THAT HAPPY PLACE

 A huge green plastic turtle—so old its eyes have faded away—has occupied the backyard for decades. In the 1980s, it delighted a little boy and later a little girl, who found sand to be fun and creative. (Because its lid was faithfully replaced at night, I never worried about animal waste finding its way to the sand!) Now that my grandchildren have passed the age of sand-play at that old turtle-box, it's time to let it go to a new home. But not without first reflecting on just what is a “happy place.”

Of course, I think about how the Bible defines “happy.” Psalm 144:15 says, “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.” Similar truths are expressed in others: 20 Bible Verses about Happiness - Uplifting Scripture Quotes . But in reflecting on the word “happy” in its spiritual sense, I'm often taken to a famed quote by Frederick Buechner (1916-2022):

The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. (1)

Ironically, Buechner's father died of suicide when he was only ten years old. But he emerged from that childhood trauma to become a well-known Presbyterian minister and author of 39 books. One writer characterized Buechner as showing “faith despite doubt.” Among his famed quotes:

*”If it seems a childish thing to do, do it in remembrance that you are a child.” (So yes, help a child build a sand castle! And remember the importance of childlike faith and trust in God.)

*”Pay mind to your own life, your own health, and wholeness. A bleeding heart is of no help to anyone if it bleeds to death.”

*”Resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing.” (Have you seen that on a gravestone? I think it fits.)

*”Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin.” 

This reminded me of another quote, by Henri J.M. Nouwen, (1932-1996), and how life's trials can be redeemed if they turn us into “wounded healers”:

Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not 'How can we hide our wounds?' so we don't have to be embarrassed but 'How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?' When our wounds cease to be a source of shame and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.” (2)

Have you ever considered what sand used to be? Rocks! But when rocks are broken and eroded, they take on new purposes. They can even become sand for a child's play-place of imagination. Where tiny cars and trucks find new highways. Mountains and valleys emerge for a new world. And when there's water around, an imagined little city or park.

And maybe there's another message here. When the Hand of God is moving around the sands of our lives, will we allow Him to create a masterpiece for His glory?

(1) Quote by Frederick Buechner: “The place God calls you to is the place where y...”

(2) Quote by Henri Nouwen: “Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounde...”

TEAR-JERKER

Oh, the tears that flow when I peel and chop an onion in food preparation. There's an explanation for that! When cut, onions release “syn-Propanethial-S-oxide,” a chemical irritant that stimulates the eyes' “lachrymal glands,” releasing tears. Next time you're experiencing buckets of tears while chopping onions, impress somebody with that explanation!

But there's another way to look at onion-peeling, one that's really personal. Prayer-centered monk and author Thomas Merton (1915-1968) compared the misery of onion-peeling to God's refinement of our character. Layer by layer, He peels away our self-centered spirits until the real-”me” is revealed. It's the idea expressed via another ancient spiritual spokesperson, Jeremiah, who gave this word from God: “I [God] will bring adversity on all flesh” (Jeremiah 45:5 NKJV).

What! Isn't God the grandfatherly type who answers every prayer for health, wealth and happiness? Sorry, but no. He uses hardship, tears, misery, of our fallen condition for good—if we let Him. One writer, commenting on the Jeremiah passage, put it this way:

God says that when he brings great disaster upon you there will be no time to pack a bag filled with ego, self-centeredness, lust, or materialism. He'll let you escape, but only with the Jesus clothes on your back. What you're left with is your real life in Jesus (Colossians 3:4). A life that is filled with God's purpose and a life in alignment with God's heart and mind. In this real life, we enter into the abundance of life promised by Jesus (John 10:10). (1)

Every layer of selfishness and “entitlement” that's peeled away, like an onion, is apt to produce angst and tears. But it's the process that brings us to the heart of God. No matter what hardship or discipline we endure, there's a bottom line—that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

Our spiritual journey will involve trials and tears, all part of God's way of peeling away layers of the self-focused life. Tough times may result from our own bad decisions, or from the negative actions of others toward us. Such times—it's often said—can leave us bitter or better. “Better” happens when hardship presses us closer to the heart of God.

And I remember: God's own Son wept. Over the pain of a sin-soaked world. But in His divinity He knew the rest of the story, in heaven:

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Revelation 21:4)

Such hope sometimes brings tears to my eyes—good tears, not the onion type.

1. God Peels Back the Layers until the Real You is Revealed | Devotional by Jon Walker (thoughts-about-god.com) Oct. 19, 2019, accessed Aug. 24, 2021.

RENEWED

 Look carefully: this is a forest coming back from a devastating fire several years earlier. Some trees survived, their trunks blackened. Toothpick-like ghosts of dead trees and emerging new trees and shrubs fill in the landscape. This area is prone to fire and it is also a major east-west highway through Washington's Cascade Mountains. I remember traveling it one year as a fire burned itself out. A state vehicle with a blinking red light on its roof led a limited numbers of cars at a time through the still-smoking pass. But there was no smoke on our most recent trip, just the marvel of how the land regenerates while still leaving reminders of the old fire.

Life also has times when we pass through a “fire zone.” Speaking of his wayward homeland, Isaiah prophesied: “When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze, for I am the Lord, your God” (Isaiah 43:2b-3a). For the Israelites, the “flames” would be the searing sorrow of being yanked away from their homeland as captives of Babylon. But the whole section of this prophecy emphasizes God's enduring love through their difficulty. Renewal, new life, would come.

I've lived long enough to watch many people I cared about (and prayed for) make bad decisions. Big chunks of their lives were burned up as they walked away from God. One day I answered the phone to the sobs of a young woman who'd attended a Bible study in our home. She'd yielded to her boyfriend's demands for sexual intimacy before marriage. Now, she regretted it and felt God would never forgive her. As I rushed over to her apartment and hugged her, trying to comfort her with God's counsel, I recalled this verse for those who truly repent of their sin: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). She cut off the relationship and sought a fresh start with Christ. Later, God did bring into her life a committed Christian man, and they married.

Trials will come in life. That's a given. But so is God's renewing presence:

...for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7)

In central Washington, where I live, we've had our share of runaway, destructive fires. But every spring, forest management teams plan “controlled burns” to reduce the fuel for future fires. In many ways, that's a picture of what happens when people get “burned” by their bad decisions, then confess and turn away from them. Such times of sorrow are God's reminder: Don't go there. Don't make those choices. The pain isn't worth it. Renewal, though it may take time, will come. Stay the course—God's course.

FINDING JOY

Blind since infancy, living to her nineties, Fanny Crosby 

showed the power of praise in her thousands of hymn texts,

like this one

My first job (no surprise) came with its share of humbling and challenging experiences, plus a fresh appreciation for the practical wisdom in the epistle of James.  Like this: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4).

Pure joy? Who was he kidding when I trudged home at night reeking of my colleagues’ second-hand smoke and nursing a headache from the press of deadlines and constant phone ringing?  This was newspaper work in the early 1970s—but I had a job! That was the joy. I remembered how I was hired—a series of “just happened” things.  Disheartened by “not hiring” answers to my job queries at local papers, faced with impending joblessness as my studies ended in mid-March, one day between classes I just happened to go down the hall of offices for journalism professors. One of my profs just happened to have his door open. He told me it just happened that a managing editor from a mid-size daily was interviewing that day for their summer college intern. The job wouldn’t start for three months, but it was something. 

I signed for an appointment, and showed up in business attire with my resume and writing samples. A few days later the editor called and offered the summer job. Plus, their women’s editor needed time off for surgery. Could I come early (like March 17!)  and fill in for her?  By mid-summer, my “intern” job became permanent.  Not only did I grow professionally but personally and, most important, spiritually, as I connected with a Bible-teaching church.

POUT OR PRAISE?

In my five years at that job, I began learning that God was ready to patiently teach me how to “do life.” One big lesson was to look for the little blessings. Despite all the pulpit-pounding admonition I hear in the book of James, there are “look-up” messages. “Is any one if you in trouble?” James asks, “He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise” (5:13).

Decades and several jobs later, I am still learning that. But it is a sweet lesson. And I am learning to pray-through-the-day, not just during the get-down-to-business “quiet time.” I wake up (praise!) and step in the tub for a quick shower (praise: Hot water! Towel! Clothes!). I fix and eat breakfast (praise: food, appliances). I plan my day (praise: I have the health to do something useful).  Things happen, and I find myself saying, “Thank you, Lord.”

William Stoddard, a pastor and teacher of a previous generation, observed in his devotional  First Light (Multnomah, 1990, p. 349): “Prayer is the time to be renewed in our love for God.  Think of all the gifts we have received.  Think of the days of sunshine and blessing.  Think of the cup that overflows with the joys of health and family and loving companions.  Think of the times that love warned us and, to our good, we heeded the warning. Think of the open doors we might never have entered without the gentle and persistent nudge of God’s love.”

Open doors!  Yes, even praise for an open faculty door in 1970 that led to my first full-time job and a writing career. 

Meet Sweet (Potato) Adelaide

Whoa! That was my reaction when our garden-growing friend stopped by and rolled this monster sweet potato out of a plastic bag.  That’s a one-foot ruler next to it. Something this amazing needed a name. I decided on Adelaide, as in “Sweet Adelaide.” (The name is German for “noble, kind.”) A week or so later, I decided to bake it.  I’m glad I started early, as it took three hours at 350 degrees before I could easily poke a knife into it, telling me it was “done.” I wondered if it thought it was a turkey!

If sweet potatoes could talk, it probably would have said, “Ouch, this is hot!  Get me out of here! My original hardened condition can’t stand the heat!” And isn’t that how we react to spiritual fires?

Early in my Christian walk I struggled with James 1:2-4.  Being a Christian should shield you from all of life’s bad things, right?  Wrong.

Count it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

If we lived in a fairy-tale world, where dashing princes come and rescue beautiful captive lasses to take them off to marriage and a grand castle, we wouldn’t need this verse. But we live in a fallen world that is waiting for its Prince of Peace, who is preparing us for the ultimate joy of life forever with Him.  In the meantime, the sin nature needs some “cooking,” as it were, to break down the mean and demanding fibers of the sin-character that won’t work in His kingdom

James wasn’t the only one to share this advice:
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. (1 Peter 4:13-14 emphasis added)
The words I bold-faced were a “wow” for me because they helped me recognize that Satan’s tools include negative talk or bullying from someone.  Count that joy? Yes, with Jesus, all things are possible.

In the meantime, anybody for a serving of tender Adelaide? Fully cooked, it’s a great source of healthy vitamins.