Life Is Worth It

Sometimes life hands us tough choices that we would rather not deal with, but are forced to tackled head-on.  Some decisions I have not yet encountered in life but think I already know how I would respond in that situation.  Even worse, sometimes I watch others make decisions and wonder why in the world they would have chosen that. (Judging at it's worst).  It isn't until I am faced with the same (or similar) situation that I begin to understand where people may be coming from...

My childhood days were filled with animals.  My many pets taught me a lot about life and love.  They also, unfortunately, taught me about death.  I have continued my teaching of death through pets to my kids. I've even told parents, "Every child needs a pet to love so that they can experience death."  (What a morbid way of looking at life!)  We had the misfortune a little over a year ago to put down our cat of 9 years due to a mysterious broken hip, among many other sad losses.

 

Yesterday my daughter called me crying,

"Mom! Come home quick! Something is wrong with Milo!" For those of you who do not know my amazing story of how we got our cat...basically God told me what to look for and where to find him (believe it or not).  I ran out of my office and hurried home to find my three children surrounding our injured Milo.  After a trip to the Vet it was determined that he suffered from a hip fracture.  His only hope was a hip surgery.

It was against all my principles to put hundreds of dollars toward a cat- even one as remarkable as Milo.

We took our broken kitty home to make a decision- life or death. My daughter and I cried on the way home knowing, without words, what our answer would have to be.

All through the afternoon I rationalized why the best choice would be to put my young cat down.  "It's a lot of money."  "That money could be spent on braces for my kids."  "That money was being saved for a mission trip to Mexico."  "He's a cat! Are we supposed to spend money on pets?"

Round and round I went.

Just when I thought I knew rationally what the correct answer was, my house would flood me with reminders of Milo: fur on my wood floors, a kitty door leading outside, the orange statue that looks just like him, my garden filled with holes where he likes to dig, the water bucket he drinks out of, the dog food he steals away from my dog, the scratches on the furniture, the picture of my son holding him as a baby kitten in the hallway, the chair he always lounges in, a kitty toy on the floor...

Sometimes I rely too heavy on logic.

What a shock to have my husband come home and question the possibility of surgery instead of putting Milo to sleep. I realized I had never considered saving my kitty. I have it in my messed up intellectual head that when a pet has an accident I simply say goodbye to the pet and not spend any extra money.

My husband had a different view: Milo is just over a year.  He's a healthy, strong cat.  The surgery is routine with amazing recovery.  This was all very odd since my husband is constantly complaining about the cat hair and annoyed at the claw marks on the furniture. Yet here he stands having more compassion on our beloved pet than I have!

What is wrong with me?

It was in that moment of conversation that I realized my thinking was messed up. "Oh well, another cat gone" was my quick response to a critical decision.  Of course there are times (and will be times) when the right decision is to put an animal down, but I had honestly never even considered saving him!

Well, to make a long story short, we decided to save him. 

It still rattles my mind that we are spending money on a cat! But then I think of the example I am setting: sometimes we need to fight for what we love even if it's hard and not give in to failure so quickly.  I find myself excited, but embarrassed that we are doing surgery on our kitty. 

My three kids have given me their birthday Target Gift cards to help with soaps & shampoos, they organized the recycling to get turned in, they volunteered to use their old backpacks for school this year and even did some chores around the house without even being asked!

Through this decision my children learned that while it is a lot of money...

Sometimes life is worth it! 

I Remain in You

It takes a lot to knock me down. I tend to be enough of a fighter that when someone pushes, I push back harder. I don't give in very easily.

I am also someone who is not quick to say that anytime something goes wrong, I must be under some kind of spiritual attack.

Funny how we often make these blanket statements just to have them blow up in our faces.  Unfortunately, I am quickly discovering my weak spot.  It's not a "thorn in the flesh" kind of weakness like Paul talks of nor is it a daily struggle with a sin issue or anythng like that.  No...it feels more like someone has broken my crutch that I have been relying on for strength.  Until I can figure out a different way to move- I am stuck!

Since mid-May my voice has been growing steadily weaker.  It is not gone completely, but I cannot speak very loudly, I cannot project, and worst of all...I cannot sing.  Now if you're someone who does not live and breathe worship you will not understand anything else I am about to say.

When my world is in scrambles- I turn to God in worship.  When my heart is heavy- I turn to God in worship.  When my spirit wants to rejoice - I turn to God in worship.  When my life feels like it is spinning too fast and I a loosing sight of my Father - I worship.  I don't play the piano or the guitar like some glamorous worship leader or famed musician.  My goal has never been to be musically astute.  My only goal is to use the gift of music God has given me to reach Him through worship.
 
This week has been Vacation Bible School.  Have I been able to lead the children?  Barely.  I wonder if they can even hear or understand what I'm saying.  It is so frustrating to be unable to communicate the message of God with these young people who have come and are ready to be challenged and grow!  I am encouraged by the children that have come.  I love seeing our amazing youth minister and play with the children.  I am blessed by the adults who are giving their time and energy to touch young lives.  But it breaks my heart that I cannot participate.  I can barely talk with guests bringing their children.  I can hardly speak with my precious volunteers.  And worst, with my heart so very heavy...I can't even cry in worship to God!  (Oh, don't worry, I've done a lot of crying...but I want to sing!!!)

Ugg...it is so very frustrating!

I was playing my guitar earlier today and couldn't help by whisper this song, "I Remain in You."  It's one of those songs I lean on when the going gets tough.  Satan may have broken my crutch, I may feel like I can't reach my Father through worship, I even may feel like I'm alone, but I will always remain in Him.  It's a great song.      

"How do I seek Your face when my flesh needs Your hands,
What must I do Oh Lord there's a need to understand.
I vow to sing though it feels You have slayed me with Your ways,
Let my grief be worship and still say, "Bless Your Holy Name."

I remain in You
I remain in You
Wherever I go, Lord, and whatever I do
I will remain in You."

Satan can take my voice so I cannot sing, cut off my fingers so I cannot play...but he will never have my worship. 

Bless the Name of the Lord.

Trust in Jesus

"Never will I leave you, nor forsake you."

I was awoken at 4:40 by my husband with the words, "We have a problem, Anna is in the bathroom and not responding."

I jumped out of bed, ran to the bathroom to find my 14-year-old completely comatose, chalky-white and unresponsive.  After a few seconds of rubbing her hand, rubbing her cheeks and calling her name, Anna came back to us.  She cried and was frightened.  Once she was calmed down I asked how long she had been in here.

"I woke up with my stomach hurting a lot, then came into the bathroom.  The pain was so bad, all I could do was pray.  That's the last thing I remember."

The words still ring in my ear.  Anna's last conscious choice before she passed out was to pray to her Savior.  It gives me great comfort to know that while Bret & I were sleeping, Anna was not alone.

In a world so full of unexpected pain and fear, I am encouraged by Anna's faith and trust in Jesus Christ.  With still no answers, our biggest weapon is to pray.

Dear God, give us wisdom, protect my daughter, hold her close and don't let her go...thank you for never leaving her.

The Courage of Friendship

I find myself, for some reason, in a somber mood tonight.

The idea of friendship is strange.  For a period of time, we are given friends whose lives run parallel with ours.  Although I am not arguing that friends are a gift from God, I am, however, fully aware that friends have a tendency to bring me pain.  I know I am not the only one who feels this ache with friends; many of you know exactly what I'm talking about.  With each "new" friend I make, I cautiously maintain my distance in the hope that perhaps I can avoid the pain that so often comes from allowing friends too close.  If my wall is up too long though, we cannot become very close friends because I am not allowing the new person in my life to know the real Connie.  Many people, unfortunately, know me by my wall.  But to take the wall down and be 100% me is a very scary idea!  I can handle someone not liking my wall, but to disagree or not like me personally is an entirely different ballgame.

I remember a sermon I heard years ago about pain and joy.  The preacher (my father if you must know) used the analogy of a hose as representing our ability to experience pain and joy.  Like so many Kingdom lessons, there are two sides to this coin.  To the extent that I experience joy, so too will I experience pain.  To purposely limit my pain then is to limit the extent of my joy.  If I turn my "pain hose" on so low or off as to limit my painful experiences, so too have a constrained how much joy I will experience.  So many of us want the joy, but do not want to experience the pain that (unfortunately on this side of heaven) follows that joy.

Perhaps that is a melancholy way to look at friends.  I love the friends in my life but I find I am hypersensitive, waiting for when (not if) the person will head a different direction.  My friends may move away or make a decision to change circles so our paths no longer cross.  God help me not be angry at my friends, but appreciate the times of dialogue and growing we had together when our lives did run side-by-side.  I guess in a sad way the ache I feel when I miss friends is in direct proportion to how much I really did love them.

At 36 I know that is part of life.  While I would rather run away from all my friends and shield my heart to love, I know Christ has called me to do just the opposite.  I must love despite what the future holds.  I need to be in the present and enjoy conversations now.  I tend to hold back my true self until I know I am absolutely safe.  This, of course, takes years for me to establish when a relationship is deemed "safe" and, unfortunately, my friendships tend to expire at just the moment when our conversation is beginning to get interesting. 

I am amazed at the relational courage of Christ who knowing full-well His disciples, His closest friends, were going to betray Him (one even turn Him in), still showed them "the full extent of His love."  I want a love like that.  A love that can love those around me without my personal restraints or conditions.  I desire to be a friend who can love in the moment without a promise of tomorrow or another cup of coffee.  A friend is explicitly unable to promise to be in my life forever.  Life is change. 

God help me be grateful for my friends in the past, to love my friends in the present, and walk with courage into the unknown pain of tomorrow. 

Basking in the Moonlight

Have you ever sat and stared at the moon? It is really quite exceptional. Tonight especially it seems extra-full, like it is calling to me. With a espresso frappucino way too late in the afternoon and a full moon overhead, I am once again a prisoner to my thoughts.

Tonight I dare say the moon looks strange. It presently looks like I have a spotlight shinning in my backyard. I walked outside just for fun to see how visible the night appeared. Typing in the light of the moon is a strange concept, but a fun thing to do.

What I find so interesting about the moon is that the moon itself does not glow. From where I sit it lights up everything around me like someone from heaven is shinning a flashlight down at me.  "Hello" I dare say quietly back, as to not terrify my neighbors. How can something in the sky and so far away be that brilliant, and yet not actually shine?  The moon reflects the sun, it has no light of its own. How very peculiar that in the middle of the night, the time when our world is shrouded with darkness, the moon offers me a small reflection of the gloriousness of the sun that I cannot currently see.

I have to sit and wonder in amazement at the genius behind this creation. Even in the darkest night, we are given a reminder of our ever-burning sun and greeted with the expectancy and promise of a new day.

The greys of the night around me remind me of C.S. Lewis' writings about shadows. This life is but a shadow of things yet to come. The brilliant colors of fall, deep shades of blue skies, florescent accents of wildflowers are, in effect, like walking in moonlight compared to what is to come. So why are we here, living among the shadows? What is the purpose of it all? It is unnerving to think about the huge timeline of humanity that is laid out and realize our lives are just a small blimp of time, not even noticeable from much of a distance. So what is the point? It cannot possibly be to make a name for ourselves- that cannot be long-lasting. It can't be wealth and prosperity, since that is of no use to anyone at the end of this life.

No, I have to somehow believe that our biggest investment is going to come by how much we can advance the Kingdom of God where we live right now. How can I represent Christ where I work, where I play, where I eat, shop, exercise and do everything else? If faith, hope and love are all that will remain when all is said and done, I must from time-to-time stop and evaluate, "Am I growing in faith? Am I growing in hope? Am I growing in love?" If I am not, I must, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, realign myself with His purposes.

In a small worldview, perhaps God has called us all to be little moons? Isn't our job, after all, to reflect The Son?

Then again, how ever more glorious to know that we are not just reflecting Christ Jesus, but that He lives within us! We are "lights on a hill!" We can actually SHINE like the sun! We are not weakling, reflective moons (sorry moon, no offense)!  We were created to SHINE! 

As I bask in the light of this ever-bright moon, I am in wonder at knowing it is nothing compared to the vast brilliance of Christ shinning in us! If only we all had the courage to open up and SHINE!

"I am the Vine"

Sometimes I think it is a curse of mine that I am always thinking.  As I get farther away from my concussion, the horror of endless, useless thinking is creepy back into my everyday existence.  Oh, I'm sure some people think it is great to always be thinking and dreaming.  For me, however, I feel like my head gets so filled with thoughts, quotes, comments and ideas that I can't seem to focus on any one of them for long enough for anything to be effective (or make any sense!).

Thus said, I need to get into the habit of sitting down, writing out my thoughts and then moving on with my life...or at least moving on to the next thought.  So here is the:

Thought for the Day.

I was thinning my apricot tree two weeks ago and wondering what the spiritual implication of my task at hand might be?  I am always eager and looking for ways God speaks to me through nature.  I am a big believer in the natural speaking of the supernatural. (in simpler terms: concrete, earthly things giving us a window into spiritual truths & lessons.) What could I learn from this poor over-loaded tree?

Picking off perfectly-growing green fruit is very hard to do! I am purposely killing beautiful fruit; good fruit that has the potential to feed my family!  Why would I do such a thing?  Last year I did not thin my apricot tree.  The result: no harvest.  Oh, I had an abundance of tiny, green and orange apricots that my golden retriever enjoyed, but no fruit was good enough to bring inside and enjoy.

The analogy of me, as a Children's Ministry leader, choosing which "apricots" to take care of and nourish and which "apricots" to pluck off is a shuddering thought.  It seems cruel to make that determination if my apricots were actually children I work with and love so much.  This over-burdened fruit tree cannot possibly reflect Christ's heart to let many die for the sake of a few!  I am positive Jesus would not want me to choose my "favorite" children to nurture and let the rest die (spiritually speaking of course)! That does not align with scripture at all.

As I thinned my tree I scrolled through numerous passages of Scripture, in my mind searching for a connection.  There must be a lesson in this task!

Perhaps, if a Ministry Leader represents the tree, God is saying that one person alone cannot be expected to care for so many people, instead we need teams of people.  If too many people (apricots) are being "fed" from one source, the maturation of all the fruit involved will suffer.  Hmmm...that's a thought, but that seems a little bleak and negative.  Still, that does not quite seem right, there must be more to this load of fruit than that!

At the moment when I debated giving up my search for a connection between thinning my tree and a truth from God, John 15:5 suddenly rattled through my core, "I am the vine..."  The verse goes on, but I was caught dumb-founded by the noun 'vine!'  God does not (thankfully) say, "I am the apricot tree..." instead he says, "I am the vine!"  My blackberry vines are covered in an array of blossoms.  I have never thinned my blackberries because my vines can handle the heavy harvest.  Of course John continues to say that God does thin even the vines, but it is entire branches that are taken off due to poor harvest or disease- not a thinning due to an over-abundant harvest.  Thankfully also, God is the vine dresser, not me!  He can determine when it is time for a branch to go!

In the end, my apricot tree is thinned, and I am very glad Jesus is our vine, not a stone-fruit tree.

Ramblings

My Fridays are usually filled with some office work, errands to take care-of, and chores to complete.

Here I sit, instead, at my big bright window looking out across my soaking wet backyard as the rain continues to soak in.  My coffee cup to the left of my computer is one of my favorite mugs.  I got it at the Charles Schulz Museum (Peanuts guy, for all you uncultured folks out there).  On my mug is Lucy and Snoopy.  Lucy is telling Snoopy, "If everybody agreed with me, they'd all be right."  Classic.  It's a great mug and even better, reminds me of the special trip up north with my three precious children who are growing up way too fast.

Sitting on my lap is my enormously furry orange cat.  The same cat that Bret secretly hopes will wander away sometime and free the house of his fur.  For now, however, he is my companion for the day.  Oh, my dog is here too, but he is wet from the rain so I have confined him to his blanket in the corner.

It is hard to be productive on a beautiful rainy day like today. 

White blossoms smile at me from across my yard.  My blackberry vines are loaded with dainty white flowers ready any day to begin the transformation of turning into berries.  I see ever so small green strawberries pushing their heads out from between the quickly fading blooms.  My garden is planted, so all this rain is simply saving me the time and money of watering.  I love this season in the garden.  Everything is planted, but harvest has not yet begun.  There's a few things to do, like guide the peas and beans as they make their way up the carefully knotted web I have created for them.  I also gently lift tomato branches so they rest on supporting posts and cages.  Every so often there is a sneaky snail or a mischievous weed who may sneak into my garden to try and disrupt my peaceful spring-time growing.  As long as I'm quick to conquer those annoyances, all my growing continues.  I see sunflower sprouts, only two inches tall.  It's amazing to think those little plants will be ten feet tall soon enough.

One reason why I like gardening so much is to watch all the daily spiritual lessons I learn working in my garden.  I often wonder what season I am spiritually in.  Then my mind gets thinking about harvest and I wonder if I've ever really reaped a harvest?  Define harvest I question myself.  Is harvest monetary or people? 

I am a classic perfectionist who has at least three books uncompleted and probably a good year's worth of Sunday School curriculum, not quite ever finished enough for publication.  My thoughts turn back to my garden and I have to laugh out loud.  When the August comes to my yard, I am tired of watering and don't have the energy to pick the loads of vegetables growing so crazily!  Even in my yard...I don't follow through.  I love the designing, creating, planting, working, waiting...but not the harvesting.  You'd think that would be the best time, like the story of The Little Red Hen.  She grumbled at having to do all the work herself.  Me?  No, I like the quiet time in the yard to myself. 

Perhaps one day I'll get some motivation to finally complete one of my books or lessons or articles.  Maybe.  For now, I'll just sip my delicious coffee, feel the warmth of my kitty on my lap and watch the rain fall.