Saying the Right Thing

We recently attended the funeral service of a dear friend. She was 92 and as her son reminded us, she was not there, but in Jesus’ presence.

Because Bill has been a minister off and on in our 46 year marriage, and because we are getting older ourselves, we have been to many funerals. Some funerals are occasions of desperate sadness, some are just a ceremony to end a long time dying, some are an obligation, but some are a celebration. This funeral was a celebration!

Lurene was loved by many people and the church was packed. Her son’s eulogy was a joy-filled remembrance of his mother who had more spiritual impact on his life than, as he said, everyone else combined.

When it was time for sharing, family member after family member stood to share their happy memories of this woman and nearly everyone mentioned her spiritual life. A friend of mine stood and, with barely contained tears, told how as a young mother and newly moved into Lurene’s neighborhood, she had asked Lurene how she was so confident in her relationship with Christ. Lurene (who had no schooling past high school) patiently and gently took this young woman through the book of Romans and explained how Christ had paid the price for our sins – once for all.

The friend sitting next to me whispered if I was going to share what I had told her earlier that day. But my memories were not for public consumption.

When we first moved to that city, and joined that church, I felt so rejected by not only the community, but most of the people in that church. There are some (probably many) communities where you need to have lived there and raised your children there in order to “fit”, to be accepted. We moved after our children were raised and I never did “fit” in. But, Lurene took me in, accepted me for whom I was, rejoiced with me in my relationship to God, and never once gave me advice.

Every time she saw me at church her face lit up with pleasure to see me. When we formed a little group to “pray in” a new pastor, her prayers were mostly praising God for who He is.

I’m not sure I ever heard Lurene say anything negative about another person.

This was not a self-righteous restraint, it was who she genuinely was. Every person she met was a precious person to her. She truly seemed to see them through Christ’s eyes – as someone loved by God.

As her son closed his eulogy he said that if we wanted to keep Lurene with us, if we didn’t want her spirit to die, we should emulate her. We should carry on loving one another the way she did.

James says “the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts…it corrupts the whole person..with the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men..” (3:1-12)

I have been wrestling my tongue all my life. I have participated in my share of gossip. I have done my share of complaining about…many things. I have gotten angry and said those things that the moment they leave your mouth, you would take them back, but never can. I have wounded and even destroyed several friendships with my mouth.

Lately I have come to see that we often wound with our advice. Perhaps we mean well, but often advice is really a criticism of the other person, and if not asked for, it is usually not wanted. We justify ourselves that we are trying to help the other person, we are sharing our wisdom, we are… But if we are honest, we are being critical.

Perhaps we are the most at fault with our own families, with our grown children, with siblings, no doubt with aging parents. We seem to feel freer to fling out those arrows of advice to those closest to us.

We have several friends whose grown children have cut them off because of “advice”. And how many friendships have been destroyed by “advice”?

After Lurene’s funeral I wrestled with my own faults of my tongue; I am resolving that as much as I can, as God continues to help me, I will use my tongue as an instrument of praising Him, of building up those around me, of only sharing what I am certain the Holy Spirit is prompting me to share.

I suspect I will be learning this for the rest of whatever time God has for me on this earth. When I enter His presence I want Him to say, “Well, done, good and faithful servant. You finally said the right things!”

Thniking Outside The Box

In the American Church we often find ourselves promoting our church, our heritage, our roots, our history rather than living a life that is characterized by our daily “walk with The King”.

It is easy to slip into that trap of “this is how we always did that” or “this is what the founding fathers/mothers intended for this church to be” or “this is how we practice Christianity in the good ole USA, which is a Christian nation”.

We end up often resembling the Pharisees with whom Jesus had so many problems.

“Walking with The King” on a daily basis is work. It means we have to let go of ourselves, let go of our preconceived ideas of what our spiritual life should look like and walk with Him each day. It means being open to the direction He wants life to take that day, that week, that month – even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense at the moment. Even when that goes against what other Christians around us say our life should look like. It often means “stepping out on a limb”.

I believe that “walking with The King” is always consistent with Scripture, but not always consistent with the way Scripture has been interpreted for us.

We have a classic example in Scripture – Most Jews were convinced that the Messiah would be a politically savvy person, one who would free them from Rome’s control (or Assyria’s control, or Babylon’s control in the past). Almost no one “got it” - that the Messiah was coming to free them from spiritual bondage.

Much of Jesus’ ministry was to tell those following him, those listening, over and over that He came to bring spiritual life, spiritual wholeness – that worshiping the Father was to be “in spirit and in truth”. Even the disciples did not “get it” until after Pentecost when the promised spiritual counselor came to indwell them and help them “get it” at last.

Even after the Holy Spirit came, the Church did not understand that Christ’s return, His “second coming”, was not to be the next week, or next month, or next year. If you read Paul’s letters, he is ever looking for Christ’s return.

In a similar way I think we often don’t “get it”. We (throughout the history of The Church) work on figuring out what Jesus meant, what Paul meant, etc. and then we run with it. As human beings we are so prone to creating “a formula” and then living within the bounds of that formula.

We have TWO commandments to keep – love God with our entire being, love our neighbor as ourselves. Sounds simple, but it takes a lifetime to “get it right” and even then almost no one finishes having figured it all out.

It is SO MUCH easier to create a formula to “love God with our entire being” and then live within that formula. “Walking with The King” each day means figuring out how to love Him anew each day. That seems to be too tiring for the majority of us.

And, once I have figured out who my neighbor is, and what I have to do to show that I love her/him, then I can relax and just “do the formula”. The problem is, the neighborhood keeps changing. EXHAUSTING!!!

Walking with The King often means He reveals more of Himself to us as the journey continues and we have to adjust to our new, expanded view of God. Walking with The King often means He points our more and more neighbors and more and more needs (WAY beyond just feeding them and giving them our unwanted clothes) and we have to figure out what “loving them as ourselves” really means – usually something uncomfortable I have found.

BUT Walking with The King also means that a whole new world opens up continually, there are delights around every corner along the path, often preceded by pain I have found. To know Him, to walk with Him each day is a joy that cannot even be explained, it can only be experienced.

In future weeks in this blog we will continue to explore what we do when our churches become locked into a formula. It is a problem The Church has wrestled with for 2,000 years, and since the beginning of time in reality.

Please share your own story, your own ideas. Let’s grow together!

Installment Three - The Body - The Church

This is the third, and final installment of my anthology about my injured hand and The Church.

During this six week process the feet have been just a bit smug about their role of being “rooted and grounded” and proclaiming to the rest of the body that they have to take on the whole weight of the body and convey it from place to place.

Then, in the dark of night, the foot, not looking where it was going, stubbed its toe – it has been strangely silent about the woes of the hands ever since. In fact, it was quite ashamed of the way it stumbled and limped for several days.

There is one final event that has taken place between the two hands. After the initial pain began to ease it was replaced with an ache, common to many broken bones. Sometimes the ache would wake me up at night because there was no position where the right arm did not hurt. One night the left hand began to caress and stroke the right hand and arm. Suddenly the ache began to lessen. As the right hand began to relax, under the stroking of the left hand, the ache diminished. Now the left hand will often stroke and massage the right hand – and the healing continues.

In I Corinthians 12 Paul tells us that "The Body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts...and so it is with Christ." He goes on to say "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it..."

We are the Body of Christ and we need to function as a whole, but when one part suffers, the rest of the body needs to adjust, and pitch in, and continue to function as a whole.

Installment Two - The Body - The Church

This is the second installment of my anthology about my injured hand and The Church.

There were many tasks that the left hand could not accomplish alone. It asked the feet to help out, but they protested that they needed to stay “rooted and grounded” and could not possibly come up and help. The right hand tried to help out, but again shooting pains told the whole body that it was not nearly ready to even begin to help. The left hand was frustrated, there were things the brain was asking it to do that I simply could not accomplish, so it asked for help elsewhere. Soon two other hands came to its assistance (Bill with a primary working left hand) and did those tasks as instructed or as he best saw fit. The new hands continued to help out whenever needed and are, in fact, continuing to step in from time to time even to this day. The new hands, always a friend to the left hand and the right hand, have become even better friends.

It is now 6 weeks later and the air cast has been stowed in a closet, hopefully to never be needed again. The right hand is beginning to reassume its appointed tasks, but it will be several months, the doctor tells me, before it will have close to full strength again. The left hand is happy to be able to continue some of its tasks, which it now is able to do better than the right hand. In fact, I suspect, the left hand will continue to be of great help to the whole body from now one.

In the beginning the left hand had a tendency to question the Creator and wonder why, at this age, it was suddenly asked to do so much. It had an unspoken complaint that the Creator could have at least warned it ahead of time so it could have begun to at least practice some of the tasks it was asked to do. It also blamed the right hand for allowing it to be so complacent and always having to be “in charge”.

Now, however, as the left hand looks back on the whole experience, it realizes that it really was never interested in helping all that much. Oh, there were always some tasks it helped with because there are some tasks that require two working hands, but it was, to be really honest, quite content to allow the right hand to do most of the work.

The right hand also looks back and realizes that it had a strong tendency to take over most tasks. There were a few times, granted not all that many, that the left hand attempted to do something, but it was too clumsy, too slow, too…and the right hand got impatient and said (irritably) “let me do that” and took over the task, relegating the left hand to a very secondary position. Now it realizes that it needed to go through the pain to learn that it does not always need to be first. It realizes that it is a good thing for the left hand to have become stronger. It has lost some of its arrogance and it is determined not to forget even when the healing is complete.

The Body - The Church

Six weeks ago I tumbled down my daughter’s basement steps and broke my arm. Based on the bruises on my hip and at the base of my spine and on both legs, and the lump on my head, I am quite fortunate to have only broken my arm – the radius, about two inches above my wrist - my right arm.

Because of the swelling and the fact that the bones were not displaced, the ER doc put me in an air cast and the next day the orthopedist said the arm could stay in the air cast until it was healed enough to fend on its own. This was wonderful because the air cast is held together with Velcro strips, easily loosened so I could shower without a bag over my hand and arm.

The arm hurt, but pain meds took care of most of the pain, but any, any effort to use that arm caused shooting pains. So, I had no choice - I began to use my left arm. Here is the allegory that has developed over these six weeks.

In the beginning the pain affected the whole body. The body said, “this is too much, just let me lie down awhile.” Then it began to say, “Just take a pill, we have work to do and we can’t let that broken right arm keep all the rest of us from getting things done.”

When the left hand was told it was now going to have to do most of the work, if not all of the work, it sighed and said it would do its best, but keep in mind that it had been underutilized for more than 60 years so it might take a few days to get up to speed.

It was only a few days later that the left hand complained that it was getting VERY tired of having to do all the work and couldn’t the right hand help out at least a little? The brain patiently explained that the right arm was still quite injured (it actually sent a jolt of pain through the body so all the members could get some idea of what was happening) and that it would most likely be quite awhile before the right hand could even help out.

The left hand sighed and said it needed a little rest but it would continue to do its best. In fact, in the next several days it needed many rests and the whole body took advantage and rested with it. But about a week later, when asked to do yet another task, the left hand suddenly realized that the tasks were easier and it was doing more and more, and most things better and better, each day. “I told you so.”, said the brain.

Another week after that, the left hand had a tendency to gloat just a bit over its increasing ability. The brain warned it not to get too cocky and the feet murmured in agreement.


In I Corinthians 12 Paul tells us that "The Body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts...and so it is with Christ." He goes on to say "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it..."

We are the Body of Christ and we need to function as a whole, but when one part suffers, the rest of the body needs to adjust, and pitch in, and continue to function as a whole.

Carrying One Another’s Burdens

I will never forget the day I drove home from the Bible study I was leading at the country church where my husband was the pastor, while teaching full-time at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. I was crying so hard I could hardly see to drive.

“It is too hard, Lord!” I sobbed.

It was another Wednesday when the burdens and troubles revealed by the group far outweighed the joys. Not just trite burdens, but real loads of concern about health issues, children gone or going astray, economic issues. Cancer was taking too much of a toll on our group.

One of the things I wanted to teach and leave with this group was praying for one another. We ended each time of study together by sharing the things we wanted each other to pray about in the coming week. At first I did all the out-loud-praying as none of the folks gathered had learned to pray in public. Eventually the group became comfortable with talking to God in each other’s presence.

As the people shared their burdens I carefully wrote them down so I could both pray accurately with the group, and later as I remembered these things during the week in my private prayer time.

As we went around the circle that Wednesday, the burdens seemed to get heavier and heavier.

When it came time to pray I could barely keep the tears from flowing. I left the group and headed back to my job at the University with a heavy heart, a truly aching heart. It was too much. It was too hard to care so much about all these other people.

As I sobbed my way back to work the verse from Paul’s letter to the Galatians (6:2) repeated over and over in my head, “Carry one another’s burdens...and so fulfill the law of Christ.” A small voice kept insisting “this is what it means to carry someone else’s burden.”

In the weeks that followed that Wednesday I watched a wondrous transformation take place as the group, who were largely polite to each other, began to really care about each other.

And I came to love them as I had never allowed myself to love a group before.

That group has morphed over the years, but they still meet on a frequent basis and have stuck with each other through some thick and thin places.

Recently a friend of mine began sharing with me and several other caring friends her concerns about a niece who suffers and struggles with a brain dysfunction. Our friend shared with us a detailed email about this girl’s recent experience. It was filled with details difficult to read about.

At one point I was considering just skimming the rest of the email – the suffering revealed in great detail was upsetting to me. Then I realized that this too is a part of carrying one another’s burdens. We cannot adequately get under the load of someone else’s pain if we do not know what that pain is.

So I read to the end and now I pray often for this young girl.

Sometimes it means taking the time to listen, really listen and hear the burden of someone else.

Sometimes it means having to experience the burden for ourselves.

Bill and I could not really understand the agony of having premature babies. We did not really understand the ache of standing by an isolette and wonder if that child would live, and if he lived what problems would he have. Our twin grand babies have taught us so much about carrying that kind of burden.

Most recently, I could only look in from the outside and sympathize with those who have suffered a stroke or other disabling physical experiences. Then I tumbled down the basement stairs and broke my right arm.

Suddenly I too cannot use that arm. I am like a little child learning to feed himself. I have to suffer the dependence of having Bill zip my coat, help me dress, even pull up the covers at night.

Unlike a stroke victim I can still speak clearly, I can walk just fine, and I have a full expectation that my arm will heal completely in six months. But my heart will now ache whenever I hear of someone who has suffered a stroke, or any bone break. I now share their burden.

Paul tells us in Galatians 2 that when we do this “we fulfill the law of Christ.”

Remember, when asked on several occasions, Jesus said the law could be summed up in two statements: love God with our entire being and love our neighbor as ourselves. Carrying someone else’s burden is loving them in the way we want to be loved.

The most supportive person, the most empathetic and caring (carrying) person in my broken arm episode has been my fried who cut a finger on her right hand so severely that she needed surgery and therapy. She knows what I am experiencing..and she cares.

In the hustle and bustle of this sometimes frantic world, may we each take time to stoop, pick up and help carry someone else’s burden.

Exercising our Gifts

He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to go to church in the morning and he wasn’t too sure about the Children’s Program that night.

We had kidnapped Ethan at the beginning of his Christmas vacation which included the Sunday before Christmas.

He has not enjoyed our small country church, it is a simple country church and he is used to a choir made up of professionals (music is their profession outside of church). Since Grandpa is the pastor (which doesn’t faze Ethan one bit) he needed to come with us, or I would have to stay home with him.

First he said he was too tired to go to church. Then he decided that he didn’t really feel well enough to go to church. I told him that was fine, but then, of course, we would not be able to go to Old Country Buffet afterwards with Aunt Deb. It is amazing how quickly he felt both well enough and awake enough to attend church.

Ethan and I sat in the back of the church while the kids finished their ragged rehearsal and Grandpa greeted folks as they came in from the snowy cold. Ethan watched with interest as the kids straggled back to where we were sitting and struggled to remove their pajama-like costumes covered with spots and sporting a variety of tails or humps -for the camels.

I had told him well in advance of our kidnapping, that we would be attending the Children’s Program and that I would be helping with the cookies and punch afterward. So we headed to the church again that evening with a rather subdued, resigned Ethan.

He perked up considerably when we got to the kitchen in the basement of the church where Cheryl was busy setting cookies on glass platters, choosing from the great variety of both homemade and store-bought cookies provided by the parents and sometimes grandparents of the kids in the program. Ethan helped me stow the makings for the punch in the refrigerator, helped me search for the cups we would use and then helped Cheryl fill the last several platters. I allowed him to eat one broken cookie before the three of us headed upstairs just as the kids were lining up to march into the sanctuary and up to the platform.

Cheryl, Ethan and I set up folding chairs in the back. Ethan chose the one directly opposite the aisle to the front of the church where he would have the best view of the kids up front. Bill joined us after he finished greeting the 90 or so folks gathered on this cold night.

The program was interspersed with musical numbers that the kids sang and hymns where the audience was invited to join in. Ethan enjoys finding the hymn himself and singing along as he reads the lines. Cheryl was a little surprised when she went to help him and he wrested “his” hymn book away from her and sang out the correct lines of the carol. She glanced at me and I shrugged my shoulders.
The kids did an amazing job, as happens every year, in spite of the ragged dress rehearsal we had witnessed that morning. We slipped out just before their last number and Bill’s benediction, and dashed down the stairs.

Ethan staggered as he helped me carry gallons of punch and 2 litter bottles of 7-UP over to the cut glass punch bowl Cheryl had supplied. He dashed back and retrieved the orange sherbet to add to the top. I began ladling out the punch while Ethan helped Cheryl arrange the platters of cookies on the serving shelf.

I only had a dozen or so cups filled when the kids noisily made their way down the steps, the older boys pulling off their costumes and dumping them in a heap in the corner of the room.

The line surged toward the platters of cookies when a small voice sternly commanded, “Halt! We are not ready for you to begin.” The line of kids instantly stopped dead in their tracks. Cheryl and I struggled not to burst into laughter as this 6-year-old controlled the entire situation.

The kids waited, looking at Ethan, and then at Cheryl and me as we quickly finished enough of our tasks to be ready. Then Ethan again boomed out, “O.K. you kids can go through the line. Keep the line orderly. Only take two cookies.”

Cheryl stood there dumbfounded and I smiled with amusement as the line of 20 or so kids quietly filed past the cookies and politely accepted a cup of punch. Even the twelve-year-old boys only took two cookies.

Soon we were swamped as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins surged into the room, taking cookies and waiting patiently while I dipped ladle after ladle of punch. I was beginning to get quite behind when a friend stepped next to me and handed me the cups to be filled.

Other women joined Cheryl in the kitchen to keep the platters of cookies filled and begin washing now empty cookie containers and eventually empty platters. I could catch a glimpse of Ethan from time to time racing from container to container to help Cheryl fill the platters as they emptied. Every so often he would dash over to my end of the counter, ask what I needed, then dash back to the refrig and stagger back with whatever I needed to refresh the punch.

I could only catch a glimpse of him, but I could hear his piping 6-year-old voice doing a running commentary which was smothered from time to time with bursts of laughter from the women who were bustling around the kitchen. I heard Ethan ask Jill where the garbage was and when she pointed to the large container at the edge of the room, he quickly gathered up empty store containers and no longer needed sheets of plastic wrap and stuffed them into the container.

He took time out to run to me and ask if we could take the punch containers home for recycling. I said yes and soon there was a growing collection at the end of one of the counters in the kitchen. I heard Ethan tell everyone NOT to throw those containers away because we were going to recycle them.

Almost as suddenly as it all began, the room was nearly empty again, the last platters were put away and the remaining cookies divided into zip bags for folks to take home.

We found an empty bag and stuffed the empty punch and soda bottles into it for recycling. Under the pile was a wrapped present. Ethan excitedly grabbed it and told me that a “nice lady” had given it to him because he was helping so much. I agreed that he could open it once we got home.

As usual, Bill was one of the very last to leave and we bundled a tired but excited Ethan into the back seat and then headed home.

“That was the best party I have ever been to.” Ethan exclaimed from the back seat. There was a pause. “And I thought the kids did a good job too.” He sighed contentedly and clutched his still wrapped book to his chest.

Ethan continued to talk about what a great party it was - because he had participated in both the preparation and the execution of the party. He had been allowed to exercise his gifts. AND those gifts had been valued.

We are fortunate to be a part of a church where kids are so valued. Bill and I have been a part of several other churches where kids are NEVER allowed in the kitchen. But Ethan was not only allowed to be in the kitchen, he was allowed to help. He was allowed to help put out the cookies, he was allowed to open the refrigerator and get me the additional supplies I needed. He was allowed to carry glass platters from the counter to the folks doing the dishes. He was even allowed to carry on a running commentary and conversation with the rest of the folks helping in the kitchen.

The ladies who were also helping, also exercising their gifts, were thoroughly enjoying this 6-year-old because he was only 6. Had he been the slightly challenged woman who often fills that same role, they would not have noticed. Nor did they comment on each other’s roles that evening. But there were many thank-yous at the end of the evening. Cheryl and I could not have managed nearly as smoothly without those extra willing hands.

As Ethan commented, it was a “great party” because we were having so much fun working together.

I think this is part of what Paul had in mind when he talks about our gifts. Whether we are six or sixty, whether it is “just” filling empty platters, or baking the cookies themselves, we serve together and it becomes a task of joy. We need to honor the “six-year-olds” right along with the others whose gifts appear more spectacular, but every gift is necessary to get the job of the Church done.

And when we get to the end of the day, the end of our lives, may we all be able to say, “that was the best party I have ever been to!”