Discoveries

I have been getting blessed reading the Psalms and having Strong's Concordance at my fingertips.  Amazing how knowing the roots of words or multiple meanings of words can turn on a light in my heart.

Especially Psalm 139.

It was my mother's favorite Psalm.

v15 "I was made in secret and curiously wrought..."  curiously wrought means "embroidered in variegated colors."

What a glorious concept!

While God was in the process of creating you, individual you, He was hand-embroidering you with the colors He delighted in - your laugh was one color, your way of looking at things, the small wonders of His creation that delight your heart - all were individually chosen and placed just so, like the stars.  And - like the stars - He knows you by name, too.

v16 "Thine eyes did see my substance..."  As the tiniest of 2-celled embryos, God knew you.  He knew who you are, He knew what you would do with your life, every sin you would commit - and He loved you (the quintessential Proud Papa - that's Him!)

"...and in Thy book all were written..." ("members" is not in the original) In other words, I am a full person in God's eyes, all of my attributes are there, I am not just a clump of cells - and like my Father,  I am.  

"... which in continuance were fashioned..." - that is a potter's term meaning "to squeeze into shape."  The Potter was already fashioning my clay into a vessel and, yes, some days I can still feel the squeezing going on ! (incidentally, this is the same term used in Genesis when He formed Adam out of the ground - the only thing handmade of all creation, a hands-on creation by the King of the Universe - that's YOU!)

"...when as yet there were none of them." Before I was even conceived, He had thought of me, knew how He would shape me, what attributes He would give me, and had numbered every second of my life, every hair on my head.

v.17"How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me..." the word "precious" also means "costly" - Yes, my every breath, my every thought is precious to Him - but I also  cost Him His most precious possession, His only Son.  Knowing that more fully than words could ever express, He still chose for me to be created.  Before the foundation of the world He chose me - and was willing to pay the price for that  choice.

Grace, and grace alone.

I will probably never be able to completely comprehend what a privilege it is to be called by Him, to belong to Him, as long as I live on this earth.  In heaven, where I am promised the ability to know even as I am known; will I then understand the cost? It seems impossible to me -  no matter how long I meditate on the cost, I keep coming up with new aspects of the tally - His heart broken, His Son broken, His Son bled like the Passover lamb to "make Him kosher", to tolerate my sin, to equate each sin with the supreme agony of not just the cross, but every second lived confined to a human body - and that for eternity!!! To never again have the freedom of existing without boundaries, He will forever restrain Himself to exist within the parameters of His flesh.  So much, so very much He gave up.  When our Father tore the curtains in the Holy of Holies from the top down (tearing the clothes is a sign of deep mourning in the Jewish culture) He was revealing the broken Father heart that sacrificed everything He valued.  Everything! for me, for you.

Everything.

Grace alone.

Selah.

A word here or there....who knew?

Thngs have been difficult lately.

I am home from the hospital and my doctor is pleased with my progress, but also wants to change a few things.  And my wonderful CFIDS body is balking at the changes.

New medications play havoc with my body systems.  The pain keeps increasing and everything is flaring.  The blood thinner make something as simple as wearing rollers in my hair at night dangerous - I evidently laid on them wrong and have a huge tender bruise in the middle of the back of my head.  AARGH!

Everything seems to trigger more pain or discomfort - and changed regulations related to my pain medication make even procuring it difficult and a process taking days instead of simply dropping off an Rx and picking it up an hour later.  Oh no, too easy!

Poop!

And into this perfect storm of holy little me (NOT!) murmuring against  God came this little story, my version of it, courtesy of Zola Levitt ministries (zolalevitt.org):

A young woman home for vacation, complained to her mother about all the things gone wrong in her life - break ups with boyfriend, less than stellar grades, worn out tires, no money for gas etc etc.  

Her mother, meanwhile was making the daughter's favorite coffee cake, and stopped stirring for a second.  Then she said, "Do you want some of this cake?"

"Of course I do!!"

Mom handed her daughter a broken egg.  "There you go," she said, "Enjoy!"

The daughter looked suspiciously at her mom.  "What are you doing mom?:

"Nothing dear.  How about a good hefty teaspoon of Baking Soda?  Sound good?" she said with a grin.

"Mo-oooo-mmm!"  drawing out the one syllable as only kids can do.  "I get it. OK, what's the lesson?"

Smiling, she began to mix up the treat once more.  "This recipe is a lot like God's plan for our lives.  Some of the things that happen are unpalatable and make us want to spit it out.  We don't know what kind of recipe God is using - perhaps certain ingredients are difficult, the temperature seems too high, we feel like it's a pointless exercise and God has forgotten us.

"He hasn't.  

"When things seem to be out of kilter everywhere, God is changing the recipe and doing something in your life - and sometimes the necessary ingredients are distasteful or downright painful. The Lord and His Word are trustworthy.  His plan is not to make you happy.  His plan is to make you holy.  Always remember,  the ingredients that seem so distasteful as they occur will be worked together for good in your life, according to His will.

"Always."

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that little story came at a moment when my "recipe" was particularly distasteful - and several ingredients were choking me a bit on the way down.  It helped me to remember that I don't have a clue what recipe He is using - but I know my Maker, and I know I can trust Him.  Some day He will pull an amazing angel food cake (of course!) out of His celestial oven and it will be the most perfect choice of all the recipes in His book, chosen just for me.

On another note altogether, I found a free app on Amazon.com (just when I needed it - what a coincidence!) called "the touch bible".  The 99cent version has Strong's Concordance imbedded in it, and it has been blessing my sox clean off.  Instead of having to stop and go get the Strong's and look up the word, you just touch the word and - TA DAHHHHHH! - there it is!

I am reading the Psalms and would never have dreamt the difference a wee word means here or there.  When the Psalms say that God is my strong defense, I always thought of it as simply God's defense of me, a wall made of stone or some such.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh noooo!  The Word means an impregnable fortress, like a strong craggy cliff with a fierce wind blowing and thunder echoing off the walls.

wow!

What a difference a word makes!  

So I highly recommend this app to you - from Amazon.com, for a mere 99 cents!!  And if you are so wealthy you have some extra change, for about 4 or 5 more bucks you can get the same app loaded for bear, with commentaries galore and all sorts of doodads.  AND the best part is you don't even need a Kindle to get it - they have a free app so you can just use your browser and you've got it.  You can highlight verses or words, make notes or copy them to a clipboard and save them.  It's really helping my study time - I read so fast that a lot of times I don't savor and soak it up - and now I go word by word and there is so much descriptive oomph to the words that I "see" the Psalm unfolding before my eyes.  I hope you take advantage of this:

It's Exciting Stuff!

The Strong's is opening a storehouse of wonder for me, giving me "hind's feet in high places." 

Want to come along?

We're Not Normal

this was shared on FB today - it is from Joni Earickson Tada.  It applies as much to CIs as it does to those in a w/c (wheelchair).  Others look at us and say, "someday you'll be normal" inferring our CI is something that makes us abnormal (although, I must admit, sometimes I certainly feel abnormal!)

Please read Joni's amazing words all the way to the end.  There you will find my comments on them.
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You're Not Normal...

"But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'" = 1 Samuel 16:7

When I speak, my message is often about how God has helped me grow leaps and bounds using my wheelchair. However, one time after I gave that message, a woman approached me and said, "Joni, don't worry. One day you'll be normal just like us." She missed the point.

I wasn't offended by the woman's comment so much as saddened that she was making the mistake described in 1 Samuel 16:7. She was looking on the outward appearance. She inferred that I envied her ability to stand. In her view, "normal" meant having a body that "worked," even if it was slightly overweight with a touch of arthritis.

We Christians need to shift our thinking and "...fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18). God is concerned about unseen things like patience, sensitivity, faith, goodness, perseverance, and self-control. We are "normal" in God's eyes when we demonstrate endurance and long-suffering, when we keep looking to the unseen things. This is the normal Christian life. You can live it whether you're 5'2" standing or 4'3" sitting. You can live it whether you have varicose veins from walking or atrophied muscles from being paralyzed.

I will not be normal some day; I am normal right now. And so are you if you abide by 2 Corinthians 4:18, fixing your eyes on what's eternally important. Take a look in your heart to check whether it's "time" is correct.

Lord, so many of my thoughts are caught up in the here and now that I forget if I can see it, it's temporary. Enable me to fix my gaze on what's important, the eternal.

Blessings,
Joni and Friends
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CI makes us different, that is for sure, and many well-meaning folks either pity us or think we are soooo holy and brave (yeah, right!)  

We know differently.

Like His people Israel, God has chosen us to display His glory in our very leaky vessels.  And, also like His people Israel, sometimes we are inclined to say, "Why can't God choose someone else for awhile?"  

Actually, each one of us who has been chosen by God (CI or AB, makes no difference) is being conformed to the image of His Son.  His Son was a Carpenter.  He learned from His youth to sand and carve and cut wood into the shape He wanted - and our wooden hearts are in His Shop from now until the day we stand before Him - Live and In Person.

In my life, CI happens to be the chisel He is using to shape and form my heart into something pleasing to Him.

What is yours?

The Birds on the Wall

I have been struggling of late.

Each day has brought new infirmities, new vulnerabilities, new things to fight.  Medications that are supposed to restore and rejuvenate have done nothing more but add pain to pain, nausea to nausea, frustration on to frustration.

The headache never leaves.

Whereas before the new med, pain medication would knock it out for however short the freedom.  Now it knocks it down, but never out.

And I want it out.

But if you believe, as I do, that each day, each moment is ruled by my Loving Papa, there is a reason He is allowing this.

Perhaps He is showing Himself through my leaky human vessel - because there are definitely leaks going on!

I watch the birds outside my window - and I laugh.  Newly fledged babies, puffed up twice the parents' size, follow step-on-step, relentlessly begging, begging, begging.  They flutter wings and open beaks with such vigor, they sometimes fall from the wall.

The mother never tired, altho the babies would, happily, feed at the feeder if she was not in their immediate field of vision.  One day, as they munched away, they suddenly realized mama was on the perch above them, and flew straight up to try and fit on the same perch as she - knocking her off and falling into the bushes themselves.

Then yesterday I saw the trio, again on the wall.  Only this time when they began their poor me, forlorn, I-will-starve-to-death-if-you-don't-feed-me song and dance routine, she pecked at them and turned away.  When they pushed back and tried to get ever closer, she chest-bumped them and flew away, leaving them struggling for balance.

Then after she left, they just flew to the feeder and were fine.

Was that a lesson for me?

Am I like the babies, flutter flutter, open mouth "help me God - and step on it!"  Begging begging begging.

I am surely old enough in You to find the "feeder" all by myself.

Am I to "go to the feeder", the Word, and find help there?  Because all my poor me, forlorn, You-have-to-do-something fluttering is not doing much for me - not on the outside, not on the inside.

I have been spoiled by Your closeness to me, by Your provisions; and now that I am aching with each step I am fluttering with a deep hunger to find Your Hand to grab on to. I am a cranky child, throwing a tantrum and crying in the corner because You do not rescue me immediately with a chariot of fire. 

I have surely lost my balance on the wall of my life. Yet You have taught me over and over again that if You choose for darkness to fall all around me, I must keep my eyes open, because You have hidden treasures in the darkness. Your Word holds not only wisdom and beauty and comfort, but Your very Heart.

And it takes time for the eye to become accustomed to the darkness - but the night-vision will surely come. I just need to wait for it.

And just because I can't see something right now-at-this-moment doesn't mean it isn't there.

And all my frantic fluttering and panicked chirping has done for me is to keep me from seeing.

Because that Hand that I hungered so to hang on to?

It was here all along.

Forgive me, Papa.

I Can Only Imagine

I have been thinking lately of the things I love - the sweet, small, inconsequential things that touch the heart and ease the soul.

How awesome of God to give us memory.

20 years ago I began to save phone messages from those I love - and re-record them onto a mini-cassette (yes, I still have the player, and it works well!).  Most of the voices I saved are now parted from me and Home, but I can still hear their voices, calling with something of import that pales in comparison with the loss of their presence.  Some of them are birthday greetings, some wry comments on happenings, some just silly or "thinking of you" messages left long ago.

And it sets me to wondering if the first century Christians, who walked with Him and talked with Him on a daily basis for 3 years, would remember things : a certain sound triggering something, or a scent, or a song heard in passing - perhaps calling forth His face at a wedding, or the sound of His laughter.

When in prayer, did they hear and recognize His voice when He commissioned them?  Did they remember Him saying the laborers are few, and endeavor to increase their number?

And I wonder about Mary, who sat at His feet every chance she got.  Did she suddenly stop during her chores, transfixed by a memory of the sun falling, just so, across His features, or the look on His face when He spoke of the Father's love for His children, or the way His eyes roved lovingly over their faces the night before that Last Passover Day?

Did she remember a silly joke He told, or His favorite dish - and how proud Martha was when He would react with joy to her serving it?

Did her heart ever stop breaking when she thought of how He died?  For her.  For me. For all of us lost lambs, bleating on the edge of the cliff with fear and longing.

And when she thought about the joy and astonishment of His resurrection, did she burst into laughter at the wonder of it?  Did it pound in her heart, every day, every time someone mentioned His name?

Did her heart yearn so to see Him again?  Aching to hear His voice,
the sound of His laughter, the look in His eyes?

And when the moment finally came - when she really truly stood in His presence and saw Him for the first time in a very very long time, did she sink to His feet once more in a delirious joy to be, once again, with Him - as Time slipped away and the moment of reunion lasted forever?

Or did she fall face down in adoration of the One Who watched over her all her days and now revealed Himself to her in His full splendor and mercy and power?

I can only imagine.

And I wonder, when my time comes to meet Him face-to-face for the first time, what will I do?

I suspect I will fall face down, so full of gratitude and adoration and thanksgiving that my mouth will be sealed shut - and then I realize it won't matter.  He has known my heart for 40 years, and I doubt if either of us will need an interpreter. That Voice that has guided me down here will sound in all of its majestic fullness and glory, and all those recorded voices will be sounding sweetly in my ears and I will, finally and for all Time, be Home.

I can only imagine.

It's the little things...

Driving home under an eyelash moon, the sun having fallen behind the mountains, glorious spouts of fiery oranges and reds and swirls of purples and grays crescendoed in the skies.  I was struck anew at the joyous abandon You use in painting Your sunsets. My heart cried, "Author, Author" to a world so blase' it seemed to me that I alone noticed it.

So I got home, in pain, exhausted, blurry-eyed, and sank into my darkened bedroom, wishing the pain would leave me alone for just a bit.

Self-pity is lurking in the corners of my room.

The losses of Calvin Miller and Tony Bonavede tug at my heart, and the dark gray clouds hover oh so near.

The world seems a Roman ruin.  All around are joyous hearts crumbled by evil set loose upon the world by Adam's  one sin.

Suicide. Cancers galore - more than at any time in my memory -
Anna, Joanna, Kay, Penny, Randy, Tom, another Randy and on and on and on without end.

The first rumbles of danger roll to my very door: Christians beheaded by a Muslim neighbor in New Jersey (where is the news coverage of this???) He repeatedly stabbed them and chopped off their hands as the "peaceful" Koran orders; and then a Muslim cleric in Saudi encouraged Muslims everywhere to do this so the Christians will know their place.

I know mine.

Under the shelter of His wings.  And, like Peter, I vow with fiery breath and squared shoulders that I would gladly give mylife for You. And, like Peter, before the sun sets on this day, I will likely deny You at least 3 times, more likely more.

For I have discovered something.

Every sin begins with idolatry.

If something is more valuable to me than You and Your known will for me or Your importance in my life - that is idolatry. No wonder the after-effects of that one sinful bite bears such horrific consequences.

And yet, I am forgiven.  Over and over and over, times without number, I am forgiven.

Just writing that out on paper gives me pause.

That is why You spent your lonely Friday being forsaken by ...well...everyone.

You allowed the Hands that lovingly created Adam to be smashed to smithereens.

Your blood that - think of it!! _ carried the DNA of the Ancient of Days - that blood was allowed to be bled out of You, as required of the Passover Lamb, in the most painful ways imagineable.  It is why You endured 3 hours of separation from Your Father after already having spent 3 hours in agony in His sight.  He took the sun with Him when He turned away, leaving You alone - a frightened, forlorn, bleating Lamb, tottering on the edge of eternity.  Fear beat in Your heart - perhaps the one time in Your eternal existence You tasted it.

And You did it all
      for me.

Knowing my dirty feet would continue until the day You took me Home.

Knowing the dirt and scum and filth hidden on the underside of my heart - like a virus imprinted with my DNA, I don't even see some of it.  It eludes my detection.

Knowing that my heart would indulge in idolatry, my stiff neck in stubbornness, my careless disobedience rampant.

Knowing this, knowing all of this, You still did it.

For me - the most un-good, un-faithful un-servant in Your kingdom.

The self-pity that I have the gall to entertain even for a second's fleeting moment  is an affront to the universe and its Creator - and it has been vanquished (for the moment)

In its place are thanksgiving and praise.

Thank You for the grace You extend to me.  Thank you for trading Your torture and Blood for my sins so I could be forgiven.

And thank You that You never keep a running tally of my multitude of mistakes and sins and foolishness. You have made Your mercies new every morning - and for this I fall, face down, at Your feet.

Thank You, my King,

One Fine Day....

I feel .bereft.

In the space of 24 hours I've lost 2 men dear to my heart.

One a well-known author with a servant's heart and silver tongue - who greatly blessed many.

The other with a servant's heart, unknown to all but a greatly blessed few.

But both knew and loved the same Christ, served the same King, and have by now been introduced to mansions beyond our ability to imagine. I know they both were welcomed with the phrase, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" ringing in their ears, and greeted warmly by the One Whom they adore.

One went Home yesterday; the other last August, but alive in my heart until yesterday.  Funny how the treasured heart beats until we are told they have died - and then, suddenly, we realize they are more Alive than they have ever been.

These two men fought the battle well - both known for a warm and welcoming heart, both giving credit for their loving ways to the One Who is Love Himself.  Both leave behind broken hearts, aching for the sound of the voice they have awakened to each morning for over 50 years.

And both, no doubt, will station themselves near the Gates of Splendor and await the "other half" of earthly life, excited as a child to be together once more.

So many cries of gratitude will fill their ears as those touched by their lives arrive, one by one...

Until, one fine day, we are all present in the Land that Forgot Time, forever filled with joy before our King.