Hearing Voices

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Margaret

Our church loves children. They and all their extraneous noises are welcome in the services, and our pastors frequently espouse the value of their generation. To make our worship hour more palatable for youngsters, a big basket at the back of the sanctuary sits filled with small cloth bags of quiet toys: crayons, coloring paper, shoelace-thread, sewing cards. All of us want children to know they’re a high priority to us, and by association, a high priority to God.

Of course a nursery is available for parents who need a break from their babies, or for children whose fussiness would distract other worshipers.

Today as we worked our way through the order of service, childish voices/noises erupted here and there along with the singing, praying, and preaching. Generally, though, quietness reigned. During the Scripture reading we suddenly heard a muffled but shrill baby’s cry coming from the narthex at the back of the sanctuary, behind closed doors. Maybe only those of us who are mothers heard it, but it was definitely a baby crying, probably being walked around by a nursery worker trying to quiet her.

Like a shot, a 20-something man jumped from his aisle seat and rushed toward the back of the sanctuary and out the double doors. Without even looking, he’d recognized the cry of his own child through closed doors, from far away, and above the speaker’s voice. Impressive.

As the service continued, the baby-crying stopped… within seconds. Whatever it was, daddy had fixed it.

That church-time mini-drama tugged my thinking right out of church and into heaven, specifically to God and his hearing abilities. Watching that young father bolt from the sanctuary was a demonstration of what God continually does for us. He’s always listening for our cries. And though the earth is populated with 7 billion people, all of whom are capable of crying, he recognizes the individual voices of each of us whether we’re whimpering, sobbing, or wailing.

The baby who cried in the church narthex this morning wasn’t making any specific request: “I want Daddy!” or “I’m hungry!” or “I’m frightened!” It was just a cry. But never mind the reason. Her father jumped from his seat and hurried to her anyway.

God does the exact same thing. If we’re expressing a need, he comes to us quickly, but even if we don’t know what we need, he comes then, too. By his strong response to our troubles, he’s saying the same thing our responding daddy was saying this morning: you, child, are important to me, a top priority. I’ll do whatever it takes to help you when you need me.

How wonderful to let children know, from their earliest days, that they’re important to us and to the church, and more significantly, to God. And we oldsters need to remember, the same goes for us.

“Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry.” (Psalm 130:2)

A Good Idea

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Margaret

When I last visited Linnea and Adam’s family, their children’s ages were Skylar-3, Micah-2, and Autumn, just 6 weeks. All of them, parents included, were still in the throes of adjusting to a new baby.

One day after Skylar, Micah, and I had come home from a quick trip to the store, I suggested the kids open the toilet paper 12-pack we’d bought and use the soft rolls like building blocks. My own little ones had enjoyed this, and it would keep them busy for a few minutes.

In short order Skylar was constructing a beautiful tower, adeptly lining up the TP rolls one atop the other. “Take a picture, Grandma Midgee!” she said. Even little Autumn was fascinated, quietly focusing on the TP from the safety of her infant seat.

After snapping a picture and complimenting Skylar’s fine engineering skills, I walked around the corner to put my camera away and came back to find this:

… a good idea gone bad.

We can all remember initiating projects (or relationships) that in the end went sour. Most of us can cite experiences that started well but resulted in our being robbed of time, emotions, or money. And all of us have choked down a piece or two of humble pie after making errors in judgment or decisions that were just plain stupid.

But… (we said), “It seemed like a good idea at the time!”

Scripture tells hundreds of tales about foolhardy people acting recklessly against God’s counsel, stories that could have ended with the quote above.

Eve thought it was a good idea to eat the forbidden fruit.
Abraham thought it was a good idea to say his wife was his sister.
David thought it was a good idea to sleep with a married woman.
Peter thought it was a good idea to disassociate himself from Jesus.

How could so many bad ideas have seemed good… at the time?

It was probably a result of thinking that personal judgment outranked everyone else’s. But God included biblical stories of failure to show us what not to do. It’s up to us, though, whether or not we act differently.

Sometimes we make the same thoughtless mistakes expecting something different than the same miserable results. And it doesn’t help that when our botched ideas “seem like a good idea at the time,” God’s ideas often “don’t seem like a good idea at the time.” But if we follow his wiser way anyway, the bottom line has a much better chance of turning out good.

I did learn something from the TP tower episode: grandmas don’t always have the best ideas either. After all, it was my idea to put baby Autumn on the floor to watch Skylar’s TP construction. It sure seemed like a good idea at the time.

“Pray that our God will make you fit for what he’s called you to be; pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something.” (2 Thessalonians 1:11)

Dialogue in a Deli

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Margaret

On Friday I drove the 90 miles from southwest Michigan to Chicago, back to a place I call “Nate’s hospital.” It’s the place where we learned he had terminal cancer, where we drove the long round trip 14 times for radiation treatments, and where we met Dr. Ross Abrams.

Dr. Abrams had the difficult job of delivering one piece of bad news after another to our family as Nate struggled through his 6 weeks of cancer. The doctor also positioned himself to be our soft place to fall after each new (and always bad) development. Somehow, in the 2½ years since those dark days, the doctor and I have found enough common ground to become friends.

The relationship is based on respect for one another, fleshed out in hour-long conversations that take place only once every few months. All of our meetings are at Nate’s hospital. This time as I arrived to connect with Dr. Abrams he said, “Let’s talk upstairs in the deli rather than in my office.”

As I followed him through a labyrinth of halls, everything suddenly looked familiar. And as we came to the deli, which was full of medical personnel eating breakfast in their scrubs and white coats, a Nate-memory swallowed me up. I’d sat in that place before on one of Nate’s most difficult cancer days, and the feelings of confronting a hopeless disease came rushing back.

Nate’s brother had accompanied us to radiation that day, after which Nate was scheduled for a full body bone scan, the kind that requires an injection of dye beforehand. Those three appointments (for the injection, the radiation, and the scan) were supposed to take 4 hours total, but a big delay between appointments #2 and #3 found us waiting two extra hours.

That’s when Nate, Ken, and I ended up in the deli, a beautiful facility well stocked with goodies. My memories of that visit are only of sadness, frustration, and a husband in pain. Unbeknownst to us that day, Nate wouldn’t live out the month.

So this last Friday when Dr. Abrams and I sat down at a deli table with our coffees, it was difficult to focus forward rather than back. We talked about the sloppy realities of birth and death, marveling at how these two events have much in common. We touched on life’s disappointments and the unwelcome challenges that come to us. And we agreed that many of these things are tests from God.

I am an evangelical Christian, and Dr. Abrams is an orthodox Jew. Each of us knows what the other believes, and we disagree on many of the religious basics. So why do we keep meeting? What’s the point of our conversations? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because I’m curious about his faith, and he’s curious about mine.