L. Maristatter's Blog, page 3

On words and working and walking with a limp

One word.

And then another.

They come slowly, haltingly; a bit like how my walk with God feels right now.

One step.

And then another.

Cautious; careful, yet hopeful. And knowing that truly, there is only one direction to walk. Only one that leads to life. Because every other path is futile. I have known this for many years now. But these days, the knowledge is “new every morning.”

My hand is better. And here’s the awful thing: I feel so ungrateful sometimes. My hand is better, but not fully healed. I can type, but I cannot carry a suitcase.

Can one be partially grateful? Is that not just ingratitude in formal dress?

And yet, every day I am stronger. And every day, I think, my faith is stronger. Every day, I am grateful to Him for the beauty I see, for His presence, even when I can’t feel it. I have wrestled with God. I still wrestle, some days when the cat gets angry at me for leaving her alone too much or I’m late to work or I can’t find what I need at the store–the days life just doesn’t go in my intended direction. I now walk with a limp. His limp.

I am working now. It is part-time; it does not cover the bills; but it is fun and it is interesting and it gets me out of the house. Some days I am overwhelmingly grateful for it and other days I am desperately afraid that God has forgotten me still. Some days I firmly believe this job is God’s will for me and other days I think it is just something I have found to do until God comes back from his fishing trip. “Oh! Her! [slaps His forehead] I completely forgot…”

I’ve been waiting to write because I wanted to wait for the denouement—I wanted this whole odd, painful period to make sense. I wanted to tie this up so neatly, with a bow (red, perhaps, shot with gold)—a gift that would encourage and uplift. A gift that would at least make sense to you… and to me.

But then I realized that it may never make sense, this side of heaven. And if I wait…well, all that will do is silence my voice. The voice that God gave me. The voice He expects me to use for his glory. The words of praise He deserves.

So I write, and the questions swirl around me and the answers elude. I sing through the pain. I pray, and sometimes it’s less prayer and more raw, anguished cry: “Have You forgotten?”

And the question lingers: Maybe it isn’t so much about finding the answers, as worshiping through the questions, the fear and the doubt? I know that is the “right” Christian response to difficulty and trial. It’s funny how quickly the “right” Christian response can turn trite and banal when you’re the one living the question. But as I find the courage to do just that—worship through the question—it seems the angst stills and I find God’s peace at the center of the storm.

Maybe that’s what He’s trying to teach me.

There’s a meme going around Facebook that so fits my mood right now. The first panel is Jesus with his arm around His child, smiling and saying, “….where you see one set of footprints is where I carried you.” In the second panel, Jesus says with a bit of a shrug, “…that long groove is where I dragged you, kicking and screaming…”

I laugh every time I see it. Mostly because I get the sense that right now I’m leaving a very long groove.

But at least He hasn’t let go.

And I’m still singing, even as I walk through this life with a limp.

On fish sticks and running away

I haven’t written much lately and there’s an embarrassing reason for that.

I am typing this one-handed, woefully slowly. On a related note, and as my mother will attest, I hate fish sticks.

When I was a kid, every once in awhile Mom would make fish sticks with tartar sauce for herself and my sister, Val. (I always remember this meal being just the three of us so I suspect Dad didn’t like fish sticks either, and Mom waited until he was gone some evening playing a concert or directing a musical so she could serve them on the sly.)

I think Mom always hoped I would come around to the fish-stick way of life so we three girls could have something to bond over—kind of a chicks’ night in, with fish. Alas, it was not to be. I carried my fish-stick loathing into adulthood; while I have grown to love fish fillets, never has a box of fish sticks desecrated my freezer.

(I should observe that we three never had difficulty bonding over chocolate.)

I bring up fish sticks because today I can identify with Jonah.

God called; I ran.

As I’ve mentioned in prior posts, I believe God has had me in a period of waiting, this year. It has been long and it has been difficult, and although He has blessed me in many ways as I have journeyed through it, by August I had had enough.

Am I really hearing God? I’d wonder. Was that confirmation really confirmation, or just my own ego? Would God really put me through a period of waiting…for months? What if He is waiting for me to move—to step out in faith?

Anguish and prayer and tears and finally, in August, I said, “I’m done. I don’t know what You’re doing, Lord, and I don’t know if this is really You so I am going my own way. If You want me to wait any more, You will have to shut the door.” (And yes, it could be argued that my tone was rather Jonah-like in anger. I preferred to think of it as being honest with God in my “King David-like frustration.”)

So He did shut the door. Metaphorically speaking, He shut it on my hand…which is now sufficiently injured to keep me on the bench—waiting—for another few weeks.

And I am happy. Happy!! I know, isn’t that crazy? But I am happy because now I know. Yes, that was God! I was hearing His voice! He was giving me direction! Thank You, Jesus, You weren’t on vacation!

But in truth, the injury is humbling and it is annoying. It means I will have to ask for help—Ms. Independent, who has been able to take care of herself for years without much assistance, thank you very much.

Ms. Independent, who now cannot even scrub a pot.

Perhaps there is a lesson in humility tag-teaming this lesson in patience?

On Saturday, in a desperate bid to make sense of it all, I pulled out a little book I hadn’t read in many years: Bruce Wilkinson’s Secrets of the Vine.

Secrets of the Vine was a follow-up to Wilkinson’s wildly successful prior attempt, a little book called The Prayer of Jabez. I am not sure if Secrets was as successful, but if not I know why: it deals with pain. It’s a topic most folks—myself included—would rather avoid.

But when you’re in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm and no boat in sight, that’s when you flail desperately for the life preserver.

Wilkinson writes, “Did you know that growers prune their vineyards more intensively as the vines age? One horticultural bulletin I read explained why:

“The vine’s ability to produce growth increases each year, but without intensive pruning the plant weakens and its crop diminishes. Mature branches must be pruned hard to achieve maximum yields.

“If you look at the future from a maturing plant’s point of view, there’s considerable cutting in store. But from the grower’s point of view, the future holds something wonderful—grapes, grapes, and more grapes!” [1]

This little book helped me to realize that God isn’t doing this because He hates me or wants to see me squirm. He has a reason for this season of waiting. A reason that is important enough to sideline me. He is doing this because He loves me and He knows that there are things in my life that need to be pruned off if I am to realize my full potential in Him. Perhaps my impatience is one of those things? Or my pride? Ouch. 

That hurts more than my hand.

But either way, I’m just glad that—so far, at least—He hasn’t made me eat fish sticks.

 

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. ~ Philippians 1: 3-6 [Emphasis mine.]

[1] Wilkinson, B. (2001.) Secrets of the Vine. Multnomah Publishers, Colorado Springs, CO. p. 71

On evil and other myths

[Warning: this one is heavy. I wrote this back in February. I haven’t posted it because it’s a tough read. But the TVPRA (Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act) is coming before the Senate, and I think it’s important to illustrate why this legislation is so critical.]

I just got back from downtown. Twice a month I go to the homeless shelter and sing with the praise team while a group of volunteers serves breakfast. I don’t always make it—when it’s 110 in the shade I just can’t bear the heat—but I go as often as I can, especially in winter. It was cold this morning, in the mid 50s.

Oddly, today I didn’t want to go. When I got downtown, there was a heaviness in the air. I was chatting with one of the other singers, a woman who is usually quite upbeat and positive, and she said the same thing: “I don’t want to be here today. Are we really doing any good?”

When we got started, things still felt odd. Usually we get a modicum of attention while we’re singing and playing, and people will sing along; today, we were ignored. People were chatting and laughing with each other or focusing silently on their food. No one looked at us.

I started to pray silently.

It isn’t fashionable these days to talk about the existence of evil. It affronts our Western sensibilities—that school-taught dogma that says that we are all that exists, that God and Satan and angels and demons are some imaginative bit of mysticism out of the Dark Ages. I can assure you—without going into detail—that over the course of years I have discovered that God is very real. And so (unfortunately) is His enemy.

By the second break, I had seen the prostitutes and the pimps in the audience, eating their free breakfast. It doesn’t bother me because I know that for some of these women this is the only meal they will get all day.

Just before we started our final set, I saw a woman saunter by, wearing a tube top but no jacket against the cold. Tattooed on her neck, in a beautiful, scripty font, was the word, “F***ed.”

I had heard about this—about the pimps tattooing the women they have imprisoned into this life—but part of my mind just rejected it as an exaggeration. This morning, up close and personal, I saw it with my own eyes.

Pimps permanently proclaim their ownership of these women through a specific tattoo. In some cases, if the pimp doesn’t want to spend the money on tattooing or he wants to teach the girl a lesson, he will brand her with a wire clothes hanger heated on a stovetop. The girls have no choice about what is written on their bodies.

No woman in her right mind would have that word tattooed on her neck—it is a word of pain, of failure, of degradation. I tried to imagine what it would be like to get up every single morning and look in the mirror and see that word, written on myself. I tried, and failed. Does she block it out, somehow? Like she blocks it out when a man rapes her and hands cash to her jailer?

Women—and in too many cases, girls—do not do this by choice. This is a form of slavery that is forced upon them. Usually they receive no money for what they do—it all goes back to the pimp. If a girl earns her quota for the night, sometimes he will feed her. Often the girls are forced into drug addiction because this makes them more malleable, depresses their appetite and solidifies the pimp’s control. It also ensures that the police, to whom they otherwise might turn for help, become the enemy, not to be trusted.

Often the girls stay because they believe they have no way out, that their only protection and salvation is through their pimp. Often the girls are in love with their pimp. It is a pernicious slavery that convinces a woman that her only value lies between her legs, that her only worth is as a piece of meat to satisfy a lust of the worst kind. This is no lovemaking; frequently johns will buy a prostitute because they want someone they can hit or punish while they have sex. It is a soul-destroying existence that we must never endorse, and yet we endorse it every day through our silence.

If movies showed the true impact of prostitution instead of romanticizing it, that might help bring change. Change is needed, because the darkness is rising. It is more lucrative now to sell children instead of drugs, so street gangs are changing their product line to include girls. The average age of children trafficked into prostitution in the U.S. is 13—meaning there are just as many 11-year-olds who are raped as 15-year-olds. Often the girls are runaways; often they are unwanted or unwelcome at home. Sometimes girls are lured into the life by men who pretend to be their “boyfriend” and shower them with gifts. Whether coerced by affection or violence, once a girl is raped, escape becomes incredibly difficult.

I was coming home on I-17 after our set and I had to take an exit and stop in a parking lot because the tears were blinding me and making it unsafe to drive. I think what upsets me most—even more than the slavery itself—is the indifference of society to what these girls endure, as if it is their own fault. It isn’t. No five-year-old little girl says she wants to be a prostitute when she grows up. No girl under the age of 18 has the wisdom to make such a devastating and radical choice for her future: this is why we have statutory rape laws.

Why do these laws apply to the upper-class white girl who is raped at 16 but not the poverty-stricken child of color who is sodomized for pay six times a night? Why do we see one as the victim, the other as “just a whore”?

It happens here—right here, in your town and mine. It happens in other countries. Lives are ruined—young lives, full of hope and promise. Evil exists, and it flourishes because it is allowed and encouraged.

But there is light in this darkness. Many organizations—Hagar International, World Vision, StreetLight, Not For Sale, and many others—are doing incredible, life-changing work in the darkest places, the places where evil breeds. They are driving back the darkness. But they cannot do it without our help—our support, our concern, our prayers, our love. They do it because they know that each and every child has value, that each girl is made in the image and likeness of God, the God who says He has given her a hope and a future. Dare we then turn away and call her worthless?

Please call your senator and support S 1301. You can find out more here.

Thanks for reading this post. I know it wasn’t an easy one.

On the music from a misshapen mesquite

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The insistent whine of a chain saw penetrates my morning.

It stormed here last night, something I always love but last night I slept through it all and when I stepped out on the balcony first thing after rising, I saw our grand old mesquite tree tipped over on its side. And my heart broke.

The trees here, they get cut down on a whim. This one, however, long was spared. Even though its trunk lay over at an odd angle almost parallel to the ground, it had grown well, and large for a mesquite: its branches stretched easily some 40 feet in the air and its trunk circumscribed a ragged but stolid several feet around. Misshapen, distorted and imperfect, it grew anyway and the birds enjoyed its branches and the neighborhood cats lay in casual ambush, stretched leopard-esque across the leaning trunk.

Two years I’ve lived here and watched the tree survive storm after storm.

But last night, something hit that was just too strong. And the tree fell.

Mesquites, now, they’re fragile—notoriously so. I had a Chilean mesquite in my front yard (this was when I had a house) and one evening, for no good reason, a major branch just cracked right off. (A gracious neighbor cut up the branch and hauled it away for his fireplace, murmuring thanks for upcoming warm and fragrant winter nights.) A mesquite tree needs to be watered deep, I was told, so that the roots dig hard and bury themselves in the rocklike soil layer a few feet under the desert surface. My tree I’d watered deep, which is why I didn’t lose the whole thing, but this one here…when I looked closer this morning I realized this mesquite’s roots were concentrated away from the irrigation lines. For all the tree’s size, its roots were shallow, and its sharply angled trunk was pulling it away from its own anchor.

It was just a matter of time.

Now, the tree is being sundered into firewood or mesquite chips or mulch. Its brave glory is gone.

And I look at the destruction and I think, What has ME unbalanced?

What has ME leaning in the wrong direction, ready to topple? Are my roots deep enough to survive the fury of an unexpected midnight storm? Or am I all show and no stability? Am I a fall waiting to happen? This is what I wonder in this season of uncertainty, a season that seems to harbor no future, no past—a season that feels like I’m walking through fog at night, unchanging and bleak. Who am I, really, and what do I believe? And is it enough to anchor me as the wind rises and the doubts assail?

And Jesus meets me, even in my questions. You will not fall, He whispers, and in my mind I hear the echo of the song I posted a few days ago:

When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the veil…

Christ alone
Cornerstone
Weak made strong in the Savior’s love

Through the storm
He is Lord
Lord of all…

My roots are inextricably bound in Christ. He is my rock. Weak made strong… It is His love that gives me any stability. The only way I can fall is to separate myself from Him. But biblically, this is not possible (see Romans 8). And He has promised that all things—ALL things—work together for good for those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose.

This includes me. Even when my growth seems twisted or distorted or just plain wrong. Even when it seems that for every step taken in faith, I slide two steps back. Even when it seems my leaning is in the wrong direction.

My frustration, my tears, my sense of betrayal or hopelessness or fear, my damage, my pain, my disobedience, even my worst anger—none of this fazes God. And none of it can separate me from His love. This blows my mind.

He knows my frame. He remembers that I am dust. *

And He loves me.

My anchor holds within the veil.

 

We are confident that you are meant for better things, things that come with salvation. For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do. Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true. Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent. Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God’s promises because of their faith and endurance.

For example, there was God’s promise to Abraham. Since there was no one greater to swear by, God took an oath in his own name, saying:

“I will certainly bless you, and I will multiply your descendants beyond number.”

Then Abraham waited patiently, and he received what God had promised.

Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain [veil] into God’s inner sanctuary . Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.

—Hebrews 6: 9-20 (emphasis mine)

* from Psalm 103

On Miss Scarlett and Psalm 27

I really did want to be Melanie Hamilton.

In spite of her earning the jealous wrath of Scarlett O’Hara (this is all from Gone With the Wind, of course) and unknowingly earning epithets like “mealy-mouthed ninny,” Miss Melly impressed me with her strength and her kindness, even when her life wasn’t going well. Scarlett, I felt, was too selfish, too manipulative, too quick with her anger and her scheming. (On the other hand, part of me still has a sneaking admiration for a woman who can see a new gown in old velvet draperies…and has the panache to wear them.)

As a child I respected Melanie and wanted to emulate her. As I’ve gotten older, I know I’ve grown away from the “me against the world” attitude that dominated my youth. I’ve worked harder at friendships, sought reconciliation and forgiveness in my relationships and tried to grow in grace as I’ve walked with God.

For all my self-improvement, however, I still suspect that deep inside I’m more like Scarlett: prideful, singular of focus, selfish, easily angered, happy only when I get my way. She comes out at the most inconvenient times, generally when I’m feeling weak or threatened.

Lately I’m feeling weak and threatened.

I am walking (or being dragged, kicking and screaming) through a season of not knowing what God is doing—not knowing what direction to take. I have sought Him with prayers and fastings, but have come to the end of myself…and my faith. The direction I believe I have been given makes no sense. This is beyond frightening.

And Miss Scarlett returns.

“Take control!” she says. “You know you can’t depend on anybody but yourself.” “I’ll think about that tomorrow.” “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”

(Okay, well, there’s still food on my table…but the fear is there, nonetheless.)

And then there are the well-meaning friends, who tell me that God is “refining” me, or that “God helps those who help themselves,” or if I “just had more faith,” the way would be clear.

It is interesting to me that none of them say what I believe the Holy Spirit is saying to me right now. It’s from Psalm 27.

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?

When the wicked came against me
To eat up my flesh,
My enemies and foes,
They stumbled and fell.

Though an army may encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear;
Though war may rise against me,
In this I will be confident.

One thing I have desired of the Lord,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.

For in the time of trouble
He shall hide me in His pavilion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock.

And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me;
Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!
Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.

When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

Do not hide Your face from me;
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.

When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the Lord will take care of me.

Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies.

Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries;
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.

Wait on the Lord;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord!

Now, I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before and I’m quite sure I’ll be wrong again. But for today, at least, I am just going back to waiting on the Lord, and asking Him to strengthen my heart. Asking Him to show me His goodness “in the land of the living.” Asking Him to give me courage.

Because the alternative will turn me into someone I don’t want to be.

“Cornerstone” by Hillsong

“Cornerstone” by Hillsong

We did an amazing new song this morning during worship. It’s a great remake of an old hymn. Still can’t get through it without crying. : )