A Table Full of Cookies

Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to join two dozen or more young women at their first annual cookie swap. I had no cookies to swap. My husband and I do not need the temptation of calories calling from the cupboard. I went for the opportunity to find fun and friendship. Being the new girl in town my social calendar has been a bit starved. When the invitation came I knew I wanted to go. The table full of every kind of cookie imaginable that we were invited to munch on was confirmation that I’d made a sweet decision.

I must confess I carried a measure of fear and uncertainty into that house. Fear did not return home with me, but I can not honestly say that I came home with a sense that I’d found a gold mine for close friendship. It isn’t that the girls were not friendly. They were most welcoming. I was battling a feeling. I felt out of place.

These girls were twenty and thirty somethings, maybe a gal in her forties thrown in for good measure. I was the only one who, without the miracle of Ms. Clairol, has locks of silver winning in the battle for youth. It wasn’t just my greying hair that separated me from these lovely young women. They’ve grown up in a different time and place than I. Their conversations belonged uniquely to their generation. The gathering was more casual, relaxed, come as you are than I am accustomed to. I felt a bit like the china sitting behind the glass doors of my mother’s hand constructed oak book case, valuable but outdated, with the stamp “made in 57″ discreetly visible and completely unalterable.

But this is not a story of ‘poor me’. My discomfort was mine. The lovely young women who welcomed me in had room for me last night and I have the distinct impression this morning that if I can get over my discomfort with being the antique in their midst, they would continue to invite me to join their celebrations of life and sisterhood.

There is a lot to be learned from these young women. There was an appreciation for relationship that erased the need to perform. There was authenticity. There was delight in simplicity.  There was freedom to talk to God together conversationally, with eyes wide open as though he were standing there in the midst of our chatter.

I don’t know if God will pick one of these young women out and place her in my life in a more meaningful way, forging a deep and lasting friendship. I do know that he loves each one of the women that were at that cookie swapping party last night. Given open hearts and minds, he will use each one of his daughters to enrich the lives of others; twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety plus. . . we all have something to share with one another. We all have something to learn from one another.

Lord, may we celebrate our age and experience differences. May we take the risks necessary to fulfill your call to one anothering and making disciples. May we be as sweet to one another as that tableful of cookies that were swapped last night.

The Gift of Honor

During our children’s growing up years our family had the uncanny ability to find our way into the smallest space  of our home to gather for meaningful conversation. It would usually start with two and slowly, one by one, another would wander in until we were all there chattering and laughing. Those moments have been gold nuggets that I’ve ferreted away in my memory bank. I draw them out from time to time just to hold and remember. Sometimes I revisit them when I’m stashing another nugget away.

One very large and memorable crowded space conversation that gleams up at me when I open the treasure box transpired after my return from a trip to Israel. I’d spent 10 days with my sister and her husband exploring the footsteps of Jesus. When I arrived home I was exhausted. We’d been in the air and on the road for twenty plus hours.  I do not sleep well while traveling. I needed a bed. However, the trip from the airport to our house had been long enough that my first stop was the bathroom.

I can not remember who was the first to find me there. By nature of the location, I am guessing it was our daughter. The bathroom in our home at the time was quite large, with a long vanity opposite the wall that holds all of the necessary fixtures. My guest plopped down on the counter of this vanity while I washed my hands and face. Questions came pouring out like the water pouring from the faucet. I dried my hands and settled in on the counter to share my stories. One after another of my family wandered in. Within minutes, there we were, the five Grabers elbow to elbow in the bathroom–talking, laughing, catching up on ten days apart. That scene has played out numerous times over the last 24 years, through multiple moves to new homes–in laundry rooms, bathrooms, large closets, small  cars, and king size beds.

Last night I was given another gold nugget to bank. I’d wandered to the room in my parent’s home that has become a temporary haven while I await the renovation of a  new home. Two of our young adult children presently make their home in this house, our son Aaron and our daughter Rachelle. I’d settled in on the bed with several rows of comfy pillows as a backrest. My laptop was open and I was primed to click the start button. In wandered my son’s girlfriend Hannah, with her darling little family dog, Ike. They were killing time while Aaron was working out. We were catching up on all that has been transpiring in her space when my youngest child, Rachelle, came home from work. She found her way up the stairs and on to the bed. Our conversation turned serious as we shared hopes and fears for the future. I was honored by Hannah’s transparency and desire to connect.

When Aaron finished his workout Hannah excused herself, but Rachelle remained. The conversation turned to relationship and it continued in that vein as we talked about Chelle’s dreams for the love of her life. It was serious; it was silly. It was hopeful and happy. We remembered the little boys and young men from the past that she has had a crush on (or I have targeted as marriage material for her). From the list she picked one that  would be a mirror of her hoped for love. I was honored to be invited into her beautiful, trusting heart.

As this conversation was winding down I heard another set of footprints climbing the stairs. In sauntered Aaron. It was late, and Hannah was on her way home. He was compelled to confirm some of the family news she’d passed on from our earlier conversation. Another thirty minutes passed as he teased and tormented his sister and I. It was 11:30 when they headed to their respective rooms. I was left holding my shiny, new gold piece.

I settled under the covers, turned out the lights, and thought about this latest small space gathering. The warmth of being honored by the presence of my children and entrusted with their hopes and dreams was magnanimous. Then it hit me. Even as I am honored by my children entering into my space and sharing their hearts, my heavenly Father is honored when I come to him, to sit in his presence, to share stories, to reveal my hopes and  dreams. To this I have been created, to share a relationship with Father God. It is a gift that I can give to him, a gold nugget that he will stash away for our final and forever sharing of time and space. He will open the lock box and say  “Remember when?” There in the box will be all the treasure he stored up as I honored him with my presence, my time, my talents, my service, my love shown to the world. Then I will hear the promised words:

^{Matthew 25: 34b} ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.’

Today I am celebrating small spaces and the gift of honor that they represent to me.

Fight, Flight, or Freeze

Dr. Karyn Purvis is a developmental psychologist who has devoted her life to children. Her unique gift to children who have experienced trauma or deprivation during the early years of their lives and the parents who raise them is a set of research based principles for empowering, connecting, and correcting. In her DVD, Healing Children Through Trust and Relationships, Dr. Purvis explains how harm during the critical stages of brain growth causes significant disruptions in a child’s development and behaviors. Dr. Purvis shares that these children have learned to respond to much of life in one of three ways: fight, flight, or freeze. The principles and strategies she shares with care givers help children to over come the deficits that spark these responses.

There is a precious, dark-haired, dark eyed beauty that frequents my space. Her name is Willow. This month was a difficult one for her. She brought home bad behavior notices frequently during her first weeks of kindergarten. She kicked. She bit. She refused to follow instructions. She ran from the classroom. She turned over her desk. She punched holes in her papers. Fighting, fleeing,  freezing - when she was confused by her new environment she did what came naturally.  

One can guess that Willow is a child who had a traumatic beginning. We know that she spent the first two and a half years of her life in an orphanage. The condition of the womb that held her can only be left to the imagination. No one knows whether she was well cared for and cherished or abused in utero.

I think that I am not so much different from sweet, precious Willow. In the physical realm I was born into a loving family. I had the nurturing, loving care necessary for proper brain function to develop which empowered me and connected me. I did not have a disasterous  school start in kindergarten. But, thanks to Adam and Eve, my spiritual birth was not so lovely. I was born into a fallen world, rather than into the instant embrace of Father God. My spirit experienced a deprivation that God never intended for me to experience when he first created man. As a result, I’ve done a fair amount of fighting with God. I’ve done my share of running from God. I’ve stood, frozen in fear, before God. If there were a spiritual kindergarten I am sure I would have been entirely unmanageable!

But there is good news. Sweet, sweet little Willow was adopted into a loving home. Her mother and father are recognizing her unique needs. They are making every effort to parent her in ways that will empower and connect her. They are working to meet her needs and help her reach her highest potential. Through a relationship of trust  she is learning that she does not need to fight. She is learning that running into daddy’s arms is much better than running away. She is learning to melt into mommy’s hug rather than freeze her body and heart. Over time she will learn to choose appropriate behaviors at school without her parents there to regulate her.

Through faith in the saving work of Christ Jesus I have been adopted into the family of God. He has made every effort to parent me in ways that empower and connect me. He has worked to meet my needs and help me to reach my highest potential. He has shown himself trustworthy and invites me into his arms. I am fighting with him less and less. I am learning to run into his arms rather than run away. There I am strong. I am safe. I can relax. I can be me.

In my life and Willow’s fighting, fleeing, freezing are being conquered by trustful relationship with someone who loves us. Whether or not there are loving parents stepping up to the plate, there is a loving Father God waiting with arms open wide.

Chapter 4 from Dr. Karyn Purvis’s book, The Connected Child can be found here:

http://www.child.tcu.edu/Book/The%20Connected%20Child%20Chapter%20Four.pdf

Meddlesome Disbelief, Not a Problem for God

Genesis 16 – 18

What impresses me about the stories found in these chapters is that God is not put off by disbelief. Both Abraham and Sarah questioned God’s promise that she would bear a son. Sarah took matters into her own hands and tried to manipulate people and circumstances in order to give Abraham that son. Abraham agreed to the plan. While God remained faithful to his promise he did not eliminate the problems that occurred as a result of Abraham and Sarah’s choices. He required them to live with the consequences. The details given regarding interactions between Sarah and her handmaiden Hagar would indicate that there was a fair measure of drama in the household after Sarah set her plan in place. Unfortunately, the drama didn’t end with them and their children. It spiraled out to touch future generations.

I’m reminded that my actions are not contained in a personal bubble. The affects of my choices can be far reaching. God will keep his promises. He will work his plan in spite my disbelieving and meddlesome actions. However, he will not erase the effects of those actions. I will live with them and so will all those in my sphere of present and future influence.

I am challenged to refuse to wallow in my mistakes. God is able to work around them. I am also challenged to wait on God and allow him to orchestrate my life because it is my short sighted and ego-centric action that puts me in the position of facing my failures. To wait is to choose God’s best rather than experience the good that he can create out of the chaos I cause.

In short, meddlesome disbelief  is not a problem for God. He will accomplish his purposes. For you and me, it is a completely different story! It is time to stop meddling and live life as God intends for us to live.

I Choose Trust

Genesis 10 – 12

Reflections on Abram’s Lie to the Egyptians

Abram instructed Saraii to tell a lie because he was afraid for his life. He was willing to let Saraii be taken as a wife to Pharaoh to save his own neck. It is obvious that this was not God’s plan for Saraii, nor for Abram, because God afflicted Pharaoh and his household with serious diseases. Yet Abram comes away from the experience having gained many servants and livestock.

What could this story possibly mean for me? Go ahead and lie when it benefits you? Don’t worry about how action on your part affects others; if it is right for you it is right for all involved? Such attitudes are not consistent with Christ’s teaching to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. What then am I to take away from this story?

A take away that I can align to the entire God story is that God may bless less than righteous actions for a purpose invisible to man. He had a plan to make Abram a great nation. He didn’t need Abram’s deception to fulfill that plan but he worked with it to move in the direction he had determined to go. In fact, he likely had to do some damage control in the heart of Pharaoh to enable Abram to leave unscathed and with all he had acquired after the deception was discovered.

This is both encouraging and challenging. The encouragement comes in the knowledge that God is bigger than my failures or the failures of those I desire to see walking with God. He can move us in the way he desires us to go in spite of our poor choices.  The challenge comes in the reminder that God is God. When he makes a promise, he will keep it. Abram did not need to protect his life through deception. God had promised Abram that he would become a great nation. Aside from the possibility that Saraii was pregnant at the time, this would have been impossible to achieve had the Eygptians taken Abram’s life.  He was obviously not trusting God to keep his promise.  What we do not see in this story is how it would have played out had Abram chosen trust. What looks like a satisfactory outcome could very well be second best to what God originally had in store for this chapter of Abram’s life. Who wants second best?

The conclusion then is that this story is meant to challenge trust, not a license to lie to protect one’s interests. Because we live in a sinful world we will have a myriad of opportunities to demonstrate trust. When we fail, God’s plan for our lives will not go up in smoke, but when we prevail we can expect God’s best for us in those circumstances.

Jeremiah 29:11 is our promise that God’s plans can weather the storms of our mistakes:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Proverbs 3:5 tells us what we can expect when we trust:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

A straight path — the best road available to get to where I am going . . .

I choose trust.

Live in God’s Favor

Genesis 4 – 6: Reflecting on the Story of Cain and Able

This story has always piqued my sense of fairness. I have wondered why God favored Able’s offering over Cain’s. I don’t like the idea that God chose to bless one over the other. But is there more to this story than I see when I tunnel in and only see the favoritism. If I look closely at the interactions between God and Cain what do I see? Is there an explanation to the favoritism that is more congruent with my understanding of God as loving and kind?

There may be an answer in God’s response to Cain’s anger. God responded, “If you do what is right will you not be accepted? Sin is crouching at your door, you must master it.” What if the favor was not so much about the offering itself? What if it was about the attitude? The fact that the Lord challenged Cain’s action with a warning that he must master sin suggests that his offering was not pure worship.

Another bit of the text also points to this possibility. In the New International Version it states that Cain “brought some of the fruits of the soil” while Able “brought portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.” I have to wonder if Able was more selective in giving from the firstborn while Cain enjoyed the best of his harvest before offering any to the Lord.

If my speculation is correct than this is not a story of favoritism. It is a story of a loving Father who chose to act in such a way as to offer his son an opportunity to acknowledge a sinful heart and therefore master it. God’s intent seemed to be to provide Cain with an opportunity to choose well and therefore live well.

Cain didn’t see the opportunity. Instead of ruling over the sin crouching at his door, he invited sin in and entertained it. Sin convinced Cain that he deserved more. I can imagine that sin reasoned with Cain much like the serpent reasoned with Eve. Can you hear it? “Kill your brother. With him out of the way, God will be forced to choose your offerings.” Eve listened to the serpent and the result was pain.  Maybe she didn’t tell her story to the children. Maybe she did and Cain just had to learn the hard way. He listened to sin.  He chose to kill his brother. Just like his mother, he experienced the pain of his choice.

Generation after generation and thousands of years later, man is still choosing to listen to sin and man is still experiencing the consequences. But there are a few who seem to understand. Noah was a righteous man and he walked with God. He is described as having found favor with God. I expect that Able, had he been given the chance, would have been one of the few.

Suddenly I’m not so bothered by God’s response to Cain and Able’s offerings. Instead I am motivated by Cain’s foolish response to God’s invitation to choose to do what is right and experience acceptance.

I will live in God’s favor by choosing to do what is right.

It Was Good!

Genesis 1 – 3

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and all that are in them. From his perspective he made no mistakes. Each day as he finished his work he declared that “it was good”. On day seven he rested. He needed no “do overs” with his original creation. One can surmise then that there is never a mistake in God’s creative process. Subsequently, each new living being that graces our world has his stamp of approval. As an extension of the original creation “it is good”.

God’s final hoorah in creation was to create man in his image. He was pleased with Adam and Eve and he wanted to protect them. He provided clear boundaries to ensure that they experience life as he intended and life was intended to be good, really good! Yet the crafty serpent suggested to Eve that the boundaries were limiting rather than protecting and empowering. She took the bait and she bit into the forbidden fruit. Adam followed her lead. Together they traded in paradise for pain and toil.

Could it be that God creates boundaries in our lives with our unique physical, emotional, and social make up that are meant to be honored if we are to live as he intends? Could it be that we experience unnecessary pain and toil when we stretch beyond those boundaries?

The serpent promised Eve that when she ate of the fruit she would “be like God”.  It didn’t work out so well for Eve. Why would it work out better for you or me to place ourselves in the position of equivalency with our creator? Yet isn’t this what we are doing when we try to recreate the person God designed us to be?

In my beginning God created me. In your beginning God created you. He makes no mistakes. It is time to believe it, to live it, to love who we were created to be. It is time to stop recreating. We can not best God! Let us learn from Adam and Eve’s mistake. In spite of the limitations we now have because of their mistake life can be good, really good if we accept our unique design.

Before Change, Wait and Grieve

There has been a lot of change in my life over the course of the last few years. I’ve changed homes, communities, jobs, and identities as I’ve moved from parenting children to parenting young adults, from gainfully employed to volunteerism, from rural to city life.

There has been a great measure of tension in these changes, many of which have been forced upon me by circumstance or the nature of living. The tension comes from a resistance to being a willing participant. A line from a song that played repeatedly from concert to concert as I traveled with a ministry band one summer many years ago has resurrected in the recesses of my mind and has played repeatedly: Change doesn’t come easy, I’m a stubborn girl.

I don’t like it that I’ve been so stubborn. Why the stubbornness?

This week I’ve been reading Signs of Emergence, by Kester Brewin. While the book is about a vision for the modern church it has a message to anyone who is or is not a willing participant in change. He writes:  

“We would like change with immediate effect–we want revolution–but God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are higher than ours.”

“Ours is not a God of violent uprising but of slow, slow evolution. . . Before the church can change, before I can change, before things change–before change, we must wait.” p.44

My problem lies in the waiting. I don’t like waiting. I want to move from comfortable to comfortable–no discomfort in the middle, thank you. I don’t want to be where there are more questions than answers, where there are more failures than successes, where there are more problems than solutions. Let me stay where I am safe and secure. 

But am I really safe and secure?

Kester goes on to say that to “stop people in their tracks, to stop yourself, and suggest that the way to higher peaks is actually to return to the valleys, is a brave act of true leadership. It is an admission that the way we have been–the road we have been traveling–has reached a dead end.” If I understand Mr. Brewin correctly, I can be safe and secure and going nowhere or I can go into the valley of waiting and come out on a higher peak.

Put that way, waiting doesn’t look so distasteful.  If the questions, the failures, and the problems mean higher places then bring them on. I will wait it out for the payoff on the other end.

But wait. There is more than a willingness to wait for life giving change.  Listen as I read from Signs of Emergence once more:

“In his poetry, Jeremiah is encouraged by God to help the people to truly feel and accept his absence. Jerusalem has been sacked. All has been destroyed. They have been exiled and their concept of God vaporized. All has been lost. But rather than attempt a stiff upper lip, a façade of ‘it’s OK,’ Jeremiah encourages full and honest acceptance of the facts as they are. There must be no denial, no clinging to the dead or harking back to a past now destroyed. Instead they must open their arms, release their grips, throw back their heads and feel the emptiness, feel the absence, feel the defeat and weep, weep, weep for their loss. This honest grieving is the required first step of the exile. Without it there can be no newness, for we are left still clinging to that which is past and dead, unable to grasp the new.” p.51

So, whether I want change and it is slow coming or I am in the midst of change I have no control over, I must wait and I must grieve. I must grieve and I must wait, and through it all I must hope. Through out the God story, God moved on. I too can move on. I can put aside the stubbornness which keeps me at a dead end and I can embrace the grieving and the waiting for the promise of higher peaks.

Placeless for a Purpose

Most people have two primary places, home and the workplace. In his book “The Great Good Place,” Ray Oldenburg describes a “third place.” This is another place where people feel part of a chosen community. It might be a house of worship, a bowling alley, a gym, a coffee shop, or a bar. The third place is a place where “everyone knows your name”. It is a place where people can relax in good company on a regular basis.

This understanding of place juxtaposed with my present circumstances presents a message of grace and hope. Grace shows me that my frequent tears are more than okay. Circumstances have placed me out of the norm. Living out of the norm is a lonely place. Loneliness invites tears. Hope whispers that new places are waiting for me. I will adjust to living away from my young adult children and family of origin. I will find a new workplace, even if it is simply a place of volunteerism. My new city has many “third places” to be found. If I take risks and explore the possibilities, I will be discovered.

There is also an invitation that accompanies this understanding. Courageous yet honest struggle invites me to open the door to opportunity. I am physically placeless for a purpose. The pain of being robbed of place can move me beyond sympathy to empathy for others who are placeless. Empathy can move me to sincere and effective service. The homeless, the elderly forgotten in care centers, children in the foster system, and refugees are among those who have lost their place. For many of these people, the loss is more permanent and devastating than mine.

Finally, this understanding of physical place reminds me that I have one place that will never change. Psalm 27:4-5 states that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. 

Psalm 27:4-5
⁴One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His temple. ⁵For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock.

 I am ready to stop fighting the loss. I am ready to embrace it, celebrate it, and be changed by it. I will not be consumed by the loneliness, I will enjoy my place with God as he and I work to build new physical places and flesh out a plan for making my pain count in the lives of others with no place.

We Can Not Best God

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and all that are in them. From his perspective he made no mistakes. From day 1 to day 6 he declared that “it was good”. On day 7 he rested. He needed no “do overs” with his original creation. One can surmise then that there is never a mistake in God’s creative process. Subsequently, each new living being that graces our world has his stamp of approval. As an extension of the original creation “it is good”. Yet many individuals spend a lifetime trying to recreate the person God designed them to be.

God’s final hoorah in creation was to create man in his image. He was pleased with Adam and Eve and he wanted to protect them. He provided clear boundaries to ensure that they experience life as he intended and life was intended to be good, really good! Yet the crafty serpent suggested to Eve that the boundaries were limiting rather than protecting. She took the bait and she bit into the forbidden fruit. Adam followed her lead. Together they traded in paradise for pain and toil.

Could it be that God creates boundaries in our lives with our unique physical, emotional, and social make up that are meant to be honored if we are to live as he intends? Could it be that we experience unnecessary pain and toil when we stretch beyond those boundaries, trying to be someone else?

The serpent promised Eve that when she ate of the fruit she would “be like God”. It didn’t work out so well for Eve. Why would it work out better for you or me to place ourselves in the position of equivalency with our creator? Yet this is exactly what we are doing when we try to recreate ourselves.

In my beginning God created me. In your beginning God created you. He makes no mistakes. It is time to believe it, to live it, to love who we were created to be. It is time to stop recreating. We can not best God! Let’s learn from Adam and Eve’s mistake. Let’s live within our boundaries. In spite of the limitations we now have because of their mistakes life can be good, really good!