Weeding

In the South, and I can only speak to the South because I'm a Southerner, there are so many things we love to have in our yards, but at the top of the list:

Hydrangeas
Azaleas
Jasmine
Gardenias
Magnolia trees
Cherry blossoms...

There are loads more, but these are what I'm thinking about today.

So, there is a little patch beside our back patio, which is made of 100 year old bricks from one of our chimneys (that sounded so fancy!) that Don designed and its gorgeous. Anyway, in this patch are gardenia bushes. Two varieties. They're beauties.

But I've let the weeds grow up and of course, this is the time to weed, so I shocked Don and told him I wanted to do it today. I got my little garden gloves he bought for me and went out there and started pulling.

And pulling.

And pulling.

These weeds-- you know these weeds-- are kind of sticky and incredibly stringy. They're weak as anything, but they get crazy long.

And I realized today that they're killing these bushes.

These regal, gorgeous bushes. Strong branches, survived several winters, are never hardly fertilized, and these puny little ugly weeds have been choking them to death.

As I started pulling, I realized that they were wrapping around the bases of the bushes and those lower branches were looking poor.

No one planted these weeds. They blew in, opportunists, looking for any place they could settle in and leach nutrients and shade from something stronger. They'll never produce any fruit that is beneficial and they'll continue to grow until they've completely taken the life from the gardenias.

Unless they're stopped

Jesus, talking about the Pharisees, said, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots...." (Matt 15)

Something Don and I have been praying for the last couple of years is that every thing that has not been planted by the Lord would be uprooted.

Back to the weeds-- it's not going to be enough, my way of pulling these weeds up. I'm not digging deep enough. There are root systems under the dirt that have been established bc of my neglect. For now, I have given the branches freedom to soak up nourishment and sunlight, but the work in that area must go deeper.

I wonder.

I don't want to waste this season. There is nothing, not one thing, that God cannot redeem and pull around to see victory. Not death, not loss, nothing.

I know what I speak of.

So, pray with me that this will be a season of uprooting the weeds that have taken root in the church. The vines of error and carnality that have begun to grow up with the gardenias and choke the life out of them.

Enough Sunlight

So many things change all the time. So much change happening around me.

Apparently, my personality type craves change, and I guess that's true in some ways-- I'm in a calling where my clientele change every nine months and I have some freedom about the way I do things and the materials I work with-- but there are some things I like to stay the same.

One of those things, for me, is my classroom.

I love my classroom.

I love the way the sun pours through the windows in the mornings-- I know it's done battle for me on days when sadness would want to wrestle me to the ground.

I love the sound of the band practicing outside my window in the fall-- I love to watch the kids playing in the yard before they get on the buses. It reminds me. It reminds me that these big boys and girls who swagger down the hallway and puff their chests out when being told to be quiet are really children still, and that expression leaks out of them still at the end of a day where they have been confined to cold, hard spaces. It reminds me that they are not widgets. I love to hear them scream with laughter.

I love the old brown chalkboard that Don and I found behind the ratty old whiteboard that had been drilled over it for who knows how many years? It's perfectly chocolate brown with no blemishes...except this one area where now-graduated students have left their marks-- my name in Mandarin or in fancy script, or a "your favorite student" note, or a joke. I have a graduation gown hung over that area in my room-- to protect the message, but also to serve as a reminder to students that this gown is what they're working for. That day that they walk across the stage-- that's the first of many finish lines.

I love the old school (literally) wooden closet at the front of the room. It's crammed full of things I might need one day: a small fan, a box of construction paper, a couple of my old winter coats, an old Agnes Scott sweatshirt, an umbrella, and boxes of just...things. Taped inside my door is a poster that I made a bunch of my students sign, many years ago that says, "When I die, I want the people I did group projects with to lower me into my grave so they can let me down one last time."

I love the solid wood cabinets and shelves, pulled from the pile of old cabinets and shelves at a school being remodeled in Decatur by my old department head, Dr. Jackson. I love that they were rescued by her and how heavy they are and how real they are. They have gone with me to three classrooms at HHS. Solid old school (again, literally) furniture.

I love my furniture. I love the flexibility I have with the stools and chairs and the design of the tables. I love that my students get to sit on padded seats when they get to my room. I love that they can sit on four different types of chairs.

But mostly, it's this sunlight pouring through the windows.

I just walked in to the room, back from a meeting, earlier this morning  and I thought to myself, I hope my classroom doesn't get moved next year. Being in this space has lifted my soul when so many things have threatened my peace over the last few years.

And do you know what that God of mine whispered to my heart as soon as I though it?

"Don't you think I can fill any space you're in with enough sunlight to fill your heart?"

Sigh. He is so good.

Eternally Undefeated

He is eternally undefeated.

Sunday afternoon, I lit a bunch of candles, made a pot of good (locally roasted) coffee, and sat in the living room with some of my friends. We bundled up in quilts because my beautiful old house always seems to be cold in the living room, but it's always cozy.

As is always the case with these dear ones, we immediately dove into conversation about the center of the universe.

Is there any conversation worth more? Is there any idea more noble? Can our words be spilled on anything more noble? 

Once, when I was a struggling teenager who had a perpetual smile for the world but was grieving hard all the time at home, in front of my family (as so many teenagers are wont to do), my mom passed me this note (on the second row on the left hand side of the church at Rockdale Baptist):

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:8

We will fix our eyes on these things.

Our God is eternally undefeated.

There is no foe who poses a problem for the God who created leaves. The King who is the mastermind behind wind. The One who understands why the ostrich lays her eggs to warm in the sand (Job 39). The Master who tells the waves where to stop. There is simply no foe to match Him.

And yet, we worry.

But when you sit in a quiet living room with other Jesus lovers, there's this thing that begins to happen. You begin to brag on the Lord. You lean in close to hear each other recount the good things He is doing in each other's lives and in each other's realms of influence. You rejoice at victories and hold on through trials and sit back, blown away, with personal victories. 

Here's what we recounted:

--Near death, but God didn't let it happen.
--The tabernacle of David
--God isn't new
--Leaders who fall, but God redeems
--Humility
--Brazil (come on! God is always showing off in Brazil!)
--My cat 
--Gardening
--Hope
--Worship

...and more...

Here's why I'm writing this: Get some friends who will sit and talk with you about the things of God. And listen to them. We have a body that is filled up with lonely people, and I am noticing among my students that the loneliest among them seem to be the ones more consumed with talking about themselves than about listening to the people around them. Find people who want to sit and study His word together; who want to talk about what He is doing


At that time, those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD listened and heard them. So a scroll of remembrance was written before Him regarding those who feared the LORD and honored His name. “They will be Mine,” says the LORD of Hosts, “on the day when I prepare My treasured possession. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.…Malachi 3:16-17

Oh, I want Him to eavesdrop on my conversations and write down what I say so He can remember it! Send us friends like that, Lord! Make us a friend like that!

More

Here,
I’ll use the paint you
Handed me and
I’ll use the canvas
You taught me
To cut
And staple.

Here, I’ll
Use the rake you
Handed me
And
I’ll drag it
Along earth
And flesh.

Here, I’ll use
The book you
Opened to me
And I’ll
Knock against
Thoughts and ideas,
Ancient.

But you
Can’t see me from where
You sit now,
Can you?
I sat in your
Basement
And
Toiled in your
Orchard
And
Groped through your
Stacks,

But I had the answer
In me
All along.
And you, who
Proudly boast
So many languages cannot
Hear
The words I already had.

There.
Is.
More.
You earthbound fighter,
You planet-hugging hoper—
You cannot see.
There.
Is.
More

created

you still think
you created
yourself.
you still believe
you have no
Father.
who kicked
the first ripple in
the ocean?
who tossed
the first seed across
the soil?
your origin
has a face.
is not empty.
hasn't forgotten.
sees.

shs
2/2/18

#hesees #believers

Things to Do at Three in the Morning

I remember  that there was this moment in the emergency room, sitting beside him, holding his shaking hand in mine, a little more than two weeks ago now, when I thought to myself-- just for a second, and not really even a formal thought-- that maybe I could handle him dying if I could just remember the last time I got really mad at him.

It was just a second.

And I realized that I have never been that mad at him.

Frustrated, irritated, hurt-- regular married-for-longer-than-twenty-minutes stuff-- but never enough of any of that to be okay with him being gone.

And so for two weeks, I've had trouble sleeping. Because what if his blood sugar drops too low in the night? What if I'm not awake to notice that his sleeping has gotten shallow or that his breathing is irregular? What if I'm not awake to notice that his coloring is all wrong or his hands are cold? What if...

I mean, while I'm at it, what if the front door is open? What if there's an earthquake? What if we get robbed? I am a superb player of the game of What If.

So, I have to work on not driving him crazy. I want to ask him all day long what his blood sugar is. Somehow, I have graduated from being an English Lit teacher to being a doctor. I have only a growing clue about the science of blood and sugar and carbohydrates and insulin, but I'm looking for his numbers to be between this and that, always haunted by stories of worst case scenarios.

So here's where I am learning: faith.

I've always kind of had this image in my mind of ever-increasing levels of understanding as we grow. I see it like this: life is a progression of rooms attached to each other by doorways. I see myself walking through each room, passing furniture and art and a big rug across the floor. As I walk through the room, some things are sharp and in focus, while other objects are fuzzy and darker. At the other side of the room, I put my hand on the door knob, open it, and pass into a room just like the one before...only this time, more of the objects come into focus. That grey box in the room before has become a file cabinet. The big brown thing in the corner is a lounge chair. And with each room, I see more and understand more.

I feel like two weeks ago I walked into a new room.

I walked into it as I sat by my husband's side in ICU and waited for his personality to come back. I knew I was in a new room because all the stuff I've ever done to cope up until now wasn't working. I felt like I was standing at a train station in Stockholm-- I kind of knew the direction I needed to travel in, and I sort of recognized some of the names, but I was depending on the kindness of strangers to help me work out the coins for the turnstile to get in.

There's a lot of silence in this new room. I think when I get scared I just hold myself very, very still as deeply as I can, and I wait for the danger to pass. I remember flying between Denver and Montrose, Colorado-- it was my first time flying and the plane was really small (a 12-seater). I was terrified. You could feel all the turbulence, every bump, the whole way. I was pretty much certain that I had just given my life back to the Lord in time to actually meet Him face to face. But there was this older lady next to me and she was so much more afraid than I was. I was twenty years old and really good at hiding my emotions, so I looked over at her and asked her how she was doing. She was about to cry. I reached across the narrow aisle and held her hand-- she had on grey mittens-- and asked her about her family. Talking to her and listening to her like I was bold took the sting out of my own fear.

But this time, I have been a mess.

I told a friend of mine, the day after we got home from the hospital, that if he had died, I wasn't certain that I wouldn't have just walked into traffic.

Where in the world did that come from?

The first night in ICU, before he was acting right again, I pulled out my ipad and just queued up a bunch of Bethel sermons and hit play. We both rested finally. In and out of sleep, I would wake up to hear Johnson's familiar voice speaking truth over us like a blanket, and I felt the closeness of the Lord and could feel Don's warm skin under my fingers, and I knew that the nurses knew what they were doing, and I could rest.

But as a big picture, outside the safety of the ICU, trusting Him with my husband is a whole new room. Trusting Him like this. When the fear is real, based on real things happening-- but here's what He is reminding me:

He has never changed.

He is the same God who sat with me in another room in that very same hospital-- on the literal other side of the elevators, on that same floor-- and held me when the unthinkable happened and I lost Ben all those almost ten years ago.

The room I'm in is different this time-- I can't compare the two situations at all-- but He has never changed. He is fully as faithful and trustworthy and full of help and hope as He was then. He is literally every bit as good and perfect as He was every moment of every one of those days He brought us through.

But I am different and the place He wants to take me is different. He has new things He wants to bring into focus for me and new mysteries about who He is that He wants to reveal.

This life on earth is 100% about Him. Everything else is extra. He is the beginning and the end. He is the assignment. This time here is on His mission. And He will never leave or forsake us. 

I've rambled here, but I want to encourage: if you are in a new place, in need of a new level of trust, do not despair!! Don't give up. And don't FORGET what you already know about how to cope with fear: worship. Somehow, in all of the enduring of those days in the hospital, I forgot that the key is worship. My friend messaged to remind me: "I'm sure you are doing this already, but I wanted to remind you to worship." How did I forget? How did I forget that lifting His name is the only way to get my eyes off the water? How did I forget that there is power in the name of Jesus? 

If you are in a new room, think of new wine skins and think of manna, new every day. The measure of faith I have walked in suddenly isn't enough. He's taking me to a deeper place. The milk that has satisfied my soul is not enough-- He is drawing me to the greater meat of His word. Ever increasing understanding of who He is is the only thing that will satisfy this new ache for understanding that is in my heart.

And there is PLENTY of that. 

So what do I do when fear grabs me by the throat at 3am? I'm headed for the rock of my salvation. I'm headed for His word. I'm headed for worship. No more getting pushed around by fear and powerlessness. 

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7