Please stay.

Posted on by

Muffin tinWhile Emerald happily played with my button collection and a couple of muffin tins, I studied something else in the mix: my husband’s shirt stays.

Nate liked his business shirts starched till they were almost stiff. When we were first married and he was still a law school student, washing and ironing the all-cotton shirts of that era wasn’t high on his agenda. So he wore a professionally laundered/starched shirt every day. When I hugged him, he crinkled.

Gradually I convinced him to let me do his laundry, and a bit of spray starch with an iron seemed to work just as well. Most of his shirts were button-down at the collar. Those tiny little buttons, almost too small for man-sized fingers, kept collars perfectly straight. But eventually cotton button-downs morphed into button-free collars on shirts made of soft perma-press fabric. That’s when the stays came in.

Buttons and staysEach collar corner had a tiny narrow pocket sewn into it, just big enough for a plastic stay. Those collar points would then stay perfectly flat and stiff…. without any starch.

Over the years I found scores of these stays in the bottom of my wash machine after Nate or I would forget to remove them before washing his shirts. That, apparently, was why they were made of indestructible plastic.

As I fingered those stays today I thought about how nice it would be if we had something like body-stays to help us stand up straight and defy gravity’s tug over years of time. Even better than that, though, would be spiritual stays.

If we had those, there’d be no such thing as backsliding in our faith or losing our first-love enthusiasm for the Lord. We’d never feel blue over a discouraging situation, because nothing could “wrinkle” our bright hope in Christ. In other words, our spiritual stays would work to keep our faith from “wilting,” no matter what was going on around us.

Of course if we consulted God about this, asking for the equivalent of spiritual stays, he’d probably say, “You already have the one spiritual stay you need, the one I gave you years ago. It’s actually a collection of stays that far surpasses even the biggest collection of buttons.

Stay here“They come in the form of my words, and they’re kept not in a baggie with buttons but in the safety of the Bible. If you tuck several of them into each of your days, responding to life according to what they say, your faith will never wrinkle or wilt. And if you’re willing to ‘stay’ with Me in that way, I’ll always ‘stay’ with you.”

 “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.” (Isaiah 7:9)

“Hay” there!

Posted on by

Back in the 1960’s, I spent 3 summers in California with dad’s brother’s family. My Uncle Edward and Aunt Joyce were always welcoming, not just to me but to many young people.

During those teenage summers, my cousins and I spent most of our time in a very small desert town named Hesperia, where my aunt and uncle had a vacation home. Just a few short blocks off Main Street, we were in the wilds of the Mojave Desert: tumble weed, cacti, Joshua trees, and endless sand.

When we weren’t working our day jobs, we took advantage of the wide open spaces to ride horses and then after dark, would pile into pick-up trucks to hunt kangaroo rats and rabbits.

Mojave Desert.

All this was heaven to a girl from the Chicago suburbs.

Hay buckersOur guy-friends worked as hay bucks, hooking 100-pound bales and stacking them in neat rows on a flatbed truck.

We girls often visited them on the job, bringing chocolate milk and cookies to wherever they were working. Sometimes they’d let us ride atop the bales, an experience much like leading a parade on a decorated float.

 

The other day while driving on a Chicago expressway, I spotted a truck piled high with hay bales, triggering the memories of those unforgettable summers in the ’60’s. As I drove along, I had fun reminiscing.

Hay.

Many people say that as we get older, we’re tempted to spend too much time looking back. Soon I’ll turn 70, which means more than 70% of my life will be history. But dwelling on that only leads to believing the lie that my “best years” are behind me.

None of that lines up with the way God wants me to think.

The Bible talks honestly about growing older and how our physical lives inevitably become more difficult. But he also shows us there’s a big difference between an oldster who partners with him and one who doesn’t.

If we’re following him, he wants us to have his perspective: that eternal life begins at the same time earthly life begins. Once a new life has been conceived, the soul never dies. And understanding this puts all of life on a smooth timeline moving seamlessly from life-now to life-then. If we believe this, the emotional burden that aging often brings is lifted, and every year can be a “best” year.

God also offers a deep inner calm, separate and apart from whatever the calendar says we ought to be feeling. And though reminiscing is fun, we should never shy away from eyeing the future… with confidence. As we follow God’s lead, we can continue learning and growing without any gaps — right into eternity.

Cousin GloAs for bales of hay in the Chicago suburbs? One day after those 3 spectacular summers had ended, our mailman brought me the best gift ever: a 100 pound bale of hay, sent all the way from Hesperia!

“He will not much remember the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.” (Ecclesiastes 5:20)

Stopped Short

Posted on by

It’s the middle of February, and here in Michigan we are in the firm grip of winter. Tonight’s forecast is for 9 degrees, and the road in front of my house is coated with clear, crunchy ice. Though our 16” of snow has compacted itself in recent days, outside the windows it’s still a winter wonderland.

Fudge ripple beachThe beach is especially striking in winter, looking every bit like a movie set with its frozen hills and icy creek. Wild winds have blended sand and snow till the landscape resembles chocolate ripple cake batter.

Amidst all this frosty splendor I was recently amazed by a winter-time sight along a Wisconsin expressway.

Frozen mid-streamThe highway was framed by rocky cliffs that had had water gently flowing in mini-waterfall fashion. Because of low temps, the water froze mid-drop, creating striking sculptures of ice. I could hardly stay on the road for wanting to stare at these remarkable formations.

They reminded me of the way God sometimes stops us in our tracks. Maybe we’re heading in a wrong direction or making an unwise decision that will lead to no place good. In trying to spare us heartbreak or failure, he thwarts our plans in-the-now. We get frustrated and feel exactly like those icy waterfalls look: completely stuck.

Though we thought we’d been on our way to something good, changing circumstances rearrange our plans, and we get stopped short of our goals. Then, when we can’t see beyond our jammed-up present to a free-flowing future, we feel trapped. And when that happens, it’s easy to blame God:

We say, “You could have made a way for me, but you chose to stop me instead, and that makes me mad.”

The reality is that somewhere down the road, when we’re in the middle of unique circumstances we couldn’t possibly have foreseen, we’ll look back at our anger over being stopped “prematurely” and be grateful we were.

Winter timeThough we may not arrive to God’s good plan quickly, he does promise he has plans that will “prosper us and give us a hopeful future.” So, since he said it, we believe it…. even when everything around us is still frozen solid.

“Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and per- fect.” (Romans 12:2)