When Chaos Comes

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Mickey MouseA week ago while I  answered emails, baby Emerald jabbered happily behind me on the floor, playing with an old Mickey Mouse pop-up toy. All of a sudden there was a noisy crash much like breaking glass, followed by Emerald’s loud wail.

I spun around just in time to see hundreds of marbles scatter all over her and the floor, their glass container lying next to her. Marbles were skittering wall-to-wall and into two adjacent rooms, bouncing off baseboards and heating vents.

Not high enoughGrabbing Emerald to soothe her panic, I figured her reach had grown longer than I’d estimated, and she’d pulled the heavy jar off the shelf where it had been doubling as a bookend.

After putting her safely in her walker, I crawled around on hands and knees, scooping marbles back into the jar, finding some of them 20 feet away. I wanted to get every single one, since 9 month old babies who put everything into their mouths aren’t compatible with marbles.

Even after my diligent search that day, though, I’m still finding strays in distant corners, under bookshelves, behind table legs, and under upholstered chairs. Today I stepped on one (barefooted) in a closet.

ChaosAn explosion of chaos, whether it’s marbles or just a chaotic life event, usually includes a major clean-up effort. And often the ones mopping up aren’t the ones who made the mess. For example, Emerald wasn’t capable of picking up the marbles (of course), so I needed to do it. That minor mishap, though, was nothing compared to some of the turmoil life brings, along with the complicated aftermath.

But sometimes those of us who think we’re innocent in a messy situation, really aren’t. Did we neglect the preventive measures we should have put in place to make a disaster less likely? Could we have been more sensitive to a need behind a deed, helping someone ahead of time?

It takes two to tango and usually takes more than one to cause a catastrophe. If we uncap our halo polish insisting we’re without fault, we probably aren’t. In the case of our flying marbles, I should have been watching Emerald more closely. Turning a back on a busy baby is never smart.

It’s possible God lets chaos happen in order to get our full attention on a certain problem we haven’t been aware of. It might be his effective way to avoid something worse down the road. In other words, minor chaos now in exchange for absolute bedlam later.

Does that mean we ought to thank God when everything’s falling apart? The problematic but accurate answer is yes.

High enoughToday I’m thankful for flying marbles. It let me know Emerald can reach higher, pull harder, and hurt herself more seriously than I thought she could. And now I know. Our marbles have been relocated to the very top shelf.

“O God…. renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)

Character Counts

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Last Friday the 91 year old mother of a friend died quietly after living a much-admired life, and her funeral tomorrow is sure to be a long one. That’s how it goes after a life has been well lived.

Elizabeth SchambachElizabeth Schambach worked hard this side of eternity, beginning by growing up amidst 13 siblings. After marrying at 19, she and her husband bought a farm in America’s heartland and raised 6 children of their own. Working for her family and on the farm through her 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s wasn’t easy, but she labored faithfully at the tasks given her, even after losing her husband at 58.

John’s early death hadn’t been part of the plan, and she was a widow  nearly as many years as she’d been a wife (39 married, 33 a widow). But God never stopped blessing this lady and made sure she wasn’t lonely. He enriched her life with 6 children-in-law, 23 grandchildren, 51 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great-grandchild!

Hands.And that wasn’t all. God had a gentle plan for Elizabeth’s exit from this world last week. She’d eaten dinner at the care facility where she lived and then had attended a festive hymn sing. Being a lover of music, she’d clapped her hands to the beat of the old songs she loved so much, and went off to bed that night with music in her heart.

But 90 minutes after Elizabeth had drifted to sleep, she was woken by the surprise of her life when she arrived into the presence of Jesus Christ himself! My guess is she picked up right where she’d left off at the hymn sing, clapping her hands and singing with joy!

Although Elizabeth Schambach had enough family members to fill a town hall, she’d never been a famous woman. She hadn’t run for political office, had never been on the cover of a magazine, didn’t compete in the Olympics, and wasn’t able to amass a fortune. But she did something far superior to any of that. She won God’s approval.

And she did it by living the life he intended her to live, in the not-so-easy circumstances in which he placed her, a life of impeccable character and satisfied contentment.

Interestingly, that’s what he’s looking for in all of us, because character counts big-time with God.

God's instruction bookLike Elizabeth, a person of honorable character won’t be swayed by popular opinion and won’t put stock in the latest fads. She won’t long for fortune or fame. Instead she’ll base her behavior on God’s instruction manual without trying to edit out the distasteful parts. And when the right decisions always end up being the hardest ones, she’ll make them anyway.

If Elizabeth was here, she could probably attest to all of that. But she might also want to add a line from an old hymn: “It will be worth it all, when I see Jesus.”

And now….  it is.

“A wife of noble character …. is worth far more than rubies. A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” (Proverbs 31:10)

Face to Face

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Yesterday Birgitta and Emerald shared some giggle-time watching YouTube videos of laughing babies. Emerald responded with delight, as if each face was part of her inner circle of friends.

I see you!What is it about a picture of a baby that delights another baby? Even when she looks at herself in a mirror and smiles, she might not know it’s her, but she knows it’s another baby-face and laughs in response.

Not so with adult faces. Most little ones stare with skepticism at pictures of adults unless they know them personally. In some mysterious way a baby knows that another baby is “somebody like me.”

After reading the Bible, I’ve gotten the impression God looks at people much the same way, smiling at us with pleasure. Scripture says, “He delights in his people.” (Psalm 149:4) This is illogical and mysterious, since he’s perfect and we’re far from it. So why does he delight in us?

Could it be because he made us “in his image?” In what sense, though, are we the image of him? The only thing I can think of is that he and we are all eternal. Or maybe he enjoys us just because he made us. Even in our human world, when we make something we get attached to it, whether it’s a story we’ve written, a picture we’ve painted, or a room we’ve designed.

Despite those possibilities of why God takes pleasure in us, the most probable reason is that we’ve made the righteous choice to choose him, enjoying him personally, directly, one-on-one. When I think of him delighting in us because we’re delighting in him, it begins to make sense.

Still, there are verses that step outside of us focusing on him, passages that flat-out say how much he enjoys us. For example, Psalm 18:19: “He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.” And another one: “The Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with victory.” (Psalm 149:4)

Even in these, though, we see how “rescuing us” and “crowning us” has been accomplished only through his Son. So he can delight in us because he delights first in Jesus and then sees us through the lens of that perfection.

But if we want to work on being more Jesus-like ourselves, he tells us how:

  • take time to read and study the Bible (Psalm 112:1)
  • do our best to obey his commands (Psalm 119:47)
  • fear him and put our hope in his love (Psalm 147:11)
  • speak words of praise to and about him (Psalm 70:4)
  • daily listen for his wisdom (Proverbs 8:34)
  • strive to live blamelessly (Proverbs 11:20)
  • recognize that only he can save us (Isaiah 61:10)

And then, just as Emerald smiles when she sees another baby, God will smile on us.

“The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him.” (Psalm 37:23)