"I'm ready to go, Honey"...not

Did your parents ever say to you when visiting friends, "Let's go" and you are at the door waiting and...20 minutes go by and you are still standing there--waiting?

And now, predictably, you do the same thing to your friend, spouse, child?

We tarry.

Even Jesus did it.  He got word his beloved friend, Lazarus, was sick and it would be a bit of a journey to go tend to him.  He told the disciples with him they needed to go.  "...but oddly, when he heard Lazarus was sick, he stayed on where he was for two more days."

Jesus tarried.

When we tarry at a friend's house, we don't want to leave the hug of the conversation with someone we love.

When Jesus tarries, he makes the hug bigger and better than ever.  Though it took him four days to get to by-then-dead Lazarus, the Jesus Hug called him right out of the grave.

I read this from an author I trust:  I can be at peace at all times, knowing God wants to bless me.

In all the strange ways Jesus seems to say, Let's go [answer your prayer], and then tarries...and tarries...how wonderful it would be to know that behind it all, he has a Jesus Hug that will bless us wildly.

Can you tarry with Him?

When Your Heart and Your Head are Fighting

A friend in the throes of divorce reminded me of this painful truth.

Often it seems your heart and your head operate as two completely different people, or at least two completely opposing wills.

Heart:  I am so lonely tonight.  I want to call him so badly and hear his voice.  Maybe things will be different.

Head:  What part of meanness and emotional abuse are you forgetting?  If he was going to change under your watch, he would have.

Heart:  But...

And so it goes, back and forth.  Or,

Heart:  Oh, I bet her life is easy street.  Why can't my life be like hers?  Why does everything in my life have to be so hard?

Head:  If you had her life, you wouldn't have your family, your talents, your special signature on this life.  Do you want to lose all that?

Does God have a comment here?

God:  The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle no one can figure out.  But I, God, search the heart and examine the mind.  I get to the heart of the human.  I get to the root of things.  I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be...blessed is the man who trusts me, God, the woman who sticks with God.  They're like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers--Never a worry through the hottest of summers, Serene and calm through droughts, bearing fresh fruit every season. (Jer 17:9-10,7-8 MSG)

I always assumed that feeding our strength was directed toward our hearts.  But perhaps our head is the better boss as long as its boss is God.  Such a mystery, such a battle...but worth the fight.

Who Knew the Piggly Wiggly Could Save Your Life?

Before driving home from my daughter's wedding reception in Jackson, MS, I stopped at the Piggly Wiggly for a box of plastic bags.  I have no idea why I needed that item before driving to NC but there the bags sat in a Piggly Wiggly bag on my passenger seat.  (Can you ever get enough of that name?)

Hours later I spotted a Starbucks billboard and obeyed its directive to take the exit.  This brought me to a stoplight at a gigantic intersection, with six lanes to cross when my light turned green.

God only knows why I chose that moment to look over at the Piggly Wiggly bag and wonder what in the world I bought there.  It took me a few seconds, maybe 8-10, to recall what was in there.  When I looked up, I realized my light had turned green, but by then I could see the huge truck to my left, barreling through his red light and poised to take me out had I moved at the light change.

My racing heart and I made it home, and upon relaying the story to a pastor, I said, "God used the Piggly Wiggly to save my life."  He said, "I was thinking Satan used Starbucks to try to kill you!"

Chad Tyler sums it up in his song, Tell That to God.  


Thanks, God, for the Piggly Wiggly, a story to tell and a song to sing that all give You the glory.

The Ivy of Forgiveness

You remember the adage about ivy:  the first year it sleeps, the second it creeps, the third it leaps.

What if we could say the same thing about our personal willingness to practice forgiveness?

We choose to embrace life with Jesus in our heart and we are given a beautiful little ivy plant of forgiveness.  We come from years of holding grudges but we continue to study Jesus, His heart, His ways and keep noting that He forgives everyone:  the adulterous woman, Peter who rejected Him three times, the people who crucified Him.

So in our first year of spiritual investigation with Jesus, the ivy sleeps in our heart.  It is not readily available to all who hurt us but we are pondering...

If we keep moving and don't forget our commitment to read and ponder the life of Jesus, calling on Him in prayer and for daily company, our second year might find us offering forgiveness in that tweak of a moment when our hearts could go to Grudge Land or Forgiveness Roost.  As we give up our right to be angry at people who have hurt us, the ivy plant creeps into real growth.

In our third year, we have met Jesus and His Story so many times that His way of loving and forgiving people takes over those old pathways to Grudge Land.  It becomes as automatic to forgive as it is to breathe.  The ivy plant leaps into uncontrollable growth, and our willingness to forgive is so palpable that others notice.

Then maybe, in the moment those watchful others choose to embrace Jesus and are offered a beautiful little ivy plant of their own, they will stick with the journey because our ivy is so established, so vibrant, so healthy.

How is your ivy doing?

The Jesus Factor: Tim Tebow's World

When one's personal world is saturated with the Jesus Factor, that person has the potential to become electric.

Then God, whenever He chooses, can flip the switch and the world is flooded with a new translation of the Love-For-Jesus-Light.

Enter Tim Tebow.

Funny how things happen when the newest light registers on the public's radar:  some people run for cover, others embrace it, and still others root for the light to go out.

It is so clarifying.

It seems when serious spiritual investigation unearths the Jesus Factor and the investigator embraces It, God somehow shapes a new light that may get turned on to electrify a wounded world.

If the person (the light) is sturdy enough to withstand the criticism, the misunderstandings, the clarifying, then the world is inspired by the light.

May Tim Tebow's personal world be fed the strength to remain a light.

How Much Does God Care?

A Little White Rubber Bumper Dot

A few days ago we bought a trio pot, three small pots anchored to one tray.  There were two to choose from and for some reason I turned them both over and realized one was missing its fourth little white rubber bumper dot that protects the surface on which it sits.  Needless to say, we bought the one with four dots securely anchored to the tray bottom.  I even pointed out to my husband that I wanted the one with all four protectors.

I washed it, filled it with three tiny ponytail palms, and placed it on a table, never noticing one bumper dot went missing.

Now here's the mystery:  I made an onion soup, placing the onion skins in the disposal and turning it on.  I did that three different times in a day, only to return later to find the onion skins sitting in the disposal.  I carefully began pulling the onion skins out and walked over to the trash can to throw them away.  I turned on the disposal again and was satisfied it finally cleared.  So imagine my surprise on my next trip to the sink to see a tiny white bumper dot at the outer edge of the disposal.

I can't explain it and most people might dismiss it completely (like who cares about a little white rubber bumper dot anyway?) but I wonder if God might have simply delighted in the smallest of rescues to show me how much He cares about me, how much He cares about each of us.

Isn't that what intimacy is made of--shared experiences, large and small, that make our hard lives more bearable and sometimes even delightful?

I wish you a little white rubber bumper dot kind of day.

The Litter of Hard Feelings--Part 2

How to Carry the Litter of Hard Feelings to the Green Cans

In our tiny town in the heart of the Smoky Mountains, we can boast about something unusual:  we have the neatest (as in tidiest) green can operation you will find.  You can empty your trash 24/7, always finding a well-swept, well-lighted concrete slab with more than a dozen frequently-emptied dumpsters, simply known to us as the green cans.

So back to the hard feelings--is there someone in your life that you forgive easily, virtually forgetting their offenses, while there is another toward whom you practice near-unforgiveness, allowing the wounds of resentment, anger, jealousy and misplaced competition to run deeper and stay longer?  Why is that?

If that is true, then your heart is a little like the green can operation--you look good at practicing forgiveness, your heart is for the most part well-swept and well-lighted, and to look at you we would say yes, a kind and forgiving person is she/he.  

But did I forget to say that no matter how well-manicured our green can operation works in our small town, every one of those dumpsters is full of...garbage--smelly--and in need of permanent disposal?

So like it or not, toward that person whom you harbor near-unforgiveness, you are protecting a green can of the heart, smelly to God and dangerous to your emotional and physical health.

Our green cans are not emptied easily--it takes a large, specially-designed dumpster truck to haul each can high into the air and target the contents into the bed of the truck for permanent disposal.

Likewise, each green can of our heart needs the large, specially-designed power of God to empty that smelly green can into His permanent disposal location.  

Are you in need of God's dumpster truck?