I want

I want.  Yo quiero.  It’s a phrase we are all used to saying. We order the delicious items that call out to us on a menu by saying, “I want.”  We take off for the mall, cash in hand to buy the things we want.  We make plans and create strategies spending our lives pursuing the things we want.

As I grew up, my sole dream and desire was to be in love.  Like many young girls, I dreamed of a prince and being treated like a princess with a fairy tale wedding and life.  As I got older, my vision changed, but I’m not sure I traded those fairy tale dreams in for the more realistic stuff of falling in love with a real person versus some superman on a white horse.  But I always wanted a family and a home, and at the center of my dream was the relationship I would have with my spouse.

This dream was very powerful in my life.  Looking back I would say that above anything else, including God, (though I wouldn’t have always recognized or acknowledged that fact) I wanted a deep, loving relationship with someone.  That dream was so strong for me that I know I made decisions along the way solely based on the very narrow vision of what I wanted.

As life has happened and as I have changed, I have come to realize how much I took care of that dream to the detriment of other parts of my life.  Most importantly, I’m very aware today of how much that dream came between God and I.  I know that I did little to make sure that dream was built on the right foundation.  Looking back, I feel I was like an Israelite who heard the words of Moses saying, “Love the Lord with all your heart; fear Him; keep his commandments; put no other gods before Him…” but the way I was living you would have thought I just heard, “Blah, blah, blah.”

Scripture is filled with the idea that loving God and putting him first is the key to prosperity and the desires of our hearts coming to fruition, but I really need the story of the Israelites to remind me of the lifetime journey I’m on to defeat the idols in my life. In Deuteronomy before Moses hands over his leadership to Joshua, he reminds the Israelites over and over of this very thing, and in chapter 30 he basically says that if the people will love God with everything in their being that he will restore their riches and gather them all back to ultimately give them the promised land.

It’s great to think about God in unconditional love kinds of terms, but we don’t like to focus much on what is required of us when there might be pain and sacrifice involved.  Here’s just one reference to it from Deuteronomy—emphases mine:

“The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts (ouch!) and the hearts of your descendants (not my kids too!), so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.” 30:6

Life—that’s what we all want.  And I’m not just talking about the act of living of course.  When we define what makes a good life, certain images come to mind based on the desires of our unique hearts.

But what happens when our dreams are idols that we put before God? Circumcision.  Yeah, I know it’s not a pretty word to use, but it fits.  God has circumcised the dreams of my youth, the ones that kept me from his true promises.  It’s been a painful—oh so painful—but necessary part of my faith journey.

A few years ago, I stopped uttering, “I want,” and it wasn’t because I’m some super spiritual person.  It was because I couldn’t really even lift my head.  I was in a valley that overcame me for a time.  I was taken to that place beyond thirst to a place of survival, and amazingly I realized that only God could get me out of there.

I think he is still in the process of doing that, and now I’m more attentive now to his presence.  I’m desperate to live the life he wants me to live.  I know I won’t get it all right.  I know I need to constantly be reminded not to put idols before him.  I know it would be so easy to go back the way I came into the wilderness of old plans and dreams.  But that’s not what I want anymore.

I want what he wants for me.

In May I stood on Mount Nebo.  I looked across the Jordan valley into the Promised Land just like Moses did when he begged the people to remember to put God first and no other.  What a view I had from up there.

I was in Jordan on a theatre in missions trip with Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA)—a dream trip that God miraculously and unexpectedly gifted me with.  Our mission was to work with Muslim and Christian high school students in Amman.  After we left Jordan, we toured several towns in Israel performing scripts at many of the biblical sites we visited.

Our group’s collective journey was very meaningful, and to this day I can’t really believe that I was so blessed to go along.  Being in Jordan and Israel gave me a perspective on my faith that I’m not sure I would have gotten any other way.

My favorite days were in Jordan.  I loved waking up too early and sharing breakfast and conversation with Anna over a delicious bowl of cereal with dried strawberries in it.  I loved sharing food together and reflecting over the amazing things God was doing through our group with Tom.  I loved the late night silliness with Morgen and the prayers we lifted up for one another.

My roomie for the trip was Bev.  Bev has a wonderfully rich soul and lives life with rare vigor and earnestness.  She does not give up easily, though her life has thrown her a number of curve balls.  And she helped me to learn about 5-bar experiences with God—those moments when the communication with him is so full and rich like when all the bars are lit up on my iPhone and everything is clear and unencumbered by interference.

Music was a part of our mission trip as our group worshipped together in the mornings sometimes on our bus.  For Bev and I, both being Anglican and away from our respective churches brought up chats about some of the hymns unique to our tradition.  Once in a while we would just break out into song in our room.  We discovered that we both loved one of my favorite hymns.

Bev and I didn’t have a hymnal or a good internet connection to find all the lyrics while we were on the trip, so we did the best we could scribbling a line or two along the way when one of us would remember, adding up to maybe one or two full verses and the chorus by the time it was all over.  Like bad karaoke we would sing with fervor the parts we knew and then hum the rest until we got back to a familiar word or line.  When I got back to the states, I found my hymnal right away so I could fill in the blanks:

V1:

I want to walk as a child of the Light.  I want to follow Jesus.

God set the stars to give light to the world.  The Star of my life is Jesus.

REFRAIN:

In Him there is no darkness at all, the night and the day are both alike.

The Lamb is the Light of the city of God.  Shine in my heart Lord Jesus.

V2:

I want to see the Brightness of God.  I want to look at Jesus.

Clear Son of Righteousness shine on my path and show me the way to the Father.

V3:

I’m looking for the coming of Christ.  I want to be with Jesus.

When we have run, with patience the race we shall know the joy of Jesus.

This hymn is my prayer of the year.  It speaks to all that I hope I’m living out right now. I want to follow Jesus.  I want to look at Jesus, and I want to be with Jesus.  Though I don’t consciously want to hurt, I don’t want to be so far away from the pain it took to get here that I forget that sacrifice and even circumcision are necessary parts of a life dedicated to God.

I stopped saying, “I want” when I went to that desperate place.  But he has lifted my head and helped me to walk again.  And in the stillness he has begun to let me know that it’s okay to ask again.  It’s okay to dream again.  He is whispering to me, “What is it Kim that you now want?”  And from this new place with new perspective, I humbly pray for the desires of my heart.  Psalm 37:4

Lord, may what you want for my life be always what I want.  Amen.

I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light composed by Kathleen Thomerson  (lyrics) © 1970 Celebration.

VDay

This year my Valentine’s décor was up in my house way past the time it should have been taken down.  Yes, even in April there are a few people in my neighborhood who still have Christmas wreaths on their doors, but Christmas is a major holiday. Sometimes we linger, even if a bit too long on keeping the Christmas décor and lights up because it’s a holiday with real meaning.  It has a weight and depth to it.

Valentine’s is more of an excuse to spend too much on greeting cards and to gain a few pounds eating chocolate.  Now, I don’t have much in the way of decorations for VDay—just a little bit of heart soap and something that hangs on my mantle and some old cards from people from various years.  I have a few cut out hearts and some things that Emma made when she was little.

Since I’ve gone through divorce and all the disenchantment with love that goes with that, the last several years I have pretty much refused to celebrate VDay.  In fact, every time the day rolled around, I could be found cursing the holiday more than relishing in it.  So, to put out any decorations, meager as they were, and to celebrate what has been a somewhat complicated day for me is at least a small victory in the scheme of my life.

Last month, our choir sang our last major concert of the season.  It was a Holocaust Memorial concert.  For it, we stood in front of the altar instead of our usual semi-hidden place behind the altar—yes, the other other side of the altar.

The Memorial concert was a mixture of songs and words from people that had been in concentration camps.  Jewish survivors and also liberators from our community were invited. For many of us in the choir, it was emotional to sing and say the words in the program.

The stories of torture, torment, family separation, human experiments, children being treated as if they were lower than animals and mass murder are sadly very real, and these things happened not too long ago.

We sang that night, not just in memory of what happened during World War II, but also for the injustices that continue around the world and even in our backyards and in our personal lives. Some of the songs deal with faith issues, and the fact that anyone could hold onto a belief in a loving God during such a time was telling and humbling. One song in particular wouldn’t stop playing in my head and swimming around in my heart long after the concert was over.

The song is called, “Even When God Is Silent” by Michael Horvit.  The words are from an actual basement in Germany and written by someone hiding from the Gestapo.  Knowing the context of the text, it is very hard for me to imagine writing such a thing.  It is faith at its pure essence.  The words simply say:

I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

I believe in love even when feeling it not.

I believe in God even when God is silent.

To this day, I can sing the first and third lines convincingly, but it is that middle line that really gives me trouble.  When I really start to break down the words in the sentence, “I believe in the sun when it is not shining” it doesn’t take long to think it through.  Yes, of course, it’s grey some days, but that doesn’t mean the sun has not gone away.  Here, reason it seems, wins out.

Third line seems a bit tougher until I break it down as well.  “I believe in God even when he is silent.”  Yes, I do.  Who else am I screaming at when I can’t hear him?  Why even bother if I don’t believe he is listening?  Why he does not answer in those moments my human limitations cannot illuminate, but if I don’t believe in God when he is silent, then I have to believe I am crazy for yelling at no one.  Not ready for that admission quite yet.

And then there is that darned middle line.  “I believe in love…even when feeling it not.”  No, this one I cannot easily sing and believe.  The notes and the words come out, but my heart is not in it.  Believing in love when I don’t feel it.  How?

I readily admit that this is a big issue for me.  In human relationships, I need reminders, markers that love has not strayed or diminished. It’s not so much that I’m the jealous type or that I have to be with someone 24/7 or anything, I just expect love to grow and progress.  I expect loving relationships to evolve and deepen.  I love with so much of my being that I want that in return.  But for me, this type of loving has seemed to overwhelm people in my life at times.  When it comes to the opposite sex in particular, loving this way has simply not worked.

And frankly, that’s really confusing.  I’ve had several years now to ponder all of this, and honestly I don’t know if I would be able to recognize real love that might last from mere romantic love that might not.  I hate thinking that I’m somehow jaded, but I think I’ve been betrayed one too many times to know if I will ever be able to rest in love again.

In my relationship with God, I’m proud of the fact that I rely on him more today than I ever have.  But the days of aching loneliness and a sometimes-silent Father become true tests of my faith.  I don’t feel as if I’m meant to be alone forever, and yet I am for now, so I look for what God is trying to teach me in these days.

After the concert, I became curious about the word “holocaust” since I had only really known it’s meaning as it related to the horrible tragedy and war crimes of World War II.  But when it is not formalized and capitalized, the word holocaust means, “a sacrifice that is totally consumed by fire.”

When I read that, I thought about the great prophet Elijah.  What a holocaust God provided for the prophets of Baal to witness.  That is before we read that Elijah hightailed it to the desert in fear.  Yeah, he has this great victory, fire raining down and consuming everything, and then gets threatened by a girl and because he can’t take it, he disappears.  And not only that, he basically asks God to end his life right then and there.  Finally exhausted from the stress of it all, Elijah falls asleep.

Of course, in all fairness, it was God’s victory out there with the prophets of Baal.  Though he felt the victory, Elijah may have just been completely overwhelmed at that point.  He had seen a lot happen—he had relinquished his own power and allowed God to use him.  And who knows what seeing that miracle did to him.  As scripture says:

“Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also (I love this part) licked up the water in the trench.” (1 Kings 18:38 NIV)

Say what? Even the trench water was gone?  I can’t even really imagine it, and somehow I totally relate to Elijah taking off after this.  I mean, things should be great for Elijah for a while, right?  His God just rained down fire on a soaking wet bed of timber and rocks in front of 950 false prophets. But shortly after this when Jezebel unleashes her fury, Elijah takes a sudden leave of absence.

I think there are some people who when they have amazing experiences where they see God at work they are somehow able to put those experiences into spiritual banks that help them get stronger and more confident and faithful even.  But that’s not me.  I regularly need touch stones and altars to remind me of the goodness in my life and the great things God has done.

I need God to wake me up from my stress-induced slumber saying, “Get up and eat.” (I Kings 19:5).  And this is what Elijah does.  Then he makes a long journey to a cave.  Still in hiding perhaps? Was he going to the mountain of God to purposely meet God or was Elijah just avoiding facing normal life again?

There God asks him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” God asks, not once but twice. (1Kings 19:9 & 13) And in kind, Elijah gives God the same answer both times:  “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty…” (1 Kings 10 & 14) and he goes on from there to talk about what everyone else is doing—like he is trying to avoid God’s question almost.  And then Elijah pulls out the real sympathy card: “…and now they are trying to kill me too.”

For a long time, I too have been pulling out my pathetic sympathy cards and laying them out before God:

“Oh Lord, you know the pain in my spirit that I have been dealing with these past few years.  I lost my job some time ago.  I still feel very alone at times.  And it’s really tough out here in the desert.  There are times I almost long for death because if I died, then all of this would be over.”

Like Elijah, I tell God the details of a story he already knows.  I spell it out for him again and again, just in case he missed it the first hundred times I said it.

And like with Elijah after the wind and the earthquake and the fire, God’s answer, though in the form of a question, is still the same…

“What are you doing here, Kim?”

He asks this because he knows.  He knows I’m not my best when I’m stuck in a place of fear while looking back over my shoulder at the distant past.  He knows that my wandering in the desert and hiding in caves because I don’t know what to do next is a lack of faith.  He asks this question in a gentle whisper so that I really have to stop and listen to hear his voice.

He asks me what I am doing here because he has something better for me.  If I get my rump in gear and get out of my funk, he is ready to show me.  He gave Elijah a very specific list of things to do once Elijah stopped to hear God’s voice.

I had a rough start to this year, but in the midst of that God gave me work that challenged and inspired me.  And I believe in recent days, he has given me some specific things to do too in regards to my long-term future.  So every day I pray for the courage to believe and trust in his plan while fighting the urge to hightail it to the desert again.

I know he wants me to believe in love “even when feeling it not.”  That starts with digesting more fully the way he loves me.  It means looking down at the foundation that has been underneath my feet all along.  He is patient enough to hear me recite my sympathy card script again if need be, but I know that he wants to see me release the grip on that tired story so he can give me a new script for love and life today.

May God give all of us the strength and courage to live in his truths and rest in his perfect love.  Help us Lord to stand our ground after the holocausts–whether they are true tragedies or an outpouring of your power–and to look forward to the work you have before us.  Amen.

Arrival

Baby Emma's arrival

A couple of days ago as I drove down the road, I passed a Christmas tree lot.  There were men taking down the proverbial big white bulb strings of lights that outlined their outdoor store.  A few forsaken trees lay toppled on the ground around them.  Whether satisfied with their sales or not, it was two days before the big day, and they were packing up.  Time to head home and perhaps trim the leftover trees.

This image is just one sign of what now has finally come.  Ready or not, Christmas has arrived.

Arrival is a great word.  Arrival is often the culmination of something eagerly anticipated—like a package in the mail, a plane carrying a dear friend, or the birth of a baby.  I have two friends that gave birth this year and one that is very ready to have her baby though she will have to wait until next year.

It’s been fun and a little strange to witness the life-changing event of a baby coming take place all around me.  I had Emma more than 11 years ago this year, yet some of my friends near my age are just starting their families.  My parenting skills span over a decade while they are learning how to change diapers and fuss with car seats.

But then again, Emma wasn’t planned.  No couple in their right mind would get pregnant while the wife was the sole bread winner and hubby went to school full time working on his masters.  No, that wouldn’t make sense at all.  But that’s exactly what happened.

We were limping along financially like many seminary couples around us, and I was on the road a bit promoting dramatic and musical resources for the company I worked for.  On one particular trip, I was very tired.  I had flown to a conference in California, so I thought I had a major case of jet lag or something.  I was downing coffee and mochas from the hotel café like nobody’s business.

Some of the ladies with me on the trip listened to me complain of my exhaustion and watched my coffee addiction increasing by the day until one of them finally said, “I bet you are pregnant.”  “Ha!” I confidently said, “I don’t think so.  Not me!”

But she had planted a seed—or maybe more of a weed.  And that weed of thought took over my brain until I was able to get home to take the pee-on-a-stick test.  Sure enough, while unknowing daddy-to-be sat trapped in the bathtub next to me (he had failed to notice that there was no shower in the apartment he picked out for us), I made the grand announcement: “We are pregnant.”

Happy panicking took place shortly there after.  We were in shock.  There were a lot of schizophrenic “yippees!” and “what!?” and “how will we…” and “let’s call our parents” all at the same time.  This was not in our plan, but the countdown to an arrival had already begun.

Much has been written about the arrival of Jesus into our world.  Yet the amazing birth that we celebrate today is still pretty hard to imagine.  The circumstances were complicated, the setting not even close to ideal, and two anxious first-time parents were ushered into a life they were unaccustomed to.  And on top of that, they were now mom and dad to the ruler of the universe, the Messiah.

Last week, I attended a service called Silent Night at my church.  I decided not to join my choir for the music, but to rather sit and listen and pray.  The service was focused on healing and hope, recognizing that many people do not have Happy Holidays or even anything close.  Many of us looking at the year behind wonder how we made it to Christmas at all.

At that service, as the message wound down, the priest asked us to close our eyes and use our imaginations for a moment.  He read us a story about a boat.

The boat comes from a distance towards the shore.  You are standing on that shore waiting. The passengers: Mary carrying the baby Jesus in her arms as they cross the choppy water. The vessel drifts in and then comes to a gentle stop; you go to meet the boat. Mary looks up at you and then lifts the swaddled baby up asking you if you will hold Jesus.

You reach out and place one hand under his head and one hand under his back until he is safely in your arms.  Holding baby Jesus next to you, you look down at his sweet face.  And he looks up at you.

Christmas is in your arms.

If you’ve ever held a baby, I’m betting this scene isn’t too hard to imagine. The simplicity and the beauty of Jesus coming as a baby never gets old.  The genius choice God made to come in this way is easy for me to understand as a parent because, no matter the circumstances that bring them into the world, babies are wonderful blessings.  We just sometimes fail to recognize that in our broken world.

So this year, whether it’s been a good one or a hard one, whether you have a new baby to enjoy, new dreams to pursue or you’re just struggling to get by, I hope that you will be able to focus on the one thing that matters.

The journey of another year almost over, let’s find ourselves at the manger reaching in to hold him–perfect joy and salvation in our arms–as we walk into a New Year filled with mystery and promise.

Merry Christmas everyone…

Blessed

Thanksgiving this year found me very grateful to have a place at a dear friend’s table. Alone for the first time in my life on the holiday, I was sweetly adopted as a guest for the big feast at the Robertson house. When it was time to eat, hostess Carter encouraged us to gather around the table to look for our place card with our name on it.

A late addition to the group, I could have been placed anywhere amongst the family and friends that were there.  But my dear friend placed me right beside her at the head of the table with her amazing husband Barny. I was humbled and very blessed to be sitting there.

Blessings and thanksgiving have appropriately been on my mind all month.  In church on Sundays, I’ve been aware that lately it’s not too hard to find inspiration from the other side of the altar sitting with the choir. But I wasn’t behind the altar the first time I was introduced to Stephen Paulus’ Pilgrims’ Hymn.  I was smack dab in the middle of Wednesday night choir rehearsal.

Sitting in the center of the front row, in the midst of the first sopranos and flanked to the right by the seconds and to the left by the altos, I began to sing the words and melody like any other singer there.  I sang until tears welled up and emotion choked any good sounding notes away—a singer’s worse enemy emotion is sometimes.  The words had penetrated my heart without permission really, and I tried to gather myself through the first chorus only to be met again with eyes full and ready to burst as we sang the second verse.

I didn’t fight it so much the second time.  I let the tears roll down my face, lowered my head a bit and listened to the song in stereo, the familiar voices of my choir enveloping me with a simple but glorious message.

I love it when God surprises me like that.

It’s confirmation that God is amazingly detailed when it comes to our lives.  A believer of any amount of time has most likely been told how God knows exactly what we are feeling, thinking, yada, yada, blah, blah. We can hardly swallow the information. That is not until we are met head on with his deeply personal, eerily specific, spiritually intimate word that he somehow communicates to us in a single moment of time. He knew exactly what I would be singing that night.

As I’ve reflected on the lyrics of the song since, it has really blown into full view the miracle of my life the last year or so.  Out of full-time work for almost a year now, God is putting the dimes and nickels to work.  He’s blessing us where rationally there should be little blessing to celebrate.

Yes, there have been moments when I’ve been pretty angry and sad.  What I was doing before was a ministry to me and to many others, and it’s not easy to take the high road, navigate through the human side of the whole job loss thing, and then come to rest in the fact that God knew exactly what would happen to me and to my small family.  I’m the only breadwinner in my house—the pressure I feel is sometimes enormous—being mom, maid, shuttle driver, cook, bill-payer, handywoman, etc., etc.

Everything starts and stops right here. Or so it seems when I’m overwhelmed by it all. But God has been speaking into our lives more and more, which translated means: I’m currently paying closer attention to what he has to say.  Now, many months later it’s crazy good to look back over the year and see what he has done. One miraculous story sums it up.

On the way home from somewhere, I was talking to Emma about how wonderfully God was taking care of us.  It was the early spring, a chill was still in the air, and I was being intentional about talking to her about celebrating God’s goodness.  We stopped by the mailboxes in our complex, got the mail and then rounded the corner into our designated parking space.

A little over an hour later, I was sobbing pretty fiercely after a tense call with Chase—my credit card company—over the more than $100 monthly increase in my minimum payment (which I found from opening the mail).  My budget could not bear such an unexpected jump, and though I pleaded intensely, not rudely, with several Chase employees, I was told there was no exception.

Deeply frustrated, I hung up and threw my phone down.  Unfortunately, this was just in time for my daughter to see my defeat and my unusual physical outburst.  I apologized immediately for my behavior and through tears tried to explain what the call was all about.  As I hugged her, I shook my head.  I couldn’t understand how just a short time before I had been praising God’s name and now I was filled with fear and disbelief over a single bill that could disrupt our entire financial well-being.

Going to bed that night wasn’t any fun.  Getting up the next day wasn’t either.  How was I going to make it now?  We were already on the edge of hanging on.  A hundred dollars was groceries for a week or gas for two weeks.  Which of those was I supposed to give up?

After a day or two, when my mind cleared and my spirit settled, I felt strongly that I needed to do something more.  I did some research on-line of Chase practices and customer satisfaction and did not find a stellar record or even very many positive comments.  In fact, there were many stories like mine.

Never believing it would really do a darn thing, I wrote a detailed letter to Chase. I outlined my history with the company, my payment record, and the customer complaints that I had found.  I used their own slogan by turning it around and asking them to “chase what matters” which was respect for good customers like me who had been paying a bill despite being affected by the horrible economy.

It felt good to write the letter.  I thought it was an intelligent and well-expressed customer response. I addressed and sent it directly to the CEO of the company, just knowing that I would never hear from anyone.

But there was a secret prayer in my heart.  Did I ever say it out loud?  I’m not sure.  It was really more of a fantasy than a prayer.  Easily forgotten, I imagined if I got an answer it would be some dumb courtesy call and nothing more.

In typical fashion, weeks passed.  On the way to work one day, I got a call from an unknown number.  It was Chase.  A woman assigned to my “case” was on the other end. “Ms. Messer?” the voice said. “Yes,” I replied, bracing myself for the institutional bull that was surely about to rain down on me.

“I’ve reviewed your account and the history including the interest you have paid over the lifetime of being our customer. We have decided to credit your account with $20,000 which leaves you with a balance of…”

She went on, but I didn’t really hear anything else for a second after that.  “Could you please repeat the part about the credit?” I sputtered.

She repeated herself word-for-word.  My mind reeled. Twenty thousand dollars credit. Debt erased. Debt forgiven. After that large of a credit, I would have just one more payment to bring my balance to zero.

I don’t need to type a lot of words here to express the miracle that took place for us through this unusual gift.  My secret fantasy that was not a true prayer had been, “Wouldn’t it be cool if somehow my balance was just gone?” Yeah, he heard that.

And so, I celebrate this big and the less big miracles in my life this year.  God has truly been good to me and has blessed my family in many undeserved ways.  With a heart of thankfulness and gratitude I sing a new song with ancient meaning, and I sing it to him who has done so much to keep this soul of mine from giving up:

Even before we call on Your name

To ask You, O God.

When we seek for the words to glorify You,

You hear our prayer;

Unceasing love, O unceasing love,

Surpassing all we know.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

Even with the darkness sealing us in,

We breathe Your name,

And through all the days that follow so fast,

We trust in You;

Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,

Beyond all mortal dream.

Both now and for ever, and unto ages and ages.

Amen.

Michael Dennis Browne words, Stephen Paulus music © 1997

Long and winding road

The last six weeks I have felt the pressure of a silent blog.  In July, after a wonderful time with family over the 4^th and some insights from being in the small country church that my uncle pastors, I had a pretty solid piece to post.  Even though I was away from my regular choir, that Sunday I enjoyed singing songs with the congregation that took me back to my childhood days of familiar Bible songs and old hymns that hadn’t passed through my vocal chords in a long time.

But I just wasn’t able to post what I wrote.  It was fine.  It would have been okay, but the problem was that it wasn’t coming from where I really was at the time.

Weeks later, it feels like not much has changed.  It has nothing to do with writer’s block.  I’ve had plenty to say.  I just haven’t known how to say it.

Back at my home church a couple of weeks ago as I sat with my choir again, the priest outlined some spiritual dichotomies in her sermon:

Hope vs. Fear

Faith vs. Doubt

Truth vs. Deception

Fear, doubt and deception have been rattling around in my head and heart a lot lately. It’s hard to write about that because these dichotomies also relate to the fact that I’ve been grappling with a familiar friend again:  Grief.  Grief it seems is not done with me.

You know grief.  Grief comes from all those broken places—the things our fallen world gives evidence to.  It’s the too-soon death of someone, the shattered marriage, the senseless crime against the innocent, an unhealed disease in a helpless child, and numerous other painful realities in life.

But our world does not stop for these things.

I’ve come to understand that I have greatly underestimated grief.  There have been numerous times when I think it’s over, and that grief will come to visit no more.  I’m not talking about guilt or feeling unforgiven, though sometimes that is a natural side dish to grief. No, I’m talking about the long arch that grief seemingly requires us to follow and the process that it takes to go through it.

This last year as I’ve been focused on starting over again, I’ve been especially ready to be done with grief.  I have times when I feel like my old hopeful self, and then out of the blue like a crushing boulder that un-welcomed friend returns.

It’s hard when you are striving for a bright new future to give grief enough room or time to work itself out.  We tell ourselves, and others, well-meaning things like, “Life must go on.”  True enough.  But grief demands attention, and we can’t ignore it.  We can call it other things; we can make excuses, but grief will still have its way through us.

In a strange way though, grief really is a friend.  I’m convinced that I would not be as dependent on God as I am today if it weren’t for the pain that I’ve journeyed through.  A few years ago, I was leading a conference while dealing with a lot of tough stuff in my personal life.  Though I didn’t share my story, as it would have been unprofessional in that setting, I was often moved during the times we all came together to worship and pray.

At one of the worship times, I led prayer from the platform and cried a bit.  Weeks later someone who had attended the conference was critical of my emotion during that prayer.  I know that God was working in me and through me at that event. Unfortunately, the raw and tender places we find ourselves in during hard times can be unsettling to others, especially if they have never been broken.

To this day I distinctly remember that in my private prayers after the conference that I thanked God for the raw place I was in, and I asked to never be so comfortable and distant in my approach to Him that I lose touch with His awesome love and power. That is what I prayed earnestly and yet, lately I find myself really longing for the feeling of something new—I yearn to feel like I did before the brokenness.

When grief keeps calling in it’s relentless way, I sometimes can’t tell if God is breaking me down even further so that I will trust Him more or if because I’m trusting Him more, I’m under enemy attack. As Paul related:

“We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.  Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God…” (2 Cor. 1:8-9)

My prayer on good days is very focused on God being in control of all of my concerns.  On the bad days I pick the burdens back up.  I hold on to them fiercely and stupidly. I go back to analyze the bad choices, the painful things that seem like harsh realities, and I circle high above the bones of issues that are picked dry still looking for better insight as I obsess over “whys.”  Sometimes I grieve because I know exactly why, and those are perhaps the hardest moments of all.

I’ve been told this dance is normal.  It’s tiresome though.  Many times I feel like I’m clawing my way back to myself. I passionately want to learn from my missteps and heartache.  I know that the learning won’t help me necessarily avoid future pain, but I want to grow stronger in ways that make me love more deeply, share faith more confidently, and live a content life while striving for Christ to be at the exact center of my life.

For me to get real about this means doing these things without the hope of a husband, without the security of a good job, and without the promise of many old dreams somehow coming true. Somewhere in all the things I’m getting right and wrong in life, I’m glad that I can say that just living for Christ is my ultimate dream.

But submission looks great on paper and is much harder to live out.  Some days are a test, a tug of war, over my tired dreams that He is painfully reshaping into His exact purpose.  As I pick up the verse from where it left off:

“But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such peril, and he will deliver us, on him we have set our hope…” (2 Corinthians 1:9-10)

After the sermon we sang All My Hope on God is Founded, and this simple verse spoke to me (emphasis mine):

All my hope on God is founded; He doth still my trust renew,
Me through change and chance He guideth, only good and only true.
God unknown, He alone calls my heart to be His own.

If you haven’t been broken, you may not relate at all to what I’ve shared here.  And that’s okay.  Someday you may.  If you do, be sure to give grief it’s due.  Fighting grief will get you nowhere.  Instead, try to look at your time of working through grief as a long and winding road back to hope.  That’s where I am…on that road somewhere. I’m finally chasing after a hope that is real, and with God’s help I’ll see it through. Amen.

Endure

Besides the 26.2 miles that make up one of the definitions of the word “marathon,” the word also means “a lengthy and difficult task, event or activity; a test of endurance.”  Endurance is an interesting thing.

When I trained for a marathon a few years ago, I quickly learned the difference between sprinters and elite athletes vs. the more common runner that makes up most of the field in any number of races across the country.  I was surprised to find my training team was made up of people who looked like they were in worse shape than me.  And I was even more surprised to find out how many of them could smoke me on the running trail.

It was all about endurance.  They had it; I didn’t.  I didn’t at first anyway.  But as the mileage climbed for our team training runs, my body responded.  And eventually I did it—finished 26.2 miles despite an injury to my right leg just weeks before the race.

A few weeks ago, I got the notion to run a half marathon with just one month to train.  I knew it would be a stretch.  I had trained for the full marathon for five months.  Yeah…the math didn’t exactly add up just because I was only doing half the distance.

Ironically, while I trained, at choir we were involved in our own kind of endurance test.  We were preparing for a concert that featured Samuel Barber’s Prayers of Kierkegaard—a 20-minute piece with major highs and poignant lows.  And we were also learning the lengthy Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine by Eric Whitacre.

The styles of the music couldn’t be different.  The Barber piece is fully orchestrated; the Whitacre piece is a cappella.  The Whitacre is a fun, moving exploration of the genius of Leonardo da Vinci as dreamer and inventor working out the problem of flight.  The Barber is gentle then clamoring, melodic then dissonant, soft one moment and then suddenly loud and dramatic.  It is a wonderful composition of Kierkegaard’s heartfelt and intelligent writings honing especially in on the unchangeable nature of God.  What a blessing to sing such music.

And oh, how it kicked my butt!  Working with and around choral music the last decade, this material gave me an awakening to the simplicity of music most church choirs are singing.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  It’s just that preparing for this concert was nothing short of a vocal marathon.

As the concert approached, I began to wake up with the music playing in my head. Different phrases and bars that I was trying to work out would come to mind at times, and I would practice my singing in the car on long drives.  I consulted with more experienced choir members over challenging passages, and during coffee outings with musician friends I would bring my music out and ask questions.

Then a couple of weeks before the concert, our director “took the training wheels off” on us on the Whitacre piece.  With no piano help, we all floundered a tiny bit, but miraculously we made it through.  I think everyone was stunned, and I tried to contain my internal celebration as we moved on to rehearsing the Barber score.  We had done it!

Seems that musical artistry has a few things in common with endurance training.  Just like with running, our practice and persistence over time had given us the ability to make it through.  And from there, both pieces blossomed.  After we had “gone the distance,” we had the confidence to really make music.  We continued to sing as we waited for the big night.

Meanwhile, I had a half marathon to run.  Three hours before our final choir rehearsal, I took to the starting line hoping to finish and make it over to church afterward.  As the runners started in 20 or more waves about two minutes apart, I stood with 30,000 strangers ready to begin my 13.1-mile journey.  I was so excited to begin. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I was ready to go.  I was confident I would make it to the finish.

Finally the moment came, and as I started to jog over the starting mat, I glanced down at my left foot sporting the computer chip that would track my official time.  We were off!  A sea of colorful runners headed down Broadway towards downtown Nashville, and I was proud to be one of them.

The first few miles went as expected as I paced myself.  Just like in my training, at around mile seven, I started feeling the run.  I began to work a little harder. I hydrated and sucked on a few oranges along the way.

The end of the course put a beating on me.  I knew from studying the map on-line that there were some hills to tackle.  Unfortunately some of those hills are in the last couple of miles.

Ultimately I crossed the finish line more than 10 minutes off my desired total race time.  I had probably set the bar a bit high for the training time I took.  Nevertheless the sense of accomplishment was wonderful.

As I met up with my daughter and the friend that graciously watched her while I ran, I felt grateful and hungry!  We dashed to the car as a large thunderstorm started, getting soaked by the time we made it.  Always a wonderful support to me, my little girl beamed with pride as we toweled off, chatted about the race and made our way to our favorite burrito joint.

The next evening, we headed to church for the concert.  I was dressed in black from head to toe having dusted off my longest formal skirt that had been stuffed into the back of my closet.

In contrast to my excited and relaxed start of the race, I was shaking all over from nervousness as walked out and took my place with the choir for the concert.  It didn’t matter that the crowd was small.  I still had to consciously breathe deeply in an attempt to relax as the notes began for our first piece.

At the end of the evening’s repertoire a familiar feeling of accomplishment came over me.  I was blessed as friends and family stayed to mingle over plates of cheese and crackers and as we collectively celebrated the music that night.  Finally, we shuffled to the car, and once again, my girl beamed with pride.

It was late.  It had been a busy weekend.  All my adrenaline expired; it was time to go home.

As we drove, I reflected on endurance.  Endurance training does not equal perfection.  After all, I had missed a few notes that night.  And I certainly did not finish first in the race or even in my age division.

But endurance makes a difference in life and faith.  When we endure, when we apply that “training” and reflect on the tough junk that God has gotten us through and the wonderful stuff that He has accomplished through us, we can face anything with a confidence and a peace that comes from Him.

May we follow more closely the ultimate authority on endurance. Hebrews 12:2-3

The Flood

I was set to post a new entry to my blog on Friday, April 30^th—just under the wire for my goal of a monthly entry.  My mom came in that day from Florida, and we had a family fun night up at my daughter’s school.  I was a bit distracted by all the activity, and so I compromised and told myself I would post the blog first thing in the morning.

That Saturday we expected rain.  We keep close tabs on the forecast since my girl is in the middle of softball season.  Once the downpour began and I knew we were in the clear and didn’t have to pack up to go the field, I pulled on my running shoes and ventured out into the pouring rain for a jog.  “How refreshing this will be!” I thought as I started out.

But I quickly found out, light rain this was not.  Pools formed in every dip in the road.  I wasn’t just getting soaked, I was wringing out the sleeves of my jacket before I reached mile two.  I found myself unconsciously pushing to get to my turn around point more quickly.  Somewhere during mile three, there was a huge lightening crack.  I ran faster.

I debated calling someone to come pick me up but felt guilty about it, and instead just pushed on.  Though I bested my time from the week before, it felt like the longest 4-mile run I had ever done.  I toweled off on the entry pad just inside the door while my family praised me for my diligence for running in such weather. I kept quiet, knowing I shouldn’t have been out there like that at all.

And the rain kept coming tumbling down.

The storm grew worse.  By afternoon, I was clearing out a large closet that was our designated shelter after hearing the tornado sirens and the weather reports.  My ten-year-old seemed suddenly much younger as I tried to ease her fears while we sat on the floor near the boxes of Christmas décor.

And the rain didn’t stop.

Eventually, the tornado warnings passed.  We looked out the window and marveled how quick the water was moving over the street.  By the next morning, Sunday, there were plenty of spots where the water had risen quickly.  I figured I would head to church and to choir alone for the late service to save my mom and girl from getting out in the mess.  But the reports from the local news stations didn’t look good.

I finally made the guilty call to my choir director.  I left a voice mail that I wouldn’t be coming to church that day.

I would later learn that, hours before my call, water had started running into the church at the 7:30 service.  Before the second service, two choir members that had arrived early went unsuspecting from the second-floor choir room towards the sanctuary on the first floor only to find water rushing up to the stairs.

Other choir members and church members that had no warning about the deteriorating state of the roads were getting trapped in various parts of the city as they ran into flooded routes time after time.  A couple of choir members gathered in the parking lot of the grocery store one block from the church, unable to cross the short divide.  A few minutes later, that parking lot would be unsafe and covered in water as well.

Meanwhile, an older couple on the way to our church drove through water that overcame their car.  They got out.  Then they got swept away.  Their bodies were found about a half-day later about a half a mile apart.

Story after story has been told in the days after the flood.  Some of those stories have ended with tragedy and others with miracles.  In the hours of rising water, many people were faced with decisions that they sensed would save or kill them depending on how it all turned out.  Many had to choose to leave everything behind and accept an unexpected rescue after holding out hope that the water wouldn’t get that high.

In the days that followed, my friends started to call to find out if we were all right.  “Yes, we were,” I gratefully reported, but so many were not.

Work, writing, and normal life has been difficult to get back into.  The damage is not just about property and things but also about people and their spirits.  And it is a bit strange to know that living on the top of a small hill sometimes made all the difference between losing nothing and everything.

A friend told me that she found many critical voices on the internet mocking the flood here, wondering why Nashville folks couldn’t handle a little bit of water.  I can’t believe anyone would think something like this is a joke when I think about all the things I’ve seen the last few days.

Our church’s bottom floor was completely devastated. Working with a crew there post-flood, I threw away hundreds of dollars worth of ruined Bibles, books, children’s ministry furniture and educational resources, many of which were handmade one-of-a-kind pieces.  I yearned to save things that were deemed contaminated.  The 30-foot dumpster we filled that day was emptied and filled again several times over.

A few days later, I passed out flood clean-up kits, food, masks, gloves, and visited with people in the Pennington Bend.  The faces of people sitting on their front steps with the contents of their houses spilled out onto the front lawns and stretched out to the curbs was surreal.  I met an Egyptian girl thankful that her bedroom and toys were on the second floor while she watched her immigrant parents carry loads out of her house from the back of a pick-up truck.

Last week, my friend Omar faced the tough decision to walk away from a house that he had hoped to buy soon.  His family moved in a few weeks ago, and was just settled in when the flood hit.  Our crew was there to do what we could to rip out wet drywall, molding and insulation, but in the end, there was too much damage.  Now he, his wife and two kids are staying in one room with family until they find a new place to live.

This week I visited River Plantation.  Filled with retirees and older folks, the condo complex that encompasses multiple blocks was hit hard.  Now many in that area are struggling against fixed incomes and lack of strength and youthfulness to rebuild.

Nothing about these and the countless other stories are a joke.  Some farmers lost all their livestock and all their spring crops. Some businesses that were barely hanging on in the economic crisis will never recover due to the flood damage. Immigrants face confusion over what their rights and options are in the wake of it all.  Several families had not just a flood to clean up after, but funerals to plan as well.

The Sunday after our church was hit, we celebrated the lives and mourned the passing of our two congregation members that were lost.  Our priest reminded us that troubled times do not have to mean troubled hearts. We sang Amazing Grace, and I was so struck by the third verse—you know the one we so often don’t sing?

The Lord has promised good to me,

His word my hope secures;

He will my shield and portion be

As long as life endures.

We ought not to skip that verse.  It is the perfect precursor to verse four:

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,

I have already come;

‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

Dear God, bless those among us that are facing present devastation. Encourage them as they endure the long road to rebuilding.  Help them with every need, especially those needs that go beyond all the “stuff” that has been lost. Remind us all that we are a people who belong to the Risen Christ—the conqueror, the redeemer, the restoration specialist.  Amen.

Purple Haze

I think that the season of Lent is wearing on me.  I guess it is supposed to.  A couple of weeks ago, Ash Wednesday launched me perfectly into the spirit of things.  Not one to consistently overbook myself, many “to dos” landed on that day all culminating in an exhaustive mish mash of running and doing.

From start to finish, the busyness of the day completely wore on me.  The first few hours looked like:  up early, get ready, get kid ready, kid to school, off to work, work for several hours, leave work to help a student in a voice class.  The drive to the university where the class was held took an hour and a half because of construction and sheer distance. I thought it was a 45-minute drive.  No.  Not so much.

As I got closer to my destination, I was afraid I was going to run out of gas, so I stopped.  Fittingly, there were problems at the pump at the first gas station, so I had to go to another gas place to put just enough fuel in to get me going again.

By now, I am late.  And I feel that weight of late.  Late is not good.  Late is really bad in my world.  I have to back myself off of the ledge a bit.  “Late is not good, but late is not the end of the world,” I say to me.

I finally arrive at the class.  I know that I am not in a proper place mentally.  I put on the good face.  My friend wants me to show her class the vocal exercises she and I have been working on, and there I am, all tense.  It is not good for vocalists to be tense.

The time she needs me in class is 10 minutes, maybe less.  I do my thing.  It is not horrible, but it is not great.  I leave; now I have another hour and a half drive back across town to pick up my daughter at school.

The last few hours of the day look like this:  make the drive to school, grab daughter, drive quickly towards church, make bank deposit, get snacks for choir, get dinner and scarf it, arrive at church, warm-up for Ash Wednesday service, sing in service, lay out snacks, try to ignore critical comment from fellow choir member about my food set-up, rehearse concert pieces with the choir.  It is now 9ish.  Scoop up daughter and drive home; collapse in a heap.

That was my day on Ash Wednesday. Yet it was so much more than the list of these tasks. That day, everything had an extra measure of difficult attached to it. You know those days when you have to work really hard at even the easy stuff?  It was like that. For whatever reason, nothing was uncomplicated that day, and much of it was just plain hard.

Early on, I tried to fight it.  I didn’t want that kind of day that day.  I wasn’t in the mood to be in a bad mood.  Before I left the house in the morning, I prayed, read my Bible, and planned for a good day.  But it all slowly unraveled on me though the small, medium and large bumps I encountered, until I was acutely aware of my dry and ashy spirit.

A purple haze descended on me that day…just in time for Lent.  And that penitential purple had a message for me.  I did not move through that day with grace and poise like I should have.  It was a frustrating day, and though my heart wanted to be in a better place, I succumbed to other forces and voices with grumbles and stress.

At home that night, in the silence and weariness, in the dark reflection over the day, I thought back to the service that evening.  I thought of how with the choir I sang:

Wash me throughly from my wickedness, and forgive me all my sin.

For I acknowledge my faults and my sin is ever before me. (S.S. Wesley)

“My sin is ever before me.”  I won’t ever get everything all right.  I love Jesus deeply, but even so, I think it’s just plain pompous to believe that I don’t have the capability of really messing things up.

Recently, I hurt a dear friend in a conversation.  It wasn’t out of malice, but what I said still made my friend feel bad.  Later that night, right in the middle of choir, I inconveniently flashed back to the scene earlier that day.  The emotion of the song  we were singing got muddled with my memory of hearing the hurt in my friend’s voice.  It was hard to keep it together in that moment, and the somber music of the season was definitely not helping me move past what I had done.

And so it goes.  On our journey, we don’t get it all right.  And sometimes a purple haze covers days, months, or even years of our life.  We want to fight the haze; we want it to evaporate thinking that when it’s gone we will once again see more clearly.

But purple haze has a purpose.  How often do we not see past all the junk going on around us and in us, and all the while Jesus is right there in the midst of the fog?

This Lent I’m standing, peering through that smoggy craze and wondering why my expectations of people are sometimes way out of range.  I’m wondering why I can’t stop striving for a bunch of “happier” feelings and give God all the life-control He’s due anyway.  And as new, inevitable problems and pain crop up, I’m struggling with forgiving myself and moving on from a painful past.

I’m praying for my timely fog to help me grow into a better person who is more fully reliant on Jesus.  I don’t need the low beams to make my way out.  All I need is Him.

Thanks be to God.

Baptism

It was my first Sunday singing in the choir, and I did pray on the way to church that worship would flood my very being that morning.  I prayed that I would be an agent to help others come into that place of reverence and awe before the God of the universe.  Then I hit the parking lot of the church.

“Where did all these cars come from?” I wondered aloud to my daughter in the back seat.  “Really!” she quipped back.  We had not seen the parking lot this full since before the holidays.  I found a spot behind the deserted police station beside our church’s lot and gathered my bag holding my non-shiny black shoes.  My snow boots would not be proper attire for underneath my robe, so on a plus note, I was at least that prepared.

We hustled to the door and to the warmth of the inside.  Emma was dragging behind a bit, and I turned to see if she needed help since I was leaving her in the dust.  She still had her headphones on.  “Sweetheart, you need to take those off before we go inside,” I reminded.

“OK, mom.”

We passed Sunday Schoolers in the hallway and headed upstairs.  I just needed to find a robe and gather my music.  First robe, too short.  Second robe, too long.  Third robe, juuussst right.  All robed up and ready to go with non-shiny shoes on feet, I inadvertently interrupted a meeting in the choir room, and hid out with the music library out of sight until it was over.

During our warm up which had been cut short by fifteen minutes by the meeting, thoughts raced around in my noggin.  I needed to check with someone on where to sit and other particulars I had no idea about for the service.  Though I had been in the congregation and watched the choir numerous times, I was not familiar enough with the routine to be confident that I could do everything seamlessly.  It was definitely going to be different sitting on the other side of the altar.

As service got started and we were a couple of numbers in, I felt that my grand plan for being an agent of worship was a bit unrealized so far.  With all of the busyness of my getting acclimated, I hadn’t had time to breathe, much less relax into the rhythms of worship.

The sermon and the service centered on baptism: first Jesus’ and then our own.  The minister talked about how we now often view this act with calm formality, but that historically baptism came from a plunging, an immersion below the surface of a body of water.  At its core, the act of baptism is an act of vulnerability and surrender.

The minister told a story of how a boy had drowned and died while a dozen or so adults that witnessed him falling and struggling in the water did little to help.  See, the water was very dirty and had been infected by a local industrial plant up the way.  They did not want to risk their own lives in such disgusting liquid even to save a helpless child.

That brought back my own memory from a few years ago.  It was a summer party—adults were chatting, kids were swimming.  I was settling into a chair when I noticed that little Benjamin was having trouble in the shallow end.  You could tell he was on his tip-toes working hard on the logistics of keeping his head above water.  But there were taller kids all around, oblivious to his struggle.  These kids inadvertently were splashing around him and making the situation worse.

I managed to get some of the kids’ attentions and asked them to watch out for him.  They helped him back to a more shallow depth, and I went on with my conversation with whoever was sitting nearby.  But a minute or two later, I noticed Benjamin was back to that same spot as before, and that now he was taking on some water.  He had gotten in just a little too deep.  I hollered to the children around him so that someone could grab him and move him back to safety.  No one heard me.

I only let a few more seconds pass before I jumped in.  Usually people do not jump into a pool in their clothes unless the party has gotten really good, so needless to say, my act disrupted things quite a bit.  Benjamin was safe and the host led me to get dried off and into some borrowed clothes.

When I returned to the party, I was of course asked to tell the story over and over.  Though his parents were very thankful, I could see in some of the other guest’s eyes that they thought my choice to jump in and “save” Benjamin was a little dramatic.  With so many people around, they didn’t see how my heroic measures were necessary.  “He would have been fine,” they thought.

But they didn’t see what I saw. They didn’t see Benjamin swallowing water instead of air.  They didn’t see how he really didn’t know what to do, much less how to fight to get back into safe territory. They didn’t witness the panic in Benjamin’s eyes, the true terror of knowing he was not in control of the situation, and how helpless he was for those few seconds.

How often in our lives, do we have those moments too?  Many times and in many seasons, though a crowd of strangers or our closest family is around us, no one but Jesus sees the real panic in our hearts.  Because he made us, only he can feel with a true purity and clarity what we are facing and battling in the water.  Sometimes we feel utterly beneath the water, hopeless and helpless, terror in our eyes.

But Jesus jumps right in.  He’s not afraid of the muck in the water, even if we are the very polluters that made it so dirty.  He’s not afraid of tragedy that befalls us.  He’s not afraid of our ridiculous, poor sin-choices.  He’s happy to be right there with all of that.

And so today, I re-affirmed my baptism while others were being baptized for the very first time.  But more than that, I remembered that God did not send a professional crew, or a messenger, or a paid agent, to rescue me from treacherous sin and hopelessness.  Rather, he sent himself to be with me and to save me.  With an award-winning cannon ball splash, he enters in and turns the liquid around me from filthy sludge to living water the moment I invite him in.  Amen.