Divine Intervention

I ran into an old friend the other day, I haven't really talked with her since our children were very young.  She was telling me about her life, it hasn't been easy, two of her sons have autism. Believe me she has struggled.  These sons are young men now and life is still hard for them, for my friend and her husband as well.  In some ways harder, but, she said to me "Judy, it hasn't been all bad, not all of it has been hard, there has been beauty from these ashes."

I loved hearing that, hearing that she has the hope of faith, this gift to receive the beauty even in struggles.

Another friend of mine has been legally blind for pretty much half her life, she said she wouldn't trade anything about how her life has turned out. There have been so many blessings.

And a young friend of mine who has a brain tumor, over the last 5 years has had several surgeries and set backs but right now is doing okay, her tumor has stopped growing and part of it is shrinking. She still has hard days, but she told her mother that 'this tumor' has been her greatest gift.

I have seen beauty in the ashes that have interrupted my life, but I would trade them.  In a minute I would trade them.  If God had given me a choice I would have asked for a different way... I did ask for a different way.

If He came right now and asked me if I would trade, I would say yes, in a heart beat...if we could still have the grace.

Apart from the grace, I cannot say that my loss and my suffering from it, has been a gift, not at all, at least not for me.  This isn't my gift to wish differently.  John might see it as a gift, this grace of salvation and the afterlife he is part of.  He might very well say "this is the greatest gift!"  "I wouldn't trade this for anything!"  I would love hearing that, I do feel it, I am sure of it! But, I can't say losing John has been a gift, not for my children or their children and not for me.

My life and my best laid plans have been interrupted...

Well, truly, I don't see it quite that way.  I tend to believe as CS Lewis did, he said...

"The great thing is, if one can, is

to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions in one's life. 

The truth is of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one's life."

So, this is precisely my life.

I am reading a book right now called 'Life Interrupted' by Priscilla Shirer, she says not to see interruptions as problems to your plans, but to see them as 'divine interventions'. She says, "In one way or another, your story has developed an unexpected plot twist or two. Or ten. Your plans have been interrupted and things haven't been the same since.  You've been changed forever by this 'divine intervention'. Complete satisfaction and success in life cannot be reached apart from your deliberate decision to engage in the divine intervention and to surrender to His sovereign plans for you, whatever He chooses those plans to be."

Yes, this is precisely my life, it has not been interrupted it has been changed by divine intervention and that is a gift, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Divine intervention...I love that.

Learning How

This past week I was visiting my little family in Ontario, a special little holiday where I enjoyed mostly blue skies and warm weather.  Such a treat...and my little family?  Ahh, so sweet and beautiful and charming and funny.

While I was with them I helped teach two of my grandchildren to ride their bikes without training wheels, and one of them switched to one training wheel. My little three; Riley, Gracie, and Kenzie, going down the road, well not really going anywhere...yet.

Oh my! 

They were absolutely ridiculously funny, wobbly, all arms and legs, eyes wide open squealing and of course scraped knees, tears.  My daughter, my son-in-law and myself, we three, were filled with anxious anticipation as we held up, picked up, ran alongside and called out; slow down, watch the road, turn, turn, stop at the stop sign, STOP!  Put your foot down, watch where you’re going...and then “Ohhh Nooo!”  

We cheered and clapped and watched pride smiling and we wiped faces tear stained.  I wondered what the neighbours thought as they watched my little three zig zag the street with their accomplishment and pride as they learned how to ride their bikes.  My pride, these three, who are fast entering a new chapter to their young life and many new kinds of learning how.

I am learning something new too, every day a little something comes my way.  Some of them are old things, things I already knew but now I have to learn in a new way.  Some of them are new things, things I have to learn new, fresh, on my own.  Some things I thought I knew, but I found out that I never did know them at all.  

I am learning to think differently, to be more sensitive, I am learning that I’m not the only one learning. 

Now that’s a revelation...I am not the only one learning.

 

To learn is to do, to endure, to complete, to cope with, to accomplish and to manage all things.  To learn is to gain knowledge, to acquire experience, to become aware...we are all learning together, zig zagging down the same streets showing off our accomplishments, cheering one another on and hopefully, we are picking each other up and wiping one anothers tear stained faces...

Down the road we go, learning how.

"My dear, dear friends!  I love you so much.  I do want the very best for you.  You make me feel such joy, fill me with such pride.  Don't waver.  Stay on track, steady in God."  

Phillipians 4:1   the Msg

The Long Haul

One of the things I have been thinking about these last few days has been God’s friend, Job.  God talks highly of him.  “Have you noticed my friend Job?”  

He’s talking to Satan...I really don’t want God talking to Satan about me.  “Have you noticed my friend Judy?”   Maybe He already has talked to Satan about me...would He speak highly of me?  

Job was a friend for the long haul... t h e  l o n g  h a u l...I love that.  He was not about to give any credit to Satan for his suffering, he endured, he waited for God.

James says,  “You have heard of Job’s endurance...”  Not that I have nearly begun to suffer the way Job did, but would someone say that of me,  “you have heard of Judy’s endurance...”

Endurance means perseverance, not giving up, having patience, waiting it out, in it for the long haul.  Job had it, God could count on him, and God trusted him.  It’s one thing to have patience in the suffering but to be trusted through it, I love that.

I hope my friends can trust me.  I’ve had a few friends that have fallen off along the way, our friendship did not endure.  I think they were never meant to be there for the long haul.  They were friends for the season, that’s okay; I have loved these friends in their season.

But God, He trusted Job to endure, to not give up on Him, no matter what and well, you have heard of Jobs endurance.  On Tuesday we talked a bit about Job, how after all of his suffering, he still chose to believe that God was in charge of all things.  And Job suffered.  After suffering so much, would you be able to claim these same words of God...

“I’m convinced; You can do anything and everything.  Nothing and no one can upset your plans.”

Or is it more likely to be words like... “My complaint is legitimate.  God has no right to treat me like this, it isn’t fair!”

These were Job’s words too.  Later came God’s answer,

“Do you presume to tell me what I am doing wrong?  Are you calling me a sinner so you can be a saint...I’ll gladly step aside and hand things over to you, You can surely save yourself with no help from me!” 

  

Wow, that’s pretty clear, take care of it myself?  I suppose I try to do that often enough. I have tried to stop the suffering myself, that has never worked out for me, it has always been better to have patience, to wait, to trust.  That is hard.  Lament.

Job suffered much and then he suffered more. Job didn’t just accept it, he didn’t just lie down and take it, he fought it, he questioned, and he called out for help.  He says “I expected good but evil showed up, I looked for light but darkness fell.”  His wife told him to give up and curse God!   Job called out for his rights, his friends condemned him. He called out for his defence, but that just made him sound worse,  “even though innocent, anything I say incriminates me, blameless as I am, my defence just makes me sound worse.”

I have certainly been in that position, where I felt the need to clear my name, from whatever I thought I was being accused of, even though innocent I made myself look worse.  When will I learn that I do not need to defend myself...God already knows me.

I have lamented and I have questioned, but this I know, the bible is full of laments.  Sometimes He loves those better than a hallelujah, I have learned it, experienced it, felt it...God loves to hear my cries too.

I have lamented, I have called out for my defence, I have endured and I have persevered, I have waited, I have known suffering and loss... yet I know that God lives. 

 

I may keep on lamenting, stating my case to God, but I will not deny trust in Him.  There is absolutely nothing Satan can do to cause me to stop trusting God.  Nothing.  No one. I am convinced, God can do anything, I believe it and He can trust me in  t h e  l o n g  h a u l.

That’s how I see it...and I love that.    

Overflowing Love

I was out walking yesterday, with my dog Finegan, we went to the cemetery.  The word cemetery had been mentioned twice at church on two separate days and I thought ‘I need to go there.' I've been meaning to go there.  So Finegan and I went for a walk in the cemetery, we walked and looked and talked and thought much. As we went, we gently stepped among the corner stones that have been placed there.  The stones of faith honoured, of families separated, of lives lived, the markers of people who loved and were loved. We were enveloped in the day, it was warm and beautiful. The love of the saints that were laid to rest there wrapped around us, and covered over them, were the grounds that had recently been trimmed and pruned and kept.  I love that.

I love knowing that my saint, the space marked for him, is cared for, honored.

Today it snowed and I imagined those sacred spaces of mine and others, covered in snow, covered with a blanket from God’s own heart, one of purest white, made together from the softest form of flakes and lace, so natural and pure and intricate and fragile...God’s own heart covering all sins, saints  forgiven, white as snow...loved by God.

I heard someone say, what if God has so much love, that it overflows on to us and all we have to do is receive it.  Blessings given, received and in turn, given away.  He went on to say that if we have been given a blessing that we should in turn overflow it on to someone else, whatever that blessing may be, singing, teaching, playing an instrument, writing, baking or even making a quilt.  That’s what he said  “...even making a quilt”

I have been blessed by an overflow of this kind of love.

This is the quilt that Dana made...as a gift, for me.  Her friend Anna encouraged her to make it, giving her the thought pattern to build it, with squares and pieces cut from love, cut with love and stitched together with the overflow.

The fabric that makes up this gift of love is pieces of John.  Pieces that are cut from clothing that belonged to her Dad.  Shirts, jeans, jackets, patches of squares cut from them, pieced and fitted and stitched together forming this gift, this blessing of love from her heart.

Isn’t it beautiful!  I wish you could touch it.

When John was a little boy he called his blanket ‘my geeka’ and when he was needing his favourite thing, he wanted his geeka, even after we were married.  If he was sick and cold and wanting to be covered, he wanted his favorite thing.  Now it is mine, my favorite thing, peices of him, my geeka.

It is a reminder of the love that once held me on cold winter nites, the love that kept me warm every nite, the love that laughed at my foolishness, the love that worked alongside me on those hard, hard working days, the love that paid for everything beautiful, the love that supported our family day after day after day, the love of the hands held out to hold... I love that.  I miss that.

Love and hurt and pain, you cannot hold them in, they need to come out, they overflow and they need a place to go.  If we are blessed with His overflow, hurt and pain goes to healing, mine is in words, Dana’s comes in the form of this quilt.  Love is the blessing from it all.

I am reminded of the little song I sang as a girl, with actions, hands cupped together, then rolling over each other, over and over... overflowing. 

‘My cup is full and running over,

the Lord blessed me,

I am happy as can be,

my cup is full and running over.’

I am not quite yet ‘as happy as can be’ but I am getting there, His love is covering me.