Ordinary

 

“It never failed to amaze me how the most ordinary day could be catapulted 

into the extraordinary in the blink of an eye.” 
― Jodi Picoult, Handle With Care

 

She sprawls, eyes wide and smiling. One foot, then the next. A little cotton sock, flowered pink, stretched over five chubby toes, the ball, the heel, the foot. She wriggles, all smiles. I take my index finger, gently stroke it down the center of her sole. And in return, her squeals stroke my soul as well.

 

Best. job. ever.

 

So ordinary, yet I wonder at how her laughter lifts me so, and if God perchance feels that delight when we laugh at His playfulness. At His gifts of joy.

 

More time. More day. More ordinary. Lunch at school. 6 year old fingers clutch my sleeve tightly as he smiles and points to his friends, "She's here! My mom is here!" All that time that has flown by in a gust of ordinary, but I'm given the gift of stopping, sharing, eating beef and bean nachos with some of the most remarkable kindergarteners in the world. Time for recess. Oh I miss that! Watching the boy play soccer, the girl play basketball, and the hordes of children not from my womb, yet in whose world I get to play a part. Even just a smile.

 

The weather is not ordinary. Warm for October. So we take advantage of a night when everyone is home, and resolve to play basketball at the church.

 

Lost shoes. Lost balls. Lost minds. Lost time. But we are out the door, and within 15 minutes every single child has cried, except one. The toddler, for whom crying is the primary language, is the only one who doesn't bawl about something, or everything.

 

The crying is sprinkled with intermittent laughter, berry picking, applause.

We travel home in the sunset...

 

She's three, but she sees my phone and hears the clicks and understands. Her perspective just slightly off from mine, she sees what I miss.

 

"Are you taking a picture of the heart tree, Mom?"

 

I am now.

 

 

And as we race back to the house, over the cracked sidewalk, hampered by tiny toddling feet and clutching fingers, I carry the balls and the little one up the driveway, and I see that the preschooler must have been too spent from the evening's recreation to carry her doll all the way inside.

 

Or even to keep her completely dressed.

 

I laugh, head shaking. Completely tickled.

 



Tickling, that sensitivity to touch, it's not just physical.

 

When I am overcome by the grumps and growls of life, I have lost touch with my Maker. Become blind and calloused to His presence in the day to day. To be sensitive to the One who touches us in the ordinary is a gift, and an everyday goal.

 

Today I am praying you will see and feel Him- especially in your ordinary.

 

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Joining Lisa-Jo Baker, and other brave and brilliant writers, today for Five Minute Friday. Though I confess, this took a bit longer than 5 minutes... If you'd like to read other perspectives on the prompt "Ordinary," or want to join us in the fun, just click on the button to the bottom right!

 

If You Can

 And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 

Talk about drama. We all like a little drama in our lives, preferably in a book or on TV- nothing that directly affects us, of course. But man, does my heart break for this dad in Mark 9.

 

 And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.  And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him."

I have four perfectly healthy children. The terror and struggle that gripped this poor man's life are beyond my comprehension. Still, I can think of more than one time I have thought something similar to his next statement: 

But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

If you can.

Now, a good Christian girl like me would probably not dare to say it in those words exactly, but with the despair I have felt in my soul over the plight of others, or hopelessness that has hung about my neck in the face of guilt and unbelief, I might as well have said it verbatim. In straight-up fear, I have asked...

"If you can."

As if I didn't call upon the One who makes all things new. The One who moves mountains, and removes hearts of stone to replace them with living, beating hearts of flesh.

And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” 

This is no prosperity gospel. No "have more faith and you can do whatever you put your mind to."

No. But it is truth. I have seen it on the faces of the strongest women I know. The ones who have gone through unspeakable horrors and been refined by the fires of grief, and come out on the other side with a faith stronger than I can describe.

 

Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

It is a desperate thing to call out to the Lord when there are simply no other options left, because you know you have tried them all. But that doesn't keep the Lord from helping you. So often our last resort, when He should be our go-to guy, yet He works in us all the same.

And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

If you are struggling with whether or not God can remedy your circumstance, let me tell you- He can.

If you are struggling because you know God can, you just don't know if He will, take heart. God is not unsympathetic, and His is not far off. In fact, He is just the opposite:

 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:15-16

We do not have a God who sits on His throne making arbitrary decisions about whether or not to please us. We are dearly beloved children of the Great Physician, who works on our broken selves and whispers in our aching ears, "Just keep watching, and wait. It is going to be so worth it."

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2nd Corinthians 4:16-18

 

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Messy Monday: Tired, Touched

It's always encouraging to see examples of good parenting in the Bible. Like those dear mothers and fathers who followed Jesus around, bringing Him their kiddos, so that He would touch them.

His touches, unnecessary graces. Grace gifts that awaken senses when nothing makes sense.

The Five Love Languages of Children was wandering wild in my mind too awake late Saturday night. When my joints were achy and I forgot to take my medicine (again), and all those wonderings cropped up in my forest of future, trees I have yet to climb and yet I still can't see past them.

The medicines I will not take- refuse to. Praise God I am in the position to make those decisions.

The tears of frustration wondering when will it be again like it was then?

When I didn't have to worry about the food I ate. Or the workouts I did. Or how I spent my time and money. Or whether or not my wrists would buckle under the weight of the chunkiest gift of squishy-love I'd ever received. I just needed a God-sized hug for my heart-sized fatigue. So. tired.

I pondered those good parents- the ones who brought their children face to face with Jesus. Close enough to touch, and not just on Sundays.

And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. Mark 8:16

It's a love language, physical touch. Jesus knew- He invented it.

It's why a handshake indicates its master's demeanor. It's what makes hugs warm and welcomed, or just... awkward.

And He didn't have to do it. In fact, Jesus didn't really have to touch anyone. People were healed just by touching His cloak (Matthew 9:20, 14:36; Mark 5:27-31, 6:56; Luke 8:44-47). He could raise the dead with just a word (Luke 7:14).

And His eyes say it all. "Who looks on the earth and it trembles..." Psalm 104:32

Still, He touched them. Because He loved them. The children. The leper (Matthew 8:1). The servant of the high priest in the garden. "And he touched his ear and healed him." Luke 22:51 No words of healing, no faith lecture, no snazzy point-and-shoot move with an ear tacked on like a tracking dart. Something tells me that touch said all that ear ever needed to hear.

 

I needed to hear it too. To look forward to the day when the faith meets the physical. When the cross I bear will be traded for a crown I wear, a crown He will place there. Not because He has to, because He wants to. When the only language will be love, and the embrace everlasting. When the pauper will become the princess by the providence of the King, and the only buckling will be the knees of the saved under the weight of the glory and joy and adoration of the Most High, the  Lord who saves us.

One day we will all be touched by Jesus, really touched. Healed. I can't wait. Until then, those unnecessary graces come other tangible forms. Today I pray He gives me the eyes to see, ears to hear, and love to spread the grace around. 

Out-Write the Wrongs

 

Tell truth, and shame the devil. – Jonathan Swift

It was a precaution. Extra security for the website. With the increase in hostility toward Christianity, extra measures were taken to make our organization more secure.

Tell that to my insecurity.

A brief surge of self-preservation and lack of faith posed the question within, "Are you sure it’s actually worth it?"

A flood of worst-case scenarios raged through my mind. After all, what would the world really lose if one blogger, just like every other blogger out there, shut down her computer in the best interests of protecting her family?

Lies, all of it. Shutting down a computer could be harmless. Could be. But not here.

Here, this is where I write. And in a battle fought not with swords and spears, but with words and messages, the world needs our message. It needs God’s message. When the enemy rages, firing lies and insecurities, and doubts; every voice of hope, truth, and love in the name of Christ is a blow to Satan’s forces.

Could be a public blog, a card, a text. Just pick up your sword and Write.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Ephesians 4:15-16 

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Today's post was part of a series called Five Minute Friday hosted by Lisa-Jo Baker, a gifted writer and encourager. Writers all over the world tune in to her blog to join in the fun. To read more wonderful writing on today's prompt, Write, just click on the button on the Five Minute Friday on the right!

Call Me "Weirdo"

Jesus has been exercising my heart lately- my love muscle, that is.

Because the world can throw all the four-letter-words it wants, but I have one that beats 'em all.

LOVE.

Probably the most abused and misused word in our language, and perhaps that is fitting because Love is amidst the abused and misused, tending in the dark places.

"For your steadfast love is before my eyes..." Psalm 26:13

The easiest word to conjure, but the hardest action to commit.

For Love draws us out of ourselves, and into another person.

So easy to teach and preach- just words, but what about when the walk must accompany the talk?

What about when the object of our love acts just so... unlovable?

That's when our heavenly Father taps us on the shoulder (none too lightly), His words resounding in the air, "I believe you are sitting in My chair." Climbing off a throne that high can be a humbling experience.

We discussed one of the most famous Love passages at Bible study the other night. Luke 6:27-36.

Jesus must have known the "But, what if..." questioners in the crowd, because He left no loopholes:

²⁷ “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

But what if they say mean things to me or about me?
²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

But what if they hurt more than my feelings?
²⁹ To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also,

But what if they take advantage of me?
and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.
³⁰ Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.

But what if I don't know how to love them?
³¹ And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

Then the part of the passage we skipped in the study, but I find so interesting:

³² “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. ³⁵ But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

In other words, what good is it to love like everyone else? Then you'll just look like everyone else.

Why not love differently?

Love until your enemies think you are just weird.

Love your enemies until everyone else agrees, you are weird.

Love like a weirdo.

The more eloquent way to encapsulate that love would be to compel you to, "love so that the glory of God is revealed."  But honestly, in the moment, that is usually a bit too lofty for me to grasp.

Love like a Jesus weirdo.

Need something a bit more concrete? Need some extra motivation to get your mind and actions to cooperate? Verse 36...

³⁶ Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Jesus' instruction- take a long look in the mirror: Romans 5...

⁷ For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—

 ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

⁹ Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

 

He loved and loves me at my most unlovable- never wavering. Never ever.

 

God grant me strength to love others the same way.

 

So to all the unbelievers out there:

Go ahead, call me "Weirdo."

 

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I join many brave and beautiful writers over at Simply Beth's Three Word Wednesday.

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