He Keeps His Promises

This is from my daughter’s post on her face book account this past week. Her birthday was Friday, so I looked in the closet to see if I still had it. After the fourth boy, I didn’t want her to try for a girl. The boys are wonderful and enough, (even though I know the friendship of a daughter is special after they are all married.) God told her she was going to have a girl, and we were so sure Jack (her fourth boy) would be her girl.

So I did have thoughts of giving it away, because I was done for her. I told her God just needed a few good men. (Her pregnancies and births are hard,  and hard on me as well!) But for some reason I didn’t give it away. And she just told me she is having a girl just after Christmas. So I sent it to her last week with her birthday present and a note of four words on it.

This is her response below a picture of it.

“My mama sent this to me this week. It looks like just a darling little baby romper but it’s infinitely more than that. She and I were shopping one day, a month after I found out I was pregnant, with Wade. 14 years ago. We saw it and she loved it and bought it just based on my heart telling me God would give me a girl.

Little did we know it would take all those years and four glorious boys before that promise would become reality. She saved it all along. She sent a note with it that said simply, “God keeps His promises”. He certainly does. It’s even exactly the size Eileigh will need for the summer. The greatest gift is not the outfit but my mama who journeys with me and lives the same faith, who makes the glory brighter because she sees it just the way I do.”

It touched my mama-heart, and I wanted to share it.

Got Laughter?

I have a new high: the joyful spontaneous laughter of a two-year old that roles up and out uncontrollably.

Yesterday, I was playing legos with him and his cousin. I made a truck that looked perfectly normal to me, and he thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. His cousin (22 mo.) either agreed, or just got set off by him and they laughed till I was sure they would fall over. It was so funny I was in awe.

When the moment had passed I took my truck out to my daughter to see if my reality was that far off, and she didn’t see anything funny about it either.

Tonight he was in the bathtub and again that laughter got set off. I called him a silly goose and he thought that was hilarious and again that completely natural, unaffected, outrageous laughter rolled out of him. It was great. He loves to laugh, and once it gets going, it lasts a while.

I’ve been asking God for joy and humor (among other things) every morning. There it was in the eyes and voice of a two-year old.

It has made me think of one of my favorite hurmorists, who always said, “Laughter is a holy sound to God.”

Tim Hansel is dead now and I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful to hear someone died–because he was in so much pain. His body had been so broken up by two different accidents. And  still he continued to write and travel speaking before large and small audiences. I happened to be one of those privileged to hear him–a man so full of joy and humor it flowed out. Humor was certainly his gift, and one he used to cope with pain.

I remember hearing another man who cured himself by laughing. Norman Cousins came down with Collagens Disease in which your insides dissolve, to put it simply. He decided to use it as an opportunity to test a hunch of his–that laughter is healing. He did and it was. He got well and founded the Immunology Department at one of the California universities.

Humor and joy are not my gift; I’m made of much grittier stuff, but I love true stories like these because I love laughter and have always appreciated good humor. I love to laugh.

I love thinking of God laughing. I know all Three of Them have a great sense of humor–all you have to do is look at creation…especially baby anythings. And I love the fact that They never laugh at anyone’s expense, never make fun of anyone, never even shame anyone.

I’ve been spending lots of hours early in the a.m. just listening this vacation. And one of the things He told me is He never makes anyone do anything. I swung around that concept for a while. I knew it theoretically, but have never felt it before. Now that carries some awe! And it makes me laugh, just because it is so incongruous to me.

The juxtaposition of incongruity is the basis of humor, and to me the knowledge that the All-powerful Ones in the universe don’t make anyone do anything is so contrary to the way I think, it’s funny! It opposes my very makeup.

And looking at the world, I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks and feels like that. I think there are a whole lot of religious people who won’t believe that–especially a lot of Christians! And that is not funny.

God has a sense of humor.

I’m sure of it!

For the past few years He has been taking everything I thought I knew and turning it upside down. The crazy part is, it’s not so that it makes what I believed wrong, just so much smaller than reality. I look at myself and my beliefs and am embarrassed.

One of His first tricks was leading me to a Taoist author that I was in awe of because of her Christ-like life. I’m a deeply committed Christian, but I couldn’t get over how she out-Christed me at every turn in her life. While I was whining and worrying, she was accepting with joy whatever happened, believing Love would use this… and blowing me away.

I was puzzled.

Then we became close friends with a couple who lived and worked most of the time in Africa, and they saw Muslims totally differently than everyone around me. You mean they aren’t all terrorists, full of Holy War? Could Allah and Abba be the same? Then God sent me a Muslim client that I truly enjoyed and bonded with, and we were both amazed at how much we had in common.

There were a few other such anomalies but I’ll skip to my latest one that really has my head stretching. I’ve just spent a week with my daughter who clearly spent the last 9 years of her life doing what she thought was the right thing to do. She was back in my church, her husband even joined, they made good friends, dedicated a baby–and got divorced there. She had been working hard to make a perfect life, but God had other plans.

He wanted her to admit she couldn’t “fix” her marriage, become real, and have a much broader influence.

It is so hard to watch and trust the messiness that comes with it.

But here is the kicker: today she said something that made me wonder if I think I can only love perfect people. My head begin to spin. Theoretically and theologically I know that’s wrong. But I found myself washing lettuce in her kitchen tonight saying to God, “Jesus, I know you weren’t rigid, but yet I think I should be? How crazy is that?”

This is the second year I’ve been writing a short blog on Jesus life that publishes every week-day and takes you through his life in a year.* I’ve loved it. I feel I have gotten to know him so much better. It’s very clear that his life was “messy” to everyone in his church and his culture. Even his closest friends didn’t understand him until he was gone. Yet I believe he was God in the flesh–the only perfect man.

What a conundrum this poses for Christianity! In one ditch we want to proscribe how everyone should live and act. On the other side we say it doesn’t matter how we live because Jesus “paid the price,” He took care of our disobedience. But does this make sense?

Jesus lived in God’s presence; getting every day’s plans from the Father–total communion. And mostly it shocked the religious community and looked messy. Our world could only tolerate such a pure heart for three years before we killed him for being too messy–way too messy.

Does this mean that we have to trust that God is leading those of us who want to be led by Him even if it looks and feels messy?

Do we have to let go of controlling others, and trust what God is doing with them? Trust their relationship with God and not try to correct it?

*http://Godhelps.net/God-in-a-Box–Your Inbox