Destination Discipline

I have arrived at the last day of 2017 with little aplomb. I went to bed early. I woke up later than usual. I went to church. And I’m currently listening to my youngest child read a story. In short, just another Sunday.

The last day of the year, people tend to celebrate “New Year’s Eve.” They reflect on what happened and what they want to change in the “new year”. There is usually special food and drink and many people stay up until midnight to imbibe. I’m a morning person and evenings are difficult for me, but I’m going to try, though I’m not really sure why we do this. The sun will complete its rotation whether I stay up to watch or not.

There is, of course, the “new year’s resolution” that tends to celebrate the course correction we want to make. I’m usually working on the things I don’t like about myself daily so the NYR isn’t a focus of mine. Still, I can appreciate that we have encountered a number of events that I wouldn’t care to repeat. Mainly, I want to celebrate each day I’m alive because I am all too aware that I may not be here tomorrow.

One of the resolutions I could make, if I was making any, would be to listen more closely to those who live with me. This morning I asked my husband why we wish each other a “Happy New Year”, considering the word “happy” stems from the word “happenstance” which means “a chance circumstance”. All things considered, I’d rather make a more intentional wish for people in the New Year than, “I hope you have more favorable chance circumstances.” My husband said, “Margaret, it means fun. You need to have more fun.” I said, “You know, you’re probably right!”

This morning I rode the elliptical machine and read one of my favorite authors, John Owen. He can be particularly challenging to understand, but when I focus I learn more about myself reading his works than any other author I have read—which is the point. How can I correct those issues if I don’t examine myself? Today I contemplated my will in response to the conception of sin in my heart (James 1:15). I’m still fighting with my stubborn will and I suppose I always will be.

A big focus of mine in 2017 has been learning the 10 commandments and trying to keep them. I failed many times over, but each time found incredible joy in knowing that the grace of God has appeared in the form of Jesus who made atonement for each time I failed. When I consider him suffering for my willful failures, I weep. I look forward to the day when I won’t break his heart with my sin any longer.

Yesterday I had the pleasure to visit with my grandpa for a few hours in the rehab facility where he is recuperating after a bout of bacterial pneumonia, kidney failure, and an infection in his blood. He is 86 years old. His arms are swollen and he can barely lift them, but his faculties are sharp and we discussed religion for a time.

Rehab facilities are sobering places. He talked to me about the people in wheelchairs who are unable to perform basic self-care activities. He openly wondered why they must live and suffer. He contemplated his own death and recounted to me the various blessings he is the benefactor of in his relatively short life. He came from very humble circumstances and now owns and lives on a 180+ acre farm. In short, he has prospered and feels extremely blessed.

He has had several near death experiences. “They have recited last rites over me several times,” he recounted. He was accidentally shot in the side when he was a boy. He fell off a cliff as an old man and cracked his head so hard spinal fluid leaked out. He said, “St. Peter doesn’t want me yet.” I replied, “God is giving you more time.” He also said all the priests and pastors had been visiting his room—one for every persuasion, even some women. “I guess they thought I was a goner.”

He is staunchly Catholic but has read much of the Old Testament and says “reading too much of the Bible can make you crazy!” By that he meant it begs more questions from the reader than it provides answers for. But he also confessed that he never read the New Testament and I encouraged him to do so. I personally feel like the Bible answers most of my questions and it gives me great comfort. I sure enjoyed spending time with him. I even gave him more cookies. The food in the rehab center is terrible. He said they made biscuits and gravy but there was no meat in the gravy. “Terrible stuff,” he said. “I couldn’t eat it.”

Tomorrow is 2018 and just another day in my opinion. I’ll get up, workout, read a book, and probably get annoyed with my children. Such is the luxury of American life. Today I’m counting my blessings for I surely have much to be thankful for. The too many cookies I consumed recently means I’m not starving but that I’ll have to work harder to re-break the sugar addiction in the next few weeks. I do resolve NOT to make Christmas cookies next year. This obsession with cookies is ridiculous. Colder weather means my friendly outside adventures will be more introspective in nature and filled with lots of step aerobics, high impact cardio and elliptical machine of doom (pure torture!). Shorter and colder days mean I’ll be longing for summer months and working hard to fight against the SAD (seasonal affective disorder) that plagues me in winter. But while I’m thinking about changes I’d like to make, I do resolve to love more and better, care for others more than I care for myself, and keep pressing forward to learn discipline. I’m still on the journey and doing my best to enjoy the scenery.

“Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!” Psalm 4:1

My friend’s brother died Sunday. He was fighting cancer. He very suddenly lost the battle. I am shaken by the news because I love my friend and I have prayed for her brother for several years. His passing reiterates to me the brokenness of this world and the tremendous pain that results from the sting of death. I also wonder why God allowed him to die when I was so hopeful he would live. While I stand seemingly helpless to mitigate her grief, I wish for nothing more than the ability to lift it from her, even though I know my shoulders are not strong enough to carry the weight.

This past weekend we made a trip to Washington, Missouri to visit with our family and celebrate Christmas. We took a shortcut on the way out through several small towns and enjoyed the sunshiny scenery. Furry cows, adorned with their winter coats, and cozy country homes with smoke billowing from chimneys made for a peaceful drive. We all stopped fighting for a few minutes (I have boys who love to torture and maim each other) and relaxed.

We passed through New Melle, Missouri and pondered. What would it be like to live in a small town? Everything looks so peaceful when one is driving through. Our mouths watered when we saw the Bavarian Smokehouse, and we marveled at the architecture of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. We openly wondered about the sturdy hands that build the structure in 1860. What love and care they put into assembling the limestone bricks that contribute to the character of the building. As we passed out of town, we enjoyed the natural setting. The clusters of spindly trees surrounding homes well beyond our price range filled us with reverence and a bit of envy. Still, it enabled us to dream a bit, not unlike the window shopper who peruses the storefront, looking eagerly through the frosty windows and wondering how we would feel to slip on that luxurious mink coat.

But everything was different on the drive home in the dark. Drunk with the splendor of a rich meal in our bellies and the afterglow of family togetherness, we missed one of our turns. Suddenly that friendly stretch of highway was an inhospitable wilderness. We scrambled to pull up Google maps to help us reorient the direction in which we were actually meant to travel. The shoulderless stretch of road suddenly erupted with a bevy of vehicles the moment we pulled over. We anxiously turned and hoped and prayed that we would get back on the right route. It was cold, foreign, and incredibly dark.

Gone were the friendly homes, the enchanted woodlands and the sweet smelling eateries. Instead our imaginations were fraught with hobgoblins, ghouls and the idea that we could break down and get stranded in the middle of nowhere with no cell service. Then, to add to our misery, a small bladder screamed to be emptied and the spooky night was encumbered by an impending sense of urgency. My husband’s foot pressed on the gas pedal and I found myself holding onto a hand grip as we hugged a sharp turn. I hoped and I prayed, but I was also scared. First, that we could crash, and second, that my child would spill his bladder all over the back seat of my car. Strange how the absence of light created such a difference in our perspective, and all because the earth shifts in its trajectory around the sun for a few hours.

I could have prayed for the sun to come back out, even though it was only 6:00pm. I could have prayed for my son’s bladder to stop throbbing and empty without fouling the upholstery of my car. I could even have prayed for my husband to listen to reason and pull over at a gas station, even though the sun coming back out was a more likely scenario. Alas, all I could do was hold on for the ride and whimper inaudibly.

I guess what I am trying to say by writing those things is that my prayers are often unreasonable in the grand scope of what God is doing. I wanted my friend’s brother to live and be cured of cancer. He was not. God has a reason for this that I cannot possibly understand. And while I feel it is unfair, I can also concede that He is in every way wiser than myself and knows immensely better than I do about every single aspect of His creation. How can I do this? Because I trust Him. Why? Because I know how much He loves me.

When I consider my thoughts and the darkness of that ride, I think they are not unlike my thoughts when encompassed by the shadow of death. All light is eclipsed. And worse, the thick cloud of sorrow is like an airless shroud over my all-too-fragile human heart. Were I to poke at it with my fumbling fingers, I could not lift or tear it. Instead I am left to smother and sweat and sob. The absence of light is at the very least, discomforting, and were I to exclusively focus on that, I would die for lack of hope. That is what death tempts us to do; despair. It was at the heart of Satan’s temptation to Eve; separate us from the light by trickery and then laugh while we gasp, wail and moan in darkness.

If we allow ourselves to be separated from God by rejecting his light, we will all die in darkness. But God demonstrated His deep and abiding love for us by sending His son to pierce the darkness forever. Jesus Christ has conquered the grave. It is the only hope I have in the midst of my sadness over the death of my friend’s brother.

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” I Corinthians 15:55

“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Corinthians 15-56-57

Our response to death is important, as it is to every instance of adversity we face. We can wish the pain away. We can pretend it is not happening. We can even try to anesthetize it. We can even throw unreasonable prayers at it but—and this is important—only God can heal it forever.

I remember when I read about the tragic death of Stephen Curtis Chapman’s young daughter, Maria Sue Chapman. I wondered how he would respond in the face of such a devastating loss. I am encouraged to read that he is still walking with his Savior. The path has not been an easy one, but his faith in God has sustained him.

Dear reader, if you have suffered tremendous loss today, reach out and take His hand. Cling not to your feelings. Cling not to your hopeful wishes. Cling not to your own understanding of the situation. Cling to the God who (quite unreasonably) left the throne room of Heaven to walk on earth and die an agonizing death, carrying the weight of your sin so that He could enjoy fellowship with you forever. When we are faithless, He remains faithful. We are precious in His sight and never without hope.

As we drove somewhat blindly through that dark and winding road on Saturday evening, I looked out across a field and saw a home whose roof was illuminated with bright white lights shining out into the darkness. In the center of the roof was a bright white cross.

“Look, Mom!” My children cried. “Look at that!”

I said, “I see it.” And I marveled.

The cross shines brightest in the darkness of night. We are not abandoned. We are not without hope. When shrouded by the darkest of moments, remember this truth and rejoice!

I was riding my bike through the hills and flatlands of St. Charles, MO on a warm and sunny day recently with a cavity of darkness in my heart. Everywhere I looked I saw the beauty of Fall. Sweet gum Maples shivered in various stages of undress and pin oaks held tight to crisp brown leaves while a lone falcon stood stalwart on quivering power line watching for prey. I pedaled my Jamis hybrid as hard as I could, but not as fast as the other cyclists who passed me with ease. I had awoken with a blackness in my mind and was pedaling with the hope that I would find some peace from the terrible tremors that shook me in the night. Sadly, all I felt was the numbness in my toes from a cold and callous breeze, and an ache in my sternum from hunching and gripping the handlebars of my bike. In addition to these physical pangs I experienced a loneliness I cannot quite put into words. I grasped at sanity like an arthritic woman grapples for her pain pills, but sanity would not be found and I was left with few options but to keep pedaling.

Sometimes we find ourselves on lonely highways with only a long stretch of cracked pavement in front of us. So it is with a friend of mine who is facing an unexpected surgery. So many of her hopes have been dashed by the cruel circumstances of life that this proposed surgery now rises up before her like a hoary giant with a spiked club ready to smash her skull to bits and pieces. Often it is not the sudden freakish illness that destroys our confidence, but rather the slow and steady drip of adversity over days and months that robs us of peace. As I listened to her trembling voice, I felt the echo of a thousand questions pulsating through my own mind. I prayed for words but came face to face with my own doubt instead.

Why doesn’t God answer our prayers the way we want (or need) him to? Why does he let the husband die suddenly from melanoma? Why does the womb of the woman longing to be a mother remain empty? Why does the infant die in the night? Why must we suffer with physical ailments that cripple us? These questions and more plague my mind on days when the sun is shining but my heart is heavy.

I recently read an article about The Hallmark Channel. The writer expresses her frustration with life and offers the sappy, Christmassy feel good movies offered up as a nostalgic escape from reality. I like these movies too! The handsome fellow always charms the girl, there is usually a sweet kiss at the end, and everybody lives “happily ever after”. These warm stories provide a way of escape from the real world. My problem is that when they are over, I look over at my husband and tend to feel I’ve lost out. I begin to question why he isn’t like the guy on the flashing box? Why aren’t my children perfectly manicured and articulate? Why doesn’t I wake up in the morning looking as fresh and crease free as the heroin? These same stories once led me to believe beauty was the antidote to loneliness, money was the cure for poverty, and romance was real love. Now I perceive these misshapen assumptions as broken down vehicles on the real highways of life.

Real and true sorrow does not abate on the wings of fantasy. Fake it until you make it only gets one so far. So when our loved ones are lying a hospital bed and the prognosis is grim, we fly to them and pray, “God, where are you? We need you to show up right now!” And because we are so accustomed to the fantasy happy ending we expect our fairy godmother god to show up and bippity boppity boo us to good health and happiness. The problem is, the real God doesn’t work that way and he wants more for us than our temporary, transient, easily pleased fancies could ever dream of.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” (Hebrews 11:1,3)

There are some who believe there is no God. They reason that a “loving God” would not allow suffering, pain and death. I understand this sentiment but do not ascribe to it. Instead, I believe in a being who created everything and then allowed us to not choose him. He granted us autonomy and we are living in the sludgy mess of what that actually looks like. We told him to kiss off and then we wonder why out lives are bleak and grim. But the most wonderful truth is, he is not far from any of us. He is close. He loves us. And He is only waiting for our hearts to wake up and realize our blunder and run fast into his arms where he waits to comfort us.

I picked up a few cds at the thrift store a few weeks ago and have been listening to them. My favorite is Handel’s Messiah by the London Symphony orchestra. I was driving to work this past week and wondering how to keep going. When the darkness of physical and emotional pain consume my soul, often music is my only comfort. I was aiming at Christmas cheer on the drive to work and instead heard “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd.” When the soloist sings, “and He shall give you rest,” I felt the dam break. The words come from Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

The rest that He offers is so much better than the schmaltzy stuff offered by the Hallmark channel. His rest is soul-satisfying and sweet. It comforts, consoles and heals the broken heart. It promises that one day we shall suffer no longer–not with physical ailments, empty wombs, or life-threatening seizures.

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10: 28-31)

So, dear friend, if you are reading this and feel defeated and without hope or solace, take heart. There is one who longs to comfort you and give you rest. He has promised to come if we call. He sees us traversing the cracked and broken highways. He knows we are pedaling hard and not really getting anywhere. And He is only waiting for us to invite Him into the empty cavities in our hearts.

Beloved, if you follow Jesus on the cracked highways of life, please know that you are never forsaken and you will never walk alone.