Finding Joy When You're Fighting to Stay Afloat

Photo Credit: Carolyn Pinke

He's singing and the echoes bounce off shower walls, YMCA tiles, and slip under door number three to us in the family locker room outside. Daniel's happiness slides out and over, a cacophony of joy in a bathroom of strangers. The door cracks and he appears, hair wet swirls on his forehead and standing tall in the back. His face is flushed from hot water after a cold swim lesson, and he slips small toes into grey camouflage snowboots, humming cheerfully.

"I was thinking about God," he tells me, shifting his balled up red towel and damp swimsuit to me as he plunges arms into bunched up blue jacket sleeves. "He's the king of kings, God of gods. He made everything --galaxies!"

"He is! He's so cool. The one true God, huh?" I open the door of the locker room and we head past the basketball court where Daniel peers through glass walls to see if his friend is there. "How were front scoops?" I ask, knowing this was a hard swim technique we had prayed about just an hour earlier.

He grins wide and talks, adjusting his jeans waist as he walks, and skipping occasionally.

I grin. "Yay, thank you, God. He helped you. He's always listening and helping us through things, huh? You worked hard and persevered too. I'm proud of you, bud."

Holding hands, we walk across a dark parking lot, alert for red taillights.

"Whooo, it's cold," he shudders, pulling his hood up, and we drive home looking at the Christmas lights and talking.

Happy December, friend. Wherever you are today, know that your Abba God sees you, hears you, and knows your thoughts. Talk to him and watch him join you in those lanes, swirling you through the face-in-the-water-front-scoops of your own stories. You are loved and delighted in. Then burst into ricocheting praise to him in whatever shower stall or room you're in.

Smiling and learning about God from a wet-headed eight year old, I remain,

your sister and friend, Jennifer. What are you learning and reading about lately?

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When Grief Stalks

Cinnamon coffeecake plunges high up my plastic fork while brown sugar topping flakes and tumbles from the top. Espresso grinders whir loud then fade to the music from overhead speakers. Three inch pink baby shoes glide by in a black stroller; purple sippy handles peak from a stroller's corner. Wooden coffeehouse chairs scrape and clunk hollow, and I sip my hot refilled coffee from blue cardboard.

On a morning of Monday's clean laundry piled high and an upcoming evening church softball game, we received word of a tragic car accident. A former youth group student and his family of five were killed in a multiple car pile-up involving a semi-truck. His family's faces still grin happy in the missionary magnet on my fridge, just a month away from their departure to a new life in Japan.

My cell phone's text message blinked the news, and it was too awful to believe or to speak aloud.

"What?" Mark kept asking me in my gaped silence, "What?!"

Our shock and grief looked like crying in Mark's arms, my tears and nose running and wiped on his shirt unconsciously while we prayed. Grief looked like numb silence and staring slack-jawed out the window.


"What are you looking at?" Daniel wants to know, peering out the window too.

"Just thinking about our friends, bud," I murmur, and we both fall silent.

Earlier, concerned by our tears and unsure how to respond, Daniel had fled the room. Following him, I found him burrowing under his blankets in the dark room.

"We can be sad together. It's okay to cry and to ask God hard questions."

My words falter and fall short today. Typing a short message to my friends to mourn their son and his family, I tell them that we ache and cry with them.

Community is shared grief, shared silences, shared tears. And God's chest is big enough for those hot tears and raw words too.

A Recovered Diamond

Upswept blonde hair twirled into a loose French bun revealed classic pearl earrings and the back view of her face. A grandson bounced on her lap as she sang “Holy is the Lord God Almighty,” pausing to wipe tears from her cheeks in the chorus. 

Minutes earlier, after the first rousing song and when the whole church congregation stood to shake hands and talk, she leaned back, taking my hand and drawing me close to talk. 

“Toby* said he accepted Christ this Friday!” came her soft voice. More details came, confirming those words, and tears came to my eyes for this new teen male that I had been praying for and just getting to know this year. 

His baleful eyes had grabbed my attention as soon as we met their family. He reminded me of so many in my life that I care for and pray hard for. My husband and I talked with him whenever we could, hoping to coax smiles and comfortableness in him.  Toby was polite but hated being there. We prayed hard, and sincerely enjoyed talking with him whenever we could. He thrilled and shocked us when he started coming to youth group on Wednesday nights. 

Now this morning, his mom leaned close, silver blonde hair swept up, and my tears swept out.  “Wow, thank you, God!” I didn’t know why I was crying, since I had only known Toby for a short time, but we had been praying earnestly for him. 

In the Bible, there is the familiar story of the young woman who lost one of her ten silver coins. I was reminded recently that those coins were part of her headdress, announcing that she was married. The coins were costly and significant, similar to our wedding rings and diamonds. 

When the woman discovered it missing, she ransacked her house, trying to recover her missing wedding coin. The coin was irreplaceable and invaluable, so she didn’t give up until it was safe and found.

 It took time. It weighed on her heart and mind. She never gave up.

This weekend, a diamond has been recovered, and its value is huge! 

Do you have someone you are praying for? I would be honored to pray with you for them. Feel free to simply mention them by one letter. (For example, J or S.) I have many loved ones and dear friends that I pray for too, in a humble, respectful way. May I pray with you for them or for something this week?

*Toby is not his real name. Photo credits to Microsoft clip art too.

Jazz, Prayers, and a Translation in Progress

Quiet jazz music flows around me at the kitchen table here tonight. Hot water in my favorite mug warms and relaxes me. Three year old Daniel just downed two yogurts. “I hungry, Mom,” he had declared earlier.

I love being a mom: hearing his requests, striving to meet them if they are good for him, and then snuggling beside him as he tells me about his day in kid-speak. Often we have to stop and translate his words for others, since everything is not intelligible yet.

A few weeks ago, my husband taught a lesson on the Lord’s Prayer to our youth group teens. In Matthew 6:9-15, it says,

“This, then, is how you should pray:
‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'"

My husband pointed out to our teens that the first line encapsulates the two extremes of God’s character –huge, Creator of the world, worthy of being hallowed (praised as holy); and yet we are to call Him Father. Such an intimate personal term. Freedom yet reverence.

Verses 9 and 10 deal mostly with large, cosmic issues: God’s authority and the instant obedience that happens in heaven; the odd tension here on earth of the “earth’s being the Lord’s” and yet it being enemy-occupied territory for a season while the evil one has a limited time here (2 Corinthians talks about the “god of this age has blinded their eyes” to the Truth, and 1 John 5:19 states that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one”).

The next verses of the Lord’s Prayer step away from the abstract cosmos, getting more personal and quotidenne. I am told to talk to God openly about my basic physical needs; to enlist his aid in making the healthy emotional choices of forgiveness, releasing resentment; and to run to him honestly in spiritual issues of temptation.

Wanting the teens to better grapple with the Lord’s Prayer after this teaching, my husband asked them to write the prayer in their own words. Laughter, murmured thoughts aloud, and silent reflection reigned on the mismatched couches in the youth area for several minutes. Then bit by bit, they read their paraphrased prayers aloud. It was beautiful.

Trying to put God terms into human words sometimes leaves me grasping for words like a preschooler with some unintelligible words. I’m so thankful for my Abba Daddy who knows kid-speak and can translate for me. He knows my needs, teaches me, and then snuggles up to hear about my day. Here’s my paraphrase of the Lord’s prayer from that night.

“Our big strong heavenly Dad,
Great is your name—great is your glory.
We look forward to you kicking out the evil one; and our world no longer being an occupied fallen territory. I can’t wait until the stain of sin is lifted off the earth to be pure and clean like in heaven.
Please provide our food and needs each day. Forgive us and help us forgive others.
Help me to recognize sin and hate it, staying away from it. Protect me from the evil one.”

What about you? Want to join me in this fun exercise? You can post your paraphrase below as a comment or feel free to blog about it and then link back to me here, so we can share it together. It’s a helpful way to reflect more on the Lord’s Prayer. Plus, how was your Thanksgiving? What was your favorite dessert then?