Book Twenty

The Next Chapter
by Bryn Jones

Bryn Jones started following me on Twitter, so I started following him back and checking out some of the books he's written. All are available on Kindle, generally for quite an affordable price. The Next Chapter is the third and first full-length story of his that I've read.


The premise, as stated in the Amazon summary, is that an author who has recently endured a family tragedy has become embroiled in a kidnapping and probable murder of a young girl. The kidnapper forces Sal to write the next chapter, ultimately ending (the kidnapper hopes) in murder. At the same time, a police officer, fresh from tragic events of his own, is slowly tying the kidnapping to kidnappings from decades earlier--as the bodies of those young women begin appearing, staged to match Sal's novels.

Jones writes Christian fiction in a subtle way. His books are certainly not "Amish fiction," nor are they pretty and all tied up in the end. While some of them have allegorical elements, most seem to match the every-day struggles many Christians face as they try to live out faith in a world that poses more questions than answers. The Next Chapter is certainly one of these. And, while some portions felt trite or "neat" or a bit far fetched, I think Jones wrote a clever story with a fast pace and characters for whom I wanted to root.

Book Nineteen

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
by Tom Franklin

In Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Franklin writes with what can only be the authenticity of someone who grew up in the south and, in spite of its complicated history and equally-complicated present, loves that land. While Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is, on one level a mystery, on a much deeper level, I feel like it is a love letter to the complexity of growing up in the racially-tense south.


Where Silas (a black boy) and Larry (a white boy) and Cindy (a white girl) interact as children and again as adults, Franklin's prose carefully details a world where right isn't always right and wrong is certainly just as hard to understand. This is a novel of mistakes and consequences and hatred and love and friendship and family and redemption. It was a quick read, and I loved every word of it.

In Response to Another Tragedy

On my way home from picking my daughter up from school this afternoon, I felt compelled to sit down when I got home and put some thoughts on paper.  As I opened my computer, I came across something a friend had posted on his Facebook page.  I have to say, Max really got it right with "A Christmas Prayer."  It sort of took away everything that I even dreamed of writing.  Because I just didn't think I could add anything.

So I was going to write, "What he said."  I know some people who read this don't read Facebook links to articles that people post.  I hope you'll read this one.  Because he's dead on.  We need Jesus to be born anew in us this Christmas.  Our world is in desperate straights and needs Him.

But then I thought a bit more about it.  I thought about how as I was watching the news this afternoon, while my little ones napped for the first time all week and my oldest was safe in her classroom in a community very similar to Sandy Hook, CT, my chest hurt, and I couldn't breathe well.  I thought about how it felt like September 11, 2001, all over again.  I thought about how the only thing I wanted was to hold my girls in my arms every day for the rest of my life.  And I thought about how when my daughter was in Kindergarten two years ago, there were only 21 kids in her class.  That would have left three survivors.  And then I thought about the survivors in that Kindergarten class at Sandy Hook Elementary and wondered if they could really be called survivors.  And I thought about that mom and how it felt to see her son walk into the classroom and open fire on her and the little ones in her care.  I hope she didn't see him.  I hope he caught her with her back turned.

So, in light of all of that, I wanted to share something after all.  I wanted to beg, along with the Church and children of God way back in the time of Isaiah, God for something.  Father God, send our salvation.  Rescue us.  Bring us Home.

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free
From our fears and sins release us
Let us find our rest in Thee

Israel's strength and consolation
Hope of all the earth Thou art
Dear desire of every nation
Joy of every longing heart

Born Thy people to deliver
Born a child and yet a king
Born to reign in us forever
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring

By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone
By Thine own sufficient merit
Raise us to Thy glorious throne

By Thine own sufficient merit
Raise us to Thy glorious throne

"Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus" by Charles Wesley (arranged by Chris Tomlin)

And I'll conclude as Max Lucado did.  Because it seems most fitting as long as we travel through this world.

Hopefully . . .

Overexposed

This is me.  Baring my soul.  It's easier to do when I'm sitting at Starbucks and you're wherever you are, and I don't need to look at you.

For a while now I have been thinking about writing this.  Many of my friends have heard me share bits and pieces, and they take it with varying degrees of acceptance, humor, and belief.  I love them anyway.  Because it's weird.  Like face blindness and other random mental disorders diseases conditions, a lot of people don't think I'm telling the truth or think it's just an excuse or something everyone lives with. 

Here's my reality: It hurts to cut my toenails.  I can't wear nylons.  When headlights shine in my eyes when I'm driving at night, I want to hit something.  I don't like the taste of the candy coating on brown M&Ms.  When my kids are poking me and people are whispering and the overhead light is flickering and someone behind me is tapping his foot and my necklace is laying wrong on my neck, I feel like someone is inside me clawing to get out.  I have a sensory processing disorder.

Most of my life was spent in the dark about it.  I thought I was just sensitive.  My parents thought I was just being dramatic.  People saw me and thought I was fine, but I knew that I wanted to run and hide.  Or hit someone.  Or throw up.  Or just sit down and cry.

Several years ago, my husband bought a book for me.  It is called Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight.  He bought it for me because he loves me and because he thought it sounded exactly like me.  I read it.  And I cried.  For the first time, I discovered that it was real, that I was real.  That I could trust what I was feeling.  And I learned that while I couldn't cure it, I could cope with it.  And I could tell people about it.

I've spent the last several years doing that.  Telling people.  Often it's in an apologetic way: "I'm sorry, but I can't eat that--it's too spicy for me."  Sometimes it's in a defensive way: "Well, it's spicy to me."  Other times it's in a pleading way: "Please.  I'm overwhelmed right now.  I need a break."  For the most part, people are kind, and usually they want to learn more about it or say that maybe that's the same thing their nephew has.  Some people even want to know how they can help.  But there are others (of course there are) who say, "Yeah--those things bother me too.  I just shut them out."  or "Well, if you try hard enough you can get over it." or even "Right.  You just always need things to be your way." 

Listen, that's hurtful.  I didn't choose to be this way, and I promise you that I would change it if I could.  I wish I could eat spicy things or onions.  It would make me feel like less of a problem.  I wish I could sit in a hot tub.  I wouldn't miss out on the fun or wreck other people's plans for the evening.  I wish I could "tune out" the nylons or the necklace or the pretty sweater.  I would be able to wear the latest fashions then.  I wish I could be around my kids when they're "just being kids" and not feel overwhelmed.  I would feel like a better mother.

At the same time, there are things about it that I would never give up.  Did you know that Asiago Cheese Bread from D&W has so much flavor that it doesn't need butter or anything else?  Do you know that the red M&Ms are actually a bit sweeter than any of the other colors?  Do you recognize the smell of snow on the air days before it falls?  Can you smell spring when the first thaw begins?  Are you able to picture exactly where you set something down or the song that was playing the last time you were in this spot?  Can you (almost always) notice when someone gets a haircut or new glasses? 

When people ask me what it's like to have a sensory processing disorder, I never know what to say.  I never know how to compare my response to a "normal" response, because I've never had a normal response.  Everyone has days when they're overwhelmed, and Disney World puts everyone over the edge at some point in their stay.  All I've ever known to say is that it's real, I have it, and I need a break. 

Then I read The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan.  Without knowing it, she gave me the words to explain--to myself and to the people around me--exactly what a sensory processing disorder does.  On page 64, Grace Winter is recalling the Empress Alexandra and the passengers she met aboard.  She writes about memory and refers to a scientific explanation for why memory is faulty.  Then she suggests that "sometimes . . . the failure to remember is not so much a pathological tendency as a natural consequence of necessity, for at any one moment there are hundreds of things that could take a person's attention, but room for the senses to notice and process only one or two."

Ah.  There you have it.  That is normal.  The senses notice and process only one or two of the things happening around them.  But, in my "abnormal" brain, my disordered sensory processing system notices all of the hundreds and tries to process all of them at once.  Then I have to shut down or explode or melt down. 

It's real.  And lately I've been overstimulated 99% of the time.  Today I'm wearing my lightest necklace, and I still feel a bit panicky.  My skin itches and my shoes feel like they're cutting off my circulation.  Something burned in the kitchen at Starbucks and the coffee has been sitting in the carafe for too long.  The guy next to me is wearing a cologne that doesn't suit me, and there's a drip in the sink.  It would be helpful if they turned the music down and if the girls at the table over there stopped their chatting.  The bathroom door needs to be oiled, and I wish the only open seat when I arrived didn't have windows on both sides of it.  Oh, and to top it all off, the people waiting in line are kissing.  Loudly.  I'll manage--one of the open tabs on my browser will give instructions for a friend and me to make a weighted blanket to help me center again, and I found really great perfume that seems to get me back to zero--but it's a daily battle. 

I nearly called this post "Living in This 'Too Loud Too Bright Too Fast Too Tight' World," but in the end I chose something even more appropriate.  Overexposed--that's how my nerve endings and my brain feel every day.  And that's especially how I feel now that I've shared all of this.  I'm telling you it's hard to be a mom with a sensory processing disorder.  It's hard when I recognize it in my middle daughter and when our responses clash.  But I'm learning to cope.  And I'm learning to share it with others just like I would tell them if I couldn't hear well and needed them to speak up.  There's no cure for what I have, but if you'll be patient with me and if you'll believe me when I share my heart and if you'll ask me before you hug me, then maybe we'll both discover that there are so many wonderful things that my disordered brain can offer.

Book Eighteen

The Lifeboat
Charlotte Rogan

The premise of The Lifeboat reminds me of one of those moral dilemmas that often come out when people are around a campfire or in a car together for too long: imagine you're in a lifeboat with a priest, a doctor, a mother, and it will sink unless you get rid of one person.  Whom do you choose?

While the book ends up differently than that, it does present the same underlying question: are you a murderer if you survive at the cost of other lives?  Set in the summer of 1914, The Lifeboat is, in part, the diary of Grace Winter as she recalls the days following the sinking of the ocean liner upon which she and her brand new husband were passengers.  Grace finds herself in a lifeboat along with 38 other passengers.  It quickly becomes clear that the boat, while "built for 40" was in fact not meant to hold more than 30 or so people.  As she writes from a prison cell where she awaits her trial and verdict for murdering one of the passengers, she recounts the storms, power struggles, lives, and deaths of the others aboard the small vessel. 

Interspersed with these chapters, the reader learns about Grace's husband and their elopement to London and a bit about Grace's life before that.  Beyond that background knowledge about Grace, Charlotte Rogan does not give the reader any insight--beyond gossip shared by the other passengers--into the lives of the others hoping for rescue and fighting for survival.  Thus, the reader is left to pass judgement and draw conclusions about the motives and justifications of the others.  I closed The Lifeboat on its final page without answering many of the questions about those very judgements and conclusions, which, I suppose, is where Grace was left as well.

At its heart, this is a story about survival.  It's about Grace's survival on the lifeboat, but it's also about our very own survival.  What would you do if your boat is over capacity and dangerously close to sinking and you see a child in the water, close enough to reach and pull into your boat?  What would you do if you know the boat will sink unless someone gets off and the "captain" asks for volunteers?  What would you do if the most powerful person on the boat--the very person who would help you survive--told you to throw someone who endangered that survival overboard?  How far would you go to survive?  And, once you had, could you live with what you had done?

For When Your Hope is Gone

A while back, I read a series of books called The Chaos Walking. 

It wasn't a series that I loved, but I did find some good "nuggets" in it.  One of those I have wanted to share in its a blog post all by itself.  Then life happened.  While I've spent the past couple of months trying to catch up with my life (how is it November already?!), I have also spent the past couple of months being too busy to be a friend to some of the important people in my life.  This post is for them, with my apology for neglecting to share this sooner or enough.  But it's also a reminder that while I may not have asked or hugged or listened as much as I wish I had, I never stopped believing.

There is a key to friendship and to being a true friend.  It is, quite often, the only key that I can offer to my friends.  For those of you who are Bible readers--or who have spent much time with me when we're sharing our stories--please think back to the story of the quadriplegic man who was carried on a mat by his four friends.  Remember that they climbed up a ladder to the roof of a house that was crowded with people following Jesus.  The friends carried their paralyzed buddy to the roof, broke through the roof, and lowered their friend to Jesus' feet.  They loved their friend, so they bore the burden of taking him to the feet of the only One who could remove his burden.  Nothing could stop them, because they loved their friend.  All the friend had to do was lie there.

Now that can be difficult, and much can be said about that important role, but for today I need to focus on the friends.  That's the role I'm privileged to be in for now, especially with two dear friends.  So, for them, I am sorry that I haven't carried fast enough or far enough.  But I want you to know that when your hope is gone, I will carry you.  When your hope is gone, I will bear your burden and carry you to the feet of the One who can ease your burden.  Who can hold you close.  Who longs to embrace you.  And I will count it a blessing.

Two messages for you, for when your hope is gone:

But there's one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:
God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He's all I've got left.

...The "worst" is never the worst.
Why? Because the Master won't ever
walk out and fail to return.
If he works severely, he also works tenderly.
His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.
(Lamentations 3:22-24 and 31-33, The Message)

AND

“Hope,” he says, squeezing my arm on the word.  “It’s hope.  I am looking into yer eyes right now and I am telling you that there’s hope for you, hope for you both.”  He looks up at Viola and back at me.  “There’s hope waiting for you at the end of the road.”

“You don’t know that,” Viola says and my Noise, as much as I don’t want it to, agrees with her.

“No,” Ben says, “But I believe it.  I believe it for you.  And that’s why it’s hope.”

“Ben—“

“Even if you don’t believe it,” he says, “believe that I do.”

(The Knife of Never Letting Go, p376, Patrick Ness)

God's stockpiles of loyal love are immense.  Believe it, dear friends.  And even if you don't believe it, believe that I do.

I Almost Missed It Too

No doubt about it!  God is good--
good to good people, good to the good-hearted.
But I nearly missed it,
missed seeing his goodnesss.
I was looking the other way,
looking up to the people
At the top,
envying the wicked who have it made,
Who have nothing to worry about,
not a care in the whole wide world.

Psalm 73:1-5, The Message


What a reminder, early this morning, as I sat on the too-small front porch of a house I want to sell as I looked out at two vans that just aren't quite as cool as the Land Rovers I see every day and listened to my too-close neighbors begin their days while their dogs bark incessantly.

Maybe it's a first-world problem, or maybe it's an American one, but I'm certain it's not just mine.  Isn't it easy to envy other people who seemingly have it made?  Isn't it easy to be discontent with the car I drive or the house I call home or the neighborhood where I live or the gifts and talents I have or everything else about my life that just isn't good enough?  Isn't it far too easy to feel like other people "have it made, piling up riches" while we are "stupid to play by the rules" (vs. 12 in The Message)?

I have often said that the greatest disservice my mother ever did me was to teach me that I wasn't any more important than anyone else.  It makes me wait in line longer than other people do, it makes me give money to church and to other people who need it, it makes me spend some of my free time working for others.  It forces me to be a little bit less selfish.

Yet, I still forget.  I still look at other people and all that they have and wonder if--how--I can get my hands on some of it.

And then I'm reminded.  Whether it's by a blown call in a football game, giving a touchdown to someone who must know he didn't score one, or an artist selflessly offering to create something to benefit other people, or a few verses from a Psalm that I've read many times before.  I'm reminded.

"No doubt about it!  God is good . . . But I nearly missed it."

God, today, please open my eyes.  Let me focus on the higher purpose.  Let my focus be You and Your goodness.

You're all I want in heaven!
You're all I want on earth!
When my skin sags and my bones get brittle,
God is rock-firm and faithful.
Look!  Those who left you are falling apart!
Deserters, they'll never be heard from again.
But I'm in the very presence of God--
oh, how refreshing it is!
I've made Lord God my home.
God, I'm telling the world what you do!

Psalm 73:25-28, The Message

The Thirty-eighth Sabbath

It was Mission India Sunday at church, and then my Sunday School class and I discussed missions.  Those teenagers are pretty smart, and they have some great ideas about what it can be like to be the Word of God to those we meet.  All of it reminded me of a song I remember listening to in my bedroom when I was their age.  It made me think that maybe the traditional means of missions--walking in to a culture and telling them everything they do is wrong, and they need to change it all to come to Jesus--wasn't good enough.  That was all more deeply confirmed in my reading of my favorite "How To" guide to missions: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (yes, I get that she wasn't really trying to teach us about missions, but she definitely got her point across with the bits about the river and the farming).  Later, the Blessings Tour further affirmed it, and yesterday's message continued it.

So, Missions 101:
* First help them experience love.  Then explain the Bible.
* Don't bring the Bible--BE the Bible.
* Missions are (is?) a reminder to Satan that we win, because Jesus already won.

Oh, the suffering souls
Crying out for love
In a world that seldom cares
See the hungry hearts
Longing to be filled
With much more than our prayers

And a young girl sells herself on Seventh Avenue
And you hear her crying out for help
My God! What will we do ?

Don't tell them Jesus loves them
'Til you're ready to love them too!
'Til your heart breaks from their sorrow
And the pain they're going through
With a life full of compassion
May we do what we must do
Don't tell them Jesus loves them
'Til you're ready to love them too!

All the desperate men
Are we reaching for the souls
That are sinking down sin?
Oh, cry for the church
We've lost our passion for the lost
And there are billions left to win

And another 40,000 children starved to death today
Would we risk all we have
To see one of them saved!?!

Don't tell them Jesus loves them
'Til you're ready to love them too!
'Til your heart breaks from their sorrow
And the pain they're going through
With a life full of compassion
May we do what we must do
Don't tell them Jesus loves them
'Til you're ready to love them too!

Why have we waited so long
To show them Jesus lives
To share salvation's song!

Why have our hearts become so proud
That we fail to see
To love them is to love God!

And a young girl sells herself on Seventh Avenue
Hear her crying out for help
What will we do?

Don't tell them Jesus loves them
'Til you're ready to love them too!
'Til your heart breaks from their sorrow
And the pain they're going through
With a life full of compassion
May we do what we must do
Don't tell them Jesus loves them
'Til you're ready to love them too!

"Don't Tell Them Jesus Loves Them" by Steve Camp and Rob Frazier

Getting Back On Track

Ah, the lazy, hazy days of summer.  A little too hazy and humid this year for my taste, but still, they were lazy days.  And, if I'm honest, they were way too lazy.

Summer is the break we all need, right?  For as long as I can remember, my life has been divided into "school year" and "summer break."  Even now that I've been out of college and working at a "real job" for 13 years(!), that hasn't changed.  Most years I welcome the break and the change in pace.  This year, it's thrown me for a real loop.

I began the year with wonderful and lofty goals.  Goals I've been longing to achieve for most of my adult life--writing more, reading my Bible more, eating better, losing weight.  They have always required more discipline than I could tap into in my feeble brain, so I've always failed.  This year was going to be different.

And it was!  For the first month, I did great.  The second and third months wavered, but I still tried and was still committed.

Then, those lazy, hazy days of summer arrived.  The kids got a break from their routine, and I took one too.

Now, I find myself nearing the last quarter of the year, weighing the same as I did when I started, eating poorly, my gym card gathering dust, my Bible reading plan crossed off through June, and my blog updated once a week . . . maybe.  (I am ahead on my book reading goals, but I'm not sure anyone other than the Grand Rapids Public Library should be proud of that.)

So now I find myself trying to get back on track.  A series of books I just finished, the Chaos Walking trilogy, truly does contain some perfect lines (thanks, Amy), and one of those weaves its way through each of the three books: "It isn't whether you fall down, it's whether you get back up."  So, here I am.  The measure of Beka in 2012 isn't whether I fell down.  I've fallen down every year that I've tried to better my life.  The measure of Beka in 2012 is that I'm getting back up.  I've never done that before with these goals.  The other measure is that I'm doing it bathed in prayer and begging God to drag me back up.  Maybe I learned more by falling down than I would have by staying on my own two feet.  Isn't that always the way?

So, here I am.  At the demands of my dear friend Julie (who won't read this, because she never does), I am not looking backwards at where I would be today if I hadn't fallen.  I'm looking forward at where I can get by keeping my hand in His and moving.  I have a plan to continue (and finish!) my journey through the Bible in 2012.  I will accomplish it, because I want to, and because when I don't want to, I'm begging God to make me want to.  I have a plan to write more--maybe on my blog or maybe on secret projects to get DearEditorFriend off my back--and I have a plan to eat better.  I need to make a plan (ie. a schedule, so I don't just sit and watch TV) to work out and still manage to get my house clean and my kids to school in time.

It's a busy life, to be a mother.  It's a busier life, to be a mother with a dream.  So when I fall down, I'm going to get back up.  Because it's a sad life to spend all your days in the lazy, hazy days of summer.

Book Seventeen

The Chaos Walking Series:
The Knife of Never Letting Go
The Ask & The Answer
Monsters of Men
by Patrick Ness

I've chosen to review all three of these books as one, just because it is a trilogy and it felt like cheating to actually call this books 17, 18, and 19.  Even though they are.  Because it's my prerogative.  :)

In the Chaos Walking series, Ness writes about a future New World, which is essentially a new planet much like Earth.  Because humans have destroyed Earth with our pollution and our fighting, colonists have taken to spaceships in search of a new plant to call home.  The settlers have come in waves, so by the time the series begins with The Knife of Never Letting Go, there have been humans on New World for a couple of decades.  The entire trilogy takes place during the few months between the scout ship's arrival on behalf of the new wave of colonists and the arrival of the convoy of ships holding thousands of those colonists.  I sort of felt like it took me about that long to read the trilogy, too.

Because the first group of colonists arrived years earlier and have had little access to education--their focus mostly on survival at the beginning and then on the drama created by their mayor--the language used by Todd, the narrator, was very hard to follow for me.  For the first third of The Knife of Never Letting Go, I faced a constant internal debate about whether to quit or continue.  Ultimately I decided to skim, which is a mortal sin of reading as far as I'm concerned.  It comes just before quitting a book altogether.  I ended skimming several sections until things settled in to a system that I could follow.  Then, and through The Ask & The Answer, the trilogy really got good.

There is action and a sweet friendship between a boy, a girl, and a dog.  Publisher's Weekly calls The Ask & The Answer grim and beautifully written, and I have to agree with that.  As Todd and Viola, on the run from an army built of men from Todd's hometown, progress on their journey to Haven and then, ultimately, settle in to their new roles in that town, they face a journey of hope and friendship and love and tension.  It truly is grim and beautifully written.  I found myself caring deeply about the fate of these two children-becoming-adults and wishing that fate would smile kindly on them and actually give them something for which to hope.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen--for Todd and Viola or for the reader.  By the time I settled in to Monsters of Men, I began to skim again and just wish it all would end.  Ness brings on another narrator in Book Three   (whose name I've intentionally left off so as not to spoil any of the story), and I couldn't stand reading those sections.  I felt preached at and judged.  This trilogy, which was that grim and beautifully-written coming-of-age story about hope became New Age-y and judgmental.

At the end of the day, I'm glad I invested the time in this trilogy, if only for the end of Book One and Book Two.  The messages of hope and love and forgiveness are lovely.  I just wish they'd been packaged with less judgment.

The Thirty-fifth Sabbath

In honor of today, August 26, 2012, the day of our dear friend's ordination, a song we sang during his service.  It was a privilege and an honor to be part of the worship team at today's service, and this may be one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.  We sang it to the tune in the Kingsway version you can hear on YouTube.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.
To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace,
One in Himself I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Savior and my God!
With Christ my Savior and my God!

"Before the Throne of God Above," by Charitie Bancroft

There's also a YouTube video that pairs this song with a reenactment of a sermon by Martin Luther.  I love the quote they included:

So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!”  Martin Luther

Book Sixteen

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and other concerns)
Mindy Kaling

Our book club has been struggling this summer, both with our reading and with our getting together to discuss what we're reading.  As a result, we're going to meet this week to discuss our June and August books.  We're skipping our July book, which was maybe a little depressing to add to a summer month.  Anyway, thankfully our August book is the Mindy Kaling autobiography.  Easy enough.

And fluffy.  And only mildly funny. 

I'll confess to being a bit disappointed.  I don't know really what I was expecting, except maybe some wipe the tears from my eyes laughter and hilarity.  I didn't get that.  The book is certainly light and easy to read.  It will be even easier to discuss, I'm sure.

Kaling is a good writer.  She turns a phrase nicely from time to time, and her descriptions of herself are candid.  I appreciate that she doesn't try to make herself more amazing than she already is (which is pretty amazing, if she does say so herself).  There are certainly moments when I laughed out loud.  Those came in her description of one-night stands, the "Irish" exit, and the pictures on her Blackberry. 

The subtitle of this book is perhaps the most descriptive title I've ever seen in a book.  Sometimes when I'm reading a book I will read almost the entire book before I understand where the title originated.  Other times it is only on reflection days later.  With this it was clear from the beginning--Kaling is simply sharing 200 or so pages of her concerns about growing up, friendships, work, boys and men, and fashion.  I'm not saying that's a bad thing.  I'm just saying that sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it isn't.  But all of it made me like her more and wish that we were friends.  My concerns are pretty random and only mildly funny too.

NOTE: She did have some great thoughts on marriage, which will undoubtedly make it into another blog post this week.

The Thirty-fourth Sabbath

There's a wall that has been standing
Since the day that Adam fell
Sin is where it started
And Sin is why it held
Speaking as a prisoner
Who was there and lived to tell
I remember how it fell

I can here the sound of freedom
Like a distant voice who called
And beckoned me to follow
Where I had never gone
And though my heart is willing
I just stood there at the wall
Praying somehow it would fall

But in a cross I found a doorway
And a hand that held a key
And when the chains fell at my feet
For the first time I could see

This is how it feels to be free
This is what it means to know that I am forgiven
This is how it feels to be free
To see that life can be more than I imagined
This is how it feels to be free
This is how it feels to be free Yeahhh!

There are days when I'm reminded
Of the prison I was in
Like a living nightmare
Burning from the veill
I can feel the voice of evil
I can hear the call of sin
But I won't go back again

This is how it feels to be free
This is what it means to know that I am forgiven
This is how it feels to be free
To see that life can be more than I imagined
This is how it feels to be free
This is how it feels to be free Yeahhh!

See, once I've tasted freedom
Then the walls could bind no more
Since mercy gave me wings to fly
Like an eagle I can soar

This is how it feels to be free
This is what it means to know that I am forgiven
This is how it feels to be free
To see that life can be more than I imagined
This is how it feels to be free
This is how it feels to be free Yeahhh!
"This is How it Feels to be Free," Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

The Most Important Lesson We Can Learn

I have three beautiful and amazing girls.  They like to giggle together.  They like to snuggle with each other.  They like to play Little People together.  And they love to fight.  Around my house, there is a lot of playing noise that quickly turns into yelling and screaming noise.  And then crying.  And then (usually when they've been reminded), there is a quiet and sad noise:

"I'm sorry."

Immediately following, and always unprompted, there is an equally quiet and sad noise:

"I forgive you."

The volume and the emotion behind it generally suggests that while not all is forgotten, and the pain still exists, the offense is forgiven.  It won't come between them anymore.  And, within minutes, they are giggling together.

I've been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately.

I work at a children's advocacy center.  We provide services for children who have been sexually abused.  National statistics tell us that 90% of the children who are sexually abused are victimized by people they know, love, and trust.  In the county where I live, it is closer to 99%.  We're talking fathers, stepfathers, mothers, cousins, Dad's best friend, step siblings, babysitters.  The other day, the mom of one of our clients was speaking with a group of people.  She said, "My daughter is an inspiration to me.  She teaches us all so much.  And I know the biggest reason for her freedom and joy is something that she is teaching me: she forgave the man who did this to her." 

She forgave the man who did this to her.  She forgave the dear family friend who sexually abused her when he thought she was sleeping.

At the same time, there is a couple I know who are in the process of getting divorced.  The reason?  She had an affair.

I understand that having someone cheat on you is a horrible thing.  The betrayal, the disappointment, the fear, the rejection.  It is, according to many people I know, unforgivable.

And, in the case of this couple, it destroyed their marriage.  Or did it?  You see, she had her affair--and ended it--at least fifteen years ago.  She came clean to her husband, they recommitted themselves each to their marriage and each other, and they moved past it.  Or so she thought.

What really ended their marriage?  Not forgiving.  When he asked her to leave, he told her it was because he had never forgiven her for what she did fifteen years ago.  Talk about betrayal, disappointment, fear, and rejection.  Can you imagine believing that the man you love has extended grace and forgiveness--which you, self admittedly, did not deserve--only to find out that he has held on for fifteen years?  That slowly, his deception has been eating away at the vows you took before God and your family and friends?

That's what not forgiving does.  In Traveling Mercies Anne Lamott wrote, "Not forgiving is like eating rat poison and waiting for the rat to die."  Amen.  And then amen again.

Not forgiving destroys marriages.  It robs joy.  It erases freedom.  It brings a slow and painful death.

Forgiving brings life.  It causes joy and delivers freedom.  It's hard.  And it may be quiet and sad, because it's not easy, and the pain is still there.  But, it says that nothing will come between us. 

Spend a few hours at our house, and you will learn many lessons.  You will learn how a small person with mere inches of water in the bathtub can make every square inch of the bathroom wet.  You will learn that ketchup, cheese, mayo, pickles, and two slices of bread make a terrific lunch.  You will learn how to giggle, transform plastic tubs into cars, and use Mom's cell phone to watch Curious George.  You will also learn how to apologize.  And, most importantly, you will learn how to forgive.

The Thirty-second Sabbath

In celebration of the Miles for Hope 5K yesterday and its local 2012 ambassador, Mitchell Buning, and his victory over a brain tumor . . . in remembering the past 1 1/2 years for his family . . . in hoping for friends whose hearts continue to break as marriages fail, friends disappoint, and loved ones succomb to illness.  Dear friends, we are all safe.  We really are.

To the one whose dreams are falling all apart
And all you're left with is a tired and broken heart
I can tell by your eyes you think you're on your own
but you're not all alone

Have you heard of the One who can calm the raging seas
Give sight to the blind, pull the lame up to their feet
With a love so strong he'll never let you go
oh you're not alone

You will be safe in His arms
You will be safe in His arms
'Cause the hands that hold the world are holding your heart
This is the promise He made
He will be with you always
When everything is falling apart
You will be safe in His arms

Did you know that the voice that brings the dead to life
Is the very same voice that calls you now to rise
So hear Him now He's calling you home
You will never be alone

You will be safe in His arms
You will be safe in His arms
'Cause the hands that hold the world are holding your heart
This is the promise He made
He will be with you always
When everything is falling apart
You will be safe in His arms

These are the hands that built the mountains
the hands that calm the seas
These are the arms that hold the heavens
they are holding you and me

These are hands that healed the leper
Pulled the lame up to their feet
These are the arms that were nailed to a cross
to break our chains and set us free

You will be safe in His arms
You will be safe in His arms
'Cause the hands that hold the world are holding your heart
This is the promise He made
He will be with you always
When everything is falling apart
You will be safe in His arms

"Safe" by Phil Wickham

The Thirty-first Sabbath - Taking Our Turn

Yesterday in church, our pastor shared an email from one of our members who is currently in Thailand, visiting her son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren.  She wrote about the church service she had attended that morning--along with Christians from 40+ other countries.  And then she said something like, "As we worshiped God, I thought about the sun rising around the world, calling God's people to gather and worship Him--brothers and sisters in India, children in Africa, and you there.  Just as the sun's light spills across the earth, we gather, hour by hour, to give Him glory.  May He be with you as you take your turn."

I loved that.  "As you take your turn."  I did that yesterday, and it was a lovely service--begun in worship with friends and ended with blueberry cobbler shared with old friends and new friends.  And all day long, this song fluttered through my brain:

It's the song of the redeemed
Rising from the African plain
It's the song of the forgiven
Drowning out the Amazon rain
The song of Asian believers
Filled with God's holy fire
It's every tribe, every tongue, every nation
A love song born of a grateful choir

It's all God's children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
It's all God's children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns

Let it rise about the four winds
Caught up in the heavenly sound
Let praises echo from the towers of cathedrals
To the faithful gathered underground
Of all the songs sung from the dawn of creation
Some were meant to persist
Of all the bells rung from a thousand steeples
None rings truer than this
And all the powers of darkness
Tremble at what they've just heard
'Cause all the powers of darkness
Can't drown out a single word

When all God's children sing out
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
All God's people singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns

"He Reigns," by Newsboys

Book Fifteen

You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know: A true story of family, face blindness, and forgiveness
Heather Sellers

In Sellers's memoir, she recounts her childhood (living with a mother she later determined was paranoid schizophrenic and chasing after her mostly-absentee father who was a cross-dressing alcoholic) while intermittently describing her self discovery of her own prosopagnosia.  Late in the book, in the Afterward, in fact, Sellers writes that when she had shared stories of her childhood in the past, professional writers had told her that it was "unbelievable" and "unsurvivable."  There are moments that surely feel that way.

In truth, because most of us suffer from the inability to remember names of our acquaintances, it's easy to feel that her chapters on prosopagnosia--or face blindness--are just as unbelievable.  I appreciated the mix of anecdotal information (such as the golden retriever test--you may have had your dog for years, but if we put pictures of his face in a line up of 20 other golden retrievers, could you pick yours out?) along with scientific information about how the brain recognizes faces and identifies them and their characteristics. 

Sellers is a professor of English at a local college.  She is a good writer, and I think the book is well organized.  I appreciated her transitions between her (truly unbelievable!) childhood and its impacts on her realizations about who she is as an adult and her willingness to believe the truth about her condition.  Childhood is a confusing time and, even under normal conditions, our recollections about it color so much about our adulthoods.  When a brain disorder factors into that, it becomes even more difficult to see the truth and grow in that truth.  There are more things to ask forgiveness for and to offer forgiveness for.  But, at the end of the day, the forgiveness is worth it.

While You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know is a fascinating story about Heather Sellers's reality, it is also an important lesson for all of us.  It's a reminder to extend grace, because you never know what burdens others are carrying.  It's a reminder to give others permission to be real, even when their authenticity is scary or painful.  It's also a reminder to believe in each other, even when the truth seems unbelievable. 

Someone once asked me, after hearing me talk about my relationship with my grandmother, "Why do you even love her?" 

I remember looking at that person like she was crazy and saying, "Because she's my grandma."

I thought about that a lot while reading this book.  And I was glad to hear Sellers say that at the end of the day, while laying out her story and recalling her childhood and her journey into accepting her face blindness, she could see that throughout her life there had been love.  There had been love for her mother and her father and love from them for her.  She concludes: "I'd set out to write a book about how we learn to trust our own experience in the face of confusion, doubt, and anxiety.  What I ended up with is the story of how we love each other in spite of immense limitations."  (p354) Amen.  Sellers reminded me of that as well.

Hope, Despair, and The Dark Knight Rises on the night after the shootings

Hope is a funny thing.  So is seeing a movie the night after a horrific shooting at its premiere.

Obviously we are half a country away from Aurora, CO.  We're not in the suburb of a major city.  And we were safe, because we were at the movies.  And nothing bad happens at the movie theater, right?  Especially in West Michigan.

Still, we had a plan.  We knew how we were getting out of the theater if there was a fire (thanks for the plan, Leah.  And Steve offered to be last.).  We also knew that if someone came into the theater and started shooting we were not going to run.  We were going to drop to the ground and hide under our seats.  (Once in the theater we weren't sure how that would work since there isn't really a lot of room under those seats.  Especially once we were all tucked under them.  We would have made it work.)  I said my "I love yous" to my family and was glad that my husband was home with my girls, just in case.

As horrific as the shooting was to read about, and as many tears as I shed for those who sent their kids or spouses or parents to a midnight movie only to have them never return home, it still felt surreal.  I still felt completely safe watching The Dark Knight Rises at 10:30 p.m. the night after the shooting.  Sure, I had my "just in case" plans in place, but I never really thought anything would happen.

Until the movie started, and I kept checking the Exit doors.  And during the first shooting scene, when it's reported that the gunfire began in Theater 9 in Aurora, and I closed my eyes against the tears that tried to fall.  And then, when that guy tripped walking up the aisle and there was a loud thud and every single person in the theater began murmuring, and adrenaline began pumping through my veins and I thought about throwing myself on top of Leah and Amy to protect them.  I can honestly say that I have never had a movie experience like that one.

This morning, after my husband let me sleep in, and I sat reading Entertainment Weekly's review of The Dark Knight Rises, I noticed a quote that struck me as ironic.  Not the funny kind of irony, but the eerie kind that makes you think there's something deeper within certain events.  They quoted Bane, the film's villain, as saying, "There can be no true despair without hope."

Hope.  In the midst of the shooting in Aurora and the reminder it immediately brings of the shootings at Columbine, there is still that word: hope.

But there's also the ironic fact that what Holmes stole from moviegoers throughout the country--maybe even the world--is the hope that at a movie theater we can escape our lives for a while.  The hope that we can be safe.  That senseless shootings happen only on the big screen.  That spiraling downward into the darkness of despair is reserved for fictional characters.  Until the characters come off the screen and erase all of that hope with one pull of the trigger.

Bane's belief is shared by all who embrace chaos and terrorism: There can be no true despair without hope.  Without hope, the chaos is expected.  Safety is a dream, so senseless shootings aren't the nightmare.  But when hope creeps in, when I can believe for one second that there might be peace, then Bane, the Joker, shootings at the movies--they are true horror.

I didn't stay home from the movie theater last night, and I won't do so in the future.  I refuse to let someone who wants to destroy my hope dictate my life.  Because I believe something else about hope.  I believe that while it is true that there can be no true despair without hope, the opposite is also true. 

There can be no true peace or joy without hope.

Maybe just call me Robin.

Cheating People

This morning, in the coolness of my bedroom (okay, it was probably about 80 degrees--but that's cool if you'd entered the room the night before at about 95), I read Acts 13 in The Message.  I've always enjoyed Eugene Peterson's translation as I find him to be sassy, honest, and practical.  This particular section is referred to as "Barnabas, Saul, and Doctor Know-It-All."  (See what I mean about sassy?  You should check out Job!)

As I was reading, I was struck especially by the section for verses 7-11:

The governor invited Barnabas and Saul in, wanting to hear God's Word firsthand from them. But Dr. Know-It-All (that's the wizard's name in plain English) stirred up a ruckus, trying to divert the governor from becoming a believer. But Saul (or Paul), full of the Holy Spirit and looking him straight in the eye, said, "You bag of wind, you parody of a devil—why, you stay up nights inventing schemes to cheat people out of God. But now you've come up against God himself, and your game is up. You're about to go blind—no sunlight for you for a good long stretch." He was plunged immediately into a shadowy mist and stumbled around, begging people to take his hand and show him the way.

Those italics there are mine, because that's the part that jumped out at me.  "Why, you stay up nights inventing schemes to cheat people out of God."  Wow.  Now, this "Dr. Know-It-All" was a wizard.  He truly did spend his time trying to distract people from the Gospel message that Paul and Barnabas were trying to share.  And he paid for it dearly, with his sight.

But that really got me thinking--about me.  I'm certainly not a wizard (no amount of waiting has resulted in the delivery of my acceptance letter for Hogwarts), but I can tend toward being a Know-It-All.  I have the answers or I have the challenge to what people want to do.  And, I don't stay up nights inventing schemes.  I tend to stay up nights praying for a breeze so I can actually fall asleep.  But do I still cheat people out of God?  Can someone who loves God and has every good intention to serve Him do that?

Wouldn't that be a horrible message for a Christian to receive?  "Why, you . . . cheat people out of God."  Ugh.

But, if I'm not living as He called me to--if I'm not loving my neighbors, if I'm ignoring their needs, if I'm not participating in my church's work, if I don't have time to listen to a friend's heart, if I say I'll pray and don't, if I'm stingy with the resources God has entrusted to me, if I'm too paralyzed by fear to step out in faith to do what I know He has for me . . . am I cheating people out of God?  Because, really, if we're whom He has left on earth to do His work, to be Jesus to the people we meet, then if we aren't doing that are we any better than Dr. Know-It-All?

The Twenty-ninth Sabbath

This is my Father's world,
and to my listening ears
all nature sings, and round me rings
the music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world:
I rest me in the thought
of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
his hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father's world,
the birds their carols raise,
the morning light, the lily white,
declare their maker's praise.
This is my Father's world:
he shines in all that's fair;
in the rustling grass I hear him pass;
he speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father's world.
O let me ne'er forget
that though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let the earth be glad!

"This Is My Father's World," by Maltbie D. Babcock

Breaking the Silence

This may be the longest break I've taken from blogging since 2012 and my new goals began.  Now that we're (more than--how did that happen!?) half way through the year, it's worth an update.  Or at least a post.

Summer makes life hard, doesn't it?  For some reason I always think the break from school will mean a break from the busyness, and that's never the case.  This summer has brought with it intolerable (for most of us anyway) heat.  That has led to me not sleeping at night, which has led to me not waking up at 5:00 a.m. to go to the gym and come home and read my Bible.  Which leads to most of my goals not being met.

My girlies and I just returned from a two-week vacation at my parents' cottage where we (thankfully!) had air conditioning to make it through the hottest temps in decades or even centuries.  We brought back with us suntans, certificates from passing to a new level of swimming lessons, a renewed commitment to achieving our goals, and a serious head cold.  Which again means I'm not sleeping, not working out, and . . . not eating!  I have no appetite, so this has been a great time to force myself into more salads and fruits.  After all, if I don't feel like eating but I know I need to eat, I might as well make it healthy, right?  So now I've lost 2 1/2 pounds since I returned home.  I'll take it!

On vacation, I also rediscovered the blog of a friend of a friend who has now lost two unborn babies.  They had the funeral for their second daughter two months ago.  Since I had the time, I read through all of her blog posts from her miscarriage of their first daughter, Eden.  What a beautiful gift for this mama who still grieves her baby Zion.  You'll find updates for them in my blog roll (Sprinkles & Wrinkles).  If you've ever lost a baby, or even if you haven't, she is an amazing writer who truly captures joy and peace in the midst of grief.

Then, at the end of vacation, my family learned that an old friend of our family's--and a former babysitter whom my sister bit :D--was just diagnosed with breast cancer.  I added her blog (Stacey's Boobies) today and will stay updated for prayer and the self-discovery and learning that inevitably comes with reading about someone's journey through the valley.

There were also happy times:
* The girls and I took my dad to see "Brave" at the movie theater.  They didn't like the scary bears, but we all agreed that mommy can be a bear sometimes but that doesn't mean mommy doesn't love them fiercely too.
* My friend Shannon and I went to see two movies: "Rock of Ages" and "Magic Mike."  The acting was terrible in "Magic Mike," and they were both cheesy comedies, which I think only one meant to be.  I'd recommend one over the other.  I'm sure you can guess which.
* I went to see "People Like Us," which I have been waiting for since filming began and it was still known as "Welcome to People."  I'm a huge Chris Pine fan, and he did a great job.  Michelle Pfeiffer was also splendid, and I appreciate that she looks her age.  I liked it far more than most of the reviews suggest I should.
* I learned that the son of a former classmate of my parents (at Kalamazoo Christian High School) will be representing the USA in steeplechase at the London Olympics in a couple of weeks.  Go USA and go Evan Jager!  (Now I guess I need to find out when steeplechase will be run . . . and dove and leaped and all the other things it is.)
* I discovered Words with Friends.  Which is probably why I haven't blogged at all.
* I read several books and made it through 1 1/2 grocery bags worth of old magazines.  Yes, I recycled them all.
* I had the opportunity to get almost caught up in my Bible reading.  Job in The Message is fantastically sassy and well-written.  And Jeremiah might be crazy.  Or at least long winded.

It was a great vacation, but I'm glad to be home, even with this cold.  Now that I'm back, I'll try to be better.  Or at least make an effort.

The Twenty-seventh Sabbath

I'm not in church (proper) again this Sabbath.  I was raised in church and going to church and playing church and never taking a Sunday off of church.  We even went to church when we were on vacation.  As I've grown older, I find myself taking a few Sundays off here and there.  Maybe I'm learning that breaks (Sabbath rests?) are important here and there.  Maybe I understand that 90 degrees is too hot for an outdoor chapel, and it feels silly to drive back to town to go to an air conditioned church.  Maybe I'm justifying.

Whatever the reason, today finds me in my third Sunday off in 2012.  My kids and my husband are at church today, and I'm at the cottage.  So I have spent this Sabbath sleeping in, eating an unhealthy (but lifelong favorite) breakfast, finishing a book, blogging, catching up on Facebook, catching up on my Bible reading, and reading friends' blogs from the past few days.  In a bit I'll go for a ride as I wait for my family to arrive.

So, instead of a hymn today, I'll share two blog posts I read today that have served as my sermon for today.  I know I'll ponder them throughout the day and coming week, and I hope that they serve to change my way of thinking--and acting--for the rest of my life.  Just like any other good sermon.

My friend Amy, writes for her therapy.  Today, she issues a reminder to trust in God.  To leave things--worries, our days--in His hands.

A friend from high school wrote a heart-wrenching post on her blog.  She's a gifted writer, and here, she takes this mother's heart into a moment no parent should have to endure but too many do.  By doing that, she reminds us to keep our eyes on our children even while we are trusting God to have them desperately and securely held in His grip.

Be blessed on this Sabbath--whether you are keeping it in church or in reflection on the amazing gifts you have received from your Abba.

Book Fourteen

A Monster Calls
by Patrick Ness, inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd

I should start by acknowledging that I didn't love this book . . . until the very end.  Given the rough time I had getting into the book but how deeply affected I was by the ending, I'm having a hard time deciding how to rate it.  I think I'm going to go with four stars just beause the premise was so great, and the ending really sealed it.

Grief is a common theme in life.  Since every day, we--and the people we love--are dying just a bit, life truly has more loss than anything else.  Sometimes that loss is "easy" and sometimes it is so painful that it is hell itself. 

A Monster Calls was written by Patrick Ness based on an idea that Siobhan Dowd had as she was dying of cancer.  She didn't have a chance to finish her book, so Ness took all of her ideas and crafted his own work.  Obviously we don't have the characters and ideas that Dowd developed, nor do we know how much of this story is Ness's creation.  What we do know is that perhaps no one knows the realities of dying and saying goodbye better than someone who is in its midst.  Ness took those ideas and somehow adopted those feelings and realities, and he created a stark and beautiful portrait of a young boy learning how to say goodbye to his mom. 

The other truth about grief is that it is contradictory.  In reality, so is life.  As Ness says toward the end of the tale: "The answer is that it does not matter what you think . . . your mind will contradict itself a hundred times each day.  Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary."  (p191) Isn't that the way?  Isn't that the truth about pain and loss and saying goodbye?  Our minds protect us so well, but then they let us down in the end.  Because the truth is what is, even when it doesn't make sense.

Book Thirteen

The Future of Us
Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler

What a clever concept for a book!  Especially for a girl who graduated high school in 1995 and vividly remembers her first foray into email and chat rooms.  Emma and Josh are lifelong best friends who have grown apart through the beginning of high school when one of those 100 hours of free America Online CD-ROMs we all used to receive allows them to travel from 1996 to 2011 where they stalk their own Facebook profiles.  Clever, clever, clever.

Obviously Asher and Mackler have the benefit of living in both 1996 and 2011, which makes it easier for them to hold a mirror to the obsurdity that is social networking in the second decade of the twenty-first century.  The Future of Us is billed as a young adult novel, and it certainly works as that, but I do wonder how much of the novelty of this book is lost on readers who were barely born in 1996.  I loved the memory trip of songs, dial-up internet, and phone cards.  I also enjoyed the look at Facebook and the way that Facebook allows us to believe that everything about us--our mood changes, our dinners, our deep thoughts--are of utmost importance to the world.

Above all, I think The Future of Us is a love story.  It's not just a love story between teenagers, but it's a love story with self and with parents and step parents . . . and with an idea of what the future should hold.  With its clever concept, it transcends the "young adult" genre and should provoke those of us who are Emma and Josh's ages--graduating high school in the mid 90s--to ask ourselves some important questions.  What is it we're doing on Facebook--reconnecting?  Holding on to an image of what we wish we were?  Social networking gives us all the platform to pretend that we're philosophers, while ensuring that none of us actually go beyond networking into deep relationships--with our spouses, our friends, our families, ourselves. 

So the questions are these:
* If I had a chance to know my future, would I want to?
* If I didn't like what I saw there, would I try to change it?
* Is it time for me to give up trying to know the future and simply live in the here and now?


Favorite Quotes:
"Even with our ability to look back on [Vietnam]," he says, "there's no way to know for certain what was lost and what was saved.  But that's how it is.  History's a bitch when you're in the middle of it."  (p269)

"He broke your heart!  How can you call it love when he hurt you so badly?"
Kellen pops another fry into her mouth.  "It was love because it was worth it."  (p53)

"Why does it say she has three hundred and nineteen friends?" Josh asks.  "Who has that many friends?"
...Josh turns to me.  "I can't believe she's writing these things."
"Not she," I say.  "Me."
"Why would anyone say this stuff about themselves on the Internet?  It's crazy!"  (pp31-32)

The Twenty-sixth Sabbath

The song that woke me up on vacation: day two.  Megan and Addie were singing together yesterday morning.  At the top of their dear, little lungs.

Praise Him, praise Him,
praise Him in the morning,
praise Him in the noonday.

Praise Him, praise Him,
praise Him when the sun goes down.

Love Him, love Him,
love Him in the morning,
love Him in the noonday.

Love Him, love Him,
love Him when the sun goes down.

Serve Him, serve Him,
serve Him in the morning,
serve Him in the noonday.

Serve Him, serve Him,
serve Him when the sun goes down.

"Praise Him," by Byron Cage

Vacation: Day One

Day one of vacation:

* Laid in bed for 1/2 hour after I woke up.

* Lost my temper (before 9:00 a.m.).

* Signed Ellie up for a summer reading club.

* Dropped Ellie and two friends off at church for a field trip to Blanford Nature Center.

* Weeded my garden and picked cilantro, dill, and lettuce.  Trimmed the tomatoes and cucumbers, determined not to have unmanageable growth of greens and no tomatoes this year.  Realized I never remembered to plant spinach and wondered what happened to all of the carrot seeds Meg planted a few weeks ago.

* Neglected to notice that Addie and Kate decided to play in the puddle at the bottom of the kiddie pool . . . fully clothed.

* Discovered that I had a number of work emails (thanks a lot, "Smart" phone) so I checked them.  Discovered that we were awarded a two-year grant funding $10,000 (1/2) of the expansion of our body-safety and sexual-abuse prevention program so we can train 1,000 preK-1st graders as well as 10,000 2nd-5th graders.  Danced a jig.  Called my boss.  Called the program coordinator.  Wrote the thank you/receipt letter.  Danced another jig.

* Realized I had made it exactly 3 1/2 hours into my vacation without checking my work email.  (FAIL.)

* Made two PB&J sandwiches (Addie and Kate) and one Cheese & Pickle sandwich with mayo and ketchup (obviously Meg) and then ate half of a sweet and juicy honeyrock melon while I was cutting that for the kids' lunch.

* Put a 4 year old and two 2 year olds down for naps.  Which they took.  Still pinching myself.

* Folded four loads of laundry.

* Realized I had written some incorrect information in the thank you/receipt letter.  Called my boss.  Again.

* Broke my personal rule regarding number of children at the store and took three kids grocery shopping.  Spent less money than I feared I would.  And didn't cry like I feared I would.  (WINNING.)

* Arrived at the cottage in sweltering heat.  Found myself hoping gauchos are still in style and then wondering where I could buy some.  (Can they please still be in style?  Are they?  I've never worn anything more comfortable and only got rid of my two pair because they were maternity and don't stay up without that 3rd-trimester bump.)

* Enjoyed a golf cart ride with the girls on which we actually all got cold.  First time in weeks.  Felt amazing.

* Prayed with each of the girls and tucked them in.  Zero crying from anyone at bedtime. 

* Plans for the rest of the night: playing on Facebook, blogging, watching the Tigers, reading Real Simple and Vanity Fair, staying up way too late, sleeping on the porch under three blankets.

Hmmm . . . haven't lost my temper since 9:00 this morning.  Must be vacation.

Enduring Injustice

I recently had a conversation with a friend about something that happened more than a year ago.  As is often the case in broken relationships, there was misunderstanding, heartache, and injustice.  And a lot of pain.  But, at the same time, there is a glimmer of God working.

There are times in our lives when we have to endure injustice.  Life isn't fair.  Relationships hurt.  We get blamed for things we didn't do.  Our relationships end, and our hearts break.  We want to rise up and defend ourselves.  We want to make it right again or at least make sure people know we aren't who or what we've been accused of being.

Surely there are times when we are allowed to do that.  We get to defend ourselves in court--with integrity--and we can certainly speak to our motives or explain the reasons behind our actions. 

But there are perhaps more times when we are called to endure injustice with grace and courage.

For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.  (I Peter 3:17b-18)

And that's what it all comes down to.  When you have done the right thing, when you have spoken the truth in love, when you are taking the fall so that someone else doesn't have to . . . when it's God's will.  That's the point where you endure. 

It hurts to be wrongfully accused.  It hurts like hell to lose relationships that matter.  But when you can see that good is happening, that God is still in control, that He is moving, then it's all worth it. 

May I always be more than willing to suffer injustice for the greater good of God's master plan. 

May I see that in those times I have the opportunity to be Christ to those around me.  He suffered the ultimate injustice--His death--for the greater good--our lives. 

And may I never stop praying for reconciliation and healing in broken relationships . . . all in His good time.

Taking Off Our Shoes

"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Exodus 3:5

Picture this with me:
 
Moses is out, minding his own business (or rather his father-in-law's business), and there is a bush.  Okay, pretty common.  But this one is on fire.  And it's not burning up.  And Moses approaches it, which probably isn't what I would have done.  I'm quite certain that I would have wandered away--quickly--in the other direction.  But Moses approaches it.
 
Then a voice speaks out of the bush.  And it calls him by name.  Yet he still doesn't wander away--quickly--in the other direction.  He stands there, and actually tells the bush, "Here I am!"  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have said that or stuck around to find out what the crazy bush said next.
 
But Moses does.  He waits.  And then the bush, God, says, "Do not come any closer.  Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground."
 
I wonder at what point Moses figured out that it was God.  Obviously he had to know something was up because there was a bush on fire and not burning, but did he know that was God?  Or was it when he heard his name come from the fire?  Perhaps it wasn't until he was told to take off his sandals?  Or, maybe it wasn't until the next words came:
 

I am the God of your father: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. 

 
Either way, Moses gets it, and he hides his face from God, because he is afraid to look at God. 
 
Moses and God have a special relationship.  Later in Exodus we read that God spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend (Exodus 33:11).  Exodus ends with Moses spending so much time in the presence of God--with his face uncovered--that he needs to wear a veil to protect the eyes of the Israelites from God's glory radiating from his face(Exodus 34:29-35).  But here, now, at the beginning, Moses takes off his sandals, and he hides his face.  Because that's what you do in the presence of a holy God.
 
I've been thinking a bit about this since our pastor's message on Sunday.  He talked about focusing on God--making Him big--instead of dwelling on the thoughts and opinions of people--making them small. 
 
Some of the commentaries I glanced at as I was looking up Exodus 3:5 suggested that by telling Moses to take off his shoes, God is saying one of two things.  Perhaps He is referring to taking off the shoes like we (men, mostly) are told to take hats off in church--it's a sign of respect, not for the place of worship as much as the Subject of worship.  So, while it's holy ground, it is only holy because God is there.  Another commentary suggested that it was because shoes get filthy as they walk along the ground, and taking them off is a symbol of shedding the dirt and filth of everyday living.  So we, too, need to cleanse ourselves of the dirt and filth of everyday living when we go to stand in the presence of God.
 
I hope it isn't too much of a leap to say that maybe taking off the shoes to stand in the presence of this holy God could be about recognizing that life is a bit different there.  Recognizing that my "shoes" (sorry, Pastor Tim!) might be the things that keep me from being fully God's--whether it's people's opinions, or my fear, or my pride, or my sin--and they need to come off.  I'm pretty certain that if I encountered that bush, I would have steered the sheep in another direction as quickly as I could.  The shoes would have helped with that.  But, if Moses had done that, would he have gotten to speak to God face to face later in his life?
 

“Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”
--Elizabeth Barret Browning

 
Holy, God.  Help me see You.  Help me walk toward You.  Help me take off everything that hinders me from standing fully in Your presence so that I might talk to You.  Face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

The Twenty-fifth Sabbath

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

"Blessed Assurance," Frances J. Crosby

Branching Out

I had an epiphany today.  As I was reading Sports Illustrated, I came across something I wanted to blog about.  I thought, "EEK!  I can't have two sports-related posts in a row!"  So then I was trying to figure out what to do, how to make it work in my head and on my blog . . . and then the lightbulb.

I have another blog.  I have for years.  In fact, it was the first blog (after Xanga, which is crazy), though I haven't posted in it since I moved everything to this blog.  Why don't I just hijack that one for sports posts?  I'm still meeting my goals, because the point was to try to write daily.  It wasn't to try to write daily on Better Than A Hallelujah.  It was the writing.

So, I'm branching out.  You can read what you want, but I encourage you (the five of you who also love sports) to check out She Loves Sports (originally known as FunnyWriterGirl).  Here's my first post: "It's All About Money." 

And now I got two posts in one day.  Because I'm clever.  :)

Indulge Me for a Minute

I'm going to lose a few of my readers with this post.  That's tricky with only 10 people reading, but this blog is about who I am and what I think.  So, indulge me for just a minute.  And I hope you'll be back next time.  It's not as if I have anything controversial to say--at least not today (I'm not THAT brave, after all)--but it might be just a bit boring.  Bet you can't wait to keep reading, eh? 

So here's the thing about me.  I love sports.  Love them.  I don't know what it is, because I don't recall being a big sports fan when I was growing up.  I never really played them.  Oh!  Except Little League.  I played t-ball, and maybe another year, on the Langeland's Funeral Home team in Kalamazoo.  They had me in right field.  For t-ball.  I may have been afraid of the ball.  Anyway I picked a lot of clovers but never found any of the four-leaf variety.  Checked every one of the Kalamazoo Little League fields for one, though.

Back to the sports.  I know my dad watched them as I was growing up.  He watched baseball and college football.  He also watched the NFL.  It may have been that he actually watched teams, though.  Like U of M and the Detroit Lions and the Detroit Tigers.  And the Olympics.  We always watched that, too.  I remember being in a hotel room somewhere between here and Vancouver, BC, and watching gymnastics floor routines.  Or, rather I remember pretending I was in the gymnastics floor routines by tumbling across the beds in the hotel room.  I may have gotten in trouble for that.  I also remember being in the winter Olympics and figure skating around my living room while my parents and the rest of their Bible study watched through the windows from the church next door.  And of course I remember the '84 World Series and the '88 Series.  It may have been Kirk Gibson I remember from that last one, though.

In high school I discovered soccer.  I watched it in the heat and in the floods and everywhere in between.  I'm not sure I missed many games during my junior and senior years of high school.  Along the way I also discovered the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Tigers (for myself now) and Notre Dame Fighting Irish football.  The Sports Illustrated subscription has always been in my name, and my husband has to tell me to turn off ESPN.

A couple of years ago I decided to prove to the boys that I know more about football than what Brett Favre's smile is like (though it feels creepy to say that now), and I devoured The Idiot's Guide to the NFL.  And I discovered that I loved two more things about sports: learning the terminology and impressing the boys.

More recently, I discovered Josh Hamilton.  His story is so compelling, and let's be honest--it's a treat to watch him play baseball.  I also came across CJ Wilson in an issue of Sports Illustrated.  I was intrigued by their partnership in staying drug and alcohol free (Hamilton because of his addictions, and Wilson because he is straightedge), and I found it interesting that Wilson went from AAA ball to a relief role for the Rangers to being the Rangers ace in just a few short years. 

And then Albert Pujols!  Don't get me started on how interesting that story line has been this year!

Turns out I'm a pretty big baseball fan.  My interest has gone beyond just cheering for the Detroit Tigers and into watching certain players, observing how they impact their teams, and noting how the fans respond to them.  I'm excited to be watching Bryce Harper and Mike Trout transform and ignite their teams, and I can hardly wait to watch their careers continue to develop as they become even bigger superstars than they already are.  And the stats.  Wow.  There's so much to track.

I know that my minute is almost up, and the two of you who are still reading are about to close your browsers (except Matt Gajtka, who better be sticking around--I blame him for enabling me), but I do have a conclusion. 

Matt and I had a conversation the other day about learning.  I realized that part of what I love about sports is that there's always something more to learn.  My dad helped me see the importance of learning something every day (I don't know if he'd claim that, but it's something that I feel like I learned from him).  With sports I get to do that.

Then, I was talking with some people at a work lunch, and we discussed the psychology of sports.  I find it fascinating the way people are such "homers" and the way that fans can turn on a player and the way that Twitter has changed our access to athletes.  I love the brain and group think and people's motives and fandom in general.

I do like impressing the boys by talking sports, and I like sharing my opinions with more than just my dashboard while I listen to Mike & Mike or Colin Cowherd, and I surely like doing more than just filing the stats in my brain.  Don't worry, I wont hijack Better Than a Hallelujah with sports.  Because then I really will have the Gajtkas as my only readers.  It's just hard to figure out how to reconcile all of these parts of me while still maintaining the theme of what I've got going here.  I may have turned 35, and I may have figured out what I want to be when I grow up, but I'm still trying to figure how exactly who I am and how I should let it out.

The Twenty-fourth Sabbath

Posted a day late, because yesterday ended up being a long day of church, worship team, work, visitation at the funeral home, dinner with a good friend, and collapsing in bed in the sauna that is our upstairs.

We sang this song in church on Sunday, and it felt very fitting as our congregation prepared to say goodbye to our friend and "family member," Bruce.

Jesus! what a Friend for sinners!
Jesus! Lover of my soul;
Friends may fail me, foes assail me,
He, my Savior, makes me whole.

Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.

Jesus! what a Strength in weakness!
Let me hide myself in Him.
Tempted, tried, and sometimes failing,
He, my Strength, my victory wins.

Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.

Jesus! what a Help in sorrow!
While the billows over me roll,
Even when my heart is breaking,
He, my Comfort, helps my soul.

Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.

Jesus! I do now receive Him,
More than all in Him I find.
He hath granted me forgiveness,
I am His, and He is mine.

Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.

"Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners," by J. Wilbur Chapman

Book Twelve

The Fault in Our Stars
John Green

Warning: this is a hard book to read.  It's a good book, and it's worth it, but it's hard.  Consider yourself warned.

On the cover of my copy of The Fault in Our Stars, there is a quote from Jodi Picoult.  I feel like I could simply write that as my review, and it would have summed up the entire book: "Electric . . . Filled with staccato bursts of humor and tragedy."  Truly, nothing more needs to be said.

John Green has written a young adult novel about life and death, from the perspective of a 16-year-old girl living with terminal cancer.  She narrates her journey through a terminal life--the same life we're all living, really--and the friends she meets along the way. 

As a mother, my heart broke on nearly every other page.  I can't even imagine the thought of normal being certain you have enough oxygen tanks to get your daughter through her next journey out of the house.  Or knowing that your child will never see again.  Or knowing that there is nothing left to fight with except hope.

At the end of the day, while The Fault in Our Stars is about the crap that life gives out and recognizing that people don't die after a long battle with cancer but rather after a long battle with life, it's really a story about hope.  It's about finding love and loving, and it's about being strong enough to break down and cry, and it's about making today your best day.  It's about leaving something behind that will last.  It's about life. 

Because it isn't just this novel that is filled with "staccato bursts of humor and tragedy."  Life is too.


Memorable Quotes:
" 'Always' was a promise! How can you just break the promise?"
"Sometimes people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said.
Isaac shot me a look.  "Right, of course.  But you keep the promise anyway.  That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway."  (p61)

"Our city has a rich history, even though many tourists are only wanting to see the Red Light District."  He paused.  "Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom.  And in freedom, most people find sin."  (p157)

"The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.  The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything.  He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox."  (p312)

"You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you.  I like my choices.  I hope she likes hers."  (p313)

Thoughts On Saying Goodbye

Bruce Coeling died this morning.  He suffered a massive heart attack last Saturday and was never really responsive again after that.  His children made the hard decision to remove him from the machines keeping his body alive on Thursday, and around 1:30 a.m. on Friday, June 8, 2012, he died.  He was 67.  He is a father and a grandfather and a friend.

I saw him on Wednesday night when a couple of friends and I went to the hospital after worship practice to visit him, but really to support his son who sings with us on the worship team and, with his wife and children, is in our Family Fellowship Group.  Before that I saw Bruce at church at 8:30 a.m. a couple of weeks ago when I last sang on the worship team.  I smiled when I saw him, and his son, Ken, and I talked about how Bruce always got there at 8:30 for the 9:30 service, because he didn't like to be late.  The funny thing about death is that I didn't know that was the last time he would return my smile and tell me hello.  Because most of the time you just don't know.

As I was falling asleep on Wednesday night, praying for Bruce and for his son and two daughters and their families, I wondered how we slipped into this stage of life.  At Christmas of 2010, our dear friends lost their mother after years of living with a brain tumor and its effects.  In January of 2007, we grieved with another good friend over the loss of her father in a car accident.  In between, there have been other days of bearing the burden of grief as other friends and church family members have said goodbye to their fathers.  How did we get here, to this place where we are starting to say goodbye to our parents?  It's tricky, because many of us still have grandparents living . . . and yet somehow we have reached an age where our parents' days are truly numbered, and we are starting to count them.

There is a paradox for Christians around the world and throughout history.  We know, with great certainty, where our loved ones have gone.  We know, with great certainty, that God is holding them in His hands; they have reached their final Home, have heard the "Well done, my good and faithful servant," and have entered into the joy of our Lord.  And yet, we also know, with great certainty, that we miss them.  That life shouldn't have to include death, and that our lives are forever changed by this death.  We are reminded that this world is not our Home, and that we are merely pilgrims on a sojourn in this land.  So we grieve, even while we celebrate.  When we grieve, we grieve with hope.  But we still grieve.  And it sucks.

I know that Bruce died this morning, but when I saw him Wednesday night, his son said, "He's there, but he's not there."  I wonder when Bruce really did die.  I wonder if he died on Saturday and spent a week in eternity asking Jesus to give his family peace as they said goodbye to him and as they held his dying body.

Many in my group of friends have said goodbye to our unborn babies who have slipped from our wombs into the arms of Jesus.  I don't know well anyone who has buried a child, but I do know of fathers who have cradled the caskets containing their babies' bodies as they walked into the funeral service or released their children for burial.  That is a pain that cannot be matched.  Life shouldn't include death.  But, as a daughter, I wonder if there is anything more heartbreaking than seeing a grown woman become again a little girl as she kisses her daddy goodbye for one of the final times.  I saw that Wednesday night, and my heart broke, because I realized that one day that would be me.

Saying goodbye is a funny thing.  We know that to live is Christ and to die is truly gain.  I'm not afraid of it, but I don't know how I got to this stage where my friends and I are saying goodbye to our grandparents and our mommies and our daddies . . . and sometimes our children too.  This is a tender time.  And I imagine I'll cry at 8:30 Sunday morning when we're practicing our songs for the service and Bruce doesn't come in to sit in his normal seat an hour before the service starts. 

Bruce Coeling died this morning.  He was only 67 years old.  But he liked to get there a little bit early, because he never wanted to be late.