Category Archives: God’s character

Go, Granny, Go!

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In 70 years I’ve never loaded and unloaded suitcases as often as in recent months.

IMG_1380Last December it was off to Florida to welcome grandchild #11, Nelson Aaron. After 10 days in babyland, I flew home in January, using every minute of two days to unpack and re-pack for Kona, Hawaii.

Kona babyEmerald needed a nanny for a couple of months, and I was the lucky winner.

 

FullSizeRender (3)From Kona I flew to California to spend a delightful 8 days with my cousins and their families, after which I winged my way back to Hawaii to participate in Nelson’s pastoral ordination weekend, a thrilling milestone.

Nelson and Derek

 

 

From there it was a red-eye flight back across five time zones from Kona to Michigan,

 

FullSizeRender (6)where I unpacked and re-packed to head back to Florida for another busy 10 days. Joining in with Linnea and Adam’s lively little ones, as well as with Birgitta and Emerald, I was thankful I could keep up at all!

 

From there, it was another flight home, where I’ve been unpacking and re-packing again, this time for a trans-Atlantic flight to England on Monday. I’ll join Hans and Katy’s family of 7, renewing relationships after 18 months apart.

IMG_5752We’ll celebrate three birthdays, and I’ll work at adjusting to five time zones in the opposite direction of Hawaii’s.

Eleven days later, I’ll fly home along with the sun, back across the Atlantic to unpack once again…. and put my suitcases away. My guess is, I’ll be ready.

Looking down.When flying, I always select a window seat where I can watch the landscape go by, far below. While we zoom along at 650 mph in air temperatures of 50 below zero, I marvel at how small our world seems. For example, two of my kids live half-a globe apart so that when one is waking up, the other is going to sleep. Yet in the time it takes me to read a good book, take a nap, and eat a meal, I can get to both places. The world is shrinking.

Earth, by NASAOften I wonder how God views our planet. Even thousands of years ago, before Google Earth and 767 jets, he looked down and saw our world as small. In Scripture he likens it to a footstool. Yet his opinion of Earth’s occupants is so grand that he paid an enormous price to be sure we could live with him always.

I don’t understand it, but I sure am grateful. And though flying 30,000 feet above the earth is the perfect time to ponder this mystery, being grounded for a while is nice, too. When 18 weeks of “go, Granny, go” morphs into “stop, Granny, stop,” it’ll be ok with me.

This is what the Lord says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool….” What is man, that thou art mindful of him? O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! (Isaiah 66:1, Psalm 8:4,9)

Never!

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Struggling to make myself understood by the gas station attendant who accused me of ruining his car wash (yesterday’s blog), I tried one last time. “The recording won’t let me put in my code!”

“You were just supposed to punch it in,” he said with disdain, “so the wash would start like it always does.”

“But it won’t let me punch it in! It says it’s ‘in use’!”

“No!” he said. “You just punch it in. Like this!” Punching hard at his cash register buttons, he looked at me through a frown.

“But it won’t let me!” I pleaded. “Won’t you please come outside so I can show you?”

“It won’t let you, because you broke it! No – I won’t come. Wagging his finger at me he said, “You go now. No car wash for you today!”

“But I already paid!” I said again.

“No car wash for you today… or any other day! Never!”

And with that he reached into his cash register and pulled out a five dollar bill and tossed it on the counter in front of me. “There. Now get your car and go! And don’t come back!”

$5 (2)

As I walked back to my car feeling completely misunderstood, I thought about how frustrating it is to do your very best at getting a point across and still fail. And I had to ask myself, is that how God feels when I don’t “get” something he’s trying to tell me?

When things aren’t going well and there’s no one to blame, do I blame him? And then does he feel frustrated with my lack of understanding? Or when he’s trying to tell me something through his Word, do I interrupt and “talk over” him by skipping the hard parts or denying his intended meaning? Or do I lose patience when he doesn’t quickly answer my prayer requests?

Does he finally give up and stop trying as I did with the gas station guy? I didn’t really want $5; I wanted a car wash. But he wasn’t willing to hear me out or go outside to identify the problem.

It’s similar with God. He wants me to come along with him, to spend one-on-one time listening carefully to what he’s trying to explain. He’s hoping I’ll try to understand with an open mind. I wanted the attendant to believe me, but from the beginning, he was set against that. God wants me to believe him, too, without my defenses being up against him.

As I walked back to my car, I passed the machine where I’d first entered my code. “Please wait. Car wash in use,” it said. All I could think was that when the next car wash customer couldn’t punch in his code, he would probably head for the attendant, too. That’s when he’d learn that a crazy woman broke it that afternoon.

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 1:18)

But I already paid!

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Dirty carMarch must be a good time to own a car wash in the Midwest. Unlike Hawaii, Florida, or other balmy climates, our cars get dirty fast. When it snows, road-salt coats everything with a cloudy film. When it rains, mud adds a new layer, and when the sun comes out, it bakes everything into a stubborn crust of filthy.

My favorite stay-in-the-car automatic wash is next to my grocery store, so I use it often during these messy months in Michigan. Recently, though, it refused to cooperate.

I entered the code numbers into the computer as always, and the automated voice instructed me to pull forward, as always. But when I got to the place where the light usually flashed “STOP,” it gave me a strange instruction instead: “BACK UP SLOWLY.”

auto car washAssuming I’d pulled in too far, I crept back to the starting line, thankful no one was waiting behind me. Pausing to give the wash-computer time to re-boot, I slowly began moving forward again. But when I got to the sign, it still said, “BACK UP SLOWLY.”

This time I backed all the way out to the machine where I had punched in the code, thinking I could simply re-enter the numbers. But when I got there, the voice was already talking. “Please wait. Car wash in use. Please wait. Car wash in use.”

I poked my code in anyway, but it didn’t change her message. Nevertheless, I’d paid for a wash and was determined to get one. Pulling forward a third time, I saw the same BACK UP instruction and decided to take a new approach.

Turning off the engine, I left my car and walked around to the busy gas station, where I got in line at the check-out. When it was my turn, the attendant surprised me by yelling at me. “What do you think you’re doing going back and forth, back and forth in my car wash? You’re going to break it!”

“It’s already broken,” I said, “but I didn’t do it.”

“You did!” he said, in front of three customers. “I saw you!” He pointed to one of 4 TV monitors at ceiling level, and sure enough, there was my parked car on the screen.

“But it told me to back up instead of stop, so I did.”

“See?” he said, feeling vindicated. “That’s when you broke it!”

I tried to defend myself, but he cut me off. “Get your car out of there!”

Jabbing his finger in the direction of the TV monitor, he repeated himself in a louder voice. “Get it out of there right now!”

“But I already paid for a wash!” I whined, trying not to look at the faces of disgruntled customers waiting their turns.

(…to be continued)

“All things should be done decently and in order.” 1 Corinthians 14:40