Tag: faithfulness (Page 1 of 2)

Why We all Need an Aunt Joyce

October 24, 2016 /

My Aunt Joyce is 87 years old. She is my mom’s sister, 5 years her senior.

When they shared a bedroom as kids Aunt Joyce convinced my mom that at night she climbed out the window and became Wonder Woman, her tights and cape hidden in the gutter of the roof. (I don’t think she realized Wonder Woman doesn’t wear a cape).

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As much as I love Aunt Joyce, she lives thousands of miles away and until recently we weren’t in close contact.

Then two things happened. David got cancer, and she (who has never EVER owned a computer) got an iPad.

You might say Aunt Joyce is a late bloomer. She gives me hope for myself.

Aunt Joyce got her ears pierced at 84. But she won’t buy dangly earrings because she thinks it draws attention to her less-than-young-looking neck.

She was distressed after she had cataract surgery and she could see her imperfections more clearly. She asked me to pray for her pride because she said even Nancy, her Clinique girl would not be able to help her.

She stood in the background while David was in hospice, praying. Just praying. The whole time she reminded me of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Sure, steady, peace-filled. A quiet comforter.

Aunt Joyce has lost her husband and two sons. It’s easy for her to question why God still has her here, but she decided she has two purposes – to pray, and to encourage “the elderly”. Yep, you read that right.

She has a goal of having her whole church over to her apartment, a few at a time, for dinner. She asks me to pray for grace and patience when she is having the “elderly” over for coffee. They can be a bit cranky, you know.

Recently Aunt Joyce sent me this wonderful quote on prayer:

“Fall upon prayer as your only aid and help in this life. When you are weary, pray. When you are joyful, let your joy feed deeper prayer. When in hunger or thirst, open your heart to the Lord. When in exultation bind your life more firmly to God. When prayer itself if hard, pray all the more. For prayer is ascent to the heart of God who is its true and proper Master in every condition of this life.” Archimandrite Irenei

We all need an Aunt Joyce

  • to remind us, as Craig Groeschel says, “If you’re not dead, you’re not done.”
  • to remind us of the value of “small things” (Zechariah 4:10)

God is great not because nothing is too big for Him. God is great because nothing is too small for Him either. Mark Batterson

  • to remind us that “A changed world begins with us … and a changed us begins when we pray.” Eugene Peterson (James 5:15b)
  • to model a quiet, godly life of faithfulness that clings to God no matter what (1 Thes. 4:11)

And, like Wonder Woman and Super Girl (or Lucy and Ethel) I just stared open-mouth last year when my mom, the other half of this dynamic duo, said she thought she and Dad (82 and 85 years old) ought to take the 2-6 a.m. shift hosting the homeless at their church on Christmas Eve.

This is the same mom who texts and sends pictures on her iPhone, and dresses so hip that her granddaughters have been known to borrow her stuff.

Who are these women??? I want to be like them when I grow up.

What Are Your Monuments?

September 28, 2015 /

As I write this John and I are in Washington D.C. for a few days of meetings and a chance to see our daughter and friends. Here, I am surrounded by monuments meant to remind us of the freedom we enjoy and the ways it was purchased at a high cost.

We lived here for a couple of years and are back frequently. Every time we come back we do new things, but we also return to visit the monuments we know.

Monuments help us remember our roots.

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Returning to these and remembering their significance brought to mind a time when God prompted me to go back to another kind of monument. Continue reading

Road Trip – Promises

July 1, 2015 /

I’m sorry I didn’t get this posted on Monday. Trying to stay true to my commitment on this experimental “Road Trip” series, but we’ve had a lot going on. Thank you for your grace!

I don’t really think about taking road trips into “enemy territory”.

I don’t like thinking of anyone as an enemy, and a “battle” image is not one I’m usually drawn to. I want to be a lover not a fighter.

But as I was reading Joshua 1-4 about his road trip across the Jordan and eventually into the enemy territory of Jericho, it struck me that we are constantly on a highway where the Enemy is actively trying to thwart our progress and we often forget that.

In John 16: 33 Jesus says, “In this world you will have trouble…”

And then there’s the whole lion thing in 1 Peter…

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C. S. Lewis wrote, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors…”

I probably fall into the first camp of thinking too little of the schemes of Satan in my everyday world. After all, Satan in “Mayberry”? What?? But, daily the giants of envy, pride, bitterness, impatience, and selfishness lurk on the road. So it’s important that I pay attention to what Scripture says about the spiritual warfare I may be ignoring. Continue reading

The Soundtrack of Your Life

November 28, 2014 /

If you know our family at all you know that “Great is Thy Faithfulness” is the sound track of our life together.  We have sung it at every marking moment – at our wedding, at the dedication of our kids, when we have moved, and recently at the 25th anniversary of our time serving at the church in Minneapolis. We were tempted to go a tad overboard and sing it when the Bears won the Super Bowl in ’86.  Clearly it’s a thing.

We have sung this hymn with tears of joy during good times and we have sung it through tears of desperation, declaring it as a reality when it was hard to feel the truth of the words.  But it expresses the truths of Scripture and that’s where we’ve chosen to stand.

This week we’ve been down in the suburbs of Chicago, celebrating Thanksgiving with family (a delightful, large extended family!).  Wednesday night we went to a worship service and again we sang the words we love so much – Great is Thy Faithfulness.

After we sat down, a remarkable father of 5 shared about his faith journey with his wife who was diagnosed with leukemia two years ago.  It was both authentic and God-honoring.  He shared the good – she is currently cancer-free; the bad – their house is built on the rock of faith in Jesus, but right now the windows are broken, the paint is chipping and the shutters hang from the emotional and physical toll of the past two years; and the certain – through it all they have sung the soundtrack of their life together – It is Well With My Soul.   Continue reading

Dear Magpie and Other 20-something Friends

October 15, 2014 /

Today is our youngest daughter, Maggie’s 27th birthday.

Maggie is the shiny one who has friends all over the world; some she just hasn’t met yet.  She’s the one “car dances” and who keeps us laughing at ourselves and playing games and celebrating life with hoopla. She’s passionate about injustice, and traditions, and a good glass of wine.

For her on her birthday I want to shout “Huzzah!” and give her this sign I saw yesterday that said:

Always keep your beautiful imagination & exquisite humor.

I want to send a plane full of peanut butter M&M’s to scatter around her town so she’ll find them everywhere – nuggets of grace.

I want to go with her on fun new adventures to quirky spots like we’ve done in the past.

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And I want to remind her of what I wrote her two years ago because it still holds true – what I would say to her and to my own 27 year old self…

Dear Magpie,

Don’t let this discourage you, but the older you get the more you’ll know how much you don’t know…how little you’re sure of.  That’s ok though because it will help you to ask good questions, listen hard, and strain to hear God’s voice through His Word and others.

And as you do, you can remain certain of at least these three things.

1.  You really do matter.  The world is big and you’re so small, but even your little choices make a difference.   Don’t ever “despise the day of small things” done with great love.  Remember the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can set in motion a chain of events that will lead to a hurricane somewhere else? Flap your wings.  You matter.

2.  Everything really will be ok.  You’ve made mistakes before and you’ll make them again, and some days you’ll be sure the sky is falling, but the longer you live the more you will remember that the One who hung the stars is still on duty, holding them in place.

You’ll experience His mercies, new every morning.  Again and again.  Ever faithful.  He really does cause all things to work together for good, even when that’s painful.  And He really can redeem anything.  Anything.

3.  You are not alone.  Even when you feel most alone.  When someone has hurt you or betrayed you or you’ve lost something.  No, no one has lived your story, but others have had chapters with similar themes of loss or fear or conflict or joy, and God has given them to you as companions, as well as Himself.  He’s the sure thing. You are beloved.

Sweetie, anyone can write these words, but you will have to live them into your bones.  I know that you will.  You will stretch and ask and risk and hope and pray.

And you will run your race “not somehow, but triumphantly“.  Surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses” cheering you on.  With Daddy and me in the front row.

Happy Birthday Magpie.

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Dark Days

November 25, 2013 /

This is my view as I write at 5:45 a.m.

photo-66Trouble is I’d have much the same view at 7 a.m., or 4:30 p.m.  It’s just that time of year when everything goes frozen and dark and silent.  It’s a living picture of Advent – that time of waiting in darkness for the Light of the World to appear.

As I write I’m wondering how many people reading this feel like they’re waiting for something.  Longing.  And how many feel like they are in a time of deep darkness when they can’t see anything that makes sense.  Fuzzy outlines, but nothing sure.

Darkness and longing.

Ever heard of night blindness?  

Continue reading

When God’s Good Work Doesn’t Seem Good

October 7, 2013 /

Tuesday morning at 2:11 a.m. our friends’ baby took one last breath and slipped into the hands of Jesus.  Gentle, healing hands much bigger than ours.

Her parents have known for six months as she fought to grow in her mama’s tummy, that short of a miracle, her breaths would be few, if at all.

Every time the doctors asked if they wanted to abort, they gently said “No”, grateful when the question stopped coming.  They are strong.  They cling to Jesus.

With a good idea of what was ahead, they read with faith and heartache, “I knit you together in your mother’s womb.  You are fearfully and wonderfully made.”  But she was. Continue reading

The Choice Today Gives You

May 24, 2013 /

A departure from Fearless Friday this week… Day after tomorrow our youngest daughter, Maggie will marry the love of her life.  It’s a week of celebrating God’s faithfulness.  Looking back and praying forward.  Our Maggie is  an adventure waiting to happen.  Someone for whom the world is full of friends she just hasn’t met yet.  Her ability to choose life is seen clearly in this post from two years ago…

I never, EVER thought there would be a day in my life when I would accidentally end up in a nudist camp, looking for the Giant Lady’s Leg Sundial in rural Indiana. But that’s exactly what happened.

I just got back from the road trip my daughter Maggie and I took driving a U Haul, moving her to D.C. and stopping at quirky sights along the way.

Our trip included car dancing, U turns, bonding with fellow truckers, and stops like the sundial, a space acorn (we just missed the UFO convention) and a hot dog bun “museum” of sorts.  It was a blast. Three days of adventure filled with laughter.

I kept thinking of Deuteronomy 30:19 that reminds us to “choose life!”  The life that God has created includes everything from the inspirational, to the sacrificial, to the…FUN!

So…on this Memorial Day weekend I hope each of you find a giant orange moose, or a space acorn, or something that gives you delight!

How are you choosing life today?  What are the life-giving relationships, experiences and spiritual practices that bring you joy?

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When You See it and When You Don’t

November 21, 2012 /

Our daughter Maggie got engaged last weekend.

We exclaim, “Oh, yes!”  We can clearly see God’s faithfulness, His provision, His plan.  And we sing, like it’s New Year’s Eve, with confetti and streamers and hugs

“Great is Thy faithfulness O God our Father.”

Two new babies were born to friends this week.  And we sing

“Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not.”

A delightful surprise package of gifts appeared on our back step.

“Blessings all mine and ten thousand besides.”

A dear friend was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer.  And it’s hard to see, but we try to sing

“Strength for today…”

The homeless guys still show up on our corner every day, and we have loved ones who are still prodigals, and others who are single, or childless and don’t want to be.  We want to sing a lovely future into their lives.

 “and bright hope for tomorrow.”

Israelis and Palestinians are killing each other.  Our voices waver a bit…

“Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth.”

Years ago we took the girls on a family vacation to Colorado.  They were little and excited.  It was the first time they would see the mountains.

But Maggie couldn’t.  She kept saying, “I.  Do.  Not.  See. Them!”

Continue reading

Walking in Circles, part 2

June 16, 2012 /

Have you ever done a prayer walk?

Last Sunday I started a new small group study with young couples at our church using The Circle Maker curriculum by Mark Batterson.  You can read more about it here.

Anyway, because this study is on prayer, and because I really do want God to transform us through this, and because I hadn’t done it in a long time, I found myself walking circles around the outside of our church, praying at 9:00 Sunday morning.  Yes, I felt a little odd.  I’m just sayin’.

Continue reading

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