Accessories!!! :)

     There are times in life when the days are long and stressful, sleep is fitful, and with the first blink of my eyes, the cares of the previous day come right back in full force.  My morning starts with a groan and a halfhearted wish that the emotional "leftover"s from the day before will not be quite so stressful as a new day dawns.
     I remember quite a few days like that when my child was a toddler and also when he was a teen - sometimes there isn't a lot of difference between the two at times... ha!
    My husband always seemed to be able to roll with the flow better than I could.   I'm not sure why but I do know that once my husband told me that he was so thankful to be a  guy simply because he couldn't survive the gamut of all the emotions that I often leaped through in a single bound!  Like: Ugh.. my hair looks like heck - it's going to be a bad day...   Oh, wow, my new bracelet came in the mail!!  I love it!!  It's going to be a good day... Oh my gosh, and  just what exactly  did my neighbor mean by that crack about how kids like mine often go on to do well in life???   Look at what kind of kids she is raising!!!   Aggghhhhh, I can't believe that I spent an hour in the grocery store and still forgot the main thing I went for!!  Where is my brain???? And I haven't even ever smoked crack!!  And that guy who was at least a hundred years old, the one standing in line behind me... was he hitting on me?!!? It's been so long since anyone hit on me, I'm not sure.... On the other hand, do I look like I am that desperate???     Oh wow, that siren is awfully close and it's right about time for  Phil to be driving down our street.  I bet there was a car wreck!  What if Phil was in it??
        Let me transition for a bit:  I am not really into accessories but I do like purses and bracelets and rings and ... key chains.  Most women don't think of key chains as accessories but I sort of do. And when one breaks, it is a bitter/sweet moment around here :)  Sad because my accessory friend is headed towards the trash. But sweet because I get to go buy a new one!  Most of my key chains have Bible verses on them or Christian messages to encourage me each day.  Most of the time, however,  they just dangle from the ignition or lie buried in my purse or remain hidden under a pile of newspapers (on the days when I am in a huge hurry and, naturally, can't find them!).  But when I am out and about shopping, I almost always have them in my hand.  Yet even then  I seldom, if ever, have them on my mind.  My little accessory friends go unnoticed.
     This morning I woke up with critical thoughts and a great urge to straighten out the world...
     Thankfully I opened my Bible study lesson (Me, Myself, and Lies) and started working on that.  In the study, Jennifer talks about doing a mental closet make-over.  And today she talked about doing a make-over in the mental accessories department.  Basically she was saying that instead of wearing a string of critical thoughts around my neck, I can wear a song of praise - I can wake up singing.  Ps. 40:3  says that my Heavenly Abba has given me a song of praise to sing and I can "put that on" when I first wake up!  (Wow... I love gifts!! Don't you?)
    But something that meant even more to me was when she pointed out Lamentations 3:22-23.  I realized that this is a great mental closet accessory: instead of draping a scarf of worry around my neck, I can wrap God's lovingkindness and compassion around myself and wear it out into the day. And it will be fresh and new every morning, no matter how many times I wear it. This may sound simple but to me, it was profound.  God's love is there waiting for me, fresh and new every single morning.
      Going back to the first paragraph of this blog, about how days can be long and stressful when you are dealing maybe with a sick and also willful toddler on top of a myriad of other issues, how you can sometimes feel like you are dragging their stubborn little feet every step of the way through the land mines of blowing recalcitrant noses, forcing nasty tasting medicine down little throats, and putting little um, posteriors in time out when your precious angel is clearly less than angelic... All day long it's drag, drag, drag... Yes, you will take your medicine... No, you won't talk to mommy like that... Now see, you learned a good lesson: Kitty Kat doesn't like to be dragged around by the tail...  Yey!  You got your cowboy boots on by yourself! I'm so happy for you!  No, you can't go outside while you are sick.... Mommy loves you, that's why...   Good job!  You hit the potty! Oh, wow, you found Thomas the Tank!  Too cool! No, you can't turn on the engine and run it along Kitty's back... Because Kitty will freak out and rearrange both of our faces if you do that...
    And on it goes.
    And so it goes between me and my Abba... Some days it must seem like all He does is patiently walk me through one thing after another, dragging my reluctant feet out of one mess and helping me avoid another, encouraging me when I get it right, rejoicing with me when something joyful comes my way,  lovingly correcting me when I get it wrong.
   But unlike me, He doesn't open first one eyelid and then another the next morning and think, "Bummer, gotta do it all over again.  Hope Cathy won't be as stubborn as she was yesterday..."
   No, He is there when I wake up and His loving kindness, His compassion is fresh and new, just as if I hadn't done my best to run the world for Him the day before while He was slowly, patiently guiding my feet onto the sidewalk alongside Him, trying to keep me from running ahead of Him out into the traffic of the world,  and repeatedly tucking my small, stubborn hand into  the warmth and safety of His strong, eternal one.
  What a great mental  accessory to put on first thing in the morning - the awareness of His fresh lovingkindness!!  What a great mental gift to wear all day - the song of praise that He's fastened around  my heart -  if only I'll remember not to let it dangle there( like my unread key chains!)  but will actually read it, sing it, live it.
 
 

A Privilege....

     I don't usually do this but I want to sort of "turn this blog" entry over to a book review.  This book hasn't been released yet - will come out in mid-March I think.  But I know many people around the world were aware of the imprisonment of these two Iranian Christians and prayed for their release. Now they have published their story and I just think this is a neat opportunity to see how God answered those prayers during their 259 days of captivity.  So I'm posting the preview from Tyndale here:
    

Maryam Rostampour Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh were born into Muslim families in Iran—Maryam in the city of Kermanshah, and Marziyeh in Rafsanjan. They met while studying Christian theology in Turkey in 2005, and realized they had become Christians at about the same time six years earlier. Deciding to join forces, they returned to Iran and began a program of mission outreach. Over the next two years, they handed out twenty thousand New Testaments in Tehran and other cities. They started two house churches in their apartment, one for young people and another for prostitutes. They extended their ministry with mission trips to India, South Korea, and Turkey.In 2009, Maryam and Marziyeh were arrested in Tehran for promoting Christianity—a capital crime in Iran—and imprisoned for 259 days in the city's notorious Evin Prison. The official charges they received were apostasy, anti-government activity, and blasphemy for which they were sentenced to execution by hanging. As many around the world prayed for their freedom, and as a result of international lobbying, Maryam and Marziyeh were released in 2009 and cleared of all charges the following year. They consider it an honor to have experienced a little of Christ's suffering by being imprisoned in His name. After their release, they emigrated to the United States and now live near Atlanta.

Their book is called Captive in Iran.    Two good ministries who support Christians in Iran are Iran Alive and Elam Ministries.   I'm also going to put a YouTube video here from Iran Alive which has definitely touched my heart. Many people in Iran are living without hope. Two-thirds of their population are under the age of 30.  About 40 % cannot find jobs - they have a huge unemployment rate. Many have turned to drugs - they have the highest per capita drug usage of all the nations in the world. They also have a high suicide rate.  At the same time, they have people coming to Christ by the thousands and a lot of it is because of people like Maryam who are willing to go to prison in order to present the gospel to their countrymen.  

Today so much that we hear about regarding Iran is their leader's development of nuclear weapons.  But there is another story and that is about how God is working in marvelous ways to reach these people and give them hope.  I really believe that it is a privilege to join God in this work by sending our prayers towards His throne of grace for these precious people.

   

My Turn to Whine... :)

     Some things that bother me... (It's my blog and I can whine if I want to... ??)
 
     First, the  Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy is not about gun control, either for or against. It's about children and educators and the families who lost them.  Please don't use "Sandy Hook" and the words "gun control" in the same sentence  around me.  Again, I don't care which side of the fence you are on regarding this issue, I just don't want the loss of these precious kids to be obscured by a political debate.  May not make sense but that's how I feel.

    Second,  don't use angry, ugly names to vilify politicians and, in the same breath, tell me you got fired up via Christian radio. I am a devout Christian who  loves the Lord, esteems  His word and (most of the time - ha) tries to love all people, but especially my brothers and sisters in Christ.  But if Christian radio stirs you to anger over and over again, then in my humble opinion,  you need to quit listening to it.  The last time I looked, the book of James contains a warning about how the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.  Be a good citizen, examine the issues, and vote responsibly - make your voice heard. But don't decry Gabrielle Giffords as a hardhearted monster because she is for gun control and had the temerity to say so to congress.  I am a conservative but I respect her and certainly, if anyone has a right to voice their opinion on gun control, she does.  I personally feel that crime is an issue of the heart but I respect Mrs. Gifford's right to voice her honest opinion and am deeply sorry that she ever has had to pay such a terrible price for doing her best to serve our nation.

    Third, keep your eye on the ball.  God entrusted a message of reconciliation to His people.  II Cor. 5 says that we are His ambassadors, entrusted with a critical message - that man through His sin has become an enemy of God but that God, in love, wants to reconcile us to Himself.  That reconciliation is through the high cost of His Son's sinless life and the spilling of His innocent blood to pay for our guilt. (He is the slain lamb who takes away our sin forever).    The Gospel is so simple a child can understand it; a Down's syndrome adult can explain it; and a broken shell of a person, no matter where they have been or what they have done, can embrace it.  Please, let's quit squabbling over side issues.  When we get to Heaven, there won't be any.  In the meantime, let's work together to give out the message of reconciliation that has been entrusted to us.  The peripheral issues can be settled by the One who saves us and He has a myriad of  ways to correct our thinking and keep us in the center of His will. He doesn't need us to be theology cops checking up on one another.   If you have trouble believing that, please meditate on Romans 14 in the J. B. Phillips New Testament.

Sadly, not many German theologians stood with him.

    In keeping with that last point, I'd like to share a story Corrie ten Boom used to share.  I'm paraphrasing it because I haven't read it in a long time so please bear with me.  After WWII, Germany was in shambles. Before the war, it had been the center of Christian theology, having the most prestigious seminaries in Europe with scholars who could debate the finer points of Christian teaching without end.   And yet, the Holocaust came and millions of lives were lost.  The church, intellectual as it was,  clearly was asleep at the wheel and European Jewry nearly perished as a result.  After the war, the leading ministers were fragmented and combative (argumentative) towards each other, pretty much as they had been before.  There was no spirit of cooperation among the Christian leaders.



    It was in that atmosphere that Corrie found herself when she tried to speak at a pastor's conference.  The divisiveness over peripheral issues was so strong that God was not free to work in  the hearts of her audience; their hearts, which were supposed to be made of flesh,  seemed to be made of stone.  Finally, she brought a box of chocolates to one of the meetings. Chocolate was a rarity during the war years and afterwards.  The leaders were very grateful for this unusual treat as they ate the candy. Afterwards she told them that they didn't eat the expensive treat properly. They were surprised and protested that they didn't know what she meant.  She said something like, "You didn't check out the chocolates.  You didn't ask me if they were from Belgium, Holland, or Germany.  You didn't debate which was the best chocolate or what was the best way to eat them."  They protested again - that chocolate is simply meant to be eaten.  She replied, "So is the Gospel." One of her favorite sayings was that in nearly 8 decades of serving the Gospel to sinners, there was always plenty for everyone:)

   If you belong to Jesus and He lives in your heart, it doesn't matter to me if you are a-millennial, pre- millennial, or what. (When Corrie first heard these terms, she went to a pastor and said, "Pastor, what does a-millinial, pre-millinial, post-millinial mean?" He replied, "Corrie, that is a pre-post-terous question!")  I also don't care if you speak in tongues or not.  If you are living the Word, sharing the Gospel, loving the Lord and others, we are on the same team.  Nor, honestly, do I care what the sign outside your church says.  (As a friend of mine said, please show me the spiritual  fruit that the majority of the congregation, along with the pastoral staff, brings to the table.  Your church can say, "First Pentecostal, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist Bible believing, Spirit led, Heaven-bound,  Christ-followers par Excellence" on it (if you can find a sign big enough to hold all that) but if the church as a whole is cold, argumentative, arrogant, insular,  and/or dead, the sign outside means nothing. I need to see love, peace, patience, kindness, meekness, self-control, etc inside).      Ditto for many other issues that, in my (humble!) opinion, serve only to distract from the One who deserves all the spotlight - my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

    As a former pastor of mine used to say: Jesus Christ, the one and only!
   And His gospel - so simple a child can understand it.
   Available for a lost and dying world.

   For me, that is what it is all about.
   Thanks for bearing with me on this.
 

Everyday

     Things I'm learning from Jennifer Rothschild, who is blind but can see waaayyyyy better than I can, if that makes sense.
     The Bible lesson this week sounds like it was on gardening but it really wasn't.  She talked about fruit and roots.  Fruit is what you say. To yourself especially but also to others.  It's what we can identify if, while driving down the freeway with our mind in "neutral", we mentally stop and examine our free-flowing self-talk.  I am  so stupid! How could I have missed that exit again!  What????   That . **&%$#jerk just cut in front of me... Um... tomorrow is going to be so cool! I can't wait to see so-and-so again... Ugh...  I just wish I didn't look like Tubby the Tuba... I bet she's still as skinny as ever... I hope my husband isn't expecting a hot meal tonight... Maybe we can go out to eat again... It's been a stressful day.  I could use a nice meal cooked by someone else. I can diet tomorrow...
     All of that is what Jennifer calls "fruit", much of it internal... some of it, um, external... like when the jerk cuts you off on the freeway...  Sometimes we want to cringe and drag our verbal fruit right  back into the basket and pretend it never rolled out to begin with. But most of our internal fruit just flows along at the rate of 350 words a minute without us paying much attention to it and without anyone else really knowing.
    Yet it's there. And it influences all we say and do. And it doesn't spring from thin air.
    Our self-talk is rooted in what we believe.  If our beliefs (the roots from which our words and actions spring) are true, then our fruit is good. If our beliefs are false, then our fruit is detrimental.  Everything we say or do springs from truthful concepts or presumptuous, false assumptions.

    Having said that, I have to admit that sometimes I just hate it when I'm doing a Bible study and I find myself the object of the lesson....
   The other day, I was waiting for my niece and I wanted to get a watch. To understand this properly, you have to realize that I don't even wear watches as a rule. Over the years, I've had many.  Always, after a short time, I forget to put them on, I forget to set them correctly, I don't like them because I really don't like wearing jewelry when I'm typing so I take them off, set them down, and .... usually, eventually, lose them.

   But I happened to see this watch on Wed  and I couldn't forget it.  I'd already picked out  two purses (which I was pretty sure would make me happy... and they would have!!!! If only I hadn't seen this gorgeous bracelet/watch for a mere 54.00 on the way to the cash register to pay for my purses!!!!). (The watch in the picture isn't it, by the way:)
    So for the first half hour, while I waited for my niece yesterday, I kept thinking about that watch...  Would I have time to go get it after my niece got finished with her interview?  Should I spend that much money on a watch? (The answer was "no" but I acted like I didn't know that, telling myself this time it would be different...  Like I'm almost sixty and my life is littered with dead and/or lost watches... so I need another potential electronic corpse on my hands... ha!)  Would Phil consider buying it for me for Valentine's day?  (The answer was "yes", I was sure, but just in case... I was seriously considering buying it for myself and then telling him, "Look what you got me for Valentine's day!!!"  Only I'd already decided to do that sort of with the purses...)
   When it became clear that my niece's interview was not going to finish any time soon, I got out my Bible.... Yep. I had it with me and for a reason.... Um... it was my turn to lead our discussion group Thursday night at 6 and it was  already 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon  and I hadn't finished the last day's lesson yet....  But my self-talk was all about this watch that I just had to have or else I couldn't really be happy.... Sigh...
   So I opened my Bible, got out Jennifer's workbook study, Me, Myself, and Lies and started working on roots and fruits.... But still... for the next thirty minutes my thought life was bouncing back and forth like a yo-yo between lies-are-roots-that-lead-to-bad-fruit and  if my niece makes it out to the car in the next 15 minutes or so, I think I can still have time to finish my study and pick up that watch - maybe on the way to the Bible study if I leave my house early enough...
    Thankfully I ended up waiting for an hour and a half.  The first thirty minutes, as I've indicated,  were spent  plotting and planning  about the watch. The next thirty minutes were spent  thinking about the watch and the Bible study which was no easy feat, let me tell you!:)  And then, finally,  during the last thirty minutes, the Bible study kicked in full force and I found contentment and joy right there in my grubby car on Applebee's parking lot with my duct-tape covered Bible, my workbook, my pen, and.... no watch!!! Imagine that!!!
     Before it was over,  I asked God to lead me from one truth to another and I began to write them down in the front of my Bible as He brought them to mind:
     Truth:  God doesn't condemn me. :)  :)  :)  Romans 8:1
     Truth:  I am rooted and grounded in His love!  Ephesians. 3:17
     Truth:  God is always with me.  Here in this car. At home.  I'm never alone. Awesome!  Hebrews 13:5-6
     Truth:  Because I am His child, if I am wronged and ever need to be vindicated, He will do it.  Isaiah 54:17
     Truth:  I can know Christ by sharing in the fellowship of His suffering as well as His resurrection life.  Phil. 3:10
    Truth:  Things are, um, basically... refuse and gold is just Heavenly tar for paving celestial roads with... if you compare them to the value of knowing Christ.  Phil 3:10;  Rev. 21:21
    Truth:  Christ is my life.  Col. 3:1-3
    Truth:  Jesus gives joy.  John 15:11  (Watches don't...:)
    Truth:  Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart.  I Samuel 16:7
    Truth: I am at peace with God.  Romans 5:1
    Truth: I have a deep down  peace through Christ that cannot be destroyed by hard times.  John 16:33
    Truth: I am truly rich now (II Corinthians 8:9) and will be even wealthier later on.  I Peter 1:4

     And that's where I ran out of time... but not out of truth:)
Don't get me wrong:  there's nothing bad about  buying purses and watches!  But my self-talk was erroneous - I have to get this watch to be happy... In fact, I can't be happy (contented, satisfied) until I get it! And it stemmed from a false assumption (the root, if you will) that I don't even notice and/or question which is ....  If I really want something, I have to have it or I can't be happy.  (Even though if you had asked me, I would have told you, in all honesty, that I didn't believe that).
     I know from experience that I would enjoy the watch for a few days or even weeks, but just like the purses I got on Wednesday, it would not bring me pleasure for long... There will always be something else that catches my eye, entices my spirit. There will always be the purses that I didn't get (but I still remember!), the watch that I saw on my way out  of the store, the new book that I just have to read, etc. (Incidentally, I do love the blue purse that I got on Wednesday but...unfortunately,  I can't fit my car keys into it and still have room for my cell phone...  So now I carry my keys everywhere I go! :)
     Anyway, the truth is:
     Jesus gives deep down joy.  Things give, at best, temporary pleasure. (And it is possible to want something, not get it, and still be content. I proved that yesterday sitting on the parking lot at Applebee's...)
    Which leads to another truth: I want things but I need Jesus.
    Everyday.

Gotta Love the Accent.. and the Message....

     This is really just to share a book that I downloaded on my kindle.*  It's called Nine Minutes Past Midnight by Dr.  Earnest Crocker.  He is a well-known physician who was the first to really use ultra sound. I'm not up on medical things (clearly)  but I gather that he was in charge of the nuclear medicine department in a teaching hospital.  At any rate, that is all waayyyy over my head.
      He's a Christian and in his book he tells how he, a Christian rationalist, came to understand that God sometimes heals patients when their need is beyond human capability.  Eventually he  came to see God as the silent partner in his practice and found that rationalism and faith could coexist well both in and out of the medical field.
    The book  begins with a description of  the medical case which  convinced Dr. Crocker that God does heal.  And then the rest of the book describes accounts he has garnered from reputable Christian doctors all over the world explaining how they also  became convinced that God was working along side them and at times producing results that went beyond their own medical skill.
    I went to the You Tube video because... I like Australian/British accents, honestly!  But the message, which only lasts about 30 minutes, made a lot of sense and is inspiring so I decided to re-post it here (for your viewing pleasure???)  :)

 
*I haven't read much of the book yet so if it gets flaky, I'm not responsible for its contents.
  Come to think of it, I'm not responsible even if it doesn't... :)
   

No Small Thing....

     Back in the old days... and I mean the really old days, thousands of years before I was born, friends (and also enemies) could enter into a covenant agreement with each other - an agreement usually sealed with some type of blood ceremony.
     I don't know if  a lot of Christians realize this - I didn't until a few months ago - but when a person becomes a follower of Christ, he enters into a covenant relationship with God.  Covenant partners share their possessions, their homes, their wealth, and "cover" each other with their reputations if possible. As in: he is my covenant brother.  If he owes you anything, I will guarantee that it is paid even if I have to pay it myself.
     Leaving that thought for a minute, I want to transition to another one:   a case of identity, true, mistaken, stolen, or otherwise.:)  Christians frequently hear or see lists of who they are according to Scripture.  These lists may go something like this:
    I am a new creation.  II Cor. 5:17
    I am saved from sin.   John 3:16
    .....

    Those lists don't help me much because they don't always feel like they "fit" me.   Some do; some don't.   So today I started making my own identity list of things I've not only read about  in Scripture over the years but that also God has shown me in various ways.  I started with Eph. 3:17 which was in my last blog:      I am rooted and grounded in God's love.
    My next one was:  I have a title deed to a dwelling place in Heaven. Jesus is preparing it for me even now.  John 14:1-4
   And then:  I am rich in all the things that matter to God.  II Cor. 8:9.
   And then:  I am cloaked in God's righteousness.  II Cor. 5:21.
   
   As I was making my own list of who I am in Christ, the truth of covenant suddenly hit me again and if I can, I'd like to show you how:
   When I believed in Christ, He came to live in my heart.  Someday I will live in His home.  Covenant partners share their homes with each other.
   Christ is divine, royal,  and fabulously wealthy in an other-worldly way that I can't imagine.  But II Cor. 8:9 says that He temporarily became poor so that we might become rich permanently. In other words, as covenant partners I brought what I had to the table - poverty - while  He brought His riches.   There we "sat down" and made the exchange - He handing over His riches to me while accepting the poverty of my broken humanity, taking the title for a while of Son of Man. While I changed from Daughter of Eve to a Child of God. (John 1:12) 
    In the same way, according to II Cor. 5:21, on the  day we became covenant partners, Christ brought His reputation, His righteousness to the table while  I brought, um, basically mine - characterized by sin -  to the table.  There  He covered me with the clean robe of His righteousness while taking my stained garment of sin and wearing it  to court, to the place of execution,  and to the grave where it remains to this day and forever.
   And now He lives forever at the right hand of God where He makes intercession for me and for all His covenant partners, He the strong partner who ever reaches down in love to me, the weak one.

   So now I can add to my identity list that  I am a forever covenant partner with  Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
   And that, my friend, is no small thing.*




*He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the rightousness of God in Him.  II Cor. 5:21.
  For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.  II Cor. 8:9
  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Romans 8:1
 And according to Romans 8:37-39, nothing will ever be able to separate me from the love of my covenant partner and Lord.
 
 

Grow Where You Have Been Planted... :)

   

     True confession... :)
      When I was in my twenties, I joined a Bible study and was assigned to a discussion group.  My discussion leader was a woman about my age and I immediately felt barriers rising up in me as soon as I sat in her group that first night.  Why?
      Because... Nan was everything I wanted to be... and wasn't. She was drop dead beautiful with a sweet voice and personality to match.  She was married and she was expecting her first child.  Me?  I had never even been nominated  for the job of handing out programs at the school pageant  let alone been confused with a potential  beauty pageant contestant.  And while my plan was to get married at the age of 19, it actually didn't happen until I was, um, 32.... So when I went into the Bible class, I was very single and very much aware of it. And as for having children, which I desperately wanted, that wasn't on the cards for me until I married sooo... In my mid twenties I was loving my nieces and nephews but also wondering if I would ever have any babies of my own.

      Then, one night at our first fellowship, I noticed that Nan had on a beautiful necklace with a heart-shaped pendent.  Someone  asked her if her husband had given it to her and she replied that it had actually come from her dad.  Apparently he gave her a gift on every Valentine's day.
     Oh!!!  What I wouldn't have given for a father like that!!!  I would have killed to have had a dad like that!!!
     For me, that was the final straw.
      I went home that night, got into bed with my Bible study materials, bowed my head, and told God that He would have to put me in another discussion group.  I patiently explained to Him that I could not learn from Nan because every time I looked at her, all I could see were the gifts  that I had not been given: great beauty, a husband, children, and most of all, a loving dad.  After I told God what He needed to do for me :), I added this caveat: so please show me how to move to another discussion group without hurting anyone's feelings .. .or change my heart.
     Ha!  Let me tell you, in a benign situation like that - don't even bother with the other stuff - go straight to the "change my heart" deal because that's what He's going to do, trust me on this!
    After I had prayed - rationally and reasonably, I thought -  I opened up my Bible to Genesis and began doing my study.  Soon a cross reference sent me to Ephesians 3:14-21.  I was familiar with that passage and  didn't expect anything new from it.  However, when I got to v. 17, these words seemed to jump off the page towards me:  rooted and grounded in love....
    And then I felt as if God were speaking to my heart and this is what I believed He was saying to me:  Cathie, do you think that just because you can't call Me on the phone or see me write out a check for you - do you think that I am any less of a father to you than Nan's father is to her?
    It was a powerful moment in my life. I immediately got out of bed, fell to my knees, and thanked Him for being my Abba.  Then I started to watch for practical signs of His father love for me -  and they came!  One after the other, they came! And I knew by the time I turned 30 that God is indeed a great Father to the fatherless.  And, as you've probably guessed, God changed my heart so that I came to love Nan deeply and missed her when she was no longer my discussion leader.
    But that was a long time ago so why am I writing about it now?
    Saturday evening, after reading a few chapters in Undaunted by Christine Caine, I was deeply impacted by her account of how God's love sustained her through a major crisis. As soon as the crisis hit, she fell back on Father love and found it more than sufficient.   I wondered:  why don't I live everyday and walk everyday in the assurance of my Father's love?  I had experienced His love.  I had seen evidences of it.  I knew He was real and living and more powerful than I could imagine.  So why were most of my days lived apart from that sense of:   God loves me, God is near me?
     Since I didn't know, I went to the only One who does.   I asked my Heavenly Abba and in answer, He brought to mind that evening over 30 years ago when He so clearly spoke to me from Ephesians 3:17.   In my mind's eye, I could distinctly remember seeing the words, "rooted and grounded in love" and I could also remember thinking something like, "That will be wonderful when it happens!"  As I thought back to this time, I felt that God was saying to me, "Cathie, I wasn't telling you that you would be grounded in My love; I was telling you that you already were rooted in My love."
      I wanted to argue:  How can that be?  I'm still a mess!  I can still fall out of bed and put my sweat shirt on inside out and not notice it until noon when someone points it out to me!  I'm still the one who sticks my foot in my mouth and then literally  cringes later as I think about what I said! I'm the one who fails friends and loses my temper and slinks out of some of my responsibilities (I don't like housework....)  I'm the one who lives in a world of "what ifs" and often is startled like a rabbit at the sight of my own shadow, so to speak.  God! This is me You are talking to!  Remember????

      And then it hit me.  Ephesians 3:17 is using plant terminology. I can't grow much of anything besides Amaryllises and Morning Glories. But I know from watching the Amaryllis plants grow that they can be half dead and then, when they seem beyond all hope, you can re-pot them in better soil, turn a fluorescent light on them 24-7, water them faithfully and many times they will go on to produce beautiful, exotic blooms.  First however, their initial stalks may produce stunted flowers or nothing at all. Then, as the new stalks spring out of the new soil they will produce huge, vibrant flowers.  And then, voila!  Change happens once more - only this time it doesn't look so good!  The beautiful blooms die, a new stalk springs up while the old one is wilting and the process begins again.
     In other words, being rooted and grounded does not mean that the plant looks good all the time or never undergoes change of any sort.  In fact, the plant is constantly changing during its life time.

    When the plant looks great, it's roots are drinking deeply of the potting soil. And then when  the first stalk is starting to look sickly and another is just beginning to show above the dirt, the plant is still drinking deeply from the very same soil.
     And so it is with God's children.  Once we are saved, we are rooted and grounded in His love. It's a fact. It's our foundation for living.  But in the warp and woof of life, sometimes our fruit will look beautiful and sometimes our stalks will be drooping and our flowers will be stunted or non-existent.
      But this is the deal - if the gardener is good at what He does, the soil hasn't changed!
     The last thing that came to me about all this was: sometimes I just don't consciously think about God's love because... I'm uncomfortable with it.  Let me switch from plants to people for a minute and then I'll be done with this  - promise! I'm just wondering, generally speaking, which is better for a child?  To have parents that are belittling, unloving, demanding, and difficult to please?  Or to have parents who are loving, affirming, able to discipline and also able to guide?
    In other words, getting really crazy here and mixing potted plants and unpotted kids in altogether, I'm asking:   which environment provides better soil for a child's heart to grow in?
    I think the answer is obvious.
    So which kind of Father is God?
    I think the answer to that is also obvious.
    So why  do I sometimes  relate to God as if He were belittling, demeaning, and hard to please?
    As if He gives love when I do right and snatches it away when I mess up or do wrong?
    How did I get that idea?
    I mean, isn't the ground where life begins, where it springs from? And doesn't the soil nurture the plant on days when it looks good as well as  on days when it's undergoing necessary changes and maybe looks like a plant reject?
    You can see where I've had things all wrong. For decades, I've thought that God's love is what I earn by the plants I produce. I never fully realized that it's the soil from which my very life, made up of temporary successes and temporary mess-ups, springs from.
     I guess it all comes down to this:  who's your daddy?
     If you have the same one as mine, you are - not will be, but are -  rooted and grounded in His love. And to paraphrase Paul, may your tendrils (and mine!) grow further and further into that foundational love until we know through experience the breadth, length, height, and depth of it.