Monthly Archives: April 2012

A Closer Look

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My vanity dresser was beautiful once, a piece of furniture handmade of Australian satinwood in the early 1900’s. It matches the rest of the bedroom set with its ornate, curvy lines, inlaid flowers, and multi-hued veneer, and none of it really belongs to us. We’re storing it for a friend, and that “temporary” arrangement has lasted 43 years. (See “Connecting the Dots,” 8/5/09.)

A year ago, my friend Julie (the official owner of the bedroom set) visited me from her home in Germany. She was eager to re-visit her furniture and see how it was doing after its move from Illinois to Michigan 3 years ago. As she walked into the bedroom she said, “Oh Margaret, everything still looks great!”

Then she took a closer look.

The protective glass atop the vanity was long gone, cracked years ago when I forgot to unplug my electric roller set and it overheated. After that the wood top was daily at risk, suffering scratches, nicks, and water damage as time went by. “But,” I told Julie, “maybe those marks aren’t all bad.”

Back in the 1970’s, fancy furniture stores sold tables and dressers advertised as “distressed.” Before finishing, the manufacturer would use chains, nails, and chisels to mark unblemished wood until it was dented, gouged, and scraped, a look meant to resemble a well-used antique. “Heavily distressed” pieces were the priciest.

The defects on my vanity, despite not being intentional, remind me of my own imperfections, nicks, and scrapes, mostly caused through my own foolishness. Furniture can be refinished, bringing it back to perfection, but marks on a life don’t get fixed that easily.

The truth, though, is that every time I’ve put myself in harm’s way and come out the other side “nicked” (sometimes even “heavily distressed”), I’ve come out smarter. The lessons I’ve learned through self-inflicted pain have stuck, and the marks they’ve left have, I hope, morphed into character improvements. And the whole arrangement is ok with God, because he’s hoping we’ll gain wisdom as we suffer through our distresses.

I love the vanity top just the way it is, a bit of family history that’s uniquely ours (even though the vanity isn’t). And there’s one “blotch” on the wood that’s particularly interesting, also somewhat of a mystery. It’s the outline of a comb, which must have been resting in a puddle of caustic liquid in order for it to leave such a mark. When Julie saw it, she ran her hand over the imprint and slowly said, “Wow! What happened here?”

Not having an answer, all I could say was, “Seven kids,” though I felt guilty at that moment for ever having allowed them into our bedroom. I thought Julie might call for a moving van right then, but she just laughed it off like the good friend she is.

And after all our years together, I appreciate that she doesn’t look too closely at me.

“Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends.” (Proverbs 17:9)

One Way

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All of us look for road signs telling us the right way to go, especially while driving. We also watch for signs warning us not to go the wrong way. Turning down a one way street facing oncoming traffic, for example, isn’t something I’d recommend, though I’ve done it many times.

In my neighborhood there are several “signs” that were “posted” 300 years ago when a Potawatomi Indian tribe lived here. Padding single file through the dense woods on moccasin-shod feet, they needed markers to let each other know where the good fishing and hunting was, or which paths led to good portage points for their canoes, or where to find mineral resources.

To accomplish this, they bent young saplings at right angles to the ground, strapping them down with vines or handmade ropes. As the young trees grew, they assumed the sharp angles, and when native eyes scanned the forests, horizontal lines of bent trunks stood out among the vertical trees. The tree elbow, then, was the pointing “arrow” of these unusual signs, and I’ve heard tell we have a couple of them left in our neighborhood.

Yesterday I found one. I think.

As I stood and looked at that tree trying to visualize these same woods 300 years ago, I couldn’t help but think of what the Indians must have looked like walking along the wooded dunes just like I was. I wanted to step back in time to see how they lived. Research says they wore buckskin clothes and feathers in their long hair. They killed game with bows/arrows and used spears to catch fish.

The women “wore” their babies and did most of the farming of grains and vegetables. It sounds like they all worked hard, and if I could live with them for a week, no doubt I’d learn a great deal about my neighborhood and how to exist in it without the benefit of stores, cars, or computers.

Of course I can’t travel back 300 years, but it’s a pleasant thought to remember that God lived in my neighborhood back then, loving the Potawatomi when they were here, just as he loves those of us currently in the neighborhood. He’s no respecter of persons, in that he longs to gather all of us into his family, regardless of where we sit on history’s time line.

I’m not sure what the Potawatomi knew about the “one way” signpost to heaven being Jesus Christ, but I’m confident God had custom-made signs in nature that showed any seekers the way.

I only have one question: would I look ok in buckskin?

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” (1 John 3:1)

Grrrr

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America is a country obsessed with dieting, and over the years I’ve tried most of the fad diets. Many were complicated, requiring food diaries, portion weighing, or regular meetings.

Looking for simpler ways to do it, I did find a few: eating only protein, only vegetables, or only diet shakes. But these were “hoax diets,” quick weight loss but even quicker re-gain.

Eventually I heard about a streamlined diet that sounded foolproof. It had only one rule: wait to eat until you growl.

Although stomachs make gurgling noises when they’re full of food, we all recognize the rumbling hunger pangs that come when we’re genuinely empty. They are the body’s call for food, and if we wait to eat until we feel them, we know we’re eating for the right reason.

Years ago I was afraid of hunger pangs. On the rare occasion when they came, they made me edgy, almost panicky. But later I realized they could become my friends, because they were a clear-cut go-ahead to get something to eat.

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This morning as I sat with 4 other women around a small wooden table at church, the sounds of heartfelt prayer went up to heaven as we prayed over 130 requests. Surely our calls to the Lord pleased him, since he has instructed us to make our requests known to him. (Philippians 4:6)

Our little round table was littered with pages and small cards on which Scripture verses had been written. These were supernatural words we were praying into the lives of those mentioned in the requests. The sound of those verses also must have brought pleasure to God, because the Bible’s words initiated with him. (John 1:1)

And then as we continued to pray, I heard a third sound mingling with the names, requests, and verses: a growling stomach. And then two. And finally three! It was stereophonic grrrr-ing.

There were only 5 of us at the table, and I knew rice cakes and peanut butter were keeping my stomach quiet. But I marveled that 3 of these 4 women had skipped breakfast to rush to the church for purposeful prayer, early in the day. And surely because their growling came as a result of putting prayer first, it too was a sound that pleased the Lord.

We prayed on and on, and the growling continued. The rumblings refreshed my spirit as I thought about how keen-to-pray these women really were. God was listening to our prayers and their grrrrs, and I know beyond doubt he’ll not only answer the requests but will also pour out blessing on those doing the praying.

Americans may be obsessed with dieting, but I’m learning that the healthiest obsession is to have a steady diet of passionate prayer.

The angel answered, “Your prayers… have come up as a memorial offering before God.” (Acts 10:4)