God's Handiwork

God's brushstrokes

Pink!

Good-bye sun

God was showing off last night when we went for our walk.  The wispy clouds looked like brush strokes and reminded me of a watercolor painting.  They turned from white to pink as the sun shifted. Each photo gave us a different look, and the sunset photo at the end is from the same sky, but a different direction and time.  Fascinating.

Last night we were able to see the "Supermoon" too.  It was definitely brighter, lighting up our whole house at 4 am.  With my phone the picture I took does not do it justice, but just had to share. Last time it was this close was the year I was born.

Seeing God's handiwork in nature is comforting. Yesterday the sky spoke God's message to us as we walked together arm in arm.  All is well.  I am God.  See what beauty I bring to your world?!  Seek it, breathe it in, be in the moment.

Saturday's Scribbles: This Moment Now

"Today the sun will set at 4:49.  

I can grieve the dying light, or I can admire the moon. 

Neither response is always right or always wrong. 

 Occasionally, we'll do both at once.  But sunset is yet to come.  

All I truly have is this moment now,

 and this moment now is gentle light and quiet shadow. 

 And it is beautiful."

Christie Purifoy

Our Broken Country, And What Now?

I am going to be sixty-nine in a few months, one of the Baby Boomers of our country who has lived through several wars, the turbulent 60's, the assassination of a president and his brother, the murder of Martin Luther King Jr..  Hate crime.  I am not too old to feel the effects of Hitler and Nazi Germany, the Berlin wall, the Cold War, and countless other historic events that shook our world and changed us for better and for worse.

Joel and I have been through a lot of tough things together in our 48 1/2 years of marriage. The death of a son, of our moms, threats on Joel's life and on our family, hatred and racism thrown at us and our children because we are a family of many races.  We have battled Lyme Disease and I have battled cancer twice.  We have lived in 6 states and one third world country, had 18 major moves, 22 over all.  Like all of you, we have experienced life at it's best and at its worst.

Today we are mourning.  We are weary and grieving the division of America, our country.  We are grieving what we have seen and heard over the past 19 months of this debacle we have called a campaign for President.  We grieve over the hatred and discord.  The degrading of people because of their individual beliefs, "party" beliefs, color, ethnicity, and religion. The killing of innocent people, the ambushing of police. It has all sickened us.  This election process peeled back layers of skin to reveal the fear, anger, and hatred of "we the people".

This is not a political statement.  This is a statement of how divided and hate-filled our country has become again and how we have let fear of each other and of our differences come in the way of
"loving one another" as God has commanded us to do.  Not asked us, commanded us.

I have watched those on Facebook say horrible, hateful things "in the name of their God".  I have read awful things, like calling our current president a monkey, racial slurs, and more.  One man actually told his relative he was looking forward to the White House being white again.  This is to a woman who stood before him holding two of her bi-racial children on her hips.  I have observed online author Christie Purifoy speak from her heart about her Mexican American husband and seen people react in hateful ways.  I have read posts by people putting down anyone who does not think or vote like them.  Honestly, I have "unfollowed" many people on Facebook over the past few months because their words had such a negative affect on me.  "Lets love one another as long as they look, think, feel, live and vote like us.....and lets do it in the name of Jesus."

I think Joel and I are shocked at how angry and afraid people are on both sides of this red and blue divisonary war we have created in government and country.  We are shocked at the hateful things being said, and the hateful things being done.  Ugly has come out of us as a nation and it is scary.

We vote in all elections, but we do not voice our votes in public because we believe as a pastor and family it is not fair to use the pulpit to influence others.  We know  Republicans and Democrats alike who are believers, who love the Lord.  We believe we as citizens of the US have a right and duty to vote.  We, as Christians, love our Lord and our country.

We just don't know where to go with what this election process has uncovered not only in the candidates but in so many of the voters.  It may be something you expected..........I think we expected things had changed for the better in how we see each other, treat each other.  I guess we expected to see "the fruits of the Spirit" come out in people. This is a revelation we are stunned by and paying attention to.

What now?  Our country, our cities, our communities are in turmoil, so what now?  Joel and I feel so strongly that in this season of our lives we want to leave a legacy of not only faith in Jesus to our grands and great grands to come, but we want to leave a legacy of integrity, goodness, kindness, tolerance, acceptance, love and more love.  We want to speak life and not death into our small corner of the world.  We fail sometimes at this, but we get back up, repent, and try and try again to let Christ shine through us.

What now?  It begins with how we treat each other.  How we treat the person who shares our bed, our dining table, who lives across the street, who shops in our grocery store, who looks and believes different than us.  It begins when we get down on our knees, repent for our part in this mess we call living, and love on those easy to love and especially those hard to love.  It begins when we ask ourselves why we are afraid and angry and what would God want us to do about it?

We can change ourselves........others we can only love.  So we love the unlovable, we forgive the unforgivable, we reach out and do what God has commanded us to do............love our neighbors of which the whole world is...........we forgive, we repent, we pray.  Oh how we pray..........we ask God to heal us.  It begins with us.  We ask God to break our hearts for what breaks His.  We praise God for this country we live in, broken as it is.  We look around and see how unbelievably blessed we are to live in a democracy and not a dictatorship.  We give thanks..........we give thanks.......We open our gratitude journals and start remembering the thousands of gifts we have to be thankful for, starting with this country.  We pray for UNITY IN OUR DIVERSITY.  We pray.  We grieve with hope and we pray.

What We Are Called To Do

Today Joel and I sat together on our loveseat and watched the funeral service live stream for Sgt. Anthony Beminio, which was held at Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines IA.  It was a moving ceremony, not only as we watched over 1,500 officers file in and salute the casket when they walked by, but as the Chief of Police, Dana Wingert, spoke about Tony Beminio and the fine officer he was.  As the Chief held back tears and spoke of everyone being heartbroken.   The sermon by Senior Pastor Michael Householder was one of the most powerful sermons Joel and I have ever heard.  E.v.e.r.  It was a beautiful combination of what this mega church is founded on.  Sharing the story of Jesus and obeying His commandment to love one another.  Householder began this mission church in 1993 and it has grown in leaps and bounds to encompass satellite churches in 3 other areas, while serving 10,000 members in their own suburb.  Only God.

It is difficult to understand why any 39 year old man dies, but especially someone who served his community well as an officer, worked with kids, encouraged others, and loved on his own family. People look for answers and too often believe God took him.  It was God's will he died.  Today Pastor Householder spoke what Joel and I both stand strongly on in our beliefs.  This was not God.  God did not take Sgt. Householder.  Satan did.  The actions of another did.  Sin did.  A broken world did. Jesus did not come to kill, steal or destroy.  Satan did that.  Pastor Householder spoke of the shortest scripture in the Bible....."Jesus wept" and that Jesus wept along with us over the senseless death of Tony Beminio.  As the Son of God and the Son of man, He wept.  And He continues to do so as He watches the sin and suffering, the hate spoken, the continual atrocities taking place in word and action by His creation.



So today we weep as we mourn the loss of yet another officer, as we mourn the death of a child of God, whether white, black, brown, or wearing blue.  We are saddened by another life that ended too soon. We weep for those left behind, the children.  Oh, how difficult it is for the children.

Still, we grieve with hope.  It is what we are called to do.  With the understanding that when someone we love dies we will see them again, that this is not all there is.  We grieve with hope and we move forward in hope and pray that something like this will not happen again. That some how some way hate and brokenness will not end in death and destruction.  Until then we stand firm in knowing that death is not the end.  It is a new beginning for those who believe in eternal life.

And those who are left behind pick up the pace, carry the shield of Sgt. Beminio and others in their hearts and take on his desire to be an outstanding officer...........outstanding citizen...........parent, son, husband, family member, neighbor, friend. We all step in to make where we do life a better place.  It is what we are called to do.

Saturday's Scribbles

Hello Friends!

On this beautiful warm Saturday I am pondering relationships.  God has created us for relationships with Him, Jesus, Holy Spirit and others.  God really wants a close relationship with His kids.  He beckons us through His Word, through His whispers, through His endless love.  In any healthy relationship, we talk and we listen.  We love and we receive love.  We give and we receive.  This is what God wants.......for us with Him.

In our skin on skin relationships we practice all the above...and one more important one?  We forgive and we are forgiven.  We are responsible for doing life really well together within our families, our friends, our community, and the world at large.  How we treat the clerk at the store, the person driving the car next to us, those who look different than us, the one who shares our bed, the people in our home, our church, impacts all and it impacts our relationship with God.  Big time.

I started writing down thoughts about relationships yesterday morning and then last night we had friends over to break bread and fellowship together.  Always beautiful.  Always insightful.  This morning I realized that this couple really practices what I was writing above.  They desire and seek a close relationship with God and they intentionally "work" at relationships within the church and community.  They do life well, seeing the best in each other and other people, expecting miracles, and "pitching their tent in the land of hope".  They are 10 years younger than us but I "want to be like them when I grow up".

"I saw God before me

 all the time. 

 Nothing can shake me; 

He's right by my side.  

I'm glad from the inside out, ecstatic; 

I have pitched my tent in the land of hope."

Acts 2:26

Psalm 16

The Message

This week brought the death of two more police officers in the Des Moines IA area.  Our son wears the uniform there and it hit close to home as I wrote about HERE.  How the storms hit as the officers did their jobs while stunned by the death of a family member.  And what hurts our son hurts us and what hurts our officers hurts us all.  What hurts each person hurts the world.  We stop the hurt when we reach out and embrace another in respect and love.

I confess that Joel and I have had to work hard at keeping our tent pitched in the land of hope this past year.  At times the winds have blown hard, weapons have formed against us, and the good soil where we have pitched our tent has turned to sand..  Or so it seems.  So where do we turn when things get so darn complicated or our dreams disintegrate.  Where do we turn when confusion reigns and our tent is shaking, threatened to be swept away in the storms.

We turn our faces upward.  We turn our face and our focus on that One who gave us the land of hope through the Sacrifice.  Jesus.  We don't close our eyes to God's promises.  We shelter right in under His wings knowing God is right by our side.  Nothing can shake us.  Well, as humans we may feel shaken, true.....but we, like David seek God's calming presence.  We seek more of a relationship with God ~ seeing Him before us at all times.

We need God and He loves having a relationship with us.  We need family.  We need friends.  We need our neighbors, our community, our police, our state, our country, our world.  We need to reach out and touch the One and the ones who we know and don't know.  We help others keep their "tents" from landing in hopelessness.  We love on each other and open our hearts to be loved, to understand. To do life, well like our dear friends.  And most importantly we remember with God beside us we cannot be shaken.  We will not be shaken.  For we have pitched our tent in the land of Hope.

"I've Got This Covered"

When our phone rang at 4:40 on Wednesday morning, I said a quick groggy prayer while fumbling to answer.  As a pastor and family, we have received more than our share of middle of the night phone calls. Those years are really behind us now, so first on my mind is the family.

This time when I picked up the phone, it was our son Matt.  His first words were, "I'm okay".  This is not the first call we have received in the wee hours nor the first time he has started the conversation saying, "I'm okay."  Matt is a police officer in a metropolitan area and he puts his life on the line more often than I want to know.  Matt did not want us waking up to the news that 2 officers had been ambushed and killed within 20 minutes and 2 miles of each other while in their squad cars.  All officers were called in and on high alert.

"We are on it, Matt." was my reply.  Because we are a praying family.   I responded with my usual words of declaration as a prayer, hung up the phone and we began to pray.  Holding hands in bed we prayed with urgency for Matt, his good friends Steve and Michele......and all other officers now in harm's way.  We prayed for the families who were waiting to hear who had died that early morning at the hands of a madman.  We prayed, we spoke to the "mountain", we declared truth of scriptures and we prayed in our prayer languages when we were not sure what else to pray.  We prayed and then we went back to sleep knowing that the visual umbrella over the city I saw while praying was God telling us, "I've got this covered!"

Yet.....still I had to choose to stay calm.  I had been having vivid, negative dreams and in one recently Matt was very sick and dying. This is not the first time I have drempt of him (or our other kids) dying. I am not one to have pleasant dreams! The very first time was when he was in 6th grade and it was so vivid and felt so real that I hid the shirt he had on in the dream.  I confess, I lied and told him I lost it because every time he wore it my stomach tightened up with fear.  Well, I cannot hide his uniform now.  He wears it proudly and serves his city.  He truly does put his life on the line.

Since Matt is all grown up with teens of his own, (how hard is it for his family?) I know I can no longer make the worry go away by hiding his clothes like I did when he was 12, I can make a better choice. I can pray, trusting that he is in God's hands.  I can rest in knowing our son is a good, smart cop.  I can remember he loves the Lord and he is His child.  He is fulfilling his calling and even though we have seen the years wear heavy on him, we keep surrendering him to our God, trusting His plan and purpose for Matt's life.

I expect we have prayed and surrendered all our children to God at different times for different reasons. One battling addiction, one to heart failure, one to violent choices, all of them when moving forward from our home into the world.  As parents we never stop wanting to keep our children safe.  Never.  We love them so much we want to protect them from the world....but we cannot.  We can only remember that God loves them even more than we do.

That is why when the phone rings at 4:40 in the morning, we take a deep breath, say a quick prayer and answer, declaring with our actions that God holds our loved ones in the palm of His hands at all times and in all circumstances and remembering that umbrella......and knowing God is saying..."I've got this covered."