The costliest gift

It never fails: November to December we’re bombarded with ads to buy buy buy. Then comes January with articles about how to climb out of debt. While the world focuses on shopping bills, credit cards and interest fees, little is said about another debt that often grows to almost unbearable proportions. The problem is its personal cost: of admitting breaking trust with someone and asking for that person's forgiveness. It isn't enough to toss a few cents' worth of half-hearted "sorry" at it and consider it "paid." The only lasting solution is to invite Heaven’s debt counselor, the Lord Jesus, into the mess. 

Recently I had the sweet, humbling experience of someone coming to me and admitting a wrongdoing, asking for my forgiveness. This person had falsely accused me, wounding me to the point of tears. I spent a lot of time in prayer about it. Because of Christ’s work in my heart, I sought to “positionally” forgive them. Finally, the face-to-face encounter made real His love for both of us. 

But such forgiveness-events don’t often happen in our broken world. Those who've wrestled with relational transparency may find help in an online article, “Forgiveness: The Possible Impossibility” http://www.wordtruth.net/PDG/Forgiveness.pdf  . One especially meaningful section, on page 7, concerned how to ask for forgiveness. The wrong way includes padding a request for forgiveness with an excuse, like “I was having a bad day,”  “I can’t help myself when I get mad,” or “I was upset because my boyfriend dumped me.” 

The right way, according to the article, involves taking personal responsibility, naming specific sins, showing repentance, announcing Christ-honoring intentions for the future, and asking for forgiveness.  For example, the article suggests:

“I recognize that I have sinned against the Lord and you by (name the specific sins).  It is my intention never again to repeat this offense against you or anyone else.  I repent and will change by doing the following. (Explain your specific plan for change.) I have asked the Lord to forgive me, and I want you to know that I desire your forgiveness as well.  Will you please forgive me?” 

If possible, this should be done in person. This may mean writing out the apology and reading it to the other person. If in-person contact isn’t possible, phone the person. Third choice: by personal letter. Last (and less preferred) choice: e-mail or texting, especially if the wrongdoing occurred via e-mail or texts.

Paul wrote the Romans, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another….Love does no harm to its neighbor” (Romans 13:8, 10). It’s the best gift possible.

The quiet story of "Silent Night"

I have a special fondness for the Christmas hymn, “Silent Night,” because its author had the surname “Mohr”—the same as my paternal grandmother, whom I never met. She died when my father was 12.I knew its origin had something to do with a broken-down organ.  Here it is—and more:

Picture yourself in Salzburg, Austria….yes, that beautiful city and the nearby breathtaking alps featured in the award-winning film, The Sound of Music, whose plot took place in World War 2.  Go back another hundred-plus years, to 1818, to a little hamlet about 15 miles north of Salzburg in the Tyrolean Alps named Obendorf. It consisted of one winding street lined with quaint cottages and shops. That year, young Josef Mohr arrived to become assistant priest at the newly-erected Church of St. Nicholas. Mohr soon made many friends, including the village schoolmaster and church organist, Franz Gruber. One day as they talked they lamented the existence of “the perfect Christmas hymn” in German.

We bought this child-friendly creche the first year
of our marriage.  Now grandchildren can play
with it as they learn the story of Jesus' birth

That particular year, a group of traveling players had arrived just before Christmas to put on a Nativity play at Mohr’s church. But the organ needed repair, so they moved the performance to the home of a local shop owner. A broken-down organ also complicated Mohr’s plans for Christmas services. How could they sing traditional carols without a booming organ to lead the way?
Mohr attended the play and was moved by its simplicity and beauty. As he walked home, he stopped at a favorite viewpoint overlooking Obendorf. Inspired by sparkling stars of that crisp night, he hurried home, lit a candle, and began writing the words to a Christmas poem. The next morning he took it to his friend Gruber, asking, “See if you can write a melody for these.” Gruber read the poem and reportedly replied, “Friend Mohr, you have it—the right song—God be praised.”

The organ couldn’t be repaired in time for Christmas, so Gruber wrote the music for guitar accompaniment. At the midnight Christmas eve service, Gruber played his guitar and sang bass. Mohr sang tenor. A young girls’ choir from the village harmonized the last two lines of each stanza.

Gruber and Mohr never intended for their carol to become famous. But when the organ builder came after the holidays to fix the organ, he heard the song being sung. He liked it, got a copy and took it to his home about eight miles away. Soon it was included in concerts throughout Austria and Germany, billed as a “Tyrolean Folk Song of unknown origin.”

Two decades after its first performance, it was performed in the United States by a group of Austrian singers. It would soon be translated into English and several other languages.

War again engulfed the world, this time what became known as World War I.  One of the officers fighting for the Germans, Walter Kirchhoff, had been a tenor with the Berlin Opera. In 1914, on a clear-cold Christmas eve night, when the shooting had stopped, Officer Kirchhoff felt moved to step forward and sing “Silent Night”—first in German, then in English. His trained voice carried far on that crisp night. The British knew the song and sang back.
Gradually, the troops crawled forward into No Man’s Land for a brief Christmas truce. Soldiers who wrote home about it said things like, “You won’t believe this. It was like a waking dream.”

Yes, a silent, holy night.

                               

Hooray for Vitamin C-olate

The genetic code my dad passed onto me includes chocolate as a diet staple. He was basically a conservative guy—went to church, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t swear,  and endured a  ballroom dancing lesson sometime in the mid-1960s only because my mom answered the phone to a caller who announced a contest and asked her, “When did Columbus discover America?”  Without thinking, she said, “1492.” To which the caller said, “Congratulations! You are today’s winner of a night of free ballroom dance lessons at our Tacoma studio!”  Neither of my parents grew up with dancing in their value system, but somehow my mother convinced my dad to give it a try. I think he obliged her the lesson and that was the end of that.

Otherwise, Dad was content to just come home and put up his feet after a long day in a mill that produced corrugated cardboard boxes.  As a “technical director” in charge of quality control, he walked and walked all day in that stinky environment.  At one point, his flat feet got so painful that he invested in “corrugated” shoes.  That’s right, soles like the edge of a large-tooth saw.

But I digress from one of his best known traits, and that was an affection for chocolate.  If I tied an apron on my skinny little teenage body and broke out the mixing bowl to make him chocolate chip cookies, I could have asked him for the moon.  A significant part of the “results” would be missing before I washed up.  Another notable fact of Dad’s chocolate-love was his not-so-secret stash of chocolate chips.  We had the regular “bag” in the cupboard with flour and sugar.  But he hid another—to make sure there was always available snacking stock—in a reach-around corner of the cupboard that held pots and pans.  We knew it was there, but also that it was verboten to his offspring.  Sometime during the evening, maybe during a television commercial, if Dad got up from his red tapestry rocker with its telltale squeaks, and headed for the kitchen, we knew he was after his Vitamin Chocolate.  Just a little handful kept him going.

 Thus the other day, when cleaning off my desk, I came across a “glory be!” article whose headline proclaimed, “Chocolate is brain food. Who knew?”  Published originally last March in The Washington Post, it cited a long-range study of cognitive abilities of 1,000 people in New York State.  Goal of the study: the relationship between blood pressure and brain performance.  Among the variables they traced as possible risk factors were participants’ eating habits.  This research stretched over forty years as the participants aged.  Behold, the study found “significant positive associations” between chocolate intake and cognitive performance.  This translated to better  abilities for everyday tasks, like remembering a phone number or shopping list, or doing two things at once (like talking while driving).

The researchers were quick to add that their results aren’t conclusive.  They also failed to include variables such as how much chocolate and how often.

But it was enough for me to honor my dad and carry on the tradition.  And I hereby reveal my weakness: a modest bowl of chocolate chips with those little round oats we feed children (unsweetened, by the way). I figure the “O’s” cancel out the negatives of the brown nugget. 

Don’t tell my son and wife, but I’ve been known to sneak a bit of the family “concoction” into a snack bowl for my grandboys when they come to play.  Heavy on the "oats," of course.

Fun aside, I'm reminded of the best thing to crave: knowing God. Psalm 34:8 has long been a favorite: "Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him."

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.

Ever been invited to a Pity Party?

Aren’t pity parties a barrel of fun?  If you’re invited, no question what to bring for a gift: a multipack of tissues.  Seriously, about the only person who enjoys a pity party is the host.  Author Shelly Beach made similar observations in her book I recently read, It is Well With My Soul (Discovery House, 2012). Beach, an articulate author and speaker, survived a brain bleed that should have killed her.  As she continues to live with chronic illness, she offers spiritual guidance for others whose lives and/or health are not perfect.

In an introduction to her chapter on the “victim mentality” she tells about dreading to receive calls from someone who was a chronic complainer.  “Caller I.D.” helped Beach screen her calls, but she couldn’t totally escape this woman who blamed her ailing parents for her problems. Beach observed: “She fails to see that she casts the glare of ingratitude and unforgiveness like high beam headlights. [She] sees everything through the spirit she projects, and her negative attitude can make people reluctant to approach her.”

Beach continues: “I should know.  For many years I wrapped myself in ingratitude and unforgiveness like my favorite winter coat.  They were my protection and insulation against my deficits, faults, and sins.  During the time I was blind to my negativity, others steered around me to escape the poison of my attitude.”

Gratitude, she says, “must be fed by our awareness of what we’ve been given and who we are.  When we don’t allow gratitude and forgiveness to guide us through hurt, loss, and conflict, we become trapped in a self-centered, victim mentality.”

For Beach, answering the call to show gratitude has required working through some pretty tough personal stuff, including long-ago sexual abuse against her and her family. 

What broke the shackles of her own “victim” mentality?

*Seeing her heart as God saw it.

*Letting the Holy Spirit show her the Bible’s truths about her life and attitude.  She remarked: “Scripture taught me that I had to take responsibility for my life and stop blaming God and others for family problems, bumpy friendships, job hassles, and the pain in my life” (p.130).

*Learning how gratitude moves our focus from ourselves to others, freeing us from chains of the past so we can serve out of gratitude for what God has given us.

I once heard it said that the person who organizes a pity party will have a very small guest list.  And maybe a large number of “sorry” RSVPs from people who have something better to do.