Grasping at hope

I love looking at the tiny, trusting hands of my new grandson, James, now four months old.  These tiny, intricate hands curl around an adult finger with such faith and trust. Right now, his favorite game is “push-ups,” going from sitting in my lap to standing in it.  I know better than to trust just his grip to pull him up, so I hold his hand as he holds mine.

This tender imagery came to mind as I prepared last week’s blog review of Carol Kent’s new devotional book, He Holds My Hand.  In autographing it, she referenced Psalm 63:8, “I stay close to you; your right hand upholds me.”

The psalm’s inscription says David wrote it while in the desert of Judah, probably referring to the years he fled the murderous intentions of King Saul. He’s hungry, hunted, and hopeful.  He thinks of God day and night:

On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. (v. 6)

In recent months I’ve experienced those “night-watch” God times.  I value a good night of sleep, but frequently I wake up around 2 or 3 a.m. with a compulsion to pray for someone who has verbally bullied me. My greatest desire is to see this person become whole in Christ. In praying, I sometimes feel like a little child (or even a baby) putting my weak but trusting hand in God’s.  At such times, other “hand” scriptures bring me comfort, like this one in Isaiah 41:13:

For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, "Do not fear; I will help you.”

Or this, in Psalm 37:23:

The LORD delights in the ways of the man whose steps he has made firm; through he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand.

At times in those middle-of-the-night prayers, my posture is uplifted hands, my way of releasing to God my frustration and deep concern for this person. That’s the way it should be. When I reach up, God is reaching down to me.  And that brings comfort and hope.

Holding tight

When you hurt too deep for words, it’s possible that the very God-Words you need cannot get past the wall of pain.  I’ve been there, but not in the devastating way that internationally-known author and speaker Carol Kent has been.  I met Carol in the summer of 2000 as the national winner of an essay contest on women mentoring women—the topic of her then-current book.  She and her husband were extraordinarily gracious in hosting me and my teen daughter for the TLC award weekend that included “the works” at a day spa (woo-hoo) and award recognition in front of a huge crowd of the Heritage Keepers women’s conference.  But something seemed amiss as I watched her greet old friends with tearful hugs. Later I learned that just months earlier, unspeakable pain sliced into their lives. Their only child, a respected military officer, was arrested for the murder of his young stepdaughters’ father, whom the son suspected of sexually abusing them. The full story is told in the book's introduction.

As I have prayed for the Kents through the years, I remembered Psalm 34:18--that God promises to be close to the broken-hearted. There was so little I could do, but I knew God saw all their needs. When I learned that Carol had a new book out—this time a devotional titled He Holds My Hand—I knew I needed to order it.  She autographed my copy with this telling inscription: “He holds your hand and He won’t let go. Psalm 63:8.”

Subtitled “Experiencing God’s Presence and Protection,” the 365-entry devotion reflects Carol’s quest to read the Bible as God’s very personal love letter to her.  I’ve recently used Sarah Young devotional books, also “God speaking to you” in style, and know how much more personal it made scripture. But Carol’s book has a passion I’ve found in no other, of God reaching into torn and tender hearts and saying, “I know. Someday it will make sense.”  As such I thought of the world’s most famous sufferer, Job, who in the midst of off-target accusations that his suffering “must” be the result of sin, shoved all those ideas in the corner with a golden declaration of faith:

But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. (Job  23:10)

The personal notes in my Bible next to that verse include these:

1. I will walk by faith. (v.11)

2. I will obey God (v. 12)

3. I will “eat” His Word (v. 13)

All of those things Carol has done in this devotional . Each day includes a thought-provoking quotation from a Christian leader. Then she explores what God has “messaged” through a certain text.  I read randomly through the book when I first received it, and each touched me in a tender place.

 The shelves at bookstores are full of devotional books, some fluffy, some thin in true life experience. This is one you will not want to miss.  Buy two copies, one for yourself and one for someone going through times so unsteady that he or she needs a Hand to grasp.

 Hardback, published by Tyndale/Momentum, $15.99

Time just "flu" by

Winter virus still life :)

We were steam-rollin’ right into another Christmas season when IT happened.  I had the gift bags ready, most of the holiday correspondence caught up, and a turkey ready to thaw for a dinner with our son and family.  Oh, don’t forget the ingredients for the “green bean casserole” with its fried onion toppings. I’d helped my daughter-in-law take the two older boys (3 and 4) to get their hair cut at a local walk-in shop. They would look sharp for Christmas pictures. Baby brother, still newborn bald, would look great, too, as long as we chucked his cheek for a smile just before the shutter snapped.

Then IT happened.  The Friday before Christmas, I told my husband, “I’m getting a sore throat. It hurts to swallow.”  He confessed to similar symptoms. Within hours we were unhappily hosting the respiratory flu that was swash-buckling its way through the valley.  The news had reported that there was a bad flu  whose genetic footprint didn’t get into the vaccine we had so dutifully gotten earlier in the fall.  And so Christmas passed, and then New Year’s, in the fogginess of fevers and congestion that had to take their course.  We handed off the gift bags to our son through a barely-open door, and sang a new version of “It came upon a midnight clear” when we kept the midnight lights burning with fever and coughs.

I shouldn’t complain.  We had food in the house (though little appetite).  A warm house (despite snow and ice outside).  Medicines to treat symptoms (the virus had to run its two-week course). If I had to be sick, I’d rather it be now, and not 400 years ago.What? Four hundred years ago?  Where did that remark come from? Well, some of my favorite leisure reading (or sick-time reading)is compilations of hymn stories, and I'd learned about the 1644 hymn “Now Thank We All Our God.”  I’d never given it much thought other than to connect it with the American “Thanksgiving.”  It works for that time of year, but its German origin was actually thousands of miles away from the early settlement of America.

At that time, Germany was in the crucible of the terrible Thirty Years War. One of the walled cities to which refugees fled was Eilenberg, whose only pastor was Martin Rinkart. Enemies would still break through to kill and destroy, but the greatest enemy within was hunger and plague.  In 1637 alone, Rinkart conducted funerals for 5,000 residents, including his wife.  Much sorrow and spiritual wrestling forged his hymn with its stalwart words of hope, like these lines:

Oh may this bounteous God /May all our life be near us,

With ever joyful hearts/And blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace/And guide us when perplexed.
And free us from all ills/In this world and the next.

It should be no surprise that this hymn became the second most widely sung hymn in Germany, next to Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress.”

Our Christmas flu? A droplet of misery and inconvenience in the perspective of eternity.

A "Word for the Year"

I have a wise and seasoned writer-friend who has exposed me, through her latest books, to the spiritual practice of focusing on a single word of Scripture. I had several “bless-my-socks-off” moments as I read her just-released Ordinary Graces, published by Abingdon Press. One chapter that I put my emotional pause button on was “Kindness.” 

Before I say more, let me introduce my friend Lucinda Secrest McDowell (I call her “Cindy”).  We met in the early 1980s as students at Wheaton Graduate School. I was working on my master’s in communications and she, who already had a master’s from seminary and had served with international evangelism conferences, was picking up a few extra courses. My first “wow” moment with her was learning that, as a Gordon seminary student, she lived with Elisabeth Elliot, well-known Christian author whose credits included The Shadow of the Almighty, the biography of her late husband and missionary martyr Jim Elliot. That book had been pivotal in my spiritual journey.

As our friendship continued, mostly by mail, Cindy pursued mentors’ admonition that she develop her gifts of speaking and writing. From her home in Connecticut she now sustains a world-wide speaking and writing ministry.  She’s also in touch with the real world, with her “day job” as a substitute teacher at the local high school.

Widely read, a deep thinker, Cindy’s writings reveal depth and compassion.  I dog-eared several chapters to reconsider later, but “kindness” grabbed me the hardest this time through. She cited a Parade magazine article that said half the people in a recent survey said the simple virtue of kindness had deteriorated in recent years.

For Christians, whose ultimate model of kindness is Jesus Christ, that’s a call to introspection and to inspiration. 

Cindy recalled an impulse purchase of a little sign that said “Be Kinder Than Necessary.” The more she looked at it and thought about it, she decided to make it her focus word of the year. She wrote, “I determined to explore every aspect of the word and incorporate every dimension into my soul” (p.120).

That resonated in my heart because of an unexpected affirming line in an E-mail I received from someone whose emotional issues regularly muddied her outlook: “I believe you are a kind person.”

 Still (as Cindy points out about herself) I am a person in progress by the grace of Jesus Christ.  And reading books like this one (and her similar previous word-focus book, Dwelling Places) is part of the Lord’s unique curriculum for my spiritual grooming.

If you need a two-page-a-day boost and challenge in your spiritual  walk, I commend her book. And if you have decided on a “word of the year,” would you consider sharing it in the comments section?