Shoved and Elbowed by God

Photo: Raul Lierberwirth, Creative Commons, cc license

Drying my hands on my pants, I stepped around the corner. Sitting outside the church sanctuary on hallway benches, a young couple leaned close. Smiling and bending down to hug them, I talked briefly, already hearing the first song playing.

Photo: Theen Moy, Creative Commons, cc license

My friend's eyes were tired, her answers perfunctory although warm, and I saw her young husband stroke her arm. I touched their shoulders again in love, raved about how cute their round-faced baby was, and strode away.

Seven-year old Daniel skipped beside me, gripping his Sunday School papers, while we shook the ushers' hands and stepped into the dimly-lit worship center. It was crowded but we found three seats, knowing Mark would join us shortly. Pushing my hair back, I stood and joined the singing.

"Go back," I felt God say.

"Now? I just got here. Leave worship?"

"Go back. Go now," God shoved me mentally.

"Daniel, I'll be right back. Stay here, okay?" I could see my friend Daisy just two chairs away and knew Mark would be there any minute.

"Okay, Mom," Daniel said, his forty-nine inches so short in the dark room.

In the hallway, her husband was alone as I approached.

"Is she in the bathroom?" I guessed, heading that way.

"No, she went out to the car."

I spun around and bounced downstairs. He called out the car make and model but Honda-something was unfamiliar to me anyway. I walked the parking aisles, looking for a head in a car.

"Lord, help," I asked.

Three passes later, I found her and knocked on the car window, crawling inside. Her eyes were red and she swiped a sweatshirt hand across her cute freckled cheeks.

"Hi, God loves you so much, do you know that? He told me to come back. He knew," I said softly.

We talked and opened up our lives together. Worship in the parking lot looked like praying, raw talks, and reminding ourselves of God's heart.

Thanks, God, that you are perceptive and tender, and that you are good at nudging me hard some days.
 

In between the Doorbell and the Cheetah Print

"Mark, would you mind carrying the heavy basket of laundry to the bedroom, please?"

It seemed counter-productive to lug away the pile of unfolded clean clothes without finishing them, but I knew that people would be arriving shortly and I wanted the crumpled jeans, rumpled shirts, cheetah print underwear out of the living room.

Stacking mismatched mugs and clanking glasses, I put away the clean dishes and started another load. Slippery salmon-smelling plates clattered as I slid the bottom drawer back into the machine and poured in soft detergent soap. I lit a candle, flung wide the windows, and quickly swept the wood plank floor.

Borrowed books and paper piles lined my desk, covered the dining room cut-out windowsill, and stood tall in several corners of the room. I grinned and nodded. Lego warriors, gold ninjas, and minuscule plastic swords lined the wide living room window mantle, and sunshine stroked yellow light onto long green plantain-leafed houseplants.

"I'm not going to have the house perfectly clean," I told Mark. "On purpose. I want people to feel welcomed and safe, at ease in a lived-in home. I know too many people who have been afraid to invite people over because they thought their homes needed to be perfect. I want to break that image."

Shoes still rampaged and queued up in messy rows in the mud room. Curls of dust glowed in the edges of some stairs, but I pulled up sultry jazz saxophone music and ran faucet water up to the silvery tea kettle's brim.

Calling three newer women at our church and three longer-established women from the church, I left quick texts or breezy messages about a casual spontaneous coffee time at my house. And I had no agenda except to create a place for women to connect, to feel safe, and to build relationships.

This spontaneous adventure in open-door living is special to me, because I've seen life unfold over bulging couches, from within green metal patio chairs, and atop flimsy cotton picnic cloths flung across deep green grass. The beauty of relationships and conversations that bud, unfurl, and spread wide delights me, and satisfies holes and hungers deep inside others' lives too. 

While I would still prefer to have the pink panties and the toppling piles of socks put away before you arrive, I am freeing myself to rest on the days when they are not. It's not perfectly clean, but you are perfectly welcome.

The doorbell rang this afternoon, and I threw open the door. Wind whistled and whined, barreling past the house in a flurry of red and yellow leaves. I poured hot coffee while my new friend swirled and stirred cocoa powder.

Welcome. You are loved. You are enough. You are delighted in by our Abba Dad God. Sighing, I sank into the peace and grace as deeply as my guest did.

What the Engagement Books Never Tell You

Our words hung in the air, awkward and heavy. With anger and hurt on both sides, there was no easy fix.

Photo: Ed Yourdon, Creative Commons, cc license

"I have to go. Morgan needs to get to class."

The drive is quiet, somber; a respectful honor in the silence.

Beside a sunny library window, I text words of apology and await his. I journal and rant for several pages before asking God to soften me, to soften my husband, and to bring peace. Help me, God, to choose my words, to use them well, to seek appropriate times for deeper discussions, and to do them honoringly? Erase my anger and his.

We bought a new bed several years ago, my husband and I. Constructed with a layer of memory-foam on top, the bed is designed to conform to your body, offering optimum support. Two years later, we see now that the mattress tells a story of who sleeps where. Here is his side, here is mine, and in between a raised ridge where weight and time don't dwell there as long.

He pulls me near in these cool autumn nights, and in the still-dark mornings, into this middle ground on the bed. And I grin and nestle closer, feeling his chest strong against my back. We move in sleepy familiarity into the spoon-cuddle mode. He moves forward, pulling me next to him, and I wriggle backwards, dipping under his chin. While I pull my long hair high on the pillow, he slides the edge of the pillowcase across my neck, hiding any ticklish hairs, and we sigh. Our breathing slows, matches inhalation lengths, exhaling together.

And perhaps this is how a marriage lasts long? Pushing down any walls that creep between us, asking God's help to soften our hearts, and curling up in syncopated breathing.

Those Life Adventures You're Excited For -- Guess Who's In the Wings?

Fifty cents for a refill of the house coffee after hugging Amy and Tasha goodbye and I'm back at Coffee Talk. Sitting at an outside round glass-topped table on the front porch, the table trembles as I write and the 9:20 am sun is just cresting a tall pine tree to my left. Cars, trucks, and Harley Davidson motorcycles rumble and roar their way past, and inside the coffee shop, tourists and locals mingle and shake out newspapers.

When we bought our coffee earlier, a pink-shirted blonde-haired woman left her companion at a table and slipped behind the counter, washing her hands.

"Are you sure it's okay with you?" she asked the white-haired barista-owner as he handed Tasha her mocha.

"Sure," he said, and she cashed Tasha's ten dollars, handing back change. They bantered more as I handed over my twenty and ordered a tall house coffee.

"Helping on your day off?" I asked.

"No, I'm his sister," she smiled. "I just step over from my table when it looks like he can use a hand."

Back at my table alone now for a leisurely devotion time, I scribble in warm sunshine, steadying the table with my left hand. A light breeze flips my Bible pages, and a vivid yellow Daytona car parked on the road behind me contrasts beautifully with the tall white steeple behind it. Six blackbirds -- no, ten-- soar and arc in the clear blue sky above the steepled cross.

A ripple of peace and renewal loosens my shoulders and tickles my neck. A night of tenting and wood smoke fire beneath a forest of yellow trees, and dozens of timed group photos beside the fast-flowing glassy brown St. Croix River has blanketed rest deep within me. I can feel it in my long breaths, deep sighs, and sunshine-warmed shoulders and back as I work.

Thank you, God, for your beauty! For miles of curving roads in the Wisconsin Interstate State Park campground, for tall grey bluffs and craggy cliff faces, and for spongy green moss against a backdrop of brown and yellow leaves. Thank you for red-tufted mushrooms caps and rope-harnessed lithe rock climbers who make me want to exercise too.

Thank you for close friends to struggle to start campfires with, and to sip cool drinks around glowing embers deep into the night, our stomachs full of tinfoil-roasted chicken, onions, sweet potatoes, and peppers. Thank you for sticky marshmallows right before bed and sleepy conversations until 11:30 when we could no longer fight tiredness. Thank you for cozy sleeping bags, and more padded mats each year for our forty-one-year old bodies, and for a deep night's sleep inside a green and orange tent; for clear stars in a dark night, a full white moon; and the desultory drops of dew from the trees this morning and crackling chipmunks in the brush.

Thank you for your word open to 1 Corinthians 12, and the sun on my face, warm enough for a t-shirt in late September. "Now about spiritual gifts..." you begin, and you talk about giving us talents, skills, passions. "Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good."

Thank you that you are a God who steps in, saying, "Let's work side by side. You don't mind, do you?" And we get to stand shoulder to shoulder in life's adventures.

Beating Burn-Out and Burning Long

It floods and crashes, this wall of raindrops thundering and crescendo-ing around us. This is the second sheet of water this afternoon, long roaring showers that drift in my open windows, batter the leaves, and rush in tiny tsunamis down the side of the road.

Photo: DeShaun Craddock, Creative Commons, cc license

Water soaks into the green lawn, and pools in puddles, reminding me of where I need to extend my gutters. And I breathe it in, this heady scent of rain, soil, and wet leaves.

It's been a dry month. Tomato plants are yellow bones with drooping withered fruits. Today's rains soak deep into the ground and run racing in channels down the streets.

Back in the kitchen, I scrub hardened egg off saucers, rub dried tea stains off mugs, and catch a glimpse of the flickering candle on the counter. Green mounded edges curve towards the light on a candle that needs to be glowing for several hours. For best results, keep candle burning for six hours at a time, the label says, and I've seen it. How the hardened candle needs to be in the light, next to the fire, and kept simmering there for best results. How it's the heat and the light over time that burns the candle for the longest use and most even life. Otherwise, the label explains, the candle will burn unevenly and flare hotter deep within, but leaving the outside cold and unaffected. Soon, the candle would be burnt out inside, with the exterior useless, no longer able to reach the flame.

And it reminds me of me. Because any task can be worship, and my desire is to meditate long on God's word --his light and heat -- to stay soft, useful, moldable. The verse that's been flickering through my heart this week has become a mantra the last few days. I whisper it to myself on tired mornings, speak it out as prayer in bleak moments, and singsong it as joyful song.

"The Lord gives strength to his people; he blesses his people with peace." I've seen that this week, and asked him for that, sinking deep into its truth. Our Creator God spills out barrels and gallons of his strength and sends crashing waves of his peace despite storms.

I can still see the rain outside my kitchen window. It's simmered to a warm mist, and the world is washed by it. My green candle burns long, its edges curving inward. I dry my hands and, with even pressure, gently slide the top wax towards the heat. It glimmers and glows, and it feels like worship.

Photo: Michelle Muirhead, Creative Commons, cc license

Creating a Home in Life's Chaos

Standing in line on a Minneapolis street in 2006, we started crying. Wiping tears off our cheeks, we laughed self-consciously.

"It doesn't feel right to be here without Mom, Dad and Jeremy, huh?" I said. My sister nodded.

Photo: Carolyn Pinke

Fifteen years earlier in war-torn West Africa, our family of five lived in a green concrete house. Under towering mango and papaya trees, our corrugated zinc roof roared raindrop music in the daily tropical storms. Red dirt circled our house, clung to our feet, and spiraled off military jeep tires as they passed. Militia and rebel groups increased on both sides and BBC radio broadcasted growing concerns. Soon atrocities and the American embassy required our evacuation to neighboring Ivory Coast.

Photo: Carolyn Pinke

By kerosene lantern light, my mom poured rattling popcorn kernels into a metal pan. Dad shuffled plastic cassette tapes beside our battery-powered stereo, clicking one into play. Canadian musician Bruce Cockburn's guitar thrums and throaty voice swelled into familiar verses and choruses. Hot popcorn sizzled and exploded, a salty nut smell hitting my senses...

Follow me over to Emily's site for the rest of the story, please? 

I'm honored to be guest-posting there during the release of her newest book, Making it Home: Finding my Way to Peace, Identity, and Purpose. Her writing and heart are beautiful.

Korean Octopus, and You, and Me

"Whoa, octopus! Let's get some."

He's peering in past a frosted glass window to a ten-inch package of purple tentacled octopus legs coiled tightly, their suction cups pointed out at us. In an international Asian grocery store with green tea popsicles and dried mango slices, I love that seven year old Daniel is brave and eager to try new things.

Photo: J. Griffin Stewart, Creative Commons, cc license

"We'll see," I murmur, "I don't know how to cook them yet."

Twenty minutes later in the deli section, we see it, and my husband and I grin to each other. "Daniel, remember how you wanted to eat octopus? They have it here. We'll get some!"

He cheers and skips happily as we edge closer to the counter. Soon we are crowded around a small square table, the three of us sharing a monstrous bowl of soup and nibbling steaming octopus dumplings. He slurps beside us, wrestling with his chop sticks on the miles of ramen noodles, and the beauty of this moment etches itself onto my heart. Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hmong, and our European blend of German, English, Irish, and Czech whirl and pass in this busy, jumping restaurant, a gorgeous mix of cultures and languages. And I love that I can sip spicy Japanese soup, sample Korean octopus dumplings, and pass tall elegant veiled Somali women on the sidewalk outside.

We finish our meal, wipe up our spills, and carry the dishes to a back corner. Paying for the groceries, we drag a metal cart holding our fifty pound bag of rice to the car, and turn towards home. In the car, the Minneapolis skyline dips and whirs past, and the beauty of cultures reminds me of heaven.

Daniel surprised me recently. Sitting on the couch beside me, he said, "I have a Korean friend."

"Yeah, you do," I agreed, thinking of his cousin and several friends from church. "That's cool, huh?"

"I'm a little Korean too," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Really?" I asked, curious to see where this was going, looking at my son's summer-highlighted caramel hair, brown eyes, and peach face.

"Yeah, I have the shirt."

And I laughed to remember that his cousin and his friends had all received the same soccer jersey he had from a recent missions trip. And apparently having identical shirts from overseas makes him Korean.

I hugged him and thought about heaven where the Bible says we will have people from every language and people group around the Creator's throne, and I can't wait. You and me? We're part of an international family. It is beautiful, vibrant, and requires action some days too. 


I have the shirt.