Signs from Broken grills, broken mowers, and broken perspectives

4/12/2015

Another humbling story in my faith journey. I wish to God I’d have arrived by now, and had achieved St. Augustine status, but the older I get, the more I realize I need to grow. But my Father in heaven—-He is so patient with me, like a child! So I will rejoice, that He cares about me enough to diligently teach me these pearls of lessons. Like an artist, it’s all about perspective. Depending on the light shed on a subject, and the angle, one can view one’s circumstances in many different ways, both good and bad. Here is a bad angle, that He gently turned into a good angle. And then a heavenly angle.

Last weekend was Easter weekend, April 4-5, 2015. Mary Biggerstaff, my mother in heart, died on April 5, so I was already heart sick, remembering her and missing her, and not knowing what to do with all those emotions. We were looking for something to do to fill the time.

We tried to go camping with my sister, but one of our children fell ill with a fever. To salvage weekend plans that went awry, James and I decided we would try out the grill for the first time this season, in preparation for the upcoming cookout.We have two sons’ birthdays that are imminently approaching,  the weekend of April 17-18, and Jack specifically asked for cheeseburgers instead of a cake! So the boy is gonna have cheeseburgers. And his brother, Elias, wants a snake. So a snake he gets. 

Spring has been good here. Good rains, and grass growing fast, causing the yard to explode in green, thick, bloom, alive with bees and bugs. Our sad lawnmower died 2 days before, and sat remorsefully beside the back of the house staring at us on the back deck. Why it had to die, two weeks before a cookout, was beyond me, but at that point, I thought: oh well. That Saturday evening, We pulled out the grill; prepped the hotdogs that should have been cooked over a campfire, and James got ready to ignite it, and discovered that the grill, too, had died. That evening, I boiled the hot dogs, and tried to put this costs all away for a brief time. I had to grieve over Mary being gone, and I had kids to get ready for an Easter service, and outfits, and all sorts of stuff.

Fast forward to this weekend, April 11-12.  We are one week out from a birthday party. The boy wants cheeseburgers; shoot, we all want cheeseburgers. We wanted hotdogs last week! And the yard is starting to look like the Amazon, new creatures flowing in daily among the crazy growth of grass here. After a week, the panic starts setting in, because I had invited a slew of friends and family for a cookout, to celebrate our Sons! Panic. Not, mild concern, but worry!

Now, bear with me for a moment. Not trying to sound like a sob story, but our life is pretty humble around here, after switching jobs/careers, and moving on top of that. Kind of stream-lined, and very basic. In other words, very tight. Job transitions bring change, and sometimes a tightening of the belt, which is us right now. 

I don’t mind humble pie. I’ve ate it most of my life. But the hard part is the “when it rains, it pours” occurrence, that tends to show up at the worst point possible. The “you’re down to the wire”, “all bets are off”, type moments. We simply don’t have enough dough to go around for all the extra expenses this month. We’ve got 3 son’s birthdays, after all, in the month of April! In my head, looking at the grill and lawnmower, I’m thinking “I ain’t got time for that”. Plus, Jack has had this problem with blood shot eyes for the past week, and we thought it was from throwing leaves with his cousins’ at their campsite the week before, but it’s not going away. So I’m looking at him and all I see is the medical bill from taking him to the doctor Monday morning for that..

So, out of desperation, on Saturday morning, after a very busy week, I did what any sane Mom would do that has lost all hope: I made sure the family was happy and fed by mid-morning, cleaned up after breakfast, and went up to my closet and got down on my face and prayed to God and wept over that darn grill and lawnmower. 

Now, in all actuality, y’all know I don’t care about a grill and lawnmower: I care about my husband and children. I care about my children’s birthday party upcoming. Yet, I was praying to God over that grill and lawnmower, and weeping like there’s no tomorrow. I wept; I cried. I claimed all sorts of scriptural promises. “Ask, and you shall receive, Seek, and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you”. “if any of you has the faith of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” Matthew 17:20. “But seek ye first, His kingdom, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” Matthew 6:33.  “which of you, if his child asked for a loaf of bread, would give him a stone” Matthew 7:9. 

I was hurling scriptures around like an axe thrower at a crazy circus, and begging God to fix the situation, and balling my eyes out almost hysterically. Truly, the deeper motivation was that Jack had asked for a cook out with cheeseburgers, and to be with his cousins, family, and friends for his birthday. Mama bear just wanted to make his day. And the irony does not fall flat, I noticed while praying: “Which of you, if his child asked him for a fish, would give him a snake instead?” Luke 11:11. And Elias had asked for a snake for his birthday, which we were in the process of trying to purchase as well. But I threw that scripture out there as well, and begged God for mercy to help provide that. And now everything had broken. And we still had gifts to provide, and company to prepare for. 

My life felt like a never ending hiccup. Unplanned, unforeseen trouble seemed to always lurk around the corner, and all the unexpected things were robbing me of my joy. My joy in my children, my joy in the moments I have left on this earth. I know we are a vapor; we had just read the verses in James 4 a few weeks before in our church small group: “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” James 4:14. How does one try and comprehend eternity, focus on the moment, and realize one is a vapor, all at the same time? Still working on that one, and will get back with you later…

Turns out, God had all these problems taken care of. I texted my sister and asked her to pray for us big time with these “bumps” in the road, that felt like earthquakes. I phoned a dear sweet friend, and bemoaned the tragedy of life and grills and broken lawn mowers. I spiritually tried not to shake my fist at God and remind Him that I like bread and not rocks, but yes on the snake, for our son, the rest of the day, and prayed.

Within less that 2 hours, my husband came home from an errand, and we noticed a man mowing the neighbors grass after lunch. James approached him, had a polite conversation, and found out he is one of our neighbors, and he mows grass in the neighborhood for $20/yard. Now, while we are broke, $20 for a mown yard seemed like a lot better proposition than buying a new lawnmower, so we thanked God for the good blessing, paid him to mow our lawn that afternoon, and considered that an answer to prayer. 

Next, the grill. James worked all day, going back and forth to Lowes and Wal mart, trying to get the parts correctly to fix our grill. By late evening, he had finally narrowed down the correct parts and was trying to fix it. I had prayed, but I also put our patio furniture set of 6 on Craig’s List to sell, to pay for the grill or lawnmower to potentially be replaced. I must have under priced my beloved patio set, because after putting it on Craig’s list, I got over 20 emails of interest within a few hours. 

I had a serious buyer coming from Stanley NC at 10:30am Sunday morning, lined up to purchase my set. I was ready to sell it, no looking back, to ensure that this birthday would go off wonderfully. The prayer was practically answered. 

And then the unbelievable happened. I had shared this prayer request with my sister and one other old friend. It was half prayer request, half venting of pain and frustration at the horrible timing of it all. My dear old friend is a problem solver, however, and not one to take any friends’ prayer requests lightly. She turned into the hands and feet of Jesus that day, also. I found out later Saturday evening, through my son, Elias, her partner in miracles, that she had ordered a grill to be ready for pick up at the local Target 10 minutes away; placed there in my son Elias’s name! 

I found out late Saturday evening from Elias, and simply turned and put my face in my hands and wept some more, out of sheer gratitude. Unbeknownst to everyone else, I had secretly prayed that the grill and lawnmower problems, and Jacks’ red eyes (which I later found out were seasonal allergies taken care of by drops that day) were all a general prayer that I had also laid out as a fleece for God. 

I had prayed over finances, and upcoming bills that needed to be paid, over all sorts of stuff that we simply have no control over. The bills are like a black hole sometimes: big, empty, seemingly all powerful void that is forever consuming in my mind’s eyes. I had laid this all at God’s feet, begging for help and a rescue. I prayed that His provision would be a mighty river, that would “break through”, and that I would know that it would be taken care of by these seemingly impossible things being rectified, like grills and lawnmowers fixed.

Stupefied that evening by His grace, I fell asleep. James said he actually felt like everything was going to be okay because of these graces bestowed on us by God. It is a hard thing to change the outlook of a human; no small task for other humans, but God can do it through such small things, that upon outward observation look like trivialities to some, but are mountains to others. Well, I vocalized that I had the faith of a mustard seed, and begged God to move these mountains that day, and He certainly came through. I take confidence that He will continue to provide for us in ways that we can't imagine in the future as well!

But this is where it gets interesting, and He decides to reveal a weightier lesson, because He is concerned with more than just our external circumstances. He is much more concerned for our hearts, and our understanding of His rapturous, deep, all consuming love, so He truly opened the flood gates the following day.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning when we woke up the next day. I hurriedly got myself ready for church, rushed the family along, and went over emails about the patio set that was going to be sold that didn’t even need to be sold by then, but oh well. The sweet lady was on her way from Stanley to purchase it at 10:30 before church; that was taken care of, and the money pocketed would go to buying burgers to feed everyone at the birthday party.

We went to church with light, hopeful hearts, and tried to enjoy the music and sermon. After it was finished, we went to pick up the children from their classes, and as I checked Jack out of his class, a sweet lady named Jayne stopped me to tell what had happened with Jack that morning. She described the visual lesson, that used water, dirty water, and a chemical solution to illustrate what Jesus’s love and death on the cross does for our sins. How our hearts are turned dark through sin with the dark water, but through the chemical reaction of a clear solution in water, Jesus’s love comes into our hearts and makes us all clean. And no matter if we put more dirty water into our hearts: because Jesus’s love is perfect, it has cleaned our hearts in finality. 

She said Jack believes! Jack prayed to Jesus, to make his heart clean, and believes the sacrifice that Jesus made for us! I was stupefied, once again. The next few minutes were a blur, but this awesome lady asked if Jack had his own Bible, and after finding out he uses a borrowed one from another family member, she offered to get him his own Bible, so we accompanied her down to the book store at the church and she gave him the gift of his own Bible!

We rejoiced with Jack, who is generally quiet, and was reserved as he spoke about it. Everyone was hungry, so I began to prepare and heat leftovers for the Sunday lunch. As I sat at our table, making the leftover plates for my family, I felt God’s gentle whisper, and it was like a revelation or light went off in my head. I can’t say it was an actual voice, because there were no sentences, but the spiritual realization was clearly overwhelming. 

God reminded me in that moment: Julie, I blessed you yesterday, and answered your prayers. But today, I gave you an even more precious gift: your child’s salvation. You haven’t asked for your children’s salvation, or wept over them, in a long time. But I give it to you, freely and abundantly anyway, even though you only wept over broken, physical things like a grill and lawnmower. “But seek ye first, His kingdom, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you”. Begin to pray for my Kingdom, and my will, and I will take care of the rest. 

The gravity of the moment, the loving kindness and gentle nature of His still, small voice, was so overwhelming. The deep reality of His all consuming presence was only for a few seconds, but there is nothing like His peace, His love, His kindness, once you get a small taste of it. In that moment, I felt like He was wrapping me in His arms and giving me the biggest Fatherly hug ever. In that moment, I knew I should begin to pray and weep for the spiritual more than the physical, because so many need to know His perfect love, His love that is amazing and wonderful and wild and unbelievably huge; bigger and better than anything we can know and experience this side of heaven.

In case you are wondering why I am sharing this. Why would I put something so awkwardly embarrassing and revealing out there, to my shame and humiliation, because yes indeed: shame on me. Well, I want everyone to know that I’m still on this journey in life. I fully know that I have not arrived. I’m still learning. And just in case there is anyone else out there that trips and falls and is struggling to get back up? i want you to know you are not alone. Keep on walking toward the Light. Our Father has open arms for the humble!

Update: so during prayer request time the following week, I humbly share this story with our new small group. I tell them that I want to learn to pray and weep over people instead of tough circumstances, and seek the Kingdom first, and one of our new friends blurts out "I've got a broken mower I think I can fix and give to you!"

I almost fell out of my chair.

Little things

     A friend, while talking about coffee the other day, said the old adage "It's the little pleasures, that are what life is all about". To me, another one of those little pleasures is seeing the impossible done, recording it, and sharing it with others. 

     I used to say the devil is in the details, but I believe that's just a big lie of the enemy now. Rather, it's our Maker who's in the details, but that just doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as the prior.

     It is always about the details, though. You see, time is a commodity I have so little of, that it's painstakingly, and precariously balanced in our family. The Man was working two jobs. We have a high school student. I home school the two younger children. And oh yeah. I'm a full time college student in my Senior year.

     So, this past week, I was diligently attempting to read 75+ very extensive pages for Business Law-in between soccer practice, car pool duties, groceries, horseback riding lessons, bath times, meal preparation, Prayer meetings, church, home school, and maybe even some exercise. So I toted Business Law with me every where, in the hopes I could tackle chapters 15, 16, & 17 so I could be prepared for the test Monday evening.

     And then, the night before the test was due, I fell ill. So ill, that Sunday evening I lay on my bathroom floor and didn't care because I was out of my mind in pain ill. Monday morning, I can't remember if I got out of bed; my dear 9 year old daughter made coffee for me (I didn't know she could even do that?!?), & I tried to look at those dreaded chapters 15-17, which were not easy reading on a completely normal day, to say the least. My husband had graciously taken the boys to an annual eye appointment at Duke University, so they were out for the day. My daughter cared for me.

     Usually, my habit for studying involves highlighting important texts, rereading the focus concept synopsis's, writing down key words with page numbers for easy reference, and just making sure I read all the material. I tried to do this all Monday, through a state of delirium. Lily made a nice sandwich for herself, and worked on her school work beside me in bed. It was a nice bonding time except for my stomach pains.

     I regained some sense of awareness by Monday evening, and having finished the chapters, sat down in my study to take the timed test before the cut off.  Our tests are due Monday evening typically.  It is a 20 question test that is allotted a time of 60 minutes. Multiple choice and true/false questions. It is thankfully open book, but due to the rigorous amount of material, the professors always strictly admonish us to be thoroughly acquainted with the material before the test, because it's so exhaustive. There are a pool of 200 questions from the material, practically guarenteeing that no two students will have the same two tests, which greatly, if not completely, eliminates cheating. 

     I'm not proud to admit it, but I had made 76 on each of the previous tests, because the material is just a lot to take in. But 76 is a C, and a C passes the class, so this formerly straight A student has just accepted that that is the season I'm in. God gives grace to the humble.

     I took a breath, said a quick prayer, and clicked the link to begin the test.  After only 3 questions and a few minutes had passed, I quickly realized I didn't recognize any of the questions. I didn't recognize any of the key words. Panic set in, momentarily. The countdown clock in the corner, like a bad omen, said 55 min's 27 seconds remaining. My head was filled with uncertainty. Quickly, I thought despairingly to look at the course syllabus. I cleared the books, notebooks, etc from my school binder and furiously flipped to the syllabus, and saw the ghastly truth. I was supposed to read Chapters 10, 11, 12 for that weeks test. I had read the wrong chapters.

     Now, for those of you who think like my husband, and wondered why I hadn't been reading in order anyway, here is the explanation: the book is not a final draft, and is a work in progress, which means the chapters are literally out of order. The professor also picks the assigned readings out of order as well, according to his preference. It makes sense for his progression of covering the material.

     But back to the story. After realizing that I had read the wrong chapters, there was only one thing I could do. I prayed. I prayed earnestly, for a moment, that God would enable and equip me to pass this test. I prayed, against my own disbelief, that I would make a better grade than I had been making, like an 84. Yes. I prayed for an 84. Despite the odds. 

     Then, I quickly thumbed through the book and found chapters 10-12. (I want to say that they were literally *after* chapters 15-17). I looked at the key words in each question to determine what particular topic was being discussed from which chapter. And then I made the best educated guess on each question that I could. I perused each answer and hoped and prayed that I read the tidbits I could find and answer the question as best as I possibly could. When it was all said and done, weary and dog-tired, I submitted the test.

     The cool thing about those kind of tests is that they are submitted and graded automatically by computer, so there is no waiting around. I shut my eyes for a moment, grimacing inwardly but not imagining the worst, and clicked on "show results". 

     I made an 85. Not a 76, like the other tests before. Not an 84, like I prayed. But an 85. Like God was saying, 

"I see ya and hear ya dear girl. Here's what you asked for, & an extra point just to show you I love you."

"As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust." (Psalm 103:13, 14 ESV)

Let our faith be increased. Let those who are weeping, perhaps see, and begin to laugh.