T is for the Triplets...and Grace

Once upon a time there were three sisters, each born a day apart. The three sisters were called Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and they had lived their whole lives sharing the same home. Each of the sisters was unique in her perception of the home, and for matter, the world.

The oldest sister,Yesterday was a remarkable storyteller and could entertain guests for hours. She had a way of weaving together a tale that could draw out both laughter and tears. Her gift was quite pleasant, as she could inspire her sisters to see the good in all of their adventures.

The youngest sister, Tomorrow, was a dreamer. Because she was a planner, she was constantly coming up with new ways that the sisters could improve their home. She had grand ideas, and could inspire them to believe that the future was something to be embraced. Her sisters enjoyed her, because she gave them hope. 

And in between these two lovelies, was the middle child, the sister called Today. Today had the hardest life of them all, for she was a task master of sorts. If anyone was going to get the days chores done, it would be Today. Quite often, Tomorrow would promise that she would take care of an errand, but in the end it would still fall on the shoulders of Today. And each day Today would fall into bed, exhausted from a day doing chores, only to wake the next morning and hear Yesterday taking the credit.

The three sisters had lived together, for all of their lives, and and seemed to have achieved some semblance of unity, however, with each passing year Today became more and more intolerant of Yesterday and Tomorrow. She was only able to see how each one should change. The stories of Yesterday became bothersome to Today, because when Today remembered the events that Yesterday shared, she didn't remember them being quite so charming and filled with joy. She remembered them being mundane and tiresome. Today also became easily frustrated with Tomorrow, because Today felt like Tomorrow was believing in things that were far fetched and unrealistic.

"Tomorrow lives with her heads in the clouds!" Today exclaimed one afternoon, "Talk to her, Yesterday, and tell her the mistakes that have been made! Surely then she will see that she's reaching too far! Help her to stop yearning for more!"

So, Yesterday began to think of the stories that only focused on the mistakes that had been made in the past. But, the more she focused on the bad things, the more depressed she became. She would tell her stories to her sisters, but no one laughed and when the tears came down, they didn't feel good. Tomorrow listen intently to these stories of error, and it wasn't too long before Tomorrow began to feel anxious. Soon, Tomorrow didn't spend her time dreaming of the things they could do, rather, she spent her time fearful of what might be coming their way. 

After too many months of living this way, Today looked around at the way they had changed, and she realized the damage that she had done. Yesterday spent most of her day sleeping, avoiding remembering. Tomorrow was consumed with the things that could go wrong, but she still didn't help with any of the chores. Today was dumbfounded at what she had done, for she had not realized the power she had. 

Then one morning, Today went to the Master, and she said, "What shall I do about Yesterday and Tomorrow? I behaved badly, and they are paying the price."

The Master responded quite gently, "There is someone I know who you need to meet. Today, I want to introduce you to Grace."

So, Today spent hours in the presence of Grace, and later that evening she brought Grace into her home. Grace approached Yesterday with a warm, gentle smile. Slowly, she began to coax the goodness out of Yesterday. Yesterday loved Grace and began to wonder how she had lived so many days without her. 

Grace smiled at Tomorrow and then gave her a wink. Tomorrow was intrigued and said, "What do you know?"

"I know that you are Tomorrow," Grace's smile never waned, "and the dreams that you have are what change this house to a home. I know that Yesterday and Today depend on the hope of Tomorrow."

The three sisters asked Grace to stay in their home, and from that moment on, the stories of Yesterday, the dreams of Tomorrow and even the happenings of Today, all took place with Grace.

Counting my One Thousand Gifts for Multitudes on Mondays

38:: Yesterday, thank you for the stories and the lessons learned from your view.

39:: Today, the day is sprinkled with gifts, in spite of the chores. The Master will help us see the good before the Tomorrow is Yesterday.

40:: Tomorrow, thank you for believing more for me, than I believe for myself.

41:: Grace, without you, my days are nothing.

Wedding Gifts and Eternal Blessings

The gifts have already begun to arrive, although not one of them has been wrapped in silver paper with a big white bow. Not one of the gifts has come with a card addressed to the "Bride and Groom". We are about 6 weeks into planning our daughter's wedding and with each week comes another gift, another treasure.

So that you may have an understanding the depth at which I am feeling overwhelmed, let me share with you the gifts we have received to date:

• A generous donation towards the bridal gown
• Complementary venue at an estate on a hill overlooking the valley where we live
• Professionally arranged flowers at wholesale costs & no charge for the labor
• Day of Wedding Coordinator, complementary
• Professional bartender, complementary
• Wedding Cake!
• All the flatware for the reception
• Tablecloths!
• A price reduction from our D.J.
• And the latest--a couple from our church just graciously offered (and then insisted) on paying for the food for the reception.

I am humbled. And I say this in all sincerity, because the way that this "humbling" feels--is not pleasant. It actually kind of hurts.

Don't get me wrong, I love that so many people want to do what they can to help us give our daughter the kind of wedding that she has been dreaming of, but at the same time, it makes me really want to be on the "giving" side of all this!

I want to be in a place where I can offer something to someone and bless them in a real and tangible way. I want to be able to give to others the way that others have given to us--and I am humbled and saddened because I don't see it coming to fruition in that way. I keep feeling my eyes glaze over in disbelieving tears when I "open" another gift and I long to be able to give that to someone else. I'm finding myself tempted to become angry at me and my husband for the choices that we've made that have not set us in the place to be able to give others these gifts. Receiving is a blessing--but we want to give.

Then I remember that the "wedding gifts" have not actually just been coming over the last 6 weeks. They started coming 25 years ago. Christ took me as His Bride and He began to give me gifts. He gave me the gift of Salvation, and I live knowing that when this body fails me or is broken beyond repair, my sins are forgiven and I will live eternally in a new body. He gave me the gift of His grace and He renews this gift everyday. He sees my selfish ways and chooses to forgive me and love me, despite my failures--every hour. These are the "wedding gifts" he blesses me with as His Bride and I have to remember that accepting these gifts are a part of being in His kingdom.

But, I love Him and adore His ways and I want to give a gift to our Creator that is real and tangible. And, so I search my mind, rip open my heart and beg God to show me:

"What can I give YOU?"

I know He wants me to give my life to Him, but what does that look like? How do I present that to Him? How do I give myself as a Holy sacrifice? How do I use the gifts He has blessed me with to give back to Him?

And, the ironic thing is, I already know that it doesn't matter what gift I find to give Him, he will continually turn it around and use it to be another blessing, another gift in my life from Him.

So, for now, I will not let my pride get in the way when other people, who love us, love our daughter, and love the church decide they want to bless us, because I know that they are so excited to get to give. And I know that while they don't do it for what they will receive, they are blessed.

Boy vs. Porn

I don’t struggle with porn. It’s not a temptation for me in the slightest. But, last night I got to listen to a young man share with a group of his peers about how he has been struggling with watching porn for a few years. He’s a teenage boy and the draw has been altering his life from all it could be. It’s been affecting his walk with the Lord. It’s been affecting his schoolwork in an unproductive way and it’s been lowering his self-esteem. It’s been distancing him from his friends and putting a wall between him and his small group at his church.

Now, for anyone who is asking, “Where are the parents?”

I’m right here.

Last night my son, a handsome 16-year-old with dark eyes and broad shoulders, shared about how he has been struggling with his own “addiction”. It had started as curiosity and it grew to become a controlling force in his nights; the cycle of feeling guilt and remorse and distant from God and from family continued to drive him to the porn to fill that hole. The enemy was building a fortress in my son’s life and using a terrible Giant to keep pushing my son down. The silence and the lies were the chains that were holding my son captive and weighing him down.

When he was asked to share his testimony in front of his youth group, I told him to be honest. I told him that he had to be completely transparent no matter how much he might fear that others would judge him. I believe that when we are transparent with our struggles miraculous things happen. The times that I have been transparent are the times that I have had women come to me in private and say, “Hey, I did that!” or “I feel that way, too!”

And so, my brave son, stood up in front of this large group of people—the teenage girls whose mysterious ways magnetize him, the close friends with whom he sarcastically spars, the young adult men whose approval he longs for and...his parents—and he began to slay this Giant.

He broke the silence which is the beginning of overcoming and breaking any stronghold that the enemy may have on us. As long as what we do, we keep a secret, it will have some form of control over us. And, so today, I am once again in awe of our God who gives out His grace so freely—both to myself and to my son. I know better now how to pray for him. I know better how to encourage him.

While I was reading my bible this morning I came across this verse in 1 Samuel:

“You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.”

And, I imagined my 16-year-old standing in front of this big porn industry with a stone and a slingshot. I could see him hurling the stone at the lights and the lies of an industry that destroys the lives of men and women—young an old. I saw him attack this Giant with a newfound courage because he had the support of amazing Youth Pastors and leaders who live their lives purposefully so that teenagers don't have to be alone as they search for the stones to throw at the Giants. In my mind I could hear the crowd cheer as the Giant fell to the ground and the sound was so similar to applause that I had heard last night when he had finished sharing his journey. I closed my eyes and treasured this moment with pride knowing my son will walk taller today.

Imitating Christ's Humility

Last night when you went to sleep everything was the same as usual. You brushed your teeth and even took the time to floss. You set your alarm and plugged in your cell phone to charge. Your pillow was cool against your face and the breeze coming in the window was a relief to your feet. You eased into a dream that was safe and brilliant.

But, what if when morning came you felt some one tickle your face? You brushed away the irritant and tried to call back the strange and lovely dreams you had the night before. Again, the tickle, again the hand to brush it away. When the soft movement came across your face the third time you opened your eyes. A small fly wisps away. Nothing is right in the scene before you.

You wake to find yourself lying on a mat on the dirt floor of a hut. When you sit up, you feel that your body is lighter and looking down you realize that you have small skinny arms of a child. You are dark and your skin is scaly and dry. You are dressed in a shirt, but that is all. You run your hands down your chest and your stomach is extended. For all that your mind can grasp, you are a small, frail black child sitting in a hut. But, you are still you. You are able to recognize almost exactly where you must be, because you are still you in all your thoughts and have retained all of your knowledge of the world.

Fear should have been the commanding thought, but because this is so impossible, you cannot fear, you can only question the validity of it all. You rise to your feet and look around. The hut you are in is small, smaller than your bathroom at home. Outside you hear voices and they speak another language. “Maa” you say to yourself. Somehow, you know that their language is called Maa. And then you realize that you are fully aware of all their customs, even though they are nothing like your own. You are aware of their lifestyle in comparison to your own.

You step to the edge of doorway and peek outside, the men are leaving to herd the cattle and you see the woman who you know is your Mother. She turns and you see a baby on her back. You know immediately that this is your brother. And without delay you realize that you love him as though you have always known him. He is too young for a name; he is only 2 moons old and will not have a name until he is stronger. You are struck by the oddity that you know this. You think of your own family at home that you have somehow left behind. You think of your Father and how you long to see him and have him explain all of this to you.

The woman who is your Mother enters the hut and you speak to her, and the words that come out of your mouth are in the language she knows. She laughs at your sly words and then tells you to move along. As you look around the area that is yours, you find cloth that you will drape and wrap to wear—as is your custom. And while you move though this moment the one thing that never fades is your ability to be completely Maasai and be completely American. You are fully Maasai and are aware of their customs and the challenges that will be coming your way and you are fully American and are aware of the luxuries that are not here for you now.

The ways that you have always known are still in your mind and the longing for those ways will not falter when the day is long and hot and when your stomach is aching. You cannot escape the reality that you know what it is like to live in a place of easy fulfillment where there is too much food and too much self-indulgence. But, you know that there was also good that was happening where you were. You miss your Bible. You miss the fellowship of other believers. Awareness comes over you that life with the Maasai would be different if you were unaware of what you had left. Some of the events that are coming for you will be painful beyond anything you have ever had to bear. In this culture, emorata, or teenage circumcision for both males and females is a part of your future and in the place where you have always lived there is nothing more humiliating. If each day you wake, you continue to wake in this hut with these people as this child, then that is your future.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

Obviously, this illustration of what one might experience to “wake up” in someone else’s skin is a far cry from what the Creator of the Universe went through in his humanness. God taking the form of man and leaving Heaven to live with us and as us was not a surprise to him in any way. But, what was it like to have all of the thoughts and the knowledge of God and be confined to a human body? What kind of humility did it take to come and live as we live, when He had spent eternity living as God? He had foreknowledge and he had answers and, yet, He lived among us and taught us slowly, so that we might discover the answers on our own. He chose to teach us in parables that we could understand, because the things of Heaven are too far reaching for our minds.

For 33 years He lived in human form while He had the power of the Universe at His beckoning. I cannot imagine taking the form of child and living a lifetime in an African village with the knowledge of what was coming and what I had left behind, and what Jesus did was so far beyond that. I wonder what the thoughts of Jesus must have been when he watched us struggle with things that have no eternal value. I wonder what God thinks when He watches me struggle each day. I am so grateful that His grace is so big and that it covers me.

The Virgin Campers

Our family is definitely made up of novice campers and I knew that our inexperience could come as a shock to the Expert Camper we decided to bring along on our trip to Shaver Lake.

For several days before our trip I was nervous about the friend we were bringing on our camping trip. She is an Expert Camper and I was fearful that she would have a seizure when she found herself with us, the Virgin Campers. I was so careful when buying and preparing food, because I didn’t want the Expert Camper to return to civilization and tell anyone the truth about my frailties as a Camper Cook. I spent $300 at the grocery store and I precooked 3 of the meals the day before we left—just to be safe. I bought way too many Marshmallows, 6 different kinds of cookies, three different types of nuts and disposable grills (as a back up plan).

We loaded into the borrowed RV at 6 AM and headed for our dusty, mountain campsite. The RV was loaded with food, sleeping bags, tents, stoves, propane, and rafts. Even though we knew the truth about our greenhorn level of camping skills, we would definitely be able to fool the people in the sites near us and we should be able to trick the Expert Camper into believing she had signed on with the real deal.

We made one stop at a gas station that was also connected to McDonald’s and in the style of my Tennessee heritage, I ran into the McDonald’s with no shoes to get some Sweet Tea. Things were falling into place perfectly. We definitely had the appearance of Experienced Campers and the Expert Camper would have no stories to tell the San Gabriel Valley.

Pulling into our Camp, the Dora Belle, we were in awe of the large redwoods. These large tree stand guard at the Campground Kiosk to ward off the inexperienced city folk who might try to enter the wooded area with their store bought fire-starters and microwave popcorn, (thankfully, I had hidden ours behind the pancake mix and the paper plates). None of us had any idea of the brute strength of the trees and how they would lash out at us in attempt to unveil our fraudulent camping skills. 

Less than 10 minutes after checking into the campsite, the tree made it’s move. Somehow the sneaky tree wedged its way between the back of the RV and the bumper. As the RV pulled away from the tree, the strong foliage-bearing brute held tight to the bumper and pulled with all its bionic tree power.  

Crunch!

When we gathered behind the RV to see the effects, our hearts sank and we knew that we were in over our heads. The jig was up and I feared that the truth of our amateur camping style would soon be the Facebook status update of the Expert Camper.

The Expert Camper kept her calm and didn’t give a hint to her mind, so there was nothing to do but proceed to camp and try to win her affections and loyalty with Smores. 

We began to set up camp, to level the RV, build the tents and arrange the chairs around the campfire ring with the standard amount of first day fighting. When the bickering rose to its highest level of awkward stress, I jumped in and sent the Expert Camper with the "Girl-Who-Keeps-Talking-About-Weddings" to go find the lake. (Now, mind you, the Lake was not missing. I don’t want you to think that there was an Amber Alert out on the Body of Water—I was actually using their search for the lake as a distraction from the stressful situation.)

Now at the same time that all this drama was unfolding, two of the Virgin Campers disguised themselves as Warriors. They had actually brought along swords to battle the trees and each other. Not surprisingly, the younger Warrior managed to break the older Warrior’s sword before they had even finished unzipping their tented dwelling.

Once again, as tempers began to rise, I had to make a move to divert the anger that would surely alert the neighboring campers to our intrusion onto their peaceful encampment. I sent the two Warriors to find the Expert Camper and the "Girl-Who-Keeps-Talking-About-Weddings". This could take them hours.

Later, after we had done all the damage we could do to the RV and the campsite, the RV Driver and myself headed down to the find the lake. Maybe it was missing, after all no one had returned to tell us they had found it. It was a short downhill hike to the water and when we stepped to the edge of the protective redwoods and saw the vast green water and the looming boulders, we were again filled with awe. Knowing we would have 4 more days in this beauty not only gave us a peace, but also gave us the strength to try to move our thoughts from the damaged RV and the reality that our inexperience as campers would most likely surface time and again.

We watched as the Warriors jumped from the huge boulder into the welcoming water and sent a prayer of thankfulness for the adventure that was ahead. In a few moments, the RV Driver and myself would leave the lake and walk into the town to find Wireless Internet service for one of the Warriors and the Expert Camper to register for college. We would later find that the uphill walk into town would lead the RV Driver to place of unwavering pain in his previously damaged knee. We would have to empty our brown and gray water on two occasions, we would open our marshmallows to find them melted, run short on lunch meat and sunscreen, and open the RV for sleeping to all but one of the campers. In the end, the Expert Camper will have seen all our frailties and our shortcomings, and we will rely on her grace for our reputations. In short, it will be just another family vacation.

Linking with A Southern Daydreamer for OUTDOOR WEDNESDAY.