A Righteous Anger

One day at K’s baseball practice, while I was waiting for my walking partner to arrive. I noticed K not playing catch with the other boys, but lying face down in the grass, off to the side. I figured he was doing a “drama king’ thing because he didn't: get his way about something, but after it had gone on for a few minutes, I thought it was overdone and went to talk to him about it. When he looked up at me, his eyes were wet with tears and his cheeks were streaked. I asked what had happened and he said one of the other boys had said no one liked him and no one wanted to be his friend. My heart sank. I gave him a big hug and told him it simply wasn’t true and that was a very unkind thing to say to him. But I also told him that he was here to learn to play baseball, and he needed to take a deep breath, be brave and go back and do his best. About that time the coach called the boys in and Keary rather glumly sauntered over. I heard the coach ask Keary what was wrong, and I heard Keary say that someone had said no one liked him, but I kept walking away and did not hear the rest.

My walking partner had arrived in the meantime and had been using the port-a-potty and heard the coach’s speech. Unaware of what had preceded it, she said to me, “Boy, I’d hate to be the offending party!” I asked her about it, and she said the coach was saying that all of them were on the same team, on the same side, helping each other, supporting each other, and if he EVER heard anyone talking meanly to another teammate, he would call their parents on the spot and they would be going home.

An hour or so later, when I went to pick K up, he was a smiling, happy child. And I was thankful that my son had a champion.

Don't be afraid

We have this cat, Joe Kitty, who doesn't see very well, and so she pretty much stays indoors. But she still loves fresh air and sunshine. It has been warm and sunny lately, and we have had our office window open. Needless to say, Joe Kitty has been hanging out by it. Yesterday, a really loud plane flew overhead. Of course, because the window was open, it was even louder than planes usually are. It was the kind that make you run to see if they are planning to land on the roof. Joe Kitty was petrified. She couldn't even run. She just made herself as flat as she could and hoped it wouldn't see her. I just kept right on typing. When it was over, Joe Kitty tiptoed over to me and looked at me quizzically, almost as if to say, "You weren't afraid!" So I picked her up and held her close and petted her and said to her, "I wasn't afraid, so you don't need to be either." And I could feel her muscles relax and she started purring.

And I thought, That's how God holds us too, in our times of fear and doubt, and He says to us, "I am not afraid, so you don't need to be either."

A Chair is a Chair

When I was in college, one of my education professors cautioned us not to jump too quickly to a diagnosis of dyslexia in young readers. He went on to explain that up until a child learns to read, position doesn’t matter. For example, a chair is a chair, whether it is facing right or left or if it is upside down. One of my very first memories of reading was that I had written my name on the inside of the lid of my pencil box. It was a light blue cardboard box and I had taken the entire width to write “J o b I e”. (I think the “e” was backwards too.)
\
So years later, when I read the book of Job, I felt a special connection, not only because I was a teenager when I read it (and I suspect every teenager thinks his/her life is the hardest, meanest, most stressful life ever lived), but also because I had this memory of my name being written “Jobie”. As an adult, after I had my first miscarriage, I again could relate to Job, only this time taking away the quote, “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.” (Job 13:15).

Recently, a friend of mine brought up Job. She said that she felt more like his friends than she would like. This year, through the course of our difficulties, I thought about Job again, but I realize my life does not even hold a candle to his. But after my friend’s comment, I got to thinking. It’s actually true that I have acted more like Job’s friends this year than Job. Early in the year, when I broke my leg and we lost our granddaughter, I was inwardly angry. And I spoke very arrogantly to a friend. And later in the summer, I apparently made a remark (or two) that another friend considered condescending.


My father-in-law is an alcoholic and he has been through many cycles of recovery and relapse. Often, during his recovery, he is arrogant and uncompassionate, as if to say, “If I can get my life right, so can everyone else”, and there is no grace in him. I’m guessing that’s pretty much how I have come off to people. I never meant it that way, but I think it’s been interpreted that way.

Nevertheless, that’s definitely NOT a god-like attitude. And if it takes hard times to produce the fruit of compassion in me, then let them come. I would much rather have hard things in my life, if that’s what it takes for me to reflect God’s heart, than to have everything come easy but be arrogant and condescending.

Chemisty

Boiling points. I remember learning that different liquids had different boiling points. It was in junior high. It's one thing to learn it in your head, but to see someone stick their hand in a boiling pan of alcohol--you expect them to pull their hand out and for it to be painful and blistered and red Not so. Alcohol boils at a temperature not too much above body temperature....

But the most vivid demonstration that sticks in my memory is when Mr. Browning, in Chem I, took a gigantic glass flask (like a 10-gallon flask, with sides at least an inch thick) that was full of ice water and made it boil. Impossible you say? Nope. Even the temperature at which water boils is affected by the pressure over it. By creating a vacuum in the flask, Mr. Browning was able to make the ice-cold slush contained inside it BOIL! Boiling slush. Such an unusual sight, it's still in my memory like it was yesterday, and it was over 30 years ago!

We use the same principle in pressure cookers. Just as water boils at a lower temperature under less pressure (which is why you have to cook things longer at higher altitudes, by the way-less atmospheric pressure); it boils at a higher temperature under pressure. That is why we use a pressure cooker for canning starchy vegetable snd meats, so they will "boil" at a higher temperature, a temperature high enough to kill the dangerous bacteria, like botulism, which can withstand normal boiling temperatures.

But an interesting thing happens as a jar of water is boiled in a pressure canner. As the water boils inside the jar at hotter-than-normal boiling temperatures, air is forced out of the jar. As the jar then cools, the lid seals before it has reached room temperature, creating less pressure inside the jar than there is on the outside. That's why when you open the jar, you hear that characteristic "shoop" as air rushes in to equalize the pressure.

The interesting thing is this. because the water inside the jar is under less pressure, it will now "boil" at a lower temperature than water under normal atmospheric pressure.

I think that is why Joy bubbles up through all kinds of circumstances. It may look odd to us to see people joyfully worshiping God on the streets of Haiti, amid hunger and stench and unknown futures. But it's really the same thing as seeing a boy put his hand in a boiling kettle of alcohol or ice-cold slush boiling. They have been "cooked" under pressure, and their boiling points have been lowered. Joy bubbles up through it all.

I "listen" to my teenage friends on Facebook struggling under the pressures of their lives, and I remember being a teenager, and how hard it was; and yet, being an adult is so much harder. But we don't get there overnight--most of us. We are boiled in the pressure cooker of life over and over, hotter and hotter, under more pressure each time, until we get to the point where we bubble at room temperature.

Juxtaposition

I just love the sound of that word. Do you ever come across a word that is just fun to say? In medical transcription, my fun phrase is "popliteal fossa". It's just fun to say. Same with "juxtaposition". But I like the meaning of the word too. I think it pretty much describes my faith.

I have from time to time, tongue-in-cheek, and with all apologies to those suffering from mental illness in earnest, said that God must be schizophrenic, or of two minds. How else could He grieve at the horrors going on the world and at the same rejoice with those who are rejoicing?

How is it that the very God whose "fingerwork" is the galaxies that we see as stars could care to count the hairs on my head? How is it that this God would take the form of man and die on a cross so that the relationship between Him and me could be restored? How can God, who is so big (gigantic, monstrous, enormous, immense, powerful, immeasurable, unfathomable) be concerned about what is so small? How is it that He can rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn, all at the same time?

And how is it that despite my circumstances,the long uphill journey I have laid out before me, I can still be filled with Joy? It's as if no amount of pressure can keep the surface of the deep from bubbling. Thankfulness and joy cannot be contained........you can clothe them will illness and dark circumstances, but they persist.

The Hope that I was looking for last fall isn't related to any circumstances or feelings. My hope is in my redeemer....and He, whose fingerwork is the stars, even cares for me. How can I not find Joy in that?

Juxtaposition....

Eew, gross!!

We have been watching M.A.S.H. lately. We just saw the episode where BJ Hunnicut arrives. The trip from Kempo to M.A.S.H. 4077 inducts him fairly well, as they meet a patrol on the way that has been wounded and needs assistance. BJ's first look at the shredded abdomen of a soldier leaves him heaving in the dirt.

My mom recently had carpal tunnel surgery, and I looked up pictures on Google Images, to get a better idea of what took place during the surgery. Keary came in the room and looking over my shoulder said, "Is that a REAL hand? EEW GROSS!"

My friend, Sue, who had a below-the-knee amputation years ago, sometimes takes her prosthesis off in church, when it is uncomfortable, but she is very careful to cover her stump, especially from the view of children, as the view to people is often shocking.

I feel the same way about my own incisions. Though they are nothing really gross to look at, they are not they way God intended my foot to look, and I always have the reaction, "Eew, gross" when I catch sight of them, and then sadness comes, and then thankfulness that I still have my foot.

But all this converging got me to wondering if that isn't God's immediate reaction to the sin in our lives. I mean, He created us in His image. I'm pretty sure He intended us to be sinless. And so when He looks at us, I wonder if the first reaction in His heart is, "Eew, gross." Followed by sadness. Followed by thankfulness, that we have chosen relationship with Him.

Finding God in a Box of Salt

We have had quite a year of "opportunity for growth" (as my friend calls it). First I broke my leg, then our daughter had a miscarriage, then, before my leg was completely healed, I developed ian infection in my foot and a month later had to have surgery to drain it, then developed sepsis and subsequent renal failure. I was very sick and had to be on daily IV antibiotics for weeks. When I was finally almost better, I fell off a friend's deck and had bruised ribs for a few weeks. As that was healing, my husband had a stroke, landing him in the hospital for a week. A week later he ended up in the hospital again.

The bottom line is we are running at about half power income-wise right now, have medical bills that exceed our mortgage, and are in a place of having to completely trust God for our provisions and our health and our future. Frankly, this is where we all are anyway, whether we realize it or not; it's just absolutely clear in our lives at this moment.

Five years ago this season, we lost my mother-in-law to a stroke. Nevertheless, she is still here with us in our hearts and memories. She used to say, "Out of salt, out of money" and my husband still says that. This past month, my son had used up the last of our salt doing various science experiments, and the almost empty container sitting on the counter calls out to me, mocking me, "Out of salf, out of money."

Today, a friend brought a care basket from some coworkers (most of whom we don't even know). As I was putting various items away in my pantry, I came upon a box of salt. And this precious box of salt spoke over and above the empty one sitting on the counter. "I see your need. Your provision comes from Me, and I will take care of you."

While I was pondering this, my son skipped into the kitchen, noticed the salt on the stove and said, "Mommy, how did they know we needed salt?" God knows.