Most babies and toddlers are given toys involving various shapes that fit in specific holes. The purpose, of course, is to develop the reasoning skills to match like items. Usually young children are fascinated by this physical, concrete challenge and will try and try again until they master the toy.
Unfortunately, we do not often carry that same enthusiasm over to the more abstract challenges of human personalities and traits. We attempt to press all into the same hole, regardless of what shape each individual may take. Any sharp corners, any odd protrusions, are labeled with ominous sounding letters and either bullied or medicated into invisibility.
Our family happens to possess many such inconvenient differences, some shared and some unique to one or another. Those traits have exerted prominent influences on everyday life recently, causing enough difficulty that we have had to call attention to certain differences in efforts to overcome. A few days ago I overheard my children at the lunch table discussing their differences. “I’m OCD.” “I’m ADHD.” I’m Anxiety.”
Although it’s hard to avoid absorbing some of that attitude from society in general, we as a family do not approach differences in that way. We took the time that day to redirect our thinking. These letters are not who we are, they merely describe a small part of ourselves, a part that makes us unique. Because those corners don’t fit in the prescribed hole, others see them as weaknesses to be eliminated. Instead, when we find the correctly fitting hole, those assumed weaknesses become great strengths. The perfect circles can’t fit into our holes anymore than we can fit into the circular hole. We possess something others do not and must learn to use our unique traits for their unique purposes. Only when all the shapes in the puzzle find their matching hole can the puzzle be complete. Only when each individual embraces and directs uniqueness into a fitting pursuit can a society function as a whole.
Thunder rolled, a deep rumble that drew all eyes to the mountain. Clouds gathered to darken the peaks, lightning punctuating the unending noise. The glow of fire began to turn the roiling shadows red, flickering tongues of flame piercing the billowing waves of black. Invisible shofars reverberated in the air as the watchers clapped hands over ears in pain and terror. Men and women fell to their knees as the earth rocked beneath them. Then came the words, the unavoidable voice that held all rapt: I am the Lord your God.
The walls rose white in the sun, reflecting its brilliance over the descending streets of the city. Gold crowns at pinnacle and gate held what seemed to be the pure flame of God Himself, drawing the notice of every citizen as they went about their daily business. Thin trails of smoke rose from the inner courtyard as the priests offered the daily love offerings of individuals seeking God’s presence. The sound of singing echoed from the inner walls of the outer court and drifted to the ears of passersby, drawing them in to join the celebration. The entrance bustled with activity, the lowing of cattle vying with the calls of shepherds as excited citizens prepared for the coming feast. Already pole frames were being erected, with piles of branches and rugs near each, ready for the week’s commemoration of the wilderness years. Levite servers bustled about, children racing through the streets stopped to stare at the gleaming temple in innocent awe, while their parents sang snatches of psalms and chattered about tales of days gone by. All eyes drifted often to the towering brilliance, and whispered prayers of thanksgiving accompanied joyous smiles.
Stone by stone the great pillars rose overhead, soaring to the vaulting arches and crystal panes of the impossible ceiling. Light filled the space, reflecting from the polished buttresses as if they held the light of God within themselves. Standing on seamless stone tiles far beneath that glow one could imagine oneself within the walls of Heaven, breathing the breath of God. The voices lifted in song echoed from above, mimicking the heavenly choirs unheard by mortal ears. Eyes could not remain earthbound, but soared upward seeking communion with God Himself.
The colors blended together, casting shadows from painted lanterns that seemed to hold light unbound by physics. The bowed head of a woman, cradling the linen ready for the coming of the child, carried the anticipation in the pains that already cramped her womb. The man, almost formless in her shadow, holds the pent-up breath of every passerby gazing on the image. The great empty road in front of her, lit by the lantern yet somehow sliding the eye back to her waiting figure, gleams of possibility. When will the Savior arrive? Will the couple, chosen to provide the simple human life He will lead, find shelter in time? Like the figures frozen in the painting, breath stops in every throat watching, waiting with them.
Color washed across the sky, particles of light playing a silent symphony against the atmosphere. A ridge of white marked the edge of darkness as the last rays peeked above the banks of clouds. Below, a haze of yellow fire blazed like the glory of Heaven itself. Eyes and hands lifted in awed worship.
Over and over God has focused His people. His inspired writers told how over and over He drew their minds and hearts back to Him using grand architecture, beautiful music, inspired artisanship, captivating stories, and shocking displays of power. Over and over those writers spoke of His intention for worship being an offering of man’s entire self, a connection with all that God is in order to lift mankind out of the physical realm into the spiritual one. Over and over He has entertained the souls of His people within Himself.
Voices rise in stirring melody, singing words of praise to God. Sounds of music tremble in the air, quickening the heartbeat and wakening souls to touch the Father. Hands lift and heads bow as the weight of the Savior’s love crushes resistance.
Stories are told of hopelessness banished, lovelessness redeemed, helplessness relieved, or evil vanquished. Beautiful things, films about simple joyous themes, and music reflecting love and life wake souls to God’s presence and draw their eyes from the sorrow of darkness to the joy of His light. They entertain toward faithfulness.
The Star-Belly Sneetches hate the Plain-Belly Sneetches and enforce strict segregation. The Plain-Bellies are understandably unhappy until a stranger shows up with a very special machine and promises to fix their problem by giving them stars. Unfortunately, the real problem proves to be deeper than marks on bellies, and the stranger’s machine wreaks havoc on Sneetch society as they race each other to preserve the status quo.
This classic by Dr. Seuss is a great way to teach kids the destructive nature of hate, as well as how superficial our differences really are. In this particular volume it is accompanied by stories like “What Was I Scared Of?” and “The Zax,” highlighting the silliness of being ruled by selfishness and fear. Kids will giggle with delight at the goofy rhymes and zany characters, all the while absorbing principles that will make them compassionate, empathetic individuals.
There’s a running joke that the day after Christmas all the moms blow their stacks. Let’s face it, we all know the feeling of waking up to the piles of empty boxes, wrapping paper, and new toys that don’t fit anywhere. That’s why this year I can’t wait for Trash Day.
I don’t mean the day the trash can gets picked up, although that’s pretty important. Actual Trash Day requires an empty can ready to be filled. Before all the empty boxes get thrown out, the house gets purged of all the old clutter. The kids will sort through their rooms for unappreciated or broken toys and “treasures” that no longer hold value to them. Mom and Dad will declutter closets and corners that hold unnecessary collections.
This year the clutter seems worse than ever. Perhaps less space is available as the kids grow; clothes do take up more and more room. Perhaps we’ve simply hit several developmental leaps at once as we leave preschool for good, discover hidden talents, and surge inexorably toward adolescence. I’m leaning toward the latter, as most of the piles seem to be supplies for various growing interests.
As much attention as I am paying to physically cleaning out old things, the things represent something much more to me. The last few years have delivered many struggles along with the lessons to be learned from each. As a result our lives seem to be cramped and overflowing inside trappings and constructs that we have outgrown. As we physically fill our trash can with discarded things, we mentally shed our old selves in order to make room in our lives for new ideas and new beginnings.
Many people make New Year Resolutions in an effort to set their lives on track. Most find themselves unable to keep such contextless promises to themselves because they have no room. We make no special resolutions here; instead, in Trash Day we experience a completely fresh start.
The woman of Sychar belonged to a people with a cobbled together heritage. The poorest, least useful of the Israelite people were left in the war ravaged land to fend for themselves and eke out what existence they could along with floods of foreigners displaced from their rightful homes by their mutual conquerors. Never faithful to the Sinai covenant in independence, in captivity these castaways blended what little they remembered and treasured with bits and pieces of the many religions brought to the region by foreigners. Mt. Gerizim, where Jacob’s Well had been dug, became the center of their corrupted but unfailing worship to a God they never knew due to a faded memory of blessings pronounced there and a crumbling altar built by Moses.
The Jews in the Roman region of Palestine were a people of enduring heritage, a nation that had lost their way more often than not but that had retained overall allegiance to the letter of the Sinai covenant. They were a people divided into sects that squabbled over legalities, followed religious rites to the smallest detail, but treated the neediest of their people like scum and used God’s house as a marketplace for the sake of personal convenience. They abhorred and ostracized the corrupted remnants of Israel in the center of the region because that remnant had impure blood and rejected the temple, rather than seeking to redeem them.
When the woman of Sychar met Jesus at Jacob’s Well and questioned Him about the appropriate place of worship, she expected Him to say Jerusalem and harangue her as any “good” Jew would have done. Jesus had a far different answer. Instead, He told her that the time would come when none of the earthly trappings of religion would matter any longer. No longer would there be legally prescribed rituals, God-blessed temples, historical altars, ordained priesthoods, or blood sacrifice. Instead, those who KNEW God and gave their whole hearts over to Him would spend their lives in soul-sourced worship to Him alone. In other words, they would worship in spirit and in truth.
The woman, as ignorant as she was of God, recognized the fulfillment of prophecy when she saw it, and immediately accepted the Messiah and His words. Immediately she sought to know Him and bring others to know Him, and her focus on physical traditions and religious laws vanished. Unfortunately, it was a conversation Jesus, and the apostles and teachers after Him, would have to repeat many times.
Despite having two thousand years to sit with their message and reflect on it, we seem to have stopped short of the transformation seen in the woman of Sychar. Those who claim the name of Christ divide into sects based solely upon legalities in a system no longer defined by laws. Despite abundant scripture and evidence that God created everything about humanity for the express purpose of glorifying Him, each sect insists with great force that worship can only happen in specific places using specific rituals led by specific types of people. Perhaps one group requires great temples, special robes, and prescribed prayers. Perhaps another insists that only the human voice can be used to worship, that worship can only happen in an assigned building but that said building has to be as plain as possible, and that proper reverence excludes any expression of human emotion or any physical comfort. Both approaches, and any approach that seeks to set boxes around worship, reject the words of Jesus Himself.
Like both the corrupted remnant of Israel and the Jewish people, we do not know God. We have replaced Him with our own ideas and preferences and selfishly called those by His name. We cannot truly worship someone that we do not know, no matter how sincerely we may try. If we focus on physical trappings of religion our spirit, our heart, is excluded. Neither the Jews who revered themselves nor the corrupted remnant who lacked information had it right. Neither were prepared for the heart and truth that Jesus revealed through his human life, brutal death, and impossible resurrection. We have had two thousand years of reflection upon their failures. It’s time to accept the truth of freedom in Christ and pour our whole hearts into a life of unending, unselfish worship to our Lord.
It’s the countdown to Christmas. Time to decorate the house, finish all the gifts, watch all the movies, listen to all the music, and cook all the food. At least, that’s the plan.
The Christmas tub was stored on the porch through all weathers this year instead of making it back to storage where it belonged. A snowglobe exploded inside it, mildewing all the stockings and the cardboard box of ornaments. A good long soak in the washer saves the stockings, and most of the ornaments escaped damage, so after a few hours that crisis is averted.
The tree skirt finally bit the dust after twelve years of use, so a new one must be selected and ordered. I would make one, but my make list is already daunting. I suppose if the new one doesn’t make it on time we’ll just hide the lack with presents.
The lights wouldn’t fit in the tub last year, and no one can find them. Anywhere. We have exactly three short strands that I bought as emergency backup at the dollar store a week ago. Last year we had an entire flat. And I have sticker shock from a quick online search for replacements.
Every year we go as a family to pick out a live tree. It’s the most important tradition of our season. OCD has decided it doesn’t want to go this year, the rest of us should just go. We have until Friday to work that hiccup out. After which we still won’t have lights to put on it.
All the things will work themselves out. Adventures will be had in the solving of some of them. Children will go insane with excitement, parents will take many breaks outside in the cold to ensure they don’t lose their holiday joy, cookies and treats will fill the house with good cheer, and Christmas morning will arrive with all its usual magic and fanfare, just like every year before. And we will forget December 1st until it arrives once more to remind us that we are the magic.
As we enter the holiday season this year I feel the mood around me to be different than past years. Politics, economic uncertainty, and a persistently negative media presence seem to be doing their best to destroy our spirit and leach the joy from the season. It is one of Satan’s most effective tactics to play on our fears and uncertainties until they grow to drown out everything else. I refuse to let that spirit win, so here are my joys.
1) The prospect of rising food costs has provided incentive for learning forgotten ways of providing. This year my family is experiencing the old-fashioned togetherness of foraging for wild foods. My husband will be taking my son hunting for the first time and teaching him how to dress out his harvest for himself. Already we have found bounty and beauty that we never saw before though it lay right beneath our feet.
2) Locally grown resources abound around my home. There are dozens of farmers within driving distance, and small, local groceries stocking their produce are much promoted. Those same stores also sell locally produced canned goods like jelly and sauces. A local meat processor does enough business that it had to double its capacity this year. Our state has begun to drill its own water wells. Local sawmills have begun to pop up.
3) We have good neighbors. We look out for each other, trading needs without question or hesitation. Young or old, well off or not, everyone has something to share.
4) We are blessed to homeschool our children, to have them with us always, to know them in ways I never knew possible, to guide them in finding who God made them to be. We are blessed with amazing friends who share this blessing, whose children reflect their abiding connection with the God who made them. The relationships that have grown from our shared connection are a source of strength and joy through all challenges.
5) We have the knowledge, constantly increasing, of the provision God made for our mental and physical health. Because of this, we are capable of caring for ourselves in case of illness or injury, and of using God’s bounty to reduce the need for intervention.
6) We have a roof over our heads. It may not look like much to the world; it’s small and needs repairs. Our furniture shows definite signs of wear, and our decor is, well, functional. Despite its perceived shortcomings, it is a home that we are blessed to fill with life and love.
7) We will spend this holiday with family, as we have every year of our marriage without interruption. We will carry our bounty of food to their home, where my nephew will rush to the door to greet “his kids” and my daughters will daub themselves with ingredients in their eagerness to participate in producing the feast. We will join hearts in prayers of gratitude and joy and chatter excitedly about Christmas plans.
8) God’s creation has screamed His name from every corner this season. I don’t remember such a vibrant fall in our part of the country as this has been. Brilliant colors, the sounds of well-fed wild things, and crisp weather surround us, filling us with contentment.
9) I am blessed with an unshakeable marriage. That isn’t an accident, and I will never take it for granted. Our relationship has been forged by the fires of loss, childbirth, health challenges, financial uncertainty, and miscommunications, all of which we fought through together to know each other as intimately as ourselves. We are two halves of a whole, and I pity anyone who may try to break our bond.
10) I am safe in the arms of my Savior. He left infinity to wear our finite form, to become like me, to struggle like me. He experienced life like me from birth to death, a death more horrific and humiliating than any I am likely to meet. And He did it to show me who I could be, to show me a life I could never have imagined otherwise. Because He did, nothing on this earth can touch me, no matter how hard life gets or what is done to me. I am eternal with my Father and my Redeemer.
Today my husband and I spent the day outdoors. It’s the height of autumn here in the south, and this year has brought us a particularly fine one. The normally green beauty of the woods has flamed with color, and the lake bottom is rusty with orange and purple.
I revel in the crisper air and the brilliant color that coats the world for such a brief moment, but we didn’t go out to appreciate that today. Everyone with eyes can see that flamboyant display whether they try or not. We went in search of something a little less obvious.
There is perfection buried in the shade of those bright leaves, but not everyone can see it. Some are overwhelmed by the blatant beauty and are convinced it is enough. Others may realize there is more to see but don’t know how to find it.
What do you see in the picture? Leaves? Look closer. Now what do you see? Deep in a hole full of dead leaves, a hole I might have stepped in had I been focused on the canopy above, grew these tiny, fragile mushrooms. So small and delicate that a touch might break them, they clung to the side of the hole and peeked around the edges of the protective leaves.
Much about life, about people, is obvious. The way we look, the way we act, the things we say are all the blazing leaves on the trees, impossible to miss. But what is hiding on the floor of that brilliant forest? Do you know how to look? It doesn’t take special education. It doesn’t take titles or notoriety. It requires time taken to step slowly and gently. It requires leaning in to examine every inch of ground for what is hidden. It requires the gentlest of touches to shift protective leaves away from the fragile thoughts and feelings buried deep within.
There is so much unexpected beauty to be found. If you know how to look.
Pilate asked that question with apparent sarcasm when faced with the Source of all truth in His courtroom. It’s a question our society has taken up as a rallying cry, and one which many who claim the name of Christ have joined in shouting. Some have even said to me about various events or issues that we just can’t know the truth so we just have to go along and do the best we can.
In a way, I understand why this has become such a popular idea. With the entire world on information overload, and every individual’s opinion spread around the world as fact, discerning truth is possibly more difficult now than at any other time in history. The effort required to wade through all of that to find nuggets of fact and put those nuggets together in a whole picture of even one event is more than most people can face, and no wonder. Most come to the conclusion that truth is unknowable out of frustration and despair at sorting through the chaos.
Fortunately for all of humanity, the scripture tells a different story.
John 8:31–32 (CSB): If you continue in my word,, you really are my disciples. 32 You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
We don’t need all the world’s information and opinions to discern the truth of anything. One overarching truth cuts through all of the noise. The truth that God created all things, that He provided for both the function of our physical bodies and our eternal life, rules our perception of every issue, every problem, every event. Acceptance of that truth leaves us free of doubt, free of confusion, free of chaos. There can be no more despair or frustration with knowledge of the One Truth. All that is left is to learn what He expects me to do with that Truth, and then devote my life to doing it.
When people talk about parenting challenges, they usually talk about toddlers or teenagers. No one really addresses the middle years, the years of learning, discovery, and character shaping. My ten year old son is right smack in the middle of those years.
For several months now his behavior has been, well, challenging. We’ve been unable to curb a tendency to bully, and chores have been more miss than hit. We won’t even mention the lack of respect shown toward us as parents. Fortunately, my husband had a clue.
Last week he relinquished ownership of one ax to our son. Instead of taking a turn at things like dishes and laundry, our son is now responsible for making sure we don’t freeze this winter. We have wood heat, so my husband cuts and hauls all our wood himself. This year, he will run the chain saw and our ten year old will split and haul, as well as help keep the heater full.
The change in his attitude was immediate. No more bullying, no more disrespect. He is proud of that ax, and proud that he cuts a little deeper every time he swings as his strength grows. He even wakes up in the middle of the night to check the heater! He’s still a little boy with a lot to learn, and it will be a while before he can perform this job perfectly and without any help, but he stands taller already.
You see, every human being needs purpose. Not just any purpose, but the one God created for them to own. Skills like washing dishes or laundry, while necessary for all humans to know, chafe at a boy seeking to direct his developing testosterone and strength. He is made to work hard, to challenge his limits, to protect and provide for those upon whom he bestows emotional attachment. Keeping the fire going may seem like a small thing, but for a ten year old it becomes purpose.
We’ve talked often in our home about work, but as we have recently admitted, our culture has stripped much of our true purpose out of work. Women, who once spent their days keeping the family fed, clothed, and nurtured with the direct labor of her hands and heart now chafes with time on her hands and her labor replaced by technology and machines. Men, who once tested their endurance against the elements to house their families and prepare the ground to produce food, who once set their minds to outwitting the instincts of animals in order to harness their power or harvest their meat, now chafe at desks and try to bury their frustration in virtual combat. Children, who once filled critical roles as assistants in house and barn, now seek endless stimulation and chafe at chores artificially assigned by parents desperate to teach some semblance of responsibility in a world that requires none.
I appreciate so much of the convenience we experience in our modern culture. We have so many blessings that the denizens of yesteryear never imagined. But unless we in some way return immediate and created purpose to our work, for both ourselves and our children, those same blessings feed the endless misery of an empty life.
The Word Worker 
