Surprise #3: Grace

On Monday of this week, my phone rang and a number showed up on the caller ID that I didn't recognize, which always makes me nervous given our history.

Hello?, I said, quietly and cautiously.

The pleasant voice at the other end announced herself as Lisa, the assistant to the Stewardship Director at our church, Fellowship Bible Church. She said she was calling to follow up on our previous conversation.

A little back story here: I had called several months ago asking if the church had any recently donated cars that they might consider letting me have. I had applied for a job about 20 miles north of home and I knew transportation was an issue since public transportation does not extend that far and the fact that Leland's photography bookings took priority over any job I might have. Since our bankruptcy, obtaining a car was problematic, and I had zero dollars for a downpayment. Lisa told me that they hadn't received any donations lately, but she would keep me in mind if one came up. I thanked her, and that was the end of the story.

So I thought.

Back to the phone call, slightly embarrassed, I asked her to refresh my memory, which resembles something like Swiss cheese of late. She reminded me of the car request and said she was curious as to how it worked out.

Letting a little laugh escape, I told her that her call was timely, and very considerate. I launched into the sad story of how my "great job" had turned into the biggest nightmare in recent months. I couldn't help the tears that flowed, and the shaky voice.

When I told her the part of how I was told to leave my job, she gasped a little, then suggested taking advantage of the counseling services the church offers. Having logged many hours pre- and post-divorce sitting in a counselor's office, and knowing in my heart where my help comes from (it comes from the Lord, as the Pslamist said), I told her I would consider it, but I wasn't really interested in just sitting and talking. I wanted to DO something--like WORK--so we could continue eating and living indoors!

Lisa asked me if she could make an appointment for us with Kevin Cross, the Stewardship Director, and I agreed that Leland and I would come Wednesday at 3:00. I had heard Kevin speak at church and I knew a tiny bit of his story, but was anxious to meet him and get to talk to him face-to-face.

Wednesday, around noon, my phone rang with another number on caller ID that I didn't recognize. Since the sky hadn't fallen on me the last time, I wasn't nervous about answering this time. It was Kevin. He told me that he needed to leave unexpectedly on account of a family emergency, but wanted to speak with me first.

Lisa had already told him about our conversation. He offered that it sounded like we were having a rough time and he wanted to know what our financial situation was; what bills we were behind on, what we needed. I gave him the rundown, and told him our car needed about $1,000 worth of repairs.

What I heard Kevin say next took my breath away.

Here's what I'm gonna do. I want you to bring your mortgage statement, and other bills to Lisa at the church. I'm paying next month's mortgage and catching you up on healthcare coverage fees. I'm going to call Carl at Roswell Auto and tell him you're going to drop your car off. I'm going to pay for him to fix your car.

GASP, was all I could manage. More tears, more quaking voice, and a muffled thank you!  

At the appointed time we met Lisa and handed over our documents while Leland and I were spending a ton of mental and emotional energy trying to process what was happening to us. It felt surreal, to be honest. To that point, our lives were largely a string of disappointment, save for the grace of sweet respite in time with family, and joy when we had work on the calendar.

To our surprise, Kevin suddenly breezed around the corner. He's tall. He's full of energy, magnetic even, and met us with warm greetings. We talked for about an hour, during which I was taken aback by the vision he had for the 2 people sitting in front of him that he didn't really know, but instantly started forming a future story about.

I remember him saying something about dreaming, to which I replied, I don't dream anymore. I felt instantly sad to hear myself say it, having once been a big dreamer, but in my heart I knew my dreams were selfish; dreams of personal achievements, a better house, replacing our old car, and my favorite dream--my horse farm and a pasture full of horses.

The death of dreams can be very painful, but even though I have been very sad, deep down I have hope that the loss will be redeemed by God, replacing the dreams I've surrendered with HIS dreams for me. Way better, I suspect.

The short time we spent with Kevin was such an encouragement, I can't even begin to communicate it. As we said our goodbyes, Kevin blurted out, Oh, I almost forgot! He ran to his desk and handed me a $100 VISA gift card, on which he had written, "Enjoy your trip!" This will get you to Charlotte for Christmas, he said. Another hug, another thank you. I think I had run out of tears.

We left him to prepare for his flight to see family, with 3 books he handed to us, hearts with hope instead of despair, renewed faith in God and His timing and ways of working in our lives, and still with that surreal feeling of, Is this actually happening?

I devoured one of the new books, Kevin's own story, Embezzlement--A True Crime Story. I can't recommend it enough. It was crime drama and suspense, a story of brokenness and renewal, a life transformed, and many examples of what living and leveraging our money for God's glory looks like. I was stunned when I closed it. I will never look at money the same way again.

As I finished the book, Leland got a call from the mechanic's shop, saying the car was ready for pick-up (a relief, since it had been there 2 days and we were hoping to depart on time for Charlotte). Without hesitation, Leland was out the door, fleece hat snugly over his South Florida-born head, for the walk to Roswell Auto.

As simple as thank-you sounds, it comes from a heart overflowing with gratitude to Kevin, Lisa, and the church at FBC Roswell. We are grateful for your giving hearts, and for that, I am hoping this little blog will bring glory to God in the telling of the story. God bless you!

The Path to Gratitude

Eucharisteo: to be grateful; give thanks

The root word of eucharisteo in Greek is charis, meaning gift or grace. Charis is also the root of the Greek word chara, meaning joy.

 I wish eucharisteo was my default setting. Alas, it is not. Instead, I have to hunt, look for...and see...grace all around me. Historically, my default setting has been fear (darn that human nature). That's why I adopted this Greek word for thanksgiving and made it my mantra for this year, my restoration year.

One Thousand Gifts is a book full of jewels. In the companion devotional I turn page after page, draining the pen dry of ink for all my underlining. There are 60 devotions, each named for a type of grace--anti-anxiety grace, trusting grace, urgent grace, hard grace, joyous grace, comforting grace, to name a few--because all is grace, the author reminds me. 

All? The losses, lamenting, struggling? I say, along with David, "How long, Lord?" (Psalm 13:1). How long before there is no more suffering?

Ann Voskamp tells the heart-breaking story of the deaths of her 2 nephews, 18 months apart, from the same genetic disease. She tells her brother-in-law, "If it were up to me I'd write this story differently." Who wouldn't want to? Ask Candi Pearson-Shelton if she didn't want her brother healed. People known and unknown to her prayed fervently for his healing. For both of these families, the bottom line is, surrender to the Author of these stories.

Ann's brother-in-law, tears in his eyes, told her, "...maybe you don't want to change the story, because you don't know what a different ending holds." 

Candi brings to light the paradox of faith in God when she relates how her surrender "melts into peace and serenity, and...wholeness. Wow. Brokenness bringing about wholeness?"

Surrender isn't meant to mean a "Whatever, I give up!" resignation. I know that first-hand. It was my attitude following my mother's death in 1982 and the premature labor and delivery of my twins in 1983. This excerpt on surrender, from God Calling, helps me understand and re-frame my view:

Resignation to My Will keeps Me barred out from more hearts than does unbelief. Can anything be such a crime against Love as being resigned? My Will should be welcomed with a glad wonder if I am to do My Work in the heart and life. In all true discipleship, and in the true spiritual development of each disciple, there is first the wonder and the joy of first acquaintance, then comes the long plain stretch of lesson-learning and discipline. But the constant experience of Me, the constant persistent recognition of My Work in daily happenings, the numberless instances in which seeming chance or wonderful coincidence can be, must be, traced back to My loving forethought--all these gradually engender a feeling of wonder, certainty, gratitude, followed in time by Joy.

Read Candi's book because I'm not going to give away the ending. You will see God's loving forethought and you will close it with a sense of wonder, certainty, and gratitude.

Devotion 33 of One Thousand Gifts begins by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, which talks about the Israelites wandering the desert.

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, 

which neither you nor your ancestors had known, 

to teach you that man does not live on bread alone 

but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Manna. The name literally means, "What is it?" Ann writes, "More than 14,600 days they take their daily nourishment from that which they don't comprehend. They find soul-filling in the inexplicable.They eat the mystery. They eat the mystery. And the mystery, that which made no sense, is 'like wafers of honey' on the lips. ...all the mysteries I have refused, refused, to let nourish me...I wonder too...if the rent in the canvas of our life's backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see. To see through to God."

Now I'm beginning to see the purpose of this humbling journey Leland and I have traveled the last few years. Turning to God's word, seeing grace woven throughout the discipline, letting Him slowly chip away at all the layers of concrete I had slapped over my heart, this strange manna nourishing me. In this process, I learn to give thanks for my thousands of gifts and I pray for joy in the midst of trouble; when life has exhausted me.

"...followed in time by Joy."

I wonder if the prosperity and healing peddlers have ever taken their blinders off to stop and ask what the motivation is behind their demanding health and wealth, ease and comfort. Yes, God can absolutely do anything and everything, but is it for your own glory, or God's? Do you know what story He wants to write? Do you wonder what God's ending holds? Would you eat the "what is it" and wonder in His work in your life? My hunch is, you'd rather control.

In closing, I want to relate a recent encounter with Candi and her husband, Jonathan. I dropped by their house to pick up a copy of Desperate Hope, which Candi had graciously given me. Jonathan and I chatted briefly while Candi was busy in the kitchen. We shared specific needs to pray for, and when he asked me what mine was, the first thought that came to me was relief from this financial roller coaster. I said my goodbyes and as soon as I got in the car, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Haven't I learned yet? Relief is not the answer. I wanted to run back in and tell Jonathan, No, that was wrong! I take it back! You want to know my greatest need? I need to surrender, not resign, to the Author of my story. I need contentment in every situation that stems from love for and trust in God. I need to count it all eucharisteo.

Grace. Thanksgiving. Joy. THIS is abundant life!

Family, Like It or Not

Please allow me to sidetrack for a moment to let you in on some thoughts and feelings that have arisen in recent weeks. 

I talked briefly with Candi after reading her book, Desperate Hope. I told her that I had to read it in bits, going completely quiet to let her words sink in. Honestly? I would go into a funk for a while, thoughts and memories swirling around in my head--about family.

Candi's stories of family touched a nerve. Her family was as flawed as everyone else's, parents divorced when she and her sister and brother were very young, but she and her siblings were close. They played together as children and when they were grown, they stayed close. They loved each other and that deep love was evident in the stories of their childhood and of family time in the hospital, followed by Rick's passing on to "The Party".

My family was as flawed as everyone else's too. My parents loved each other very much, but my siblings and I were anything but close. The fighting was nearly constant, especially between the youngest two, and my brother was the stereotypical mean older brother. I had nothing in common with my 3 sisters, they being girly girls in contrast to my tomboy-ish nature. They played with Barbie dolls while I climbed trees and dreamt of horse riding. Anything to be outside.

As teenagers things hadn't improved much. [Thank God for my horse that carried me up the hills and across the fields for hours at a time. I would escape to my version of paradise.] There was a space of a few years when my brother and I enjoyed eachother's company but that all changed when he began post-graduate studies at Bob Jones University. He got married,  earned a PhD, and settled into the bubble of isolated university life as a professor, the brother I grew up with fading away in the process. None of us measured up to the standard set by the subculture of the graceless, rule-driven version of Christianity in which he was entrenched, and as a result he became the source of much pain in our family. I remember thinking over the years, Who is this guy? 

Legalism is devoid of love and deadly to relationships. It is largely to blame for the slow demise of those among my siblings. What remains now of my parents' family isn't much else but crumbled ruins. I thank God, and take some comfort in the fact that my own kids are a tightly-knit family unit that love and value one another. 

What, I wondered in those quiet moments, book turned upside down on my chest, will it look like when it's my family's turn to get that phone call? Will there even be a phone call? Will anyone rush to a hospital bedside? Will there be prior commitments that prevent attending a funeral for one of us? Will a death be anything more than a legal matter to apply to how Dad's trust fund will eventually be distributed? 

I have no answers. That's how broken we all are. If I'm not the first one to head over to "The Party" then maybe I can break the silence and be the change. 

But then it hits me, that realization--I don't love very well. People in general, or specifically, these people I call my brother and sisters. It's my greatest need, to love well.

Grace where there is none? Bless my adversary? Love where none is deserved? Pretty much like what Jesus did. 

More Jesus, please.

What Now?

I've heard it said that when the student is ready, the teacher will come. 

Ready or not....

However humbling I thought our drastic change in lifestyle was in 2012, 2013 held new levels of humble yet to be experienced.

The summer proved to be the best months the business had seen in a long time; most welcome after our court experience. We were busy with work and visits with family, excitedly welcoming our granddaughter, Claire, to the family in June. We were grateful to God for His awesome blessings on our lives, and for breathing room. 

Then came fall and winter, and we fell into a business slump that the summer's abundance couldn't carry us through. The 2014 New Year was not beginning as we had hoped, introducing a deeper level of humble. Our roller coaster lives had beaten us to a pulp.

All these months have turned into years of trying to work out how to be content with what we have, of reading Paul's words in Philippians 4:12, "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want,"  and just not grasping it.

And James, who said to do what? Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2-4). Really not grasping it.

What is abundant life if it isn't health and wealth and prosperity? It surely doesn't mean being in a state of hunger or want or infirmity. I'm really not ok with that.

Question after question asked, psalm after psalm read, I identified with David and was as determined as he was to, despite my lack of understanding and answers, trust God and not walk away from Him. I had to be in this place of being completely emptied of my self; of all the chasing after happiness and self-realization while blind to the fact that my happiness had been dependent on things I could lose. Having lost my car, work, money, and independence in a short period of time, I had fallen right into a very deep pit that looked familiar to where I was following my divorce in 2004, but deeper. Didn't think that was possible, but there I was. 

Nowhere to go, nothing to do, in pain (in more ways than one), feeling isolated, Leland and I alternately clung to each other and hurt each other out of our desperation, confusion, and exhaustion, or we attempted to protect one another by not speaking at all. What else to do but search? I so wanted answers to my questions, and I wanted even more to hear from God Himself. 

Lord, I'm empty, ready and willing to be filled. Please, show me what I need to know.

The answer came in the form of 2 incredible books; the first, One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp. If you haven't read it, please do. It reads like poetry, and the author is refreshingly down-to-earth, honest, and transparent. She speaks to the reader from the humble place of her own personal struggle with pain and loss, witnessing the death of her baby sister, and from her real and messy life as a farmer's wife and home-schooling mother of 6 kids--not the perfectly coiffed, made-up, and designer label-adorned TV personality who speaks from the comfort of her gated, multimillion dollar home. She leads readers to the place of rest and comfort through what she calls a "joy dare." It's the challenge to write 1,000 gifts we see every day but would ordinarily overlook, and in the midst of pain. That's why this thanks offering is called a sacrifice of praise (Hebrews 13:15). It can seem so mechanical when tears are welling in your eyes, but seeing God in the ordinary and being grateful really is transforming. The book was such a treasure I bought the devotional.

The second book is Desperate Hope, by Candi Pearson-Shelton.This is Candi's story of her and her friends' and family's journey through the illness and passing of her much-loved brother, Rick, in 2005. Rick was 22, a worship leader, Christ-follower, and engaged to be married when he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The book wrecked me for so many reasons, and all for the good. This story, all by itself, should be read by everyone tempted by those false teachers on radio and TV who are making millions by duping people with their lies, claiming God wants everyone to be healed (until they're not, then it's Satan's doing) and financially prosperous, and you will see that God absolutely has a purpose in pain and answers prayer through suffering. Everyone who knew Rick knows how beautifully God answered his fondest prayer, and what a win-win the story is. Read it. And don't ever doubt this truth: God is Sovereign and He is in control.

So many great resources have crossed my path--yea for the internet! Every time, the message points to everything counter-intuitive or counter-culture. No surprise, since that is exactly like Jesus. But how to sort out what I've been hearing in any sort of orderly fashion? That will be my goal for the next post, as well as to let you in on opportunities we've had to move forward in our walk with Jesus.