I Lost My Way

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I lost my way on the day the world turned upside down.

Neatly stacked and categorized, all was safe and sound.

Until the day my heart was broken, and all I thought I knew

Seemed not to matter anymore, and was it ever true?

This final thing betrayed myself and I crumbled in the dust

And if the truth was not,  where was the truth I could trust?

So God doesn’t work the way I thought, so maybe I got it all wrong

I had done my best to follow His lead, to listen to His Song

Then the thing I thought would never be, drove a sword into my heart

It turned my world upside down and tore my mind apart.

The foundation from which choices came was no longer there

The choices came from a paradigm created from doubt and fear.

And since my heart deceived itself,  it drew the darkness in

And since no true light could be found, all that remained was sin.

Instead of God, I led the way and thought that it was right

Deception locked me in a pit  and took away my sight.

Because things did not turn out like I thought they should I fell

Into the depths of misery, into the depths of hell

But even through the darkness, a ray of light shone through

For God dwells in the darkness and His faithfulness is true.

He slowly led me to the light and made my vision clear

I saw that Jesus had not changed. It was me, I said, through tears

How much of it was anger?  How much a spineless fit?

Or was it that my view of God had to crumble bit by bit?

In His likeness I was made. He was not made in mine.

He was not the God I thought I knew, not the God by my design

But the God of love came after me.  I was not left alone.

Faithful and true, He had not changed.  Forever I am His own.

Right was right and wrong was wrong.  His Word was always true.

And behind all this His love reached down and again He made me new.

Life is still broken, but I have hope. Because He lives, I live.

I know He loves the ones I love.  He is good and He’ll forgive.

Like a good Father, He will run to them and lift their face to His

He will clasp them in His warm embrace and give them a holy kiss.

This is my hope, this is my prayer, that my child will hear His call.

That she will heed the Sweetest Voice, give her life, her soul, her all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Listen

Listen to her:

She is really saying that she is afraid.  She is afraid that her independence will be taken away…that decisions will be made for her.  I can remember when it first hit me that she was a person with likes and dislikes that nobody knew about.  I was planning a birthday party for her and someone asked me about her favorite meal.  I could not answer.  I did not know.  Who knew that my mother had a favorite meal?  She never voiced it.  She was always deferring to someone else.  Her person-hood confronted me at that moment and I felt bad…guilty that I had never fully given  complete person-hood to her.  I looked at her with new respect.  She is not here for her children alone.  She has dreams, desires, preferences, and dislikes.  The important thing is she still has all those things and now she is afraid of losing them because her children think they know what is best.

I have tasted a bit of that from my own children and it scared me, so I know how she feels.  Everyone can be forgetful, but if it is in an older person, it is attributed to old age and dementia.  Even if it is old age or dementia, do we have a right to take away their dignity by taking over their affairs, talking down to them, or making a decision without giving them the ultimate say?  I am sure there comes a time when taking over is appropriate.  Great wisdom and gentleness is needed to discern that moment.  A patronizing tone is always inappropriate.

It is hard not to assume that we know best for our children and for our parents.  In the case of our children, we see the trend of their behavior leading them in the wrong direction and toward negative outcomes.  In the case of our parents, our fears for them grow way out of proportion because we do not want to lose them.  In both cases, tend to magnify their weaknesses and rob them of choice.  In the process, we hinder communication and destroy their trust in us.

I have observed that one of the biggest mistakes that doctors and nurses make is to not listen to the patient, but instead assume we know what they are going to say or that we know what they need.  The patient becomes frustrated and shuts down, leaving the problem unsolved or misdiagnosed.

Since my mother is hard of hearing, there are greater difficulties she confronts.  People tend to talk over her or talk around her without talking loudly so she can be a part of the conversation.  Sometimes she just decides not to say anything when Dad’s doctor acts like she is not in the room and instead discusses Dad’s health with my sister. I have sensed her hurt in the car when she cannot hear what we are saying and we forget that she cannot hear.  I know she loves conversation and would love to be a part of whatever is going on.

The older I get the more convinced I am that listening is one of the most valuable virtues.  People want to be heard.  Their defensiveness, rebellion, quietness or stubbornness may give us a clue to that.

One of the most painful events for an older man is when he is to give up his driver’s license.  What a blow to his manhood and his independence!  I have seen the pain in his face.  And something inside of them dies when an older couple must sell everything they have and enter a facility.  It must be excruciating to part with a lifetime of accumulated memories and valuables that mean so much to them, but parting with independence would be even worse.

My mother was a little girl who had dreams like all other little girls.  She was one of many siblings, but wanted to be loved for who she was.  She made mistakes and was not always wise, but who is?  And who doesn’t make mistakes?  Children are so very hard on their parents.   I have watched her work hard all of her life to provide for her children and to do what she thought God wanted her to do.  I watched her give up things so her children could have. I have listened to her pray in her room often.  I watched her suffer with migraines sometimes on a daily basis.  I have seen her kill a snake and gut a chicken.  She was the best cook ever!  She made clothes for us. I watched her sing in church many times. How she loved that!  She taught us all to harmonize and love singing.  She loved people and she could talk to them so easy.  I admired that.  She had so many heartaches in her life and still does and yet she still loves God and hopes in Him.  She was a great Sunday School teacher to the ladies.  I miss her energy.  She was the hub of our home and the creator of our happy environment.  She could talk for hours and hours even into the early morning when her sisters would come to visit, or with her friends.  She was full of life and love and still is.

She still puts her needs on the back shelf.  She doesn’t insist that she goes to the doctor to get her meds adjusted or her teeth fixed.  She knows it is a hardship to take her to get better shoes or fix her hearing aids.  She lets Dad’s needs take the spotlight and worries about his health, his fluid intake and his medications.

I know the hurt she has endured.  Her dreams probably did not turn out the way she thought, but I know that given the choice, she would not have given any of us up.  She would have chosen to love us and to teach us about God.

She has faults.  That is what makes her human.  She is also loved by God and her family.  If there is a way we can honor her, we should do so. If we can still let her choose, we should do so.  If she needs to struggle on her own, to prove she has some independence and dignity left, we should let her.  And when she needs us, we will be there to help her and love her as we respect her desires, her dignity and her life.

 

A Response to an Article on Christian Fundamentalism

>http://stevewhigham.com/could-this-be-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-christian-fundamentalism/
Some thoughts about this article:

Having been a close observer and participant in the evolving Christian fundamentalist movement, I feel there are several concerns we need to address.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church in North Carolina. Beside the standard hymns, it was distinctly southern gospel in its music. I do not recall the word “fundamentalist” being used until I moved to an independent Baptist church in Texas. I do, however, recall the reverence that ushered in the Sunday morning worship service. About 15 minutes before the service began, the organist would play sacred hymns as people came in quietly and took their seats without conversation. As a child, I absorbed the message that this was a place and a time where the congregation as a whole met with a holy and awesome God Who made a difference in what we believed and how we lived. Even as children, we knew better than to disrupt the service with leaving to go to the bathroom, whispering, wiggling, or reading anything other than the Bible. We learned to respect this place and this time in a way reminiscent of the way the Children of Israel respected the shekinah glory of God in the tabernacle. We saw sinners saved and saints surrender. And in the small community we saw the same people that filled the altar at church live out what they believed in the way they treated others and avoided sin. I thank God for that kind of foundation that grounded me through many trials later on.

As I grew up, I encountered the world of fundamentalism. I had mistakenly thought that the people that looked holy were holy. However, one of the hardest things about growing up is that people you looked up to were not who you thought they were. They had all the holy trimmings, but inside they were hiding evil thoughts and motives that resulted in a double life. They were not changed inside. They adopted the legalistic lifestyle that allowed them prestige and power without the clean hands and pure hearts. These were the cultural fundamentalists. These were the ones who believed women should not wear pants, and that men should not have long hair. These were the ones who thought a rock beat was a sin and dance was evil. These were the ones who “beat” their wives into submission and in their greed for lust, money, and power, they gave absolute power to the bully pulpit.

These were also the ones who cheated on their wives, committed incest, and abused their children. These were the oppressors of women and children. These were the ones that made the rules without the relationships. They thought what they looked like on the outside and what they stood against won them brownie points with God, but there was no godly authenticity here. These were the ones who chased away the children and stripped their wives of dignity and respect, while they played games of one-up-man-ship with those to whom they felt superior.

Is it any wonder that the pendulum swung entirely the opposite way in the church? Is it any wonder that the young people left the legalistic church in droves? And the only way they were persuaded to reenter the doors of the church was with the party atmosphere of pizza and rock music that offered them something their fundamentalist parents and church did not; a feeling of love, belonging, and acceptance. This was an atmosphere far from the one they had left that had offered them a god that carried a big stick and conditional love.

I understand this. I have swung with the pendulum back and forth many times. The pendulum still swings a bit for me, but for different reasons. I am searching still for a place to belong, not so much in the sense of needing acceptance, but in congregational worship that brings back that sense of entering into a place and time where a holy and awesome God still makes a difference in they way people believe and live.

I am wary of pastors who forget as Charles Swindoll says, that a sermon is “not the performance of an hour, but the outflow of a life.” And this life is not one that is characterized by what you are against, but how you love.

Love. Is there anything more complicated and yet so simple? Love is involved in the way we treat others. God’s love treats people with respect and compassion. Human love treats people as objects to be used. God’s love is a holy love. Human love is feigned, flawed, and tolerant of evil. God’s love holds people accountable for their own good. Human love is about what makes people feel good.

So the search continues. While I appreciate the reasons others want the hype and excitement of the upbeat contemporary Christian rock music, I am past that. I have encountered God that makes me want to bow in His presence and acknowledge that I am nothing and He is everything. I need to meet Him on Sunday morning as I meet Him on Monday morning; as a needy sinner who can do nothing without Him. I want to be reminded that He is a majestic, marvelous, awesome God who deserves reverence and respect; one Who the angels stand before singing “holy, holy, holy,” an “immortal invisible God only wise.” We tremble in His presence and are brought into deep settled joy at the realization of His great mercy and marvelous grace. We celebrate from the heart, an inward rejoicing that displays a gladness not distracted by the pressure of how much I sway or how often I put my hands in the air so I can be pegged as spiritual.
Peer pressure meets us at every turn and in every environment, secular and sacred. When we stand before God, we stand alone, and we will give an account for the way we lived, the way we loved, and the way we worshipped.

My Morning Mantra

Thank you, Lord, that You are in control, that You work all things after the counsel of Your own will.

Thank you, Lord, that you do everything right on time, that my times are in Your hands.

Thank you, Lord, that You are faithful, the same yesterday, today, and forever, that You are the Rock that I stand on, the Song that I sing, my strong Habitation whereunto I continually resort.

Thank you, Lord, that You are my helper, that my help comes from the Lord which made heaven and earth, that You will not suffer my foot to be moved. You who keeps me will not slumber, You that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is my Keeper, the Lord is my Shade upon my right hand.  The sun shall not smite me by day, nor the moon by night.  The Lord shall preserve me from all evil.  He shall preserve my soul.  The Lord shall preserve my going out and my coming in from this time forth and even forevermore.

Thank you, Lord, that You are good, that Your mercy is everlasting, that your truth endures to all generations.

Thank you, Lord, that You love me with an everlasting love, that You command your lovingkindness in the daytime and in the night Your song will be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.

Thank you, Lord, that You are my life.  You said that if I believe in you, out of my belly shall flow rivers of living water.

For in You I live, in You I move, and in You I have my being!

…taken  from the Holy Bible

Reciting this every morning for years on my way to work has helped me start the day with the right perspective and has enabled me to leave the day in His hands no matter what happens.