When God Interrupts Life: A Story

As the sun’s warm rays danced across the rooftops, I drove my cooped-up boys to the sand volleyball court down the street. They brought along Tonka trucks and Star War guys, and as the sun’s rays danced low, three boys hollered loud and threw off flip flops, digging naked toes in cold, wet sand.

As my boys laughed and dug into sand, that’s when I saw Little Boy and his Mama. Little Boy was digging, spraying sand all over red-headed Mama, and Mama was saying, “Stop. No. Please, don’t dig like that. You’re getting sand everywhere!!”

As gritty sand flew, Mama looked up at me and then down at my baby-belly, saying, “Is that your fourth boy?”

I laughed: “No! It’s a girl.” And Mama smiled, leaning towards me across warm sand, and I could see words in her green eyes, but I just wanted to read the book in my purse, the one I’d been waiting all school-long-day to read, so I looked past Mama and walked straight-as-an-arrow to the empty picnic table on the other side of the court.

I plopped on warm, red wood, pulling book out of my purse, and that’s when I noticed red-haired Mama walking away from her sand-spraying boy and towards my momentary haven on the red bench, and as Mama’s question flew over open sand: “Trying to catch up on some reading?,” I silent-groaned—this Mama’s got a lot of words to spill!

And skipping right over “My name is _____, what’s yours?” red-haired-Mama gushed:

“You know, I have so much trouble with my son, and just a little bit ago, I called my mom asking for her advice, and she told me I had no backbone and just didn’t know what I was doing and, she’s so critical, you know? And I know I’m insecure and I don’t know what I’m doing, but, you know, why did she have to be so critical? ”

And I said, “Yeah, parenting is so hard, and yes, I know about the criticism thing.”

Then—to my selfish delight—on the other side of the court, Little Boy threw sand and red-haired Mama trotted back across the court yelling, “I told you no throwing sand! If you do that again, we’re leaving.”

As Mama scolded sand-throwing Boy, I picked up my book, looking for my end-of-day-haven in beautiful words.

But before I could read a word, a years-old memory flashed across my conscious:  I saw the anguished face of a co-worker as she bared her soul to me, and I, I was too Selfish-busy to pause and listen to soul-bearing co-worker. The memory cut deep, and I saw my Selfish heart replaying in the Now, so I put down my book and heaved up and across the sand to where red-haired Mama knelt beside sand-throwing-Boy.

As sand from Little-Boy’s wild hands flew into my eyes, I laughed, saying, “Boys have so much energy!”

At this invitation, Mama’s words tumbled out, “I’m feeling so depressed. I feel depressed a lot. Sometimes I feel like committing suicide, and I go to counseling, and I don’t know what to do with my son, I mean, I went to a play group today and this other mom. . . .”

I listened as Mama spilled her story about how another mom in her Jehovah’s Witness group called her son a “brat.” Then as one sorrow led to another, Mama shared about her imploding marriage, her hopelessness, her fear, and how the JW elders couldn’t seem to help at all.  I saw the pain in her taut body, her averted eyes, her rushing words.

As Mama spilled sorrow upon sorrow I wondered: What do I say? How do I speak Hope, live Jesus in this moment?

And as Mama’s words surged around me, I felt Fear creep: You aren’t very good at this share-Jesus-to-a-stranger thing. Better just to listen and empathize and leave it at that. After all, you might botch the truth-telling . . . .

Then Little Boy threw more sand at our eyes, and Mama said, “I mean it this time! If you throw it again, we’re leaving!” And Little Boy threw sand again, and ran across the court, away from Mama’s grasping hands, so Mama yelled, “We’re going, for real this time. I mean it!”

As red-haired Mama leaned down to pick up shovels and buckets, I felt Holy-Spirit pressure loose my lips:

“What’s your name?  . . . Is it ok if I pray for you?”

And Julie’s green eyes looked into mine saying, “You can pray, but I can’t pray with you.”

I closed my eyes and prayed for Julie-the-red-haired-Mama. I prayed that Jesus would meet her in her struggle as He’d met me in mine. I prayed she’d know his love, His presence. I prayed she’d know the Jesus-who-Died-on-the-Cross for her.

Then I hugged Julie, and she half-hugged me and picked up Little Boy, and drove away.

That’s when Micah, who’d been playing in the sand next to Mama Julie and me, started asking questions: “Mom, did she believe in God? Why did she say you could pray for her, but she couldn’t pray with you?”

I knelt down in wet sand next to almost eight-year-old Micah, and as we built a sand castle together, we talked about Julie and Little Boy and how we all need Jesus to heal the pain of the past and the present. We talked about Truth and Hope and how we can love others by Living Jesus.  And when the castle was built and his questions mostly answered, Micah looked up at me saying,

“Write it down, Mom. Write it all down so you can treasure it in your heart—what happened here tonight.”

Write it down so I can treasure it in my heart . . . .

So, I am writing this story to treasure what God did with a Selfish-sinful woman who wanted to read her book rather than reach out.  I’m writing to treasure what God is doing in the heart of a woman named Julie.

And I’m writing to remind myself that every day, every moment, is an opportunity to Treasure the Only One who gives Life and Hope.

The Thomas-Trap: Overcoming Doubt in God

I’m feeling Esther Sophia flutter-kick and hiccup in my belly--gentle reminders that baby’s growing strong, and yesterday 3-year-old Isaiah lay his head on my belly, hoping to feel sister flutter-kick. He’d lift his head saying: “I hear her talking, mama! I hear her!” grey eyes wide with wonder. And then he’d lay his blond head on my belly again and listen and laugh saying, “She tooted. I heard her in there!” And we’d giggle together at the wonder-beauty of living baby rolling in belly.

“From His Fullness we have all received Grace upon Grace.”

And this is Grace—the wonder-beauty of baby sister kicking strong in taut, round belly.

But even though I feel the wonder of God’s Grace today, see it ripple-wave across my belly, I still doubt that I’ll know Grace, experience Grace, tomorrow, next week, next year. 

Which is why I fear change, risk, uncertainty. I fear Grace won’t follow me into the dark unknown of tomorrow.

Why—when I see evidence of Grace in the Now—does this heart of mine doubt I’ll see Grace in tomorrow?!   

Why do I follow in the foot-steps of Thomas-the-Doubter, saying: “I’ll believe Grace when I can touch it, see it, smell it!”

Thomas witnessed--“the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” –he saw Jesus-the-Christ in living, breathing flesh. He watched him turn water into wine, walk on water, and raise the dead to life.

Yet, when God in the Flesh did the very thing he predicted—died for ALL—Thomas-the-Doubter thought DEATH too great a thing for God-in-the-Flesh to overcome.

And like Thomas, even though I see Grace in the Now—tiny baby rolling in my belly, three boys sword-slashing in the living room, husband bringing me another cup of coffee—I doubt God’s Grace to sustain all this wonder-beauty in tomorrow . . . .

I’ve realized: this foolish-sinful heart DOUBTS God’s promise to pour out “Grace upon Grace” because my Fear of Loss is stronger than my Faith.

And I’m taking Jon Bloom’s (theologian/writer for Desiring God) advice to doubters: “Don’t be content to just tell Jesus how you’re struggling. Repent! Call doubt what it is: a distrust of God. Repentance has amazing power to break the spell of a sin weight. . . and Soak in the Gospel according to John: 'These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name' (John 20:31). The whole book is about believing.” (Read Jon Bloom's article Lay Aside the Weight of Doubt)

In John’s gospel, Jesus does Grace-miracle after Grace-miracle and asks: “Do you believe? . . . Do you now believe?”  and in response to God-in-the-flesh miracles, “many believe him!”

I long to be among those who believe “with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, that is driven and tossed by the wind. . .  a double-minded [woman], unstable in all [her] ways.” (James 1). 

I long to rest in the belief that God WILL DO as he promises—pour out Grace today and tomorrow and next year.

And this is my prayer, that I will replace Doubt with lived-out-Faith in God as I soak in his Life-Giving-Promises and see and savor his Grace in the every-day-miracle of my little Esther’s flutter-kicks and so much more . . . .

When Death Comes, Then Comes JOY

Grandpa with 1-year-old Micah in Chicago

My Grandpa W. died last Saturday.

On Tuesday afternoon Jon pulled me close and whispered soft: “Your Grandpa died. Your dad forwarded his obituary today and the funeral’s tomorrow . . .  in Chicago . . .”

It wasn’t a shock, this bitter-sweet news of the passing of my 95-year-old Grandpa, my step-Grandpa, but the only real Grandparent I’ve ever known.

This passing of old life felt bitter because I’ll never hear Grandpa tell his joke about the salesman with the toothbrush for the 100^th time, I’ll never listen to him share what he learned from This Daily Bread in the early AM, never see him hobble-walk into his kitchen at 6am to eat his orange, grapefruit, and toast, and never go bowling with him and his white-haired friends who always got better bowling scores than us 30-somethings.

I’ll never hear him tremble-tell stories about his first wife, Jean, and my Grandma Irma, and his daughter Judy, who all saw Jesus’ face years ago  . . .

But this passing of Grandpa is also sweet, sweet because this I know for sure: my Grandpa W. loved Jesus with his life.

I’ll never forget when Jon and I were young and dating and drove from Minneapolis to Chicago to see Grandpa and my college-going sisters. And that weekend while I slept on my sisters’ apartment floor in Wheaton, Jon stayed up late in Grandpa’s condo, playing him in chess, and getting beat over and over again while he “waited for your Grandpa to have a senior moment! He never had one!” And Jon woke up at 5am and rolled out of that creaky sofa bed and sat with Grandpa as he opened his Bible and read Our Daily Bread and talked about his Savior-God, talked about how he couldn’t wait to go to heaven and see Him face-to-face.

I’ll never forget the letters Grandpa sent over the years, one-after-another, writing in his wobbly script that he was “praying every day for you and your family, and I love you very much.”

When he finally lost his driver’s license, and he moved out of his West Chicago condo and into his son’s house, he left nothing behind because he’d given it all away. At the end of life, Grandpa’s treasure was in the unseen, the eternal, not the temporal, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal.

That’s what I remember most about my Grandpa: Christ was his treasure, his life, his Everything.

And the older he got, the more he breathed Jesus.

And this is my prayer: that I may follow in the foot-steps of my Grandpa, knowing and loving Jesus more than Life.

And this is my hope: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”

And this is my peace: “You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”