GROWING SEEDS: Chapter 2019

Chapter 2019

There's a sense of peace as I start Chapter 2019 by returning to the back of this bulletin you are holding.  This real-estate God and I place words on each week has been a blank canvas of white space ready to capture the utterances of my heart for years.  And I thank you, my friend, for patiently waiting as I've worked out the final pages of Chapter 2018...without words.

Simply put, God has pulled up His trousers and walked through the mud with me these past few months.  I have literally felt Him planting that mustard seed of Faith and Trust within me, asking me to simply believe and have faith in Him, no bigger than that seed.  He wasn't asking me, or you, to have faith the size of Texas Stadium, but rather, simply the microscopic size of a mustard seed.  I pray I do, but I sometimes wonder.

I once heard that the mustard seed is one of natures smallest seeds, yet it becomes a strikingly large plant when fully grown.  It's a perfect example of the "potential" of a seed.  A seed does nothing until it's planted, but once it is planted, it can push aside rocks or other obstacles as it continues to grow.  It draws its nutrients from its source...just as we draw our nutrients from our Source (God).

That mustard seed (faith)...well, it's planted deep into the center of each of our hearts.  Wouldn't it be something if someone had open heart surgery and the surgeon actually found a mustard seed planted there?  Crazy I know...but how awesomely cool would that be??

But sometimes the road we're walking is like the soil-covered seed....so dark its impossible to see or feel that seed of Faith growing in our hearts.  This is when we find ourselves most vulnerable to the enemy.  Because we know, the sole job of the enemy is to Lie, Steal and Destroy you and me...and to distract us from remembering we have a seed of Faith planted deep within us.

It's then that we need to start counting...counting each of our Blessings.  Number them as you write them down...because when we count our blessings, it's like poison to Satan and water to the mustard seed...

This then allows our Faith to push through the darkness...as we head towards the Son.

BLOG: Grace....Pass-It-On

December 18, 2018

Its exactly a week before Christmas Day.  The fog is heavy outside.  Where there once was a lake, there is now just white.   And I'm sitting here alone in a big house...waiting on something "magical" to happen.  Something...anything...is better than feeling like you're in the white space at the end of the chapter of a book.  One chapter ended....another hasn't yet begun.

But like the naked trees in the winter, I know this white space is temporary....and necessary.  The waiting....the growing that is going on internally and not being seen or felt externally.  Did you know the trees do their best growing in the winter?  They are growing under the dirt...internally....where we can't see the growth....the roots are growing stronger and thicker in preparation for the next chapter...Spring.  There's almost always another Spring if you're a tree.

Everyone is giving me a "pass" this Christmas season, being the first Christmas without my husband. It's been 6 weeks...and I see pity in their eyes; I hear it in their voices...and I actually love them for caring enough to have pity.  But I'm not to be pitied...I'm simply in that white space at the end of a chapter.  I'm the invisible roots of the winter tree.  I can't yet see the words to the next chapter, but I know they're there...and I can't see the roots of the tree growing either, but I know it is.

And from this still place I'm sitting right now, I see the world anxiously running around me as I stand still, crazy with shopping and Frosty and Santa and all the "reasons" we Christians shouldn't celebrate Christmas.

Perception is so much clearer when you're standing still.

Some friends and I attended a local Church Christmas Program a few weeks back.  The whole town showed up to this amazingly well-organized program...complete with light show, flying angels and yes, even a badly-costumed flying Jesus.  But before Jesus and the angels flew through the sanctuary, Frosty danced to the tune of "Frosty the Snowman" on the baptismal ledge.  Shortly thereafter, Santa and his sleigh drove past the pulpit.....

There was an awesome 100-person choir (yes, I counted!) and dancing carolers.  But I couldn't stop looking at Frosty dancing in the baptismal loft...and about how wrong this felt.  For some reason, it reminded me of the money changers in the courtyard of the tabernacle that made Jesus so angry in Matthew 21:12-13.  He had no problem with the people selling their goods....it was selling their good at the Temple that he had a problem with.  Frosty in the sacred baptismal loft and Santa sleighing past the pulpit was what made me squirm with uneasiness.   I remember silently asking God to forgive us for this.

I'm not a prude....goodness, at least I hope not.  I enjoy a fun story of Frosty and Santa and, unfortunately, it's a big part of Christmas.  But truth be told, it has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas.  At least if you're a Christian it doesn't.  And certainly not in the Lord's house.

The only things that matter this time of year.....is remembering the birth of our Salvation.  I love remembering Mary giving birth....and jumping into her head and wondering what she was thinking...how she felt...what it must have been like to know Your child is going to change everything.

Loving others.  And "others" are the people who make you crazy....the waitress who treats you rudely.....the annoying screaming child at Wal-Mart....and yes, even his mother who is ignoring him.

Remembering everyone....EVERYONE....is going through something.  Look around...life sucks for most everyone in some way or another.   I'm not the only one...nor are you....going through difficult times.

Grace....pass-it-on.

If This Ring Could Talk.....

If this ring could talk,....

It would tell the story of how it came to be placed on a finger twenty-one years ago.  It would tell you about how two oddly matched people came to know each other over a meal one January evening and fell in love.  The guy, on his knee, asked the girl if he could spend the rest of his days next to her.  The girl said, "Yes".

It would tell the story of how they decided on this particular ring.  This is no ordinary ring.  The girl wanted just a wedding band but the guy wanted a big diamond for her hand. He felt, in some ways, it proved his love for her.  But the girl preferred to save the money for things they both could enjoy.  The guy didn't care about the cost; he wanted to spend as much as he needed to fill her finger to brimming.  They reached a compromise.  They bought a big diamond ring....it wasn't a pure diamond but had pure gold surrounding it.   The cost satisfied the girl....the ring satisfied the guy.

She never took it off.  Proudly wore it everywhere...because to her, it was as pure as the purest diamond because he had given it to her.  The cost was never a factor.

Eighteen years after she put that ring on, she was forced to take it off when the band broke.  Jewelers didn't want to repair it; "it wasn't a pure diamond" they stated..."wasn't worth repairing".  She carried the broken ring....a circle that was never to be broken yet did....with her everywhere...trying to find a jeweler who saw the value in it as she did.

A month after he died, she took it back to the store where the two of them had originally discovered it in hopes they would repair it.  She reminded the same clerks who were there and had sold it to them 22 years earlier. how they came to purchase this ring.  And she told them how that ring never left her finger all those years...until the band broke.  How she had tried to get it fixed but everyone stated it wasn't worth fixing.   She told about how a month earlier, her beloved had fallen asleep and never woke the next morning and how she wanted nothing more than to have that ring back on her finger.

The clerk, with tears in her eyes, promised to fix the ring back to its original state.  She promised to cherish that ring in the same way the bride cherished it on her wedding day 21 years earlier.  She promised to honor and respect that symbol of love.

And then one day, two weeks later, a package arrived at the Widow Bride's home.  It was a few weeks before Christmas...a little over a month after her beloved had fallen asleep....and as she opened the gift wrapped package, she read the note from the jeweler:

"The story about your ring and the love of your life, Charles, touched our hearts so much.  

We have restored your ring to its original glory and hope you will wear it another 25 years!"

And the bride will, indeed, wear this circle of gold for the rest of her days.  Because the bride realized it wasn't the monetary value of this circle of gold, it was the heart-value that truly mattered.

Just Keep Walking....

 My Prayer From November 17, 2018

I sit here this Saturday morning....the sun is blazing through the windows, the leaves on the trees hanging on for dear life and the house is quiet....no wheelchair running into the doors...no squeaky rubber wheels turning on the wood floors... 

I see a tiny hand print on the back french door...must be Roy or Sam or Ruthie's....and I'm tempted to get up from this perch I'm sitting on and go take a picture of it. 

We are one week past the Memorial Service for Chuck.  I was dreading this day last Saturday....but God turned it into something beautiful and right.  I've lost count of the many people who said it was the best service they have ever been to.  Who laughed at the many shenanigans of Chuck and learned about a man they most likely never knew.  

 

But now they do. 

 

We honored him the way he would have wanted to be honored.  This I'm sure of.  God blessed me with 24 years of walking together, laughing and playing tricks on people.  He tried to teach me not to take life too seriously....to take this road with a little lighter step and, by-golly, just keep walking.  

 

Even...no especially...when life throws crap at you.  

 

God is helping me do just that.  To finally learn what he was trying to teach me all along.  That no house....no circumstance....no disease can take me down unless I "allow" it to.  We are here only for such a short time....a very short time in relational to eternity...so LIVE...and LIVE it right.  

 

Smile.  Love.  Help.  Teach.....

 

...and be a mirror to others of what is located deep inside of us...and that is God.  May I open myself up fully for others to see Him in me and say, "I want what she has" just as I did years ago when I witnessed the life my brother James lived.

So I thank God today.  Thank Him for getting me through these past few weeks.  The final weeks of Chuck's life were brutal.  And yet, they were just weeks.  They weren't months or years...they were weeks.  And I thank Him for taking him before they turned into months and years.  

 

That's called Amazing Grace.

And so here I sit...alone...but not...in this beautiful house so much has happened in.  Flood Waters, Death, Joy, Marriages, Births, Friendships.....I think back on all the things that have happened here and I'm blown away at how much life this house actually held.  Not just the words scratched with a Markie on the beams and floors of this beautiful home after the Flood; promises God made to us so long ago covering and surrounding this blessed and, in some ways, HOLY place... but the Love from the hands of friends and family that wrote His words throughout this home. 

I thank Him for discouraging home buyers to keep looking elsewhere.  They weren't meant to live here....and in some small corner of my soul, I think I always knew that.  I never know His reasons or ways, but I felt them in this situation.  So I'm relieved I'm not moving......and I know I will feel the attempt at Fear to discourage, scare and cause me to cry again some day because in many ways, I long to move.  This is a guarantee.  But may I always remember ....God is the Man of this House...He is the Leader of this home and this life I live in.  I thank Him for being the Leader of Liz.

Today I take in a deep breath of this new day I have been allowed to be a part of.  For none of us know the number of our days...we are simply striving for the last page of the earthly travel book with our name on it.  He "owns" my heart...because part of it is actually His.

GROWING SEEDS: "God's Timing Is Right On Time"

"When Mary came where Jesus was and saw Him, she knelt at His feet and said to Him,

"Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."

John 11:32-44 (NRSV)

The story of Lazarus is so much deeper than just a dear friend of Jesus' dying.  It's much more than two sisters desperately loving their brother and wanting to do anything to save him.  It's more than sending a messenger on a two-day walk to find Jesus, only to have Jesus say He was going to wait a while before heading to His dear friend Lazarus' bedside.  It's so much more, friends.  

It's important to understand the Hebrew view of death...which believed that during the first three days after the death of someone, their "soul" hovered over their body.  On the fourth day, they believed the soul would flee and you would be truly and totally dead-dead.  

The rabbis had been teaching the people they would know the Messiah had truly arrived because He would be able to do such amazing things, like bringing the dead back to life, and then they'd easily know He was the Messiah.  Now by the time we get to the story of Lazarus, Jesus had already raised two other people from the dead, Jairus' daughter and the only son of the widow of Nain.  But they were both within the first three days of death.  That didn't count according to the rabbis.  They'd claim that bringing a person back from the dead during the first three days didn't count because their soul would still be lingering around the body and, therefore, the supposedly dead person was just in a coma.  

The Jewish religious leaders used this three-day hovering of the soul teaching to discredit Jesus' prior two miracles.  For Jesus to truly be the Messiah, in the people's eyes, He’d need to raise the dead after the third day.  Awww...and then there was Lazarus...

So, Jesus delayed.  By the time He left for Lazarus' bedside, He wouldn't arrive until the fourth day after Lazarus had died.  If He had left at once, it would have only been the second day of Lazarus' death and still within the three-day-soul-hovering-time-limit.  And this is the significance of the fourth day.  Jesus' delay was intentional.  A fourth-day resurrection would tell the people that there was no question that Jesus was the Messiah. 

Lazarus learned this truth the hard way. He had to make the ultimate sacrifice to prove Jesus was, indeed, the Messiah to the people.

And friends, that is the REAL gold nugget in the raising of Lazarus from the dead.  God's timing ALWAYS has a purpose.  It's never too late or too early....it's always just right on time.

GROWING SEEDS: "Like The Leaf, We Are Part of The Bigger Story"

October 23, 2018

It's Fall.  

Hands-down, this is my absolute favorite time of year.   A time when the leaves are barely hanging on....grabbing the tree they've come to know for the past six months as their solid foundation, through every breeze that blows.  But that solid foundation is telling them now, 

"It's time.  Time to let go...your season is over.  

You have served your purpose on this earth and served it well.  

You have provided shade and beauty and shelter for many.  

But now, its time to rest awhile.  

You must let go."  

And so they fall slowly to the ground that awaits them.

As the clock ticks down the final days of Fall and the leaf's life starts to show signs of aging, its grip not as strong as it once was, the soil prepares itself to bury the leaves of summer.  The death and burial of these leaves are the very nutrients that provide food so the tree can live on.  Ironically, even in death, the leaf sustains the tree.  

So, too, are we like the leaf...a moment in time we are here to grow from the Gardeners hand.  We have held on in the strong winds of life and have provided shade and shelter to many throughout our short time on this earth.  We have experienced the nurturing rains of Spring and the blistering heat of Summer.  And we have felt the finality of Fall.  But in order to find our true glorious potential, we must die.  We must die to Self.

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, will save it."  

Luke 9:23-24Like

Like the leaf, we are part of a bigger story. 

GROWING SEEDS: The Soul Creator

Each Tuesday morning at 10:00 am, a crazy hodgepodge bunch of women sits at an old wooden table in a local coffee shop for a little dose of sisterhood.  Many of them bravely came not knowing a soul sitting in the chair next to them when we first met for coffee several years ago...each one needing the other. 

And I've discovered through coffee Tuesdays that women birth women...they need each other...they long to feel the skin of the hand of the sister next to them....and like water to a thirsty mouth, they want to know they are not alone in this journey called Life.  They are servants to each other.

"For even the Son of Man came not to be served

but to serve others and to give His life as a ransom for many."

Mark 10:45

This past Tuesday while sipping my sweet cream mocha, I sat back and just watched this movie of sisterhood taking place in front of me at this old wooden table.  I smiled as I watched five different conversations taking place all at the same time, remembering how each of these women came because of a simple Facebook post to just "show up" to any and all women.  I watched as they nurtured each other...listened to each other...held each others hands while laughing and crying salty tears together.  They shared the deepest parts of their soul with the woman they met just last week.  Souls that have been broken....souls that have given up at some point...souls that have rejoiced at the simplest of pleasures....and there's just something about merging your soul with another.  It helps you breathe.  God-Breath.

But what I realized as these women from all denominations, all walks of life, all shapes and sizes, drank their hot cup of coffee while the rain fell hard outside, was how closely this resembles God's love and sacrifice for each one of us.  He is constantly grabbing our hands...bending His ear to hear our worries...grabbing the tissue and wiping our tears...as well as His own, because there just isn't anything like merging our God-given soul with another God-given soul.  

Because He is the Soul-Creator.

GROWING SEEDS:: Empathy vs Sympathy

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to EMPATHIZE with our weaknesses, 

but we have one who has been tempted in every way, 

just as we are - yet he did not sin."  

Hebrews 4:15

One day, Jesus and the Devil were having a discussion about who was the best, so God suggested a typing competition. He sat them down at two computers, one each, and told them to type up an article.  The first to complete the typing would win.

Both Jesus and the Devil were typing away frantically when there was a power outage and both computers switched off. Their typing work had disappeared from the two screens.  When the power was restored and the computers re-booted, Jesus's work re-appeared on His screen, but the Devil could get nothing back and had lost all his work.  So Jesus was declared the winner.  The Devil complained bitterly to God saying it wasn't fair and demanded a rematch, but God said,

"Stop whining Satan, you know why Jesus got his work back - everyone knows.... "JESUS SAVES!"

As much as I've tried, I have been unable to tie this joke in with today's scripture.  It has absolutely nothing to do with Hebrews 4:15, but I liked it and thought you might too.  

Have you ever wondered how Jesus was able to live a perfect, sinless life during his 30+ years on this earth as a man?  I've often wondered if His parents ever grew frustrated with their "perfect" child.   How about His siblings who were busy getting spankings and hanging out in time-out, yet their brother Jesus was always busy being the exemplary child.  My sister was the perfect, goody-two-shoes in our family and I royally resented her.  I feel for Jesus' siblings.

Although Jesus never fell to temptation, He was indeed tempted.  He could smell the butter as Satan tempted him to turn the stone into a loaf of bread after 40 days of not eating.   He felt the sting of each strike of the whip on His back by the Soldiers and He cried out with each swing of the hammer that drove the nails into His feet and hands.  And don't think for a second He couldn't have gotten Himself out of it, because He could have.  But He chose to bleed red just like us.....and that's why Hebrews 4:15 says He has "empathy" for you and me.

See, Empathy is different from Sympathy.  It's taking your shoes off and stepping into someone else's sorrowful shoes and walking it out with them.  Jesus' empathy opened His arms up for you to climb into His lap and find comfort and peace.  That's why He chose not to eat the bread or to save Himself from pain and heartbreak.  You, my friend, were more important to Him than His own comfort because He knew.....

"You never know what you're alive for

until you know what you would die for."

GROWING SEEDS: Forgiveness Is Hard

FORGIVENESS

So.....there's this scripture that goes something like this:

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 

But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

~Matt. 6:14-15

Forgiveness is hard.  It's unnatural in this big wide world to extend amnesty to someone who has wronged you, lied about you and talked smack about you.  The last thing....the hardest thing...to do as your soul recovers from the sucker-punch to the gut is to say "I forgive you" when all you really want to do is hurt them back. Am I right?  Please tell me I'm not the only person to feel this way.....

Take the example of the man whose 10-year-old daughter, kneeling beside her bed at night, asks to pray for the accuser of her Dad.  "A lot of wisdom for a 10-year-old", her choked-up Dad says to us through our TV screens. 

Now....think for a second.  

Have you ever been accused of something you "didn't" do?  Have you ever been called-out on something you actually "did" do?  I sure have...and I would imagine you're shaking your head right now remembering when you were.  In both cases, whether I did what I was accused of doing or not, they both required me to quietly and privately ask God for Forgiveness; whether the forgiveness was for me or for the one wrongly accusing me. 

The best part is....God has made it a win-win situation!  If I'm being wrongly accused and I pray for forgiveness for my accuser, it releases me, the prisoner, from the pain of being accused.  (Trust me...this works!) And if I'm the guilty party, asking for Forgiveness releases me from the prison I've been hanging out in since committing the sin.

Forgiveness helps us understand why Jesus took a nail for your sins; He had to find a way to forgive you.

GROWING SEEDS:: My Prayer Door

"The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective."  

James 5:16

"When a believing person prays, GREAT things happen",  my good friend Max Lucado reminds us. 

A few years ago, we needed a new front door.  Our existing door was warped from standing in water for a day or two and was currently being held shut by a single concrete block.  Our contractor insisted it couldn't be repaired and must be replaced.  The problem was, there wasn't enough money in the budget for a new front door.  

Day and night, I thought about that door.  I researched...I double checked the bank account...I scoured the internet for deals, even found the perfect door, but it wasn't financially feasible to purchase it.  One day my wise husband finally suggested, "Why don't we pray about it?" to which I remember responding, "Has it come to that?"

For some reason, we have it in our heads that God considers our less-than-tragic issues unworthy of His time. We act like we have a certain quantity of prayer requests we can ask for and we don't want to "waste" any of our prayers on something less than huge.  Praying for a new front door seemed like a crazy thing to pray about and a true waste of God's time when I had bigger fish to fry with Him.  But we did as my husband suggested.  We prayed our Father would bring us a new front door, if this was His will.

After a few weeks, our new wood floors were installed and we headed to Dallas to return the left-over flooring back to the store.  I counted as we loaded the boxes into our van...a total of 15....and knew I would also be required to pay a 20% restocking fee. I mentally calculated the anticipated refund in hopes we could come close to affording that new door.  As they unloaded the boxes out of our van at the store, they unloaded 18 boxes.  I had them recount.  I knew we loaded 15 boxes...I had counted it three times in the driveway before leaving....but somewhere between Mt. Vernon and Dallas, we gained 3 extra boxes of wood flooring.  When I went to finalize the credit, there was a note on the register from the manager saying, "I'm waiving the 20% restocking fee for Ms. Etheridge".  As they rang up the total credit, it shockingly came up to the EXACT amount of the door we had wanted.  Not a penny off.

Tears of joy were pushing their way down my cheek as I walked out the door of the flooring store, credit receipt in hand and feeling the intense power of prayer I had just witnessed.  "When a believing person prays, GREAT things do, indeed, happen."  Amen.