Keeping His Vows

Friday at the doctor, when the appointment was all over but the bloodletting, I stood at the nurse's counter waiting for my prescriptions. I cracked a joke, and she laughed and said it was good to see me smiling. It's comforting to see the same nurse and receptionist at every appointment for nearly a decade. Safe. Known.

"Things are better than they were," I said. "Still not pain-free, but better. We're trying one more medication change. It would be really nice if that took me the rest of the way, but..." I shrugged. "Rest is good, too."

"Plus, God has blessed me with a husband who is committed to taking care of me, even when that means doing the things I can't."

She noticed the smile wobbling, looked into my eyes, and quietly said, "He's keeping his vows, Christina. That's what he's doing; he's keeping his vows."


Yes. Yes, he is. That's the kind of man he is, the kind of family which raised him.

It is humbling to receive such faithful love. I neither take it for granted nor deserve it. That's how grace is.

My closest friend from high school has a different chronic illness from mine. Years before I had even met Allen, I stood beside her at her wedding. The vows I witnessed, the "in sickness and in health," grew burdensome on her husband's shoulders. Now she carries the burden of earning a living in addition to that of her health problems. It is humbling to remember that Allen's faithfulness is a choice, a daily decision, and not always the easy one.

There is humility in the keeping of the vows, as well, in the placing of God's will before self, in the living sacrifice of "as You wish"--as the Lord wishes, first; as the beloved wishes, second. I recognize humility in the way Allen helps with the laundry, the errands, the dishes; the accepting extra weekend duties without complaint; the submission of his vocational dreams to my need for stability and health insurance; the relinquishing of vacations and peregrinations until I can go, too. He hasn't yet been required literally to wash my feet, yet he does so every day through his service to me.

He will shrug off these words, echo the nurse, "Just keeping my vows," but that "just" reminds me of Jesus.

Considering the practice of humility today with the community at Ann's...
P.S. You might like this post on the place of love in living your best life.


...and redemption with the community at Emily's...

Make Us Your Sunflowers, Lord

"Dear Jesus,

help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.

Flood my soul with Your Spirit and Life.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly

that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me and be so in me

that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.

Let them look up, and see no longer me, but only Jesus!

Stay with me and then I will begin to shine as You shine,

so to shine as to be a light to others.

The light, O Jesus, will be all from You;

none of it will be mine.

It will be You, shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise You in the way You love best,

by shining on those around me.

Let me preach You without preaching,

not by words but by example,

by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do,

the evident fullness of the love my heart bears for You.

Amen."

~Mother Teresa, from a note in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, p.391

Thank You, gracious Lord, for
~thwarting our attempts to find satisfaction or security anywhere but in You
~the grace amidst the dismal record of the kings of Judah and Israel
~Isaiah 12
~mysterious resurgence of interest in a January post, reminding me that "the wind blows where it [He] will" in the blogosphere
~you delightful readers!
~eating humble pie for breakfast
~gentle, if uncomfortable, reminder to trust the Giver, not the gift
~confession of sins
~forgiveness and grace
~spilling an entire Earl Grey latte on the floor of the car
~car wash next door to the corner coffee shop
~more grace
~themes of stillness and God's fullness for our emptiness weaving themselves through my reading this week
~2.5" needed rain
~Speed Racer bringing his whole family to the feeder (first time we've seen more than one at once)
~professional encouragement for a sister
~another medication adjustment, working toward better pain management
~lupus stabilized except for the costochondritis factor
~God's sovereignty over efficacy, side effects, and interactions
~pharmacy and medical staff who know me well
~morning with Mom going to lupus doc and back, her help pushing the grocery cart and loading/unloading purchases
~healthy, happy Ebony dog
~sharing book recommendations with the other sister
(from the gratitude journal #641-63)

Elegy for a Friend

for Steinway, 10/22/2009

Steinway Leone Moore (5/1/1993-6/22/2011)

Four months ago you left me.

The memories of the pain we lived,

Those last shadow-vale days,

Remain as fresh as this morning’s paper cut.

Your intoxicating, dream-sweet scent

Has all but faded

From last pillow

Left unwashed,

Unsoiled by death’s indignities.

How I longed,

In those months of fading light,

To distill your fragrant essence—

Favorite anodyne—

In a bottle

Against emptiness to come,

But the only elixir left me now

Is my own tears,

Distilled in Another’s bottle,

Against the Day they all

Are wiped away,

For what purpose

I know not yet,

But set my face

Toward trust.

Soon the only remnant

Of your tangibility,

Relics of sixteen-year

Habits of the heart,

Will be your small casket

Of ashes, fur clipped

From final bath,

A lost tooth,

Drawer of wee sweaters,

Cast-off toys,

Photographs,

Memories

All too likely, too, to fade—

Merciful agony—

Like your scent

On this last cushion.



If this finds you grieving today, the keen sharpness of fresh grief, in my experience, does dull in time. I do not promise it departs, but the intensity does soften a bit so one can move forward again. The second anniversary of Steinway's death was much better than the first, which was somewhat better than the four-month mark described in the poem above.


More importantly, the grief itself opens the way to know our Lord in a deeper way as the Holy Spirit Jesus promised in John 14-16 comes alongside us and the Father of mercies comforts our afflictions so that we in turn are better able to comfort others (2 Corinthians 1). Ultimately, comfort is not a thing or a feeling but a Person, the Lord God Himself indwelling His children. May this loving Lord make His comfort real in your experience as He has in mine.

Grief resources I have found helpful in various losses:
GriefShare e-mail service (free, no collateral spam)
Rain on Me book, by Holley Gerth (40-day devotional)
A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis
God in the Dark: Through Grief and Beyond, Fourth Edition by Luci Shaw


If you seem to be stuck in your grief and it is not getting better at all with time, please know there is no shame in seeking help from a guide equipped to provide it. In her book listed above, Holley Gerth recommends this site for information and referrals: http://ecounseling.com/homes

The Dog Who Helped Me Become Real

"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand" (The Skin Horse, from The Velveteen Rabbit).

The summer of 1993 marked the middle of the most difficult season of my life to that point. Two years prior, a difficult decision I believed to be right and obedient had proved even more costly than I had imagined. Some of the cost was inherent to the decision, but I no doubt increased it by my lack of skills, maturity, and courage to handle the ensuing conflicts.
I sought comfort for my grief and shame in food, sleep, Scripture, spiritual reading, and desperate prayer (sometimes in that order), even while trying to reassemble the shattered dreams with duct tape and ingenuity.

By that summer, I was almost out of duct tape and ideas, and I decided with my parents' support that the next step was to buy a dog. At the time I was living in my old room at their house, no longer enrolled in college, and working at temporary clerical jobs and babysitting, yet somehow it seemed perfectly reasonable to spend more than a week's wages on a purebred Lhasa Apso. A male one, to breed with my sister's dog, Muffin.

After weeks of scanning classified advertisements and making phone calls from the breakroom at lunch, just before July Fourth we found a good prospect in Oak Cliff, a good drive southwest of us. The one snag was that I already had a childcare commitment after work that night, there were only two males in the litter, and we had learned from experience that the males sold most quickly.

My kind and longsuffering parents agreed to drive out to the breeder's house with check in hand, examine the candidates, and act on my behalf.

The babysitting evening is a blur in my memory, as all I could think about was whether my parents were meeting and picking up my dog. When I arrived back home, the lights were still on and the kitchen was full of my parents, youngest sister, her dog, and a tiny brown ball of fur who fit in my two hands.

First meeting 

He nestled in my lap immediately, and I was so smitten I hardly even minded the flea bites. After much deliberation, I named him Steinway.

For sixteen years, he was my most constant creaturely companion. Friends came and went; my sisters moved into their own places and one married; I met and married Allen and exchanged my parents' roof for his; but Steinway loved me without reserve or qualification through it all. He had no job to take him away during the day or move him to another city, no competing interests except the squirrels on the lawn or the occasional Nylabone.

Story time, ca 2002

From him I learned the power of presence, the importance of "with." As I put aside the salvage attempts and sat among the shards, he let me cry into his fur and didn't even seem to mind. He curled up on the dining room chair next to mine, whether I was up at 4 am or midnight studying. When I left, he waited for me at the front window or atop the back of the sofa, from which perch he could see both entrances. When illness woke me in the night, he found me and kept me company, and I did the same for him. He was my Velcro dog, sticking by me through whatever came. Throughout his life he made visible to me in an almost sacramental way the invisible, constant, loving presence of Christ.

I did not always love him wisely, but I hope I loved him well. His companionship and puppy needs were a gift from God to turn my focus outward again, and God brought his affection to begin to heal my hurting heart and give me many years of joy before his departure broke it again. The memory of his fur and weight is still imprinted on my arms.

He helped me live through the brokenness, rubbed off some of my sharp edges, and taught me that Real is more beautiful than "carefully kept." For sixteen years we loved the fur off each other; because of Steinway I am that much closer to Real.

Steinway Leone Moore (May 1, 1993-June 22, 2009)

Delightful? Not So Much

Yesterday's post on a happy encounter with a young neighbor was already written and scheduled when we, along with the rest in the crowded pews, received the unexpected and rather traumatic news of the departure of a long-serving pastor.

Then I read Jonah's story from my daily portion yesterday and realized being swallowed by the big fish at the end of chapter 1 was the best thing that happened to Jonah that day. Normally, ending up in the belly of a fish would be bad news, yes? In Jonah's case, however, the fish rescued him from drowning (see his prayer in chapter 2) and provided a needed course correction, namely express delivery to God's chosen destination with none of those pesky weather delays or security lines.

Consequently, I'm pondering the dark side of delight, i.e., the other "D" word: discipline. (By "discipline" here, I do not mean punitive consequences for wrongdoing, but the more general parental training up of a child to maturity and in this case Christlikeness.)

Do not despise the LORD's instruction, my son,
and do not loathe His discipline;
for the LORD disciplines the one He loves,
just as a father, the son he delights in (Proverbs 3:11-12, HCSB).

Like it or not (mostly not, to be honest), even the unpleasantness of life--the apparently unanswered prayers, the radical course corrections, the being allowed to face the consequences of our sin, the times God does in fact tell us to go weed the garden--equally signifies His love and delight in us. He only trains up and lays down the law, so to speak, for His own kids.

When those not-so-delightful seasons come, I can easily begin to view my Father as my enemy, to let the pain keep me from Him who could have prevented it. If I hold fast instead to His promise that even these "waves and billows" are marks of His love, that trust opens my hands and heart to begin to recognize His presence in the trials. He never forsakes His children; He has promised that (Deut. 31:6; Hebrews 13:5), but only trust has eyes to see the answer to the promise.

The currently popular song "Blessings" (from the album of the same name) puts that trust into words:

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
is a revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy?

The story behind the song lends even more authority. Only two years after the songwriter's wedding, her husband was hospitalized with a brain tumor. That was in 2006, and five years later they are still working through the consequences of that cancer and its treatment. In her own words,

“The song shows that we still have more questions than answers,” Laura confesses. “But there’s a decision that I find God is asking us to make: whether we are going to choose to interpret our circumstances based on what we hold to be true about God, or whether we’re going to judge what we hold to be true about God based on our circumstances.”

In the book George Müller of Bristol And His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God, A.T. Pierson comments not on trials generally but specifically on the suffering of earnest prayers which seem unanswered:

God's real answers to prayer are often seeming denials. Beneath the outward request He hears the voice of inward desire, and He responds to the mind of the Spirit rather than to the imperfect and perhaps mistaken words in which the yearning seeks expression. Moreover, His infinite wisdom sees that a larger blessing may be ours only by the withholding of the lesser good which we seek; and so all true prayer trusts Him to give His own answer, not in our way or time, or even to our own expressed desire, but rather to His own unutterable groaning within us which He can interpret better than we.

Dear Crumble, if you are in the belly of the fish, in a time of affliction and prayers that seem to fall on deaf ears, if perhaps you read yesterday's post and felt like it wasn't meant for you, I pray that this "strengthen[s] your tired hands and weakened knees" just a little bit. I'm truly sorry that you are not feeling delight in God's delight in you, but yesterday's words are no less true. If you are a child of God through Christ,

Your Father delights in you.

May He open your hands and heart, and mine also, to receive His delight by faith when we don't feel it in experience.

Sharing this today with Jen's community: