Under His Thumb

"Hold still!" Mom would command, but I'd struggle and writhe like a fish on a hook. She was after me with that thumb again. You know the one. The one that threatened every time you were about to go out the door. The one loaded with spit and ready to remove all sorts of dirt from little faces. A comedian once said mom-spit had the chemical composition of Formula 409. Another said Leonardo da Vinci's mother used it to remove the frown that once rested on the face of Mona Lisa, telling da Vinci to try again. I vowed never to subject my children to such humiliation: I forced them to spit on my thumb and used it instead. (My less than scientific research determined, their spit did not have the same efficacy, and I sometimes wore their efforts in places other than my thumb. Food for thought.)

In James 4:8, we are commanded: Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. I recently heard someone speak on cleansing; that's when this verse and the mom-spit thing came back to me.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Doesn't God call us to begin with? John 6:44a says, No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. So, yes, initially we are called to the Lord. But in those times of --I'm just gonna use the term "extreme emotion"-- joy and celebration, fear, confusion, pain, repentance, doubt-- those times when we are not at our "norm," we can draw near to God in quiet, tears, song, prayer. We can take those moments of extreme emotion, seek God differently or more earnestly than usual, and He will draw close to us. Quick illustration: Luke 15, The Parable of the Good Father. In verse 20, we are told the younger son went to his father; "but when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him." His father didn't stand there, feet firmly planted, declaring, "I didn't do anything wrong! If he wants forgiveness, he's going to have to come to me." No, he saw the son making his way back home, perhaps struggling with every step, and the father went to him. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. This is the part where I used to wince. I mean, James, what happened? We started off so sweet, so nice. Images of me, coddled and comforted in the arms of a loving Father. Then, suddenly you turn on me with the name-calling and the self-cleansing? What gives? Well, first of all, despite my promise to follow Jesus, I don't always do it. I mess up. And when I do, I'm no better (on the outside) than I was before I met Jesus: I'm acting like a sinner and I am being duplicitous, double-minded; I have moved away from Him. Because of Christ and His blood and my promise to follow Him, I can return, draw near again, receive forgiveness and restored relationship. That's the second thing: in drawing near, He can cleanse me, He can purify my heart. This is where the mom-spit comes in: when I fought, when I wriggled, when I darted underneath Mom's arm and refused to submit to her thumb, I resisted cleansing. In effect, I was saying, "I'm good. The purification you're offering is not for me; it's not worth what I'm going to have to undergo. I choose to walk out this door with my dirt." But in moving toward the one who was able to see my dirt and remove it, I was cleaning, bathing, freeing myself of dirt. (Like standing before a sink and a mirror which, thankfully, is what I do now. I can't get clean if the sink is running and I'm ten feet away.)

So, draw near to God, get under His thumb, so to speak; be cleansed, be made pure of heart. And leave the mom-spit to touch-ups on your way out the door.

Never Too Dark

It's four in the morning, I've just let the dog out. One of those sleepless nights for me, a golden opportunity for her. She'll sniff and explore-- but not too far, it's pretty dark out there. She's got the heart of a lion-- she really does, but something in her brain tells her there are things out there to be feared, and that something overrides her lionheart and she fears. I peer into the darkness as hard I can, as if squinting and leaning forward an inch will give me some advantage over the absence of the sun overhead. She's gone beyond any light coming from our kitchen and I can no longer see her. It is dark out there.

It's four in the morning. My brain is running amok. Will there be enough money to pay the bills this month? Will Mom be okay while I'm gone this weekend? Did I get Scott those snacks he likes? How will my doctor's appointment go? What is going on with that "check engine" light?  Life can be pretty scary-- even with the lights on.

In Psalm 139 (TPT), the writer asks the questions: Where could I go from Your Spirit? Where could I run and hide from Your face? The answer is, nowhere! If I go up to heaven, You’re there! If I go down to the realm of the dead, You’re there too! If I fly with wings into the shining dawn, You’re there! If I fly into the radiant sunset, You’re there waiting! There is nowhere we can choose to go, or wander and get lost, or even, be taken that God cannot see us. There is no such thing as darkness with You, the psalmist goes on to sing. The night, to You, is as bright as the day; there’s no difference between the two.

When the door opens, and we stick our noses out into the frosty darkness, and we give the air a sniff, and God whispers, Go ahead, get out there and check out the place I've created for you, do our brains start tabulating all the things there are to be feared? Sitting safely behind the door at the Master's feet we have hearts of lions, but as we begin to wander a little further from the kitchen light...

I've got you, God says. I'm not squinting or leaning or wondering where you are. I see you. I formed you in the darkness of your mother's womb. That freckle that you have-- the one right there beneath your right ear --I placed that there in the pitch black warmth of your mother's body. And that branch of the pear tree that always casts that scary shadow on the gate? I formed that, too. And your doctor's appointment that's got you tossing and turning at 4am? I already know the answers and I'm waiting to walk you through them. There is no such thing as darkness with Me. The light, the night-- they're both the same to Me, obedient. 

Now get your dog and go to sleep.

Photo courtesy Brandon Dewade

I'm Not a Fixer; I'm a Fixer-Upper

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a mom. I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a teacher. I was brought up in a world where it was good to help people. Somewhere along the line, however, I received the message that I could help people. No, more than help people, I could fix them. I'll resist all the specifics, but I wanted to fix my mom. And my mom needed to be fixed, she really did. Mom told me her problems and I would try to fix them:

I can't take this anymore! I'm just going to pack my bags and disappear one day!

Mommy, please don't! We'll be good. I promise!

Your father's late again and dinner's ruined!

Mom, let's just eat. He hasn't been on time for weeks. Why do you keep putting yourself through this? 

I sit here day after day. It's the weekend. I want to do something, and your father's nowhere to be found!

Mom, you have a car. Just go enjoy yourself. You always said you wanted to volunteer someplace...

And on and on. I bought her a microwave. I bought her the ring and the coat and the television and all the tchotchkes she wanted. I got her a dog. I took her places. I encouraged her. I entertained her day after day at the expense of my responsibilities. Again and again I attempted to fix her. Again and again she continued, making no changes of her own. Fast forward almost forty years, Mom still isn't fixed. In fact, she's worse off now than she ever was. And I am exhausted. It took a couple fisticuffs with my own demons before I could see it: I have been trying to fix her. 

The rage and impatience I feel as her brain will not allow her to do basic tasks are because I want her fixed. The annoyance that never seems to go away is there because I've been fighting for so long and her needs simply refuse to disappear. I long for a relationship with my mother in which she is there for me, rather than the other way around, rather than the way it has been since I was a child. I wanted a mother who would teach me to be strong, not require my strength for her own survival. I wanted a mother who would impart wisdom to me, not dump her bitterness and foolishness on me. I wanted a mother who would leave me with a heritage --if not a godly one, then at least, a feminine one-- not use me to fill her emptiness. I want that mother who, though she may not be perfect, brings something to the table besides depression and neurosis. 

I want my mother fixed. 

    And I've tried with all my might. 

        And it's broken me.

But that's such a good thing! I can't fix her. I never could. My attempts to fix her were the habits of triangulation and dysfunction and co-dependence that I developed so long ago. My complete burnout was the consequence of a human being --even one with good motives-- trying to do work God never gave her to do. Be kind, yes. Decide the efficacy of that kindness, no. Love unconditionally, yes. Expect results, no. Help and encourage, yes. Become angry when things don't turn out as planned, absolutely not.

God is working in this season. I need to be fixed as well.

Growing Through the Pain

As a '70s kid, we spent countless hours outside playing Hide 'n Seek, tag, roller derby --all sorts of running, jumping, moving games. All of that action lead to some skinned knees and scraped up elbows. A quick dab of Merthiolate and a Band-Aid put us back in the game. However, at least for a short time, there was a sense of trepidation when it came to the uneven patch in the sidewalk or that one branch of the tree --whatever it was that caused our previous fall was treated a little more respectfully, with just a little more caution than before. 

As kids, we were all capable of falling, none of us avoided it. Many a runner wiped out on the curve by Miss Millie's, and the front tire wobble that developed just after landing the big jump was something with which each of us was familiar. The cuts and scrapes were consequences. There wasn't a child on our block who didn't bear some sort of blemish from our outdoor escapades. (I can still point to several of my own today.) In those days, parents called that a lesson. The sympathy moms doled out quickly evaporated when from the kitchen window she heard her recently mended son shouting, "I think I can skip five steps this time!" To which Mom would reply, "Haven't you learned your lesson?!" When those falls and wounds resulted in a little more prudence, or a better way to scale the wall, or a concern for others-- establishing rules so others didn't trip over that same broken fence post -- that's what grown-ups called wisdom, maturity. Foolishness, much like the way we describe insanity today, was repeating the previous actions and expecting to stick the landing. The best dads were the ones helping to modify ramps and pushing their offspring toward greatness by involving them in more structured motorsport programs.  

Have you ever thought of adulthood in the same terms? Even adults do dumb stuff, right? Sometimes life takes us places we've never navigated before, and we don't always get it right on the first try. Sometimes we are forced to sit next to the hurt guy at work, and as we know, hurt people hurt people, right? However it happens-- through our own negligence, stupidity, ignorance, or through no fault of our own, we fall, we get hurt. The wounds we suffer are the consequences-- and, yes, we suffer consequences whether the fall was our fault or not. (One of the truly ugly truths of living in a broken world.) The entire experience is the lesson. Whether we learn to fear, to withdraw, to do unto others before they do unto us, to love, to proceed with caution, to seek wise counsel-- it's our choice! Lastly, how do you plan on moving on from here? Will you continue to beat yourself up over your latest gaff? Will you blame and allow anger and unforgiveness to settle like a cloud over your life? Will you fear and refuse to trust again? Will you move forward in a way that demonstrates growth and shares that growth with others?

I've noticed a push to create a painless, comfortable society where consequences are only for the people who deserve them-- whomever that may be (Not us, that's for sure!). Even in some churches, the message is about "your best life" and just how "Golly-Gee-Whiz great life is now that I follow Jesus." We don't like the idea of falling, and getting hurt, and picking ourselves up, and nursing one another's wounds, and learning lessons, and trying again-- or not trying again --with whatever information we've gained. It's all so messy. But following Christ is about knowing the fellowship of His suffering as well as the power of His resurrection. (Not exactly the inspiration you'd find on a refrigerator magnet, as our pastor would say.) 

Proverbs 24:10 says, If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. It is in the difficulties of life that we become stronger and wiser. We learn through failure. We mature through trouble. James 1:2-4 says, Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Now, I know joy may not be the first thing on your mind when you're going through tough times, but God promises, if we just hold fast in faith, we will grow, mature, and gain everything we need for spiritual adulthood. Troubled times will be our teacher if we ask God to show us what we are to learn through them. Pain can change us for the better if we see it as a signal to draw nearer to God and receive His healing. 

Walk in joy today, and leave the Merthiolate in the medicine cabinet!