I Love You Forever......

Days 153 and 154 reading asignment:
2 Samuel 19:11-21:22
John 21:1-Acts 1:26
Psalm 120:1-121:8
Proverbs16:16-18

My grandson Crew is just thirteen months old but already he knows how to work me.  He is a master at doling out his love and then withholding it for just the right effects.  He will ignore me just until I'm bordering on really taking his rejection personally and then with an enormous smile and flickering eyes he stretches his arms wide and will run the full length of the room toward me and wrap himself completely around me.  This one action is worth the previous rejections.  Our love is secure and reinstated once again.

When Crew's mommy was little, we would play a game where she would use her hand to smash her nose upwards and catch the side of her mouth with her pinky finger causing it to droop abnormally downward and do anything else she could to distort herself and then would ask me "mommy if I looked like this would you still love me?"  This game and its many variations could go on for a very long time, much like the numerous children's books on the topic of unconditional love.  Like "Mama Do You Love Me?", "I Love You Stinky Face", and one of my favorites "I Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch.  I was standing in Clas E Professor in the mall many years ago reading this book about a mother reinforcing to her child her unconditional love for him.  The story begins when the little boy is just a baby and follows him through boyhood  with a line that repeats: "I love you forever, I like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be."  At the end of the story the boy has grown into a man and the mama has grown into a little old lady.  The man cradles the old lady in his arms and he is now saying to her : "I love you forever, I like you for always as long as I'm living my mommy you'll be."  At this point in the story, standing there in that store, I cried so hard the lady who worked there came over to offer me a kleenex.  It was incredibly embarrassing.

It is easy for me, as a mother, to get the unconditional concept.  I try to keep this perspective when relating myself to God.  To get in relationship with Him as my Father it is a comfort to know this is His love for me.  At the end of John when the resurrected Jesus appears again to the disciples by the Sea of Galilee, it made me wonder how Peter was feeling.  This was the third time Jesus had appeared to them after his death.  Peter had denied Christ three times before the crucifixion.  Now Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved Him.  The application says: The first time Jesus said, "Do you love (Greek agape: volitional, self-sacrificial love) me more than these?"  The second time, Jesus focused on Peter alone and still used the word translated into Greek,  agape.  The third time Jesus used the word translated into Greek, phileo (signifying affection, affinity, or brotherly love) and asked, in effect, "Are you even my friend?"  When Peter answered yes, Jesus told him to feed His sheep.  It is one thing to say you love Jesus, but the real test is willingness to serve Him.  Peter had repented and here was Jesus asking him to  commit his life.  Peter's life changed when he finally realized who Jesus was.  He finally understood the significance of Jesus' words about his death and resurrection.  

There is another really great children's book by Sam McBratney called, "Guess How Much I Love You?"  It is about a bedtime conversation between a Father (Big Nutbrown Hare) and his son (Little Nutbrown Hare).  This story is a precious example of God's love for His children. As Big Nutbrown Hare prepares Little Nutbrown Hare for bed, "Little' initiates a contest of one-upmanship.  Father and son each come up with similes to express their love for the other.  Little Nutbrown Hare falls asleep thinking he has won with, "I love you as far as the moon!"  But Big Nutbrown Hare gently cradles him and lays him in his bed, whispering, "I love you as far as the moon....and back!"

Jesus doesn't settle for easy answers.  He has a way of getting to the heart of the matter.  Peter had to face his true feelings and motives when Jesus confronted him.  This made me wonder how I would respond if Jesus asked me, "Do you love me?  Do you really love me?  Are you even my friend?

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Day 152 reading assignment:
2 Samuel 18:1-19:10
John 20:1-31
Psalm 119:153-176
Proverbs 16:14-15
It's hard to know how to restart.  There is a lot of story between Deuteronomy and 2 Samuel as well as Luke, John, Proverbs and the Psalms.
There's been a lot of good reading between then and now but I think the best way forward is forward.  So I will start today with today's reading assignment and try to do a 'between posts recaps' of the last two months.  Otherwise I'm afraid I'll never catch up and I don't need one more thing to veer me off of this course........So for whatever it is worth, I'm back doing what I can to catch some glimpse of this message that I am forever seeking.

Like Thomas in John 20, I question if I will always struggle with my habitual weak faith.  I wonder if my hot, cold, tepid spiritual temperature is chronic.  At what point do I get membership in the solid, faithful, believers club?

This isn't as serious as an all out crisis of faith.  But more like that Judy Blume book, "Are You There God?  It's Me Margaret."  It helped a lot to read John 20 today. I've always known about Doubting Thomas, but just the Sunday school version.  I have never spent any time considering Thomas' affliction. If I spent any time forming an opinion of him I would think he was disloyal bordering on disrespectful.  This quick judgement is probably why we are always cautioned not to judge...never assume anything.  The bio on Thomas in my Bible says just the opposite.  In fact it says some of his strengths were loyalty and honesty.  And in his defense, I will try to stand in his sandals for just 5 minutes.  I imagine Thomas, gripped with the sorrow of Jesus' death.  Now all at once ten of his good friends are telling him of their encounter with Jesus- alive and well.  I see myself right there with him wondering incredulously why my friends would expect me to believe their insane story, and maybe feeling a little left out of this loop.

Sometimes life is just disappointing.  You try to keep an optimistic outlook, you think you are jumping through all the right hoops and still it dumps on you.  The what-ifs creep in quietly and work their voo-doo magic and the wavering begins and before you know it you realize you are really ticked off at God.  But really isn't anger at God a reinforcement of honest belief?  You can't be mad at something you don't believe in right?

What I really loved about today's reading was what the application had to say about doubt; 'We can doubt without having to live a doubting way of life.  Doubt encourages rethinking.  Its purpose is more to sharpen the mind than to change it.  Doubt can be used to pose the question, get an answer, and push for a decision.  But doubt was never meant to be a permanent condition.  Doubt is one foot lifted, poised to step forward or backward.  There is no motion til the foot comes down.  When I experience doubt (for a moment or even a season) I will take encouragement from Thomas.  He didn't stay in his doubt but allowed Jesus to bring him to belief.  Silent doubts rarely find answers.  I know I cannot settle into doubt but must move on from it to decision and belief.'  I will also take encouragement from the fact that countless other followers of Christ have struggled with doubts as well.....maybe even some from that solid, faithful, believers club I so badly want to join.

                              -Better to doubt out loud than to disbelieve in silence-

On the Road Again...........

Sorry this is just a short note to say that I am on the road again.  This time to NYC. I will be home Dec 16th and plan to get back to blogging with a vengeance........well as vengeancey as I can get smack in the middle of the Christmas season.............please stay tuned!
xoxoxoxo

Girl Interrupted

Days 90 and 91 reading assignment:
Deuteronomy 16:1-20:20
Luke 9:7-50
Psalm 72:1-73:28
Proverbs 12:8-10

I think one of the reasons it is getting harder to blog about this reading experience is the recurring sense of myself, of my pride.  Being a person of fairly low self esteem I have never (until I started reading the Bible) seen pride or self-centeredness as one of my many issues.  In her book, Praying God's Word, Beth Moore says:  In some ways, Christians have to be more alert to pride than anyone.  If we don't have an issue that is actively humbling us, we veer with disturbing velocity toward arrogance and self-righteousness.  We are wise to remember that Christ never resisted the repentant sinner.  He resisted the proud and Pharisaic. Pride is not the opposite of low self-esteem.  Pride is the opposite of humility.  We can have a serious pride problem that masquerades as low self-esteem.  Pride is self-absorption whether we're absorbed with how miserable we are or how wonderful we are.  We are wise to be on the constant lookout for pride in our lives.  If we aren't taking deliberate measures to combat pride, it's probably doing something to combat humility.  Now all this said I need to clarify that it isn't that I'm too proud to admit that I have a pride issue.  It is, however, the redundancy of it all.  I should go back and count how many times since I started this blog that I have written about how the Bible reading has exposed this very thing in my life.  I am realizing that I can't skip blogging because the content may be 'same story different day.'  I am learning that this repetition is the whole point.  This is how God communicates...with me anyway.

Even before our current circumstances our house was a three-ring circus.  People drop by a lot.  Usually my consistent reaction to hearing a car in the driveway is to rant like a lunatic, resentful at being interrupted;  "Who is here NOW?"   When the phone rings and I don't feel like being interrupted, I don't answer it.  Yet in my daily prayers I pray (with the same ranting mouth) Lord use me for the Glory of your kingdom.  Yes I do recognize that this is where I am veering with disturbing velocity toward arrogance and self-centeredness thank you very much.

On December 1st, the reading assignment took in Luke 9:10,11.  It was talking about how Jesus tried to slip quietly away from the crowds, but they found out where He was going and followed Him.  Instead of showing impatience at this interruption, the appliction says, Jesus welcomed the people and ministered to their needs.  It goes on to ask: How do you see people who interrupt your schedule-- as nuisances or as the reason for your life and ministry?  I think I had it all in my mind so differently.  First of all, when I pray for God to use me, I assumed I would begin to resemble Mother Teresa and I would be whisked off to some third world country complete with a little blue and white dish towel on my head.  What was I smoking?  And secondly, who do I think I am?  The mission is here and now.  In the everydayness with our everyday people.  THIS is my mission.  Just to love the people He gives me whenever, wherever.  I keep getting the same message from different Bible readings because I keep praying, "show me what to do."  He keeps telling me to die to myself and He will continue to tell me until I do it.  Just as I had a concept of God, I have also had a concept of what my service for God would look like.  And, disturbingly, that reveals my concept of me.  The me I think I should be to the people in my life.  Now I see Him interrupting me deliberately,  double-dog daring me to resent it as He changes me into His concept of me. 


-The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it-
                                                                                         Mother Teresa

Flying by the Seat of My pants

Days 88 and 89 reading assignment
Deuteronomy 11:1-15:3
Luke 8:22-9:6
Psalm 70:1-71:24
Proverbs 12:4-7

Many years ago, before my husband Brent was a certified flight instructor, we set out to teach me how to fly.  We took the first several lessons in my brother's Cub, a sweet little two-place "tail-dragger" plane.  At some point, for reasons unbeknownst to me but surely having nothing to do with my credibility as a pilot, my brother suggested we use our own plane for my flight instruction.  We would have begun my lessons in our 1946 Taylorcraft  but the Cub is just a little easier to fly and Brent was trying to keep things as uncomplicated as possible.  I should back up here and say that Brent "took-over" my flight training after I had taken many lessons from a friend who was indeed a certified instructor.  Brent was frustrated that I wasn't progressing as quickly as he thought I should and being a loyal husband, blamed it all on our instructor friend.....for awhile.

In the air, while I thought we were doing fine, he would shout,"DOES THIS FEEL RIGHT TO YOU!!??"  
"DOES WHAT FEEL RIGHT TO ME???" I gently and lovingly screamed back at him.
"YOUR BUTT, YOUR BUTT...can't you feel it in your butt?"
"Feel WHAT in my butt, what are you talking about?"
We were wearing headsets and normally you have to push the little black button on the yoke to talk, but at this point we no longer needed the intercom system to hear each other over the cockpit noise.  Without fail, by the time we had landed on the bumpy grass strip, I was crying.  We would sit in the plane and "go over" the flight and too little too late, he would try to encourage me to try it again.  If he wasn't repeating 'feel it in your butt', he was monologuing "right rudder right rudder!"  I finally realized it was comfortable to rest my foot on the left rudder and evidently this gesture was putting the whole plane...askew, so to speak.  In my defense I confessed that I usually rested my left foot on the clutch peddle of my car too,  he just slapped himself on the forehead muttering something derogatory and walked away.  I may never understand men.   I also do not understand why, if it takes feeling something in your butt (that I have yet to learn) to fly an airplane, why then am I not a natural because I do tend to squeak through this life 'flying by the seat of my pants.'  Evidently they are two separate concepts.  I could get us on the ground with only minor injuries if I had to land a plane now, if all the conditions were perfect and there was no wind and no other planes on the tarmac.  But who wants to?  My time is better spent on the ground, of that I am sure.  So I did not see flying lessons through to any kind of completion...that's right I quit.

Brent is organized. Whether he is flying a plane or eating his Cheerios.  (I would be organized too if I only focused on one thing at a time and one person at a time.)  Before he leaves the house he has a five point checklist:
"phone-check"
"watch-check"
"pen-check" (don't even get me started on the pen)
"wallet-check"
"glasses-check"....
As I watch this final part of his morning routine I am thinking: 'kick in the butt from your wife as you are walking out the door- check.'  Everything he does is a part of a bigger routine, it's mind boggling for a person who is routine challenged as I am.  If I had a check-list before leaving the house it would be:
Am I dressed or is a bathrobe acceptable where I am going?-check
Am I wearing shoes-check
Do they match-check
Was there time for make-up and if so do both eyes have mascara-woops no time gotta go.

The imaginary squirrels, like voices in my head, haunt me and distract me and oddly bring me some sense of comfort.  I say all this to explain that while there may be lapses in this blog, unlike my flying lessons I will not quit.  If there are readers out there in this unknown cyber frontier, please know that I will see this through.  My absenteeism is to the computer, not to the reading assignment.  This Bible reading in a year, unlike every diet I have ever tried, is a life-style change for me.  If there are no readers at all I will still "Blog On!"

As for the flying lessons, we toy with the idea of taking them up again now that Brent is certified but then our eyes meet and with smiles we just say "nah."