Meandering in Inclement Weather

Stop Asking for Help

2012-02-11T18:20:00.000-08:00

The title for the sermon today was "Change Your Prayer". The preacher, an Elder Joel Tompkin, told about how his father, when he became a Christian gave up gambling, womanizing, and drinking, but he couldn't quit smoking no matter how hard he tried. For the longest time his father prayed, "Lord, help me to quit smoking". But nothing came of it. Finally he prayed, "Lord, I'm helpless" and that's when the temptation to smoke lost its power over him.

Then the preacher focused on the following story:

"So He asked his father, 'How long has this been happening to him?' And he said, 'From childhood. And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.' Jesus said to him, 'If you can believe,[a] all things are possible to him who believes.' Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, 'Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!'” (Mark 9:21-24).

The man had to change his prayer. We have to change our prayer. We need to stop praying, "Lord help me" prayers and start praying, "Lord I'm helpless" prayers. The preacher said, "I'm convinced that the 'Lord help me prayers' often go unanswered, but [God] cannot pass, 'Lord, I'm helpless' prayers."

Nothing New

2012-02-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

People like to ask me, "So what's new?" For some reason, that question always leaves me with nothing to say. In fact, I panic a little because I feel like I should have a new experience to share like "Oh, yes, I went to Paris last week." But really, most of my days look about the same. Catch me on February 28 or catch me on March 13 and well there wouldn't be much to differientiate between those days.

I'm in a season of my life right now called the ordinary--it's not a bad place to be in. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll have days years from now when I'll long for this season--but it doesn't provide a lot of fodder for conversation.

So what I wish I could be asked instead of "what's new?" is "what books have you been reading lately?" "what did you learn this week?" Or even, "What was your favorite meal this month?" These are the new things in my life: common, ordinary, and sweet these gifts, but treasured still the same.

The Ultimate Prayer

2012-02-03T18:22:00.000-08:00

I've decided that my ultimate prayer is this: "Lord I believe, help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24).

This prayer has taken the following forms in my life:

Lord, I forgive help my unforgiveness.

I remember being so angry/hurt/bitter toward a friend that I had to wake up every day for months praying, "Lord, I choose to forgive ______________. Give me the strength to forgive again." The feeling of forgiveness didn't catch up with the choice for awhile, but eventually the bitterness I felt simply disappeared. And what a sweet gift that was!

Lord, I don't feel guilty, please help me feel guilty.

It might seem strange to pray for guilt since I spend a great deal of my life trying to pray to be released from guilt. However, my guilt sensor is off. I feel guilty for the wrong things (oh, not going to the coworker's daughter's wedding after getting an invite), and not guilty for the right things (ummm blatant obvious not-gray-area-sin). So I pray for guilt (conviction) because when I can logically see that what I'm doing is wrong, I want to make sure that my heart follows along too!

Peace

2012-02-03T17:22:00.001-08:00

"You got your peace back." My college friend's words still echo in my head. Peace is so important. This week I lost a little of my peace. I was "off" for part of the week and then last night after talking with a good friend (mostly complaining to her), I realized why I was off; I had chosen not to surrender an area of my life to God.

"No," I got this one God, "I don't want you to take it!" Funny thing about not surrendering is that it really is a drag. And yet I hang on so hard! Maybe it is because I still want to believe that I know what is ultimately better for my life than God does.

So I talked with God last night. I told him, "I'm sorry I hung onto this. I'm sorry that I didn't trust you. Please help me to want what you want." After praying this prayer, I got in bed and decided to see how many things I could ask God for before I fell asleep. I'm not sure at what prayer I was one when I finally drifted off to sleep, but I did.

Then I slept the best I've slept in weeks and woke up refreshed, clear-headed, and hungry again for God (see, that was the other thing, my appetite for God waned while I clung tightly to what I wanted).

"I am leaving you with a gift--peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid" (John 14:27).

What We Need

2012-02-03T15:15:00.000-08:00

In my other blog, I've been working through Matthew 5. I've been struck over and over again Christ's call to be transformed at a heart level. I came across the following quote tonight and liked it. It is from Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings:

The victory is not won without much earnest prayer, without the humbling of self at every step. Our will is not to be forced into co-operation with divine agencies, but it must be voluntarily submitted. Were it possible to force upon you with a hundredfold greater intensity the influence of the Spirit of God, it would not make you a Christian, a fit subject for heaven. The stronghold of Satan would not be broken. The will must be placed on the side of God’s will. You are not able, of yourself, to bring your purposes and desires and inclinations into submission to the will of God; but if you are “willing to be made willing,” God will accomplish the work for you, even “casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5. Then you will “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God whichworketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12, 13.

But many are attracted by the beauty of Christ and the glory of heaven, who yet shrink from the conditions by which alone these can become their own. There are many in the broad way who are not fully satisfied with the path in which they walk. They long to break from the slavery of sin, and in their own strength they seek to make a stand against their sinful practices. They look toward the narrow way and the strait gate; but selfish pleasure, love of the world, pride, unsanctified ambition, place a barrier between them and the Saviour. To renounce their own will, their chosen objects of affection or pursuit, requires a sacrifice at which they hesitate and falter and turn back. Many “will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” Luke 13:24. They desire the good, they make some effort to obtain it; but they do not choose it; they have not a settled purpose to secure it at the cost of all things.
The only hope for us if we would overcome is to unite our will to God’s will and work in co-operation with Him, hour by hour and day by day. We cannot retain self and yet enter the kingdom of God. If we ever attain unto holiness, it will be through the renunciation of self and the reception of the mind of Christ. Pride and self-sufficiency must be crucified. Are we willing to pay the price required of us? Are we willing to have our will brought into perfect conformity to the will of God? Until we are willing, the transforming grace of God cannot be manifest upon us.

Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings p. 142, 143

Transition

2012-01-27T11:41:00.000-08:00

There's been some transitions in my life of late. Two ministries that I was involved in have both ended (one I ended myself). People I once saw frequently are harder to see because of those transitions as well as the busy nature of life. It seems as if a wave of community that I belonged to crested and dispersed. While that was happening, I was very busy. I put service over community, which, in my little world, makes sense--or is more like my default position.

But I realized that I could not serve long term unless I had community. So I've made a couple of changes and despite my sadness over the transitions--I have hope, a peace in knowing that God is here with me.

Awkward Classroom Moment

2012-01-26T12:31:00.000-08:00

I walked by a student the other day and said, "Hi Frank." He said hi back. I then said, "Wait your name isn't Frank." "No, he said, "It's Claude."

Unfair

2012-01-26T07:54:00.000-08:00

I walk every morning (okay, I attempt to walk every morning). Yesterday morning, I was in bed in the prone position my face smushed into my pillow. I knew I had to get up, but I just didn't want to. I laid there struggling and then a text from the gospels came to my mind, "Get up and walk." I started laughing. "Lord," I prayed, "That's unfair!"

Judgment

2012-01-26T07:43:00.000-08:00

Judgment is the full revealing of who I am. It is as if someone took a complete fingerprint of my life and laid it down on paper. Judgment tells the truth. It reveals all of me. My selfishness, my quick-to-sin-ness, my pride, my vanity, judgment is God’s ultimate confrontation with me as a sinner.

How will I stand in judgment with God’s light piercing me? How will I stand with every defect revealed, every sin told at his glance? I will live then under the shadow of His wings. Under the wings of Him who said, “I will save my people from their sin.” I probably will be incapable of standing. For judgment will reveal to me—(my mind’s clearest moment) that my presence in heaven only comes as a divine favor, a cosmic recklessness to save this sinner. Under His wings and His glory and His purity the only words available to me will be “worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive honor and glory and power.” I will have at last fully entered what I only partially knew on earth—His Kingdom.

The Culture Shock of Heaven

2012-01-26T07:39:00.001-08:00

I came across a file today with some of my old journal entries from about seven years ago. I'm going to share some here.

There’s a certain culture shock when entering the kingdom of God. The delights of heaven are not always the delights of earth. We enter into God’s kingdom at times expecting it to be run by the general rules of the here and now. Then God asks us to give up an earthly rule—maybe we have to give up our right to do whatever we want, maybe we have to give up our right to pride—and this process hurts. We yelp a bit at it. We complain to God. “Wasn’t this Christian life supposed to give me happiness?” We want to give up and get out during those times. But God says, “Wait. Trust.”

And so we wait. And after the initial shock the place becomes more comfortable. The terrain of God’s kingdom becomes familiar and then the day finally comes where we are such a part of God’s kingdom that the land that we came from seems dull, gray and boring by comparison. We no longer miss the “leeks and cucumbers” of Egypt. We traveled away, but we are no longer homesick. We recognize instead that what we left behind was not our home, but our exile.

Richness

2012-01-12T19:28:00.000-08:00

I was recently discussing with a friend about another friend that has moved away from Orlando. I said, it's not like the song, "'I can't live if living is without you.' I don't need this friend to function, but her absence has made my life less rich."

I think this can be said of friends in general. Friends add texture to life. They give variety to the emotional terrain of our inner worlds.

But there's something else here. Each friend is uniquely valuable. If there is no snowflake alike; there's no friendship alike. I value the friend I mentioned earlier because her capacity for being profoundly serious and delightfully goofy (sometimes all in the same conversation)adds a little extra joy to my life.

I'm blessed with the richness my friends give my life.

New Blog

2012-01-03T07:18:00.000-08:00

I'm not one for making New Year's resolutions. I like to joke that I enjoy making resolutions like, "Eat more chocolate." (Actually, I do make resolutions, but I make them the night before my birthday.) Anyhow, I did make a New Year's resolution. I want to spend this year saturated in the gospels. To do this, I'm trying to write a blog a day about a text or several texts from the gospels. I've started in and here's the link: http://athisfeet2012.blogspot.com/. Check it out when you get a chance.

A Difficult Week for a Cat

2011-12-22T17:39:00.000-08:00

It has been a difficult week for my sis-in-law's cat, Lily. I keep accidentally passing through her 5 feet bubble of personal space, not noticing her sitting underneath the fern plant, walking by her too quickly, and wearing white socks in her presence (she really hates those white socks). All of my horrible actions have elicited hisses, swats, and groans from her. She's even chased me once. (It's a little unnerving to be on the receiving end of a cat playing offense--ah!)

I'm not Lily's only archnemesis. She also hates a neighborhood cat named Milly (if you grew up in the 80s saying those two names close together might make you think of a certain band, now disgraced).

Lily's feud with Milly wakes everyone up most mornings around 6 am. The cats have settled into a happy routine of positive mutual disdain. Lily's hisses, growls, and high-pitched squeals usually give us notice that Milly has come to the glass door again to make faces at her.

The noise is so loud and the fight sounds so vicious that we might be tempted to think the glass door came down. But it hasn't. No Lily's fight is all "sound and fury, signifying nothing".

Miami Trip

2011-12-21T17:16:00.000-08:00

I have a running relationship with bad luck, so when a friend suggested I meet up with him in Miami for his two hour layover in the airport--I should have said no right off the bat. It's a four hour drive from Orlando to Miami, and I had a to-do list that was hovering over me something wicked. But I'm a people person. And heck what was four hours in comparison to the three years I hadn't seen him? Plus, I had my handy new GPS, and I felt invincible. My days of getting lost were forever behind me!

Things started out bad. I struggled to get out of bed, I had to fill the gas tank up, but then I got in a good rhythm and kind of enjoyed seeing parts of Orlando I'd never encountered. "So this is what south Orlando looks like?" I eventually got on the Ronald Reagan Turnpike and was zipping (well, as much as I can zip along) until an overwhelming sleepiness came over me. I tried to fight it. But after I had one of those troublesome fantasies of just closing my eyes taking a long nice nap in the car, and after I found my car wandering into another lane, I decided a break was in order. I pulled off at a gas station and lost 20 minutes off my ETA.

Then I drove on and on and on and on. At one point my friend called and asked, "Where are you?" "I'm only 20 minutes away," I said. After talking with him, I discovered that he would be be boarding his flight in 40 minutes. "Oh no," I grumbled and willed myself to go faster...but it was around this time that things went bad. First traffic...the empty road became a bastion of slow moving cars (I watched my GPS ETA extend longer and longer). Then my GPS was very faithful in telling me--"in five hundred yards exit on the left". Unfortunately, those five hundred yards involved three lanes of traffic and people dead set on letting anyone in front of them.
(My estimated ETA got even later.)

After several loops and explorations of various Miami freeways, my friend called again. We determined that I had about 10 minutes to see him. I told him, "Run out to the drop off and pick up, and I'll meet you there." I had ten minutes left on my ETA. I could make it in time for a quick hug.

Come to find out the drop off/pick up section of the Miami Airport has one little entrance if you are wanting to be right next to the doors. I missed the entrance, and from where I was driving on an outer left lane, I couldn't see my friend. (He had been calling me from a pay phone.) I tried to exit to pull through the airport again, but I ended up pulling into a "service vehicle only" area entrance. Argh!! Eventually, I managed to swing around and go through the airport again. I got in on the inside lane. I stopped my car, got out, and looked for my friend. He was gone. I drove a little more, stopped my car and looked again--nope, he wasn't there. I realized I had missed him and pulled ahead over the curb (smack wack crunch thunk) in front of me with a heavy (and slightly embarrassed) heart.

I went immediately to Denny's for comfort. (Breakfast is the best comfort food.) I was tired and just needed some food. I sat in the booth pondering the absurdity of it all--I was in Miami with nothing to show for it. I drank a glass of cold ice water, and it slipped from my hands...ice landed on my lap and on the floor and several customers turned to see the commotion. Sigh.

I somehow hoped there was a bigger reason for me to be in Miami. I wanted to (at that point) save someone's life or run into a lost soul who needed a listening ear. Then I could say that the whole trip had been worth something. I had been sent to Miami on a mission!

No such opportunities showed up--though I did end up doing the bulk of my finals grading on a beach under a palm tree--that sure beat my office!!

There was one good thing that came out of the experience: besides lessons in better planning and more pessimism about my ability to get anywhere in the "estimated time"...the trip broke up a little wave of discontentment that had started to come over me the night before. In fact, I was so involved in my mini-pity party that Sunday night that my Miami airport friend had called me twice before I got back with him. I was trying to drown my sorrows in the Internet (reading obscure news articles and watching cat videos) that I hadn't noticed he had called me a second time.

His phone call/invitation to make a spontaneous trip to Miami changed the whole direction of my thought. I had to plan a trip! Then I had to execute it, and the execution was so poorly done that I had no time to think about the small thing making me discontent. I came back tired, amused, chagrined, and well content again.

So maybe that's what I'm walking away with. Sometimes God has to send me to Miami to get over myself.

Reaping and Sowing

2011-12-07T15:57:00.000-08:00

"Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he reap" (Galatians 6:7-8, ESV).

I laid in my bed mulling over that text last night. Just the other day, I had spent some time reading over journals from about ten years ago. I was thinking about how the life I live now is a small reaping of the life I lived ten years ago. I wondered, "Did I sow well? Am I reaping now a good harvest?"

The second thing I considered was what am I sowing now? What is it that I'm bringing into my life that I will harvest later? What am I nourishing now that will grow up later?

I usually think of this text in the context of my spiritual life. (I want to sow generously in matters of God!) But the text can also be applied to every area of my life (my health, relationships, work etc). I read a book recently that emphasized this idea. It was called the Principle of the Path. The book's basic premise was simply--what we do now has a direct affect on our future. It seems like a no-duh principle, but I so easily forget it.

I want to blindly sow and blindly reap. I don't want to make a connection between what I do today and who I am tomorrow. Sometimes I'd rather blame chance than to blame myself.

The Principle of the Path was a call for me to sit down and heartily think about where I am, so that I won't be surprised when I get to my destination.

Downtown

2011-11-14T14:26:00.000-08:00

I stood in downtown Orlando last night watching fireworks. The fireworks were gorgeous--bright whites, purples, and reds all breaking up over the buildings of downtown Orlando. I stood in front of a Baptist church with with a long front porch and white colonnades--a very southern architectural scheme. On the porch of the Baptist church were thirty plus homeless people. They had all set up camp for the night. They had marked their places with the blankets that the church provides every night.

The contrast was surreal. Above me the sky was breathtaking--behind me was one of the painful realities of life in the US: homelessness. (It has its various causes--mental illness, drug abuse, terrifically bad luck.)

My students have started a homeless ministry, and I was just along for the ride. We came down to pass out clothes (jackets, shirts, pants, underwear and socks). We also came to just hang out. I ended up kneeling and chatting with a woman who I guessed was in her early twenties if not teens. She sat next to her husband in his early thirties. We talked about their life. She had grown up on a farm and loved horses--"a real country girl" she said. He also had spent sometime in middle-of-no-where cities.

I don't know how much I can do to actually help the homeless (so many of their needs goes beyond handouts). I asked a friend about it on the way home. He told me the story of the pool Bethesda. He noted that there were dozens of sick people there, but Jesus only healed one. He said, you help prayerfully with wisdom, you establish relationships with the homeless, you let them know that this isn't about getting your good works done, and you let them know you care.

The 21st Century

2011-11-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

At least once a semester I send my students outside to write about what they see, smell, hear, touch, and taste (if they eat!).

I just sent my students out and I'm waiting to hear back from them. One of the students left with his laptop. The other students were teasing him about dragging his computer out to write, and I joked with him a little too. He responded to the teasing with, "It IS the 21st century." He was turning as he spoke and didn't hear my response. I replied, "Tragically so."

There's a part of me that longs for life before the ubiquitous presence of phones, laptops, and handheld devices. You really could be with a person and just be with that person alone.

I sometimes feel sad that the generation just ten years younger than me does not know what life was like without the Internet. But for all my nostalgia I would not go back. I like what I read once about people who long for the past. The author suggested that nostalgic people go home on a hot August day and turn off their air conditioner.

Feet and Other Things

2011-10-20T15:26:00.001-07:00

I was so grateful for the man sitting next to me in Sabbath School last week who asked, "Does the fact that I'm pointing my foot at you bother you?" He's spent a great deal of his life in Asia so he gets that small detail. It just made me happy.

I miss all the things that no one here really gets. For example, it doesn't make sense to go around complaining about my shoe that is falling apart and compare it to a loi-gao-gao shoe.

Before I moved to Thailand, I had only vague impressions of it. My knowledge of Thailand could be summed up in a sentence: it was the country with lots of prostitutes, a very successful AIDs campaign, and the place where they made pad thai.

So I guess I can't expect more from people. But it there's a certain sadness in having a world tucked away in the corner of my heart. I can only mutter Thai words to myself and move on.

Last week I was interviewed for a class on world religions about my experience in Thailand. After the professor thanked me for the interview, I struggled to stop talking. You mean its over? I can't share anymore?

Old Habits

2011-09-23T09:29:00.001-07:00

I settle into my seat on the shuttle ride from my college to the school's parking lot. The shuttle is mostly empty so I lean my back against the window and stretch my legs out. Someone else comes in and sits on the other side of the aisle. Suddenly, I want to pull my feet in. The habit of not pointing my feet has become so ingrained it's almost a reflex. I feel a second of discomfort knowing that my toes are pointing toward this new person on the shuttle--but then I relax--nobody there knows I'm being rude by Thai standards.

While living in Thailand, I had to be very conscious of my feet. As a westerner, not particularly worried about my feet, this was a learning experience--to learn how offensive it could be to point with my feet or to put my feet in the wrong place. I still remember getting chastised by a bus driver in Bangkok for putting my feet on an engine covering. (It really seemed like a nice place to plop them.)

There are other ways living in Thailand has affected me. Just yesterday, I was talking with a woman who talked very loudly throughout our whole conversation. I was amazed that I even noticed this, and that the way she talked made me feel like she was not very refined or educated. (I'm not sure I would have felt that way before Thailand.)

So many times in America the attitude is simply "It's a free country!I can do what I want" or "This is who I am, deal with it." This attitude covers a multitude of social sins.

Lynne Truss, in her book Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door argues that people are rude because they have lost the distinction of private and public space. She notes how people often act as if the world is their living room when it is not. It's an attitude that simply shuts out all other people.

I'm grateful to Thailand because the country taught me to be more thoughtful of others--to adjust my volume, my feet, and my attitude in the company of others. I'm not in this world alone--what I do does affect other people.

*This is not to say that we are social dolts in the states, but we don't value enough the kindness of courtesy.

I am the Marker Thief!

2011-09-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

I recently noticed that the markers were disappearing out of the classroom I teach in. I was annoyed. I wondered, "Who keeps taking the markers? Why can't people just leave the markers in the classroom?"

I went back to my office after class and noticed that there were two markers sitting on my desk. I realized I was the marker thief!

I must have picked up the markers without much thought and brought them back to my office. (Yes, I do realize that this leaves me as qualified for the absent minded professor award.)

Jesus said, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" (Matt 7:3).

Slow Communication

2011-07-31T18:18:00.001-07:00

I love letters, so it was great the other day to get a real letter. I want to write back my friend who wrote me, but I'm waiting until I have a good chunk of time to write a thoughtful response. Letter writing is a slower form of communication on several fronts: it will take me longer to find the time to write, it will take me longer to write the letter, and the letter could take several days to arrive.

Today I was thinking about how when it comes writing a letter the sender must trust the receiver's silence. That is that instead of getting feedback in a day or even an hour, it could be several days to even several weeks before my friend will get a response. We're not used to this extended form of communication anymore, and I think we've lost something for it.

Sometimes the last thing we need is instant communication. Sometimes a good day or two of sitting on a thought is wisdom. "My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry" (James 1:19).

Not only is it wisdom to deliberate over some of what we communicate, but slowing down communication teaches us to trust the silences--to allow a certain space in every relationship for quietness, to respect even our closest friends' privacy.

Giving room for privacy brings me to another point. America is a very public world. Telling everyone our secrets on TV or in a memoir is not only acceptable, but lauded as healthy--good therapy. While there are some secrets that are dangerous if kept, there are other secrets that should remain just that, knowledge privy to just a few or even one.

Emoticon Problems

2011-07-31T18:07:00.000-07:00

The other night I got a text with what I thought was a smiley face. It was nice to get the smiley face, but I didn't respond to it as I was occupied when the text came in. Later I was talking to the person who had texted me and asking her how her week was. She said she'd had a rough Thursday, and wondered if I'd gotten her distressed emoticon text. "No," I told her, "My phone must have dropped that text." I went back and looked through her texts and found :S. She had texted me! I need to increase my emoticon EQ.

Talking or Listening

2011-07-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

I recently told a friend that I had made some poor choices in spring by not making choices at all. I simply allowed a couple of negative circumstances to get me down. I ran across the following quote from a blog I've been reading of late (www.challies.com). The quote struck as the heart of my problem.
(The original source for the quote is Martyn Lloyd-Jones' Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure.)

*******

The main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. Am I just trying to be deliberately paradoxical? Far from it. This is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problem of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ he asks. His soul had been repressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you’. Do you know what I mean? If you do not, you have but little experience.

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’-what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’-instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God’.

Devotions & Dinosaurs

2011-07-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

I adore my niece, but I find it almost impossible to have devotions when she is around. Whenever I'm at my sister's house, I lock my bedroom door until I'm done so she won't interrupt me. Last Christmas, I had done the usual locking-of-the-door, but my niece caught onto the fact that I was awake and pounded so persistently on the door that I couldn't help but let her in.

I told her she could come in on the condition that she stay quiet. She was very very good. She didn't say a word, not a sound came from her. She pulled out her toy dinasaours and proceeded to play with them on my Bible. Gotta love the girl. The pictures are below.

The picture she took of me.

Up, Up, and Away

2011-07-14T17:35:00.000-07:00

I'm updating the pictures on this blog slowly (these pictures are from February). This is the last launch of of the space shuttle Discovery.

I ended up watching the launch quite by accident. I had offhandly told a colleague that I would spend a day at the beach just for fun. He responded with, "Don't you know that the shuttle is launching tomorrow?" So I ended up driving to Titusville, FL, which sits across the bay from Cape Canaveral to watch the launch. I got there at 11:00 am (the launch was planned for the late afternoon), and struggled to find parking. I finally parked in an empty lot near a vacant restaurant; it was one of those shady on the fly parking spots where you're not sure if the person you are giving your money to is actually the owner of the parking lot or just some crook making good on the absence of parking.

I parked, gathered my stuff and walked across the road to the "beach". It was more like a marina. I claimed my spot with a good view of the launch pad (okay, I imagined it was a good view of the launch pad). I had several hours to wait for the launch and nothing to do but read and eat strawberries (such is the difficult life I live!).
Those hours would have been perfect if I could have just subtracted the sun and a chain smoker upwind from me. (I would have moved away from her, but the place was crowded, and I feared losing my prime shuttle-watching real estate.)

Of course, I should have known that I had actually chosen the wrong place to sit since as the time of the launch grew closer a boat launch in front of me got so crowded with people that I couldn't see a thing. Hmph. I ended up wading out into the water and watching from there.

The shuttle launch was amazing. I loved standing out in the water with everyone else who waded out there too. I loved the sense of shared expectation and wonder. After constantly wondering when the big moment would arrive, I finally was able to see this little speck of light and then the plume of smoke growing underneath that light. As I watched the shuttle go up, I got goosebumps. I felt this mixture of awe, delight, and pride. What an amazing thing it was to see!

Then I was forced quickly back to reality when I got back to my car by the fact that it seemed like the whole state of Florida and half the country had come to the beach.
After traveling a whole three miles in one hour (it was so slow people were throwing footballs in the median while their friends inched by), I decided to stop somewhere to eat to wait out the traffic jam. I felt quite proud of this decision; well, that was until I had to go the opposite way of traffic to find a place to eat, and ended up backtracking those precious three miles that I had just gone.

I found a Japanese restaurant and ate there while watching the traffic move slower than a person could walk. I ate then whiled away the time calling my mom until my phone died, and then I had nothing better to do than go home. It took me another hour to retrace the three miles I had lost. After what seemed like eternity, I broke free from the pack and found a freeway free of traffic. I got home at 11 pm (6 hours after the launch). I was grateful for the 60 seconds of awe, grateful to have seen one of the last launches of the shuttles, grateful for a day off, and positive that the experience would not be repeated.

Passport

2011-07-11T17:06:00.000-07:00

My passport has been relegated to file in my closet. This is a very very sad place for my passport to be. I've traveled (actually a lot this year): two trips to Georgia, a trip to Tennessee as well as a trip to Michigan, Maryland, and California, and now (maybe) a trip to Arizona. But it doesn't feel like traveling. I haven't left the country (gasp) in two years! I need stamp soon!

My Neighbor

2011-07-07T15:27:00.001-07:00

I'm not fond of one of my upstairs neighbors, maybe it is because he yells an awful lot, or maybe it is because he's always loitering outside of his apartment on the phone. The other day I was coming home and had to walk right under where he usually sits on his front porch. He (shockingly) wasn't on the phone, and he said, "hello." I tipped my head back and said hello back. I asked him, "What's your name?" He said, "Jesus."

I had to laugh when he said his name, so Jesus lives upstairs. I hope I never forget that.

Walls

2011-07-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

I don't like walls, emotional walls that is. I don't like feeling left out of a friend's life if that person is important to me. But recently, I heard something powerful about walls that gave me pause.

I heard an author (it was an audiobook) say, "Respect a person's wall. It is often there for a reason."* The author then explained how a person will put up a wall if he doesn't feel safe. My job is not to tear down a wall or to demand that someone let down his wall, but simply to show by my actions that I'm a safe person. In time, if I can show myself trustworthy the wall may come down.

The nice thing about this thought is it gives me something to do when I feel anxious about a friend's wall. I can direct my energy and prayers toward creating a safe environment. One of the simplest things I'm working on to create this environment is watching what I say. Every time I gossip or complain about someone, I create a wall between the person I gossip to and myself. How can a person trust me if I'm not in control of my own tongue?

Today I was struck with another thought about walls. I realized that I need to respect my own walls. I need to not feel obligated to trust a person right away. I can take my time in any relationship to observe a person before I trust her. Respecting my own walls but still remaining open to people stabilizes my relationships. Strangely enough, it is a form of trust. I trust a person to give me the leeway and time I need to let down my own walls.

The book I was listening to is called The DNA of Relationships.

A Day Off With God

2011-07-02T11:35:00.001-07:00

I took Friday off this week. I decided to spend the day with God. For my day off with God, I focused on reading spiritual books, and I did a fruit fast (which was more like a fruit feast-- tons of lychees and mangoes!).

I had a very pleasant day. Much of time was spent reading on my bed. I have a fairly decent view from my room, so I felt a certain happiness reading and looking out my window. It rained part of the day which only added to the comfort and sweetness of my day.

I read two books: Wrestling with Angels: in the Grip of Jacob's God by Larry Lichtenwalter and Abide in Me: Our Lord's Supreme Invitation to the Believer by N.A. Woychuk. The first book gave me courage as I read about how God worked through Jacob's failures and weaknesses. The second book was a-hike-up into-a-mountain or jump-in-a-cold-lake-kind of book. The more I read it, the more refreshed and clear minded I felt.

Here are some quotes from it:

"Abide in Christ beloved, and let his words abide in you. Cling to Him. Strike fast to Him. Live the life of intimate fellowship with Him. Get closer and closer to Him. Roll every care and every burden upon Him" (9).

"To abide in Christ means to enjoy Him, to delight in Him, to love Him and to worship Him. To abide in Christ means to trust Him in every situation and to keep the mind and heart ever open before Him, and to have His word abiding in us. It involves walking in the light as He is in the light, and having a joyful readiness to do his will" (pgs.8,9).

"And now the Lord invites every believer to this celestial, sublime fellowhship with Himself personally: Abide in me and I in you! Life in such a communion with the Son of God disallows the presence of sin" (p.2).

"'Christians will abide in Christ' said Puritan John Brown, 'just in the degree in which they let Christ abide in them.' The abiding of His words in us is largely the means of His abiding in us. We have learned that 'I in you' is the same as 'my My Words in you.' This obviously means a great deal more than an intellectual acceptance of His word. It is something very different from reading a verse or two in the morning and forgetting all bout it the rest of the day, it is something far superior to coming in contact with the Bible truth on [Sabbath], and taking a little of it home with us. Having the word itself actually in our mind and heart, and our desires, our affections, our understanding, our will our whole being steeped in these great truths, so they hold sovereign sway in our life and control all our thoughts and all our movements (p.20).

"It is an unbroken stream of grace from justification through the various stages of sanctification to everlasting life, every new wave taking the place of an overwhelming work though not superseding or destroying the other. The Lord, the true vine has in Himself, as Teacher and Redeemer, all that we need. He means to teach us that He Himself, in His divine-human personality is the middle and the end of our spiritual life and fruit bearing" (Schaff qtd in Woychuk, p. 25,26).

"It is not enough that I turn away from myself with disgust, I must turn to Christ with delight" (p.28).

"This infinite love which permeates heaven now fills the life of the Christian who lives in communion with Christ" (p.29).

Las Vegas Sunset

2011-07-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

These pictures are from December. I was traveling to California to visit my family for Christmas when I took them.

Just Enough Light

2011-06-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

I recently came across a book in my local Christian bookstore called, Just Enough Light for the Step I'm On (by Stormie Omartian). I think the title of the book is enough. Sometimes that is all I need: just enough light for today.

Guarding Our Hearts

2011-06-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life" (Proverbs 4:23).

I think this text is most commonly used as a warning for singles to "guard their heart" from the wrong romantic partner or for married people to guard their relationship. Not bad advice, but if we left the text there we'd be remiss.

Guarding our heart is also about guarding our motivation, our passions, our drive.* What keeps us going from day to day? Are we guarding that? For example, last fall when I took on an teaching an extra writing class, I found that my life revolved around a never ending stack of papers--the constant grading withered my passion for teaching.

As much as is in our power to do, we need to make choices that keep us engaged in our lives. By taking time to rest, socialize, and exercise--we are guarding our hearts. By not letting life simply happen to us, we are guarding our hearts. By building a relationship with Christ, we are guarding our hearts.

Ultimately, it this relationship with Christ that guards our heart the best. "The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7). Christ's presence and peace in our lives creates a powerful antidote for discouragement and it lays a foundation for living life well.

*I'll credit George McDonald's Ordering Your Private World for expanding this text.
(I highly recommend this book.)

Two for One

2011-06-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was having a bad day. The little things were getting to me like the fact that I drove over a large curb in a parking lot and had a whole family stop their conversation to stare at me as I drove away (yes, people I'm fine; I meant to do that). Later in the day one of my friends called me. She told me she was having a bad day. I said, "Me too!" We commiserated some. I shared with her what was frustrating me about my day and vice versa, and by the time we hung up, both of us were laughing. I told her later, "This is what I love about friendship. You can combine two bad days to make one good day."

Yesterday's Adventure

2011-06-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

I ended up in Kissimmee last night. I'm never on the Kissimmee side of town (it is southwest of Orlando; I live northeast of Orlando). But this is a very interesting place...it's where all the Disney tourists are. I went to a Walmart there and loved it! First off the Walmart was packed. I felt like I was back in TESCO-Lotus in Saraburi, all I needed was some really loud annoying Thai music and I would have felt 100 percent at home. Then the presence of all the tourists meant I heard accents from all over (British and New England or Canadian accents), and I heard languages from all over (Vietnamese, Hindi, and French--I'm guessing on the languages). But the best part was they sold food there that I wouldn't normally see in a grocery store. My favorite being Digestives from the UK. If you haven't had a Digestive (it sounds worse than it tastes), it is like a graham cracker but much much better; oh, and they sold Aerobars (mint chocolate with air bubbles in it).

I also stumbled across tamarind there. When I went to check out, the cashier said, "What is this?" I said, "tamarind". He said, "Is it a fruit or vegetable?" I said, "A fruit." He looked at his register, puzzled. So I spelled it out, it is spelled, "t-a-m-a-r-i-n-d". He typed it in but nothing came up. He handed me a chart with fruits and vegetable pictures on it and said, "Can you locate it on this chart?" (I felt like the tamarind was a suspect in a lineup.) I found the tamarind picture and showed it to him. Underneath the picture, it said, "tamarindo". I guess only Spanish speakers eat tamarind in Florida.

I had only gone into the Walmart to buy cake mix for a friend, but I walked out with a cart full of food. But now I know, if I ever crave British treats or tamarind I can make the long, 45 minute drive to Kissimmee.

A Sacred Calling in the Ordinary

2011-06-01T20:01:00.000-07:00

I took a news writing class and I was assigned to work in a small group with Karen and Deeanne. Deeanne introduced me to Melissa, and Melissa introduced me to Grace; Grace introduced me to Shelly, and Shelly introduced me to Lavonne; Lavonne introduced me to Annelise, Leanne, and Ronni. All of these people are important friends to me, and yet they all came through the link of another friend. It is fun for me to consider how each person came into my life.

While I like thinking about how each person came into my life, it is as important to consider why they came into my life. I like to to think that people come into my life by divine commission. They were sent into my little world to teach me something, to give me joy, to challenge me to think, and because maybe, just maybe so I can give them back something as well. They were sent my way so that I can serve them in love.

My life is extraordinarily (if this is possible to combine these words) ordinary. I have many little tasks to accomplish and some days feel pretty similar, well, to other days. But in the midst of this extraordinary ordinariness I'm answering a sacred calling to love those nearest to me.

Thinking about Love

2011-06-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

I like thinking about love, not necessarily romantic love, though that is fun to think about as well. I like thinking about how to love people.

I was reading earlier today that an author of a book called More Than Good Intentions signs his book, Heart + Mind = Good Giving. I think the same can be said of love. It's easy to think that just because I like someone that loving that person well will just flow naturally out of me (and yes in some ways it does), but loving a person well takes a lot more than just having nice feelings about an individual; I need my heart combined with my mind to love well.

I need to think about a person's needs, interest, history, comfort, mood. Some days it is nice to connect with a friend through a good conversation, but other days, well, a game of volleyball would be just as nice. Sometimes a friend needs a lot and sometimes a friend doesn't need much at all.

So how do I love well? I enage my heart, and I engage my mind. I watch to see how best I can show kindness, but ultimately, there's much I don't know about the people I interact with. This loss of knowing means that I pray much too.

This morning I knew I would see a friend, and so as I thought about her as I was getting ready for the day--I prayed, "Lord, give me your wisdom to love ___________ in just the ways she needs to be loved today."

I didn't see my friend for as long as I expected, and the only thing I ended up really communicating with her was a silly story about how I accidently spat toothpaste on my mom's arm (my mom reached across the sink just as I was spitting--the timing was impeccable!). But maybe that is all she needed today, a silly story about toothpaste.

A Thought On Time Management

2011-06-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a great thought on time management that I got from another blog by Douglas Wilson, Blog & Mablog:

"The point is fruitfulness, not efficiency. You should want to be fruitful like a tree, not efficient like a machine.

But this fruitfulness is a function of God's blessing, and it is surrendered work that is blessed work. Seek that blessing, and seek it through concrete surrender. Such surrenders are not abstract. Put your Isaacs on the altar. Every interruption is a chance to surrender your work to the only one who can bless your work, particularly when the interruptions come from your kid wanting to play catch.

We can see the principle with the sabbath and the tithe. Less blessed is more than more unblessed. 90% blessed goes farther than 100% unblessed. 6 days blessed are far more fruitful than 7 days unblessed."

You can read the rest of the article at:

http://www.dougwils.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8681%3Aseven-thoughts-on-time-management&catid=62%3Agrace-and-peace

I was thinking about what Douglas Wilson said this morning. I was also thinking of one of my favorite texts.

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.... But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by the streams of water, which yields its fruit in season" (Psalms 1: 1-3).

I want fruitfulness at work, and I want fruitfulness in my life as well. I pray to be a Psalms 1 kind of person. I long have my roots sunk deep in the word of God so that I may bear rich, mature fruit in season.

What is Florida?

2011-05-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

I told a friend recently that I'd moved back to the south. She said, "You didn't move back to the South; you moved to Florida." I disagreed with her a little. Florida has its share of "southernness". Hey, I get to hear a southern accent on occasion, and feel amazed at strange things like steer horns glued to the top of a truck cab (really?). But what is Florida? Is it a province of Canada? I heard that there were so many Canadian retirees down here that there used to be a branch of the Canadian government pension fund in Florida. Is it a county in New York? I can't tell you how many people I run into here that are from New York. Even people that immigrate from other countries did time in New York. I was talking to a man last night who was discussing quite wistfully his youth in Guyana, and then he said, as an aside, that he lived in New York for fourteen years before he moved here. Is Florida Lain America? I read an argument that Miami should be classed as a Latin American city. Then there is the strange fact that for the Seventh-day Adventist church the Inter-American Division, which covers countries like Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico, is headquartered in Miami.

I'm not sure how Florida can be classified, but I confess, it is growing on me. It's a large, unique state, and for now I'm calling it home even if I am from California.

Eagle's Wings

2011-05-08T13:07:00.001-07:00

I stumbled upon this quote today while reading Andrew Murray's Waiting on God. It must be shared!

"Yes, 'they shall mount up with wings as eagles.' You know what eagles' wings mean. The eagle is the king of birds, it soars the highest into the Heavens. Believers are to live a heavenly life, in the very presence and love and joy of God. They are to live where God lives; they need God's strength to rise there. To them that wait on Him it shall be given.

You know how the eagles' wings are obtained. Only in one way–by the eagle birth.
You are born of God. You have the eagles' wings. You may not have known it; you may not have used them; but God can and will teach you to use them.

You know how the eagles are taught the use of their wings. See yonder cliff rising a thousand feet out of the sea. See high up a ledge on the rock, where there is an eagle's nest with it treasure of two young eaglets. See the mother bird come and stirs up her nest, and with her beak push the timid birds over the precipice. See how they flutter and fall and sink toward the depth. See now how she 'fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings'(Deut. 32:11), and so, as they ride upon her wings, brings them to a place of safety. And so she does once and again, each time casting them out over the precipice, and then again taking and carrying them. 'So the Lord alone did lead him.' Yes, the instinct of that eagle mother was God's gift, a single ray of that love in which the Almighty trains His people to mount as on eagles' wings.

He stirs up your nest. He disappoints your hopes. He brings down your confidence. He makes you fear and tremble, as all your strength fails, and you feel utterly weary and helpless. And all the while He is spreading His strong wings for you to rest your weakness on, and offering His everlasting Creator-strength to work in you. And all He asks is that you should sink down in your weariness and wait on Him; and allow Him in his Jehoavah-strength to carry as you ride upon the wings His omnipotence.

Dear child of God, I pray you, lift up your eyes, and behold your God! Listen to Him who says that He "fainteth not, neither is weary," who promises that you too shall not faint or be weary, who asks nought but this one thing, that you should wait on Him. And let your answer be, With such a God, so mighty, so faithful, so tender,
My soul, wait thou only upon God!

from Waiting on God by Andrew Murray, p. 92,93

Sweet Holiness

2011-04-29T21:59:00.000-07:00

"Holiness is a most beautiful and lovely thing. We drink in strange notions of holiness from our childhood, as if it were a melancholy, morose, sour and unpleasant thing; but there is nothing in it but what is sweet and ravishingly lovely." Jonathan Edwards

Quote taken from Seeking Him: Experiencing the Joy of Personal Revival

On Speaking Terms

2011-04-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

"2
Mexico
Number of people who speak the indigenous Ayapaneco tongue; the two are not on speaking terms" (18).

I read this in Time today and couldn't help but laugh. This short statement aptly descripes so many of our problems.

Mango Kindness

2011-04-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

My colleague dropped off fourteen mangoes at my office on Tuesday. He did this all because I mentioned how much I missed mangoes, good mangoes that is.

I couldn't possibly eat fourteen mangoes before they went bad, so I dropped off a handful at a friend's apartment and then gave some to my housemate.

It's a small thing: a crateful of mangoes. But there is a lesson here, when God gives blessings, the blessings are so overwhelming that they spill into the lives of the people around us. Here's then another reason to pray to be blessed.

Lord, bless me and make my blessings so large that they spill into the lives of all the people I come in contact with.

Instant Stress Relief

2011-03-31T19:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a recipe for stress relief. It's very simple:have a massive storm blow through with such high gusts (80 mph in some places) of wind that the electricity is knocked out. Yes, that's what happened last night. My shoulders were tense coming home from work as I thought about all the papers I desperately wanted to grade before I left on my alumni weekend trip, but when I got home the electricity was out. Kapoot. I did some work on my laptop, but my grading plans were completely thwarted by my incapacity to grade by candlelight and my one dying flashlight. Instead I was forced to sit in a mostly dark house with tons of tea candles; then I had nothing better to do, so I went to bed early (gasp). While I can't say this storm was an overwhelming blessing for Central Florida, it sure made my evening! There's nothing like weather to put me in my place. Sometimes God uses storms to make us rest.

Not Holier, Just Weaker

2011-03-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

A friend once implied that I was being a bit self-righteous when I declined watching a certain movie with her. I don't remember what I told her then, but what I wanted to say is "You don't get it. I'm not holier than you. I'm just weaker."

The Sound Books Make

2011-03-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my friend from the satisfying buttons post ran into me at the library. I was browsing some books for sale and he started looking at the books with me. Then he told me, "Did you know that different books have different sounds?" He proceeded to tap the spine of each book and we listened intently to the sound each book made. He then commented that the tone of the books we were looking at was not particularly enjoyable. He had heard finer sounding books.

He also discussed how different book covers (matte vs. non-matte) had different levels of enjoyability based on their sound and texture.

H., I don't know if you read my blog, but if you do, thank you for adding your joyful creative perspective to my world. :)

A Satisfying Afternoon

2011-03-06T17:34:00.001-08:00

I spent the morning having a breakfast with a friend then playing ultimate frisbee with a ministry group called Witness for Fitness. It wasn't a bad way to spend a Sunday morning, but I had great plans to come home and spend the rest of the afternoon grading papers. Before I started to grade, I decided I would clean up some. It's 8:30 pm and I haven't even touched the essays I was supposed to grade. And yet, I've had one of the most soul refreshing days that I've had in weeks.

And this is what made the afternoon so satisfying: I cleaned, I prayed, and I read. The smell of laundry, a slightly more organized closet, authors who made me laugh and think, and the simple closeness of God that came from solitude shared with him refreshed me.

So in the end, I'm grateful for this unplanned afternoon.

The Satisfying Buttons

2011-03-04T09:52:00.000-08:00

I have a friend here who I've decided the main reason we are friends is that he sees the world just a little differently and I (ummmmm) so get that.

The other day he was sitting in my car telling me that the hazards button was the most satisfying of all the buttons on my dashboard. He demonstrated this by pushing it in--it went in all the way. He then proceeded to tell me that the aircon button was moderately satisfying (it went in a little), but the radio buttons were the least satisfying as he could only press them in a tiny bit.

So next time you are in your car, check out the dashboard and see which buttons are the most satisfying.

Another Note on Language

2011-03-04T09:45:00.001-08:00

For the most part I know what English words we used in Thailand that we don't use here.

I know we invigilated there and proctor here. I know we revised our lessons there and review here. We never "go first here". And no one ever says "can" for yes. But recently I was saying something about the aircon and I got laughed at. What aircon isn't American English? I guess it's A/C. Good old A/C.

Do Not Shoot Me an Email

2011-02-23T19:02:00.000-08:00

I like getting emails, but please refrain from "shooting" me an email. I don't know. I left the country for five years (this, by the way, is my excuse for everything), and while I was gone people started shooting each other emails. Ouch, it sounds so dangerous!

On the other hand, or as some ESL students might say--in the other hand, I like how people clip avenue and actually pronounce the abbreviation. I don't know if the clipping started before or after I left, but I love how it sounds. Just the other day someone said, "Oh, so it's on Orange AVE", and my little word loving heart skipped a beat.

Busy Blessings

2011-02-11T09:03:00.001-08:00

I had a friend who once told me something about math that I felt was good way to look at life. When his students asked him if math was fun. He said, "Math isn't always fun, but it is rewarding."

My blessings (a good job and a ministry) are like that. My blessings keep me busy. I sometimes want the "fun" of being able to linger in bed, have full weekends with nothing to do, or not stay in the office late, but on the other hand I love the sense of satisfaction, meaning, and joy that comes as a direct result of my busyness.

I'm not advocating overwork. In fact, I'm looking at ways to schedule more times for doing important things like sitting on the beach all day or long meandering drives around Florida, but I'm grateful--grateful to God to be so busily blessed.

Extra Credit Competitions

2011-02-10T13:49:00.000-08:00

Most of the people who read this blog are teachers or former teachers so I don't think you'll mind if I share a small activity that I use to reinforce what I'm teaching.

For key concepts I want my students to remember, I hold extra credit contests. (Usually I'll do this after a lecture.) I break the students into small groups and ask them to develop their own definition of the concept that I had just talked about. After collecting their definitions, I type up the three best definitions into my PowerPoint presentation and share them with the class. (The students with the best definitions get 2 points extra credit points.)

Not only are students forced to restate what they have learned, but then they get to see several different definitions of the same topic.

A small variation I do on this activity is to have students vote on what they think are the top definitions. This involves a lot more typing since I have to type up all the definitions, but it can be a lot of fun with different students promising to vote for each other.

Julie Moments

2011-02-02T09:55:00.001-08:00

My friends call them "Julie moments". From when they have said "that was a Julie moment",I take it to mean that it is usually when something awkward, random, or embarrassing happens to me. I suppose these happen at a higher frequency in my life so that is why they get a special label.

Well, I had a "Julie-moment" the other day at a Thai restaurant. My friend was talking about guys. She was saying, "I hope the man I marry understands how clumsy I am." While nodding my head in agreement, I managed to angle my fork in just the right direction so that most of the food from it landed on my lap.

For shame, I didn't want her point proven that fast.

No sea, No visas

2011-01-23T05:38:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine is most likely (still praying, hoping for a miracle!!) leaving the country because of a problem with her visa. Last night we were discussing different visa options and I said, "Isn't there a 'we love you and want you to stay' visa?

(What if immigration was kind of a "Survival" show set up. You get voted on or off the island? I know my friend would definitely be voted to stay on!)

There's a great text in the Bible that a different friend, Ruth, quoted a part of to me last night: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea" (Revelation 21:1).

I can't wait to be in that new place: where there is no sea, no visas, and no more goodbyes.

Mine!

2011-01-20T17:41:00.000-08:00

It's hard to share when you are four. Other kids take your toys when you want to keep them. Your uncles or aunts sleep in your bedroom and you kicked out. You have so little control over so little things,and then (gasp) the best day of your year gets taken by your aunt. You see, my niece had a problem sharing something with me this year. My sister asked her to wish me a happy birthday, but she refused. "No," she said, "It's my birthday!"

It's hard to share. It's hard to share when you are four, when you can't see that some spaces are better shared--that sharing (more often than not) enriches instead of diminishes. That the best things in life: joy, friendship, ministry, money, food (!) are all made sweeter by sharing.

I love sharing a birthday with my niece (she's the best present ever), and I look forward to when she can love it too!

Two Dreams

2011-01-18T09:30:00.000-08:00

Sunday night I dreamt I had volunteered to teach in the Marshall Islands. I was walking around the island when I realized that I didn't want to be there and that it had been a mistake to commit myself to a year of teaching in Majuro. In my dream, I realized that I had to either tell my boss that I wanted to quit or to just grin and bear another year there. I woke up and felt a great sense of relief.

Monday night I dreamt that I had volunteered to teach in a remote village in Thailand. The village was so remote that no regular public transportation came through the village and I had to either run to town or catch a ride with my supervisors. As my time progressed in this remote village, I realized that it had been a mistake to volunteer to work there and I desperately wanted to go back to Florida. Again, I woke up relieved.

I don't think that my dreams were prophetic, but they did remind me of this simple thing: sometimes it is a gift to wake up and be exactly where you are.

Time

2011-01-14T06:46:00.000-08:00

It's cold in Florida (okay, it's cold in Florida for Floridians, 38 F, 3 C). This morning there was ice on the boardwalk around the lake I exercise at. The beauty of the place and the events of this week made me meditate on time.

There is a certain preciousness to time, but I take time for granted. I feel infinite though I know I am finite. The world it seems could move leisurely by,but then something happens, a phone call comes, something changes,and I'm reminded of the temporality of all things. There is much beauty in life, and it is made sharper by the possibility of loss.

Sunrise this morning

Puppy Love

2011-01-12T18:08:00.000-08:00

English is useless when it comes to expressing love in a nuanced way. I wish there was a specific "love" word for all the varities of love: friendship love, romantic love,or family love. Recently, I have been wishing for a "love" word for animals. You see I've fallen in love with a dog. I have a case of puppy love. I met this dog while volunteering for a community service painting project in November. I was painting the door frame of a the room that Ginger was put in while we worked on the house. I was up on a step ladder painting when Ginger took a bone, held it in her mouth, and sat as close to the door frame as possible and whined. I think she was saying, "I have my toy now, why don't we go out and play?"

It just so happens that Ginger's owner attends the same church as me. I'm sorely tempted to ask him if I can borrow his dog for a day.

PS I wrote this because Ginger's owner posted a comment about her on Facebook. He just told me that Ginger has a profile and I can friend her. Yay!

Each Joy

2011-01-09T16:06:00.000-08:00

Each joy has its own unique DNA. Yesterday I was reminded once again of a small joy I have here in Orlando. It comes from interacting with the students from our Circle of Faith (COF)Bible study. We had finished the Bible study and we were singing. As I sang with the group, I thought about how the taste of joy I get from singing with my students in Orlando is not the same as the joy I got from living and working in Thailand. I have two joys, two continents, two different lives and yet one thing to be profoundly grateful for: I serve a God of joy.

The Week

2011-01-07T19:09:00.000-08:00

Pass me not, O gentle Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

Refrain

Savior, Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

This is the song I listened to on repeat coming home from vespers tonight. It's a good song. A song that drips peace into my heart.

It's the end of a busy week. It was a good hard discouraging and encouraging week. I had a good start with my classes (Yay for engaged students!), but I was sick. Sickness plus a little bit of the devil trying to kick sand in my face (he likes to make me think that I will always have the same struggles) made me a little discouraged. But Thursday night the simplest gift lifted my spirit. I met a friend at a bookstore to tutor him on writing essay exams for the TOEFL. It was such a pleasure to use a skill I have to help a friend that my mood picked up exponentially. Then, while he was doing some writing, I wandered around the bookstore and picked up a book that looked interesting. As I skimmed it, I came across a sentence that seemed to answer a question I've struggled with for awhile. The answer fit into a wider picture of a small emotional journey that I have been on since I came to Florida. And I was simply reminded there of two things: God is leading me and there is much hope for my life.

Hope is a powerful thing. The difference between feeling like "I'm stuck" and "there's much possibility of growth" is the difference between dragging myself through the day and bouncing (yes, I bounce)through the day.

The Middle

2011-01-05T09:39:00.001-08:00

The rain came down hard but there was only one umbrella to share between my aunts, my mom, my grandparents, and myself. Since I was small (around 5 years old at the time), they stuck me in the middle. I looked up at them and using brilliant kid logic told them that they should join me in the warmest driest place under the umbrella--the middle.

I've started to read a book by Ty Gibson called A God Named Desire. In one of the first chapters he draws a diagram of what the relationships in heaven might look like. Instead of a hiearchy he draws a circle: God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit form a circle with every member of the universe branching out from that circle.

Monday morning I as I prayed I realized that I typically pray to either Jesus or to God so I decided to pray to Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit at once. As I prayed the image from Ty's book came to my mind. I imagined the Trinity in a huddle. I realized that as I addressed all three of them that I was in the middle of their love.

Dare to be a Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego

2011-01-01T13:37:00.000-08:00

I grew up singing, "Dare to be a Daniel. Dare to stand alone." I love that song. But recently I was thinking about how sometimes I need a different dare. I need to dare to stand with others. This comes partially out of my own spiritual experience. I consciously gave my life to Christ when I was seven years old and with the exception of a couple prodigal seasons have stayed in a committed to relationship with Him since. This means I've been "different" almost my whole life. As a child I got teased for being a goody two-shoe, as a teen I had to skip out on some parties my friends attended, as a college student I had to look unintelligent because I didn't embrace all the ideas that many of my peers did. Being different my whole life has made me very independent. And while this sounds very spiritual and very much in line with "daring to be a Daniel"*, it also means that I habitually live my walk with God alone.

I don't reach out if I'm struggling spiritually. If I'm overwhelmed, I simply withdraw the way a sick cat might go and hide under a house. My attitude often is "I've done this long enough alone. I can keep doing it alone." And yet the Bible is full of admonition to not "go alone".

Here are just two texts:

"And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching" (Hebrews 10:24). "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed" (James 5:16).

This year I've made small steps to not "going at God alone." In fact, if there is any moment I should be proud of in 2010 it is a night when I was feeling basically cornered by the devil. I texted a friend, "Please pray for me! I feel like I'm fighting hand to hand combat with the devil." Knowing that my friend was praying for me and hearing from her the next day was a powerful antidote to my struggle.

The funny thing about the line "Dare to be a Daniel/Dare to stand alone" is that he wasn't standing alone. He stood with his friends Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego.

*I should add I've been a very meek and mild Daniel. I "stood" up so quietly for my beliefs that I'm not sure anyone noticed.

**The song "Dare to Be a Daniel" actually does say that when we stand alone we are joining Daniel's band.

What God Might Not Know

2011-01-01T13:22:00.000-08:00

What if there is knowledge that God might not have? Recently, I was thinking about how God knows us. The Bible says He can count the hairs on our head. That's pretty amazing knowledge! But what if there are things that God can't know unless we share it with Him? What I mean by this is that God profoundly (and I might add, painfully) respects our choices. Not only does He not demand worship from us, but he does not demand intimacy with us. What if He can know us--know every detail of our life, know exactly how we feel, know what drives us, know what hurts us, know what brings us joy--and still not know us?

The imperfect comparison I can make is how we sometimes talk about God. We say, "yes, I had a head knowledge of God but not a heart knowledge." What if God can have a head knowledge of us but not a heart knowledge?

If God cannot have heart knowledge of our lives unless we open ourselves to Him, then all the passages of scripture about prayer take on new meaning. People often ask, "Why should I pray? God knows anyway?" But what if prayer is the place where God is given permission to start knowing us. What if prayer is the first step in allowing God the intimacy He longs for in our lives?

Christmas +1

2010-12-26T18:40:00.000-08:00

I loved Christmas eve. I spent the evening with my mom, grandma, and two aunts eating broccoli soup and watching the Nativity. It was a ladies night in (my dad had to stay at home to take care of his pastorly duties). Christmas day evening was relativeful. Seventeen of the roughly forty members of my grandmother's clan gathered at her house to eat "Thanksgiving" food and open presents. Now it is Christmas +1 and this day is almost as good as the last two. This morning my sister, my parents, and I slept in and then we ate breakfast until noon, after our long breakfast we took a walk near my sister's house. After our walk we ate lunch at 3 pm. Now it's time to eat supper. I just told my sister, "This is the best kind of day--we're just sitting around eating leftovers."

Post-Finals

2010-12-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

The campus was quiet Monday since most the students were gone. But even with the students gone there was work to do! The school administration hosted a caroling session at lunch. It was something small, but it was nice to be thought of. I had work to do, but I couldn't help joining in. I kept saying, "Just one more song! And then I'll go."

My boss is in the left hand corner of the picture if you were curious.

Names & Places

2010-12-12T08:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, after our Circle of Faith Bible study, the group of us gathered around and sang Happy Birthday to Kita, one of the nursing students at the school I teach for. As we sang I thought about the simple knowledge of a name. I wouldn't have known this student or her name if I hadn't moved to Orlando. After we sang I had to leave to attend another birthday party in Longwood. As I drove north toward Longwood, I thought about place names: Apopka, Longwood, Maitland, and Altamonte. All cities unfamiliar before, but now a part of my daily geography. There are names too that I didn't know a year ago that have become important to me as well.

A year ago this week I landed in Orlando and checked into a motel. I didn't know anyone in the city except my work contact. The city seemed so large then, foreign and unknown. I felt afraid. In all my travels, arriving in a US city alone seemed more scary than anything I'd ever done. I was overwhelmed. I spent my first couple of days looking for an apartment and getting hopelessly lost. I went to church that week and I got invited to a Christmas party and I went. I met some of my closest friends in Orlando there.

It's hard to believe a year has gone by so quickly. I've been so tremendously blessed. I'm grateful for all the place names I know now. I'm grateful for all the names of friends that I can say. The people in my phonebook who weren't there a year ago.

A Good Prayer

2010-12-07T06:53:00.000-08:00

"Father, I thank You for the people in my life who seem to bring more pain than joy, for I believe You have let our paths cross for important reasons....Thank You too that You love these people, and that Your love is adequate to meet their deepest needs and to transform their lives, however willful or unwise they may seem to be. Thank You that You care for them deeply, and that each of them has the potential of being a vast reservoir from which You could receive eternal pleasure" (88). 31 Days of Praise

I was moved by this prayer. While I'm lucky to have very few difficult people in my life, I loved how the author viewed each frusterating person as possibly becoming a "vast reservoir" of God's eternal pleasure. I want to think of each person I see today in that way--even the people who aren't irritating!

English Teacher Cop

2010-12-06T15:09:00.000-08:00

People assume that since I'm an English teacher I'm always on the look out for grammatical errors. In fact, an acquaintance recently confessed that he was scared to email me for fear that I would judge his language.

I'm usually amused when I get placed in the role of grammar cop because, as some of you know(yes, you know who you are), I can be a little footloose with grammar and spelling (am I the only teacher that wishes that whiteboards came with a spell check function?).

Today though I finally did it. I succumbed to the stereotype of the English teacher cop and asked a colleague about a phrase I hear him say all the time. Whenever we eat together he invites everyone to "eat some munchkins". I find his invitation to eat munchkins amusing in macabre kind of way as the only thing that comes to my mind is a group of us munching on children (mmmmmmmm...tasty). I asked him if he used the phrase as a joke, and he said he didn't but that in Caribbean English munchkins was a word used for food.

This is why I love English. It's great to speak the same language and have no idea what the other person is saying.

A Promise in the Stars

2010-12-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

"He took him outside and said, 'Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them.' Then he said to him, 'So shall your offspring be" (Gen. 15:5).

I wonder how Abraham felt when he looked at the stars. Did he often sit outside of his tent counting them? Did he look at them with holy awe wondering what plans God had for his descendants? Did he talk to Isaac about them?

The promise God gave Abraham in the stars grew out of his faith. Abraham had trusted God to leave his country and God entrusted him with a blessing so vast it could not be counted.

God has stars for us too. They might not be the promise of a nation. They might not be a covenant, but he has promised to honor our faith. When we look at the stars, we see God's promise to use us; we see God's promise to leave through us a unique spiritual legacy.

"Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established" (Proverbs 16:3). "Those who are wise will shine like like the brightness of heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever" (Daniel 12:3).

If you get a chance some night soon, go outside and look at the stars. Can you count them? Can you count what God will do with your faith?

Out of Nowhere

2010-12-01T11:28:00.000-08:00

The perfect place to nap is under my desk. If I'm tired at work, I'll turn off the lights in my office, pull up my floor heater and snooze a little on the floor under my desk. I don't mind confessing this, but I don't want to get caught. Yesterday I was napping when I realized that a student was at my door. After waiting awhile to make sure she was no longer at my door, I got up and went to the lobby to see if she had lingered there. She had. I approached her and said, "B, can I help you?" She looked up at me startled and said, "You came from nowhere." I smiled but didn't give an explanation.

One of My Favorite Places

2010-11-29T14:10:00.000-08:00

Over Thanksgiving I got to go to one of my favorite places, McKay's bookstore in Chattanooga. It is a booklovers dream: a warehouse full of used inexpensive books! I only looked thoroughly in two main sections of the bookstore (Christianity & economics) before I called it quits. There were other parts of the store that I dabbled in, but left quickly for fear of the ill effects on my wallet.

Thanks K. for taking me! I like our McKay's tradition.

Pieces

2010-11-16T15:12:00.000-08:00

I sit on a park bench watching the sunset over the lake near my school, and I say to myself, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." I walk back to my office and watch the ducks as I go. A couple of lines from an Ogden Nash poem come to my mind, "Behold the duck...it does not cluck...and for supper its bottoms up." I walk a little more and the glow of sunset makes me think of a line from Tennyson, "Sunset and evening star and let there be no mourning for me when I have crossed the bar."

I'm grateful for poetry, for the fragments that remain of all that I have read.

Lakes

2010-11-16T14:15:00.000-08:00

I miss mountains, but I'm blessed by lakes. There are oodles and oodles of lakes in Florida. I live near a lake, I exercise near a lake, and I work next to a lake. I especially love the lake I work next to. The college I work at is actually on a peninsula between two small lakes. So I can see a lake on my left when I walk to class and then look at a different lake from my classroom. Sometimes if I can't think straight I'll go outside and look at lake W. Or sometimes (like today) when I have a bunch of grading to do, I'll go to the library and grade since (unlike my office) I can sit in the library and gaze at the lake.

Here are two pictures of my favorite lake from the library. The pictures I took are quite ordinary, but some days I can watch flocks of ducks, toy sailboats, or boaters on the lake.

Success

2010-11-09T14:14:00.000-08:00

I prayed my student would forget her Monday morning appointment to see me. I pointed out to God that I could really use an extra hour to be ready for my 11:15 class but at 10:00 am she showed up ready to discuss commas and semicolons.

She sat beside my desk and must have sensed my stress because she said, "Are you okay?" "Yeah, I'm fine," I told her. I pulled out a worksheet, and started discussing such scintillating topics as prepositional phrases, dependent clauses, and independent clauses. When I was finished, I handed her a worksheet to correct for comma mistakes. She got each sentence right!

Success. I was so excited I stopped caring about how ready I would be for my 11:15 class, and I scheduled her to meet with me again on Friday.

For the rest of the day, I felt satisfied with my job. Sure, I will never be done grading papers, but one person learned one thing from me this week--even if it was how to use commas.

Yours

2010-11-07T07:49:00.000-08:00

In the condensation on the wall from my shower, I scribbled the word, "yours". I had just been praying and musing. "Who do I want to be?" And the response came quickly, "yours." There is not much more than I can ask of God than to be securely his.

This simple scribbling on the wall, my morning's heart longing came partially from a mediation on the following words:

"While on earth, Jesus lived as one with the Father, with an infinitely secure attachment to him. Jesus was able to trust the Father with his life, even if that led to death. With that much confidence in his relationship with God, it is no wonder Jesus was so free of anxiety that he was able to do all that he did: heal, turn tables, speak with wisdom and conviction, calm stormy weather, withstand torture, and snuff out the sting of death through the power of his own death and resurrection.

But we, viewing the universe through the lenses of our insecure attachment, have a difficult time believing that God gives us absolute security as well....[We tend to] respond to him in ways that leave us disconnected from the life of joy Jesus describes in the Gospels.

How is it that despite our 'belief' in God's love for us, we don't experience that love transforming our inner lives or our relationships with our friends, parents, children, spouses or neighbors?" p. 139,140 Anatomy of the Soul by Curt Thompson

My scribble is a prayer for the love of Christ to transform my heart and all my relationships. My heart and my relationships Lord are yours.

When Victory Makes Me Feel Weak

2010-11-04T15:12:00.001-07:00

Funny. I was thinking about this paradox this morning: sometimes spiritual success makes me feel more weak than failure. The best example of this is appetite. If I'm eating, to say, not feel depressed, and I actually get my frontal lobe in gear and refuse to overeat--I've won a spiritual victory, but I still got the blues to deal with, and those blues might make me feel weak.

Right now, I'm experiencing a spiritual victory that is spilling weakness into my life. By refusing to commit a certain sin, I'm being confronted with why I run after that sin. I'd rather pretend that I'm perfect. I'd rather sin and repent and sin and repent than get to the root of my behavior. Cutting off the behavior means that all that drives that behavior has no where to go until I'm healed.

And this is why I serve an amazing God. My weakness drives me to Him. In fact, my weakness is a gift. Continued victory will only come out of throwing myself completely on Him. How blessed I am to know my own incapacity and His strength.

When I was a kid we used to sing a song that gave me courage it still gives me courage today. Here it is below:

He’s still working on me to make me what I really ought to be.
It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars,
The Sun and the Earth and Jupiter and Mars.
How loving and patient He must be, He’s still working on me.

There really ought to be a sign upon my heart,
‘Don’t Judge Me Yet There’s An Unfinished Part’.
But I’ll be perfect just according to his plan,
Fashioned by the Master’s loving hand.

Seasons

2010-11-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

One of my students told me today that she might leave class early Friday because her family would be celebrating Diwali. My first thought was, "it's that time of year already?" While I never celebrated Diwali in Thailand, I did celebrate Loy Krathong (which is a related holiday). I have a happy memory of standing on a bridge at APIU watching the krathongs, candles ablaze, floating in the waters below.

It's my second year in America and I'm still adjusting to my new holiday schedule. It's no longer Loy Krathong, the King's Birthday and Songkran. It's Thanksgiving and Christmas, and spring break.

There's a certain melancholy in losing seasons,and maybe even more is a sadness in forgetting those same rhythms.

Sacred Memories

2010-10-29T20:33:00.001-07:00

The first time I ever conciously decided to follow Christ was in a bathtub. Yes, there are more glorious places to make that decision, but this is the simple beauty of how the where of my choice to follow Him has affected my life. Almost anytime I take a shower, I think of God.

In college, I had the glorious task of cleaning the dorm kitchen. (I can still smell the cleaning spray I used on the grease splattered stove.) My kitchen-cleaning job was about forty minutes a day, and I usually took that time to pray. I vacuumed and prayed; I scrubbed down the sink and prayed. I recently revisited that kitchen, and I felt like I was returning to hallowed ground.

So much of life is intertwined with memory. For example, the smell of a certain bush at my college can take me back to my life in California or a Chris Rice can make me relive my first couple months in Florida.

I want to consciously overlay my life with memories of God. I want the smells, sights, tastes, and sounds of my ordinary day to be so ingrained with sacred memories that everything I encounter will turn my heart toward Him.

If you don't know the answer, amuse your teacher

2010-10-27T17:31:00.001-07:00

Don't Feed the Cats

2010-10-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

When I travel I love to go around a place on foot to get a sense of where I am. I have many happy memories of first days: my first days in Bangkok or my first days in Paris. There's just something delightful in soaking in the details of a place (the people on the street, the food for sell, the smells etc.). Monday I realized that I hadn't explored my own neighborhood on foot and so I did. While my neighborhood might not be Bangkok or Paris, it has its interesting points. I found this sign, and I had to laugh about it. I hope the lady who feeds the cats feels special that she has been singled out.

Teacher Nightmares

2010-10-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

I have teacher nightmares. They range from the ridiculously trivial like showing up to class in casual clothes (gasp) to experiences that have actually happened (a completely out of control classroom).

Last night I had a nightmare that my class was about ready to start, and I wasn't ready. I was desperately trying to figure out what to teach when I heard word that 19 people had been murdered at a summer camp that I used to work at. In my dream, my reaction was relief, "Oh, it's so tragic that I must cancel class."

I hope you don't take me to be heartless. I do think that the death of 19 people carries a heavier weight than not being ready for class. But really we teachers can be just that desperate!

Hannah: Lessons in Waiting

2010-10-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

Saturday for Sabbath School we studied about Hannah. The lesson study focused on how Hannah struggled with her self-worth because she did not have a child (a point I can't argue with), but I wished that the authors had delved a little more into the basic struggle we humans have when our desires are not met.

Year after year Hannah prayed for a son and year after year her rival tormented her. What does it mean to wait and to wait some more and, oh, just when you thought you were done waiting get another full serving of wait? "Hope deferred makes the heart sick. . ."! (Proverbs 13:12).

Hannah is not the only person who had to wait in the Bible. There's Abraham longing for a son, Jacob waiting for his wife and then waiting some more to be free from Laban, Joseph waiting in the prison, the Israelites waiting four hundred years as slaves in Eygpt, Moses working an insignificant job, Jesus waiting in the carpenters shop, and John the Baptist languishing in prison.

I also need to mention the women in the Bible who, like Hannah, had to wait for a child. There's Sarah, Rachel, Ruth (see Ruth 4:13), Samson's mother, and Elizabeth.

If we can derive anything from these stories is that God knows something about waiting. In fact, it seems some of the greatest spiritual success stories are grounded in people who had to wait.

I find that few people get praised for waiting. We wouldn't want to read a romance that ended with and she waited happily everafter. Nor do we often hear testimonies about people who lost their jobs and are still unemployed. And while, as a society, we might be tempted to judge a person who has not been blessed with temporal gifts, who knows we might just be judging a Joseph, a Moses, or a Hannah.

"He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD." (Deuteronomy 8:1-3)

Lord, make me a good steward of my disappointments; take my waiting and make it yours.

Beauty in Busyness

2010-10-17T15:32:00.000-07:00

I have been given a season of busyness. My work never seems to end. I am on an overloaded schedule, and I teach a night class to boot. But even in my busyness I'm trying to not forget the beauty around me. I notice small things: three birds flying in formation over the highway, the sunrise in my rearview mirror, and a sunset over the lake next to my office.

Noticing nature is just one way I praise God. I think it honors him to say, "the creation you have given us is beautiful."

The walk to my office at sunset

Never the Same

2010-10-13T10:54:00.000-07:00

One of my friends, a student from mainland China, has recently taken a great liking to onion rings. He really really loves onion rings. The other day we were eating together, and as I looked at his plate full of onion rings, I told him that he was in trouble. He was never going to be the same. He had crossed a culinary line, and there was no going back. Since he has now lived in two different countries, he'll never be satisfied. Wherever he goes, he'll miss something from another country.

I miss mangosteens (I actually count the months--17 months since I ate a mangosteen last, sigh).
I miss lychees.
I miss hot soy milk served on the streets in the morning.
I miss mangoes and sticky rice.

I miss the markets and the people in them.

What I Have Saved on My Computer

2010-10-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

I have a PDF file called "Proud vs. Broken" saved on my computer. Some mornings I turn on my computer and go through the list I have saved and pray it. Here is just an appetizer of the file...I'm posting the link so you can retrieve it yourself. :)

Proud Vs. Broken

Proud people focus on the failures of others.
Broken people are overwhelmed with a sense of their own spiritual need.

Proud people have a critical, fault-finding spirit; they look at everyone else’s faults with a microscope but their own with a telescope.

Broken people are compassionate; they forgive much because they know how much they have been forgiven.

Proud people are self-righteous; they look down on others.
Broken people esteem all others better than themselves.

Proud people have an independent, self-sufficient spirit.
Broken people have a dependent spirit; they recognize their need for others.

Read the rest at:

http://www.reviveourhearts.com/pdf/uploads/TheHeartGodRevives.pdf

Heaven's Society

2010-10-08T08:58:00.001-07:00

I'm a pretty big fan of the social sciences. I fantasize that someday someone will just give me lots of money so I can do things like study economics, geography, history, sociology, anthropology for fun!

Sometimes I like to think about heaven in relationship to social studies. I think about the economics of heaven (I am pretty sure there will be an economy--just a vastly different one), and I think about the sociology of heaven. What will a society look like where the primary impetus of everyone in that society is love? How will it be to live in a place where everyone's interest is in the pleasure of the other people around them?

To live in such a place will be safe and fun and growable (I make up words--but really isn't being loved is one of the greatest ways to grow?)

Sometimes I imagine walking down heaven's main street and seeing the faces there. I imagine how each face will be unique but there will be a kindness blended into each person's features. Maybe there will be even a certain pleasure-to-see-you expressed by each person I see.

When I'm having bad days, when I've encountered a particularly unloving person, I try to think (not always successfully I must add!) about heaven, and I think about how the unkind person might just one day by God's grace be transformed into the most loving person I know on heaven's main street.

One Year Ago

2010-10-07T15:15:00.000-07:00

One year ago I was on a plane heading toward Orlando wondering if I was going to get the job I had applied for here and wondering if I did what would happen next.

I've been slowly filling in the details of the life I wondered so much about. I'm blessed by a great community, a job, and friends.

Thank you Father for answered prayers and new chapters in my life!

Beyond Imagination

2010-10-07T14:54:00.000-07:00

As a child I took verses like "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us" (Ephesians 3:20) as a personal challenge. I felt that if I could imagine something wonderful God would have to beat me at it. If I imagined a three bedroom house in heaven, he'd have to make me a five bedroom mansion.

Today I ran across this statement in the writings of Ellen White, "All heaven awaits our demands upon its wisdom and strength."* It made me think of my childhood trying to outimagine God. I want to outdemand (if that is possible) God. Not only do I want to take every challenge of my life to him, but I want to stretch my imagination to ask for great things.

*Patriarchs and Prophets p. 554.

What do I have?

2010-10-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

What do I have? I have work today: classes to plan and papers to grade. I have food to eat: cafeteria adventures for lunch and fruit for supper. What do I have? I have mostly an ordinary day. But as I have been sitting here in my office trying to write a to-do list, I've been distracted. It is the best distraction in the world. I'm distracted by two simple questions. One, what do I have today? I have the omnipotent power of God to rest on. Two, what do I have today? I have the love of Christ reaching out and encircling me right now. These two questions and these two answers are the gift for my day. God is mixing himself into ordinariness. I'm blessed!

His Power is Made Exquisite

2010-10-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

I woke up feeling spiritually weak and physically tired. This is not exactly the way I want to start a week, but as I got into my car this morning I remembered a verse from 1 Corinthians. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (12:9). As I thought about the verse, I thought of the word perfect and how sometimes we describe perfect things as exquisite. I changed the text a little to: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made [exquisite] in you."

According to Webster's Online dictionary the word exquisite means to be marked by flawless craftsmanship or by beautiful, ingenious, delicate, or elaborate execution.

My weakness marks the spot where God is working. He is taking my flaws, my very humanness, my dustfulness (for he remembers we are dust!), and He's making something beautiful. The beauty that He will bring out of my weakness is no small thing; it will be a refined excellence that only a master artist can sculpt.

Grammar

2010-09-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

I used to be fragment blind and comma optimistic (i.e., I'd put commas wherever I felt moved to put them). Now I teach grammar. I find this to be life's little irony.

In a way, I'm discovering I like grammar. Oh, the joy of a sentence (that was a fragment!). The delight of parsing (shiver, another fragment). The pleasure of concrete nouns (yes, you can see it, you can touch it, and you can feel it).

I hope when we get to heaven we have numerous langauges to speak. I'd hate to master one grammar. I want to delight in all the different ways words can come.

More Hungry

2010-09-30T06:23:00.000-07:00

My brother and I were talking about pastors last time I saw him (he belongs to that tribe). He said someone once told him that a pastor didn't have to be more righteous than his congregation--just more hungry. Now here's something I wouldn't mind being competitive about. Who can be the hungriest for God? If my friend's hunger for God makes me yearn more for Him, all the better for me. And if my hunger for God makes someone else even more hungry than me, I would be pleased. "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds" (Hebrews 10:24).

How a Blessing Began

2010-09-26T09:26:00.000-07:00

This spring my friend Ruth and I slid into the tiny opening in a pew at church. We were late and woe to the one who comes late to our church (for he will lack a seat!). The sermon was about how God doesn't always work in the way we expect, and that we should be open to where God will lead us. After the sermon, Ruth started talking to an acquaintance of hers who was sitting beside her. They started talking about Bible studies, and I realized that if I didn't leave soon I was going to end up leading a Bible study so I quickly excused myself from the conversation before I got asked to help. I went and talked with a friend and returned to fetch Ruth. Ruth and her acquaintance were still talking about Bible studies and then the question I had hoped to avoid come came up. Her friend asked, "Would you mind helping out in a Bible study?" Now, I had prepared myself for this question. I knew my answer. My answer was this, "I will only work in ministry that is connected with my college. I need my primary focus to be on helping my students." It was that simple. But then Ruth's friend elaborated, "We are trying to start a Bible study for the college students." Gulp. What!? That's exactly what I'd been praying for for the last couple of months. (I guess I should be careful with my prayers!) As I talked with Ruth's friend, I realized that he worked at the same college as me. In fact, we worked in the same department, but somehow we'd never met. We decided right there to start a Bible study. It took us a couple of weeks to get the Bible study going and by the time we really got it going, I had to leave town and was gone for a month, but out of that little conversation has come a group called The Circle of Faith. I've been so blessed by this Bible study group.

Yesterday at the end of our Bible study we put our arms around each other and sang two songs. I stood there thinking that I once thought that it would be impossible to love another ministry as much as I loved my ministry in Thailand. But I looked around at these Florida students (in so many ways different from my students in Thailand), and felt blessed.

All this to say, that if you check my profile page, you'll find a new blog. It's the Circle of Faith blog. My friend, Karla, has done most of the posts on that blog so far, but I'll be posting stuff too. Check it out. It's a place where God has blessed us and continues to bless us!

Why the Semicolons Were Missing

2010-09-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

A student of mine recently got marked off a couple of points for some grammatical errors on his paper. He told me the reason why he didn't have semicolons.

The semicolons were missing because the semicolon key on the computer was broken. The key was broken because the cat threw up on the computer.

I like good vivid reasons for grammatical errors.

I Go First

2010-09-18T20:18:00.001-07:00

In Thailand, people would often dismiss themselves from a conversation by saying, "I go first." Tonight I was thinking about that phrase: for one I simply miss it hearing those words. "Okay. I go first." But then I was also thinking about the significance of the words "I go first". How powerful they would be if I applied them to my life not just as a way to say goodbye, but as a way to live?

I go first. I'll be the first to show that you matter to me.
I go first. I'll be the first to forgive.
I go first. I'll be the first to admit you're right.
I go first. I'll be the first to let you know that I need you.
I go first.

Musings on Self-Sacrifice

2010-09-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight the pastor of my church spoke about John the Baptist. John the Baptist is one of the most amazing characters in the Bible. He gave so much of himself and really received so little a reward from an earthly perspective. The part of John the Baptist's story that moves me the most is when his disciples complain to him that Jesus was stealing John's followers. John responds, "He must become greater; I must become less" (John 3:30).

John makes me think of another favorite character in the Bible: Jonathan. Jonathan had nothing to to gain from his friendship with David. In fact, Jonathan, in essence, befriended his rival. How many of us would befriend a person we knew would make us lose our job? (It makes me wonder if David's love for Jonathan took this into account. David knew the cost that Jonathan paid for friendship with him.)

These are male examples of self-sacrifice. From what I understand about men, success and reputation are key components of their self-esteem. It's difficult for Christian men not to compare their ministries (at least that's the word on the street from my pastor dad). I won't deny that success at work isn't important to women. Yet I don't think we invest as much in our success as men. John and Jonathan sacrificed their core hungers (honor) for someone they loved. What might women sacrifice? The answer, I think, is relationships. Could we ever sacrifice a relationship (or our stake in a relationship) because of love?

Let me illustrate. Years ago when I was becoming friends with one of my best friends now, Melissa, I remember having a conversation with her best friend, Monique. Monique said about my friendship with Melissa, "The heart can only get bigger." I was shocked. Monique was generous in an area of life that is profoundly difficult to be generous in: relationships. Other women might have felt jealous or protective of their best friend but not Monique; she welcomed my friendship with Melissa. (An act, by the way, that earned her my undying loyalty and love.)

I want to be like John. I want to be like Jonathan. I want to be like Monique. I want to be generous with my reputation, my career, and my friendships.

Ultimately, I want to be like Christ who "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6) and who "laid down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

Wiggling in the Presence of God

2010-09-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

It's amazing the number of things I can do while praying instead of actually praying. Sharing my burdens with God transitions into making lesson plans for the day(a teacher's job never ends!)or intercession turns into simply thinking about the person I'm praying for. I constantly have to redirect my thoughts to prayer, and I often pray to remember that God is listening.

This morning while praying I was meditating on the text. "Be still and know that I'm God." As I meditated on that text, the thought struck me, "You are wiggling in the presence of God." I had to laugh. I'm God's wiggler.

What I do

2010-09-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

Jogging Park

2010-09-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

One of my little pleasures is a park that I can jog in near my house. The park is basically a sidewalk (and at times a boardwalk) that runs around a lake. I love jogging there at sunset. I love the lights on the lake, and I love watching all the people. There are so many different kinds of people at this park: parents with young kids, couples, old men, teenagers walking their dogs etc. There are languages to listen to and conversations to eavesdrop on (I shamelessly eavesdrop on strangers' conversations). Here's just a small sample of what the park feels like:

Still

2010-09-09T09:27:00.001-07:00

The lake is so still today that you can see a reflection of the clouds. I walk back from lunch looking at the lake and wishing that I could share this walk with my friends abroad. I wish for one day I could bring people from my most recent past to my present and introduce my life to them. I wish to share the small things: southern food (grits for breakfast!), my commute to work (ahh...I-4 is crowded again), and the grocery store I shop in (yeah for Publix!). I wish to share the big things. I want to introduce them to my Florida friends. These new silly deep thoughtful friends that God is bringing into my life. I want them to share a Sunday tubing down a river and eating Vietnamese takeout while watching a movie or a Saturday night spent swimming and talking late into the night. I want to connect my worlds. This has always been my desire. There are so many places and people I love. I belong to too many worlds.

Fresh Spring Rolls

2010-09-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

I love eating at a local vegan restaurant in Orlando called Loving Hut. One of my favorite dishes there is their fresh spring rolls. I had no idea how easy the fresh spring rolls were to make until my housemate introduced me to rice paper. Here are some of the spring rolls I made the other day.

I took rice paper and soaked it in water for about 3 seconds. Then I put lettuce, carrots, crushed peanuts, tofu, soy sauce, and agave on the rice paper and wrapped it up. Wow. It was so simple, but it was delicious. I also fried up some tofu and wrapped rice paper around the tofu and some seaweed. This dish was also tasty. The biggest plug I can give for these spring rolls is that I (the one who typically forswears vegetables) simply consumed the lettuce I bought.

The rice paper. You can get it at any Asian market.