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.

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.

Hezekiah 33:11

I’m taking a break today from my “journey” posts to address another issue…as I will do from time to time.

“God will never give you more than you can handle.”

You know where that’s found in the Bible? Hezekiah 33:11. In other words . . . NOWHERE! It’s not in there! Just read the book of Psalms. You’ll see that writer facing stuff all the time that he absolutely cannot handle.

But how many times have you been in the very depths of despair, absolutely covered up with piles of problems, wondering how in the world you’re going to get through it all . . . when some well-meaning brother or sister in the Lord comes along to promise you that God will never do this to you…certainly not more than you can handle. And that’s gonna make it all better.

Wrong.

In the first place, God doesn’t do any of this to us anyway. Life does. Or sometimes it’s a consequence of our own mistakes. But sometimes these things just happen because we live here on Planet Earth where things are just messed up. Cars hit other cars. Cancer abounds. Fire spreads quickly. Tornadoes drop down at the . . . well, at the drop of a hat. Finances fall short. And thousands and thousands of other tragedies slam into our lives and leave us stumbling around wondering what in the world we will do.

Years ago, I landed myself in an abusive marriage. The relationship went from bad to worse quickly and after a year and a half, I knew I needed to leave or I would lose my mind. So I moved into an apartment, paid the deposits from what little money I had for the rent, utilities, and water, and bought a couple of pieces of furniture I needed. I believed I would finally find peace.

The next Monday I went into work and my “eccentric” boss fired me on the spot, lying profusely for his reasons to do so. I had no choice in the moment but to take my personal items and leave, returning to my new apartment and experiencing a total meltdown.

I knew I couldn’t go back into the relationship I had finally escaped, and without a job I wouldn’t be able to keep my apartment. I believed I had followed God into a separation, although I had never thought I would be a divorced woman. I looked back and knew that I had gotten into the marriage in my own will, not God’s, so I didn’t believe it was his will for me to stay.

At that point, it was simply a matter of examining my options and putting my life in God’s hands. This was so much more than I could handle. So I picked up the phone and called my parents . . . my Godly, gracious parents. “Come home,” were their first words. (I’m weeping now, just remembering the love that overwhelmed me in those two words.)

I called my husband and told him I was going to have to leave and needed a divorce. He and I went downtown the next day and had a friend draw up a simple divorce. Then he and I loaded up a U-Haul truck with everything I owned, put my car on a trailer, and I left. He was the last person I saw in that town that day.

When I arrived in Nashville, I was welcomed with open arms by my loving parents who helped me put everything in storage while I stayed with them, paid off huge debts, and rebuilt my life enough to start back out on my own. All through the empowerment of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

I often imagine my life as a glove and the Holy Spirit as the hand that slips inside and makes the glove come to life. Without the Spirit, I am nothing but a limp rag, worthless and immobile. But with his empowerment and enabling, I am able to accomplish whatever I am called to do.

Life happens. God handles.

Feelings

Picasso's The Old Guitarist 

“Feelings! Whoa-oa-oa, feelings! Whoa-oa-oa, feel you again in my arms!”

If you were around in the 1970s you remember that song by Morris Albert. You are also cringing, knowing you will have that song stuck in your head for at least the next hour or two.

The truth is, I never think about intense feelings without that song sneaking into my thoughts. It always starts with the first line: “Feelings, nothing more than feelings.”

“Nothing more than feelings.” And that’s what they usually are . . . nothing more than feelings. But what incredible power they may hold in our lives—if we allow them and give them that much control over our lives.

Morris Albert is bemoaning the rampant feelings that are tearing his heart out in his song, but are feelings necessarily a bad thing? Of course not! Feelings are what bring us joy, happiness, satisfaction, affection, elation, and so many other wonderful emotions as we experience the highs of life.

Feelings also perform a critical function of warning us when we are entering a dangerous situation or need to do something important. Have you ever experienced that feeling that something is wrong in a relationship or a job or a place so you knew to get out just in time? Have you ever had a feeling that someone in your life needed you or that you needed to go ahead with a project and you found out later that you were right on target? Those feelings are immensely important in life.

On the other hand, some of our feelings can get us off track in life: feelings that we aren’t appreciated enough; feelings that our friends aren’t really liking us for ourselves or making our friendship a priority; feelings that our spouses or partners don’t love us as much as they should; feelings that we are being overlooked by everybody. In each of these feelings, we are quantifying responses from others and allowing that to form and shape our “feeling” responses.

Sometimes we can’t help how we feel . . . nor should we. We should accept and acknowledge that these are our feelings. But we should choose which feelings we act upon and what path of action we follow.

We need to remember that they are feelings . . . “nothing more than feelings.”

I love watching little kids play. Kids who are around four or five. They have a knack for forming little tribes as they set up their own games and rules of play. As they get started, inevitably one of the children will step up as leader and begin telling all the others what their roles will be and what they will be doing. And just as inevitably, one of their subjects will, at some point, become disgruntled at a given direction and holler back, “You’re not the boss of me!”

Don’t allow your feelings to determine your mode of behavior. Sometimes feelings can be wonderful and satisfying, but sometimes they lie and can shut you down. When a feeling says, “They don’t love you or they’d show it more,” or, “She’s not your friend or she’d be calling you to go out to lunch at least once a month,” or anything that tempts you to walk away from the people in your life or groups that are probably good connections, look your feelings in the eye and say, “You’re nothing more than a feeling . . . and YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!”

And then, for heaven’s sake, play a happier song.

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me? . . .

But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.” 

(Psalm 13:1-2, 5-6, emphasis added)

I Know Why the Old Ladies Cry

When I was young, I would see old ladies at church cry during songs about heaven and wonder what was so upsetting that they would actually cry about it. Do you know what I mean? Whenever we would sing or hear songs about heaven and seeing Jesus—songs like “Until Then” or “I Bowed on My Knees and Cried Holy” or “When We See Christ”—the tissues would come out and the tears would come down and they would be boo-hooing somethin’ awful. Which left me completely puzzled.

I didn’t understand what the big deal was back then. They’d have tears streaming down their faces and I’d be looking on in amazement. I’d think to myself, It’s just a song. It’s just a pretty song about a pretty place that we’ll all go to someday. No need to get all worked up about it.

Until recently. Now I’m one of the old ladies.

I went to a funeral this morning. The father of one of my best friends died suddenly a few days ago so we had a beautiful memorial service for him this morning at our church. My friend’s brother and her husband (who is also my pastor) both delivered tender and eloquent messages of love and grace about a well-lived life. Between their presentations, another friend, our worship pastor, sang “I Bowed on My Knees and Cried Holy.” And at the end of the service we all sang “Until Then”:

This weary world with all its toil and struggle

May take its toll of misery and strife;

The soul of man is like a waiting falcon;

When it's released, it's destined for the skies.

But until then, my heart will go on singing;

Until then, with joy I'll carry on;

Until the day my eyes behold the city,

Until the day God calls me home.

By the end of that song, I had a tissue out (which I fortunately found in my purse) and was trying to clean up the mess my tears had made with my mascara. I was boo-hooing with all the rest and the best of us old ladies.

So now I know why.

When you’ve lived on this earth a while--long enough to get “old”--you get weary. You learn what “toil and struggle” are like and your soul becomes that “waiting falcon.” You get tired of going through the same struggles over and over and over and over . . . you get the picture. Whether it’s physical pain or emotional difficulties or financial problems or whatever, life is just plain hard. For everyone.

But that’s not why we’re crying.

We have something to sing about in the meantime. "Until then” we can “carry on” . . . with joy! The fact that someday God is going to call us “home” gives us a reason to keep pressing on while we are in this foreign land. Our citizenship is in another Kingdom and we serve a God who loves us and has purchased and empowered us through the blood of His son, Jesus Christ.

Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going” (John 14:1-4).

So we get a little homesick for that place. And that's why us old ladies cry.

The Master Magician

I love to watch a skilled magician. Many of them call themselves illusionists. They can hold my attention for hours as they challenge my perceptions of reality and defy me to explain their sleight of hand and amazing tricks.

One of my good friends, Terry Hedges, is a master magician. He is brilliant with card tricks but he really freaks my mind with his tricks where you think one thing is happening but it’s really something else entirely. For example, he was showing me some of his coin tricks one time and, before I knew it, my wristwatch was on his wrist! I never knew it was gone!

So how did he do it? Terry was able to remove my watch from my wrist and attach it to his own by getting my attention on something else. I’m just thankful he’s my friend so I got my watch back!

There are other things in life that work the same way. They get your attention focused on something so much that you miss out on other things entirely.

Worry works just like that. As a form of fear, worry works just as a magician would in our lives to distract us and get all of our attention focused on the “what if” and “could be” while we are completely missing the “right now.”

One of the biggest things I learned (mostly because my wise mother told me) when I was going through some major storms in life is to do what’s right in front of me. It’s amazing what happens when we do that . . . when we stop looking down the road at things that haven’t even happened yet and instead focus on what’s right in front of us to be done and cared for and completed.

To get back to me and my friend Terry . . . if I had been watching my wrist the whole time the master magician had been entertaining and distracting me with gold coins and playing cards, he wouldn’t have been able to sneak that watch off my wrist. I would have known the second he started unfastening that buckle. (I think I could have spotted him . . . Terry’s an exceptional magician so I’m really just trying to make a point here!)

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt. 6:34, emphasis added). To apply this better to our lives, we might translate the word “trouble” in our minds as “responsibilities.”

When we spend all our time worrying about the “might be” we miss the “right now” of life. And many of those things that are in the “right now” are precious. They need tending and protecting and nurturing today, and we can’t do that effectively if we’re caught up in worry about things that haven’t and might never happen.

Pay attention to what’s right in front of you. Don’t let that old master magician Worry steal the watch off your wrist. He’s no friend . . . you might never get it back.

That's What You Got?

Have you ever walked out of a movie theater with a friend and asked, "What did you think?" and been utterly stunned at their response? When they said something like "I didn't like the music," or "I've never liked Hugh Jackman," or "The color of the whole thing seemed too blue...I hate when they do that." And you just want to scream, "Really? That's what you got?!? We just sat through two-and-a-half hours of movie time and you were stuck on the soundtrack??? Do you even know who Martin Scorsese is?"

I haven't written on my blog for several weeks now...very busy and not feeling especially well. But also nothing has particularly inspired and/or bothered me. Until this past weekend. Easter weekend. And now I've got something to say...still busy, not feel very well, but have to write about this.

I actually heard an ad on the radio that said, "Of course Easter is in the spring...it's the most beautiful time of the year!" What? Did someone just say that? Did someone have the audacity to say that our Lord Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead in the spring because it was prettier to do it then than, say, sometime in September?

That just brought to the surface a frustration that was building in me over the preciousness associated with Easter this year. I don't mind the pretty flowers and bunnies decorating everything in celebration of spring. It really is a beautiful time of year as everything is in bloom and the energy in the air is contagious and invigorating. But there is a line that we need to be careful not to cross, and that ad on the radio just jumped (or hopped) all over it.

I imagine Jesus walking through one of our stores--say, Wal-Mart or Target--and into the Easter section, and saying, "Really? That's what you got? I died on the cross, overcame the powers of death and sin, and rose on the third day, and this is where you take it?"

Of course, we could explain to him that we use Easter eggs to symbolize new birth. We could explain that the Easter bunny is...I don't know...I really don't have a clue how to explain that one. And we could point out that it's a celebration of springtime. 

And then we would tell him to just show up on Easter Sunday morning and listen to our church service...that he would be really impressed with the music then. 

Here's my bottom line: We Christians have been making a huge deal lately about keeping Christ in Christmas. How about we keep Christ in Easter? 

We know he is risen indeed...let's remind the world!

I'll Take Door #3

Years ago when I was teaching school, I was sitting around with some fellow schoolteachers trading stories about our classroom experiences. One of my friends taught kindergarten and told of a first-day incident with a very precocious kid. They had just returned from lunch and as soon as they walked back into the classroom, this little boy walked over to the center rug and lay down on a comfortable spot. My friend walked over and knelt down beside him, quietly whispering to him, “Honey, what are you doing?”

Without moving a muscle, the boy responded, “It’s naptime. I’m going to sleep.” My friend suppressed a laugh, and then said, “Sweetie, you’re in school now. We don’t have naptime.” The boy’s eyes opened as he looked at her in disbelief. She said, “Really. So go ahead and go back to your seat."

Reluctantly, the boy sat up. After a few moments of reflection, he slowly stood up. As he walked away, my friend could hear the child muttering, “Well, I sure didn’t sign up for this.”

And don’t we all know that feeling?

I’ve had times in my life that I’ve wished I was a contestant on Let’s Make a Deal, bartering with Monty Hall, Drew Carey, or Wayne Brady. I’ve wished he would say, “So, Lynn, do you want to keep your current life, or do you want to trade it for what we have behind Door #3?” And I’ve known I would pitch it all in for Door #3 in a second! To walk away with a pool table and a hanging lamp would be such an improvement!

All week, our Tennessee roads have been icy and our yards have been blanketed in snow. Our children have been out of school an entire week! In Tennessee! This is the South, for heaven’s sake! And it would be charming if we were hearing “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…” on our radios, but it’s approaching the end of February and we’re getting tired of this. We did not sign up for this!

But this is such a relatively small thing. Life can hand out much more complicated obstacles that we certainly didn’t sign up for…illness, job loss, financial stress, rebellious kids, and so many other things that don’t feel like something we signed up for.

So what do we do? We’re in awful places in our lives and our options don’t include anything nearly attractive as a new pool table.

Some people begin making truly stupid choices, looking for ways to make the frustration and the inner stress go away. I won’t even begin to list here all of the bad choices a person might make when life becomes complicated…I don’t have to. We see them all around us. Some of us have made those bad choices. And some of us know that those choices just lead to further complications in life.

Our best choice when life gets hard…our only real choice…is the same choice when life is simple: Follow Jesus. We should follow him in the easy times of life; we should follow him in the difficult times of life.

Why? Because Jesus is the Light. He will always show us the way.

“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’” (John 8:12).

Sign up for that.