Focused on Freedom

Ceremony complete, caps flung, grads hugged, photos taken… it was time to find the car and head to celebratory ice cream with the family back home…. only to find that we couldn’t get there! The bar across the parking garage exit was down and wouldn’t go up! No attendant in the booth at the gate,  no answer on the phone when the number for assistance was called… no choice but to wait. Never our strong suit, drivers in the back of the line started honking their horns in frustration, having no idea what was causing the delay. We all just wanted to be on our way. 

Finally we saw a man striding purposefully to the front of the garage… and then thankfully the cars started to move. As we got closer we could see that he was simply standing there, holding the gate up himself and letting all the cars pass through! Surely he wanted to get out as badly as the rest and had family celebrations to get to, too. But he put his plans on hold so the rest of us could get on with ours. 

“Tell him thanks,” came the whisper from the passenger seat to our driver as we got closer… but his eyes were on the taillights of the car ahead, frustrated like the rest of us and focused on freedom. Next came a nudge in the ribs, and an urgent, “Tell him thanks!!” …but we followed the guy in line ahead of us and just zoomed out past the hero into the night. 

“You should have told him thank you!” she said one more time as we made our way to the family waiting and now calling, wondering where we were. None of us took the time. 

And so that is what this day is about. Today we uniformly TAKE the time to thank those who put uniforms on and their own plans on hold… who didn’t just sacrifice their own family time but their very lives…so that we can continue to enjoy ours in the freedom they provided.

Let’s all be the one who remembers to say thanks. 

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

‭‭(John‬ ‭15‬:‭13‬ ‭KJV‬‬)

Slow the Flow

 

“So, Elaine, are you ready for Thanksgiving?” my coworker asked as we scanned and bagged a grocery order.

 

“Thanksgiving? It's mid-October! Listen, buddy, I'm old! Each day is a treasure! I can't be throwing them carelessly away!”

 

My friend looked a little startled at my vehement protestation. And I understand where he's coming from. He's young, less than half my age, and eagerly counting the days till his upcoming vacation and birthday celebration Thanksgiving week in the mountains of Tennessee. Who could blame him for mentally tossing away calendar pages as fast as he turns them over?

 

It's a matter of perspective, one gained over time. His lifetime hourglass is still very full; the hours seem to stream endlessly before him with no end in sight. I, on the other hand, am keenly aware that there are more grains of sand in the bottom half of mine than are waiting to drop from the top, so I am increasingly careful with what I do with each one. I don't have any to waste!

 

And really, why would we want to, no matter what stage of life we are currently in? Each day is a gift, a one-time-use twenty-four-hour offer of joy from God, available for pickup each morning and expiring come nightfall, never to return in exactly the same way ever again. Why would we pass that up?

 

Yet some of us do. We stumble through our daily routines just trying to make it through each one till we can fall exhausted in our beds at night for a few hours of rest before rising to do it all again. We count on holidays and weekends away to be bright spots of joy in increasingly pressure-packed schedules that vary little from season to season in intensity, but only in the activities we pursue. Meanwhile, the days of our lives are slipping through our fingers and there seems to be no way to slow the flow.

But that's not so.

Favorite author Ann Voskamp suggests that we can actually do so with gratitude. We hold a moment captive when we see the wonder it contains, fully experience its joy and express our thanks for the same before letting it pass away. Gratitude simply adds length to our days... and perhaps days to the length of our lives. Count me in!

And so I approach my days a little differently now. I rise in the morning to meet up with God, Who hands me the gift of the day before me, and then eagerly watches as I go through the hours that follow, gently unwrapping the tissue-packed minutes that are meant to surprise and delight me. His smile grows at my joy over each new discovery of His goodness, every token of His care, and every new revelation of His love for me. His ears rejoice as I voice my thanks. And at the end of the day I slip the wrappings away in a bedtime thank-you conversation with Him about the hours just past, a gift in return. Sleep then comes peacefully sweet till I rise to do it all over again the next day. Who would want to give any such days away?

So am I ready for thanks-giving? You bet! And I hope you are, too.

“This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

(Psalm 118:24 NKJV)

"Post"-Thanksgiving Thanks

A postcard a day; that's what He wanted. On one side of an index card, a sketch of the moment I was most thankful for from the day before, and on the other, a short explanation of what the moment meant to me.

It didn't matter to Him that even stick-figure people are beyond my artistic skills; He would look beyond what my hands had drawn and recognize the moment that had mattered to me from what He read in my heart. And then, I could picture Him, proud Parent that he is, posting my card on the front of His fridge; His heart delighted repeatedly by the daily connection with mine.

I've long had a thing about postcards. Sending, receiving, even buying them on trips just to post on my fridge to remind me where I've been – it's all about sharing a happy time with someone I love. Those in my immediate family are the usual recipients...but I keep a half-century-old connection fresh with my best friend from high school through the give and take of postcards from our travels. Short on other forms of communication, we say “Hi! I'm sill alive...and thinking of you!” with a short note on a picture postcard in the mail.

A bit of a jealous sort, God simply wanted the same... a word of thanks and love about a moment from the day before, sent to my Best Friend. It wasn't any artistic expertise He was looking for... more the fact that I took a moment to share one with Him. It's the “thinking of You” thought that counts.

And so I began. The drawings were crude but it was fun to make the attempt; more difficult was limiting my thoughts on the subject to the small square of space on the index card back. I addressed them by what I was feeling about Him each day. Sometimes it was “My Father in Heaven” (with a Hallowed by Thy Name! written underneath). Other times it was a simple “Dad”... or “My Healer”...even one to “The Cookie Captain” when I was especially enjoying a pre-breakfast bakery snack as I drew! And I made sure to draw a “love” stamp in the top right corner of every card...simply in recognition that each and every day is stamped with His love.

I thought the whole idea was just supposed to be a fun spiritual activity for the month of November, the month when our hearts and thoughts turn to giving thanks. More than an obligation, it became something I found occupying my thoughts in spare moments, and my morning art attempt something I increasingly looked forward to each day. But Thanksgiving passed and I kept drawing my cards...in part because there were still so many blank ones left in the stack. I thought maybe I should keep at it until I'd used them all up.

And bingo! That's when the lights flashed, bells clanged, and I finally got the point. If each card represented a day, shouldn't all my days be filled with thanks and love expressed in some way? I don't know how many are left in my “stack”...but surely I don't want to leave any blank! And who's to say that God doesn't slip a few extra “card days” in my life expectancy in response to my expressions o f love, simply because He loves to receive them so? Maybe we shouldn't end the giving of thanks when the turkey carcass is thrown in the trash.

My kids were all home for the holiday just past. At various times I caught them staring at my fridge, looking for their faces in the usual pictures posted there and likewise finding their places in my heart. Together we rejoiced over happy times spent together, remembering the laughter and love we've shared as we look forward to future joy.

How good to know that one day I'll simply go Home and do the same.

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you...”

(James 4:9 NKJV, emphasis mine)

The View from a New Pair of Specs

Nothing messes with the mind and emotions of a shopper more than rearranging the items for sale in a grocery store. No matter what the reasoning behind the reorganization, customers are convinced that the ultimate plan is to pull more money out of their pockets by making them hunt and search for the items they need, perhaps discovering new items to buy in the process. They resent the extra time and effort they have to put into filling their carts, and by the time they reach the checkout lane their rage has reached the boiling point and is ready to spill over onto the first store employee they see, usually the hapless cashier standing behind the register.

I listened to my share of customer complaints yesterday after clocking in for my shift. At first I was sympathetic to the customers' frustration, understanding that their time is valuable and they don't appreciate it being wasted for a purpose that doesn't seem to benefit them in any way. But as the day wore on and customer after customer spilled their vitriol over me, I went from sympathetic to apathetic to wishing I'd doubled up on my blood pressure medicine before coming in that day. I simply pasted a smile on my face, bit my tongue and reminded myself that as paying customers they had a right to voice their opinions and I was being paid to patiently stand there and listen.

One customer talked himself into a better frame of mind all by himself! At first he was angry, and I listened to his criticism in silence, nodding occasionally, so he couldn't accuse me of completely ignoring him. Once he had spilled his guts, he said, “But I know you had nothing to do with the decision to move things around.”

I nodded in agreement.

“And you probably have to shop here and be frustrated like the rest of us.”

“Very true,” I answered.

“And eventually we'll all learn where things are again.”

“Now you're talking...,” I said in agreement.

“And in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter very much, does it?”

“Buddy, now you're singing my song!” I told him.

That was the point in a nutshell, as another customer told a fellow shopper he met in the aisle. He listened to her voice her complaints to anyone who was near as long as he could take it. Then he turned to her, a complete stranger, and said, “Listen, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease yesterday, and today you're upset because you can't find where they put the spaghetti? I don't even want to hear it.” He noted her subdued silence as he turned and went on his way.

It's a matter of perspective, for sure. And sometimes we simply need to similarly confront our pessimism head on and remind ourselves of what is truly important in life. While an extended shopping venture is a frustrating inconvenience, it is not the end of the world. We would realize that if we for a moment we shelved our complaints and focused our eyes on all that we have to be thankful for. For starters we could be grateful that we have the ability to come to the store and shop, money in our pockets with which to buy food, and such an abundance of goods that finding one particular item in their midst becomes a game instead of a chore. When we change the way we look at things, suddenly the overstocked shelves that seemed to be a curse we now view as overflowing with blessings from which we get to choose.

Usually the things we complain about aren't the real issue; rather they reveal the existence of a deeper problem on the inside. We're not really looking for items on grocery shelves per se. Instead, we're searching for the joy in our hearts that we lost somewhere along life's way. Everything that comes out of our mouths, regardless of where we are, just indicates its absence.

Each day following the recent remodel, the manager at our store assigned one of the cashiers to roam the aisles with no other job than to help the customers find the items they needed. Several times that was my assignment, and I walked the aisles sporting a black sash with the word “INFORMATION” in bold white letters across the front and a map of the store in my hand. My task was to find shoppers who looked lost, and together we would locate what they were looking for.

If you're searching for joy, I can help you with that, as well. The trick to finding it lies in wearing a special pair of spectacles. Put on your gratitude glasses and see not just your shopping trip but your life in a whole new light.

“So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

(Romans 12:1-2 MSG)

A Covetous Condition

I read about myself recently in Ann Voskampf's bestseller, One Thousand Gifts. Oh, she didn't mention me by name. Instead she talked about Adam and Eve, who weren't content with being able to eat from all of the trees in the Garden of Eden but one, and brought destruction upon themselves and all the generations to follow by simply lusting for more. Ann states that man's greatest sin is ingratitude; we are simply never satisfied with what we have. And maybe it took the breaking of the arm I reach with to make me realize that I, too, am always grasping for more.

An example is in order. I've had a love affair with Skechers, the shoes with the bumpy bottoms, for several years now. I once tried a pair on and fairly danced up and down the aisles of the store, so great did they feel on my feet! But then I looked at the price, and resolutely put them back on the shelf and headed for the cheaper footwear farther down the row. But I eyed them longingly every time after that when I found myself in that area of the store. Then while shopping at an outlet mall recently, God unexpectedly provided me with them! Again I danced! But I was barely out the door of that store and into the next when I saw a short-sleeved shirt on sale that caught my eye. With my arm in a bulky cast, my clothing options were few, and shirts that I could slide my arm into were hard to find. With the newly bought Skechers still in the bag in my I hand and my budget preventing me from buying both items, I suddenly wished I'd seen the shirt first! After being blessed with the Skechers I'd wanted for years I was suddenly wishing I could trade them for a shirt I saw two minutes later and would only wear for another month. The depth of my ingratitude alarmed me and I hurried home.

The same scenario occurs time after time in restaurants. I agonize over the choices offered on the menu, and finally narrow the list of eye-popping temptations down to one. Having ordered, I wait in eager anticipation of the meal I'm about to consume...until I see the plate set in front of my husband. Suddenly I'd trade the meal I'd been salivating for in a heartbeat to eat what he's got.

There's a word for the condition I suffer from, and it's covetous, defined as an inordinate or wrongful desire for possessions or wealth; greedy. There's nothing wrong in desiring nice things; the error in the condition comes from a lack of appreciation for what one's already got. And its a temptation that is never going to go away. Until the end of time the enemy of our souls will place before our eyes one treat after another to steal away our joy and contentment and lure us into a lifestyle of endless self-seeking and greed.

The good news is that we can fight back. Because we know that the problem exists, we can choose ahead of time how to respond. We can learn, as did the apostle Paul, how to be content in all situations. We can train our eyes to see blessings in things we took for granted before, as did author Ann Voskamp mentioned above, and to give thanks in everything. As our thanksgiving increases, so does our joy in life, and the overflow of our hearts leaves little room for lusting after whatever our eyes might see.

And yet we can take it even one step farther. Surprisingly, the opposite of covetousness is not contentment...it's generosity. And surely when we put our focus on giving, we have less time and energy to think about getting.

My beloved Skechers are my footwear of choice these days, for more reasons than one. They simply remind me to walk in gratitude and generosity, everywhere I go.

“Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have...”

(Hebrews 13:5 NKJV)

From Grief to Gratitude

Up and down the aisles of the craft store I wandered, looking for the items I needed to make a watering station for my backyard birds, my mind filled with thoughts of a dear friend who excelled in the making of crafts of all kinds. Surely this must be her favorite store, I thought, with the abundance of materials to work with as well as the the spiritual connection that was evident in the music playing softly in the background and the theme of many of the items for sale on the shelves; two passions satisfied in one shopping trip!

With Father's Day approaching, I realized that the day would be a difficult one for her, having just recently lost her dad and with her loss still so fresh. My heart went out to her, knowing how much she must be missing him. But God didn't let a melancholy mood settle down on me, reminding me instead that all of us who have lost our dads and are thinking of them on that summer Sunday can turn our thoughts from grief to gratitude by gaining new purpose in our lives from the loss we've been through.

I never had the privilege of meeting my friend's dad, but I feel like I know him somewhat from what I've seen in the lives of his family members and heard from their lips as they've spoken of him. I know that he was a good, honest man with a passion for God, a zest for living and a joy that spilled out of his heart and overflowed onto all those around him. I can see him in his granddaughter, who is so full of love for her family...in the younger grandson who is actively in pursuit of his dreams, and in the older one who joins his mom in being simply two of the happiest people I've ever known. As a group they refuse to blame God for taking this amazing man away from them but instead thank Him for giving him to them in the first place, and they celebrate his life by the way they live their own.

When Jesus' disciples asked Him to show them the Father, Jesus replied, “...He who has seen Me has seen the Father...” (John 14:9). He had made His Father visible by the things He did and said, and now He passes that purpose on to us. Just as people can catch a glimpse of what our earthly fathers might be like by watching us, even more can they catch a vision of our heavenly Father in their associations with us, in listening to the words we speak and watching the way we live and relate to one another.

Obviously, one way we can make God known is to simply talk Him up. The evening I spent answering my youngest son's questions about my own father brought my dad alive in my heart once more. I was thankful all over again for the time we had together, and found not sadness but incredible joy in sharing details of what he was like and the lessons he had taught me, even in our difficult moments. In the same way, those who have a passion for God find that their thanksgiving for who He is to them overflows in renewed joy that is evident in the testimonies they share. All of us who know Christ have a story to tell that will help some hungry soul understand God's heart toward humanity a little better.

Our actions speak louder than words, however. When people see the characteristics which define God in action in our lives, they get a visible picture of what He must be like. Especially on those days when the death of someone dear to us consumes us, He encourages us to shift our focus from lamenting our loss to giving thanks for all we have gained in the time we were together, and then to take that love we still have to give and spend it lavishly on the lives around us. To the extent that we give love away, He will refill our hearts with more of the same.

We have a good example to follow. When Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, His first action was to look to Heaven and give thanks. His words and actions that followed brought life, love and joy to all who were near. Ours will do the same.

We are born to one dad, and born again to Another. Look around at your spiritual siblings and realize that you can be your father's son or daughter in more ways than one. You don't have to wait till June to honor your Dad. When you make it your mission to make Him known, every day is Father's Day, and celebration the inevitable end result.

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing, You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness”.

(Psalm 30:11)