every day

there are a list of very special days in my life - you know, those moments when you think, "that was the best day of my life!" or, "i've never had a better week." we all have lists of the best days that ever happened to us.

while i stand here in the kitchen washing dishes (well, i was washing dishes. now i'm blogging, but i'll get back to washing dishes in a minute.), jack is taking apart the narrow cupboard holding all our tupperware. we now have a tupperware floor. i love it. 

listening to him, i can tell when he's leaning forward and finding a new container to toss to the side, and i can sense when he's found a favorite item, and wants to hold onto it for a while. he's crawling through the chaos, right this moment. now he is throwing the lid to a soy sauce bottle at the oven. it makes an awesome (terrible) noise. the sunlight is golden. he is content.

i have a list of favorite days and weeks, but since jack, it really feels like every day is special. every day since his birth has been floating onto that roster of best times ever. every day feels significant. 

this is one thing i never anticipated would come from having a baby. he seals our marriage. he makes our days whole. he points us to Jesus. we now know for sure (if we didn't already) that we definitely don't have life figured out.

it's kind of amazing and totally wonderful.

in remembrance

when you find out you're pregnant, you begin to arrange the rest of your life around that baby.

you wonder about finances, you plan where everyone's going to sleep...what kind of routine you need to be on, how to eat better, and what kind of birth you're going to have. 

we are a family for four, even though you only see three.

our fourth member never took a breath.

she never opened her eyes.

i never held her in my arms.

she was almost 7 weeks old when i realized four days before mother's day that my double heartbeat was cut back to one.

i lost my second baby, and from tuesday to sunday, i was numb to all the blood, all the cramps, all the heartbreak. the ground soaked up all my tears, all my yearning, all my desperation. i couldn't stop her delivery. i couldn't stop my body. i couldn't bring her back. it was a whole week of death.

i felt hollow and empty for a while.

i wrote a few things, and i'm going to put up an excerpt here from one of the journal entries.

Jesus, You knew that Shalom would only live to be 6 or 7 weeks old. for some reason, that was the perfect length of life You desired for her. she was meant only for Your arms, but today i can't help but mourn her.

she had begun to purpose a new plan in my heart. i opened my heart to her - planned her birth and life the second i suspected her. i wanted her and was so excited to add her into my life - our lives. 

i took her for granted, too - the fact that i was pregnant felt like old news. i took her for granted.

i don't, now.

Lord, i feel like i'll never be the same - never be healed or whole - how can i move on? can i be so thoughtless to her? it's a hard mountain looming over me. i can't see ahead and i need You to cross this way with me. i'm not really sure how to honor Shalom.

i lost my baby. all her potential.

she could have been, would have been mine.

but i'm so empty.

she was being knit together, but You stopped her.

because she had fulfilled her purpose.

she accomplished what You sent her here to do.

and then You sanctioned her departure - her body stopped growing and she went to meet You.

i praise You.

i praise You because even in this, it corresponds with Your everlasting faithful and lovingkindness. 

and i praise You because You do not deal lightly with me, anyone else, or death.

i praise You because i believe Shalom is with You.

i praise You because i believe You orchestrated the details of her life and death and that You cared for her. 

i praise You because You hold the keys to death and Hades; You are the Author of death and life.

i praise You because You are faithful.

i praise You because You are the God of the Bible and not some helpless or distant God who sympathizes but never intervenes - this world is Yours and all that is in it.

i praise You for Your goodness.

i now know loss, and i am certainly permanently changed. i am not wounded that i need to be healed, and i feel whole because Jesus Christ is my everything. He is my portion and He is my praise; i will hope in Him even when the whole world is ripped out of my hands. i don't understand Him always - i don't understand His ways, but i do know that all i see is not all there is, and as a rule, what is seen is temporary. only He is permanent, and i own nothing.

 i still ache - deeply - when i think about Shalom. i was pregnant, but you'll not find a baby in my arms or leaning on my knees. i have nothing to show for my second pregnancy, but i do have a newly broken heart that will never be mended, because it's not supposed to be stitched up with cheap twine; it's beautiful the way it is.

Lord, i am Yours and You are mine.

animal encounters of the worst kind

THIS JUST IN:

a tyrannical hornet is nesting its stupid self on our back porch wall. it's an assassin - an UGLY kind with a big fat triangle face and huge stupid antlers that look so ridiculous on its fugly head. i hope it gets struck down by a righteous bird of justice.

it's misshapen and horrible and arrogant, sitting perched like it owns everything its weird bubbly eyes see. scouring the landscape, it snivels and simpers and rubs its deformed claws together, plotting and drooling over its next victim: me.

so...the cats scamper outside because i've opened the door to spray varnish over some paintings, and i notice it clipped to the wall with its hideous tentacle legs after i've already deposited my paintings and varnish - i slowly back away because its twitching, following my movements. it can see me and it's watching me.

i back inside the house and carefully slide the door shut. scribble has escaped, and is frolicking after a pack of butterflies fluttering around on the porch. i think to rescue her, but i'd really rather get my aerosol cans out of the 129074129387293587 degree weather before they explode.

i crouch back outside and snatch them away, and even though they are planted right beneath the watchful eye of the revolting beast, the monster remains on the wall, spasmodically shuddering while it turns to follow my movements.

stupid shrimp bug. I CRUSH YOU.

then i varnished my paintings out front. the cats were being dumb outisde, so i decided they ought to come inside; its too hot!

i ushered ninnymuggins inside because her pitiful face was already mashed up against the glass, and then grappled with scribble, trying to be quick (although, apparently i was moving too quickly) WHEN THE MONSTROUS DEMON LAUNCHED OFF THE WALL HISSING AND BUZZING UNTIL IT SMASHED INTO MY HAIR - STINGER FIRST. I FLUNG SCRIBBLE AROUND, SHAKING MY HEAD, TRYING TO GET THE SCUM OF SATAN'S REVOLTING BUTT OUT OF MY FREAKING HAIR. I SWIRLED INSIDE, SWINGING THE CAT SO SHE FLEW OUT OF MY ARMS AND I SLAMMED THE GLASS DOOR WITH MY HEART IN MY THROAT.

and the cats both lay on the ground, flattened out and staring at me like this:

and i scrambled around looking for weapons - flamethrowers, machetes, grenades, rocket launchers...ANYTHING TO WIPE THAT MILK LIVERED MAGGOT PIE OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH!!!!!!!!!

but, all i found were jack's toys neatly piled up on the ground, so i've hucked a couple of blocks and hit him once. his grotesque visage is angled toward the door at all times, but now he's trampling around my doorframe, trying TO GET INSIDE!!!! WAYWARD RUMP-FED MEASLE. (thank you, olde english)

as soon as he backs away far enough, i'm going to scramble his useless brains with tile scrubber chemicals.

DEVIL.

blop biggle bump blurp

i'm hoping to make this a quick little blurb. it is 11:48pm, march 31, 2013. i am just going to dump out a confession.

when you are pregnant, you fear for the baby in your belly. you don't want a miscarriage, you don't want a car wreck. you don't want to get mugged or raped or attacked in any way, because you want your baby safe. the feeling is primal and intense. for me, it was vicious. i was very protective of jack.

i was ready to lay down my life for jack. i was ready to die for him before he was anything more than a slightly swollen bump in my belly. but my greatest fear was that, if something happened to me, the paramedics and doctors might not care so much for my baby. i know that life can't be supported outside of a human body from, say, 18 weeks. but, i know that there are instances where a baby 22 weeks can be saved and kept alive. no matter what phase of my pregnancy, the same emergency thought was always running through my head, "save my baby." i tried to think it enough so that no matter my condition, i could repeat those words if they were needed - that they would be as natural as blinking or breathing. i am not lying; this is a true statement. 

new life is so valuable. children are incredibly precious, irreplaceable, and desirable. i have such an intense desire to see innocent, fresh life to be protected and saved from harm...it is not hard for me to imagine how the Lord must feel about us. humans. 

if i can weep over the face of a 7 month old baby struggling to live every day, and i don't even know him...i know that the Master, who knows him, is weeping, too. 

i have difficulty these days with suffering. particularly with children - both born and unborn. i don't know why we are so anxious to be rid of them. i don't understand how we are so quick to strip them of their right to live, when we are standing over them, ourselves very much alive. i don't get it. even a little life here on earth can make a huge difference - can make a beautiful impact. 

i am a better wife. a good mother. a more deeply devoted follower of Christ. a more sensitive woman. a more loving daughter.

only because jack has been influencing me for the last 20 months of his life. 

he has only been living outside of my body for 10 months. that's as long as i've had him to nurse, to kiss, to hold, to comfort, to swaddle, to change his diaper, to rub lotion on his knees, to smooth his hair, to give him baths, to make him laugh, to simply lay my eyes on him. 

but he was always jack. he was jack the moment he was conceived. that was him. and he had a safe place in me to grow. it was not his "fault" that he was conceived; children are a natural part of sex - they would never come to be without it, in fact. children don't just happen by some weird chance event. the only way they occur is through a human sperm and human egg meeting, and they only grow inside a human woman's womb. there is no better environment. it's a good thing. it was meant to be good. in a way, they are at our mercy from beginning to end - from conception to birth. 

anyway, having a baby...it's frightening. i'll talk all about that some other time! but this is what i had to say: 

blastocysts, embryos, fetuses, babies, children, and everything that follows (adolescents, teenagers, young adults, adults, middle-aged adults, seniors, really seniors) are supremely valuable.

we are beloved from our first sign of life to our last.

Part Two

so, in this passage, Jesus is determined (says so!) to go to Jerusalem, so He tries to say with Samaritans, but they don't want Him, so of course, the sons of thunder, James and John, are like,

"Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"

that's the other kind of spiritual pride. (i got sidetracked.) that's the crusades of the middle ages. that's the aggressive mentality we can't have as Forgivens. that's something that needs to be overridden. this is a Doctor Who/Earth/People moment. i'll bring that in here, now.

our past is written down permanently. we can't take back words we've said, no matter how much we regret them. we get trampled by our friends and our family and ourselves. we can't undo any of our deeds, good or bad. in the end, we're laced with scars - sometimes, fissures and lesions we don't even know about - and we scrape home, dragging our dirty feet, not even knowing that we're tracking e-coli across our carpet from the pavement outside.

brothers James and John didn't hear themselves. they totally thought they were okay. i mean, sure it sounds good! how many times have we cursed the day that ref was born? how many times have we lambasted someone for being right wing or left wing? how many times have we made snap judgment calls on someone else without knowing the full story? of course, sin is sin, and it's easy to spot in someone else. and, yes - it's probably there. other people can be wrong. you can be wrong.

these guys were truly offended that Jesus wasn't received by the Samaritans. i can see that, sure! but Jesus rebuked them. i'm sure they were shocked that He wasn't on the same wavelength. usually when we say something like that out loud to someone we look up to, we're anticipating affirmation. not this time.

"you do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

and they went on to another village.

these brothers went on to be amazing lovers of God and lovers of mankind. they profoundly influenced the Christian faith. but they started out a little bit rocky - just like everyone else, they had to grow and learn from their mistakes and press on. we are made up of so many layers. hopefully, if you are following Christ, the layers are more and more obviously beautiful.

hopefully, over the course of your life...
rather than pick a fight, you will gently preach the Gospel with love and grace.
rather than disqualify someone's faith, you will build them up in Truth.
your words will be seasoned with Scripture and Scriptural truth.
you will wish only salvation, and no harm to anyone else.
you will reach out fearlessly, but not recklessly.
you will be sensitive, but not compromising.
you will reflect Christ, and not distort His image.
you will be discerning, but not condemning.

i know the Lord seems slow, sometimes. i want so badly to say i am free from looking down on other people, but i'm not. because He has graciously been changing the way i think, i can confidently say that i am doing much better, but i'm not complete.

anyway, at the end of the Bible Study, i was asked to "gauge my heart" for the lost and unbelieving. she writes,

"what would it take to quicken in you an urgency for sharing Christ and grieving over others' souls?"

i feel my heart sink again.

shouldn't i always be grieving for my friends and family who have rejected Christ? shouldn't i always be available, praying, and making the Gospel message clear? if i truly believe that everyone i love who doesn't love the Lord is going to Hell, how can i sleep without trying one more time to throw out a lifeline? after being in a relationship with God for over 20 years, moments of searing clarity have been few and far between. i am alive in Christ. Christ lives in me. i need to be useful. He wants to work through me to save the world.

i earnestly desire that everyone i know be saved from Hell. i know that many of them are already headed there, and they are stubborn. they have rejected Christ like the Samaritans, but do i feel like calling down fire on their heads? i suppose... it's "easy" to look out at a city and see crime and poverty and pain and flagrant sin and say, "wipe 'em out!"...but when you step down into the foxholes and rub shoulders with the ones who are enslaved to vices of the worst kind, can you look into their eyes and earnestly desire their destruction? generalities are necessary evils, but when it comes to salvation, everyone needs to be seen out from beneath that blanket - everyone is someone.

my family and friends are precious to me. they are valuable to me. i love them. i want them with me forever. i want to sweep every single soul up into my arms and kiss them and love them and bring them to Heaven with me, but they have to make that choice.

i want to make it easier by making Christ more visible in my own life and in my own speech.

Part One

i'm going through this beth moore book, "Jesus: the One and Only", and i've done the Bible Study already; this is one of those fat books that's more like a devotional with room for you to write out your thoughts and answer questions about tiny passages of Scripture. it's taken me about 4 years to chip away at this "30 day" chunk of paper.

anyway, today Luke 9:51-56 was the homework and the instructions read, "try to describe spiritual pride in its most awful terms. what does it look like in others? what does it look like in you?"

i've noticed that the longer you watch a show, the more complicated plots become. i'm hooked on Doctor Who right now, but last night i realized that the Doctor...well, the more adventures he takes and the more people he encounters, the more and more his past piles up on him. before you know it, he's drowning in a sea of past mistakes, destroyed lives, and a history he can't shake - even with all the lives he's saved, still so many have been lost. he'll never shake his reputation of having only "death" as his most constant companion.

this world has been spinning for a number of years, now. it wears its scars with chasms in the deep; it is hidden by stripped soil and silty skies. footprints cover every inch of bare ground, and the slowly shifting faults swallow up the bones of animals and people from decades upon decades of life and death.

human beings have been around for a while, too. ancient strains of genetic codes are breaking down the further we get from the source. we have wars - religious ones, selfish ones, senseless ones. people with different colors hate each other; people of the same color hate each other - and this has been our story for every generation. somewhere there is always pain, poverty, death, and illness. the longer we live, the more mistakes we make. not only are strings of generations rotted from repeat sins, but individuals like you and me are layers upon layers of terrible choices that damage ourselves and other people.

so, when i try to describe spiritual pride in its most awful terms, i say: in spiritual pride, you're crushing everyone around you in order to make yourself higher, right? you want to push yourself up just high enough to eek by the other person. maybe you're a calvinist and you look down on all the lutherans. maybe you're a pharisee and you're looking down at someone who has a dirtier lamb to sacrifice than yours. maybe you're an evangelical and you look down on all the catholics. to me, that's level to level. that's the kettle calling the pot black, yeah? you're both spiritual. i mean, one of you might know more or do more or feel more, but if you're both in love with Jesus, then you're just being a jerk to the other Christian - you're putting down the other "little Christ". you've become squalling siblings, and you're pinching and hitting each other for no good reason - you're just being useless! squabbling, bickering, quarreling. i'm not saying, "you're going to Hell and i'm better than you!" because i've totally been there. and i'll probably be there again in the future; i'm still just an ordinary human, so i'm totally capable of making the same mistake over and over and over again...although, if i press into Christ for support on getting rid of this issue in my heart, the mistake will become less and less and eventually i'll overcome. we all will if we are persistent and consistent with pursuit of the Biblical Christ.

that's not to say "don't have healthy discussions" or "shut down and don't talk about the squibbly-littles or elephantine issues" - NO, please do! just quit the name-calling and the condemning! good.

but then there's this other spiritual pride - where you still put someone down, but you're putting someone down when they're already down. wait, what? right.

it is of the utmost importance that Christians face forward and feel the urgency that Christ placed upon Christians - "Go! Make Disciples!" so, there are Christians and "non-Christians." i've never liked those terms, honestly. "Non-Christian" feels like you're grinding up glass marbles in your mouth while you try to eat a fresh apricot. very awkward. Believers and Unbelievers, yeah. that's all there is in this world. someone who believes that there is a God who loves and died for the world, and those who don't believe such a thing. put another way, the Forgivens and the Unforgivens. that's a much better way to put it.

forgiven from what? everything you do that is adverse - lies, white lies, angry thoughts, angry words, cuss words, polluting the only earthly body God will ever give you with junk food/drugs/smoke, forgetting to thank God for the ability to breathe (or for food, clothes, shelter, grass, wind, sunshine, etc.), being spiritually proud :), being proud, being hypocritical, backstabbing, gossiping, murdering, hurting someone else verbally/physically/emotionally/psychologically, stealing, cheating, any kind of sex outside of marriage, being lazy, being neglectful, rebelling against authority, conniving, manipulating, being jealous, being anxious, being bitter, being resentful, etc.  there are many more, but all of these things were invented in order to God. the whole of human creation turned against His commandment on everything from "be fruitful and multiply" to "love one another." we can sorta be good on our own, but messing up just once results in eternal condemnation. honestly, we set the standard from how far up we wanted to fall.

Adam and Eve were sinless, but they wanted to be "like God" - the original sin of Satan. now, this isn't in Scripture, and it's not Gospel, but the way i see it - if you want to be like God, and God lets you have it...then, you have to be perfect. that's just not possible for us. we disobeyed God's only commandment to "eat everything except this one thing" but He wasn't going to force us to refrain. He allowed (and still allows) choice. no one is a robot.

i drew that list of sins from many of my own experiences, and i am a Forgiven. sho, to a degree, we are all the same - as i'm absolutely positive everyone has lied - but the Forgivens have surrendered and admitted and confessed that they can't make it in this world. they can't make themselves better. they can't get to heaven on their own. they can't be 100% perfect and good. they felt the burden of sin, sought out the remedy, and took it. Forgiven implies exactly what it is to be a true Christian - i am getting to Heaven based on Someone else. i have no merit on my own. i haven't the ability to be totally sinless, thus i cannot be pleasing to the Lord.

But, Christ was pleasing to the Lord and 100% flawless, and He said, "hey, I'll make a way for you to be Forgiven. I'll take the fall for you. look to Me and I'll save you. I and the Father are One, and I will conquer death for you. I will put on flesh, I will live a perfect life, I will be killed for you, and then I will rise from the dead and clear you a path, but you have to follow Me down that path. you can't get to heaven without Me. I'm the ticket. Submit to My lead, follow Me."

and all the Forgivens said: Amen. it's not me. i haven't anything to offer. i'm getting into Heaven for free. my good deeds didn't do a thing for me. anyhow...it is the mission of all Forgivens to usher Unforgivens into the understanding that God is and basically you'll never meet Him unless you submit to Him.

gah! submission! i always forget that everyone in the world hates the term! iiiiiiiiii hate it...but i love it more than i hate it.

public diary

"if anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing, but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain."

thank you, paul. (1 timothy 6:3-5)

more and more i understand my world to be dangerous and cold and hostile. there aren't many who uphold Scripture - as it stands. it gets mangled all the time.

each book in the Bible is genuine, and lasted a while before it was settled into place within a tome of 66 individual accounts. letters gathered from authors over a span of hundreds of years, only a few of them knew each other. all of them are dead, now. they were just vessels relaying God's message, and all the compiled messages flow beautifully. i love it. i love the Word of God.

even when it's hard on me. even when i have to break apart to understand something or to take something by faith. the faith part comes easy for me - which is funny since i'm so skeptical and critical of people! but i have experienced ease in wrapping my mind around Scripture - believing every last word. it's easy for me to believe that God is just but also merciful. that He is sweet and frightening, too. He is perfect in all that He is. in all that i have read. i love Him.

but, it's hard for me to believe that rubbing a lemon on your face can be good for you.

so, passages like the one i put up first, reinforce my heart. i can say that, while looking around the united states, i believe that there are some screwy churches out there who only believe bits that they want to believe. paul is warning timothy - believe it all, or you have nothing but a rotted heart.

to say that someone has such a great grasp on the Bible that they can twist it any way they want, they are conceited. they are trying to perfect something they can only ruin. it's already perfect. it's already sound. you can't improve on Jesus. i have seen and heard and met many people who use the Gospel for their own gain. whether that means monetary, or as a means to exercise some kind of power over someone else - or even over God! it's not pretty and it never ends well. that's why i say...if you are looking for someone who has a true love for God, and a true love for spreading the Gospel and seeing souls wrought from the snares of death, look for a content man.

"but godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. for we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. if we have food and covering, with these we will be content." (vv 6-8)

i'm not master over contentment - i often feel panic clutching at my throat when i look at bills and wasted time! - but these words are so encouraging to me. false teachers have a way of making themselves known by being greedy for something. but, seeing someone who is content? so refreshing. instead of grappling with wealth..."flee from these things, you man of God! pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses...

(and here's the clincher!)

"i charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time - He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. to Him be honor and eternal dominion!

AMEN!"

nothing else matters, friends of Christ!
our purpose here is big and our time is short!
fight the good fight and take hold of eternal life.
pursue these things.
live where you are planted, and be content.