I’m a clock-watcher. I almost always know what time it is, regardless of what I’m doing.
But we can’t live by the clock. We can’t really even know what will happen in the next thirty minutes.
How do we cope with the uncertainty of not trusting time? What do we do when we can’t control the timing of our lives?
We have to place our trust in something else.
Read the rest here: When You Can’t Trust Time
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I’m writing today at Do Not Depart about trusting WHO when we can’t trust WHEN.
I got the email Thursday morning. It was from UPS. It said my package would be delivered today.
What would it be? I couldn’t remember what I’d ordered. But I was ready for it, whatever it was.
I’ve been extra tired lately. It’s been an extra busy winter. The demands of life sometimes overload me, both the fun as well as the hard. My introverted self wanted an escape.
Jeff had suggested I take a staycation. I’d been trying it. I did say no to a few things and postponed a few more.
My theme for Lent this season has been “Go slow; say no.“
But the no was designed to serve a purpose: to open room for the yes with God.
I love getting packages (just ask Amazon). Placing an online order is exciting because I know it means a box will show up on my porch soon.
My “Go slow; say no” mantra was my way of placing a spiritual order, an ask of God to quiet down the noise so I could rest more in him.
But placing the order is just the beginning. Watching for the package comes next. And when it arrives? Receiving and opening the package brings joy.
God often attempts deliveries to us. But we’re not always home. We don’t always check the porch. We don’t always answer the knock.
But when we do? We are letting God love us.
For my staycation week I let God love me: through Jeff’s offer to grill steak for supper; through cuddling a new one-day-old niece; through words of affirmation from a sweet friend.
And the package delivery from UPS? It came as promised on Thursday afternoon. I saw the UPS truck pull up, heard the thump of the package on the porch, answered the doorbell ring.
What was it? A book! One of my favorite things.
I’d won a copy of Doing Life With Your Adult Children from a give-away on Beth’s blog. Now it was here.
God was indeed loving me.
Anytime God wants to deliver a package on my porch, I want to receive it.
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What’s the latest package you’ve received lately? Who was it from? Please share in the comments.
Author Dandi Daley Mackall has rewritten 25 selected Psalms specifically for children: Psalms for Little Hearts. She writes about situations that young people can relate to (playing baseball, going to the zoo, being picked on at school). They all rhyme and are short stanzas. At the end of each Psalm, a portion of the original Psalm is included if you also want to read that.
The illustrations by Cee Biscoe are ample and appealing to little eyes. They add a young feel to the book.
But while the book is sweet and colorful, I’m not sure it would keep the attention of its target audience of 4-7 year olds. The concepts are lofty. I would recommend it only be read with an adult companion who could explain the meanings and who could help retain the child’s attention, and even then, only in small doses.
Here’s an excerpt from Psalm 8.
Even your enemies have to admit
You made the heavens and earth, bit by bit.
Wow! Your creation’s a super smash hit!
Everything shows us your glory.
Here’s what I wonder—to me, it’s unclear:
Why do you bother with people down here?
How can you care for us year after year?
Everything shows us your glory.
Lord, you have made us a part of your story,
Given us honor and crowned us with glory,
Told us to keep your world all hunky-dory.
Everything shows us your glory.
Older children could comprehend it easier, but they may also have outgrown some of the content choices, such as this from Psalm 4:
Pouncing puppy licks my nose.
Muddy puddles, muddy toes.
See that robin? There it goes!
I know you are smiling at me.
Hip, hooray, the city zoo!
Who made zebras? I know who!
Good things always come from you.
Lord you are smiling at me.
Silly monkeys, tall giraffes,
Hoot owl hoots, hyena laughs–
Taking funny photographs.
That’s you still smiling at me.
The lyrics are cute and clever. I appreciate them as an adult. But before you purchase this book, I’d recommend you carefully consider the maturity level of the child you want to share this book with.
It might be easier to just read the Psalms straight from the Bible.
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My thanks to Tyndale House Publishers
for the review copy of this book
As if on cue, the mother died, too.
Exactly two weeks after her son.
We lost our friend Stan on March 15. He first went to the hospital for a surgery early January. After a short stay in rehab, he went home. But days later, a serious infection set in. He returned to the hospital. While in the hospital, his elderly mother took a fall.
Like Stan, she, too, recovered from her initial surgery and left the hospital.
And also like Stan, she returned to the hospital again. Never to walk out.
I visited her on the Tuesday before she died. She looked peaceful, and with my imagination, looked like I had remembered her from years ago, even though she had greatly aged.
But early Friday morning, I dreamed about her. In my dream, she had been released from the hospital and I was shocked to see her up so quickly. She looked younger than ever, more healthy than ever. She had walked over to get a cup of water. We chatted about how good she felt.
And I woke up.
Later Friday night, I got word that she had passed on.
And again I woke up.
After death doesn’t come destruction. Yes, our physical bones decay and our earthly body returns to earth. But in reality, we’re more alive than ever. Stan’s mom is indeed now younger than ever, more healthy than ever. She is full and whole and happy.
She is again with her son Stan. Both rejuvenated. Both recovered. Both very much alive.
Both together.
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And this is the hope we have.
Have you lost anyone you love lately? Lose any two people close in time? Please share in the comments.
Related:
“Our world waits for you and me, for spiritual people everywhere—to refuse to be pawns in the destruction of a global world for the sake of national self-centeredness.”
And so it begins. This book is heavy, The Time Is Now. Sister Joan Chittister speaks with a challenging voice that she wants us to echo.
“We are here to seed the present with godliness so that others may someday reap the best of what we sowed.”
Chittister challenges us to do something. As followers of Jesus, she says we “must each do something to redeem our battered, beaten world from the greed, the egregious elitism, that smothers it.”
She’s not shy in naming the problems: nuclearism, sexism, homelessness, harassment, poverty, immigration, and more.
And she’s not bashful in naming who needs to do the helping:
“It is now our task, as individuals, as intentional groups, wherever we are on the social spectrum, to shine a light on their lives and to insist that others see it, too. It is the task of each of us to be their voice until they can be heard themselves.”
“It is our task to give them hope, to give them possibility, to help the outcasts to fit in.”
Prophets nows are called to the same mission as prophets of long ago: to look at life as it is and expand it. “We must not fear the darkness; we must simply resolve to carry light into wherever we are.”
Chittister doesn’t say it will be easy. Speaking out disturbs a society that likes its comfort. But if we are to be spiritually mature, we have to think about something greater than ourselves.
“The silence is deafening as the world waits for those on the edge of the crowd to speak up, to speak out.”
Chittister is indeed a prophet in our times. We’d be wise to listen to her in this moral moment.
“What does a prophet do? A prophet cries out, cries out, cries out. Without fear. Without care for cost. Without end. Dear Prophet, for the sake of the children, for the sake of the world, for the sake of the gospel, Cry out.”
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My thanks to Net Galley
for the review copy of this book
Once upon a time I was an accountant. I enjoyed keeping track of numbers. I still do.
Doesn’t God like numbers, too? Was God the original accountant? And if so, how does he factor in grace?
Looking at three stories of Jesus in our readings for Lent, we see God in the numbers. And God in the grace.
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I’m writing today at Do Not Depart. Will you join me there: “Is There Grace in Accounting?”
