Seeing Through A Glass Darkly

O.K. Paul is talking about spiritual things, not seeing the future so I am taking this out of context. The point is that we cannot see into the future, we have MUCH clearer hindsight than we have foresight. Colin has shown me that more clearly (yes, I intended to use that word) than perhaps any other event in my life.

Some of you reading this blog know the story of Colin, our grandson, but let me fill in for those who don’t.

Up until 27 months ago, we had one grandchild (Ethan, of whom I have written in the past) and not much hope for additional grandchildren. Then our daughter Becki discovered she was pregnant, at age 43, and not just pregnant, but there were going to be twins.

Her age made her high risk so she had more frequent doctor visits, ultrasounds, etc. To make matters simple, the babies were called Baby A and Baby B. For awhile both babies grew at an acceptable rate for twins, but then came the day when Baby A did not seem to be growing as fast as Baby B. To make a long story short, the doctors determined that Baby A’s placenta had a problem. Becki and John soon had the worst kind of decision a parent could be asked to make.

Baby A would NOT make it to 40 weeks: they could do nothing, Baby A would die but most likely stay in-utero giving Baby B a change to make it to close to 40 weeks and therefore a good chance to grow normally. They could deliver the babies immediately (at 24 weeks) and risk losing both babies (their lungs would not be very well developed), they could wait (from week to week) to give Baby B a better chance, but the risk continued to be losing Baby A. At 28 weeks the doctors said they now had to decide. Baby B finally had a better chance to live outside the womb, they weren’t sure about Baby A, but they(the doctors) would do everything they could.

Becki and John decided to go ahead and at least give Baby A a chance. And so Becki underwent her second C-Section and Veronica (Baby B) and Colin (Baby A) were born.

Roni weighed 3 lbs, 6 ozs, Colin weighed 1 lb, 7 ozs. Both babies were whisked into the NICU, put into preemie incubators, hooked up to every conceivable monitoring device and watched round the clock. And loved!

Roni came home after two months in the NICU, with a monitor for her apnea, Colin remained for 111 days.

The first time Bill and I went to Chicago to see the babies, about a week after they had been delivered, we could only go in to see Colin one at a time. When it was my turn, I stood next to John and peered in at this little bird that had fallen out of his nest. I began to cry and I silently begged God to take this grandchild, this flesh of my flesh, home because I could only see problems ahead. How could this tiny baby, the size of a pound of butter with legs, with tubes coming out of every part of his tiny body, with skin so translucent that you could see every vein, how could he ever be normal? “Please God, spare my daughter, my son-in-law, his big brother Ethan the pain and just take him home.” I never told Becki or John about my prayer.

I admit that my prayers in those early days of Colin’s life were more for his parents, his big brother, his sister. I prayed for those tending Colin, for his obvious pain issues, but I had no hope that he would survive.

I could not see through the glass of the future. I had no hope, I did not even dare to have faith. I did, as I try to always pray, ask God that His will be done. If Colin was to live and have “issues” I knew/know that God knows what is best for ALL of us. And so, ultimately, I prayed that His will be done here, now, on earth, as it is in Heaven. And He DID!

Yesterday Becki called to tell me how proud I would be of my grandson. “Which one?” I asked, knowing full well what she was calling about (I read her blog too). “Colin is walking everywhere. You would be so proud of him.” AND I AM!

I know lots of people have had preemies, some as small as Colin, and they have wonderful stories to tell us as they put their arm around their strapping, 6 foot tall son. Colin is OUR miracle. He is our day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month personal miracle. As is Roni. I know that today’s medical community is largely responsible, but I know that God has given them the knowledge, the tools, and beyond all that He has been with Colin every step (yes, I mean STEP) of this journey.




I can only see the future through a glass darkly, but when I turn around and look back at my life I can see so many dark places (sometimes “shadows in the valley of death”) that are bright with God’s sunlight.

And so, once again, I turn to face that unrevealed future with eyes of faith that allow me to pierce that unknown darkness with a certainty that He continues to walk with me day by day, and “My steps have held to your paths; my feet have not stumbled.” Psalm 17:5

We are called to “walk by faith”, and when we can’t see through the dark glass of the future, sometimes it is hard to take that first, hesitant step, just as Colin was hesitant taking his first step, but he did it and now at 21 months, he is walking everywhere! AMEN!

Getting to Know You

I first knew her through her neighbor, Jean. We didn’t actually get to meet Marilyn, but we heard about her. Her mother-in-law was in that long process of dying and the family was in the midst of a prolonged series of squabbles so Jean asked us to pray for Marilyn.

Each week the Bible Study felt like we knew Marilyn a bit better as Jean continued to give us updates, and a bit more about Marilyn herself. She also told Marilyn that the group was praying for her as she went through this very upsetting time.

We prayed for Marilyn for the entire year. Near the end of that year together Marilyn stopped by Jean’s house to thank us for praying for her. We invited her to stay, which she did. We felt like we knew her and she was welcomed into the midst of the group. The warmth of the group was almost overwhelming to her.

During the next year of the Bible study Marilyn began coming on a fairly regular basis, eventually inviting the group into her home. Now I was getting to know her in the midst of this warm group context. I have always striven to make the Bible study a safe place to share hurts as well as joys. As Marilyn felt more and more comfortable within the group she shared more and more of herself.

Over the next several years we came to know Marilyn, and love her - within the context of the group. She is a very private person, but the loving warmth of the group and the safe environment allowed her to reveal more and more of herself. I felt like I was getting to know her quite well.

Then a year or so ago I invited her to have lunch with me. Marilyn was delighted to be invited to lunch and we went to a nice restaurant where I knew we would have time to visit without being disturbed.

It was quite clear that being in this one-on-one setting was something Marilyn craved and so one lunch-out developed into lunch out about once a month. Each time we are together, just the two of us, I learn more about the private, inner Marilyn. We have developed a relationship that allows a sharing on a deeper level than the group setting. Now I know Marilyn in a very personal way and each time we are together we know each other better.

Getting to know Marilyn reflects how I know Christ.

When I was around 7 my father decided that my brother and I should be in Sunday School. Since we had no car we had to walk to church and the nearest church happened to be a Baptist church. For the first time in my life I began to hear about God and His son Jesus and I began to get to know them.

For several months I avidly learned all I could about God, I wanted to know this person who had made the world, and me, and everything else. The stories I heard were wonderful and I couldn’t seem to get enough.

My Sunday School and Church School teachers kept talking about “inviting Jesus into your heart”. I had no idea what that meant, but one day it struck me that if I wanted to know Jesus even better, “inviting Him into my heart” might do that. So I knelt down and “asked Him into my heart”. Now I knew Him in a different way than just hearing about Him. Now I knew Him in a similar way the rest of “the group” knew Him.

I continued to learn about Him, and I knew Him as the group related to Him, but I longed to know Him even more personally.

I was already reading my Bible on a frequent basis and trying desperately to relate to God and Jesus as the group related to Him, but I had a strong sense that there should be something more to our relationship. So I decided to read my Bible from cover to cover, trying to block out the voices of the group telling me how to relate to Him, and find out about Him myself.

I set my foot on a path that has become a life-long experience. God and I have an almost daily “walk together” and I now know not just about Him, not just as whatever group I am currently in knows Him, but I know Him.

Marilyn has a number of friends, she has a close family, she has a church family and each one of us knows her slightly differently from all the others. Some know a lot about her, but don’t really know her. But even those of us who actually know the inner Marilyn each know her in our own way, in the way she relates to us, to the degree that our relationship has grown.

Many Christians know a lot about God, but I think there are not so many who really know God and even those of us who do know Him, know Him in a slightly different way. I could never state that I know Marilyn best, that I know her better than anyone else, or even that I know all there is to know about her (NO one can say that). And so it is with my relationship with God. Others know God in a very different way than I do, but the way He reveals Himself to others is no greater, no lesser than the way He reveals Himself to me.

Someday we will see Him, as Paul puts it, face to face. And I think it will take all of eternity to really get to know Him. I suspect even in eternity we will each know God slightly differently. After all, He is a VERY BIG GOD. Some days I can’t wait.

Seeing Through a Glass Smearily

Our grandson, Colin, LOVES to play with my glasses. He is fascinated that my eyes hide behind the clear plastic lenses. He will say “eyes” and reach and touch the glasses. Then he giggles, says “eyes” again and touches the lenses.

When I take the glasses off he peers at the lenses, then looks at my eyes, says “eyes”, touches my face then giggles, reaching for the glasses, wanting me to put them back on. I do and he says “eyes” again and touches the lenses.

We can repeat this scenario multiple times during the day. Needless to say, if I don’t clean my glasses after each encounter with a sticky-fingered 18-month-old, they get quite smeary.

Since my lenses are a hard plastic, I am careful when I clean them - past experience has taught me that they can get scratched.

When we are with our grandchildren for a day, or (in rare, but wonderful) several days, my glasses can get to the point of being almost “foggy”.

Recently we were with our grandchildren for a full day, leaving their house around 7 pm in order to get home by 9 pm, and soon after, to bed.

I did not take the time to clean my glasses before we left and went to bed without cleaning them. When I got up in the morning to have coffee with Bill, I realized that I was seeing the world through “a glass smearily”.

In the King James version of the Bible Paul says in I Corinthians 13, verse 12, “now we see through a glass darkly…” I like the way the Message puts it: “We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!”

As human beings, and as Christians, we seem to often be seeing things through “a glass smearily”.

The window panes of our lives are often so fogged up with our prejudices, the lenses of our spiritual eyes are often myopic with our narrow viewpoints, that we are unable to see things clearly.

I suspect that nearly everyone reading this has at some point made a judgment about someone before we really knew the facts. I am fairly certain that most of us have judged a situation without making an attempt to see it from someone else’s point of view.

Often, I suspect, our view of life is smeary without us even realizing that “our glasses need to be cleaned”.

Along the path that God has led Bill and me, we have had the privilege of being associated with at least a dozen or so different denominations, and have friends in several additional groups. When God first moved me outside the “box” of my childhood I was very judgmental of others because they didn’t see spiritual life exactly as I did.

God has had to “clean my glasses” numerous times to help me see others more clearly. In the last dozen or so years I have finally come to appreciate the viewpoint of other people on their own faith-journey whose background is different, but no less valid, than my own.

Every time I “see” God from someone else’s viewpoint, I have seen yet a little more of His glory, a little more of His vastness, a little more of His deep love for ALL of us humankind.

Every time I make an effort to “see” someone’s situation BEFORE I make a judgment about their behavior (reaction) I more clearly “see” their pain, their wounding, their struggle to … And every time I allow God to “clean my glasses” to see that other person I see more clearly not just how much He loves them, but how much He loves me.

Being an active part of God’s family is so simple: Love God with our entire being, Love our neighbor as ourselves. So simple; and the hardest thing He could ever ask us to do. But it is so much easier when we allow Him to “clean our glasses”, when we begin to see Him, our world, our neighbors through spiritual lenses that are no longer smeary.

Going Home

My husband Bill and I have been on a most interesting journey these past seven months.

When Bill retired (his second retirement) from the ministry at the end of May, it was recommended by our denomination that we absent ourselves from the country church he had pastored for the past 7 years - for at least a year. This is to give the new pastor a change to establish herself without feeling like the “old” pastor was ever looking over her shoulder. Bill and I both think this is a good idea.

This was an opportunity to visit many of the churches we have wanted to visit, but difficult when you have pastoral responsibilities. So we plotted out a journey through a dozen or so churches, adding several more to our list as we went along.

We visited local churches, we visited far flung churches where the pastor was a friend, we visited start-up churches and long established churches. We visited churches in at least 6 different denominations ranging from “charismatic” to “main line”.

We heard some great sermons, some mediocre sermons (our opinion, of course) and a couple of sermons that made up want to get up and walk out (but we didn’t).

More interesting than the sermons was the reaction of the various congregations to our presence.

Last week Bill and I had an occasion to compare our reactions to those various congregations.

Hands down, no doubt, no comparison the most loving, the most inviting, the most genuine congregation was the church in Virginia that was trying to be a presence, to be a place of ministry, to the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville.

This congregation was multi-ethnic, multi-generational, multi-functional, and several more multis. We were warmly welcomed when we entered the sanctuary (a building no longer wanted by a different church). We were hugged after the service and stayed for nearly an hour talking to several people genuinely interested in us and our journey. They knew we would probably never be back but they embraced us anyway.

Our second favorite experience was the start-up congregation pastored by a dear friend (of a different denomination) whose ministry we have followed for 20 years (he was just a KID when we first got to know him).

Once again we were welcomed, embraced, folded into the congregational body – they certainly reflected our friend’s outgoing spirit – but it was more than just a reflection.

The rest of our experience was less than satisfying (with one exception). We visited several other start-up churches (reflecting three different denominations). One would expect these to be outgoing, encompassing, warm places just by the nature of the reason for their existence – BUT THEY WEREN’T. We felt like “outsiders” during our whole visit. If we had been seeking a new church home, if we had been seeking to find out who Christ is, what this “church thing” is all about, we would have left with our questions unanswered and probably never gone back, maybe even stopped searching.

We also visited several other well-established churches (because we knew the pastor) and the feeling of being an “outsider” was, perhaps, even more pronounced.

During the season of Advent Bill wanted to attend one church for the continuity of the season, the preaching, the experience. We chose a church close to us whose pastor is a friend and whose preaching makes our hearts sing.

We attended that church for six weeks, consecutively, and, other than two couples we knew previously, no one, NO ONE made an attempt to welcome us into the fold. It was almost as if we were invisible.

We also attended a local charismatic church. Charismatic by its very definition implies outgoing, engaging, compelling. Once again, however, we felt like outsiders and left knowing that we would never attend that church again.

The exception to all of the above was when Bill was invited to preach at a church he used to pastor. It was a homecoming like we have never before experienced. But, BUT, Bill had been the beloved pastor there, and we continue to have a relationship with many in that congregation.

So, we have been pondering what to do for the next five months, and what to do after these next five months, when we got The Phone Call.

“Hi, Dotti, this is Lorna.”

She is the new pastor of the church from which Bill retired. She is the pastor we are giving time to get adjusted.

Her call was to invite us, urge us, encourage us to return to the congregation. “Everyone wants you to come back.” We knew this already because every Christmas card, every chance meeting while shopping, even several phone calls wondered when we would be back.

Lorna assured me that she is feeling so comfortable, that this is such a “good fit” that our coming back won’t threaten her in any way.

And so…we went home.

It is good to be home, it is wonderful to be welcomed and loved and valued – but we are returning to what we already had at the time we left.

I am gravely concerned about the rest of our experience “out there”.

Jesus tells His disciples, not long before His arrest, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” As far back as the giving of the Law, the Jews were told to “welcome the stranger in your midst” and Jesus tells the crowd gathered that the “second commandment” is to “love your neighbor as yourself”.

We were overwhelmed by the lack of love we experienced. I know there are many, MANY churches out there who do show God’s love to all who come into their midst, but I fear there are even more churches who do not.

I fear that in many ways The Church in United States is becoming a cold, sterile, dead institution.

And I wonder, just as when the Jews wandered away from “loving God with their entire being” and this grieved God, is He not grieved today with what is happening in our country?

Pondering Christmas

Ponder Number One:

Why that year? Why did God send His son that particular year? Why not 200 years earlier? Why not 2000 years earlier? Why not 100 years later, or 1000 years later?

Paul tells the Galatians, “In the fullness of time God sent His son…”

When the time was right, when it was God’s perfect time, He sent the Messiah to be born as a human baby.

Often we wonder, “Why now, Lord?” “Why is this happening to me NOW?”

God’s timing for when Christ was to be born, God’s timing for events in my life is also perfect.


Ponder Number Two:

Why in a stable? Where animals stayed and defecated on the floor?

And why did Mary lay her new-born baby in a manger, where animals ate?

Couldn’t God, the creator of the universes, have found a better place for His Son to begin life here?

If the Son of God could be born in a stable, if God’s Only Son was laid in a manger, how can I complain about any, ANY, of my own circumstances?


Ponder Number Three:

Why Mary? A young girl and not even married? And why Joseph? What did he do to be worthy of being foster father to God’s own son?

And why me? Why does God send His son into my life? When I think about this, really think about it, I am in awe!


Ponder Number Four:

Why did God send angles to SHEPHERDS??? Why not to the rabbis, or to the merchants, or to the women gathered at the town well? SHEPHERDS??? Smelly, dirty, calloused SHEPHERDS??? Shepherds near the bottom of the social order?

“They told everyone they met” about what they had seen, Luke tells us. Can people tell from the awe, the joy in my life, what I have seen?

Ponder Number Five:

Christ, the Messiah, the Redeemer came in a way that no one, NO ONE expected. At a time, in a place, to a couple, announced to nobodies, to redeem all of humankind. To make the once for all sacrifice for me.

There are multiple scriptures that tell us He will come again and Revelation tells us that “Death is gone for good – tears gone, crying gone, pain gone – all the first order of things is gone.” And there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

Even as we long for this to be, are we looking for The Christ, expecting the King of the Universes in much the same way the Jews looked for the Messiah 2000 years ago? Are we, will we be as mistaken as they? Or do we look for Him, and find Him in some of the most unexpected places, the most unexpected ways.

Even so, come Lord Jesus, come.

Amen

I'm a Little Pinch Pot

Recently a friend of mine, who is an artist, gave me a little pottery pinch pot she had made. It was supposed to be a votive candle holder, but somehow in the firing, or something, it is not quite large enough to hold a votive.

I love my little pinch pot – because my friend made it and it will ever remind me of her.

When I got my gift home, I quickly realized that my little pinch pot is the perfect base for a stone ball I made this summer. The two “made” items look like they were made for each other.

As I placed these artistic expressions on my shelf, I thought of those verses in Isaiah 64:8 “Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

The imagery of us as clay in God’s hands has always appealed to me. If you have ever worked with clay you know that it indeed has to be “worked”. Clay usually has to be kneaded until it is soft enough, pliable enough, to be made into whatever the potter has in mind. The potter designs a vessel, an art object, a bowl, then s/he has to work with the clay, shaping it on the wheel, building it up as a coil, or pinching and shaping as my friend had done.

If the pot collapses on the wheel, if the side of a coiled vessel caves in, if the pinch pot doesn’t look as one envisioned, the clay can be returned to it’s lump form, worked again, and then molded again. In fact, that can be done over and over until the desired object has the appearance the potter envisioned.

Isaiah uses this imagery for our lives as well. God is ever molding us, ever shaping us. When our lives collapse or cave in or we just don’t become what He intended for us, He is ever working us and reshaping us to become that image, that work of art that He designed us to be in the first place.

My little pinch pot has been fired, it is dry and the only way to reshape it would be to smash it, grind it to powder and then turn it into clay again.

But we are made of living clay and as long as we walk this life, the Potter is ever ready and willing to continue to shape us into the image He designed us to be – His image.

Praying the Lord's Prayer

Recently a friend asked me to pray for them. I agreed, but later was not sure what to ask God for on their behalf. I did not think that what they had asked me to pray for was in keeping with God’s teaching for our lives. So I asked God to do what He already knows is best for them and left my prayer there.

While I pondered how to pray for my friend, I heard a pastor we were visiting mention a part of the Lord’s Prayer (or The Our Father). And then it all clicked.

Unfortunately, because most of us were encouraged to memorize the Lord’s Prayer when we were children, and because many of us recite some form of that prayer every week in church, it has lost, or perhaps never had, its meaning for us. We say it by rote and Christ’s teaching when he gave this to his disciples is lost on us.

You will remember that one of the disciples had asked Jesus to teach them to pray and he responded “This, then, is how you should pray…” (Matthew 6 also Luke 11) and he gave them the outline of what we have come to call “The Lord’s Prayer”.

As I repeated the prayer in my head, I suddenly saw that this is a pattern that we can pray, not only for ourselves, but also for others. I have been “praying the Lord’s Prayer“ for my friends and family ever since.

I begin by acknowledging who God is – my Father, the Holy One – and asking that my grandchildren, my children, my friends, and Bill and I see God in all that He desires for us to see this day.

Then I ask that His will be done in my grandchildren’s, my children’s, my friends, and Bill’s and my life this day as His will is done in heaven. That would almost seem enough to pray…but Christ went on.

I ask that God will supply everyone’s needs (bread) this day. I ask that we will ever continue to learn to forgive and to be forgiven. I ask that God Himself will protect all of us from “The Evil One” in all the ways that we will need to be protected this day.

And finally I ask that God be given the glory and the honor and the power in all of our lives this day. That each and all I pray for will see His glory and honor and power at work in their lives.

I still talk to God about some very specific things in the lives of those I pray for, but I have not told God what to do for a very long time – I realized that audacity of that a number of years ago. I know, I KNOW, that He knows far better than I do what is best in each situation. I still pour out my heart in sorrow, and sing out my joy when we talk, just as Jesus must have those many times when “he went up on the mountain to talk to his father.”

As I talk to God about each of the many people of my prayer list, following the pattern Jesus taught his disciples, I have been able to leave each of them in His care…I just wait to see how He will work in their lives. And then I say, “thank you.”