A Different Christmas Concert

Tonight and tomorrow night the TCC Choir will be presenting "He's Here," our 2015 Christmas program, and I could NOT be more excited! I am so proud of our singers and instrumentalists and, especially, director Marvin Jones for the work we have put in on this beautiful Christmas program. I encourage everyone who can to come hear us tonight or tomorrow evening at 6:00.

Every year at this time, my mind goes back to the first Christmas program I ever sang in. It was very different from any that I would ever sing or play in again.

Years ago, when I was about ten or eleven years old, our church choir performed a Christmas program that had not been published. We worked from the charts handwritten by the composer, Louise Sellers. I’ve Googled Ms. Sellers, and to my knowledge she has never been published musically or otherwise.

But this Christmas musical had a profound influence on me and my perception of the Christmas story. I still remember the songs and I haven’t heard them for more than 40 years. They painted a very different picture of the first Christmas than the peaceful, pretty picture we usually imagine. And that works for me.

Oh, we had beautiful songs. I remember the lovely duet between the angel Gabriel and Mary, weaving together the annunciation and the Magnificat of Luke 1into a thing of beauty and celebration. And we would go on later in the performance to sing of the visitation of the shepherds and the wise men in grand style.

But baby Jesus was born into a dark time. Caesar Augustus could order a census that uprooted everyone from their peaceful existence and send them to their hometown, convenient or not, pregnant or not. They could arrive in crowded towns with no inn reservations, no place to land, and wind up giving birth to babies in a stable with no doctor, no midwife, no doula…just mother and father and cows and whatever else spent the night in a barn and ate out of a manger, the baby’s first crib.

It was a world in which a nervous Herod could send out a decree to slaughter all the male children who had been born in Bethlehem the past two years just because the wise men had thrown him off the track of the “infant king of the Jews” and he was afraid of one of the babies growing up and usurping his power. A mass infanticide declared by one nervous ruler.

We sang in our concert about this awful time, using the words of Jude 1:12-13:

            Clouds, they are without water, carried about by the wind.

            Trees whose fruit hath withered, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.

            Raging waves of the ocean, pouring out their own shame.

            Wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

Not your typical Christmastime fare.

And in response to this part of the story, our choir sang the mournful verse of Matthew 2:18:

            In Ramah, there was a voice heard;

            Rachel weeping for her children…

            And would not be comforted.

You don’t often hear that deep sadness in a Christmas concert.

I remember the power of this concert. Emotionally. Musically. Spiritually. It rocked my young perceptions and thoughts.

But nothing moved my heart more than the last song, the ending. Because it was so incredibly peaceful.

With nothing beneath the choir but sustained chords on the organ, we sang the words of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, whose prophecy is recorded in Luke 1:

            God hath given us salvation that we might serve Him without fear,

            In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives;

            To be a light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death;

            To guide our feet into the way of peace

            To guide our feet into the way of peace

            To guide our feet into the way

            Into the way of peace

            To guide our feet

            Peace

            To guide our feet…

            God hath given us salvation

            That we may walk

With Him

            In peace.

Yes, this works for me. I wish I could take the music that I still hear in my head and simply deliver it into yours. It doesn’t exist on recording or I would post it. Actually we have a terrible cassette tape somewhere, but it is barely audible now.

Perhaps you get my point without hearing the songs. Jesus came into a dark world to bring peace. We live in a dark world. It’s getting darker by the minute. Waterless clouds. Raging oceans. Withered trees where there should be fruit…just look around.

You know it’s true that you can see your Christmas tree lights best when it becomes nighttime? You’ve seen how a candle is clearest when all the other lights go out? Jesus’ light shines brightest in the darkness. And his peace is the most healing and hopeful when the world is most chaotic and hopeless around us. He doesn’t change, but we see his truth more clearly.

This Christmas, may we allow the Spirit of the Living God to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Stop the Pain!

ATTENTION MIGRAINE SUFFERERS: Sorry for sounding like a stupid ad for another ridiculous pain med on TV, but I wanted to get your attention if your life is regularly invaded with migraine pain.

If you regularly have these splitting headaches or other chronic pain from some sort of inflammation, PLEASE consider altering your daily food intake. I hesitate to use the word "diet" because that sounds like you're denying yourself something good. This is not the case. It's simply removing the bad things and substituting that with good things.

Specifically, the things you need to remove: sugar, dairy, and gluten.

Don't freak. This doesn't mean you never eat anything that tastes good again. But you begin to become aware of quantity and replace things that can cause pain with other things.

So what DO you eat? PLENTY!! Like fresh fruit, vegetables, gluten-free bread and cereal, nuts (especially almonds and cashews), poultry and fish, and if you need to sweeten something you can use Stevia, a plant extract that tastes wonderful but won't cause inflammation. And you drink lots and lots of water to keep your system thoroughly flushed of toxins.

I had gotten off of S/D/G and was beginning to get used to not having fibromyalgia pain and headaches...almost taking it for granted. Then three nights ago I had a pasta dish with cheese sauce. The next morning I woke up with a headache. That was Thanksgiving morning so I attributed it to stress. A couple of Tylenol helped back the pain down.

Our Thanksgiving meal was INCREDIBLE (of course!!) but within an hour my head was hurting so bad I couldn't stand it. By that evening, Tylenol wouldn't touch it. And I spent all day yesterday in bed with a migraine. But I ate a very "clean" diet all day...gluten-free cereal, an apple, a healthy salad with chicken, and lots of water. And today, thank goodness, I am headache-free!

After a few more weeks, I will start reintroducing a little bit of sugar, dairy, and gluten one at a time to see if I am having a strong reaction to any one of these. But I will always keep them at a minimum.

To read more about this, I highly recommend a book that I had the privilege of editing:

http://www.amazon.com/Reversing-Inflammation-Prevent-Disease-Super-Charge/dp/1629980358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448746118&sr=8-1&keywords=don+colbert

Make the changes you need to make to reduce the meds that you depend on for your health. It's about extending your life for you, your family, and for the Lord we serve with the lives He has given us.

A Grateful Thanksgiving

Charles E. Jefferson said, “Gratitude is born in hearts that take time to count up past mercies.”

Mercy: “compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one's power” (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary).

We talk a lot about grace, defined as “the free and unmerited favor of God.” We sing a lot about grace. In fact, “Amazing Grace” is one of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking parts of the world today. But we don’t often talk about mercy. I believe that’s because grace is all about God; mercy is also about us. And not in a good way.

Grace is about the generous nature of God, His bountiful goodness and love toward us regardless of who we are or what we’ve done. But mercy is about His specific compassion and forgiveness toward us in the very face of exactly those things we have done that should warrant His condemnation.

We used to sing an old hymn in church. I loved the words but hated the melody because it skipped along the top of an incredible message of mercy and redemption. If you recognize the lyrics, try to read them as a poem instead of the familiar song:

Years I spent in vanity and pride,

Caring not my Lord was crucified;

Knowing not it was for me he died

At Calvary.

Mercy there was great and grace was free.

Pardon there was multiplied to me.

There my burdened soul found liberty

At Calvary.

The ultimate act of mercy was shown at Calvary where Jesus hung on a cross, taking on all of our sins and defeating their power in our lives. Instead of condemning humanity for everything we have done to desecrate God’s plan for our world and each other, God reached down into our story with the earthly life and death of His only Son, Jesus Christ, who conquered death and delivered mercy for all who would receive it from God’s open arms.

I have not gotten my dates mixed up. I know that tomorrow is Thanksgiving and not Easter. And I know that Thanksgiving is a patriotic holiday and not a Christian celebration.

But I also know that this is a broken world. We live in a broken country, surrounded by people living broken lives. If we are to have any hope of healing any of it, we need to always…at every opportunity…be reminded of the tender mercies of our Lord and Savior.

“I urge you, then, brothers, remembering the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1 NJB, emphasis added).

I wish you and your loved ones a Thanksgiving filled with grace and peace.

To Tell the Truth

If you’re old like me you remember an ancient TV game show called To Tell the Truth. (Back in the old days before reality TV we had game shows. Those were really real and people won money. Or dishwashers. Or pool tables . . . lots and lots of pool tables.)

Anyway, on TTTT, three people would line up before a panel of four people (who were supposedly famous but we weren’t sure why) and those three people would all say they were someone who had done something interesting . . . and they would all give the same name. Then the panel of sort-of-famous people would take turns questioning the contestants about who they supposedly were until they had to vote on who they thought was really the person they said they were. Then the contestants won money if they convinced the panel they were the person they really weren’t. I think the show should have been called To Tell a Lie.

I love my DVR. It works as a net to stand guard over the TV line-up and snag shows as they air through the week so that I can view them according to my own schedule. When people ask me when or on what channel a certain show airs, I’m totally blank. I just know that at some point it’ll turn up on my DVR. And I’ll sit down and catch up.

A couple of days ago I was catching up on my shows. I watched CBS’s Sunday Morning (the best show on TV these days) and saw the story of the woman who was the girl in the picture taken during the Vietnam War. She was about nine years old and photographed nude, running from a napalm explosion with burns all down her body, the clothes having been burned off her back. The photographer had taken the picture with her running toward him and then thrown down his camera to rescue her.

Jane Pauley interviewed Kim for the show, a woman now fifty-two years old. As she told her story, Kim gave her testimony to the amazing transformative power of Jesus Christ. In the depths of her pain and bitterness as a young woman, she had come across a New Testament Bible and became a Christian. It changed her heart.

I was struck at the openness with which she confessed the name of Jesus. No generalizations. No political correctness. Simply speaking the truth.

A little later I watched one of my favorite sitcoms, Black-ish. I love this show because it breaks down barriers. I know it’s not everyone’s fave, but I love it.

This week’s episode surprised me. Some white friends of the Johnsons (the African American family) invited them to their church. So the Johnson family went. They were surprised the first Sunday at how comfortable they felt; the music was fun and the sermon was lite. When their friends invited them back, they accepted. They did not find it as . . . inspiring? . . . the next week. The music was exactly the same and they wondered if the pastor was stuck on the same analogies.

So they played the “culture card.” That’s right. They told their friends that it was a culture thing . . . that they needed to be in their own culturally specific church. So their friends asked if they could come along to their church the following Sunday.

And they did. They all went to the African American church that the Johnsons usually went to only on Easter and Christmas. For the first time, they experienced “their own” church and it went on and on and on . . . over four hours!

But in wrapping up the show, the Johnsons had a discussion about the overall church experience. They compared it to buying the mattress they were lying on. They hadn’t settled on the first or second mattress they tested; they kept hunting until they found the one that worked for them. Why not do the same thing with church?

Not a spiritual breakthrough. But this? An honest and funny view of Christian church (including a satirical but honest commentary on Jewish identity in the workplace) . . . on network television?

Then I watched an episode of Ellen recorded a few weeks ago when she interviewed Trai Byers of Empire, another show that I enjoy. There in his interview, he boldly gave his Christian testimony. No mincing of words. No downplaying the truth. Honestly glorifying God in heaven for His divine work and thanking Jesus Christ for his grace.

I began to see a pattern.

Our country has a ton of problems. Practically everywhere you look, you can find something wrong that needs fixing. I won’t even start a list here because it would just be the tip of an enormous problem iceberg.

But many people are beginning to recognize the Truth and speak it out: Jesus Christ changes life. When we come to Jesus . . . when we bring him our broken selves . . . we become something—someone—different and we are never more the same.

And it is not because we just decide to be better or try harder. It is because of Jesus.

Makes me think of the Kurt Carr song . . .

Demons have to flee when I say Jesus.

Sickness has to heal when I say Jesus.

Every knee shall bow before

And every tongue proclaim

With worthy praise,

The matchless name of

Jesus!

Something happens when we call Your name . . .

Jesus!

Oh the power in Your name!

When I call upon Your name,

The very atmosphere will have to change.

We’ll be transformed,

We’ll never be the same

By the power of Your holy name . . .

Jesus!

That’s a truth worth telling.

Who Knew Finding the Library Was So Important?

“Où c'est trouve la bibliothèque?”

With apologies to French-speaking peoples everywhere if this isn’t correct, this is one of the first sentences I remember learning in French 101 in eleventh grade. Literally translated into English, it would be “Where it is found the library?” This is why we don’t waste time doing literal translations from one language into another but just try to capture the general idea . . . in this case, “Where’s the library located?”

I wondered later, why in the world was this one of the first sentences or questions we were taught to ask were we to ever find ourselves in France or French-speaking Quebec? Was the library so very important to French culture that this was somehow the hub to which we would all be gathering for activity and/or security in the event of an emergency?

And yet, forty years later, in the recesses of my mind, I still know how to ask for directions to the library in Paris. I might not understand the response, but I can ask.

And I can ask where other things are . . . “Où c'est trouve un restaurant?” (Restaurant is the same in English and French.) “Où c'est trouve un hôtel?” “Où c'est trouve la salle de bain?” (Perhaps the most important question that we should have been learning before the library directions . . .)

The one thing I will never have to ask anyone: “Où c'est trouve ma vie?” Translation: “Where is my life?”

You don't have to worry
And don't you be afraid;
Joy comes in the morning,
Troubles they don't last always.
For there's a friend named Jesus
Who will wipe your tears away,
And if your heart is broken
Just lift your hands and say,

Oh, I know that I can make it.
I know that I can stand.
No matter what may come my way,
My life is in your hands.

Sunday morning our choir sang this song by Kirk Franklin. It’s one of my very favorites. Filled with one truth after another: No worry. No fear. Joy will come. Troubles are not here to stay. Our friend is named Jesus and he will wipe our tears away and heal broken hearts. In him, we can stand and we will make it.

Monday morning, my mother called and asked me to come take her and my dad to the ER. My dad was having room spins and nausea. The doctor’s office had said to take him straight on to the hospital ER, and that’s what we did. Following an EKG, he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. Many of you are probably already familiar with this heart condition that basically happens when there is a lack of communication between the upper chambers and lower chambers of the heart. The biggest danger is blood clots, which can lead to strokes.

I thank God for my parents. If you know my parents, you thank God for them too. They are amazing people and they have continued doing awesome work for the Lord the past few years despite their advanced ages of 80 and almost-84.

Driving them to the emergency room, sitting in room number 10 with Dad, gathering there with my mother and my sister and her husband and one of my brothers and his wife, and awaiting the diagnosis and prognosis . . . all of that could have been a time filled with worry and fear and trepidation.

But it wasn’t. I sit here today thinking back over the past 30+ hours, and I don’t remember there being any fear. I remember adrenaline. I remember looking after my dear father and his needs . . . asking the nurse for a glass of water and some lunch for my dad . . . getting him something to prop up his tube-filled arm . . . asking him if he needed a blanket. But no fear.

We have a friend named Jesus. We weren’t ignorant of risks or realities or possibilities. But we were not afraid. And we still aren’t. We know where we stand and we will make it.

All the way home.

And we won’t have to ask where that is located . . . in this language or any other. We’ll just know.

My Huh Moment

Gilda Radner was the funniest woman ever on Saturday Night Live. She was in the original cast and I believe she set the standard for every woman—and every man—who has ever been on the show since.

One of her funniest characters was Judy Miller, a live-wired little Brownie who would turn her bedroom into a studio in which to host her own variety show. The frenetic pace of the show would build and build until Judy (Gilda) would eventually be slamming herself into the door of her bedroom, at which point her offstage mother would be yelling, “Judy! What’s going on in there?”

Judy would freeze in place, look around bewildered as if she had no idea what had just happened, and reply, “Nothing.”

Yesterday I had an epiphany. We often call those “aha moments,” but we don’t actually say, “Aha!” At least I don’t. What I usually say is, “Huh.” And then, “How ‘bout that.” And that’s what I did yesterday. I was driving in my car and suddenly said, “Huh.”

I’ve been carrying around a very deep pain for several weeks. It’s a problem that has hurt and troubled me for a while and the longer I’ve carried it the deeper it has drilled down into my heart. I won’t go into the details here, mostly because I don’t want you to isolate the specifics. I want you to get the point that I was carrying it around . . . and there was absolutely nothing I could do to fix it.

My “Huh” moment yesterday came when I realized that I was being Judy Miller. I was slamming myself up against a door for absolutely no reason. It was doing me no good to worry about the problem and it was doing the other person involved no good either. It wasn’t fixing the problem and, worst of all, it was robbing me of my joy.

So I thought, Huh, I can let this go. How ‘bout that. I don’t have to keep throwing myself up against a problem that I can’t fix just to keep frustrating myself and feeling swallowed up in pain. And the minute I realized that, I felt the chains around my heart break. I could practically hear them snap! And the grace of God flowed in and filled my heart with peace . . . the shalom kind of wholeness that I had been missing for weeks. And I looked around and thought, Oh my goodness, what a beautiful day! (I know that sounds corny, but I just report the truth; I don’t invent it.)

God will give us the grace and the strength to handle anything in our lives to which he has called us. But there is no grace for those things that are not ours to carry.

If you are carrying a load that is not yours . . . if you are feeling guilty for something that is not your responsibility or worrying about something for which someone else is accountable . . . turn it loose. Lay it down. It is not your burden. You can still pray about the situation and love the people unconditionally. But you are not responsible for their actions or choices.

Allow the love and the joy of the Lord to fill your heart with peace as you become the person you are called to be and live the life you were created to live. Jesus Christ has set you free and you are free indeed.

Huh. How ‘bout that.

I Want a Horse

When I was eight years old, I wanted a horse. Not a pony…a horse. And I wasn’t asking Santa Claus…I was asking my dad. Daily.

I did my homework. I looked in the newspaper and found ads for stable rentals. I figured up what it would cost annually to care for a horse (based on my own rough estimates). And then I found local listings for horses in a price range that seemed reasonable to me. Then I made my case.

I wanted a horse. And I saw no reason why we shouldn’t get one. It made perfect sense to me. An eight-year-old.

My dad responded with his typical loving patience. “We don’t need a horse.” “We’re not going to get a horse right now.” “We can’t really afford a horse, Lynn.” “Yes, I see that you’ve worked it all out, but we don’t need to get a horse. We need a new mower.”

Eventually I let it go.

And then I got a bike! It was SO much better than a horse! I zipped around the neighborhood every afternoon with my friend Clark and we had a blast racing with our banana-seats and out-there handlebars. My dad knew better after all.

“Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few.” (Ecclesiastes 5:2 NAS)

“Wow, Lynn, you’re brilliant! I’ll never worry about anything again! I’ll just know that God’s gonna give me a bike and everything’s gonna turn out great!”

Ummm…no.

I know it’s not that simple.  Life is still hard. And we are supposed to be honest and open before God with the concerns and passions of our hearts.

But remember…he’s in heaven and you’re not. He sees the bigger picture and you can’t. When bad things happen or you see the bad things around you, bring those things before God and then trust him. Believe that he sees these things in their context.

Remember that death is not defeat. In Christ, death is passage. We often pray that death will be postponed, but when God does not intervene, that death is not denial. It is loss for us…and often it is heartbreaking loss…but it is not a negative response to our requests. It is a fulfillment of God’s promise of life everlasting.

So when you pray…when you come before God in the quiet of your own home…and you feel stumped at just what to say about all of the things that are on your heart, just start with, “My Father, the one who sits in heaven and sees everything in its greater context, holy is your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

The rest will just fall into place. After all, he knows better.

A Cord of Three Strands

So I again considered all the oppression that continually occurs on earth.This is what I saw:
The oppressed were in tears, but no one was comforting them;
no one delivers them from the power of their oppressors. (Ecclesiastes 4:1 NET)

This sounds like something my mother would say. She’s always had a heart for the oppressed, an ongoing awareness of the many groups of people around the globe who suffer at the hands of other people or circumstances that bind and confound their existence. She’s not one of those people who whines all the time and then sits around doing nothing. No, my mother has always empathized with the pain of those in bondage and looked for ways to change situations and circumstances. And very often she does it…partnered with a husband who shares her worldview and her passion for justice.

As I write this, my parents are now halfway through a two-week visit to Sierra Leone to connect the people with whom they have been working for the past five years with some new partners to continue the effort. It occurred to me this morning that they have hit the halfway point so I know they feel they are in countdown mode to complete the tasks to be accomplished in this visit. (Translated: My mother’s probably going nuts!)

Then it also occurred to me that fifty years ago this month our family was halfway through a two-year assignment to Zambia as missionaries. Actually the assignment was to have been for four years, but it was cut short due to multiple illnesses within our family: malaria for my dad, severe versions of childhood illnesses among the three of us older kids, and a complicated pregnancy that almost killed my mother and my youngest brother in utero. So we were sent back home to the states after just two years overseas.

From 1966 to 2010, my parents planted churches, preached, taught in church and public school, worked in blue collar and white collar jobs, raised four kids and helped nurture more grandkids, and set golden examples of lives yielded to the power of the Holy Spirit.

But their hearts remained torn for the despair and oppression of the peoples of Africa. And they knew that their work there was not yet done. They longed to bring news of the Comforter to a people “oppressed in tears.”

Then 5 years ago my mother needed attention to a tear duct in her eye. She went to a doctor…a doctor who also worked with an eye clinic in Sierra Leone…an eye clinic needing help with its administration. Mother and Dad said, “Send us.”

In 2010, at 75 and 78 years of age, Mother and Dad went to Sierra Leone. They met a preacher there named Foday Koroma. Foday had been expecting them. Well, Foday had been expecting my dad. God had sent him a vision of an elderly white man who would anoint him for ministry and place a Bible on his shoulder in an act of ordination. So in their own ordination service, my dad prayed for Foday, laid his own Bible on Foday’s shoulder, and then gave it to him as a gift.

That was all it took for Foday to follow the Holy Spirit into what can best be compared to the ministry of Paul in the New Testament. He has covered the country around the Lunsar area in Sierra Leone in the name of Jesus, baptizing literally hundreds into the Body of Christ. His faith and boundless energy have made that end of the country a different place through the power and the glory of God.

Mother and Dad returned one other time a couple of years ago and through the past five years they have collected thousands of dollars through private donations for motorbikes (big thanks to Missionary Ventures!!), building supplies for churches and schools, housing materials for leaders, Sunday school teaching supplies, and other valuable materials. They also collected dozens of sewing machines for a women’s center to enable women to learn and begin an independent career…ending their physical, emotional, and financial oppression.

On this short visit, they are introducing Foday Koroma and some other leaders to Just Hope, International, an organization that will come alongside the local pastors and teachers and help them to continue the work in the area. This will allow my parents to take a step back and release the responsibility for ongoing accountability and leadership to another capable and compassionate team.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor:
If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.But how can one keep warm alone?Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

Somewhere along the way as you’ve been reading this, your mind may have started wandering and thinking, Where is she going with this? Does she even have a point? She usually has a point, but I don’t see one here. I think she’s just rambling.

You’ve been such a patient and good reader to get this far, I’m just going to spell it out for you: We can’t go it alone. We need to be part of a “cord.” Not necessarily a marriage, but a group that works in partnership for support, encouragement, and accountability.

Verses 9-12 make it pretty clear: How can one keep warm alone? How can one give adequate defense against the invader or the oppressor or even the discourager?

After we returned from Africa in 1966, my parents were discouraged. They were beaten down. But they helped each other up. They defended each other against giving up. And it wasn’t just the two of them…the cord had a third member: the Holy Spirit renewed their passion, their fervor, and their commitment. They were not broken.

Fifty years later, they are completing a mission that began when they were only 29 and 32 years old. In the lives of many people now and many more to come, they have comforted those in tears and delivered many from the hand of the oppressor.

So see the tears.

Find the oppressed.

Join with others to become more than one.

Then allow the Holy Spirit to braid all of you into a cord so that you are never broken, discouraged, or defeated.

The world needs every one of us. May we respond to the needs…together!

Legacy

My birthday was yesterday. “Do you remember the twenty-first night of September? Love was changing the minds of pretenders while chasing the clouds away! Our hearts were ringing in the key that our souls were singing; as we danced in the night, remember how the stars stole the night away!”

If your brain isn’t automatically providing the next “ba de ya,” you are either (a) a generation too early, or (b) just missing out on some of the best R&B music by the greatest soul band ever. (Shout-out to Earth, Wind & Fire!)

I love that one of my favorite songs ever is about my birthday. And it doesn’t hurt that it hit popularity during one of my favorite times in my life when I was surrounded by some of the best friends I would ever make in this lifetime: my college days at Trevecca Nazarene College.

In just about six weeks, we’ll be having Homecoming at Trevecca Nazarene University (yes, it’s a university now) and some of us will be celebrating our 35^th Reunion.

Seriously. Thirty-five. Three. Five. I don’t even feel thirty-five years old half the time. And it’s been that many years since we graduated. You would think some of us would start acting like grown-ups, right?

Actually, I’m very proud of my fellow 1980 graduates. Several of them have gone on to become attorneys, doctors, video and film producers, teachers / professors / school administrators, pastors, and many other important and valuable professions. Many of them are parents and even grandparents now. And most of them have made an impact in one way or another on their community in large or small ways but all for the better.

So this morning, I was reading Ecclesiastes 3. You all know the chapter…the one that starts out with the “a time to” verses:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace. (vv. 2-8)

I read through these familiar verses and then I read along into the not-as-familiar rest of the chapter. The rest of chapter 3 is about what happens in our lives that we consider “good.” The writer acknowledges that we all feel happy when we do good in our lives.

But the truth is that the only real and lasting good in the world is God…and he already did all the real good that there was to be done. All that humanity has done in the world is mess everything up. We’ve taken righteousness and turned it into evil. Where there should be justice and judgment, in its place there’s nothing but wickedness (v. 16). So what are we feeling so good about?

The writer concludes with this: “So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?” (v. 22).

These people are enjoying their “good” because they aren’t considering the lasting effects. When they die, they won’t see what their “happiness” will have done to those who come after them. No one will bring them back and say, “Look! Do you see what you left to your children and your grandchildren and their children to clean up after you? Are they happy?”

It’s been thirty-five years since I graduated from college. When I graduated in 1980, our society had an energy crisis with waning oil supplies; racism; drug addiction; starvation in many countries in Africa; suicide among teens because of drugs, LGBT identity and family rejection, or depression; issues with gay rights; and more conflicts within and between the churches than between the Church and the rest of the world.

How far have we come? Or perhaps I should ask, how close have we stayed?

For many of us, we are not at the beginning of our adult years but we have more behind us than before us. We need to decide now what we will do in this lifetime to make a difference for the world to come.

Maybe we should look back at those earlier verses and decide that it’s a time to plant…a time to heal…a time to build…a time to weep and a time to laugh…a time to mourn and a time to dance…a time to embrace…a time to search…a time to keep and a time to throw away…a time to mend…a time to be silent and a time to speak…a time to love…a time for peace.

 

My thoughts are with you
Holding hands with your heart to see you…
Only knew talk and love,
Remember how we knew love was here to stay. (EW&F)

Hezekiah 15:12

“Everything happens for a reason.”

Also translated as, “God has a purpose for everything.”

A lovely verse. And you know where this one is found in the Bible? It’s also a Hezekiah verse. Which means . . .

IT AIN’T IN THERE!

Do things happen for a reason? Yes! Cars wreck because people are irresponsible. People die of overdoses because they get addicted to drugs. Tornadoes and floods and earthquakes hit because Planet Earth gets busy. People commit suicide because they lose hope. And the elderly die because their bodies eventually wear out in this world. And cancer happens because . . . I don’t know . . . they’re still working on that one.

But is God sitting behind the scenes, pulling divine strings to manipulate us and play us like some earthly board game with celestial purposes and heavenly rules? Is God putting his omniscient hand over ours to change the outcome of our actions to play out his own cosmic script for our lives and the world around us?

This may surprise some of you, but no, he’s not.

Just a few days ago, I wrote about the truth that life happens and sometimes it really is more than we can handle. By that same token, it doesn’t always happen for some greater purpose. Sometimes, it’s just a big ol’ mess and there’s nothing good to be said for it.

Until we put it in God’s hands.

That’s the key. For in God’s hands, our lives, our circumstances, and our messes are redeemed. God doesn’t put us into the mess of our lives, but he is able to redeem, restore, renew, and refresh everything that we put into his hands.

Three and a half years ago, I had a meeting with an amazing new friend about an exciting book project. We met in downtown Nashville to talk about a beautiful devotional book and the responsibilities I would be accepting in editing the work of three writers and adding my own writing wherever it was needed. The project would last about six months and would pay well. The meeting ran through lunch and a couple of hours. When we were done I returned to my car, elated at the prospect of what lay ahead.

When I got into my car I discovered a message on my phone from my husband, Dan. He had gone to his doctor to have a bump in his neck checked. “Lynn,” he said, “Dr. Allen says I either have lymphoma or leukemia. They’ve checked me into Centennial Hospital. Come meet me here.”

I sat in the car for a minute and thought I was going to vomit. But I knew I didn’t have time to be sick . . . I needed to get to the hospital. (That’s the only reason I didn’t throw up; I didn’t have time. I get really practical in these situations.)

Dan was admitted and would just be resting overnight, preparing for tests to begin the next day. I went home and picked up some things for us to settle in to the hospital room for a few days.

And by the way, following a stressful conversation, our 15-year-old son had come out to me the night before. As he’d entered adolescence he and I had discussed sexuality, but this was the first time he’d let me know for certain that he was gay. I’d had absolutely no problem accepting his homosexuality, but foreseeing the challenges he would face with some friends and some people in the church brought incredible anxiety and multiplied my maternal protective instincts. (If you’ve been the parent of an LGBT teen, you understand what I’m talking about.)

When I got home to pack bags for me and Dan that evening, I had to go into our room and throw all of the circumstances and my anxiety down before God’s feet. I couldn’t handle this. I couldn’t for one minute imagine that, just at the moment I was having a professional break-through, God would see fit to bring the dreaded “C” into our lives. And all of the support I needed to provide for my son . . . just as he was going to have to go stay with his grandparents? How was I . . . how would my whole family survive the next six months? Year? Two years? This was too much!

But God redeemed. God restored. Everything. Dan is alive and well and strong. Even if he had gone on to heaven to be with Jesus, we would have known that God was in control. (Dan was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma and had to have a bone marrow transplant. And he almost did slip on over to the other side a couple of times . . . but God let him stay here with us and we thank God for that blessing!)

Our son is now an 18-year-old Christian man in his freshman year of college. He is gay and proud and we could NOT be prouder of him! He received a 36 on his ACT and his deepest desire is to serve his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And, by the way, the book was published! (God of Wonder, Worthy Publishers, 2012, available at www.amazon.com) My editor was patient with me and we got it done . . . beautifully!

God has shown us how kind he is by coming to save all people. He taught us to give up our wicked ways and our worldly desires and to live decent and honest lives in this world. We are filled with hope, as we wait for the glorious return of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ He gave himself to rescue us from everything that is evil and to make our hearts pure. He wanted us to be his own people and to be eager to do right. (Titus 2:11-14)

Does God have a purpose for everything?

Yes . . . to draw us closer to him and to bring glory to himself through everything in our lives.

Put it all in his hands.