It's my birthday!

This reminded me of the image my friend
 sent me. It said "40 is only 11 in Scrabble."
Unfortunately, I couldn't find that image
anywhere as labeled for reuse, so this one will do.

I'm 40! I've been wondering for weeks how I'd spend my birthday. It seems like decade birthdays are a little more significant and should be celebrated with more forethought. But, I couldn't think of anything that would fit with my life, other than enjoying normal things. Tonight all four of us will be home for supper. I look forward to that. I'll do school work today and watch the Tipton volleyball game on TV with Lea. That will be fun.

I went for a 40 minute walk, since I'm 40. It is chilly outside, but I didn't feel cold, maybe because I was warmed up from 40 sit-ups and 40 push-ups and 40 jumping-jacks. The sun was shining most of the time so that helped. I moved to the street just after starting my walk to avoid slipping on the icy sidewalks. As I watched the snow blow across the street in front of me, and fall off the branches when a gust came up, I thought, "Why am I doing this? Why is this my choice for how to celebrate 40?" Well, my answer to myself was two parts: 1) I want to, and 2) I can. Since it's my birthday I can do what I want, I reasoned. Sort of. Then I thought about other things I want to do. I want to answer the phone and have it be Dad on the other end singing Happy Birthday to me. Maybe he'd use his Randolph voice. [Randolph was our family's imaginary friend, creatively voiced by my dad when we were doing mundane tasks together, like walking beans or unloading hay, or getting toward the end of a long day in the car on vacation. I miss Randolph.] I also want to open the mail and see a home-made card from my mother-in-law, or stop by Cedar Manor and have Ron tell me, "40! You're just a kid!"

I'm finally learning, I think, that incredible joy opens the door to incredible loss and our greatest losses help us reflect upon and truly appreciate our greatest joys. The little time of sadness I felt this morning helped me appreciate the fact that I am able to choose to walk these familiar streets on this cool, snowy, sunny, breezy day.

I reflected upon my favorite Easter song because it spills over with joy. It's sort of cheesy, and maybe a little overdone, but I love waking on Easter morning and listening with my ears and imagination to Sandi Patty's Was It a Morning Like This?

Did the grass sing? Did the earth rejoice to feel you again? Over and over like a trumpet underground, did the earth seem to pound, "He is Risen!"

The joy that must have overflowed that first easter morning, and the joy that will fully overflow on some morning to come, is joy brought through loss and suffering and sacrifice. It's joy brought through perfect love.

In sorrow and joy and all the mundane in between, You are loved!

And now, I need to go do some stretches. These muscles aren't as young as they once were.

Change is inevitable, but growth is optional

Change is inevitable, but growth is optional.

While waiting at the doctor's office this morning, I looked at pictures in a local magazine. Yes, I did have textbooks with me to read, but I opted to look at pictures instead. That's grace, okay?

While I was flipping through the magazine, I saw a quote, "Change is inevitable, but growth is optional." According to my 3-second google search, John Maxwell said it.

The quote has been rolling around in my head for these past several hours.

Certainly change is inevitable. I have had many changes in these past few years. Job changes. Family changes. Changes in pastoral leadership. Class changes. Change. Change. Change.

Growth has happened too. My daughters have grow a lot! The older is 15 and has a job and is saving money to buy a car. The younger is in middle school, and I just looked at her and thought, "How has she grown enough to be in our youth group?!" As the years go by and children change, they inevitably grow too. It isn't optional.

So, in what ways is growth optional, the way change isn't?

I think the intention here is that we get to make choices, to some extent, about how we respond to change. My own response to change lately has been difficult. For one thing, I'm tired of change. For another, it seems that change has been thrust upon me, and in a quantity that is more than I want to tackle at one time. I prefer to maintain some control about how much and when I experience change.

But, I'm not in control of everything. [I know, I know, this will surprise my family.]

What I am in some control of, is how I choose to let the challenge that change brings become a catalyst for healthy growth in me. How do I receive the challenge of change? Do I consider how God can use the change? Do I ask God how I should respond? Do I give myself plenty of time and space to grieve the losses that change often brings? I get to choose those things. Another option is to let the challenge that change brings become an opportunity to complain and grow bitter and resist the change and refuse to let God get a word in edgewise. [Note: this tactic doesn't work well between me and God. God wins because God has lots of grace to pour into all our challenges.]

But, it does my heart good to know that I have a choice about my response. I like having options. And, sometimes I like being stubborn too.

Some days I choose the second option, and I let change discourage me. And others days, I think about all the things that God teaches me through change. I think of the wide array of learning experiences and opportunities that I have been given by not having the same things going on day after day and year after year. Change brings happy surprises too! Variety is a gift.

And somethings don't ever change:

Psalm 118 says, God's love endures forever! James 1 says, Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

That is good news! Be encouraged: Change gives us opportunities to grow, whether we want them or not, and the God who remains loving, merciful, just, and kind forever, gives abundant grace to all who ask and walks with us always. God's presence with us is inevitable too. Grow with God.

--
Edited: I should add, since the intention of this blog is to let people read what I'm doing in school, that I've completed 50 credits. That means I've read a lot, written a lot, and this summer I took preaching class, so I preached some too. I have two years left and I'm still on track to graduate in May 2020. This past June I got to go with the seminary to the Dominican Republic on a mission trip. This fall I'm taking classes in Doctrine, Bible and Archaeology, and Discipleship.

Receiving Love

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Schnorr_von_Carolsfeld_Bibel_in_Bildern_1860_204.png

I just got home from Good Friday worship. Like many Christians, I've been thinking about the love of God this week. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son..." (John 3:16). 

It's a common thing to consider that Jesus loved people. He loved enough to give up his own life, and before that, to endure suffering in the form of desertion, betrayal, mockery, violence, and crucifixion, not to mention the love spurring the divine to become human in the first place. God extends love to us.

But this week, I've also been thinking about how Jesus received love. Right in amongst the story of plotting and betrayal in Matthew 26 is the story of Jesus being anointed at Bethany:

Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, “Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” -Matthew 26: 6-13 

There is a lot in this passage, but for me this week, the point is this: Jesus received a gift from the woman. There Jesus was, sitting among his friends, and a woman came and poured a whole jar of expensive ointment on him. His disciples saw waste. He saw a good service, an act of love. He received the gift.

Early on in our marriage, Ryan learned that I didn't want him to waste money on gifts for me. That was probably a good financial choice; I was still in college after all. But, it also shows a little bit of that part of me that is adverse to receiving love, thinking I don't need it or don't deserve it. 

One of my prayers this week has been, Lord, help me to receive love from others, like you did from the woman. When people perform a good service for me, help me receive it with thankfulness rather than pushing it away. When you place good gifts before me and within me, urge me to receive them and use them. May it be so.

Wednesday

Well, Wednesday was a tough day, huh? Not just because it was a tension between Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday for some of us, but because America experienced another mass shooting. 

It's hard for me to do my school work this week. I'm distracted. That's not my favorite way to be; I prefer to be more focused. I find myself wanting to be hopeful that we can have some meaningful change in legislation but being hopeful feels disingenuous. Since at least the 90s we have been having calls for change after mass shootings and we still don't have meaningful changes. Yet again, I've contacted senators and representatives - I did all Iowa's US reps this time. I assume I'll be living in this same place for the next election, but it's possible I'll be another's constituent by then. 

I'm troubled by all of the "reasons" I've seen named for this: gun laws, mental health, schools not being secured, teachers not being armed, society at large, break down of family, silence of churches, sin. As an aside, I cannot understand why one would name "sin" and then appear to infer that nothing can be done "It's not gun laws or mental health" it's "sin". So we sit here and do nothing because our poor laws clearly have nothing to do with "sin"?!

Taking a wider look using statistics, also on Wednesday 162 people died in the US from opioid overdose, 123 suicides in the US (about 1/5 veterans; half using firearms), 8500 children under the age of 5 died from poor nutrition worldwide, 1200 murdered worldwide, and 17 died in a school shooting in Florida. Each and every one of these deaths is significant. Each person is of sacred value and worth. Though my head cannot take in these numbers, my heart can.

Another wider look that is discouraging to me is that this isn't new. For example, I've been reading church history this year and it is full of awful killing-sprees done in the name of God and empire. 

So, I think that our trouble begins with a misunderstanding of the problem. The problem is big and deep and wide. We can take constructive steps to fix it, and we should, but we will do best when we acknowledge the gravity of the issue, like the tax collector did in Luke 18 who "...beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’" There is widespread error in our initial reactions, including mine. On one hand, we think it can be solved with legislation alone, getting rid of a strong lobbyist, or on the other hand, we think it's too abstract to even try to solve, aka "sin".

I read Kathleen Norris' essay on Idolatry today, from Amazing Grace. She brings up that in older english the word "devotion" also could mean "curse" so the word held in tension how being devoted to something often means being against something else. So, when Jesus reframes the commandments by saying, love God, love neighbor, love self (Mark 12), it's an incredibly difficult thing for us humans because we couple devotion with cursing. On good days I struggle to keep them all going at one - holding that tension among loving God and neighbor and myself. On bad days I can't even try - I'm too mad at my neighbor or myself or God to hold devotion without cursing. 

I think that we see the cursing side of devotion all over the place in our culture. To be devoted to the constitution means to curse gun control. To be devoted to God means to curse your neighbor or yourself.  And our devotions run so deep, and our curses with them, that we can't listen and we can't love. 

So, how to have hope? I have hope because of things that seem little. I have hope because the Gospel of John records Jesus praying for us, and Romans says the Spirit helps us pray (John 17, Romans 8). I have hope because big problems don't scare Jesus (see my reflection from our trip to Madison). I have hope because the love of God shines through people even in the dark places. I have hope because even on days that I see and hear awful things, I also see and hear beautiful things; God's grace is still at work. I have hope because I believe Jesus really did overcome death; the Spirit really is at work even in our mess; and one day all things really will be set right. And, I have hope that we still look at tragedy like this and know that it's not right. So, maybe being hopeful isn't disingenuous after all. 

And maybe I can do my schoolwork now?

May you have grace to live in the tension of loving God, neighbor, and self, with hope.

You are loved!

--

https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

http://www.foodaidfoundation.org/world-hunger-statistics.html

https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2016/07/07/new-va-study-finds-20-veterans-commit-suicide-each-day/

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2014/April/some-437000-people-murdered-worldwide-in-2012-according-to-new-unodc-study.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/02/upshot/fentanyl-drug-overdose-deaths.html

https://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Grace-Vocabulary-Kathleen-Norris/dp/1573227218

Tension

This Wednesday we observed both Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday. It was a really good chance to look at the tension that is present every day – celebration and grief. It was a feast and a fast at one time. And, while the dual holidays don’t happen often, the tension is really not unusual.

 At FUMC we've experienced a lot of this same tension in the past 5 months. Personally, when I celebrate something with my husband, I'm often reminded that Pastor Jenny can't be with hers in the same way anymore. During my weeklong vacation with my family in Florida at Christmas, I was aware that my friend Lana and her family were supposed to be on vacation too that same week. I was enjoying my family, while she was in a hospital, grieving.

On Wednesday, Pastor Jenny heroically lived into her calling of Pastor despite it begin one of the bad days of grief. For me, Valentine’s Day was different: my valentine was “super romantic” and texted a funny video. And maybe he’ll find some candy on clearance for me! But he is here, so my day was different.

 I'm learning, slowly, to let the tension be present, which means that I can experience both - joy and sadness - and let them be together. Experiencing is more than acknowledging. It's easier to acknowledge: this is life; it's the human experience. I acknowledge that life is both hard and good. Experiencing is more. To experience both means letting these realities affect me: they bring tears, laughter, silent prayers, and huge smiles. They result in hugs of congratulations and wordless embraces of empathy.

 The cross was a mix too, right? The mother weeping, the Son crying out, the earth quaking, and the temple curtain ripping in two, all because of perfect love. The best of all and the worst of all, all mixed up in one. And more: the entire incarnation of Jesus Christ was a mix of human limitation and divine power. Jesus did them both too. I admit that it is hard for me, often, to let the two exist together, but fortunately, I can be pretty determined, so I'll keep trying. And I'm thankful for the continual opportunity and grace to try and for God to work within me, within us, to be formed.