All posts by Jeff

What strange emotions accompany the end of pregnancy!  It’s no secret I am sooo very anxious to have this baby and hold her in my arms.  And yes, I have been struggling with the waiting, thinking maybe-this-is-it, then no it’s not.  A rollercoaster.  But a friend who recently was nine days overdue before giving birth to her second child (and her first one was 2 weeks early!) has become such an example to me.  Another friend related that how she stayed sane was just by keeping the perspective that these were the last few days of cherishing the sweet relationship with the precious two children she already has (one is adopted).  She really did maintain joy through the long 9 days of being overdue.  So that’s what I’m doing, and in the midst of this, the emotions are going crazy!  My sweet boy, who I adore beyond words…how thankful I am for him, and how I never want to rush through these last few days of Dutch-and-Mommy time. 

What I love about you, Dutch:

1. How everything is over-the-top exciting, how you exclaim “Whoa!” over even the smallest things–making life truly a grand adventure.  No detail is too mundane to celebrate.

2. That you love love love to read.  And how intensely you listen to the stories, chiming in excitedly over the details you know, pointing out the things you can pronounce, interjecting excited noises all throughout, even though we’ve read the same book a hundred times.

3.  How you look at me and smile everytime you hear a siren outside because you know I’ll get excited with you.

4. The smell of your breath.  Last night holding you at the concert, I couldn’t get close enough to your mouth, holding your cheek against mine, inhaling your sweet breath, hoping I’d never forget. Never forget.

5. Your amazing cowlick you get from your daddy.

6. How you love to sleep under your bed.  Hilarious.

7. How you so patiently go to church events, day after day, with us, spending hours in the nursery at times.  What a stellar PK you are. 🙂

8. How proud I am that I get to be the one you call Mama.

9. How you can play all by yourself at the park, loading and dumping your dump truck full of barkdust, for hours on end, with freezing hands and bright red nose.

10. Watching you play the drums.  You’re a little percussionist at heart!

11. Your favorite words and phrases:  Papa Cruck, Dada-go-work-church, chitch (fish) Marlin (from Nemo), Chuna (which means tuna AND cheese at different times), go-go (yogurt), Nana, Dumpa-Dan (Dump truck Dan from his favorite book).  And your new word for Heidi:  “hah, hah, hah”.

12. How you bow your head and pray, then sneak bites of food. 🙂

—

Time to go wake you up from your nap. No doubt you’ll be found underneath your bed.  I love you son.  For however long we have, just you and I, you’re my little hero.  Let’s play…

“Expecting.”  That’s what they call a woman who’s pregnant–she’s expecting. It is a very appropriate term, as I am now just a few days from my due date and really really thought Heidi would have arrived by now.  Nothing profound here, just thoughts on waiting.  You’d think I wouldn’t get my hopes up, after all my lecturing and preaching on Expectation vs. Expectancy, right? YOu’d think I had this stuff down.  No, I still get my hopes up, get my heart set on things, and get disappointed.  I had contractions all day yesterday and thought for sure Heidi would arrive last night. Plus, my parents had Dutch for a slumber party, Jeff finished his last homestretch church meeting, and I thought for sure she’d make her grand arrival last night.  This morning, I woke up, and as I came to and realized that nothing had gone as planned, the irrational thoughts swept over me and I lay in bed and cried…and cried and cried and cried.  Mix hormones with fatigue with feeling like this baby is going to fall out, with the mixed emotions of celebrating a new life and yet grieving the loss of this special season where life is largely Dutch-and-Mommy.  My sweet little boy…still sweet, but about to be shaken indeed. All that tossed together erupted in a morning of tears.

But after my dear sweet husband not only put up with my crabby snapping at him, but also loved, blessed, and ministered to me, I quit sulking and got on with my day.  And later this afternoon, after the life-changing perspective that only Pizza Schmizza can bring (!), I dug into God’s Word.  Right now in the OT I’m reading Numbers (I got really behind in my Bible reading so yesterday I had to read from Exodus 26 to Numbers 13…do you have any idea how agonizing that is? To read the entire book of Leviticus in one sitting?  That is a LOT of discharge and uncleanliness.  Yeah, brutal.)  Anyway, today I read Numbers and it recounts the children of Israel’s journey in the wilderness. They followed the Lord, who would manifest His presence by a cloud which rested on the tabernacle of meeting.  When the cloud moved forward, they would pack up camp and move forward.  When it stayed, they stayed.  No warning, just watching.  Chapter 9:22-23 reads, “Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out. At the LORD’s command they encamped, and at the LORD’s command they set out. They obeyed the LORD’s order, in accordance with his command through Moses.”  Did you catch that?  Two days, or a month, or a year.  Yikes!  Expecting a child is really only over a span of 1-2 weeks.  But this span could range from 2 days to a year! 

So often I’ve lamented that I can’t really settle and nest because we have no idea how long we’ll be living here, as we’re in the process of trying to sell our homes and living in a home that’s for sale.  I don’t want to decorate the kids’ rooms as we won’t be here long.  Yada yada yada.  How my heart longs to settle!  But instead, we wait.  We watch and wait because we have no idea how long we’ll be here.  And the same with Heidi.  Should I buy fresh milk and fruit and lettuce? Or should I wait?  I know, these are seriously ridiculously trivial questions, but I still have them.  Should Jeff plan to teach the Jr. High students on Sunday or not?  A state of waiting.

But I cannot imagine living in that state as the children of Israel did. But they did, and they learned the art of attentively and patiently waiting on God.  It had to be hard, never knowing how long you’d be in one spot.  And yet this utter depedence that they had must have pleased the Father, and must have worked in them that character that otherwise would never have been developed. 

So my waiting is very trivial. How cool is God’s Word, that in the middle of my pregnancy/hormone issues, I can read the ancient book of Numbers and find such wonderful comfort from the Scriptures, written centuries ago.  Truth never changes. God never changes.  And, He’s worth waiting on.  And Heidi’s worth waiting for.  🙂

It’s amazing that I can listen to the same sermon two days in a row (Saturday night service and Sunday morning service) and be totally  ministered to in separate ways, like it was a brand new sermon (and Joel does preach differently on the two days, that’s for sure).  Yesterday I wrote about setting our minds on things above, and verse 3 of Colossians 3 tells us why:  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  This reality, that we are a new creation should never cease to blow our minds or change the way we live. ANd yet, as Joel sadly pointed out, innumerable surveys and studies conclude that for the most part Christians and non-Christians behave in the same way. They listen to the same music, watch the same movies, spend the money the same way, get divorced just as often, have the same conflicts…etc.  How sad is that?  How sad that for a majority of those who call themselves believers, Christ is just an escape route from hell.  That is a tragic abuse of God’s grace. 

This message, from Colossians 3:1-11 was basically, “You’re a Christian. Act like it.”  The reality is that we are new, that we are no longer slaves to sin but are now slaves to righteousness.  We are slaves to right living, which means if we submit to the power of God in our lives, we no longer have to submit to the evil desires that well up within us, because that is no longer who we are.  What if, after I went through the ceremony of marrying Jeff, said my vows, put on the ring, cut the cake, etc.  What if after we honeymooned for two weeks in Kauai, then we got home and I said, “Ok bye, I’m going back to live with my parents.  Call me sometime, ok?”  That would be ridiculous.  I’m not longer single.  I’m no longer Kari Zyp.  I am Kari Patterson, wife of Jeff.  I have a new identity which means I get to enjoy the freedoms, privileges and responsibilities which come with that. 

Because of this, God calls us to take sin seriously.  Dabbling in sin is not only grievous to God and detrimental to our attempts at growing in righteousness, it is living contrary to our nature.  It is acting in a way that is not who we are.  What did Jesus say about sin?  “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out…” and no just gouge it out, I love how Joel pointed out, “Gouge it out, and throw it away!”  As if gouging one’s eye out wasn’t enough.  “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off,” and then, in case that doesn’t stop it, “cut it off and throw it away.”  Joel said, “I’m surprised Jesus doesn’t say, ‘throw it away, beat it with a stick, douse it with gasoline and light it on fire.”  Jesus was talking seriously about sin.  The point?  No measure is too great.  No measure we take to keep ourselves from sinning is too great. 

And no sin is too small to confess.  I want to be the person that keeps a short account with God. I want to confess any little impure motive, critical thought, thoughtless word.  Just yesterday I made a joke about something with some people, and afterwards realized it was thoughtless. Even though it seemed ridiculous to go back to that person and confess my thoughtlessness, I did it.  Maybe it was unncessary, but you know what? I’d rather err on the side of honesty, confession, humility. I’d rather keep a short account with God because that is how we stay current with Him.  That is how we keep our hearts tender toward Him. That is how we keep ourselves from being deceived by sin’s warping effect. 

So tonight I’m thanking God that I’m a new creation. That the old things are gone, that all things have been made new. I’m thankful that I’m no longer a slave to sin, but am now a slave of of righteousness. 

And…on the topic of new life, I’m hoping and praying a new little life will arrive soon. Because I’m really tired of being pregnant (!) and I’m ready to hold my daughter, in my arms at last.

This will be short–I think that as Heidi’s arrival comes closer my brain continues to incrementally shut down.  At 39 weeks, It is hardly functioning now.  BUT, the house is clean, the taxes are done, and her newborn clothes are folded in the drawers!  Yes, nothing like delivering a child to ground us to the nitty gritty details of life.  I wish I could say I’ve done some in-dept Bible studies brimming with spiritual wisdom, but mostly I’ve just focused on taking a walk every day, giving Dutch special attention, and making sure the house is ready to show just in case I’m in the hospital the next time it does!  Earthly things…but necessary, I guess.

But tonight’s message, from Colossians 3:1-11 was perfect for my heart.  Today began in the most amazing manner, with the most encouraging, edifying, affirming, wonderful baby shower with my church sisters.  I left soaring.  Then our day got tossed around a bit by unexpected things, which kept Dutch from his nap and threw me for a loop, and then a little bit of discouraging news on our own trying-to-sell-houses front, and quite frankly I just felt like all the encouraging air that’d been pumped into my heart was pricked with the discouragment pin and seeped out as quickly as it came. 

(I have no idea why but I cannot make the rest of the post “un-italicize”…and I’m too tired to go ask Jeff.  Just pretend like it’s REALLY emphasized and go with it.  You can’t expect perfection when I’m this pregnant, right?)

It seems God has me on this theme … weakness.  First, the idea of working on our left–identifying our weakest areas rather than ignoring them enables us to grow and become more of a threat to the enemy.  This one seems fairly obvious, and it makes sense to me.  Work on weaknesses so that you can be stronger. Yes. I get that.

But what God’s been ministering to my heart since that last post has me surprised, yet it makes perfect sense.  My beloved husband, who is a walking library, suggested a book on leadership that has greatly impacted him.  It’s called Leading with a Limp, by Dan B. Allender, Ph.D.   I was instantly intriqued. 

The premise of the book is that most leadership books and strategies teach you to take advantage of your strengths and leverage power and minimize or diminish areas of weakness.  Instead, Allender maintains that the key to being greatly used  to glorify God is in taking full advantage of your flaws. Embracing weaknesses, authentically limping, refusing to protect one’s image makes a leader able to be used by God for great things, because self is no longer part of the equation. 

This struck me as an “aha!” moment, because it’s exactly what I see God showing me in my life.  Last semester, at the conclusion of the semester, we shared in our internship group what one verse characterized what GOd did in us that semester.  I shared 2 Corinthians 12:9, where Paul pleads with the Lord to remove a thron in his flesh, something that was apparently harassing him and making him desperate. The Lord replied, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore Paul says, “I will therefore boast all the most gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses…for when I am weak, then I am strong.”  That’s exactly how I felt last semester–stretched to the limit. 

Perhaps it is also no secret that at this particular moment in time I feel the weakest I’ve ever felt.  All week all I could think was, “Why on earth did I agree to teach the high schoolers, AND teach a class at Multnomah, a week and a half before I”m due with my 2nd baby, while Jeff has church commitments almost every night this week, my son has a cold, I’m not sleeping, I feel like this baby is going to fall out at any moment, we’re scrambling to get our out-of-town house fixed up to sell as our tenants just moved out on Friday.  I am at the breaking point, Jesus!  How can I stand up in front of these seminary women and expect to teach them anything. I’ll probably burst into tears!  I’m certainly not at my best…” 

So today, I knew Superbowl Sunday was probably my best bet at having time to study and prepare, as we planned to spend the day at my parents house (read: Dutch would be occupied).  But one tiny little thing pushed me over the edge, and I found myself, this afternoon, in tears instead of studying.  I can’t prepare to teach when I’m feeling this weak, I thought.  And so I did the only thing I knew to do, I went for a walk with God, and poured out my heart to Him, waddling my way up and down the driveway. 

And as cheesy as it sounds–God showed me my waddle is my limp.  The fact that I’m almost 9 months pregnant and emotional and stretched to the limit is the power of God manifest in my life.  And I believe, by faith, that somehow in the midst of my weakness, GOd will be glorified in that classroom as I teach, and in my life.  The fact that I don’t have it all together right now means God’s beauty and glory can shine through this broken vessel.  At least that’s what I’m believing, by faith.  And if Paul knows what he’s talking about (and I think he does), then it’s true.  When I’m weak, then I’m strong.  So perhaps right now, feeling like I’m fraying at the edges, perhaps I am at my best.  God is at His best in me.  Perhaps that’s what He wants these seminary women to know.  Perhaps God really means what He says in His Word, that His strength is made perfect in weakness. Perhaps we should not only identify our weaknesses, but boast in them, embrace them, go with them.  Perhaps the Church would discover a power in reaching a lost world that could never exist otherwise.  Perhaps the secret is weakness. 

I’m only scratching the surface, but I’m beginning to think that waddling my way through the next week or two, feeling on the verge of tears at all times, is ok.  I pray that God will glorify Himself through my weakness, however that might look. 

From the time I was big enough to hold a basketball, up until I started college, sports were a pretty all-consuming part of my life.  That may come as a surprise to you seeing that I can’t even remember the last time I shot a basketball, but from about 8-18 that was my life.  With a dad who sleeps, eats, and breathes sports (and was our school’s athetic director, PE teacher, and coach), I guess it’s in my blood.

Basketball was probably my favorite sport, at least the one that was most all-consuming.  Not only did we have the regular season, we always had a huge pre-season schedule, plus summer-league, plus individual summer basketball camps, plus team camp.  I loved it.

And yes, I did really well.  But you know what? In retrospect I think the one thing that kept me from really being outstanding was that I never disciplined myself to work on my left.  My natural strengths were speed (at least relative to other high school girls), defense, and rebounding.  I had killer bony elbows that could clean out the bottom of the key in no-time flat.  But just like is so natural, I really only worked on my strengths.  My weakness was my left hand.

As a good defender, your job is to know your man (woman). Is she a good shooter? Can she dribble both ways?  Does she like to fake?  What are her favorite moves?  The better you know your opponent, the better you can tailor your defense strategy to capitalize on her weaknesses.  Someimes you might here a coach shout to his player, playing defense, “She’s got no left!”  Which just means you can exaggeratedly guard her right hand side, knowing that she can’t dribble to the left to save her life.  This gives you a huge advantage, obviously.

All that to say that I think what really makes an outstanding basketball player (and why I would never have qualified myself as outstanding), is that they know how to work on their left, so to speak. They know how to identify their areas of weakness, and take special attention to develop those areas.  I really never did that.  I liked to shoot baseline jumpers and free-throws, scrap like mad for rebounds, and make my opponent furious by guarding like a hound dog.  But a truly great player will instead focus on their weakness–they’ll work on their left.

I remember one particular circumstance where this was costly.  I played softball in junior high, but was horrible at sliding.  I could hit, catch, throw…not slide.  I could never get it right.  And instead of working on it, I just avoided sliding.  One game, I was stealing third and my coach was shouting, “Down down down!” (to slide).  I didn’t.  I was too scared.  And then I was thrown out.  “I told you to slide!” he yelled at me.  I hung my head and walked over to the bench.  How frustrating it is when we’re in a crunch situation and we’ve not prepared ourselves to meet the challenge.  How frustrating when we realize, “If only I’d worked on my left.” 

So this coming week I have the joy again of teaching at Multnomah.  This class is on Women’s Leadership, and we’ll be discussing character qualities of a leader.  As I’m studying through dozens of different key character qualities, the thing that keeps coming back to my mind is the importance of working on your left.  Being punctual, organized, enthusiastic, warm, and hard-working is not a challenge for me.  So it’d sure be easy if I just capitalized on those things and sat around feeling good about myself.  (And yes, there is a value in finding a work/ministry situation that revolves around your strengths–that’s common sense.)  But when it comes to, let’s see, patience, flexibility, going with the flow without an agenda, willingness to follow without clear direction, “wasting time” with people–those are my “lefts”.  And do I work on them? 

So I’ll write more later about the Character Qualities of a Leader.  But for today, our challenge is simply to sit down for a moment and evaluate–honestly–an area or two of weakness.  How easy it is for the enemy to “defend” us when he knows we’ve “got no left”!  How much more effective we would be as Christian ministers, parents, spouses, and friends, if we had the ability to “go either way”.  How much more confident we would be if we knew we could slide into third base if we had to.  What is it that you don’t want to work on?  What is your left?  And how can you become more of a threat to the enemy, and a more powerful weapon in the hand of our God?  Let’s work on our left.

Did the title get your attention?  This’ll be another chance for my spam-filter to work overtime.  I feel like I’m all backed up in my blogging–I have so many things stirring in my heart and mind, and yet somehow this time is so incredibly busy and hectic there is no time in the day and I collapse into bed at night and fall asleep.  It might have something to do with the fact that we are trying to sell two houses, one of which is now vacant which means trips there to clean/maintain/stage for showings,  living in a third house (not ours) that’s for sale, so showing it and having it ready, plus getting ready to have a baby any time now (!), corralling my toddler, keeping up with the innumerable (but wonderful!!) church events, teaching at High School group this week, and gearing up to start my internship this week.  Hm…  Sorry, just needed to get all that out. I feel better now.

But back to porn.  Right now at church we’re studying through the book of Colossians and it has been the most powerful series ever.  What I love is that each week we are confronted again with the wonder of the GOSPEL, every week I find myself weeping at our beautiful Jesus, every week I am contronted with the seriousness of my sin and how great a debt has been paid by my Savior.  Today Pastor Joel talked about empty philosophies (Col. 2) and how we tend to take the world’s “philosophies” or systems and ways of thinking, and mix them in with our Christianity.  He used several examples, but the one that stood out to me was consumerism.  Is consumerism and materialism a philosophy? Well, it’s certainly a way of life, a mindset, that drives our world. 

He introduced to us the idea of Consumerist Porn, and how it warps our minds.  It’s a strong term, but I think so accurately describes what so many of us do.  Consider the magazine industry.  How many of us have Pottery Barn catalogs?  Crate & Barrell?  Do we sit and flip through these magazines, fantasizing about things that we don’t have, in essence lusting after things we think will make our lives better?  What is it for you?  Joel talked about travel magazines, golf magazines.  What about Victoria’s Secret catalogs or whatever it may be.  What do we spend our “mindless” time doing?  And is it, in a way, unhealthy fantasizing about material things?

I realized lately that without my even meaning to, God had weeded my life from some of this.  As I was organizing our file cabinet, I found a manila folder with “House Ideas” on the tab.  Inside were torn out pages from–you guessed it–Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrell, Restoration Hardware.  The pictures were nice, I guess, but for some reason it seemed kind of silly.  Why would I purposely keep pictures of things I don’t need? Just in case I forgot?  Praise God I forgot!  Long long ago I quit getting Victoria’s Secret or any clothing catalogs of any kind.  Why?  Because I don’t know I “need” new clothes until I see them adorning some 6’2″ 105lb. retouched model.  Then I realize I need them! 🙂  And I am absolutely content with my body until I take a good look at that 6’2″ 105lb. model and then I realize how wide my hips are.  Fantasy? Perhaps. Lust? Maybe.  Unnecessary for my spiritual growth and Christlikeness?  Absolutely.

But this doesn’t just happen with magazines.  I was convicted as I listened because of…the house.  Yes, there is a house right by our church, that I have to drive by (oh darn) each time I go to church on Sundays.  It is a bank-owned Repo … and yes, it is gorgeous. It is beyond gorgeous in my opinion, and as I saw pictures online, I realized it has every detail that I love in a home–size, style, walking distance to church, elementary school, middle school, park, grocery store.  And, if we sold our homes and got a good deal, within our price range. I saved the ad for it on my web browser favorites, and for the first few days would go and look at it, again…just to see.  And no, of course there is nothing wrong with having an eye out for a house in the very location we hope to move, but it is a fine line between searching for a home, and lusting after the house of my dreams.   So with outstretched arms today I asked God to take my fantasizing about the house I love, and give me a surrendered heart consumed with a vision of Him–the One I love.

So I know the term Consumerist Pornography is pretty strong, but I like it. I like it because it refuses to let us call covetousness by a nice neat name that makes us not feel bad.   God gives us good gifts.  He is a loving Father. He may very well bless us with a beautiful home or a tropical vacation or what have you.  But perhaps too often we are guilty of letting ourselves buy the lie of this world, “If only I had that…”

Give us faithful eyes, Lord. Free from lust and fantasy. Pure hearts, pure motives, content with what we have.  Rid our lives of consumerist pornography and give us eyes for You alone. In Jesus’ name.

You’ve probably heard me mention my love for Therese of Lisieux and her “little way” of humility and sacred living.  Well our church’s high school group is doing a series on biographical sketches of some of Christianity’s greats, I have have the privilege (as the token woman 🙂 of teaching on Therese of Lisieux next Wednesday.  I’ve only scratched the surface of her character, but I’m realizing her life is a gold mine of treasure, especially with regard to the sacredness of the mundane.  She lived it! 

Her life is one of suffering and tragedy and mundane tasks. Her mother died when she was four-years-old, and at nine she already wanted to be a Carmelite nun.  After being rejected countless times because of her age, she finally was allowed to join the convent at Lisieux when she was 15.  At 15 her maturity and wisdom was amazing, and yet all was shrouded in a childlike innocence and faith that earned her the knickname the “little flower of Jesus”. 

Therese’ famous “little way” meant using every single ordinary task and assignment in her daily life as an opportunity to manifest her love for God and for others.  She showed no favoritism, took no part in gossip, despised no menial task.  She embraced the mundane things of life as a means for demonstrated her love for her Savior.  Her truly extraodinary life was filled with ordinary things. 

This perspective of hers changed the way she viewed everything, especially suffering.  A life wrought with sorrow, at the young age of 21 her health began to steeply decline.  In 1896, at 23 years of age, she began bleeding from the mouth as a result of tuberculosis taking a turn for the worse.  Her perspective on all this?  She said, “I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any more, because all suffering is sweet to me.”  A year later, at the sweet young age of 24, she went to be with Jesus. 

Though the Catholic church usually requires 50 years to pass between death and beatification/canonization, she was beatified, then canonized by the Catholic church only 28 years after her death. Though according to Scripture all God’s children are considered Saints, her recognition of Sainthood truly is a tribute to her unique devotion to God in the mundane things of life. 

I believe her message is a timely one for young and old alike.  Many youths are encouraged to “do great things for God!”  I would argue many need to simply do little things for God.   It is my experience that the little things require a depth of fortitude, resolve, humility, and courage, that many large things do not.  Little things provide no pats on the back–only the sweet knowledge in one’s own heart that God–who is the Object of all affection–is well pleased.

I’ll write more about Therese as I study more.  I’m fascinated by her life and have a feeling she will be walking through the pages of the Sacredness of the Mundane. 

Speaking of suffering, my blog was down for FIVE days.  I know.  Tragic beyond words.  It was touch and go, and I wasn’t sure I was going to survive. Yes, I know, I could have written just like a normal person, in Micrsoft Word or something, but somehow it’s not the same as sitting down here, with you, and sharing my heart.  So imagine my joy when just now I checked and that glorious black background came up, my familiar fog and bare trees reflecting off the dark waters.  Ahhh….home at last. 

So many sacred things happened this weekend. I will later write about the Sacredness of Showers, as I was incredibly ministered to and blessed by baby showers this weekend.  But first I had to reflect on the amazing message from church this weekend, from Colossians 1:24-2:7.  Pastor Joel focused on suffering in the life of the believer. 

We’ve all heard messages on suffering, and perhaps even have some awareness of the suffering endured by Christians in different parts of the world. Or perhaps we even have a vague sense of guilt that we don’t suffer while others do.  Or perhaps we are suffering in some way and cannot understand why God doesn’t deliver us out of it.

One thing that stood out to me was this thought–if we all lived happy, healthy lives, knew we’d live to be 100, and never endured any physical or emotional suffering, how many of us would really turn to Christ?  I mean, think back to the times when you’ve most grown in your faith, most relied on GOd’s strength, most seen Him move miraculously on your behalf, most felt His presence, comfort, and love? I know all of those have been during times of suffering for me.  And yet, we will do anything to avoid suffering.  We spend our life’s energy trying to keep our life free from as much suffering as possible.  While this is normal, and human, and understandable, it does strike me as interesting.

The thing we most loathe brings us to the Thing we most love. 

It is through the things we avoid and yet endure that we gain the precious intimacy with our beautiful Lord that our hearts long and yearn for, just as the labor pains bring the miracle of life.

I do not suffer, I have the most abundantly blessed life I could even imagine.  But there is a trial right now that this past week definitely got my eyes off Jesus.  That is another post–The Sacredness of Surrender. (I told you I have a lot bottled up right now!).  But how big I let this trial become! How all-encompassing. How discouraged and frustrated I felt!  How small my God became.  How I needed a change in perspective. 

At the end of Joel’s message, he shared the story of Pastor Kim, a pastor in North Korea in the 1950s.  I wept as he read this story.  I share it here not to ruin your day or cloud the beautiful sunshine we’re enjoying this week, but to give us perspective.  Oh how we do not suffer! Oh how much perspective changes everything!  If our life is hidden with God in Christ, we can set our minds on heavenly things, and the things of this world grow strangely dim.  I’m thankful for a refreshed perspective this week.  I’m also thankful for saints like Pastor Kim and his little flock of 27, who gave their lives for the gospel:

For years, Pastor Kim and 27 of his flock of Korean saints had lived in hand-dug tunnels beneath the earth. Then as the communists were building a road, they discovered the Christians living underground.

The officials brought them out before a crowd of 30,000 in the village of Gok San for a public trial and execution. They were told, “Deny Christ, or you will die.” But they refused.

At this point the head Communist officer ordered four children from the group seized and had them prepared for hanging. With ropes tied around their small necks, the official again commanded the parents to deny Christ.  Not one of the believers would deny their faith. They told the children, we will see you in Heaven.” The children died quickly.

The officer then called for a steamroller to be brought in.  He forced the Christians to lay on the ground in its path. As its engines revved, they were given one last chance to recant their faith in Jesus. Again they refused.

As the steamroller began to inch forward, the Christians began to sing a song they had often sung together. As their bones and bodies were crushed under the pressure of the massive rollers, their lips uttered the words:

“More love to thee, O Christ, more love to thee
Thee alone I seek, more love to thee
Let sorrow do its work, more love to thee
Then shall my latest breath whisper Thy praise
This be the parting cry my heart shall raise;
More love, O Christ, to thee.”

Let’s sing this song this week.  More love to thee. 

I was reminded today how sacred fellowship truly is.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m one of those closet introverts who can do a real good “extrovert act” but I recharge and am restored through alone-time.  I love being alone.  Before Dutch was born I had four months of being at home (and in school) without working.  And after Dutch was born I had six months home alone before we moved in with my parents.  I truly loved every second of it.   So sometimes it’s too easy for me to just do my solo-act and forget how much my spirit is nourished through sacred fellowship.

And today I was reminded how truly sacred fellowship really is.  We are social beings.  God created us to function in relationship.  God Himself, our Triune God, is in Himself ever and always in relationship within the Godhead and with us as His creation.  He placed us in families and calls us to congregate in local churches to function as His hands and feet in relationship.  We are challenged, sharpened, loved, edified, and exposed through our relationship with others.  I know the desert fathers were amazing people, but I truly do not know how you can dig down deeper in the love and knowledge of our Lord without the fellowship of other believers.  This is why I love the The Hawk and The Dove trilogy, because it highlights that even in the life of these devoted monks, who devoted enormous amounts of time to individual prayer and study, their growth, struggles, and epiphanies came largely through their relationship with eachother. 

So after being sick for two weeks, a couple other girls and I finally got together for a playdate with our five kids, four of which are little boys 2-3 years old.  You can imagine the orchestra of engine, explosion, and siren sounds in our little living room!  (But you cannot imagine the explosion of cracker crumbs under our dining room table! 🙂 Jeff walked in as I was sweeping and started laughing and said, “What happened?!”  I smiled and said, “Awesome playdate!” ) 

It was such a sweet and sacred time.  The kids played with trucks, went on a “monster hunt” through all the bedrooms, and stacked Legos to their hearts content.  We moms soaked up the rare treat of actually sitting down on the couch, with kids happily occupied, and being able to converse and encourage one another.  As always, I was amazed how similar our lives are–joys, sorrows, struggles.  We all are dealing with different challenges, yet each requires the same response on our part–faith and trust that our Heavenly Father is in control. 

So now I’m just soaking up the silence (kind of, Dutch is apparently having a dance party on his bed), and thanking God for the sacredness of fellowship.