21 Years

For twenty one years her light has fought my darkness. Her flesh has healed my hurts. Her eyes are the skies that keep hope breathing. We rise again to the surface for another breath of cool, clean air. And she laughs anyway.

For twenty one years she did. And she still does. Having and holding is second nature now. It’s where we are. With three glowing gifts slowly reaching out, with beauty, into the world. They reach out with the same quiet fire that she possesses. The spirit of perseverance.

For twenty one years we have been carried across impossible places, through empty, lonely spaces, against the crowd and a world of growing discontent. We hold tightly, like a little child, to the hand of the Holy One. Trusting.

He has us. He will not let go.



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011

Lama Sabachthani?

Do you have problems and challenges and personal issues that make you crawl?

I know I do.

I have some pretty good days. I have some not so good days. And the bad days can be really bad. Only God and my wife know exactly how bad. But even on the worst days, when I feel abandoned and alone, I know I’m not.

Jesus said this thing on the cross that is often quoted but not really thought through. He quoted King David from Psalm 22:1. He was claiming the words for his own life. He said, “"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

In a very real way, Jesus was experiencing the tortures of Hell in that moment. If Hell is anything, it is a place that is God forsaken. And the point of the cross was for Jesus to take things on himself so we wouldn’t have to have those things put on us. Things like the wrath and punishment of God. But, also, I think, is this thing about being forsaken.

We have every reason to feel forsaken sometimes. We do things wrong. We cling to sins. We make huge mistakes. We hurt the people we love. We do things and we can’t even figure out why we’re doing them half the time. And I think we realize that these things rob us of our innocence.

Or other people rob us of our innocence.

And we feel forsaken because that’s the feeling that goes with these things. Sin should cause God to turn his face away...

But...

If sin is taken care of – if what is broken is made whole – then there’s no reason for God to turn his face away. This is one of the reasons I trust Christ. Jesus has taken care of things. He took God’s wrath so I wouldn’t have to. He was forsaken by God so I wouldn’t have to be. He said he could do this and I believe him. I can accept that some people don’t want to believe him, but I do. And, because of this, no matter how I feel, I can know that I am not alone. I am not abandoned. I am not forgotten.

Ever.


Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Bittersweet

 

My youngest progeny is turning seven. She’s having a great time with it. One of her favorite gifts so far is an Elvis Jukebox ornament that plays the first section of “Blue Christmas.” We’ve been listening to it all morning. All. Morning. I will officially be sick of it in about fifteen seconds from now...

Yep. I'm there.

This daughter was our “Christmas Baby.” She is a kid's kid. She loves to play. She has a great nature about her. She likes to joke and have fun. She forgives quickly and loves to give hugs. She's really a joy to be around, unless you’re trying to brush her hair when it’s all tangled and messed up. This is when she turns into an irrational and whiny shadow of her former kinder, gentler self.

She’s got a lot of kid time left, and I treasure every minute of it, but we understand the reality that when this child leaves her childhood behind, our whole household leaves it behind (Until grand-kids, that is. Yikes.). She’s the end of the line. Which is bittersweet.

That word, “bittersweet,” really describes how I’m feeling lately.

I’m not having a blue Christmas, but I am having a bittersweet one so far. It’s like a birthday where too many people at the party are hurting and having a hard time. You want to have fun, but the mood isn’t right. As Dickens said, Christmas is a time “when want is more keenly felt.” I deal with a lot of hurting people, and it just gets to me sometimes.

I’m working hard, for myself and my church, to remember the holiness of this Holy Day and the season that leads up to it. What really sets it apart isn’t all the stuff we hang on it, like cheap ornaments on a beautiful tree. What really sets it apart, makes it holy, is what God has done in Christ.

I actually enjoy a lot of the kitschy elements of Christmas time. I like the lights and the gifts, the TV specials and the songs and the whole thing. Still, because I’m tired and worn, there are times when the whole thing seems tired and worn. And I don’t blame the kitsch. I know it’s my heart that is the issue. How I feel during the holidays is usually about how I feel going into them. All that’s happening is that my heart is being exposed to me. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

A bittersweet Christmas can be good for the soul. When I feel this way, I find myself a little more sensitive to the people around me who are hurting. And it helps me to remember that, while the kitsch is fun, it’s not the point.

As always, with all things, at all times: Jesus is the point.


Colossians 3:11
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Degenerate

 
Well, I’m going to have to have surgery. I have tried to avoid it, but there’s no way out of it now. I have carpal tunnel. I’ve had it for years. I put up with it because I didn’t want to have surgery. It has effected my ability to play drums. It makes guitar playing difficult. My hands fall asleep when I’m driving or holding up a book to read it. Blah blah blah.

I just didn’t want to get the surgery.

But it’s gotten to the point that my nerves, according to the doctor, are degenerating. The nerves in my hands are being destroyed. I’m losing the ability to feel. So I have to get this surgery done to stop that from happening and, in the end, I should be better off.

I just didn’t want to get the surgery.

After the doctor told me I had “degenerative nerve damage” due to severe carpal tunnel, I looked up the word “degenerate.” I kind of knew what it meant, but you look anyway, ya know? It was a boring, but accurate, typical Webster definition: “having a decline in function.”

That was the “a” definition. The “b” definition was much more interesting. It said: “having sunk to a lower, usually more vicious state.”

Which immediately brought up a memory from elementary school, fifth or sixth grade. I was in line for lunch and this kid cut in front of me. So I said what any kid would say to such an obvious social impropriety.  “Hey. No cuts!”

Without blinking, without the slightest pause or moral inclination to interrupt his fluid, degenerate response, without emotion or feeling, this kid punched me in the jaw, knocking me to the ground. In the lunch room! I could hardly believe it had happened. I was too shocked to cry. Not to mention that there were kids everywhere, which is one of the greatest tear inhibitors you can find. But I looked around, scanning the lunchroom for adults. Lunch ladies everywhere and not ONE of them had seen what the degenerate had done. Of course, there was no way I could tell anyone. That would only make it worse.

He ignored me as I got up off the floor and got in line behind him, wondering what he might do next. But he didn’t do anything. I didn’t matter to him. I was just in his way, and now that I was out of the way, I meant nothing to him.

Consider: When the world treats you this way, you need to understand that the world is degenerate. It has descended into a lower, vicious state. The world has lost feeling, like nerves lose their feeling, like a dead body can’t feel, which makes it a dangerous place to be sometimes. And we’re all a part of it. As the song says, “We are the world.”

This is why Christ came: To regenerate the degenerate.



Matthew 9:12-13
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010