Open Doors

Open doors surprised me last week.

Saturday morning, a phone call redirected our day with the happy news that Allen's parents would be spending the night at his sister's house an hour and a half away. After finishing Ebony's walk and mine (his being longer, with Al), Allen swept through his list and I settled down to work on my PT exercises. When departure time drew near, we decided I could go along to visit and eat with his folks, sister, and brother-in-law. Though brief, it was a lovely, unexpected opportunity for us to see them and catch up a bit. A door opened, and we walked through.

Wednesday after my dental appointment, I proceeded to Chocolate Angel, a cafe and tea room a few doors down. Yes, I note the irony. In my wait to hear from my mom what I should order for her lunch and where we would eat (cafe, her house, or mine), small talk with an employee resulted in a way to get back in touch with a friend and co-worker from 15 years ago. Another door opened, even more surprising than the first. I'm poised on the threshold but haven't yet gotten the number dialed.

Earlier Wednesday morning, I had arrived at the dentist to see an acquaintance from our old church sitting in the waiting room. We greeted each other and chatted along with the office manager, who also attends that church. At a lull in the conversation, Mr. B remarked that a former minister from our former church was talking with a few people about possibly planting a new church in our town. The seed families would be worshiping together monthly to test the waters, and the first gathering would be at a hospital chapel 4 days hence, as in Sunday evening, as in last night.

Allen contacted the minister directly to confirm details, and we went together to the gathering to taste and see the complexion of this community.

To our astonishment, we walked through the door to a family reunion of sorts.  Almost all the families of our youth Bible study, a number of men and women we knew separately from adult Bible studies, our closest couple friends there, all these people with whom we had shared 7 years of history... and we all had stories of how we'd heard about this in the most peculiar ways.

We had shut this door behind us 2 years ago for good reasons. The denomination in question is riddled with controversy we were not sorry to leave.

In our new church in a neighboring suburb, we've had trouble finding the community we had spent years building at the previous place. The health required for consistent participation in a Sunday school class or small group just hasn't been there yet. The Bible teaching in the new place maintains an excellent standard, and the core beliefs align well with ours, but it has been frustrating to hear exhortations to community from so many different directions, to feel the need of "real life" community, and not to know how to respond.

A door we never expected has opened, a door to a new-old community with a new-old pastor. The door may or may not become a church plant, and God may or may not confirm whether we belong there, but it was a joy to walk through the door and find familiar faces sardined together for worship, even if it was just for a night.

Allen is working on scheduling a meeting with the pastor to see if the reason we shut the door in the first place will pose a similar problem for us with this new potential church. That's the only next step we know for now. Otherwise, we are praying like the rest of the group, to the God who opens and shuts doors, seeking "by testing [to] discern what the will of God is, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2), whether that is to persevere where we are in the slow work of building friendships or to turn down this new-old path.

Q: How about you? Has God surprised you lately with any unexpected open doors of opportunity?


As is our usual Monday practice here, I'm giving thanks to the Lord for His goodness, for His steadfast love that endures forever:
~for good surprises
~for worshiping with people whose stories we know and who know ours
~for seeing two of our Bible study kids young adults
~for the editor's desk my father-in-law made me, which turns out to work well as a laptop stand
~for walking a little farther this week than last
~for Mom's safe return from a ministry trip to the Pacific Northwest
~for the mail carrier bringing our mail to the door along with a package
~for a loved one's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and sleep-deprived but productive night
~for no cavities at my check-up
~for a referral to a specialist able to deal with my bite problems if/when we can take that on
~for a yummy quiche-and-salad lunch from Chocolate Angel
~and maybe a slice of cake, too
~for a way to contact my friend with whom I'd lost touch over years and peregrinations
~for 59F at dawn on the first day of autumn
~for pulling on my hoodie for a walk
~for the right name for the grey heron at the park

Introducing Gandalf the Grey Heron. So obvious! Why didn't I see it sooner?

~for the unexpected visit with Allen's family
~for talking and sharing books with kindred spirits
~for no back problems on the drive this time
~for a new photo, drawing, and progress report from the Indian girl we sponsor

Apparently India has pumpkins, too.

~for the news that Sara is beyond pain's reach
~for grieving with hope
~for waking on a Sunday with "Worthy Is the Lamb" stuck in my head
~for 2 consecutive nights with 8 hours of sleep
~for many cool mornings to walk early in the park instead of at home

~for minions! The nefarious Dr. Miao has minions! Minions with lethal powers of cuteness and glowing eyes that have already turned one neighborhood family to the dark side!

No, the minions don't have names yet.

~for moving into the Gospels for my daily Bible reading (sorry, did that topic change give you whiplash?)
~for more water rationing, praying for rain
~for chest pain increased again last few days, reminding me to trust the slow work of God
~for a whole day at home today to try not to miss God's glory here and now
(counting the multitude of blessings, #1721-1750)

Linking up today to Ann and Laura:

Hope Waits

Hope, like perseverance, is a virtue for the "not yet" waiting time of life in this groaning creation. Hope waits, the father watching at the window for the prodigal to appear, the prophet Daniel in exile counting the years until 70 and the return to the land, the sisters in Bethany waiting for Jesus to come and help their brother. Hope waits for the promises of God to catch up with our desires, or so it seems.

John Calvin articulates the forward-leaning character of hope:

"Hope is nothing else than the expectation of those things which faith has believed to have been truly promised by God. 

Thus, faith believes God to be true, hope awaits the time when His truth shall be manifested; 

faith believes that He is our Father, hope anticipates that He will ever show Himself to be a Father toward us;

faith believes that eternal life has been given to us, hope anticipates that it will some time be revealed;

faith is the foundation upon which hope rests, hope nourishes and sustains faith….

hope strengthens faith, that it may not waver in God’s promises or begin to doubt concerning their truth."

     ~John Calvin, courtesy of Graced Again

As beautiful as that is, who can weave the groaning, waiting perseverance of the now and the hope of the not yet better than the apostle Paul?

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it (Romans 8:18-25, NASB).

Waiting eagerly today with you and the community at Ann's:



and at Emily's:

Prayer to Know Him Better

Growing pains are stretching my soul lately. The Spirit has been convicting me of laziness in prayer and a need to go deeper in that. So many yearnings tug for the upper hand, but I keep returning to the prayers of Ephesians 1 and 3.

Yesterday our church continued walking through that letter (timing is the Lord's, isn't it?) and arrived at that Ephesians 1 prayer. Here it is in its entire beautiful complexity:

This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, ¹⁶ I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. ¹⁷ [I pray] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. ¹⁸ [I pray] that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His vast strength.

 ²⁰ He demonstrated [this power] in the Messiah by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavens — ²¹ far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age but also in the one to come. ²² And He put everything under His feet and appointed Him as head over everything for the church, ²³which is His body, the fullness of the One who fills all things in every way (Eph. 1:15-23, HCSB, emphasis mine).

The associate pastor preaching this week said the gist of the whole prayer is that Paul's readers would grow to know God better. Paul further prayed that they would understand three things:

• the hope of God's calling,
• the glorious riches of God's inheritance in us, His saints (astonishing, that!),
• and what is the immeasurable (the Greek word here is the source of our English word "hyperbole") greatness of His resurrection power to us who believe.

These are too much for me to get my brain around; I suppose that's why we need to pray for the lightbulb to switch on in our hearts, for the gift of a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know Him better.

After delving further into the details of the text, our speaker challenged us with a simple application: to pray this prayer every day this week for myself and for others and also to ask someone to pray it for us.

This morning I have prayed it for myself, for my family, for close friends and missionaries, for political and church leadership, for the young adults who used to be the TNTS Bible study in our care, for our sponsored children,...

Now I'd like to pray it for you, my crumbly friends:

• for you who are fighting corporate dragons in cubicle labyrinths,
• for you whose hearts and lives are full of tending young children, playing, creating, cleaning, cooking, and caregiving,
• for you, serving God and and raising a family south of the border and across the sea,
• for you, making beauty in the Arizona desert,
• for you, growing a Wild Orange in the Old Dominion,
• for you, drinking tea in a coffee world,
• for you in the antbed,
• for you, my reading friend who calls Alabama your sweet home,
• for you, making paintings and babies and perfectly imperfect prose,
• for you, waiting to be freed from the prison of your weak body,
• for you, endeavoring to inculcate wisdom in university students across the pond,
• for you whose names I know and who are known only to God,

I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.

I pray that the eyes of your hearts may be enlightened so you may know:

what is the hope of His calling,

what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints,

and what is the immeasurable greatness of His resurrection power to us who believe, according to the working of His vast strength.

In the name of Jesus our risen and ascended Savior, Amen.

(Those of you who graciously pray for me anyway, might you consider praying this way this week? I'm so grateful to know Christ better through you!)

****

And since it's Monday, let me also thank God for His excellent gifts this past week:

~His Word to help me know Him more and teach me how to pray

~a church which believes in God's breathed-out Word and proclaims it week by week

~sister's successful surgery

~mothers to move in and help her during recovery

~a friend's cancer-free post-chemo CT scan

~two weeks off from PT appointments to see if I can maintain the standard of sound teaching without monitoring

~everything stable with my vision, no toxicity from lupus meds

~flu shot checked off for the season

~only one appointment this week for the first time since July. Yea!

~a good dentist and hygienist (my appointment for the week, for cleaning, x-rays, and the next step in the implant)

~a few days cool enough to do my walking in the park

baby nutria

all my ducks in a row?

~reflections

~there's rain in them there clouds!

~phones with cameras

~almost an inch and a half of "showers of blessing" this weekend

~the young birds learning how the feeder works

~even hummingbirds take a breather sometimes

~Big Al grilling supper last night and enough salmon and chicken for 3 more meals

~and also taking care of the car maintenance needs

~a new online acquaintance a few years ahead of me on the lupus journey

~growing pains

(from the gratitude journal, #1645-65)

Quietly, gratefully joining the communities at Ann's, Michelle's, Laura's, and Jen's:

Joy Breaks Through {Five-Minute Friday}

This has been a long week, and I haven't yet finished my exercises for today or read, let alone answered, the messages in my inbox. Five-Minute Friday writing wasn't on my list today...

But the topic is for Sara this time. Sara who has been choosing joy in her life and on her blog in years of severe chronic pain and restrictions imposed by her Ankylosing Spondylitis. Sara who chose joy in the sudden loss of her dad, when she was too ill to attend the funeral. Sara who learned this week that the disease is winning the battle for her earthly body and is choosing joy in hospice.

The topic this week is joy. I realize now when I think of joy, the people who come to mind are those who have known Christ's fellowship in deep suffering: Margaret, Jeanette, Joni, Sara, Elisabeth.

The faces for "happy" are completely different and inconstant.

That makes me wonder if joy is what the Spirit births in God's children when the happy has been knocked out of them by trials. If that's the kind of joy Jesus promised His followers in the upper room the night before His death.

And yet, is it possible, too, that that kind of joy eventually, even if it's on the other side of death, blooms into happiness, too?. First we consider it all joy, then we discover it all joy, then we see Him who is our joy and find we are happy. Really happy for the first time.



If you would like to join in praying for Sara as she prepares to go Home to the Lord and for the many who love and will miss her, her story is here at her blog, "Choose Joy." She and her blog are the reason blogging seemed like a good and reasonable response a year ago when my doctor put me on bed rest at home temporarily. Though I only know her through reading and commenting on her blog, she has helped me grow in grace, and I'm grateful.


Linking up today to Gypsy Mama and her community, which each week writes for an unedited five minutes on a shared prompt:




...and to Jessica's tribute page at The Mom Creative

Another most beautiful tribute by someone who has known Sara in person can be read at A Holy Experience.

Oasis {A Poem}

O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You;

my soul thirsts for You;

my flesh faints for You,

as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Psalm 63:1, ESV

The husband God gave me has a fondness for nature documentaries. A few years ago I gave him the Planet Earth DVD series as a gift, and we watched the discs straight through in what seemed days but was probably weeks.

The episode "Seasonal Forests" depicted the blossoming of Madagascar baobabs. In the wet season in that largely dry climate, the lily-like flowers on the massive trees open in a minute or less, in the dead of night, like gold and fuschia fireworks few human eyes see. At the same season in the same locale, the world's tiniest primate, the mouse lemur, wakes from hibernation. The cinematographer captures the little lemurs drinking nectar from the blooms for energy. As they eat* and drink, pollen coats their fur, and they carry it off to other flowers as the cycle repeats.

As I thought over those images, an analogy emerged and found voice in the following poem, which has been coming to mind persistently in this long Texas drought.

Make Your face shine upon Your servant—

Lighten desert darkness—

Unfurl, unfold the golden splendor of Your mercy

Like blossoms of baobab

Opening in the night,

Dripping cool nectar.

I’m thirsty, Lord,

Parched for You,

For the water only You can give;

You give in abundance,

Even in this arid emptiness.

You pour life-juice from Your very heart

As I wait on you in the night watches.

Let me bury my face in Your beauty,

Drink in Your elixir.

Slake my sandy longing,

That I may scamper off revived,

Clothed in fecund grains of glory dust.

*On a recent reviewing of the film, I discovered my memory had conveniently edited out the bit about the lemurs eating another pollinator, the giant hawk moth, which meal is the source of most of the pollen they transport. Oh well. Every metaphor breaks down at some point; now I know the breaking point for this one!

Quietly joining in the Imperfect Prose community today: