I Brought You To Myself

I was driving home this morning and I saw a young man carrying his small daughter on his shoulders. He was walking confidently seemingly unburdened. She was playing paddy-cake on his head. I saw God.

Fathers carry their children aloft because little legs are short and I think (secretly) because it makes men look taller. I considered the different ways my own husband carried our son as being godlike.

A father carries his children in his hands, looks into their eyes and says, "Hello, I am your Daddy."

(My sheep hear my voice...I have given them eternal life...no one will snatch them out of my hand ...or my Father's hand...John 10:27-28. Some translations say no one will tear them away from me.)

The day before my own 24th birthday the nurse wheeled a bassinet into my hospital room. John who had attended the delivery was about to hold his son for the first time. Etched into my memory is a young musician with unruly hair, plaid shirt and platform shoes lifting his golden son to himself with gentle hands, placing him snugly under his chin and over his heart. John's first words held all the feeling of immigrants arriving on bright new shores. "Oh, my little buddy! My little buddy!" The pact was sealed. To this day they are Father-Son best friends.

A father carries his children on his shoulders and says,"This is the world I am giving you. You are safe. I'm here. Go get it!" (Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; Even I will carry, and will deliver you. Isaiah 46:4).

John would put John David on his shoulders so he could reach the things I had put up high (I thought safely) because they were "exploring." He would carry him aloft so he had a better view of the world and so he could travel faster, safer. There were no muddy feet or bee stings high up on Da's shoulders but there was man style wisdom and a confident world view. Strong hands holding on. No fear of falling. John David, though small, had a foundation that raised him up to considerable height.

A father carries his children in his heart and his soul says," You will always be mine and you will always live loved. (I carried you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself. Exodus 19:4)


Standing in the airport John wrapped his arms around our now larger soldier-son. A son whose physical strength surpassed his father's. There were heart rending good-byes but when John David walked away to war there was his father still holding him tightly in his heart. His own Father-God, Abba-Daddy, I-will-love-you-forever-and-a-mile-beyond heart, holding our son in a sure, safe grip. His heart had woven his love for his son and his love for God and God's love for all into that unbreakable three-strand-cord. A cord that would hold no matter how far it was stretched. (Even if it had to stretch from this life to the next.)

Many years ago I sat upon my own father's broad shoulders and saw the Lord coming from afar off. I beheld Eternity from that perch and it was one of his greatest gifts to me. I have no lost saints and I honor him for that on this Father's Day.

To my husband, John, and my son, John David, now himself that father with a happy burden (pictures are of JD and family), to my brothers-in-law Jake, Rick and Mark, to all my father-friends, to our fathers here and to those now in Heaven, and especially to our all-loving, ever-present Father God, I say blessings and honor on this day and all the days to come.

You have held us long-loved.

Feel free to leave a comment here if you would like to honor your father as a Father's Day Blessing or In Memoriam. Comments honoring Our Father are welcome as well.

Insistere-To Stand Still On

Some of us have been praying for the complete physical healing of Ruth Schoenleben's son-in-law, Jay, who has been in a battle with cancer for some time.

Kim and I were I emailing back and forth about "insisting" on his healing. I felt that we were supposed to insist. On the third day Christ rose from the dead. I do not believe the sun has set on that day nor shall it ever and I shared that thought with Kim.

in·sist/inˈsist/Verb
1. Demand something forcefully, not accepting refusal. From the Latin insistere to stand still on.

Here is her insistence with my full agreement.

The sun has not set upon your Resurrection day...Nor shall it ever.

We want to see Jay live and not die.
We want Jay to raise his daughter and grow old with his wife.
We want Jay to know that his God is alive.
We want Jay to know that the sacrifice Jesus made for his life (body, soul and spirit) was more than enough for anything that he or his family will ever need.

I do insist at all times under all circumstances, no matter what, that the sacrifice that Jesus made for us was more than enough for anything we will ever need.

We are calling on that truth for Jay's healing, God.
(Kim)

*******

Lord,

We agree with
Your Crucified body,
Your Resurrected body,
Your Glorified body,
that you are the perfect sacrifice
the obedient Son
the One who sits at
the Father's right hand
having everything under your authority
possessing all the power
Jay's body needs
to fully respond to
Your call to wholeness.
"A three strand cord
is not easily broken."
(Kathy)

*******

At all times under all circumstances, no matter what, the sacrifice that Jesus made for us was more than enough for anything we will ever need.(Kim Lorentzen)

Blessed be the LORD day by day,* the God of our salvation, who bears our burdens. He is our God, the God of our salvation;* God is the LORD, by whom we escape death.
Psalm 68:11

Please insist with us. Please "stand still on" this promise that Christ is indeed all sufficient. May His grace, bless, provide and sustain this courageous family.

If you wish to "insist" with us on behalf of Jay, and write it as a comment, I will publish it on this site...Remember one can put 1,000 to flight and two 10,000. Do the math. It is all agreement. Jesus obedient agreement with the will of the Father and our agreement with one another in the Spirit, standing on His promises together for His glory.

The sun has not set on that Third Day, nor shall it ever!
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

The Circus Is Over Rated

Meditation by the Stove

I have banked the fires of my body
into a small but steady blaze.
Here in the kitchen,
where the dough has a life of its own,
breathing under its damp cloth
like a sleeping child,
the real child plays under the table,
pretending the tablecloth is a tent.
A brown bird dazzled by light
has flown into the windowpane
and lies stunned on the pavement--
it was never simple, even for birds,
this business of nests.
The innocent eye sees nothing,
repeating what the snake told Eve,
what Eve told Adam, tired of gardens,
wanting the fully lived life.
But passion happens like an accident.
I could let the dough spill over the rim
of the bowl, neglecting to punch it down,
neglecting the child who waits under the table,
the mild tears already smudging her eyes.
We grow in such haphazard ways.
Today I feel wiser than the bird.
I know the window shuts me in.
I know that when I open it
the garden smells will make me restless.
I have banked the fires of my body
into a small domestic flame
for others to warm their hands on
for a while.
-Linda Pastan from Carnival Evening


Sometimes as an adult I wondered if it was too late to run away and join the circus.

I remember once in Dallas when John David was about thirteen and playing me like an arcade game (he has always been the high scorer), I let it be know I intended to pack a suitcase and stay in a hotel. To run away but just for the weekend. It had been an angry day.

The shock, the absolute disbelief, the indignation expressed at the thought of Mom leaving was almost comic and would have been hysterical had I not been positively rabid to go.

Oh, the thought of room service and a movie without car crashes or blood! No one calling me to find their socks, car keys, checkbook, math book, or Bible just as I soaped up my hair. The notion of full rolls of toilet paper and getting to finish a coke I opened (without sharing it) was heady fare. No one to challenge me. Ahhh the lure of peace and quiet. No arguments. The sound of just my own voice, my own thoughts, to be my own better self if only until Sunday afternoon.

The most understanding man on the planet was calling to get me a room at the Anatole but his son was a different story. "Mothers can't run away! Mother's can't leave even for a weekend. It isn't done." This was followed by many attempts at apologies of all sorts that were just shy of genuine. The tired expression on my face must have signaled that I had crossed the imaginary line where I lost all ability to be reasoned with or bullied. The weary side of motherhood with an oppositional teenager had made me its poster child.

I was just putting my favorite old rag of a nightgown in the suitcase when JD rode up to the house on his skateboard with roses in hand and a sincere 'mea culpa' on his lips. He had been to several florists until he found roses he could afford. (I thought he had run away too...again) The petals of those roses mark some of the most personally meaningful passages of scripture in my Bible. Many years later I would hold their papery remembrance of a fragrance long ago faded, and will my son home from Iraq. Mothers can't leave. It isn't done.

Our wonderful, long-suffering God isn't going to ever run away and join the circus either. He won't be dialing up the pay per view or ordering room service. His eyes are on us. Like the gifted, passionate woman in the poem, who was restless and capable of so much more, we can feel our lives are unused or ill used or put on hold. God always has a plan. After all, this is the God who became a man to let the world into His kitchen.

He is here for us and He isn't going anywhere no mater how hard we try to wear Him out. The everpresentness of God says we are not on our own here. "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me." Isaiah 49:15-16

Maybe the dough is breathing under the damp cloth and there are things, good things, that you would do now if you could or do better if life would cooperate. Take heart, "He makes everything beautiful in its time," and you are part of everything He is beautifying.

The kitchen season will lend its lessons and richness to the days that follow. Along with the other crowns, I think there must be "kitchen crowns" in the Kingdom . I know there is one waiting for me. It will probably be made from my old strainer John David stole to catch carp with in a storm drain.

On the day a 25 year old son returned to Christ he told me, "Mom, I know God will always love me because you have always loved me no matter what." On the day a 30 year old Sergeant called me from the middle of a war he told me, "Mom, I am going to come home and sit in your kitchen."

Sometimes the very moments we feel the most like we are lost or have been set aside are the moments of our greatest influence. When we feel that all we are doing is just watching the bread rise, maybe we should know it for a blessing. There is glory in the rising. Humility waits on greatness and patience has work to do.


Besides, the circus is over rated. Mothers don't leave.

(Smile)

I Will Never Unlove You

The Presence of Love

In life's noisiest hour,
there whispers still a ceaseless love of thee.
You are my heart's solace and soliloquy.
You mold my hopes.
You fashion me within,
and to the leading love-throb of my heart,
through all my being and through my pulse's beat,
you lie in all my many thoughts like light.

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge



This is one of the more splendid love poems and a personal favorite. There is a second verse that clearly demonstrates that Coleridge is speaking of the earthly love of his life and when I take the poem as a whole it is John's face I see...but... the first verse for me also belongs to my Lord and could easily keep company with the Song of Songs.

"In life's noisiest hour there whispers still a ceaseless love of Thee...You lie in all my many thoughts like Light..."

Some time ago I read a book called A Whisper in Winter by Shannon Woodward. In the introduction the author speaks of the jumble of a day centered around a struggle getting her very strong willed 4 yr old son to mind while trying to carve out a quiet, inspirational time to write the book.

She says she was full of all the wrong thoughts and dry as dust when her son, whom she had put to bed for the umpteenth time, sheepishly shuffled into her room to ask if there was ever a time when she would "unlove him."

She responded by scooping him up into her arms and pronouncing "Never!" He asked, "What if I had 10 bad days? Would you unlove me if I had 10?"

"Not 10 hundred! I will never unlove you!" And then the whisper came to her, "And I will never unlove you..."

I believe that in all of life's noisiest hours there are whispers of that ceaseless love. That is a verse I could have written to God but He said it first. "I will never unlove you."

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Jeremiah 31:3

You lie in all my many thoughts like Light. Warm, radiant, illuminating, He is there at mind's edge on the busy, crazy, heartless days to flare up to full flame as all the rest is pushed aside or just to quietly be there when it isn't. I think that we also lay in all His many thoughts. I know so because the scripture proves it.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace (wholeness, well being, health, blessing) and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

If we still our hearts sometime today and listen we may hear such a whisper, "I will never unlove you." Having heard, whisper back, "Father, I will never unlove you"

My heart knows that you mold my hopes and fashion me within and I will never unlove you.

NEVER!

Golden Brushes

I listened to a story about an artist on NPR. Old habit from when JD was in Iraq, I keep the radio on to get the news. In the process I get many other interesting things.

I have always loved illuminated manuscript and treat myself to bits of it when I can as copies. Our first Christmas in Anchorage the folks at First Assembly gave John a bonus and being John, he spent it on me! He knew I was fascinated by the Book of Kells and there was a coffee table book at Barnes showing all the colorful book plates full of the images of scripture. I spent that Christmas in a monastery in Ireland without ever leaving the Lazyboy.

This is a news story about a woman who has opened an apprentice program to teach illumination. She has designed and created, with the help of students who live with her, 6x9 ft paintings of cities torn by war or tragedy. They are called Cities of Peace. She has many interesting touches in the works. She even had astronomers configure the night sky as it appeared over one city on a specific date. Jerusalem is my favorite.

The link will let you look at the works, hear the newscast or read the story if you like.

What struck me was her description of how the illumination is created. I never knew in all of my reading, all of my looking, all of my wonder, that illumination is, in part, a joining of mud to gold. Many other inks are used but wherever you see gold there is mud under it.

Mud is mixed to a thin paint and laid down as a base for the work. Then the artist, through the use of a mordant or special glue overlays the work with precious metals, usually gold. The monks did this to illustrate the attachment of man to God. The beautification of the common by the sacred. "Faith" came to mind. Faith as a mordant joining dusty man to the sacredness of his Creator by faith in the atonement of Christ. Beauty for ashes.

When we look at illuminated works we do not see the common. Our eyes see only the craft, the mastery, the beauty produced by the overlay. May the world see that when they look at us. No more dusty-muddy people but people Illuminated by a special, costly (Jesus paid it all) beautification program created in the heart of a loving God.

My heart knows for a certainty that the artist who drew the heavens, who mixed purple and red into the sunset, has a desire to beautify our lives to reflect such artistry. Heaven knows the world needs it. All our muddy footprints removed from sight. Have you ever considered that you can be a masterpiece? God has considered it and you are a work in progress. The gold is standing at the ready. More glue? Make mine extra sticky.

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting praises. Romans 5

The Holy Spirit has mixed His paints. He has dipped His brush in your color pallet. His artistry is without question. What has He ever touched that has not testified to His skill? He is a Master. He will bring you to breathtaking, technicolor life, shot through with Christ's illuminated glory, mud marks not withstanding. Trust Him. For you it is all about love and golden brushes.


The Four Evangelists, Book Of Kells, Ireland

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89241865


(From a 2008 email to friends)

Enough

All things happen to us so that we will have an answer to why we have the testimony, the faith, the salvation, the joy that we have. So that we may point to the memorials of God in our lives and leave them as highway markers for those who follow after us.

God can "cook" and he wants us to have every confidence that we can too. He doesn't just give us the cook book, He cooks for us and asks for a demonstration back. "Love me? Feed mine."

He wants us to know He is always enough (more than food, or money or life) and He wants us to know the words of "enough" that He knows. The enough line in the sand that says to Hell, "Go no farther!" And the words of abundant, limitless enough that say, "Christ is your satisfaction, be ye filled with whatever you have need of!"

When the multitude hungered, the apostles wanted to send them away. They were tired and knew the people were tired and hungry and they said "Enough already." Jesus wanted to seat them, feed them, show the 12 how to camp cook for all that were hungry.

Christ's definition of enough bore little similarity to the apostles at that time. That would change. Peter's proclamation, "Silver and gold have I none but such as I have I give thee, rise and walk in the Name of Jesus," was born of eating the bread of enough. Enough has a voice that is obeyed.

When God gifted me with my first 40 day fast I really got a cooking lesson. I learned about "enough." I learned that when you seek the God of Enough you should get ready for the oil to run like a river, the bread to rise and Hell to starve. Get ready to have something to say worth listening to. Get ready to know what it means to say, "I have meat ye know not of." The Table of the Lord was enough.

Our Enough God wants to show us what enough really is...Himself. Where He is, everything else is also. Satisfied, nourished, complete.

I have been looking into Kings and Insight for Living had this offering. I'll share this out of the life of the prophet who had learned about enough and shared the wisdom with a widow.

"You can't talk the talk if you've never walked the walk. You can't
encourage somebody else to believe the improbable if you haven't
believed the impossible. You can't light another's candle of hope if
your own torch of faith isn't burning.

When Elijah saw the near-empty flour bin and oil jug, he said, almost
with a shrug, "That's no problem for God. Get in there and fix those
biscuits." Then he told her why.

Listen to these confident words of faith: "The bowl of flour shall not
be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty, until the day that
the LORD sends rain on the face of the earth."

What a promise! That woman must have looked at Elijah, this tired,
dusty stranger, with wonder and bewilderment, as she heard words like she'd never heard before.

Have you ever spent time in the presence of a person of faith? Ever
rubbed shoulders with men and women of God who don't have the word "impossible" in their vocabulary? If not, locate a few strong-hearted souls. You need them in your life. These are the kind of incredible associations God uses to build up our faith!"

Taken from Charles R. Swindoll

If you are looking for me in the days ahead you will find me in the kitchen. A Bride should know how to cook. How to make enough for this hungry world. I have eager brother and sister chefs all willing to share ingredients, to celebrate enough, to become enough in Christ.

Grab an apron?

(Picture of Eucharist is a drawing I made when JD returned from a second tour in Iraq. I had taken daily Communion in the silver cup he bought for me before he left and the host was drawn using the mouth of that same cup.)

The Words of the Upright Save

Then stood before the Throne two men. One embraced and one despised. Tragically, for both in the Savior's eyes were loved, yet one forever lost, without a homeland; the other a brother celebrated, crowned with victory.

David Wilkerson and Osama bin Laden both departed this life this week. Wilkerson welcomed by His dearly loved Jesus, Wilkerson who told the world daily who loved it best, received with jubilation. Bin Laden, the antithesis of such selfless goodness, may have experienced a different fate. His eternal reward or the lack of one I leave to the only one able to judge him. (God will render to every man according to his deeds... Romans 2:6)

An email I sent to friends and family in June of 2006 came at once to mind. It was Father's Day and two soldiers from the 502nd of the 101st had been kidnapped and murdered. In all my jumbled up feelings surrounding that time, God caused me to recall as He does at this very moment, the power we have to oppose evil and vanquish it. To turn it away from a life, to refuse it a handhold and thereby save those who would associate with that life from hurt and harm. Bin Laden was not always the mastermind of 9/11.

I offer this story to you in the hope that it will encourage you to "Tell them." Find a field and plant the Word and save the Bin Ladens of the planet from themselves and from blood guiltiness if they will hear. They are all around us. They are not all on foreign soil. Support our missionaries and pastors who labor to "Tell them," but don't just delegate this responsibility.

"Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you for a reason regarding the hope that is in you," 1 Peter 3:15

"Go into all the world (including where you work, shop, live) and preach the gospel to all creation." Mark 16:15

It is a mission Jesus will bless.

*************************************

I was so sad when I woke up this morning. The news that wakes me every morning made me cry.

"Two bodies found. Killed in a barbaric way."

I don't remember breathing. It felt as if my heart clamped down upon itself and made a tiny fist in my chest. My imagination, which had been kept prisoner by the force of my will and prayer life, burst through my defenses and ran riot through my mind. Even now images are forming that will haunt my day or worse as details filter through to us via the news.

It will be hard to give any real weight or significance to whose insurance claim gets paid today, whose medical assistant gets a raise, which doctor joins what PPO. Even less important will be any disagreement with family, any minor offense I may have suffered, something they were out of at the grocery, the long wait in line at the bank, what to cook for supper.

Many years ago there was a terrible killing of a small boy in the town I was from. It caused a seasoned Judge to retire from the bench. I was upset with God that He could exist and be all powerful and do absolutely nothing to stop it. How really merciful He is was born out by the fact that He knew of my feelings because I was standing in my living room, with my own child sleeping in the next room, and I was pointing my finger at Heaven and laying my case out with some of the choice expletives I was famous for in my younger life.

I accused God of indifference, of cowardice, of being an outright liar when He wrote of His love for us. I recall saying, "So just you tell me how come these things can happen and you do nothing!" I went to my Bible, not for comfort but to accuse God using His own words.

My Bible fell open to a line that silenced me, changed me. The words of the wicked are to lie in wait for blood: but the mouth of the upright shall deliver them. Proverbs 12:5-7 One version says, "The words of the wicked kill. The speech of the upright saves." God knew I was not angry because two degenerates had used harsh language on a defenseless boy but His point was made.

I felt a stab of accusation, "...the words of the upright save." There were people out there who were hell bent to destroy, to lay in wait for blood, but the words of the upright are the defense against that. I began to see the place of grace in our world. More than that I saw my responsibility as a contact point for that grace. I had to start talking.

God not understand? Who was I kidding? He had written of His love for us in blood. He had sent His son to a foreign country only to see Him abused, tortured and murdered and made a public spectacle. There were many insults Christ's body testified to upon His death. I shudder when I consider the story His corpse whispered to Mary as it lay in her arms. Yet His parting words to those who loved him were to go "tell them." God had done His part. He was now trusting us to save those who conspire to do evil by telling them about Christ, by the word of our testimony.

My response to that day was to teach children's church. It was like throwing starfish back into the sea one at a time but how can any of us know how many lives we really touch? We are tempted to wonder who the little ones we tell about God will grow up to be. There is also the matter of who they will not grow up to be. Someone who waits on the blood of his neighbor. God did his job. I had to do mine. If there was a chance to let someone know Christ loved them then I was going to do some talking.

As I sit here today feeling so much that same anguish I am still persuaded that as a people we have something to say that can prove a defense against the evil in this world. As a church, as a country we have a voice that can change lives and impact history if we will just use it. It can surely make the places where we live, work, shop and worship better. There is a God who loves us. People need to know.

Today my son will be feeling emotions I cannot understand but only in part. He will be shattered, angry, fearful, vengeful. He will have to master his own feelings to help those under him master theirs. Maybe today he will be asking God some tough questions. He may have been among those who found his savaged comrades who must now be sent home to parents not unlike Mary although less prepared to receive such remains.

I would give 5 years of my life just to be able to put my arms around John David at this moment. I would give everything I have to bring him home. While I may wake up some days and think how nice it would be to stay home and not go to my busy job, John David gets up and goes to work in the town that destroyed those boys.

Several months ago God told John David that the day was coming when it would be crucial for everyone to know that he belonged to Christ. I think this may be that day.

My son is a man of war. He will not forgive the offense done this past Father's Day. John and those with him will do their job. His good heart will be conflicted but I pray his rudder will remain true. I also pray he will find his voice, the one needed for this time.

Please continue to pray for John's safety. He cannot come home yet. My kitchen is waiting for him. His sweet wife has kisses. His father has a hug that will crush the air out of him. We will send our prayers and support to our troops, to their families, to the families of those whose loss takes our breath away. We will let ourselves be lead to that Rock that is higher, to that shelter.

And I will speak the name of Jesus and not be silent.

Kathy June 20, 2006

***********************************************

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? Romans 10:14