Has it really come to this?

Never before have I lost my glasses. They've always been stuck to my face, ever since the third grade when I crept into class that first day with my new cat-eye glasses. But now, there are multiple pairs… and where did I put those reading glasses?!

And there are pills doled out at breakfast—Am I becoming my mother?! Pills to make up for missing sunshine. Pills to rejuvenate aging eyes. Pills to ward off aging…(?!)

And what's this minty scent that wafts me through my days? Ben-Gay?! Yes, they still make the stuff, but surely this sore shoulder muscle isn't here to stay…

Hmm… skin cancer, could this little spot be it? I have just read up on what ''Basal Cell Carcinoma" is. Now for the doctor's appointment. Whoever thought about these things before?

Yes, it's really come to this. I'm getting old. I'm past the half-way point and heading for the home lap assuming it will be shorter, harder and less fun than the first half but really not at all clear what it will be like! Family life is all I've known. I peek back over my shoulder at the happy olden days and wonder how I can pack them away in albums and move on before turning into a pillar of salt from the tears!

To compound my sense of loss, my career as a homeschool teacher of 23 years is ending, abruptly, soon. I feel like a student myself with this deadline looming with such finality. Whether I learned all my lessons or not, whether the assignments got done well or not, the term is up. My work is due 'as is' for grading. How did I do? What have I accomplished? There is no grade point average for me this time around. My five graduates will live with the results, for better or worse. (Now there's a disturbing thought!)

And I’m aching for reassurance that I did good. (I know that’s not good grammar, but it’s what a soul wants to know). I don’t need affirmation in the Comment Box, I need to hear from my Supervisor that He is pleased. Only His Words will suffice to displace this sagging feeling that my best was not good enough.

Never mind ‘best’, who can honestly say they’ve done their best day in-day out for the length of a career? Really? No, we bring at our work what we have to bring, ourselves. And being human and faulted with great cracks and fissures, we bring our weaknesses. These too go into the mix that will make up the final product. All these years and lesson plans and books later I have completed my assignment. The term is ended. But I’m not sure I’ve done a good enough job.  Five fledgling adults educated under my watch are trying their wings in the real world while I sit on the sidelines watching, and waiting, and wondering how we’ve done (and what’s next?!)...

Against this backdrop of doubt and insecurity God speaks Words I need to hear: a call, a gentle correction and a healthier orientation. And I must admit, deep down past all my Eeyore impulses and growing (old) pains, I am excited despite myself for what's to come. I am ready for a new stage. As armloads and boxes of books head out the door the bookshelves stand enticingly empty for a new round of learning. Living spaces too are refigured for new purposes. Life is brightened with endless possibilities. I've even found renewed enthusiasm for gardening. Turning soil and pulling weeds in hopes of new life to come is therapeutic!

But just case you too are in a stage not quite comfortable, not quite confident, not quite all you hoped it would turn out to be, may I offer you the words that have encouraged me this week—a call, a correction, and a new orientation?

First there was this call.  A friend unwittingly pointed me here, to Solomon’s love Song, a picture of lover’s bliss and ultimately of Christ’s love for His bride.  May I paraphrase the Lover’s words?

Listen, hear the birds, see the flowers?  It is springtime.  So, ‘arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away….let me see your face, let me hear your voice…catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.’ 

In each new season of life, Christ calls us to come to Him, to talk to him, to be known by Him, and not to let anything spoil the yield in our vineyard. 

In these winsome words I am reminded of my primary calling, to know and be known by Christ.  This is what really matters.  Many will call Him ‘Lord, Lord’ and point to all their ‘wonderful works’ as evidence of this relationship, but He will profess: “I never knew you; depart from me.” Mt.7:22,23 No amount of work done in His name will make up for a failure to be known by Him.  He’s not so much interested in what I’ve done, as in knowing me.  And so He calls, “come away…let me see your face, let me hear your voice…”.  Here is my invitation to put aside doubts of sufficient worthiness and relax ‘as is’ in the sheer delight of being His desired companion.

A gentle correction came one quiet morning as I sat by the woodstove warding off the chill, reading and thinking, and fretting too, over my failures in this final year of school—technical details and ‘holes’ in our education.  The story of Martha and Mary was before me and I heard Martha’s accusation as I had not heard it before:  “Lord, do you not care that I have to do everything? Tell Mary to help.”  Jesus wouldn’t consent.  He knew Martha was pre-occupied with lesser things and that Mary had found what was important. 

How easy it is to use prayer as a means of getting God to see we need help that He can surely provide.  Surely He will help us accomplish our goals.  How often have I been frustrated this year that school is not what I want it to be?  And even now, short on weeks and long on unmet goals Jesus’ words come with gentle reproof:  Linda, Linda, “you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.”  And what was that one thing that Mary was doing?  She was sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to His teaching. 

Martha had been the one to welcome Him into their home, but she’d lost sight of the value of His company, in her conscientious effort to serve Him.   And again a still small voice beckons me to let go my determination of what needs to be done and listen to what’s on Jesus’ heart.  After all, were we to master all the finer points of grammar and writing, of science and math yet not have learned to value time spent with Jesus, what would we have accomplished? 

Lord, forgive my obsessions with lesser things. Thank-you for denying my demands in order to point me to what is most important.  I am grateful.  Make your priorities for my kids mine also.  When your Kingdom and your Righteousness are first in our hearts, the rest will fall into place as you intend. (Mt.6:33)

The final word of encouragement that has given me a fresh orientation came by way of a wise blogger mom at a similar life stage to my own.  In her ‘keeping it real’ way she arrested my attention with these words:  “It is not our calling to ‘raise Godly children’”.  What?!  She went on to clarify by way of contrast:

"It is our calling :

• to be authentic believers and live out the gospel before our children.
• to nurture, instruct, guide, love, and pray for our children.
• to share God's Word, and share the gospel with our children.

God is the only one who can work in a child's heart and change him into a godly person. His Spirit draws them, opens their eyes, and changes and matures them.”

--Gina Smith at http://www.keepinitrealgina.com

 

A subtle shift in meaning, you say?  No, for me it was an essential reminder not to assume a role never intended for me.  It may be my desire for my children to all be more perfect and godly than I, but this is not my job description. It cannot be.  Only God can make any of us godly!  We are called to love, to nurture, to teach and to discipline and perhaps most of all to depend on God to do these things through us and  in spite of us.  We all fail in many ways.  We don’t do the things we ought, the things we wish we had, or even all the things we could.  But God in His great mercy calls us each to Himself, loves us dearly and invites us to know and be known by Him.  And at my age, this is a good place to have come to.

--LS

For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. I Cor.13:9,10

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. I Cor.13:12,13

“My beloved is mine, and I am his…” Sgs.2:13

We wait for the glory...

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed…” and we wait…groaning inwardly, as we wait eagerly for our adoption—the redemption of these bodies…(Rom.8:19) these bodies—transient containers that give out… I sit in the Alzheimer’s ward babysitting (or was it visiting?) my dad.   

He’s sacked out on a recliner, asleep, or approximately so, dead to the world, almost.

“But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.” (Rom.8:10) 

These verses I’m committing to memory seem so apropos in this context.  Somewhere inside this failing body waits a spirit, waiting to be released to Life unencumbered, the glory of the sons of God…

A grown daughter passes hurriedly, tearful after spending several hours with her incapacitated mother. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve gotta get out of here” she mumbles as she heads for the door.

If my dad could speak, is this not what he would say?  Oh to be delivered from this body of death.  But mutely he sits, eyes downcast, drugged senseless,  this man whose genes I have inherited, who has passed on this life I carry in my veins, and indirectly, this Life I carry in my soul.  His God has become my God.  And we both wait for that which is to come.  He lingers in this ignoble, humble fashion—helpless, prodded awake, fed, changed, babied.

Around him mumbling, stuttering graying folk sit in stupors or uttering snatches of disjoint conversation, meaningless except perhaps in the recesses of distant memories.  Others socialize in endless rounds of polite conversation. Who can make sense of it? 

But then we make our shuffling pilgrimage to the little chapel down the hall.  Mom sits at the piano. We kids take our seats on either side of Dad and we sing a medley of treasured old hymns: 

“It is well with my soul”...

“…when darkness veils His lovely face, I trust in His unchanging grace.  When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay……On Christ the solid Rock I stand…”

“My Jesus I love Thee, I know Thou art mine…” our voices blend surrounding Dad, giving voice to his soul, calming and comforting him, and ourselves. “I’ll love Thee in life; I will love Thee in death.  I’ll love Thee as long as Thou givest me breath…” 

Tears overtake my singing for a moment.  But there is sense, and hope…’the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We don’t know what to prayer as we ought but He intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express…’ Rom.8:27-28

“And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.” (Rom.8:29)

The wait is not forever and in my heart I concur with Paul, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Rom.8:17,18)

This too shall pass. The best years are yet to come.  Together we wait.

--LS

Nothing gold can stay…

Have you noticed how good things always come to pass. Long-awaited but so quickly past?


Old friends from far-away and long-ago come to visit—stirring memories and names long unspoken—and when good-byes are said a kind of weary home-sickness settles in…


Not a longing for any physical place. Not a longing earth can satisfy--but a longing for no more change, no more growing old, no more good-byes…

Nothing stays. Nothing lasts. The cherished, the familiar, the routine… the best of things are broken, or taken, or lost, or parted with in some way… Season gives way to season passing in a succession that quickens with age. Winter will come, though summer delays yet. Death is sure. Obsolescence is the rule. Tomorrow is uncertain—will it bring sun or clouds? Loss or gain? Wonder or grief?

I feel it in my joints. I am no longer twenty-something. I hear it in my children’s cautions…(who’s looking out for who?!) I see it in my parents—ailing, failing, calling obliquely for help from far-away…Roles reverse and I’m called on to grow up and be care-giver…

Life seems like a very long ‘good-bye’…

An endless deposit of blessings come my way, it’s true. But not for keeps. With open palm I am to hold each one, to delight in it but never grasp it to my heart…to be filled with wonder and gratitude at each and every one, but not to insist on possession. It is as though I’m being forever weaned from the temporal so as to acquire a taste for the eternal—the better and lasting possessions yet to come. Only gratitude, born of trust, is a fitting attitude with which to handle such transience.

I am so fickle, like a spoiled child. Always wanting more. Delighted for a moment and then dejected and demanding. Sinking my hopes in earthly moments, living for bright but transient tomorrows which when come and gone leave me despondent…

And yet we are heirs of an eternal Kingdom, one which will not, cannot,  be shaken. (Heb. 12:28)

Our citizenship is not here, but “in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Phil.3:20,21)


“For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” (Heb. 13:14)


It’s true, all I see and know here, everything that ‘matters’ in a worldly sense,  is destined to perish with the using, and guaranteed to pass into oblivion (I Jn.2:15).  How should I then live in the meantime? 

It was said of the ‘Hall of Faith’ heroes who lived and suffered and died in faith, that the world was not worthy of them. (Heb. 11:38) They lived differently because they believed in an unseen hope.


If we are truly strangers and pilgrims here and now, what purpose and vision distinguish us from earth-dwellers with no other hope?  If this world is like a scene in ‘Our Town’ (see Thornton Wilder’s thought-provoking play by this title) and real life transcends it… how differently will I choose to live? Can I face each day grateful and unafraid—knowing whatever comes is for now, but not forever.

True enough, good things come only to pass, not for keeps. But so do the hard things. The sad things. There is a better day coming, a certain hope that will not disappoint, a goodness that will not fail, a bright tomorrow that will not end…Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and what’s more, I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. That’s a long time of a good thing, unchanging, unfading, for ‘keeps’.

I guess it’s all a matter of where I set my sights.  That which is truly gold will last--“the city was pure gold, clear as glass.…” (Rev.21:18)



Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, (I Pet. 1:3,4)


--LS


P.S. My title is drawn from this poem by Robert Frost:
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”

The Spirit—alive and well

When a strong, hard-working and talented craftsman sits slumped in mental confusion unable to fasten a snap or string two thoughts together into meaningful speech, the reality is clear.  The outer man is decaying.  The brain as a function of the physical body is wasting away.  What is left?

I have been mulling over these things with particular concern this past week as my own Dad has taken a sharp turn for the worse in his journey with Alzheimer’s.  How can I pray for him?  What understanding do I need in order to see things from God’s perspective?   Our bodies are described as ‘tents’ that house the ‘inner man’, temporary wind-blown affairs that grow tattered and burdensome, tents in which we groan in anticipation of the real deal, the imperishable version.

What resides in the tent that is our body?  A soul with an eternal destiny, whether that be endless torment or unending life!  As I understand it the soul is the very center of my being, my ‘heart’.  From it emanate the values and beliefs that shape who I am as a person.  So what happens when the brain goes ‘haywire’ and the body is no longer able to communicate who I am to people around me? [Incidentally, this belief in an immaterial part of us is not to be taken for granted.  Secularists will mostly deny it, and those who acknowledge an unseen reality want to attribute it to brain chemicals or some such ‘scientifically’ verifiable substance.] Who am I then?  Am I utterly alone in my plight? 

I was sitting here this morning considering briefly how to pray for my Dad when these words came to my attention: “Though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” (Rom.8:10)  A precious comfort is given to the believer, for not only does his ‘tent’ house his own soul, but God’s spirit has also come to dwell there.  He has brought to life the spirit of the man and is able to commune with him there by His Spirit.  The inner man is alive and well!  The Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are indeed God’s children. (Rom. 8:16) Sweet reality, no matter what is happening on the outside,  the inner man is being renewed day by day, ever being transformed into the likeness of Jesus.  This is the believer’s destiny! The whole creation is said to be waiting for the sons of God to be revealed.  Who’s to say whether Alzheimer’s cannot be part of the refining process by which God perfects his saints?  Does God stop working all things for the good of those who love him when they have lost their mental abilities?  Does His Spirit vacate its residence in us because of physical disease?  No, in fact His Spirit is given as a guarantee of our inheritance to come—that imperishable, undefiled, unfading inheritance kept in heaven for us, guarded by God’s power through faith. (I Pet. 1:4-9)

And it gets even better, there’s more to the work of the Spirit.  How am I to pray?  How is my dad to pray if his mind won’t work? When no one understands his confusion?  When he feels abandoned by his own family and sits forlorn chin in hands… Can the Spirit stir in his spirit to elicit prayer, to give comfort?  I believe so.  We are given a glimpse of the Spirit’s work in Romans 8: “the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (8:26-27) Does it get any better than that?! The verse following reminds that God is working in everything for the good of the one who loves Him.  What is this good?  Conformity to the image of His own Son—via choosing, calling, justifying, and at last glorifying! Is Alzheimer’s disease an obstacle to His purposes.  Will it separate one from the love of God? Assuredly not.   The lyrics to the powerful hymn “The Love of God” further attest to this fact.  Are you aware where the 3rd stanza originated?  It was found written on the wall of an inmate’s room in an insane assylum: 

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

So how do I pray for my dad these days?  I am praying from Paul’s prayers that God will grant him to be strengthened with all power through His Spirit in his inner man, so that being rooted and grounded in Christ he may be able to comprehend the full extent of God’s love for him and in so doing, be filled up with all the fullness of the God who is Love.  (Eph.3:16-18)

Not a bad prayer to pray for any of us I’d say—till we all come to maturity in Christ and the perishable has put on the imperishable. 

Praise be to God who leads us in triumph in Christ!  (I Cor.15:56)

May your New Year be filled with the awareness of the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord—Christ in us, our hope of glory.

…………………
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.
………………….

--LS

Planned Obsolescence

obsolescence: the state, process, or condition of being or becoming obsolete

‘Tis the season for blogs to be neglected in the shuffle to get ready for Christmas. The Christmas boxes have erupted their contents all over our living room and are begging to have their contents tastefully displayed… the kids have hung some lights and sparkling garland. Christmas music is playing nearly non-stop at our house. I got a new CD this year that has turned my attention back to a profound truth, the backbone of Christmas—God became a man, took on flesh and blood, got into a human body. What a liability. What vulnerability. What a ‘downgrade’. The eternal taking on a fragile tent of existence…


As my body edges nearer its half-century anniversary the ‘hiccups’ in performance grow more frequent and pronounced…
A friend needs a biopsy.
A neighbor, a colonoscopy.
What’s that ache in my side, that recurring pain?
Maybe I do too!
I think these bodies are not unlike old cars in certain respects. Look at our old “Crown Vic”: scars from past encounters, poor reception--especially since the antenna broke off, ‘range of motion’ issues in the driver’s side electric window, inability to run up hills with the energy it once knew, a chronic lack of get-up-and-go when it’s time to accelerate… See any resemblances to your own model of flesh and blood? Wouldn’t it be nice if a change of spark plugs would cure-all—in both instances?!

It seems though that there is a ‘planned obsolescence’ involved. Old cars and old bodies are both born to die. A book I’ve been reading lately states it pretty pointedly: “There’s no escaping this fate, no circumventing our planned obsolescence in this world. There is no discipline that will appease it, no faith that will reverse it, no bargaining nor even love that can buy it off.” (*Mason, p.152) Sounds like my renewed determination to exercise more faithfully and eat fewer chocolate chip cookies may be in vain!

If you are brave enough, read this author’s morbid depiction of old age:

“If we are lucky enough to survive into old age, it will only be to find that even the most basic amenities of life will begin to be withdrawn from us one by one: legal freedoms; good health; friends; the comforts of our own home; physical and intellectual abilities; the capacity to think clearly, remember things, read a book, walk around the block, enjoy food, go to the bathroom. An old man is a ruined city, a fallen kingdom, a disaster area full of leaks and potholes and crumbling walls. In the end there may be nothing left to him but life itself, the faintest squiggle on a piece of graph paper, and even that may be unceremoniously flicked away like a speck of lint from the collar of the dashing young world.”(*Mason, p.152)

Oh my. That sounds depressing. I found myself out for a walk after reading that, determining that I surely don’t want to live to old age! But kicking and screaming (inside!) in resistance is not much use. My life is not my own…I’ve been bought with a price and this body is here to glorify its Maker… Hmm. That’s a fresh perspective. And what’s the point of raging against becoming obsolete, if in fact the whole of creation is flowing toward that end? What am I saying when I insist on wanting this body to be forever young?! Could it be I am declaring ‘a preference for temporal values over eternal ones.’ (Mason, p.153) That’s convicting. Mason goes so far as to state that in fact to struggle not to become obsolete is not only a pitiful struggle but a rejection of the very kingdom of God and its gift of eternal life! (p.153)

OK. So what are we to do? We’re trapped inside bodies that are destined to decay. The wiring and the plumbing and all the systems we’ve come to depend on may in fact go bad. The writing is on the wall (quite literally these days with Facebook)--health issues infiltrate conversations both live and virtual more often than they used to… . What’s to be done? Could it be that this whole issue of planned obsolescence is
purposeful? Could it be that accepting my own demise, however soon or late, is the first step toward exchanging temporal values for eternal ones? When do I long for Heaven more—when I’m happy as a clam in my cozy shell at high tide? or when my shell is in peril and my existence pained?

There are plenty of passages in Scripture that lend a clear perspective. The whole crowd in Hebrews 11 comes to mind. If anybody had something to complain about they did! They certainly knew bodily discomfort! All were commended for their faith yet died not having received the promises they awaited-- yet. And then comes this charge in Hebrews 12. I just got a Message New Testament today. Let me quote from it:
“Do you see what this means-all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit!… Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!” Hebrews 12:1-3The Message—E.Peterson


Ahh… and there it is again. The purpose of Christmas-- God becoming man to blaze the way to Heaven for me. To conquer death and the bondage that comes with fearing it. Say, that’s reason to bring on the decorations. Let’s celebrate! A Savior has been born to us—hope has come! As a friend says, “Life is hard. God is good. Let’s dance!”

And if you’re in need of a shot of perspective by way of music, pop on some headphones, turn up the volume and go to… http://lindy.theskeltons.org/mp3/
[The rest of that website is in a shambles but if you click on the “Hope has come” link you will be directed to an energizing song where you can recharge your ‘batteries’. Enjoy. I commend to you the whole album, which I bought myself for an early Christmas present this year ( : LS]

*Quotations taken from The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason