Fathers

When it first happened, I kept wanting to tell him things. Even at the funeral home, fresh from picking out his casket, I almost took out my phone to call him and tell him what we got for him.

I thought it was going away, that I was getting used to not picking up the phone, but in the past week or so it's been happening more again.

"Dad will love to hear about...."

"I need to ask Dad...."

"This'll be fun to see/do with...."

And every sentence trails off into the word "No."

There are things he told me that I didn't bother to remember because he'd tell me over and over again--about the solstice, or taxes, or how long to keep paperwork. Part of my brain left with part of my heart.

I don't just miss Dad. I miss Mom. I miss Jeremiah. I miss me. I don't know who we are anymore, the three of us who are left who knew him the most closely over the past thirty-four years. We're feeling our way forward in the darkness, and part of me expects another cliff soon, like the one we fell off in May, except can you fall again when you haven't hit bottom yet?

So much not knowing, in so many areas. (Should I just sit here, God, motionless? I'm afraid to move.)

What kind of God are you, anyway, who asks so much of us and yet accepts us in our confusion, our worthlessness, our fear? What kind of God are you, who sets your great faithfulness against our utter desolation (Lamentations 3)? What kind of God, who devastates us and keeps coming after us instead of leaving us alone to recover in peace? What kind of God could instantly turn stones and trees into children and worshippers, but settles instead for achingly slow sanctification that seems to stay just out of our grasp?

God, you know all things, you know I love you. And you know I can't, can't, can't love you alone. My hands and knees could use some strengthening, and my feet some smoother paths.

When I talked to Dad, he would answer me. This week, Father, I can't hear you.

"You have heard my voice--do not hide your ear from my prayer for relief, from my cry for help."--Lamentations 3:56

Highlights of my day

1. The vice-principal brought me a bag of chocolates somebody left at the front office for me because she knew it could be a stressful day due to the audit. When he arrived at my office he had to displace two middle school boys who had stopped in for a visit on their way to class.

2. Our school attendance audit went well. The auditors were very informative and helpful. Also, apparently when they arrived at the main building to meet up with the principal so she could walk them back to where the audit would be held, they started asking, "Is Suzanne here? Will we get to see Suzanne?"

3. Post-audit I had to cart all the attendance materials back to where they belong. As I struggled with my key in the lock, one of my high school boys was in the hallway on the other side of the door watching. When I entered, I said, "I do work here, I promise. I sometimes just have trouble with the keys." He responded, "Do you want me to get the other door for you?" (This from a boy who gets kicked out of class for disrespect on a regular basis.) "Yes, I really would, thank you," I said. (This from a woman who once resented any males holding doors for her as if she needed the help.)

4. Thinking "I will miss this place when I'm out for two weeks," and realizing I've never thought that about a job before. Have I mentioned that I love it there?

Encouragement and Discouragement

My friend Janessa wrote a blog post today about the reality of discouragement in the life of believers. I started to write a short comment and ended up writing a blog post, myself (see below).

Discouragement is part of the war we are fighting. When I am most spiritually awake, I pay attention to the voices in my head and hold them up against two possible camps.

"Suzanne, you should be better at this by now. I can't believe you're in this same situation again."

"Good Christians don't have struggles."

"A really strong Christian should be able to go it alone, without bothering people who probably have enough problems of their own."

Who's more likely to be telling me those things, God or Satan?

Some days, discouragement is even encouraging. Think about all of the trials of Job. What got Satan's attention? God was boasting about Job (Job 1:8).

Think about that again. Boasting about him. And Job was a regular human like any of us.

What if, when we're attacked with discouragement, it's because God's just been telling Satan about how much we're doing for Him? I don't mean that in a "look how great we are" sort of way, but in a "look how great the God who's got our back is" sort of way.

What if God is saying, "Have you considered my servant Suzanne?"

I don't know why God allows Satan to come at us, why He allows the trials of our lives. Job never knew why, either, but hearing about who God was quieted his desperate complaints. And we know a lot more about God than Job did. We know Jesus.

I love that when Paul is begging the Lord for the removal of his weakness, the response he gets back isn't "Absolutely, you can have a much greater impact that way" or "If you'd just buck up, you could do it yourself." That's where we want to go. Or I do, anyway.

Nope. Here's what Paul hears, and his response to it: "And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong." — 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Expect depression like you accept the reality of Satan. But claim the reality of the protection of Christ and fight with every ounce of strength He gives you to throw the devil's lies back in his face. The trials are real, and life can seem too long and too hard, but the fact is that this war has been WON. Christ empowers us to stand against the onslaughts of Hell itself.

And on the days when the only sacrifice we have to offer is a broken spirit (Psalm 51:17), even that sacrifice makes the demons cower and the angels dance and the Father proud of His children.

Amazing love, indeed!

God in the Details

1.

It's been a fairly low-interaction week at work. This morning as I got ready to leave I was feeling a bit pitiful about it, and it hit me that I was coming back off a rough holiday weekend expecting to find solace in the people there, and that instead I had found solace even without them. "Thank you, God," I prayed, "for not letting people come to me, so that I wouldn't think my comfort came from anyone but you."

Today at work, I had quality interaction with every single person on my list of those I had been especially relying on to cheer me up. And a new kid, too.

2.

This past Wednesday I had a doctor's appointment, because I've been unusually tired and some people urged me to get that checked. I felt weird when people said they were praying for me...I was just tired, it was nothing major. This morning when I got the blood work results back and everything was okay except for a dip in Vitamin D, I thought, "See, they didn't need to pray because that result was so benign," and then a quick whiplash thought of "what if that result was so benign because they prayed?"

3.

One of the staff members at the residential home that houses my most frequent student visitors gets irritated when they come see me. "Why do you have to go in there all the time?" he snapped at one of the boys today. I think he's under the impression that they're pestering me, whereas in reality their visits are usually the highlight of my day.

It made me think of the disciples, zealously guarding Jesus from annoyances like small children. It made me think, for the first time, about those children. The Pharisees, cream of Jerusalem society, probably wouldn't have let their kids follow Jesus around. And it made me look up the story. In none of the three tellings does it once specify that the children people were bringing were their own flesh and blood.

"Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it," Jesus said. I have often thought that meant that we had to trust like children, with as quick of a readiness to believe what someone they love tells them is true.

After today, I think there's more than that. Because maybe those children being brought to Jesus were not the most well-cared-for and well-educated children. Maybe some of them were the troublemakers of their neighborhoods, and knew it. Maybe some of them had trouble with trust.

But I think if you can tell someone loves you, you want to keep coming back even if you don't understand why.

To enter the kingdom of God is to enter the presence of God. One way we receive it like children is to just keep coming to Him.

4.

It was a good day.