Archive for the The Journey Category

We are surrounded by invisible people. I’m not talking about ghosts or spirits. I refer to living human beings who, through no fault of their own, are either aesthetically unappealing, physically or emotionally impaired, elderly or financially fragile. They exist in the periphery of our vision–or worse–are driving too slow in front of us. If we saw them, there would be no need to ‘raise awareness’. Not for autism, or cancer, or depression, or homelessness.

Have you ever felt like an invisible person?

In “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” Ada Harris is a very capable cleaning woman who sees a Christian Dior gown in the closet of one of the women she cleans for and falls in love. The very basic plot is that she leverages everything she owns to buy a plane ticket to Paris so she can visit the House of Dior and buy one. She is immediately marginalized (she looks poor) and denied access to make her purchase, but after throwing her wad of cash on the table, the gatekeepers let her in. Spoiler alert! In the end, she gets her dress and lives “happily ever after”. Well, as happy as someone can be whose dream is to own a beautiful dress (even though she has nowhere to wear it).

There is an important dialogue at a pivotal moment in the story when Mrs. Harris tells her good friend, Violet, “We are the invisible women.” She implies that because she is older, not particularly beautiful, and not relevant to their particular cultural moment, she is invisible. (This is a sad commentary not only of older women, but of the many ‘worker bees’ that populate our society.) What made the movie so powerful was even though Mrs. Harris felt invisible, she made a very significant difference in the lives of her friends. And not only her friends, but the people she interacted with in every aspect of her life. This was the real heart of the story: her selfless kindness and care changed people’s lives for the better.

I would venture to guess that all of us want to be seen. But not only seen, we want to be accepted. Need I say loved? We are lucky if we can count on one hand the people who see us as we really are and accept and love us anyway. Some of us don’t even have that. We have a cat. Or a canary. Or worse, a job that serves as our identity. Or to be vulgar, we have a dress we put on to dance in so that we can get attention. I was that girl once. And maybe that is why I can relate to Mrs. Harris. I too, have felt invisible.

I’ve been listening to a song by Stephen Curtis Chapman in recent weeks as some deep griefs have washed over me. In The Glorious Unfolding he says,

“God’s plan from the start for this world and your heart have been to show His glory and his grace. Forever revealing the depth and the beauty of His unfailing love. So, hold onto every promise God has made to us and watch this glorious unfolding.”

I’ve been meditating quite a bit on how the Psalms speak so regularly of God’s steadfast love for us. He doesn’t love like we love–on a whim, or passionately for a time–until he gets sick of us. “His steadfast love endures forever.” And unlike the letters I used to write to my school friends, His love is not ‘sealed with a kiss’. His promises are ‘sealed’ with the very blood of His son, Jesus.

I don’t always feel this love. In fact, I often don’t feel anything at all but sadness and loneliness. Those are the times I feel like I’m a broken Christian. Shouldn’t I be bubbling and overflowing with God’s love for me all the time? Alas, I do not. But I have come to discover the treasure trove of God’s love in His word. The thing is, God never lies. His promises are always true. And if His word says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever”, (Psalm 136:1) then I know that I should (give thanks) because it (His steadfast love) does (endure forever).

On Stephen Curtis Chapman’s most recent CD there is a song called, “Kindness”. I love it. He asks the question, “And what if we lived with a heart of kindness? What if we loved like we’ve been loved?” Because if we truly know and understand the steadfast love of the Lord, whose mercies are new every morning, shouldn’t we love other people the same way?

To my reckoning, there are no invisible people in God’s eyes.

I recently had the pleasure to give a glass of ice water to one of my neighbors. Ervin is an 84-year-old man who lives down the street. We met because he was walking around the block with a rollator but had to stop under my shade tree to rest. He told me he is trying to build his strength because he feels like he’s ‘wasting away’. I think that’s just another way of saying, “I feel invisible.” I found out he is a follower of Jesus, and we had a very candid conversation. I told him sometimes I pray, and I don’t feel God, I feel like there’s a wall. He said, “You are a very honest person.” And then he paused before he said, “God’s promises are true. You can trust them.” I told Ervin I was thankful God sent him to my house when I really needed a friend. God reminded me I am not invisible either. He sees. He knows. He loves.

Dear Reader, if you feel like an invisible person, take heart! You are seen by the Creator of the universe. He is reaching out His hand of love to you. You can trust Him. And on the days when you feel the most abandoned, the most alone, the most unseen of all people – go out and “see” someone else. Talk to the man at the gas station behind the register. Stand on your front porch and talk to those boys walking down the street. Tell a stranger they are beautiful. Let them know they are seen.

I drove over the bridge and heard my father’s voice from my childhood, “Margaret, don’t ever play in Coldwater creek. It’s got toxins in there that’ll make you sick.” It was years before the media made any noise about waste from “Project Manhattan”, but my dad worked at the airport, and he knew something about bad stuff in the ground water. We lived in the suburbs of St. Louis and did some hiking around Little Creek Wildlife area in Florissant. But we always stayed out of the water. My dad was always trying to keep us safe because that’s what dads do.

Often after hiking around Dunegant Park, we’d stop by Fritz’s for some frozen custard. We were usually sweaty and tired. And that sweet treat was a welcome delight. Those warm summer evenings are gone forever though they live on in my memory. Lightening bugs. Grass stains. Obnoxious little brothers and surprise rain showers couldn’t dampen our fun.

I remember watching my father play softball with the church men. I sat on the bleachers and read Garfield comic books and swatted mosquitoes. Those games seemed to last forever, long into the night. I remember being very bored watching them run around in gray polyester blend shorts, inning after inning. So how is it some 40 years have passed, and those long nights are distant memory? And now my dad is laying in a hospital bed recovering from quadruple bypass heart surgery.

We thank God for the reprieve. We thank God he didn’t have a heart attack or worse. We are so grateful for modern technology and good cardiologists and excellent nursing care. But its still surreal and an awful thing for a family to go through.

I read Psalm 33 and prayed steadily for a couple solid days. I found my steadfast anchor of soul in these words:

“The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.” – Psalm 33: 13-15

I knew the God I love and serve fashioned my father’s heart. I knew he was able to make it beat again once it had been stopped by the doctors. But there were no guarantees. And I had to consider all the men and women who weren’t so fortunate–whose families prayed just as long and hard and were disappointed. My father likes to joke, “no one ever makes it out of this world alive.” This time I had to wonder if I would be reciting that at his funeral.

But back to driving. On the road between St. Charles and Florissant, MO, I experienced memories like water balloons bursting on my brain. Things I hadn’t thought about in years came back. Driving with my dad in his old brown Ford truck. Him telling me about Jesus. Him falling asleep driving. Him timing the stoplight so he could zoom left and cut in front of the drivers across the intersection. Him taking me for walks to find toads under the streetlights in the subdivision. Him telling me he loved me. And out of nowhere a song popped into my mind I hadn’t heard in many years. It was a Billy Joel tune:

“These are the times to remember for they will not last forever. These are the days to hold onto ’cause we won’t although we’ll want to. These are the times, but time is gonna change. You’ve given me the best of you, but now I need the rest of you.”

And after looking the song up on Youtube and listening to it a few times, I realize again just how fleeting and precious today is. I feel like I say it all the time–every day is a gift, and you never know which one will be your last. I’m very intentional about living that way but listening to that song made me want to stop time–just for a minute–so I could breathe in today and just stay in this beautiful, happy moment where my dad survived open heart surgery.

We have some long, hard days ahead. Recovery will take time. And my dad is pretty uncomfortable even though he’s got plenty of pain meds. It was hard seeing him in the hospital with drainage tubes. I told him he looked like a Borg–a reference he could appreciate since he basically trained me in Star Trek as a child. Every time I watch an old rerun of The Next Generation, I can see him standing over my shoulder gazing intently at the television. I was always waiting for his reaction–the flicker of a smile on his lips, his intense concentration over scary moment, my mom interrupting to tell me to go get her another bowl of popcorn. Star Trek was our Sunday evening ritual.

Sometimes I try to hold my breath as if by stopping my lungs I could somehow stop time. But the heart keeps beating. And the breaths fight for freedom. And another moment is gone.

Today, like Billy Joel sings, “I’m warm from the memory of days to come.” Those words never felt more appropriate. Tomorrow will be fleeting too, but I’m going to try to live it just as well as I lived today. But the best and brightest memories are yet to come. I told my father before the surgery that no matter what happened, Heaven was ahead of us. We have that promise from God and ratified by Jesus. And that is something so joyful and wonderful, that words don’t do it justice.

I stood in the driveway tonight and watched the storm clouds roll in. Big, billowing clouds took over the skies and I thought about the maker, the Savior, the Creator, my Friend. I thought about the finger that formed the clouds and created the human heart. And I felt very safe and loved.

Me and my Dad

The cold wind is roaring outside this morning near St. Charles, Missouri and I feel like an old fool. Just yesterday it was sunny and warm and today feels like a cruel joke. “Silly Margaret. You thought morels (mushrooms) would be popping up. Nope!” Nature has a way of confounding us–perplexing us. One moment there is peace and sunlight; the next, wind and trauma.

But nature often feels like a reflection of my own tainted heart. The storm inside of me has been raging. I’ve been working so hard to quell it with little success. I find little moments of peace and serenity only to see them shattered when the wind picks up.

My husband is yelling again because he can’t find the saltshaker. My boss is lecturing me because my work is too thorough and precise. A sudden hurricane of Lego’s has erupted in my living room because my son is in a fit of rage over a project that isn’t coming together the way he wants. My granddaughter is screaming because her television program stopped. I stand in the whirlwind and wonder how to keep my temper from flaring. I wonder where the sunshine is. And frankly, I’m angry it’s hiding behind a thick cluster of dark clouds.

I’ve been complaining a lot and I’m ashamed. I have so much to be thankful for. The truth is, I have an incurable wound. This dark side of me refuses comfort unless it is coated in chocolate. There are people praying and begging God for my life of abundance and I’m crying over minor abuses at work and too many toys on the floor of the house I own. I seem to like collecting troubles in a heap for display while the mountain of blessings behind me goes unnoticed. What is wrong with me?

Last night I received a text asking for prayer for a friend who is suffering serious, physical agonies. Unemployed and poverty-stricken, a young woman lies suffering with an incurable ailment that causes incessant pain. Her body rejects antibiotics and pain medication so she lies in bed and wets her pillow with tears because doctors don’t know how to fix her. I have other friends who suffer the torment of loneliness and rejection. And there are many who weep over a barren womb. Last week someone asked for prayer that her current pregnancy will endure because the last one didn’t. Jesus said we will have trouble in this world and indeed we do.

Am I a fool to flee to the words of a book written thousands of years ago looking for answers? Will it address the abuse or murder of children? Will it give voice to the mundane irritancies that plague my hours and days? Will it provide hope for a future I’ve given up on? Because the truth is, my worldly dreams are mostly dead. I don’t feel like I have much to look forward to in this life.

“Behold a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.” Isaiah 32:1-2

I read those words yesterday from my wind-tossed back patio. Tree limbs were blowing around in clusters and I was holding the pages of my bible as it too tried to blow away. I stopped to think about this man, Isaiah, who wrote the words God told him to but never saw them come to fruition. What must it have felt like to live on hope and prayer and never see the words come true? Many years later the one who wrote Hebrews described several other people.

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledge that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. but as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” Hebrews 11:13-16

I am reminded again why this world is so uncomfortable. This place is not my home.

The most beautiful things of this world are but a dim and tarnished reflection of that place. And it’s not because the streets are made of gold or because the gates are made of pearls (though the bible says they are). I find that place attractive because my Father is there. My perfect Father and His Son are there waiting for me. Heaven is heaven because once there I will know perfect safety, security and joy. There will be no more tears. No more suffering. No more dark and stormy nights. No more throbbing joints or wounds that don’t heal. I suppose someone will read this and think me simple or foolish. But I believe like the Apostle Paul who wrote to the Corinthian church, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

I’ve been crying again because I didn’t meet someone’s expectations of me. I seem to attract men that criticize me and wish to see me apologize and “improve”. Even in the church I find men who spurn a simple conversation with a woman that’s not a sister or spouse and I’ll be honest, it hurts. How many other women long for Heaven because they know that once there, they have a perfect Father who won’t abuse or neglect them? He won’t reject them for dinner that isn’t seasoned properly or tell them they’ve put on a few pounds or tell them they are ‘too emotional’. He will simply smile, open His arms, and welcome us to rest forever in His love. This goes for men too. All of us, really. He is love and He loves us.

The thing is, I am a fool. I’m a fool for Christ. He is every hope and dream fulfilled in the fullness of time. He is all that matters. May the dear reader find hope and assurance in the knowledge of Him today.