An attitude of gratitude

My brother-in-law (or as I used to call him when he would tickle-torture me, 'the big brother I never wanted') was moved to a rehab hospital yesterday.  He is still in a lot of pain from three surgeries and many broken bones, but he is making progress.  My sister is doing great and is so thankful.  Every day she focuses on something different.  One day she spent the whole day being thankful that his arms weren't broken.  When people would comment about how terrible the accident was, she would say, "Yes it was, but we are so thankful that he can use his arms!"  The day after his third surgery they were both thankful that Marc could drink whatever he wanted.  This morning she was thankful that at the rehab hospital the nurses don't come in at night to take your vital signs so they were able to sleep.
She is thankful for someone volunteering to build a ramp at their house.  She is thankful for the gift cards people have given her so that she doesn't have to cook.  She is thankful that the new hospital is close to home.  She is thankful that our mom did her laundry.  She is thankful for an understanding principal at the school where she teaches.  She is thankful for the snacks that friends have brought her.  She is thankful that her husband is alive!
She could be very angry.  She could be asking why this happened.  She could be depressed.  Instead, she has chosen to be thankful for what she has.  She has chosen to see the good instead of focusing on the bad.  She has chosen the better way.

Who is this man?

If only I could see Jesus, then I would believe.
If only God would do a miracle, then I would believe.
If only God would (fill in the blank), then I would believe.
Really?  Are you sure?
Would you believe God if he led you through your day with a pillar of fire?
Would you believe God if he rained down food from heaven?
Would you believe God if he freed you from slavery and led you across a sea on dry land?
Maybe.
After the ten spies talked the rest of the Israelites out of obeying God and taking possession of the promised land, God said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt?  Will they never believe me, even after all the miraculous signs I have done among them?  They have all seen my glorious presence and the miraculous signs I performed both in Egypt and in the wilderness, but again and again they have tested me by refusing to listen to my voice."  (Numbers 14:11,22)  
Did you get that?  The Israelites saw God's presence in the fire and in the cloud that led them through the wilderness.  They saw miraculous signs in Egypt and in the desert.  God was with them.  But again and again they refused to listen to Him.  They refused to trust Him.  They refused to believe.

But they are not the only ones.
Jesus' closest friends saw him perform miracles. They walked with him.  They talked with him.  They knew him better than anyone else and yet when they were on the boat in the storm they panicked.  Jesus asked them, "Why are you so afraid?  Do you still have no faith?" (Mark 4:40)  Then he commanded the waves to be still.  When  the disciples saw that Jesus even controlled the wind and waves, they were terrified and cried out, "Who is this man?"(Mk.4:41)
Sometimes we too are surprised by Jesus.  We think we know him and then he does something out of the ordinary.  We think we understand his ways and then he rocks our world and we cry, "Who is this?"  

Jesus traveled around and did many miracles--except in Nazareth.  In his own home town they did not accept him.  And because of their unbelief, he couldn't do any miracles among them except to place his hand on a few sick people and heal them.  And he was amazed at their unbelief. (Mk. 6:5-6)
What about us?  Is Jesus amazed at our unbelief after all these years?  Does he say to us as he said to his disciples, "Do you still have no faith?"  Is our unbelief keeping him from doing miracles among us?

After feeding 5,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish, Mark says that the disciples still didn't understand the significance of the miracle because their hearts were too hard to take it in. (Mk. 6:52)
How often is my heart too hard to take in his miracles?  How often do I miss the significance of what he does?
Don't you know or understand even yet?  Are your hearts too hard to take it in?  You have eyes.  Can't you see?  You have ears.  Can't you hear?  Don't you remember anything at all?  (Mk. 8:17-18)
The words of Jesus in Mark 8 sound an awful lot like the words of God in Numbers 14.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to miss out on the promised land.  I don't want to have a hard heart or eyes that fail to see what God is doing.  I want to remember what he has done in the past and be sensitive to what he is doing today.
Do you still have no faith?
What will it take for you to believe?

How do you feel?

During the Exodus, Moses sent 12 men to spy out the Promised Land before they went in to take possession of it.  These men were well-respected leaders of their tribes of tens of thousands of people.  But how many of these men can you name?  Even if you are familiar with the story, I bet you can't name more than two.  Why do we remember Joshua  and draw a blank on Shammua, Shaphat, and Igal?  Why do we name our sons Caleb and not Palti, Gaddi, or Nahbi?  We only remember the two men who trusted God. Only two men believed that God would do what he promised.  Only two men trusted in what they could not see.  Ten men trusted in their own strength instead of in God.  Ten men are forgotten.
When the spies went into the land, they found that it was exactly the way God had described it--flowing with milk and honey (and very large grapes apparently).  But in spite of its beauty and God's promise, 10 men shrank back.  Their fear kept them from obeying God and taking possession of the land.  God had told them they were his special possession.  God had promised to go with them.  He told them not to be afraid because he would fight for them.  And their response was,
"We can't attack those people.  They are bigger than we are!"
Did they forget the plagues?  Did they forget the angel of death that passed over them?  Leaving Egypt?  Crossing the Red Sea?  Eating manna????  They had seen God's mighty power  and yet when they compared themselves with the people living in the land, they felt like grasshoppers.  Because they "felt" like grasshoppers, they became like grasshoppers--insignificant, small, forgettable.
You are what God says you are--worthy, loved, valuable, precious--not what you feel like.  So be strong and courageous.  Do not tremble or be discouraged!  And if God tells you to do something, don't talk yourself out of it.
Don't live by your feelings.  Live by faith!

A God of Details

Today I received comfort from the book of Numbers.  Have you ever read Numbers?  It's a lot of ...well, numbers!  In chapter 3 God tells Moses "I have taken the Levites from among the Israelites in place of the first male offspring of every Israelite woman.  The Levites are mine, for all the firstborn are mine.  When I struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, I set apart for myself every firstborn in Israel, whether man or animal.  They are to be mine.  I am the Lord."  (Translation:  Every firstborn male is to be set apart as belonging to God, but he will take the whole tribe of Levi as belonging to him instead.  The Levites will serve God and he will be their inheritance.)
In order to complete this redemption Moses had to count the number of Levite males (22,000) and then he had to count the number of firstborn Israelite males (22,273).  When I read that I thought, "Hey neat, that's pretty close to being the same!"  If I were God, I would have just rounded down and called it an even trade.  But God doesn't do that.  Every person counted!  He said, "To redeem the 273 firstborn Israelites who exceed the number of the Levites, collect five shekels for each one."  
So Moses collected the redemption money from those who exceeded the number redeemed by the Levites. He collected silver weighing 1,365 shekels and he gave it to the priest and his sons as was commanded God.
In my journal I actually did the math, 273 extra sons x 5 pieces of silver = 1,365!
God is a God of details.  He knows exactly what is happening and every person counts!
This is comforting today as I ache for my sister and brother-in-law.  He was hit by a FedEx truck last night while riding his bicycle (training for a triathlon).  When I talked to my sister, she wasn't even sure what all was broken, but the injuries are from head to toe.
My sister doesn't know what all is involved, but God does!  He knows every detail of Marc's body.  "Not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.  And the very hairs on your head are all numbered.  So don't be afraid" (Matt10:29-31) (Translation: No one can get hit by a FedEx truck without God knowing it.  And all your broken bones are numbered.  So don't be afraid).
Proverbs 10:25 doesn't say IF you have storms in this life, it says, WHEN the storms of life come, the wicked are whirled away, but the godly have a lasting foundation.
I am thankful that our family has a rock to stand on during the storms of this life.  We cannot understand WHY these things happen, but we can  trust in the one who knows what is happening and who cares about the details.

"Marlo, Marlo" or "Lessons I've learned from Mary and Martha"

I love reading the story of Mary and Martha in Luke chapter 11.  I am so like Martha and yet I long to be  like Mary who was always at the feet of Jesus.  In the story Martha starts out good by opening her home to Jesus and inviting him in.  (Jesus the Messiah in MY house?  Yes, yes!  Come in, come in!)  She wanted him there.  She was honored by his presence.  So after he comes in and sits down and begins teaching, what does Martha do?  She starts serving him.  There was much to do and someone had to do it, but she gets so distracted by all the preparations that she doesn't even take the time to listen to Jesus.  God in the flesh is sitting in her living room teaching and she is washing the dishes.  (Sounds like someone I know.)  Eventually her stress builds up and she not only gets mad at her sister, who is sitting at his feet listening to what he says, but she rebukes Jesus himself, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?  Tell her to help me!"
(Lord,  don't you care that I have to do everything around here?  Don't you care that I teach a class, serve at the food pantry, lead a prayer group, volunteer at the church, and write cards to my friends who are sick?  Well, somebody has to teach Vacation Bible School, bake a cake for the bake sale, volunteer in the lunch room, and organize the next potluck!  I have so much to do.  Don't you care?   Tell someone to help me!)
"Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
(Marlo, Marlo, don't let your service to me keep you from sitting at my feet.  Don't get so busy that you aren't listening to what I am saying.   There will always be more people to serve, more cards to write, more lessons to prepare, more cakes to bake.  But what you  learn from me can never be taken away from you.)


Later after their brother Lazarus had died, we see Mary once again at the feet of Jesus, but this time she is crying.  "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw Mary weeping he was deeply moved and he also wept.
Not only are we to listen and learn at the feet of Jesus, but we are to grieve at the feet of Jesus.  Go to him with your pain and your questions.  Fall at his feet and you will find mercy and compassion.


The third time we see Mary at the feet of Jesus is six days before the Passover.  Jesus had come to  a dinner given in his honor.  Martha is again serving, but apparently she is also listening because we don't hear her complaining.  During the dinner, Mary takes a very expensive bottle of perfume and pours in on Jesus' feet and wipes it with her hair.  This sounds unusual to us, but this would have also been unusual to the people who were there.  Why? (1) Oil was usually poured on someone's head as a blessing, not their feet.  (2) A respectable woman would never unbind her hair in public.  And (3) it was the job of the servants to attend to someone's feet.  If Mary had worried about what other people thought, she would never have done what she did.  But she had learned to listen and learn at the feet of Jesus.  She had learned to grieve at the feet of Jesus.  Now her only thought was to worship at the feet of Jesus.  

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet are those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation (Isaiah 52:7)

Choose what is better.  Fall at his feet and listen, grieve, and worship.  What you gain there will not be taken away from you.

Happy Potatoes

Will is better!  He finally got his energy back on Tuesday after nine days of being tired.  Here he is trying to catch up on his schoolwork.

I'm better too.  Today  is the day we received Anna's cancer diagnosis six years ago.  Wow, that sounds like a LONG time and yet the memories can make it seem like yesterday.  Most of the time I choose to leave those bad memories packed up and out of my way.  It's really hard to function if you are replaying the bad stuff over and over--especially when there are so many GOOD things to think about.

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. (Phil. 4:8)

 On Monday the kids were out of school for President's Day.  Jacob went snow tubing with the youth group from church.  I tried to copy the picture of him off of Facebook, but it's tiny.  Look closely.  He is wearing shorts!

Because Will had been cooped up all last week I decided to fulfill his life-long dream of going to the Ripley's Believe it Or Not Museum in Williamsburg.  Audra went along for the ride, because after all, who wouldn't want to see a portrait of Abraham Lincoln made out of butterflies?

 Or an outfit made out of guitar picks?

 Or this scene from "Rocky" that is made up entirely of words from the script. 

(Notice Will's tired eyes.)

 Or stand beside the world's tallest man?

When we  got home, Will fell asleep on the couch and I had to go pick up Jacob so I asked Audra to peel the potatoes for dinner.  When I got back I found these...

I had already tossed a few into the pot before I realized what a treasure they were and took a picture.  She did her work cheerfully don't you think?  I LOVE my show-tune singing, rabbit-dressing, smiley-potato girl!

The sun will come out tomorrow.....maybe

Will is sick.  The doctor says it's probably the flu which means he'll get over it eventually.  But it's been six days.  Six days of fever.  Six days of laying on the couch.  Six days of staying home.  Six days of trying to find something that he will eat.  Six days of taking his temperature.   Six days of hoping that tomorrow will be better.
It's all very familiar.  Even though I know in my head that Will will be fine, the feelings that have been stirred up in my heart are exactly the same as the ones I used to have.  Anna was sick for almost three years.  Three years of being confined to the house.  Three years of laying on the couch.  Three years of trying to find things she would eat.  Three years of taking her temperature.  Three years of being aware that every laugh, every family dinner, every walk outside, every breath is a gift.  Three years of hoping the next day would be better.
Hopefully Will's fever will be gone tomorrow and so will my anxiety.  Do I have to go through this  every time one of my children is sick?  Every time one of my grandchildren is sick?   Maybe.   Or perhaps there is a way out...

I sought the Lord and he answered me;  he delivered me from all my fears. (Psalm 34:4)