perspective

Honeysuckle trails

2009-05-18T12:26:00.002-05:00

The fragrance assaulted me at the first bend in the walking trail. I succumbed immediately.

Inhaling deeply, I searched for the vines that surely grew nearby.

Ah, yes. Ahead on the left, white honeysuckle blossoms greeted me. I passed the vines, still inhaling the distinct aroma and revising the song TV cowboy Roy Rogers sang decades ago. Rogers crooned, “Happy trails to you.” I sang, “Honeysuckle trails to you.”

My honeysuckle trail stretched ahead, an unpaved four-wheeler path bordering three small lakes. That day, the path proved challenging. Recent rains had left the wheel tracks muddy, the center and sides needing mowing.

As my feet sought the best spots to tread, my spirit heard God - singing lyrics from Song of Songs 2:13: “the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.”

Past the third lake, I would step over a low gate. A few yards past the gate, I'd break out into a large, rolling field where the four-wheeler path gives way to a blacktopped walking trail. A fresh wave of honeysuckle aroma washed over me as I approached the gate. Walls of honeysuckle blossoms bordered both sides of the trail just beyond the gate.

Ah . . .

CRACK! A blast like the report of a rifle shattered my reverie. The source of the sound lay ahead – and close. “Surely someone wouldn't shoot across a trail where neighborhood children play,” I thought.

Unconvinced, I almost turned around. Instead, strangely encouraged by the fragrant vines ahead, I stepped over the gate. Treading between honeysuckle walls, I stopped humming and started speaking. “Someone's walking the trail,” I announced. “Someone's walking here.”

Tentatively, I stepped past the place where the flowering vines stopped. Looking to my right, where the sound had originated, I saw the backyard of a neighborhood home. Several men stood there. All looked sheepishly at me.

“What were you boys doing?” I wanted to ask.

Relieved, I stepped onto the blacktopped trail that takes an oval course around the field's perimeter. Topping a small rise, I saw three dogs ahead, playing at the back fence of another yard. I hadn't encountered dogs on the trail before.

The brown boxer and the white terrier spotted me at the same time I spotted them. “Aha!” their faces said.

As the two raced toward me, I slowed my pace, yet kept walking forward. Surely the owner would appear and call the dogs back. I scanned the yard from whence the trio had emerged. Not a person in sight.

The longer-legged boxer outran the terrier. The third dog, a chocolate lab, hesitated momentarily, then joined the race. The boxer reached me first. As I slowed almost to a stop, he jumped up repeatedly, front paws to my chest. The terrier nipped at my heels. The lab galumphed around us.

At last, the trio tired of me and raced back to their yard. I completed the oval trail, stepped back onto the four-wheeler path, trekked past the honeysuckle walls, stepped over the gate, skirted the three lakes and exited the trail, still inhaling honeysuckle scent.

The mud, the gunshot, the dog attack – all conspired to stop me from completing that walk and, even more, from enjoying it. Yet, complete it, I did. Enjoy it, I did.

“Love never gives up,” says 1 Corinthians 13, The Message. It “takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, . . . never looks back, but keeps going to the end.”

Beloved of God, honeysuckle trails to you.

. . . . . . .

1 Corinthians 13:4,6-7 MSG

Treed!

2009-05-01T16:16:00.003-05:00

Sometimes you get into situations you don’t know how to get out of. Sometimes you run up a tree you can’t get down.

My husband Jerry stepped into the kitchen one evening as I poured chili into two bowls. Our cat Pewter, a Russian blue, sat on the doormat just outside the kitchen door.

As I set the bowls on the table, I saw a flurry of motion through the kitchen window. A large black dog ran onto the mat where Pewter sat. Pewter shrieked and bolted so fast I saw only a gray streak pursued by the gangly black dog.

Thinking Pewter had run around the house, I dashed to the front door, hoping to intercept her. No flurry. No barking. No Pewter. No black dog.

I walked around the house and met Jerry coming the opposite direction. Nowhere in our large yard did we see or hear dog or cat.

We’d never seen the black dog before. Now both he and our cat had vanished.

Then, Jerry spotted Pewter. She cowered high in the bend of a slender birch tree. The tree stood in an untamed grove of trees behind our neighbor’s fence.

Crossing our yard, we stepped through undergrowth and ducked under branches to get to the tree. Pewter sat high above our heads. Her eyes wide and black, she meowed a melancholy meow.

Jerry lamented our failure to teach Pewter how to come down from a tree. “Cats have to learn to come down the same way they went up,” he said. He told Pewter, “Back down the tree.” Pewter sat unmoved.

“Should we get the ladder?” I asked. “No.” said Jerry. “When she gets hungry enough, she’ll come down.”

We walked back to the house. As we stepped into the kitchen, Jerry said, “Maybe. It’s going to get dark soon.”

Leaving our now-cold chili, we retrieved the tall folding ladder from the garage, unfolded it, carried it across the yard and through the undergrowth and leaned it against the tree where Pewter sat. I held the ladder while Jerry began to climb it. The ladder wobbled precariously. The bottom prongs were firmly planted in soft ground, but the tree was so slender, the top prongs encountered only air.

Jerry asked me to get a bungee cord. I set off through the thicket and across the yard and soon returned with the requested item. Jerry wrapped the bungee cord around the tree and secured the ends to the ladder’s top rung.

Pewter watched with wide, black eyes and occasional melancholy meows. She showed no sign of recognizing us, no sign of trusting us enough to allow us to rescue her.

Speaking gently, Jerry climbed to the ladder’s top step. He reached up and stroked Pewter. Then, gently, slowly, he reached to pick her up. I stood, holding the ladder. We knew our cat might run farther up the tree. She might lash out at Jerry, causing him to lose his balance.

Uttering only a faint protest, Pewter let Jerry pick her up and carry her down . . .

One day, you may cower, moaning, in a place you don’t know how to get out of. I’m not sure whether God uses bungee cords. But I am sure of this: He’s gone to great lengths to help you. He says to you, “I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”

You decide whether you will lash out, run or let him carry you to safety.

. . . . . . .

Isaiah 46:4 TNIV

You are not alone!

2009-04-20T09:46:00.006-05:00

Monday morning came. I could not get up. Like a little child who has walked too far and plops down, refusing to go a step further, my body said, “Nope.”

I couldn’t blame exhaustion, nor illness, nor any other physical problem. For no apparent reason, I felt paralyzed.

Fifteen years earlier, a similar paralysis overtook me. My husband and I and our two elementary-age daughters had just moved from Mississippi to Indiana. While selling one house and buying another, we lived temporarily in a two-bedroom apartment.

For months, we faced all the tasks relocating involves. We made all the adjustments relocating involves. We experienced all the emotions relocating involves. We house-hunted, enrolled the girls in school and scouted out everything from a grocery store to a doctor’s office (Amanda got an ear infection two days before school started). Living in cramped quarters, learning a strange new world, we tackled the daily tasks that used to be simple but suddenly proved frustrating and complex.

Those months, I experienced periodic bouts of paralysis. The first time it happened, it frightened me. But each time I yielded to that feeling of “I cannot go another step!” – instead of fighting it – I soon felt replenished enough to get up and go again.

Since then, I’ve learned that relocation overload isn’t the only thing that can trigger paralysis. Other triggers include: fear, depression, feelings of powerlessness or purposelessness and unrelieved stress.

Monday morning, immobilized, I pondered the cause.

When at last I found strength to get out of bed, I made coffee and padded upstairs. Entering my office, I saw several booklets scattered in front of a tall bookcase. Our cat Pewter loves to climb behind the books in our bookshelves and then dislodge the books.

The top booklet in the pile displayed a single red rose and four words in large letters: “You are not alone!”

Reading the words from across the room, I heard God say them to me.

Intrigued, I sat in my rattan chair by the window, sipped coffee and read that booklet. A friend of mine, Pam Whitley, and a friend of hers, Pam Wanzer, had created the booklet four years earlier to help new widows.

“Grief can paralyze,” Pam and Pam wrote.

Monday morning, I wasn’t dealing with widowhood. Yet I realized: Grief had immobilized me.

Over the years, I’ve grieved a number of losses, including several that did not involve death of a loved one. In Indiana, grief over moving hundreds of miles away from family members and lifelong friends contributed to my bouts of paralysis.

Now, I felt mystified – and strangely comforted. I’d experienced a wave of grief strong enough to immobilize me, yet subtle enough that I still didn’t understand it.

Ah but God understood what I did not. To tell me so, he’d used a mischievous cat and a booklet I didn’t think applied to me.

When Pam and Pam quoted Hebrews 13:5-6 (AMP), he spoke again:

“He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!] So we take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say, The Lord is my Helper; I will not be seized with alarm [I will not fear or dread or be terrified].”

In other words, I will conquer paralysis.

“Do the next thing,” Pam and Pam advised.

“You are not alone!”

. . . . . . .

To find most of the text of the booklet, “You Are Not Alone!”, visit Pam Whitley’s singlewivesclub blog.

Kiss the dogs and make them dance

2009-04-02T15:06:00.004-05:00

I sat in the family room at a friend’s house, talking and laughing with several other women. We had prayed fervently that morning. In the process, we’d experienced an invigorating, almost electrifying sense of God’s presence.

Our prayer meeting now adjourned, my friend Tina opened the back door. In ran her black lab puppy, Scamp. Scamp ricocheted around the room, his tongue out, his whole body wagging. “Give us some of your energy, Scamp!” I cried. “Give us some of your energy!”

Sitting on a low couch, I leaned forward to reach for my purse. In that instant, Scamp ricocheted from the far side of the coffee table. His hind feet at my feet, his front feet on my knees, he lunged joyfully – and licked me right on the mouth.

“Scamp!” Tina cried.

Scamp bounded away as suddenly as he had bounded up. “Maybe he was trying to give me some of his energy,” I said.

To my knowledge, I’ve never before kissed a dog. But I did dance with one once.

Three years ago, I sat in the family room at a friend’s house. Pam and I had just attended a conference. It wasn’t your normal sit-and-take-notes conference. We’d experienced an invigorating, almost electrifying sense of God’s presence.

Describing the experience to Pam’s husband Carey, Pam and I weren’t as animated as Scamp – but almost. As we talked, Pam popped a CD into the stereo system. The song, “Days of Elijah,” by Robin Mark, began to play.

“These are the days of Elijah,
Declaring the word of the Lord . . .”

Suddenly, something remarkable happened – something that hasn’t happened in any visit to Pam’s house before or since. Spontaneously, the three of us stood up and started dancing. Within a few measures, Carey and Pam were dancing together. I danced solo.

Delighted by the music and the movement, Pam’s mixed-breed setter Toby bounded over. Large, red and long-haired, Toby doesn’t look a thing like Scamp, yet in his puppyhood Toby had that same boundless energy and whole-dog wag. Determined not to miss out on the action, Toby bounced around barking.

Then, unexpectedly, he reared up on his back legs, put his front paws on my shoulders – and danced with me.

“Georgie Porgie, Puddin' and Pie, Kissed the girls and made them cry,” says the classic nursery rhyme.

Laughing at Scamp, recalling Toby, I thought: If anyone writes a nursery rhyme about me, it may include the line, “Kissed the dogs and made them dance.”

Yet I’m convinced the catalyst in both instances went beyond the combination of a hyperactive dog, a family room and me. The people gathered in both places felt profoundly, divinely energized before the puppies erupted into action. Scamp and Toby entered an already charged atmosphere. Uninhibited, they expressed what we already felt.

How delightful to discover that The Message Bible speaks about such energy.

It announces from God: “The sun of righteousness will dawn on those who honor my name, healing radiating from its wings. You will be bursting with energy, like colts [or puppies?] frisky and frolicking” (Mal. 4:2).

It exclaims: “Oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him — endless energy, boundless strength! All this energy issues from Christ” (Eph. 1:19-20).

It urges: “Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God's energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13).

Oh, yes! Give us your endless energy, God! Free us to express it!

. . . . . . .

Lyrics and info about “Georgie Peorgie” nursery rhyme at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgie_Porgie.

All Scriptures quoted from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.

Palm clues

2009-03-21T14:57:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, God speaks in clues.

He doesn’t say: “Colonel Mustard did it in the parlor with a knife.”

But he does say, in Proverbs 2:3-4, “Cry out for insight and understanding. Search for them as you would for lost money or hidden treasure.”

Recently, I sat on my bed at a conference center in central Florida, crying out for understanding. Notebook in hand, Bible in lap, I prepared for great insights. No profound thoughts came – only the awareness that I sat, looking at a picture of a palm tree. The picture graced the wall opposite my bed. I had seen it, without seeing it, for two days.

Suddenly, I knew in my spirit: God had given me a clue. I can’t explain how you know something in your spirit. It’s as if, deep in your gut, you feel a nudge. Your mind, which considers itself superior to your gut, often ignores the nudge. But if you pursue it, you find yourself on a treasure hunt.

“A palm tree,” I thought. I tried to recall Bible verses about palm trees. None came to mind. I looked up “palm” in the small concordance at the back of my Bible, only to find one verse about the palm of the hand. Making a mental note to explore further later, I let the clue lie.

That night, I left the conference center and drove to the condo in Kissimmee, Florida, that my sister-in-law Linda owns. When I arrived, Linda hugged me and waved me toward a bedroom and bath decorated in a palm tree theme.

Now I saw palm trees everywhere I looked. I triple-underlined my mental note to pursue this clue.

Two days later, back at home, I used my computer concordance to begin a treasure hunt. I discovered that the Deborah of the Old Testament “held court under Deborah's Palm.” Hmm. There, the people of Israel “went to her in matters of justice.”

I also learned that carvings of palm trees adorned the walls of Solomon’s temple, as well as the temple Ezekiel saw in a vision.

Ezekiel stressed how many palm trees he saw. He wrote, “At regular intervals all around the inner and outer sanctuary were carved cherubim and palm trees. . . . They were carved all around the whole temple. From the floor to the area above the entrance, cherubim and palm trees were carved on the wall of the outer sanctuary.”

Deborah the judge sat under a palm tree. Ezekiel the visionary saw palm trees everywhere he looked.

Psalm 92 reveals how you and I can enter into their experiences, and even go beyond them. The psalmist sang words the Amplified version renders this way: “The [uncompromisingly] righteous shall flourish like the palm tree [be long-lived, stately, upright, useful, and fruitful]; . . . . Planted in the house of the Lord . . . [Growing in grace] they shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap [of spiritual vitality] and [rich in the] verdure [of trust, love, and contentment]. [They are living memorials] to show that the Lord is upright and faithful to His promises; He is my Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

Sometimes, God speaks in clues. When he does, he isn’t playing games. He’s inviting us to search for hidden treasure.

The clues lead to the treasure. The clues unlock treasure. The clues reveal him. Finding him, embracing him, we receive what he holds out to us.

Sometimes, God speaks in clues – and waits to see if we will seek.

. . . . . . .

Prov. 2:3-4 NLT.

Deborah. Judges 4:5 from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.

Ezek. 41:17-20 NIV.

Psalm 92:12-15 AMP.

Jerry-rigged

2009-03-14T14:09:00.003-05:00

Our mailbox died an untimely death. A typical metal mailbox affixed to a 4x4 wooden pole set in a concrete base, it served us well for a year – until the night a woman pulled into our driveway by mistake.

She arrived to attend a party happening next door. Five minutes before she drove up, I stepped onto our elliptical exercise machine. When the front doorbell rang, I groaned. Who would come calling, unannounced, after dark on a weekday? I wondered. I decided not to answer the door.

Half a minute later, I had second thoughts. What if my husband had arrived home from work and, somehow, had misplaced his keys? I stepped off the exerciser and started toward the front door just as Jerry entered through the garage door.

“Did you ring the front doorbell?” I asked.

“No, but someone is parked at the top of our driveway, and I saw three ladies with gifts walking across our yard toward the neighbor’s house,” he said.

Turning toward the door, he announced, “I’d better help the driver back down the driveway.” Our driveway takes an unexpected dogleg at the bottom. Already, we had lost three solar lights to people trying to back out.

Jerry stepped outside to see the woman’s car leave the driveway, smash a solar light, jump the ditch and continue across blacktopped road, grinding loudly. Finally, the car stopped. The woman opened the door. She asked innocently, “What did I do?”

Her bumper had snapped our wooden mailbox pole at its base. Her car had dragged the pole and attached mailbox backward, almost hitting the mailbox of our next-door neighbor opposite the house hosting the party.

The woman promised to pay to have our mailbox replaced. The broken pole could not be re-used, nor could the mangled box. We needed to buy a new mailbox and pole, then hire someone to dig a hole, pour concrete, stand the pole upright in the concrete, let the concrete set and, finally, attach the mailbox to the pole. We could not schedule this project immediately because of subfreezing February temperatures.

Not wanting to visit the post office daily to retrieve mail, Jerry devised an ingenious plan to continue using the old mailbox temporarily. He bought three concrete blocks with holes in them and set them atop each other, the holes slightly offset. He hammered out the dented mailbox.

Next, he and I lifted the broken-off pole holding the hammered-out mailbox. We stood the pole inside the semi-aligned holes of the concrete blocks. Jerry used small pieces of wood to wedge the pole, so it stayed upright.

Since the mailbox door would not shut properly, Jerry attached a bungee cord to the pole, ran it around the mail flag and attached its other end to the mailbox door. He tightened the cord so that, when pulled, the door would open, when released, it would shut.

To jury-rig, or jerry-rig, something is “to rig or assemble for temporary emergency use; improvise.”

In the words of Hebrews 9:10, “It's essentially a temporary arrangement until a complete overhaul could be made” (MSG). In another translation, the same verse says the temporary is “imposed until a time of reformation.”

We enjoyed our Jerry-rigged mailbox for two-and-a-half weeks, until temperatures warmed up enough to have a new one installed.

I’m thrilled my husband had the ingenuity to use concrete blocks and bungee cord to improvise a working mailbox. I’m thrilled we knew when to abandon the temporary and welcome the new and better thing that superseded it.

. . . . . . .
Heb. 9:10 from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Heb. 9:10 from New American Standard Updated.

jury-rig. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jury-rig (accessed: February 20, 2009).

The gorilla in the room

2009-03-06T18:01:00.002-06:00

Just before waking on a Sunday morning, I dreamed I attended a party given by a Christian woman I’ve met only once. People chatted in small groups on her spacious, well-manicured lawn.

During the party, I spotted a door that led into a hill. An empty lounge chair sat in front of the door. People stood talking near it. I moved the chair, wove through the people and found the door unlocked. It opened easily.

Once inside, I descended a long flight of wooden steps, then walked down a stark hallway, my footsteps clicking on the bare floors. Reaching a closed door, I opened it.

Before me lay a long room, empty except for a loose weaving of massive ropes near the far end. The ropes dangled from ceiling to floor and intersected in a giant crisscross pattern.

Standing in the doorframe, I peered across the room. A massive black thing dangled from the ropes. The black thing began to climb. “It’s a gorilla!” I shouted.

The gorilla jumped to the floor. Deliberately, it lumbered toward me. I slammed the door and began searching for the latch. To my surprise, the door had three latches. To my dismay, all were flimsy. Securing latch number 1, I wrapped a piece of leather around a nail. Fumbling with latch 2, then 3, I knew: If that gorilla challenged those latches, none would hold.

“There’s a gorilla in here!” I shouted, running down the long hall. A young girl with blonde hair passed me. “I want to see the gorilla,” she said cheerfully. Then, the girl’s blonde mom ran past. I didn’t try to stop the girl, but I did tell her mom, “The door won’t hold that gorilla!”

I bounded up the stairs, shouting, “There’s a gorilla in there!”

Then, I woke up.

You’ve heard of “the elephant in the room”? It’s not a literal elephant. It’s a truth that looms so large, people cannot miss it, yet is so awkward and uncomfortable, people refuse to acknowledge or address it.

I saw the gorilla in the room.

In my dream, the people at the party didn’t intentionally overlook the gorilla. They couldn’t see him because he was kept below the surface. The gorilla stayed in the hidden room with rickety locks until he saw the way out.

FYI: Gorillas are endangered and typically not violent. They have more to fear from humans than humans do from them. However, adult gorillas weigh a lot, and on rare occasions a gorilla has attacked people. When one came my direction, I didn’t wait to see if he came in peace. I ran to warn, not so someone could eliminate the gorilla but so that, when he emerged, people wouldn’t get hurt.

You want to know what else I’ve seen? Truth locked away generations ago is emerging. We, the churched in the US, have stood atop this truth all our lives without seeing it. Now, it rips through doors that cannot hold it. Some run, childlike, toward it. Some flee in terror. Some try desperately to shoot such big, weighty, scary truth. After all, it disrupts our party.

Yet this gorilla can neither be dodged nor shot. “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known,” says Luke 12:2-3. “What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.”

In my dream, I saw the gorilla in the room. I ran to announce, “It’s coming out!”

. . . . . . .

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version™ TNIV ®, Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society ®. All rights reserved worldwide.

You too can learn more about gorillas at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla, http://www.un.org/works/OLD/environment/animalplanet/gorilla.html, and
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4558461.

Sudoku

2009-02-24T14:35:00.004-06:00

Two months ago, during an eight-hour plane flight, my sister Karen and daughter Megan introduced me to Sudoku. Know this: People who’ve tried Sudoku either love it or hate it.

At first, I hated it. Yet I had lots of time – and no desire to watch the in-flight movie or to read. With both companions sleeping or otherwise engaged, I puzzled over the puzzle Megan had ripped out and handed to me.

A Sudoku puzzle is created from a square grid containing nine rows and nine columns. Heavy black lines separate the grid into nine mini-grids, each with nine boxes arranged in three rows and three columns. A few boxes contain numbers. The rest are empty. You complete the puzzle by filling in all the boxes so that every row, column and mini-grid contains each digit from 1 to 9 only once.

My torn-out page announced, “Skill level – Easy.” Utterly stuck, I told Megan, “This is impossible!”

“Yeah, I was really stumped at first,” she said, “but then something clicked and I began to see how to do it. Don’t guess,” she instructed me. “You have to use logic.”

“Logic,” I told my brain. “Use logic.”

It took awhile – a long while, actually – but I finished that puzzle, then another, and another. Now I have a Sudoku book of my own, with four skill levels: Easy, Medium, Hard . . . and Diabolical. To date, I’ve worked puzzles at every level except Diabolical.

I’ve learned ways to determine what digits a box may or may not contain. I’ve finished some puzzles quickly – labored long over others.

More than once, I’ve thought, “This is impossible!” After strenuous pondering, I could see no way to place even one more digit. But with patience and persistence, taking breaks as needed in order to come back fresh, I’ve finished every puzzle I’ve started.

When stumped, I’ve realized: Moving forward may require discovering the sole move still possible. Once made, that move opens up another, and another, and the rest of the puzzle practically solves itself.

A month ago, I told God, “This is impossible!”

I wasn’t talking about Sudoku puzzles.

God himself has torn a page out of his book, so to speak, and handed it to me. From conception, I’ve held giftings and callings given me, not just to occupy time, but to accomplish something that matters.

You have a similar yet unique page of your own. As Ephesians 2:10 says: “We are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (NLT).

Recently, I’ve learned a lot about who God created me to be and what he created me to do, yet, eager to go forward, I could not find a way. Every step I tried to take proved a dead end. Utterly frustrated, I laid – er, threw – the matter aside. For several days, I sat on the couch, watching TV, working puzzles and crying.

Then, one day, God said to me, “Sudoku.”

Aha. God was speaking in tongues – and I knew the interpretation.

I needed, not to guess, but to see, not by logic, but by his Spirit. I needed to focus, not on all the steps that were currently proving dead ends, but on the one step that lay open for me to take. No matter how small that step seemed, no matter how insignificant, I needed to take it – and then to see and pursue whatever opened up next.

Oh.

I’ve learned to love Sudoku. And now, I’m practicing what my daughter’s puzzles preach.

Mrs. Kamel Jammel

2009-02-20T16:44:00.002-06:00

Mrs. Kamel Jammel wants to donate $2.5 million to me – for Christian purposes, of course. She said so in her email, “Donation from Mrs. Jennifer Kamel.”

I’m so moved by this offer that I must reply publicly. Quotes below are Mrs. Jammel’s – or Mrs. Kamel’s – exact words.

“I am Mrs Jennifer Kamel, from Kuwait. I am married to late Mr Kamel Jammel.” Ah, Jennifer – a Kuwaiti name, if I ever heard one. I can’t decide whether I’m more intrigued by your name or by your late husband’s. His name, Kamel Jammel, makes me laugh out loud. But why, Jennifer Kamel, is his first name your last name?

And why must you introduce yourself to me, since your greeting reads, “Dearest In Christ”? Is it a Kuwaiti custom to call people you’ve never met “dearest”?

I noticed that the “To:” line of your email matches the “From:” line. That is, you sent the email to yourself, with blind copies to who knows how many people. However, you want me to believe that I alone have received your offer to donate this staggering sum. You even threaten – er, suggest: “any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another Church for this same purpose.”

What sorrow! Your husband of 18 years, Mr Kamel Jammel, died “after a brief illness that lasted for only five days.” You also lost your only “duaghter (Linda)” – another fine Kuwaiti name – “in a motor accident.” And now your doctor gives you only eight months to live before either your “cancer problem” or your “stroke sickness” takes you out.

So, here you are, stuck with 2.5 million dollars (US) sitting in a General Trust Account in an Ivory Coast bank. You say: “I want this fund to be used in Christain Activities like, Orphanages, Christain schools, and Churches. . . .”

Your husband, Mr. Kamel Jammel, acquired this hefty sum before his death. Did he accrue this fortune through his 26 years of working “with Kuwait Embassy in Ivory Coast”? If so, I want to recommend that job to all my friends.

Ah, Jennifer, don’t you know how many others have already tried this scam? Maybe you do. Maybe you are they (using different name, different story). Maybe you’ve actually had folks respond and, when they sent you their bank account number so you could deposit the millions, you sucked the account dry.

But, Jennifer, why are you targeting Christians? Do you find us more easily deceived – by your duplicity and our greed – than the general population?

You certainly lay it on thick: “The Bible made us to understand that ‘Blessed is the hand that giveth’. I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians . . . I don't want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way.”

Of course. That’s why you’re offering the money to a total stranger.

“I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. . . . . the lord is my shephard. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian.”

Dearest Jennifer Kamel, lately Mrs. Kamel Jammel, you may dupe some gullible Christians. But: “Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.)”

More succinctly: “Don't be misled: No one makes a fool of God.”

. . . . . . .

Gal. 6:7 The Amplified Bible.

How alarming

2009-01-21T12:31:00.002-06:00

Gas logs burned in the fireplace. Our grandfather clock ticked nearby. Rain poured outside. I sat in our overstuffed chair, wrapped in a red throw, reading from Psalms.

What a peaceful setting, I thought.

Suddenly, a deafening thunder clap shattered the serenity. More accurately, three frightening noises erupted in quick succession. The startling BOOM of the thunder sounded almost simultaneously with a loud POP, setting off an ear-splitting alarm.

Jumping up from the chair, I searched the house, wondering if the POP and the alarm signaled a lightning strike. Thankfully, I found no evidence of fire.

Next step: stop the alarm that was piercing me to the core and traumatizing our two cats. Recently, a similar alarm had erupted when smoke detector batteries died. Even after I yanked out the old batteries, the alarm didn’t quit until I bought and inserted replacement batteries.

This time I have replacement batteries! I thought. Locating the batteries and a stepstool, I clambered up to reach the source of the deafening noise, a small white box attached high on a hall wall. As I swung the box open, praying my eardrums would not burst, the noise lessened by roughly half a notch. But my delight in that tiny reprieve quickly turned to dismay. Inside the box I saw no batteries.

Puzzled, I thought, The other smoke detector had batteries. Then, I realized: This was no smoke detector. It was the security system alarm. And I had no clue how make that dreadful noise go away.

Travelling on business, my husband answered his cell phone and advised me how to disarm the system. Didn’t work. The security system handbook offered no help beyond what my husband had suggested. It contained no customer service number.

Tracking down the number of the company that had installed the security system, I talked with the owner. He told me he could not come himself but would send someone in 20 to 30 minutes.

Only later did I learn: The man with whom I talked – the one whose company installed our security system – knows nothing about security systems. Further, the person he assured me would come in half an hour was out of town – and had no intention of driving two hours to accomplish a two-minute task.

That morning, I talked to the company owner three times and his voice mail twice. I also talked with the service man twice. My repeated and increasingly distraught pleas for help met with (a) repeated assurances that someone was coming, and (b) advice as to how to fix the problem myself – measures that either did not work or I had no clue how to do. Finally, the service man offered this thoughtful admonition, “Just go to work, and the noise will stop sooner or later.”

Of course, I work at home in the room directly over the renegade alarm. Further, the battery that needed disconnecting was a 48-hour one.

The good news is: I did not take a hammer to the white box on the hall wall. The bad news is: My cats and I endured that hellish noise for two hours and 48 minutes. Ultimately, my husband called a coworker, who came out on his lunch hour and disarmed the system.

I cannot express how maddening, how tormenting, a shrieking siren that refuses to quit, its shrill, pulsing sound pounding relentlessly, expelling peace, shattering normalcy, destroying the ability to concentrate or to accomplish anything. But I can tell you a greater torment, in words expressed centuries ago by a man named Job.

“I cry out for help, but no one hears me.”

. . . . . . .

Job 19:7 NLT

Dare I say it?

2008-12-31T20:52:00.002-06:00

Why did I feel such – dare I say it – dread?

A trip to Europe with two family members I love, to see another family member I love, should spark anticipation and excitement. Yet I did not feel excited.

Having scheduled the trip for the first week of November, I felt I’d goofed as to timing. Having recruited a sister and daughter to travel with me, I felt inadequate to lead the team.

Daughter Amanda, a fluent French-speaker living in Belgium for a semester, could guide the rest of us around Brussels. Ah, but other aspects of the itinerary intimidated me.

To begin, the three of us planned to depart from different airports and rendezvous in Atlanta. What if, due to a delayed flight, someone missed the overseas connection?

Landing in Paris, we would travel immediately by train to our next destination. With our tickets already purchased, what if we missed the train?

Indeed, we planned to spend lots of time on trains, both within and between cities. Returning by night from Brussels to Paris, luggage in tow, we had to change trains twice, then walk a couple of blocks to the hotel. Afterward, we’d sightsee in Paris for two days, getting place to place by metro with me playing tour guide.

“Karen and Megan are intelligent, resourceful women,” I told myself. “All working together, we’ll do fine.”

Yet, each of their husbands had expressed uneasiness about his wife’s going overseas for a week. “Don’t get separated. Don’t get abducted,” one husband advised.

The instigator of the venture, I felt responsible for us all.

Further, I felt remiss for leaving the country the week of the Presidential election. Even after voting absentee, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was going AWOL. That feeling intensified when a white supremacist group planned a rally in my town the same week.

“How dreadful!” I thought. “I need to stay here and do something!”

The weather forecast for Brussels and Paris promised highs in the 40s, lows in the 30s and rain, rain, rain. Even weather.com seemed to admonish, “Just stay home.”

Feeling silly for feeling such dread, I tried for weeks to ignore my feelings. Finally, I faced them. I listed everything prompting my anxiety. Then I asked, “Lord, what do you want to say to me about this trip?”

Shortly afterward, a friend sent me an e-mail in which she spoke of the trip as a time of “hilarity.” Instantly, that word lodged in my spirit.

The next day, when I mentioned the trip to another friend, she said, “Go enjoy Sabbath.” That admonition also lodged deep within me.

Through two friends who didn’t know about my misgivings, God told me his intentions for our trip. As I received what he said, my feelings changed radically. I drove to the airport expecting hilarity, expecting Sabbath. For the entire eight-day trip, I experienced both.

One night long ago, a boy named Samuel kept thinking he heard Eli the priest calling him. Three times, Samuel acted on what he thought, only to be told Eli hadn’t called. Finally, after Eli suggested the voice might be God’s, Samuel said, “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.”

Originally, Samuel’s thoughts weren’t accurate. Yet if Samuel hadn’t acknowledged what he thought, he would have missed hearing God.

Before our trip, my feelings weren’t accurate. Yet if I hadn’t acknowledged my feelings, I would have missed hearing God.

Please don’t wait until you’re going overseas. Whenever implausible thoughts or feelings persist, quit stifling them. Instead, dare to admit them. Dare to ask, “Lord, what do you say about this?”

. . . . . . .

1 Samuel 3:9 NIV

The hilarity blessing

2008-12-12T17:43:00.001-06:00

Two weeks ago, I traveled to Belgium and France. Things couldn’t have gone smoother.

Okay, they could have gone smoother, but not much. Before the trip – hearing that I was traveling with a sister and a daughter to visit another daughter studying abroad – a friend blessed the week with “hilarity.”

Ah, what a blessing! Snags that could have created frustration prompted laughter instead.

We arrived at our hotel our first night in Brussels, more than ready to lie down and sleep. Online, we had reserved a double room for three occupants. Yet, the system showed we’d reserved a king for one.

Facing three exhausted women, the male desk clerk announced, “The reservation is for one.” He insisted he had no empty rooms and ignored our question about a cot. That night, we climbed into a clean, if crowded, bed, giggled, then slept.

The second night, the hotel still had no double rooms available, but the female desk clerk was determined to find a remedy. In this hotel, the king beds consisted of two twins with a common headboard. The helpful clerk sent up a third twin.

A housekeeping lady brought the extra twin. She knocked, then stood in the doorway, staring in stern disbelief at the tiny area where she was supposed to place the bed. Uttering no words but lots of distressed noises, she maneuvered the frame into place. Then she left, returning a few minutes later with the same stern expression and a mattress.

My sister and I were alone in the room at the time, both trying frantically to help in whatever ways we could – rearranging luggage, holding one end of the bedframe, saying “Merci!” repeatedly.

Exiting again, the housekeeper returned a third time, holding linens. As she and I worked together to make the bed, she finally spoke. “Two person – or three person?” she asked. We knew she meant, “Am I doing all this because you two Americans need three twin beds?”

“Three person. Trois. Three,” we assured her six or seven times.

With the third twin fully made, she surveyed our wall-to-wall beds and suddenly broke into a huge grin. After she left, we erupted into laughter, imagining her telling the whole staff about the Americans who wanted three beds in a pea-sized room.

In Brussels and in Paris, we rode the metro everywhere. Apparently, not too many tourists attempt that feat because everyone around us seemed to know exactly where they were going and how to get there. They breezed through mazes of connecting tunnels, hurried up and down stairs, got on and off trains with the confidence and unconcern of people who do so daily. We provided comic relief. As we discussed whether we had taken the right train going the right direction, as we asked dumb questions and tried valiantly to pronounce French words, people smiled covertly.

Exiting one metro station near Notre Dame Cathedral, we entered a café and ate. The lady next to us smiled covertly as we overcame several communication glitches with one waiter. After eating, I approached another waiter, pointed through the window to a tall building, and asked, “Notre Dame?” His face conveying both pity and mirth, he pointed the opposite way and said, “Notre Dame.”

Thousands of years ago, a woman named Sarah sang, “God has blessed me with laughter and all who get the news will laugh with me!”

Looking back on our week, I’m echoing Sarah’s refrain.

We slept well. We found every place we set out to see. We asked for help when needed. Richly blessed with hilarity, we passed it on.

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

No glace

2008-12-03T07:17:00.005-06:00

Aboard a small jet winging its 53-minute flight from Memphis to Atlanta, a flight attendant quickly served drinks. When she asked the lady next to me, “What would you like?” the distinguished-looking senior adult responded, “Wah-tuh. No glahs.”

Seeing the confusion on the flight attendant’s face, I translated: “No ice.”

“That was going to be my next guess,” the flight attendant said. I smiled, knowing her first thought and picturing her trying to serve, “Water. No glass.”

I smiled too because of the small victory I’d just experienced.

Rewind six months. Feeling more daring than ready, I announced my intention to learn conversational French. Our younger daughter Amanda speaks French fluently. In high school and college, I myself took French. Ah, but a few days – er, decades – have passed since then.

Three months after making my bold announcement, I hadn’t yet acted on it. Amanda pointed me to a language program online that teaches words and phrases. Downloading the “lite” version, I tiptoed into the baby pool of conversational language-learning.

My first word list contained names of 16 animals. Before long, I could say such crucial words as cow (la vache – pronounced “lah vahsh”), cat (le chat – “luh shah”) and bee (l’abeille – whose pronunciation I will not even try to explain). Thus, when my husband and I saw the movie, Wall-E, I pointed excitedly to the robot’s cockroach friend and announced, “Le cafard!”

Two months later, our daughter Megan, my sister Karen and I bought tickets to visit Amanda, studying abroad in Belgium. We planned to travel the first week in November, spending several days each in Brussels and Paris. Part of the time, Amanda would accompany us. Part of the time, we’d be on our own.

The day before departure, I shut down my French language program, feeling rising panic. I knew 325 French words and phrases – more or less. Had I learned the most vital words? When needed, would I recall them? Would I understand anything that an actual French-speaking person said?

One day later, on the first leg of my trip, I sat beside a woman who turned and spoke to the person behind her in a language definitely not English. Summoning my courage, I asked her, “Français?”

“Belgian!” she replied. (Yes, she had spoken French, but wanted to make her country of origin quite clear.)

I said, “Je m’appelle Deborah.” She told me her name, “Nicole.” In French, I told Nicole that I was going to Belgium to visit my daughter who was studying in Brussels. In French, Nicole told me that Brussels in November is very cold. Nicole lives in Brussels. She had come to Memphis with a group of eight. I asked, “Graceland?” She answered, “Oui.”

A few minutes later, she ordered, “Water. No glace” (meaning “ice” and pronounced rather like saying “glass” with a British accent). Amazed, I found myself translating from another language for someone else.

That short flight set the tone for the trip. On an elementary level and with some funny experiences, I actually communicated in a different language. Amazingly, I did it way before I thought I was ready.

Perhaps you’ve set out to attempt something daring, something you believe God is telling you to do. Perhaps you’ve waded in – and found the water getting very deep, very fast. Perhaps a loud voice inside you is shouting, “I’m not ready for this!”

In Hebrews 10:38, God says, “I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” Mais oui! With the Hebrews writer, you and I can answer, “But we are not of those who shrink back . . .”

Hebrews 10:38 TNIV

Check out Byki (Before You Know It) language-learning system at www.byki.com.

Reformation Day

2008-11-21T14:14:00.001-06:00

One of my favorite movies – titled simply, Luther – tells the story of Martin Luther, the sixteenth-century German law student turned Catholic monk turned reformer.

Luther dared to say to the church leaders of his day, “Excuse me, but have you noticed that the way we’re doing things doesn’t match up with who God is and what he says?”

In particular, Luther dealt with the issue of indulgences. When Luther read the Bible (in Latin, the only translation available), he came to believe that “salvation is a free gift of God, received only by true repentance and faith in Jesus as the Messiah.” Meanwhile, the church was selling “indulgences” to raise money to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. A church fundraiser sent to Germany kept telling prospective givers, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

At first, Luther expressed his concerns privately. Church leaders responded with the Latin equivalent of, “Quit questioning The Church.”

Luther didn’t want to buck his authorities. But he also didn’t want to ride along behind leaders leading toward a cliff. What’s more, being one of the few who could see the cliff (because he had access to the Bible and could read Latin), he couldn’t in good conscience simply jump to safety while thousands of others followed the leaders over the edge.

So Martin Luther went public. On October 31, 1517, according to one early account, Luther nailed a copy of his “Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg – an act “now seen as sparking the Protestant Reformation, and celebrated every October 31 as Reformation Day.”

Luther’s document contained 95 Theses. How could a nearly 100-point sermon posted on a church door spark a movement that “changed the course of Western civilization”? For one thing, other people of influence saw the wrong direction in which the church was heading. When their combined voices began to speak the truth, many received it. Further, Luther’s list didn’t stay on that church door.

Rather, “The 95 Theses were quickly translated from Latin into German, printed, and widely copied, . . . Within two weeks, the theses had spread throughout Germany; within two months throughout Europe.”

In a nutshell, God blew on that fire and fanned it.

At that point, things got really interesting – and messy, and difficult, and dangerous. Sometimes, people trying to lead the right way did wrong things. Sometimes, they overcorrected. Sometimes, they expressed wrong beliefs. Just read a little of what Luther said about Jews and women, for example, to see that he himself did not get everything right.

Sometimes people with absolute power in the Western church structure made stunning countermoves intended to crush the new movement.

In spite of it all, the impossible happened. With shudders, groans and missteps, through confusion and disarray, the church made a critical course correction. It avoided the cliff God describes in Leviticus 26:23-24: “And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me; Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins” (KJV).

John Eckhardt writes, “Reformation blesses and strengthens the church.” He also writes, “Reformation is unpleasant and controversial but absolutely necessary. The Lord will continue to reform the Church until it is the glorious Church prophesied in the Word of God.”

Regardless when you’re reading this, thank God for Reformation Day. And ask him to grant his church courage to make critical course corrections needed in this Reformation season.

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Quoted material referencing Martin Luther above is from “Martin Luther,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther.

John Eckhardt, Moving in the Apostolic (Ventura, CA: Renew Books), 1999, pp. 72-73, 78.

Under our rug

2008-11-14T17:23:00.003-06:00

One mild October day, I decided to have lunch on our covered back porch. Carrying my tray with peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich and tomato soup to the round patio table, I sat and began eating.

Happily munching, enjoying the peaceful scenery, I watched our cat Pewter at play. When Pewter paraded near the table, I looked down. There underfoot I saw ants.

Our concrete patio was poured in four rectangular sections. Because the patio lies under roof, we bought an inexpensive outdoor rug to adorn a central area where two lounging chairs sit.

Watching the ants, I realized they had made a highway of the center crack running the length of the concrete. I moved my feet away from the crack, leaned over and lifted the edge of the rug. Underneath, hordes of little intruders trekked along the hidden part of the crack.

I had swept the patio two days earlier and had seen no sign of ants. Further, we had contracted with a pest management company to keep the house and its immediate vicinity bug-free. A company rep had recently given the place a thorough treatment. He’d told us to call if we saw any insect-type pests.

The next morning, I called. That evening, another company rep knocked on our door. I took him around to the patio. “Hmm,” he said, as I pulled back the rug and showed him the critters scurrying along the patio’s center line.

Leaning and peering, then straightening up, he said, “I think they’re fire ants.”

Surely not! I thought. How is that possible? I wondered. I’m glad I moved my feet, I decided. “Fire ants?” I said.

The last time we lived in Mississippi – in the northeast section – we battled fire ants. We knew their reputation – aggressive behavior, painful sting.

Imported by accident from South America to Mobile, Alabama, in the early 1930s, they soon took up residence across the 12 southeastern states. In South America they had natural enemies. In the US, they do not.

Previously, fire ants signaled their presence in our yard by building large mounds. If someone dared to kick a mound or bump it with a stick, myriads of ants would suddenly swarm out. Eager to get rid of the venomous creatures, we followed the recommended procedures. Yet each time we thought the problem solved, we found a new mound.

Moving away from Mississippi 14 years ago, I bid a glad farewell to fire ants. Now, 10 months after our return, they’d come out to welcome us home. Yet, how? We had worked in our yard throughout the summer and into the fall. We hadn’t seen one fire ant hill.

The pest management man sprayed the crack in the patio. Then, he inspected the yard. He returned to report, “That mulch you have around your three new trees? You have fire ant beds in two of the three.”

He added, “The ants probably tunneled from their hills to the crack in the concrete under your rug when the night temps dropped below 50 degrees. The rug holds in warmth.”

Ah, ha! Sneaky fire ants! Hiding in our tree mulch and snuggling under our rug!

Jesus never dealt with fire ants. But he did deal with venomous people who hid behind religious masks. He told them, “You can't keep your true self hidden forever; before long you'll be exposed.”

I’m happy to report: Crafty fire ants exposed! Natural enemies or not, they do have an enemy here, with tenacity and new strategies to get these usurpers off our land.

Luke 12:2 from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.

More info about fire ants at www.fireant.net and www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/sep99/ant0999.htm.

Wake up, Deborah!

2008-10-31T11:34:00.002-05:00

“Wake up, wake up, Deborah!
Wake up, wake up, break out in song!”

So sang Deborah herself, a prophet and leader in Israel in the days of the Old Testament judges.

Who would have thought, at this late date in life, I’d find myself singing the same refrain, with a strange new confidence and joy? Who would have thought that a character in a local theater production in Mississippi and a wagon bed in North Carolina would contribute to my awakening?

The Deborah of the Old Testament served as a judge for years. Who knows how many people she helped as, one after another, month after month, “the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided” (Judges 4:5)? One day, Deborah awoke to a different assignment, an assignment to cooperate with God to deliver all Israel.

Cruelly oppressed for 20 years, the Israelites had at last cried out to the Lord for help. He responded by speaking to Deborah, telling her the strategy for deliverance. Sending for a man named Barak, Deborah gave Barak his marching orders from the Lord. As Deborah and Barak obeyed God, thousands of warriors rose up to join them – and the Lord himself routed their oppressors.

In a different era, on a different continent, I participated in a little theater production of The Miracle Worker, a play about the child Helen Keller, oppressed from infancy by blindness and deafness and by a well-meaning family with no idea how to discipline or teach her. As portrayed in the play, Helen’s father, Captain Arthur Keller, epitomizes the mindset of the Old South.

When Helen’s new teacher, Annie Sullivan, arrives, she and Captain Keller vie over who will carry her suitcase. Annie wants to hold the suitcase herself so she can give Helen a gift it contains. When Captain Keller tries to take the suitcase, Annie says, “I’d like it.” Keller holds on tightly, announcing, “I couldn’t think of it, Miss Sullivan. You’ll find in the south we view women as the flowers of civiliza—” Audiences smile as Annie wins the skirmish.

Audiences laugh out loud as Captain Keller clumsily carries Annie down a ladder after Helen locks her in a second-story bedroom. When Annie says, “I’m perfectly able to go down a ladder under my own—,” Keller interrupts her: “I doubt it, Miss Sullivan.”

Caught up in the drama focusing on Helen and Annie, play-goers find themselves liking Captain Keller, enjoying the laughter his antics provoke and overlooking his condescending attitude toward women.

One mild September day, sitting on a wagon bed in a North Carolina field, I encountered God. For decades I had known him. For decades I had recited Psalm 139:13-14: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” God came to the wagon bed, not just to remind me of that verse, but to take me back to the place it describes.

From the womb I had accepted dishonor as normal. I had lived with an identity obscured by a culture that still today hides its lack of respect for women behind its gallant shows of respect for women. A likeable culture, it endears itself by laughter – yet often the jokes themselves subtly convey that women aren’t to be taken seriously.

On that wagon bed, God told me what should have been obvious. My Father said, “Your name is Deborah.”

In that instant, I awakened to my identity. I accepted my new assignment.

Now I sing to whoever will hear, “Wake up, wake up! Let God himself tell you your name!”

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Wrong number

2008-10-24T17:58:00.001-05:00

You there – yes, you with the initials KB and the penchant for giving my cell phone number to your creditors – you need to hear the song I’ve found. You need to sing it.

For three years, I’ve enjoyed my mobile phone number. However, I haven’t enjoyed getting calls from the folks to whom you owe money.

I said so to the nice man who called yesterday. The phone rang. I answered. Like so many before, the man said your name. Oh, he didn’t know you – just your name.

Such calls tend to come in waves. Just when I think they’ve stopped, they start again. They provide insight into the intimate details of your debt cycle. I can provide nothing to the people trying to contact you, other than the strong suggestion that they delete my phone number from your record.

At first, I thought my cell phone number had belonged to you before I inherited it. Now, I wonder if you picked the number out of the air. I’ve never gotten a call from one of your friends or family members. If I had, I might know how to reach you.

We could talk. It would be like a “reveal your secret pal” meeting. You could get acquainted with the person to whom you’ve given so many “little gifts” of unexpected calls all these years. I could ask you questions.

“How did debt become a way of life for you?” “What about deceit – does it fix anything?” “Do you ever get incredibly tired of repeating the same cycle?” “Do you consider it a game?” “Have any of your creditors ever caught up with you?” “If you could find a way out, would you take it?”

After you answer, I could sing you that song.

Maybe a year ago, I complained to the phone company.

The courteous but unconcerned customer service rep said her company has no way to stop you from repeatedly giving out a wrong phone number which they have assigned to me. My only recourse? Change my phone number.

That solution creates other problems. Further, it may not end my calls from someone else’s creditors. Do you know CM? The two of you live in different states but have something in common. I get calls from CM’s creditors on my landline.

Which brings me back to yesterday’s caller. After I told him, “I’m not KB. I don’t know KB – but I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve gotten from her creditors,” he said, “I’m not a creditor.”

“You’re not?” I asked, astonished.

Apparently, KB, you’ve signed up on a job placement website. There, you listed – not one, but two – wrong phone numbers: my cell number and a non-working number. Maybe you hoped all potential employers would contact you by e-mail. Maybe you wanted me to serve as one of your references, since we’ve become so well-acquainted and all.

Yesterday, when I told the nice man what I knew about you, he seemed very grateful.

Long ago, the poet David “sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjamite.” We don’t know what Cush did. We do know what David sang:

“See that man shoveling day after day,
digging, then concealing, his man-trap
down that lonely stretch of road?
Go back and look again — you'll see him in it headfirst,
legs waving in the breeze.
That's what happens:
mischief backfires . . .”

I bless you with a way out, KB – so that you stop digging your own trap and you too join the refrain:

“I'm thanking God, who makes things right.
I'm singing the fame of heaven-high GOD.”

© 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

The Funny Little Mama strikes again

2008-08-13T11:08:00.002-05:00

One week during our daughters’ middle school years, my husband did a dangerous thing. He flew off to Indiana, taking our older daughter with him. This left me alone with Amanda, age 11. The danger? Though posing as a mild-mannered working mom, I could, at a moment’s notice, turn into the Funny Little Mama.

During our girls’ preschool days, I entertained them with fictitious Funny Little Mama stories. This lovely but loopy Mama might to do anything – put green beans on her ice cream, shower with soap but no water, use the bathtub as a bed.

The Mama had a daughter who always set her straight. “Mama, when you’re tired, you sleep lying on the bed, not standing in the closet!” “Mama, you don’t hold the hair dryer by the end where the air blows out!”

Of course, by the time our daughters reached middle school, I didn’t tell such stories any more. Instead, I lived them. Megan and Amanda delighted in describing my escapades to their friends. They cheerfully recounted all the times the Funny Little Mama had driven off with items sitting atop her car – items like a mug of hazelnut coffee, three days’ worth of mail and a pair of Daddy’s shoes. They told how this Mama managed to leave a purse in an Indiana library and car keys in a Kentucky quick-stop.

They told tales of the Funny Little Mama cooking lasagna in an unheated oven – and discovering the mistake after the company arrived. They told about her leaving the oven broiler on a full 24 hours during 110 degree summer heat (a crime known in Oklahoma as attempted arson).

The week Jerry and Megan flew the coup, I determined the Funny Little Mama wouldn’t visit. And she didn’t. Until Amanda and I ate supper on Thursday evening. Then Amanda mentioned a boy in her class named Peter Garriott.

“Garriott! What a wonderful name,” I replied. “It rhymes with chariot and lariat.”

At that moment, the Funny Little Mama interjected a poem made up on the spot:

“There once was a boy named Pete Garriott.”

“Mama, his name is Peter, not Pete.”

“You’re interrupting my poem. There once was a boy named Pete Garriott.
Who sometimes would ride in a chariot.
To the horse he said, ‘Whoa!’ Still, the chariot did go.
So ole Pete stopped that horse with a lariat.”

Friday, Amanda told Peter Garriott, her other classmates and her teacher about the poem. That should have sent the Funny Little Mama packing. Instead, she made up a second verse. Even the challenge of finding more words that rhyme with Garriott didn’t stop her.

“There once was a boy named Pete Garriott
Who loved to annoy his pet parriott
The parriott said, ‘Squawk! I know how to talk!’
Then he chomped on a fresh piece of carriott.”

Amanda repeated this new rhyme to her friends. As a result, I became known in sixth-grade circles as “Amanda’s hyper mom.”

Looking back, I see the crushing stress those days held for a near-menopausal woman with a high-pressure job, traveling husband and two daughters fraught with adolescence.

I tried valiantly to have it all together. I rarely did. But I cannot thank God enough that what could have burst forth as bad temper or gloom often erupted into light-hearted fun.

Like an Ancient Little Mama named Sarah, I could testify: “God has blessed me with laughter and all who get the news will laugh with me!”

Some days, this Funny Little Mama did get angry, did shed tears. But our girls told people, “We laugh a lot at our house.”

© 1999, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Wordslingers

2008-08-07T08:29:00.001-05:00

In TV shows I watched as a kid, gunslingers roamed the wild West. They spent much time twirling and cocking their firearms. They regularly said to one another, "Take ten steps, turn and draw."

They weren’t issuing friendly invitations to play Pictionary. They were issuing challenges to fight. In TV shows, we could always tell the good guy by the white clothes he wore (and somehow managed to keep spotless while roughing it on the open range) and by his speed. Any good guy worth his salt could turn around, pull his gun, cock and fire it faster than any guy wearing black any day.

In the end, the good gunslinger won, and the bad gunslinger died, or limped off into the sunset. Everyone cheered. After all, the bad gunslinger deserved it for being bad, being slow and wearing black (which is way too hot a color for the open range).

Thus, all the bad gunslingers practiced gunslinging for hours on end in hopes that they would get fast enough to turn into good gunslingers before someone said to them, "Take ten steps . . ." They also placed "rush" catalog orders for white western wear.

Sadly, catalog orders in those days went out by stagecoaches, which were often robbed by bad guys who hadn't gotten to the catalog desk to place an order before closing time. And so the gunslinging continued.

Okay, I made up the catalog order part. Actually, the good and bad gunslingers differed in far more substantial ways than clothes. The bad guys terrorized people. They’d as quickly shoot you as greet you. The good guys risked their lives to rescue those oppressed by the bad.

In real life today, wordslingers roam the place where you live. These folks enjoy twirling and cocking their tongues. With well-placed remarks, they're as likely to shoot you as greet you.

Few give warning. They prefer ambush. For example, one day a friend asked me to lunch. I could tell even by phone that she was distressed. When we sat to eat, she showed me a venomous letter she had received three days earlier. Using crude language, it attacked her – for good things she was doing. It slandered her and her family. Not surprisingly, the writer hadn’t signed the letter.

My friend had no opportunity to take ten steps, turn and defend herself. The attack came out of nowhere. Now, she's lying on the ground bleeding while the bad guy walks away. She can't identify the assailant by wardrobe color. Looking into faces of people she works with daily, she has no idea which one carries the loaded gun.

Long before the first gunslinger ever rode the wild West, a man named Doeg gunned down 85 innocent priests with malicious words. As a result, God authorized David the poet-king to issue this warning to wordslingers in Psalm 52:2-5, The Message:

“You scheme catastrophe; your tongue cuts razor-sharp, artisan in lies. You love evil more than good, you call black white. You love malicious gossip, you foul-mouth. God will tear you limb from limb, sweep you up and throw you out, pull you up by the roots from the land of life.”

I know. Those words take me aback too – until, looking into my friend’s face, I see the untold devastation wordslinging wreaks, the people it decimates.

In Psalm 52, God isn’t addressing the propensity we all have to say hurtful words in anger or frustration. He’s giving fair warning, strong warning, that he will champion the victims of those who deliberately and with premeditation use words to destroy.

© 1999, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Here we go round the mulberry bush

2008-07-22T15:21:00.002-05:00

One Monday morning, a children's song kept playing in my mind. The song floated into my thoughts, not because I felt like singing, but because it described my plight.

With deadlines looming, I needed to write. Instead, I had prepared a gourmet breakfast (of cereal and toaster pastries), cleaned the kitchen, made the bed, washed my face, brushed my teeth and washed a load of clothes. Still needing to shower and dress before sitting down at the computer, I was folding shirts when I found myself humming: “Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush . . . .”

Children dance happily around imaginary mulberry bushes as they sing this little ditty. Without dancing, we all go round mundane mulberry bushes every day. We tackle chores that demand our attention, sap our time and ever need to be done again.

Having fixed breakfast, I cannot expect that one meal to hold my family for life. Having brushed my teeth, I can't throw away my toothbrush, declaring, “Well, that's finished.” Having washed every stitch of dirty laundry in the house, I can't sell the washer and dryer. Sigh.

How frustrating to keep redoing the same tasks.

How enlightening to discover two phrases that leap out from Romans 8. They announce that creation is “subjected to frustration” because of its “bondage to decay.” Ah, yes: “bondage to decay.” Left to themselves, things naturally devolve into a worse condition.

Every year, my husband and I struggle to maintain a yard nice enough to keep the neighbors from all going together to buy us a privacy fence. Continued work produces a lawn that's passable. But should we decide not to do that upkeep this year, our yard will not evolve into a well-manicured garden. It won't even remain passable. It will quickly yield to overgrowth and weeds.

Bondage to decay produces frustration when we see “emptiness as to results.”

Day after day, we go round and round – maintaining our bodies, our relationships, our financial records, the places we live and work, the stuff we own. Imagine how much time we'd have to get on with life if we never again had to bathe or wash hair or do any other personal upkeep chore.

Ah, but imagine how we'd all look and smell and feel if we stopped doing those things.

Therein lies the rub. We may not make progress when we go round mulberry bushes, but we do get somewhere.

R. S. Duncan, former governor of an English prison built in 1594 has suggested that women prisoners at Wakefield created the song, “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush,” while walking with their children around a mulberry tree that still lives in the prison yard.

Moms in bondage, subjected to frustration, sang as they circled a tree day after day, clasping their children’s hands. Those moms were accomplishing far more than could be tangibly measured. Yet, surely they longed for the day they could take their children far beyond that circular path.

In a decaying world, mulberry-bush tasks restore order, reestablish cleanliness, rebuke chaos. Yet, they can never fully conquer the decline that overtakes everyone and everything.

Thus, they leave us frustrated, longing for a day when endless cycles of maintenance stop.

Romans 8:21 promises such a day. It announces a moment when “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

In that moment, all who have walked, clasping the hand of Father God, will run free, circling the mulberry bush no more.

© 1998, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Rom. 8:20-21 NIV

“frustration,” mataiotes NT:353, from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright © 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers.

“Wakefield,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakefield

Green hope

2008-07-16T15:22:00.002-05:00

Ah, green! Returning South after living away for 13-and-a-half years, how I welcome you!

Four of those years, we lived in Indiana. That’s when I discovered something Mississippi and Indiana have in common. Each has a Greenville and a Greenwood.

Further, the two states share this trait with 42 others: All have towns or cities with names beginning “Green.”

As best I can tell from my wanderings around Indiana – and my trusty atlas – the land of the Hoosiers ranks No. 1 in number of Green-named towns. The state has nine: Greenville and Greenwood (the two most-often-chosen “Green” names in the country), Greenfield, Greensboro, Greensburg (also popular nationwide), and (less common but equally interesting) Greencastle, Greendale, Greentown, and Greens Fork.

Rivaling Indiana for the Green title, Ohio boasts eight names. Illinois and Wisconsin tie for third place with seven apiece. Missouri has six. Most other states – including Mississippi – have three or fewer Green names.

I can understand why Nevada and New Mexico have no Green-titled cities. I can guess why the only Green towns in Utah and Wyoming are both called “Green River.” I can picture Green Mountain (in Colorado), Green Valley (in Arizona), Green Pond (in New Jersey), and Green Island (in New York).

But I'm puzzled that the states of the Ohio River Valley – rather than those in the Deep South – claim the bulk of the Green names.

Each year in Indiana, we lived for months with white grass, brown branches and only the dark arms of the evergreens rising to color the picture. Each spring, people trooped back from visits down South, exclaiming, “They already have leaves on the trees!”

Mississippi turns green earlier in spring than Indiana does and stays green later into autumn. So why doesn't Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia have nine or more Green names? Why do Indiana and Ohio and Illinois head the pack?

Maybe a large family named Green settled all across the Midwest. Then again, maybe people in this area appreciate green more than those who see it almost year-round.

Centuries ago, settlers in the Midwest without heated vehicles or centrally heated homes watched eagerly for the coming of the green. Maybe they waited until they thought they’d faint if those new buds didn’t pop out. When the green did arrive, they applauded its magnificence and wrote it into the names of their towns.

What we seldom see, we don’t expect and rarely miss. Thus, realistic desert dwellers don't name their towns Greenfield or Greenleaf. They look for beauty in the sand’s earthy colors and the sky’s brilliant hues.

What's commonplace, we expect, but often taken for granted. People in the north don't generally leap for joy over snow.

But what’s enjoyed – then denied for a season – we count precious. When it’s present, we celebrate. When it’s absent, we watch expectantly for its return. A Midwest town may look like “Brownville” or “Brownwood” six months of the year, yet we still call it the color of life that will one day appear again.

Way back on the third day of creation, “God spoke: ‘Earth, green up! Grow all varieties of seed-bearing plants, Every sort of fruit-bearing tree.’ And there it was. Earth produced green seed-bearing plants, all varieties, And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts. God saw that it was good.”

This summer, regardless the landscape palette where you live, “Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!”

Ah, green! How we welcome you!

© 1997, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Gen. 1:11-12; Rom. 15:13 (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Making nothing out of something

2008-07-09T16:43:00.002-05:00

“I don’t have enough . . . ,” I muttered, naming a certain resource that kept eluding me. It wasn’t the first time I’d mentioned the lack. Secretly, I hoped the Lord would take notice and act, preferably by announcing, “OK, I’ll give you . . .”

But that isn’t what happened. Instead, I was passing through a Bible story on my way to teach it to others. The story, as told by Jesus, concerned 10 servants, all of whom received a set amount of money from their master. At least two of the servants used their money to advantage. One didn’t use his at all. Instead, he laid it away in a piece of cloth.

Consequently, the master took that servant’s money and gave it to another servant who had already doubled his funds. When some called the move unfair, the master said, “I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”

I mulled that statement awhile. It sounded harsh and unjust, this idea of robbing the have-nots to give to the already-haves. But then I reread the beginning of the story, the part where the master “called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.”

To start out, each of those servants received the same amount – and a substantial amount, at that – the equivalent of two-and-a-half years’ wages. All heard the master’s instructions: “Put this money to work.” The one who lost out HAD. He had resources, start-up funds, given to be used. Yet, he acted like a have-not.

So did a whole clan of Israelites who lived hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth. Members of this clan approached Joshua, the nation’s leader, saying, “We’re a big clan. We don’t have enough land. Give us more.”

“Yes, you’re a big clan,” Joshua agreed, “and the forested hill country allotted to you is rough terrain. But you have plenty of manpower. You can clear it. And what about all the valley land you own? Many of you can settle there.”

“Don’t you know who lives in that valley?!” clan members cried. “Enemies occupy that land. They have formidable weapons. That valley might as well not belong to us, because we can’t live there.”

Joshua repeated, “You’re a big clan. You’re strong. Get to work and possess what you’ve been given.”

Don’t you hate it when you go to God looking for a handout and he gives you a one-two punch? Don’t you love it when his well-placed blows knock some sense into you?

The servant in Jesus’ story reminds me, “Don’t hide in a hanky what you need to invest now.” The members of Joseph’s clan urge, “Don’t beg for more, while dismissing what you already have.”

The clan and the servant instruct me: Quit saying, “I don’t have enough . . .” Look again at what you do have. See the value of assets you’ve taken for granted. Thank God for them. Ask him to show you creative ways to put those things to use. Then, go for it!

“Go for it?” I respond. “But, but . . . that involves risk.”

Exactly.

The servant had to risk to invest the money. The clan had to risk to possess the land. To avoid risk, both servant and clan made nothing out of something.

In Luke 19:26, The Message, Jesus summed up the matter this way: “Risk your life and get more than you ever dreamed of. Play it safe and end up holding the bag.” #

© 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Luke 19:13, 26 TNIV.
Joshua 17:14-17 – referenced.
Luke 19:26 MSG (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Ridiculous to sublime

2008-07-03T07:55:00.001-05:00

Which do I tell first – the sublime or the ridiculous? The walk or the swim?

The swim happened first, so let’s start there.

Three nieces were visiting. My brother-in-law brought them because my sister was working. When I asked the girls what they wanted to do, they answered, “Swim!”

I took them to a pool where I hadn’t gone before, a pool jam-packed with swimmers. This pool has a deep end featuring two tall, curving tube slides.

While the girls alternately tanned and swam, their dad and I sat on lounge chairs and talked. After an hour, with the heat pushing and the slides pulling, I stood and asked my 17-year-old niece Christy, “Want to slide?”

All the other women over voting age lounged decorously or sat sedately poolside, dangling their feet in the water. The average age of sliders appeared to be 6.

Showing great courage – and, perhaps, wanting to see the spectacle of an aunt shooting like a torpedo into the pool – Christy headed for the slide with me in tow. She got her spectacle.

Five times, I stood in line with munchkins. Five times, I climbed platforms that discriminated against adult-sized people. Five times, I launched, feet first, down a winding, water-filled tube and ejected into chlorinated water, nearly somersaulting underneath.

It may have looked ridiculous. But the first time I emerged to see Christy’s smiling face, I cried, “Why should kids have all the fun?”

The walk happened later the same afternoon.

My brother-in-law wanted to explore the woods behind our house, so at dusk we set out – my husband and I, our nieces and their dad.

“Are there ticks in the woods?” 15-year-old Shannon asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

Trekking a four-wheeler trail my husband and I discovered in February, we found the trail now overgrown. We followed the still-visible path, winding through tall grasses.

At a fork in the trail, five of us stopped while my husband scouted ahead. That’s when my brother-in-law saw a tick crawling up his pants leg, then a second, then a third. Christy found one on her sock. I saw one, then another, crawling up my jeans.

Now I know the answer to Shannon’s question: Yes.

Suddenly keenly interested in self-exploration, we began flicking ticks off jeans, socks, shoes and shirts. Hastily returning home, we shed our clothes – modestly, of course – took our garments outside, shook them out, then washed them. We also carefully examined our persons.

I ask you: Where is chlorinated water when you need it?

Somehow, Shannon and 12-year-old Brittany escaped with no tick sightings. Between the rest of us, we found more than 25 ticks scurrying across our clothing. Thankfully, none had become attached.

How ridiculous for ticks to abort a lovely evening walk. How sublime to band together to conquer them.

How ridiculous for a grown-up to play on a children’s slide. How sublime to climb upward and whoosh downward, banding together with a young friend to conquer fear of what people will think.

Reminds me of a story in Mark 2: “Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't get to Jesus through the crowd, so they dug through the clay roof above his head. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus.”

How ridiculous for four grown-ups to dig through a roof. How sublime when, forgiven and healed, their friend jumped up and walked away.

You’ve heard of going from the sublime to the ridiculous? Sometimes, conquering what’s attacking and paralyzing you requires going through the ridiculous to get to the sublime. #

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Swelled heads and wavy faces

2008-06-26T16:02:00.001-05:00

Years ago, when Daddy and Mama got a new TV, we oohed and aahed over its big screen and state-of-the-art features.

Several months ago, I visited my parents. Walking into the den, I saw their former technological wonder tuned to a show that featured an older lady singing. The lady offered peppy lyrics, a robust voice and endearing facial expressions. Alas, I could not focus on any of those things.

My, what big hair she has! I thought. Why would anyone wear their hair that big? It’s the biggest hair I ever saw.

Beyond BIG, her hair filled the screen.

Only later, when Daddy changed channels, did I realize my error. The issue lay, not with the woman’s choice of hairstyle, but with the TV screen. On every channel, people had huge cone-heads, short bodies and miniscule legs.

This opened up a whole new dimension in TV viewing. It made watching baseball games particularly fascinating. You may have heard that wealth and fame give people the bighead? We saw evidence. Swelled-head pitchers bravely pitched with shrunken arms. Cone-head batters zealously struck with stubby bats. But the real show lay in watching the hitters run, distended heads bouncing, teensy legs churning.

Same with football players. Big-headed, short-armed, practically legless, they vied for passes and handoffs while scurrying – uphill? Yes, on this TV, each football field appeared decidedly bowl-shaped, the lines converging, rather than parallel.

Whether we watched the news, a game show, sports event, movie or series, the distorted picture proved funny for roughly three minutes. Then, it became annoying. Always, it distracted.

Now, my parents have a newer TV in their den. The replacement isn’t as large or state-of-the-art as its predecessor. Yet happily, it presents people, objects and even words on the screen in correct proportion.

My husband and I visited my parents a couple of weeks ago. While Daddy and Jerry watched a ballgame on the replacement TV in the den, I relaxed with Mama in the master bedroom. Flipping on the bedroom TV, we located a Lawrence Welk rerun from the 1950’s. The performers offered us nostalgic songs, lyrical voices and lively instrumentals.

Alas, I could not focus on any of those things because of the ripples rippling across the screen. Old show, defective tape, I thought.

Only later, when we changed channels, did I realize my error. Wherever we turned, people stood still and danced the hula at the same time. Close-up shots showed people’s faces waving like flags.

Most of us care too much about high-def pictures to put up long with ailing TVs. But though we’ll fork out big bucks for clear images, how many of us live week after week, month after month, year after year with a distorted view of reality?

We repeatedly ignore evidence as obvious as cone-headed ballplayers, attesting we do not see people or circumstances, difficulties or blessings, material things or spiritual things, life or death, as they really are. More than annoying, more than distracting, it’s grievous what we miss.

Once, while healing a blind man, Jesus asked him, “Can you see anything now?”

According to Mark 8, the man answered quite honestly: “I see people, but I can’t see them very clearly. They look like trees walking around.”

After “Jesus placed his hands over the man’s eyes again . . . he could see everything clearly.”

Don’t live with a distorted picture of life. Do what a formerly blind man did. Regardless how foolish it feels, stand before the one who can miraculously restore what you’ve learned to live without, and say, “I can’t see clearly.”

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Uncommon strategies

2008-06-19T08:29:00.003-05:00

Make-believe carries us places. Books and plays, TV shows and movies transport us into regions and centuries where we cannot otherwise go.

We expect make-believe to whisk us away from reality, offering respite from the daily-ness, the disappointments, the struggles that life relentlessly throws our way. We don’t expect make-believe to offer us uncommon strategies for living real life.

But sometimes it does.

One Sunday afternoon, watching TV with my mom, I saw an old Matlock rerun in which attorney Ben Matlock, played by Andy Griffith, sets out to defend a young man accused of murder. As Matlock enters the courtroom, so does the presiding judge, played by Dick Van Dyke.

We viewers know: The judge committed the murder for which the young man is standing trial.

We think: How impossible to get justice when the person most intent on thwarting justice sits on the bench. How difficult to expose truth when the person most intent on concealing truth appears upright and wields great clout.

In this make-believe story, Matlock does not despair over his seemingly hopeless task. He uses an uncommon strategy to get the judge off the bench and onto the witness stand.

This week, I read Prince Caspian, the second of the Narnia chronicles, also just released in movie version. I won’t give the story away, but here’s a peek: The four children who journeyed to Narnia through an empty wardrobe in the first book find themselves whisked away to the same land again.

There, a dwarf named Trumpkin tells them about a young king Caspian who desperately needs help. After describing the situation, Trumpkin laments, “I suppose I’d better go back to King Caspian and tell him no help has come.”

Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy announce that they have come to help. Trumpkin does not believe four children can provide what Caspian needs. Dismissing their offer, he says, “As it is – we’re awfully fond of children and all that, but just at the moment, in the middle of a war – but I’m sure you understand.”

The children have no great physical strength and no army, yet they offer Caspian something that proves even more valuable: uncommon strategies for victory.

We applaud uncommon strategies in make-believe. In life, however, we look askance at any remedy that seems illogical. Yet, God delights in using uncommon strategies to meet real-life needs.

Once, in the real land of Israel, the men supposed to uphold justice did just the opposite. These men had great authority. In days when “messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon,” God did what seemed silly and useless: He awoke a boy named Samuel, told the boy his plans and relied on Samuel to tell others (1 Sam. 3).

Ultimately, the unjust leaders died just as God had said – and Samuel, the one who dared to say what he heard God saying, became judge in the land.

On other occasions, God:

planned for a 90-year-old barren woman and a century-old man to birth a nation.
deployed a boy with slingshot to defeat a giant.
led a coward named Gideon and 300 men armed with trumpets, lantersn and empty jars to route innumerable forces from three invading nations.
commissioned 120 people without rank, status or financial clout to change the world.

How many times have you and I dismissed uncommon strategies as make-believe?

If, instead, we’ll look for them wherever this God chooses to reveal them, if we’ll receive them as the help we’ve been seeking, uncommon strategies will carry us places – places we cannot get any other way.

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.