Pass It On

Today the Lord reminded me through the kind hands of someone else that I need not fear giving til I have nothing else. Because He gives and gives and gives.

As so often happens at our house, today there were unexpected needs - people to serve.

The door was answered in the pouring rain before the sun came up to a man whose family was breaking apart. Problems were discussed {abuse, anger, fights, children, finances, unfaithfulness... the list is always long}, breakfast was served to him... the day went on.

The fact that there was an extra man with red eyes eating breakfast didn't mess up my day. But I felt a bit annoyed that my mother who is fighting for her life had additional stressful counseling added to her day and less time to take care of herself as she needs to. Because a good part of yesterday was spent loving and talking other people through all sorts of problems.

Mom came up to the girls' room bright and early and said, "We've got to have a prayer meeting. There's too many problems for us to deal with. I need to stop worrying about what to do with and for all of these people." And she was right. This week, we've been involved with several divorces, several child custody fights, a couple of families with alienated children, other relationship problems... really, the people who call and come and need something never end. So, we rose from our knees 20 minutes later, feeling a little better. We left all of the sad and bad and sometimes hopeless-seeming situations in the hands of our capable all-wise God, and then we went about our day.

I had barely left the house when I got a text for a sweet Christian lady we know. She has a bunch of little boys. I can't imagine that she ever has spare time on her hands, but I've never heard her complain about anything.

Her text said she was going to be stopping by with a gluten-free dinner.

Really?

That was the whole family's response. Really?

We could almost hear God say, "See? You keep giving to the people I put in your life, and I'll give to you when I know you need it."

May I be swift to obey the next time the Lord prompts me to make someone a casserole... just because He said so.

A New Way to Live

A few months ago, I found the words of this hymn echoing through my heart day after day:

Fill thou my life, O Lord, my God

In every part with praise,

That my whole being may proclaim

Thy being and Thy ways;

Not for the lip of praise alone,

Nor e'en the praising heart

I ask, but for a life made up

Of praise in every part.

Praise in the common words I speak,

Life's common looks and tones,

In fellowship at hearth or board

With my beloved ones, -

Enduring wrong, reproach or loss

With sweet and steadfast will,

Loving and blessing those who hate,

Returning good for ill.

So shall each fear, each fret, each care,

Be turned into song,

And every winding of the way

The echo shall prolong;

So shall no part of day or night

From sacredness be free,

But all my life, in every step,

Be fellowship with Thee.

~ Horatius Bonar

While I washed dishes, while I drove to prenatals, while I waited for my flat tire to get fixed, while I was grocery shopping, while I was juicing fresh veggies for Mom, when the house was 100 degrees inside, while I was running, while I was cooking breakfast, while scrubbing out dirty produce buckets, as I drove away from births, those lines

I ask, but for a life made up

Of praise in every part.

clanged loudly, jarring me from the irritating, the tiring, the annoying, the mundane, even the wonderful that I reveled in. Praise in this.

Praise for all of the things that happened today that weren't supposed to. Praise in the midst of missing important deadlines because my brother was having problems and I had to occupy him. Praise while Mom feeling sick. {Wouldn't she rather hear me happily singing at the sink, anyway?}

Praise instead of sighing to myself when the floor was sticky and the oven wasn't working and my car was needing another repair.

Praise.

Praise.

Praise.

That could be my life. My life doesn't have to include silent sighs and groans to myself.

Praise. That can be my whole life. EVERY part.

It starts with calling someone to tell them that I will have to reschedule this afternoon's prenatal. {How unprofessional! a murmur rises up in me. I was late to their last appointment after having to borrow a car at the last minute. And now this! Undecided whether I should explain what's happening at my house and with my family, or leave them wondering if I'm unreliable, I hesitate. Then, one little word comes to mind: Praise. Praise in the common words I speak. That's your new way to live.}

A smile crosses my face. Yes, in this, too.

What good is praise if it's only during the times when anyone's heart would sing for joy?

Not just praise on my lips, or even just praise in my heart.

A LIFE made up of praise in every part.

I've met a few people whose whole life appears to be a praise song to their Maker.

They just live different than the rest of us fretting, whining people.

My Jesus deserves that from my life.

My rest-of-2011-resolution? To sing this song pretty much every day, and to live it every day.

That's why I leave the book open to hymn #42 in the kitchen window nearly every day.

Will you join me? :)

The God of Hope

It was a warm summer day as I was driving across the Midwest. It was just going to be a short trip for some continuing education at a conference. Instead it had become a painful reminder of what wasn't. I drove past places that all haunted me with what could have been.

And I remembered what I almost had, only to have it gone.

Sometimes it takes seeing what you could have to make you realize what you don't have and just how much you want it. Such had been the case in what I had lost.

As I drove along I-70, self-pity threatened to engulf my little car.

Earlier that week, I had cancelled most of my long-awaited summer plans at the last minute because of a family crisis. Cancelling them wasn't that bad, but it just confirmed to me that hoping and planning for anything I wanted was a bad idea.

Then, there had been something else that I hoped would work out. And clearly, even today, I could see that it wasn't going to. It seemed that I had everything that I really didn't care about and none of the things that I wanted the most. I might as well bury that fading dream, too, and move on with my life... and not be so hopeful. Yes, hope. That was my problem. I hoped too much for things that I wasn't in charge of. I should know better by now - so often life didn't turn out as I would have hoped.

A few tears threatened to spill out and I stared hard into the cornfields. Sometimes it was easier to pretend I didn't care about these disappointments. But I really did care. A whole lot.

Maybe, I reasoned to myself, I should just plan for nothing. I'll be pleasantly surprised if anything happens the way I wish it would.

And then that still, small Voice spoke: "But I'm the God of Hope. Remember?" (Romans 15:13)

"Why do you discount and throw away hope when that is My very essence and character? I AM Hope!"

I gripped the steering wheel, glad I was all alone for hours more so I could have this conversation with God by myself. "B-But, I've tried hope. Hope makes me miserable. I don't want to hope anymore... I want to just live in reality - that life is hard and unfair, that the people and things that I love the most get crushed and torn apart, wrenched from my hands and heart. If I just plan for that, I won't get so disappointed. It's much less painful to live that way."

Case in point - this most recent disappointment. I had hoped that perhaps it was God doing something that I'd been waiting on and praying about for such a very long time. And then this... just nothingness. He wasn't doing something with that after all. Why did I think He was?

My gentle Lord continued probing. "Mary, you choose to believe a lie when you act like I'm not going to be good to you in this. You choose to believe a lie when you act as though you will reap sorrow when you sow good things. Do you not believe me when I say that those who sow to the Spirit, will of the Spirit reap LIFE everlasting? (Galatians 6:8) The Life that I give is an abundant one, not a dreary existence. Was it not obedience to ME that led you to say 'no' to what you wanted most?"

Silence.

Sigh.

"It's not that I don't believe that You're good, God. You're just not necessarily going to give me all these things that I want so much in life. You are more than good if all you give me is Yourself and heaven. I'm going to lower my expectations and be happy with that."

Mary?

I knew that Voice ~ God knocking on the door of my weary heart.

Yes?

"Mary, I'm the God of HOPE! Not the God of frequent disappointment, as you're making Me out to be! To think anything less of Me is wrong. Why are you making a resolution to live as though I will disappoint you?"

I felt so rebuked... slapped almost. Why had I been believing such things about God?

Silence.

Thinking.

The God of all hope... what does that mean in real naked truth?

First of all, Hope is not synonymous with demanding my own way or thinking that the sea will part before me just because I desperately want it to.

Hope is inconvenient, very much so. It makes the hard things in life that much more painful, because often I had expected different. It can search my heart and motives to the very bottom.

I don't usually ask for hope, and often I don't actually want it.

What I really want is for the desire to go away, or be granted.

As much as we find ourselves praying for what we want, sometimes God doesn't restore broken dreams, regardless of how right they may be. Sometimes He leaves them lying smashed all over the ground.

Sometimes the wayward children never come home and mothers receive phone calls that they died in a fight outside a bar last night. Sometimes lonely ex-spouses pass away having never reconciled with the one who left. And sometimes cancer and disease creep over the body and people grow weaker and weaker til they're gone. Sometimes strong young boys lose their limbs and eyes and sanity in accidents and war and come home as broken men. Sometimes little girls get molested for years behind closed doors and no one ever hears their pleading, silent cries for help. Sometimes babies die, even after years and years of waiting for them. Sometimes the fiance who broke up never changes their mind and "comes around."

.

Hoping doesn't mean that I believe that God will never take something from me that I love dearly. Or that a God who loves me will never let my heart and my little world be broken. Or that He won't let everything I've spent my life working on swirl down the drain before my eyes.

So, then, in a disappointing and broken world... what is hope?

Hope is a steadfast confidence in the nature of God to do me good -- from creation, to Calvary and all the way into eternity to come. Hope is believing what I cannot see, simply because I know God. Hoping is walking on in the dark, because Jesus is there. Hope is about not quitting when all seems lost, because I know that God is greater than all of these things.

The Psalmist said it well when he made that little, but powerful statement: "Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him..."

Hope in what? GOD.

And so I choose to continue to hope, to put my heart on the line, to be vulnerable and to trust that regardless of what I want, what I get will be good, because I'm staking my heart on GOD. God Himself will never disappoint me. A glimpse of God is enough to fill my soul and heal my heart.

Hope allows me to smile as I drive down I-70 and stare into the cornfields, even though all is not right in my little world.

Hope in my heart shouts to the pondering world that my God deserves to be trusted!

Why art thou cast down, O my soul?

And why are thou disquieted within me?

Hope thou in God....

For I shall yet praise Him,

Who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

Psalm 42:5,11

Those People

I wrote this post a few months ago, and didn't want it to be taken wrongly, so I hesitated to hit "publish." But, once again, I've been thinking on these things and asking God to make me a merciful person ~ one who pours out grace on people who don't deserve it. I hope you'll be challenged to do the same.

~Mary

I've been thinking today of the people I don't like to help and "waste" my time on:

The people who really don't want to change bad enough to do it.

Those people that hate their messed up lives, but they refuse to do anything different.

The people that call and whine about their husband and kids and work and house....

....and want ME to come over and make their life all better.

I have lots of friends with struggles. I help a lot of people. I usually enjoy it.

But those people...

Well, that's a different story.

They don't even try.

They don't even care.

They're always a victim.

Do they ever think about anyone other than themselves?

My mom and I were discussing a couple of people today ~ people who want our help and counsel on a near-daily basis. We've been helping and advising for years, but not much has ever changed.

They're still floundering and depressed and tell us that they can't function like we do because their lives are so bad, while ours are so good. (They actually have more money, less kids, less health problems, and waaay less work and duties and responsibilities than we do, but that's beside the point.)

Mom's more inclined to keep helping them and helping them and helping them. She's almost eternally patient with people. Even bad and ungrateful people.

I've helped them for years; driven them to the ER at really inopportune moments when their kids had sore throats and I thought it was silly to go, but they insisted that they had to. I've given up my bedroom so they could stay there for a few days after they'd just had a big fight with their husband. I've watched their kids for long days when I was already so behind with my own work that I could have cried. I've cleaned their refrigerators when they'd been left in a nauseating mess for weeks or months. I've loaned them money and sometimes they've paid it back. I've let them drive my cars, and let their kids use {and break} my stuff. I've given them some of my favorite clothes, just because they really wanted them, and they didn't have many. I've wiped their kids' vomit off our floors and couches... and sometimes I've become sick myself after spending the day with their sick kids. I've invited them to come along when I really just wanted to have a day with my fun friends and family.

I do this same stuff for other people, and it doesn't bother me because they value my help, and they do their best to get back on their feet and to say thank you and to just be nice about it.

But those people....

I was about done being a servant to those people.

My unloving and unmerciful advice to Mom about someone today: She needs to just learn that everyone's life is hard and she needs to deal with it and wash her dishes and take care of her own kids even though she doesn't feel like doing anything. And she needs to learn that we don't have time to talk to her for an hour a day if she's just going to whine about her life and her husband and not going to act on any of the advice she asks for. She hasn't changed a bit in the five years that we've been her friend, even though she always swears that she will.

The words were barely out of my mouth when I wondered what I look like to God.

Do I ever feel like one of those girls who will never learn and will never change?

Do I look like the person who says she loves God but forgets Him five minutes later?

Do I look like a hopeless case?

Do I repent and turn from my besetting sins, only to find myself back there again and again and again? Asking forgiveness again?? Like I'll never learn, never walk on in victory?

Does God ever see that it's me, calling heaven again and sigh that it's... me?

What does God think when He sees me not even caring.... not even trying?

He had compassion on me when I was His enemy.

He loved me when I didn't want to change.

He made an eternal covenant for my soul, even though He knew I wouldn't be faithful.

He loves with perfect love, when I stumble along and don't even realize how lost I am.

He keeps drawing my heart to Him when I have no idea what a mess I am.

Maybe when He said, "Go, and do likewise" and He pointed at fellow messed up people,

He really meant to help the people who will always be a mess.

Maybe He meant to show mercy to those people.

I think He did.

'Cause that's what He does for me every day of my existence.

Would I Choose God?

One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD.... Psalm 27:4

What do I want?

If we could have one thing granted just for today, what would we choose?

Seeing a friend?

An hour to myself?

A happier marriage?

My stress to go away?

More obedient children?

A clean house?

Enough money to pay the bills?

A day off to relax?

The house I've always dreamed of living in?

My head to stop aching?

My schedule to calm down?

One last visit with someone I love?

My dear one's devastating disease to be healed?

The pantry shelves to be organized?

Or would I choose God?

His Presence to overshadow my life and my wants and dreams and hopes and fears and annoyances and needs?

She's HERE!!!!!!!!!!

Josh and Jemima's beautiful baby girl has arrived: Cherish Mercy!

All 7 pounds and 4 ounces of sweet perfection.

How did God come up with a creation as wonderful as babies?!

I love her to pieces and can't stop nuzzling her soft face and kissing her!

I Shall Wonder That Ever My Eyes Turned Away....

"Looking off unto Jesus," my spirit is blest;

In the world I have turmoil - in Him I have rest;

The sea of my life all about me may roar,

When I look unto Jesus I hear it no more.

Soon, soon shall I know the full beauty and grace

Of Jesus my Lord, when I stand face to face;

I shall know how His love went before me each day,

And wonder that ever my eyes turned away.

~ Verses 2 and 5, sung to the tune of "My Jesus, I Love Thee"

How Fortunate Infinite Wisdom Prevails!

I love, love, love Ruth Bell Graham's poetry... Mom introduced it to me in fourth grade when she gave me a copy of Ruth's book, "Sitting By My Laughing Fire" and told me to learn to write poetry. {I never did write anything worth saving.}

At the time, I thought her poetry was annoying and hard to understand.

Then I grew up a little and lived a little life and started to savor some of her Ruth's words.

And now, there are few things I like more than a Ruth Bell Graham poem. The realness just oozes from it... and her words say what my heart never managed to put into words.

I'll share one of my all-time favorites tonight.

Had I been Joseph's mother

I'd have prayed

protection from his brothers:

"God keep him safe;

he is so young,

so different from

the others."

Mercifully she never knew

there would be slavery

and prison, too.

Had I been Moses' mother

I'd have wept

to keep my little son;

praying she might forget

the babe drawn from the water

of the Nile,

had I not kept

him for her

nursing him the while?

Was he not mine

and she

but Pharaoh's daughter?

Had I been Daniel's mother

I should have pled

"Give victory!

This Babylonian horde-

godless and cruel -

don't let them take him captive

-- better dead,

Almighty Lord!"

Had I been Mary -

Oh, had I been she,

I would have cried

as never a mother cried,

"...Anything, O God,

anything...

but crucified!"

With such prayers

importunate

my finite wisdom

would assail

Infinite Wisdom;

God, how fortunate

Infinite Wisdom

should prevail!

-- RBG

Days When I Hate Being a Midwife

It's been one of those days when I hate being a midwife. If I wasn't an adult, I would have jumped up and ran out of the office today and said I wasn't coming back.

Why do mamas who don't have many years left to have a baby and who've tried so hard to get pregnant for years and years and years have to be so bitterly crushed and disappointed... told that the little one growing inside them is no longer alive or growing?

And why do I have to dread answering my phone when I see it's a client... hoping that certainly, certainly nothing ELSE could have gone wrong today?!

And why do I have to hope that this woman's husband isn't abusing her and the kids behind closed doors?

And why does it seem like the whole world of mothers and babies and midwives is falling apart today? {I know it isn't really.}

And why do I have to meet with a doctor who hates midwives' guts and try to convince him that I DO care about these mothers and babies?

And why do liability and legality have to matter when all that should matter is if a mama and her baby get the best care for their situation?

And why did I ever want to do this in the first place??

Because I love them too much not to.

{Sometimes I refrain from signing off professional emails to them as "Love, Mary"}

I guess that's why my clients' awful days leave me heartsick, too.

When My Needs Are Worship

It seems that I've had a lot of needs in the past couple of years. Things that send me crying to my Heavenly Father, begging Him for help, for wisdom, for what I need. Sometimes I don't even say what. I just sigh and say, "God, you know..." Some things in my heart are just beyond words.

Sometimes I feel ridiculously needy and wonder to myself, Does anyone else have a heart that wanders as much as mine? Does anyone else find themselves needing the Lord Jesus to change their heart as much as me? Does anyone else beg God for so many things? Does anyone else have so many loved ones with so many big problems that all need prayer?

Sometimes I feel like I should pull myself together and be a triumphant Christian, not such a desperately needy one... One who fails so often. Doesn't God wish that I'd come to Him more often with as a joyfully obedient Godly Christian, instead of being the always-nearly-falling-apart-person? Doesn't He wish that I had more days of smooth sailing, of radiating His Grace and Love? Doesn't He wish I had less of the days where all I can think is, "I need God... so much!" while I stumble through the moments and the problems and struggles and try (and fail) to speak and think as He would have me to?

Several nights ago I was driving home from a long day at the office, tired but happy with a mostly successful day of prenatals behind me. As the miles rolled by and the stars shone overhead, I was listening to the Gospels when the little word "worship" jumped out at me.

Speaking of Jesus: "There came a leper and worshiped Him, saying, 'Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean'! " (Matthew 8:2)

The wretched leper-man didn't come and ask Jesus what he could do to show God's glory to his generation or kneel down and tell Him he would dedicate his life to service in the temple.

He didn't come to Jesus for his friends.

He came for himself.

He came, consumed by his messed up, broken life and his sad heart, living the life an outcast. He wanted his own skin made whole, the ugly stumps of his fingers to work again, to caress someone, to tend vineyards and build houses like other men did. He wanted to walk the streets without calling out, "Unclean! Unclean!" as little children screamed and ran. He wanted life again, not this existence.

He couldn't will away the ugliness that pervaded his life, and maybe his soul.

Was he a bitter man because of what had happened to him?

He came to the only One Who could make his life better.

He came because he thought Jesus could.

Bringing his own needs to Jesus was worship.

Because He came, acknowleging God as the One who could meet His needs!

In all of my beseeching God for wisdom and begging Him for things like knowing what to do with difficult relationships and cars with problems when I'm alone on the road at 2 am; things like keeping babies alive and stopping hemorrhages and dealing with people with severe mental problems; things like not knowing how to interact with certain people and knowing when to say "no" to people that never stop taking and seemingly wasting my time and energy; things like not knowing what to do for or say to friends who are going through horrible things in their marriages and families and homes and churches; things like feeling irritated with people and begging, "Help me to be nice, anyway, God!"; things that are deep in my heart.... aches, hurts, nagging worries...

In all of this asking, I don't tire God?!

He calls it worship?!

He delights in it when I see myself as the mere mortal that I am.

When I come as such, falling down at His feet, broken and hurting and worried and lost,

begging....

because, and only because

He is GOD!

He knows I'm just a broken, messed-up person anyway. We all are, if we'd admit it.

He never thought I was successful or victorious... He knew that I wasn't anything, and all I needed was Him.

When I fall down at His feet and utter, "Help me, Lord! My heart is so wrong today!"

He calls that worship.