Song

Five Minute Friday. Where we just write for 5 without worrying if it is right or not. Lisa Jo leads it, picks a prompt, and her post was really sweet to me this morning. You can find it here:

Song

There is a Song that Jesus gives me
It is sent from heaven above
and when it’s playing in my background
I can do all things in love!

In my heart there rings a melody
assuring of his love for me
holding through a tempest sea
in my heart there plays a hymnody
that helps me do all things in love!

When I wake up to the singing
Joy and gratitude can flow
I can depend on Jesus bringing
Confidence I would not know

When my heart rings with a melody
-come praising God with me-
Christ says evil will flee
When my heart rings with his melody
I will walk through my day with love!

(Slighly edited, roughly 5 minutes, can you sing it?)

BITTERSWEET SPRING

This is a guest post (meaning I asked someone to write) on

by someone who wishes to remain anonymous. Enjoy!

Confession: I am a little obsessed with our peach tree. We planted it this winter, and it budded . . . then sprung into bloom this March. I fell in love with its promise.

The peach tree’s beauties–glossy leaves, hopeful branches, purple blossoms, deepening roots–have been welcome distractions from a spring of grief.

After suffering a major loss in our family, I’ve found solace in the way that spring (somehow, even when neglected) keeps on springing all around us. When I was feeling so crushed by grief that I could hardly breathe, I breathed in the peach and orange and grapefruit blossoms. And in those sweet breaths, God breathed, “I haven’t forgotten you.” And “I will never forsake you.”

Those breaths have helped protect me from bitterness. They have humbled me, made me know my dependence. Over lunch with a friend who suffered a similar loss in childhood, we named the possibility of living bitter, soured lives after tragedy. I told her something my family has been saying over the phone, over the miles, over these difficult days: “I don’t know how you survive something like this without the LORD.” She said, “Not well–I can tell you that.” She was speaking not of her own grief but of the bitter burdens of relatives, burdens borne only with human muscle and human minds. Muscles aching with frailty. Minds aching with “what if?”

And so I have realized that I am blessed anew in this bittersweet spring, not just by sweet breaths of peaches and oranges and grapefruits-to-be but by a loving Shepherd who knows His sheep and leads us through. Who brings joy in the morning, and in the blossom.

And when I see the fruits of May, I know that their sweetness is a gift. A grace. A provision.

May God bless you richly as you seek His face and taste His beauties, all the sweeter for the waiting.

Thank you, friend! Linking up with others sharing about their one word on the 15th of each month over at Melanie’s (click to read other posts):

Tuesdays in Titus

Titus 2:6-10 (NIV)
Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.

I like to think that we can learn by listening in on what is said to others.

We aren’t young men or slaves. (are we?)

But here Titus, who is a young man, is told to:
*Encourage young men to be self controlled
*Set them an example of doing good
*Teach with integrity, seriousness, sound speech

Pretty simple, overarching stuff. A self controlled man, doing what is good, who can despise? More likely, who can resist loving such a man? I recently watched the movie The Right Stuff with my daughter and was struck again by the example of John Glenn, who upheld his fellow astronauts to be self-controlled and was himself a shining example of a good man (at least in the movie)!

Slaves to be subject to masters in everything:
Try to please them
Not talk back,
Not steal
But show that they can be fully trusted.
I like to think of the best slave in history, Joseph.
He was a good slave, so he was entrusted with everything.
He didn’t steal his master’s wife because he honored God.
He was unjustly accused (as was Pharaoh’s wine taster?)
He was a good prisoner so he was entrusted with helping.
Finally, he was entrusted with the kingdom, and God was glorified.

I think I am learning a lot from listening in.
Focus on controlling myself before controlling others.
Look for the good I can do more than the good I can receive.
Teach with integrity, which is the opposite of hypocrisy.
Honor those in authority over me for God’s sake, for his glory.

All praise and thanks to God!

Happy Mother’s Day!

This morning I felt the impulse to recreate a talk I gave to Chinese youth in Scotland in 1997.

I spoke on Mark 7.

First the passage has the chilling words, “you honor me with your lips but your hearts are far from me.” When me is God there is no excuse, but what Jesus points out is the problem with parents. Children are not respecting parents in their hearts though they are taught a form of respect in their faces.

I had seen this from the outside. I was never taught the Chinese facial respect and I still don’t know how to do it. It’s invisible to me, but I have stubbed my heart upon its use.

A coworker at the Chinese travel agency where I was currently the only non-Chinese worker, said I wasn’t giving her respect. It was true that I didn’t interact with her much (she had come in to cover for my boss while he was out of town) but I didn’t disrespect her; I just did my work. Apparently she was expecting something from me that the others gave her but I couldn’t tell what that was!

This being a very recent experience to my talk, I told the youth how I noticed they are raised to show a face of respect at all times to their parents. But sometimes their hearts have a problem.

Sometimes the parents have done wrong.

The children can’t let on. Respectful face.

But the heart festers. Who can solve this problem?

You honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. Who can heal the heart?

Then we looked at the Parent Side.

Mark 7 goes on to tell the story of the non-Jewish woman (I like to think she’s Greek since my mom was Greek) who came to plead for her daughter.

Jesus acts very oddly.
“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

Is Jesus being racially prejudiced?

What if he is?

It doesn’t stop her a moment. Her need, her love for her daughter, sweeps her past any barrier of prejudice.

Call me a dog?

Fine, let me have a crumb, the dog’s rights.

Oh the love for the daughter.

Oh the faith that a crumb will do.

She is commended for her faith and her daughter is well.

She knew she wasn’t perfect. She knew she couldn’t fix her daughter. She somehow knew, somehow had faith that Jesus could solve this overwhelming problem.

Her love for her daughter was so great she didn’t care a bit if he were prejudiced. He had what she needed! She could suffer anything to get what she needed for her kid.

Now, what I’ve observed in real life is that Chinese parents try to set an example their children can live up to. They set a high bar.

Chinese parents who do not know God have no way of letting themselves not be perfect. They have no way of apologizing to their children because they are trying to set an example of perfection for their children. They do not know forgiveness.

But under God we all fail and can point to him who is the Perfect One. We can confess our faults and be forgiven. We can take hurting hearts to God who can see and know what is festering. Once we have received forgiveness, we can give it. We can respect the imperfect parent. The parent who may or may not know God but is trying the best they can to love the child. We can give the love and respect that we owe to parents because God wants us to. God, who knows all, can both heal the hurt hearts and guide the aching parent.

Stumbling words, from long ago.
Remembered today I know not why.
Of course the application isn’t for Chinese only, but that was my group then.

I am the mother now, the one pleading for her daughter.
At the same time I am praying that her heart not grow separate from her face.
That her Lord will guard her heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

To fellow moms out there, thank you for your service to family for God’s sake. Do you have words of wisdom to share? Is it hard to let your kid confront you? Has the child learned how to confront respectfully? How do you teach that?

To God, all thanks and praise!

Tuesdays in Titus

Last year in my study of James in various ways I felt a pull of God to be more and more holy, to desire to obey him perfectly. I ended the year with a confession of my own judgmentalism and spent the summer cognizant of how often I fail. I praise the Lord because he continues to work on me, has not left me to live blithely in my sins: accusing others of those which are my own faults.

Today we are looking at the charge to younger women. (Am I still in that category?)

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God.
Titus 2:3-5

Last time I wrote a Tuesdays in Titus, I looked at the passage to older women, to teach what is good, then to urge younger women…let’s spend a little time unpacking that list of what to teach and urge.

Love their husbands and children
I can imagine single women bristling at this apparent presupposition that all younger women have husbands and children. I feel it, having had a husband but no child from 23 to 34 years old! So it’s a picture painted with a broad brush. To love. To love those to whom we have responsibilities. Not just friendly relationships, not exactly working relationships.

These people, husbands and children, are those to whom we have continual responsibilities and what helps and binds it all together is love.

The chores of a mother, whether chores she likes or doesn’t like, are made palatable, even enjoyable by the love for her family with which she takes up the task.

I know this.
I have prayed to make it so.
I have lost sight of it in busy weeks and rushing to serve others (friendly or work relationships). I currently am returning to grab hold of loving my husband and child in all I do for them.

to be self-controlled and pure
My mom used to tell me the secret to her ability to control a classroom of kids (or just one wild one) was to be self-controlled first.

Disciple? Start with yourself.

It’s an odd one, and it either makes sense to you or it doesn’t. I think, when we face the situation where we need to corral the kids or answer the anxiety, we have a hairbreadth moment of choice. Can we find where our source of authority is and rely upon Him? or do we flail?

Flailing, we lash out and pain follows, even if we gain the control of others that we need to “salvage” a situation.

When I have taken that hairbreadth moment to pray, peace has stolen over me, a word has been given me, and we move on through our day inexplicably in grace. I take no credit, it has all been God’s gift of grace from the instant of facing a hard situation and realizing my weakness.

Pure? I think that combines with self-control to mean a loveliness of spirit, a purity of heart. It cannot mean that we never fail, but that what we do with failures is confess them so that Jesus forgives and purifies us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Washing, cleansing, pure.

To be busy at home
This strikes me again in two ways and is a broad brushstroke. Either meaning stay and work at home, or when home don’t relax and let others serve you, but be busy there where it is your rightful place to be in control, working, ministering, blessing others.

We had a calligraphy poster from Knuth’s book 3:16 and the verse that appealed to me most often was about the women of Bashan whom the prophet calls cows and the only thing he sites is that they sit around relaxing and order their husbands to bring them drinks. This is apparently subverting the order, and is highly offensive in God’s sight. I’ve pondered that often, taken it to heart. I have found joy in offering my husband his morning cup of coffee!

To be kind
I once heard Ravi Zacharias talking on marriage, and it was just a sentence that stuck with me, “There is never an excuse for unkindness in a marriage.” Oh, when people are kind it is so easy to be good, isn’t it? And so hard when they are not kind. So hard to repay unkindness with good. But here, here we are called to be kind and it’s an order to obey, whether or not the circumstances are fortuitous!

To be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God.
I’m not sure if the “so that no one will malign the word of God” is for the last or the whole list, but for now I want to take it particularly with this point about being subject to husbands.

It is hard to be subject to one’s husband when one holds his sins against him!

It is hard to be subject to anyone when my own pride rules the day. (What was that about self-controlled and pure?)

What does it mean, to be subject to a husband, anyway?

I don’t fully know.
I don’t think I have it figured out.
I only think of a few times when push came to shove that I chose to submit. That, choosing, I was rewarded both from him (grateful smile) and from God (peace in my heart).

I’ve asked God, what about his faults, what about sin?
Silence.
A very fullsome silence.
Is not God able to deal with sin? (Better than me!?!)

So I humbly submit the idea of trying to practice this, ladies.
Because when we practice in the small ways we gain strength and ability to obey when it is hard.
I don’t understand, but I am willing to hope that my obedience to God keeps his word from being maligned.

These are my thoughts.
If you’d like to share yours, I’d love to read them!
Giving praise and thanks to God.

April Poetry

I was over at an outdoor poetry writing event where I looked at the picture of the Bronte sisters that their brother drew (and his own form is shadowed out). It sparked this poem:

Self-Effacing

Was it because you
Knew
Your sisters better than yourself
Or
Weren’t satisfied with self
Portraiture -
How to capture
Or recapture
A spirit spent

Admiring sisters
They didn’t mean to overshadow
Yet your gift,
In painting them,
Is precious to those who love their works

And your self-effacing
Does not diminish your gift,
Bran well Bronte!

4/4/13

Today, thinking about how I didn’t know if the poet I showed it to was just encouraging me or really thought it was good (and I signed it for them and left it to be put on a poetry blog), I remembered an incident of years ago, and wrote this:

All Write

I want to write poetry, I said,
some grand notion floating in my head.
What Ed said to me then
gave concrete shape to my poetic bent:

Poetry for fame and forture or
Poetry like we all write?

Beth Werner Lee
4/5/13

Thursday of Holy Week

“Say, Bad Mommy!” I will tell my daughter with a grin when she wakes up.

She’s been sleeping late today because she has a cold and she desperately wants to be well.

This weekend.

Good Friday.
Easter Vigil.
Easter Sunday.

Friends are coming to visit. The first friends she had as a baby/toddler/preschooler. Sleepover two nights. Baking and egg dying and she just has to be well!

So I’ll cheer her with that game we play: bad Mommy means I stayed up all night finishing a book. Yesterday I caught her reading ahead in it and playfully scolded her. Because Amon’s Adventure is getting exciting, and we are wondering, in the book is it Amon’s father who will be the thief (wrongly accused) who acknowledges Jesus and is told he will be in paradise? It’s a read aloud, and usually it helps the reader to know the story ahead of time. But that’s just an excuse.

She knows it.

But she doesn’t mind because she is grateful to be read to.

Tonight in the story it is Passover. Tonight we will also hold a Passover dinner, proclaiming Jesus our Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The table will be set.

The middle of three large pieces of matzah, the unity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) -the middle one- will be broken, will be wrapped in linen, will be hidden while we eat, and will be found and in the end be feasted upon, remembering Jesus saying, “This is my body, broken for you.”

Passover is for all ages, but especially it is for the children. Yesterday afternoon with neighbor kids we were six around the table with the pages Ann offers at aholyexperience.com. Tonight we will be many more, with our pastor leading, and will use the materials from Celebrating Biblical Feasts, by Martha Zimmerman. We will eat lamb, roasted as God said to, remmebering Jesus our passover. We will also eat chicken legs, to have a bone on our plate, to acknowledge and pray for the Jews who do’t eat lamb at their seders because they miss the temple in Jerusalem.

Ravinia has woken up now, and as I finish writing this, thinking about the fun of preparations for tonight, I want to tell you how she came out, happy to tell me her imaginative storied dream, to tell me that her throat is better now, just dry from sleeping, that she would take some tea. I’ll read Amon to her.

Thank you Lord Jesus, for answered prayers.

Thank you for holding us through the hard time yesterday and providing relief and a joyous time with the kids. Bless them with more of you.

Thank you for today.

Whatever you do today, dear friends, may Jesus bless you with more of himself and may your hearts be filled with grateful joy.

Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed for us!

Therefore let us keep the feast!

All thanks and praise to you, O God.

Grateful

Monday of Holy Week.

Hello!

Are you doing well today?

I’ve got so much going on, so much to do, so much coming up this week!
School with my one and only while the neighbor kids are on break (which means good playtime when school is finished).
Grandpa recovering from stomach illness.
Holy Week services to prepare for.
Passover starts tomorrow, but our seder will be on Maundy Thursday.
Because church and scripture must be brought together, and passover is a week.
On the 10th day, the day for bringing in a lamb, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, and it was a Sunday.
On the following days, the lamb is to be inspected so that it is seen to be faultless, and Jesus was!
On the 14th day the lamb was to be sacrificed and people were to eat the passover meal.
I’m not sure which day that was, when Jesus ate with his disciples.
The next day he died. Maybe when the lambs were being sacrificed.
Then a sabbath. Rest. A tomb.
Then that year (Was it a two day sabbath? The day after eating the Passover and then usual Saturday?) the day after the sabbath rest was the Feast of Firstfruits.
Jesus rose, was known to his disciples, on the day of Firstfruits.

Today, Monday.
I read Ann’s blog about Thankfulness.
I remembered, and took a picture for you of something I made:

Some people know how to give you a chance to download and print your own, sorry, I haven’t figured that out yet!

I want to look again, in the middle of Holy Week pressures, at James 1:3-5.
Consider it pure joy when you face many kinds of trials because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
It’s such a hard verse to grasp, to apply!
Ann is right to encourage us to the simple discipline of thanksgiving moment by moment.
Just to know we have the option, when bad things come at us, of turning to God in thankfulness! I think most of us never knew we had that option, never saw it modeled.

So, whether it’s cancer or the unexpected crazy busy of fun things and sick people to juggle in the week that you desire to draw near and celebrate God’s gift of forgiveness, always there is the option to give thanks.

There are other prayers that can follow.
Remember?
…In everything by prayers and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God…
Prayers like “Help me know what to do when?” and “Give me wisdom how to answer?” Prayers that lead, with the answering grace, to everyday small miracles of a changing me, persevering that he might make me pure and complete, not lacking anything.

What does your week look like? Please leave a comment!
Did you click over to Ann’s and listen to the video? Wonderful! I had to write you about it.

God bless you with abundant grace this week!
Thanks and praise to God.

Best of Spring

Bouganvilla (purple) and Sour Grass (yellow)

The flowers stay out year round here. The ocean is beautiful and changing day by day, now blue, now gray. The temperature is warm if the sun is out, hot if no wind, cold if no sun. Cold for us, that is. Not often really cold in the daytime. Santa Barbara, CA.

But I remember the year we moved from CA to New Haven, CT and how surprised and sad I was when everything died for the winter. I knew intellectually about hibernation and the cycle of seasons, but I hadn’t experienced it in so long. Experiencial knowing, it hit my heart hard. It wasn’t even a winter with much snow to lighten my heart.

But then spring came. Easter, and I got the connection.

Some trees flowered, some put forth lime green leaves, tiny ones that would later grow larger and darken. For all the time we lived in New England I loved the budding trees. Everyone loved every single daffodil or tulip, crocus, snowdrops. They came just in time to decorate the church for Easter Sunday.

Winter is the hard time. Cold, sometimes lonely, not without flashes of fun (snowman making, sledding), not without work to be done. It’s the time to persevere.

So when spring comes.

A whole winter is in Holy Saturday.

We wait, unsure of how to fill the day.

Good Friday was clear: remember Jesus dying on the cross. Jesus, who died for you and me, for the sins of the whole world. So that death would not have the final say anymore, forever. So that anyone who believes on him would not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16b)

Holy Saturday, it’s for mourning and for waiting. Perseverance.

Easter Vigil, it was our favorite service of the year. Our first year there, in cold New Haven, we stumbled upon a service, thought we’d go. Twenty, maybe thirty people gathered outside, 8:00 at night, in the rose garden which had no roses yet, a fire in a Weber grill, from which the Pascal candle was lit, and then we all had lit candles and a procession singing, “Jesus Christ is the light of the world!”

We came to the chapel, filed in and blew out our candles, for there on the altar were hundreds of tea lights, burning. In the chapel the choir sang between readings.

Creation

Flood

Parting of the Red Sea

Jonah

Fiery Furnace

A New Heart

Dry Bones

And as they were read a strange thing happened in me. One after another, the supernatural working of God in history strengthened my heart, my faith.

But the night wasn’t over.

We processed with lit candles again, through the Sunday school wing to the foyer of the church (Narthex) where the baptismal font was waiting. We sang “Wade in the Water, Children;” a negro spiritual for (mostly) Swedish Lutherans. An adopted boy was brought forward for baptism.

“God’s gonna trouble the water,” goes the song, and as Daniel was baptized we also all around him remembered and were thankful for our baptism. Daniel, adopted from a small country in Asia (I forget which) and brought into this community of faith, by adoption, by baptism (my apologies if this troubles you) to be loved by the community and brought up in the faith we share as the Body of Christ.

The service wasn’t over yet: Pastor stood by the doors to the sanctuary and called out “Christ is Risen!” and we all answered, “He is Risen, Indeed. Alleluia!”

The lights came on in the sanctuary and we all processed in, smelling the powerful smell of lillies, taking our places near the front of the sanctuary in highhearted joy. Then a whole service began, the first service of Easter. It should have been midnight; it wasn’t quite. It didn’t feel long, because we stood to sing Easter hymns, we heard the resurrection story, we listened to a short meditation on it, and we gathered around the altar, all of us together. During communion our music minister led us in an acapella round of Donna Nobis Pacem.

It was the best service of the year. After that, all creation came to life again.

Ann wrote about the best meal of the year, Passover.

It was here in Santa Barbara, studying Hebrew a bit the year we learned ancient history, that I found my heart opening to the celebration of Biblical Feasts. Now, this coming week, this year, I look for ways that our family can celebrate Passover, include others, and enjoy Holy Week with services at church.

The trees around here are mostly holly-oak, which means they don’t lose their leaves. Lemon trees bear fruit all year. But here and there is a deciduous tree, and I look to see if they are budding. Signs of spring, of God’s creation order for new life do abound when I look for them.

They are blooming in my heart as well when I seek his face, read his word, sing his praises.

All thanks and praise to God!

Joining the faith community:

Follow and Rest

Running so behind or constantly distracted
Jesus says follow me
Wondering what I need to do most today
Jesus says take my yoke upon you
Trying to teach my child things difficult to understand
Jesus says and learn from me
Shopping here and there for the best deals
Jesus says and I will give you
Off schedule again and eating emotionally
Jesus says rest.

Bonnie leads us on follow

Lisa Jo prompts rest

And I have three more minutes to write!

It’s been a spring break week here. That means, in our faculty community that all the profs are off but all the kids are still in school so families don’t vacation together. We have hunkered down this week too, although homeschooling allows us to set our breaks with daddy’s. We’ve been reading and watching movies connected to World War 2 because there was so much! I have to stop the curriculum sometimes and just have a reading break, which is delightful.

There were many deaths, both soldiers and persecuted peoples. There were many heroes also. We read of Corrie ten Boom, of Anne Frank, and some less famous people who were part of the resistance, of people on farms who took in children. You think, “I would be one of those,” but you don’t really know if you would. That’s what my librarian friend said to me, and I quickly, unthinkingly responded, “That’s why it’s important to practice doing right in the little things everyday.”

Grace.

Thanks and praise to God.