Basement of Horrors

It’s that time of year.  The basement is busting at the seams with toppling furniture, stuffed storage bins, and ephemera of every sort.  The snow has finally melted beyond the basement door and the almost-dry grass beckons for its yearly spread of broken toys, mismatched dishes, and too-small articles of clothing.  The time is ripe for spring cleaning, as am I.

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For months- and let’s be honest, years- I’ve groaned at the sight of this basement of horrors.  My husband ever more.  I hate the clutter, the mess, the overabundance of stuff, and yet it lingers- with a fine caking of dust.

I have excuses galore:

It runs in the family.

It’s called “being frugal.”

You just never know when you might need another whatsit or dinglehopper.

I’d like to think they’re pretty good excuses.  It does run in the family- but we like to call ourselves “pack-rats” rather than that other term that has television shows dedicated to such “disease.” And I freely admit that I’m cheap: never met a clearance section I didn’t like; love me some thrift stores.  Life with three kids on a teacher’s salary necessitates such frugality and there’s wisdom in thrift.  If it ain’t broken, ripped, stained, or otherwise obliterated, you can bet the next kid will be wearing it in a year.

So why do I feel so heavy laden?  Why does it feel such a burdensome load to hold onto?

It hit me this morning as I was reading in Judges, one of my favorite stories: the story of Gideon.  God comes to him, pronouncing him a “mighty warrior.”  Gideon, so quick to correct,  argues that his clan “is the weakest,” and “I am the least in my family” (Jud. 6:15).  I like this Gideon, he’s relatable.

Gideon again and again asks for a sign, then another, and still another- to make certain, of course, that God is truly with him.  Back and forth the two of them go, this timid, mighty warrior and the God of the universe.

And that’s when I heard myself in Gideon’s questioning.

Are you sure you said…?

Did you really mean…?

But what about…?

In a story about a battle between Gideon’s whittled-down army of 300 men and a legion of fierce fighters, I find my battle of the basement.

Are you sure You said You’d take care of us?

Did You really mean we’d lack nothing?

But I’m a pack-rat.  But I’m just being frugal.  But I’d like to be sure that next year we won’t be in dire financial straights, thank-you-very-much, and can I have a side of total control to go with that?

This sickness over the cellar isn’t about the mess.

It’s about the control issue.

If I can have more, make more, save more, then there’s little I need to depend on Him for.  Nevermind that He’s always given far beyond what we’ve ever needed.  Nevermind that He’s promised to provide as we honor Him with our tithes and gifts.  Nevermind that He commands me not to worry.

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This angst over my arsenal isn’t about me taking care of my family and the worry that ensues.

It’s about my lack of trust.

For every stained baby bib (because you never know), copy of Lord Jim Cliff Notes (what if I do decide to teach?), and yet another fondue pot that I keep (you can never have too many), I’m telling Him, “I don’t trust you.”

“I don’t trust that tomorrow You’ll provide if I find myself in need.”

“Trust Me.”

“I don’t believe You when You say,

‘So I tell you, don’t worry about the food or drink you need to live, or about the clothes you need for your body. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothes. Look at the birds in the air. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. And you know that you are worth much more than the birds. You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.

‘And why do you worry about clothes? Look at how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that even Solomon with his riches was not dressed as beautifully as one of these flowers. God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today but tomorrow is thrown into the fire. So you can be even more sure that God will clothe you. Don’t have so little faith! Don’t worry and say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ The people who don’t know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. Seek first God’s kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well. So don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have its own worries. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’  (Matthew 6:25-34)”

“Believe Me.”

“You may lead Gideon and his 300 men into victory against an enemy encamped “as thick as locusts” in the valley, but surely, You can’t take care of me.”

“Watch Me.”

We go back and forth, Him and I, me being Gideon, Him being His ever-patient, loving Self.  I sense His smile, the twinkle in His eye.  He’s just waiting to be taken at His Word.  And I’m like a child, dangling from a tree branch, unsure of whether or not her Daddy will catch her.

His arms are spread wide.

I close my eyes, grit my teeth, and jump.

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The Race Well Run

What is it about marathons? Over the years I’ve acquired quite a few friends who adhere to this particular form of torture. For some, I’d swear it was their job to run these races for as much as I see their posts and pictures of them. For others, it starts out as hobby and then morphs into a sort of drug; they dabble in their 5Ks and 10Ks until they work their way up to the hard stuff, the stuff of Iron Men and marathon runners, always looking for the next high, that sense of accomplishment, that race well run.

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I’m no runner, never will be. My lungs won’t hack it. There was a brief stint with long-distance track in high school (I did poorly and there was a lot of phlegm involved) but other than that, I’ve tried to stay as far away from the sport as possible.

I admit I don’t understand these people- runners, I mean. I will also admit that there has been some inward rolling of the eyes as I’ve been caught between conversations that delve into no greater depth than the topics of carbo-loading and chafing.

The tipping point, I think, was one particular conversation about the incontinence of the bowels whilst running. My reaction was along the lines of, “Hold on, wait, what? Did you just say they poop their pants?!!”

From then on I sat in smug judgment. If one is willing to debase oneself to such an extent for the sake of some addictive high, be my guest- but I reserve the right to think you drank the crazy-juice.

You runners- I confess, I’ve judged you. Maybe a part of me always will; it’s hard to get over the pooping thing.

But something changed this morning.

I was listening to more of the on-going coverage of the bombing in Boston. Being somewhat of a news junkie, I’ve listened to a lot of it. Much is the same- the horror, consternation, speculation, and the cold, hard reality of it all.

It was an interview with the photographer who had taken some of the most memorable shots of the day. He’d been there; he’d covered the Boston Marathon for years as a photographer for the Boston Globe. His voice was a little far away, days later still taking in the bloody mess and muddle of what he’d seen. He was commenting on the man we can get out of our minds- the wiry, distinguished-looking man who stumbled, fell, and then sat there in what? Was it shock; confusion; pain; was it terror, his race savagely interrupted so close to the finish? We all felt a little like him, which is why we embrace him. We too were stunned and paralyzed.

After the chaos of that first day, the photographer had gotten a chance to talk to this runner, a man by the name of Bill Iffrig. They were meeting up that afternoon- fellow eyewitnesses, fellow survivors. The reporter badgered the photographer for details, as reporters do, and this photographer, this man who sees life through a different lens, said this about Bill Iffrig,

“He crossed the finish line.”

It caught my breath- this metaphor, so often used for life, and death, so cruel, yet so fitting, ironically so.

Bill Iffrig, the fallen runner, did not cross his metaphorical finish line of course.

But Martin Richard did.

Krystle Campbell did.

Lingzi Lu did.

Sean Collier did.

And with those five words, I understood these runners.

I see Him, this life, my journey, through –among other things- words, imagery, and yes, metaphors. John Tlumacki, the photographer, he sees it all through the lens of a camera as he tries to capture it before it slips through his fingers into the forgotten, unaccounted-for pages of history. Bill Iffrig, he sees this life through the race, the pounding of feet, the burning of lungs, the cramping of muscle; he sees it in the endurance, the finish line.

Solomon saw it in words and metaphors, as I do:

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom…The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Ecclesiastes 9:10-11

And I’ve long thought Paul did too; he was after all the one that coined the metaphor.  But something tells me that it was more than just words for Paul. Since Paul’s conversion on a road to Damascus, he never really left the road. He was a traveling man- always passing from one town to the next, always running from imprisonment and torture, and toward the lost souls of this world and God’s beckoning call. If anyone’s life or living was a marathon, Paul’s was, and he sprinted to the finish with every last breath he had.

Words. Photographs. Marathons. They are small glimpses into the wonder and pain of this life and expose the inner longing for something more- that promise beyond.

Poets, having word-painted the perfect setting, or crafted a piece of dialogue or a soul-stirring ending as strong as a punch in the gut, feel instinctively this calling from outside themselves.

Photographs are visual proof of the best and worst this life has to offer. Their horror and beauty- transcendent.

The sight of small Kim Phac running naked with skin afire with napalm, is to hate war and the injustice of this life.

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The image of one unknown man standing up to a line of four iron tanks in Tiananmen Square, is to marvel at the tenacity and bravery of the human spirit.

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Images sent from the Hubble telescope nag us, reminding us that this world is but a speck. We are small, we see only what is in front of our eyes…but there’s more.

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And Bill Iffrig and his fellow marathon runners remind us that there is an end to the race, a finish line, and none of us escapes it.

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Describing the moment before Bill crossed, John Tlumacki said, “…he had his eyes set on the finish line…” Will we cross the finish victoriously with our eyes set ahead or will we be pushed across by time and chance, never realizing we were in a race to be won? Will we say like Paul did in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

I get these runners now. For them, to run is their metaphor for life. It is to say as Eric Liddell did in the film Chariots of Fire, “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

Runners hope to finish their race well. They hope for victory. The race is fraught with pains, aches, chafing, and yes, it may be messy, but the finish line waits, it calls, and we’ll end there no matter what…

So let’s run.

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And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me- the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.
-Paul (Acts 20:22-24)

Graham Crackers and God Wonder

The Strawberry Shortcake and I, we sit on the small side step- her with a plate of carefully divided graham crackers and a glass of milk, me with another form of food: the bread of words.  We enjoy each others company over our little meal.  She dips her crackers and gobbles them down, and I digest thoughts, metaphors.

The Christmas tree twinkles from the window as the low winter sun, pale and white, shines dully, but shines yet, on our upturned faces.  Strawberry drinks her milk and we both drink in the sunshine on this, the last warm day of the year.  67 degrees in December, in New York- a bit of magic for all of us northerly inhabitants.  One last kiss of warmth before we hunker down for the months of layered snowflakes measured in feet, pointy icicles, bone-chilling cold.  We take this warm day for what it is -a gift- and we soak up every last bit of it, a little like Strawberry’s milk-laden graham crackers.

She’s dunking and I’m previewing a bit of an as-yet-unreleased book by one of my favorite authors, Margaret Feinberg.  It comes out on Christmas, a detail I’m sure was not overlooked, and one that seems appropriate given that her books are like gift-wrapped presents, crisply folded, beautifully decorated, and  ready to be unpacked of their goods.  They should come supplied with ribbons and bows, I think.

Wonderstruck (Photo credit: jesstjohnson)

I was sent these few chapters of Wonderstruck weeks ago, yet took until now to pick them up.  Truth is, I’ve been avoiding them- I haven’t felt so “wonderstruck” lately.

Normally it doesn’t take much.  A warm, grassy breeze might send me into hallelujahs; the colors of fall- the rusty reds and burnt oranges, the deep purple of the mums that sit, fat and proud, outside my door- bring whispers of thanks.  The sunshine, a sunset drunk with pastels- both have caused me to lift my hands to the sky, to the Master Artist, in praise.  And that mysterious yellow field of flowers that’s set afire every spring on a hillside near our home never fails to cause me to gasp and wonder, certain it must be seen from space- a strange yellow dot on a green continent expanse.

And these are just His handiwork.  They speak nothing of the wonder-full ways in which He inserts Himself into my story through even the most mundane of circumstances that play out each day, or the way that His Word never fails to cut straight to the bone, slicing into the raw marrow of life, bringing not pain, but healing.  It’s all wonder.

But lately, I’ve felt underwhelmed, under-struck.  Not because He’s underwhelming, but because life has seemed overwhelming, heavy.  For weeks now I’ve steeped myself in a cup brimming with headlines and deadlines.  The newspaper’s always good for a good gut-twisting, and for as many things as I’ve “liked” on my Facebook page, most, I realize, are not the tickled little pictures of fuzzy kittens pages, but the heart-breaking headlines of a world so desperate for a Savior that they look to this, that, and the next crazy thing to fill the emptiness, embracing it heartily though it’s not only void of lasting goodness, but often logic as well.

Then there’s the busyness, the absence of quiet. For every one thing I check off a list, I add two in its place.  A deadline looms- a deadline that has the potential to change the entire course of my life. (No pressure there).  Christmas creeps up the calendar; the shopping list expands.

I’ve spent time with Him- I have- but it’s the rushed variety.  The kind that sits a bit, reads from a couple devotionals, scans a quick few chapters, and then scoots to the next thing on the list.  There’s no time for listening, being.  I’m busy, doing.

In all the doing I haven’t found the quiet place of thankfulness and silent awe -of wonder- in a little while now, and my soul feels its absence.  More troubling, I haven’t heard His still voice breaking through the words on the page and breathing life into my spirit, telling me which way to go; to take courage; or simply washing me in the reassuring love of a Father.  And so I’ve felt less than wonderstruck.  I’ve felt heavy and burdened; I’m one of those who’ve “misplaced the marvel of a life lived with God.”

So I sit, with my red and gold-headed girl, and unconsciously try to find where I lost it.  It’s only an introduction and two chapters- hardly a taste.  But as I read, wiping sandy crumbs from a Strawberry’s mouth and  laughing at the sun-kissed milk mustache that clings to the baby hairs of her lip, I find.

I find His beauty as I walk the emerald stretch of forest in the Scottish Highlands with Margaret and her cadre of fellow sojourners.  I find His omnipresence, His uncanny providence, in the seemingly little things that turn into divine appointments, like their starting of this Highland trip with a bit of Scripture in Genesis and meditating on it, through woods and over rocks, and then, on the last day, finding His “pixie dust:” these very words etched on the walls of an off-beaten French restaurant in Edinburgh, and then again, carved into the doors of an old library just outside (because He works that way- doubly, triply, astounding us).

I find Him as Margaret recounts the time He told her what would seem like a silly bit of nonsense, and had she not been quiet enough to listen and obey, she would have missed it.  And I laugh, because how often does He speak to me in such ways, in ways that destroy the wisdom of the wise and frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent, as He says in 1 Corinthians, or in ways that turn a Pharisaic heart like mine inside out, proving time and time again that “…the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” (1 Cor. 1:25)- the nonsense of virgins giving birth and Saviors strapping on human flesh, of two widow’s coins being greater than a treasure trove, or of fearful, fallible fisherman going out and changing the world.

I find Him, because He’s waiting to be found, if only I be still and wait.

If only I put aside the lists, and listen.

If only I open my ears, my eyes, my heart, and look- for wonder.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you…”

Jeremiah 29:11-14

What Remains

The stars of a thousand Christmas lights spill their warm glow over floor, the ceiling, me.  An opera, playing on the television, fills every speck of air with soprano and tenor, cello and flute.  The house is warm and quiet, the children tucked snug in their beds, visions of sugarplums, Lego sets, and baby dolls dancing in their heads.

And I weep.

I weep for the small beds not so far away that lie empty tonight.  I weep for those children, shattered parents, and lionhearted teachers.  I weep for the school, this community, our nation.  I weep for minds we don’t understand and actions we understand less.  I weep for injustice and depravity; for all that is wrong in this world and all its heartbreak, I weep.

For even our ability to numb ourselves, I weep, numb ourselves with things that are good, things that are not, and things indifferent, but numb all the same, until something unfathomable happens and we all sit up and take notice, shaken from our slumber, asking why?

Why, God?

The question is nearly as old as time.  This senselessness has always been.  I was reminded of this today as I was reading in Isaiah and happened to come across the prophet’s foretelling of Babylon’s destruction and the depths to which it would sink.  “Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants nor will they look with compassion on children,” it says in chapter 13.

And I weep.

This utter degradation, this violence that threatens to empty the stomach of its contents, this absolute evil- it’s nothing new.  As Solomon stated in Ecclesiastes, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”  You need only to read the pages of Scripture and remember: an Old Testament Pharaoh orders his soldiers and Israel’s midwives, to throw Israelite baby boys into the Nile; a New Testament Herod delivers an edict to kill every male child under the age of two.

Recent history is no different lest we forget the atrocities of Nazi Germany, Bosnia, Rwanda, and the genocide that we so easily avert our eyes to which goes on to this day in countries like Darfur, Congo, Uganda.

None of these matter to us in this moment, now that we are full of our own pain.

Today, America weeps.

In these last few days we see, with open eyes, the face of evil.  This face isn’t necessarily that of a twenty year old boy in black.  The details remain hazy, the motives, unclear.  It could well be the face of sickly mind in a creation that has been wasting away since a rebellious bite of apple in a paradisal garden. It could be a many-visaged monster of indifference, entertainment, and greed.  It could yet be the face of a callous heart, so hard it thought nothing of a nightmare in the corridors of an elementary school.  Whatever the face, we don’t deny that it’s evil.

It’s a face that the rest of the world has seen time and again.  It’s the face of sweaty hatred that looks with unseeing eyes for its next target, its next rape, torture, or murder victim in the barren wasteland of Africa.  It’s the countenance of stony-faced detachment squinting out from under the brim of a Swastika-emblazoned cap, as Jew after Jew lines up for their execution in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.  It’s the face of a hijacker aiming for a tower.

It’s a face we as Americans have often been insulated and protected from.  It’s a face we see daily in international headlines, but never truly see.  And when we do find it within our borders, we shake our heads for a moment, shed a tear or two, and turn back to our regularly scheduled programs.

Until this.  Until it’s too much to bear.

We let the courts and politicians handle it because that’s their job.  We let the doctors diagnose it because, surely, that’s illness.  And yet, whole countries, entire terrorist armies, don’t get prosecuted for their crimes-  just a handful.  No pill can fix hatred; no therapy is guaranteed.

We need something more.

And in the meantime, all we can do is weep and ask, “Why?”

Sometimes there are no answers save one:  we live in a fallen world.  This world is not as it was created and that is why.  It was never intended for such pain, such senselessness.  It was created perfect in every way, created in love- the very antithesis of this.

So I weep.

Until I remember…

Another face.  One that peers up from the stink of moldy hay.  A face like any other newborn that brings with it the hope of new life, the joy of new birth, and the quiet peace of innocence.  A face freshly wiped clean of fluid, His mother’s blood; a face kissed and wondered over like any infant face.  A small face that peers into the din of a cave.  So too does the wide blinking eyes of the cow standing near.  In the straw, a burrow slumbers deeply- the journey had been long.  A virgin, asleep, holds tight to a baby; an adoptive father snores from his seat.  Strange starlight from outside gently gleams into the dark as the Light of the World takes up residence in this little face. One face in a quiet Bethlehem night- and all the world is different.

Immanuel.  God with us.

That we live in a fallen world was not enough for a God whose name is Love.

Immanuel, God with us.

With us in our suffering, with us in our pain.  With us in confusion, with us in this shame.  He dwells here with us in our fear, in our failures, entered into our lives -our very tangible worlds- with all their unrest, their raging, their trials and tears.  Knowing the pull of temptation, the sting of betrayal, the loneliness of imprisonment, He entered.  How He entered!

And when all the world’s turned upside down and when words, laws, diagnoses, fail us, we sit under the shadow of two timber beams and try to make sense in the presence of another senseless crime- where the face of peace and joyful infancy became the face of Love on a cross.

On a hill, battered and torn, he entered into it all.  This same face, dripping of blood, and sweat, and his mocker’s spit, looked out over all and willingly entered in.  With swollen eyes and ever more swollen heart, He watched faces fueled with hatred as they whipped His skin to rags and rent nails into His hands and feet.  And this unlikely King, peering out now, not from the pungent straw but from beneath a crown of thorns, saw these and all those after and said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

He entered, not as accuser, but as Savior.  He entered despair so there might be hope.  He entered hell so there might be peace.  He entered death so there might be life.

He entered hate so that Love might conquer all.

So that when the world and everything in it has passed away, Love remains.  So that despite the mess we make of this world, hope remains.

So that when chaos rages in a quiet little school and the pain remains for a lifetime after, peace, also, can remain.  The peace in knowing that twenty beautiful, smiling little faces play ring-around-the-rosy tonight, with the God of the universe Himself.

And though we want them here, there they will remain, but there- without pain, without sorrow, and with Love Himself.  Lives cut short in the whisper that is this life here on earth, but that live ever on, in a world more real that the one we see with these, our unseeing eyes, looking for answers with tear-stained faces.

I weep still.

Adeste fidelis. That is the only answer I know for people who want to find out whether or not this is true.  Come all ye faithful, and all ye who would like to be faithful if only you could, all ye who walk in darkness and hunger for light.  Have faith enough, hope enough, despair enough, foolishness enough at least to draw near to see for yourselves…

Adeste fidelis.  Come and behold him, born the king of angels.  Speak to him or be silent before him.  In whatever way seems right to you and at whatever time, come to him with your empty hands.  The great promise is that to come to him who was born at Bethlehem is to find coming to birth within ourselves something stronger and braver, gladder and kinder and holier, than ever we knew before or than ever we could have known without him.

Dear God, in the darkness of the virgin’s womb the holy child grows.  In the darkness of the world’s pain, the blessed light begins to kindle.  In the darkness of our own doubting of thee and of ourselves, the great hope begins to rise again like a lump in the throat: the hope that thou wilt come to us truly, that the child will be born again in our midst, the Prince of Peace in a world at war, the hope that thou wilt ransom us and our world from the darkness that seeks to destroy us.

O Lord, the gift of new life, new light, can be a gift truly only if we open ourselves to receive it.  So this is our prayer, Lord:  that thou wilt open our ears to hear the angels’ hymn in the stirring within us of joy at the coming of the child, open our hearts to the transforming power of thy love as it comes to us through the love of all those who hold us most dear and have sacrificed most for us.

Be born among us that we may ourselves be born.  Be born in us that by words and deeds of love we may bear the tidings of thy birth to a world that dies for lack of love.  We ask for it in the child’s name.  Amen.

-Frederick Buechner

A Late Thanksgiving

We give thanks.

For lazy weekends, warm homes, board games, friends, unicorns, and You, O Lord.

Everything we have comes from you

And You know how to give good gifts.

We do not, will not, forget.

We’ll only thank the Giver of all

For His generous hand…

His generous heart…

And His generous love.

I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.

Psalm 9:1

“I Need Hold You Hand.”

It’s funny how life, perspective, everything, can change in an instant.  Never more so than in those “life flashes before you” moments.  I wouldn’t have known.   I’d never really had any of those moments…until yesterday.

Those moments hide in days like any other- days that start out innocuous and humdrum;  days in which you ruminate on Scriptures like Psalm 90:12, “Teach us how short our lives really are so that we may be wise,” because you’ve found it in several different readings that day and you think, Yeah God, that sounds good.  Teach me-  not knowing what you’re asking for;  days like yesterday.

A simple trip to the park, that’s all it was.   A warm afternoon, a best bud, and 8 kids between us.  We’re like a well-oiled machine.  Over the past 5 years our kids have basically grown up together, as have we.  We can let ourselves into each others houses, and not clean beforehand.  That’s saying something.  Playdates consist of our kids tearing off their shoes at the door and disappearing until their tummies start rumbling, while we plop ourselves down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a couple doughnuts that hide under paper napkins any time a wayward child dashes by.  And each spring we make an inaugural trip to the park with kids a little bit taller and a little bit older and we marvel at the fact that just moments ago, it seems, we were pushing babies in swings and catching toddlers at the end of slides, as now we watch those same children whiz around the playground playing tag for hours while introducing new babies and freshly-sprouted toddlers to the swings and slides.

The boys are older and the Strawberry Shortcake- now a full-blown toddler at nearly 3 years old- has a mind of her own.  And I was on auto-pilot.  When nature finally called and we needed to head home to indoor plumbing,  the 5 older ones ran to the vans parked in angles on the road in front of the park and the Shortcake followed.  The moms brought up the rear with a baby and a straggler.  The older ones stopped at the open van doors because that’s what older ones do…but she didn’t.  I assumed she would.  She does whatever they’re doing- a little pint-sized wannabe.  But she didn’t.

When they say that these moments go by in slow motion, they’re right.  I saw her keep going.  From too many yards away.  And a box truck.  That wasn’t slowing down.  And a blind spot to the left where more cars could speed through.  And I screamed.  Over and over and over again, “NO!”  And I ran.  And the truck kept going.  And she kept walking.  Truck.  Her.  Truck.  Her.  Any moment I expected her to go flying.  I could see it in my mind as I ran, and screamed.  Seconds that felt like a lifetime.

I bolted between the 2 parked vans.  I didn’t stop.  I didn’t look both ways.  I just ran.  I ran until I reached her.  And I pulled her to safety.  Pulled her away from the box truck that had thankfully and finally slowed.  Away from the cars in the other direction.  I pulled her to the side of the van and swatted her bottom and spoke to her more sternly than I ever had in the past.  She cried and I, shaking, held it together.  She had to know.  She had to know how bad and dangerous that was…but she couldn’t know- couldn’t know that she was this close.  But I did.

We two moms plunked the kids in their seats and strapped everyone in.  Then we turned around, hugged, and shook, and fought back tears.  My stomach hurt and my throat throbbed from screaming.  But she was safe.

I turned to go.  And as I opened the van door I heard Him so clearly…

That’s how I feel about my kids.

I gasped.  I wasn’t expecting, wasn’t listening for Him, but I felt it clear as day in my spirit.  He continued…

That’s how I feel when my kids are running out into the road marked with danger.  That’s how I feel when they run toward the things that will hurt them, maim them, even kill them.  But I’m not talking about just physical death.   I’m talking about the kind that separates them from me…forever.  I run and I scream and my stomach hurts and my heart aches like it’s being ripped in two and sometimes I get there in time…and sometimes I can’t.  Because that’s what free will is.  And I feel that, like you just did, every moment of every day because I’ve got billions of kids.  And at any moment billions of them are running toward the road.  And billions of box trucks are speeding their way.  And I can see them coming, from a million miles away.  And all I want to do is grab my kids and hold them and kiss them in the safety of my arms.  But sometimes they keep going…

And I could see Him, my heavenly Father, weeping over His beloved kids.  And my heart broke.  How could anyone live that way?  With that much pain and anguish?  Only love could.

I gave the Shortcake a long lecture in spurts over the course of the next hour.  Later, when I asked her what she had done wrong she said,

“I need hold you hand.”

I started to correct her but stopped.  The road really isn’t the problem.  There are always going to be roads in our lives, and not all of them are going to be safe.  We can’t necessarily get rid of the roads… but we can hold our parent’s hand.

That hand keeps us out of trouble.  Oh, we may try to break away sometimes, try to step our toes off the curb and into the busy street, but that hand pulls us back.  There’s safety in holding His hand.  That doesn’t mean the road doesn’t have potholes, sharp inclines, or steep cliffs- most roads do.  But we’ve got a Daddy willing to walk the road with us and hold tightly to our hand, and not let go…

Psalm 73:23-26

²³ Yet I am always with you;
 you hold me by my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

Psalm 139:1-10

¹ You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

 ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.

This Lion King

We took a trip to the zoo yesterday.  I have to admit, I love the zoo.  Probably more than my kids.  I love watching the monkeys interact like schoolchildren on the playground.  I love seeing the penguins waddle so bumbling and slow on land and then dash into the water and swim like lightning.  I love talking to the bears as they come as close as they can, and I pretend they’re really listening and that they understand me in some way, when I know they’re really just smelling the stash of Oreos that I just pulled from my pocket.  But what I truly love, more than anything else, are the lions.

We tend to visit the animals in the same order.  We shuffle through the caves that house fish and turtles, alligators and poison frogs.  We jump over puddles and hold our nose through the steamy aviary.  Then it’s on to marvel over those creepy sloths and the fruit bats that fascinate, and then laugh at the otter clowns.  We turn the corner and my heart starts beating a little faster.  Down a small hallway, the doors to the lion exhibit stand and beyond them, the lions.  I start envisioning what I would do if a lion got loose.  I make sure I’ve got eyes on all the kids and that they’re safe at my side.  And then, before I step through the doors I give in to my slight obsessive compulsive nature and make sure to peek through the window- just in case.  And there they are.  Behind 2 inches of glass they stand or sit or lie.  Three of them.  Sometimes sleeping and sometimes staring in fixed gaze at some bird in the next exhibit that they’d love to get their paws on.  Beautiful and majestic.  With fuzzy chins, paws the size of dinner plates, and enormous yellow eyes that when they finally look at you seem to pierce you to the heart.

Once, I heard them roar.  It was one of the most exhilarating and terrifying moments of my life.  I had just entered the zoo’s doors when a sound unlike any I’d ever heard began bellowing, rattling windows and knees.  My first instinct was to run.  But as soon as I realized what it was and that it was unlikely that I’d be eaten any time soon, I ran to the lion enclosure.  By then they had stopped but I’ll never forget that sound.  Deafening is the word that comes to mind. When they say you can hear a lion roar from 5 miles away, they aren’t kidding.

But for some reason, my kids aren’t as impressed as I am.  In the same small area of zoo just past the windows that keep 500 lb. lions contained and away from my tasty flesh, lies a small area of fake rocks with buttons that turn on little light-bulbs in man-made clefts.  If you look inside you can see pictures of all sorts of animals that also call the African plains their home.  So naturally, as soon as the doors open, all 3 children glance and the lions and make a beeline for the buttons.  Try as I might, no amount of exclaiming, persuading, “ooh”-ing” and “aah”-ing can tear them from the little holes in the rock.  Did I mention there are no real animals to be seen?

As I was recounting this to Honeybun tonight I heard Him.

“Your kids,” He said, “They’re you.”

And I knew just what He meant.  How many times have I substituted the imposters for the real thing?  How often do I run past the awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping real-ness of Him and the abundant life that He offers and instead, run to some man-made version of “happiness,” “success,” or “truth” to find what my soul craves?   Why do I ever think the next house, the next job, the next season of life will fully satisfy when the author of true satisfaction stays unnoticed or sadly, ignored behind me?  Do I too, press my little nose up to the things I want to see- all very nice and entertaining things, but things that pale in comparison when set beside the lion-like awesomeness of Him?

How silly it seems when I step back and consider.  Because side-by-side there is no comparison.  One far outweighs the other.  Only I’m too distracted, too tempted, too weak, and too stubborn to tear my eyes away.

But then in His graciousness and love, He roars.

And for a moment, I take my eyes off those pretenders and fix my eyes on what is unseen in the natural but plain as day to my spirit:

It’s all about Him, this lion King.

And every time I forget that and every time I run right past Him to something more shiny and new, He’ll roar His loving roar, and beckon me home.

“You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you,” said the Lion.
―C. S. Lewis – The Silver Chair

“It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?”
“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.
“Are -are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.
“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”
― C.S. Lewis – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader