Less Like Gold

Regarding relationships ...

Just wanted to pass off some words of wisdom -- or so I truly believe they are.

My brother and I have been talking about relationships -- those which might result in marriage -- because he has become rather close to a young woman in his life. Why he would ask me (the single lady) for advice, I have no idea!

He holds this young lady so close to his heart and was asking me how to spend time with her, grow with her, love her, all at the right timing and capacity -- definitely a tough balance! Especially since he is still asking God for wisdom on whether or not He would be calling him to pursue her. All I could think to tell him was to love her as purely as Christ loves her, and he responded by saying this:

I want to treat her less like gold and more like Christ does!

I think there is a lot of truth in that!

 

When you love a person like Christ loves them, you are loving them out of a sacrificial, passionate heart whose ambition is to seek out their good, their spiritual/emotional health, their growth! On the other hand, turn a woman (or man) into gold in your eyes and you put them on a pedestal, idolize them, and risk love turning into lust. They become nothing more than a gilded image in your eyes that you fear you might shatter, or lose! If you truly love a person, you will surrender them into the Father's will and ask Him how He might love that person. Often that means incredible self-control, humility, and patience. Surrender. That is certainly not easy.

 

But out of such, the purest relationships can result -- or so I imagine and hope!

 

Just thought I would share, and I truly hope it is sound. Blessings!

Hidden Blessings

It was just one of those mornings. As I was leaving to go to work and locking the door behind me, before I could say, "Thank God it's Friday," I closed the door and realized in horror that I had just locked my keys in my house.

My dad was already teaching his first period class and my mom had just left for Bible study. So I quickly called her to ask if we had a hide-a-key somewhere outside of the house, to which she said no. But your grandpa might have a copy of our house key, she offered hopefully. When I called him up, sure enough, he had one and said he would be right over. In less than five minutes, I saw his bright red Chevy pick-up pull around the corner, and after a hug, my grandpa handed me the house key so I could run inside the house and grab my own keys.

Funny how I didn't even expect to see my grandpa that day, even though he lives just a few blocks away. Mind you, this is my father's father, not the husband of my Grandma Grace (my mother's mother) who recently passed away. I realized that if I hadn't locked my keys in the house that morning, I wouldn't have had the chance to get a hug from my grandpa that morning or hear his chuckle as he told me how his mischevious dog brought a possum into the house the night before.

Driving to work, I thought about how I might not have a lot of time left with my grandparents. I would never have expected my Grandma Grace to contract the illness that she did that caused her time here to be much shorter than it could have been. I thought about how thankful I was to see my Grandpa Chuck that morning, how grateful I am to be his granddaughter, to share a love of music and poetry with him (he, like me, loves to write poetry), and to go to live theater and concerts with him. He once took me to see a play/concert celebrating the music of Irving Berlin, just the two of us (I was the youngest person in that theater by at least 25 years), and it was such an wonderful time.

I love my grandparents. Upon my grandma's passing away I realized that I had, if you will, no regrets. I mean I am thankful to have spent so much incredible time with that precious lady, really getting to know her, all about her. There is always so much to know about a person, but I had the privilege of developing not only a solid grandmother/daughter relationship, but a genuine friendship. I realize that I want/have wanted the same with all of my grandparents. I want to go to more concerts and write more poetry with my Grandpa Chuck, go to Barnes and Noble to geek out over books a hundred more times with my Grandma Maggie, and melt in the tender hugs of my so much more vulnerable Grandpa Tony. The world might see them as outdated, out of touch, or perhaps a bit too smothering, but no matter what they say, grandparents are truly such precious people.

I encourage you if you have family, no matter how immediate or distant, old or young that you feel you don't know all that well, please take the time to. You have no idea how much time you have left with them on this earth. And you have no idea how much of a gift they can be in your life. To know people -- really know them -- is a joy given to us by God. Friendship is a beautiful thing, beyond what words can express. Think of how many people God has placed in your life, in your family, your school, your workplace, your church -- think of how many opportunities are knocking on your front door to explore the depths of someone's soul and often find it is much like your own.

Pay a visit to your grandfather or grandmother. Make a phone call to a parent you maybe haven't talked to in a long while. Get to know that customer who comes in twice a week. Sit next to that student in the back corner and grab a coffee with them after class. It'll mean the world to them and may just end up changing your own world entirely.

And whether it's locking your keys in the car or stalling on the side of the road like my brother did later that night, take advantage of opportunities you have for your world to collide with that of your grandfather or the tow-truck driver who comes to your rescue. God may be offering you a hidden blessing.

Amazing Grace

 

 

On Monday morning, my Grandma Grace found herself in the arms of Jesus, finally free of a body weak and run down. But even though her body had grown weary, never did her spirit wane or her faith in her Jesus waver. What a legacy she left to her family!

 

I try to think of words to describe this beautiful woman. All I can say is that she lived up to her name, Grace. One particular definition of "grace" puts it this way:

An unmerited gift, favor, or blessing granted by God

And truly, this lady was an unmerited gift from God. None of us deserved her laughter, joy, or incomparable hospitality and generosity. She was an example of faith to me in so many ways. She never complained, even through her illness, and was always thinking of others. Even when she could no longer speak, she always sent encouraging texts with prayers and scriptures, and loved worshiping with each of her grandchildren.

Her warmth is missed already, but I am so glad that she has traded her discomfort for eternal glory. As it says in a psalm my good friend sent me:

My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh cry out for the living God .... Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they will still be praising You.

What a comfort to know that after all of the longing my grandmother has done for the courts of her Lord, she is dwelling in His house now and will continually be praising Him.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only, but also to all who have loved His appearing.

 II Timothy 4:7-8

 

I love you, Grandma Grace
May 9, 1934 - October 7, 2013



An Ebenezer

"Is there a God besides Me? Indeed, there is no other Rock; I know not one." Isaiah 44:8

"He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us." Psalm 62:6-8 

"In the day when I cried out, You answered me, and made me bold with strength in my soul." Psalm 138:3 

"Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand .... Who have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You." Psalm 73:23,25  

Strength Will Rise ...

First off, I want to thank the Lord for meeting with me today in a very real, tangible way. I thank You, Father, for the little glimpses we get of You here on earth. Thank You for increasing my faith.

To be honest, I didn't feel like reading the Word this morning -- ever have those days? It's been a trying season. Lately it seems as though every time I step into deeper waters with God, drawing nearer to His heart, asking for His Spirit, pouring myself out in ministry and encouraging/serving others, I get hit that much harder with spiritual attack. Even last night I wrestled with wave after wave of doubt, fear, and depression and cried out, God, I just can't do this anymore. My family has been going through a lot of lately. But this morning, His Spirit was pressing me to open up His Word yet again.

He brought me to Psalms. God, I've read these before, I told him, expecting to change His mind or something. *face-palm* But He led me to a psalm I don't think I had delved deeply into before.

By the beginning of Psalm 31, I was hooked:

In You, O Lord, I put my trust; let me never be ashamed; deliver me in Your righteousness. Bow down Your ear to hear me, deliver me speedily; be my rock of refuge, a fortress of defense to save me ...

I read on and on, the Spirit refreshing me with the simple yet timeless truth that God is still my strength -- cuz right now, I feel as though I have none. Not only that, He is my defender. My mom and I have both had our share of injustices done toward us and people we love, so it is indeed comforting to know that God is a God of justice who comes to the defense of His children. Here is yet another beautiful reminder:

For You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities ...

Here I had felt as though I had dropped off of God's radar. But here, the psalmist confesses that God knows exactly what we're going through. He knows my soul in the hard times. He sees the tears we cry. He knows and understands when our souls cry out, God, I just can't take this anymore -- it's too hard. But who better to know us than the Lord Himself? I mean, really? Where else could we go?

The final verse hit me the hardest:

Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord.

If I can be honest, I had given up in this area. Courage is a choice -- and I have felt as though I have not made the choice to fight or be courageous. Nor had I really had a solid hope that the Lord would come through in certain situations. But here is a promise, that if I indeed take courage, and hope in my Lord again with all the faith I can muster, He will strengthen my heart.

God must have anointed me with faith again, because I started to pray that I would indeed take this promise to heart as I went throughout the day. In fact, I wanted to write that verse down on my hand so that I wouldn't forget it!

But I turned out that I didn't have to. At work today, I was operating the register at the drive-thru window, getting lost in the chaos of cars and cash, when a smiling man drove up in his little beat-up Honda. I knew I had seen that smile before. When I handed him his change, I knew I had even felt those shaky hands before. It was when he pulled out some brightly colored cards and said, "Pick one!" that I remembered -- He was the guy who had come through my workplace before and handed us workers his scripture cards. So I picked one, the green one. My friend working with me also picked one. After I said a smiling goodbye to the man and he drove off, I looked at the scripture on the card I just picked. Wouldn't you know it, this was the verse he handed me:

Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord. -- Psalm 31:24, KJV

All I seemed to hear was God saying, "Noelle, I'm right here. I've never left you. I am right here with you. And if you continue to hope in me, dearest one, I WILL strengthen your heart." And He did.

You see, tomorrow is my last day at this job that I have been in for more than two years: definitely bittersweet. I had this hunch that God was indeed calling me to quit -- I say hunch because I am still plagued with a sense of doubt that it was the right decision! Especially when I consider all the people -- coworkers and customers -- that I am leaving behind. And considering that God would call me out without giving me another job to lean on. The world would shout at me, Are you crazy? Quitting before you know what you're doing afterwards? That's stupid! And to be honest, I still feel a little stupid about it. But God has been doing a lot through my resignation. He's already been doing a lot through my boss. And in that beautiful little affirmation through that little green scripture card given by that smiling man, God has given me some insane peace that it's all going to work out. So I am going to hope in the Lord. 

After church tonight, as another sweet affirmation from God, we sang these well-known (yet no less encouraging!) lyrics in the closing song:

You are the everlasting God ...

You're the defender of the weak 

You comfort those in need

You lift us up on wings like eagles ...   

Fully believing and trusting God's promises is not always easy, especially when we go through times when things just aren't working out the way we think they should, or at least what seems logical or reasonable to us. But I am slowly learning that God is not inside our box--He is the uncreated One who is completely beyond us. If He is that much more above us, how much more worthy is He of our complete trust? Who else could we ever trust? Who else could we possibly turn to? He is the only One. My problems and struggles are far from being resolved, but if I truly believe that He is ALL I need--my defender, my strength, my hope now and always--then I can do all things through Him who gives me strength. And I will be soaring like an eagle.   

Identity

From King's Cross by Timothy Keller

Jesus is saying, "It's not enough just to know me as a teacher or as an abstract principle; you have to look at my life. I went to the cross--and on the cross I lost my identity so you can have one.

Once you see the Son of God loving you like that, once you are moved by that viscerally and existentially, you begin to get a strength, an assurance, a sense of your own value and distinctiveness that is not based on what you're doing or whether somebody loves you, whether you've lost weight or how much money you've got. You're free--the old approach to identity is gone. Nobody put this better than C. S. Lewis in the last two pages of his Mere Christianity, where he comments on Jesus' call to lose yourself to find yourself:

The more we get what we now call "ourselves" out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become ... our real selves are all waiting for us in him ... The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surrounding and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call "Myself" becomes merely the meeting-place for trains of events which I never started and I cannot stop. What I call "My wishes" become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men's thoughts ... It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His personality, that I finally begin to have a real personality all of my own ... [Nevertheless], you must not go to Christ for the sake of [a new self]. As long as your own personalitty is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all.

If you go to Jesus to get a new personality, Lewis says, you still haven't really gone to Jesus. Your real self will not come out as long as you are looking for it; it will only emerge when you're looking for him.

 

***

"Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it."  -- Mark 8:34-35

Rest Oration

This is skin.
This is the beginning of vulnerable.
Healing—
the sting of cleansing,
the burn of antiseptic.

Refinement is fire
And blood, purification

To rest before You

is to arrive
naked
of my sorrows,
my stresses,
my fear.
Comfort
is only found
in weakness.

If brokenness

is peace,
I throw my mirrors
upon the temple floor
and kneel
into the shards, 
bleeding
before Your mercy seat.

Revive me

with incense,
Melchizedek—
Or I’ll only go back
into the black.

Yet, lead me into darkness

so I can see the Light

And there, I’ll find my rest