Fingerprints

This morning I noticed a shadow on the bathroom mirror: the handprint of granddaughter Josie, age 18 months. I squinted and then moved from side to side to better study the almost perfect print of her palm and eagerly spread fingers and thumb. While bobbing to get the best view with such direct overhead light (can’t you just picture this dance?), my own perceptive inner lens made some interpretations. That lens, covered as it is with accumulated (practiced) attitudinal fingerprints and smudges, quite clearly recognized the heart and soul behind the little hand that had left its mark.

Ah, to be young again…and so open both in expectancy and expression! Can I even remember what it was like to be unabashedly dependent…full of belief and trust…and yet vulnerable in an outspoken way? There’s an almost sacred honesty that defines little kids. What joy to have not only no worry about tomorrow, but to have absolutely no thought for it.

I stood there with tousled hair, still bleary-eyed with sleep, and considered whether I should wipe off the handprint or leave it as inspiration. For better or for worse, I will also leave fingerprints behind today. How awesome if mine might provide even a fraction of the encouragement left by Josie’s.


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The 64-Box

The 64-Box

To glom onto a metaphor used by an author (sorry, I don’t know who or what book), I’ve been created as someone with potential to experience life with a 64-crayola-box mindset: colorfully full. However, as a child I was happy enough with an 8-crayon set, and for decades the status quo of the 24-box seemed quite ample. Those dull-tipped, broken little stubs of waxy nuggets - the ones almost too small to hold – scribbled in the predetermined blank spots JUST FINE.

I didn’t recognize my old 24-box of worn-down crayons (or the black-lined coloring book) as a limitation. In fact, the 24-set allowed me to see my options clearly and maintain some sense of control. As a survivor bent on making ends meet, putting out fires, and covering bases, I had little tolerance for the creative enticement of 64 different colors. I mean really, who had TIME or ENERGY to pursue all THOSE colors? I convinced myself that 24 seemed quite nice indeed, even though an inner disquietude of suppressed creativity sometimes taunted me: “There’s more to life than THIS.”

During the last decade, and increasingly with each passing year, I’ve realized the need for my heart to grow into the 64-crayon box mentality. What does that look like in a practical sense? It means fine-tuning my focus, i.e. fixating, on an intimate relationship with God (the creator of all that diverse possibility in the 64-box), learning what it means to trust in His promises (those hopeful, forward-looking affirmations that inspire the shapes to be colored), and finally acting in obedience to His call on my life (filling in the spaces and backgrounds with all those incredibly enticing-but-strange crayons named sienna and chartreuse and ochre; thistle and cobalt and cadmium).

The 64-box is God’s thing; I could never manage it on my own. He shows, teaches, and guides me toward possibilities beyond my own imagination. When I open up the lid and spread out the palette (in my case, this is often a palette of words rather than colors), I can only gasp in gratitude and hope to worship and represent Him more fully with His generous gift of the 64-crayon set. Whoa…there’s even a hope-instilling crayon sharpener built in the back of the box to ensure precision and success! Now that is very cool.

It seems no accident that as we enter the Christmas season the first deep purple Advent candle (could that be the color of the crayon named “pansy purple”?) bears its own name – HOPE. As I watched it flicker this morning it seemed to shed a broad spectrum that colored my heart with a 64-color-band of anticipation and expectancy just waiting to be put into words. Which is incidentally why I’m here, pecking away on the keyboard, celebrating the fact that my 8-crayon-set is now quite obsolete – because once you’re a 64-set person, there’s no turning back. Hope that is 64-strong transcends whatever it used to look like from the 8-or-24-point-of-view.
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(The previous was inspired on this first Sunday of Advent by Psalm 25:1-10: focus [vs. 1-2], hope [vs. 3), and action [vs. 4,5 and 8-10].)

Transforming Exercise

I tried role-playing while entertaining last night by intentionally deciding in advance that the decibel levels of noisy conversation wouldn’t do me in. I was going for the hostess-with-the-mostess role: putting myself in the center of every conversation as either a listener or participant. This might appear to be sort of like biased pre-programming or self-brainwashing. But, to give credit where credit is more likely due, it can also be recognized as an exercise in being renewed by the transforming of the mind (Ro. 12:2?), which is God’s business.

This decision was a spin-off of a desire to push myself out on the edge and give God room to work in me right there in that precarious spot. It’s true I’ve generally been more and more protective of my hearing (and sanity) as the inner back-feed squeal of tinnitus continues to heat up. But last night I wanted to shove that paranoid approach to the back burner for an evening and trust that God would work in me.

Did I laugh loud and long myself, and sit tall without cringing internally when the conversational noise zoomed beyond comfortable? Yes. Did I have a really good/heart-warming time, possibly the best I’ve had in a long time? Yes. Did the muffle-stress-response still kick in afterwards? Yes. Was I more refreshed than exhausted? Yes. Did I have rapid heart and sleeplessness (typical over-stress reaction) in the middle of the night? Yes. Looking back, how will I remember the evening? Am I mostly grateful for the extra grace that carried me through the entire time with an uplifted spirit? YES.

The thing is, the pros (great company comprised of people with intellectual savvy and quick wit) honestly outweighed the cons (noise overload). There’s nothing like a swift kick in the butt (I mean mindset) to wake me up to the fact that I need not always-always-always coddle myself, but can afford to take a few risks and trust a God who is committed to my ongoing heart transformation and growing soul-stature (sanctification), perhaps even more than any potential physical healing.

Re-Grouping Out Loud

The last several weeks have been defined by atypical (extremely good but also challenging) days. I’m finally trying to catch my breath and shake out the cobwebby after-blur even as I forge ahead and click off the to-do list for the next project (having friends over for dinner tonight).

Anyway, here’s what I’m thinking.

The body of Christ here on earth is full of diversity beyond our comprehension. Each person uniquely demonstrates some aspect of God’s person/character, and thus serves some specific purpose in His kingdom plan. Those quickened by His spirit and inspired by His transforming graces are walking around like the little specks of energy they are, bumping into and rubbing off onto each other, sharing their individual slants, ministering and being ministered to in much the same way that individual cells work together to jointly comprise a whole, integrated, working/functioning, living thing.

Amidst this mass of redeemed humanity my specific, individual focuses/goals (in no particular order) seem to be:

1. holistically stewarding the life given by God (honoring God by intentionally agreeing with Him in regard to the health of body/soul/spirit)
2. living hopefully by assuming a childlike posture before God (accepting circumstances and expecting Him to work in them according to His will)
3. humbly seeking relationship with God (turning from arrogance/pride)
4. working toward transparency/authenticity with God and others

I don’t pretend to perform these perfectly, or even well - but rather see them coming together as a four-fold, overlapping frame to support my vision for wholeness.

War Zone

The auditory ranks of tinnitus continue to march on (picture rank-and-file-type troops) with a conquering battle mindset, their squealing bagpipes screaming constantly with never even a tiny pause for breath. They are relentless in their pursuit with a well-planned and orchestrated strategy: overwhelm.

I try to be realistic. No one (not even the saintliest saint) could bear up under this kind of internal pressure perfectly. I fight back, but not with resolve or will or guts. These fail me every time.

Rather, I wait expectantly knowing His truth will prevail. Righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, prayer, and the word of God (as in Ephesians 6:14-18) are my weapons. His grace and mercy will overshadow the ever-oncoming ranks.

Still, the war zone is blood-spattered. I ache for a single moment of peace. However, His grace is greater than my fear.

“It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace…” Hebrews 13:9

Droplets

I’m back in Buck Creek this morning, and little drips of condensed fog are hanging from the limbs of the tree outside our bedroom window. With even a slight wind they’d be shaken off, but instead they hang like round, white jewels – little lights that refuse to fall.

The sun is trying to burn through dense fog that blurs the background. In so doing it illumines those drips until they shine like morning stars in the grayness. They are, in fact, the first things that meet my eye as I scan the view: symbols of fog transformed.

In an analogous sense, it seems sometimes the soupiness of life can be condensed in similar ways – into crystalline drops (of suffering/pain and mercy/healing) that bear our greatest testimony and reflect God’s greatest grace. I want eyes to see them as a primary focus rather than being distracted by the fog

Advocacy

This morning as I rebound from yesterday’s disappointing news from the doctor’s office, I wonder how to write about things beyond understanding that are still so very real…like discouragement, or encouragement, or hope…or advocacy. In my opinion, we all need someone to care about our individual journeys, especially when traveling the rough terrain. I know I like someone to be there with a loyal pat-on-the-back (“How are you doing?”) even if he/she can’t begin to understand the intricacies of my unique passage through my specific moon-craters (sufferings, trials).

At the moment I’m very conscious of bellows (circumstantial squeezing) that pump when whatever is happening around me seems out-of-control. The suck-in phase (suck-it-up) promotes a sort of hyperventilation, a dizzying, head-spinning vertigo of the soul. Most of us are good at sucking-it-up; we’ve been well coached by mentors adept in the skill who have been refined by culture’s situational ethics. However, the blow-out phase (blow-off) acts like a purge for that hold-your-breath mask of mock adequacy and false security. An advocate is very helpful in receiving the stale blow-off air that must eventually come out (or else we implode).

The Lord Jesus is my ultimate advocate, promising shelter beneath His protective wing during fall-out, and guidance through the jungles. But how critical to remember that we are His protégés, serving each other (and thus Him) when the tide flows out, when winter frost climbs up the windows of the soul, when dark valleys seem never ending…and when the threshing machine of our Western medical culture (which I call “the system”) corners and growls with grizzly insistence; tearing, chewing, and devouring personal ethics in the name of something called science.

Victimization has a way of clawing at the most tender parts of my heart. May today be a day of healing: of rejoicing in His sovereignty, trusting His advocacy, and resting in His grace.

“Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high.
My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God.” Job 16:19-20