Category: INSPIRATIONAL

Posted on

Advent: An Ache Prepares the Way

The stress of my lists are badgering me, and as I talked with a friend this morning, I realized I’m not the only one battling what seems like an ache leading into the season of Advent. We can be a busy and weary crowd come December. I thought of those two things, busyness and weariness, juxtaposed with Advent, a season in which we Christians focus on the gift of a Savior. There is always something to distract me from this, my lists included, and I resent having to fight to focus on Advent this time of year. It makes me ache inside.

Then I read an article by Rob Bell, published by Relevant Magazine, and I was encouraged by his perspective. I found myself suddenly thankful that the busyness and weariness aren’t unlike the scene in Bethlehem at Christ’s advent. Those things that I feel distract me could be the very things that help me receive the gift– the promise that Christ’s advent will fill our aches and deepest longings.

If you have time, the article is worth the read.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/deeper-walk/features/23640-why-advent

Posted on

Thanksgiving

My first grader proudly handed me this card after school yesterday:

Thanksgiving Card

Happy thanksgiving! I am thankful for
my mom she maks diner.
I am thankful for my hous becus
it ceeps us safe. I am thaynkfull for
my sisters becus thay like too play with me.
I am thankfull for my dog
she is vereree sweet.
I am thankfull for my Dad Beecus
he maks munee for are famlee at werc.

I too am thankful for my son and also for my husband, dawturs, frends, hous and werc! For any and all of these things, we are vereee blessed. Happy Thanksgiving, frends.

Posted on

The Dirty Work of Re-Creation

Like dirty laundry airing in the front yard, the brightly lettered truck advertised our Problem from the driveway. It was a heavy traffic time of day for our neighborhood, people coming home from work, walking dogs, stopping to gape at the goings-on of our house. Maybe a giant rat exterminator truck isn’t as bad as a termite tent when it comes to neighborhood spectacles, but it stopped traffic on our street. Truck and crew spent two hours diagnosing, removing and preventing the incursion of critters. Saws ripped, nail guns blasted and men crawled under the house and up ladders. Better traps were laid with better bait. The exterminator’s website says, “It’s a dirty job, and we love to do it!” I pulled out my checkbook and paid them for their dirty work. Continue reading “The Dirty Work of Re-Creation”

Posted on

Car Line Rules

Car line at my kids’ elementary school is like a slowly moving convoy of parked cars. It stalls and creeps forward on a two-lane road that widens only for a single, left turn lane. That lone turn lane happens to be where the crossing guard works his magic of shuttling distracted children safely across the street and intermittently blocking the progression of traffic. If you venture car line, which means you retrieve your child from school by car, you are both willing to exercise patience (as it takes on average 20 minutes to get through) and willing to be a part of a massive traffic blockade. Through-traffic that unwittingly chooses this wrong road at this wrong time of day gets stuck behind you. It has no clue that yours is an idle lane terminating in a slow parade of semi-parked cars swallowing up students whose age, backpacks and lunch sacks make them extremely inefficient at loading. For the through-traffic, it takes some time to figure out what’s happening, and by the time a motorist does, his only option is to use that single left turn lane as escape. No sooner has he committed to his escape route than the sentinel of the street, that safety-vested crossing guard, waves his resolute, red stop sign and blocks the car’s path to initiate yet another slow crossing of encumbered students, parents and gear. Every day I see the pattern repeat. Continue reading “Car Line Rules”

Posted on

Jumping off the Vocation Cliff

Sara Zarr is an acclaimed author, three-time finalist for the Utah Book Award and recently a contributor to Image Journal’s online blog. The following post hit the internet last Wednesday and touched me in a deep-down, good place. So I pass it on to you; and though you may not struggle to push yourself out of the writer’s nest, you may (like me) need the occasional encouragement to take a leap of faith and set your mind to the small, quotidian tasks that insure your leap actually gets you off the cliff:

http://imagejournal.org/page/blog/the-work-awaits

Posted on

Recovering from Conversion

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

-Paul the Apostle (according to Philippians 2:5-8)

I’ve never been comfortable with the phrase accept Jesus as your personal savior. It smacks of narcissism, conjuring in my weird imagination cartoons of God as a kind of trophy or idol. I picture a small, squat talisman whose belly is rubbed for good luck or a tickle-me-personal-savior-god you might find on the shelf of your favorite toy seller. The phrase smells of consumer marketing. Step right down and get your very own personal savior today. Act now! For a limited time, you too can have a personal Jesus! Is he a product we’re selling? A new philosophy? Some form of iconic personal deliverance? Or is there something far less appealing behind the shiny bottle of snake oil? Something the marketing experts might want to cover up? Jesus-as-personal-savior seems to me a remarkable contrast to the call of Jesus who asks us not to “accept” him but, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “bids us … come and die.” From the personal savior angle, death to self must be a part of the fine print. Continue reading “Recovering from Conversion”

Posted on

Exposure: the Vulnerability of Trust

“It requires heroic courage to trust in the love of God no matter what happens to us.” – Brennan Manning (in Ruthless Trust)

Philip Yancey’s grandma said, “Not to risk is not to really live.” What keeps us from risking anyway? Some may say fear, and some may say a lack of clarity, the clarity that God is calling us to a particular risk (my hunch is it’s a little of both). I was struck a few years back by a story I read in Brennan Manning’s book Ruthless Trust. He tells the story of a man who visited Mother Teresa. The man asked Mother Teresa to pray for him. He wanted to have clarity. Mother Teresa refused to pray that for that man and said instead, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.” Surprised, the man asked Mother Teresa if she had clarity. “I have never had clarity,” she answered, “What I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”

Trust. Trust that God is good when it doesn’t appear to be that way (like Abraham on Mt. Moriah or Job upon the destruction of his life). Trust that God loves you. Trust that his love for you is not just some blanket, universal love of his creation but a personal and intimate love for you. Brennan Manning’s spiritual mentor told him, “You’ve got enough insights to last you 300 years. The most urgent need in your life is to trust what you have received.” Quit looking for more insight, more wisdom, he seems to be saying. Trust what you have received. That is really the great need at the bottom of all this searching. Continue reading “Exposure: the Vulnerability of Trust”

Posted on

8 Things to Trash Today

  1. Grasping for something better
  2. Excuses
  3. Worrying about what someone else thinks
  4. Trying to be perfect
  5. To-do list items that are older than a week
  6. Avoiding the difficult
  7. Negative commentary
  8. Unintentional living
Posted on

Signature of Jesus Found in Ecuador

Ecuadorians called them savages, but they are the Huarani people. A primitive tribe, they lived in the shadows of the jungle in Ecuador, launching savage attacks against one another, attacks that went on so long, no one remembered what rift had begun them. They were well acquainted with death but not with the outside world until, in 1956, five American missionaries went missing after making contact with them. Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Peter Fleming packed a small plane with gifts and began making inroads with the tribe in hopes of reaching them with the Gospel. After just a few days of contact, the Huaorani killed the five men. A handwritten journal chronicling the contact was left behind, as were five young widows and their children. News of the deaths spread worldwide. Continue reading “Signature of Jesus Found in Ecuador”