Poor Man's Flowers, or God's Hothouse

I'm a hopeless romantic. Not in the Sleepless in Seattle way, in the get carried away by dandelion seeds floating in the wind way. Stop midway through a sentence to soak up a sunset way. Slow down and notice the weeds way. Wait...weeds? Huh?

There's not much to look at out here where the wind blows. Some might disagree with me. I'm sure there are people out there that think miles and miles of flat fields dotted by red barns and silver grain bins are beautiful. I'm just not one of them. Not compared to the lush green hills and valleys where I grew up. But at this time every year a dazzling array of wildflowers spring up and spread across the ditches outlining the fields. Tall sprigs of Queen Anne's Lace reaching to the sky, entire fields of purple clover, thick patches of blue cornflower, bright sassy Tiger Lilies' peeking their feline faces out from the ditches, and their sister cattails growing up high. Today I drove past dandelions so thick I couldn't see the grass, just cheery yellow flowers taking over their corner of the world.

Perhaps the reason I am so enamoured with wildflowers is because I don't have a green thumb, pinky, big toe or any other apendage. Mostly everything I plant ends up dying, and if you turned over an already thriving garden to me I'd kill it. I love the idea of gardens and flowers but I'm not any good at getting past the theory of it all. Wildflowers don't require a plan and don't demand much to survive. It seems that no matter how wet or how dry a summer may be these determined flowers return year after year.

Today on my midday commute from the office to the school I drove past a yard entirely overtaken with blue cornflowers. I thought it was beautiful, so natural and untamed. For some this would be a serious weed problem, flowers usurping the rightful place of grass. But others can see the beautiful simplicty of a yard entirely given over to God's gardening. In this sense I'd rather have my heart be like this yard of unkempt cornflowers. Compeltely submitted to God's design, growing like wild under His care, blossoming in a dazzling spectrum of colors, coming back year after year no matter the conditions, unplanned except by Him. This seems healthier to me than keeping a well-ordered, contained, restrained heart only growing under my own power--thriving when I'm strong, dying when I'm weak.

Wildflowers are a poor man's flower. You don't have to be rich to gather a few daisies and lilies growing wild on the edge of a field, all you need is love. I'd much rather have my husband take the time to pick a handful of flowers from our fields than simply slap some money down for flowers someone else picked and bundled. My favorite flowers are actually these weedy wildflowers--Lily of the Valley, Tiger Lilies, Daisies, and Queen Anne's Lace. I remember feeling so brokenhearted for the dainty and fragrant Lily of the Valley when I first found out she was considered a weed. How could something to sweet and simple be a weed?

It seems that wildflowers are hearty and self-sufficient. They don't require a perfect temperature or humidity level. But they do require a special eye to notice them, to choose them, to see their beauty. A rose demands attention, an orchid insists upon it, but a daisy bobbing in the wind is easy to overlook to all but the true romantics. The hopeless romantics. We're the type that don't need expensive hothouse flowers, we're the type that prefers the poor man's flowers, God's hothouse flowers.

Consider the lilies how they grow:

they toil not, they spin not;

and yet I say unto you,

that Solomon in all his glory

was not arrayed like one of these.

~~Luke 12:27

The Future Hopes of a Silk Ribbon Quilt

I love my new background. I chose it on the Fourth of July, when I wrote my last post, because it looked fresh, summery, and inviting. There's just something about old, careworn quilts that I love, especially quilts with stories. My family doesn't seem to be too big into quilting, but someday I will inherit a very old quilt made from silk ribbons. I hope I have this story right...(Mom, let me know if it's not!)

My great-grandmother lived next to a cemetery and in those days the ribbons were made from real silk, instead of the plastic stuff they're made of now. After a time the cemetery caretaker would take down the wreaths, and offer the ribbons to her. Mamie would take them and hand-stitch them into beautiful, soft silky blankets. One particular quilt she pinned a note to explaining that it was for her first great-grandchild. She died when my mother was just a child so this blanket was made with hopes for the future in the belief that the family tree would keep on going. My great-grandmother probably figured it would be a child of my aunt's, being the oldest, but it was my brother Adam in 1980 that was the fulfillment of her future hope.

It seems that families and quilts go hand-in-hand. Patches of clothes and bits of fabric, silk ribbons saved from the cemetery, stories in every piece, love in every stitch, plans and intentions for warmth and love to continue on.

And I think of my family as a patchwork quilt, sometimes a crazy quilt. I have a hard time defining my family. If you asked me about them I'd have to ask you 'which one?' With Mom and Dad being divorced I've got step-parents, step-siblings, even step-nephews in the mix now. Of course I have my brother, his wonderful wife, and his precious baby girl to count. I've got family on my mom's side, and family on my dad's side. I consider my in-laws to be my family giving me two more brothers, another sister-in-law, a niece, and a nephew, as well as many aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. And of course, there's my very own nuclear family: Curtis, Shiloh, Bode, and even Simon the Cat. We're a small family, and very furry, but we're a family all the same.

If I could turn my family into a quilt it would be colorful, vibrant, with many patterns and styles. My mom would be represented by soft pastel flowers, her sister by bright bold colors, my baby niece with little pink teddy bears, my 4 year old nephew with John Deere, my PapPap with corduroy sturdy and warm, my Grandpa with something red, white, and blue for his time in the Navy.

The pieces of a quilt don't all have to match or go together. By arranging them just right a mish-mash of fabrics can turn into a beautiful piece of art and love. The pieces of my family quilt don't all match or go together, but they're arranged just right, by God, in my life. When I finally abandoned the idea that a family is defined by only one certain set of criteria and simply let God shape and mold my family, or families, I was given a beautiful gift. A crazy quilt hand-stitched by the Ultimate Creator. He choose each person with care and placed them just right in my life, and I was placed just right in theirs.  Some of the edges are frayed and the pieces might not be quite square, but it's a masterpiece all the same.

Some people think that divorce means broken homes and broken families. And sometimes it does. I see a lot of that with students at my school. But in my case...God took all of us torn fragments, added some fresh new pieces (the next generation of my nieces and nephews) and made something whole out of it. My family might not look like the ones on TV, or like the people in the next pew at church. But my family is mine, patches and all. And like a warm cozy quilt stitched up with love, I appreciate it and value it very much.

Someday I will be able to pass on one of Mamie's silk ribbon quilts to the next generation, and my intention and my prayer is that something far greater goes along with it. I want the fibers of a family to be sewn up into my future little ones and my nieces and nephews--faith, love, acceptance, forgiveness, graciousness. These core values, the fibers of a family, is what brought all the pieces of my 'family quilt' together and what keeps us together. And its that family quilt, the one that isn't tangible, that is the real legacy.

Maybe They Knew Something We've All Forgotten

 A toast? Yeah. To high treason. That's what these men were committing when they signed the Declaration. Had we lost the war, they would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered, and-Oh! Oh, my personal favorite-and had their entrails cut out and *burned*! [brief pause]  So... Here's to the men who did what was considered wrong, in order to do what they knew was right... (Benjamin Franklin Gates in the movie National Treasure)

The fact of the matter is that the American Revolution was one of the craziest enterprises to ever be successful. For a disorganized and disagreeing collection of colonies to triumph over a well-organized and methodical empire is quite honestly outrageous. It shouldn't have worked. It almost didn't.

I'm not an expert and this isn't a history course so I'll spare you my rambling and excitable version of the Revolution. But it saddens me that so many people, so many Americans, don't really know the story of how it all happened. We toss around some names--Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, perhaps Adams--and the only date we all know is 1776, but we don't really know what it means.

I asked my students why we celebrate the Fourth of July. They shrugged, they hummed, they tried to change the subject. One finally said to celebrate our freedom. But they had no idea freedom from what, why freedom is so important. Why that one word is used to symbolize the American dream and spirit.

A quick perusal through Facebook shows post after post about the Fourth of July, let freedom ring, support the troops. I'm all for supporting the troops, and think we should thank them every chance we get.  But that's not exactly what Independence Day is about. That's why we created Memorial Day and Veteran's Day--to specifically  honor those who have fallen and those who have served to keep us free. Independence Day is to celebrate the declaring of that freedom, the throwing off of chains, to revel in freedom itself.

"I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance; it ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more." ~~ John Adams

Our founding fathers took great risks--personal and political--in declaring independence from Britain. Had they failed the consequences would've been devastating--personally and politically. I don't want to be part of making them into these mythological gods, larger than life, doing no wrong. They were men, in many ways ordinary men--farmers, lawyers, business owners--but they became extraordinary through their tenacious belief in doing what was right. They were thinking men. Each one contributing great thought, care, and passion into fixing what was wrong with their world. They weren't perfect men, but they were honorable men, brave men.

And their wives were cut out of similar fabric. Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Martha Jefferson were women of amazing personal strength. Holding down the farm, raising children, minding the property with husbands gone for months at a time. In a time without phones, radio, vacuum cleaners, antibiotics, or Windex. And feminists want to call these women weak simply because they had no jobs outside of the home? These women were not kept down by men. Their men leaned on them heavily as help-mates, as the Bible says it should be. They were keen, educated, witty, strong, and brave women. My generation should take a page from their book.

And perhaps that's the ultimate point of this post. Maybe we should all take some time to dig into our own past, follow the thread of the American story back to the beginning. As a nation we need to shrug off this mind-numbing apathy and find out what being an American really means, and what it really took to create our nation. Perhaps we'll find some answers for our current problems. After all, if the Founding Fathers managed to pull off the impossible, maybe they knew something that we've forgotten.

Deeply Rooted

But blessed are those who trust in the Lord
and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.
They are like trees planted along a riverbank,
with roots that reach deep into the water.
Such trees are not bothered by the heat
... or worried by long months of drought.
Their leaves stay green,
and they never stop producing fruit.
Jeremiah 17:7-8

I've been trying to come up with a new name for our youth group, so I turned to my Bible for some inspiration. Technically, I turned to biblegateway.com but same difference. I was trying to recall verses and stories I had read in my Bible, and find the specific addresses in the Bible. This passage has been one of my favorites for a long time. I can't really remember when I first read it, but I remember how I felt. Refreshed.

Like slowly drinking a cool glass of water on a very hot day, this verse just gets inside of me. I can picture such a tree in my mind. Maybe a weeping willow with long wispy branches reaching down to touch the water which gives it life. Maybe an apple tree with branches reaching high into the sky, providing shade, producing fruit, giving life. The imagery is refreshing. The idea is refreshing.

Letting roots grow deep and strong. My generation is a rootless one. Our friends change, our interests change, our phones change. My grandparents have lived in the same house for over 60 years, my grandmother has only lived in that valley in her 90 years of life. They know everyone on the mountain and in the hollow. Things have changed. We have starter houses, we switch neighborhoods, switch schools, switch friends, switch careers. Roots can't grow where things are always changing.

I long to be rooted by a riverbank, always producing fruit, but more than anything I don't want to be bothered by the heat or worried about droughts. That phrase really captures my heart right now. I worry about drought all the time. Not a literal one, but emotional and spiritual droughts. I worry that I don't have the same emotional experiences about God as I once did. It's a drought. But it's not permanent. A tree with strong roots by a riverbank knows that and just keeps standing, drawing on the strength and resources in its' roots until the drought is over.

I worry that prayers will go unanswered. I worry that this drought in my womb will never be healed. I wish I had an easy answer for that one. But I suppose there are years when trees don't bear fruit, or as much fruit. A tree with strong roots by a riverbank knows that and just keeps standing, knowing that the next year will be a bumper crop of blessings. My blessings may not be what I'm expecting, but God doesn't give us stones when we ask for bread. He will only give me good things, even if I'm not so sure at first.

I may not have roots in my neighborhood or even with old friends, but I can have roots in something far better. It's the difference between having roots in a puddle or in a riverbank. One will dry up and leave the roots with little to sustain the tree; the other will last into forever giving the tree plenty of nourishment. It's time to dig deep and let my roots sink into God's soil, soaking up the water He provides, and growing strong on His nourishment. It's time to be deeply rooted.

For I am like a tree whose roots reach the water,
      whose branches are refreshed with the dew.

Job 29:19

Oh, the joys of those who do not
      follow the advice of the wicked,
      or stand around with sinners,
      or join in with mockers.
But they delight in the law of the Lord,
      meditating on it day and night.
 They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
      bearing fruit each season.
   Their leaves never wither,
      and they prosper in all they do.

Psalm 1:1-3

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:17-19

Deeply Rooted

But blessed are those who trust in the Lord
and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.
They are like trees planted along a riverbank,
with roots that reach deep into the water.
Such trees are not bothered by the heat
... or worried by long months of drought.
Their leaves stay green,
and they never stop producing fruit.
Jeremiah 17:7-8

I've been trying to come up with a new name for our youth group, so I turned to my Bible for some inspiration. Technically, I turned to biblegateway.com but same difference. I was trying to recall verses and stories I had read in my Bible, and find the specific addresses in the Bible. This passage has been one of my favorites for a long time. I can't really remember when I first read it, but I remember how I felt. Refreshed.

Like slowly drinking a cool glass of water on a very hot day, this verse just gets inside of me. I can picture such a tree in my mind. Maybe a weeping willow with long wispy branches reaching down to touch the water which gives it life. Maybe an apple tree with branches reaching high into the sky, providing shade, producing fruit, giving life. The imagery is refreshing. The idea is refreshing.

Letting roots grow deep and strong. My generation is a rootless one. Our friends change, our interests change, our phones change. My grandparents have lived in the same house for over 60 years, my grandmother has only lived in that valley in her 90 years of life. They know everyone on the mountain and in the hollow. Things have changed. We have starter houses, we switch neighborhoods, switch schools, switch friends, switch careers. Roots can't grow where things are always changing.

I long to be rooted by a riverbank, always producing fruit, but more than anything I don't want to be bothered by the heat or worried about droughts. That phrase really captures my heart right now. I worry about drought all the time. Not a literal one, but emotional and spiritual droughts. I worry that I don't have the same emotional experiences about God as I once did. It's a drought. But it's not permanent. A tree with strong roots by a riverbank knows that and just keeps standing, drawing on the strength and resources in its' roots until the drought is over.

I worry that prayers will go unanswered. I worry that this drought in my womb will never be healed. I wish I had an easy answer for that one. But I suppose there are years when trees don't bear fruit, or as much fruit. A tree with strong roots by a riverbank knows that and just keeps standing, knowing that the next year will be a bumper crop of blessings. My blessings may not be what I'm expecting, but God doesn't give us stones when we ask for bread. He will only give me good things, even if I'm not so sure at first.

I may not have roots in my neighborhood or even with old friends, but I can have roots in something far better. It's the difference between having roots in a puddle or in a riverbank. One will dry up and leave the roots with little to sustain the tree; the other will last into forever giving the tree plenty of nourishment. It's time to dig deep and let my roots sink into God's soil, soaking up the water He provides, and growing strong on His nourishment. It's time to be deeply rooted.

For I am like a tree whose roots reach the water,
      whose branches are refreshed with the dew.

Job 29:19

Oh, the joys of those who do not
      follow the advice of the wicked,
      or stand around with sinners,
      or join in with mockers.
But they delight in the law of the Lord,
      meditating on it day and night.
 They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
      bearing fruit each season.
   Their leaves never wither,
      and they prosper in all they do.

Psalm 1:1-3

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:17-19

In The Fullness of Time

He hath made everything beautiful in His time....Ecclesiastes 3:11

My mom cross-stitched this verse for me when I was very small. Maybe a baby, I'm really not sure. All I know is that I've had it for as long as I can remember. It's become a life verse for me, as it has has meant different things to me at different times, and probably always will. These days it's the last word that has me thinking. Time.

Not just any time, or anybody's time, but His time. I'll spare you the cliches on God's calendar not matching ours and all that rigmarole. They're very true but we all know them. Let me try to be original.

I've been wrestling with time and His time for awhile now. I feel frustrated and disappointed about my life right now. It seems that nothing is going according to plan. Things are taking longer to get accomplished or to change. I'm getting burned out and tired from the struggle to get through each day. I'm spending more and more time shaking my fist at Heaven.

And then I get clobbered with some Truth. I use a capital 'T' because it seems to me that truth from Heaven is worthy of some capitalization. God's truth should be a proper noun. And the Truth of the matter is that God's time takes far more into consideration than just me, or just the people around me. God's time takes all of eternity into account. This seems obvious, something we all know, but it's something we can all take for granted if we're not paying attention.

The specific situation in my life has been this struggle to have children. I look at every month that goes by as a big fat 'no', a big fat failure, a big fat disappointment. This morning, I discovered, that God sees it as another month closer to the fullness of His time. Another month closer to the goal.

The fact of the matter is that while Curtis and I want to be parents, it's just not God's time. And it's not that we're not ready, good enough, or deserving. It may be that God needs this baby to be born or to come into our care at a later date. God already has plans for this child and the first part of that plan is his/her conception. It all must fit.

If God had given Isaac to Abraham & Sarah fifty years earlier, Rebekah wouldn't have been there for Isaac to marry. And without her there'd be no Jacob & Esau, no Uncle Laban for Jacob to run to, no Rachel and Leah for him to marry. The whole Old Testament unravels.

If God had let Rachel get pregnant right away, would Joseph have been the treasured son? And if Joseph wasn't favored, his brothers wouldn't have sold him into slavery. And without Joseph's ultimate success in Egypt, the tribes of Israel would've perished in the famine.

If God had given Hannah her precious son, Samuel, the first time she'd asked for a child, she wouldn't have dedicated him to the Lord. And if Samuel hadn't been given back to the Lord and lived with Eli in the temple, he wouldn't have become a priest. And if Samuel hadn't become a priest, who would've anointed both Saul and David? Who would've spoken Truth to Israels' first king?

If God had given Elizabeth and Zechariah their son, John, earlier in life he could not have really prepared the way for Jesus. Their ministries had to overlap. If John had been born sooner, who would've baptized Jesus?

God had a specific plan for Isaac, Joseph, Samuel, and John. Their parents had to wait, suffer even, before finally getting the child they so wanted. Sarah, Hannah, and Elizabeth all praised God, fully acknowledging that their sons had been born in the fullness of God's time in accordance with His will and His plan. Rachel did not, and died trying to have another child. It seems to me that is significant.

Waiting for God's timing isn't easy. Ever. But I have to change my perspective. I have to remember it's not just my life I'm praying about, it's the life of my future child. And God has a plan for that child,  more significant and eternal than any dream of mine. I need to be grateful for God's timing, and look forward to the moment when His plan and mine finally converge. In the fullness of time, everything will be beautiful.

This Aging Generation of Giants

At church Sunday morning we had some time left over at the end of the service, so our pastor opened the floor for people to share what God had done in their lives this past week. *cricket, cricket* One man finally stood and shared a story about making a difference in peoples' lives. *cricket, cricket* Another man, my guess is somewhere in his 80s, stood up toward the back of the church. Like an Old Testament prophet, he pointed his finger at the congregation and, in no uncertain terms but in a completely honorable way, called us out. The sermon had been on the rapture and this gentleman declared that while he can't know for certain, only God can, that he very much doubted that the church would be empty should the rapture occur in that moment. He told us to humble ourselves at the altar (something our pastor had emphasized during the last worship song...and no one came forward), to get right with God, because someday it will be too late.

He didn't yell, he didn't thump a Bible, he wasn't passing judgment. In fact, the only reason he was pointing is because he was just so passionate about the salvation offered through Jesus Christ. And quite honestly, if we were all a little more passionate about that our worlds might change. Each one of us has our own little world peopled with friends, co-workers, neighbors, relatives, people we like, people who aggravate us, people in lines ahead and behind us, people who wait on us, people we wait on...and if we were truly passionate about salvation, those little worlds would start to change.

I think the old timers knew that. They lived and served out of their passion for Christ and that's why people like me sit here and write this blog. As this gentleman spoke, I sat up on stage behind my keyboard and my eyes started filling with tears. I was thanking God for giving our church a man brave enough and bold enough and passionate about God enough to speak the truth. And I went over the mental photographs in my mind of other old-timers that are bold enough to serve, to speak, to pray.

My grandmother's church used to be filled with these kinds of people. Perhaps that is an exaggeration but childhood memories are vague and the characters are often larger than life. But it seemed to me then that there were spiritual giants in that church. Not Rick Warren, Max Lucado, or Joel Olsteen giants. Humble, quiet giants. Giants that teach Sunday school every week, change diapers every week, teach little ones new songs about Jesus every week. Giants that make snacks for Vacation Bible School and fill in at a moment's notice. Giants that get down on their knees every single week, if not every single day, and pray for revival to begin and to begin there. Giants that send cards, make phone calls, and drop-in on the lonely and hurting. Giants that read their Bibles every morning and every evening, even when their aging eyes have to strain to see the words. Giants that feel about hymns the way I do about praise choruses. Giants that have done service unto the Lord that only He knows about.

My grandparents are such giants. My grandmother served outwardly--teaching Sunday school, always keeping a couple lessons in her back pocket that she could teach at a moment's notice, she formed choirs for children, teens, and ladies, she participated in the Ladies' Missionary Society, she made snacks and volunteered for Vacation Bible School, she could even fill in playing the piano on a Sunday morning. My grandfather served more privately. He reminds me of John Walton. Working hard, putting God and family first, giving generously both to the Lord and to those in need. Hard work, generosity, faithfulness. As far as I know he never once served in front of the congregation, but he was and is a servant of the Lord all the same. They've prayed together nearly every night since their marriage on September 27, 1939. They shared each other's burdens, and brought them together to the Lord.

Those of us that are blessed and honored enough to have known some of these spiritual giants should be taking notes. That generation based their lives on the Bible. My grandmother has entire chapters of the Bible memorized, and now that she struggles to be able to read her Bible, she misses it. There's an empty void in her day that used to be filled with scripture reading. She tries, and some days its easier than others, but her poor old eyes don't let her see the Words she's always leaned on. I fear that our generation, and especially the next, are Bible illiterate. We insist that it's too hard, we don't have the right translation, we don't have the time. Explain to me how women who had to pump their own water, make fires to cook, bake bread, churn butter, sew & mend their clothes, do all the washing (dishes, clothes, housework) by hand, had time to read their Bibles? Let alone serve in their church community.

Honestly, I think it's shameful that we hide behind our work or class schedules, our 'me time', our phones and computers and insist that we're too busy. What will happen when this aged generation dies? Who will lead? Who will speak truth? Who will know the truth? As that generation fades away, one by one, we need to pick up their legacy. They, after all, inherited it from the generation before them. Our faith, our traditions, our passion, our servitude has been passed on from one generation to the next for centuries. Let us not be the ones to throw it away out of ignorance, selfishness, or pride. It is hard sometimes to make it a priority--it was for them, too--and the Bible can be hard to read. But those are lousy excuses for not keeping the faith, and if this aging generation had just given up when they were busy or when it was hard...where would you be? I shudder to think where I would be without their humble serving and faithful guidance.

I write this as much for myself as anyone who might chance to read it. That is always the case with this blog. I must take time to lecture myself a bit, to dish out a bit of my own advice to take. I must train myself, with the Spirit's guidance and help, to be faithful to pray, to read my Bible and to serve the Lord. These are both the commandments of God and the legacy being left behind.