a quick one
I am heading to bed, and there is so much going on in my head that I am hesitant even open up a window and let a bit slip out ... but I wanted to touch on something really quick.
I have heard that I am gathering quite a following in Louisiana, and I want to say thank you for somehow deeming my words worthy enough to read, and even to print up. I am humbled by the fact that somehow God can use me as a tool to touch anyone in any way, much less by impacting someone so much that they actually cry because of something I wrote. So thank you again for reading, and thank you for thinking, and for feeling ... and thank you for the way that you raised a certain young man who is doing lots and lots of good things every day to make the world a better place. You have good reason to be proud. And I have good reason to be thankful.
God is good, and He does good things, even through messy, inadequate people. To anyone who is reading this right now, I am praying for you and for the amazing things that God is doing in your life today, and for the unimaginable things He will do with and through you tomorrow. Keep your head up and remember that you are royalty, and that you are powerful.
I can only imagine ...
Last Friday night was my second time playing piano for the residents at a local rest home. I did the same thing as the week before, took requests from the hymnal there in the building. We sang songs like “Count Your Blessings” and “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder”, and I peeked beside and behind me as much as I could, looking at the living testimonies of salvation and grace sitting beside me in wheelchairs and slumped in recliners.
I played and sang a few songs from books that I had brought with me, one of which was the ever-popular “I Can Only Imagine.” To my surprise, most of the residents didn’t seem to know the song, or at least not the way I sang it (which was full of mistakes and wrong notes, I’m sure). But at the end of it I looked over at Marion, the woman who I have come to recognize and appreciate as the loudest singer in the room at any given moment. She had her eyes closed, hands raised, and – though there were tears rolling down her cheeks – a smile dominated her face. I asked her if she liked the song, and she replied (with her eyes still closed and hands still raised), “I was just imagining what it will be like.”
I had to play through the next few songs without singing because of the huge lump in my throat. I made it through another 30 or so minutes of singing and playing, and then I went around the building to say goodnight to some of my new friends. I walked with Marion down the hall to her room (she would not let me push her wheelchair), filled with a sense of envy at the way that this woman lives. No, I don’t envy the fact that she is confined to a wheelchair or shares a small room with another adult. I don’t wish that I could eat cold soup or drink warm sweet tea from a plastic tray brought to me by a person lacking warmth or compassion. I don’t wish that I was a person who needed help to perform basic physical functions …
But I do wish that I had just a tiny measure of the faith that it seems Marion has. I wish that hearing a song would lead me to closing my eyes and seeing Jesus, and imagining what it will be like to bask in His presence someday. I wish that I had the type of joy that it requires to roll down a hallway in a wheelchair and smile at the wonder of being able to use my hands to push myself along the railing.
Something that has been coming up again and again lately is the truth that – as Christians – we are royalty. We have riches and splendor and incredible power at our fingertips, if only we lift up our heads and claim that we are Children of the Most High God. Last Friday night I played piano before royalty. I walked alongside a Queen as she pushed herself along the hallway with a smile on her face and an assurance in her heart that she is wealthy beyond measure. Marion knows that she is regal – she has already claimed her spot at the royal table. Though I can’t see them, I know she is arrayed in fine robes of purple and gold. Her smile is her crown, and her tears are jewels that are evidence of her dignified state … I look forward to spending more time in that place, for I have the feeling that there might be a few more Kings and Queens hiding in some of those not-so-pleasant-smelling rooms. Actually, I get the idea that perhaps the Kings and Queens of the next world are the ones who don’t live in palaces here – it seems like maybe they are the ones who live in humble dwellings and in small circumstances, because they know that they are headed to riches and wonder that this world can’t even fathom.
A quote from The Chronicles of Narnia comes to mind right now:
"'You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,' said Aslan. 'And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth.'"
putting faces on the Gospel message
So tonight I met some new neighbors. I had noticed people carrying in furniture the other day, and I caught a woman's eye and waved to her, and I wrote a quick note to myself "meet the new neighbors". On Sunday night I baked a loaf of strawberry bread, but after several unsuccessful delivery attempts that bread found a different home today.
Tonight was cookie-baking night (yes, I am a dork). I have a couple different people that I baked them for, but I made one batch with these new neighbors in mind. About 30 minutes ago, I walked two houses down with the aluminum foil-covered plate in hand. I had a flyer for my Thursday night Bible study in the other hand. I was a tiny bit nervous, but I was also looking forward to meeting this new little family that I thought I had seen moving in.
I rang the doorbell and heard scurrying around, and suddenly two faces appeared in the window of the front door. They were not the faces of cute little children, or even of a mother and father. They were the faces of two young men. The door opened and I was greeted by a man who was pulling a shirt over his head as he said hello. His hair was up in a ponytail, and he quickly put his hand out and laughed as he said hello again. Actually it was more like a giggle.
I asked if they had just moved in, and two of the men said in unison, "we're performers!" I really had no idea at this point what I had walked into, but I smiled and held out the plate of cookies. I introduced myself and told them I live two doors down from them, and that I wanted to welcome them to the neighborhood. I learned their names, and that they are just staying in the house while they perform in a production at the local theater.
I met two other performers, and they invited me to sit down and chat. I sat down and stayed for a few minutes but I felt incredibly uncomfortable the whole time. I noticed one of the guys looking at the flyer I had handed him along with the cookies, and - to my shame - I mumbled something about having a meeting at my house every week. He asked what it was about, and I said a Bible study, and he didn't really ask any more questions after that. I found out the performers were from New York (City), and
"oh my God" they were
dying to be in this little country town ... they asked me,
"how do you survive????" The conversation was full of laughs (more nervous than actual happy kind of laughter) and talk about New York, and eventually I got up and said I needed to get back.
They shook my hand again and thanked me and promised to have me over for dinner sometime. I left and walked quickly back to my house, fighting the urge to run. It wasn't until I got home and closed my door safely behind me that I felt it. I realized that it was no accident that I met those performers. It is so easy to go up to people who look and talk and maybe even think like me, and to talk to them about a God that they may already believe in. It's probably also easier and a whole lot neater to give medicine to someone who's not really all that sick. But I'm pretty sure that's not what the Gospel, at its core, is about. Jesus said that it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. It's not the good, clean people who need to be washed and cleansed ... it's the dirty ones that you don't really want to go near. I don't ever remember reading anything in the Bible about how neat and tidy and easy it is to really share the Gospel with those who need it. If anything, we are told that it will be difficult and challenging, and maybe more than a little bit uncomfortable. I have held back from really describing too much about the men in that house tonight, because I don't know what is true and what is just my condemning heart making a judgement that I have no business making. But, if what I think is the case is really the case, then I have even more of a responsibility to get to know these theatrical fellas, and to love them. It may have started with some cookies (chocolate chip with M&M's, to be precise) but I have a feeling it might end with me facing head-on some ugly things about myself and also learning to love a little more like Christ and less like Krista.
