ramblings

I cried a lot today.
I cried for my broken and wounded friends who are struggling in their marriages and lives. For my friend Julie as she enters the holidays for the first time without her daughter Niki; I cried for how I could not help them before their journeys into pain began and I cried because I cannot help them get out of darkness they now find themselves in. I cried for my own children and for the pain and loss they will experience throughout their lives, for the wisdom (or lack of) I tried to impart about how life works…or better yet how life is supposed to work. I cried for the sorrow I felt for not being honest with them, for trying to manipulate them into behaving based on the idea that life will work “correctly” if they behave “correctly”. I cried for when my children find out, as I have, that behaving correctly does not save them. It will not bring them salvation and it will most probably not save them from pain or heartache or living with hurt because of the wrong actions of others or from the random hurt that can come from the dice rolls of life.

And then I wept because I still spend time here…in no man’s land. I don’t want to live here, I want to live where everything is good and everyone loves each other and no one hurts or lies or leaves. I cannot live above the pain and reality of life on Earth, even with Jesus in my heart; I still stumble with the every-day-ness of my humanity and the humanity of those around me. So how does my faith fit into this world that I cannot control or look the way I want?

I remember when I was younger I thought of life as the ocean and that each of us was attempting to swim across it, with the goal and prize being one in the same…not drowning and making it out alive on the other side. I do know some people who are natural born swimmers, their ease in the water, their strength and abilities make my feeble attempts at staying afloat look ridiculous. These are people I would go to for swimming lessons and most especially to guard my life whenever I am around large bodies of water.

I, on the other hand had/have very little aquatic aptitude…and I am truly afraid of the ocean. How terribly unfair it seemed for me, having to try and make my life work in this environment With no possible way of completing this on my own I very quickly realized I needed a life Preserver. Something or someone I could hold on to when I grew tired and unable to swim forward and most especially during the most desperate times when I was sinking fast.

For me, this is where Jesus came in…what a great solution to my problem in life. A universal answer to all of our problems: The Perfect Life Preserver.
No one, no matter how talented they are, can swim across the ocean, even the very best swimmer would need help, rest, encouragement along the way. So, Jesus for me became the great equalizer. Everyone needed help. Everyone needed Jesus to make the goal and win the prize.

So when did I start thinking that Jesus was here to make me an Olympic Gold Medallists and that if I could just believe enough in Jesus, He could make me look like I am swimming with ease at all times…most especially at the times when I was most desperate, in over my head and about to go under for the last time.

I think I started living my life this way, because I forgot the very thing that I knew instinctively from the beginning…on my own I couldn’t make life work. Jesus is not meant to be my life coach who “swims” along side me until I can make life work on my own…He is the only thing I have had to hold onto in the hope of making it through life. Or more truthfully He has been holding onto me, holding me up, keeping me from drowning…doing any and all of the swimming.

Maybe this is why He spent so much time here on Earth talking to and about the poorest of the poor, the weakest, the last, the lowliest, the most desperate…those who needed a Savior the most. This is who I am too. This is who I will always be. When I forget this I forget who Jesus is and who I am not. I forget to act like someone who is grateful and thankful and humble. I start acting like someone who demands equality on all levels…no more honestly, who demands to have a better life than all those around me. I start believing I am more than I really am and therefore I deserve everything I have and more…and then I start going under…and I find myself crying out again, Jesus help me.

















When my youngest daughter was in high school our other children had for the most part left home. We were attending church together one Sunday. Having the opportunity to listen to a pastor from Pakistan speak about his ministry there. His enthusiasm for what he had witnessed was at times difficult for me to enjoy, as I spent most of the morning filtering his words through my mid-aged cynical heart. My daughter on the other hand seemed to be listening to all he said in peaceful calm giving her undivided attention. After the service I asked her what she thought of all that was said. Wondering if my “teaching” her to be cautious and careful as to what she allowed to be “taken” in by…

We attend a church where there has been much pain and heartache throughout the years. Death, sadness brokenness and many unanswered questions. When the gentle man (and he was gentle) spoke of all the miracles he was seeing, all the healings, all the lives being changed and people believing…it was hard not to wonder, is it just that we don’t believe enough? Or is this a hoax?

My daughter quietly and gently said,
“Mom, I think faith is like sight and taste. No one really knows what something tastes like to another person. We just assume all things taste the same to everyone. Or that the color blue looks like the same to you as it does to me. What if we just call what we see blue…thereby everything we see as “that” color is defined as blue…even if what you are seeing is really red…you will call it blue because that is what someone called it. So, what if experiencing God was the same way? He may taste and look different to everyone, but He is the same God.”