Him.  But she left the wash and the broom and the dishes of home to come.  That day's foot washing came from love and gratitude ; the more, the holy, the satisfying.  I want to be free from my earthbound sight, and  result driven motives and daily  borrow His eyes to see as I check my heart before I measure my time.  His calling is one, to be His reflection when I serve.  Inside or outside , it can be tarnished with pride and ingratitude.   Mary's "one thing" is listening and serving out of gratitude.  It  is  the heart that gives the twos and threes and fours of my daily list, eternal value.  His best for me is this leaning, this  constant seeking of  His light to expose the dusty layer of duty and dull upon my heart and ask Him to clean it  up and shine it with  gratitude and love.  For He knows that cut and dried 1,2,3 plans easily replace  the daily seeking these weak eyes need to find  His inside or outside plan for me. Dishwater and living water can both be His plan and they can be done anywhere.

 Mt 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.