Where is it?

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Margaret

The past 5 days I’ve had one happy experience after another. It began last Thursday with a flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for 24 hours with Susan, a prayer partner from our church in Illinois. We made the most of our time together, including an hour of prayer while sitting next to her swimming pool in the warm desert sunshine.

After leaving New Mexico, I flew to Colorado, to connect with 7 close friends from our years together at Wheaton College: Junior, Pam, Leslie, Cheryl, Carolyn, LeeAnn, and Julie. We enjoyed school memories, did some sightseeing, and caught up on each other’s families, making sure to lay the groundwork for our next meeting in a couple of years.

I caught a ride to the airport in the “early” car, several hours ahead of my departure time, to connect with Sue (another sister in Christ) at the Denver airport. Our 4 hours together were a lovely grand finale’ to 5 days of memorable re-connections with won- derful women.

There was only one flaw. Somewhere along the way I lost my camera, a trusty tool I’ve used for years to take pictures for this blog, among other things. On Day #2 I emptied my purse and suitcase, carry-on and computer bag, pockets and gift bags, but it was nowhere.

Though I could take pictures with my iPhone, the camera card contained important photo files and was easier to use. But after 4 days of searching, I concluded it must have been in my coat pocket and slipped out during travel. The only thing to do was let it go.

I thought I’d mastered that after our 2009 move from a big house in Illinois to a small one in Michigan, paring down our possessions by two-thirds. But releasing my camera was a letting-go I couldn’t master. What was God trying to teach me?

My “girlfriends” and I joked about my inability to stop looking for (and complaining about) my camera. But one of them said, “Release it into God, and he’ll probably bring it back to you.”

That sounded like, “Let’s make a deal, Lord. I’ll let it go, if you make it reappear.” I couldn’t do that.

Finally, after stewing all the way to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, I surrendered. “Ok, Father,” I said. “I know you want me to let go of my camera, so here and now, I do. It’s gone, and I accept that.” It was a weight lifted.

By the time Louisa and I pulled into our Michigan driveway, I’d completely stopped thinking about it. It had simply been God’s refresher course in holding possessions lightly, a “skill” he wants me to practice regularly.

Several hours later, while kneeling on my bedroom floor pulling things out of my carry-on bag (looking for my phone charger), I gasped as the camera plopped onto the carpet in front of me.

I’d emptied that bag 100% – twice – while searching in Colorado, and it absolutely had not been there.

“You are great, O Lord God. For there is none like You.” (2 Samuel 7:22)

Not Quite

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Margaret

I absolutely love clear, chunky glass. It doesn’t much matter what shape it’s in, whether a figurine, a bowl, or just a blob, but the thicker the better. Imperfections or bubbles in the glass make it all the more interesting, and looking through a piece of it is something I often stop to do.

Ice does the same thing for me. The other day I was dropping some cubes into my tea and said, “Look, girls! This ice is almost completely clear!”

As I studied the beauty of each piece stacked in my glass, the girls were unimpressed. “Mom,” Louisa said, “it’s just ice, and it’s cold whether it’s clear or not.” She didn’t get it.

There’s one chronic problem with lovers of clear glass, though. We can hold it, gaze into it, and look through it, but we can’t get into it. Laugh if you must, but to be fully satisfied, that’s really what we want to do. There’s a whole world inside a chunk of glass.

I remember a special moment on a family vacation to the wintery Northwoods of Wisconsin one January. We visited the resort town of Eagle River and found a spectacular castle built with blocks of ice. Although it was dark outside, the castle was lit from inside, and some of the ice was clear and gasp-worthy.

That evening, while I reveled in the thick ice, our children, ages 16 to 20 months at the time, were enjoying the display, though not nearly as much as I was. Then I saw 7-year-old Hans put both hands on an ice block and press his nose in close. I came up behind him and said, “Isn’t it fabulous?”

“I see stuff in there, Mom,” he said.

Maybe what he really meant was, “I’d like to get in there and see it firsthand!” If that was it, for those few seconds he and I were on the same wavelength.

But as we walked away from the castle, I experienced the same incomplete feeling I always get when studying clear ice or glass. It’s a “not quite” sensation, something similar to our soul-feelings when we can’t quite see God or experience his physical presence. There are times when we have such an intense longing we can hardly stand it, but in this life our experience of him will always fall short of being deeply satisfying.

Thankfully his plans for our future include the one-on-one, visible relationship our hearts crave. The “not quite” will turn into “complete”. I’ve heard it theorized that hell might be the absence of God’s presence, meaning that the human heart’s longing for him will never be satisfied. And I can’t imagine any greater loss.

Although my love of clear glass can’t compare to my love for the Lord, in the back of my mind I have a feeling he’ll take away that less important “not quite” too, and turn it into something wonderfully complete.

“All my longings lie open before you, Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.” (Psalm 38:9)

Try, Try, and Try Again

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Margaret

Back in the sixties, Elvis Presley recorded a love song called, “Trying to Get to You.”

I’ve been traveling over mountains,
Even through the valleys, too.
I’ve been traveling night and day;
I’ve been running all the way,
Baby, trying to get to you.

When someone is in love, nothing can dissuade him from wanting to be with his beloved. A great illustration of this was when my friend Carole was engaged to her Reggie in 1969. She was in Florida, preparing their first apartment, and he was finishing a job 1400 miles away, in Chicago

Being separated was torture, and they spent hours on the phone. Then one day Reggie couldn’t wait another minute and jumped into his orange VW Beetle, pointing it south. Except for gasoline stops, he put pedal to the metal, “trying to get to Carole.”

While in England recently I experienced another version of the same thing. Early each morning as Katy and Hans supervised the waking, dressing, and bed-making of their 4 children, I was “hiding out” in the next room, taking advantage of a few minutes devotional time. They facilitated my efforts by telling the children, “No one disturbs MeeMee when her door is closed.”

One morning while sitting on the bed praying, I heard whispers in the hall. “She’s in there!” Suddenly 10 little fingertips appeared under my door trying to get as close to me as possible without violating the parental edict. Soon a second and third set of fingertips appeared, “trying to get to me.” I felt very loved.

All of us will make a major effort to get close to who (or what) we love. That includes both appropriate love (such as between engaged couples) and inappropriate (like drugs, for example). When love is strong, we work hard “trying to get to” whoever or whatever it is.

I’ve wondered if I am that passionate toward the Father, Son, and Spirit. Am I “trying to get to them?” Or do I succumb to excuses not to try:

I’ll do my Bible study lesson after my work is done.
There will be other seasons of life when I can pray, but not now.
I can’t manage a spiritual life because I keep getting interrupted.

Our “get to you” factor is a good chance to see where we stand with the Lord. If we never get there, we probably should reassess.

On the flip side, anything I do to get to him can’t possibly compare with the effort he made to get to me. Jesus did it in two ways, first by setting aside divinity to put on humanity, and then by willingly suffering through death. His actions said, “I’ll do anything to get to you.”

When I remember Reggie’s race to Carole or my grandchildren’s fingertips under the door, I can ask myself, “Am I trying to get to God like that?”