Category Archives: Friendship

Travel Advice

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Every once-in-a-while I find myself driving through our old neighborhood in Illinois, a “country” suburb of half-acre lots with room for children to roam. Although I can’t freely turn into my old driveway as I did for nearly 30 years, I have pulled in next-door for visits with my good friend Becky.

Becky D

For 22 years we shared the same lot line and were friends from our first meeting at the swing set with our babies, to the farewells after our moving van pulled away. My husband died of cancer several months after we left the neighborhood, and 6 months after that, Becky’s husband passed away, also of cancer. (See “Hi, neighbor!”) Despite living on opposite sides of Lake Michigan now, we’ve been united in heart while sharing a call to widowhood.

The year after our men died, both of us did a great deal of traveling. It wasn’t so much planned as just what happened, and it wasn’t always easy. One day I received an email from Becky (written 3 years ago) while on a trip to Europe with some of her family. Because I believed her thoughts were Spirit-inspired, I saved it.

She wrote:

“I’m trying to develop the discipline it takes for me to travel with my faith. There are quite a few Scriptures that use the visual of putting on faith as a garment. Romans 13:14 says, ‘Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.’ Colossians 3:12 says, ‘Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.’”

Becky’s faith-discipline efforts began even before she left home: “My first faith-choice was packing my suitcase,” she wrote. “I had purchased a smaller, lightweight Bible for traveling, but it didn’t sit well in my heart to leave my beloved big Bible behind. The Holy Spirit reminded me that my make-up bag was just as big and heavy as my Bible, and I would never leave that behind! So in went my big Bible.”

She continued, writing from a hotel room in France: “It’s been tricky carving out prayer and meditation time, and time to read God’s Word, when it would be easier to wake up and jump right out to the streets of Paris! Traveling depletes me quickly, because I easily get distracted from my faith-routine. It’s actually scary how fast it happens away from home, in strange lands, surrounded by folks who may not yet share my faith.

“My choice for each day, though, is to clothe myself in his Word before venturing out sightseeing, because I know when we return, I’ll be depleted again, needing more time to rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”

Travel plans

Today Becky’s wise travel advice has been reverberating in my ears, since I bought a plane ticket to England to meet my soon-to-be-born grandbaby. And I want to remember that nothing I pack will be more important than putting in my faith-garments.

 

 

“I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness.”  (Isaiah 61:10)

 

A Beach Party Lesson

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Many people say the Bible is hard to read. It’s a big book for sure; my copy has 2067 pages. But a good place to start is with the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They read like storybooks about Jesus, detailing the things he said and did.

One of my favorite Bible stories is told in John, and maybe the reason I like it so much is because it describes a beach party. Jesus hosts it for some of his disciples, and since the anguish of the cross is over, these men now know him as their risen Savior.

But things between them have changed. Where formerly they’d literally hung out with Jesus night and day, since the resurrection they’d only seen him twice, and then only briefly. No doubt they had questions. “Is Jesus out of the picture now? What does that mean for us? Should we go back to our old professions?”

Fishing boat

In the biblical beach story, Peter seems to be moving in that direction. “I’m going fishing,” he says. “Do any of you want to come?”

Some did, and surely as they bobbed along on the Sea of Galilee that night, they conversed about the radical changes for all of them since Jesus’ death and resurrection. Their understanding of what was going to happen next, either to Jesus or themselves, was minimal.

Talking on the boat, most likely they expressed a longing to be with Jesus “full time” as they had been such a short time before. By dawn, exhausted, hungry, and discouraged, the fishermen head for shore. Across the water about a length of a football field away, they spot a man on the beach who shouts to them, questioning them about their catch (or rather the lack thereof).

Jesus calls to the disciples

When their net miraculously fills with big fish, they recognize the man as Jesus and are thrilled! Even so, John writes, “None of them dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ ” Their relationships with Jesus had somehow changed, and most likely this was painful for each of them.

My guess is they’d been missing Jesus so much that they literally ached to be with him. In many ways, I understand what they were going through, but not in relation to missing Jesus. My missing has been all about Nate.

When I thought about the disciples and especially the demonstrative Peter, who leapt into the water and swam toward Jesus the instant he recognized him, my heart jabbed me. “If only I could have that kind of one-more-meeting with my husband. Just one breakfast like the disciples got with the person they’d been longing for.” But the impossibility of that made Nate’s absence seem worse.

As I studied the beach Bible story, I sensed God was about to teach me something new. And it turned out to be something pretty important.

(Continued tomorrow…)

Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught…. Come and have breakfast.” (John 21:10,12)

Anytime, Anywhere, and Always

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AslanMost of us have read The Chronicles of Narnia series written by C.S.Lewis. Although the major players in these fantasies are 4 sibling children, the real star is a male lion named Aslan.

My favorite line from the books is a 5-word statement that recurs throughout the series: “Aslan is on the move.”

In the storyline, once the big lion has begun to move, all kinds of impressive things begin happening, positive things that defy logic and bring delightful consequences. The lion has supernatural power over everything from relationships to the weather, and the children learn to put their fear of him aside and trust him.

Aslan dies.

When they discover that Aslan’s enemies have bound him and tortured him, they hide in the bushes, frightened and in deep distress over his suffering. As he is killed, their grief escalates, but the next day they realize their beloved Aslan has come back to life! Their joy knows no bounds.

In the Lewis allegory, Aslan parallels the character of Christ, who sacrificed his own life for another motivated purely by love. Once resurrected, the lion is again “on the move,” and eventually his good conquers all evil.

When I hear that statement, “Aslan is on the move,” I think of the way God answers prayer. Let’s say that back in 1986 I begin to pray for someone I dearly love, to commit her life to Christ.

Many years pass as I pray, and my friend evidences no changes in her beliefs or behaviors. She has zero interest in spiritual things. Eventually, as lack of an answer discourages me, my prayers for her wane, and by 2002, I table that particular request altogether. “I guess it’s not meant to be,” I think.

Then, in 2006, taking me by surprise, my friend begins asking questions about the Bible, suddenly interested in what Scripture has to say. I think, “Aslan is on the move!” I might even speak that sentence out loud thinking, “God has finally decided to answer my prayers of 20 years ago!”

In reality, he began to move way back in 1986 with the first voicing of my very first prayer about my friend. Though I didn’t see any outward evidence of change, he began creatively shaping circumstances, rearranging the details of that woman’s life, and bringing along situations that would challenge her toward faith.

In the Narnia story, Aslan’s arch-enemy is a witch who tries to work her magic on him, but his response is profound: “There is a magic deeper still the Witch does not know.”

Trust

Of course Christ’s power has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with him being God Almighty, but the principle is the same: with his unmatched supremacy he can overcome evil with good anywhere, anytime, and always.

And incredibly, he often begins the process by responding to our prayers.

“I am the Alpha and Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8)