Category Archives: God’s plans for us

Picture-Perfect

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My daughter Linnea is in Michigan with me this week, husband Adam, 3 year old Skylar, 2 year old Micah, and 4 month old Autumn. Having children around enlivens the rest of us. Their enthusiasm for life is contagious, even the way they hit the “go” switch the minute they come to consciousness each morning and keep going till they’re ready to drop.

This afternoon as Skylar and Micah napped, Autumn didn’t, so since I was babysitting, this little girl and I had some one-on-one time. We unloaded the dishwasher together, picked up toys, played peek-a-boo, took a stroller ride, and sat in a rocker. As we cuddled there, she fell asleep in my arms, melting into a limp bundle of pudgy beauty.

I couldn’t help but study her sweet face the whole time she slept, marveling at how perfectly she is put together. Of course no one is perfect, but looking at her today, she sure did seem to be.

Looks can be deceiving, though. In Autumn’s short life she’s already demonstrated enough me-first episodes (especially during the night!) to convince us she isn’t perfect. But then again, we’re not surprised.

“Welcome to an imperfect world, little one.” (She’ll fit right in.)

Although the odds for perfection in this world are against us, life didn’t start out that way. Eden was flawless, and earth’s first citizens, Adam and Eve, probably qualified as perfect. For how long, we don’t know. Maybe an eon. Maybe 10 minutes. It certainly wasn’t God’s fault they threw perfection overboard for a blemished existence. They just didn’t carefully ponder the consequences.

Before we come down too hard on them, though, we have to admit we do the same thing. God sets out guidelines for us that have perfection written into them, just as he did for Adam and Eve. We then tweak them to our liking and step in a compromised direction without seriously considering the consequences. When we find ourselves in a mess, we turn back toward God and say, “How could you let this happen to me?”

Such an accusation is almost comical.

Lest we despair, though, he lets us know a time is coming when this unruly tug-of-war within us will end, because perfection will be part of our everyday lives. He says in 1 Corinthians 13, “When the perfect comes…” (v. 10) On that day, Adam and Eve will experience a déjà vu moment, having lived it once already, but the rest of us will be delightfully shocked when it happens. And it will, because God said so. He also said, “My way is perfect, and all of my promises prove true.” (2 Samuel 22:31)

So, what about baby Autumn? In my humble grandma opinion, she couldn’t be any more perfect. But when true perfection comes, it sure will be nice to have her sleeping through the night.

“The law of the Lord is perfect,reviving the soul.” (Psalm 19:7)

Cast your bread.

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I cut my spiritual teeth on the old King James Version of the Bible, so most of my memorizing as a youngster was done in old English. I related best to the many word pictures in Scripture, and one of them I still recite goes like this: “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.”

Mom explained it this way: “You should throw your bread on the water, and eventually it’ll come back to you… buttered.”

That didn’t clarify a whole lot for me, but I figured if God could smear butter on wet, soggy bread and send it back, he must be an incredible guy.

I was close.

The bread-verse is simply God’s unique way of saying if we let go of something we want to control, willingly putting it into his care, he’ll eventually put it into better condition than it was when we let it go. And today I had a buttered-bread-back experience related to this little blog site.

After the Lord prompted me to start posting 3 years ago, he morphed the site into a blog that encouraged widows, then caused a widow-friend to tell another widow about it, who contacted me about writing a book. She “happened” to have influence at a publishing company and put me in touch with an editor, who coaxed me to ask for endorsements, which put me in touch with Nancy Leigh DeMoss, who today recorded a week’s worth of radio programs (with me), challenging widows to seek encouragement through my little book and offering it as the resource on her radio broadcast, “Revive Our Hearts.”

Nancy Leigh has a global listening audience of multiple thousands, which means widows all over the place will be encouraged, and suddenly I understood about the buttered-bread. Embarking on widowhood was a project I never wanted, but as the above chain of events began to unfold, my nervousness pushed me to hand the whole lot over to God (i.e. casting it on the waters), knowing that if I didn’t, I would surely make a mess.

And so it became his blog, his book, his broadcast, his everything. In my ineptness, I knew I could trust God to take care of the things I knew I couldn’t. And as he always does, he followed through exactly as he said.

The Lord is teaching me to put whatever I “have” into his care, without hesitating. But so often I waver. How come? It’s probably because I want to retain control. Of course none of us has the control we think we do, whether it’s our schedules, our investments, our influence, our children, our husbands, or anything else. We don’t control them today, and won’t tomorrow.

Maybe the smartest thing to do, then, is to throw it all on the waters and trust that the God of buttered bread will do the rest.

“Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” (Ecclesiastes 11:1)

Wounded Hearts

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Recently at the beach I came across a beautiful heart-shaped stone the size of a fifty-cent piece. As I brushed off the sand, I saw it wasn’t a keeper, because it had a hole all the way through it. I dropped it and stepped over it, but several paces later decided to go back and get it. Suddenly a holey heart seemed more realistic than a perfect heart-shaped rock, a reminder of the wounded hearts common to all of us.

Very few people are strangers to heartbreak. Whether it’s cruel criticism, a betrayed confidence, a personal rejection, or a piece of bad news, everybody gets wounded at one time or another. When Nate received the shock of stage 4 terminal cancer, both of us took a heart-stabbing. Then 42 days later when death snatched him away, a second wound came, at least for me.

Why does God allow us to feel deep heart-hurts? Couldn’t he emotionally anesthetize us, at least a little? A woman in childbirth can opt to be partially paralyzed (temporarily) through an epidural nerve block. She remains alert and participates in the birth, but most of her pain is eliminated. Couldn’t God allow us to experience a broken heart in a similar way, without the stabbing emotional pain that always accompanies it?

A friend of mine, Judy Allen, made an astute observation about all this. Because she’s always looking to “connect the dots to God,” she’s noticed something interesting. She said, “Sometimes the only way into a person’s heart is through a deep wound.”

God is no stranger to hard hearts. Again and again in the Old Testament he describes the children of Israel as having hardened their hearts toward him, and in the New Testament he repeatedly warns us not to harden our hearts for several good reasons:

Scripture says resistant hearts end up as ignorant ones, meaning that people who oppose God are asking for trouble, and usually they find it. He also says hard hearts find it difficult to understand what he wants to teach them. They’re closed off to his wisdom and devoid of spiritual understanding.

As a result, and because he loves us, he’ll step back and permit a deep heart-wounding, but it’s always and only to get a place of entry. Then after that, beneficial things begin to happen. Wounded hearts gradually change from tough to tender, from resistant to receptive, and best of all, from cold to affectionate… toward him. In that condition, a broken heart is ready for his supernatural mending.

I hope I never experience a spiritual heart of stone, but if I do, my holey heart-stone will be a ready reminder of what to do.

“Blessed is the one who always trembles before God, but whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble.” (Proverbs 28:14)

Link to Judy Allen’s blog: www.ConnectingDotsToGod.com