The Four Blessings

It’s the week of Thanksgiving and I am compiling my thankful list. I am thankful my family is coming to Atlanta! I am thankful I can get out my mother’s china and set a beautiful table for lots of people I love. I am thankful there are little children who will be running around, pulling the dog’s tail, playing with my children’s outgrown toys. I am thankful we have a comfortable home in which to welcome everyone and plenty of food to share. I am thankful for my friends, my health, and my family’s health, the beauty of the world, my country and my heritage. Most of have much for which to be thankful. If we included our troubles the list would be endless.

But I haven’t heard too many people give thanks for their troubles. I know we will give thanks around our table without mentioning our bouts with sickness, death, surgeries, moves, job uncertainty, and hopefully politics! We want to gather together and give thanks for the good. We quietly try to fix the bad ourselves if we can. We close our hearts and remove ourselves. Sometimes we try to find meaning in our suffering by doing things for other people. But sometimes we hurt so badly we can’t. And we might wonder if God even knows our troubles – we wonder if He is paying attention or if He could have possibly forgotten us.

As soon as I post this, I will polish silver and chop celery, but my mind will be focused on another family who waits for the hour they must say good-bye to their child - this week of Thanksgiving. I know that pain. I know that devastation and emptiness that draws you down to brokenness and despair. So it seems rather pedantic to me this year to simply run through the “thankful” list without spending a little time on the one to whom we give thanks - God himself. I am reminded of the verse in Job where he questions “Do we thank God in only the good times? Should we not thank Him in the bad times?” I think he said something like “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
How do we do that when our hearts are breaking?

I am not so far along in my grief that I don’t still feel the sting of loss like others who are now walking this road. It all comes back too real. But in my own effort to “find meaning in the suffering” I ran across a book that provided some encouragement. Mack Stokes, author of Talking With God says “When amid suffering and grief, we open our souls to him in prayer, we receive at least four blessings of importance.”

As I study that quote, I see there is a condition for those blessings – opening our souls to him in prayer. Let’s assume that we all know how to open our souls to God. Here are the blessings. I am glad to know that he said “at least four”. Maybe there are hundreds.

1. Despite our problems, when we open our souls to him in prayer, we become profoundly aware of God’s presence. He says that the weaker and more inadequate we are, the stronger God’s presence becomes and then we know that God will never leave us for forsake us.

2. Despite our suffering, when we open our souls to him in prayer, we become profoundly aware of the vastness of God’s far-reaching capabilities; it is one thing to know he goes with us through life and death, but another to experience the mysterious far-reaching ranges of his love.

3. Despite our pain and uncertainties, when we open our souls to him in prayer, we discover and new appreciation for others and the role they play in being used by the Holy Spirit to comfort and hold us. In turn, we learn how to love others.

4. Despite our loss, when we open our souls to him in prayer, God opens up a new vision for us where we can move. It might not be right away – it might take some time, but God makes us aware of others and gives us opportunities to heal and grow. He gives us new possibilities.

“When we open our souls to him in prayer” amazing things happen. I am thankful for these four blessings:

God will never leave me

God’s love for me is vast, mysterious, and far-reaching

God holds my hands through the use of others who are obedient to Him

God has a plan for me and provides new possibilities for His glory

If you think about just these four blessings a while – open your soul to him in prayer - they will leave you breathless and wondering like the words by Mercy Me:

“Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel
Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still
Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all
I can only imagine”

Joining Hands for a Common Purpose

Today is Veteran’s Day and I am thinking about my dad who served in the military for 29 years and loved President Eisenhower. On October 8th,1954 President Eisenhower issued the first Veteran’s Day Proclamation which stated: "In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans' organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose”. And so today, almost fifty years later there will be parades, memorials, and speeches around our country, joining hands in the common purpose and remembering and giving consideration to this worthy cause.

Tomorrow is another special day you might not know about. November 12th is International CJD Awareness Day. I am sure that it won’t make the nightly news. Most people don’t even know that a disease exists with such a name as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. I certainly didn’t until someone I loved was diagnosed with it. Then it became real to me. And when we learned there was no treatment or cure, it led me to discover just how many rare and unknown diseases exist. In fact, over 1000 are listed on the website of the National Organization for Rare Disorders (and in case you are interested in that cause you can mark your calendar to observe Rare Disease Day on February 28, 2010).

There is no shortage of causes in our world – just look on Facebook. With millions of people using this internet tool to network, there is a way to post your cause on the site or join an already existing one. You can write about it, recruit members, solicit and make donations all with just a click. Amazing. Anyone can do it. Even me and I have invited my Facebook friends to join my cause – finding a cure for CJD. It just takes the initiative to figure out the process and something to be passionate about - passionate enough to be moved into action.

Often people “walk” for a cause or they run a marathon. Some people organize a golf tournament or ball. Many of us are simply recruited to be financial participants in these causes, but somewhere at the core of every cause there is a person who probably experienced great pain or suffering and they took the initiative to turn their pain into something that would help others – joining those hands for a common purpose.

My garden club is a perfect example of that. When CJD claimed the life of Megan, they took their sorrow and sold daffodil bulbs (the springtime symbol of hope) throughout the neighborhood. They have decided to sell the bulbs again this year and the bulbs have gone quickly. More hope. If this effort continues, birthed in love and carried out in faithfulness to a cause, hope will bloom on every street in Atlanta in the years to come. As one member said, “One day when we are all in “the home” the buses will pick us up to drive to Brookhaven and view the dancing daffodils we planted so long ago”. I want to be on that bus. I want to look back and remember what I did to offer hope to my community.

Ah…there’s the point I want to make. What is each of us doing to make a difference in our world? What cause have we aligned with? There’s a song that says “What the world needs now is love, sweet love – it’s the only thing that there’s just too little of…” So start small with your love if you are uncertain. Write a note to someone. Sign up to volunteer. Visit an elderly neighbor. Experiment with those random acts of kindness. Love then grows and can take on causes. It can be planting daffodils, offering financial support for finding a cure for CJD, or simply flying the American flag on Veterans Day. However it looks, it looks less and less at self and out to others and beyond. Jesus called it “feeding sheep”.

If I Could Turn Back Time

Fall Back…..it’s the way I can remember which way to set my clocks. I am not crazy about Daylight Savings Time. I don’t like the darkness that creeps into my late afternoon. But I do like the sun peeking through the trees earlier in the morning. And I especially like the surge of power I feel in turning back time – even if for just one hour - 60 minutes of precious, reclaimed time. Time for using or snoozing - which I generally have done in the past. But this year I reset the clock the following morning and reclaimed my hour while awake for catching up on some much needed reading – and quiet thinking. I confess – I even skipped church, having my own version at my window altar where my tears could flow freely as I praised and searched and found rest for my soul alone with God.

Fall back …it’s also the way my emotions seem to move. Fall back into a flood of nostalgia and heartbreak over loss. Fall back into memories that bring great longings of the heart. Like the words of Cher’s song “My world was shattered, I was torn apart; Like someone took a knife and drove it deep in my heart”. I want to – no, I do not want to do this, but something pulls me to fall back into what might have been, fall back into the whys of life’s twists and turns, fall back to a future that looks different, and fall back to rethink, redo, and try to get to the day that I can once again possibly spring forward. Many are right there with me in their own personal kind of fall backs of life. It affects us differently, but I see in all of us a clamoring to fight the fall and get going again. It is what brings me back - that sense of purpose and hope.

Last week I wrote about suffering being transformed into honey that feeds others. But before that transformation can occur, there is a time of facing the empty, hollow spaces left by our loss. Maybe it is the same thing as my fall back. Maybe it is healing. Sister Glen of the Abbey of St. Walburga in Colorado says it this way,
“First we have to go to these hollow places in ourselves. Often we have to take the trip in stages – five minutes, fifteen, thirty…until we lose the fear that the emptiness will destroy us. Inhabiting our hollows makes room for us to grow, to make friends with ourselves in a new way, making way to discover God in unexpected places.”

Maybe this is what grief and loss and struggle is all about – visiting the hollow places in our hearts little by little, trusting that God’s spirit can blow through the emptiness, carry away the darkness, sending those little bees that begin to make honey for others who might be hurting. Like turning the clock back and then forward, there seems to be a cycle to this process. I suppose it is okay to fall back and visit the hollow places – I forgive myself. I just can’t stay there. Today as I walked I found myself gathering colorful leaves and decorating a birthday cake for someone I love. There is no turning back of time, but there is always something to move us forward - even if we fall back now and then. I think a little chocolate cake will help.

Honey Coats

Yesterday I worked in my garden most of the day planning ahead for the predicted rain that arrived this morning. I replanted the window boxes, put bone meal on the daffodil beds, pulled out the begonias and cut back perennials. I tell myself that if I would devote one hour each day, the garden would greatly benefit. My mind would benefit as well. It seems as I pull and prune and plant, my attitude and thoughts get sorted and pruned as well for another new season of growth.

Like the rain that was predicted, colder temperatures can’t be far behind. Most of us don’t think too much about the coat we will need – we’ll simply go to the closet and grab one of our choices – fleece today, wool tomorrow. But some people do not have a choice– they might not have the money to buy even one coat. I am thankful I had the privilege of delivering a car full of small coats to an elementary school recently. The principal was thrilled, saying there was much need and each coat would soon find proud, new owners. As I drove away from the school, I gratefully remembered my friends who organized the annual coat drive “Megan’s Closet” in memory of my daughter Megan. The coat drive is held the first of October and in the last two years has collected over 400 little coats along with hats, scarves and mittens for school children in Atlanta and other parts of the world.

My friend knew Megan. She had invited her to visit her classroom to observe her teaching and gather experienced ideas for taking back to her new classroom. She remembered Megan’s joy and enthusiasm for the children. She remembered her love of teaching. She remembered and she did something with those memories that would help someone else. She planned for winter with a child in mind. Oh, it took some work on her part. She wrote the parents. She gathered and sorted the coats. She arranged for delivery. And now, she knows that a group of children will be warmer this winter because of an idea born from sorrow – the honey that transforms into joy in the shape of little coats and gloves for cold days.

I see that transformation again and again and marvel at the continuous mystery of it. Touched by the generosity and thoughtfulness of the coat drive, I joined the effort and wrote my first children’s story Coats for Winter. It’s about three children who visit their grandparents and gather coats for their school. It teaches compassion and generosity and working together. It is the first in a series (I hope) based on my own childhood on a rural farm in Kentucky. More honey.

And now as I write and watch the pouring rain outside my window, I remember yesterday – so sunny, so beautiful, so perfect for planting, fertilizing, and pruning –all planning ahead for this very soggy day. I am so thankful I heeded the forecast and working my hour this morning in the garden, finished the things necessary before the weather changed. And the weather always changes. Every day is not sunny and bright. Unlike the song on Sesame Street, the sunny days don’t keep the clouds away. But we can prepare for the cold days of winter. We can gather coats like my friend. We can plan ahead. We can work hard. We can prune our thought process. We can even pull out and replant unhealthy thoughts with new, stronger ones. We can gather and give. We can find meaning and purpose in our daily efforts at life – no matter what the forecast.

I am not thinking about the coat I will need to put on in just a few minutes. I am thinking instead about lots of little coats being pulled on and zipped up at the end of a school day – all colors and sizes, warm and dry for winter. And I am grateful for the honey. I am thinking of the Psalmist who said, “If my people would listen, if they would walk in my paths, I would satisfy them with honey from the rock”(Psalm 81:14,17)

Why I Keep The Donkey

I could not help but hear the musical twittering of birds that overpowered the steady rainfall. I looked out and saw several birds on the ground and some flying overhead – Sparrow-sized, slate gray with a white abdomen, showing white along the sides of their tail feathers in flight. I grabbed the binoculars and bird book and by process of elimination decided they might be Dark-Eyed Juncos. They winter here in Georgia, migrating from Canada, and were probably enjoying their good fortune of discovering a newly sewn grass-seed breakfast.

Birds move from place to place and make new homes wherever they land, building and preparing and nesting until their job is complete and the season ends. Then they move on for the next season. They fly with no baggage, put nothing in storage. They stop along the way and take advantage of whatever is available. They always have enough.

But me. I have a tendency to keep things in storage. So in preparation for some house improvements, I was forced to go through and make a grand sweep of cabinets and closets, freeing our home from accumulated clutter. Why do I need to keep The March of the Tiny Soldiers, my very first recital piece (I can still play it by memory)? Why have I held on to every school yearbook for my family through the years – don’t we just need the one from our Senior Year where our picture is always better than the others? Why have I continued to stack up empty containers in even larger containers – when will I use them? When will I use three cake carriers? I hardly ever bake one cake. And why have I always guarded the quirky Donkey Planter that rests safely in the back of a cabinet on a top shelf?

It’s this silly little glass donkey pulling a cart that can hold a small plant. I pulled it out of my mother’s cabinet (she too had put it away) when we cleaned out her belongings many years ago. My sisters laughed at my sentimental attraction to it, but there was no way I would let that donkey go to the donation center. I vaguely remember it at the kitchen sink with a philodendron in it when I was a child. Mother would water it after doing the dishes and we would laugh about giving the donkey a drink of water. She seemed to love it and I loved her, so whatever she loved, I loved. It became part of who we were.

My mother moved around a lot. Like migratory birds, she went with my father whenever he was transferred in the military. She learned to make a house a home in many different places. She would fall in love with a location and then just as quickly be uprooted to a new place to start over. She would leave furniture and draperies behind. But the donkey seemed to always make the cut, traveling from home to home and finally resting in a cabinet. Maybe Mother got more fashionable and decided he should retire. Maybe the reason he was put away was she got tired of explaining her fondness for the donkey to those who never felt such an attachment. Nonetheless, she held on to him – and protected him.

As I have gone from room to room, moving back in to freshly painted rooms, I discover I have my own assortment of “donkeys” that no one else would understand my attraction to them - the inexpensive poster bought on a special trip, the bottle angel that overlooks my kitchen, the bowl and basket made by young, creative hands; the primitive, pre-school, clay nativity that takes center stage every Christmas. And it becomes easier to toss those things that have not found a place in my heart, but only take up space, creating distraction from what is most loved.

Sitting at a traffic light I glanced at the sign in front of the little church. It said, “It is love alone that gives worth to all things” (Teresa of Avila) That was it. Love. The reason I keep the donkey planter is because of love. Love of a childhood that was special. Love of a mother who wisely found meaning in simple things. Love overcomes the hard times and moves with us wherever we go. Love in the shape of a donkey can make us laugh. Love can be stored safely in our hearts forever. No cabinets or boxes needed, love is carried with us through our day, filling us with hearts that can sing. Why should he stay hidden away? I think I'll offer him a drink.

Phototropism - Lessons from Sunflowers

Sunflowers make me feel good. Their oversized faces seem to dare laugingly and say, "Oh, go ahead - smile with me!"
The sunflower (photo compliments of ogaddisphoto.com) follows the light during it's blooming season - something called phototropism. From morning till night, that big, happy face turns with the daily walk of the sun, soaking up its nourishment, staying in the path of its rays. No wonder it has so many uses - oil for cooking, fodder for livestock, snacks for my golf bag, seeds for my cardinals, and bouquets for my table.

Maybe sunflowers are so productive because they stay in close contact with their source of nourishment, never turning their back on the sun - the source that provides the energy to be changed into so many useful products. Plants do not have a choice in how they respond to light. They simply grow toward the light. Their genetic makeup responds in accordance to their purpose in creation. A year ago I wrote about the changing colors of the leaves in the fall. We watched them and admired them, never pausing to think too much about the process, realizing that the leaves changing colors, or the sunflowers turning to the light, are in total obedience to their creator. They just do what they were intended to do.

Yesterday, a workman in my home was struggling to fix a broken floor sander. As it became evening he continued to work on repairing it, telling me that he simply prayed all through the day, waiting for God to guide and help him. I told him that I had been trying to do the same thing. A few minutes later his help showed up and replaced the broken machine. He smiled at me and said, "See, prayer works." I thought how much his example is like the sunflower. He was smiling even though his machine was broken. He kept at his job. Oh, he continued to work to fix it and call for help, but in the meantime he prayed. And in the praying while he worked, I imagined it to be a little like looking for God's light, following his promises, trusting in His faithfulness, resting in His assurances.

I wish my obedience was as simple as the sunflower - smooth and effortless,the turning of my face to God's light each day. Somedays are easier than others. God's light, once it has shown brightly, draws me back and each time is a little easier - because that is where I can find fulfillment and see purpose in my life. That is where I can accept the sorrowful times and celebrate on the sunflower days. It is where I find meaning and hope. It is where I feel energized and complete. It is where I meet with God himself and it is heaven on earth - much like the sunflower, saying "smile with me".

And so next week, I will step out in obedience and offer a seminar entitled "When God Comes Near - Waiting in the Miracle of His Presence". It will be held Sunday, October 11th, in the Hospitality Suite of Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Atlanta from 5-7p.m. To register, call 404-240-8228. I will talk about God's Love, God's Provision, and God's Purpose as I share my story of faith during a time when even sunflowers could not make me smile. But that time is past and I am trying to be useful as I move forward. If you are in the Atlanta area, it would be an honor to have you join me.

Where Do Butterflies Go When It Rains?

For seven days it has rained without stopping. But the morning started out dry and I looked out my window to see blooms waking up everywhere. I pulled on my boots and waded through my drenched garden, uncovering some garlic chives trying desperately to bloom underneath the goldenrod. To both of our surprise, out fluttered a yellow butterfly (Clouded Sulpher). I suppose I woke him up and it made me wonder “Where do butterflies go when it rains?” Since this morning, the sun has finally broken through the clouds and butterflies are everywhere – Black Swallowtails, Tiger Swallowtails, and oh, there’s a Gulf Fritillary – the small orange spotted ones – and more of the yellow Clouded Sulphers.

For a butterfly whose lifespan is short, seven days of rain takes away about half of their lifetime as they take shelter and hide under larger leaves or any protective garden material until the rains subside. And if the rain is pounding as it has been in Atlanta this summer, sometimes their wings get torn and they die an untimely death. I am relieved to see that the butterflies are alive and well after seven days. In fact, I am envious of their playful nature, hanging lazily upside down, flying free in the dry, warm air, putting on a show for me sitting here at my desk.

Where do we go when it rains? Usually, we just plod through with an umbrella or a jacket. But the rains in Atlanta have pelted our homes and gardens, creeped into our basements, swept away bridges and toppled trees and in doing so taken our power. Then what do we do? We get to work, call repairmen and we wait. We gather our candles and flashlights and for a little while it is quaint and inviting – the quiet that is - but we soon become impatient for life to resume some sense of normalcy.

In giving a short devotional at a meeting, I really wanted to begin by saying, “Into every life a little rain must fall” trying to make a joke about our continuous rain, but I knew that it would be interpreted in a way where people would feel sorry for me and that might make us all cry. So I chose something safer to say. But I find lessons in those butterflies. Oh, how we want to live life to the fullest. Oh, how we want to “hang upside down” and fly through life with only sunshine. Maybe we tolerate a shower or two, but certainly none of us welcome the rains that destroy and displace.

One thing is for sure, we cannot predict the weather. Oh, Dr. Feelgood thinks he can. He watches weather patterns like he watches stock charts and can tell you two weeks out what you might expect “in your part of the country” as Al Roker would say. We cannot predict the rainfall for our lives, nor would any of us want to know the forecast. But we can plan for rainy days, do everything we can to protect and provide, and then armed we can seek shelter from the storm. How? Well, sometimes we hide like the butterflies – hopefully not under rocks or leaves, but behind masks of self-preservation and a simple will to survive. But healthier ways are to seek shelter with our family and friends. We find comfort in being with our church family. We find strength in personal study of scriptures like “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you” Isaiah 43:2.
It’s been dark and gloomy for a solid week. I’ve hidden myself a little. But the sun is out. The butterflies are tapping on my window. I think I might go outside.