Dad and the Éclair

  Dad and the Éclair

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When I was a preteen, my family and I were having dinner once in a restaurant that had a dessert counter at the hostess station. So before you saw anything else you were greeted with sugary temptation. And that’s where it was…the most beautiful éclair I had ever seen. Every other dessert in the case seemed to be angled in such a way as to draw attention to its magnificence. It was lit so beautifully. I knew I had to have it. From the love at first sight moment on, it became my mission to convince my dad of the absolute need for it in my life. Bugged the poor man. While we waited for a table. All throughout dinner. Because God forbid dad forget I wanted that éclair.  

After my incessant reminders, I had finally worn him down and he ordered the éclair, I am sure, to give himself back the gift of peace. So I sat and waited for the waiter to bring me the dessert that I was sure was going to be heaven on a plate. Took the first bite, expectantly. The taste could best be described as a combination of sawdust and curdled cream. I could not believe that this thing that was so beautiful while on display could taste like a punishment. It was in this moment that I understood that petrification does just that – preserves the pretty. Because I am confident the éclair had died days, if not weeks (!) prior. Pretty sure I cried. Poor dad. Because now the begging had turned to “Please don’t make me eat this. It is nasty and spoiled.” Dad laughed his head off and told me that I was in fact going to eat the whole thing because I had bothered him so much about it.

When I recently reminded my dad of this story, he had no recollection. (Of course not –for him it was another day of parenting. For me, it was a memory seared by the realization that sugar could be punishment.) He is, however, convinced it was a brilliant parenting move; I think I even saw him pat his own back over this moment he doesn’t remember. But I remember it vividly – even moreso today (hold tight for the Jesus Juke) because I am in a season that flat-out sucks. And I do the same thing with Jesus. Beg Him for the thing I think will save everything. That will fulfill the dream. Be amazing. Fill me up. God (unfortunately/fortunately) does not wear down. He cannot be convinced the nasty éclair is actually wonderful. I would love to say in all the years I have known Jesus, my first instinct is to just trust. But the truth is I struggle with it, and that is likely why I keep ending up back in this classroom.

When my daughter was little, any kind of change could send her reeling, even small ones. But her world was ever so small, so to her, these changes were not inconsequential. Once when she had outgrown her hat and it no longer covered her ears, I bought her a new one. The first time I put it on her, she had the kind of fit that makes a new parent question his or her ability to carry out the job functions. I tried everything to calm her down, aside from removing the hat. She wanted the hat gone. I knew that I knew better. So I whispered to her, “I love you. You need to trust me.” As I said the last part, I felt God breathe the same words into my own ears and heart. My daughter could not begin to fathom my knowledge of the world nor my motivations regarding her. My experience was so much vaster than hers. So her only choice was to know ME. Know I had proven I loved her and was taking care of her. I do what I think is in the best interest of my daughter. Me with my limited control. My limited knowledge. Love motivates me, so right or wrong (because I am fallible) that alone makes me trustworthy. And then there is God. With actual control. All-knowing. Infallible. When I think of my daughter’s meltdown, I can’t help but land on the simple truth: I know more than she is even aware exists. So how much more potent is it when God, who spoke all of it into existence with mere words, tells me I can trust Him? It is His system. His design. Talk about knowing more than I am aware exists…

There seems to always be a moment, almost a last stage of faith if you will, where our own will gives, our fear is booted out, we release our grip and a beautiful relinquishment occurs. The place where we lean into the “what ifs,” release any notion that we have control, and surrender. This is when God says, “Now I can move.” We see this so gorgeously illustrated in the stories of Esther and Jacob. When Esther makes the decision to align herself with her people (the Jews) and go before the king –breaking the law because she was not formally invited to speak to him – to petition him on behalf of the Jews scripture records her saying, “If I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:16) Jacob expresses a similar sentiment when he must send his son –the only remaining son of Rachel –to the governor of Egypt and says, “If I am bereaved. I am bereaved.” (Genesis 43:14) Jesus, knowing the cross was before Him, says the same thing in its rawest form while He prayed in Gethsemane, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death…My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine.” (Matthew 26:38-39) So we give up in order to be free. To get out of His way so He can accomplish what is infinitely better than our short sightedness can see.

Beth Moore stated it more eloquently than I can in her Esther Bible study, “Our conditional trust not only makes us an open target for enemy torment; it also positions us as negotiators and beggars before God instead of secure children who trust their lives to their faithful Father…The most critical breakthrough of faith you and I could ever experience is to let God bring us to a place where we trust Him –period. We don’t just trust Him to let us avoid what we fear most. We determine to trust Him no matter what, even if our worst nightmare befalls us.”

I am glad that despite my pleading, God goes not give me the éclair just because I want it. His infinite love and wisdom wants better for me than some spoiled éclair. Even when I don’t always agree.

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Doorstep and Lamplight

Guest blogger: Chad Halcom

Doorstep and Lamplight

I encountered the wrath of God, on a doorstep facing Gratiot Avenue at 12:29 am. 
The time was memorable because my first shift was starting in one minute as a volunteer for MCREST, the Macomb County Rotating Emergency Shelter Team that hosts the homeless in various churches of the county. I was trying to find my shape, or my ministry specialty at Freedom Christian, and a friend told me where to come get a sense of the program. I was trying several doors to find the right building entrance, when I approached one where an overhead lamp wasn’t working and found a man sleeping by the door. 

He looked like a dog curled up at the foot of his master’s bed, throwing a coat under his head and trying to be comfortable. I had already read up on the statistics of mental illness rates in this population, and since this was the women and children’s shelter it was not a good sign that a man was lingering out here. So I didn’t engage him, and reported it to the other volunteers when I came inside. They weren’t aware of him, but I was told that families often enter the program together but cannot be admitted at the same time. Men and women are admitted and housed separately, for safety reasons, and if a wife gets a bed before her husband he has to fend for himself, until an opening comes.

I couldn’t shake the sleeping guy from my mind. I want to say one of the volunteers I relieved might have taken some bread or a small bag of crackers out to him, but memory is tricky and I couldn’t swear to that. Since the women and children in the building were asleep for most of my shift, I kept picturing a man sleeping there, as close as he could be to the family he could not take care of anymore, with no one but the Lord to care about him. 

I often tell people in my volunteer team from Freedom that Jesus takes this kind of ministry seriously – in fact, he takes it personally. In Matthew 25:41-45 we get an account of Him talking to the people who didn’t help the downcast, and he is not just mildly clucking his tongue and wishing they had done a little better. No, instead he says “depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, and I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ And He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’” 

I used to think this passage was just an admonition to believers not to get complacent in your faith – not to become afterglow lunch Christians, who socialize and exchange favors without facing the needs outside your church doors, when you should “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phillipians 2:12). And the Matthew passage does work that way. But it’s more, I’m convinced of it. We get to see how strongly he feels for and identifies with those to whom society ascribes no value. I don’t need to put myself into that man’s place, because Jesus has already done it. Even now, when I can’t drum up volunteers or one of the programs I participate in runs out of money, I can picture Jesus sitting on a doorstep, half visible in rim light from one of the exterior lamps, watching over man 34 (when there is a 33-bed capacity in the men’s shelter) at 12:29 am. 

Maybe he will be out there tonight. Standing watch. Feeling heartrbroken. Maybe cracking a smile as He remembers when this man was a child and his mind was a little clearer, or times weren’t so hard, while he studied a box turtle one of his brothers had fetched from the creek – the little critter always makes his head and flippers go in and out through the same holes in his shell, and never messes that up. Then thinking about the long path from that day to this one. Simmering about the calloused ex-coworker from this man’s old job who wouldn’t take his wife and kid in when things started going bad. Because charity begins at home, don’t you know, and she didn’t want her family to become “part of this guy’s issues.” Raging about every other church on this block who has more time for a building fund bake sale, or a craft fair, than to figure out where this man can sleep, or if he’s hungry or cold. Taking all of this very personally, because when we don’t have time for the least of these, we don’t have time for Him. 

I am not a fire and brimstone guy. As a Christians go I’m in more danger of being called a sensualist than a legalist, and I generally think wrath of God sermons are highly theatrical and bring only a temporary repentance. But my perspective is different now. Don’t know about you, but I kind of like this pissed off Jesus, sitting stalwart in the lamplight and caring enough to cry and rage and plead for help. 

I once heard a college ministry pastor at the Faholo Conference Center in Grass Lake preach that God’s wrath only ever burns against the things that become a barrier to God’s love. When I picture him there on the doorstep I can see that. There's something beautiful about that kind of wrath, and it makes me love Him even more. Let’s just hope that the next time he’s sitting out stewing by the lamplight, He’s not thinking about you or me.







 All content (unless otherwise noted) is the sole creative property of Hope Set High. If you use any content in full or in part, proper attribution is required.
 

A short collection of things I have found to be true

Anecdotes, directives, lessons (some deep, some not) and the like that I have found on life’s journey. It could also be called “A rip-off of some (only some) of my best FB stuff, repackaged on my blog.”

Every family is comprised of the members you introduce and the ones you “explain.”
 

If someone means something to you, tell them. Don’t give yourself the regret of never having said it, or deprive them the joy of hearing it. 

When choosing a fitness class, look for the instructor that is ripped... And preferably one that is x-military. Otherwise you might have someone who pulls out dusty moves such as the grapevine. If you want to change your life, you want the instructor who will make you beg for said life. Unless you don’t want to sweat. Or have your makeup run. In which case you need to go to MY bootcamp. (Say it with me...the gym is sacred ground. Don’t come unless you are serious.)
 
Don’t ask someone “Notice anything?” after finishing a project. Odds are good they will find five things you were not asking about while missing the issue of concern entirely. This is especially unwise if you, like me, belong to the perfectionist club.

Be advised that when someone asks you for spiritual accountability ultimately they are asking you if you are willing to sacrifice the friendship to deliver the truth. Because people want accountability until they don’t. It is always this moment where accountability is most needed and most critical.

There exists soiled diapers for which there is no strategy.

When you know someone really well, you can find yourself being mad at them for what you know for a fact they are thinking even when they haven’t said or done anything. One of life’s beauties. 

The middle lanes on the freeway are the suicide lanes. If something tragic happens, you have nowhere to go except into traffic. Best to stay far left or far right. ;) I am morbid enough to mull this fact over every time I find myself driving the middle.

Unless you are a gourmet cook or at least someone who loves cooking, it is best to limit your new recipe searches to those recipes that are a page or less. Anything more and you will want to use those kitchen utensils for purposes they were not intended.

If you’re not laughing, you’re crying. Okay, that one is my dad’s. Truest thing. Laughter has been our balm through some of the roughest times. You must also realize that being someone who believes this means you will often wear the mantle of irreverence. Welcome.

Even the most minor of damage to a car will not be cheap. You can not spit on a car for less than $100. If you don’t know this fact, God bless you, you lucky soul. (Better to read it in a stranger’s blog than live it.)

It is one thing to get something out of your life. The real work is getting it out of your head.

Age steadies instinct.

God did not give man the intelligence to invent cell phones so that you could talk on the phone while simultaneously being on the toilet. That is just messed up. ‘Nuff said.

 

to be continued...

Here’s to 2010

To God

Who holds me,

Keeps me,

Loves me,

And gives me a seat at His table

To old friends who stay true

And new ones who “salt” the earth

To lives just beginning :)

And to ones lost

To those who give more than they ever have to

(...humbled)

And those who bring laughter in the middle of pain

To the ride called life 

And every day given

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Trials and Other Things Involving Fire

Funny thing about God...

There are things you can pray a long time for, and for whatever reason God doesn’t grant your request. (Of course as we all must learn~continuously~it is always for our best.) But if you have even a passing thought while sitting in a drive-thru or a barely whispered utterance about how you need more patience, strength, faith, etc... in your life, God will most surely get right on it!  It is also worth noting that no matter how long you have been following God, you still can forget that such requests are accomplished through trial. Because it sure would be nicer to ask, sleep on it, and wake up a new you.

And so it is, ever since my daughter came into the world, that I have been telling God that I would like to learn how to “roll with whatever life brings.” I am truly not good at this. I am a natural worrier. I have actually been known to say, “there’s something I am supposed to be worrying about, but I can’t remember what it is.” Yep, you guessed it, I worry about what to worry about. I have met other chronic worriers, and I assure you I cannot claim sole ownership of this quirky, distorted way of thinking. But now that I have someone I must teach how to navigate the world, I feel even more of an impetus to clean this up in my life. I don’t want her to think like me. I also don’t wish to compromise my health by filling my life with stress needlessly, since I would like to be around to share her life. So, you can see God couldn’t be God and ignore this request. :)

So the last two weeks have held a lot of bad news, culminating (I hope) in today’s fire. Yep, fire.

I had a local company scheduled to install desperately needed insulation in the exterior walls of our house today. I was sitting inside with the baby while the house shook from all the drilling....okay, so far nothing unexpected...

Then silence.

Followed by swarming workers in a panic.

I thought, “oh no, they hit a pipe in the house.”

They began yelling something about water and swarming around the hose.

I thought, “ great...there must be water gushing everywhere.”

{Wrong element.}

It was at this point, I looked out the front window to see their work trailer up in flames.

After calling 911, I called my dad. Because even at my age, my dad still makes everything seem okay.  

Me: Dad, the guys that are here to put the insulation in have a burning trailer in front of my house. It’s attached to a pickup truck I am afraid is going to blow up. I am concerned the house, the baby, and the whole of the earth (okay, this is added for humorous impact...) are going to be destroyed.

Dad: Why don’t they just take the trailer off the hitch and drive the pickup away from the fire? That’s what I would be doing.

Me: Uhh, I don’t know, dad... I am too busy planning on running down the street MacGyver style, sheltering your granddaughter from what will surely be the apocalyptic debris field...

Dad: And where did you find these guys anyway; are you sure they are reputable?

Me: Yeah, dad. They are  Glenn Haege recommended...

I love dads. They always bring a certain practicality to situations.

Thankfully, no people were hurt and no property was damaged. The company even assured me the job would still be finished today. And it was.

Me? I feel like I have been sitting in God’s classroom waiting for the dismissal bell to ring. But it is all good because...

John 16:33; 14:16-19, 26-27

³³These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

¹⁶And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

 ¹⁷Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

 ¹⁸I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

 ¹⁹Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

²⁶But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

 ²⁷Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

They Leave All Kinds of Prints (September Word Celebration)

These are some of the beautiful shoes my daughter will probably never wear.

Her feet are long enough, but have not yet become fat enough to keep them on. 

So every day she sets a new record for how fast she can kick them off. 

By the time her feet are chunky enough to hold them, they will be too small.

So they stay beautiful but serve no purpose and see no life.


But it will not always be so...

Some day, they will protect her, give people an impression of who she is and where she is going...

Will she live in these like her mother? 

  Or will she climb the corporate ladder in these?

Will she step into someone else’s shoes when their time is over?

Or will she wear her own where nobody has yet tread?

Will she lead or be content to follow?

Will she walk among the sick and the sorrowful? 

Will she prefer to skip, run, or walk? 

Will she walk with grace, and compassion?

Whatever shoes she wears, I pray they will leave behind footprints that are following Jesus.

The Ten Cow Wife (September Word Celebration)

Years ago my Pastor included in one of his sermons the story of a man negotiating the procurement of a wife. The story originally ran in Readers Digest. Following is an excerpt:

...Five months ago, at festival time, Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife. He paid her father ten cows!

He spoke the last words with great solemnity and I knew enough about island customs to be thoroughly impressed. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a highly satisfactory one.
 

“Ten cows!” I said. “She must have been a beauty that takes your breath away.”

“That's why they laugh,” my guest said. “It would be kindness to call her plain. She was little and skinny with no--ah--endowments. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked, as if she was trying to hide behind herself. Her cheeks had no color, her eyes never opened beyond a slit and her hair was a tangled mop half over her face. She was scared of her own shadow, frightened by her own voice. She was afraid to laugh in public. She never romped with the girls, so how could she attract the boys?”

“But she attracted Johnny?”

“This is the story [told to me,” he said]:

All the way to the council tent the cousins were urging Sam to try for a good settlement. Ask for three cows, they told him, and hold out for two until you're sure he'll pay one. But Sam was in such a stew and so afraid there would be some slip in this marriage chance for Sarita that they knew he wouldn't hold out for anything. So while they waited they resigned themselves to accepting one cow, and thought, instead, of their luck in getting such a good husband for Sarita. Then Johnny came into the tent and, without waiting for a word from any of them, went straight up to Sam Karoo, grasped his hand and said, ‘Father of Sarita, I offer ten cows for your daughter.’ And he delivered the cows.
 

As soon as it was over Johnny took Sarita to the island of Cho for the first week of marriage. Then they went home to Narabundi and we haven't seen them since. Except at festival time, there's not much travel between the islands.

This story interested me so I decided to investigate.

The next day I reached the island where Johnny lived. When I met the slim, serious man, he welcomed me to his home with a grace that made me feel like the owner. I was glad that from his own people he had respect unmingled with mockery.

I told him that his people had told me about him.
 

‘They speak much of me on that island? What do they say?’

They say you are a sharp trader, I said. They also say the marriage settlement that you made for your wife was ten cows. I paused, then went on, coming as close to a direct question as I could. They wonder why.

‘They say that?’ His eyes lighted with pleasure. He seemed not to have noticed the question. ‘Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the ten cows?’

I nodded.

And in Narabundi everyone knows it, too. His chest expanded with satisfaction. Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid ten cows for Sarita.

So that's the answer, I thought with disappointment. All this mystery and wonder and the explanation's only vanity. It's not enough for his ego to be known as the smartest, the strongest, the quickest. He had to make himself famous for his way of buying a wife. I was tempted to deflate him by reporting that in Kiniwata he was laughed at for a fool.

And then I saw her. Through the glass-beaded portieres that simmered in the archway, I watched her enter the adjoining room to place a bowl of blossoms on the dining table. She stood still a moment to smile with sweet gravity at the young man beside me. Then she went swiftly out again. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Not with the beauty of the girl who carries fruit. That now seemed cheap, common, earthbound. This girl had an ethereal loveliness that was at the same time from the heart of nature. The dew-fresh flowers with which she'd pinned back her lustrous black hair accented the glow of her cheeks. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a pride to which no one could deny her the right. And as she turned to leave she moved with the grace that made her look like a queen who might, with enchantment, turn into a kitten.

When she was out of sight I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me with eyes that reflected the pride of the girl's.

‘You admire her?’ he murmured.

She--she's glorious. Who is she?

‘My wife.’

I stared at him blankly. Was this some custom I had not heard about? Do they practice polygamy here? He, for his ten cows, bought both Sarita and this other? Before I could form a question he spoke again.

‘This is only one Sarita.’ His way of saying the words gave them a special significance. ‘Perhaps you wish to say she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata.’

She doesn't. The impact of the girl's appearance made me forget tact. I heard she was homely, or at least nondescript. They all make fun of you because you let yourself by cheated by Sam Karoo.

‘You think he cheated me? You think ten cows were too many?’ A slow smile slid over his lips as I shook my head. ‘She can see her father and her friends again. And they can see her. Do you think anyone will make fun of us then? Much has happened to change her. Much in particular happened the day she went away.’

You mean she married you?

‘That, yes. But most of all, I mean the arrangements for the marriage.’

Arrangements?

‘Do you ever think,’ he asked reflectively, ‘what it does to a woman when she knows that the price her husband has paid is the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when all the women talk, as women do, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel--the woman who was sold for one or two? This could not happen to my Sarita.’

Then you paid that unprecedented number of cows just to make your wife happy?

“Happy?’ He seemed to turn the word over on his tongue, as if to test its meaning. ‘I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes, but I wanted more than that. You say she's different from the way they remember her in Kiniwata. This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things that happen inside, things that happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself. In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows that she is worth more than any other woman on the islands.’

Then you wanted...

‘I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman.’

‘But--’ I was close to understanding.

‘But,’ he finished softly, ‘I wanted a ten-cow wife.’

I was in the midst of major healing in my life at the time of this sermon, so I knew before he even finished the story, the straight line my Pastor was drawing to the Cross. 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. ”

So while we may not be ten cow wives, we are children of God, purchased with the blood of Jesus. There could be no greater worth than that.

September Word Celebration

Joy |joi|
noun
Intense and especially ecstatic or exultant happiness. 
The expression or manifestation of such feeling.
A source or an object of pleasure or satisfaction.

I have always felt there was a distinct difference between joy and happiness. 

Running after happiness seems to bring anything but.

Happiness is emotional. Fleeting. Temporal.

Joy is a foundation

Joy courses through your veins

Joy is a framework

Joy is eternal

It exists in the midst of suffering and trial

“Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy comes in the morning”

It is free

Found not in the “stuff” of life but rather in it’s moments. 

Often it is simple...

 A fresh breeze

A Baby's smile

A hug from the right person at the right time

The smell of Fall in the air

Coffee (or if you’re me and don’t like coffee, some other ridiculously overpriced beverage) with a trusted friend

Laughing at nothing at all

A steadfast love

*Rain*

Driving with the windows down and a content dog in the back seat 

Watching the movement of life with Classical music as the backdrop (I highly recommend this. I have found even the car wash is beautiful when the machinery appears to be moving with the music) 

The abiding love of God  

What brings you joy? 

30 Days of Words (or 23ish if you are like me and getting a late start..)

I have been inspired by K Mac's Journey of Words, a September blog event where every post centers around a specific word significant to one’s life. Her blog is filled with beautiful, poetic, pithy writings. You know, the kind of writer that makes it seems so easy, you leave thinking you can sit down and write just as brilliantly. (A college literature class also had me convinced I could write like Kerouac...) Anyway, I loved the idea and the wonderful writings that accompanied the idea, so I will attempt to follow suit in my own meager way.

 Call my first one a stream of consciousness....

want |wont, wawnt| 

verb

to wish, need, crave, demand, or desire

I want to be perfect

I want it to be okay that I am not

I want to spend at least one day not beating myself up

I want to remember who I am (Psalms 139:14)

I want to run through the fields of grace (Hebrews 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 12:9)

I want to feast at the table (Psalms 23:5) 

I want to stand on the knowledge that whatever happens in this life

I. am. still. free. (Romans 8:34-39; Isaiah  53:5)