Torture By Chopsticks

I started knitting again this past spring. I had done it some in college and a few baby blankets here adn there, but now I started tackling sweaters and such. Still I stayed clear of socks and hats and gloves amd gloves and such. For those items, you need the infamous double pointed needles. With yarn on 3 needles and using a 4th, I think it looks a bit like some kind of acupuncture torture.

But I knit a cranberry cowl. I really wanted mittens to go with it. I confess to checking the store first to see if I could purchase some. No luck. I decided to try knitting mittens. But how would that become a mitten?

Like so many other things, I get lost in the moment and forget to trust the one who sees the beginning and end, who knows where I am and how to tell me to get where I am going. I need to dive in and trust.

Surprisingly, it has gone quite well. My mittens are almost done. I'm starting the thumbs tonight!

Trust the Pattern

“k3 p2 sm k3 p2 pick up 5″ — so goes a knitting pattern.

My mom taught each of us girls to knit when I was about 10. However, the extent of it was one doll blanket. In college, I spent a semester in England and a woman who owned a wool shop came in and gave us free lessons. I managed a couple of sweaters that semester. However, after coming back to the states, I pretty much stuck with baby blankets. I didn’t trust myself to be able to figure out a pattern on my own.

I am posting over at the Internet Cafe today. Click here to finish reading.

No Good At Waiting

I like to teach my pets tricks. Both cats (Katy and Mali) come when called. I've gone as far as to teach Mali to jump through a hoop. So, when I got Hadley (my floppy eared Beagle), she had to learn some things too. At first, it was sit, stay, come, down, etc. But as we moved into winter, I wanted to keep her engaged. We've attempted shake and rollover.

Recently, I've attempted to work on "take it" with her.

I'm posting today at the Internet Cafe. Click here to finish reading this post.

Letting Who I Know Overwhelm My Circumstances

I would not consider myself squeamish. I don't even know that I have any particular phobias. I can be cautious at times, but I don't get freaked out by spiders or heights or anything like that. In fact, for a number of years I took horseback riding lessons. A series of events and temperament ended up with me taking lessons on one of the biggest horses in the stable. While I was more hesitant at jumps after a fall, I always go back on and set my sites on higher jumps. So, height was not the issue one day at camp.

I stood on the tall block willing myself to relax. I told myself, "Close your eyes. Just lean back. They will catch you." But I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I'm posting today at the Internet Cafe. Click here to finish reading this post.

The Timing of Hope -- Hope Chronicles 87

Recently, I found two adorable small leather Bibles with horses on the cover. They are geared towards kids and I knew just the two little girls they would be perfect for. Catch -- their birthdays were a couple months out. I got them, thinking I would wait to send them. I couldn't. I sent them with a note and told them this was to help stretch their birthdays out.

Patience has never been my strong suit.

I know that we are told that we need to wait on God. However, I sometimes bemoan how slow the waiting seems. I want things to happen now. In the midst of difficult situations, this lack of patience can cause me to despair. "What if ____ never happens?"

So I am utterly amazed at Abraham. God promises him a family that will out number the stars. Yet, he had to wait years and years to have the one son God promised him and the one Sarah helped along. In fact, God's promise of Abraham's descendants out numbering the stars didn't happen in Abraham's lifetime.

To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.

Erich Fromm

How do you not become desperate? I think -- and this is so hard to do -- that it is constantly reminding yourself of who God is. God cannot lie. What He says he will do, will come to pass. But we also have to remember that God's time and our time are often two different things.

In the waiting, I need to learn to rest in what I know about God.

God Sees You -- Hope Chronicles 79

For five years I met with a boy in the Residential Treatment Center here in town. We met once a week for 2-3 hours. He was fixated on gadgets. He wanted to put back together broken things even though he had no clue what he was doing. If it was electronic, he was convinced he could make it happen. Amazingly, he did manage a few things, but often he needed help of some kind. (Note: my help was worthless when it came to electronics.)

I introduced him to baking. At 8 he had never helped make cookies from scratch. The first time went well. The second time he insisted that he knew what he was doing while cracking the eggs. He didn't want me to remind him how. I let him try twice. Two smashed eggs later he reluctantly let me put my hands on his and gently tap the bowl and separate the shell. (Thankfully, I had the foresight to have him attempt to crack them in a bowl apart from the batter.)

Aren't we all a lot like him -- imagining we are wiser or stronger than we really are? Usually, it leads to a mess of some kind.

I was reading today and read Pslam 33. Here are verses 16-22 (NIV). The emphasis is mine.

No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all it's great strength it cannot save.
But the eyes of the Lord are on those
who fear him, on those whose HOPE
is in his unfailing love,
to deliver from death and keep them alive in famine.
We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our sheild.
In him our hearts rejoice
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O' Lord
even as we put our hope in you.

So many times we try in vain. We are a delusional people in some sense. We have never out grown the two-year-old saying "ME DO IT!" to something that they cannot possibly do. While most of us don't put our hope in horses, we do put our hope in our abilities, our gifts, our position, our education, . . . . All of these things are vain hopes.

But we can have hope because "the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him." We can have hope because God sees us. He looks down from the heights of heaven and sees you. He looks down and sees me. Knowing this lets us rest in/hope in his unfailing love.

But it is a choice to rest because you know God sees you, because you know he is your shield and your help. It is sometimes an act of will to hope in the midst of the raw circumstances of life: injury, death, a flailing economy, loneliness, depression.

That act of will, that choice is something called trust. It's when you hand the "egg" to the Lord and let Him help you crack it. When you put your hope in His unfailing love, you can rest in the fact that His eyes never waver from you, you are never out of His mind or sight for even a millisecond.

Can you make the choice to trust that God sees YOU all the time, everywhere? Can you trust that He has your best interest at heart -- no matter what comes? That is what it means to hope. We cannot hope when we do not trust.

Resting -- Hope Chronicles 72

I recently took this picture of Katy. I love it. The amazing thing is that she didn't even stir when I took it. Yes, I was trying to be quiet so I could capture the moment, but I thought the whir of the camera and the flash would wake her. If it did, she didn't let me know about it.

In some ways this is a picture of trust to me. Katy was sprawled out on one of our favorite and softest blankets. Mali was nearby, but Katy still spread out. She often doesn't do this when Mali is near because Mali is a pouncer.

One thing to know about cats is that they often take awhile to warm up to you. Staring directly at a cat may seem aggressive. Sometimes, that is why cats choose to go to those who ignore them. The go on their own terms.

They also do not often show their bellies. No, it is not a self-conscious thing. Rather it is self-protection. It's harder to escape from a prone position and their bellies are vulnerable spots. So, either this blanket was too inviting to pass up or Katy was trusting enough of me and Mali to relax into the softness.

This is a picture of rest -- relaxing even in the midst of something hard. I think of Psalm 23. God makes the write lie down in green pastures but then go through the valley of the shadow of death. In the end, God provides a banquet in the presence of the writer's enemies. I always wondered about this. But someone explained it once that once someone entered that person's house, they were under their protection. Thus, they could relax and enjoy the feast. Or in Katy's case, stretch out on the softest blanket around because she knew she was safe.

Do I rest in God like that? Do I stretch out and show Him my tender places? I long to say "Yes" but I know there are times when I am too busy protecting myself rather than letting Him protect me that I do not fully relax into Him.

Where there is trust there is rest. Where there is trust there is hope because we know that a feast awaits even in the presence of enemies. There is hope because God has called us his.

Hope That's Hard To See -- Hope Chronicles 34

I have never been good at trust falls. If you don't know what those are, it is where you perch backwards to a group of people and then fall (flat as a board -- it is important not to sit) into their out stretched arms. As a group, they will catch you.

Perhaps I should be even more honest. I've never been able to actually accomplish one. It doesn't matter who is doing the catching or the encouragement of the the crowd, I cannot make myself fall backwards into their arms. I'm also quite sure that I couldn't do it face forward either!

However, I feel like life is one big trust fall at the moment. It is now over 6 weeks of not sleeping well. I'm tired and it's hard to focus. I really just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Life seems riddled with conflict from various sources. Finances are a mess. Don't even get me started on taxes. Yes, they were on time, but . . . . Everything in life seems to be working against me.

But that is where hope comes in. Hope is hard to see right now. It is incredibly hard to feel. But hope is more than a wish, more than a warm feeling. Hope is a found in the person of Jesus.

I've been reflecting on the two men walking on the road to Emmaus. They were distraught -- and rightfully so. But they were so focused on their loss, that they didn't recognize the risen Lord.

It seems that focusing on our circumstances does that at times. We see the trees but miss the forest. Yes, Jesus had died on the cross, but He was ALIVE and walking beside them.

God, unblind my eyes so that I can see you in the midst of all the circumstances pulling at me. Lord, you are the source of hope. Take my eyes of of the details of life and put them back on you!

A Child's Faith, A Mother's Heart, and Daring to Hope -- Hope Chronicles 23

Several years ago Julie was driving back to visit her family with her children. The oldest was in the third grade. She pulled out a yellow legal pad and announced that they were going to make a list. This got Julie's attention. After all, it was spring and Christmas was many months away. Julie inquired as to what the list was for. Her daughter announced that it was a list of things they wanted in a husband for their mom. (Sorry, Oprah, this little one was way ahead of you on love lists!)

Her younger daughter started off with things like money and a nice car. With all the wisdom of a third grader, her older daughter said, "No, he first has to be a Christian." And then, after getting the younger girl more focused, they moved on from there.

Recently, Julie's girls (now both teenagers and the older one a year away from college) were cleaning out their memory boxes. Her oldest found the list that Julie had stowed there. "Mom," she said, "he has all these things." You see, Julie remarried a few years ago after dating her husband for five years! He was patient enough to wait around for her to be ready.

I got teary as Julie related the story. She rushed to say, "I didn't tell you that to make you cry!" I know she didn't but I didn't know if I dared to hope. Sometimes it feels easier not to hope than to have a hope and not see it fulfilled.

What are the things you hope for but can't see yet?

This week a friend looped me in on some communication she was having with another single woman. This is a portion of the email she sent:

"I want to encourage you that you can still be a mother in a non-traditional way. My friend, Amy, is 39 years old and never married. She, too, sometimes gets down about her desire to marry and have children. But I want you to know that she has so connected in my kids lives that she often mothers them. She takes them for fun outings. She watches them so my husband and I can have time. She has had some deep conversations with them when they've asked deep questions."

I was touched by my friend's words. "She has so connected in my kids lives that she often mothers them." In my separate conversation with Julie, I asked, "So why did God give me a mother's heart and empty arms?" Julie suggested that maybe it is just a "not yet" and that I needed to keep myself open. To think that it is a lost cause closes off my heart to possibilities. She wanted me to make a list.

I know some of you reading are not single. But I hope you can still relate. What is it that you so hope for that it scares you because what would happen if that dream didn't come true?

It is hard to hope and not see how that hope might be fulfilled. Sometimes people try to make you feel better and say, "God has a better plan for you." They mean well, but sometimes it can make it feel harder. I do know that God doesn't take that longing, that hope (whatever it is in your life) lightly. Scripture recognizes the weight of it. In Proverbs 13:12 (NIV) it says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."

It's okay to have that longing -- whatever it might be for you. It's okay to sometimes feel down about it. But be careful. Don't make it into an idol. (An idol is anything that takes center stage instead of God.)

So, some of that is okay. BUT, God also calls us to turn our eyes to Him. I'll only quote part of Psalm 42 here (8-11), but I encourage you to look at the whole thing:

By day the LORD directs his love,

at night his song is with me—

a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God my Rock,

"Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning,

oppressed by the enemy?"

My bones suffer mortal agony

as my foes taunt me,

saying to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and my God.

Even when my dreams feel far away, I am called to put my hope in God -- to praise my God and Rock. So, I thought about all the kids I've "mothered" over the years: Elizabeth, Hannah, Jonathan, David, Billy, Theresa, . . . and I could come up with quite a list if I really looked back and took stock. In that perspective, my arms have been anything but empty!

Julie also reminded me of Sarah in the Bible who went to great lengths to have a child and really made things worse than if she had just waited on God. I'm like her in wanting to just make whatever happen. And Julie said, "Don't be like Sarah. Don't laugh at God." (Genesis 18:12-16).

So, I'm daring to hope. And though it feels risky, I started that list. Meanwhile, I will not waste the mother instincts God has given me.

What will you dare to hope for? What will you do while you are waiting and trusting and praising God for whatever may come?

Ifspeak

One of my favorite books is called My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Actually, I like many of the books that she writes. But the last one, 19 Seconds, was disturbing. It was about a fictionalized school shooting. The week after I read it the Virginia Tech shootings happened. I like her writing because of her ability to put me inside a character's head and heart.

My Sister's Keeper is about a 13-year-old girl, Anna, who sues her parents for the rights to her own body. She wants medical emancipation and to be the person who decides if she will donate a kidney to her dying sister, Kate. Anna was conceived specifically to be a matched donor for her sister. Her entire life has been lived in the shadow of her sister's illness. In the book you hear from Anna, her parents, the lawyers, and her brother.

I wanted to share an excerpt from Anna (p.299).

When you are a kid you have your own language, and unlike French or Spanish or whatever you start learning in the fourth grade, this one you're born with , and eventually lose. Everyone under the age of seven is fluent in Ifspeak; go hang around with someone under three feet tall and you'll see. What if a giant funnelweb spider crawled out of that hole over your head and bit you on the neck? What if the only antidote for venom was locked up in a vault on the top of a mountain? What if you lived through the bite, but could only move you eyelids and blink out an alphabet? It doesn't really matter how far you go; the point is that it's a world of possibility. Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewing shut.

I think she is right. On one hand, outgrowing Ifspeak is functional. If your ifspeak is only related to negative things, then it could cause a great deal of anxiety. On the other hand, out growing ifspeak limits us.

For kids, anything is a possibility. They dream BIG. When I was a kid I was going to be a dolphinologist (not that there is such a thing), keep the dolphins in a pool outback, have six kids, and the kids would daily help with the dolphins. By studying the interaction of my kids and the dolphins, I would break the barrier to intelligently communicating with these remarkable animals and win lots of awards. That was my primary dream. I also considered becoming the first female president.

As we grow up, reality slowly sets in. They just don't let people keep dolphins in a pool outback. We find we are limited by our rules and regulations, finances, intellect, abilities or lack of abilities, circumstances, . . . .

As I was thinking about this quote, I wondered if we are also often limited by our faith. Yes, you read that right. Sometimes we are limited by the things we put our faith in -- other people, our abilities, whatever. Where we need to put our faith is in God. With God all things are possible. There are no limits. The one who created the universe can overcome every obstacle. But sometimes we don't let Him. Sometimes we don't even ask or if we do ask it is halfheartedly, not really believing . . . . That's not to say that God always says, "Yes." But I do think we put limits on God.

Sometimes when I pray, I pray very specifically. If God doesn't answer directly with my proposal, I think He hasn't answered. Maybe He has but the answer is packaged differently than I anticipated.

Ifspeak. I think it is about faith. What if I truly believed in every fiber of my being that God loved me? What if I could truly lay all my burdens at His feet? What if I trusted Him with all of who I am? What if I responded to those "flashes" of ideas? How would it change my live and the lives of those around me?

Ifspeak. I wonder if it is a language I can relearn . . . .