Eleven Witnesses

I wonder if anyone has had their whole life come down to one minute? A minute in which all that they'd been taught, all they'd been hoping for, all that mattered in the world to them was fulfilled. A minute that knit together every day of their past and radically shaped every day of their future?

That's what happened to eleven men in Jerusalem. For three years, they had been following around this man named Jesus. They had seen him do many unexplainable things and heard him speak of mysteries beyond their understanding. He was strange, but he was also their friend. They trusted him. They trusted him enough to give up everything and follow him all around the countryside, doing whatever he said.

They were good Jewish boys. Their mamas and daddys had taught them well. They knew the Scripture; they followed the Law. They knew that Yahweh had promised them a Messiah, a rescuer who would save God's people and rule forever. Just about the time they began to think that Jesus might be the One they were waiting for, just about the time they were thinking he would stick it to the Roman leaders and set up Jewish rule once and for all, something crazy happened. He died. His body was put in a tomb. And that was that.

"What in the world was that about?" they must have wondered.

Could they eat? Sleep? I don't think so. All they could do was wonder, and weep, and stumble through what must have been the greatest disappointment of all time.

But then their moment came. THE moment. And it happened so simply.

One minute they were alone, and the next he was there with them. He appeared out of nowhere, very much alive. They were so startled they thought he was a ghost. He knew how jarring his appearance would be, so he let them examine his nail-scarred hands and feet. He ate with them. And then he did something that must have seemed to them even more amazing than raising from the dead. He put every second of every day of their entire lives in context.

He said something like this: Everything you've hoped for your entire lives, every lesson you ever learned, every law you ever followed, every scripture you ever memorized was all about me. This life? All about me. This world? All about me (and, by the way, I created it). The future? All about me.

"Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, 'This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things'" (Luke 24:45-47).

Grief and confusion and disappointment were immediately sucked out of the room. "Ah-ha" moments broke out. Connections were made. Lives, on the spot, were changed, never to be the same. The world was changed, never to be the same. And it all began with those eleven.

Sometimes I marvel over what it's like to be alive right now, in this moment in time. On my watch, the world changed at the hands of technology. The world I was born into looks nothing like the one I inhabit now. I think that's pretty amazing. I wonder how I got to be a witness to such things.

But it doesn't hold a candle to what those eleven in Jerusalem witnessed, when all of history and all of eternity converged in that one holy moment.

He is risen. And this crazy world make sense.

Snow Day!

It's April, and mothers everywhere are a hot mess. OK, maybe not all mothers; maybe it's just those of us who have kids in school. And maybe it's not everywhere, but it's certainly everywhere I'm looking.

April is the beginning of the end. We're rounding the corner of the home stretch. There's a light at the end of the school-year tunnel. It's faint and there are a hundred obstacles between here and there, but just knowing it's there encourages us onward. But the final stretch is almost always the hardest. We break out into a sweat as 3:00 arrives, knowing it's a dead sprint until bedtime. We live out of our cars and eat out of crockpots and drive-thru's. We shiver through soccer games, baseball games, and track meets. We fix hair and tune instruments and drive, drive, drive to rehearsals, concerts, and recitals. We pack sack lunches for field trips and clear our schedules to chaperone them. We throw birthday parties and buy presents for other people's kids. We take in treats to keep the teachers encouraged. We feed and urge on the older kids studying for SATs and AP exams.We try to remember that we are wives and have some interaction with our husbands beyond who's picking up whom and please don't forget the cupcakes. We attempt to keep all this up while maintaining our own friendships, work obligations, fitness regimens, and spiritual disciplines.

(Yes, spring break was just last week, but "break" is an oxymoron when you spend 41 hours in the car with your children. Our time visiting colleges was productive, but there was no "break" involved, and certainly no recharging for the month of April.)

Then we wake up to snow. Lots of it. And the messages start rolling in. School cancelled. Meeting at work cancelled. Soccer cancelled. Track cancelled. Piano lesson cancelled. Band concert cancelled. The children who were scheduled to within an inch of their lives now get to spend the day building snow men in the yard. Everyone stays in their jammies. A party breaks out over cocoa and board games. Life as we know it has come to a screeching halt, and we can all stop and breathe.

I don't begin to claim to know how God works. But I think for harried mothers in states with erratic weather, He sends snow in April, His little present to remind us to slow down, actually enjoy our children, and focus on the goodness of this life.

To See and Be Seen

I'm reminded again that one of the greatest gifts we can give to another person is our focused, personal attention. A group of my friends recently traveled to Russia to host a retreat for women who grew up in orphanages and are now trying to raise their own children--with very few role models or personal examples to draw on. My friends taught classes on parenting, conflict-resolution, self-esteem and the like, but the most meaningful thing they may have done was to paint the Russian women's nails. It's intimate work. It's "I-care-about-you" work, especially in this context. No money was paid; no expectations were made. It was just one woman focusing all of her attention on another, serving her humbly and with love just like Galatians 5:13 tells us to do.

Children who grow up in institutions don't get personal attention. Moms doing the hard work of raising children, sometimes alone or with little support, are rarely acknowledged by others. I don't know many American women who have had another person look them in the eye and say, "You're doing a great job raising your children. Don't lose heart!" How much more must this mean to someone who's never really been seen at all.

To be seen. It's one of our most essential human needs. It's why God reveals Himself, in the book of Genesis, as El Roi, the God who sees us. And not just us, but you. And me. And her over there sitting by herself in the corner, thinking no one in the world notices her or cares about her. God notices! And I think He loves it when we follow His example.

Not many of us will find ourselves painting the nails of grown-up orphans in Russia. But surely we can all find someone who needs to be "seen" this week. Cooks at restaurants, janitors at schools and churches and airports, workers taking a smoke break outside Walmart. These and so many like them serve us behind the scenes, and we rarely take notice. I urge you to pay attention in the next several days. "See" someone you've never seen before. Give that person your focused, personal attention, even if it's just for 10 seconds. That 10 seconds could make all the difference in someone's day. Or maybe, because El Roi is such a big God, it could change a life.

Life Is Good: A Fresh Message

In the wake of five suicides in our school community over the past 14 months--four students and one parent--and six at a neighboring high school, my friends and I are left heartbroken and confused. Perhaps the most puzzling part to me is that many of these kids were followers of Christ.

Each of these stories is unique, personal, and complicated. I can't possibly know or understand the reasons for their actions, and I certainly won't make any attempt at blanket cause-and-effect statements. But I will share the thoughts God has given me personally as I relate to my own kids.

Vision casting is one of my biggest parental roles, and this has come as a surprise to me. When I was 16, my head was exploding with vision. I had such big plans for my life, such hope-filled dreams. I attended camps and signed up for activities that would give me a bigger taste of the grown-up world. I instinctively knew that there was so much more to life than high school, that this was just a drop in the bucket of my existence, and that bigger, better things awaited me "out there." (I was right!) My own kids don't seem to be hardwired this way. They have vision for tonight's homework and their next meal. They might have a vague sense of anticipation for the next school break or summer vacation. But big dreams for their lives? Not so much.

I've tried to help them build vision for the future, and I've also spent a lot of time preparing them to live in a culture that's hostile to the values they've grown up with. Like all good Christian parents, I've been teaching my kids to see themselves as strangers in this world ("This world is not your home!" they've heard me say since they were toddlers) and to expect this life to be challenging at best and an out-and-out battle at worst. They hear Christian adults tell them: "Put on the armor of God, kids, because there's a battle raging over your hearts and minds!" With a bit more reflection, I see that this might not be the best way to beckon them to a captivating adult life.

It's all true, and it's hugely important. But I wonder if I, and others like me, haven't unwittingly left out the part about how good this life is. Do I emphasize the fallenness of this life way more than the beauty of it? Have we been so busy preparing for a cultural war that we've lost sight of God's daily mercies and graces? Am I helping them "taste and see that the Lord is good" in equal proportion to teaching them how to do battle with the sword of the Spirit (God's Word, according to Ephesians 6:17)?

As I help them with vision, is it about college and careers and healthy marriages more than purpose and mission? Do they know that they're part of God's Big Story, that He's given them a unique role in something so much bigger than themselves? They're here to point the way to Life and Truth and Hope--to Jesus. They're His hands and feet, His ambassadors, His vessels on this earth. They've got work to do, not because God needs them (He doesn't), but because He has chosen them to play a part in His redemption of the world. They've got purpose--rich, deep, meaningful purpose, and nothing will fill their hearts and souls like living out the assignment He's given them. And oh, the goodness they'll taste and see along the way!

I am freshly convicted to start focusing on these things. Life is good. That's more than a t-shirt motto; it's beautiful truth. Life is good because God is good. Help me, Lord, to live and speak that message every day.

Progress Covers Its Tracks

In his book Utopia Is Creepy, Nicholas Carr included an essay on the generational effects of new technologies. He used electricity as an example. When people lit their homes with candlelight, the wick brought them together. Families sat together in one room, reading or talking by candlelight. The electric light, conversely, sent people into different rooms. It gave individual family members more options and more independence. Carr wrote, “Each person gained more privacy and a greater sense of autonomy, but the cohesion of the family weakened.”

When I was in college, I borrowed a mini cassette recorder and interviewed my 90-year-old great grandma. I had spent a lot of time with her growing up, but it wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I realized there was more to her than just making jello and playing a mean game of Uno. It occurred to me that Grandma Goodman had lived through a lot. She was born in 1902 (“I’m two years younger than the year,” she would tell us), which meant she was born into a world of horse-and-buggy, reading by candlelight, and cold midnight trips to the outhouse. She remembered all of this, as well as the first time she drove a Model T, the first time she heard about air travel, and what she was doing the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon (making jello, no doubt). My grandma saw a lot of change.

I’ve never once listened to that recording. The microcassette tape sits in my jewelry box with no way to be played, and sadly, no one who’s itching to hear it. Grandma Goodman died in 1999, and with her, the memories of a different world. I was pregnant with my first child when I attended her funeral. The old had gone; the new had come. She was among the last of a generation who had seen such great change over the course of their lifetimes, but her way of life seemed so outdated and stale. Who in the 90s was sitting around relishing the glories of the horse-and-buggy?

But though she had only a high school education, lost numerous babies who today probably could have been saved, and endured two horrendous world wars, I’m less and less sure that my world is superior to hers. Or that hers was the generation that witnessed the greatest changes in the history of mankind. I wonder if those of us born in the 70s might not hold that distinction.

These words in Carr's essay caught my eye:

“All technological change is generational change. The full power and consequence of a new technology are unleashed only when those who have grown up with it become adults and begin to push their outdated parents to the margins. As the older generations die, they take with them their knowledge of what was lost when the new technology arrived, and only the sense of what was gained remains. It’s this way that progress covers its tracks, perpetually refreshing the illusion that where we are is where we were meant to be.”

I was among the very last group of college students who had never heard of the internet. I started my first job the same year it became readily available. I have a complete, full, beautiful memory of a fully offline life--a life with no computers, no cell phones, no Google or texting or social media. I remember discovering and poring over encyclopedias. I remember conversations with friends in which no phones chimed in with an urgent update. I remember eating family meals together every night and watching the 6:00 evening news. I remember exchanging long, handwritten letters with my friends and talking for hours on the phone. I remember playing outside with the kids in my neighborhood every single summer night. I remember when strangers sat in waiting rooms making eye contact and chitchat.

If I take after my Grandma Goodman in longevity, at the end of my life, I will be among the last people alive to hold such memories. And will anyone care?

Progress covers its tracks and makes us think that where we are is where we're meant to be. Something to think about.  

Justice, Kindness, and Humility

My daughter's fourth grade class recently visited the state capitol. No surprise, they ran into protesters there, some of them touting colorful language on their signs.

The kids returned to school with about an hour left in their day. After a field trip, especially the kind that keeps 9- and 10-year-olds on a bus for a couple hours, this means an extended recess. As it's winter in Colorado, the teachers told the kids they needed to wear their coats outside. This is how my daughter explained to me what happened next: "We didn't want to wear our coats, so we had a protest."

Conceivably, there may be parents who would erupt with pride over this statement. Their child was standing up for her right to make her own choices, making her voice heard, fighting against tyranny. I am not one of those parents. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in respecting authority. When I dug a little deeper, it became clear that this was not an all-out protest by a pack of screaming fourth graders. It was a few little girls whining about having to wear their coats, and the teacher didn't even know about it. Still, Camryn had chosen the words, "have a protest." Because this is the language of the day.

I know that injustice exists in this world. In fact, nowhere do you find more talk about justice than in the Bible. For many years, one of my favorite verses has been Micah 6:8: "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

I love this verse because justice is linked closely with kindness and humility. God absolutely cares about justice, but He also cares about how we carry it out. There is no humility in a 9-year-old grumbling against a teacher who is looking out for her best interest. There is no kindness in covering posterboards in mean-spirited profanity and parading them around school kids who are trying to learn more about their government.

The Bible's focus is not so much about fighting injustice, but on doing justice. Be fair. Don't cheat or steal. Look out for those who are weaker. Love the widow and the fatherless and the resident alien among you (Jeremiah 22:3).

There are times when we have to cry out on behalf of injustice, when those who follow God carry His truth out into the streets. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a shining example of this. But God's other commands don't go by the wayside in favor of fighting injustice. Kindness, love, and humility still matter. I would argue, in fact, that we need to spend more time training our children and ourselves in those "harder" virtues than in those that come more naturally. My kids came out of the womb knowing how to fight for what they thought was right. Getting angry and speaking up has never been a problem for them, or for just about anyone else I know. It's knowing when to speak up--and how to do it without sinning or causing others to stumble--that requires wisdom and maturity.

The Bible is as clear in its teaching to honor authority (Romans 13:1, 1 Peter 2:13 and 5:5) as it is to follow the way of justice. When these two come into conflict, protesting may be one way to respond. But 4th graders and grown-ups alike need to remember that justice without kindness and humility is nothing more than a clanging cymbal.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 
1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Inauguration Day Thoughts

I appreciate that there are many who see today as a national day of mourning. I am certainly not doing any cartwheels myself. But I did see a few bright spots in the Inauguration ceremony today.

First, I am grateful and surprised that we live in a country in which the Word of God is still a prominent part of the biggest political event in the land. The name of Jesus was boldly proclaimed, and prayers were made in His name. The beatitudes were spoken over a nation who needs to hear them: Blessed are the poor in Spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who are meek, merciful, and pure of heart. And perhaps most timely of all, blessed are the peacemakers. My favorite non-scriptural quote came from Rabbi Marvin Hier, who said that a nation's wealth is measured by its values, not its vaults. This after repeated promises by our new President to bring back America's wealth. Well said, Rabbi.

Second, no matter what you think of President Obama, you had to respect his dignity today. You know this was hard, brutally hard, for him. He and his wife would probably much rather poke Donald Trump with a sharp stick than embrace and applaud him, but they did so graciously. After a searing speech in which the new President pinned all of the nation's woes on his back, Mr. Obama smiled warmly, extended his hand, and said, "Good job." I completely disagree with his politics, but I respect and appreciate his maturity, his poise, his faithfulness as a husband and father, and the dignity he brought to the presidency.

And finally, no matter how many times you witness it, you can never stop marveling at the peaceful, honorable transfer of power that we Americans are privileged to enjoy. Yes, the election was ugly and nothing to be proud of. But today? Today was America at its best. Political rivals sat side by side and accepted a new person with radically different ideas and policies. No wars broke out. No one was assassinated. Some boycotters boycotted and some protesters protested, but even that is evidence of a privileged America. Can we ever grasp how radical--maybe even miraculous--our Constitution is? And that generation after generation submit to it, abide by it, and carry it out? Like clockwork, the 45th President was sworn in at 12:00 on January 20, no matter the outcry that preceded it. Remarkable.

And now, Inauguration Day winding down, we do what God's people do every day. We pray for wisdom for our leaders, and we rejoice that there is only one King, and that He never changes.