A Quiet Place

At right: our cat and my rocker. He knows he's forbidden to sit in it, and right after I took this photo he jumped off.

Somewhere between disinfect-the-bathroom and fold-the-third-basket-of-laundry I got a strong SIT WITH ME message. Tired of staring at the rain on the back porch, the cat had come in, snacked in his feeding corner, and now sat plum in the middle of the living room. That’s a dangerous traffic area when I’m rampaging around doing house chores. I reached down to move him to his sleeping corner when the vibrating started.

“Okay, I get the hint,” I told him (which probably sounded like whump ork hooop whump, as in the adult voices for Charlie Brown movies). I sat down in my favorite rocker, positioned him in my lap, and started petting him. Soon, besides purring loudly, he was “kneading” with his right paw—a cat-thing of opening and closing a paw (and extending the claws) to indicate contentment. After about five minutes of getting his “love bucket” filled, he was ready to check out of life in his sleeping corner.

While I was tending to the cat’s emotional needs, for some reason an old hymn came to mind: “Near to the Heart of God.” I mentally chewed on the hymn title and a few of its phrases, like “There is a place of quiet rest” and “Hold us who wait before thee.”

This blue tweed rocker is also the place where I nestle “near to the heart of God.” I keep draped over its back a crocheted “prayer shawl” that someone made for me when I was laid up with a broken ankle. I wrap myself in that shawl when I want to spend some time in my “quiet place,” akin to the lap of God, reading my Bible and praying.

When I was a little girl, my dad had a favorite rocker—a spring-action platform rocker with nubby red tapestry upholstery and wooden hand grips. There I’d come to his lap for bedtime story time. Locked in my heart are the tender memories of leaning back into his chest, hearing his voice rumble the words and feeling the kalump, kalump of his heart.

Perhaps that precious memory is why “Near to the Heart of God” is special to me. Not until recently did I learn the story behind that hymn. In 1903, Dr. Cleland McAfee, a Presbyterian pastor in Chicago, received the stunning news that his two nieces had just died from diphtheria. He opened his Bible and prayed over his grief, and sensed the words to this hymn coming to him. On the day of his nieces’ double funeral, the new hymn was sung outside the quarantined home of his grieving brother.

McAfee’s hymn (the only one for which he’s known) is not the only hymn birthed out of anguish. Many of those hymns we hold so dear came about when people who loved God had to wrestle with the difficult things in life. Because they worked through their issues “near to the heart of God,” we are blessed with a legacy of musical tools for public and private worship.

Has a certain hymn become meaningful to you? I'd love to hear from you.

Some thorny issues

I’ve already started pruning my roses and pulled out the first thorn that wiggled through my leather work gloves. Right now, my rose bushes are ugly-- just bare, blackened thorny canes. But I think ahead to May when those first blooms come.

One positive of this time-consuming, thorny task is time to think, and I often mull over Paul’s discussion in 2 Corinthians 12:7 about his “thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me.” The Greek word translated “thorn” refers to anything pointed, even a stake or goad. That for “buffet” (“torment” in the NIV) is from a Greek word that signifies “to strike with clenched hands, to buffet with the fist” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary, p. 156). This wasn’t a little poke, like I got with my rose thorns. It was Satan’s all-out harassment. For unknown reasons, God turned down Paul’s repeated pleas to take it away.

We don’t know what Paul’s “thorn” actually was, and that’s probably good. That way, our difficulties or “thorns” can find the same hope as Paul did: “But he [the Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” With that as God’s answer, Paul responded, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (v. 9).

One precious detail is lost in the English translations of the phrase “may rest.” In the original Greek, the root word used here for “may rest” is episkenoo. It comes from epi (upon) and skene (skin/tent). Remember that tents of Paul’s day weren’t the canvas or nylon ones we have today. They were made of a cloth woven from goat's hair or from animal hides, and Paul as a tent-maker stitched together countless ones. Remember, too, that animal hides were used for the tented tabernacle, the traveling worship center for the Israelites after they fled Egypt. Exodus 26 says the outer covering of the tabernacle was made of ram skins dyed red and then a covering of the hides of what some translations call “sea cows.” The Hebrew is a bit obscure, but most scholars believe it refers to porpoises or a similar sea mammal.

Pulling it all together, I believe Paul is indicating that this relentless “thorn” gave him a greater sense of Christ’s work in his life—as though Christ were casting a tent over him and turning this weakness into a place of worship. The Lord does this through the inexplicable ministry of His Spirit within out hearts, directing, assuring and comforting us. He also uses the encouragement of scriptures and the ministry of others encouraging us through kind words, practical help, and prayerful support.

If you’re suffering with a “thorn” right now, I hope this little study encouraged you. And I’ll end it with a song, one I learned while serving with an international mission group. Use the tune of “Blessed Be the Tie That Binds”:
As thy day so shall thy strength be.

My grace is sufficient for thee.
My power is made perfect in thy human weakness,
My grace is sufficient for thee.

The quake-proof Rock

Sometimes the horror of history is so great that just one or two words bring a despairing silence. It may remind us of the evil in men’s hearts: 9-11, African genocide, Auschwitz, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima. It may bring up images of incomprehensible natural disasters, including the more recent: Katrina, Indonesia, Haiti, Chile, Christchurch. And now, Japan.

Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami—violent, lethal, sudden—leave language impoverished. Our modern electronic age enabled unbelievable scenes to be beamed around the world. Who can forget the photos of the black, rampaging tidal wave, a monster from the depth of the sea? But what can we say? My first reaction was a prayer, “Lord, help these people.” At the same time, the magnitude of this reminded me of Jesus’ warning of great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in the last days (Luke 21:10).

But I was also reminded of something else—a solid truth established in song by a Pittsburg pastor’s wife during the darkest times of World War 2. One day in 1943, while doing her homework, she was thinking of 2 Timothy 3:1: “There will be terrible times in the last days.” Then she recalled Hebrews 6:19: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” Taking a pad of paper from her apron pocket, Ruth Caye Jones wrote the words and melody for a hymn that begins, “In times like these you need a Savior.” The refrain affirms: our anchor holds on the Solid Rock, Jesus Christ.

When disasters such as the recent one in Japan leave me at a loss for words, I have to turn to God’s Word. Psalm 46 speaks of the earth giving way, mountains falling into the heart of the sea, and its waters roaring and foaming as the mountains quake with their surging. It’s happened before. It will probably happen again. But this will never change: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1-2).

The Name Game

When I noticed the clerk helping me at the grocery store was very pregnant, I asked her if she’d picked out names for her baby. I had “baby names” on my mind after reading about 1924 Olympic gold-medal-runner Eric Liddell. When his second girl came along, he wanted “Heather.” His wife wanted another name. He told her since they couldn’t decide, they’d put both names in the hat and pull out one. When she pulled out “Heather,” she was of course disappointed. Then she noticed the twinkle in his eye and he began laughing. He admitted that he wrote “Heather” on both slips of paper. She joined in the laughter and let him win.

Anyway, the grocery clerk said she planned to name her baby girl “Grayson Marie.” I remarked that it had a nice sound to it. But when I got home, the name “Grayson” just didn’t seem right. I checked my baby name book (I keep one on hand for naming fiction characters in my writing) and couldn’t find it under girl names. I checked boy names, and there it was. It means….drum roll….jailer’s son. Oh, my.

A couple days later I was reading in Daniel, about how this young cream-of-the-crop teen from Israel was marched off to Babylon and pulled into the king’s service. Today he’d be the teen who scored perfect SATs, was named all-American in two sports, and was an in-demand concert pianist. Daniel, while outstanding, had one problem: he had a Hebrew name that meant “God is my judge.” The Babylonian king tried to change Daniel’s identify by renaming him “Belteshazzar,” which means “Bel (one of the Babylonian false gods), protect his life.”

The Babylonians weren’t the only culture to tamper with names. Our entertainment and sports industry probably is most notorious for changing “professional” names. The front of my baby name book gives some of them: Woody Allen (Allen Konigsberg), Yogi Berra (Lawrence Peter Berra), George Burns (Nathan Birnbaum), Tony Curtis (Bernard Schwartz), Judy Garland (Frances Gumm), Cary Grant (Archibald Leach), Bob Hope (Leslie Townes Hope), Rock Hudson (Roy Scherer Jr.), Michael Landon (Michael Orowitz), Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Baker), Roy Rogers (Leonard Slye), Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey), and John Wayne (Marion Michael Morrison).

Back on Belteshazzar, er, Daniel, I’ve been giving second thoughts to something I read recently in Revelation. In the letter to the church in Philadelphia, known for its endurance and love in tough times, God promises that the believers will get “a new name” (Rev. 3:12). I believe this means we will have full identification with God, something like our ancestors did in adding “son” to surnames. Ander’s son was “Anderson” and John’s son was “Johnson.” And yes, the gray (jailer’s) son was Grayson. We’ll still be ourselves, but we’ll have that wonderful, positive, hopeful, clarifying identification as God’s-son or God’s-daughter.

Now that is something to look forward to!

Patchwork

Photo: my latest patchwork baby quilt project.
I was at the fabric store a few weeks ago and ran into a friend who runs a fruit stand. During the slow winter season she sews aprons to sell in their gift line, so was shopping for cheerful fabric to stitch up more.

“Do you still make those baby patchwork blankets?” she asked. One of her sons was a blanket recipient two decades ago.

“Yes,” I admitted. I’ve lost count, but know I’ve sewn more than 200 over the years. Because each blanket is comprised of eighty five-inch squares, I’m always looking for bright, fresh cottons for a nice variety.

“Would you like some scraps?” she added.

Do cats like cat treats? Do dogs like bones?

Twice in the next few weeks she dropped off the scraps from her latest projects. It was just what I needed to chase the gray winter blues. Some people may get excited about sky-diving, exploring sunken wrecks, or climbing Mount Everest. As for me, just give me an old bag of scraps, my rolling cutter and my well-scarred cutting board.

Random patchwork may not be everybody’s idea of “beautiful,” but it is mine. I enjoy the vibrancy of color and design. The baby quilts are also a great tool for teaching children their colors and names of objects. But what I like best is the spiritual symbolism of patchwork. People without a spiritual focus are like a bag of scraps. A corner, a length on the fold, cutouts—by themselves, they’re not of much use.

But give those scraps to the Master Designer, the One whose fingers touched the earth to bring forth amazing mountains, lakes, flowers, animals, sea life and so much more. Kindly, deftly, He lays His perfect pattern on those motley pieces. If they could talk, they might say “Ouch!” as they’re cut to size. But they need to trust that each cut is made with compassion and purpose. Finally, He joins them together to make something lovely out of the world’s discards.

I’ve seen it happen to real people, over and over. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Beauty from scraps. That’s God’s way.

The UN-bucket List

One hazard of having a “bucket list” of life goals is that sometimes you need to empty the bucket. For one reason or another, that way-out dream may be okay for some people, but not for you.

That’s why I don’t raise show dogs (an overweight fixed male cat is enough for me), climb vertical rock ledges (one broken ankle suffices for life), or train five hours daily for Olympic figuring skating (avoiding the thorns while pruning our roses gives me enough twist and bend exercise). It’s why most little girls never get a pony of their own or old ladies their gleaming gold sports cars for trips to Safeway. It’s why I’m not hugging the computer to pick up the last-minute deal on a cruise to Outer Pretalonia (wherever that may be), knowing that the germs for Traveler’s Trots have me in their cross-hairs as soon as I leave home.

Maybe I live too vanilla a life, but I can look over some amazing and satisfying experiences. The best of all was helping my faithful husband raise two kids to responsible and God-honoring adulthood.

So, in picking even these minor “bucket list” goals, I think there are some principles to keep in mind.
1. Does it honor a creative God who also examines our motives? Proverbs 21:2 says, “All a man’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart.”
2. Is it a selfish goal that may bring detriment or loss to someone else? Proverbs 28:19 says people who chase fantasy will have their fill of poverty.
3. Could it be the route to a special gift from God? Psalm 37:4 has long been a special verse for me: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” It may not be what I ordered up, but if I’m willing to flex and accept something different, He really enjoys giving it to me.

Enough thoughts for now. I have another “bucket” on my list today. The kitchen floor needs a mop dipped in a bucket of hot water. Been down with the flu, and the house shows it.

Bucket List Checkup

I’m hearing the term “bucket list” a lot more recently. It refers to goals we hope to accomplish before we die. I just knocked one off my list: to make a large pieced quilt. For years at fairs or quilt stores I’ve gazed with my jaw dropping at the intricate, colorful fabric art created for walls or beds. Yes, I’d made hundreds of baby quilts and a few full-size quilts, but they were of randomly-arranged five-inch squares. They were quick, colorful, and took care of my sewing scraps. But pieced, patterned quilts? I always considered those the realm of the infinitely careful and patient, which I am not.

I did survive putting together my pieced quilt (the log cabin pattern), but it’s not perfect. I had to rip out and re-do several sections that got way off. But it’s done--at least the 611 scraps that went into its 47 squares. Now I need to get it assembled and top-stitched.

I know of people who have amazing bucket lists. My sister’s mother-in-law was promised a glider ride for her 100th birthday. She wasn’t too healthy when Number Hundred came around, but got it in time for her 101st birthday. But I also know of many whose “bucket list” is simply to live longer. A special friend has gone through a year of grueling cancer treatments. Her hope goes up and down with the blood tests that reveal “cancer markers,” and the other day with the markers “up,” she was emotionally down. I can understand that. She has always taken care of her health and exercised, but still those malevolent marauders planted themselves in her body and don’t want to leave.

Sometimes we live under the shadow of genetic predispositions to life-threatening disease. My dad had his first heart attack in his forties, and died of either his fourth or fifth when he was only 63. Guess what: I’m under treatment for high cholesterol. My mother died of complications from breast cancer at 59. Guess what: that’s the part of my anatomy checked the most. And while I don’t enjoy those yearly tests that turn a cup into a saucer, I know they’re my best defense for early detection.

I’ve been thinking recently of a relative through marriage who just lost her mother at age 66. Barely half a year earlier, a stroke robbed the mom of her mobility and go-for-it personality. The tendency to strokes runs in the family. Thus, there’s always the question: will my time come? And when? Strokes (or heart attacks or even cancer) make no appointment to happen. They strike whether or not you’ve checked off all the items on your bucket list. At the mom’s memorial, much was said of how she invested in young women and in her grandchildren. Whether or not she intended that as her “bucket list,” it was worthy—and she did her best in the time allotted to her.

When a friend of mine died in her fifties of cancer after living half her life as a quadriplegic after an auto accident, I asked God some hard questions about her suffering and short life. I recalled how, despite her disability and illnesses, she glowed with faith and trust in God. You couldn’t hang on to your gloomies when you got around her.

I started to get my answer when I did a study of Psalms 90. Psalm 90 is Moses’ lament about the brevity of life. It’s really a downer. Basically it says, “Life is tough, then you die, probably at 70.” He does put out an appeal for joy and gladness “for as many years as we have seen trouble” (v. 15) and then he makes what I’d call a desire for completed bucket lists: “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us: establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.” Beside this verse in my Bible I had written “9-11-98, Help me make a lasting difference!” Eleven months earlier, at the age of 50, I was almost killed by a drinking driver. A split-second veer to the ditch meant our car was totaled but we lived. Talk about being very aware that God has given you extra time!

More than twelve years have passed since I marked that comment in my Bible. Twelve years of daily hands-on stuff like grocery shopping, meal prep, housecleaning, care-giving elderly parents, raising teens to young adulthood, encouraging and helping folks, pounding out articles on my computer, praying, seeking to do the ministries God put before me. Was this how God established “the work of my hands”?

Yes, there are a few things I might like to do and see on this incredible earth before death comes (although that will graduate me to the new realm of Heaven). In the decades of care-giving parents in their final decline, then tight finances as we put kids through college, we put a lot of things “on hold.”

So what is my bucket list, now that the quilt top is pieced? Although it sounds trite, it’s just to love Jesus more and more. Maybe, when our kids start their families, to help nurture a grandchild. (One of my sorrows is that my mother died before I was married, so she never knew her grandchildren through me.) The next Psalm, 91, speaks of God’s protection and ends this way: “With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.” “Long life” it literally “length of days.” I think what it means is this: in the measure of our days that God already knows about, we will be satisfied when we keep our focus on our salvation, who is Jesus Christ.

No matter what we may write on our “bucket lists,” this is what’s most important: Jesus first, people next.