Category Archives: God’s plans for us

Being Prepared

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Although I’ve never been a champion at preparation, Nate was. It’s one of myriad qualities I admired about him when we first met and is a perfect illustration of opposites attracting. For 40 years his example tutored me in how to get ready for things (which is not to say I was a quick study).

Life offers unnumbered commitments for which we ought to be prepared: the first day of school, meeting an airplane, tax day, having enough gas to get to our destination. When these predictables take us by surprise, a finger can usually be pointed at the faulty party.

But sometimes we come up short on preparation because we didn’t have a clue something was coming: a premature baby, a tornado, a traffic accident, a cancer diagnosis.

And then there’s the big one, death. Even in the case of long-term illness, when death snatches a loved one, none of us are fully prepared.

Tomorrow I’ll attend the memorial service of a 32 year old young man who died suddenly, without explanation. To be prepared for that was impossible.

Although this man’s parents stood in front of a church and dedicated him to God when he was a baby, that didn’t feel like preparation for death. When they let him go off to school “on his own” each morning, that separation was nothing compared to the separation of death.

When they prayed for him, asking God’s will to be done in his life, they were opening themselves up to whatever God chose to bring. But death? They weren’t thinking of that.

It’s an encouragement to know God sees what’s coming when we don’t. Just as parents paint the nursery before the baby arrives and load the back pack before the first school day, God the Father gently moves the pieces of our lives into position before the unexpected hits us. Within the tumult, we can’t see it. But later, usually much later, we look back and say, “Oh, that was him there… and again there.”

Our family found this to be true. Several months after Nate died, my kids and I actually drew up a list of God’s “positionings” among us before the whirlwind arrived.

Getting a glimpse of this divine preparation on our behalf doesn’t lessen anyone’s sadness while going through it, but it softens the raw reality. And when we turn around to search for God, we see how he was there throughout, and can’t help but feel his love because of it.

“Father, prepare me for whatever is next.”

“Those who cleanse themselves… will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.” (2 Timothy 2:21)

Lost and Found

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Today’s beach trip revealed a surprise, literally. When Birgitta and I came over the dune ready to enjoy a hazy but lovely afternoon together, we saw that someone had dug a giant hole in the sand. And sitting in the middle of it was the previously-buried blue kayak that I watched sink below the sand many months ago. (1/25/11 – “Hidden Away”)

During winter storms the beach’s configuration had changed, and the shallow covering of sand I remembered had grown a foot deep. Seeing that this “lost” boat had been found was very satisfying. The fact that someone was actually hunting for it meant even more.

All of us feel lost once in a while, and when we do, we ache to be found. I remember feeling lost at 13, that awkward age between childhood and adolescence when kids struggle to find their place.

My parents viewed me as a child, but my changing body (pimples and other surprises) told me otherwise. Having moved to a new neighborhood, I’d lost my old friendships and felt like a bottom-feeder at school. My older sister was a beauty, my younger brother a prince, and I longed for a label, too.

Everything came to a head one Sunday morning at Moody Church. I’d asked a Sunday school pal to come home with me for lunch, but she couldn’t, and I took it personally. I started to cry on the church steps, and when Mom arrived she said, “What’s the matter?”

Feeling like I couldn’t possibly summarize my many woes in one sentence I said, “Nobody loves me.”

Now that I’ve mothered seven children through being 13, I see how that conversation was doomed. What statement could possibly have offered the comfort I needed at that moment?

“Oh honey, that’s not true.” Mom said. “Your father and I love you, and so does…” (glancing around) “…so does Caroline!”

Caroline was my brother’s pal, 4 years younger than me, just a little kid. Mom’s “comfort” only deepened my conviction that no one loved me, and my life was without purpose. I felt lost and ached to be found.

God is in that exact business, finding the lost and lavishing his love on them. And he even goes one step further, allowing us to find him, not only when we seek him but even when we don’t. His desire is that none of us feel lost but instead all of us know the delight of being found.

I’ve learned since my crisis on the church steps that most 13 year olds feel as I did, and it quickly passes.

As for this afternoon’s newly visible kayak, if it could talk it would say, “I was lost but now am found!”

“I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I’.” (Isaiah 65:1-2)

Look and See

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Many of us learned to read by way of the “Dick and Jane” readers, starring Mother, Father, Dick, Jane and Sally. Spot the dog and Puff the cat also featured into the plots.

Each page was three-fourths picture and one-fourth text. “See Spot. See Spot run. Run, run run.” I grew to love this family that was similar to ours, a boy and two girls, a dog that looked like Spot, and a cat named (yes) Puff. Virtually all American children in public grade schools learned to read with Dick and Jane, from the 1930’s to the 1970’s.

When I remember these books, the words “look” and “see” come to mind. The author hoped children would look at the world around them and observe all there was to see, learning life lessons while learning to read. But there were problems.

For one thing, all the characters were white, and their looking and seeing was all from that one perspective. Ethnic children didn’t relate to Dick, Jane and Sally. Their viewpoint was different and needed to factor into the stories. In the 1960’s, the books were finally expanded to include families of other races, which brought a richer depth to plot lines for all children.

Sometimes I wonder how differently I would see life had I been raised in a different country or been born to another race or faith. But this is an imponderable. We are who we are and have a limited perspective based on what we’ve looked at and seen.

Wise people expand their vision outside their experience with a desire to see beyond their own worlds. This can be really difficult, but there is a looking and seeing that’s easy to practice.

This picture of Nate and me was snapped before digitals (1985) by an eager little boy who had begged to take charge of the camera. We posed, and he centered the shot perfectly. Had he turned the camera or taken one step back, the result would have been different.

I decided to keep it, though. Even without any heads, the picture tells a story. The arms and hands say something, as well as the clothes, the plaque on the rock, the summer day, the long shadows. Had faces been visible, the other parts of the story might not have been noticed. It’s simply a picture from a fresh perspective.

God’s desire is that we look and see from his fresh perspective. This includes the way we look at circumstances and people, and especially the way we see him. In order to change our perspective, we have to look at how Jesus viewed circumstances, people and his Father, then copy him. None of that comes easily and takes years of practice, but as we try, we’ll see with new eyes.

The demise of Dick and Jane came in the 1970’s as phonics became the standard for teaching reading. But when we hear someone say, “See Spot run!” we know exactly what they mean.

“Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.” (Colossians 3:2 The Message)