For You . . .

Salvation Oracles

There is a long list of threats around us:
terror,
cancer,
falling markets,
killing,
others unlike us in all their variety,
loneliness,
shame,
death—
the list goes on and we know it well.
And in the midst of threat of every kind,
you appear among us in your full power,
in your full fidelity,
in your amazing compassion.
You speak among us the one word that could matter:
"Do not fear."
And we in our several fearfulnesses, are jarred by your utterance.
On a good day, we know that your sovereign word is true.
So give us good days by your rule,
free enough to rejoice,
open enough to change,
trusting enough to move out of new obedience
grace enough to be forgiven and then to forgive.
We live by your word. Speak it to us through the night,
that we may have many good days through your gift.
Isaiah 43:1-5

Walter Brueggemann
from Prayers for a Privileged People

Ephesians

I've been reading and re-reading the book of Ephesians this past month, and I find myself clinging to the precious truths in its few chapters. And this is my prayer for you tonight, dear blog reader(s):

That you may know the hope to which you have been called in Jesus (1:8),
that you may have purpose in knowing that you were chosen for the praise of His glory (1:12),
and that being rooted and established in love, you will be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (3:19).

Over and above all of that, I pray that you will trust what you know is true. As Brenning Manning writes in Ruthless Trust, "You don't need any more insights; you have enough insights to last a lifetime. What you need is to trust what you already know and believe" (2).

Finally, Paul concludes in chapter 6, "be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power . . . for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the power of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when [not if!] the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground . . ."

Whatever is going on in your life today, trust that God loves you, is protecting you, and will give you what you need to stand your ground and to live in victory.

Jana

Watching the Big Game

We got invited to the game tonight with friends from church. Here we are before the game. Since we won big, it obviously was a great game!

The Corn Maize

There is a corn field maze just north of here which is pretty popular. They host LCS as a fundraiser for the school, so we went out to check it out. They have a pretty cool setup - lots of fun things to do. Obviously, the main reason you go is for the maze - or MAiZE as they call it.

Here is a picture of this year's maze:

You really do not get a feel for the size from above like this. Each of the thin lines around the edges are just a little wider than my arm span.

They let you go in without a map, or you can get a set of clues. There are 10 numbers throughout the maze and you have to answer a question (we picked the Bible and sports questions) and based on your answer, you are told to turn left or right. Or, you can do like we did and use this:


I am walking along tracing my finger on where we are most of the first half. Then we got lost in the second half and wandered around the 0 and the Y of years for a while. Finally, I realized the ultimate cheat - they drive the quickest path with a four-wheeler at the start of the day and since we are still recovering from 8 inches of rain, you just follow the tracks!

We did make it all the way through and had a lot of fun doing so. Here is a shot of us on one of the bridges overlooking the maze. Surprisingly, at least to me, is the fact that you could not even tell what it was when looking over the top of it.


I talked to the guy who owns the place. Making a maze involves sending a picture to this company and they give you back a grid. You set up the GPS and autosteer on the tractor and then plant corn in a set grid. You then go through when the corn is about yo high and plant by plant you use the grid to figure out which ones to kill off with Roundup. He had pictures and everything. Very cool! Here's their portion of the website, just in case you are interested.

Rain, rain, go away . . .

You hate to say that when you live in Lubbock, the land of the perpetual drought.

But seriously.

We are apparently getting to the 8 inch mark (in one day!), and all public & private local schools have been cancelled tomorrow due to the dangerous--and sometimes impassible--roads and streets.

Of course, LCU has not cancelled its classes. It's not ok for the children of Lubbock to put themselves in harm's way, but apparently our potential drowning is of little concern. Hmmmm . . .

None of this compares to the problems faced on the coast in the next few days, or to the problems in Cuba and other hurricane-ravaged places to the south. While it is inconvenient here, it is deadly there.

Pray for the rain to cease, the roads to clear, and for safe driving conditions tomorrow. (Anybody have any great "rainy-day" activities for kids? I think we're going to be inside for a while . . . !)

Jana

The power of community

I feel the love.

Thank you--all of you--for your responses to the previous post. You guys made me cry--again--this time because each of you wants so much to live out the calling of Jesus to love, to include, to make a place at the table for all those who feel left out. I really, really, really like that about you.

Before I leave this particular subject, I have to tell you that I went back to AntiqueMommy and read through the 148 (148!) responses to her post on infertility. I didn't read every single one of the responses word for word (after all, 148!), but the single note that resonated through all of them was this: "Don't forget about me. Hurt with me. Cry with me. Listen to me. And please, please, please don't assume that you know it all about me." Some of the responses weren't about infertility at all--there was a reply from a girl who regularly feels the sting of racism; one girl wrote about the struggle of being a single young adult woman who doesn't really have a "place" at church and who feels barren and alone and who worries and wonders about her future, having to wear the label "single." And so many others . . .

If I gave the impression that I don't join the "foot-in-the-mouth club" on a regular basis myself, that would be wrong. As much as I flinch sometimes at the untimely or inappropriate comments made about a myriad of subjects, I have made many, many such verbal goofs and gaffs and downright blunders myself.

The grace in this all is that despite the ways we sometimes prick and wound each other with our words (and our carnations, of all things!), we still cling to the power of our life together in Jesus. There is room for all us--especially those of us in the foot-in-the-mouth club, at the foot of the cross, and the very fact that all these women could pour out their suffering and their loss in the public forum of a blog is evidence of the power of community--the kind of loving community that is designed by God himself.

Becoming a Mom

I read Antique Mommy’s post today and it hit a well-hidden nerve. Please read her post, then come back here (www.antiquemommy.com) BTW, sorry I haven't figured out how to directly link you there. In cyber-world, just call me a slow learner.

I should probably start at the beginning:
I didn’t always want to be a mommy, or even want to even be married, if truth be told. I was going to be a career girl, which in my youthful thinking seemed to be a way to exact revenge on all those young men who weren’t smart enough to see what a perfect girlfriend/fiancée/wife I would be to them. It wasn’t that they didn’t want me; I didn’t need them. Well, how silly.

Anyway.

Once I got married, I wanted to have children—in theory—but didn’t pursue that desire with any intensity. After all, we didn’t have any money, hubby was in graduate school, and honestly, I wasn’t ever a very good babysitter. I didn’t even really like to babysit. So, I figured, if one didn’t like to take care of other people’s children for a short amount of time, then probably taking care of children for the rest of one’s life was not a good option.

Something changed.

I really did want a family that included more than the two of us. By the time that desire became a daily and active thought, we had been married almost 5 years and the dawning realization that there was a problem—that having a child wasn’t going to be something we simply decided to do—became a reality.

Time—as it always does—marched on.

Fortunately for me, I had a particularly sensitive friend who had walked the road of infertility, and she and her husband became a resource and a comfort to us. They got it in a way many other people simply could not. (I would wager big money that my friend—who regularly responds to this blog—still gets it, 4 children and lots of life experiences later.)

My friend understood when I cried at the news of another friend’s pregnancy because I was so jealous and angry. She understood how tired I was of going to baby showers and celebrating YOUR good news. She sat on the row by me—during “those” years—on Mother’s day at church, knowing how much I wanted to be given the red carnation, the flower that was distributed to each mother at the beginning of service. She rolled her eyes at the well-meaning—but entirely inappropriate—comments people make about baby-making and adoption. There are just some stories (“I have a friend who got pregnant right after she adopted a baby”) that really need to leave our story-telling canon. Please don’t pass this story on, even if you are certain that it did happen to a friend of a friend of a friend.

When I read AM’s post today, all of those feelings came flooding back. She is right when she said that you never forget that longing and that loss. A colleague I work with just announced that his sweet and wonderful wife (a gal whom I really like) is pregnant, and even now, two children and a lot of years later, I felt that familiar twinge and turn of the heart. It is such a weird emotion, and entirely unexpected, and a sign that some of our deepest longings and losses never truly disappear.

There is this blessing. There is a young couple at church who is struggling with infertility and have now chosen to open a different door and embrace a new dream: adoption. I do know how they feel.

I am truly and deeply thankful that I know how they feel.

Jana

Just thought this one was fun!

At the park while playing with the Vernon cousins on Labor Day.