Writers In The Storm

The first time I went to Arlington National Cemetery, even as a child, I was struck by the military homogeneity of the grounds. The white marble headstones rolled over more hills than my rudimentary math skills could fathom. Yet, I knew that underneath each engraved marker lay a man, or a woman, who had served our country with sacrificial honor.

That memory stills make me cry.

My parents are buried in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. While less well known, it is equal to Arlington in honor and ordered magnificence. My mother was called home first, so she got the bottom bunk. She could claim the plot in her own right, having served in the U. S. Navy as a nurse. My father served in both the U. S. Navy and the U. S. Army. For him it was a way out of poverty, and as a first generation American, a means to live the American Dream.

Memorial Day originated after the Civil War. Undoubtedly our broken nation struggled to absorb the horrific loss. To inaugurate the holiday, on 30 May 1868, the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers buried in Arlington National Cemetery were decorated with flowers.

Nearly forty years later, I still have the POW bracelet that I sent away for in 1970. I spent .75 cents to keep a piece of hope upon my wrist until it turned a scary shade of green. My oldest brother and one of my cousins went to Viet Nam and returned, alive, but not entirely unscathed.

My Lt Col is still missing.

His loving wife passed away in 1983. I can’t help but think that his uncertain status was a factor. She would have been in her late fifties or early sixties. His two children live the lives they were given, and the ones they choose to make.

I think the owners of the white marble markers may have a better deal.

We at least know where to put the flowers.

May I take you on a tour of my garden?

Clematis vines twine around wrought-iron topiaries. Giant purple flowers with yellow centers bob against forest green leaves. Iridescent pink roses clothe a bush in the upper beds. A carpet of pink petals dusts the rock wall.

Hidden beneath the bush, a water-loving four leaf clover fills a birdbath where butterflies perch and drink.

Daisies sway in the breeze. Cascading crimson trumpet flowers beckon hummingbird moths to drink sweet sips of nectar. Life bursts from the ground, unfurls in the trees and flutters through the air.

Symmetry, harmony and beauty flow in the lines of a garden. Rest, shade and nourishment feed the body and soul.

“…You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” Isaiah 58:11

I want to Live Above Neutral as a well-watered garden… ordered, life-giving, restorative…created by my Maker for His pleasure and usefulness.

In a couple of days, we’ll flip the page on our calendars and wave farewell to April 2008.

As May unfolds like daisies in a garden, Writers In The Storm will discuss May events: Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, Graduation, Memorial Day and end-of-the-year milestones.

Visit back often for timely discussions that will challenge, encourage and stimulate your love for God, His word and His world.

“Mommy, can I have some Skittles, pleeeease?” my toddler begged in the grocery store line as she looked up at me with pleading eyes. Through the years, the requests involved sleepovers, kittens, cell phones, ponies, and trips, but the requests were almost always punctuated with a “please.”

I do the same thing in my relationship with God. And in my child-like faith, I know He delights in hearing my requests. He invites me to go to Him for everything. Sometimes my requests sound like the widow with the judge–persistent badgering. Other times, my prayers resemble Naaman’s arrogant demands to be healed his way and in his timing. I’ve also experienced the Gethsemane painful, quiet acceptance of “not my will, but Yours be done.”

I’ve learned that the request isn’t nearly as important as the time I spend yielding my desires, plans, and needs to a faithful God who cares about every intimate detail of my life. And in sharing my vulnerabilities with Him, I am changed. God graciously meets me with each supplication and turns my face toward Him as I whisper my “please.”

Christian metaphors make lousy recruitment posters. All the grim imagery of bleating sheep, slave and master, or hunched beasts of burden tend to make one crave a savvy marketing department. The connotations don’t hang well in a modern closet.

We want style, fashion, flash. We want Barbie. Not Gumby.

But, I tell you, Gumby is the man! That boy knows how to supplicate. God made a Gumby out of me.

My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:30

The notion used to make me cringe. It sounded like the mantra of the latest quack cultists. It begged humiliation. It took away my control.

However, my control was like that of the marionette’s: pure illusion. In this world, it doesn’t exist. Without His holy light, that verse is pure nonsense. God allowed me to see the truth. He is in control.

And like Gumby, I can just be me. Unlike all the feminist literature I read during my formative years, this was an uniquely liberating concept. God doesn’t make me into a drone or a clone, nor do I become one with the Borg collective. He doesn’t even try to push my Gumby head bump to the other side. He uses me as I am, flawed and fearful, bending and stretching me as I rely on him.

I identify with the Apostle Peter. Peter, when he was known as Simon, before he submitted to the gentle yoke of Jesus. The loud, foot-in-the-mouth, shoot-first-don’t-bother-with-questions Peter. The one before Jesus declared him, Peter, the rock. He and I had much in common.

I look in the mirror and see only Gumby. Yet my heart knows my journey with God. He led me away from my unholy road and placed me on His path of righteousness. He personally lights my footsteps. I occasionally stop and sniff at the air. Flowers of evil still allure. I can’t reach that other road anymore. I may be able to find it, if I tried, but it could never bring me joy. Still Gumby, yet somehow, different.

God looks into my soul and sees the real me. The one I am to be. The one at the end of my particular yellow brick road, when I am finally and forever home.

God won’t take me by force. He doesn’t need me. He allows me. To join Him in His kingdom, to live forever in glory, to reign with Him. Do I have a clue what that really means? No. What I do know is that His love gives me strength; His presence, peace; and His faithful promise, hope.

To Jesus Christ, only, I freely submit, yield, and supplicate.

As Simon became Peter, Gumby, too, rocks.

“Doesn’t hearing your children call out, ‘Mom’ just make your heart swell?” said the grandmotherly buggy-pusher at Krogers.

I smiled politely.

A few moments later, I heard my daughter saying, “Moo-ooom.” Her voice climbed the scales to the whine pitch. The shrill squeal clawed at my nerves like squeaky rubber shoes on a gym floor.

No. My heart’s shrinking not swelling!

Demanding, whining requests seldom receive favorable responses from mommies, daddies or God. How do I keep my earnest entreaties to God from becoming whining demands?

I would love to hear your thoughts, comments and suggestions.

To Supplicate means to ask earnestly with humility. To beseech. To entreaty.

Join us for this week’s discussion on supplication.

Thank you for the flowers and the green grass, thank you for the trees, thank you for the birds, thank you for my house, thank you, thank you, thank you, Jesus. Amen.

As a kid, I didn’t have a problem with gratitude, at least most of the time. I could almost always find something to be thankful about. Even without cognitively counting my blessings, I intuitively responded to life by thanking God for the good things. Maybe it had something to do with that dusty Pollyanna book I found in my great-grandmother’s cellar when she was “breaking up housekeeping” to retire to a nursing home. Pollyanna approached life by “playing the glad game”–”…when you’re hunting for the glad things, you sort of forget the other….” She made an impact on me–Pollyanna knew how to look at life and be happy.

I sometimes look at the grumbling Israelites and think, “Didn’t they get it? God parted the Red Sea for them–what else could they ask for?” Then I encounter my own wilderness experiences, real life tests for “the glad game.” In some of those desert wanderings, I thirst. At other times, I grow weary with God’s provision–manna, again. In still other moments, I long for days past–the counterfeit freedoms of slavery, sure food, a certainty of a place of rest. Or the promise of a brighter future seems too unbelievable in present circumstances. And in darker days, I want out. Please, no more sand. Just get me out of this ugly, dry, hard, exhausting, barren place–even if it means slavery. I’m tempted to believe the lie that anything is better than what I’m experiencing. Like the Israelites, I’m confronted with the ugliness of my own ungrateful heart.

My struggles stem from unbelief in God’s goodness and ingratitude for His provision–He didn’t give me what I wanted, expected, or asked for. He didn’t make my life easy. He didn’t answer my prayers, cries, and questions the way my genie-deity should. He didn’t part my seas and deliver me. So I doubt His goodness and care. I fail to thank Him for the help of His presence, the certainty of His love, and the assurance of His grace even in the difficult times.

The desert times remind me to just be glad. A choice. A decision to deliberately look for the good today and to delight in the blessings of the past. Childhood thank-yous and Pollyanna glad games. And remember to trust my God when the gladness comes with pain.

On the tarmac, the plane turned toward the gate. A red and blue American Airlines emblem on the tail of another plane appeared in my portal window. The red and blue swam together as tears pooled in my eyes. I gulped, determined not to lose it right there on the plane.

The seat belt light chimed then turned off. I pulled down my carry-on bag, heavy with mementos from my year in Russia. A scratchy, I’m-trying-not-to-cry feeling, made my throat ache.

At the gate entrance, a marine stood next to an American flag. Too much. The dam broke and pent-up tears coursed down my cheeks.

The marine looked at my twisted face, “Been gone long Ma’am?”

I squeaked, “Yah,” and started sobbing in earnest.

He smiled, “Welcome home.”

Ten-years later, I can only sing “Oh, say can you see…” before my voice cracks and tears leak out. In fact, the kindergartners in my daughter’s class watch me during the pledge to see how far I get before the waterworks start.

One year away changed my life.

• I appreciate police, fire and ambulance workers.
•  I’m thankful for building codes, permits and zoning.
• I respect our IRS and the roads, law enforcement and playgrounds our taxes provide.

What everyday things do you appreciate?

Add your list to the comments so we can give thanks together.

I’ve traveled to a couple of foreign countries. I remember few of the many words I exercised while visiting, but I remember how to say “Thank you” from every one. While on foreign turf the phrase, “Pardon me, where’s the bathroom?” probably ran a close second in usage. I would practice that particular phrase so that I could deliver it with absolute clarity. There was no room for error. Yet, I don’t remember it now. It wasn’t a keeper.

There’s a universal quality about giving thanks. The words serve to train the heart. It can be said without words, through a clenched smile, a bowed head, or a stream of tears. It is an expression of gratitude.

The ancient Roman Cicero said: Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

Gratitude requires no deed. It is a posture of the heart. It is recognition and appreciation of that which has been given and cannot be repaid.

Chapter seven in the book of Luke tells of the woman who led an unholy life, but recognized Jesus as The One who could take away her sin. She recognized him as God. She followed him, poured expensive oil on him, cried at his feet, and dried them with her hair. He forgave her not because of the perfume or the tears, but because her heart was sad and repentant at the choices she had made. Her heart recognized Jesus as The One that could give her another chance. She had much to be forgiven. She wanted a clean heart and a rebirth of her spirit. I know how she felt. I thank God for making me clean in His sight, through my belief in Jesus.

I’m thankful the issue wasn’t left up for a vote.

Some days, I don’t want to pray in the conventional sense of asking for help. I just want to spend time at my Lord’s feet in thanks. I want to bring before him anything and everything I can think of for which I am thankful. The list I come up with is probably pitiful, compared to what He has done for me in His eyes. But my heart is right when I do it, because I have been given and forgiven much. He knows.

My heart is bowed.

I am grateful.