Now what did Jesus say again?

I've always been the hammer. Hammer that truth in til it hurts and then cut them off at the knees and wonder why they are just screaming bloody murder instead of saying "you're right, I get it, I'm a completely changed person forever thank you for opening my eyes". Um... yeah. So while some of us literally revel in the glory of truth others revel in the freedom of interpretation. Awkward! So then Dad would say "you know you'll catch more bees with honey than vinegar Boogle." And I would say "sometimes the truth hurts." And he would say "I've been at this a little longer than you and you have to ask yourself what result you want, not focus just on being right." Then I would say "I don't have patience for that kind of approach." And he would chuckle. And it didn't bug me because he's my dad and naturally he knew what he was talking about even if I wasn't interested in accountability at that moment. Time to talk to Dad stretched on my horizon as far as I could see. How quickly things change. After losing Dad all of the fight just drained out of me in a puddle. And I asked myself who was Dad? The answer was the sound of a beautiful Irish Ballad or the sight of a beaming proud smile or the aroma of sweat and hay or the taste of sweet honey or the touch of rough perfect hands. The thought of who he was blesses me. And I asked myself what will I leave and I found myself reaching for more. I've rarely ever reached a persons heart with truth even though I know it well and it came so naturally to him. I'm on a new mission to find that tenuous balance between defending scriptrual truth and being guided by empathy and love; specifically to Christians who struggle with embracing the whole message of The Word. I think pride is my primary foe. If I long to make myself look good or right or smart or better or the best or PERFECT I've already lost. I've done that and it makes me look... pompous and arrogant and full of myself and a lot more like someone else than Jesus. I used to drive around and around a hayfield daydreaming of my dad allowing me to use a walkman so I could listen to Sarah McLachlan which would be a huge hazard and never allowed. Ironically he did compromise on my daisy dukes and tank tops and flip flops. Now I wish I'd used that calm productive vacuum of time to reflect on the beauty of first loving someone then sharing truth after they are secure in that love. What a gift that would be, to naturally style my life after Jesus and to do His will with a pure heart. I was reading about how to help a narcissist feel empathy. Apparently it's a real clinical disorder. through that article I gained empathy for narcissists. It was a crazy five minutes. I thought about everyone I've ever debated and what it would be like to reach a point of empathy with a struggling sister or brother in Christ before I ever utter a word of debate. To actually try to understand them. I wonder if I could ever go deeper than rhetoric like "well I know gay people and I like them" all the way to a heart message which might be "I have a deep fear of rejection from my very wonderful gay friend if I accept the Bible at it's word and try to live by it." That's transcending a roadblock and understanding fear. Then we might talk about the incredible personal spiritual significance for a Christian in living by the Word of God without imposing expectations from it on those of different beliefs. Then we could even talk about how important it is to be able to trust your gay friend, your agnostic friend, your atheist friend, your liberal friend, your Muslim friend to love you even if you believe in the Bible, just as you are called to love them exactly as they are. I see real peace in this for every Christian to truly live unconditional love with truth. We could probably even reach to the uncomfortable point of discussing the fact that gay marriage infringes on religious freedom because marriage is a religious practice performed by clergy and should never be dictated by government in compliance with separation of church and state.  Then we would have to come to a point of completion by discussing how lawmakers could go about protecting both interests because we all know that one group of people and their rights should not rank higher than another. Does that make sense? I used to want to bang people over the head with the truth and tell them to stop messing up Christianity and making us look like wimps but I was... well crap... I was WRONG and I got nowhere. 

On an extreme end of the love/truth spectrum, my friend debates her extended family's mormon faith regularly. She researches facts and squares off ready for battle. The fact is she found her way out of that heresy and I think it drives her crazy that any of them still hang on to it.  Recently she told me she's been left a copy of the book of mormon with notes for her read to help clear up her doubts and restore her to the mormon faith. She asked me the other day should she read the notes, should she set for another round and put on her religious boxing gloves? After all my years of churning my wheels trying to proudly say something just clever enough to throw someone off their high horse, I just weakly say no. It goes against all of my old habits. I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion if you get drawn into a debate on the semantics of another persons faith you have already lost. You are on the defense. It doesn't matter if you gather up verses and facts and knock them down to a count of three over and over, if you never reach their heart. It's as pointless as eating paper. It's a clanging gong. I know. I do it all of the time. Any victory you claim will not be the victory you wanted. I do know you can reach the heart of the mormon debater through prayer and patience and timing and love, lots of love. Ugh, sooo hard! But I'm inspired to think we can simply look to the amazing Jesus we so fortunately know. If we focus on an end goal of setting a heart free to be loved by Jesus wholly and completely unconditionally we will persevere. I really believe with a pure heart we will not err. Then we are wind chimes or a flute. Because Jesus didn't really seek indifferent people. He sought hungry people and his love was palpable. When he spoke, he lifted the heart, healed the body, nourished the person and he set them FREE. So I encourage my friend to love her Mormons for now and wait for them to get thirsty for Living Water.

Another friend has funny stuff happen. Her life is an amusing education to me. She lives in Jerusalem and hangs out with a bunch of ex-pats who are mostly Palestinian sympathizers and even has a Bible Study with several of them. So she has people try to lead her into convoluted debates which is torture for her. She hates to debate.  I think she has an advantage just being someone who dislikes conflict. I think it gives her the restraint to wait for the thing worth saying and I really admire how she channels Jesus and shows grace. She has plugged away for two years, sometimes gritting her teeth and sometimes wanting to lay in the floor and laugh hysterically for a release from the vise grip of conflict and verbal sparring. All this time she patiently sowed seeds of truth into each person who came into her life and asked God if this was the one she was to reach possibly even for the kingdom of Christ. I know there were two non-Christians she really hoped to reach. One time she even took some of her Bible Study friends to the Temple Mount Institute to see all of the things the Jewish people are making for when they rebuild the Temple and one lady asked four times why the Jewish people want a temple again since Jesus came.  She took each interaction seriously and one day she called me undecided on whether to reply to an email sent from a Palestinian sympathizer filled with biased propaganda. I think it's just crazy so I told her I'd just walk away. Why cast your pearls before swine? Right? From my limited vantage point it appears that she is dealing with hard hearted uninformed people opposed to Israel which is not even Biblical. Regardless of whether they are Christians, they appear to be missing out on a pretty fundamental piece of truth that could give their lives in Israel context and dimension. And it seems to me they are very deliberate in maintaining that doctrine. And that is where I err. I am so human indeed. After all her time there and confounding stories, I found her position so daunting I told her it sounded pointless. And then today... she told me that in the time she has been there... she's seen a softening a changing of heart in one of her Bible Study ladies and it was all confirmed just today. Yes she got to watch some scales fall off of a pair of eyes and it was EXCITING! She was already a Christian but all that time, regardless of what was perceived she was sifting through and searching for new truths. And that woman was the one I so scorned for asking why the Jews want to rebuild the temple. I felt so chastened. My friend said she felt blessed to know her time there had some spiritual impact for one person. She was used by God to open a window for someone to see more of Jesus and God's plan. Soon she will fly home from her grand adventure but she has patiently sown seeds of love and truth. I can see already that some has fallen on fertile ground. Honestly, that is all I aspire to be.

Girlfriends and God

Last year I hit thirty and thought things would start to make sense. Who was I kidding? I still feel like a nineteen year old girl "playing grownup." People have always said that age is just a number and now that I'm thirty-one I think I have figured that one out. The question of where I'm at, now that I'm thirty-one is the most interesting contemplation, not the monotonous progressive counting reminiscent of kindergarten. A great discovery now that I'm in my thirties is the incomparable value of girlfriends and God. I'll be honest that I guess I'm a late bloomer in this respect. Most people seem to grasp the value of girlfriends fairly early on but I didn't. Managing relationships has never been my strong suit and I was not good at prioritizing or showing appreciation for my girlfriends at all. Through my twenties I think Jody and I explored the immeasurable worth of having a true connection with your spouse as you begin a family. It was great and I look back on it with a glow of satisfaction. But now I'm broadening and thinking about things in a little different way. My chum Jenn brought over Chinese and we had a four hour lunch today. When I was primarily focused on Jody, I used to sensationalize how grand it would be to go have lunch with him, and it is grand if he has the day off of work. On the other hand, if you go on a work day, he will be thrilled but distracted and you'll be lucky to have him 70% at attention for a little less than an hour. I'm not saying Jody is an abysmal lunch date. I'm saying it's not the best way to connect with him and it's not the most relaxing thing in the world that you can do for him. On the contrary, I feel like I'm slightly taxing him. I don't regret the effort, I feel we have nice memories from our lunches and I'm sure we'll still do it, but under close examination a good question is "What is the best way to love your man with meaning?" Around noon Jenn called to tell me she was running a bit late because she had tried to cram a little too much into her morning so she could be free all afternoon without chores. I laughed and told her I had done exactly the same thing. We were so focused on how great our lunch date was going to be, that we had crammed a ridiculous amount of effort into setting our entire afternoons free. And we were glad we did. We ate way too much Chinese and gabbed it up for the whole afternoon. It was kind of a dawning of a new realization for me. How nice to have my dream lunch and an animated discussion of things that would be physically painful for Jody. How nice for Jody to come home to a less than needy wife who had a great day and prepared a fine dinner. By the same token, how nice it was that he and I had a lovely breakfast together without my telephone or internet when he had a day off last week. I feel the same glow from both experiences and I'm glad that I'm learning how to tap into the "good times".
The other thing I'm exploring in my thirties is resuming my "best friend" status with God that I had in my teen years. It seemed like I just couldn't do it in my twenties. I had baggage from churches, choices and the overwhelming new job of wife and mother. I think finding God in the middle of it was just beyond my faith and organization level. It seemed like whenever Jody and I made a step in that direction we'd hit a spiritual wall and the Holy Spirit was elusive. I look at how reachable God is to me now compared to my twenties and I'm kind of flabbergasted and very thankful. I spent a worried and guilty decade wondering how I was ever going to get back to Him and here we are. I finally feel myself pulling back into a comfortable and familiar friendship that makes everything in life make sense. So yeah, I'm glad I'm thirty-one and I'm pretty sure I'll be glad to turn fifty-one and eighty-one.

And a Happy New Year!

We had a fabulous time in Arkansas with my family. There were a couple of dim spots. Daniel, Hannah and Karhys weren't there and many things conspired against us making it to the farm, so the kids have to wait to meet the new filly named Jasmine indefinitely. I must say though, we had great food, as much tea as a person could want, a latte at my fingertips at any moment(courtesy of our great host Brad), a warm fire and five children in the house to make it feel completely like Christmas. I wish I could recall all of the things that made me laugh until I cried but they escape me and I'm left with a warm happy feeling that should last me until spring.
A couple of days before we left, Brad asked if I wanted to go to a thrift store with him and I agreed. We eventually wound up at a pawn shop where a man was trying to sell a 12 gauge home defense shotgun with pistol grips and a night spotlight. It was rather ironic because Jody had just told me two weeks ago that he wanted one for Christmas. I have a rather soft spot for home defense, so he kinda hooked me. Long story short, the pawn shop wouldn't pay his asking price but Brad and I were jockying for the chance to, and Brad the gentleman let me win. We strolled into the house and I handed Jody the case and told him I got him a little something for taking care of all five kids while we were gone. So we blasted out of 2010 with a shotgun on the back of Ginny and Brad's property. So fun!
Today was the girls first day back at school. Eden had a history report due which had somehow morphed into Jody assembling a model of the U.S.S. Constitution. I really thought he was going to lose it and smash the whole thing to pieces a few times. He would explode and then smile at me rather sheepishly and try again. One time I heard a clatter of tiny pieces and then "shhhhhhhhhhhhhh------oooot!" As he neared the end, he turned to me to put on the rigging and sails. It was not a well made model. I'll just stop. I might be able to make a story about this funny sometime down the road but I think the pain is just too fresh. Anyway, Eden sat down and wrote a very nice report on "Old Ironsides" and I loved it.
Today I am sitting here for a moment to document how wonderful my morning with the two greatest guys in the world has been. We shuttled the girls off to school and then had pumpkin bread, sausage and eggs with hot tea. We were satisfied with the rarity of this treat in and of itself when a hawk landed on our back fence and

decided to breakfast with us. While he happily dined on a fresh bird, Jody took the opportunity to take his portrait which he seemed to enjoy. He let Jody come right into the back yard with him.