Category: Growing

The Song of the Meadowlark & The Coming of Spring…

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In Colorado, it’s definitely hard to predict when spring has actually arrived. Skies are typically as consistently gray as ever are, and spring blizzards and dust storms frequent. It’s mid-April now, and for a couple weeks, I’ve been hearing the song of the meadowlark, my favorite of all birds. There’s something about this bird’s song in particular that signifies the arrival of spring here. Now the daffodils are blooming, and I’m sure that spring is on the way. Oh, how wondrous it always is. Sometimes in the fall, I almost welcome the shorter days and quieter season, bringing with them a chance to turn inward. Despite holding a definite appreciation for each season, however, it does seem winter always leaves its mark. The coming of spring is always so welcome. Margaret Manning, an author and speaker for Ravi Zacharias ministries, reflects on the arrival of spring and Easter:

Even as Christian mourning turns to joy with Easter resurrection celebrations, it is important to note that Jesus bore the wounds of violence and oppression in his body—even after his resurrection. When he appeared to his disciples, according to John’s gospel, Jesus showed them “both his hands and his side” as a means by which to identify himself to them. Indeed, the text tells us that once the disciples took in these visible wounds “they rejoiced when they saw the Lord” (John 20:20).

The resurrection body of Jesus contained the scars from nail and sword, and these scars identified Jesus to his followers. And yet, the wounds of Jesus took on new significance in light of his resurrection. While still reminders of the violence of crucifixion his wound-marked resurrection body demonstrates God’s power over evil and death.

But his wounds reveal something else. God’s work of resurrection—indeed of new creation—begins in our wounded world. His resurrection is not a disembodied spiritual reality for life after the grave; it bears the marks of his wounded life here and now, yet with new significance.

One of the best parts of spring and Easter, it seems, is the joy we find in the perspective we have in them…perspective that is often wrought from the suffering and scars gained in winter-likes seasons in our lives. Bess Streeter Aldrich, a fiction author who wrote primarily in the the 1920’s, has a novel called Spring Comes On Forever. It’s a beautifully told story, but it’s the title itself to which I’d like to call attention. The wonder of spring is that we can enter into it fully, in all its presence and glory, and yet simultaneously receive the promise that it is always still coming, still waiting. May we never lose our sense of wonder in both realities!

On Waiting…

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Though most of us live our lives “on the go”, and many of us will travel far, the place we’ll spend perhaps more time in than any other is  in life’s waiting room. Even Dr. Seuss recognizes this in his classic children’s story Oh, The Places You’ll Go: “Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plan to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.” It’s as if he’s pointing it out to both the child and the adult that waiting is a necessary component of any voyage.

 

Many of us feel we’ve spent a great deal of our lives waiting on God. Our petitions are many, our prayers may even be incessant, but God often seems slow to answer. One possible reason for this is God’s view of time, as the apostle Peter observes:

‘But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.’

This same passage points out that though God may require us to be patient, we are the true beneficiaries of patience. Through waiting and hoping, we learn not just to lay our requests before the Father, but also to converse with Him, learning to trust that He will always faithfully respond, and always answer in a way that yields “the best possible results, for the most possible people, at the best possible time” (Chip Ingram). Eugene Peterson once summarized, “Waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”

Living in a House Called “Enough”…

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From the day of my birth until today, there isn’t one I have survived without grace. Despite my doubts and regrets, that grace has always been enough. My needs have been met, and often in ways I could never have envisioned. It’s as if someone saw my future, and stockpiled exactly the provisions I would need along the way. Someone did. As unchanging as I may be, God never wavers. Worry hasn’t changed one bit of His gracious provision. Considering the reality of His providence and provenance, why is it I spend most of life ruminating over thoughts full of worry? Will there be sufficient companionship, happiness, or strength, or time, or wisdom? Though His grace has always proved sufficient, it seems I’m always fretting He won’t be enough.
Often I think God is asking me about that very thing: Just when will all He’s given fill my bottomless well? Just when will I let Him be enough?  He’s never ever failed me. If fear, as someone said, is a result of imagining the future without God in it, then why, oh why, am I so afraid? I want to learn to dwell in a land called enough…to live in it and make my home there. I’m determined to learn to give to others from that place of enough, knowing in the depths of my soul there’s an inexhaustible supply. To find that place, I must choose to make it my destination, to gratefully acknowledge each grace, to constantly hear the voice that beckons over any calm or storm: “I am enough. I will be enough.” As Cheryl Strayed said, I too proclaim: “Fear to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I choose to tell myself a different story.”

Stepping Up…(From the Night of the Buffalo)

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For the past several years, since before my twenty-ninth birthday,  I’ve woken up each morning feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck. More accurately, as if that buffalo hit me. Yes…a buffalo, though technically, it was a North-American bison. In opening my eyes to face a new day, in the blink of an eye, I can see the night my dog and I collided with him. The car lights shining on a dark night on the Colorado highway failed to warn us of his shadow standing in the road. We certainly woke him up from a nap, but he crawled off the car and stumbled back into the road behind us to stand again. That buffalo took several years to make me feel the impact of its collision, but I definitely feel it now. I’m lucky: we collided, but nothing shattered, no one died. There’s no question we were protected. It’s really a miracle, but indeed, a miracle that changed everything. Leif Enger wrote, “People fear miracles because they fear being changed-though ignoring them will change you also.” Had I known it was coming, I’m sure I would have been afraid. Now, I pray it has changed me, molded me, transformed me. Now, I fear most ignoring the miraculous in it all.

 

In his powerful Superpower poem, Steve Gross wrote, “it takes practice…to get beyond the whole half-full, half-empty question, and just be grateful for the glass.” I  hope I’ll practice, hope I’ll cultivate that gratitude for the glass I’ve been given. Though I’ve yet to meet another who has shared the experience of hitting a buffalo, I’m definitely not the only one to battle illness, or to spend her life fighting the gravity of life and the depravity of man. As I get moving, get stretching, and receive  the warmth of a hot shower each day, I can feel my broken back begin to hold itself upright again. My muscles and joints begin to move more easily, the head clears, and for the rest of the day, I have the ability to move and walk and live well. Many would give anything just to have two legs that can walk.  I may have to work pretty hard at making this body functional, but if I do, it functions. Many would give anything to have a body responsive to their cues and efforts.  Sure, there’s pain, but I’ve been provided with so many tools, so many gifts, so many friends who love and support me. Mostly, it’s easy to get discouraged when encountering the ways pain has changed me, and resisting the limits it has placed on my life. Again, the choice is presented each day. Albert Einstein once prompted us to choose well: “There are two ways in which you can live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle, or as if everything is a miracle.” I can be grateful and work hard, or I can let pain filter my existence and illness the condition that defines me.  Will I choose to awaken to limitation, or to live unlimited? All I must do to maintain a sense of wonder is receive the mercies offered anew every morning.

 

Most days, with the difficulty of just putting one foot in front of another, it does seem simplest to quit: to stop trying so hard and just let it all take its natural course. If I make that choice, things quickly degenerate. My body can’t get enough of the drug of rest.  If I am to live in hope, I must cling to God’s promises. There is no experience wasted and no downward spiral that can separate us from the His love, even those that are self-generated. ALL is being worked for good. The good work that He began, He will complete. Author Roy Lessin affirms this so well, expounding on the reality of God’s Kingdom. It’s  a wonderful point:

“Everything in this world is moving in a downward direction-our bodies are a little older than they were yesterday; the parts in our cars have more wear than they had yesterday; even the earth is aging like a worn garment. In God’s kingdom, things are just the opposite for us. Everything moves in an upward direction-we go from faith to faith, from glory to glory, and from strength to strength. Our characters are being conformed to the image of Jesus, our spiritual lives mature, our love for the Lord deepens, and He becomes more precious with time. Today you can confidently say, ‘It is well with my soul…and it will be even better tomorrow.”

This is the hope of our journey in stepping Heavenward, in stepping up.