Blest with sons

Last night I saw the movie 50 First Dates for the first time. I had no idea Adam Sandler could make a movie so cute. His character Henry falls for a woman named Lucy who has short term memory loss due to a permanent brain injury. In the beginning, he has to keep arranging ways to meet her “for the first time” since she forgets the day’s events every night. Eventually he begins reminding her daily of who she is and who he is through a videotape that she watches first thing every morning. In case someone else hasn’t seen it yet, I’ll try not to spoil it for you. It’s a bit crude (duh), but really sweet.

Tonight I was reading The Singing God by Sam Storms, a book I picked up at Goodwill because the title seemed so apropos to someone who just got back from a worship conference. (I also snagged Morning by Morning by Charles Spurgeon. God is using both books mightily to shape me at the moment…isn’t He cool?!) I just finished a chapter about really feeling God’s love. Really experiencing it versus simply knowing it intellectually. I closed the book and lay back in the tub - talking out loud both to myself and to God. I was pondering how I am not sure I have ever really felt loved by God. Honestly, I’m not sure I feel loved much by anyone. Don’t get me wrong, I know I am loved. I have unshakeable confidence that my Mom loves me. After that, I’m pretty solid on my Dad. My best friend, my brother…yeah I’m pretty sure about them. Not always so sure about my husband - and I’m not knocking him. Honestly, I think the fault lies in my defects as a love receiver rather than any failings in the love giver. I have a hard time believing that most people even find me likable - let alone lovable. So pondering this out, very calmly, no tears or melodrama, I thought that this must be my problem with God. If I can’t believe humans love me, why would I believe God loves me?

But then I realized that I don’t have to believe God finds me lovable. When He first loved me, I was NOT lovable. Christ did not die for any of us because we were lovable. The Bible tells us very plainly that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. I know it may sound odd, but that actually made me feel a little better. It’s a lot easier to believe that God loves me because of who He is rather than because of who I am.

And then it hit me. In a lot of ways, God loves me the way Harry loves Lucy in 50 First Dates. He sees me where I am - in my damaged state - and he loves me anyway. He pursues me. He wants to meet with me every morning. And sometimes I respond to him - and sometimes I push Him away. But eventually He starts developing a relationship with me. What’s in it for Him?? I’m frail. I’m limited. I’m living in flawed flesh that will never be completely changed on this earth. Yet He still loves me and wants a relationship with me. And every single day He communicates with me anew.

Yet, like Lucy, I am so forgetful. How many mornings do I wake up, forgetting who I am, forgetting what He has done for me and how far He has brought me? But graciously and gently, He reminds me, because He loves me. He doesn’t let me go. He doesn’t pack it in and go off to do something more fulfilling. And hopefully, over time, as He leads me and loves me, deep within me will awaken a yearning for Him. A longing for His presence that will not let me rest, even if I try to forget Him.

You know, in the beginning of Harry’s relationship with Lucy, he is the one to remind her every morning of who she is, who He is, and the details of their relationship. But as time goes on, she takes more responsibility on herself to keep her mind refreshed in reality. Every night she writes down what she wants to remember from that day, presumably she reads it the next morning after she’s been reminded of her brain injury by her daily video. I’m tempted to try and live like Lucy. Each day fresh as God reminds me who I am and who He is… But each day dwelling in the history of what He has done for me in all the yesterdays that came before. So I remember all the reasons I have to love Him and all the countless ways He’s shown me He loves me.

I got back today from what may have been the most incredible week of my life so far. The National Worship Leaders Conference was absolutely amazing. Mind, Spirit, Soul, and Body..all came back changed. Though the body is mostly, but not completely, from pure exhaustion.

I am way too wiped out to write anything comprehensive tonight. But I wrote this little tidbit for our worship team’s blog and I wanted to share it with you too! I ask for your prayers for a speedy vocal recovery from this week - nine sessions of incredible praise and worship in three days - plus unlimited intense fellowship and rowdy laughter…I’m on the verge of laryngitis! Plus please pray that what happened in Austin does not stay in Austin - for me or for anyone else who attended. (unless of course they actually live there in which case it would be good for it to stay there and…man I’m tired. )

For me, one of the most worshipful moments at the whole conference made no sound at all. Down at the bottom of the auditorium, right in front of the stage, during every lecture and every concert, sat the sign language translators. They were always a joy to watch - but during the night-time concerts/worship sessions - they were a shining example of total praise. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from this young man, his whole body involved in communicating not just the words, but the power and the joy of the music to his small audience. He even signed guitar solos! And the expression on his face…. You couldn’t help but worship along with him.

And it hit me that this was a beautiful example of truly dancing in the Spirit. He wasn’t just moving to the music, he was conveying MEANING. Passion and communication in the service of believers, in communion with believers, and for the glory of God.

note: No criticism of any other form of dancing in the Spirit is intended

You finally get an idea of a post to write, but you don’t have time to write it???

But if anyone is around… LOOK where I’m going!!

The National Worship Leader’s Conference!!

I am beyond excited. Actually, I’m too stunned that I’m even going to really be excited!!

I’ll try and ponder my post while I’m there…and I may be blogging it.

In the meantime, I’ll just ask you… How do you encourage people without lying to them?

I thought this was hilarious.

You’re Dune!
by Frank Herbert
You have control over a great wealth of resources, but no one wants to
let you have them. You’ve decided to try to defend yourself, but it may take eons before
you really get back what you feel you deserve. Meanwhile you have a cult-like following
of minions waiting for your life to progress. This would all be even more exciting if you
could just get the sand out of your eyes.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Now if I could just get my cult-like following of minions to clean my house.

Wave of the bonnet to The Common Room

I was chatting with my firstborn last week about such light and fluffy subjects as “What God Thinks of Us”… I can’t remember, unfortunately, how exactly we got onto the subject. Though I think it has something to do with Romans Chapter 8. I’m working on memorizing it, so the boys are hearing it chanted out loud - A LOT. That has led to several quizzical looks and questions of “What does that mean?” I think I was explaining the flesh and the Spirit and how the flesh is corrupt and so without the Spirit we are, well, bad! Anyway, at some point in the discussion, my son said “Well yeah, but God thinks we’re wonderful anyway.”

I was a bit taken aback. “No….” I said carefully. “The Bible doesn’t say God thinks we’re wonderful. What does Romans 5:8 say?”

He dutifully repeated “But God demonstrates His own love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”

“Exactly - He LOVED us while we were unsaved. But He didn’t think we were wonderful.”

This little exchange really got me thinking. First of all, I was wondering where he got that idea from. Was it from that VeggieTales tagline “God made you special and He loves you very much”? Was it all the modern self-esteem mumbo-jumbo that floats around in the air? I don’t know that it was really any of that. What hit me square between the eyes was that he thought that loving someone and thinking they were wonderful were the same thing. And as I mulled that over, I realized that I’ve been thinking that too! Isn’t that how love is portrayed constantly through movies, music, and books? Love is being besotted - thinking that the beloved is just so overwhelmingly fabulous. That everything he or she does is adorable, fascinating, charming, and practically perfect in every way. The goal - find someone that is, to you, so wonderful that you will always think he or she is wonderful - and if you at any point don’t think they’re wonderful…you must not be in love anymore and better go find someone else who is wonderful.

I have had LONG stretches of discontent in my married life because a) I didn’t think my husband was all that day-in-day-out wonderful and b) I knew for sure that he didn’t think I was all that wonderful either. After all, he wasn’t telling me I was wonderful. He didn’t look at me like I was wonderful. And besides, I live with me and I know all the reasons I’m NOT wonderful. He couldn’t possibly be overlooking all of those, so he couldn’t think I was wonderful, so therefore he did not love me enough.

Sound ridiculously immature and irrational to you? Yuh-huh. That’s how it sounds to me too.

We all know the phrase Love is a Verb…but it’s almost impossible to get away from the mindset that Love is a Feeling. And because deep, deep down I had the false equation that LOVE = “Thinking someone is wonderful”, I found it very hard to believe my husband loves me. And I struggled desperately to believe that God loved me. After all, nobody knows me better than God. I’ve never deluded myself into thinking I could hide anything from Him…so if I know I’m not wonderful, He really knows I’m not. Therefore….He couldn’t love me.

But Love is not a feeling. Love is not a thought. Love is not blind, as the poet says.

Love sees the truth and acts lovingly anyway. Love is patient and kind and forgiving and hopeful and enduring. Love is self-sacrificing. Human love is in the day-to-day, down in the trenches sticking together and laughing and crying and struggling together. Love is the glue that forms between two people as they walk through life together - even when some days they really want to run the other way. Love is that my husband doesn’t think I’m practically perfect, magically enchanting, or even all-that-wonderful…but he loves me anyway and comes home to me every night. (and sometimes maybe he does think I’m pretty cool - maybe a bit… )

And God? God sees me so clearly. God knows what I am, inside and out. And He sent His Son to suffer and die on a cross to buy me back from sin and death. It wasn’t because He thought I was wonderful, either. It was just because He Is Love and that’s what Love does.

Last week, I was reading The Complete Fairy Tales of George MacDonald. I never thought to be totally shredded by conviction from a fairy tale, but God is cool like that. I’ll write about the conviction some other time, but this little exchange near the end of the story brought the truth about the juxtaposition of God’s Love with His true view of the sinner.

The princess understood, and a flush of shame rose to her forehead. She turned to the wise woman and said:

“Will you forgive all my naughtiness, and all the trouble I have given you?”

“If I had not forgiven you, I would never have taken the trouble to punish you. If I had not loved you, do you think I would have carried you away in my cloak?”

“How could you love such an ugly, ill-tempered, rude, hateful little wretch?”

“I saw, through it all, what you were going to be,” said the wise woman, kissing her. “But remember you have yet only begun to be what I saw.”

God looks beyond our sinfulness, and He knows what He can make out of us. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, mind you. I’m not saying that underneath our sin, we are still wonderful in ourselves and that’s why He loves us. No. There is no cause for self-satisfaction, or thinking I was somehow worthy to be saved. In myself, I am not. But God knows what He can do with me. He loved me, carried me away, covered me with the cloak of Christ’s blood, and began the long process of shaping me to His plan. When He’s done, I will be wonderful - but only because of Him, through Him, in Him, and for Him. Inasmuch as I reflect the WONDER that is God, I will be wonder-full.

1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

You may have umpteen storebought lightsabers with telescoping blades (though none that make sounds, thank God). But they cannot compare to the ones you just helped manufacture out of toilet paper tubes, construction paper, and packing tape. No way. Huh uh.

It was the seven year old’s idea, by the way. He decorated the handle on his own and came looking for scissors and tape for the rest. Mommy couldn’t resist and helped with the blades.

Say, if I can make lightsabers…does that mean I’m a Jedi?

And why do we buy them toys anyway??

We’re discussing the overview questions for Philippians over on One Weigh Or Another. Feel free to come visit!

Complete List of Overview Questions
First Discussion Post
Second Discussion Post

So I’m all fired up, by God’s incredible lovingkindness, grace, and tenacious grip, about our Lord and His Word. It’s good to be in this place. And I thought I was done blogging…but then God gave me something to say again… so here I am!

But what else is going on?

Music, mostly. Piano, drums, singing… Music! My oldest up and tried to quit piano last month. I think it’s his annual New Year’s resolution. He was so cute. I calmly asked him why he wanted to quit, and he tilted his head, flopped his hands dramatically, and sighed “Oh…it just doesn’t feel right for me.”

I told him I totally respected his feelings..and that he was sticking with piano anyway.

I told him how I could quickly and easily find him fifty adults who wished their parents had made them stick with piano. How it was a skill he would value in years to come. (and it will impress the chicks…but I didn’t tell him that) And, most importantly, I didn’t see how it could be “not right” for him when God had so obviously given him the talent for it. The kid is good! Really! And it was a surprise to us. We originally started piano for our prodigy Andrew - not Daniel. Daniel started on a whim, and turned out to be great. If he didn’t have a musical genius (and I’m not exaggerating, my 2nd really is) for a younger brother, I think he’d see more that he’s very talented in his own right. Anyway…being the mean mommy that I am, I also told him that if he doesn’t do piano, he doesn’t get to do drums. He’s not thrilled, but he is soldiering on. And I’m loving it because he and Andrew both have progressed to “real” music like Schumann and Bach. Plus I got his teacher to give us some Star Wars sheet music, because I’m not always the meanest mom in the world.

Drums are thumping along as usual. They’re preparing for a recital which I will have to videotape. I can’t wait to see it because there are some top secret ensemble numbers, one of which is a stomping, clapping, chanting deal that promises to be both exciting and hilarious. And there is another drummer in da house now… ME!

(please excuse my appearance, I’ve been sick for weeks and I have pinkeye!)

I LOVE my djembe. Playing gives me the most amazing thrill…OOH! I thought I was just learning to play this one drum - but the boys’ teacher, who is now my teacher, says I’m in training to play percussion at church. I’m intimidated…but excited as well! I remember wanting to play the drums when I was a little girl. (though now that I’m raising drummers, I totally understand why my parents said OOhhhhhh NO!) It’s great to finally get to do this, and to be learning something new. I think from now one, my New Year’s resolution will be to pick a new skill for the coming year (last year was wirework, by the way). Just think of all the good it’s doing my neurons!

I’m still beading - and trying to make a business of it. Setting up a business account made me feel all official and has probably saved my marriage. It’s a lot harder to impulse shop for beads when I can *see* the money coming in and going out. My business account keeps me in touch with my inner adult, you see.

I finally saw the movie Amazing Grace. If you haven’t seen it, don’t bother renting it. Just save yourself the time and buy it. It’s that good.

Other than that…my vision is full of laundry, laundry, and more laundry. Say, did you know that when you have four boys you do about 4 loads of darks to every load of lights?

And with that stirring statistic, I’ll return you to regularly scheduled programming!

Mirrors are funny things. You know, last year when I was still losing weight, I loved looking in the mirror. And after hit goal, even more so! I was so entranced by that stranger looking back at me. For the first time in my life, I liked who I saw there. I thought she was, though not a super-model, rather pretty! Mirrors had become my friend, rather than my enemy, and I couldn’t pass one without stopping to say hello.

But somewhere in the last few months, things changed. The same girl, the same body, yet the reflection seemed different. I didn’t think I looked all that good anymore. Instead of thinking I looked slender and maybe even attractive, I thought I looked chunky. Too thick here, too thin there…. Just not good. I even had moments of bursting into tears and telling the reflection how much I hated her. (gotta love that female chemistry, eh?)

I was talking to my mom about it, and I mentioned to her how where I once avoided mirrors because I was fat, now I was having to avoid them because I’m not! Oh the irony. But I’m trying to learn not to look at myself, beyond the required hair & make-up visits of course. The same day as that conversation with my mom, God weighed in with His glorious Word.

2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

It seems to me that there’s a fundamental principle here. You become that which you gaze upon.

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was one for looking in a mirror. He was so captured by his own beauty that he lay by the side of a lake and gazed upon his reflection until he wasted away and died. You see…he was a shallow creature and he was transformed from shallow to shallow as he beheld himself. I wonder how he continued to see himself as beautiful as his skin sank upon his skull and his rosy color faded to grey. Eventually he was the most shallow thing of all…a corpse, a vacant shell.

I haven’t been wasting away physically. But as I have gazed, physically and mentally, upon myself - I have seen my faults gradually intensifying. I have watched myself transform from imperfect to imperfect-er as I filled my vision with little ole me. And as I said, strangely enough, even my physical vision of my body has changed, though the body hasn’t. What I see no longer pleases me. I am discontented, restless and irritable…

But I see from God’s word that there is a better way. If I gaze upon the glory of the Lord, I will be transformed to be like Him! But where can I see Him?

First and foremost, in His Word. (saw that one coming, didn’tcha? ) As I become saturated with Scripture, I will be transformed in spite of myself! Funny thing, we’re starting a study of Philippians over on One Weigh. I was working on mine last night and one of the questions was essentially “What one thing do you think you should work on now?” There were so many good choices - just in the first chapter or two. Do nothing from selfishness…Do NOT grumble… But God popped me with one little phrase “Hold fast the word of life”. I firmly believe that right now He just wants me to focus with all my might on packing my head full of His Word. Meditating on it. Reciting it. Praying it. As I gaze upon this, His likeness, He will transform me No, He is transforming me!

Where else can I see Him?

In the beauty of His Creation, of course. Even in a not-so-lovely desert city like El Paso, there is plenty of God to be seen. The beauty of the mountains on the horizon. The deliciousness of sunshine and spring temperatures. The power of the winds, and the surprise of the occasional storm…

And I can see Him in His people. I hadn’t really thought about that before. I can see Him in Bill, with his tenderness and his gift for encouragement. I can see Him in Heather, abounding in hope and faith. I can see Him in the love for one another which is constantly shown on group blogs like the Thinklings and One Weigh. And I can see Him moving to heal and to triumph through dear sisters and brothers in my life. He’s everywhere!

If you’re like me, and don’t like what you see in the mirror this morning, try filling your focus with the glory of the Lord!