Tasting Jesus

“For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink” 

 John 6:55

On hearing these words from Jesus, the disciples said “this is a hard teaching who can accept it?”

On hearing these words, I say too, this is a hard teaching…to keep eating Jesus, to be satisfied only by Him.

I was at a wedding shower a few weeks ago and a question was asked “what did you find out about your husband that you didn’t know before you married him?” A cute question for a wedding shower but in real life, the answer could be hard. 

I was married for 36 years to a man who was hard minded and strong willed, I didn’t really know then that these were going to be such a large part of who my man was.  He needed black and white answers with not much room for grey details. Life for John was based on hard work even his love language was work.  I learned that if I left a shovel or a rake out by the back door, maybe a half filled pail of some weed killer or a pair of muddy boots flopped to one side, placed there just so at the time of his home coming, he would enter in a happy man.  His love language was work and work, spoken in the language of work.

Once I found out about God and who Jesus was, life became a lot simpler for me, not easier because life was hard.  Marriage was hard work but here I had found a way to make sense of life, this hard knocks, hard work life I was in.  I found that if I kept Jesus within my grasp, in the corners of my heart mind and soul I could taste how a hard life could be made better.  Tasting Jesus, something I kept going back for…one more morsel, a satisfying meal, a delectable desert, always food for thought. Food for my heart and soul that kept me satisfied.

Now that I am alone, I am finding out something I didn’t know.  I didn’t know being alone would be such hard work.  Some days are filled with grace and joy and laughter, rainbows and sunny skies, starry nights and full moons.  Some days are good.

 

Some days are hard.  What I didn’t know is that it would be so hard.   I didn’t know that some days and nights would be long and hard and grey.  I didn’t know that some decisions would be rock hard, black and white work with little room for grey details.

I am finding that I need the satisfying taste of Jesus all the more.  So I am eating His words, taking in His ways and holding on hard to His grace, the grace He serves up to me day after day, each quiet minute, every passing hour, all these long alone days.

I need this hard teaching, tasting what is good, tasting Jesus...food for my heart and soul, keeping me satisfied.

I love that.

Do You Know Who You Are?

I have been reading a book called Snow Falling on Cedars, it tells the story of a Japanese girl in a small town in the middle of a white man’s world, during 1941 after the bombing of Pearl Harbour.  She is struggling to make sense of who she is in these troubling days, who she is in her relationships, who she is in this place she calls home.

Her mother says to her “…these are difficult times, nobody knows who they are now.  Everything is cloudy and unclear.”

Do you know who you are, does anybody know, can we?  Is anytime or anything clear, clear enough to see who we are?  Some of what makes us who we are is set by the standards of the world around us, the place where we live, some of it is set in place by our families, who we came from.  But a lot of who we are is determined by our choices.

Martha chose to be busy, to set preparations and tables, she chose to serve.  Mary chose to sit and to listen, to take it all in, she chose to be still.  Now I think it is not so much what Martha chose to do so much as what she chose to say, she chose to complain, to say in words out loud what she was doing and then to say just as loud what Mary was not.   In this moment, Jesus said Mary has chosen what is better.

I want to choose what is better.  Not so much that I want to sit and be still, because I know I can do that and I do, but I want to serve too, to serve those whom I love, those in need around me.  More than that, what I want is to choose better in the moment, in that exact moment I want to choose what is better.  But like the mother in the story I am reading, I am aware that right now for me, these are difficult times, I am trying hard to know who I am, and I am trying to get out of the clouds to be clear. I want to do what is better.

I went to a conference this weekend with some friends, the speaker; Kelly Minter spoke to us about knowing who we are.  We are chosen, we are set apart, holy and we are dearly loved.  She said a problem begins when we do not understand who we are, chosen, holy and dearly loved. When we can understand this about ourselves, when we can understand the way God sees us, then our choices become better, choices like compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, love, knowing peace and knowing truth…being clear…knowing who I am, knowing who I already am…

Chosen, holy and dearly loved  

Collossions 3:12

I love that.

Being Clear

“A woman’s heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her”

Max Lucado

I want to share some of the things I have learned from my Bible Study this past week, I’m doing two, and I have been learning amazing things.  Words and ideas given to me by Kelly Minter and Andy Stanley, deep thoughts and blunt plans, desires of the heart and soul, words from God, felt deeply by me, rolling around in my mind, loud like thunder, quickened by sharp bolts of lightening.  Other words spoken to my soul, placed softly, laying there sweetly, waiting for me to lay my heart down amongst them, knowing I will. I will.

I’ve learned that God is putting His arm around me saying “I’ve got you.”  I need to know that.

I’ve learned that If God is asking me to lay something down for the greater good, He is able to repay me lavishly, my rights, to that something, will never outrun His blessings, even if those blessings aren’t revealed until heaven ...even if.

I’ve learned that I need to have a vision, stated clearly, for myself, that when I clarify who God created me to be and what he wants me to do I can more easily determine what opportunities fit into that vision and which ones don’t.  Being clear with my vision, for me.

I’ve learned that I need to be on my guard, that where I may have viewed an invitation as an olive branch, a chance to reconcile or to hug, the intentions meant, may be for my down fall.  I learned that when Nehemiah was confronted with this type of intention he saw it as a distraction, he quickly realized an imposter.  Something clearly tipped him off…he would not let the distraction stop him from the vision he had set for himself and he was clear “But, I prayed, 'Now strengthen my hands'”

And I pray “God, please, be clear, strengthen my hands, my heart, my mind, my coming and my going”

Being clear, I want that...I need that. 

I’ve learned that I need reminders, to read and to re-read, to look again and to say it again, and again. Heavenly Father, I cannot, but You can…Your grace is sufficient for me, sustaining grace, in-spite-of grace.  Yes, in-spite-of grace given to me, again and again.  God saying “I’ve got you.”

I‘ve learned that by beginning my day with declaring my need and putting my reliance on God is one of the best habits I can ever take up…out of bed on my knees praying.

“It is a declaration that you need rivers of living water to bubble up and flow through your heart, mind, and emotions.  It is an acknowledgement that you believe God is able and willing to sustain you in-spite-of what’s happened in the past and what’s happening around you now…relying on God’s sustaining grace.”

Yes, sustaining grace, amazing grace, God clearly saying “I’ve got you!”   

Being clear…I love that

All My Dreams Are Always Beautiful

I love beautiful presents, I have been known to buy them for myself, my husband was not too talented in this area, so from time to time, I’d buy my own, nothing extravagant, usually something small, something heartfelt, and always something beautiful.

 

Don’t we all crave that, something beautiful, even if it is just in our dreams?

There is one gift in particular that I remember, probably because for a time it was lost.  I mourned the loss of it and whenever I was near a place where I might find one like it, I searched it out, but never finding it.  Until the other day, I read on-line some words that stood out to me calling me to that place in my dreams where the idea of that long lost gift nestled.  Words by Isak Dinesen, words that I haven’t forgotten…”All my dreams are always beautiful.”

Now this long lost gift was near at hand, available on order; linked, searched, found, ordered, confirmed and in my hands, waiting to be opened…would it be as beautiful as I remembered.

It was nothing valuable, a magazine, simple, but beautiful, yes…every page awash with muted photos pure and soft whispering the story that beauty tells.  Lace and ribbons,  roses and pearls: “pearls are like poets’ tales, pearls of the heart, the secrets of depth”  words by Isak Dinesen, beautiful words as soft as the lace flowing from the pages  “I had a farm in Africa” she wrote “and a home of a hundred summers, sweetness and winters comfort.” There are soft words of other authors and poets and photos of muted white lilies, roses, petals falling and white skirts flowing, veiled women, all in white, reflecting winter, all beautiful.

It was a pleasure to have found this gift, returned to me, churning memories and dreams from a time past, the winter of January, 1992.

I received another gift in the mail, the very next day. It came in a package all brown paper and light. I knew it was coming but I did not know what it would contain.  A package from my eighty six year old Aunt, my Dads twin, her story is enfolded in mine.  It was an amazing gift, almost sacred, an honor to receive, given from the heart and soul, of that I am sure.  I could feel her heart beating as she wrapped it up, folding it gently in the tissue, certainly remembering the dreams that were part of it, sewn into it and kept there for a day such as this.  I could imagine her placing it reverently back into the box marked  Dress  1975.  A piece of her heart folded in with the lace and satin, netting and pearls…the loveliest gift. It was encased in brown paper stamped addressed and mailed to me, to me, it was as if she was sending me her dreams, dreams of something beautiful, her wedding dress, her wedding day…sent to me.

All her dreams, I remember they were always beautiful.

“The bride floating all white beside her father in the morning shadow of the trees,

her veil floating with laughter.”

D.H. Lawrence