Female Farmers

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How thankful I am for the ladies in my Tuesday morning Bible study. Although I can’t always be faithful in my attendance because of travel and out-of-town commitments, when I’m go, I’m blessed.

We’ve been studying Hebrews this year, and today’s lesson was chapter 12:1-3. I’d been looking forward to this week, because these were Nate’s favorite Scripture verses. This very month they’re being carved in stone on his grave marker as a testimony to Jesus being at the end of life’s race.

The Bible has many race-references, including one I’ve never heard coupled with a running analogy. It’s offered by Jesus himself who uses a farming picture to make his point. He’d just offered someone the opportunity to follow him full time, but the man had deferred, telling Jesus he’d rather head back home and put things in order there first.

Jesus snapped back with this line: “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” His listeners were probably familiar with every farmer’s intention to plow a straight row. If he looked back, his plow would wobble and his furrow would wander. Jesus was highlighting the importance of purposefully moving forward without adding the confusion and delay of looking back… exactly as when running a race.

Today at Bible study, as we talked about persevering through life, plowing forward without getting bogged down in the past, we were each given a drawing of a lush maple tree. Near the roots were written the names of those mentioned in Hebrews 11, the Faith Hall of Fame. Those champions are the foundational examples of Scripture, and in Hebrews 12 they’re included in the “cloud of witnesses” cheering us on as we run our races or plow our rows.

Next to the maple tree were other blanks meant for us to fill as we thought about who else might be in our “cheering section.” Near the trunk we were encouraged to identify people of Christian influence in our childhood. As we edged up the branches, we wrote more recent influences, ending at the top with current “cheerleaders”, a thought-provoking process.

The remainder of our time was spent listening to stories of faith from among us, as women shared from their pasts. All of us took our hands from the plows so as not to wobble the furrows as we listened. What we saw behind us was God’s persistent call through neighbors, teachers, relatives, radio programs, funerals and friends as he faithfully placed his witnesses in our lives.

Every woman put people on her tree who may never have known of their powerful Christian influence on a child, a teen, a young adult. But the best part was realizing God had put each one in place to urge us toward himself and his kingdom at the end of our race or furrow.

As for my new women farmer-friends, we’ll just keep plowing through life together.

“Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God’.” (Luke 9:62)

As Much Fun as a Root Canal

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Although Nate had naturally straight teeth and no cavities, our children inherited my trouble-prone mouth. Five of the seven needed braces, and they’ve endured enough fillings to put the dentist in a Mercedes.

Today I got a taste of their futures, driving to the Chicago area to visit my regular dentist. Actually there’s nothing regular about him, since he’s a specialist in root canals. Normal mouths don’t have a “regular” root canal man, and I’m not proud to say today’s procedure was my sixth.

Admittedly, the process is less of an ordeal than it used to be in the ‘70’s with those pin-like screws being hand-turned into the nerve and then yanked out again and again. Today’s specialist labored behind magnifying goggles and worked on my tooth with power tools through the eye of a microscope.

After 90 minutes of having had my mouth open, I was finally standing at the front desk with the doctor. “Here are two packets of quadruple strength ibuprofen. Take one right now. Also, I’m giving you a prescription for Vicodin, should you need it. And because we found so much infection, you’ll have to take antibiotics for a while.” He shook my hand and told me to have a nice afternoon.

I thought about my poor, battered tooth. A back molar, it had faithfully done its job without complaint until a couple of months ago when a dull ache started calling for my attention. When I didn’t respond, the ache grew worse and swelling started in the gums, along with occasional sharp pangs. While I was still thinking I hadn’t flossed well enough, an abscess had taken hold. And today the raw truth came out.

Nothing stays hidden forever. God says he’ll bring everything into the open one day, all of our secrets. Nothing escapes his notice, and eventually he’ll prove it to us by showing us (and others) what’s been going on “in the dark.” How goofy to think we could ever pull the wool over God’s eyes or sneak under his radar.

Just recently I learned a friend’s husband had taken up with a woman at his office. He’d kept the relationship under wraps until recently when, against his will, the truth came out, breaking my friend’s heart and destroying their marriage. He thought he could live with one foot in each world, keeping secrets from both women.

To live uprightly when no one’s watching is God’s challenge for all of us every day. Just as he saw my abscess hiding deep in my jaw in its early stages, he sees every choice we make and each action we take, even “in the dark.” For some, the consequences of revealed secrets may be so severe, they’ll long for the simplicity of 90 minutes with the root canal doctor.

“Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, ‘Who sees us? Who will know’?” (Isaiah 29:15)

Fire-builder

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Nelson has always loved fire. I remember catching him lighting matches in his upstairs bedroom when he was about eight. “What on earth are you doing?” I said, alarmed at the prospect of a fire in our very old, all-wooden house.

“I’m testing stuff,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Seeing what burns and what doesn’t.”

He proceeded to tell me he’d cut a tuft of his hair, which burned “real good” in a bowl and had tried to melt a plastic truck, which was “no good.” When I saw a black smudge on the closet door, I asked if he’d tried to burn that, too.

“Yup,” he said, without emotion. “I couldn’t get it to go.”

My heart was pounding, but I tried to stay calm, suggesting his experiments might be better performed outdoors. Over the years he did a great deal of that, learning valuable lessons: fire crackers can explode before you’re ready, and all burns hurt.

Now, in his thirties, Nelson is a master fire-builder, and our old stone fireplace has had inviting fires in it every evening. He loves everything about fire-building, starting with finding dead wood in the forest and hauling it home. Sawing it into log-lengths then hand-splitting it with an ax is rewarding for him, and when the fire is aglow, it’s satisfying for the rest of us, too.

Tonight the fireplace is dark, because Nelson is five time zones away at the University of the Nations in Kona, Hawaii. He’s on his way to New Zealand where he’ll start with another group of YWAM students for 12 weeks of spiritual training followed by a three-month mission outreach.

Although Nelson made sure I had a big pile of ready-to-burn wood before he left, I haven’t made a fire. I don’t get the same kick he does out of arranging, lighting and coaxing a fire into full flame, but the real reason is that he’s not here to sit in front of it with me.

On a cold winter evening, a wood-burning fire invites people to gather for conversation. Sometimes a fire’s attraction is so strong, chairs get pulled into a semi-circle around the hearth, close enough to see firelight dancing on each face.

This winter we’ve shared many meals and scores of meaningful talks in front of Nelson’s fires, beginning last September. When the house was full of family, we’d look forward to baby bedtimes, then congregate in front of the fire with ice cream or brownies, enjoying loving camaraderie at the end of busy days.

But all 14 of them are gone now, and my quiet cottage has only me in it, which is OK. Tonight I’m especially missing Nelson, who was the last to leave, just yesterday. When I got home from the airport and found his touching thank you note on the kitchen counter, I bawled like a baby.

But he’s doing exactly what God called him to do, which brings me deep satisfaction. As a matter of fact, each of my kids and kids-in-law are right where the Lord wants them. Their determination to follow his direction “lights my fire.”

And I don’t even have to go to a cold woodpile to feel its glow.

“Love is as strong as death…  Love flashes like fire, the brightest kind of flame.” (Song of Solomon 8:6)