Category Archives: Submitting to God

What should a mentor ask for?

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Friday’s blog post quoted what a good mentor might say through letters my Aunt Joyce had sent to me. Your response was delightfully enthusiastic, and over the weekend something lovely happened when I met up with her children at a wedding in Washington State. These California cousins handed me a green leather book with Aunt Joyce’s name embossed on the front. “You’ll enjoy looking at this,” they said.

At first I didn’t recognize the book with its pretty gold edges, but inside I saw it was from me, inscribed to Aunt Joyce for her 88th birthday. It was a devotional journal, and after each day’s entry, there was space for her written reflections. Aunt Joyce had written down her thoughts and prayers, giving me a glimpse of how a good mentor talks to God.

During the 4 hour plane ride home tonight, I immersed myself in what she wrote and was impacted by her honesty before her Lord, wondering if you readers might be impacted, too. Below are quotes from this journal, plucked with care so as not to reveal her secrets but to show all of us how a godly woman sees herself in relation to God:

  • Oh God, my trust is in you. I ask for deliverance from my feelings.
  • Lord, order my conduct, and take my burdens.
  • Remove my fear and anxiety. You said you would. I depend on that. Keep my mind stayed on Thee.
  • Rejoice exceedingly, Joyce!
  • God, if it’s not too late, I commit my cause to you. Help me do your way and will.
  • “…that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Wow! Me?
  • Lord, keep my attention on your side, not mine.
  • Lord, I need to be motivated by your love. I ask this by your Spirit. Thank you, right now.
  • Lord, open my eyes to see my enemy, which equals my captivity. Give me your equipment for fighting against captivity to sin. I want to conquer sin in my thoughts, attitudes, and actions.
  • I feel like I’m going through your refiner’s fire to purify my wickedness. I’ve had anger, stress, and frustration when I should have had hope!
  • Thank you for my Edward [husband of 62 years then]. I did not have sense enough myself to choose such quality.
  • God’s grace is like a sandwich. The top of the bun is what I deserve from Him. The filling is God’s grace. The bottom is what I receive from Him… life eternal.
  • I thank God for blessing received with no sorrow added.
  • I need someone greater, wiser, stronger and more powerful than I am. In Him I have everything.
  • Often God’s way up is down, but He’s there with us, too.
  • I became a new being today, started all over – forgiven, cleansed, powered by Him through the Holy Spirit. Praise to the Almighty, over and over! I’m so grateful.
  • To know Him is to love Him. I love you, Lord, and want to know you more.
  • I’m starting to understand what grace is, and what my comfort can be.
  • Stress and suffering shows me so clearly how very much I need Him, how hopeless and helpless I am without Him. I surrender all, dear Jesus, to you.

One of Aunt Joyce’s favorite verses, written out in her journal, is: “The Lord will perfect what concerns me.” (Psalm 138:8)

Real Royalty

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We couldn’t believe we were about to see a bona fide princess up close. Lady Diana was making her way out of London’s royal performance of “Romeo and Juliet” when we found ourselves planted ten feet from where she would walk.

Daughters Julia and Linnea, desperate to meet her, were listening carefully to a bobby’s instructions: “If you shout at Her Royal Highness,” he said, “don’t use her name. You must address her as ‘ma’m’. Nothing else is acceptable.”

Wanting to be accepted, the girls were rehearsing their shout-out when Diana suddenly appeared. For an instant they were speechless as hundreds of flashbulbs popped, making her sparkle like the star she was.

As the bobby predicted, she scanned the barricaded crowd, including two adorable little girls within six feet of her. But when her gaze swept toward us, our daughters wildly waved their bouquet like a road crew flagging down traffic. “Ma’m! Ma’m!” they screamed. “Over here! We’re from America! We love you!”

Diana graciously acknowledged the crowd’s applause and then abruptly made a beeline for us. As she arrived in her sparkling black evening gown, our girls reached out to touch her, and she reciprocated. Linnea put a camera directly in Diana’s face (taking this photo) as Julia presented their bouquet.

The princess talked with them for several minutes as if they’d been the only ones waiting for her, after which she wished them well and said goodbye, heading for her Jaguar. She talked to no one else. As she slid into the back seat, she gently placed our wilting flowers next to her.

Mary leaned over and said, “Our humble bouquet is going to Buckingham Palace.”

As soon as the princess had pulled away, the crowd dispersed, and bobbies disassembled the barricades. But though the moment had passed, our girls held tightly to their celebrity high. Literally skipping toward our hotel, Linnea agreed with Julia who said: “If God killed me right now, I’d feel like my life was complete!”

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Another globally-known “celebrity” who even trumps Diana is Jesus. As he performed miracles, his disciples wondered why he shunned recognition by cautioning everyone to keep quiet about him. “Why don’t you pursue fame?” they said. “Show the world what you can do!”

But Jesus refused, saying his time to be famous hadn’t yet come.

He meant that it wasn’t quite time for him to die for mankind’s sins. After his death he would, indeed, become globally famous, and he was eager for that because it would help his plan of salvation become available to everyone.

Occasionally we all brush up against fame as our girls did with Diana. Both Julia and Linnea, now deeply rooted in love for the Lord, look back and laugh at going gaga over the princess. They know, as all of us should, there’s only one Person who deserves such hero-worship, and that’s our Lord. Putting anyone else on a pedestal of adoration only leads to disappointment.

In the long run, Jesus will be the only royalty that really matters.

Jesus said, “It is the one who is least among you all, who is the greatest.” (Luke 9:48)

An Interest in Interruptions

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Last night when I snuggled under my own quilt in my own bed I thanked God I wasn’t over-nighting in a hospital like the night before. Not that Rush isn’t a beautiful facility with a solicitous staff, but all of us rest best in our own beds. My 14 hour stay in the ER was an unexpected interruption to my weekend plans, but when it was over, that’s all it had been: an interruption.

All of us like to plan our lives, even people like me who aren’t that organized. We enjoy predicting what’ll happen when, then watching it work out exactly that way. When interruptions rearrange things, we get annoyed. It feels like riding in a people-packed car and being asked to squeeze in a few more. Ugh.

Jesus was a champion at shuffling his day to embrace interruptions. If he resented them, Scripture doesn’t let us know. We might think, “Yes, but when someone stopped him it was for an important reason. My interruptions are small potatoes.”

But Jesus had a choice of how to respond in each case, just as we do. Although we’ve never heard the literal voice of Jesus, I can’t imagine him reacting in a biting tone, “Get away from me! I don’t have time right now.”

Others around him sometimes said that, but never him. He seemed to view an approaching interrupter as a chance to get to know a stranger or satisfy a need. I wish I could faithfully mimic that, but rearranging plans doesn’t come without balking first. It requires setting aside what I’ve already set as my #1 priority and substituting something lesser, at least lesser to me.

But as we watch Jesus, he acts just the opposite. The Bible says, in reference to his responses to interruptions, “He was deeply moved,” or “He felt compassion.”  Sometimes he was hit with so many consecutive interruptions he didn’t even have a chance to eat or time to rest, yet he continued to steadily dispense kindness and grace.

If I resist the interruptions God sends (which he doesn’t label as interruptions), I could be missing out on some of life’s greatest perks. Jesus held each day lightly, even each hour, faithfully watching for his Father’s signals to do this or that, go left or right. Humanly speaking, he didn’t know what awaited, and no doubt there were situations he didn’t want to participate in, episodes that brought on stress. But when he cooperated, which was always, miracles happened. And he got to take part in them.

It’s possible that the more I’m willing to embrace interruptions with anticipation, the greater my chance of participating in God’s miracles… even if some day it means trying to get cozy in a hospital bed.

“Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and… he healed them. Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people.” (Matthew 15:30,32)